Fires of Smaug - Tier One (Revised)

The following is a tier one, no challenge mode Fires of Smaug guide. This guide will address most mechanics in this instance. However, there are certain mechanics which I have been unable to confirm. These mechanics will be addressed once I have a full understanding of their workings. This guide is very much a work in progress.

Prefered raid setup:



Group 1 (The Sun)

1. Tank
2. Healer
3. Captain
4. Champion
5. Hunter
6. Hunter

Group 2 (The Skull)

1. Tank 
2. Healer
3. Captain 
4. Lore Master (DPS traited)
5. Champion
6. Hunter

Coffee is highly recommended for this fight, since there will be a lot of running around, it will help your groups get to their objectives faster.


The Boss (Belegnor)

Right in the middle of the instance sits Belegnor, a fire grim. He is completely stationary.

The grim is at the bottom right of this image. In the distance you can see the  Lonely Mountain! 

The mechanics of this boss are as follows:

• Every 5% health the grim will belch out smoke through the 4 pipes that are attached to it.
• Every 10% health adds will spawn on either side of the instance (the spawn points are marked in an image further below).
• Every 25% health the grim will go dark, and an easterling Fire-Tender will spawn right behind him. The easterling will apply a buff to the grim that makes him immune to damage.
• The grim will reflect a very large amount of threat on any damage (see corruption in the image above), which makes it very difficult for a single person to ever hold aggro for very long.
• The grim has a fiery aura around him that will quickly decimate anyone within melee range (increases in potency as his health goes down).

The Easterling Adds

The Easterlings will come in waves, have your tanks be ready to grab immediate aggro!

Every 10% health the grim boss is missing, sets of adds will spawn to either side of the instance. These easterlings have simple mechanics and no corruptions, but they can quickly wipe a group that is not prepared  to deal with them in number.

Easterling Engineer - These have higher health, and hit harder than the rest of the adds.

Easterling Warrior - Warriors have frontal aoe damage that can very quickly kill a squishy if they are facing the wrong way. Tanks should always make sure to face the easterlings away from the group and move away from any puddles that drop. Melee DPS will need to make sure they stay behind the easterlings at all times while DPSing.

Easterling Fire-Tender - This easterling will spawn every 25% health the grim is missing, which means you'll only be dealing with 3. Once this spawns both groups should focus immediately on him. It is important to note that this type of easterling has a permanent corruption which reduces all incoming ranged/tactical damage by 80%. On tier 2 this enemy reflects damage and heals Belegnor. Both groups will need to focus this easterling down very quickly.

Once the Fire-Tender spawns, all the DPS should rush in immediately and burn him down.

Spawn point #1

It is very important that your tank be ready to grab aggro on all the  spawning easterlings every 10% health the grim is missing.

Spawn point #2

As you can see there is plenty of room to maneuver, as in the first spawn point, the tank should be ready to grab immediate aggro on the spawn and face them away from the group.

The Valves

Every 5% health the grim is missing, he will belch out smoke through the pipes that are attached to him. It will be important to monitor how much smoke you let into the tunnels, otherwise you will fail the encounter if you reach high levels of smoke.

From the developer diary on the valves:

Each of the 4 pipes in the area has a valve attached to it that controls how open it is. A valve’s openness ranges from 0, which means its fully closed, to 5, a fully open valve. For every chunk of damage the fire grim takes, he will pipe smoke through all the pipes into the tunnels. The smoke in the tunnels will increase by how much each valve is open, up to a max of 20 each time. Each valve is then wrenched open by 2 steps from the smoke’s pressure.

Using a valve will close it by 1 step, but it will also put a debuff on you that prevents you from using that valve again for 45 seconds. In other words, it will require a group effort to fully close a valve. Each valve also reopens by 1 step every 30 seconds on its own. Luckily, if the valve is fully closed, it takes 90 seconds to open from 0 to 1.

As you can see, it can get extremely complicated, and communication is more important than ever in this instance. Since we are not going to focus on the challenge mode, it will make dealing with the smoke a lot easier.

It is very important to familiarize your entire raid with the valves, how they work, and how you click them. Failure to understand the mechanics on the valves may result in failure.

It is very important to pay attention to every click of the valve, whoever is in charge of leading the group into the valves should make sure it is fully shut before you move on to the next. 

The Strategy

Once your raid is familiar with the mechanics of the fight, and everyone knows where the valves are in the instance, you will need to divide into two groups. A group leader should be assigned and marked by a raid symbol, in order to make it easier for people to follow them once they start going from valve to valve.

Method #1

Group 1 (The Sun) - This group will focus on the valves to the left of the instance. At the beginning easterlings will spawn and run up to each of the valves, this group should pull those mobs and take them down to where the tank will be camping (marked in the image above "spawn point 2"). Once you have cleared the mobs from the valves, everyone but the tank should run up and shut down one valve at a time (remember it takes 5 clicks to completely shut it down).

Once both valves are shut, Group 1 will run down and DPS the grim down to 87% health. You should make sure the tank in this group uses Engage on the grim whenever possible, since it will be difficult for him to build threat in any other way.

Breakdown by percentage:

• Grim at 100% - Kill the adds on both Valves. Shut down the Valves. Burn the grim down to 87% using one oathbreakers (make sure no bleeds are applied).
• Grim at 87% - Kill the adds that spawned at 90%. Shut down the Valves. Burn down the grim to 77% using the second oathbreakers. 
• Grim at 77% - Kill the adds that spawned at 80%. Shut down the Valves. Take grim down to 75%. Kill the Fire-Tender that spawns. Take grim down to 67%.
• Grim at 67% - Kill the adds that spawned at 70%. Shut down the Valves. Take grim down to 57%. 
• Grim at 57% - Kill the adds that spawned at 60%. Shut down the Valves. Take grim down to 50%.
• Grim at 50% - Kill the spawning Fire-Tender. Kill the adds that spawned. Take grim down to 47%.
• Grim at 47% - Shut down the Valves. Take grim down to 37%.
• Grim at 37% - Kill the adds that spawned at 40%. Shut down the Valves. Take grim down to 27%.
• Grim at 27% - Kill the adds that spawned at 30%.  Shut down the Valves. Take grim down to 25%.
• Grim at 25% - Kill the spawning Fire-Tender. Take grim down to 17%.
• Grim at 17% - Kill the adds that spawned at 20%. Shut down the Valves. Take grim down to 7%.
• Grim at 7% - Kill the adds that spawned at 10%. If you are good on smoke finish off the grim, otherwise shut down the valves again and then finish the grim.

You can skip shutting the valves every now and then if you have not accumulated much smoke. If your team has exceptional ranged/tactical DPS you can take out larger chunks of health before having to worry about shutting down the valves again.


Whenever the boss spawns adds every 10%, the tank should be ready to grab their aggro immediately. The Champion and the Captain can go to work on these adds, while the Hunters and the Lore Master (Group 2) can go to work on the Grim until the desired health percent is reached.

Group 2 (The skull) - Group #2 focus on the first 2 valves closest to the right of the entrance to the instance. This group will be completely mobile running from valve to valve, while the tank stands and guards the rear/front of the group from any incoming easterlings. There is no difference in terms of objectives for this group. This group can use the exact same strategy as that of Group 1, only the tank will be moving along with everyone else.



Method #2

In this method we will focus on shutting down the valves on the right side of the instance completely, and exclusively. Due to the fact that you can have up to 199 units of smoke in the caves without failing the instance, we will be able to completely ignore two of the valves. Since Belegnor pipes out smoke a total of 19 times (he does not pipe at 100% or 0%), we can ensure that by shutting down 2 pipes completely, we will reach a maximum of 190 units of smoke by the time Belegnor is below 5% health.

For this method the Sun team will be camping near the right side of Belegnor. This team will focus on taking down the adds whenever they come in every 10% health, and they will be the major source of DPS on Belegnor. The Skull team will focus on shutting down the pipes every 5% health, and assisting the Sun team with adds and DPS on Belegnor as necessary. At 75%, 50%, and 25%, both teams should gather together behind the grim and focus on burning down the Fire-Tender easterling immediately.

It is highly recommended to have the entire Skull team assisting in shutting down the valves. Although it only takes at total of 5 clicks to shut down a valve, occasionally it will happen that 2 people will click on the lever at the same time, and although both characters will go through the animation of activating the lever, only one one click will register, but both will receive the lever debuff.

Breakdown by percentage:

• Grim at 100% - Skull team kills the incoming adds while Sun team DPS the boss down to 96%.
• Grim at 96% - Skull team shuts down the valves, when they are shut, DPS the boss from 96-91%.
• Grim at 91% - Skull team shuts down the valves, when they are shut, DPS the boss from 91-86%.
• Grim at 86% - Sun team kills the adds that spawned at 90%, Skull team shuts down the valves, DPS boss from 86-81% when they are shut.
• Grim at 81% - Skull team shuts down the valves, when they are shut, DPS boss from 81% to 76%.
• Grim at 76% - Both teams kill the adds that spawned at 80%, then run up behind the grim and quickly burn down the Fire-Tender (must take grim to 75% first). Once the Fire-Tender is down, the Sun team will kill any adds that spawned near this area, while the Skull team goes up to shut down the valves. Once the valves are shut, DPS the boss from 75-71%. 
• Grim at 71% - Skull team shuts down the valves, when they are shut, DPS the boss from 71-66%.
• Grim at 66% - Sun team kills the adds that spawned at 70%, while the Skull team shuts down the valves. Once the valves are shut, DPS the boss from 66-61%.
• Grim at 61% - Skull team shuts down the valves, when they are shut, DPS the boss from 61-56%.
• Grim at 56% - Sun team kills the adds that spawned at 60%, while the Skull team shuts down the valves. Once the valves are shut, DPS the boss from 56-51%.
• Grim at 51% - Both teams gather behind the grim, then take him down to 50%. Once the Fire-Tender spawns, burn him immediately. Sun team will kill any adds that spawned in this area while the Skull team goes up to shut down the valves (there will be easterlings guarding the valves that spawned at 50%). Once the valves are shut, DPS boss from 50-46%. 
• Grim from 46-0% - You can continue in the same fashion, making sure to always shut down the valves before you DPS the boss another 5% health. 

Communication is extremely important for this fight. Both group leaders should try to keep each other informed in regards to the valves etc at all times.

If there is any information I've gotten completely wrong, or you feel I should expand upon a certain subject, please feel free to leave a comment. I will do my best to update as I have time.


This guide is now slightly outdated, I'll try and rewrite it once I've some free time :)