The Northrend Beasts is a three phase boss fight. First comes Gormok the Impaler, then Acidmaw and Dreadscale at the same time, and finally Icehowl.
Phase 1: Gormok
Phase 1 is Tank and spank with a few refinements:
* The two tanks taunt off each other to keep the damage-over-time Impale from stacking too high
* DPS kill snobold adds that attach themselves to random players
* Ranged and healers spread out to stay out of fire patches and outrange the 15-yard Staggering Stomp interrupt
Tanks taunt the boss off each other when their Impale debuff has expired. With two tanks, this normally results in a taunt at 3 stacks, three tanks can keep themselves at 2 stacks. It's possible to heal through 8 stacks or more, but a high Impale stack makes the start of Phase 2 very difficult.
Don't stand in the fire! All ranged classes must avoid the fire patches. They are rather short range AoE, but deal substantial damage. They randomly spawn on players, and rather quickly too. This means that while moving away from one's own fire, it's possible to enter somebody else's. To avoid this, ranged should spread out in a semi-circle, and move outward when they get fire. A priest's Levitate buff prevents the fire pool from spawning on ranged/healers.
Kill snobolds! Gormok throws Snobold Vassals onto random players (even on tanks). Snobolds don't deal a lot of damage, but they regularly interrupt and/or stun their targets, which is particularly dangerous on healers. Ranged (if not all DPS) should kill Snobolds quick, relieving healers first. A common mistake that players new to the instance make is not killing snobolds under the assumption that a tank is supposed to pull it off of them and tank it.
Gormok's damage can be greatly reduced by disarming him in normal mode.
Phase 2: Acidmaw and Dreadscale
The key mechanic in this phase is interaction between Burning Bile and Paralytic Toxin.
* Acidmaw applies Paralytic Toxin; Dreadscale applies Burning Bile.
* Players with Paralytic Toxin can get it removed by running close to a player with Burning Bile and taking a tick of fire damage.
* Burning Bile falls off naturally and cannot be removed.
* One worm is mobile and the other stationary. Regularly they burrow themselves and switch state after resurfacing.
Both worms can be tanked normally. They apply their special attack depending on their state, that is the mobile worm applies it only to its tank, while the stationary worm puts it on a random group of players (AoE). The mobile worm also spawns poison circles around itself (similar to Grobbulus), thus must be moved.
Initially, Dreadscale is mobile and Acidmaw stationary. This means that random raid members get Paralytic Toxin, and they must run towards the Dreadscale tank to get rid of it. After the first burrow, only the Acidmaw tank gets Toxin, but he must get close to the random raid member who has Burning Bile. Usually it's better if one of the players affected by Burning Bile runs to the Acidmaw tank, not vice versa.
Positioning is important. No players except the tank should ever stand in front of one of the worms. The distance between players should be as large as possible, so that fewer raid members get Paralytic Toxin at once (it's an AoE centered on one player with 10 yard radius). At the same time, players can't be more than half the room away from the Dreadscale tank, else the toxin freezes them before they reach the tank.
Normally, Acidmaw is killed first, to get rid of Paralytic Toxin, even though after one worm dies, the other enrages for at least 50% extra damage (10 and 25 player normal).
Hunters should mark both snakes when they burrow so they are easily followed underground.
Phase 3: Icehowl
Aside from Icehowl's melee range knockback and periodic tank stun, the main mechanic of this phase is the Massive Crash and Ferocious Butt charge:
* Massive Crash: Icehowl knocks the entire raid back to the walls, stunning everybody.
* Icehowl moves to the center of the room and picks a random target which he's going to charge. He turns in that raid member's direction.
* After a short pause, Icehowl takes a few steps back. At the instant he starts moving backward, everybody gets a speed buff and can move again.
* Ferocious Butt:After two seconds, he charges the spot where his target was originally standing.
* If he touches any player (not necessarily the original target) while moving to the chosen spot - they die instantly and he enrages. (This is dispellable with Tranquilizing Shot or Anesthetic Poison).
* If he hits nobody, he crashes into the wall. He is stunned and takes increased damage for about 5 seconds.
Avoiding the charge is critical. Other than that, healers need only watch out for the Arctic Breath freezing cone attack, which can be broken altogether if the main target breaks the stun using Blink, a PvP trinket, or immunities like Divine Shield.
