alt="Guide to Ost Dunhoth: Poison Wing"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/99570" />

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89646" alt="divider" />

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/ost-dunhoth/wound">Wound
Wing | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/ost-dunhoth/fear">Fear
Wing | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/ost-dunhoth/disease">Disease
Wing | href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/ost-dunhoth/poison">Poison
Wing

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89646" alt="divider" />

Having bested the oliphaunts, balrog and corrupted trees in
the
other wings of Ost Dunhoth, you have only one last wing to conquer
before moving on to Ivar and eventually Gortheron himself: the Poison
Wing. This wing becomes unlocked after battling your way through the
corrupted garden and killing Baleleaf and Dourbark. It is a dank and
soggy hell made corrupt and corrosive by powerful darkwaters. Likely,
the trolls and pale-folk hanging around in the shallow acid pools
aren't helping matters much either.

Poison is actually less of a
concern here than acid damage. VIP players will probably want to spend
some Destiny Points to buy acid mitigation, and gearing for acid
defense is also a good idea.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89646" alt="divider" />

FIRST BIG ROOM

The first group
of mobs is in a large room with a number of platforms in the middle and
relatively wide walkways around the edges. You will want to stay on
these as much as possible, because the water surrounding them does
moderate acid damage. It's not as strong here as it gets later on, but
it's enough to make you want to consider staying out of it.

alt="Poison Wing - First Room"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/99565" />

In the first room, you will be facing 4 Ninwaith
Venom-keepers, 2 Raging Stone-trolls and 1 Dunhoth Lake-lord.
 The Lake-lord spawns in when the fight starts and is not
visible at first, and will spawn Thralls during the fight. DPS will
focus on the Venom-keepers, and Hunters will likely be forced to spam
Purge Poison as these pale-folk run around attacking at random as
pale-folk are wont to do. 

The trolls have the dreaded Anger buff, so keeping them
crowd-controlled (CC'ed) can be problematic. Much like the anger-buffed
mobs in other wings, the strategy for dealing with these guys is to
"double-tap" CC on them: hit them with one CC skill to dispel the
Anger buff, wait for the buff to dispel, and hit them with a long
mezz. This is the preferred method for dealing with the trolls, as they
have attacks that apply a -50% incoming healing penalty to their
targets which stacks with itself, and they have 360-degree area-effect
attacks that can destroy groups fairly quickly. Keep them locked down
and kill them one at a time.

Save the Lake-lord for last. When he falls, the water becomes
less destructive - it still does some damage when standing in it, but
less than it did.

SECOND ROOM

There are probably a lot of ways to handle this second pull.
This group consists of 4 trolls, several pale-folk and 2 Lake-lords,
which spawn the thralls all through the fight. One method of
more-easily dealing with this large of a group is to have the tanks run
ahead and initiate the fight while everyone else stays back in the
first big room, where there are lots of stable platforms to stand on.
The tanks run the mobs back to the first room, and the
constantly-spawning thralls stay in the second room, where they can be
more easily dispatched later on without posing a constant threat to the
healers.  The other reason to fight in the first room is that
the corrosive waters do significantly less damage there than they do in
the second room.

Once the "lesser" mobs - the pale-folk and the trolls - are
downed, head into the second room to destroy the Lake-lords. Healers
should have room to stand on raised areas around the outside of the
room, and an off-tank or two will want to stand close by on-call to
take care of any thralls that come streaking for the belabored
Minstrels and Rune-keepers keeping everyone alive.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89646" alt="divider" />

FROTHMAR

After the second room is a "point of no return" drop, which
leads into a large, flooded chamber where Gortheron is annoyed at being
caught gloating in the shower.

alt="Poison Wing - Boss Room"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/99566" />

He will trash-talk you for a bit, telling you about the keeper
of the Darkthorn, a corruption that has slept in in a well far beneath
the earth until just now, at which point Frothmar emerges from the
foetid green waterfall. 

There are a number of dirty tricks in this fight...
unfortunately, most of them are the province of Frothmar and his
minions. For starters, the water is very strongly acidic and has
weakened the platforms around the room. This plays a major part in the
fight - Frothmar himself presents somewhat less of a danger than the
environment does.

The corrupted waters do progressively more damage the longer
you stand in them, tiering up every 15 seconds.  However, the
acid also coats your weapons and causes you to deal more damage with
attacks, and this damage bonus also tiers up the longer you stay in the
water. There will come a point, though, where the damage you are taking
from the water far outweighs the benefit from the extra damage, and you
will need to step out and clear it. Clearing the acid is pretty easy -
just dash up onto a nearby platform, wait about 4 seconds and it's gone.

This does, however, present something of a problem: the acid
has weakened the stone of these platforms, and too much weight at once
will cause the platforms to collapse, denying the group a precious
safe-spot. On Tier 1 difficulty, having more than 2 characters on one
platform will cause it to collapse. On Tier 2 difficulty, more than 1
person at a time is too much (even if they are both Hobbits).

alt="Poison Wing - Frothmar"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/99567" />

There are 4 of these platforms in the room, so the raid can be
divided into 4 groups of 3, and each group can be assigned to one of
the platforms - Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest. Generally,
the fighting will take place closer to the south platforms, so melee
classes and main healers can be assigned to those two. Ranged attackers
can be sent to the north platforms (the ones closer to the entrance to
the room).

alt="Poison Wing - Rotation"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/99569" />

The group will want to keep cycling players on and off the
platforms at all times. In the illustration above, each group rotates
clockwise, so each person spends 30 seconds in the water and 15 seconds
out. The red dots represent the tanks, who will need to be staggered
in their platform rotation so that at least one of them is able to hold
Frothmar at all times. Having two tanks is more or less mandatory for
this fight - one tank cannot stay on Frothmar full-time in the water
and expect to live, and will need to take a few seconds to dump aggro,
clear the
acid buildup and top off on heals.  The tanks can be divided
into separate groups (SW and SE), so long as the rotation keeps one of
them facing Frothmar at all times. In the illustration above, the SE
group's tank would start in the position immediately to the east of the
left group's tank, and would be next in line for the SE
platform. 

For Tier 1 difficulty, this is less of an issue. Healers can
stay parked on their platforms full-time, and the other 2 members of
that group will take turns in and out of the acid. It only takes 4
seconds to clear the Corrosive Acid debuff, so a player can spend 40 -
45 seconds in the soup, step back to safety and clear it and then get
right back in.

style="border: 0px solid ; width: 250px; height: 325px; float: left;"
alt="Poison Wing - Acid Debuffs/Buffs"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/99568" />

If
you're not the guy tanking Frothmar, this is more likely to be the
source of your doom.

Platform-cycling can be called out by one player who closely
monitors the acid tiers. At tier 4, the acid does around 1000 points
per tick, and that is a good time to switch. Alternately, the
switch-caller can call
out a switch every 15 seconds, keeping a regular pattern, and the group
rotates one person on to the platform and everyone else off. For the
Tier 2 challenge, each platform must have 1 person on it at all times
throughout the fight - there is a very brief grace period where 2
people can be on at once, but take too long and the floor crumbles out
from under you.

Another hazard in this fight is the adds that Frothmar calls
in periodically to destroy the platforms. These are darkwaters with 9 -
10,00 morale, and they will immediately begin attacking the platforms
they are sent to. They are single-minded and do not attack characters
until and unless the platform is destroyed. These are priority targets
when they pop up and must be killed very quickly before they smash a
platform - especially on Tier 2 difficulty, where all the platforms
must remain whole.

Frothmar is also fond of the field-goal and will punt
characters around the room. When he does this, everyone will want to
follow the arc of the punted character and be prepared to move if it
looks like he will land on a platform. This is a ranged attack, and he
may punt characters off of platform, leaving them unoccupied if nobody
is prepared to move in quickly to take that spot. 

This fight relies on precision timing and clear communication.
It is not a DPS race (except when the darkwaters come in to smash the
platforms), so the group can take their time against Frothmar. It also
relies on the tanks' ability to quickly swap aggro - if the tank
swapping out for the platform still has aggro and Frothmar follows him
onto it, the platform will collapse.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/89646" alt="divider" />

When Frothmar falls, the last of the easy wings is defeated
and the path before you leads next to Ivar the Bloodhand and his
master, the ruler of Ost Dunhoth, Gortheron. Divy up the loot, take a
long, steamy chemical shower and get plenty of rest. Play time is over,
and hell awaits.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Lord of the Rings Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

Comments