Quick Tips: Hodir
On saturday we got as far as to Hodir, and on the last attempt finally downed Mr. “thrust-polish-and-blow-my-stuff”. Or, rather, freed him from Yoggi’s influence. He was gone before we got a screenshot. And then the chest despawned before we got a screenshot. So what we have is a screenshot in front of a white snow wall. Uhm, I digress. Here’s how to learn the Hodir-fight and kill him on the first night in.
The fight has one primary aspect: Total chaos. There are lots of abilities and things, there’s a lot of movement and a hell lot of damage flying around, and everything is blue and white. Imagine Kel’Thuzad on crack. Prepare for some wipes until people know which ability looks like what, but look forward to significant improvement from try to try.
It’s a learning curve to be conquered and here I share in which order you should tackle the fight’s aspects to improve from try to try:
- Biting Cold
- Frozen Blows
- Flash Freeze
- Freeze (technically a Frost Nova)
- NPC(s)
- Buffs
- Icicles
- Maxing it out
Basics
On 10-man, one tank is all you need. We had our DK tank him in max frost resistance gear, and brought 3 healers. The damage in this fight really isn’t that bad after you have figured out the two most important abilities and Hodir’s physical damage is not that high. Max frost resistance and crit immunity will do fine. Bring an extra DD instead of a back-up tank, you’ll need all the damage you can get.
Biting Cold
I think everyone knows the Keristrasza-fight. The same aura is active here. Just keep moving or jumping and you’re fine. Another solution is to keep close to a fire to get it’s buff, but let’s look into that later, for there’s more important stuff to learn first. For now: Jump or move.
Frozen Blows
When he has that 20-second buff he’ll do almost exclusively frost damage. If your tank is max frost resistance you’ll not see a significant increase to his regular physical damage phase. What, however, your healers should be aware of is the massive 2k dps DoT, which ticks for 4k every 2 seconds. That stuff is pretty much the same as Maly’s vortex and simply has to be healed through.
Flash Freeze
His deadliest ability, and the one every raid member must be aware of at any time, is flash freeze. When Hodir starts to channel that spell (~10 seconds cast time) two large round runes will show up on the ground. After a couple seconds, a huge iceblock will crash down in each of those runes which then leaves snow on the ground in the exact same area that the rune covered. The iceblocks not only deal significant damage (10k+), but also have a ~20 yard knockback. When he’s finished channeling Flash Freeze everyone not standing on the snow gets frozen in an 40k health ice block and can’t do nothing at all. This is also true for the assisting NPCs.
Here’s what you do when he starts channeling:
- Everyone (including the tank) get close to one of the big circles, but don’t step in
- Wait until the ice blocks have dropped
- After the ice blocks have dropped you still have about 2-4 seconds left to get onto the snow; You will want to do that
- After he cast flash freeze free everyone from iceblocks in this order: Dispellers, mage NPC, healers, DDs, NPCs
- Only if everyone is freed from their ice blocks should you get at Hodir again
Freeze
Every once in a while (seemed pretty irregular to us) he casts freeze, which is essentially a 10 yard frost nova. Combine that with biting cold and you’re getting some serious damage. What’s even worse is if he casts Freeze and immediately follows up with Flash Freeze, therefore the immobilizing effect of Freeze needs to be dispelled as soon as possible. Movement is key to this fight, so don’t let your people get stuck.
The NPC(s)
There are four NPCs which all give buffs and assist in damage output as well, however there’s one in particular that you should take some extra care of: The mage. He provides the bonfire-buff, which protects you from biting cold at least (we’re not sure about Freeze yet) and will free any flash-freezed people really fast. Therefore you should free him as soon as possible if he gets flash frozen, he’ll assist you big time. We even had a healer keep an extra eye on him. The other NPCs are nice and all, but you can do without them.
Buffs
Now that we’re done with the problem of incoming damage, it’s time to focus on outgoing. Nine minutes isn’t forever, especially in a fight that requires that much movement. Two of the other NPCs offer extra buffs. Starlight is a light-beam, standing in there will give an extra 100% haste. Casters and ranged should always try to have the starlight buff active. Storm Cloud is a buff on one player, and it will increase critical strike damage by 135% for up to four nearby players. So if one of your fellows starts to spread lightning don’t be afraid, everything that’s not ice is good in here. Get close, do sweet crits.
Icicles
Just like the huge runes for Flash Freeze, there are small circlic runes. If you see one of those, get out. An iceblock will crash down soon, inflicting serious frost damage and knocking you back. Those can also happen when Flash Freeze and the two big runes are in the works, and you might get knocked far away from those save snow-zones, so extra attention is a good idea.
Maxing it out
After the first couple tries everyone should be familiar with the various abilites and chaos should start turning into predictable, fast-paced raiding fun. Now is the time to max things out. If a melee gets storm cloud in a group with 4 ranged dds, obviously he wants to move towards those and leave the boss alone instead. That being said, ranged and casters should try to stand close, yet not too close in case an icicle drops in the midst of them.
The perfect positioning would be for the majority of the raid standing in the middle of the room, while the tank moves Hodir around them in a solid 10+ yards distance (Freeze, you remember?). From that middle try to catch as many starlight and stormcloud buffs as you can get. Use Bloodlust/Heroism only after a Flash Freeze when everyone’s freed. If you can time it with a storm cloud buff raid damage will skyrocket.
Short summary
Quick tips the title was, so let’s get them out quick. Learn to deal with Flash Freeze first of all and make your healers aware of Frozen Blows. Then get your dispellers up and running on Freeze. If those incoming damage-thingies are taken care of, the mage NPC is the next thing you will want to get familiar with. As you’re cool enough (see what I did there?) to handle all that stuff it’s time to catch some buffs, and on the way home might as well dodge the occasional icicle. If icicles are what you’re working on, might as well start to max out stuff.
Enjoy Hodir, this is a kill that just feels great to earn. Good luck, and have fun!