Raid Setup
Introduction
Volcoross, the Fire-Spitting Cobra emerges from the depths of Firelands, poised to make a spine-tingling appearance in an upcoming episode of Chandler's Wildlife this Halloween (we made that up). The only question that lingers like a shadow, which you should totally dodge if you see one, is whether it will sprout legs when confronted on the Mythic difficulty! Our Heroic Volcoross guide will help you defeat this boss in no time!
Fight Style: Single Target
Recommended Setup: 2 Tanks / 4 Healers / 14 DPS
Hero/Lust usage: On Pull
Mechanics
Sends out an unavoidable beam towards every player, inflicting a medium amount of damage every 0.5 seconds for 5 seconds. Several players will also get affected by Coiling Flames.
Several players gain a circle that inflicts low damage to anyone standing in them, but ramps up the smaller the circle gets. It takes 10 seconds for the circle to vanish, and afterwards it will jump to another target.
At 100 energy, Volcoross submerges into the magma and sends out 2 massive globs of lava that need to be soaked by the entire raid, to split the damage. If it fails to hit at least 4 players, it will instead inflict high damage to the entire raid and cover the entire area with hellboil.
Magma on the ground that inflicts a medium amount of damage to anyone standing in it. Triggers enrage if it covers the entire arena.
A large shadow will appear on one section of the area, mostly where there are several players standing. After a few seconds, the boss will crash his tail into that area, and deal lethal damage to anyone getting hit by it.
Additionally, it sends out several magma blobs that need to be dodged, as they deal a high amount of damage.
This is a Tank DoT that increases damage taken from Cataclysm Jaws by 50%.
Tanks should swap when you gain the second stack.
This mechanic is a simple tank nuke that deals massive physical damage and medium levels of fire damage to the current tank.
If the entire area is consumed by hellboil (covered in magma), then the boss will trigger his enrage ability, which ramps up every 0.5 seconds and will wipe the raid very fast.
Strategy
Heroic Volcoross currently involves one tactical mechanic, other than the standard dodge and spread.
Split your entire raid into 2 equal groups. This is because you need to soak Flood of the Firelands, which later into the fight includes one soak on the opposite side of the room, so you will need to spread out.
Flood of the Firelands (1st)
At 100 energy Volcoross will submerge and you will get 2 circles to soak, close to where the entire raid is standing. Simply have your Group 1 and Group 2 soak their assigned circle and use some defensives.
After you have soaked, each group should run to their assigned side, since the soak area will now be covered with magma.
Flood of the Firelands (2nd)
This is the second time the boss reaches 100 energy, now you will have both soaks far away from each other because of the lava covering the previous soak zone.
Flood of the Firelands (3rd)
This is supposed to work as the enrage soak. Once you finish this soak, the entire map will be covered in magma and Serpent’s Wrath will be triggered.
If you have reached this point, you still have to soak the 2 massive circles, but after that it's just you either kill the boss or the raid won’t survive much longer.
Apart from this, every other ability simply involves dodging stuff or not getting clipped by circles. Notably, standing in the shadows (Scorchtail Crash) will kill you, so make sure to dodge that one at all cost.
Healers should always keep an eye out for the Serpent’s Fury cast, it deals heavy damage to the entire raid for 5 seconds, and adds the circles.
Keep in mind that even though Heroic Volcoross has a very limited amount of abilities, with proper tuning, such as having the boss cast his normal abilities more frequently, tighter health pool, and overall more damage done to the raid, this can turn into a very early DPS and Healing check.
