Boss Strategy - Fight, Raid Roles

The Fight
The beginning of this fight is incredibly simple. The tank should have Hodir pulled to him by a Misdirection or can simply pull Hodir from his starting spot himself. Once Hodir is positioned in the centre of the room and the NPCs have been freed the first time, DPS can begin on Hodir. All DPS classes can run in with the tank, as Hodir is on the far side of the room and will not be aggroed as the rest of the raid arrives at the ice blocks in the centre. DPS should take that initial pull time to begin breaking NPCs out of their ice blocks immediately while Hodir moves to the tank's location, though they should not DPS an ice block until Hodir has been aggroed, as otherwise they will aggro him themselves.

The raid should be 100% flexible in their movements during this fight - positioning is not important as long as everyone remains in range of healers and doesn't get hit by Icicles. Staying buffed and avoiding falling Icicle damage is more important than adhering to any specific positioning pattern.

The Hodir fight can be thought of as proceeding in 1 minute increments defined by each cast of Flash Freeze. The first minute doesn't start with a Frozen Blows duration, but all the following ones do. Follow this approximate strategy for each repeating minute of the fight:


Breaking the Ice
Immediately after the pull or each Flash Freeze, ranged DPS should break NPCs out of their Flash Freeze ice blocks. The faster this is done, the faster NPC buffs can be arranged.


Frozen Blows
About at the time the ice blocks have all been broken and the NPCs are starting to buff, Hodir will gain Frozen Blows. Now is the most healing intensive portion of the fight and players should be alert to avoiding Biting Cold and Icicles especially carefully. Be sure to use healthstones or a health potion if needed to keep yourself alive during this time.


Spread the Love
During Frozen Blows, the MT should reposition Hodir to near a Starlight if necessary for the melee DPS. Whichever players receive Stormcloud should buff the nearest group of players (the melee DPS if possible) and ranged DPS should group up in small clumps at each Starlight and Toasty Fire.


Burn It Down
Once Frozen Blows has expired, all buffs should be in position and you have approximately 30 seconds of time before a new Flash Freeze cast begins. Use this time to maximize your DPS with all of the NPC buffs - use your class DPS cooldowns, trinkets, and so on right now. Use Bloodlust / Heroism during one of these periods to boost the interaction of the haste effect with the NPC buffs.


Rinse, Lather, and Repeat
After 50 seconds Hodir will begin to cast Flash Freeze again. As described above, find the bright blue runes on the ground and wait for an Icicle to drop onto them. Once the Icicle has fallen, run on top of the new Snowdrift to be protected from the Flash Freeze cast. Once it finishes, return to step 1 and repeat this strategy for as many minutes as it takes to kill him. Specific raid role assignments are below.

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Raid Role Assignments

Tanking
Hodir requires only one main tank. There are no adds or other tanking requirements for the fight. As such, all off tanks should switch to a DPS or healing spec for the fight. Hodir can be successfully tanked by any of the current tank classes, however if tanks are not fully geared out, we suggest using a Death Knight tank so they can use their large number of tanking cooldowns to mitigate the once-per-minute Frozen Blows spike damage.

Hodir should be tanked approximately in the centre of the room as the fight begins, as noted in the diagram. However, the MT needs to be aware of three important things:

1) Melee benefit a lot from having access to a Starlight beam. If the Greycloud moonkin NPCs don't spawn a Starlight beam nearby, move Hodir close to at least one so that melee can stand in it and gain the +100% haste buff.

2) The MT needs to watch out for Icicles about to fall on or near him. An Icicle falling and hitting the MT will knock him across the room, add additional potential spike damage, and cause Hodir to pursue him, hurting DPS as the rest of the raid is forced to reposition.

3) The MT needs to avoid Biting Cold stacks just like the rest of the raid. Make sure to jump a lot while tanking! Extra Biting Cold stacks can easily be the extra spike damage that causes the MT to die during Frozen Blows.


Ranged DPS
Ranged DPS have lot of different things to pay attention to in this fight. Here are their assignments:

1) Ranged DPS should be responsible for breaking NPCs and player pets out of ice blocks after each Flash Freeze cast. They don't have to move to do this (or not as much as melee) and are ideal for this assignment. Player pets shouldn't get caught in Flash Freeze regardless (since players should recall them to the Snowdrift for each cast) but if you are just learning the fight, it is probably worth it to break them out of the Flash Freeze unless Hodir is nearly dead.

2) Ranged DPS should stack up on the closest available Toasty Fire or Starlight (or both!) This allows them to stack up the Singed debuff quickly, dealing massive amounts of extra damage to Hodir while (hopefully) taking advantage of +100% hasted spells.

3) However, note that stacking on these buffs will cause more Icicles to fall on that particular spot (since the Icicles target players). This isn't a reason to not stack on the buffs - ranged DPS simply need to be aware of this side effect and be watchful and ready to move if an Icicle falls on a buff stack. This is especially true for the Starlight buff; with Starlight obscuring the ceiling and the ground, the signs of a falling Icicle can be very difficult to see.

4) Make sure to keep moving! Biting Cold is much more difficult to avoid as a ranged caster since jumping or constant movement is much more damaging to your DPS. Most ranged DPS classes probably will find it easier to take quick sidesteps than to jump, as this takes less time - but with less time spent moving, it is also harder to get rid of a Biting Cold stack this way. This is one of the most difficult parts of the fight for ranged DPS, and keeping your Biting Cold stack down while doing good damage is something that needs a lot of practice and will improve markedly over time.


Melee DPS
Melee DPS have a difficult job avoiding Icicles in this fight, but otherwise are able to deal tons of damage to Hodir. Here are assignments:

1) Melee DPS should always be damaging Hodir unless they need to run to a Snowdrift to avoid Flash Freeze.

2) Stormclouds should be used to buff the melee DPS. Since all the melee are stacked up behind Hodir, it's fastest for the player with the Stormcloud buff to run to the melee stack and give them Storm Power all at once.

3) Melee need to jump all the time to avoid Biting Cold, while also watching carefully for falling Icicles. The small snow piles on the ground that signal an incoming Icicle can be difficult to see in the midst of the melee stack - don't get iced!

4) Your tank should move Hodir to a spot close to an available Starlight buff. Stand in it, even if it ends up being in front of Hodir. The +100% haste buff is worth it.


Healers
Healers are the lynchpin to this fight. Here are some quick notes:

1) Be spread out throughout the room, as shown in the positioning diagram. Healers bunched up will all have to move for Icicles at the same time, reducing a lot of outgoing healing at once. More importantly, as positions shift throughout the fight, make sure to stay spread out and not all end up near one another, causing a random DPS class across the room to end up dying from lack of heals.

2) Like everyone else, be careful with Biting Cold! Keep moving in little chunks to keep the debuff off and don't try to heal through it even though you have healing spells.

3) Assign healers to the MT and the rest to healing raid damage. All healers need to be ready for the massive raid damage dealt during the 20 second duration of Frozen Blows.