Uber Pally is a pally tank in my guild and a dang good one. We have a few people we consider full time tanks, three in all, and he’s one of them. The other two are Warriors (one being The Boyfriend). After an evening of heads into desks from people dying in SSC from Underbog Colossus attacks, Uber Pally wrote a “How To: Underbog Colossus” article and put it up in the guild strat area. Last night was the first night back in SSC since he posted it. Result? Massive, massive change. Hardly any deaths.

So I now present to you, Uber Pally’s How To: Underbog Colossus!
Since the start of our adventures into SSC Underbog Colossuses have always been a difficult mob for us to beat without someone (or a lot of people) dieing during the fight. Because of that, I am writing this – it is a not terribly brief description of the Colossus, its abilities, and what you should be doing during the fight. If you find this too much to read – skip down to the section with the picture. It along with the paragraphs below it will tell you what to do.

There are many different types of Colossus that you can get. Each one will have one of three main abilities that it does while attacking, and each one will have one of three different on death abilities. Below is a list of the core abilities an Underbog Colossus can do:

1) Frenzy
This is the easy one to deal with. The Colossus will frenzy and attack the main tank harder. Hunters can Tranq Shot the Colossus and all will be well. No one in the raid will have to worry about being attacked providing they do not pull aggro.

2) Spore Quake and Rampant Infection
When the Underbog uses Spore Quake he will do an area of effect attack that hits everyone within a 30 yard radius for 2000 damage every tick for 12 seconds. This means that when he begins his Spore Quake all melee DPS should run to the caster group immediately. The caster group should be out of range of this already as they should be 40 yards away from the Colossus.
Note: You should have the enemy cast bar shown on your screen. This is an option in your advanced options menu. If you do not have it turned on – turn it on. If you do not know how to turn it on. Ask.

Rampant Infection is simply a debuff that needs to be healed through and cleansed.

3) Acid Geyser
Acid geyser is our raid killer. When the Colossus does acid geyser he will select a player within 35 yards of him and do a frontal cone attack on that player. The Acid Geyser will hit the player that is targeted, everyone in front of that player and everyone behind that player. The damage from the acid geyser can not be outranged. This means that if the colossus selects someone that is standing in front of the caster group to shoot acid geyser at, the caster group will get hit, they will take a lot of damage, and most will die.
Note: You should have target of target shown on your screen. This is again an option in your advanced options menu. Make sure it is turned on so that you can see who the Acid Geyser is targeting.

These are the only three abilities the colossus has while he is alive. Other than that he will only attack the main tank providing no one pulls aggro from him. However, the Underbog Colossus also has 3 on death abilities, these are as follows:

1) Toxic Pool
Once the colossus has died a toxic pool may form underneath him. It will do 2000 damage per tick until you get out of it. Once he is dead make sure to get out of the toxic pool immediately if you see it.

2) Adds
The colossus may also spawn adds on death. Let the tanks get at least a little bit of aggro before nuking them down.

3) Refreshing mist
The last option that could happen once the Underbog Colossus dies is that he spawns a refreshing mist. This mist is blue and has large mushrooms in it. If this mist spawns everything is fine, you will not die, just stand around and wait for the next pull. Do not confuse the blue mist with the green mist. The green is not your friend in these fights.

This is a lot to read, remember and react to. So I have made a drawing of the Underbog Colossus fight. Every single colossus that we do will get set up in exactly this manner. Along with this drawing is a bit more of an explanation of what to do during the fight.

In these fights the tank will be in front of the colossus, the Melee DPS must stand behind the colossus and the ranged DPS and healers stand to the Colossuses side. Note the large blue triangle in this fight. This is the area where no one should stand. Ever. This means no pets may stand there, no Melee, no shadow priests, no one. All ranged DPS and healers must stand 40 yards away from the colossus. If you need to be closer than that to do anything you need to do you must stand with the Melee DPS.

If the Underbog Colossus does a spore quake, as stated above, all melee should run out of the area of effect towards the casters (yes, run through the blue triangle ).

If the colossus does an acid geyser he will only target a person from the Melee DPS group – this is because all of the ranged folk are 40 yards away from the colossus. If he targets you – stand still. We will call it out and everyone else will rotate away from you. Once the acid geyser is done he will retarget the tank and all melee DPS must move back into position behind him.

Note: If by chance you are standing in the blue triangle (meaning you are not at least 40 yards away from the colossus) and you get targeted with acid geyser, run! Run to the side and towards the Melee DPS. Make sure to face him away from the rest of the casters as fast as possible or else the will take a lot of damage and most likely die.

That is it! That’s all you need to know. So in summary, follow the picture. Stand exactly where it tells you (note ranged folk must stand at least 40 yards away from the colossus or else they have to stand with the melee DPS) and all will be well.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 10:10 am and is filed under Serpentshrine Cavern, guest.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.