Lightsworn: Retribution tips for breaching Hellfire Citadel

With the release of the second wing of Hellfire Citadel in Raid Finder earlier this week, now’s a good time to look at some of the fights not only in Halls of Blood, but in Hellbreach and Bastion of Shadows as well. As a Ret Paladin, splitting your attention between dealing as much damage as possible and using your utility spells effectively will go a long way to helping your group take down these encounters!

Hellbreach

The first three bosses in Hellfire Citadel are fairly straightforward, but it’s always best to be prepared! If you’d like, check out our Bosses in 5 seconds guide for Hellbreach for more general information.

Hellfire Assault The opening encounter to Hellfire Citadel is more like a string of difficult trash mobs than it is an actual boss fight. The plethora of adds lets AOE glyphs and talents like Mass Exorcism and Light’s Hammer shine, though do pay attention to your add priority — if a Gorebound Felcaster is almost to 50%, watch your cleave. Otherwise, don’t stand in bad and make sure you get that ammo to the cannons to breach the citadel’s gates and proceed to the next fight!

Iron Reaver Siegemaster Mar’tak is back, this time in a souped-up Fel Reaver. Her constant dashing and prolonged aerial phase makes movement a top priority. The only movement talent I wouldn’t advise is Speed of Light, as the cooldown is too long for this type of work. You might not be able to avoid all of the fire, so make sure you have (unglyphed) Divine Protection at the ready. Attack her when you can, stay out of her way during Blitz, and kill bombs when she’s in the air and it’s bing, bang, boom, onto the next room!

Kormrok A fight with a little bit of something for everyone, Kormrok is the final boss in Hellbreach. The three pools correlate with three of his mechanics:

• Green – grabby hands a la Kromog, group up before the cast goes out and AOE these down together.
• Orange – runes that detonate on contact, pop Divine Protection if you’re going to trigger one.
• Purple – undulating waves that need to be avoided, movement talents and enchants are a great asset here.

Whenever he’s near a pool he empowers that ability, which means dealing with it is that much more important. Simply AOE when you need to, dodge the waves, and burn the boss. Congratulations, a tier helm (might have) dropped!

Halls of Blood

The second wing of Hellfire Citadel gets a bit more interesting, ultimately culminating in one of the coolest (in my opinion) encounters in the instance. Take a look at our Bosses in 5 seconds guide for Halls of Blood for more general information!

Hellfire High Council Ah yes, another council fight. There will be some opportunities for cleave damage, though they’ll be few and far between with the amount of movement you’ll need to do. Make sure to use Divine Protection and perhaps a few heals if you’re affected by Fel Rage, or a Hand of Sacrifice if someone else is. Long Arm of the Law is great for sprinting between Jubei’thos’s images, running out of the raid if Dia targets you with her mark, and getting out of the way when things start zipping through the air.

Kilrogg Deadeye Add management is key to this fight. Keeping Bloodthirsters from reaching the pool is essential, and Burden of Guilt can be a welcome source of slows. Interrupting the Hulking Terrors is high priority as well, so keep Rebuke close. You generally don’t need to worry about Heart Seeker — just don’t be too far out from the boss and you won’t be targeted. If you’re going into the vision stay away from Hellblaze Fiends when they die, pray for lots of Empowered Divine Storm procs, and lament the fact that we had Holy Wrath torn from our toolkit.

Gorefiend When this guy says “Get in my belly!” he means it. When you’re outside the behemoth, prioritize adds and staying alive; if you die, you’ll be sent to his stomach prematurely and the effect could snowball into a wipe. Run out when you’re targeted with Touch of Doom and drop the pool on the edge of the room, and run towards other linked players under Shared Fate.

If you get gobbled up, kill adds, help the tank whittle their add down, toss off-heals on Tortured Essences, and get out (via the area in the middle) before Digest goes off. During Feast of Souls, pop all of your cooldowns and go to town. Think about strafing and using Divine Protection to soak a soul if one makes a beeline to the boss, but ultimately pass the buck and tunnel on your rotation — I’m kidding, just blame the tank. Whoa, is that a pair of tier pants? Lucky!

Bastion of Shadows

Gul’dan steps up his game in the Bastion of Shadows with a few bosses that will test your output and your ability to prioritize your kill targets!

Shadow-Lord Iskar To kill this shocking bird requires proper management of the Eye of Anzu throughout the fight. As a DPS you will likely only get it to shed a debuff, so pass it off immediately unless your raid leader wants you to soak some damage. Long Arm helps when running out for Fel Chakram and staying on the platform during Phantasmal Winds. Cleave is essential during add phases, so pick up Mass Exo and Double Jeopardy. Maintain your add priority and burn the boss — this might be a tight enrage timer, so give it your all!

Socrethar the Eternal Most of the basic mechanics from Iskar transfer to Socrethar; running out for debuffs, prioritizing adds, not standing in fire and bad things. Interrupts play a big role here, so make sure to be on your game to stop as many Exert Dominance casts as you can. AOE damage is not a factor in this encounter, so feel free to swap back to your single-target loadout. Dominators spawn every minute during the second phase and need to be killed ASAP, so try to save at least Execution Sentence for them. If a Haunting Soul fixates you, you’ll need to kite it — again, Long Arm seems to be a great talent here. Keep plugging away at adds, switching back to Socrethar when you can, and you should be just fine. Hey, nice tier gloves!

Tyrant Velhari Using Selfless Healer procs on yourself can help chip away at Touch of Harm. Edict can be soaked by Divine Shield, just make sure to move out of the raid if you do. Unglyphed Divine Protection will see a lot of use this fight — keep it close! Interrupting Harbinger’s Mending during phase two is very important, as is popping all of your damage cooldowns to leave the phase as soon as possible. Otherwise kill adds and super-kill the boss; this fight is likely to be a DPS check, so eke out as much damage as you can manage!

With Velhari dead that wraps up Bastion of Shadows and this week’s look at the bosses in Hellfire Citadel! Next time we’ll finish the instance and take a look at some of the juicy drops you should be looking to scoop up!