A detailed guide on how to clear the Rings of Fire and Ice wing of the Tower of Orthanc Raid in Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). This guide was written when the content was endgame so it assumes players are on level with the raid – it may be easier as years progresses and classes change, but at the time this was one of the hardest challenges of the game. The raid requires extremely high DPS, group coordination for debuffs and heals, and awareness by all team members.

LOTRO Rings of Fire & Ice Raid Guide

 

Lotro Rings of Fire & Ice Tier II Challenge Guide

Trash pull 1

• Mobs: 2 Troll, 4 Ruffians
• Kill Order: Ruffians > Trolls
• CC adaptation: All enemies have adaptation.
• Misc: Disease pots are required to  prevent AOE stuns. Kite the trolls with tank calling for CC on them to remove momentum, as you kill the ruffians. Ensure ruffians are CC’d or supervised to prevent their healing inductions.

Trash pull 2

• Mobs: 3 Ruffians, 6 Warriors
• Kill Order: Ruffians > Warriors
• CC adaptation: Ruffians have adaptation, Warriors enter bloodlust and have a nasty rend aura.
• Misc: Disease pots are required to  prevent AOE stuns. The warrios will absorbe damage dealt to the ruffians until death. CC or interrupt ruffians to avoid heals.

Trash pull 3

• Mobs: 2 Trolls, 3 Ruffians, 3 Warriors
• Kill Order: Ruffians > Warriors > Trolls
• CC adaptation: Trolls and Ruffians are adaptable, Warriors enter bloodlust and have a nasty rend aura.
• Misc: Disease pots are required to  prevent AOE stuns. Kite the trolls with tank calling for CC on them to remove momentum, as you kill the ruffians. Ensure ruffians are CC’d or supervised to prevent their healing inductions.

 

Rings of Fire and Ice Bosses: Crisiant & Usgarren

The two giant bosses are possessed by elemental grims, and will regularly spawn add grims that, if not dealt with, will increase in size and power, eventually wiping the raid.

Tier I Fire & Ice Guide

Our method for this wing requires two tanks and two fellowships with dedicated healers and target assistants.

• Fellowship 1 will take Crisiant (Ice Giant) and pull him to the Eastern side of the room. The tank will keep aggro on the boss and dps from this fellowship (gathered near the giant but not within aoe range) will take him down.
• Fellowship 2 will take Usgarren (Fire Giant) and pull him to the Western side of the room. The tank will keep aggro on the boss and dps from this fellowship (also gathered near this giant but not within aoe range) will take him down.

 

The grim adds:

Periodically, each boss will spawn fire and frost grims nearby. Target Assist should call out these grims and immediately dps them down. When you start seeing the “absorbed” message, someone in the group (prefereably previously designated) will do any CC move and the add will start to take damage again. Kill the grim as quickly as you can and get back to the boss.

 

The corruptions:

The bosses will get corruptions that increase their damage and punt the fellowships around, mixing the elements and creating dangerous situations as everyone will have different debuffs. The solution is to have an appointed decorruption person and a backup, ready to remove the corruptions as soon as they come up. The tank can call for this over voice/chat if the group is dealing with an add.

 

The bubbles:

The bosses use morale bubbles. It is up to the group to dps through them or conserve power and attack upon expire. This is a good time for loremasters to steal power.

 

If you kill one boss and not the other:

Make sure that everyone on the fellowship that defeated their giant does not get near the opposite side’s grims. They need to first attack the opposite giant until the debuff to elemental mitigation is inverted. Once the debuff is changed, the raid should help the other side catch up by eliminating all remaining grims before going back to the boss.

 

A video of a T1 clear below:

 

Tier II  Fire & Ice – no challenge

The bosses are similar in T2 but the easiest method is to zerg one giant whilst having the other giant and the several grims spawned by them kited.

 

Key points:

1. Both tanks and raid members should have considerable tactical mitigation and morale pools
2. Grims spawn on timed intervals, as rage increases. Captains should get the grim from the DPS target away from the group and towards the kiter, and make it back to the group to dps
3. Designed ranged corruption removal needs to be on the watch out to get the ones on the kited giant.

 

Video of a Clear

 

Rings of Fire & ICe Tier II – Challenge Guide

This is the hardest challenge in the raid. To complete it, you must have good communication and coordinate grim spawn and rage reduction with your DPS.

 

Key points:

1. Both tanks and raid members should have considerable tactical mitigation and morale pools
2. Corruptions will fail the challenge. Assign removers for each giant and make sure they are done properly
3. The raid will concentrate behind one giant while second tank holds the other. 5 or 6 people including a tank will stand in front of the DPS giant until he does his first clap, this will spawn 5 or 6 grims: captains must Last Stand + In Harms Way with a moments advance to prevent squishies from dying.
4. “The Swap”: The champion in your raid will taunt the DPS giant and the guard that was tanking it will aggro on grims and run away from group with all of them. The second tank who was on other giant will run towards the Champion, get aggro on DPS Giant and hold them both.
5. The Hunter: A dedicated TA for the grims, starting by defeating the one spawned by the second tank’s giant. This person’s job will be to anihilate that grim in no less than 30 seconds and no more than 40. They may need assistance with CC to keep the damage going. Once done, they will move on to DPS target until first giant is dead – he must die withing 59 seconds of the fight’s start. Once it’s dead, the hunter will start killing grims from the 5 or 6 spawned by the team, with assistance from Loremaster fire and CC backup from whoever can.
6. The kill: The trickiest part is to understand the rage buildup and keep a close look on your timer. You may have to wait until a 30 second tick has passed, then kill a grim, then burn the rest of the morale.

 

Video of Clear

Possible Loot

Go to the other Tower of Orthanc wings:

• Ring of Lightning
• Ring of Acid
• Ring of Shadow

Check out our Lotro Guides section for more and our Guides section for more gamer guides!