Tectus (Highmaul Raid) Strategy Guide

By Wowhead Updated: 2018/05/12

TectusHighmaulTectusWarcraft LogsLoot and RewardsSeal of Tempered Fate Bonus RollsTectus

LFR (640)

Cloth: Mountainslide Robes
Leather: Chestwrap of Violent Upheaval
Mail: Legguards of Ravenous Assault
Plate: Shard of Crystalline Fury
Neck: Cratermaker Choker
Cape: none
Ring: Frostcap Band
Trinket: Mote of the Mountain
Weapons: Shard of Crystalline Fury
Shield: Shield of Violent Upheaval

Normal, Heroic, Mythic (655, 670, 685)

Cloth: Crystal-Woven Bracers
Leather: Mountainwalker's Boots
Mail: Living Mountain Shoulderguards
Plate: Legplates of Fractured Crystal
Neck: Flechette-Riddled Chain
Cape: none
Ring: Earthfury Band, Eye of Tectus, Ring of Infinite Accretion, Signet of Crystalline Barrage
Trinket: Pillar of the Earth, Tectus' Beating Heart
Weapons: Earthwarped Bladestaff, Spire of Tectus

Abrogator Stonelegendary questlineLegacy of the Sorcerer KingsHighmaulBlackrock FoundryGlory of the Draenor RaiderGorestrider GronnlingTectusMore Like Wrecked-usHighmaulBlackrock FoundryMythic Draenor RaiderReturn to Table of ContentsNotable Trash MobsOroLokkRokkaa

Whenever one of these elementals reaches 20% health, he begins to cast Reconstitution.

If players do not kill the caster before the 20-second cast completes, the caster will heal 10% of its health every second for 10 seconds, essentially restoring it to full health.

Players must be careful not to allow more than one of these enemies to begin the Reconstitution cast at the same time, and must target their DPS on any enemy casting Reconstitution.

Stonebolt VolleyRadiating PoisonRadiating PoisonSTAND IN THIS - For trash onlyDo NOT stand in this

The Meteoric Earthspire ability draws a light brown circle on the ground, marked with a yellow arrow, and players must stand inside this circle in order to share the damage dealt by the effect.

If no players stand in the brown circle, the entire raid will take extremely heavy damage. Earthen Thrust draws an orange circle on the ground, and players must move out of this to avoid taking extremely heavy damage.

Stand in brown, move out of orange.

Oro should be tanked right on top of one of either Lokk or Rokka, and players should kill Oro first.

Melee should stay with Oro and cleave both enemies; ranged DPS should stand with the lone elemental and his tank, but focus primarily on Oro.

All players will need to assist in soaking Meteoric Earthspire that spawn near them.

Return to Table of ContentsTectus Tips & StrategyThe Living MountainTectonic Upheaval

If Tectus completes a Tectonic Upheaval, he will regain 20% of his life and gain energy at a faster rate, bringing the next Tectonic Upheaval more rapidly than the first.

Currently, Tectus is much easier to kill than his Shards or Motes are, so players may wish to save Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp for the middle of the encounter when there are 4 Motes and 1 Shard active.

Earthen Pillar

Players must place these Pillars properly around the edge of the encounter area; they are targeted on a random ranged DPS or healer, so it is important that these players do not move in to the center of the encounter area and spawn Pillars where they will cause line of sight difficulties for the remainder of the fight.

Once the Pillar indicator has appeared, players must move quickly out of its area of effect to avoid death.

Throughout the fight, he will also summon smaller versions with Fracture; these do not persist, but will deal heavy damage and knock back any players within their area of effect. Again, players must move quickly out of Fracture.

Crystalline Barrage

The targeted player(s) will display an arrow above their heads before the Crystalline Barrage begins to fire, and they should move out of the group to avoid damaging other players with the Barrage's effect.

One popular strategy for handling the dual demands of Earthen Pillar and Crystalline Barrage is for the raid to move clockwise to avoid Pillars, and for players targeted by Barrage to move counter-clockwise to ensure that the Pillar-avoiding path always remains clear.

Shard of Tectus

The Shard of Tectus has all the same abilities as Tectus does, including the Shard of the Mountain buff.

Tanks should each taunt a Shard to spread out the tank damage, while players focus on killing one of the two Shards.

When a Shard is slain, it Shatters, forming four even smaller clones called Mote of Tectus.

These Motes retain nearly all of the abilities that the Shards had, but can be killed at any time.

The tank damage from tanking all four Motes can be extreme, so some groups may find it easier to split the Motes between the two tanks, rather than having one tank hold all four Motes.

The ideal kill order is Tectus > Shard 1 > Motes 1-4 > Shard 2 > Motes 5-8.Night-Twisted BerserkerNight-Twisted Earthwarper

The off-tank should hold these adds within range of the melee DPS so they can be cleaved down effortlessly.

Earthwarpers have a dangerous cone attack, Earthen Flechettes, that requires them to be faced away from the melee; they also have a dangerous cast, Gift of Earth, that cannot be conventionally interrupted.

Players can choose to either stun the Earthwarper to prevent the cast, allow it to go through and buff Tectus with 10 stacks of Accretion (causing high damage on the Tectus tank), or the add tank can intercept it and gain stacks of Petrification. Intercepting Gift of Earth deals very heavy damage and the tank who does so cannot tank Tectus while affected by Petrification.

The ideal method of managing Gift of Earth is to have a stun rotation and kill the Earthwarpers quickly.

Return to Table of ContentsTank Responsibilities

Face the Night-Twisted Berserkers and Earthshapers away from the raid, but position them within range of melee cleave abilities

When Tectus Shatters into two Shards of Tectus, each tank should taunt one Shard

When a Shard of Tectus shatters into Motes of Tectus, one tank can hold all 4 Motes, but if damage is too high on the Motes tank, have the Shard tank taunt one Mote away from the group

Return to Table of ContentsDamage-Dealer Responsibilities

When Tectus, or one of his Shards, is at low health during Tectonic Upheaval, focus DPS on this target to kill it

Ranged DPS should prioritise damage on the current kill target, but multi-DoT other Shards and Motes to help keep Accretion under control

Melee should cleave and stun the Night-Twisted adds and stun the Earthshapers as much as possible to prevent the uninterruptible Gift of Earth

Ranged DPS should stay stacked up with healers on the edges of the encounter area, and move as a group to avoid Earthen Pillar

Move out of Fracture to avoid taking heavy damage

Players targeted by Crystalline Barrage should move away from the rest of the group to avoid damaging the entire raid

Use personal damage-reduction cooldowns for Tectonic Upheaval or when targeted by/standing in more than one Crystalline Barrage

Return to Table of ContentsHealer Responsibilities

Tank damage will be quite high, especially when tanking multiple Motes of Tectus

Raid damage will be high during Tectonic Upheaval, and damage-reduction and healing cooldowns should be used during this time

Healers (except for Mistweaver Monks) should stay stacked up with the ranged DPS on the edges of the encounter area, and move as a group to avoid Earthen Pillar

Move out of Fracture to avoid taking heavy damage

Players targeted by Crystalline Barrage should move away from the rest of the group to avoid damaging the entire raid

Use personal damage-reduction cooldowns for Tectonic Upheaval or when targeted by/standing in more than one Crystalline Barrage

Return to Table of ContentsWhen to Use Bloodlust/Heroism/Time WarpBloodlustHeroismTime WarpLooking For Raid DifficultyGift of EarthEarthen FlechettesReturn to Table of ContentsMythic Difficulty

The respawned versions have all of the abilities of the original version, but are not affected by The Living Mountain, and therefore can be killed outside of Tectonic Upheaval.

They will, however, spread Accretion to other nearby enemies, so players should focus on killing these respawned versions immediately.

Tanks will need to continue to be mindful of the Earthwarper's facing (to prevent players being struck by Earthen Flechettes) and to continue to manage Gift of Earth/Petrification.

Stunning the Earthwarpers to prevent Gift of Earth casts will be incredibly important since the damage from soaking Gift of Earth is very high and allowing Tectus or his Shards/Motes to gain additional Accretion could result in tank fatalities.

Earthen PillarTectonic UpheavalTectonic UpheavalTectonic UpheavalTectonic UpheavalBloodlustHeroismTime WarpTectonic UpheavalEarthen PillarCrystalline BarrageMethod's Mythic Tectus GuideReturn to Table of ContentsHighmaul Raid Guides

Highmaul Raid Overview

Kargath Bladefist Strategy Guide

The Butcher Strategy Guide

Tectus Strategy Guide

Brackenspore Strategy Guide

Twin Ogron Strategy Guide

Ko'ragh Strategy Guide

Imperator Mar'gok Strategy Guide

Return to Table of ContentsAbout the Author:Restoration Shaman@healiocentrichealiocentric ... a blog that revolves around healingReturn to Table of Contents

Comments

Comment by Teryx

"The Shard of Tectus has all the same abilities as Tectus does, including the Shard of the Mountain buff, and additionally, whenever they are close together they will buff each other with Accretion.
Tanks should split up and hold the Shards far apart while players choose one Shard to kill."

But that's a Mythic only mechanic, if the Dungeon Journal is correct. On Normal/Heroic they might as well be tanked on top of another - right?

Comment by Krytikal

Looks like a really fun and intense fight, can't wait to try it out. Great guide too!

Comment by Frazyo

Thought trash was the boss, got disappointed when I didn't see loot xD

Very fun fight that requires good raid co-ordination.

Comment by justinbail3y

I've been discussing with some guildies whether or not it's a good idea for the person marked with Crystalline Barrage to run back towards the wall and THEN counterclockwise. I've found in some of our more successful attempts that (as a healer) you may find yourself in a situation during later phases in which multiple people are affected with the debuff, and simply running counterclockwise may not be as easy of an option with the multitude of Earthen Pillar's strewn about.

I haven't had a chance to fully vet this idea out with our group, but I believe that it will allow for less overall healing during the shard phases.

Also...Crystalline Barrage DOES affect the melee, so having a multitude of healing classes chaining AoE healing abilities definitely helps.

Lastly, I run a holy paladin, but I did not see any reduction from Tectonic Upheaval in my logs when I would cast Devotion, considering it's Nature damage

Comment by Wolfkiba

Found this guide very helpful. When we came to doing this on heroic we found it easier to stack the 2 shards together so melee could cleave them both and keep the stacks down. This also helped melee to be clear of the crystalline barrage trail. When one shard died we kept them stacked and focused the other shard, just cleaving the motes. In a 30 man raid we had 2 holy priests and a druid plus me on monk and a paladin to heal it so we could for the most part rotate personals and raid cds on each tectonic upheaval. Very fun fight :))

Comment by pawtetius

Our guild bite this boss by this guide.

Comment by joonjoon819

Quadruple Crystalline Barrages from Motes...

Comment by 1354260

I hate this boss!

Comment by Trollbrudda

MAN UP, LUST AND BURN

Comment by Broughden

"The optimal strategy is for tanks to separate Lokk and Rokka so that players near each enemy will have only one set of these ground effects to deal with."

Is this still true? Because while running it on normal tonight the raid I was with refused to try because they said it no longer worked? The circles still overlap. Are they right or is Wowhead right?

Comment by madar222

We killed this boss in heroic with 7 melee dps from the 20 ppl, so 9 melee (with tanks). We marked one side of the room where the ranged don't go in the first 2 phases, so melee can stay on that side since no barrage happen there.
When the first shard shatter, one tank hold one shard and one mote and the raid nuke down that mote, while the other tank pull away the other 3 motes. The simple just AE down everything didn't work for us, because the many melee dps and tons of crystal barrage around the stacked mobs. After the first mote is down from the first shatter it's become easyer, we kill the remaining motes one by one and shatter the other shard too.

Comment by Elmuerte

Question. You have the ranged group moving clockwise *and* the barrage victim moving clockwise. This is contrary to how most people do regular/Heroic. Is that a typo or a key difference? If the latter, probably worth calling out.

Second question. It is my understanding that the barrage comes from Tec/Shard/Mote's rear end. If you tank the boss facing the ranged group, and both the victim and the group are moving clockwise then the clouds will spiral out from his behind to his right side and will be in the way of the tank/melee later on. It seems a better strat would be to either move the victim ccw while facing the boss at the ranged group so the clouds exit the boss and spiral to his left, leaving his right side clear for melee/tanks (who are also moving clockwise). Alternately facing the boss *away from the ranged group would have the cloud move almost radially and keep things tidy for the melee/tanks.

Thanks for the guide!

Tectus (Highmaul Raid) Strategy Guide

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