SWTOR Grob’Thok Dread Fortress operation guide
A guide to defeating Grob’Thok, the third boss in Dread Fortress, one of the two new operations introduced with Patch 2.4.
Storymode
Loot: Unassembled Arkanian Helm, 1 random piece of Black Market gear (no set bonus), 1x Exotic Element Equalizer, 4 Elite Commendations.
HP: 2.3 milllion (8m)
Recommended gear: Artifact gear or above. You may want to have some Black Market/Arkanian gear just to be safe.
Differences from hardmode
Mostly identical mechanics to hardmode but Pipe Smash does very little damage, does not interrupt casts, and does not reduce Grob’thok’s damage intake so you can largely ignore it in storymode and make the fight into a pure tank and spank.
Hardmode
Video: Fight recorded on PTS. The key difference from live is that the Pipe Smash is a lot more frequent on live. You should let Pipe Smash finish casting and then drag him under the lift to stop it.
HP: 3.64 million (8m)
Loot: Unassembled Dread Forged Legs/gloves (rating 178), 1 random piece of Oriconian gear (rating 178, no set bonus), 1x Exotic Element Equalizer, 6 Ultimate Commendations, 8 Elite Commendations.
Recommended gear: Underworld/Verpine. Kell Dragon is more than sufficient.
Enrage timer: 6:40.
Key Mechanics:
- Overhead Smash: Periodic raidwide AoE damage that knocks players a bit off the ground (interrupts casts)
- Roar: Conal attack
- Pipe Smash: High damage AoE attack that can be stopped by kiting the boss under the magnetic lift, which will lift his arm and stun him for a short duration.
- Mining Droid: Targets a random raid member and they will run around leaving behind a lava trail.
- Adds: Dreadful Ugnaughts, can be either killed or kited through the lava trail. Offtank will need to grab them.
1. Overhead Smash is a periodic raidwide AoE attack that hits for ~8k damage (only ~2k if player is shielded). It knocks everyone into the air slightly and interrupt any casts. There is a cast timer of 3 seconds so you can see it if you have Grok’Thok as a focus target. The attack is fairly infrequent so should not put too much stress on the healers.
2. Roar is a conal attack that mostly affect tanks as long Grob’thok is turned away from rest of the raid. It has a 3.5s cast and Grob’Thok can turn while he is channeling the attack so tanks will need to wait until the cast is almost finished before running throguh Grob’Thok to avoid it.
3. Pipe Smash is an attack you want try to minimize since it reduces Grob’thok’s incoming damage (by around 80% or so) and he will keep spamming this attack until you stop him (about 7k damage per smash). The way you avoid this attack is by using the magnetic lifts on the ceiling that travels around the room. This attack doesn’t come immediately so it isn’t something you have to worry about right away.
When Grob’Thok is near 80-85% HP, try drag him near the magnetic lift so if you see him casting Pipe Smash, let him finish casting it and immediately drag him under the magnetic lift to stop it. The lift will freeze his pipe arm, stopping subsequent Pipe Smash attacks. This will also stun Grob’Thok for a short duration before the lift blows up.
- Pipe Smash seems to be on a 60s timer.
- Warning: Melee DPS/tanks must be careful to never stand under the lift as the lift will lift them in the air and stun them until they used a stun breaker. Sorc/sage can also use their pull to get whoever stunned under it out (not ideal if tank is the one under the lift).
The lift always spawn on the opposite corners of the room so you have a pretty good idea of where the lift will respawn once it is destroyed.
4. From time to time, one random raid member will get targeted by the Mining Droid. This player have “lava” feet and must move around to negate the damage. Moving around will cause them to drop a trail of lava and they will get a debuff icon in addition to the red text on screen. This trail can be used to deal with the Dreadful Ugnaught adds that constantly spawn.
5. A group of 3 Dreadful Ugnaughts adds will constantly spawn on a timer during the fight to harass raid members. Offtank will need to grab them as they can pack a punch if they gang up on someone. They have about 25k HP each and will need to be killed as the next group spawns regardless if the previous group is killed. DPS can either drop some of their AoE abilities on them or offtank can drag them through the lava trails as they are susceptible to it. Regardless, you don’t want to waste too much DPS on them as the enrage timer on this fight is fairly tight.
