Into the heart of fear - LFR

Fabad, blogger extraordinaire, is reporting inside the inside the Heart of fear with a small assault force wich is bent on eradicating the insects problem of the Dread Waste.

Doing thoses fights on the LFR at the release I noticed a step up in difficulty compared to Mogushan Vault. So I decided to make a general guidelines for the bosses you'll encounter there from a melee DPS point of view. But as I was writing this post, LFR got hit by a series of nerf that trivialized even more most of those fights. Anyway, it's done, so here it is:

Imperial Vizier Zor'Lok: The first boss you'll encounter, you will have to follow him to three different platforms where he will have different abilities. 
- Attenuation: You need to dodge discs he sends all around him in a spiral.
- Convert: He will control 3 raid member, dps them to 50% to free them.
- Force and verve: that is a damage raid wide ability where you have to run to an area protected by a yellow protective barrier to mitigate damage.
When he reach 40%, he will move to the center and uses all three abilities. If you were mindlessy dpsing away, now would probably be a good time to pay attention to the fight, so try to stay alive until he die.

Blade Lord Ta'yak: This boss has one ability called Unseen strike that targets a random player but all damage is spread between people that are in the vicinity. The guy who is targeted will have a red arrow on his head, so stack on him or he will be one-shotted. The boss has another ability that prevents players to just stack in one place for all the fight, it's called Wind step and it will hit a random player and the one who are within 8 yards of him, so it's better to be a little spread out if you can. Also tornadoes will spawn during the fight, so move away from them. At 20% health, another phase begin. He will teleport to an end of the corridor and you've got to chase him as he will send tornadoes down the corridor. Dodge them and be wary of spots on the floor indicating a tornado will spawn when you got near him. At 10% health, he will move to the other end of the corridor, so rinse and repeat .

Garalon: This giant bug should be kited around  the area by dedicated healers or ranged that knows what they're doing, while the two tanks stays in front of him at all time. Because, if the boss cleave doesn't hit two player, he gets a stackable buff called Fury. Since it's LFR, there is a chance that the raid will completely ignore that mechanic and let one of the tank kite him. So help the healers by minimizing the damage you take and use self heals when you have to. DPS must focus on the legs to slow him, the damage you do on the legs will also reduce Garalon total health pool. Bonus: if you are within 12 yards of the leg you got a 100% damage increase buff. Apart from the cleave, you must avoid stepping on the pheremone trail left behind by the kiter. And most importantly, you must be careful not to get under Garalon (indicated by a purple circle) or it will trigger the Massive Crush ability wich is raid wide damaging attack and would probably kill you if you are under him.

This finish the first wing of Heart of fear, come back when you're done to read the second parts.

Wind Lord Mel'jarak: In this fight, there will be nine adds of three type (all adds of a same type share the same health pool):
- Menders who cast an interruptable heal.
- Blademasters who simultaneously charge a random player.
- Trappers that have two abilities: Amber Prison that will cc a player (right click the player to remove it) and a debuff call Corrosive resin that can be removed by moving but will leave a residue in the path of the player.

Only four adds can be crowd controlled (CC) at one time or CC's will be reset. I found out that the best way to do this boss is to mark the adds that will be have to be kept CC'ed: two Menders, one Blademaster and one Trapper. CC'ing one blademaster will reduce the damage done to the random player that will be charged. Mark the remaining Mender who will be focused on first and mark a Blademaster who will be focused next, then finish off the Trappers. After this the boss can be defeated pretty easily. Another way, typical of LFR, is to pull before the CC are done and gather all the adds in a pack and AoE them down, it's just that it takes longer.

Amber-Shaped Un'sok: One of the most important ability of this boss is that he will transform a random player in a mutated construct. For the first phase, only the tanks will be transformed but in the subsequent phase any player can. When mutated, the player must use two abilities: if the construct is casting Amber explosion use Struggle for control to interrupt, else use Amber Strike on cooldown wich stack a debuff on the boss. The dps need to burn both the boss and the construct because if it ran out of energy, the mutated player will died. That player is automatically released when it health reach 10% in LFR. Otherwise, if you are targeted by Amber scalpel, kite it away from other people.

Phase two start when boss reach 70% health. All dps must switch to Amber Monstrosity and the controlled player. If you are mutated, try to interrupt Amber explosion of the Monstrosity as much as possible by using Amber Strike.

Phase three starts when the Monstrosity is dead. You can switch dps back to boss. It's a burn phase so just go crazy on dps.

Grand Empress Shek'zeer: That fight is pretty straightforward for dps in LFR. You will alternate between dpsing the boss and the adds when the Empress retreats. When adds comes out, focus on the smaller one first then take out the big one. If an add focus on you, just kite it. After two wave of adds, you wont need to switch again, just dps that big girl.

Some sha-touched weapon drops from the Empress but if you are plate dps, you will have to wait for the Terrace of endless spring to get one. Sha-Touched weapon can be gemmed with a legendary gem given by the black Prince at the end of his legendary questline.

Pro-tip:  Enjoy a meal at the Thanksgiving table near the Storwmwind gates to get a +10% reputation buff.