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T1 Dungeon: Expert Iron Tombs

By: Charlatan

T1 Iron Tombs

Iron Tombs is considered one of the easiest Expert dungeons. It's a pain to get to for us Guardians, but it's worth it, as it has six juicy bosses, and none of the fights are terribly difficult.

Expert Iron Tombs contains six bosses: the three that appear in regular IT, and three bonus bosses that only appear in Expert.

When you get to the top of the stairs (after about 6 or 7 pulls) you have the choice to fight Broodmother Veroxa or Caor Ashtone. Most people head to the left to fight Veroxa.

1. Broodmother Veroxa: This fight takes place in a L-shaped chamber. When you first attack Veroxa, three Cocoons will spawn in three different corners. It's possible to tank Veroxa where she stands, roughly in the middle of the room.

Throughout the fight, teeny non-elite spiders will spawn, and will typically run to the healer. Your DPS should focus fire them down. You'll rarely have more than two or three at a time, and they're not much of a bother. These spiders *do* root you in place occasionally, so it's good to kill them.

Veroxa randomly shoots a bolt now and then. Nothing that can't be healed, though.

At approximately 75, 50, and 25% health, Veroxa will emote and then run to one of the Cocoons. The cocoon will open and spawn an elite spider. The tank should pick this up and tank Veroxa and the spawned spider. The third time this happens Veroxa will issue an AOE which damages everyone who is in line of sight. So everyone (including the tank) should break line of sight by hiding around a corner when Veroxa runs to the last cocoon. So after the second cocoon, all of the ranged/heals should start positioning themselves so they can easily break LOS on the third cocoon.

People will swear up and down that the AOE occurs on all three cocoons but I've been stuck in the open before for the first two and I guarantee you this is not the case.

If your group can handle it, it's possible to ignore the elite adds and just kill Veroxa. This will net you an achievement.

2. Caor Ashtone: This fight is a simple tank and spank with one small twist. Caor has a damage aura that stacks over time on everyone in the party. This cannot be removed, and basically serves as an enrage timer: if you can't kill him fast enough, your party will die due to this debuff. In addition, Caor puts a stacking debuff on the tank that deals additional damage. This debuff should be cleansed as quickly as possible (on the party frames it shows up as a green-outlined debuff.

In addition, Caor will silence a random person (possibly only ranged). So it's possible that your healer will get silenced when the debuff is being applied to the tank. So while it's not necessary to have a second cleanser, it is helpful.

3. The Three Kings: This fight is similar to the non-Expert version, just ramped up in difficulty.

You'll fight three Kings, one at a time. When you defeat one the next one spawns. After defeating the third one they all resurrect and you fight all of them together.

When each of the Kings dies, they place a debuff on the entire group. The Warrior gives your group a debuff which reduces melee damage by 30% for 30 seconds. The Mage's debuff reduces magic damage by 30% for 30 seconds, and the Healer's debuff reduces healing by 30% for 30 seconds. These debuffs are applied in the second phase also. You can't do anything about them except be aware they exist.

The first king you face is a Warrior with a cleave. Once you defeat him a Mage spawns. Neither of these two offer much of a challenge. Once you defeat him a Healer spawns. The Healer casts two different heals periodically. The first one gives him a Heal over time, which can be dispelled. The second heal heals him for about 40% of his hitpoints, and must be interrupted by a Warrior or Rogue (Concussive Shot works). Cleric abilities such as knockback, silence, or fear do not work. If your group has decent DPS you will only have to interrupt him once or twice before defeating him.

Once you kill the Healer, you have a brief time in which mana users can drink if they need to. But be quick!

After a second or two, all three of the mobs will respawn in the places they originally spawned. This is the trickiest part of the fight, as the tank will have to scramble to get aggro on all three mobs. Typically one or two of the Kings will make a beeline for the healer (especially if there's a heal over time still ticking on the tank from the prior battle). So the tank typically has to grab the Healer as fast as possible, then bonk the Mage (because he's probably shooting bolts at your healer), then grab the Warrior as he's trying to run by. All of the mobs should be dragged to the Mage King's location, as he will not move.

At this point you can AOE the three kings down while focusing on the Healer King - it's important to keep interrupting the big heal he casts - he needs to be focused down first because if you attack another mob, he will simply heal them. Once he dies it's up to you as to whether you focus the Warror or the Mage.

4. Bonelord Felton: This fight takes place in a lower chamber which was full of Shadow type mobs. When you enter the chamber there will be two exits with barriers on them. Once you clear the chamber and activate all the orbs the barrior in front of Felton's room will drop.

Fighting the Bonelord is best accomplished with everyone except the tank switching to ranged DPS. The Bonelord's room is chamber with a pillar in the center of the room. Everyone except the tank stays outside the chamber, while the tank charges in. Everyone else stands in the chamber opening.

The Bonelord has two abilities he uses during the fight. He emotes before ach of them. One of them mentions "thirsting for blood" and the other says he's "searching for bones." When either of these emotes appears here's what you do:

- the tank starts dragging Bonelord around the center pillar.
- the ranged stops what they are doing IMMEDIATELY and slides to the left to hide on the outer wall. Count to 5 then pop back into the doorway.

Essentially, everyone wants to break line of sight when Felton is casting these abilities.

If you're in sight of the Bonelord when he casts those abilities, bad things happen. The "blood" ability causes you to lose control of your character for about 10 seconds. You also take damage. The "bones" ability spawns a couple of skeletons, which hit fairly hard.

Just repeat this process until Felton is dead. If you manage to complete the fight without spawning skeletons two times you will get an achievement.

Once you kill the Bonelord the other blocked exit will open up.

5. Ragnoth the Despoiler: This boss looks like a Red Godzilla! It's a mostly-standard tank and spank fight. Once again, it's best if everyone but the tank is ranged (sorry, melee!). You fight Ragnoth on a brick area, in front of a tomb with four torches around the outer edges. The party should start by standing at the point of the brick flooring, in the center of the torches.

The tank charges in and fights him where he stands (right in front of the tomb). Ragnoth has a damage buff he periodically casts, which can be purged.

Every so often, a friendly NPC named Eliam will spawn at one of the torch locations, and will cast a circle of light. He will yell for everyone to run to him. About one second later, Ragnoth will start AOEing, causing massive flame damage everywhere except inside the circle of light. So don't delay, as soon as you see that light appear, run for it - even the tank. Unfortunately, at the same time Ragnoth puts a slowing debuff on everyone which should be cleansed - the Cleric point blank cleanse works well, as does the Bard runspeed in combat ability.

Once Eliam disappears and the circle of light goes away, the tank should drag Ragnoth back to the tomb and the rest of the party should go back to the point of the brick area.

If you're lucky, the circle of light will spawn right next to you a few times - it certainly makes the fight easier.

6. Totek the Ancient: Once you defeat Ragnoth, Alsbeth and Eliam have a chat and the wall behind you gets busted down to reveal a passage to an underground chamber. Go into that chamber and take the time to clear all the mobs (there are four or five pulls, and at this point you probably want to skip a few, but don't - you'll be sorry).

Once you've cleared the room, the tank should move to the altar in the center which will eventually spawn Totek. If you're facing the altar as you ran down the ramp, you want to tank Totek to the left - there's a sort of hollowed out area where the tank should drag him. The tank should fight with his back to the wall, as Totek uses a knockback often.

DPS should stand a little ways back from Totek. Just make sure you are standing in a area where you won't have line of sight issues when the tank gets knocked around.

This is a tank and spank fight. Once in a while, Totek will start pounding the ground - when this happens, you'll see an aura around him - anyone inside this aura will take large amounts of damage so make sure your healer and ranged DPS is outside this circle (it's maybe 20 meters, so if you're properly positioned you won't need to move).

Periodically during the fight Totek will knock boulders off the ceiling which will hit random party members for a 2-3K. You'll also bounce up and down once and get briefly stunned. This doesn't happen too often and in my experience isn't worth worrying about too much.