This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Tortos in Throne of Thunder. It is targeted at anyonewho desires to understand the fight mechanics.
This guide is updated for World of Warcraft MoP 5.4.
Tortos is the fourth boss of the Throne of Thunder. This is a verysimple encounter as far as the mechanics are concerned, but in terms ofdifficulty, it can present quite a challenge.
The fight will require several raid members to be able to perform somespecific tasks, while the rest of the raid will mostly have to avoid fallingrocks and perform their roles competently.
It seems that there is a soft enrage timer of 8 minutes to this fight. Atthis time, many Whirl Turtles pour out into the room, overwhelming yourraid and causing you to wipe shortly thereafter.
The fight against Tortos is a single-phase encounter during whichyou must defeat Tortos himself, who is stationary for the whole fight, as wellas two types of adds that he regularly spawns.
The main mechanic of the fight is that when one type of adds reach lowhealth, they can be kicked by raid members through use of an extraaction button. Kicking an add at Tortos interrupts his current spellcast, andthis is an essential part of the fight, since Tortos regularly casts an abilitythat deals immense damage and which must be stopped. DPSing these adds untilthey are kickable is a top priority.
We have released a video guide for the fight against Tortos. Westrongly recommend watching the video in order to get a better visual idea ofthe fight.
On our forums, we are maintaining threads with class-specific advice for each of thefights of Throne of Thunder. So, make sure to check them out, and if you have things toshare, do not hesitate to contribute!
Before we list the abilities of Tortos, we wish toremind you that Tortos is stationary. If there is no one in his meleerange, then he casts Growing Fury, which basically reduces the time untilhis next cast of a very damaging spell. Therefore, the tank who is tankingTortos must be careful to never leave melee range.
Aside from this, Tortos has several other abilities.
Furious Stone Breath is an ability that Tortos casts every 45 seconds,which deals massive raid-wide damage. This ability has a cast time and itmust be interrupted by kicking a Whirl Turtle add at the boss (somethingthat we explain in detail below). The time until the next cast of FuriousStone Breath is indicated by Tortos' Fury bar, which increases over time. WhenTortos reaches 100 Fury, he casts this ability. We remind you that if no oneis within Tortos' melee range, he gains 10 Fury (presumably per second), whichcauses the next Furious Stone Breath to be cast sooner.
Rockfall is an ability that Tortos uses regularly throughout thefight. It causes stalactites to fall from the roof of the cave, dealing highdamage to anyone within 5 yards of the impact location, and lower damage toanyone within 20 yards. The impact locations are clearly marked severalseconds in advance, by means of blue circles.
Quake Stomp is an ability that Tortos casts regularly. It stuns allplayers for 1 second, and deals 65% of their maximum health as Physical damage.When Quake Stomp is cast, the stalactites caused by Rockfall increase infrequency for 8 seconds.
Snapping Bite is a highly damaging ability that Tortos usesagainst his current target roughly every 8-10 seconds. It deals a large amountof Physical damage.
6.2. Whirl Turtles
Every 60 seconds, Tortos summons 3 adds called Whirl Turtles. Theseadds cannot be tanked, and instead they move around the room randomly. Theyconstantly deal damage to players within 5 yards of them through a spellcalled Spinning Shell, also knocking these players back. This is not abig issue, though, since they can be attacked by melee players from fartheraway than 5 yards due to their large hitboxes.
When a Whirl Turtle is close to dying, it casts Shell Block. It becomes immune to damage and it stops moving. When in this state it ceases to castSpinning Shell as well, so it becomes harmless.
Very importantly, however, when a turtle is in the Shell Block state, itcan be kicked. All raid members have an extra action button during this fight,called Kick Shell. This ability is only available when the player isclose to a Shell Blocking turtle. Using the extra action button kicks theturtle in the direction that the player is facing. So, for example, in orderfor the player to kick the turtle at location X, they must face location Xwhile having the turtle in front of them.
Using Kick Shell causes the turtle to fly through the air. When it comesinto contact with an enemy, the turtle interrupts their spell cast anddebuffs them with Shell Concussion for 20 seconds, causing them to take25% increased damage.
Kicking turtles in this way is essential for interrupting Tortos'Furious Stone Breath.
6.3. Vampiric Cave Bats
A group of Vampiric Cave Bats enters the room every 30 seconds. Thesebats have normal aggro tables, and their only ability aside from meleeing thetank is Drain the Weak. This deals a small amount of damage, and heals eachbat for 50 times the damage it has dealt with this ability, in the event thatthe target they are attacking has less than 350,000 health.
The strategy for defeating Tortos is not complicated. We will summarise itfirst, before going into additional details.
Have one tank always tanking Tortos. They must make sure that they haveenough health to survive Tortos' regular casts of Snapping Bite, throughuse of cooldowns and help from healers. Have the other tank always ready topick up and tank the Vampiric Cave Bats as they enter the room.
Your ranged DPS players should always kill any Whirl Turtles thatare up, and when no Whirl Turtles are still up, they should DPS Tortos.
The Vampiric Cave Bats should be tanked close to Tortos, and melee DPSplayers should focus on Tortos while cleaving the Vampiric Cave Bats.
Make sure that you interrupt every one of Tortos' Furious Stone Breathcasts by having a player kick a Whirl Turtle at the boss.
Make sure everyone avoids the falling stalactites caused byRockfall.
Be prepared to heal the high raid damage from Quake Stomp.
7.1. Tanking Concerns
The tank that is tanking Tortos should alway be in melee range of him.Keep in mind that the boss is stationary, so if you move out of his meleerange, he will melee the next highest threat target in his range. If there isno one in his melee range, he will cast the next Furious Stone Breathsooner, which is detrimental.
The Tortos tank must be prepared for the Snapping Bites that Tortosregularly casts. There is a visible cast time to this ability, and given theirpredictable behaviour, boss mods alert you of them. Tanks should try totime their active mitigation in such a way that they always have something upfor each Snapping Bite. Failing that, they should at least be topped off, sinceSnapping Bite will generally do about 60% of the tank's health in one hit.
The Vampiric Cave Bat tank should pick up the bats when they enter theroom, and then move them close to Tortos, so that melee DPS players cancleave them. The Vampiric Cave Bats are not particularly damaging, but it isimportant this tank make sure to never drop below 350,000 health, asotherwise this allows the bats to heal themselves throughDrain the Weak.
7.2. Kicking Turtles and Interrupting Tortos
Given that 3 Whirl Turtles spawn every minute, and oneFurious Stone Breath is cast every 45 seconds, you should never run out ofTurtles to interrupt these casts.
One player should be assigned to always interrupt Furious Stone Breath. Thisplayer should ideally be a ranged DPS player or a healer, and they shouldmove into position a few seconds before Furious Stone Breath is about to becast. When we say into position, we mean that they should put a Whirl Turtle(one that is casting Shell Block, so, not an active one) betweentheir character and the boss. Then, while aiming their character at the boss,they should use the Kick Shell extra action button when the boss beginsthe cast of Furious Stone Breath. We advise also selecting a back-up for thistask, who should go to a different turtle and be prepared to kick it just incase. This might be needed if an active Whirl Turtle moves next to theassigned interrupter and knocks them back.
It is imperative that there is always at least one Whirl Turtle madeavailable for kicking (essentially killed) before eachFurious Stone Breath. This is particularly relevant for the very firstFurious Stone Breath, because the first set of Whirl Turtles only come out ashort while before this breath. This means that there is little time to bringone of the turtles, and melee DPS players should help on this one too.
Additionally, DPSing the Whirl Turtles as soon as they spawn also reducesthe amount of time that they will spend damaging and knocking around raidmembers.
The second priority is to kill the Vampiric Cave Bats. Even though theydo not do much, if your tank has to handle more than one wave at a time, theywill probably drop below 350,000 health, so you need to avoid this.
Finally, you should DPS Tortos himself. Remember that for 20 secondsafter each time a turtle is kicked at him, Tortos will take 25% increaseddamage due to the Shell Concussion debuff. So, you will want to time youroffensive cooldowns to be active during this time.
The first thing all raid members must learn is the proper DPS priority. Oncethis is mastered, the adds should be kept under control, which will make thefight significantly easier to handle.
Secondly, but also very importantly, one or more players will have to learnto kick turtles at Tortos to interrupt Furious Stone Breath.
Finally, everyone must become accustomed to move out of the circles thatindicate a stalactite will fall at that location, since their damage is highand failing to avoid them will undoubtedly cause deaths.
The Heroic mode of the Tortos encounter is a very simple and straightforwardfight (although this statement does not speak to its difficulty). The fightpresents only two important changes from Normal mode, and the strategy, as wewill see, remains largely unchanged.
10.1. Differences From Normal Mode
In addition to the increased health and damage done of all mobs inthe fight, there are two relevant changes in mechanics.
Quake Stomp now deals 100% of players' maximum health as Physicaldamage, up from 65% in Normal mode.
Several Humming Crystals are located around the room. When a playerdeals damage with a direct spell to a Humming Crystal, that player gains abuff that absorbs incoming damage up to 15% of the player's maximum health.The size of the shield's absorption is increased by any heals that the playerreceives while the shield is active (these heals, instead of healing the player,merely increase the size of the shield for the same amount). Through heals,the size of the shield can be increased up to a maximum of 75% of the player'smaximum health. A few mentions about the crystals and the shields arein order.
There is no internal cooldown on the gaining the shields, nor is there anyother kind of limit. All players in the raid can be shielded at the same time,and they can re-acquire their shields as often as they like.
When a shield is applied to a player, it becomes impossible to heal thatplayer until the shield is broken by damage. So, a player who is at 20% healthwhen they gain a shield will remain at 20% (even if they have a shield atmaximum capacity).
The Humming Crystals do take damage, although they have enough healththat they are not in danger of being accidentally killed (if they can evenbe killed).
10.2. Strategy
The strategy for the fight remains identical to Normal mode, with oneexception. Since the damage of Quake Stomp is so high in Heroic mode(it will basically kill anyone who is not topped off), players will need tomake use of the shields granted by the Humming Crystals.
In principle, everyone in the raid should always have a shield from acrystal active, and healers should make sure to heal players who have shieldsuntil these shields reach their maximum capacity (75% of the players' maximumhealth). It is especially important that everyone has strong shields whenQuake Stomp is about to be cast, since this ability is by far the mostdamaging and deadly one.
Tanks, especially the Vampiric Cave Bat tank, must always have shieldsup.
Raid members should not attack the Humming Crystals when their own healthis very low, since this will cause them to become unhealable until theirshield is broken. So, a low-health player should wait to be topped off beforetaking a shield.
Aside from Quake Stomp, the only other way that non-tanks will loseshields is being hit by Rockfall. Note that players take damage notonly inside the areas marked by the circles (although the damage taken there ismuch higher), but also around those areas. In any case, as long as playersare doing their best to avoid Rockfall, and as long as healers are healingplayers who are shielded, the damage from Quake Stomp should becomenegligible.
Lastly, some raids may opt to kite the Vampiric Cave Bats instead oftanking and killing them, due to the fact that the fight presents a ratherstrict DPS requirement. We do not advise you to kite them, if you have the DPSto kill Tortos, but if you do choose to kite them, then having them tanked bya Monk (because of their mobility) and stunned regularly appears to beideal.
24 Mar. 2013: Added mention that Snapping Bite has a casttime.
17 Mar. 2013: Added mention of 8-minute soft enrage timer; clarifiedseveral aspects regarding how to assign ranged and melee DPS players; addedthat the Vampiric Cave Bats should be tanked close to Tortos to allowfor cleaving.
15 Mar. 2013: Replaced our PTR preview with our video guide.
13 Mar. 2013: Added link to forum threads that containclass-specific advice for the encounter.
09 Mar. 2013: Removed mention of possibly being able to interruptQuake Stomp by kicking turtles.
07 Mar. 2013: Adjusted health values in 10 and 25-man, based onlive server findings.
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