Patch 5.2 PTR: Staring into the face of Iron Qon

The first question that crossed my mind was is this guy pronounced Iron Con or Iron Chon? I think it's the latter, but I don't have a clue. Anyway, Iron Qon is one of the last few bosses in the Throne of Thunder before you can challenge the Thunder King himself.

After experiencing a few wipes, the current iteration of the boss abilities just seem overpowered. With any new boss, there's always that slight chance that we're not doing it correctly or that it's bugged. Usually, we assume that we're doing it wrong. But after repeated attempts and trying a myriad of assorted positions and strategies, nothing was working. We had a hard time putting a serious dent on that first flying quilen. The furthest we progressed was no less than 60% health.

Not exactly promising, right?

Iron Qon has a small pack of quilen. His abilities are dependent on which prime quilen he happens to be riding on. No matter what, he's always going to use Throw Spear at some unsuspecting player in the party. Attentive players will notice that the first quilen of Iron Qon has an energy resource not unlike our old friend Majordomo Staghelm back in Firelands.

Quilen One: Ro'shak, the Molten Flare

Remember that spear I mentioned that Iron Qon is so fond of throwing around? When he pitches it at you, get clear of the impact point before he ignites his spear with Burning Cinders. You'll see veins of fire erupt from the ground shortly thereafter and they go all over the place.

We realized early on that this first part of the encounter with Moltres Ro'shak is all about energy management. Molten Overload goes off when maximum energy is reached. To help bleed off the energy and delay Molten Overload from occurring, players can group up together and trigger Unleashed Flame (and make sure you actually group up because during testing, it was 700,000 divided by players within 10 yards). You need a minimum of three players to grab attention.

Quilen Two: Quet'zal, the Stormcaller

The next quilen is Zapdos Quet'zal. Iron Qon will switch to lightning and wind based attacks like Arcing Lightning and Windstorm. Judging by what I've gathered, this second phase seems easier to handle than the first. Arcing Lightning does require you to drag your friends out of the spawned storm. Windstorm will hamper all of your effects. Any kind of damage, healing, or absorb effects will be reduced by 80%. After you get pulled into the Windstorm, get clear of it.

Spears will continue to be thrown. This time, players can be charged with lightning. Getting three stacks means getting stunned by a Storm Cloud and knocked out of the action for 20 seconds.

Defeating Quet'zal means advancing to...

Quilen Three: Dam'ren, the Frozen Sage

Articuno Dam'ren is the last quilen. If you stand directly in Dam'ren's Dead Zone, attacks going both ways will miss. Based off the abilities in WoWhead, that's four different directions that you can be in which causes Dead Zone. I don't think there's anything you can do about Freeze. After a random player gets frozen, they're going to get shattered for tons of damage anyway.

You guessed it. There's one more spear attack. This time, it's Freeze Spear: Frozen Blood. You get hit by it, you'll take damage and a slow debuff to your movement, attacks, and casting speeds by 25%. This effect will stack.

Last Qon Standing

With the quilen defeated, you're left with Iron Qon himself. On the bright side, he seems to have tossed aside his spear. On the other hand, he doesn't need it as he'll use his fists to Fist Smash. You'll be under pressure to put Iron Qon away as Rising Anger is a soft enrage mechanic. Lastly, the dungeon journal lists two sets of cyclones: An Ignite Cylone and a Freeze Cyclone will be used on the various cyclones around the area. Ignite Cyclone burns players at a constant rate while Freeze Cyclone entombs them in ice causing them to lose 5% of their maximum health.

Bad memories of Sindragosa are flashing through my brain.

All in all, I wish I could've seen more of the encounter. Iron Qon certain looks to be a formidable raid boss. At the moment, no other raid tests have been scheduled so far but there should be some ocurring soon as we get closer to the release of patch 5.2