OutDPS!

Third in my series of Ulduar fights from a hunter’s perspective is XT-002 Deconstructor. First off, unless you really absolutely need sound on this fight, turn it off. You’ll thank me later. Blizzard decided to make this fight more about being able to take the horrible voice they gave this boss than the mechanics themselves.

This fight has a simple process with a few gimmicks that make it more than a tank and spank.

Raid damage

First off, he’ll cast light bomb randomly, which causes its target to damage people in 10 yards of them. Next, he casts gravity bomb, which damages its target and pulls people in 20 yard range (10 on heroic) toward it. So use deadly boss mods, and type “/range 10″ to get a box showing who you’re too close to. Don’t get too far spread out though, because the bugger also casts tympanic tantrum, which was designed to make healing paladins cry. This will do 120% of everyone’s hit points over 12 seconds, so when it happens a second or third time, be prepared to use a health consumable if ordered to by a healer. Don’t be out of range of heals for this.

Typically, our raid leader has people fight a little spread out, and as soon as someone gets bombed, they run 20 yards away from everyone. Disengage is good for this.

XT modes

Every 25% of his health you take off, he’ll go into a passive mode and his heart (a separate mob) will become targetable. Create a macro (or be ready to copy paste) “/tar heart” so you don’t waste time spamming tab or clicking on the boss when you’re trying to get to the heart. Every point of damage you do to the heart is two points to the boss, however if you kill the heart, you engage hard mode and the boss heals up to full. Also, while the heart is out, adds start spawning from the four scrap piles in the four corners of the room which have to be dealt with. If adds reach him, he can use some of them to heal himself. Think gluth zombie chows after a decimate.

There are three types of adds:

• XM-024 Pummellers have to be tanked by the offtank and ignored by DPS.
• XS-013 Scrapbots are small bots that come in groups and have to be AOEd so they don’t touch the boss.
• XE-321 Boombots look like mario bob-ombs. When they are destroyed, they do large amounts of damage to things around them. They should be snared until they’re in the middle of a scrapbot pack, and then destroyed.

Handling XT adds

When the heart’s out, you should focus fire on it until you have to pay attention to adds. Use mouse look to watch behind you where you’ll be needing to volley, and don’t stop heart DPS unless you can be assured your volley will not be wasted.

You should (as stated above) concussive shot the bob-ombs so that they’re closer to a pack of scrapbots, at which point a couple of shots will explode the bob-omb and take the pack out. When there isn’t one available, use volley. Place it a few yards ahead of the lead scrapbot because it takes a second to start hitting, and since these guys walk through it in a matter of seconds, be prepared to use two per pack. Use a multishot for stragglers if you want. When I last did this, frost traps wouldn’t work, but I think they’re supposed to.

Positioning

We used to tank him right by the stairs he does his calisthenics on, however we have been toying with putting him on the left wall when you come in. The reason for this is that he doesn’t spawn adds in the two left corners if he’s tanked there for some reason. This gives DPS more time to handle adds, however the tradeoff is that it’s harder to stay spread out as you have less room. The amount of adds spawned seems to be the same, but they all come from  the opposite side of the room.