This is what happens when Maloriak dies... you get to take a SS of your guild!

Maloriak is a crazy chemist who occasionally feels like making his rejected experiments make quick work of your off tank (or you can use a kite, but we did not… screw that). Here are some observations that might make your group kill him easier.

***We did this in the 10-man version with the following group composition… remember, your mileage may vary.***

  • Protection Warrior on Maloriak
  • Protection Paladin on Aberrations
  • 2 x Restoration Shaman
  • Restoration Druid
  • Unholy Death Knight
  • Assassination Rogue
  • Feral (Cat) Druid
  • Shadow Priest
  • Destruction Warlock

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So I heard there are adds involved in this fight…

  • There are two types of adds to worry about. Prior to hitting his second phase at roughly 25-28%, there are creatures called “Aberrations”. However, when you enter that second phase (where his abilities change), he summons two more big adds called “Prime Subjects”.
  • Maloriak only has the capacity to summon 18 Aberrations and 2 Prime Subjects!!!
  • During this fight, your off-tank or kiter will be dealing with things called “Aberrations”. These rejects are nasty, as not only do they gather in groups of 3, but they give a stacking debuff to others (and the boss) if they are nearby. The debuff is called “Growth Catalyst”, and will reduce their damage taken by 20% and increase their damage dealt by 20%. This means that if anything, you do not want to have anymore than 9 out at a time— unless you’re doing the achievement! It’s also crucial to not have any small adds enter the fight during the “Prime Subject”/second phase… they will make the fight much, MUCH harder.
  • The “Prime Subjects” also have this buff, but also have Fixate— meaning, they will target a player and cannot be taunted off. You can handle this by kiting them around, or hoping your off-tank picks them up first. If you don’t use the off-tank method, then you certainly do need to kite… and not near the boss, as the “Growth Catalyst” can be an issue if you increase its damage by 20%!

So, I heard this guy likes to throw things into cauldrons?!

  • First and foremost, watch out for the ability called “Remedy”. He’ll cast it and it’ll heal him up very fast. Don’t let him do that. Dispel, Shield Slam, Spellsteal, Purge…
  • RED vial enables Maloriak to breath fire on the raid (“Scorching Blast”), which can be mitigated through the raid stacking up in front of the boss. Maloriak will also drop the debuff “Consuming Flames” on a random raider. This person needs to book it from the fire breath, as any magical damage taken will be more effective, and most likely one-shot that raider! Red means cluster!
  • BLUE vial allows Maloriak to freeze a random raider with “Flash Freeze”. The person inside will take damage over time, and when broken out, will do AoE damage around the block. Ranged should be taking care of this to avoid melee damage. The chemist will also use “Biting Chill” which summons a ring of frost around the target that will deal damage to those around him. Blue means spread out!
  • GREEN vial means Maloriak will knock everyone back and douse everyone in something called “Debilitating Slime”. The slime is crucial to downing the adds, as they have a buff that reduces their damage taken and increases their damage done! At this time, he restarts his “Release Aberrations” casting… so take care to have interrupters still on the boss to take care of the “Arcane Storm” then “Release Aberrations”. Green means you have 10 seconds to kill adds without having to muscle through a bunch of damage reduction debuffs!

Your major mechanic for this fight is add control via interruption. We had many people who could interrupt, but it came down to two people who specifically went after the two casts!

  • Make sure you have a casting speed debuff on the boss! Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind Numbing Poison… a hunter’s pet… anything. This is a huge requirement, it makes the cast interrupting much easier.
  • “Arcane Storm” is an ability Maloriak will channel that hits all people in the room. This can be interrupted and should be done immediately. Note that during the RED phase, the person that has “Consuming Flames” may take extra damage. During BLUE phase, note that depending on your role, you want to make sure you keep this on interrupt to prevent healer strain.
  • “Release Aberrations” is the key ability that controls the number of adds you have during the fight. Because he has a limited amount of adds to summon, it is very important to control how many your off-tank carries. They hit relatively hard, and when near each other, have a buff that increases the damage they do and reduces the damage they take. Our guild decided, because we have extremely skilled DPS, that we have our ranged kill the first group of adds before joining up with the rest of the raid! This allows the tank to only need to hold onto 6, which is very helpful for your healers!
  • The interruption order that we did was let the first Release go, then interrupt the next two, then let the last two go. Maloriak will usually have 5 “Release Aberrations” cast before going using the GREEN flask. During the GREEN flask phase, he’ll cast his “Arcane Storm” and his “Release Aberrations”… so either keep an interrupt up, or let the first Aberration go.
  • Of course, we can’t simply have nice things without a bit of RNG. Sometimes at the beginning of the fight, the boss will interrupt his own “Release Aberrations”, making it so you will only get 4 of those casts during the first vial phase. This means that you want to still let at least one cast get interrupted.

This boss has two phases!

  • During the second phase, Maloriak’s skills change. First, he will release all aberrations still alive… which means, as stated earlier, you need to kill all 18 during 2 GREEN vial throws (meaning, 9 per 1 GREEN vial throw). Recognize “Prime Subjects” will be let loose too, so either your off-tank picks them up before the Fixate, or make sure people kite.
  • Maloriak will use three abilities, one avoidable. His “Magma Jets” leave fire and deal damage in a line from where he faces (or who he faces). He’ll also drop “Absolute Zero” ice orbs in the room… if the sphere comes 6 yards close to anyone, it’ll explode and knock people back. Finally, he does an “Acid Nova” that deals damage over time to all raiders.
  • The “Absolute Zero” orbs are annoying, much more than the fire. Try to keep those controlled.
  • Neither ability will kill you outright, sans standing in fire.
  • The main tank on Maloriak may experience being knocked straight up into the air during this phase, meaning fall damage. Unless I’m an idiot. That is a possibility.
  • This is when you hit Bloodlust/Time Warp/Ancient Hysteria to kill the boss. Please do it fast. Your tank will love you more.

How did Lowered Expectations handle this fight?

  • First things first: we set the interrupts. Our DK took care of any “Release Aberrations”, and I took care of any “Arcane Storms”. Other raiders knew not to interrupt anything unless we called out specifically that we couldn’t. We kept Curse of Tongues on the boss rather than have our rogue use Mind Numbing Poison.
  • We let the first one go, to let our ranged DPS kill the “Aberrations”. We interrupted the next 2, then let the last 2 go through. This changed due to our RNG issues, though. The boss kept interrupting his own cast, so we ended up still letting the first one go through.
  • We assigned a healer to our off-tank while he tanked the “Aberrations”. In our case, it was one of our shaman.
  • For the RED vial phase, I turned the boss so he was facing south. That way, our off-tank and whoever had to run from the debuff didn’t catch on fire. If the RED vial was second to the BLUE vial, we recognized the off-tank would need a bit more healing due to the “Scorching Blast” that happened to the entire raid.
  • The BLUE vial phase was pretty simple. Ranged took care of the ice blocks to avoid the melee from taking too much damage. However, our off-tank really liked getting picked for “Flash Freeze”.
  • Finally, GREEN vial phase was also pretty simple. Letting the first Aberration cast go was smart, as it enabled our DPS to still eliminate that group.
  • Things got a bit iffy as we got into the second grouping of vial throws. Because our DPS was so high, we had to slow our DPS down so we could get to the second GREEN vial. We stopped at around 30%. As soon as we hit that GREEN vial phase again, the DPS nuked the adds and got the boss to where it needed to be.
  • From that point on, we hit Bloodlust and dropped the boss. Yeah, it was really that simple.

Where can the breakdown be?

  • Simple enough, dead off-tank. Those adds hurt. They hurt more when there is raid damage involved. Just remember to keep your OT alive.
  • Or even better, bad interrupting. It took us a few times to really work out what we wanted to do on interruptions. It’s the simplest when you have only a few people taking care of it.
  • Pushing into the last phase too quick is bad too… if you haven’t gotten to a second GREEN vial, then you might be in trouble, as the remaining adds will spawn on you and will probably wreck your raid.

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Whew, this was a doozy! If there are any problems or questions, lemme know. Thanks!