Lord Rhyolith Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot
Lord Rhyolith is the second boss that players will typically encounter inside the Firelands, and is found on the South-Eastern platform after completing a trash gauntlet.
Role-Specific Tips for Lord Rhyolith
DPS Tips
- Melee DPS must learn to coordinate and follow a single direction-caller for piloting Lord Rhyolith.
- Focusing adds down quickly as a ranged DPS should be your top priority, especially the Spark of Rhyolith.
- You can always attack Lord Rhyoliths torso if you want to attack the boss without messing with his direction.
Healer Tips
- Be mindful of players with high stacks of Eruption as they can easily die to AoE damage.
- Rotate raid-wide defensive cooldowns when Lord Rhyolith has high stacks of Superheated during phase two.
Tank Tips
- With enough ranged DPS to kill the adds quickly, you will be able to solo tank this fight easily, gaining an extra DPS.
- Quickly grab the adds as they spawn and either stack them or move them out of the raid so they can be killed as soon as possible.
- Be ready with your taunt once Lord Rhyolith reaches 25% health as he will activate and begin to attack players.
Lord Rhyolith Abilities
- Phase One
- Obsidian Armor
- Molten Armor
- Concussive Stomp
- Drink Magma
- Volcano
- Eruption
- Crater
- Magma Flow
- Summon Fragment of Rhyolith
- Fragment of Rhyolith
- Meltdown
- Summon Spark of Rhyolith
- Spark of Rhyolith
- Immolation
- Infernal Rage
- Phase Two
- Immolation
- Unleashed Flame
- Superheated
Strategy for Lord Rhyolith
Lord Rhyolith is a unique encounter, which requires players to control the bosses movement by attacking either his left or right leg. Direct attacks against either of his legs will cause Lord Rhyolith to turn towards that direction while walking. Your raid will need to coordinate and balance dealing damage to both legs evenly, and quickly attacking a specific leg when Lord Rhyolith needs to be turned in a certain direction. Players who simply wish to damage Lord Rhyolith without influencing his direction may simply attack his torse, ignoring both of his legs completely. Lord Rhyolith also comes with a built-in soft-enrage mechanic in Superheated; after 6 minutes in combat (5 minutes on heroic), Lord Rhyolith will start to gain a stack of Superheated every 10 seconds, quickly causing him to wipe the raid if he is not defeated short after gaining this buff.
Every time Lord Rhyolith uses Concussive Stomp, multiple volcanoes will spawn throughout the room, remaining dormant until they are randomly activated with Eruption. Once activated, Eruption will blast random raid members with Fire damage and apply a stacking debuff that further increases all Fire damage taken by 5% per stack. Luckily, these volcanoes can be stopped by forcing Lord Rhyolith to walk over an activate volcano ( Eruption), causing it to be crushed down into a crater.
Controlling the direction that Lord Rhyolith is moving in is the main mechanic that your raid will need to learn in this encounter. Avoid running Lord Rhyolith into the lava surrounding the isle as this will likely cause a wipe through Drink Magma. The best idea is generally to have your melee DPS in charge of driving Lord Rhyolith, with ranged DPS focusing mostly on dealing with adds and helping out with turning the boss whenever needed.
Forcing Lord Rhyolith to walk over a active volcano will cause it to stop using Eruption and will leave a crater in its' place. This crater will quickly send out streams of magma through the floor all around it; after 10 seconds these magma streams will erupt with Magma Flow, heavily damaging anyone nearby and knocking them back. Always be aware of the position of any previously destroyed volcanoes and avoid the streams of magma on the ground. As the fight progresses more and more streams of magma will spawn in, making Magma Flow cover more and more of the area. If you make Lord Rhyolith walk over a dormant volcano he will gain stacks of Molten Armor, greatly increasing his damage dealt for a short time. Hitting multiple dormant volcanoes will likely lead to a wipe, especially when done back-to-back.
In addition to stopping the Eruption, forcing Lord Rhyolith to walk over an active volcano will cause him to lose 16 stacks of Obsidian Armor. Lord Rhyolith starts with 80 stacks of Obsidian Armor, with each stack providing a 1% damage reduction. As Lord Rhyolith will lose 16 stacks of Obsidian Armor each time he walks over an active volcano, it will take a total of 5 active volcanoes to bring him down to 0 armor.
While all of this is going on, there will also be multiple adds that the tanks and ranged DPS will need to be constantly dealing with. Every 20 seconds Lord Rhyolith will spawn either 1 Spark of Rhyolith or 5 Fragment of Rhyoliths nearby. The 5 Fragment of Rhyoliths should be grouped up and dragged on top of the melee group to allow them to be cleaved down and quickly AoE'd. If any Fragment of Rhyolith lives for 30 seconds it will Meltdown, charging a random player and dealing 50% of its remaining health, likely killing the player. On heroic difficulty, each time Lord Rhyolith steps on an active volcano a group of Liquid Obsidian adds will spawn in the magma and head directly towards Lord Rhyolith. If they reach him they will Fuse with his Obsidian Armor, restoring 1 stack for each Liquid Obsidian add that reaches him; don't let them reach Lord Rhyolith.
Spark of Rhyoliths need to be picked up by a tank and quickly dragged away from the raid to prevent their Immolation aura from hitting the raid. The Spark of Rhyolith will gain a stack of Infernal Rage every 10 seconds that it's alive, increasing both its damage taken and dealt by 10% per stack. These will hit very hard, very quickly and should be the top priority for ranged DPS to kill before the tank takes too much damage from the ramping stacks of Infernal Rage.
Once Lord Rhyolith reaches 25% health, he will shatter any remaining Obsidian Armor stacks and gains a normal aggro table, requiring a tank to quickly pick him up. From here, it's a simple burn phase, trying to kill Lord Rhyolith before he kills your raid through his ramping damage stacks and constant raid-wide damage from Immolation. Volcanoes will still continue to use Eruption occasionally and you should try to drag Lord Rhyolith over them if they are nearby, but do not go chasing them if they are far away. Rotate defensive cooldowns to survive the Concussive Stomps when Lord Rhyolith has high stacks of Superheated, and make sure your raid is ready with personal defensive cooldowns if they have high stacks of the Eruption debuff. On heroic difficulty, Lord Rhyolith will attack the raid with 3 beams of energy, dealing Unleashed Flame Fire damage to anyone in the beams path.
Lord Rhyolith Loot
Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Normal Difficulty Loot
Item |
---|
Flickering Cowl |
Hood of Rampant Disdain |
Incendic Chestguard |
Flaming Core Chestguard |
Lava Line Wristbands |
Cracked Obsidian Stompers |
Earthcrack Bracers |
Fireskin Gauntlets |
Grips of the Raging Giant |
Dreadfire Drape |
Heartstone of Rhyolith |
Avool's Incendiary Shanker |
Entrail Disgorger |
Eye of Purification |
Shatterskull Bonecrusher |
Firethorn Mindslicer |
Volcanospike |
Zoid's Firelit Greatsword |
Smoldering Censer of Purity |
Arbalest of Erupting Fury |
Living Ember |
Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Heroic Difficulty Loot
Item |
---|
Flickering Cowl |
Hood of Rampant Disdain |
Incendic Chestguard |
Flaming Core Chestguard |
Lava Line Wristbands |
Cracked Obsidian Stompers |
Earthcrack Bracers |
Fireskin Gauntlets |
Grips of the Raging Giant |
Dreadfire Drape |
Heartstone of Rhyolith |
Avool's Incendiary Shanker |
Entrail Disgorger |
Eye of Purification |
Shatterskull Bonecrusher |
Firethorn Mindslicer |
Volcanospike |
Zoid's Firelit Greatsword |
Smoldering Censer of Purity |
Arbalest of Erupting Fury |
Living Ember |
Crystallized Firestone |
Lord Rhyolith Achievements
Achievement | Description |
---|---|
Firelands | Defeat the bosses in Firelands. |
Firelands Guild Run | Defeat the bosses in Firelands while in a guild group. |
Heroic: Lord Rhyolith | Defeat Lord Rhyolith in Firelands on Heroic Difficulty. |
Not an Ambi-Turner | Defeat Lord Rhyolith in the Firelands without ever causing him to turn left while his armor is intact. |
Further Reading
Lord Rhyolith is just one of the seven encounters present in the Firelands raid of Cataclysm. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.
Changelog
- 01 Oct. 2024: Page added.
This guide has been written by Abide, TBC veteran for nearly a decade. Abide is a Warrior tank and multi-class expert currently playing on Faerlina as Horde. You can find him in the the Icy Veins Discord. You can also see him live on Twitch.
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