Sometimes you have to get back to basics and take things step by step.  Nobody knows this better than our good friend Rhyolith.  He laughs as you engage him in combat, sure that you must be mistaken.  It seems he thinks your raid will be a walk in the park.  Let's show you how to give this guy a real work out.

L2R Difficulty Ranking = 3/5

The encounter's abilities are forgiving, but the sheer quantity of adds and required dps and healing is not.  An average guild can expect to spend 1-4 days learning and executing this encounter.

Tanking = 2/5

Healing = 3/5

DPS = 4/5

Movement = 3/5

Situational Awareness = 3/5

About the difficulty ranking: L2R ranks the difficulty of different fights based on an average of how difficult the different aspects (tanking, healing, and dpsing) are as well as the fights overall movement and situational awareness requirements.  These stats are weighed on a scale of 1-5 and the values are averaged together to form the L2R Difficulty Ranking you see above.  The rankings assume you are attempting the fight at the inteded gear level at the time it was most relevant.

Raid Makeup

Tanks = 1-2

Healers = 2-3

DPS = Balanced DPS

Abilities

Phase 1

Lord Rhyolith

Fragments of Rhyolith

  • After 30 seconds fragments will charge a random player and explode, dealing damage equal to their remaining health.

Sparks of Rhyoltih

  • Infernal Rage - Increases damage dealt by 10% and damage taken by 10%.
  • Sparks of Rhyolith will spam a hellfire-like ability.

Phase 2

Lord Rhyolith

  • Concussive Stomp - Deals 32375 to 37625 Fire damage to nearby enemies. Enemies within 20 yards are knocked back.
  • Immolation - Deals Fire damage every second to nearby enemies.

Positioning

The steering group will follow the boss switching dps between feet as neccessary.  The ranged and healer group will attempt to stacked up in centralized spots.  Tank Sparks out of the raid and all players must attempt to avoid lava lines.

Strategy

Begin the fight by properly splitting up the raid.  One team, preferably consisting of melee, will be in charge of dpsing the feet and essentially steering the boss.  The rest of the raid will need to stay stacked up for healing purposes and make sure to handle the adds.  One player should be in charge of calling out the driving teams intended direction.  Melee will need to follow these directions and properly switch dps to the correct foot in order to steer the boss properly.  The goal of this is to direct the boss to walk over active volcanoes while avoiding walking off of the platform and into the lava.  Shortly into the fight, Rhyolith will Concussive Stomp.  Upon doing so, multiple volcanoes will spawn randomly across the platform.  Soon after this, one of these will become active and begin to blanket fire damage over the raid.  Steer the boss quickly and efficiently to walk over the active volcano, successfully deactivating it and turning it into a crater.  A few moments later, the crater may spout streams of lava out of the sides.  These thin red lines will do big fire damage to those they hit, so make sure to avoid them.  This is the basic rotation of phase 1.  The boss stomps, volcanoes form, step on the active volcano, avoid the lava streams, repeat.  During all of this, players who are not steering will be dpsing adds down to make sure the raid is not overrun.  If your raid is using one tank, his job is to pick up all of the adds.  If your raid is using two however, one tank will be in charge of Fragments, while the other is in charge of Sparks.  It’s best to assign one healer to each tank and one healer to the raid.  If you are only using 2 healers, then cross healing will need to be more prevalent.  Be prepared to keep an eye on multiple people as raid damage can ramp up quite drastically.  Don’t hesitate to use cooldowns on the spark tank when Infernal Rage grows higher.  Remember that even if the tank damage seems manageable, the tank damage plus raid damage might not be.  On these same lines, raid cooldowns should be used if any volcano has been up for an excessive amount of time.  It will not always be easy to steer Rhyolith straight onto an active volcano and the longer it takes the more damage the raid will incur.  Stomp will do huge damage if a volcano has been active too long and the raid should use cooldowns help survive.  Dps priority is Fragments, then Sparks, then Rhyolith.  There will not be much time for non-assigned players to dps the boss, but then they can make sure they are following steering directions or splitting dps evenly between the feet.  When the boss’ hp reaches 25%, his armor will shatter and phase 2 will begin.

Phase 2 is another dps race.  The boss will not simply ignore your raid anymore and a tank will have to pick him up.  Adds do not spawn anymore, but Rhyolith’s Immolation ability will deal steady ticking fire damage throughout the phase.  Have the raid stack in one pile a short distance from the boss.  This phase will not last long at all, so the moment the transition occurs or even slightly before, it is best to blow heroism or lust and use a tranq or hymn to top off the raid.  Continue to rotate cooldowns such as AM or Barrier throughout the remainder of the encounter and the boss should fall in no time.

One of the most difficult parts of this encounter is learning to drive the boss.  Stay focused and don’t let frustration get the best of you, it’s kind of like the first time you drove stick… if your first car was a volcano.  If you enjoyed this guide or found it helpful remember to bookmark us at LearntoRaid.com, subscribe to us on YouTube, and follow us on Justin.tv and Twitter.  Thanks for checking us out here at LearntoRaid.  As always we hope this guide has been helpful and we’ll see you at the next boss.