Rukhmar Detailed Strategy Guide

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. Enrage Timer
  • 1.2. Loot
• 2. Spawn Patterns
• 3. Overview of the Fight
• 4. Abilities
• 5. Strategy
• 6. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• 7. Corpse Running/Avoiding Wipes
• 8. Learning the Fight
• 9. Concluding Remarks

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Rukhmar in Draenor. It is targeted at anyone who desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

Rukhmar is a world boss in Draenor. This is the most complex world boss encounter of the expansion, requiring your raid to deal with a multitude of abilities, as well as with constant raid damage. Your raid members' ability to kite adds is also important.

We do not know if Rukhmar has a hard enrage timer, and there do not appear to be any soft enrage mechanics present in the encounter. That said, given the fact that there is constant raid-wide damage throughout the fight, it is possible that healers will eventually run out of mana if the fight goes on for too long.

To be added.

Rukhmar spawns in the north-western part of the Spires of Arak. Specifically, you can find her exactly west of the Skyreach mountain. While she is a flying mob, when engaged (from one of the cliffs near which she flies), she lands and engages your raid.

We are unsure of what the respawn timer of this boss is, but it most likely follows other world bosses in having a longer timer.

It is also worth mentioning that the tagging system for world bosses is faction-wide. That is to say, as long as the boss is engaged by someone on your faction, all other members of your faction are eligible for loot if they engage the boss, regardless of whether or not they are grouped together.

The fight against Rukhmar revolves mostly around properly dealing with the Phoenix adds that spawn throughout the fight. These adds fixate on raid members, and explode when they reach their target. When they are killed (or after exploding), they turn into Piles of Ash that can be reignited throughout the fight by certain mechanics, which in turn resurrects the Phoenixes. Your raid will need to minimise the number of such occurrences.

Aside from this, your raid will have to contend with the damage that Rukhmar deals, as well as with avoiding certain abilities.

In addition to the summoning of adds, which is a central part of the fight, and which we discuss in the second part of this section, Rukhmar has a few abilities that she uses against your raid.

• Sharp Beak is an ability that Rukhmar uses against her tank. This deals a high amount of damage, and applies a stack of the Pierced Armor debuff, which increases the damage of subsequent Sharp Beak attacks. This ability (and the debuff) require a tank switch.
• Solar Breath is a frontal cone breath attack that Rukhmar uses. It deals a very high amount of Fire damage.
• Loose Quills is an ability that Rukhmar uses regularly. She flies up into the air, and damages random raid members and any allies within 8 yards of them for a very high amount of Fire damage.
• Solar Radiation is an ability that Rukhmar uses every 15 seconds throughout the entire duration of the fight. It deals a very high amount of raid-wide Fire damage.

In addition to these abilities, whenever Rukhmar loses a certain amount of health (we are unsure exactly how much), she casts Blood Feather. Feathers fall from her, at the locations of random raid members, dealing extremely high Fire damage in a 5-yard radius, and spawning a Fixated Phoenix add. As the name implies, this Phoenix fixates on a random raid member, and chases them. If the Phoenix reaches its target, or if it is killed before it can do so, it explodes, dealing a high amount of damage in a small radius, and turning into a Pile of Ash. These Fixated Phoenixes cannot be tanked.

Piles of Ash do not do anything, and normally remain inactive for the entire fight. However, if a feather from Blood Feather explodes at the location of a Pile of Ash, or if a Fixated Phoenix explodes near one, the Pile of Ash will become active, and it will turn into a Fixated Phoenix that will choose a new target and chase them around all over again.

Your raid should be spread out in a semi-circle around Rukhmar (in such a way that no one except her tank is located in front of her). We will summarise the strategy before going into more details.

• Tanks will have to regularly perform a tank switch in order to deal with Sharp Beak, and the Pierced Armor debuff that it applies. They will also have to have defensive cooldowns available for Solar Breath, since it cannot be avoided.
• Healers will have to keep the raid alive through the regular damage caused by Solar Radiation and Loose Quills, as well as keeping tanks alive through Solar Breath.
• DPS players will have to kill any Fixated Phoenixes, making sure that these do not die when they are too close to Piles of Ash.
• All players will have to avoid damage from Blood Feather, spread out when Loose Quills is cast to minimise damage, as well as making sure not to be caught if they are fixated upon by a Phoenix.

Regarding tanking, it goes without saying that the tank that is not currently tanking Rukhmar should not be in front of her when Solar Breath is being cast.

Throughout the fight, all raid members will have to be very mindful of their positioning. No one should ever be standing on top of a Pile of Ash, because this could easily be ignited if the player is targeted by Blood Feather. In any case, whenever players are targeted by Blood Feathers, they will have to move away immediately to avoid being damaged by the feather's explosion.

When Rukhmar flies into the air in preparation for Loose Quills, players will have to spread out 8 yards or more apart, so that no the raid does not take any unnecessary damage.

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp at the start of the fight, when all players have their DPS cooldowns available.

Because the fight does not take place in an instanced environment, it is possible for dead raid members to release spirit and run back to the place where they died and resurrect. This is a good way for your raid to replenish its numbers. Keep in mind the following things:

• After 2 resurrections in quick succession, you will have to wait for 2 minutes before you can resurrect again.
• When you resurrect, you come back with 50% of your maximum health. It is best that healers are prepared ahead of time to heal you.
• It is best to group up (in ghost form) and resurrect at the same time, rather than each one individually. This gives you a better chance to recover.

If a large portion of your raid dies, remaining raid members should attempt to delay a wipe for as long as possible, to give the dead raid members a chance to run back.

Aside from the various gear checks imposed by the fight (most notably in the form of the high raid-wide and tank damage), the key to defeating the boss is being able to efficiently handle the Phoenixes, namely making sure not to reignite any Pillars of Ash. This is something that might take a few attempts to master (or, given the fact that anyone at all can participate in the attempts on the boss, a few weeks for players to become accustomed to the ability).

This concludes our raid guide for Rukhmar. We hope you have found it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have on our forums.