The Black Forge is the second wing of the World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor raid called the Blackrock Foundry.  It is the second raid of the expansion and features four wings with a total of 10 different boss encounters. 

This second wing contains three boss encounters: Hans’gar & Franzok, Flamebender Ka’graz, and Kromog.

Hans’gar & Franzok

Hans’gar & Franzok comprise the first encounter in this wing of the Blackrock Foundry raid. The encounter is against both bosses at the same time, who share a health pool.  The fight is split into multiple phases as the bosses health drops. 

The main mechanic in this fight has to do with the actual environment that you are in.  You will have to fight the Hans’gar & Franzok while on 5 moving conveyor belts, and you will be forced to move around a lot as various elements of the foundry cause damage to you if you don’t.

Both bosses can Body Slam random players which deals damage to the target and anything around them, as well as applying a debuff that boosts physical damage taken by 30% for a short time.  They also have Crippling Suplex, picks up one tank and slams them into the other tank.  This deals big damage to both tanks and is the most damage that the tanks will suffer, so use cooldowns to reduce damage and survive.

Franzok also has Disrupting Roar and Skullcracker.  Disrupting Roar locks the entire raid out of any casting if you are caught casting while it activates. Skullcracker is a hammer that he will target random players with.  It deals damage to that player and stuns them briefly.

The main part of the fight, as mentioned above, is dealing with the conveyor belts and their movement.  There are 5 belts and they all move different directions and at different times and speeds.  There are spots between the belts that you can stand as well that do not move.  If you stay on the belt and get pushed to the end of it you will take significant fire damage.  While the belts are moving there will be either Searing Plates moving along them, or Stamping Presses slamming down from the ceiling. These need to be avoided as they will both deal enough damage to almost kill players in a single hit.

The phases of the fight are as follows:

• 100% - 85% health - Both bosses will be on the conveyor belts and they will be stationary. 
• 85% - 70% health - Hans’gar will leap out of the area and the conveyor belts will activate and Searing Plates will start moving along them.
• 70% - 55% health - Both bosses will once again be on the conveyor belt and they will be stationary.
• 55% - 40% health – Franzok will leap out of the area and the conveyor belts will activate and Stamping Presses will start slamming down.
• 40% - 25% health - Both bosses will once again be on the conveyor belt and they will be stationary.
• 25% - 15% health – Hans’gar will leap out of the area and the conveyor belts will activate and Searing Plates will start moving along them.
• 15% heath – Dead – Both bosses will once again be on the conveyor belt but they will continue to move and have Searing Plates on them.

Due to the movement requirements while avoiding damage in the last phase, this is when you should use Heroism, as damage will be more limited during this time due to the movement.

Flamebender Ka’graz

The second boss encounter in this wing of the Blackrock Foundry is against Flamebender Ka’graz and a minor second boss names Aknor Steelbringer. However the secondary boss is a minor part of the fight and should be dead very quickly into the fight (ideally 30 seconds, worst case a minute or so).

Aknor Steelbringer has two main abilities, the first is a slam that deals damage to everyone in her frontal arc, and the second is a leap to a random player at distance that deals damage to them and anyone around them.  She should be tanked facing away form the raid, with ranged players spread out to minimize the AOE damage, and burst down as fast as possible.

Flamebender Ka’graz starts the fight with only two abilities but gains more as the fight goes on.  She gains the extra abilities as she gains energy, once she uses energy and falls below the level required for an ability, she loses that ability. The two abilities that she starts with are Lava Slash and Summon Enchanted Armament.  Lava Slash is cast about every 15-20 seconds and targets a random player and sends a line of flame towards them that deals damage to anyone it touches and stays in place for 90 seconds.  Enchanted Armament is used roughly ever 45 seconds.  This creates an AOE effect that deals damage to anyone in it for the rest of the fight, they will not despawn. 

Once Ka’graz gets to 25 energy she gains the Molten Torrent ability.  This targets a random ranged player and marks them.  Six seconds later a meteor will fall from the sky on them dealing immense damage.  The damage however is split with everyone within 8 yards.  Therefore when a player gets marked they need to get to a group of players to split the damage with, this generally means running to the melee group.

Once Ka’graz gets to 50 energy she can summon two Cinder Wolves to join the fight.  These wolves do not share a health pool, but must die within a short time of each other or they will Rekindle and come back to life.  Each wolf behaves differently though, one will be tankable and one will fixate on a random player.  The tankable wolf must be faced away from the raid as it deals damage and applies a debuff to everyone in its frontal cone.  The one that fixates will have a fiery link back to the other wolf that deals damage to anything that crosses through it.  The player that has the wolf fixate on them needs to move in such a way as to not drag the line of flame through the entire raid.  Every so often the wolves will switch buffs and the tankable one will fixate on someone and the other one will need to be tanked.

• Looking for Raid Note: The wolves will still rekindle if not killed within  the set timeframe of each other, but will only come back to life with 20% health instead of full health.  This makes them much easier to deal with.

Once Ka’graz gets to 75 energy she will be able to cast Blazing Radiance.  This ability targets a random ranged player and causes them to explode in fire dealing damage to themselves and everyone around them every 2 seconds for 10 seconds.  The player affected needs to move away from everyone else in the raid.

Once Ka’graz gets to 100 energy she will cast Firestorm, which uses all of his energy and resets it to zero and Ka’graz then starts gaining energy again.  Firestorm is a very hard hitting AOE damage effect that hits everyone in the raid every 0.5 seconds for 12 seconds. It is important to note ant any Cinder Wolf still alive will also channel Firestorm, and this will likely cause so much damage that the healers will not be able to keep up and the raid will wipe.

After Firestorm completes the first time, Ka’graz will gain the Flamefury ability, which places a stacking DOT on the tank that she is hitting. This will need tanks to start swapping every 4-5 stacks.  She will also summon a Magma Monsoon that lasts for 30 seconds after Firestorm finishes.  It will cause damage to anyone in it as well as dealing damage to random players in the raid.

The fight will then revolve through those phases until you are able to kill her.  One strategy that is seeing use is for the raid to spread out on one side of the room.  Everyone stays there until there are too may Armaments and lines of flame in that half.  They then switch to the other half of the room to finish off the boss.

Kromog

The last boss encounter in the second wing of Blackrock Foundry is an interesting one with some simple but neat mechanics.  Kromog has several mechanics to deal with throughout the fight.

The abilities include Fists of Stone, Slam, Rippling Smash, Reverberations, Rune of Crushing Earth, Shattered Earth, and Stone Breath.  Fists of Stone is essentially his basic attack and hits the tank and one other player within 15 yards for heavy damage.  The damage is split between the two targets though.  It also applies a debuff to the primary target called Warped Armor, which lowers the movement speed of the tank and increases the damage taken.  This means that tanks will need to trade back and forth as the main tank to keep those stacks as low as possible.

Slam is a raid wide damage ability that does less damage the further you are away from him.  Rippling Smash is a cone attach that gets targeted at a random player, and deals damage to everyone caught in the AEO.  Players need to watch for him to turn to face the random player and then clear out quickly. Reverberations is an ability that follows every use of Slam or Rippling Smash.  It creates rings of sound that travel outwards from the point of impact damaging anyone caught in the way.

Stone Breath is another raid wide AOE that is used about once ever 30-40 seconds briefly, but is also used continuously any time there are no players in melee range of him. Shattered Earth is an ability that targets multiple random players and deals damage to them.  Rune of Crushing Earth summons two massive hands that clap together dealing huge damage to anyone caught between them.  Once they appear you only have a few seconds to escape their grip.

In addition to those abilities, Kromog also has a main combination of two abilities, which are Grasping Earth and Thundering Blows.  This combination is what forms the core of the fight.

Thundering Blows happens at about 1 minute into the fight and then every 2 minutes after that.  Thundering Blows deals heavy damage to everyone in the raid and then throws them into the air high enough that the fall damage will kill them.  The way to avoid this damage it with the Grasping Earth that will spawn in the area, first as glowing yellow runes and then as hands of earth.  Players need to run to these areas and spread out 1 per rune/hand.  They will then be grabbed and take increasing damage every second until they break free, they will not however take damage from the Thundering Blows. Ideally you want to break free right after the last Thundering Blow lands.

Lastly, Kromog will enter a state of Frenzy at 30% health and deal 20% more damage and gain 20% haste.  Frenzy lasts until you have defeated him or he hits his 10 minute enrage timer.