Setting:
When this event is active, the garden has various large boulders staggered around the play area, and the 'gentle sloping rise' area featured in all of the encounters resembles a very shallow volcano in this iteration of the garden. There are mini 'gutters' or troughs that run down the side of this slope that will become mini lava flows once the event begins.
For now, though, the boss is a large dormant boulder himself, resting in the crater of the volcano.The Fight:
The raid throws their collected Death Lotus into the well, beginning the event, and the boss begins to glow red while the ground rumbles gently.
"Mmmmmm..... What is it now?! I wish only to sleep! Why must you pitiful little creatures continue to torment me so? Have you no respect for the earth? Like gnats, you buzz about me day in and day out. My anger rises, and soon, it will... EXPLODE!"
The pressure builds up, and the rumbling intensifies until the volcano erupts and blows the boss into the air. A circular blast wave of lava blows outward from the volcano, rippling outward towards the garden walls. I basically imagine a graphical element similar to Sartharion's lava churning, but moving in an outward facing, growing circular motion instead. This can be avoided by standing behind the boulders. Lava also fills the 'gutters', and remains there for the rest of the fight.
Meanwhile, the boss has been launched into the sky. He comes crashing down to the ground, triggering a large Thunderclap animation which also throws a circular blast wave, but this time of rocks and pellets (same idea, different texture / shape, not as intense). Again, this debris can be avoided by taking cover behind a boulder, or just by being out of range. Those caught in the actual Thunderclap area are dazed, and take a damage spike, and have their armor values reduced. I'm thinking either a stacking debuff that lasts a long while (10% reduction, stacks 10 times, 5 min duration), or a more intense, but shorter one (75% reduction, lasts 10 sec). The second one favors an OT and MT juggle when needed, and keeps both tanks on their toes the whole time. The first allows the MT to hold him until he can't take it anymore, then pass him off to the OT to finish the fight.
At any rate, the tank picks him up, and DPS begins.
From time to time, he repeats this motion of jumping in the air and landing in a Thunderclap explosion of rocks and debris, but occasionally he will choose to instead jump back in the middle of the area, kicking up the lava wave, which hits considerably harder. This happens at quarterly HP intervals (75%, 50%, 25%). The lava wave can also inflict a long duration Fire Buffet debuff that multiplies fire damage taken, making hopping over the little lava streams, and avoiding contact with another lava wave that much more important.
When he lands in the middle, he lays dormant again, while the 6 boulders spread around the room activate, and 'stand up', becoming rock giants. These are slow moving elites that hit for a ton, but are easily kited. They focus on a random raid member, and cannot be taunted or otherwise swayed from their focus. They march towards this member, and he or she just stays out of melee range. This is a good opportunity to regen some mana or bandage if you aren't being watched. The ground begins to shake again, the elites 'lay back down' and become inert rocks again, and the boss is launched skyward once more. The placement of these rock giants is important, since avoiding many of the AoE attacks requires hiding behind these boulders. You obviously don't want them all clumped up in one corner, etc.
The last 'flavor' ability of the boss itself is a paralyzing Gaze it uses, similar to the Crystal Gaze ability of random Basilisks found in the wild. He focuses on a raid member, and they have 5 seconds to break line of sight (again, behind a boulder) or they get turned to stone. This effectively removes them from play. They're dead, but not in the normal sense where they can ankh, soulstone, or be Rebirthed by a druid. This is the bosses trump card, but is avoidable by staying near a boulder at all times. Getting hit by the Thunderclap daze doesn't help, either, so it's good to avoid that as well.
If the fight is too easy, the last 25% could see a more frenzied enrage type event, where the volcano is constantly erupting every 5 seconds or so, or perhaps at each quarterly interval, one more of his rock giants just remains active. They could switch focus from time to time, so they aren't always stuck on the tank or whatever, but it would eliminate things to hide behind (or clever players could still use them to break LoS if that's possible to do behind a moving target).
As a side note, the most awesome piece of loot in the entire game drops off this boss, as well. :)
(no original blog post for this encounter)
