Hodir!

When Paws & Claws killed him last week, here's what we did.

Tank: Tiger - I donned three pieces of polar gear which I had gemmed for nothing but stamina. My Frost Resist was up over 350 somewhere and my health at 47k. Because of this I didn't need another tank for the Frozen Blows. If the tank doesn't have high frost resist a good strategy would to taunt back and forth on Frozen Blows so that healers get a chance to catch up on the incoming damage. Ideally though, on 10-man, this is a 1 tank fight.

The pull:

Free all the NPCs in whatever order you please. (We went from left to right). Tank should pick up Hodir and healers will need to get to work. Make sure everyone keeps moving. This fight is similar to the last boss in The Nexus, there's a debuff that stacks and can be removed by moving or jumping.

The Moonkin NPC will spawn beams of light. Ranged and Melee DPS need to stand in this (I think it gives a haste buff) and the tank needs to drag Hodir on over so that DPS can take advantage of the beams of light.

Hodir will spawn runes on the ground. Shortly after they spawn an icicle will fall and damage whoever's standing on the rune. Do not stand in shit. On your visual effects settings tab make sure 'Projected Textures' is turned ON. This will allow you to see the runes. They can be a little hard to see anyway because if everyone is standing in the starbeams the rune is the same color as the starbeam. As a tank, if I saw melee standing in one I would call it out over vent and move Hodir away (thus forcing the melee to move if they wanted to keep melee'ing)

Every so often he will spawn larger runes. These are accompanied by a warning from DBM and BigWigs (I also call it out in vent). The raid needs to cluster on the edge of the larger runes and once the Icicle falls a snowdrift will spawn. The raid needs to jump into the snow drift IMMEDIATELY. He will then cast Cold Snap which will freeze anyone not in a snow drift.

After Cold Snap ALL DPS must free frozen team-mates, and then free the frozen NPCs (they don't take damage, but they're pretty dumb), and only THEN go back to DPSing Hodir.

So, to sum up:

1) Keep Moving
2) Get out of the Runes
3) Jump in the snow-bank
4) Free iced raiders and NPCs
5) Profit!

We also had most people with one piece of Frost Resist to help take the strain off the healers.

Also, make sure everyone who can is using abilities that help boost the tank's threat. The tank will be in frost resist and not getting the buff from the starbeams so threat can be an issue (though we didn't have a problem)

Couple points from my experience during that raid:

So you know what to expect, the snowdrift is just a little elevated 'hill' of snow. When I think of a snowdrift, it's more like a 5 foot high cliff of snow, not a well-formed small bump on the ground. It looks like a wider version of the bumps of snow the worms spawn from in the cavern leading to Hodir.

Make sure you do not stand on the big rune before the snowdrift falls. Tiger said to stand on the edge, which is exactly right, and I just wanted to emphasis that you want to be close to but NOT ON the rune. It'll do a bunch of damage and a knock back if you get hit!

The beam of light from the boomkins gives 100% haste (melee, ranged and spell haste), so it´s a big boost to dps. Try to be in one as much as possible, just watch out for the icicles falling on top of all those ppl bunched up.

The shammy NPC throws some lightning bolts on the boss to help out with dps, and also buff one player at a time with Storm Cloud. This player will receive a buff and start shooting lightning - this is good! Run towards other players to buff them with Storm Power which gives 135% crit dmg.

Mages cast Toasty Fires on the ground, which prevents the Biting Cold dmg. They also try to break other NPCs from the ice blocks.

Priests smite and heal a bit, and also cast Dispel Magic to free players from the ice blocks.


As far as healing goes, the only real difficult part is during Frozen Blows, because the MT will be taking more dmg than usual (some heavy spiky hits that are not resisted for example) and the raid also gets hit by a raid wide dmg effect from it.
Assign a healer to MT duty, so your tank doesnt drop and the rest can help out with the tank, but focus on the raid. Using some CDs is also advisable - tanks and healers can pop their panic buttons. And dps should avoid unnecessary dmg like letting a chunck of ice drop on your skull!