Trial of Valor, the Second Raid for World of Warcraft: Legion, unlocks tomorrow, and it’s a Ruby Sanctum-esque smaller instance with 3 bosses. We travel back to the Halls of Valor on a summons from Odyn. He desperately needs you to go to fantasy viking hell to kill his adopted daughter, but wants to beat you up first.
The following guide and loot info is for Normal difficulty. It’s worth noting that Heroic has very few additional mechanics beyond scaled up HP and damage.
Overview and Raid Positioning
- Phase 1: Fight against both Hymdall and Hyrja, who you faced before in the Halls of Valor dungeon.
- Assign a tank to each boss and split them. You cannot stack the bosses for cleaving. If the bosses are near each other, all incoming damage they take is reduced by 99%.
- Bring them down to 25% HP together. Hymdall or Hyrja will start to cast a heal if one of them reaches 25% before the other. Once they are both at 25%, they’ll leave the arena, and Odyn will tap in.
- Phase 2 and 3: For Normal difficulty, Phase 2 and 3 include Odyn only.
Hymdall Mechanics
- Horn of Valor – Raid-wide damage. Be sure to have all members spread out by 5 yards to prevent extra damage. Horn of Valor will also channel an AoE circle around Hymdall, doing large damage to anyone inside. Because of this, it’s simplest to have your ranged DPS attacking Hymdall and melee DPS on Hyrja.
- Dancing Blade – Hymdall will throw a sword, and it will start dancing on its own. Don’t try to dance with the sword.
Hyrja Mechanics
- Expel Light – Hyrja will target a player. After 3 seconds, that player will deal Holy damage to all players within 8 yards. If you are targeted, run to a safe spot.
- Shield of Light – Hyrja will channel her Shield of Light in a telegraphed direction at a player. The damage of the beam is split between everyone it hits, so position the beam to hit as many raid members as possible.
Odyn Mechanics
Odyn makes his presence felt for the entire fight, but he doesn’t physically join until Phase 2.
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Phase 1 (Hymdall and Hyrja still present)
- Draw Power – Players are assigned a rune, similar to Odyn’s dungeon fight. The difference – an add spawns and fixates onto each player assigned a rune. The only way to deactivate the rune and prevent massive raid-wide damage is to kite the add to the matching rune on the floor and kill it there. The spawns can only take damage inside the rune area.
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Phase 2 (Hymdall and Hyrja defeated, Odyn jumps into the arena)
- Positioning: The tank should be in the center of the room, with ranged DPS spread and melee DPS around the boss.
- Draw Power – Same as above.
- Odyn’s Test – Every time Odyn melee attacks the same target, he gets an attack speed buff. Swap tanks to prevent the buff from stacking too high.
- Spear of Light – Telegraphed 8 yard AoE. Don’t stand in it or get hit by the projectiles it spawns.
- Shatter Spears – Odyn breaks all of his spears leftover from Spear of Light, causing raid-wide damage. Manage the amount of spears that are up before Odyn breaks them by running into them in intervals and letting the healers catch up. (They still do raid-wide damage, but it’s not multiple spears exploding at once.) Preferably only 1 or 2 spears will shatter with this ability, although the damage from spears shattering in the PTR on Normal was sometimes manageable.
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Phase 3 (Odyn at 55% HP)
- Cleansing Flame – Odyn calls down a massive carpet of flame. The entire raid needs to move to a safe area of the room.
- Stormforged Spear – Tank debuff that does heavy damage after 5 seconds, but the damage taken is reduced the farther from Odyn you are. So, swap and sprint.
- Storm of Justice – Odyn debuffs random raid members. The debuff causes damage to anyone within 8 yards and drops a tornado when it expires. If you’re debuffed, run away from the raid.
- Arcing Storm – A soft enrage timer. Odyn shocks a random raid member for a large amount of damage, increasing damage dealt with each bolt. Use Lust/Hero when damage picks up near the end of the fight.
- Odyn is defeated once he reaches 10% HP.
Loot
Accessories: Back, Ring, STR Trinket
Overview and Raid Positioning
- Guarm is a 3-headed Cerberus guarding the way to Helya.
- The main mechanic of this boss is synchronized swimming, as each head of Guarm has a different mechanic that requires the raid to spread or stack respectively.
- Tanks should place Guarm on the bridge facing ranged DPS and be stacked.
- Ranged DPS should be spread at least 25 yards from the boss.
- Melee DPS should be spread out behind the boss.
- Only 1 phase, but a strict 4 minute enrage timer.
Guarm Mechanics
- Multi-headed – Every melee hit cleaves the closest player. This is why tanks should stack.
- Guardian’s Breath – Guarm channels a frontal cone attack with 3 subsections: Frost, Flame, and Shadow. Split the raid into 3 equal groups and assign a breath type to each. Everyone must get hit by a breath or Guarm will get the damage buff Frothing Rage. When Guardian’s Breath is cast, you must stand in the breath that’s your color. Do not change breaths during the fight, or you’ll die.
- Guardian’s Lick – Guarm slobbers all over a player, causing a debuff that correlates with the breath the player soaked, either Flame Lick (an AoE DoT), Shadow Lick (a heal absorb), or Frost Lick (a stun). The debuffs impact any players within 5 yards. Frost Lick can be dispelled!
- Flashing Fangs – Frontal Cone attack that deals damage to all within 25 yards. This is why ranged should stay at least 25 yards from the boss except during Breath.
- Roaring Leap – Knocks back all players within 25 yards, then jumps to the most dense stack of players. Melee should try to stack on the boss after being knocked back (unless you have a debuff) to keep him there. If melee takes too much damage or too many players have debuffs, just have everyone spread and deal with the movement.
- Headlong Charge – Guarm runs to one end of the bridge, turns around, and charges back to the opposite side of the bridge. Avoid him and players with the Guardian’s Lick debuff.
Loot
Accessories: Back, AGI Trinket
Overview and Raid Positioning
- Helya is the estranged daughter of Odyn. After forcing her to become the first Val’kyr, she brooded for years. Then, she put him under eternal house arrest.
- Helya has 3 phases, and there’s a lot going on.
- Tanks should stand on opposite sides of the boss and face her away from the raid.
- Melee and ranged DPS should be spread in the center of the room.
- This boss had the least amount of testing in the PTR, so you may find alternate strategies that work better for your group than the ones listed here.
Phase 1
- Bilewater Breath – Frontal cone that does high damage to the main tank. The breath leaves an armor debuff, so tanks should swap.
- Slimes – With Bilewater Breath, slimes will spawn and explode after 20 seconds, causing AoE damage. Avoid slime pools after explosion. The amount of health slimes have when exploding determines both the amount of AoE damage and the size of the leftover pools. Some suggest DPSing them down to 50%, while others play it safe and kill them immediately. Do what works for your group.
- Orb of Corruption – These orbs fixate a player, pulse AoE damage, and add a stacking orb damage debuff. If you become fixated, kite them away.
- Tentacle Strike – A tentacle spawns at the front or back of the platform and deals shared AoE damage. If you are close to a tentacle, soak it. It’s a good idea to simply split this duty between melee and ranged DPS groups. The tentacle damage must be soaked or it does a huge amount of raid-wide damage.
- Taint of the Sea – Debuffs a random player for moderate damage over time. When dispelled, it does damage in an 8 yard AoE and leaves behind an “essence” that explodes after a short time. Dispel immediately, move out of the essence, and move back after it explodes.
- Corrosive Nova – If no one is in melee range, Helya does raid-wide damage and buffs herself. Don’t let this happen.
Phase 2 (65% HP)
Helya runs away and sends a volley of adds. In this phase, you’ll need to take down adds while clearing the tentacles.
- Tentacles – Helya summons 11 tentacles in 4 spread groups. Killing these ends the phase. After clearing all the tentacles in one group and taking care of the below adds, move on to the next group and repeat.
- Torrent – Hits several enemies for low damage, but applies a stacking debuff that increases damage for that ability.
- Fury of the Maw – A wave will wash over the platform, pushing players back, applying a 25% stacking debuff for damage, and washing away Bilewater pools from Phase 1, as well as Decay pools from Decaying Minions.
- Adds – With Fury of the Maw, Helya will summon 1 Night Watch Mariner and 1 Grimelord, along with 1 Decaying Minion for every player in each wave. The goal is to tank adds near each of the 4 patches of tentacles so that DPS can cleave them down.
- Night Watch Mariner – 1st Priority
- Lantern of Darkness – Deals increasing periodic raid damage.
- Ghostly Rage – Increases attack speed by 30% for 6 seconds.
- Give No Quarter – Travels to a telegraphed destination, dealing AoE damage when arriving.
- Grimelord – 2nd Priority
- Sludge Nova – 15 yard AoE knockback with high damage. Because of the AoE, Grimelord should be tanked away from the other tank.
- Fetid Rot – Stacking debuff on players within 70 yards that deals damage and decreases healing. It can be dispelled, but it needs to be done when the player isn’t within 5 yards of another or damage is dealt and the debuff spreads.
- Anchor Slam – Deals very high damage and knocks the player in the air. Applies 400% damage taken debuff, so tanks must swap.
- Decaying Minion – 3rd Priority
- Adds receive a stacking damage buff that continues to ramp up.
- Decay – Minions leave behind damaging pools when killed. Pools left on the lower platform or stairs will be cleared by waves.
Phase 3 (46% HP)
- Corrupted Breath – An empowered version of Bilewater Breath. Tanks must position Helya so she is not facing the raid and must soak the breath to avoid massive raid damage. Additionally, Axiom (Shadow) pools will spawn at random locations. These pools need to be soaked by players not within 5 yards of another player, otherwise raid damage occurs.
- Orb of Corrosion – An empowered version of Orb of Corruption. The only difference is that each orb leaves a decay pool. Kite the orbs away from the raid.
- Taint of the Sea – The same as Phase 1. All raid members should be 8 yards apart so the taint can be dispelled immediately. Move out of the essence and then back after it explodes.
- Corrosive Nova – The same as Phase 1. Keep someone in melee range of Helya.
- Fury of the Maw – The same as Phase 2.
- Adds – Night Watch Mariner and Decaying Minions are the same as Phase 2.
Loot
Relics: Storm, Blood, Life, Fel
Accessories: Neck, Back, INT Trinket
Bryan Herren
Pairing a love of DOTA 2 with traditional sports statistics, Bryan previously worked as a statsman for internationally renowned gaming tournaments. He then joined the Beyond the Summit crew to help design and develop several features for the game, such as Teamfight Recap. Now, he lives in Alabama with his wife and works as a freelance production assistant and writer.