Grong, the Revenant / Grong, the Jungle Lord Strategy Guide in Battle of Dazar'alor Raid

Grong/Grong the Revenant is the second encounter in the Battle of Dazar'alor Raid.

Throughout this guide, we will refer to both names of abilities (for the Alliance and Horde versions, respectively) each time. These abilities are identical except for their names, and also for the fact that the Alliance version deals Shadow damage, while the Horde version deals Nature damage.

Horde: After volunteering to become a living super weapon, the once-intelligent Grong devolved into a giant rampaging behemoth. But though his mind may have deteriorated, Grong's strength is more immense than it has ever been.

Alliance: Once willing to sacrifice everything to serve the Alliance, the mighty Grong has been raise from the dead and pitted against his former friends. Fighting on behalf of the Horde would be anathema to this noble soul, whose only hope for release is a clean death.

The crux of this fight is managing Grong's resource bar to ensure he never reaches 100 Rage/Energy. Players need to DPS down the Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters (while keeping them interrupted) in order to spawn their respective Cores. Then, using the action button that this provides, the raid must keep Grong's Rage/Energy low (using the button depletes his Rage/Energy and causes the boss to deal raid-wide damage that is higher the more Rage/Energy he has), yet not so often that Shattered/ Death Touched (the debuff applied to the raid when the boss's ability is triggered) does not have a chance to fall off.

• Be sure to move Grong away from any Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters that are about to die, in order to ensure he is not struck by their explosion on death.
• Taunt off of your other Tank during Bestial Combo/ Necrotic Combo if they are going to take more than one Bestial Smash or Rending Bite.
• When picked up by Bestial Throw, you are still able to use your abilities, so be sure to use active mitigation, or cooldowns if your health gets too low.

• Pay extra attention to the tanks during the Bestial Combo/ Necrotic Combo, as they will be taking heavy damage.
• If Grong's Rage/Energy gets too high, be ready to pop raid cooldowns to deal with the increased damage from Tantrum/ Death Knell.

• Kill Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters at the right times to ensure your raid is able to make good use of the Cores that drop.

• Focus interrupts on the Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters to ensure they do not get any casts off into the boss.
• On Heroic, be sure to keep an eye on the timer for Ferocious Roar and be within 5 yards of another player to avoid being feared.
• Again, on Heroic, if targeted by Bestial Impact, make sure to run out of the raid to reduce damage other raiders take from the impact.
• Melee players should aim to be as spread as they can be in order to reduce damage from Reverberating Slam/ Deathly Slam.

• Grong should be tanked near and edge of the room, and moved if there are any Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters dying within 15 yards.
• Tanks can feel free to move the boss closer to Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters so the melee have to run less; just be sure the boss is at least 15 yards away before they die.
• Ranged should group loosely near the middle of the room.

We advise you to use Bloodlust/ Heroism/ Time Warp once the boss reaches 40% to reduce the amount of time your raid has to deal with his increased resource generation.

Over the course of fight, the boss will passively gain Rage (Horde) or Undead Energy (Alliance). At 70% and 40% Health, the rate at which Grong gains these resources will increase, from roughly 0.75 Rage per second at the start to 1 Rage per second after 40%.

Tantrum/ Death Knell will cause Grong to pound the ground for moderately high Nature damage respectively, every 1 second for up to 4 seconds. The duration of Tantrum is determined by Grong's Rage/Energy, costing 25 of said resource per wave of Tantrum.

Each time Tantrum/ Death Knell deals damage, it will apply a stack of Shattered/ Death Touched. This will deal light Nature damage every 2 seconds, and increase the damage taken by Tantrum/Death Knell by 30% for 40 seconds.

Roughly every 30 seconds, Grong will unleash a powerful combo of three attacks into his active target, consisting of two different abilities. The order and composition of the combo is random and each ability takes 2.5 seconds to cast.

It is important to note that taunting Grong during his Bestial Combo/ Necrotic Combo will cause him to change target with his remaining abilities, thus allowing the combo to be split between the tanks.

Bestial Smash inflicts incredibly high Physical damage to Grong's target and applies a stack of Crushed for 2.5 seconds, which increases damage taken by Bestial Smash by 500%.

Rending Bite applies a DoT to the target, ticking for moderate Physical damage every 1 second for 10 seconds. This effect can stack.

On Heroic difficulty, Grong will end each combo with Bestial Throw, picking up his current target and dealing moderate Physical damage every second for 5 seconds. During this grab, Grong will also mark a random player, targeting them for Bestial Impact. At the end of the 5 seconds, Grong will throw the grabbed player to the location of the marked player, dealing heavy raid wide Nature damage (this is Nature damage for both the Horde and Alliance versions of the fight). This damage is reduced based on your distance from the impact zone.

Roughly every 30 seconds, Grong will cast Reverberating Slam/ Deathly Slam on a random melee player. This will deal heavy Physical damage to all players within 10 yards and will leave a Reverberating Echo/ Deathly Echo on the ground that will detonate 2 seconds later for heavy Nature damage to anyone still within it.

On Heroic difficulty, Grong will cast Ferocious Roar roughly every 20 seconds. This will deal moderate Physical damage to all players within 80 yards, and fear anyone who is not standing within 5 yards of another player for 5 seconds.

Roughly every 30 seconds a Flying Ape Wrangler / Death Specter will fire a Megatomic Seeker Missile/ Voodoo Blast at a random ranged player. This will deal moderate Fire/Shadow damage to anyone caught within 10 yards of the explosion and will leave Megatomic Fire/ Chill of Death on the ground.

Megatomic Fire/ Chill of Death is a patch of Fire/Shadow that will deal moderate damage to anyone within it every 1.5 seconds. This lasts 30 seconds.

After the first 15 seconds, and every following minute, an Apetagonizer 3000/Death Specter will spawn on an edge of the room. These mobs do not attack players, but instead spam cast Apetagonize/ Death Empowerment into Grong, increasing his Rage/Energy by 10. This cast is interruptible.

Upon death, the Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters will explode, dealing moderate Nature/Shadow damage to all players within 15 yards and knocking them back. If Grong is hit by this, he will gain 50 Rage/Energy.

Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters will also drop a Apetagonizer Core/ Necrotic Core upon death. Players can run over top of this core in order to pick it up, granting them an extra action button. Using the core on Grong will damage him for 5% of his Health and immediately trigger a Tantrum if he has enough Rage/Energy for at least one slam.

The core will last for 20 seconds once picked up, and will deal light Nature/Shadow to the player holding it.

At the start of the encounter, Grong should be brought to the edge of the room. Ranged should loosely group near the center of the room in order to keep Megatomic Fire/ Chill of Death away from the melee.

Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters that spawn must be locked down with interrupts, and killed once the boss has enough Rage/Energy to cast Tantrum/ Death Knell. The Core dropped by the adds lasts 20 seconds, so you have some wiggle room. Personals and raid cooldowns should be used if the boss is going to get off a high Rage/Energy Tantrum.

Melee should be spread as much as they can to reduce the damage they take from Reverberating Slam/ Deathly Slam. Players hit by the slam need to quickly move out so they are not struck by the following echo. Similarly, ranged should be somewhat spread in order to reduce the damage taken by Megatomic Seeker Missile/ Voodoo Blast. However, on Heroic difficulty and higher, all players need to be aware of the timer of Ferocious Roar, so they can stack up to avoid the fear.

Tanks should taunt swap during the Bestial Combo/Necrotic Combo to ensure neither is struck by multiple stacks Crushed. On Heroic Difficulty, the raid needs to be ready for the Bestial Throw, and if targeted by the Bestial Impact, they need to put distance between themselves and the rest of the raid.

Tanks need to be sure to not get multiple stacks of Crushed during the combo, and try to spread Rending Bite stacks as much as possible. Outside of that, just be sure to keep Grong away from Apetagonizer 3000s/Death Specters when they are about to die.

Damage during this fight can get a little intense if Grong is able to get off a high Rage/Energy Tantrum. If this happens be sure to communicate with the raid telling them to use personal damage reduction cooldowns or remind them to pop a Health Potion or Healthstone. Raid cooldowns should be used during Tantrums, as they are the only periods of high raid damage during the fight.

Take note of when the tank Combo is happening and be ready to pay extra attention to them, as they will be taking heavy damage.

On Mythic, Ferocious Roar is now a Horrify, instead of a Fear, meaning abilities like Tremor Totem can no longer be used to dispel it.

Apetagonizers/Death Specters will now spawn in pairs, and the cores they drop when killed will now last for 1 minute after a player picks them up, up from 20 seconds on lower difficulties.

Similar to the Champion of the Light, Grong is effectively the same fight on Mythic as it is on Heroic. The key difference though, is that with the introduction of an additional Apetagonizer, interrupt rotations because much more important. Ranged need to be prepared to get the first interrupt on the Apetagonize/ Death Empowerment while the melee make their way over.

The group needs to focus down the adds one at a time, and aim to use the Apetagonizer Core/ Necrotic Core when Grong reaches 50 energy. Ideally, you'll want to use it to break a Bestial Combo/ Necrotic Combo.

Raid damage is significantly higher on Mythic, so bringing 5 healers is recommended. In fact, if your raid is comfortable with their DPS, bringing a 6th healer can be a good way to add some safety to your pulls. Raid cooldowns should be used to counter Tantrum/ Death Knell, or to react to a poorly placed Bestial Throw.

Lastly, the Tanks can be somewhat vulnerable to certain Ferocious Roars. If the melee have left in order to kill Apetagonizers, and the other Tank has just been thrown across the room by Bestial Throw, then a mobile ranged, such as a Hunter or a Mistweaver Monk, should Disengage or Roll on top of the active Tank to prevent them from being Horrified. Holy Paladins are also a good choice, since they can just stand in melee anyway. In the same vein, players targeted by the Bestial Impact need to stay with the Tank that is thrown, and ferry them back into the group, again, in order to prevent either of them from being Horrified.