Ulduar Boss- Hodir

Skullbash · Officer Joined: 24 Nov 2008 Posts: 121

Hodir

Abilities:
Biting Cold: Deals increasing periodic damage to stationary enemies. Movement diminishes this effect. Effect is 100*(2^(Number of stacks of Biting Cold), with a maximum stack amount of 8 (25600 damage). It ticks every second.

Frozen Blows: Physical damage reduced by 70%, but attacks deal 40000 additional Frost damage (partially resistable). 35 sec cooldown or so.

Flash Freeze: Encases the target in a block of ice with 44k hitpoints (35k on normal.) Approximately every 30-45 seconds. Instakills all frozen targets. Long cast time.

Snowpacked Icicles Drops from the ceiling with a clear graphic. Does 12k damage and knocks back 20 yards. Leaves behind a Snowdrift. Snowdrift cancels the effects of Flash Freeze.

Freeze Inflicts Frost damage to nearby enemies, immobilizing them for up to 10 sec. 5kish damage and freezes, 10 yard range around Hodir and/or PBAoE (unsure).

NPC's
On Heroic mode there are 8 NPC's (4 on normal.)

The layout is:

Back row (towards Hodir): MoonkinA EleShmA MoonkinB PriestA MageA
Front row (towards entrance): PriestB MageB EleShmB
Note: The names below are for the horde version of the fight.

2 Moonkin- The two moonkin are Kar Greycloud and Tor Greycloud. They cast Starlight a beam of light that increases casting/attack speed by 50% in its radius (about 3-4yds).

2 Elemental Shams- The two elemental shaman are Spiritwalker Tara and Spiritwalker Yona. They cast a buff that increases the critical strike chance of up to 3 friendly targets in a chain by 100% for 15 sec and DPS some.

2 Mages-The two mages are Goesha Blazweaver and Aurora Blazeweaver. They cast Toasty Fire: Warms nearby friendly creatures, preventing the effects of Freeze and Biting Cold, and increasing Spirit by 4. Toasty fire can be extinguished by falling ice or powerful frost magic. 12 yard radius.

Basically, casters can stand by it to avoid taking the 'biting cold' debuff (which forces you to move periodically.)

Their DPS is the strongest.

2 Priests- The two priests are Battle-Priest Gina and Battle-Priest Eliza. They help dispell the freeze (frost nova) and do some DPS.

Hard Modes
If you kill him in under 3 minutes for 2 "Rare Runed Chest" loots.

If you kill him in under 6 minutes for 1 "Rare Runed Chest" loot.

Enrage is 9 mins (when he destroys the third chest.)

Group Composition

1 Tank- about 50k Hp, ideal tank is a Druid in full Polar gear, but is possible with a DK or Warrior if they can get enough Hp.
5-6 Healers- most of the damage will be directed at the MT, raid damage is entirely avoidable if players operate properly.
18-19 Dps- good balance of ranged and melee is preferred, also an OT if you feel your MT may struggle.

The Fight

Engage

Hodir pre-engage It's vitally important to not attack any frozen NPC's before Hodir is engaged, or they despawn.

(note: are there other ways to despawn them? We had some issues)

Hodir has a very small aggro range, so it's easy to wipe recover.

Your tank should run up one of the sides to pull him to avoid hitting one of the NPC's with, say, a glyphed Maul attack.

The rest of the fight
The basics are: Avoid the snowfalls (they lead to icicles), don't get frozen, remove freeze from the NPC's, dps Hodir.

The icicles fall from the ceiling in a Gruul-like mechanic: you notice snowflakes falling (fairly obvious, although their exact area can be hard to pinpoint) and you have about 4 seconds to move out.

These icicles deal sizeable (12k) damage, and is the bulk of the raid damage. Reduce the amount of "getting hit by icicles" and you reduce the number of healers you need.

Periodically he will cast freeze, which is a frostnova: ~5k damage, hits an area, immobilizes for 10 seconds. Can (and should) be dispelled.

Flash Freeze
Flash Freeze is cast approximately once every 30-45 seconds (it has an internal cooldown of 30 seconds so can be cast that frequently.) It is a 9 second cast.

While it's casting, you need to look for those Icicles and find the ones that are, at the start of his cast, still in snowflake form. You will need to move *near* these but not *on* them. You can be very close. Look for a white cloud around them, that's the sign that those are the icicles that will form snowdrifts.

As soon as they form snowdrifts on the ground (which is right after the icicles land) you need to move onto them -- a short strafe is sufficient. This will protect you from getting frozen.

Pets *will* get frozen, so pet classes must recall pets during this period (and bloodworms shouldn't be spec'd into by DK's until this is fixed if you are using NPC's.)

The NPC's will also get frozen and, if you are using them, must be unfrozen as fast as possible.

The blocks of ice have 44khp on Heroic mode, 35k on Normal mode.

Rare Runed Chests
Every three minutes Hodir will destroy one, which presumably contains extra loot. The third one is his berserk timer and he will enrage then (9 minutes.)

Protect the NPC's
You need to decide at the start if you will bother with the NPC's or not.

The fight is probably doable either way, although we'll have to wait for the exact tuning on live to know for sure.

Note that they are currently healable.

If you do then it's vitally important to free them immediately after Flash Freeze. This primarily because you want their buffs and abilities, but also because if you do not, they will be killed when he casts Flash Freeze again 45 seconds later (it insta-kills anything still in a block.)

Keep Hodir in range
For the casters, don't tank him where he spawns, keep him more middleish.

For the melee, either kite him in a slow circle around the middle, or have the melee clump up on the back right side, then switch to the back left when a snowfall lands on them. Or simply walk him back and forth

Minimize movement
Smart players won't run all the way across the room just to get a moonkin's buff circle shortly before a Flash Freeze is coming.

Melee shouldn't scatter to find a snowdrift unless it's absolutely necessary: given so many of them on Hodir, it's likely they can just hang out there.

Biting cold, while technically there to encourage you to move, is rarely a big deal since there's usually something to move from. Mobile DPS does very well in this fight.

*Mostly taken from Strat-Fu Guide
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