Kurog Grimtotem Raid Guide in Vault of the Incarnates

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• Kurog will gain abilities based on the altar you bring him to. Never have Kurog in the middle of the room.
• Visit two different altars each time you are in phase 1.
• Fire Altar: Dodge fire pools that spawn on players.
• Fire Altar: Players with Searing Carnage need to run away.
• Frost Altar: Soak Absolute Zero as two groups. Melee and Ranged.
• Heroic Only. Frost Altar: Dodge the frost projectiles from the boss.
• Earth Altar: Dodge the Erupting Bedrock pattern. The pattern always starts on the boss and ripples out.
• Earth Altar: Kill the Earth Breakers that spawn from Seismic Rupture as a priority.
• Storm Altar: Have at least one player in each Thunder Strike zone.
• Storm Altar: Spread with Shocking Burst.
• Heroic Only. Storm Altar: Players with Lightning Crash will deal damage to their closest ally. Ensure you are not hit too many times in a row.
• Tanks: Kurog will use Sundering Strike on any altar. This is a frontal cone and knocks you back. Swap on each cast.

• Two elementals will spawn, and the boss will become immune. Kill the elementals to get back to phase 1!
• Fire Elemental: Drops lava pools regularly. Avoid these.
• Heroic Only. Fire Elemental: The lava pools will spawn an add. Interrupt and kill the add.
• Frost Elemental: Interrupt Frost Binds.
• Frost Elemental: Move onto it when Freezing Tempest is cast.
• Earth Elemental: Move away with Ground Shatter, these areas will erupt later when Violent Upheaval is cast. Avoid.
• Storm Elemental: Teleports behind a random player and channels Lethal Current on them. This player should move away as it deals damage around them.

• After two cycles of phases 1 and 2, phase 3 begins.
• Kurog gains the abilities from all 4 altars. Finish the fight!

In this phase, you will be fighting against Kurog. He will empower himself based on the closest altar and gain abilities from it. You should aim to bring Kurog to two altars each time in this phase and visit each altar once.

We will detail below what happens on each altar.

• When Kurog is near an altar, he will gain abilities from it and a stacking aura that pulses damage from that element onto the raid. The damage from this aura increases each time it deals damage. Aim to avoid being in any single area for an entire phase, as the damage can be overwhelming.
• If Kurog is in the middle of the room (not near any altar), he will gain a stack of every element type and deal a large amount of damage to the raid every 0.5 seconds.
• Tanks: Kurog will use Sundering Strike on any altar. This is a frontal cone and knocks any player hit away. This will also apply a DoT to players hit. Swap at 1 stack and be ready to taunt quickly, as you do not want Kurog to chase the tank to another altar accidentally!

Heroic changes:

When Kurog enters an area near an altar Primal Shift will be cast, which deals a large burst of damage. This also applies Primal Break to the raid, which prevents you from moving to another altar quickly after entering one.

• There are many things to avoid on this altar, and they all come in the form of fire pools on the ground.
• Magma Burst will target several players and leave fire swirls on the ground at their locations.
• Searing Carnage applies a debuff to several players, and they will drop fire on their current location. These players will need to run away with it.

Searing Carnage and the raid dodging it

Heroic changes:

• Molten Rupture will create patterns of fire swirls around Kurog. Move out of the swirls to avoid damage taken, and be ready to move quite a bit!

Mythic changes:

• When Kurog enters the fire altar area, he will summon a Flamewrought Eradicator add. This add is your top priority to kill!
• It will cast Flame Smite on the tank, which is a conal attack and spawns fire swirls on the ground that you need to dodge.
• It will also ignite the Magma Pools in the room, turning them into a bomb you must soak. Failing to soak these will spawn a Smouldering Hellion add.
• The Smouldering Hellions act the same as the adds that spawn from the Fire Intermission and attempt to cast Flame Bolt on players. Interrupt these if they spawn.

• Healers: Biting Chill will deal damage to the entire raid every second for 10 seconds. This is in addition to his aura, be prepared for this with some form of throughput cooldown when Kurog has higher stacks.
• Absolute Zero will target two players and deal a lethal amount of damage which can be split with other players. Similarly to Meteor Axes on The Primal Council this will need to be managed as two groups. Melee and Ranged.

Absolute Zero and the raid splitting it

• You cannot soak both Absolute Zero circles together as this will cause players hit to be Frozen Solid (this cannot be immuned).

Heroic changes:

• Frigid Torrent will create frost orbs around Kurog. Standing in them or being hit by them will make the player take a large amount of frost damage and stun them (this can be dispelled). There will be 3 waves of projectiles to avoid in total.
• Please note: the below clip is from Mythic testing; you will not have this add or the ring around the player on heroic.

Frigid Torrent and players dodging it (Clip is from Mythic testing)

Mythic changes:

• When Kurog enters the frost altar area, he will summon a Frostwrought Dominator add. This add is your top priority to kill!
• It will cast Frost Smite on the tank, which is a conal attack and slows targets hit by 75%.
• All players in the aid must stay within 10 yards of at least one other player. When you are not in range of another player, a circle will spawn around your character. Get in range of another player to prevent being Frozen Solid.
• If you become Frozen Solid, you will need a lot of healing for 10 seconds to survive.
• The Frostwrought Dominator also casts Frigid Torrent, which can happen simultaneously as Kurog is casting it! Work on dodging these to prevent dying.

• Erupting Bedrock will create a rippling pattern from Kurog. The pattern always starts on the boss and ripples out. This is also the same pattern (and texture) used on the boss Khajin in the Halls of Infusion dungeon.

Erupting Bedrock pattern example video

• When Seismic Rupture is cast, areas of the room are marked. Move out of these as they will deal a large amount of damage and then spawn Earth Breakers (the amount that spawns is based on your raid size).

Seismic Rupture example video

• The Earth Breakers deal pulsing damage to the raid and apply a damage taken debuff to anyone they directly hit. Focus them as a DPS priority.

Heroic changes:

• Healers: Enveloping Earth is applied to up to 3 players and will apply a large healing absorb to them and deal damage. Focus on healing these players as quickly as possible.

Mythic changes:

• When Kurog enters the earth altar area, he will summon an Earthwrought Smasher add. This add is your top priority to kill!
• It will cast Earth Smite on the tank, which is a conal attack and applies a large healing absorb to any player hit.
• The Earthwrought Smasher also casts Erupting Bedrock which can happen at the same time as Kurog casting it! Work on dodging these to prevent dying.

• Players with Shocking Burst will need to move away from the raid before they explode.
• Thunder Strike will create soak zones in the room. These are highlighted very brightly if no players are in them. If at least one player is in them, they will deal a moderate amount of nature damage to them (this damage is not split). If no players are standing in a zone, it will deal a huge amount of damage to the entire raid! Ensure at least one player is standing inside each zone.
• The number of zones spawns is based on your raid size.

Thunder Strike and players moving to soak it

• Players with Lightning Crash act as a lightning rod; they will strike whatever player is closest to them. Each time a player is hit, they will have a debuff which increases their nature damage taken. It is important for these players not to hit each other and for players not marked to be ready to step in and soak some of the damage to prevent others from dying.

• When Kurog enters the storm altar area, he will summon a Stormwrought Despoiler add. This add is your top priority to kill!
• It will cast Storm Smite on the tank, which is a conal attack, and applies an electrified circle around players hit, which explodes after 5 seconds. Make sure you avoid accidentally hitting melee with this.
• It will also cast Orb Lightning, which shoots orbs across the room. If a player does not soak this, you will hit the entire raid with a near-lethal amount of damage.
• If a player soaks this, they will be knocked back and have a DoT applied to them for the rest of the fight.

When Kurog reaches 100 Energy, he will gain Primal Barrier and take 99% less damage. Primal Barrier can only be removed by killing the two elementals he spawns.

• The two elementals he spawns are based on the stacks he gained in phase 1. However, every elemental will only spawn once. If he was only in one altar, a random element will be chosen.
• Frost and Storm are by far the most annoying to deal with, as they require you to stack and spread. You do not want to have them simultaneously. Ensure your phase 1 pathing allows this.
• Fire Elemental: Every 10 seconds Magma Flow will be cast which drops lava pools at random locations. Standing in these will deal a large amount of damage. Move away!
• Frost Elemental: This elemental will be a priority to kill when it is active.
• Frost Elemental: Frost Binds will apply a stacking DoT on the raid every time it is cast. This spell can be interrupted and should be a priority.
• Frost Elemental: When Freezing Tempest is casting the elemental will have a ring around it. If you are outside of the ring when the spell is cast you will take a lethal amount of frost damage. Move inside of the ring to mitigate this damage.
• Tanks. Earth Elemental: This elemental gains Breaking Gravel stacks each time it attacks. Taunt swap as and when needed.
• Earth Elemental: Players in the raid will have Ground Shatter cast on them. They should move away from others not to spread damage and return when their debuff expires.

Part 1. Ground Shatter. Spread out with these

• The Earth Elemental will cast Violent Upheaval at a later point in the phase which causes all of the locations that Ground Shatter ended on to erupt dealing lethal amounts of damage to players inside the areas.

Part 2. Violent Upheaval. Locations where Ground Shatter are now exploding with Violent Upheaval

• Storm Elemental: This elemental is pretty easy to manage as all it does is teleport to a healer with Storm Break and channels Lethal Current on the closest target after it teleports. Lethal Current deals a large amount of damage to that player and any player near them. Spot heal this person and have them move away from the add so that melee DPS can safely attack.

Storm Break teleports the elemental behind a player and starts channeling Lethal Current

Heroic changes:

• Fire Elemental: These lava pools will now Smouldering Hellion adds. These will constantly cast Flame Bolt at random players and keep them interrupted to avoid unnecessary damage.

Mythic changes:

• Fire Elemental: Now casts Searing Carnage requiring random players to run away from the fire swirls they are spawning. These players should aim to drop these in the center of the room as you do not intend to use that area of the room in Phase 1.
• Frost Elemental: Now casts Absolute Zero requiring you to soak this in two groups as you did in Phase 1.
• Earth Elemental: Now casts Seismic Rupture requiring you do avoid the zones on the ground and kill the adds it spawns. Cleave these down when they spawn.
• Storm Elemental: Now casts Thunder Strike requiring you to soak the zones on the ground as you did in Phase 1.

• This phase will begin after you have done phase 2 twice and all of the elementals have been defeated.
• In this phase, Kurog will gain all the abilities from every altar (but not the stacking raid damage).
• Use Bloodlust/ Heroism in this phase.
• Not much more to say on this other than finish the fight!

The strategy for this encounter is very different from other difficulties as you will want to play the fight in a specific way to force the encounter to be as easy as possible.

In this Phase, you will stay at the Fire Altar for 30 stacks and move into the Storm Altar for 1 additional stack to force the first intermission to be Fire & Storm while not spawning the additional Mythic add from the Storm Altar.

The below explanation will assume the raid markers from the below image.

• On the pull, your Ranged DPS and Healers should be standing in the Blue Square area to bait the first fire puddles.
• They will then move to the Purple Diamond, Green Triangle, and Red Cross.
• When the fire pools have a Red Orb above them, they can be soaked by a player with strong defensive cooldowns, such as a Tank or a Warlock, or using an immunity. If they are not soaked, additional adds will spawn; by stacking all of the pools on a single spot with the markers, you can deal with this without losing DPS.
• The first set at Blue Square can be soaked by a Tank or Rogue.
• The second and third sets will trigger simultaneously and should be done by players with an immunity.
• The fourth set can be done with an immunity or the non-active tank (as the Mythic add should be dead at this point).
• When Searing Carnage is cast, the players who have been targeted should move right, and players without it move left. There will be some randomly placed puddles that everyone will need to avoid.
• The Mythic add will not need much direct DPS attention; cleave DPS should be sufficient to kill it, as you will be using Bloodlust, all DPS cooldowns, and potions.
• When Kurog reaches 30 stacks of the Fire buff and is at 96 energy, the tank must immediately run to the Storm Altar. This will then force Kurog to attempt to spawn another Mythic add but he will not have enough time (if you timed it correctly) to spawn it, because he was in the Altar at ~96 Energy this will make him deal a tick of Lightning damage to the raid and force the Fire & Storm add to spawn in the first intermission.

Each of these adds gains a boss ability in this Phase on Mythic. For this intermission it will be Thunder Strike and Searing Carnage.

You will handle Searing Carnage the same way as you did in Phase 1 with players with the debuff moving right and players without moving left.

As mentioned previously in the guide, the Storm Add will teleport to a healer when it casts Storm Break and will channel Lethal Current on the closest target after it teleports. With this in mind, the healers should aim to always be on the edge of the center ring of the room to allow the adds to be in the range of everyone.

For Thunder Strike, we will ideally want the adds to be on the edge of the center ring to make the orientation of the below image easier to follow.

• You will need 6 assigned Ranged players to assume positions based on the locations of the adds.
• Each of those 6 players will need to stand in their Thunder Strike pools to prevent a raid wipe.

After you have dealt with Thunder Strike the rest of the intermission should just be killing the Fire Add and getting ready for Phase 2.

In this Phase, we will be in one Altar as the only remaining intermission combination is Earth & Frost.

• At the start of the Phase the tank should not move Kurog into the Earth Altar immediately. They should take 2 melee swings from Kurog in the center and then move. This will force Kurog to use Sundering Strike before summoning the add, making the rest of the Phase much easier to manage.
• The Mythic Add in this Phase will require some DPS attention. You should assign 4-5 DPS to cleave from the add onto the boss, and everyone else should cleave from the boss.
• The rest of this Phase should play fairly similarly to Heroic, with the main change being that you are in this Altar for the entire time, so the damage at the end of the Phase will become lethal if you have the healing absorb applied to you.
• When the second cast of Erupting Bedrock from Kurog comes, the tank with the Mythic add should move away to prevent the two casts from overlapping each other.

Each of these adds gains a boss ability in this Phase on Mythic. For this intermission it will be Seismic Rupture and Absolute Zero.

Your DPS focus should be to kill the Frost add first. Absolute Zero is cast in quick succession, and if a third cast happens, there will be no players to soak it and you will have deaths.

The way to handle Absolute Zero in this Phase is to have all players without an immunity not soak the first cast. This will then force the second cast to go on players with immunity, and they will solo soak their ones, you should be killing this add just after the second cast.

The flow of the Phase is very static and will happen as below:

• Both adds spawn.
• Earth add will cast Ground Shatter on 3 players nearby to it. These players simply run to the edge of the room.
• Absolute Zero 1: All non-immunity players soak these as a group of ranged and a group of melee.
• All players move inside for Freezing Tempest.
• Earth Add should be moved to the edge of Freezing Tempest and two tanks and a tanky DPS should move on top of it.
• Ground Shatter is cast on these 3 players and they will need to move out of the Freezing Tempest to drop their pools.
• Absolute Zero 2: This should go on two players with an Immunity. They should run away from the raid and use their immunity.
• Seismic Rupture pools spawn in the room and spawn adds. Group these up and cleave them down on top of the Earth Add.
• Ground Shatter happens again, players affected will run away.
• Finish off the Earth Add.

Similar to Phase 2, we want to keep Kurog in the middle for ~2 melee swings to desync the add from the boss.

This Phase will play very similarly to Heroic, however the addition of the Mythic add does introduce an extra set of Frigid Torrents to avoid. However, as the cast from the add will be offset from the boss, when the add is about to cast the tank can move this add away and run back to the raid before they get Frozen.