Bloodroot Forge
This dungeon you will have access to at level 45 or if you travel to the opening yourself at lower levels.
This is located in the Southern part of the Craglorn map as shown below.
The bosses are marked on the map below with their names and locations. I shall explain their mechanics as well as what you should and shouldn’t do while facing them.
Boss Fights
Mathgamain
This boss is about as simple as it gets mechanics wise but they are VERY punishing if you get the wrong. The tank needs to maintain a taunt at ALL times. The boss and keep it turned away from the group for the entire fight!
Heavy Attack – The boss stand up on his back legs and launch a HUGE hitting cone aoe heavy attack in the direction of whoever has agro. This should always be the tank. The tank must BLOCK this. If not he/she is dead in one shot, it hits incredibly hard!
If for any strange reason the boss aims at a dps or a healer during this heavy attack they must apply a well timed dodge roll or they will be killed, a dps/healer CANNOT block this hit, it is way too strong designed for tanks to mitigate.
Minions – During the fight waves of adds will spawn and must be dealt with. The tank can root the enemies and taunt them in order to control them BUT at the same time must maintain a taunt on the boss and not spin the boss on the group. These adds will spawn at set percentages of the boss’s health (75% 50% and 25%) so over burning the boss damage wise, will result in overlapping of the adds and you can get overwhelmed with multiple spawns. These also do heavy attack so the group must be careful if they get focused (these can be blocked).
If you get overwhelmed with adds do NOT start running away! This will NOT help, let the tank try to control them. Running away will NOT make you loose agro on anything that is chasing you and they WILL chase you until they die. Don’t PANIC!
This is quite easy to work with. Simply get inside the shield and stack and burn the boss.
Caillaoife
This boss can be a tricky one and requires some solid co-ordination and quick thinking from the tank! The tank should keep the boss agroed and faced at him/her as much as possible while taunts are able to land (she becomes immune to it during the fight). This is fairly mobile to some extent so people must not panic and must not start running away like a headless chicken. The trick to this fight is add control and focus!
Forrest – During the fight the boss will become Immune and put up a force field of trees around her. As soon as you see her casting to make this force field go up you must leave the area immediately in order to avoid the knock back and knock down mechanic you will receive for touching the shield. Get OUT! asap! When she is shielded she is immune to all damage and taunts and will select players to hit (more explained below). Once the phase is over, she will teleport to a new location and you can attack her again. This mechanic is rinse repeated throughout the whole fight.
NOTE: This phase happens at 75% 50% and 30%.
Adds – During the shield phase adds will spawn and the tank must grab them as fast as possible and turn them away from the group! This is when you need as dps to focus the adds not the boss (boss is immune to all damage and taunts) The bear add, above all, must be focused. If this thing hits a dps/healer with it’s heavy attack they will die to a one shot even if they block. The tank must block the attack and others must stay out of it. The bear is almost the same as the previous boss just much less health. Once the adds are down go back to the boss and/or wait for her to leave here shield of trees and teleport to a new location.
Winters Grasp – During the shield phase while you are dealing with the adds, the taunt WILL drop off of the boss. This is when she chooses a player at random (usually a dps) to fire nasty fast moving aoes across the ground. This cold based aoe deals MASSIVE damage and an immobilize. The immobilize part is only really relevant if hitting a tank since a tank would survive it. DPS and/or healers will die to pretty much a one shot. During this agro phase on her chosen target she will also fire light attacks at the same target. This player must have heals focused on them and also move OUT of the aoe when it is aimed at them. Try to find a spot where no one else is standing and just simply watch your feet. Standing near others runs the risk of multiple players getting caught by it and inevitably causing a wipe.
Blast – The boss will cast a MASSIVE thin cone aoe in the direction of whoever has agro during the fight. The is a blast of rocks/nirncrux type damage and will hit fairly hard and knockback/down anyone caught in it. A tank can block it but others must dodge roll it to get out.
Stranglers – During the shield phases, while killing the adds, stranglers will spawn and these MUST be dealt with fast else you will end up filling the room with poison and your group will take HUGE damage
Stoneheart
This boss is actually pretty mobile as fights go with a lot of moving around. The tank needs to keep a taunt on the boss at all times. The group need to be very aware of their feet in this fight as there is a lot of awkward ground aoe type damage to deal with.
Fire circle – During the fight each time the boss teleports to a new location, it will cast 3 light attacks at whoever has agro (should be the tank) each light attack will place a circle of fire on the ground and should be avoided! It won’t necessarily one shot you if you stand in it for a brief moment but the damage is very high if you stand in it for more than a second, so try NOT to stand in these. They will disappear after a short time.
Atronachs – After each full rotation of mechanics the boss raise his hand in the air and lots of red flying projectiles will go from his staff to a random Stone Atronach in the room. THEN he will teleport to a random location. These Atronachs MUST be focused down as soon as possible. If you do not kill them fast enough they will enrage and put nasty circles of nirncrux underneath each player every second over and over doing HIGH damage to anyone caught in them until it is dead. If you keep moving these can be placed on the ground and/or kited (like the Domihaus mechanics) but of course eventually they will catch you and kill you. So it is crucial that the Atronach dies in order to defeat this mechanic from wiping your group
Space Invaders!! – The best way i can describe this mechanic is “space invaders!”. Basically the boss will squat and LOADS of very small fast moving aoes will fly around the floor aiming at the group members over and over until he has finished channeling this effect. Basically this is where old school space invader training comes in and you basically just have to wiggle between them and avoid being hit. Simple left right left right movements to avoid them will be just fine. DO NOT sprint around the room because of course you will overlap to many of them and kill people. Relax, wiggle a bit, and then carry on. If these hit you they can take as much as 30-40% health per hit, so be careful!
Root – While the boss is under 25% health he will start rooting the players in vines so their feet are stuck to the ground. If you stay inside this mechanic for the full duration, once it has finished it will burst and you will take HIGH damage. The way to defeat this mechanic is simply to dodge roll to break out of it when you see the effect. So for magicka users above all, do NOT sprint around the room too much, you will need your resources to avoid this mechanic.
Galchobhar
This boss is the pug killer and most player’s worst nightmare! Small fighting area and LOTS of major already taught mechanics, in ONE fight! The tank must NOT drop taunt on this boss under any circumstances if they can help it. Sure the tank should never drop the boss anyway, that is bad practice…but this one will issue wipes SO fast!
Heavy attack eruption! – The boss will fire off a heavy attack with a massive swing of his weapon EXACTLY the same as the mechanics from the other Minotaurs in the dungeon, where once the heavy has landed, a tiny aoe will be placed in the floor in the position in which hi hit and a volcano eruption type mechanic will rapidly spew from it’s position. The tank MUST stand on this and plug the hole while holding block!
Swing – The boss (normally after his heavy attack) will swing in frontal aoe at the person with agro and 3 small fire aoes will emit from this attack. Simply step out of these, they are the same sice as the space invader aoes and do about the same damage.
Shalks – If you have got this far you SHOULD by now have understood this mechanic, but i will explain it anyway. Throughout the fight Shalks will spawn and they need to be focused. These Shalks will target an individual with a negative aoe chasing them around until it catches them and then on impact will explode and hit them with a terribly aggressive fire damage over time (note most people will never live through this even with big heals). If YOU are the Shalk’s target, you will get a message on your screen and your screen will have flames around the edges. This is when you must RUN away and jump onto one of the platforms in the lava. Once the aoe following your dissolves in the lava you can jump off and come back into the fight. You MUST get rid of this effect, do not try to tank it, you will die. You should have up to 5 of these from start to finish in the fight. Depending on how fast you kill the boss.
Atronachs – Once the boss hits 50% he will wake up the Stone Atronachs in the room, one per phase. These are identical to the ones in the previous boss fight (explained above) and must be killed as soon as possible. Failure to do so will cause them to cast aoes under the feet of each player and you will have to constantly move to avoid them while also placing them on the floor making it very difficult to stand anywhere without dying. These Atronachs MUST be killed asap at all costs.
BIG BOOM! – The boss will pound his weapon into the ground and an ENORMOUS aoe will spread rapidly around the entire platform! This is when every single member must run away and jump onto one of the platforms/rocks surrounding the area. Once the aoe explodes and all the fire is gone you can jump off and come back into the room again, however some things to note.
When the aoe is gone but the fire is still present do NOT jump in, the fire will one shot you.
Also the pads/rocks/platforms…they can only take a certain amount of timed pressure (player standing on them) per pad. SO if one person uses it of course over time it will pop and disappear, BUT if multiple players stand on them, it applies more pressure and they will disappear SOONER! One pad per person or else #RIP!
If you do not get to a pad you will die, if you jump back in too soon (fire still present) you will die, and if you get greedy and use more than one person to a pad, you will of course inevitably die in the lava. Focus and co-ordinate!
Gherig Bullblood
This boss is actually 3 bosses and they MUST be controlled. The tank should keep a taunt on these at all times! The bull will stand where e wants and is quite stubborn so it is safer to taunt him in the face and hold him still. The melee boss will come to the tank if taunted since he is melee and therefore can also be easily stacked on the bull but the healer/ranged boss won’t come to you unless you are out of her range with agro (tank taunting 101, basically get out of their range and they will move to you until they can reach). With this in mind, grab both Bull and melee add with taunts and taunt the ranged too. Run backwards to bring the ranged boss in a bit and then run back to HER with the two melee dps for a nice easy stack. This is demonstrated in the video.
Chains – The Minotaur has the same mechanics as some of the ones you have encountered in the dungeon so far but it is crucial that you pay attention. The boss will pin 2 members of the group with chains and then a spreading aoe will appear under their feet. The boss MUST be interrupted to break the chains and the people pinned (now set free) MUST move out of the aoe. The chains maybe released but the aoe will still explode. failure to interrupt or get out of danger once the interrupt is initiated will result in a borderline one shot!
Heavy Attack – The Minotaur and the melee boss can both heavy attack. These must be blocked by the tank else he/she will be knocked back/down and quite possibly killed!
Burst! – The Melee boss will cast a MASSIVE spreading aoe on the group centered from himself. This must be avoided. If you don’t get out of range of it before it bursts you will take HUGE damage and be stunned if it didn’t already kill you. Which means you would have to break free. Overlapping these mechanics all above and failure to interrupt one target while this stun aoe hits is a catastrophe, focus!
Heal – The ranged Boss (mage) can heal the other two and herself. This should be interrupted as soon as it is spotted.
Elemental attacks – The mage has many short duration channel abilities which cause damage to the group in the form of both direct and aoe damage depending on which one she is performing at the time. These can be interrupted. She is probably the easiest boss of the 3 if controlled but she MUST be interrupted. So long as you interrupt her every time you see her casting…Healing and damage dealing for her is almost impossible. So a very simple boss if you are paying attention.
Above all, these 3 need to be killed as fast as possible and stacking is your safest bet. Stack all 3 together, don’t drop taunts and interrupt the mechanics at ALL costs. Focus down the bull first to get rid of the chain mechanic, get rid of the melee boss afterwards since you only then have to deal with heavy attacks and the aoe, and then finally kill the mage. DO NOT sit near the middle of the room as lava pools will spread from the center and kill you (they stun/cc if you are hit with 3 rock hits in a row from the nirncrux/lava).
Earthgore Amalgam
This boss is a LOT simpler than it looks but due to all of the dramatic effects it can get somewhat chaotic. The tank must NOT drop taunt at ALL costs. You have ONE boss, but will end up with 3 targets. You tank MUST be capable of managing resources, and keeping agro on up to 3 targets at all times! Basically if you can tank the axes (up to 3) in Aetherian Archive, you are pretty much capable. If not, get more practice. You have ZERO room for error here. Positioning, co-ordination are key for the group but above all the tank MUST pay attention.
Heavy attack! – his is a simple as it gets. The boss will fire off a HUGE heavy attack. If the tank is blocking, they will survive, if not they are dead. If this hits a dps/healer player while blocking, they will die anyway. It is a very hard hit, you need the mitigation a tank can bring. So if something goes horribly wrong and the tank ends up dropping the boss, and you as a dps or healer have agro, your only chance is to dodge roll…do NOT run away or start legging it around the room, he will still catch you, you will still die, and someone will have to pick you up because you made a mess of it. Simply DODGE at the right time so the tank can recover.
Lava/nirncrux pool! – THIS is possibly the most important mechanic in the fight. The boss will channel with his hand into the ground in the direction of HIS CHOICE and a fire/nirncrux trail will shoot across the floor and emit a pool of lava/nirncrux. This can be close, it could be far but whatever happens do NOT touch it and do NOT stay close to it! If you stay close to it you will take damage every second from projectiles spewing from it. 3 hits in a row will fossilize you and you i will be stunned while still taking damage and die! Most people will die before that even happens so simply stay the hell away from this stuff!
This can land ANYWHERE so keep your wits about you. Sometimes you can get lucky and it can fire all around the outside of the room, other times it can be close by. The tank needs to be the one to control the boss during this mechanic. If the lava is a long way away, keep tanking the boss where he is. If not and it is too close to you, then be sure to reposition the boss and move together as a group.
Rocks – During the fight rocks will fall from the ceiling, be sure to step out of these or they will issue HIGH damage if you are not a tank.
Rain! – The boss will go Immune during the fight at stages and when he is immune he will cause rocks to rain from the sky. Each player will have rocks aimed directly at them and must move out of the aoes before they land. This is fairly easy to avoid but try to find your own space and not run around like a headless chicken not considering your team mates. If you do this you will end up stacking them and killing your friends. DON’T PANIC! Once the phase is over carry on as normal.
The Split! – This is where things get tricky. The boss has two very simple mechanics…The lava pool and the heavy attack, and these will happen at a steady pace through out the fight. Rinse repeat right? Well yes and no. This is something that is easily manageable on it’s own but of course the famous Mike Finnigan would not make it THAT simple would he?…no.
At 80% the boss will split into two, so a large one and a smaller one. They now both have their own Health bars but they SHARE the overall boss health percentage. This NEW boss can do exactly the same as the last one. So yes, NOW you have 2x heavy attacks to deal with as the tank and a potential 2x lava pool placements! The room is now getting a little, claustrophobic with all the lava filling the room! You should now try to focus the new boss while still damaging the main one!
At 50% OVERALL! a third boss will appear! a much smaller one with less health and yes now the health bar is split across all 3x bosses…And you guess it, you now have 3x heavy attacks to deal with as the tank and 3x lava pool casts because each boss is an exact duplicate of the other!
NOW here comes the tactic. The longer the bosses are alive the more often they will cast aoes and the more often they will heavy attack..SO you want to close the gap as much as possible and get those additional bosses down as soon as you can so that you don’t have to deal with so many stacking mechanics.
SO, SAVE your ultimates. Do not start with a nuke. Use your ultimates when the SECOND boss appears in order to push the 80-50% gap faster. This means that you have 2 bosses on their own for less time so that they do not both together have too much opportunity to overlap heavy attacks and lava pools (the longer they are together the longer the fight and the more the room gets filled).
Pushing for the 3rd boss to appear in the room lessens the time you have to deal with so much going on. This does FORCE all 3 to appear and FORCE you to have now 3 over lapping mechanics, but if done fast enough and efficiently enough you will not have had enough time to yet fill the room with lava, meaning you can now afford the additional casts from the bosses to do their thing since you have more space than taking your time.
Kill the small boss first (he will be almost in execute range as he comes out, he has very little health. Meaning the 3rd overlap is now gone, then focus the middle one and then finally the last man standing should be the first boss you started with.
If you push 2 and 3 to appear fast and then push them to die fast, you can take as long as you like on the last one because only ONE lava mechanic is left.
Damage output can of course play a contributing role in this fight to make things easier, BUT tactical damage application (regardless of dps amount in the group) in the way of strategically selecting your targets for the right timing and placing of your ultimates is what makes the fight much smoother.
NOTE: The “Rain” Mechanic will still take place regardless of how many bosses are alive BUT it will randomly happen from ONE of them, not all 3.
Learn the mechanics and above all understand them, best of luck!!