Grim Awakening is the first Tier 2 raid of Storm Legion and it’s a Fire raid. For the first time in Telara’s recorded history, the new tier will start with a 10 man raid.
This means you will need 500 hit and/or 500 toughness for Grim Awakening. If you have all the tier one pieces of gear or just gear from Frozen Tempest or Endless Eclipse you will meet the requirements without having to use runes.
The Grim Awakening bosses are going to drop Frozen Eclipse Stones and tier 2 items. Clearing this raid a few times before the tier 2 20 man raids comes out will give you a head start.
Where is the Grim Awakening entrance ?
The entrance to Grim Awakening is in Kingsward, at 4542, 8616. Just take the porticulum to The Academy and you’re going to see it. Don’t forget to use Quantum Sight !
Prince Kaliban
Prince Kaliban is the first boss in the 10 man raid Grim Awakening. This is a tier 2 raid so it requires 500 hit and/or 500 toughness.
Health: 25.500.000
Enrage timer: 5 minutes
Difficulty: medium
Must have ability: interrupt
Raid Setup
1 tank: any class will do, they just need 500 toughness.
2 healers: A purifier and a Chloro can do the job easily. The boss doesn’t hit very hard and there isn’t a lot of damage going around. You want to have shields just in case someone messes up the Soul Shatter and a Chloro to heal the tank and provide Wild Growth.
1 support: I suggest using an Archon, but anything else will do.
6 DPS: as always, this is not a melee friendly fight. Pick ranged specs for this boss. You will have a really hard time as melee.
Prince Kaliban Strategy
This fight has only a few mechanics and it’s quite easy. But it can also go very wrong very fast. It’s all a matter of getting used to the strats, but I can also see the annoyance in bringing new people fight.
Abilties:
Hellfire Boulder: Price Kaliban throws a fiery boulder at the player furthest away from him. Before the 5th boulder is due, the first boulder will despawn, so there will be max 4 boulders up at the same time. On impact, the boulder will deal 15.000 damage to anyone standing in the landing spot. They will also be surrounded by a small AOE that deals 5.000 damage per tick. Placing the boulder and using them to avoid mechanic is the main idea of the fight.
Debuff on the tank: each stack of the debuff increases damage taken by 8%. The stacks reset during Crushing Silence so there is no need to tank swap.
Sanguine Incantation: Needs to be interrupted. Deals ~11.000 damage per tick to the raid.
Soul Shatter: ”Magma Lord Kaliban covers [player name] in unstable energy” – places a 12 seconds debuff on a raid member. When the debuff reaches 0 it deals 17.000 damage to everyone in line of sight, kills the player that had the debuff and places a 1 minute debuff on the entire raid, reducing fire resistance by 200. To avoid this mechanic, the player affected by the debuff has to line of sight the raid using a boulder. The active tank is immune to the damage.
Gaze: ”Magma Lord Kaliban glares at [player name]” – this is the same mechanic as the Trample he does in Empyrean Core, but this time the player targeted has 5 seconds to LoS the boss behind a boulder. The boss will charge at the player and hit the boulder becoming incapacitated for 10 seconds and take increased damage. If he is not LoSed in time he will kill the player he targeted. To meet the enrage timer you will have to get him stunned, you can miss one Gaze at best.
Quicksilver Traps: Prince Kaliban will place traps around him. If you get hit by one you become slowed.
Crushing Silence: right after placing the Quicksilver Traps, the boss cast Crushing Silence (5 seconds cast). At the end of the cast he will deal massive damage in the large area marked with red around him and silencing everyone for 3 seconds. Everyone has to dodge this mechanic. The tank can survive it with a cooldown, but the healers will be silenced.
Evil Wisps: around the encounter edge there are wisps that will jump at anyone that gets to close to the edge, dealing 23.000 damage.
Raid AOE: he will sometimes hit the raid with 18.000 aoe hits.
Swirling Flames: “Magma Lord Kaliban surrounds [player name] in flames”. At 25% the boss will start throwing flame debuff around. The debuff doesn’t do anything unless 2 people that have the debuff stack together. If you get this debuff just stand in front of the raid. The boss will die before placing 3 debuffs so it’s not hard to handle.
The key to success is to place the boulders correctly so people can use them to LoS without being to close to the edge or have to run to far. To place the boulders you can use a second tank or someone with enough HP to survive getting hit by a boulder or by Soul Shatter.
Prince Kaliban Strategy
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Start by tanking the boss where he stands. The raid positions in the middle of the room. The offtank goes behind the raid and to the right and waits for the first boulder to land. Then he goes to the back left of the raid and places the second boulder. After that the first Quicksilver Trap and Crushing Silence will happen and the tanks can swap.
After the first 2 boulders are placed the raid can take a few steps back to avoid being hit by the traps and also be close enough to the back of the boulder to LoS Gaze in time.
The rules we use are simple. Always LoS the Soul Shatter on the right boulder and the Trample on the left boulder. When moving away from the raid to LoS Soul Shatter always go towards the boss, in front of the boulder, then backpedal until the raid is out of line of sight. If you run behind the boulder then you will be the further away person from the boss and the boulder will come for you messing up the positioning. Same goes when you’re running back after the debuff is gone.
After the first boulder is placed move the boss a bit to the right so that the offtank is the furthest away from him when placing the second boulder.
If the Gaze destroyed the second boulder, refresh it with the 4th boulder. If the Gaze didn’t hit then place the boulder away from the raid. On the 5th boulder the first one will despawn so it will have to be refreshed. As a tank you can stand in the AoE around the boulder, so just hug the 1st boulder as you wait for the 5th cast.
With the current values, this sequence repeats 3 times before the boss is defeated. It take a little bit of practice to get used to the LoSing, but it shouldn’t be a very complicated fight.
Kyzan Strategy
Kyzan is the second boss in the 10 man raid Grim Awakening. He is an angry Bahmi and the fight involves a lot of running around. Really fun encounter.
Health: 22.600.000
Enrage timer: 6 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Must have ability: 5 purges, 3 AOE dispells
Raid Setup
2 tanks: anything will do, but if possible, having a Cleric tank with 21 points in Sentinel for mass dispell will help a lot.
2 healers: if you have the cleric tank to dispell you can use 2 healers. If not you might need to add another healer for an extra aoe dispell.
1 support: Bard or Archon
5 DPS: having more then 1 melee DPS can make things messy. Again, this is not a melee friendly fight. Having everyone ranged DPS is the best way to go.
Kyzan Strategy
This encounter has a lot of purple mechanics. There is a lot of dodging, purging and dispelling to do.
Abilities:
Phase Rip: 6 seconds channel. He will spawn ghosts next to players and cast linear rectangular AOEs in front of them (like on Progenitor). If you get hit by the aoe you get a dot ticking for 8.500 damage and also draining 1000 mana or 50 energy/power per second. It’s easy to spot the ghosts spawning behind you and dodge this ability. At 20% Kyzan will chain cast this ability so the fight becomes really interesting.
Necrotic Expansion: 5 seconds debuff on a random raid member. Deal damage to the affected player and spawns an expanding purple AOE around him. The AOE covers about half of the room before despawning. Kyzan also shoots a torrent at the player. Anyone caught between the boss and the affected player will take 7.000 damage/tick.
Delayed Annihilation: every raid member gets a bubble around him. After 5 seconds you take 17.000 damage from every bubble you stand in (same as Progenitor Hardmode). Spread out to avoid them.
Bone Harvest: Kyzan places 4 stacks of Bone Harvest on each raid member. When the debuff reaches 0 you take 9.000 damage for every stack. This can be handled with only 2 AOE dispells, but 3 makes it a lot safer.
Abhorrent Growth: Kyzan buffs himself with 5 stacks of Abhorrent Growth. Must be purged or he will heal.
Beacon of Bloodsucking: Summons a defiler beacon with 658.000 HP on a tank. The beacon will prevent the tank from being healed and slowly drain his health. This effect can be delayed by placing shields on the tank. Burn down the beacon as fast as possible. The first beacon will be summoned 1 minute into the fight and every 30 seconds after that. The beacons also heal themselves (aprox 19.000 HPS), they are not affected by healing debuffs, you just have to nuke them down.
There is not a lot to this fight except dodging mechanics, dispelling and purging, but somehow it’s a really fun fight still. Spread out for Delayed Annihilation, run to the edge of the room if you are affected by Necrotic Expansion, yell “Dispell” when Bone Harvest is up, purge Abhorrent Growth and nuke down the beacons.
Salvarola Strategy
Salvarola is the third boss in the 10 man raid Grim Awakening. You may remember him and his evil plans from the story quests in Brevane. This encounter is where things suddenly get serious… expect your raid to really be put to the test!
Health: 27.500.000
Enrage timer: 5:30
Difficulty: Hard
Must have ability: 2 interrupts (plus back-up)
Raid Setup
2 tanks: ideally a cleric for AoE threat and a rogue for survivability cooldowns, but warrior can also be used
3 healers: Chloromancer, Defiler, Purifier
2 support: 61 Bard and Archon/Pyro hybrid
3 DPS: warriors should play Riftblade, but otherwise bring single target ranged DPS for this fight
Salvarola Strategy
This encounter has incredibly tight healing and DPS checks and will push your raid to the limit. There are three main phases to this fight, with the second phase beginning at 75% and the third phase at 50%.
Abilities:
Bloodboil: Deals damage to the tank and applies a stacking debuff, increasing damage taken by 5% per stack. This mechanic will occur throughout the first two phases of the fight, and tanks should be swapping on the boss when they reach 3 to 4 stacks.
Nova: Salvarola frequently casts this at random raid members, dealing ~8k damage.
Flames of Doom: Throws a circular AoE on the floor which explodes after a couple of seconds. Tanks can survive this damage, but it will kill anyone else in the raid if they do not move out in time.
Mindsear: Salvarola debuffs one player with a swirling fire AoE. That player and anyone else in the AoE will take 8-9k damage per tick for 8 ticks. After the debuff expires, a Spark of Thought will spawn at that person’s location. The Spark is an add with 366k health surrounded by the same fire AoE as the Mindsear target was. Sparks are immune to taunts but you can still build threat on them with damage and healing (this is why a cleric tank is ideal for this fight).
Soul Incineration: Salvarola surrounds himself with fire and channels beams to the wall of the room. He then rotates in a random direction. All players (including tanks) must run around the boss. The beams will always spawn in either north-south or east-west directions, so avoid standing in those spots. It is still possible to melee the boss while running, but be very careful with your positioning! This mechanic occurs periodically in phase 1, and again in phase 3.
At 75% Salvarola will begin hovering in the air. This marks the start of the second phase of the fight, where the following mechanics are gained:
Warped Fantatic: At the start of the phase, 2 Warped Fanatic adds will appear at one of the giant urns in the room. A few seconds later, a second pair will spawn at the other urn. Every 30 seconds after this, another 2 Warped Fanatics will spawn at one of the urns. Tanks should pick these adds up immediately and split them evenly between themselves. These adds will heal Salvarola if they are hit with AoE damage, so do not attempt to kill them! There are a few exceptions to this AoE rule, such as Corrosive Spores from Chloromancer, Multiple Oscillations from Bard, Unholy Nexus from Defiler, and Fork/Rift Spear from Riftblade.
Overwhelming Power: “Salvarola strengthens a Warped Fanatic with demonic energy!” One of the Warped Fanatics in the fight is healed to full and grows in size. The raid then has 20 seconds to kill this empowered add or it will explode and wipe the raid. It is important for all of your raid members to switch their target to the add immediately (use macros to mark and target the add easily). In order to make the DPS check for this fight, you should aim to kill the first two empowered adds and ignore the third (pushing the boss to 50% instead).
Infernal Burn: “Salvarola focuses upon [player name]!” Salvarola turns towards a raid member and casts a cone of fire centered on their position. This deals ~10k damage per tick to anyone caught in the area of effect and also applies a DoT that deals an additional ~5k per tick . It is important to spread the raid out around the room and for everyone to dodge this mechanic. Getting hit by this mechanic can break the healers on this fight, so carry healing potions/tonics to use if you get hit.
At 50% the boss lands on the ground again and all Warped Fanatics leave the room. The following mechanics are introduced:
Lord of Blood / Lord of Flames: Salvarola calls upon two demonic lords to aid him, each with 3.700.000 HP. The two lords spawn at opposite sides of the room and must be kept separate from each other. If brought together, the adds will enrage and take 90% reduced damage. Salvarola himself also takes 90% reduced damage while the lords are alive, though he will lose 20% of his health for each lord that is killed (leaving him at 10% or less once you kill both). The two lords must be kept within a 10% health difference of each other or they will heal. The lords each apply a unique stacking debuff to their tank, causing them to take increased damage the longer they stay on that add. Tanks should swap adds at around 20 stacks.
Foul Blessing: The Lord of Blood does a 1.5 second cast that deals ~10k damage to the raid and applies a stacking debuff, causing all raid members to receive 30% reduced healing per stack. This ability must be interrupted! When a player interrupts this ability, they receive a debuff for 10 seconds, so you will need at least two players rotating interrupts for this mechanic (ideally having a third person as backup).
Overhead Strike: The Lord of Blood telegraphs an area in front of him and then performs a high-damage smash on the area after 5 seconds. This will kill any non-tank who is hit. While running from Soul Incineration, you must pay attention to dodge the hit from Overhead Strike as well.
Summon Fragment of Flame: The Lord of Flames targets a raid member and spawns a crystal at their location. The crystal is surrounded by a fiery AoE that deals ~8k per tick to anyone standing in it.
Flameblast: The Lord of Flames cast a flame bolt at a random raid member (indentical to Salvarola’s Nova ability)
Curse of Magma: Debuff placed on a random member of the raid, which ticks for ~10k damage. Must be cleansed by a healer.
Ultane Strategy
Ultane is the last boss in Grim Awakening.
Although he is not as much of a gear check as Salvarola and his mechanics don’t sound so bad, he will still stop most people in their tracks.
Ultane requires 500 toughness and 520 hit. It says 500 hit needed for T2 raids if you check the tooltip but people are missing with only 500 hit.
Health: 27.400.000
Enrage timer: 8 minutes
Difficulty: medium is you can dodge stuff
Must have ability: none
Raid Setup
2 tank: any class will do, but having a Cleric tank always help. Also Rogue tanks and insane when it comes to cooldowns so the best combo will be Cleric – Rogue.
3 healers: Purifier, Chloro, Defiler is the healing setup you want to be using on this fight.
2 support: I suggest using an Archon/Pyro for max dps and a Bard/Tact.
3 DPS: being melee helps out with cleaving down the Lava Spitters, but you need to be extra careful with dodging the waves and not stepping out of the circles. If you can handle the mechanics go melee, if not, ranged it is.
Ultane Strategy
This fights consists out of 2 alternating phases. Boss phase and add phase.
Boss Phase
Note: Ultane doesn’t cleave ! As mean as he looks, he didn’t learn how to own multiple people with 1 hit. Face him whichever way you want.
While Ultane is active he will use the following abilities:
Healing debuff on the tank: swap at 3 stacks and then whenever the stacks drop off (20 seconds duration). Each stack reduces healing taken by 10%.
Infernal Radiance: 3 seconds channel on a raid member. While channeling it deals heavy damage. Make sure you give that person a shield and a heal/cooldown.
Mark of the Doomed: after Infernal Radiance channel ends a yellow circle will spawn around the player that was focused (looks like the Inquisitor Circle of Oblivion). If you are inside the circle and you step out you will deal 15.000 damage to the raid and debuff them with a 10% increased damage taken (lasts 30 seconds, stacks). If you are inside a circle stand still ! If you are on the edge of the circle run inside to avoid debuffing the raid. Sometimes the debuff will trigger if you are exactly on the edge of the circle when it spawns you might debuff the raid instantly. If the person being focused by Infernal Radiance dies, the circle will still spawn. Combat ressing that person before the circle despawns will also trigger the debuff.
Conjured Conflagration: 2 seconds cast, deals 11k damage to the raid and leaves a 10 seconds dot on the raid (ticks for 3.5k damage). Each Conjured Conflagration also spawns a Lava Spitter. This ability occurs every 45 seconds.
Soul Shackle: at 75% Ultane will link 2 people together with a green beam. They have to run to each other within 3 seconds. The longer the beam is up the more damage will deal when broken. If the debuff runs out and the beam breaks on it’s own the raid will take massive damage.
Lava Spitter: is a turret that spawns on the edge of the room. There are 6 possible spawn places. Each Lava Spitter has 1.300.000 health and shoots fire waves across the room (dodge them). When a Lava Spitter spawns move the boss to it so people can cleave it down. Rather then that ignore them until the add phase starts. After 30 seconds of being alive, the Lava Spitter gains a stacking debuff that increases the damage taken from melee abilities. Marking them as they spawn helps people know which one to DPS first when add phase starts.
Add Phase
At 70% and at 35% Ultane will become invulnerable and the add phase begins.
Abilities:
Demonic Hellspawns: as soon as Ultane goes invulnerable 2 Demonic Hellspawns will spawn from the gap in the wall (right across from the entrance). Each add has 5.800.000 health.
Wrath of Maelforge: Ultane will spam channel this ability causing red bubbles to spawn across the room. Move away from them as they deal 12.000 damage a tick. These bubbles also cause the Demonic Hellspawns to gain a stacking debuff that increases damage taken.
Soul Shackle: in the second add phase (at 30%) this mechanic will also occur.
When the add phase starts the first thing to go down are the Lava Spitters. The faster they die the easier the phase gets. The Demonic Hellspawns need time to build up their damage debuff so start by focusing on the turrets and not the adds. To stack the damage debuff on the adds they will have to be hit by the red bubbles. Getting them debuffed is the tank’s job. Once the Lava Spitters are down, switch to the adds. When the adds die Ultane becomes active again.
Once you learn to stand still in the circles and to dodge the waves, the fight becomes easy until the 35% mark. At 35% the room will shrink (a fire ring will cover the edge of the room). One minute into the last phase the room will shrink once more. If you can keep calm in the last 20% then you will down him easily.
Under 20% when the room is the smallest and there are 4-5 Lava Spitters up people start to step out of the circles and that is the main cause of raid wipes. Taking a wave is better then stepping out of the circle. Also not all the Lava Spitters are going to shoot out at the same time. Look at the warning paths and try to remember in which order to dodge them.
Unless your DPS has pre-SL gear you won’t have issues with the enrage timer. There is no need to go max dps in the last bit. It’s more important to focus on staying alive and dodging waves without debuffing the raid by stepping out of the circles.
If to many people become trapped in a circle (due to Soul Shackle) have them position at the edge of the circle. When it breaks, some of them have the chance to escape. The waves are targeted at a player, so if everyone is in the same spot (trapped inside a circle) then you won’t be able to dodge very well. Staying spread out is important.
Good luck !
Achievement Guide
comming soon