Drowned Halls is the new 10 man raid in RIFT and, I have to say, they did a pretty great job on the various encounters. Most of them are simple once you learn the mechanics, but the chaos of the fights is actually a lot of fun. We were able to down all of the bosses last night and got quite a few great pieces of loot. Congrats to those who got some loot and enjoyed themselves. The fights break down like this:

Assault Commander Jorb – All you really have to worry about here is his frontal attack.  He will regularly “call X to attention,” where X is one of the players. When he does this, the player will be pulled to him and rooted (and killed by the frontal). So, the tank simply turns the mob 90-120 degrees each time he/she sees the message calling a player to “attention.” Each melee needs to move in the same direction when the mob turns. There are a few things to cure/purge, but for the most part the turning mechanic is the only one to worry about.

Joloral Ragetide – For this lovely lady, keep her out of the water in the center. Pull her to a side and tank her there. A second tank needs to grab the add and pull it away from her to another area of the room. As the fight goes, small adds will pop and give her more dmg/heal her. You should be able to dps and heal through the add buffs, but if not then you can move the name around the circular room as each wave spawns. There will eventually be another big add that pops, which needs to be offtanked as well. When that second add pops, kill off the first one as he will get a buff. If the fight takes long enough, there will be a third big add as well.

Isskal - Welcome to Dance Dance Revolution, hurricane-style. You will need 3 people with interrupts on a rotation. You must interrupt Ice Shard or it will instantly kill the tank. You can simply call out each person in turn, but they have to be quick with the interrupt. Other than that, he has 2 stages (mechanics) to deal with. On the first one, a “toilet bowl” whirlpool will form and you must run in the direction of the current. While the current is going, little crab guys will spawn and snare people. You basically need to run and kill the crabs as you go. He will switch the current’s direction once, then go back to normal. The next mechanic is a set of 3 rings, think of Target (the store) and their symbol. One out of the three rings will be a safe place to stand, you will be able to see which is safe based on water graphics shooting out of the dangerous ones. Your entire raid must move to each ring in turn. The order is middle ring, outer ring, middle ring, center, middle ring, outer ring. After this, just kill him!

High Priestess Hydriss – A messy/chaotic fight and a long one, but it is very doable once the mechanics are worked out by the raid. The encounter starts out with 4 groups of adds (3 groups of 3 and 1 roamer) that you have to kill as she is walking down the stairs. I recommend pulling 2-3 groups at a time and AEing them down, they all have to be dead before she gets to the bottom and engages. Once down, she has a few different mechanics she will rotate. The first is a small dragon that spawns and runs to her. He will buff her dps and lower the dps of those around it. Let the dragon come to her then kill it quickly, then get back on her. The next mechanic is a set of hives that pop with lots of little adds with very little hps. Just kill the hives while AEing the little guys. Her last mechanic is an instant death spell she will start to cast. A bubble will form and 3 water elementals will pop and try to destroy the bubble. The dps should kill 2 of the elementals while someone pulls out the third/snares it so it doesn’t make it to the bubble. You must be under the bubble when her spell goes off to survive.

So, that is DH in a nutshell. Rather than some image or humor I figured I would post some strats for a change!