Karsh Steelbender is the third boss in the Blackrock Caverns. He is a black drakonid smith, expert with obsidian and quicksilver.

Abilities

• Burning Metal—Inflicts Fire damage to the target. Causes Karsh’s melee attacks to deal 1000 Fire damage per stack of Superheated Obsidian Armor.
• Heat Wave—Inflicts 1000 Fire damage to nearby enemies per stack of Superheated Obsidian Armor on Karsh Steelbender.
• Obsidian Armor—Obsidian alloy is nearly impervious to damage at normal temperatures. Reduces damage taken by 99%.
• Superheated Obsidian Armor—Obsidian loses its damage mitigation properties when heated, but inflicts damage to nearby enemies and causes attacks to deal additional fire damage. Increases damage taken by Karsh by 10% and causes his attacks to deal 1000 Fire damage per stack. Stacks to 100.

Strategy

Throwing Karsh Steelbender into the central pillar of fire will make him gain stacks of a buff. He cannot be damaged until he has some stacks of this buff.

While he has this buff, he deals an amount of aoe fire damage on the party proportional to the number of stacks. Unfortunately, his damage in modifier increases proportionally with the number of stacks as well. Get too many stacks, and you will be doing more damage, but the healer will be overwhelmed leading to deaths.

5-6 stacks works easily enough.

When the buff expires, the circular grate over the lava explodes and is pretty much insta-death to anyone standing on it.

Heroic Mode:

If you allow the stacks to build more gradually, pulling him into the fire so that just his foot touches and pulling him back out, you can add stacks 1-2 at a time. This gives dps more time and saves the healers mana. Repeat to 10-12 stacks, then let the stacks fall off. If it gets too high (we found 12 or more) the healer cannot keep up. When the stacks fall off, adds will spawn, hold him at zero stacks until the adds are dead and then repeat. When they die, the adds will spawn pools of lava at their feet, which contribute to the stacks on the boss. DPS and healers should DPS the adds away from the boss, while the tank stays focused on the boss. Should be dead by the time you get to 7-8 stacks on the second buildup.

Quick Facts