| Name | Serpentshrine Cavern: The Lurker Below Guide |
| Category | Raid |
After killing Hydross the Unstable, or deciding to pass him because your tanks still lack resistance gear, your next target inside Serpentshrine Cavern is The Lurker Below. Killing The Lurker Below rids you of the troublesome fishes that reside underwater, allowing you swimming access to the waters as shortcuts to the succeeding boss locations. Also, this boss is fairly the easiest boss inside the raid instance. His abilities can easily be avoided, and he does not have any enrage timer too.
After clearing the series of mobs linked to Hydross, make your way to the left side following the direction the Purified Water Elementals go (assuming you are passing through Hydross without killing him). If ever you manage to aggro some of the water elementals, just kill them quickly as they only have little health. Eventually you will reach a wide bridge going to the first platform with several mobs in it. All 6 platforms should be cleared before attempting The Lurker Below to make the encounter easy.
Trash mob information
Vashj'ir Honor Guard - A melee naga mob. Basically should be tanked away from the group, since it has Intimidating Shout. Also can knock the tank up, and enrages when its health reaches low values.
Coilfang Shatterer - Melee naga mob. Hits hard and has Shatter Armor ability. This ability is a 2 second cast, which reduces armor by 50%, and melee damage by 35%. The debuff lasts for 15 seconds, and it can be spell reflected. Warrior tanks should try and spell reflect this ability every time Coilfang Shatterers use it.
Coilfang Priestess - Healer naga mob. Basically can cast heals, and can cast Holy Fire on a random person who can tick for around 1.3k damage or so. These mobs can and should be crowd controlled to prevent healing on other mobs.
Greyheart Technician - Elite Broken mobs. These little fellows do not hit hard, and can be crowd controlled. They come in 4s, and an offtank can just gather them up and they can just be AoEd. If the raid is lacking some tanks, just use AoE fears on them until a tank becomes available for tanking them.
**These mobs as well as the fishes respawn after 2 hours. Linked to The Lurker Below, so killing him will stop the respawns.
For every platform, there are 4 Greyheart Technicians, 2 Coilfang Priestesses and Coilfang Shatterers, and 1 Vashj'ir Honor Guard. Have 3 tanks take on the Vashj'ir Honor Guard and the 2 Coilfang Shatterers each, while the 2 Coilfang Priestesses get crowd controlled and the Greyheart Technicians get fear bombed constantly, or just offtank them all if there are enough tanks around. Tank the Vashj'ir Honor Guard away from the others, and focus on the Coilfang Shatterers first. Kill one Coilfang Shatterer at a time, then move on to killing the Vashj'ir Honor Guard. Keep the Coilfang Priestesses crowd controlled, and kill the Greyheart Technicians next after killing the Vashj'ir Honor Guard.
Finally, kill the Coilfang Priestesses one at a time, when they are the only mobs remaining on the pack. Just repeat this routine on the next 5 platforms, since they are all the same on every platform. Once all 6 platforms are cleared of the mobs, the water will begin to boil, basically killing all the deadly fishes. Although there are no more fishes to bite you when you enter the water, you will instead get a Scalding Water debuff which deals 500 fire damage every 3 seconds. This debuff takes effect once you enter the water, dealing an initialy 500 fire damage as you touch the water, and it will continuously tick while you are in the water.
If you keep jumping in and out of the water, you'll just be killing yourself with 500 fire damage every time you touch the water. This is much deadlier than staying in the water the whole time, so keep this in mind. Also, the Scalding Water damage is much, much more weaker than if the water is not boiling and the fishes are still around. You will need to use the waters on the Lurker Below encounter so you should be clearing the platforms first to get Scalding Water instead of getting tons of fishes biting you if you decided to skip the trash mobs and went for the Lurker Below immediately.
After clearing all the platforms, jump into the water and move to the center to where the large Strange Pool is. You'll notice there is a large circular set of wooden planks encircling the Strange Pool, and 3 small wooden plank 'islands' on 3 sides. Take note of these satelite planks for the Lurker Below fight.
The Lurker Below
Popularly dubbed "The Loot Below" because of the difficulty of the fight. This is the easiest boss in the instance, and dying to his abilities should not be happening at all unless you are not paying attention to your surroundings and reacting accordingly.
Raid Composition
1 Main Tank
At least 2 Offtanks (Feral druids recommended)
7-8 Healers
At least 3-4 crowd controllers (mage, warlock, hunter)
Remaining slots for other DPS
Key Abilities
Water Bolt - The Lurker Below's nuke. Deals 8750-11250 frost damage to random targets. 1 second cast time. The Lurker Below only uses this ability if there is no one within its melee range.
Whirl - The Lurker Below's AoE ability. He uses this ability occasionally, which makes him do a spinning animation and dealing 4375-5625 physical damage to anyone within melee range. It also causes a moderate knockback of around 5 yards to anyone who gets hit. This ability basically affects anyone standing from the inner edge of the large circular wooden plank to around halfway of the planks' width. The Lurker Below does this ability every around 30 seconds or so.
Geyser - The Lurker Below's random ranged attack. He uses this frequently on a random player outside of melee range, which deals 3238-3762 frost damage and knocks the target back for about 10 yards.
Spout - The Lurker Below's main ability. Every 60 seconds, he will emote "The Lurker Below takes in a deep breath". As soon as he does that, he will shoot out a continuous jet of water from where he is facing and rotate for about 370 degrees before stopping the water jet. This ability is pretty similar to the Dark Glare ability of C'Thun, but weaker. Getting hit by this gets you damaged for 3238-3762 frost damage, plus getting knocked back really far (about 100 yards). Since this is a rotating jet of water, you can basically get hit multiple times when it passes, and killing you in the process. Otherwise, you can just get hit once, and avoid succeeding hits since you got knocked back too far already. Anyone, even the people standing on the satellite platforms should avoid this by diving into the water and waiting for it to pass your location. Pets are not affected by this so people with pets shouldn't have to worry about their pets when this happens.
Submerge - Every 2 minutes, The Lurker Below will dive underwater, submerging and summoning 9 nagas in total to the wooden platforms. 2 Coilfang Ambushers will spawn on each of the remote platforms, and 3 Coilfang Guardians will spawn on the main platform, 1 per side near a remote platform. They can all be crowd controlled, and should be killed before The Lurker Below re-emerges after 60 seconds of submerging.
Naga Add Abilities
Coilfang Guardian:
Arcing Smash - similar to a generic cleave, this ability hits for around 5-9k damage.
Hamstring - similar to a warrior's. Reduces movement speed by 70% for 10 seconds.
Coilfang Ambusher:
Multi-Shot - similar to a hunter's. Deals around 1.5-2k damage on 3 targets.
Positioning
Once you arrive on the main platform, you will see 3 small separate platforms. You can assign the one side that has no small platform (the one side with a big pillar near it) as "north", then assign each platform's side accordingly. The main tank should stay at the north side for tanking The Lurker Below. This way, the big pillar can be his barrier if ever he gets knocked back from being hit by spout accidentally. He should stay at the inner edge of the main platform so that if The Lurker Below whirls, he'll just be knocked back to the outer edge, instead of getting punted into the water.
Alternatively, he can stay in the water, with his back against the inner edge of the main platform. This way, he can permanently avoid spouts, and whirls won't cause much knockback on him. The only problem here is that he will constantly get Scalding Water damage, so healers should be aware and do some additional healing on the main tank. Assign 2 ranged classes, having one or both of them as crowd controlling classes (mage / warlock / hunter), on each small platform. These people will be the ones that will be crowd controlling the Coilfang Ambushers that spawn on their platform.
Have the healers spread out as well, with at least 1-2 healers per section (1 section = small platform and its corresponding side on the main platform). They should stay at the outer edge of the main platform, so they can avoid being hit by Whirl. The rest of the DPS people should also be spread out on each side, so that there are enough DPS for each side when the adds come out. Ranged DPS staying on the main platform should be staying on the outer edge to avoid whirls. Melee DPS should be staying at the inner edge of the main platform, and should be running away from the Whirls whenever they can. Also, assign an offtank for each section for tanking the Coilfang Guardian on their section for the 2nd phase.
When you are ready to deal with The Lurker Below and people are in their correct positions already, get your fishing rods out and fish him out of the Strange Pool in the center. You will need 300+ fishing skill to be able to fish on the water. It may take several tries before successfully fishing him out. The boss fight has 2 phases, and just alternates for the whole duration just like the fight with Hydross the Unstable.
Emerged Phase
Once you've fished him out, the main tank should be ready to grab his attention and tank him at his position at the 'north' side (the one with the large pillar). Stay close by the inner edge of the main platform to avoid being knocked back into the water by the whirls, enabling the tank to come back into melee range immediately and tank him again. If ever the main tank gets punted into the water and he can't get back up immediately, have the offtank taunt the boss and tank him for a while until the main tank goes back into his original position.
The boss can be taunted so there should be no problems on regaining aggro on the boss if the main tank gets knocked back far away and he can't get back into position immediately. Make sure The Lurker Below is facing the 'north', so that when he emotes and casts spout, people can have a little time to react and dive into the water to avoid being hit by it. Tanking him on the wrong place can spell disaster on the people on that side when he does his spout ability, unless they can react very fast and avoid being hit by the initial burst of the spout.
Ranged DPS should start immediately and go all out on him as soon as the tank gets The Lurker Below's aggro. The ranged DPS can't gain aggro from the boss, since he is stationary and will only hit the closest melee with the highest aggro on him. Melee DPS however should be aware of their aggro and shouldn't pass the main tank's aggro or else they will pull aggro themselves and die, or survive and just change the direction The Lurker Below is facing. Tanks should be aware of aggro changes and should taunt immediately if the main tank is out of melee range, and bring him to face the north as soon as possible. Healers should also be aware of the tank changes and heal the current tank accordingly.
Whirls occur every 20-30 seconds or so, so melee DPS should be moving out of Whirl range when it’s almost time for The Lurker Below to use the ability. Every minute, he will emote "The Lurker Below takes in a deep breath", and casts spout starting from where he is currently facing and rotate randomly, either clockwise or counterclockwise. Players should be aware of this and should dive immediately into the water to avoid getting hit by spout, and wait for it to pass before jumping back up onto the platform. The players on the small platforms are no exception to spout, and they should jump down into the water as well. The whole phase lasts for 2 minutes until he submerges and goes to Submerged Phase.
Submerged Phase
After 2 minutes have passed since first engaging / emerging, The Lurker Below will stop attacking and dive into the water. Doing this clears all debuffs on him and starts the second phase of the fight. As soon as he submerges, 9 naga mobs will swim in and jump on the platforms. Two Coilfang Ambushers will jump on the small platforms, while 3 Coilfang Guardians will jump on the main platform, having one Coilfang Guardian on each side with a small platform. All of these naga mobs are vulnerable to any forms of possible crowd control (sheep / fear / seduce / etc.), so having at least 3-4 crowd controllers really help for every Submerged Phase.
These nagas, as soon as they appear on the platforms, does not aggro until after about 2 seconds. They will move around a bit first, then after 2-3 seconds, they will start aggroing the nearest player and you can start targetting them as well. This means, hunters should lay their traps onto the Coilfang Ambushers only after they become active, or they will waste their trap cooldown. Since the DPS people are spread out on each section, they should be the ones taking care of the nagas on their own section. There should be 2 Coilfang Ambushers and 1 Coilfang Guardian on each section.
The recommended action for each section is to crowd control one Coilfang Ambusher, tank the Coilfang Guardian, and focus fire the other Coilfang Ambusher and kill it immediately. As soon as the Coilfang Ambusher being focused on dies, move on to killing the Coilfang Guardian, then finally kill the other Coilfang Ambusher that's left. This should happen simultaneously per section, with the kill order of Coilfang Ambusher -> Coilfang Guardian -> Coilfang Ambusher. If a section is lacking in DPS, some DPS on a nearby section should help out in killing their adds. If the section's DPS can handle it, they can have all their melee focus on the Coilfang Guardian, and the ranged kill the first Coilfang Ambusher.
The main tank can help tank a section's Coilfang Guardian if the raid lacks offtanks. Just kill his Coilfang Guardian/s quick, so he will be free from tanking duty before The Lurker Below emerges. The only important thing to accomplish before The Lurker Below emerges is to kill all Coilfang Guardians. Having Coilfang Guardians still alive (and being tanked) when The Lurker Below emerges can be very dangerous for the tank, since he might die from spout if he didn't react immediately, or he won't get heals immediately since the healer went to dive in from the spout and there can be line of sight troubles while underwater.
Coilfang Ambushers doesn't hit very hard, and does not require tanking so the raid can leave a few Ambushers alive when The Lurker below emerges, then just kill them later on after the spout. After a minute of being submerged, whether all adds have been killed or not, The Lurker Below will emerge and go back to Emerged Phase and start attacking again.
The whole fight consists of these two phases alternating. Every after 2 minutes of being active, The Lurker Below submerges, then after a minute of being submerged, he will re-emerge and start attacking again. The whole routine will continue until he is dead, since he doesn't have any enrage timer. The fight is really easy and won't get damaged much if the people know how to avoid his abilities, except for his Geyser ability which he does to random ranged targets. The remaining problem lies on the Submerged Phase, but if the raid has enough crowd controls and the Coilfang Guardians are being tanked correctly (away from anybody since it has an Arcing Smash), it will be just a survival phase until The Lurker Below re-emerges.
Avoiding Spout
The Lurker Below's Spout ability is very deadly if a person gets hit by it. Spout is also very easily avoided, if people are alert. When The Lurker Below emotes "The Lurker Below takes in a deep breath", it is the signal to DIVE into the water. It doesn't matter where you are located or what you are doing currently, just DIVE IN QUICKLY.
This means, ranged DPS / healers / some melee DPS currently standing on the outer edge of the main platform should MOVE BACKWARDS and enter the water behind them (assuming they are facing The Lurker Below), melee and tanks standing on the inner edge of the main platform should MOVE FORWARD and enter the water in front of them, and people staying on the small platforms just dive anywhere they want QUICKLY. Don't wait for him to actually complete his Spout cast and watch where the Spout is going (clockwise / counterclockwise) before diving.
People staying at the 'south' side (behind The Lurker Below) can get some DPS in before diving since it will still take some time until the spout reaches the 'south' side. As you dive, wait for the spout to pass your position before returning to your platform. Healers can still heal people underwater as long as they are in line of sight with each other. Diving further into the water fixes line of sight issues, but it will make you jump back to the platform longer. Ranged DPS can also try DPSing underwater while waiting for the spout to pass them.
As soon as the spout passes your location, return to your platform location as soon as possible to prevent any further Scalding Water damage on you. Also, take note that spout rotates for about 370 degrees. This means it will overlap a bit on the direction where he started casting it. The main tank and the people near the starting point should be aware of this and should just move sideways for a bit until the spout ends. After the spout ends, The Lurker Below will do a Whirl, so melee people including the tank should move away for a while and wait for him to do a Whirl before returning to melee range and resume DPS / tanking.
Alternatively, if people can manage, they can avoid spout by running along the main platform with the same direction as how The Lurker Below is doing spout. This way, melee people can still do some DPS while The Lurker Below is spouting. The tank can dive into the water to avoid the initial spout, then jump back up quickly after the spout has passed him and run to the same direction as the spout so he can continue to hit The Lurker Below and gain more aggro on him while he is still spouting. Mages can also avoid spout by timing their Blinks to blink to the opposite direction through the spout. They can also use Ice Block and paladins can bubble to render them immune to spout, but this is not advisable since you'll be using up your cooldown just to avoid an easily avoidable spout.
Avoiding Whirl
The Lurker Below's Whirl is on a rather erratic timer. He usually whirls every 15-30 seconds, and it’s random every time within that time frame. If you have boss mods installed, you can't really rely on its timers due to this, but their "Whirl soon" warnings can help. If you see this, just start moving away to avoid getting whirled. The main tank is an exception to this, as he should move forward to the very edge of the inner edge of the main platform, or should even enter the water when it’s the "Whirl soon" warning.
Main Tank Notes
Tanking should be done at the inner edge of the platform. This way, if The Lurker Below whirls, you'll just get knocked back to the outer edge of the platform and you can quickly return to your tanking position. If the whirl still knocks you back far enough that you land on the water, just dive in for a little bit when The Lurker Below is about to do his whirl. This will just throw you back up onto the platform, or just do nothing, and you will still be in range of tanking this way. Also, always make sure The Lurker Below is facing 'north' (the big pillar) so he will always his spouts there and not anywhere else.
When The Lurker Below emotes for spout, just dive into the water in front of you and continue hitting him for additional aggro while underwater. You can stay underwater for the whole spout duration if the healers can still heal you without having line of sight problems, or you can get back onto the platform once the spout passes you, then follow the spout's direction while still maintaining aggro on him.
Running with the spout can be hard for some healers since you might go out of range from the healers when you run to the other side, causing them to approach the inner edge of the platform just to reach you and will be within range of whirl right after the spout. Due to this, its more advisable to stay underwater and stay within your healers' range rather than going out of range from one of your healers, then dying due to not receiving enough heals while you're on the wrong side of tanking.
If ever you failed avoiding his spout and get knocked back too far, tell one of the offtanks to taunt The Lurker Below for a while until you return to your tanking spot, then taunt him back to you. For the submerged phase, you can grab a Coilfang Guardian if you lack offtanks, but make sure to tell the section's DPS to kill your Coilfang Guardian quickly so you can return to your tanking spot before The Lurker Below re-emerges.
An alternative strategy is for the main tank to stay underwater for the whole Emerged Phase. Just dive into the water in front of you and wedge your back to the edge of the platform, treating it like a wall to break your knockbacks from Whirls. Of course, this will put more stress on the healers with the Scalding Water damage ticks. But with this strategy, you will be avoiding spouts and whirl knockbacks all the time, granting you full time tanking on The Lurker Below and thus not requiring an emergency offtank to taunt for you if you get knocked back anymore.
Offtank Notes
During Emerged Phase, your job is to just DPS the boss like a normal DPS class and avoid whirls whenever you can, but be on stand-by for when the main tank gets knocked back far and he can't get back into tanking position quickly. When this happens, you need to taunt The Lurker Below and tank him for a while, and move to the tanking position to face him away from the raid. The main tank should taunt him off you once he gets back into position.
For Submerged Phase, stay within your own assigned section, and wait for the Coilfang Guardian on your section to aggro then grab it for tanking. Once you got its aggro, move it such that it’s facing no one but you, so there will be no other victims for his Arcing Smash.
Spout on Emerge
When The Lurker Below re-emerges, he will emote for his spout ability AS SOON AS HE COMPLETELY EMERGES. Everyone should be aware of this and DIVE IN QUICKLY. This screws up raids most of the time, when they are still busy dealing with the adds and The Lurker Below emerges, then he instantly emotes for his spout ability, ensuing panic to some people especially to Coilfang Guardian tanks if there are still remaining or healers who are still currently healing people.
Once he emerges, DROP EVERYTHING YOU DO and prepare for the incoming spout. If you're a healer and there are still Coilfang Guardians remaining, continue healing those tanks but make sure you avoid the incoming spout. This is why you need to kill all Coilfang Guardians before The Lurker Below re-emerges so that people won't be panicking with the immediate spout.
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