World of Warcraft - Forge of Souls Guide

Forge of Souls is the first of three World of Warcraft dungeons known collectively as the Frozen Halls. These instances are designed for level 80 characters. It is located inside a secured area of Icecrown Citadel on the western side, and is the instance portal on the left of the meeting stone located inside. There are two bosses in Forge of Souls: Bronjahm and the Devourer of Souls.

The Forge of Souls as described by Blizzard:

Serving as the first wing in this expansive dungeon, the Forge of Souls will quickly put players to the test of carving through the Scourge stronghold into deeper, more treacherous locations. Jaina will command Alliance forces, and Sylvanas will direct Horde forces. The goal is to ruin the twisted engines known as soul grinders found in this portion of the citadel, and then players can advance -- that is, if the Horde and Alliance forces can overcome the foes who confront them.

There are two things players should know before starting Forge of Souls:

• You can fall off the walkways. While no mob has knockback in this instance, much to player's great relief, it is possible to simply walk, run, or jump off any of the walkways and fall to your doom. There are no invisible safety rails.
• Several mobs spell reflect. This means that any offensive spell-casters need to be aware of these mobs and have enough situational awareness to not get themselves killed.

There are a few trash mobs that players must pay attention to in this instance:

Spiteful Apparition: These floating skulls will appear randomly along the walkways, follow a target for a few seconds, then explode, causing a significant amount of damage to anyone nearby. Although they can be killed before they explode, they cannot be stunned or interrupted, and so it is better to simply rely on your healer to recover the damage taken afterward.

Soulguard Watchman: Massive skeletons that patrol the walkways in pairs, the watchmen are relatively easy, but do have the ability to reflect harmful spells back at their attackers for eight seconds.

Soulguard Adept: These humans are part of the several trash pull packs along the walkways. Their most notable ability is to heal their allies with a spell called Shadow Mend. They can also heal themselves more minimally with Drain Life.

Soulguard Animators: Another part of the trash pull packs, these casters have an ability called Soul Siphon, which will decrease the damage of the target by 10%. They can also cast Soul Sickness, a debuff which will stun the target for five seconds if not removed before its timer expires.

Soulguard Bonecaster: These skeletons can cast Bone Volley, doing significant AoE damage to the group, and Shield of Bones, which will explode upon nearby enemies if it is allowed to absorb its full amount.

Soulguard Reaper: These cultists can cast a single-target Shadow Lance at random party members, and can cast Frost Nova.

Spectral Warden: The last of the trash mobs players will encounter in Forge of Souls, these ghosts can cast Veil of Shadow, reducing healing done on the target by 75%. They also have an instant cast, large range AoE called Wail of Souls that does significant damage to the party.

Bronjahm is the first boss in Forge of Souls. His fight consists of two phases which are identical in both normal and heroic modes, the only difference being that more damage is done by his abilities in heroic mode.

During the first phase of the fight, Bronjahm will cast Magic's Bane on casters, which will deal half of the player's mana back to them, and will also cast a Shadow Bolt upon the highest aggro target if they are not in melee range. More importantly, Bronjahm will channel a spell called Corrupt Soul for four seconds on a random player. After the channeling is done, the player will be knocked down and a Corrupted Soul Fragment will appear. This Fragment will move toward Bronjahm and, if it reaches him, will heal him for a portion of his health (120,000 damage in normal; 240,000 in heroic.)

To prevent this heal from going off, the tank should hold Bronjahm on one side of the room. When a player gets the Corrupt Soul channeling, they should move to the opposite side of the room and wait for the Fragment to spawn. As soon as the Fragment spawns, all DPS should switch to it, stunning or rooting it if necessary, and killing it before returning to Bronjahm.

When Bronjahm reaches 30% health, he will move to the center of the room and begin channeling Soulstorm. This effect takes over the entire room, and slows players by 50% and doing minor Shadow damage every second. He will also randomly target players and fear them. During this phase, all players should pile in the center, including ranged (hunters can get very close and not be affected by Soulstorm.) Healers should keep an eye out for feared players and be prepared to heal them as they come back to center. A quick burn will end Bronjahm's life.

Loot: Normal Mode, Heroic Mode (via WoWHead).

Note: Bronjahm, Godfather of Souls is a pop culture reference to James Brown, Godfather of Soul.

The Devourer of Souls is the second and final boss in Forge of Souls. Like Bronjahm, the Devourer is identical in both normal and heroic modes. However, the damage done in heroic is significantly higher than in normal, and healers will have to be prepared for large spike damage.

The most common ability that the Devourer uses is called Phantom Blast. It has a two second cast time, and does a fairly high amount of damage on the tank (about 12,000 on normal, and 18,000 on heroic.) This ability should be interrupted by DPS and the tank whenever possible to mitigate the damage.

It is most important for the tank, and DPS, to look out for an ability called Mirrored Soul, which will be announced with a warning: "Devourer of Souls begins to cast Mirrored Soul!". This ability will be targeted on a random player, and will channel all the damage that the Devourer of Souls receives to the player. This can be a quick death for a party member, so when the debuff is cast, it is essential that players stop all DPS until the debuff ends.

The next major ability that the Devourer of Souls uses is Unleash Souls. This will summon a large number of non-targetable blue ghosts into the room. These will attack targets at whim, and do a minor amount of damage, but can pushback spells as well.

Next on the Devourer's ability list is Well of Souls. The Devourer will leap to a target, creating a large black puddle on the ground. This pool will damage players every second they stand in it, so it's important for players to move out of this if they end up in it.

The final, and yet another highly deadly spell that the Devourer uses is Wailing Souls. A large shadowy beam will appear in front of the Devourer, and make a 90 degree sweep of the room. Anyone who is caught in this beam will take about 10,000 damage a second, so it is imperative that everyone moves out of the way of this ability immediately.

Loot: Normal Mode, Heroic Mode (via WoWhead).