World of Warcraft: Thorim Strategy Guide (Updated)

Thorim is one of the boss encounters in Ulduar. In order to defeat Thorim, players must go through a gauntlet starting off with a Combat Jormungar Behemoth and a rush of iron dwarves.

General Statistics:

• Race: Titan (Giant)
• Health Points: 11,300,000 (Heroic Mode)
• Level: ?? (boss)
• Melee Damage: Approximately 8,000 (Heroic Mode), on a plate wearing tank in full Heroic Naxxramas gear (need more data to get more accurate numbers).
• Swing Timer: Need information on this.
• Enrage: Refer abilities Lighting Charge and Berserk.

Abilities:

• Stormhammer: Throws a stormhammer, dealing 2451 to 2551 damage to an enemy, knocking down and stunning the target for 2 sec, and causing a deafening thunderclap to all enemies nearby the target.
  • Deafening Thunder: Inflicts 4625 to 5375 Nature damage to enemies standing in close proximity to a Stormhammer strike, preventing spell casting for 6 sec.
• Berserk: Empowers allies with the full might of Thorim. Damage done increased by 500%. Attack and cast speed increased by 200%. Health increased by 300%.
  • He will use this within 5 minutes of the raid killing the Jormungar Behemoth (need more info to confirm the exact point when this timer begins).
• Unbalancing Strike: Inflicts 250% weapon damage and leaves the target unbalanced, reducing their defense skill by 200 for 15 sec.
• Lightning Charge: Absorbs a torrent of electrical energy, inflicting Nature damage to enemies in a cone between the caster and the power source, and increasing the caster’s melee damage and attack speed by 20%.

Gauntlet NPCs

• Jormungar Behemoth:
  • Average Melee Hit: 12,400 (Heroic Mode)
  • Acid Breath: Spews acidic bile at a target and nearby enemies, inflicting 12000 Nature damage and 1500 additional damage every 2 sec. for 18 sec.
  • Sweep: Sweeps at the legs of an enemy, dealing 6000 damage and causing knockdown for 3 sec.
• Captured Horde/Alliance Soldier:
  • Average Melee Hit: 2,600 (Heroic Mode)
  • Average Ranged Hit: 2,400 (Heroic Mode)
  • Barbed Shot: Fires an arrow that pierces an enemy’s flesh, inflicting 4,513 to 4,987 Physical damage and causing 500 damage per 3 sec. for 12 sec.
• Captured Horde/Alliance Soldier:
  • Average Melee Hit: 9,100 (Heroic Mode)
  • Heroic Strike: A strong attack that increases melee damage by 5,088 to 5,912 and causes a high amount of threat.
    • Based on WWS reports, the average hit seems to be around 12,500 (Heroic Mode).
  • Devastate: Sunders the target’s armor causing the Sunder Armor effect. In addition, causes 50% of weapon damage plus 90 for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. The Sunder Armor effect can stack up to 5 times.
    • Based on WWS reports, the average hit seems to be around 4,800 (Heroic Mode).
• Captured Horde/Alliance Healer (need confirmation of the actual NPC name):
  • Some form of AoE heal (need more info on this)
• Dark Rune Acolyte:
  • Holy Smite: Smites an enemy inflicting holy damage.
    • Based on WWS reports, the average hit seems to be around 7,500 (Heroic Mode).
  • Greater Heal: Call upon holy magic to heal an ally.
    • Based on WWS reports, the average amount healed seems to be around 86,500 (Heroic Mode), although there seems to be as high hits as 300,000 (more information is needed on this).
  • Renew: Heals a friendly target for 13650 to 14350 (Heroic Mode), 9,263 to 9,737 (Normal Mode) per 3 sec. for 15 sec.
• Dark Rune Champion:
  • Average Melee Hit: 8,000 (Heroic Mode)
  • Whirlwind: Attacks nearby enemies in a whirlwind of steel that inflicts normal damage plus 100.
  • Mortal Strike: Inflicts 250% weapon damage and leaves the target wounded, reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 50% for 5 sec.
    • Based on WWS reports, the average hit seems to be around 12,300 (Heroic Mode).
  • Charge: Charges an enemy, inflicting normal damage plus 120 knocking the enemy back.
• Dark Rune Evoker:
  • Runic Lightning: Strikes an enemy with a blast of runic lightning, inflicting 7,875 to 10,125 (Heroic Mode), 6,563 to 8,437 (Normal Mode), Nature damage.
  • Runic Mending: Heals an ally for 18,500 to 21,500 (Heroic Mode), 11,563 to 13,437 (Normal Mode) , then heals for an additional 6,000 (Heroic Mode), 4,000 (Normal Mode), every 1 sec. for 15 sec.
• Dark Rune Commoner:
  • Low Blow: Lands a cheap shot on an enemy, inflicting Physical damage and reducing the target’s damage dealt by 3% for 20 sec.
  • Pummel: Pummels an enemy and interrupts the spell being cast for 5 sec.
• Dark Rune Warbringer:
  • Average Melee Hit: 5,000 (Heroic Mode)
  • Runic Strike: Strikes at an enemy with an electrified weapon, inflicting Nature damage equal to weapon damage plus 1000.
• Iron Honor Guard:
  • Average Melee Hit: 2,700 (Heroic Mode) Shield Smash: Inflicts 5088 to 5912 Physical damage to an enemy, stunning it for 3 sec.
  • Cleave: Inflicts 150% of normal melee damage to an enemy and its nearest ally.
  • Hamstring: Inflicts 50% of normal melee damage to an enemy, reducing it’s movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
• Iron Ring Guard:
  • Average Melee Hit: 3,300 (Heroic Mode)
  • Whirling Trip: Knocks down nearby enemies, stunning them for 2 sec. and inflicting increased weapon damage.
  • Impale: Deals a vicious attack that causes the target to bleed profusely until healed past 90% of its maximum health. Deals 1750 (Heroic Mode), 1125 (Normal Mode), damage every 2 sec. for 1 min or until removed via healing.
• Ancient Rune Giant:
  • Average Melee Hit: 4,700 (Heroic Mode)
  • Stomp: Stomps the ground, inflicting normal damage to nearby enemies and knocking them down for 2 sec.
• Runic Colossus:
  • Average Melee Hit: 5,200 (Heroic Mode)
  • Smash: Smashes the target, inflicting 13875 to 16125 (Heroic Mode) damage and knocking them up.
  • Charge: Charges an enemy, inflicting normal damage plus 120 knocking the enemy back.
  • Runic Barrier: A shield of runic power surrounds the caster, reducing Physical damage taken by 50% and inflicting 2000 Arcane damage to attackers.

Suggested Raid Composition:

• Normal Mode:
  • 2 tanks - Ideally one of your tanks should be one which isn’t affected greatly by silence effects.
  • 2-3 healers - Depending on the strength of your healers you should be ok with only 2 although if you feel that healing is too much for one of the two fight sections you may wise to bring a third.
  • 6-7 dps - In the colosseum section of the encounter non-caster dps classes have a clear advantage due to the silence so you will want a balanced group of casters and melee/hunters.
• Heroic Mode:
  • 4 tanks - Like in Normal Mode you will ideally want to have two tanks which are not greatly affected by silence effects.
  • 6-7 healers - With 6 healers you should have no difficulty with this encounter, but you can always bring one more if you feel that healing is too much for one of the two fight sections.
  • 14-15 dps - Like in Normal Mode, in the colosseum section of the encounter non-caster dps classes have a clear advantage due to the silence so you will want a balanced group of casters and melee/hunters.

Strategy:

The encounter begins with your raid engaging a 5 man group of the opposing faction fighting a Jormunger Behemoth. Killing them is fairly straight forward, simply tank the Behemoth turned away from the raid and kill the opposing faction healer while the rest of the adds are tanked.

Once that is over your raid will need to split in two. One group will be staying in the colosseum and dealing with the various Dark Rune adds, while the other fights their way up the gauntlet to Thorim past the Iron Guards, Anicent Rune Giants, and the Runic Collossi. You will ideally want to organize the groups before the pull, and they will need to consist of two balanced raid groups with 2 tanks in each and 3 healers in each. On top of that you will want all your caster dps to go into the gauntlet and your melee/Hunters to stay in the arena as they won’t be affected by the silence.

The group that stays in the arena will simply need to survive while the other group fights to Thorim. The healers for the colosseum group will need to spread out so that only one healer can be silenced at a time as a silence on all the healers will easily cause a wipe.

The gauntlet group will be going to the left of the entrance down the gauntlet where they will be fighting there way to Thorim. The gate to the gauntlet seems to stay open for only a short duration so the whole group should stand at the very edge and be ready for someone to open it then run in as it is better if everyone gets inside at the same time and they begin pulling right away. While going up this gauntlet they will come across Runic Collossi which have a considerable amount of health and serve as mini-bosses that will need to be killed. Once you reach Thorim you will be paralyzed twice, by large magical bubbles, while walking to him, and during the second time he will jump down into the raid and begin to engage the group in the Colosseum. The gauntlet group them simply follows him and jumps down and then the whole raid will face him.

Now the fight turns into a fairly straightforward dps race against the Lightning Charge which will allow Thorim to one shot the tanks if he isn’t killed fast enough. In addition to this, Thorim does Unbalancing Strike which will require tanks to switch off on him for the duration of the debuff. In the later stages of the fight the healers will really need to spam heal the tanks once the charges begin to stack very high.

In the last stage of the fight it really is up to dps to kill him quickly and the healers to keep the tanks alive, although if you are able to get to Thorim then the encounter with him isn’t very complicated.

Hard Mode / Additional Loot:

According to a GM, the encounter normal mode is meant to have the whole raid follow into the gauntlet unlike the above strategy, and the above strategy would then be the hardmode version of the fight.

“For normal mode, you want to enter the gate to the left by using a lever. Once you enter the mobs will despawn and a massive orb of lightning will fly towards you. Now you need to stick to the side and avoid it completely, then proceed to the gate.”

Although that may be true, the original testing and kills were doing the so called “Hard Mode” so we will see the exact meaning of the Hard vs Normal Mode of this encounter once some more testing is done or when Ulduar goes live.