Sludgefist

Sludgefist is a boss located in Castle Nathria. He is a massive biggun with what appears to be a crude crown and massive grave (possible a Sinstone) on its back, ordered by Denathrius to block the raid from reaching Castle Nathria's upper reaches. Sludgefist can initially be seen napping in the unreachable part of the Council of Blood's arena.

Sludgefist is the third-to-last boss in the instance, only available after all other bosses besides the Stone Legion Generals and Sire Denathrius to be defeated. This boss is a single-phase gear check for the raid's last 2 bosses, requiring relatively little in terms of tactics, but requiring high dps and healing to survive. It also requires careful movement due to the Chain Links.

Adventure Journal
''Sludgefist was born in the muddy fountain beneath Castle Nathria and now wanders the halls as he awaits orders from Sire Denathrius. His massive footsteps reverberate throughout the castle, announcing his arrival from several rooms away.''

General abilities
This fight requires 2 tanks who need to stand close together to absorb the boss' Giant Fists attacks, which cleave to the nearest target. Bloodlust should be saved for when the boss runs into a pillar and gains a temporary damage-taken debuff, maximizing damage. When to use it is up to the raid, as the boss fight is on a strict timer. Using it on the first pillar ensures that everyone will be alive and have all their cooldowns up. Using it on the last pillar helps the healers deal with the high incoming raid damage from the four Crumbling Foundation stacks.

Aside from the tanks, everyone in the raid needs to deal with the Chain Links. At the start of the fight, as well as roughly every minute afterward, the boss will apply Chain Links which bind together 2 raid members. The ability favors tying players with specific roles together. Ergo, ranged players get chained to other ranged, and melee gets chained to other melee. After a 6-second grace period, the ability comes online. Following this, if either player moves more than 12 yards apart, both players will receive lethal damage and be stunned for 6 seconds. Immuning out of this ability is ill-advised as it will not only kill the other player, but also stun the immune player, causing them to lose 6 seconds of DPS uptime. Split the raid into 2 groups with 1 player having a raid symbol on them to help guide the group and keep them together as they avoid the boss' abilities. For high-mobility classes like monks and demon hunters, it may be advisable to remove abilities like Roll (monk ability) from your action bar to avoid accidentally using them.

Players will also have to deal with Falling Rubble. Random non-tank players will be targeted Falling Rubble, which causes a 6-yard area of damage under them. Ranged DPS should try to stay out of high-traffic areas to bait the abilities into places people aren't likely to be stepping during the fight.

Finally, Destructive Stomp will create a large circle around the boss which will kill anyone within. To ensure everyone with chains stays together, people should move out of the ability together as a group directly away from the boss, rather than to the left or right.

Pillars and positioning
The boss arena contains 4 pillars. These pillars are vital to the encounter, since having the boss run into them with his Hateful Gaze will give him a huge temporary damage-taken debuff, which is necessary to completing the fight. The boss will periodically cast Destructive Stomp, causing a huge circle around him that will kill anyone within, as well as destroying any nearby pillars. Due to this, the boss must always be positioned far enough away from the pillars so he does not threaten them, but close enough that the tanks will be able to run to them for the Hateful Gaze.

When the boss reaches 100% energy, he will cast Hateful Gaze, targeting the closest tank, and after 6 seconds, begin charging towards that tank's current position. The boss will keep charging until he hits something, killing anyone in the way. If Sludgefist hits a pillar, he will be stunned for 12 seconds and take additional damage. If he hits a wall, the raid dies to lethal damage from Collapsing Foundation. Consequently, the raid is on a hard time limit to finish the battle before his 5th Hateful Gaze, when there are no pillars and will inevitable hit the wall and collapse the room. Healers should also coordinate healing cooldowns around the destruction of each pillar, since when the boss destroys one, it will cause Destructive Impact, hitting the group with strong physical damage. It will also leave the raid with a stack of Crumbling Foundation, which does stacking physical damage over time and adds up with each pillar. After 2 pillars, Destructive Impact may kill someone in combination with Crumbling Foundation's DOT, so use cooldowns usely.

The order in which the raid destroys the pillars typically does not matter too much. Some prefer to go clockwise around the room, while others prefer to destroy the first two pillars at the front of the room, then the other two at the back of the room. The reasoning for the latter choice is the Falling Rubble. Spending more time on one side of the room keeps all the Falling Rubble circles in the side where they will not need to go to at all for the last two pillars, keeping the opposite side completely clean for the second half of the fight.

Overall, this fight requires strong tanks to survive the Giant Fists strikes and react fast to the Hateful Gazes, high dps to beat the enrage, and strong healing survive the

Objective of

 * Castle Nathria: Getting a Head