Blood Furnace Guide-Normal

Blood Furnace Normal Mode

The guide here is for a Pally tank and 4 shaman (1 restoration) set up. Gear wise I had nothing better than Zanga Marsh quest rewards and 3 drops from Ramparts and no enchants and was 63. The important thing here is to have a tank. Without a dedicated tank those engineers are going to hurt you bad.

BF in difficulty comes straight after Ramparts. As some of the mobs in Ramparts go green at 63 it’s nice to swap over to BF. The mobs in BF are around 61-62 so being lvl 64 should be ideal but it’s fine to go at 63 or even 62. However, I personally like going to instances 1 or 2 levels above the mobs.

Remember this isn’t the only way to do BF or even the best it’s just how I do it. If you have better ways of doing something just post it in.

Assassins

Throughout the instance in stealth mode are assassins. They are nothing more than just plain annoying. The time where they become dangerous is if they appear when you’re in mid fight with something else.

The best way around this is to learn where they appear as they pop up in the same places every time. They are in the same positions in heroic as they are in normal. They have low health and don’t hit too hard but if they jump one of your alts and you don’t notice it can be nasty.

Their main damage dealing effect is a poison which ticks like crazy this poison also stacks if there’s more than one of them. I just use the pally cleanse on this.

Bottom line is they are annoying and you should deal with them before pulling anything.

Summoners

Summoners are a massive danger to your group set up. They will summon succubus and fel hounds. They will seduce your guys, silence and drain mana. If you see a summoner in a group it is your main priority. Take it down first. A summoner has the ability to wipe you so kill it fast. Then I like to prioritise anything it has summoned as they’re easy to kill but cause mayhem while they’re alive.

Imps

Imps in a group should also be prioritised. They are extremely weak health wise but their fireballs take chunks out of you. Blast them first then deal with anything else. You can one shot or two shot the imps. The beauty of a pally tank is he/she doesn’t have to be targeting a mob in order to tank it. If you’re not working with focuses but targettarget just target the imp blast it then consecrate the melee as they attack your group. Activate your holy shield by the time this is done the imp is dead. Re target onto the melees, judge then blast with your guys.
So in an imp group the priority is imp, cloth then melee.

Melee

The standard melee mobs in BF don’t do anything really special some have a knock back which is annoying but if they’re not coupled with engineers they’re nothing to worry about.

Engineers

Engineers are probably the main cause of wipes in BF for pugs in my experience. However this is because some groups go in melee heavy and the healer gets overwhelmed.

Here’s my tactic for them and it works. I will use the same tactic in heroics.

Move forward with the entire group until you’re just in range of your pull. Slap down fire resist totems, Heal stream and anything else you like your tank to have. Then move your shamans back. Your pally will be alone in a bunch of totems at max range from the engineers. Your shamans will be at range from your pally. This set up is designed so only your pally will ever get damaged by the engineers. Once this is sorted everything’s fine.

Now the thing is with engineers they have been designed to cause maximum mayhem to a warrior charge and melee. Pull the group with your pally and you will see they immediately drop a bunch of mines. Thank god you’re not a warrior lol. They will start throwing grenades at you, resist the temptation to heal too quickly remember a resto shaman can whack a quick 2.5k - 3k heal on you at this point so you can lose a fair bit and have it all back likety split. If you start healing like crazy you may heal aggro the engineers onto your shaman group which would suck big time.

On your pally start aggroing them. At this point begin some big spam heals on your pally and start to dps. The pally is excellent for allowing early dps so don’t be nervous about early nuking. This is the pallys main strength over a warrior in 5 mans. Pallys don’t have as much health but that’s because groups are allowed to dps mobs down a lot quicker than they are with a warrior. When a mine drops just manoeuvre away from it, you don’t have to go very far just a little bit away from it.

Engineers dead, pally scorched, shamans untouched. The engineers are no harder than that. If I had a 5 shaman set up here I would probably wipe quite a lot.

The First Boss

The first boss in BF is a melee type and isn’t too tough. Tank n spank. Spam heals and nuke. You really shouldn’t have a problem with it. IMOP the first boss in Ramparts is tougher. The only nasty move this boss will do is MC one of your guys.

If you are having a problem it will be because you’re leaving too much time between the start of the fight and dpsing or you are being too conservative with the heals. There is absolutely nothing wrong in most situations to spam heal with your resto. This isn’t raiding so bosses and Mobs go down quick so mana isn’t an issue. Spam healing is good in this fight as well in case your healer gets MCed so the tank isn’t left needed major healing when your resto is out of action. Pallys gain so much threat that heal aggro really isn’t an issue so don’t worry it.

The Tunnel

The tunnel before the second boss with machines in can be a pain if you set up in a traditional manner. That is with the pally up front and your shamans behind you. This is not a good set up because the melee do a knock back. They will knock your tank back into the shaman group then the engineers will follow the tank in and kill your group so fast with mines you will wonder what the hell happened.

The best set up here for when there’s engineers in a tunnel group is to position all your shammys sideways in the tunnel and put your pally next to them.

If your shammy team is represented as an I and your pally as an X the positioning would be:

X I

The reason for this is the nasty knock back. Positioning in this way will allow your shamans to stay out of the aoe grenades and mines and do their stuff uninterrupted whacking the mobs from the sides.

The first pull is best to pull out of the tunnel and into the big room though as there’s a pat and also an assassin to the left hand side.

Whenever you’re pulling a group with engineers in this tunnel use the XI formation. If there’s no engineers a traditional positioning is fine. Again summoners are in here so kill them quick.

Work your way down the tunnel. If there’s a melee and cloth group mix tank the melee with the pally using consecrate and block while dpsing the cloth who are usually summoners. The cloth are the danger here.

Ok you’re at the end of the tunnel you’ve cleared it but wait there’s an assassin close to the wall. Aggro it and kill it, this assassin will join in an attack from your first pull and can be bad.

2nd Boss Room First Pull

The first pull from the main room into the corridor is probably the most dangerous pull you have done so far. This first pull wipes pugs like nothing else. This pull is the static group straight ahead in the room. I leave the pats until after this group is down.

The reason for it being so bad is on the pull the summoner doesn’t follow the tank into the corridor even if you do an LOS pull. The summoner will move into the small alcove leading into the corridor and summon some nasties. These will attack your group silencing your healer and from there it gets worse as the engineers will be wreaking havoc. Most tanks even good ones will attempt the LOS pull and be waiting at the side, he will get attacked by the engineers but the summoners pets will be attacking your group silencing your casters and its wipe time.

Position your shaman group with their backs to the wall facing the room with the pally at range ahead of your shaman group in a bunch of totems. The trick here is not to be clever but play to your strength. That strength is a wall of dps. Tank the engineer’s aoe style and spam heal your pally. DPS the Summoner ASAP and kill off any summons then move onto the engineers. There will be no knock back here as there’s no melee. If you wanted to be clever you could use a silence shock on a round robin for the summoners but I haven’t tried that yet.

The Orc Room

Clear out the room pulling the pats first out of the main room into the tunnel. Move into the room and clear it out. When confronting engineers just use the engineer tactic described earlier. Always kill those summoners first and quickly.

Ok now you’re onto the caged orcs which gives some people a really hard time as they’re messing around with totems, kiting and being clever. You don’t have to be because you have super pally in your group.




Things to Consider

The first thing to keep in mind is that you are going to run out of mana if you don’t compensate for this. If you take no mana precautions then by mid fight in the last orc group your healer will probably be oom. Make sure each of your guys has mana pots.

The second thing to keep in mind is that as soon as you pull the lever the event starts so don’t pull it until you are completely ready and buffed up.

OMG Im Oom. The third thing to keep in mind is that there are four groups and on the last mob standing on the 4th group you will be taking a quick look at your mana. You are going to do this because if you have a tiny bit of mana left on your dps, your pally or your healer you are going to kite the last mob and regen your mana pool. With this in mind for this fight I create a round robin for my ice shock to slow the last orc down. You can also set one up for your binding totems if you don’t have one already set up. However, if you just didn’t over heal like a lunatic and got 5k more aggro than you needed your mana shouldn’t be too bad.

Positioning

Ok you’re prepared for the fight. I personally position my dps and resto with their backs to the lever. The reason for this is that whatever orc group releases my dps group will always be facing them so no re positioning is needed.

Totems to use will be mana stream and whatever else you think you need. However, remember that it’s a mana fight as much as anything so don’t go crazy. Rely on your tank to tank, your dps to dps and your healer to heal lol. Anything extra here is consuming mana and you don’t want that.

Ok pull the lever. Don’t panic, take a breath and chill because what you’re about to do is ez mode. The first of four cages will open and out charges 4 angry orcs all melee types with a knock back. They are elites but I found they don’t have tons of health which is nice. They run at your group. Ok here’s where the pally just pwns. Get your pally to meet the group, they will be charging towards your shamans most probably, then just throw down a consecrate. Every single orc will now be hitting on you. Hey but you’re a tank so that’s exactly what you want. Aggro dps and heal. First set of orcs dead. Its really as easy as that.

Ok the second group is released –do NOT heal with your resto as they run towards you- the pally if it’s really needed should bandage. If you heal as the orcs run out of the cage you will generate heal aggro and make it tougher on the tank. You can always heal with your pally heals as they run out of the cage if your mana is fine as well generating some extra aggro for your tank at the same time.

Ok just carry on doing this renewing your mana stream totems as you go or any other mana generating totems you have.

The last group attacks just deal with it like normal. However, as said earlier keep in mind the last orc and your mana. If your manas ok or just needs a pot to top it up then go for it and kill the last orc. If you have blown everything you have and are standing there nearly oom on everyone or even just your healer or pally then kite the last mob and re gen mana. If you took your first mana pot early enough you may even get your CD back up and mana pot it. As a general tip on mana pots never take a pot when you’re nearly out of mana. If a pot gives you back 1k mana and you know it’s a fight where you’re going to use mana pots then chug a pot after you have depleted 1k mana. This way more times than not you will have a second mana pot available to use before a fight has ended. (big mistake for newb raiders that one) but it applies just as well to long fights like this one.

Ok killing the last mob will release the doors and Boss 2 will come out. There is no safe place in the room. In the early days there was a spot at the back of the room you could run to and drink without the boss aggroing but it doesn’t exist any more so forget it.

Remember your positioning. You want your shamans behind you here at a distance so if they’re still at the lever gather them up run off and then quickly set them up. Pally tank the boss.

2nd Boss

The second boss is a lot tougher than the first and has some nasty abilities. Your tank will take some big damage if you are not aware of the poison pool at the bottom of the boss. Manoeuvre away from it whenever you can.

Other than that its straight forward, your tank will need some big heals but if your mana is ok it should be fine, the fight is designed that you go into it with a depleted mana pool from fighting the orcs as long as you make sure this isn’t the case you shouldn’t have a problem.

Again avoid the poison pool below the boss and finish him off.

This boss in Pugs after its dead is an excellent noob indicator. The noob will run to the boss as soon as its dead (usually a dps cloth) intent on looting it and die in like 1 second. Hilarious.

On the way to the third boss there’s nothing that’s difficult except two potentially tricky parts.



The Imp Room

The imps as you have experienced have no health but hurt like hell. There’s a couple of ways to take out the imp room. Firstly use every dps you have, the idea here is to destroy the imps asap.

One method is to all run in, spam drop grounding totems, have fire resist aura on your pally and fire resist totems and blast the hell out of everything while mass healing leaving the cloth guy until last. This can work quite nicely. Its not really a hard room so I’m sure you will be fine. You can position by the door aggro with the pally mass drop grounding totems, spam heal and kill off the imps. Just take care of the imps as quick as you can really.

The sloping corridor

There are big demons here that hit very hard and charge. For anyone that’s done Gruuls trash it’s a similar tactic here. Just hug the tank, don’t even break follow. If you’re not far enough away from the mob then the mob can’t charge. Spam heal some big heals here as your tank will be getting hurt. I also think there’s maybe a cleave going on here so heal that out too.

3rd Boss

The guys surrounding the boss here will attack then when they are all dead the boss will attack. Grounding totems ftw. Kill them off they’re not much of a challenge.

The last boss here has 1 ability which hurts like hell. He will say some rubbish which I never remember like—Run Away—or something. Just do exactly as the Noob says and run away when he says this to avoid a nasty AOE. Position your shamans by the door way and tank the boss away from the group. As your tank is running away watch your threat meter and stop dpsing if you have to. You don’t want your shamans to aggro and when your tank is running away you aren’t aggroing very much. Just repeat this until the boss is dead.

Nice read. Here's how I did this instance with 5 shamans:

For almost every group / boss:
- Deploy all totem before every attack (healing, mana, crit, grounding, etc) and redeploy them when needed (grounding)
- Stand at max range
- Target these enemies first: engineers, guards wielding 2-handed weapons and fel guards (use shocks when they're available and the enemy is in range to finish them off quickly)

Only Three fights in the instance require additional tactics:

The 3 engineer group
- Switch on 100% crit + racial + trinkets and drop them as fast as possible

The waves of fell orcs
- Deploy Stoneclaw totems at the start of every wave (if they're on cooldown wait with killing the last mob until they're available again)
- Kill the enraged orcs first (use shocks to kill them as fast as possible)
- Redeploy all your totems halfway through the fight, because they will expire
- If you're low on mana, just leave the last mob of a wave alive and use your watershield to regenerate mana

The last boss
- Make sure you redeploy the grounding totems before you kill the last of the caster group
- Dps him down before he does his aoe attack (risky, because he usually does this at his last percent of health anyway)

With decent gear you'll only need one or two mana breaks during this instance (should be possible to do it without any breaks, but I like to have full mana before I go into boss fights).