Thread: Fire Frost CM is (actually) Impossible

I think at this point I've seen enough things tried to be convinced that the fight is impossible.

> Rage goes up at least once every 30s (for each giant).
> You can only decrease rage by one every minute (for each giant) by killing grims (starting from when the first grim spawns at ~20s)
NB: spawning and killing a second grim does not lower rage any further

If anyone would like to share an additional confirmed method for lowering rage that reduces rage at a rate of an additional one per minute (thus making the fight possible), please do.




But honestly the fight itself isn't that hard, and I think if people had discovered another consistent way of lowering rage they would have done CM by now.

I know jwbarry has said that the fight was supposedly WAI at some point, but from playing it on the live servers I'm pretty sure that something is not working how it is meant to. It would be nice to get a new comment from jwbarry to confirm either way.

I can confirm there's another way to lower rage although can't share since I think my kin would kill me... sorry hate to be that person, I know it's lame.

That being said we still given up on even working on Fire/Frost challenge mode at this point and I am completely convinced that there is something very wrong with that fight... I mean come on even the Germans haven't beat it.

The difficulty level is not at all on par with anything we've seen in Lightening or Acid boss which are supposed to be on the same level. Fire/Frost challenge requires an insane amount of survivability, so lots of heals and not too many squishies. At the same time it also requires a very high level of dps that is unlike any of the other fights we have seen in this raid. So stacking dps leaves you with a very vulnerable group. Stacking survivability leaves you with a group that's too slow. Juggling a feasible group makeup in this fight just hasn't worked and we have spent countless nights on this boss and I've basically even stopped suggesting that we work on challenge mode.

I've heard rumours that the grims were only supposed to have 30k morale on T2 like they do on T1. THAT would definitely make this fight doable. Otherwise, as it stands right now the math is way off in regards to the dps requirement and the survivability needed and this is obvious solely based on the fact that no one has even beat the boss yet.

Originally Posted by Comma44

I can confirm there's another way to lower rage although can't share since I think my kin would kill me... sorry hate to be that person, I know it's lame.

The fight's been out like four months or something now; I'm sure your kin will forgive you for sharing .


But seriously, if its just something like removing corruptions reduces rage by one, or burning through a morale bubble decreases rage by one, the fight is still going to be impossible.

So it would at least be nice to know if this mysterious other rage mechanic allows you to decrease rage by at least one per minute (on each giant). Yes or no.

Agreed, and it's been said a few times before this fight is indeed impossible & as you say, if it's possible why has no one done it yet?
The same could be said about Saruman, however we know how we want to do this encounter. It's just a case of execution & pure blind luck

Originally Posted by Comma44

I can confirm there's another way to lower rage although can't share since I think my kin would kill me... sorry hate to be that person, I know it's lame.

**********Warning - Spoiler Alert**********


Sorry Kam, but considering almost everybody in kin would rather farm Saruman T1 for clasps instead of wasting another SECOND in F&F Challenge, I'm gonna share and let the kin kill me instead. After all, if we're not actively working on it we shouldn't keep it to ourselves. And why waste more time on it when it has the same loot table as lightning and acid and we aren't all that into bragging rights anyway (other than that one guy). So, in the interest of raid progression, it's time to share the secret and hope somebody else can find a workable strat (please share with us if you do).

The 2nd way to reduce rage is to bring both giants down to around 210k (not sure on precise number). At that point they take turns punching each other every 30 seconds, bringing rage down by 1. It effectively neutralizes rage gain from time. They do not need to be next to each other to punch, so they can be tanked separately, which is kinda necessary for killing the grim under one giant but not under the other.

Commentary: It's a twins fight, of course we're supposed to burn them down at the same time like the other twins fights in the game. It makes perfect sense and the animation of the punching is impossible to miss.

Challenges:
- You have to kill 2 x 90k grims per minute each under their opposite boss and far enough away from their own boss. There's also the fire / frost mitigation debuffs to consider.
- 6 CC / minute
- 10 corruption removal / minute
- 2 x 150k bubbles / minute (often coming at the same time)
- If somebody dies rage goes up without a good way to bring it back down.
- You have to deal with the shadow grims (2 / min), which serve no purpose other than to make the fight harder.
- You have to deal with the rock throw.
- You have to deal with Shadow Crush distributed AOE damage.
- You have to deal with grim AOE damage.

You have to stack tanks to tank the bosses separately and a 3rd tank kiting shadow grims.
You have to stack healers & debuffers because the AOE damage is INSANE.
You have to stack DPS to kill the grims fast enough and to get through the bubbles (or rage goes up).

Obviously, stacking all 3 is impossible.

As an alternative strat, we tried burning 1 boss before it got rage, spawning extra grims before it dies to use on the 2nd boss and then turning on the 2nd boss. Didn't work out too well at all.

*Edit* Fixed inaccuracies.

Originally Posted by Yosoff

The 2nd way to reduce rage is to bring both giants down to around 250k-200k (not sure on precise number)

Challenges:
- 2 x 150k bubbles / minute (often coming at the same time)

212k for second rage Mech.

Bubble's almost always come at the same time unless the boss gets stuck in one of his long animations. If you burn the bubble's, which you have too or they tier up... It requires your group (6 people) to have 5,000 dps (10,000 raid wide dps) that is a higher dps requirement than shadow and Saruman challenge.

I know the fight is doable the math is just really wrong right now.

Originally Posted by Yosoff

Sorry Kam, but considering almost everybody in kin would rather farm Saruman T1 for clasps instead of wasting another SECOND in F&F Challenge, I'm gonna share and let the kin kill me instead.

OMG WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?! Now everyone is going to beat the fight and get ALL the epic warden loot for themselves.

Ok just kidding. I'm glad you said it. And I think you outlined most of the challenges pretty well. We've learned a lot about this fight... mostly about about 100 hundred different strats that don't work. Based on the mechanics that Yosoff mentioned above, the strat is pretty clear at this point but executing it has been anything but successful. It *may* be possible if you're absolutely perfect or insanely lucky, but based on the difficulty of lightening and acid I have a feeling that someone's math was wayyyyyyyy off whether it's the morale on the grims and the bubbles OR the damage output from aoe's and the grims... something has to give on that fight to bring it back to a level that matches up with the other 2 bosses. Also if anyone has found a purpose for the Shadow grims *other* than to force you to bring someone to kite them please let me know.

At this point though based on the lack of responsiveness I'm guessing the devs have moved on past this raid. The loot table has been nerfed already so *really* there is no motivation to put much time into working on this strat for an extra guaranteed first age. Same goes for Saruman really. The strat is clear just requires some luck and execution but why bother when you can do 3-4 T1 runs/week and still get clasp drops.

Some brainstorming.

First - This fight has been Dev confirmed bugged so with that fact in mind it is rather depressing to continue to spend more then the 30 nights we have spent trying to beat something that is as a quote from dev: "Bugged but still possible."

As far as I know the grims are supposed to start smaller and/or not hit as hard. This would allow you to neutralize the giants quicker, take less damage from the grims and have control of the fight.

The problem as mentioned: You can stack healers and 3 tanks to effectively take the damage but the fight was designed to burn the bubbles, if you fail to burn it rage is increased by one. If you stack 3 tanks, LM, minimum 2 minstrels and 2 captains, You have 2 burgs and 2 hunts/champs so 2 classes to burn 150k of damage ignoring the boss and grim constantly every 30 seconds. Without oathies and minimum 3 dps classes per boss as much of an ego as I have and am a fan of DPS this is not possible.

More food for thought: Usually twin fights consist of fighting the bosses separate, in this case the most logical strategy would be to tank them apart 2 tanks, kill the grims. The problem this:
Fellow ship 1 is attacking Frost boss on the right hand side, they have fire debuff.
Fire boss is on the left being assaulted by fellowship 2. They have frost debuff.
You have 1 loremaster.
Verdict: One side is taking rock toss at +40% damage and the other side at +100% not only is this totally un-healable with shadow crush, grim aoe, regular aoe, tank damage, you also got tossed around like your on a trampoline.
Second issue: The type of grim you want to kill spawns under the wrong boss, what a pain in the butt, it makes sense fire spawns from fire, but that means while everything is going on you need to not only focus on getting it over, which in all honesty isnt that hard but spending the time once again.

^We tried tanks swapping sides and it worked fairly well, but the rock toss and all combined was unhealable even popping all cd's but second grim spawn.

**NOTE:** We did find if you stand on opposite mats and leave a guard/captain on middle platform all rock tosses would go to him and him alone!

Tanking together? The more people standing by a grim the more damage is does, if you stack up with the 2 bosses you are faced with the following bonuses:
1) LM can debuff both bosses
2) We can aoe and neutralize our debuff
3) No rock throw!
4) Everyone can cross corruption remove and heal making it more controlled
5) 12 people take shadow crush distribute making easy on healing

^We have gotten the farthest with this method.

The issues:
1) Rage will not lower if you kill grims besides a boss when they are together
2) When 2 grims spawn on 10 people they do so much damage you may as well call "whipe".

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If I personally were to conduct a strat here would be my line.

A) You need to neutralize both bosses as quickly and safely as possible. Very logical, killing one opposite grim every 1 minute the rage will end up neutralizing causing more damage from the bosses and making the fight longer. So get both bosses to around 210k ASAP.
B) You need to have every debuff imaginable on each boss and be on-top of your game.
C) You need to have people assigned corruptions on each boss and plan for misses.

- I would tank them together (1 gaurd per boss). DPS until first pop, tank drags 2 grims away. Double oathies one boss to 250k.
- Burn the second boss to 210k while burning bubbles as a raid and focusing on debuffs and corruptions.
- Use a champ as grim kiter using raging blades and challenge.

When the bosses are neutralized, have the hunters pull grims into the group and second guard can pull the boss in and out for each death of the grim until 1 boss is dead at 0 rage.

Or an alternate crazy method. Have champ keep agro of all grims aoe with LM and hunter help take all the grim on 1 type (ex. fire) to last ? mark then cast a root meaning that you would root all the fire grims only. The tank who tanks the frost boss would charge over and challenge darkness all fire grims with pledge(you cannot be hit by them in pledge). Raid would *Range* aoe all grims down making boss 0 rage, finish the boss.

One more thought would be to input an RK healer somehwere in this raid to A) Have 11 people standing on 1 boss and One tank on other with RK healer. Or champing killing grims by himself and rk healing it.

Thats all I got and I'm sick of this fight until its fixed. Cheers.

Oh btw, you cant die and you need to each do 3k dps minimum GL

So each boss will punch the other one and lower the rage by one every min with 30 sec off set? And the grims spawn every min so you can't really zerg one down since it won't be there to punch the other one. Not sure I made an error understanding but naturalization only occurs after 210k and by the time you reach that each giant will have rate built up since extra grims doesn't help. Something doesn't add up properly.

Originally Posted by witchking782

So each boss will punch the other one and lower the rage by one every min with 30 sec off set? And the grims spawn every min so you can't really zerg one down since it won't be there to punch the other one. Not sure I made an error understanding but naturalization only occurs after 210k and by the time you reach that each giant will have rate built up since extra grims doesn't help. Something doesn't add up properly.

The idea is that once you hit that sweet spot at 210ish k rage will no longer increase at all every 30seconds. The bosses say "Freeze and shatter" and "You will all burn" (or something like that). The mechanic is also evident on T1 but it doesn't seem to do anything on T1. At this point each giant's rage is lowered by 1 every 30 seconds essentially cancelling out the 30 second increasing rage timer. So rage will be held steady (provided you remove corruptions, burn bubbles and no one dies). And then at this point you can simply wait for grims to pop and kill them on the opposite boss lowering rage till it gets to zero. Sounds easy right?

Except you have to:

• burn bubbles while you're at it
• Keep all corruptions off
• Survive the massive amounts of damage going out from shadow aoes, grims spawning, rock tosses.
• Burn grims without dying from their stupid aoes.
• Oh and keep the useless shadow grims entertained with a kiter.

As far as math is concerned you would burn both bosses to 210k, let's say that takes you 3 minutes. At this point you are at 6 rage, provided you have burned all bubbles, removed all corruptions and no one has died (which is hard to do, but let's just say you're perfect). At this point you will also have 2 fire grims and 2 frost grims up, and 2 shadows. The shadows are useless as far as we know so forget about them and let you're poor guard or warden run around with them. So if the giants get to 6 rage and stay there then you have to kill 6 fire/frost grims to make up for it. Which means the fight should last around over 10min 30 seconds to have spawned enough of the fire/frost grims (since apparently spawning extra is ineffective according to a few posts I've seen). The faster you dps and the faster you can "neutralize" the rage the shorter the fight and the less grims you have to kill.

The problem is:

• How do you keep the grims busy while you are dpsing the bosses? Kiting? Sure... but then you need to pull those grims off of your tank later on and kill them under the opposite boss.
• How do you burn the 150k bubbles that at times pop at the same time meaning there is a 5000 dps requirement per FELLOWSHIP? This is a higher dps requirement than shadow challenge or even Saruman and you can't afford a burg stack.
• How do you take the damage from the grims when you dps them down, who's going to take it, how will you minimize aoe's while allowing your dps classes to do damage to it? Grims seem to do player based aoe, the more people around it, the more it aoe's. Again, can't really afford to just stack hunters either.
• How will you deal with the shadow aoe + grim aoe? Tooo much damage... I think you get the idea here.
• How will you have enough debuffs while also having enough tanks and dps to handle the 2 bosses + the grims you need to kill + shadow grims that you need to kite? If you are tanking the bosses separately as would seem to make sense based on the mechanics at play, you don't have room for 2 LMs to debuff, and barely enough room for 2 burgs if that. Furthermore you need at least one class just to kite grims. And then some form of tanks for the boss. A champ in CBR is not a functional tank for challenge mode unfortunately... I know it's been done for T2.

I could go on with all the confounding issues in this fight. Sorry if this sounds confusing but most of the people posting here from my kin have spent wayyyyy too many nights working on this and simply getting a whole lot of "this won't work" and a couple of "this will work but only if we're absolutely perfect".

Based on the mechanics as well it appears that if someone dies that automatically increases your fight by another 2 minutes. Missed a bubble or corruptions? Add another 2 minutes. 2 minutes = time to get another fire/frost spawn. Furthermore if the bosses get uneven in their rage they start doing their whole yanking and pulling thing where you get thrown around the room like a rag doll and that generally implies game over at that point as well.

Anyway I'm curious to see if any other kins have some luck with this now that the second mechanic is out there. If someone beats this I'm pretty sure it'll include a higher level of execution than Saruman challenge.

Hmm thanks for all the info. Makes sense why hardly anyone would have discovered that mechanic.

Originally Posted by YesMaam

Some brainstorming.

First - This fight has been Dev confirmed bugged so with that fact in mind it is rather depressing to continue to spend more then the 30 nights we have spent trying to beat something that is as a quote from dev: "Bugged but still possible."

When did a dev confirm it as bugged? But yea that definitely does make the attempting CM less appealing (if that were possible at this point).

Originally Posted by Yosoff

- You have to deal with the shadow grims (2 / min), which serve no purpose other than to make the fight harder.

Why does that serve no purpose? I was under the impression that killing a shadow grim that was spawned by a giant still decreases its rage by one.

Originally Posted by Yosoff

As an alternative strat, we tried burning 1 boss before it got rage, spawning extra grims before it dies to use on the 2nd boss and then turning on the 2nd boss. Didn't work out too well at all.

Were you able to kill one giant with zero rage this way to see if that's actually allowed?

Originally Posted by Evendale

Why does that serve no purpose? I was under the impression that killing a shadow grim that was spawned by a giant still decreases its rage by one.



Were you able to kill one giant with zero rage this way to see if that's actually allowed?

Nopeee killing a shadow grim does absolutely nothing whether you kill it next to a boss or away from the boss. It does nothing so there is no point in killing them, just a waste of dps and extra heals.

We were not able to zerg one giant with zero rage. That means killing one boss in 30 seconds and surviving the grim spawn (especially since you're spawning extra grims). Not a feasible strategy at all in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Comma44

Furthermore if the bosses get uneven in their rage they start doing their whole yanking and pulling thing where you get thrown around the room like a rag doll and that generally implies game over at that point as well.

In my experience the yank comes when corruptions are missed, not from uneven rage. Our T2 strat results in highly uneven rage, but we are only yanked when we screw up on corruptions. Since missing the corruptions would be the first time the rage becomes uneven in CM attempts it's essentially the same thing though.

Originally Posted by Smugo

In my experience the yank comes when corruptions are missed, not from uneven rage. Our T2 strat results in highly uneven rage, but we are only yanked when we screw up on corruptions. Since missing the corruptions would be the first time the rage becomes uneven in CM attempts it's essentially the same thing though.

Yah this could very well be. I *think* it happened when we burned one bubble but not the other at one point as well which led us to believe that uneven rage = yanking. But I could be wrong on that as it's all sort of blending together at this point.

Originally Posted by Smugo

In my experience the yank comes when corruptions are missed, not from uneven rage. Our T2 strat results in highly uneven rage, but we are only yanked when we screw up on corruptions. Since missing the corruptions would be the first time the rage becomes uneven in CM attempts it's essentially the same thing though.

If it is supposed to be when corruptions are missed then it's bugged. We have definitely gotten corruptions off almost instantly and were still tossed (saw this multiple times).

Originally Posted by Yosoff

If it is supposed to be when corruptions are missed then it's bugged. We have definitely gotten corruptions off almost instantly and were still tossed (saw this multiple times).

Wouldn't surprise me, but that would explain a lot. As far as I know, missing corruptions = yank is WAI, getting yanked when corruptions are removed is not.

Originally Posted by Yosoff

If it is supposed to be when corruptions are missed then it's bugged. We have definitely gotten corruptions off almost instantly and were still tossed (saw this multiple times).

Did you get all corruptions off? There are multiple tiers, 5 I think on t2.

Originally Posted by Draykfyre

Did you get all corruptions off? There are multiple tiers, 5 I think on t2.

Yes indeed.

Sure that Saruman T2/CM finaly is the first of this two Challenges that Kins clear.

Originally Posted by Draykfyre

Did you get all corruptions off? There are multiple tiers, 5 I think on t2.

We got the first one off and watched the other one tick down and expire, wasn't aware you could take if off .

Originally Posted by Comma44

That being said we still given up on even working on Fire/Frost challenge mode at this point and I am completely convinced that there is something very wrong with that fight... I mean come on even the Germans haven't beat it.

I love that whether or not the Germans have beaten it is a marker of the difficulty of the fight... and I can't disagree with it.

This challenge is just impossible you can't deal with bubbles, corruptions and grims at the same time. No chance i see to beat this at challengemode.

Saruman seems to be possible. But to be honest, if there are no changes in items avaible or any changes to that encounte,r i doubt we will see any kin that get this on farm mode.

There is no room for your own tactics or alternative strategies. You MUST do it exactly as jwbarry designed it or its a fail.

Originally Posted by lutemaster

There is no room for your own tactics or alternative strategies. You MUST do it exactly as jwbarry designed it or its a fail.

That's not true. You can do Lightning CM, Acid CM, Shadow CM on many ways.
For Saruman i think their will be different tactics too.
Fire and Frost CM is just impossible, but they would be different tactics too, if it would be doable.

Originally Posted by Burio

That's not true. You can do Lightning CM, Acid CM, Shadow CM on many ways.
For Saruman i think their will be different tactics too.
Fire and Frost CM is just impossible, but they would be different tactics too, if it would be doable.

I agree that you can apply slight variations of tactics for the other wings, but can you do Fire & Frost on Challenge Mode (which this thread is about) using any other tactic than exactly the one jwbarry designed it for?

Originally Posted by lutemaster

I agree that you can apply slight variations of tactics for the other wings, but can you do Fire & Frost on Challenge Mode (which this thread is about) using any other tactic than exactly the one jwbarry designed it for?

There seems to be no working tactic for it? The CM is just impossible.

Has anyone tested whether those '' punches '' actually damage bubbles or help killing grims as well ? ( apart from removing 1 rage )

Cause bubbles atm are impossible to kill , a decent raid can nuke 1 , maybe 1.5 if you have cool gear and stuff, but it can never get 2. So everytime your giants get a bubble , its always extra rage , and keeping in mind that you have to split up groups for distributed , means that you cant even dps 1 bubble down , because your dps is shared between them.

Also , they way i get it , those punches start when BOTH giants get to 210k or something , so in order to activate it , you also need to activate the bubbles and the corruptions . So bottom line is this is a dead end as well , because you can't avoid rage from bubbles so its still impossible . ( its like swapping time-based rage with bubble rage , you are still back at zero progress )

EDIT: At the bottom of post!! Additional question.

Incidentally, there is mention regarding multiple grims not reducing rage by more than 1, presumably per "frost courses through my veins / whatever the fire one is". Obviously it is not a wholesale "you can't use more than 1 grim to reduce rage during the fight" ...otherwise it would be utterly impossible.

Is anyone therefore aware of why say...a set of say 2 grims from one 'clap' unable to reduce the rage of 1 of the giants by more than 1 rage, or whether it is just a matter of a 'cooldown' on rage being able to be reduced by a grim of the appropriate type (likely of similar 'cooldown' to the clap skill)?

Either way, having had no response from jwbarry (both in such threads and via PM) it is a bit sad to hear that in all likelihood, this challenge mode is completely impossible compared to a Saruman challenge mode (possible, but dramatically undeniably gut wrenchingly difficult).
Does seem like the likely problems are:

1. Grim morale (probably should be ~30k still); and
2. Bubbles (amount they provide in bonus morale).

Given the discussion about impossibility RE: the current bubbles (and that usually most of the raid must DPS through them to prevent a rage increase) - would it work to find the exact point at which they start using these - kite one to 'stagger' the application of said bubble (maybe needing to deal with the first 'set' depending on how enemy skills function when they hit the correct morale threshold) so that it allows the group as a whole to alternate between the 2 giants and their bubbles? With the 210k activation of "punches", it sounds like in THEORY it would then be able to become essentially a slow progression to the finish (being able to alternate bubbles, punches negating the rage increase, a grim being used to reduce rage etc). I.e. It seems like if only the grims were more manageable...the bubbles MAY be able to be worked around.

"May" being the key word.

Forgive my ignorant theory crafting if I am way off (have not yet accomplished this fight in full T2, though well aware of the 90k grim problem plus the superfluous shadow grims, PLUS the massive amount of outgoing damage).


EDIT: Additional question RE: something considered on Botlike's post.

Anyone able to / willing to test to see if OTHER effects damage said bubbles. The giants 'hurt' each other in a sense (the punches reduce rage, the effect in the case of theme being the opposite element clashing and reducing their effectiveness 'rage').
Perhaps the 'grim clap' could damage a shield, or destruction of opposite element grim DURING the bubble being up.
Hell - maybe even a possible use for those blasted shadow grims?
(also - rage pull / ranged punt are other possibilities).

Understandable if no one is willing to try this...it appears to be very frustrating to potentially be fighting a completely bugged fight.

Originally Posted by Ultiheart

Is anyone therefore aware of why say...a set of say 2 grims from one 'clap' unable to reduce the rage of 1 of the giants by more than 1 rage, or whether it is just a matter of a 'cooldown' on rage being able to be reduced by a grim of the appropriate type (likely of similar 'cooldown' to the clap skill)?

It's obviously very difficult to rule anything out completely, but it certainly appeared that killing a second grim from the same clap & giant did not effect the rage level at all. At the end of the day, it wouldn't matter which of your suggestions was the case; the effect will be the same, ie: you can only kill reduce rage by one per minute (per giant) by killing grims.

Originally Posted by Ultiheart

would it work to find the exact point at which they start using these - kite one to 'stagger' the application of said bubble (maybe needing to deal with the first 'set' depending on how enemy skills function when they hit the correct morale threshold) so that it allows the group as a whole to alternate between the 2 giants and their bubbles?

As soon as one giant hits the threshold where bubbles become active, both giants are able to activate bubbles. That should be pretty clear to anyone who's done the fight more than a couple of times.

Originally Posted by Evendale

It's obviously very difficult to rule anything out completely, but it certainly appeared that killing a second grim from the same clap & giant did not effect the rage level at all. At the end of the day, it wouldn't matter which of your suggestions was the case; the effect will be the same, ie: you can only kill reduce rage by one per minute (per giant) by killing grims.

As soon as one giant hits the threshold where bubbles become active, both giants are able to activate bubbles. That should be pretty clear to anyone who's done the fight more than a couple of times.

On response 1, yeah fair enough...whether it's some "cooldown" on rage reduction, or just simply "1 rage reduction per clap", wouldn't matter.

On response 2, seeing one would know the exact point - that is the point regarding "stagger" the application (per your response, kiting would not be necessary to achieve this...just do not DPS 1 of the giants down to the threshold of "bubbles" until the FIRST one is dealt with. 2nd giant could be ~10k off the "bubble" phase for it, then knock it down to that threshold, thereby HOPEFULLY staggering out the bubble effects (alternating) for the rest of the fight...although other factors, such as just in general when they use said effects once off cooldown, could mess it up).

All this, of course, being nothing to the fire/frost/shadow elephant in the room RE: too much freaking morale on the grims.

Even if it is possible, the loot is not even remotely almost kinda sorta maybe worth the effort. So I'd recommend people not caring about it. Same thing for Saru T2CM (but that strikes me as more feasible).

But, but... there's loads of reasons to do Saruman t2! After all you get.... Armor pieces? Ok forget those, warden loot... hmm, not a good example... Great jewelry, well... sort of... ok, so how about clasps, yes i know you can get them on t1 as well... ... Ummmm... ... Skirmish anyone?

Honestly at this point, it would take confirmed flying firebreathing eagle mounts as loot to convince me to try it. T2 is a cakewalk but CM is nothing short of hell. Not worth it. We can farm enough symbols from lightning runs.

orthanc loot is a joke, rep stuff, skirmish shinies an the new 6 men gears us all well... its a pub with no beer...

the challenges fire and frost, saruman... there was a time when i was ambitioned to do it...
but after a certain amount of frustration, i can honestly say, leave me alone with that...
especially after more and more players are questioning its wai-factor anyway...

taken that in account, orthanc had 2 possible CMs when it was released...
after 3 month its 3 CMs now...

feels like beig married, looks all sweet and sound at first view...
but the more you go inside, the more its nagging will drive you up and down the walls....

Do any of the mechanics -- corruption removal/bubble -- not happen if bosses are burned down together, kept within ~5% morale of each other?

First time we did T2 successfully we actually killed every grim after bosses were dead. It looked like if you bring a grim down past the 3rd CC application and don't kill it it turns into a super big grim and my mind goes blank after that. I thought it self exploded or something goofy. Was wondering how that plays out into the fight or what the actual reason/mechanic is behind that. If the grims do really self explode after 3rd application of CC on a timer if not killed it could play out very well. It may be possible to get all of the fire grims to the 3rd immune stage and have hunter/LM mass CC and then the champ could challenge the correct giant over. If all the grims simultaneously explode next to giant it may be possible to mass tier the giant down to 0 rage.

What triggers the shadow grims to come? Morale threshold on giants, rage based, or timer based?

Props to the PA folks for divulging the elusive 2nd rage-down mechanic along with details of the attempts.

Hopefully this last piece of the puzzle will encourage some folks to resume the head bashing and maybe prove everyone's suspicions wrong. However, our kin will not be one of them...

If the fight is possible, I'm sure the brainstorming here will facilitate matters.

Originally Posted by BotLike

Has anyone tested whether those '' punches '' actually damage bubbles or help killing grims as well ? ( apart from removing 1 rage )

We had this amazing idea at one point that if we could keep all the grims up and get the giants to punch at each other that they would kill all nearby grims in the process and reduce rage in one fell swoop (which to be honest would be a crazy cool mechanic). But let me just save you the effort and let you know that this does not occur.

Originally Posted by Ultiheart

Given the discussion about impossibility RE: the current bubbles (and that usually most of the raid must DPS through them to prevent a rage increase) - would it work to find the exact point at which they start using these - kite one to 'stagger' the application of said bubble (maybe needing to deal with the first 'set' depending on how enemy skills function when they hit the correct morale threshold) so that it allows the group as a whole to alternate between the 2 giants and their bubbles? With the 210k activation of "punches", it sounds like in THEORY it would then be able to become essentially a slow progression to the finish (being able to alternate bubbles, punches negating the rage increase, a grim being used to reduce rage etc). I.e. It seems like if only the grims were more manageable...the bubbles MAY be able to be worked around.

We tried to control bubbles, but were unable to. Had a couple theories that as soon as one giant hits 1/2 morale bubbles start or if 6 rage is reached first then that = bubbles. But both of those theories have been proven false at some point or another. It does not appear to be timed either. Regardless 150k can be burned through once but what happens if you're killing a grim at the same time? Switching to dps a bubble while the grim is in the middle of everyone aoeing is just not feasible. And that means you need entire raid dps on 150k so swapping from one boss to another would have to be impeccable that is if you can even control when the bubbles pop.

Originally Posted by Ultiheart

Anyone able to / willing to test to see if OTHER effects damage said bubbles. The giants 'hurt' each other in a sense (the punches reduce rage, the effect in the case of theme being the opposite element clashing and reducing their effectiveness 'rage').
Perhaps the 'grim clap' could damage a shield, or destruction of opposite element grim DURING the bubble being up.
Hell - maybe even a possible use for those blasted shadow grims?
(also - rage pull / ranged punt are other possibilities).

Pretty much tried all this. We tried to see if the punching each other thing affected bubbles or shadow grims. It does neither as far as we are aware.

Originally Posted by timmyloo22546

Do any of the mechanics -- corruption removal/bubble -- not happen if bosses are burned down together, kept within ~5% morale of each other?

Tried this too, by keeping both bosses within 10k of each other, bubbles and corruptions still appeared.

Originally Posted by timmyloo22546

First time we did T2 successfully we actually killed every grim after bosses were dead. It looked like if you bring a grim down past the 3rd CC application and don't kill it it turns into a super big grim and my mind goes blank after that. I thought it self exploded or something goofy. Was wondering how that plays out into the fight or what the actual reason/mechanic is behind that. If the grims do really self explode after 3rd application of CC on a timer if not killed it could play out very well. It may be possible to get all of the fire grims to the 3rd immune stage and have hunter/LM mass CC and then the champ could challenge the correct giant over. If all the grims simultaneously explode next to giant it may be possible to mass tier the giant down to 0 rage.

Cool idea in theory and also one we entertained. But the grims do not necessarily always become stationary when they go into their super big grim form. They do self implode sometimes. However, how are you going to have a collection of grims of by themselves somewhere without someone tanking them... standing still with 6+ grims is kind of a death wish. Our end strat before we gave up on the fight did involve the bosses being tanked in one space and grims being killed in another space with champs challenging the boss over to the grim when it was ready to die. But this was 1-2 grims at a time and even healing that proved to be a challenge at times. Also think about how/when you are going to kill and collect all these grims. Who is going to stay on the boss(es) to take shadow AOE's? Who is going to take rock tosses.. etc.

Originally Posted by timmyloo22546

What triggers the shadow grims to come? Morale threshold on giants, rage based, or timer based?

Grims spawn on a timer and alternate. First spawn of grims = fire/frost. 1 minute later 2 shadow grims spawn. 1 minute later fire/frost... you get the idea.


Anyway it's cool to see some discussion about this in this thread, we've tried a LOT of different strats. I think our final strat we worked on *may* be doable in theory if the fight is tweaked a bit. Like I've said I think someone's math was incredibly off because there is no way that I think that jwb was intending for this fight to be like this. The dps requirements are high and the survivability requirements are high, one of these things needs to give because the fight doesn't seem to be doable as it stands.

Just as a clarification regarding the Punches. Do both Giants need to be below 210k morale point for them to start, or does it work that once one gets below 210k it starts punching the other one (I assume it is both).

Originally Posted by Balagast

Just as a clarification regarding the Punches. Do both Giants need to be below 210k morale point for them to start, or does it work that once one gets below 210k it starts punching the other one (I assume it is both).

It's both and I actually think it's closer to 222k... it should be 1/3 of both of their morale.

Originally Posted by Fralin

But, but... there's loads of reasons to do Saruman t2! After all you get.... Armor pieces? Ok forget those, warden loot... hmm, not a good example... Great jewelry, well... sort of... ok, so how about clasps, yes i know you can get them on t1 as well... ... Ummmm... ... Skirmish anyone?

I'm told that Saruman T2/T2C chests are where the nice melee loot is hiding, which makes me kind of sad as a Champ main. I basically have one piece of loot to look forward to in all of Orthanc at this point, and that bloody axe absolutely refuses to drop for us (unless, of course, it dropped last night when I wasn't there :P).