Patch 5.2 PTR: Meeting Megaera
Megaera is the fifth boss in the the new patch 5.2 raid instance Throne of Thunder. Some of the players who have witnessed this boss have deemed it "Magmaw 2.0". The story of Megaera is a tragic one. Lei Shen took a young cloud serpent, turned it into a multi-headed hydra, then stuffed it somewhere in the depths of Lei Shen's throne. She's actually not that far off from Tortos. Those two should hang out more often.
Anyway, have you ever heard of the Lernaean Hydra that Hercules killed as a part of his 12 Labors? Like the hydra in that story, when one of Megaera's head is destroyed, two more heads will then spawn in it's place. Her body takes damage that's equal to the head's maximum health.
Bad news? You can't seal off the heads when you kill one.
In order to activate Megaera, there are a series of three bells that need to be rung. You'll find them around her cavern. You just need to right click them and you'll see the cavern start shaking. After you hit that third bell and hit the bottom, you'll find three heads greeting you from a miniature lake. You can't swim or otherwise step into the water in this area as you'll get thrown back on land.
Let's go over what each of the individual heads do.
Flaming head
Cinders is a debuff that periodically gets applied to players. It's a front loaded damage spell with a DoT component. You can dispel Cinders. When you do, it creates a pool of flame where the player was at. Anyone standing within it will lose a chunk of their health.
Anyone with Cinders on them will cause Icy Ground to melt. This is important and we'll get to it soon.
This particular type of head will also cast Ignite Flesh. Your tanks should be able to face it away and absorb the full effects of the blast on their own. You need to make sure you're not near it as that cone is massive.
Frozen head
You have a few seconds to set up for Torrent of Ice. You'll get a message across the screen saying that you have been targeted by it. Once you see it, start hauling yourself out of the raid. Don't run it into anyone as the Torrent of Ice will generate Icy Ground wherever it hits.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get an exact health value of Megaera but judging at the rate of progression that the heads were doing to the body, I'd say it'll take 7+ heads to take down Megaera (minimum).
Similar to Ignite Flesh, tanks on the Frozen Head have to exercise caution due to Arctic Freeze. Tanks will get stunned if they allow their Arctic Freeze stacks to pile up.
Venomous head
This is one of the easier heads to deal with. Acid Rain will get launched at players. It's a giant, sluggish moving AoE missile. The further you are away from the point of impact, the less damage you'll take. Keep yourselves properly spaced and dodge them as needed. They won't be a problem. That green swirly mark on the ground will show you where it's about to hit.
Poor Earth Elemental didn't stand a chance.
Rot Armor is the breath attack of Venomous Head. As they continue to get hit by it, the amount of damage taken from all sources also goes up. The effect does stack and this is where you'll want to have your tanks switch (especially if it's just a Venomous Head and a Frozen Head).
Anatomy of the fight
When your raid group initiates the fight, the boss will start going on a Rampage. All three heads are active and they'll start spraying random fireballs everywhere. They don't target players specifically. They're always launched at random locations. We countered this by standing in front of one of the heads, using one raid cooldown and completely burning that head. We decided to try the Venomous one first because that ability looked simple compared to the other ones.
Don't be cute. If there's no one within melee range, you'll face the full wrath of Megaera's Rage.
The breath attack and the special abilities are independent of each other. When we killed the Venomous head, two more Venous heads spawned in the distant Concealing Fog. She would also Rampage again for 20 seconds giving us a little breathing room from having to deal with their special attacks. Even though you can see the heads out in the Concealing Fog, you can't hit them. Any heads within the fog will use their non-breath attacks while the ones next to land will use their actual breath attacks.
Don't bother splitting your damage or trying to cleave the heads. When one head is lopped off, the other remaining heads will heal to full and attack 30% faster due to Hydra Frenzy. You have to go after each head in succession. If you kill the Venomous one first followed by the Frozen head, the Flaming Head will have a major attack speed buff and should be the next one down. There will only be two heads near land at any one time (after you kill the initial head).
When there are two Frozen Heads up, the one in the Concealing Fog will blast a player in raid with Torrent of Ice. The Flaming Head in Concealing Fog will hit a player with Cinders. As a healer, my job was to keep the Cindered player up as long as possible so they could burn away that Icy Ground. While the area we were fighting in was a decent size, the Icy Ground patches felt large and after a few Torrents, our movement became even more restricted. We designated multiple spots for Cindered players to run to in order to dispel it off of them once they were finished.
Megaera has a soft enrage mechanic from the Elemental Blood of Megaera. There's a buff like that for each element.
This encounter is straightforward and a decent challenge. I didn't have as much fun here compared to Tortos. Master the mechanics of the different heads and you'll get through this guy without too much difficulty. Definitely bring three healers on this for 10-player versions. You'll want two healers covering the tanks in the event the third one has to get the Torrent out fast.
Wait, you think this is bad?
You have no idea.
Megaera on heroic mode has four heads!
Check out the rest of our Throne of Thunder boss coverage below!
WoW Insider Throne of Thunder boss impressions
