Hi guys,
This is a healers guide for Hardmode Mechagon including tips on dangerous trash, bot buffs, hardmode mechanics and boss strategies for completing the Hertz Locker achievement to unlock rank 4 Vision of Perfection by completing all hardmodes deathless.
This is a text and video guide. The text guide for now is here but will hopefully be on Wowhead shortly and the video guide can be found here. Reliable information regarding Mechagon and hardmodes in particular is difficult to come by at the moment with the content being so new. Most of this information comes from my own play through on multiple healers over a few weeks and Wowhead. If you have anything you’d like to see added or find any errors or have feedback to offer, please comment about it here or come find me on my stream here.
Introduction
The easiest way to clear trash is all at once before killing any bosses and collect bots. This allows you to get your buffs up and avoid the Walkie Shockies and Cannon Blast during trash on 3 out of 4 bosses if you’re doing hardmodes.
Bots are NPC’s around the upper portion of the instance which grant individual buffs for 2 hours and are absolutely worth getting. These combined give about and extra DPS worth of damage from shock, 5% haste, 10% more health, healing and movement speed.
Shock Bot: Gives spells and attacks a chance to deal lightning damage and chain. Will be 15-25% damage buff for your DPS and probably the most damage done overall for your healer.Grease Bot: Grants 10% movement speed and 5% haste.Welding Bot: Increases health and healing received by 10%.
Hardmodes
Activating hardmode on the first three bosses is a simple matter of killing the bosses in the order in which the fourth boss, the Aerial Oppression Unit moves. If the Aerial Oppression Unit is above Gunker then you kill Gunker first and follow the Aerial Oppression Unit to the next boss.
The first three bosses hardmode consists of having 2 mechanics added to them all from the fourth boss, the Aerial Oppression Unit. For example; King Gobbamak hardmode is the same mechanics as normal but with Walkie Shockies and Cannon Blast included.
If the first three bosses are killed in the order that the Arial Oppression Unit dictates then the fourth boss has hard mode activated. The fifth boss, Tussle Tonks can be made more difficult with the piston/lever but is not necessary for hardmode completion. The sixth boss, K.U-J.O, is activated for hardmode by kicking the small piece of trash on the ground into the furnace before the fight begins. The seventh boss, Machinists Garden can be made more difficult by having a player get hit by the fire laser beams that rotate around the middle of the room and then run over the plants with the debuff active but it appears this isn’t necessary at all. The eighth and final boss, King Mechagon has hardmode enabled so long as 4 hardmode bosses have been defeated.
Walkie Talkies: A set of 3 Walkie Talkie bots will drop onto the ground near players. Each bot is surrounded by a 5 yard zone of damage called Static Discharge. Each bot will slowly move towards players and leave Clinging Static on the ground. If you get hit by a bot you take about 70k damage per second per bot. These are best dealt with throughout the upper 4 bosses by loosely stacking before they spawn to ensure they spawn close enough to AoE CC with roots. Mass Entangle is the MVP for this, along with Earthbind Totem. If your group lacks this sort of AoE CC your best bet is going to be single target CC and slows. After a set duration, after which their energy reaches 0, the bots explode and despawn. There will only ever be 1 set of bots up at any one time.
Cannon Blast: Targets a player with a blue lightning swirly on the ground and after a short delay shoots that location. Don’t stand in it.
Trixie & Naeno Trash
Malfunctioning Scrapbot: Avoid Gyro-Scrap and Self-Destruct Protocol. Move them out of Exhaust. If they overlap and all cast Gyro-Scrap at once you will get rolled and smoked instantly.
Heavy Scrapbot: Avoid Gyro-Scrap. Move them out of Exhaust and interrupt Repair Protocol.
Pistonhead Scrapper: Stacks Sledgehammer on the tank which reduces armour by 10% per stack and can wreck your tank. So long as the accompanying trash is handled these guys are facetankable without issue.
Pistonhead Mechanic: Interrupt Overclock or the whole pack gets a 100% haste buff which, when combined with Sledgehammer will dunk on your tank. Also interrupt Repair.
Pistonhead Blaster: Lobs grenades on the ground so watch your feet and channels Run’n’Gun which deals random damage to the party.
Scraphound: Fires a frontal cone called B.O.R.K. which reduces movement speed and haste by 50% so don’t get hit by it. Can’t be dispelled as it’s physical but can be removed with Freedom/TL/BoP.
Weaponized Crawler: Targets a player Scrap Cannon which deals damage in a line. Spread out so only one person gets hit with this at a time. Also buffs itself with Shock Coil which deals 6 ticks of party-wide nature damage over 6 seconds. Not a particularly dangerous mob.
Mechagon Prowler: These kitties are stealthed and pat around. Have your tank run in first and be ready with a defensive CD if one person gets Pounced by 3+ Prowlers. Pounce inflicts a physical DoT for 8 seconds but isn’t dangerous unless almost all Prowlers target one person.
Trixie & Naeno Boss
Trixie spams Taze on party members which applies a 20 second DoT. Every 12 or so seconds she casts Mega Taze on a target, which appears to never be the tank or healer. Targets of Mega Taze need to stand inside the Smoke Cloud which acts like a Smoke Bomb in PvP, preventing anything going in or out of it but allowing for whoever is inside it to heal themselves. Your group won’t have enough interrupts to stop every Taze but it’s far easier to heal if every 2nd or 3rd cast is interrupted instead of interrupting 4 and letting 4 go through.
Naeno does a frontal cleave called Bolt Buster so don’t be in front of him. He also gets on his Mechacycle and charges at a player with Pedal to the Metal which will one-shot them if they don’t have a personal up and take incidental damage like from a Taze debuff.
Kill them at the same time or as close as possible as the one dying will buff the other for the remainder of the fight. Kill Naeno first! Don’t be afraid to use the whole room here, especially on hardmode so you can leave the walkie talkies where they spawn and move the bosses away.
HK-8 Aerial Oppression Unit Trash
Mechagon Cavalry: Have the tank run in first on these packs because this man does a charge dealing AoE damage but isn’t fatal by itself. Uses Rapid Fire which is a frontal AoE while spinning around, very similar to Gatling Gun from Razdunk in Motherlode. Don’t stand in front of this in melee but it looks like it can be ranged if you’re out 20 or so yards.
Mechagon Trooper: Doesn’t do anything other than inflict a bleed which isn’t dangerous.
Mechagon Renormalizer: This man casts Enlarge on the Cavalry which increases its damage by 100% so interrupt it or Soothe off the enrage effect. If this isn’t handled and the Cavalry becomes a large man he becomes deadly very quickly. Also casts Shrink on random party members. If you’re shrunk you deal no damage or healing and take giga damage if someone steps on you so dispel this ASAP and don’t stack tightly.
HK-8 Areal Oppression Unit Boss
Tank the Tank Buster near the edge of the permissible arena and hope the Walkie Talkies spawn fairly close together. Once you hear “deploying reinforcements” move to another ‘corner’ of the arena as the Walkie Talkies from Reinforcement Relay spawn. The Walkie Talkies on this are buffed for hardmode and spawn linked together by an electric line which deals significant damage and ticks very quickly. If you need to cross an electric line use a personal defensive cooldown and save them for this exact scenario rather than using them to help soak Fulminating Zap which on hardmode is split damage among those within range when the debuff expires rather than a single target DoT on normal. There is no reason to not be stacked for most of this fight which makes soaking zap, healing and baiting the Walkie Talkies easier. Avoid Cannon Blast which is now a line of blasts across the arena rather than a single swirly on the ground.
If your tank is a little undergeared or has a tendency to die easily I’d recommend they save all of their cooldowns for the Wreck ability which comes about every 40 or so seconds. Wreck is a series of 3 attacks which cause the next to deal 75% more damage. Meaning the 2nd and 3rd hits are the most dangerous and can hit for 150k+. Be prepared with Sac/Bark/Link/Coconut here if your tank doesn’t have big cooldowns available.
Once the Tank Buster is boundary disappears and one of the two Overcharge Stations becomes active. Your whole group needs to quickly make their way up to the station to power it down by channeling it to zero energy. None of the traps along the way are fatal but stepping on any lightning will stun and damage you and being hit by any of the bots patrolling or the rotating beams will send you back to the start of the gauntlet. It’s possible to power down the station with 4 of your party members if 1 doesn’t make it up but it can be cutting it close. If the station isn’t powered down within 3 minutes the boss will complete its channel and one-shot the group.
Once the Overcharge Station is powered down the boss comes down and goes Haywire which causes it to take 200% increased damage. If your group has some big hitters and saves lust/hero for this phase it’s quite possible to one-phase this fight but your group will likely need to be 420+ and know what they’re doing. If you’re unfamiliar with the fight or playing it safe its better to stagger DPS cooldowns between the first and second Tank Buster phase to make getting through them faster and safer. If Fulminating Zap goes out just before transition it will not deal damage as it expires so you can run freely to the stations.
Gunker Trash
Toxic Monstrosity: Tank these guys by themselves as their mechanics are trivial but get really toxic (heh) when combined with the other trash around them. When you’re gripped in for Consume run back out and dispel anyone slow enough to get hit by Consume Slime as it deals damage and absorbs healing. Down with these toxic masculinities!
Slime Elemental: Charges around but not dangerous unless you’re pulling lots of them and get wombo-combo’d by 3+ charges. Dispel the Slime Bolt slow if you’re feeling generous towards your DPS or are playing particularly safe.
Toxic Lurker: Interrupt and dispel Suffocating Smog. It’s a 5 second stun on random party members. You can pull a bunch of Lurkers and Slime Ele’s together no problem. Just prioritize dispelling smog before slime bolt.
Gnome-Eating Slime: Deals AoE damage and breaks into Gnome Eating Droplet upon death which is the same as the Slime except weaker. Low priority target.
Gunker Boss
Covers the ground in Goop. Any player coming into contact with Goop will become Gooped which incapacitates and deals damage. Ideally nobody should get Gooped at all because staying inside the Squirt Bot grants immunity to it. If the Squirt Bot your group is in gets Gooped you should break it out by damaging it ASAP or move to another bot. Gooped is a disease effect and can be dispelled also, sorry Shamans and Druids. The tank needs to stay in melee range of the boss to avoid Sludge Bolt being cast. Everyone needs to be behind or inside a Squirt Bot for the Toxic Wave which is a radial AoE wave every 45 seconds. Ideally your whole group will be stacking in the same Squirt Bot to make healing easier and to make switching to a gooped bot or player easy. Being inside a Squirt Bot also means you avoid Coalesce which pulls players and ground Goop AoE into the boss. If your group has turret DPS they can stay outside of a bot for the first 45 seconds of the fight to pew pew so long as they avoid the Goop ground AoE and then get in or behind a bot for the first wave.
King Gobbamak Trash
Scrapbone Bully: One of the most dangerous trash mobs in the instance. Do not stand in front of them for Shockwave, particularly when they are Enraged or you will get got. Enrage can be Soothed off as usual. Also knocks the tank back with Headbutt periodically so make sure he’s not getting knocked into other packs. Shockwave also has the potential to bug out on terrain and hit multiple times in the same location which jebaited us on the first week.
Scrapbone Grinder: Enrages but not much else. Low priority to kill.
Scrapbone Shaman: Priority target. Interrupt or purge Stoneskin as its a damage reduction and grants CC immunity. Interrupt Grasping Hex as it roots the whole party for 8 seconds and deals some damage. If you get rooted and Shockwaved or Walkie Talkie’d your whole party is taking a trip to the graveyard.
Scrapbone Trashtosser: Can’t be tanked and throw random trash at party members. Low priority target.
Scrapbone Grunter: Don’t do anything other than melee for trivial damage. Low priority target.
King Gobbamak Boss
Assign each party member to their own Stolen Tech which can be the robot or 4 pylons. Tank Gobbamak somewhere in the middle between all the Stolen Tech and loosely stack if doing hardmode to bait the Walkie Talkies. Have the tank stand still when Charged Smash comes out and the whole group needs to stack on the tank in the debuff before it expires. It will knock everyone back so have your back facing the Stolen Tech you’re assigned to. Once Charged Smash completes, quickly run over your assigned Stolen Tech to activate it. The Stolen Tech will then obliterate the un-tankable Scrapbone Grunter adds. Avoid Cave In swirlies on the ground during Rumble and heal through the Rumble damage.
Tussle Tonks Trash
Rocket Tonk: Fires Rocket Barrage all over the ground which deals AoE damage in 5 yard range. Stay spread.
Bomb Tonk: As the name suggests; these guys explode.
Strider Tonk: These guys leap to random party members with Flying Peck and inflict decent damage. Stay spread as they AoE in 3 yards upon impact. If you have a few melee this pack can be dangerous with Flying Peck and Rocket Barrage being capable of wombo-combo’ing someone.
Tussle Tonks Boss
The general strategy here is to have the DPS stack at the start of the fight to bait the Maximum Thrust charge mechanic from Gnomercy 4.U. into a nearby wall and then burn Gnomercy down while avoiding the other charge mechanic, Foe Flipper. Gnomercy will also channel Vent Jets every 40 seconds. Vent Jets causes Gnomercy to fixate on a player and pulse AoE damage which is lessened while not in front of him so get to the side or behind him. While the DPS are doing this the tank should be taking The Platinum Pummeller to the Piston Smashers around the edge of the room to remove the 3 stacks of Platinum Plating on the Pummeller. Once Gnomercy is dead switch to the Pummeller and avoid Whirling Edge which is an 8 yard melee AoE. Also have the tank move the Pummeller around to avoid the Mines he lays on the ground which explode on contact.
The Buzz Saws that come out of the floor have a 2 yard AoE so are difficult to avoid unless you memorise the patterns and move accordingly but aren’t dangerous enough to worry about yet. It’s far more important to be positioned for the Vent Jets and charge mechanics.
K.U.-J.O. Trash
Waste Processing Unit: Process Waste is a frontal cone AoE which does significant damage during it’s channel so don’t be in front for it. Also casts Mega Drill which is a quick AoE around the mob which should also be avoided if possible but shouldn’t kill anyone unless stacked.
Living Waste: Upon death they cast Volatile Waste which is very dangerous when multiple are killed at once. It has a 100 yard range but can be line of sighted around the pillars. Either pull these slowly and stagger the kills or blow them all up and line/immunity the 1.5 second on-death mechanic.
Junkyard D.O.G: Low priority target. Lobs Flaming Refuse at a random party member which applies a small fire DoT for 8 seconds.
K.U.-J.O. Boss
Small mistakes on this fight magnify, especially with classes with limited mobility on hardmode. Junk Cubes are dropped on players and knock back anyone hit by them. KUJO applies Blazing Chomp to the tank which is unhealable over prolonged periods and should be dispelled ASAP. Dispelling it causes the whole party to take fairly significant damage and as such should be done only when everyone is healthy. KUJO also casts Venting Flames which needs to be line of sighted behind the Junk Cubes, including by the tank unless an immunity or serious cooldowns are used. After the Venting Flames is finished KUJO will cast Explosive Leap on 3 players who need to be spread to avoid stacking the leap damage and also spread from the Junk Cubes. Junk Cubes hit by the flames and leap become overheated and explode.
If no Junk Cube is hit by Explosive Leap then each Junk Cube will explode after it has experienced 2 Venting Flames.This means the tank needs to move the boss to a suitable position before Venting Flames that allows the group to line both the boss and the previous Junk Cube exploding during the channel of Venting Flames. In practice this means the group must stack behind the most recently dropped Junk Cube for Venting Flames and the exploding cube and then quickly spread so that the next cube drop which follows Venting Flames isn’t hit by Explosive Leap. The knockback from the dropped cube can be used to move away from your group but can be risky as it makes getting back in time to line difficult.
All of this is much more difficult on hardmode with a movement speed slow that stacks to 80% and remains for the duration of the fight. Leap of Faith, Shaman’s Ghost Wolf, Wind Rush Totem and such are extremely useful on this fight, as are immunities to save yourself if you cannot line of sight. Start the fight loosely stacked and move as little as possible. Keeping the boss near but not next to the cubes helps also, especially if your tank doesn’t have an immunity.
Mechanist’s Garden Trash
G.U.A.R.D: Low priority target.
Mechagon Tinkerer: Interrupt Giga-Wallop and avoid the Anti-Personnel Squirrel they deploy on the ground.
Defense Bot Mk I: Dispel Arcing Zap as much as possible and heal through the ones you can’t dispel.
Defense Bot Mk III: Dispel Arcing Zap and heal through the AoE damage from Short Out.
Mechagon Mechanic: Interrupt Overclock to avoid a 100% haste buff on the whole pack.
Blastatron X-80: Creates a quadrant AoE called Capacitor Discharge in which 1 of the 4 quadrants around the mob is safe so stack close to the mob to make moving to the safe quadrant easier. Avoid the frontal cone AoE Sonic Pulse.
Machinist’s Garden Boss
Maybe the easiest boss in the instance. Kill the Inconspicuous Plants around the room to avoid the “Hidden” Flame Cannon from igniting them and covering the area in fire. Avoid the Self-Trimming Hedge cogs flying around, the Discom-BOMB-ulator grenades being thrown on the ground and the rotating fire jets from the “Hidden” Flame Cannon. Sounds much harder than it is.
King Mechagon Trash
Spider Tank: Avoid the Sonic Pulse frontal AoE targeted on a random player. Avoid the High Explosive Rocket ground AoE.
Workshop Defender: Pull the Defender trash immediately after the flight path with the Mark III bot patrol because the Defenders drop Shield Generators on the ground which reduce damage taken by 75% while you stand under them which makes dealing with Short Out very easy. Don’t bother avoiding any AoE so long as you’re under the Shield Generator. Have your party all stack under them, don’t AoE them down and have the tank with the trash outside the generators.
Mechagon Tinkerer: Interrupt Giga-Wallop and avoid the Anti-Personnel Squirrel they deploy on the ground.
Defense Bot Mk III: Dispel Arcing Zap and heal through the AoE damage from Short Out.
King Mechagon Boss
Four Plasma Orbs move around the platform periodically throughout stages 1 and 2 with arrows pointing where they are going. Stay nearer the middle of the room if you can or at least avoid edges as getting hit by the orbs knocks you back and can knock you off the platform. Avoid stacking up to ensure the Giga-Zap which is a damaging line emanating from the boss to a player doesn’t hit multiple people. The boss will periodically uses Take Off! In stage 1 which fixates on a player and deals damage to the whole party. Avoid being directly under the Aerial Unit for this. Use nominal throughput cooldowns for this if you are undergeared but try and keep your biggest cooldown in your back pocket until stage 2 in case you get terrible Magneto Arm positioning which is a similar party wide damaging mechanic which takes the place of Take Off in stage 2 but deals more damage the closer you are to the Magnet which is thrown at random onto the platform. Be sure the tank stays in melee range of the boss for stage 2 to avoid activating Protocol: Ninety Nine.
King Mechagon hardmode consists of four beacons positioned evenly along the edge of the platform opposite the boss. Every 30 seconds the H.A.R.D.M.O.D.E mechanic begins and these four beacons will flash red simultaneously and then each beacon will light up once in a sequence and be teal, yellow, purple or green. The colors are not important. The order in which the beacons light up is important. After each beacon has flashed a non-red colour once there will be a brief delay of a second or so and then all beacons will light up together and become interactive. At this point the sequence must be repeated such that the first beacon to light up must be clicked, then the second, then the third, then the fourth. The sequence must be entered within 6 seconds so each DPS and the healer must click their beacon in order as there isn’t sufficient time for 1 person to run between them and click them all. Completing H.A.R.D.M.O.D.E 4 or 5 times along with all normal mechanics gives enough time to kill the boss. The best strategy here is to hold all DPS cooldowns during stage 1 and get your 2nd H.A.R.D.M.O.D.E completed right before you transition to stage 2. Most of your time between 2nd and 3rd H.A.R.D.M.O.D.E is going to be wasted by the transition stun and the boss RP so keep holding DPS cooldowns until your 3rd H.A.R.D.M.O.D.E is completed then lust and burn. If you DPS is swinging for the fences you’ll kill the boss right after the 4th H.A.R.D.M.O.D.E. Try save your big healing cooldowns for the 3rd H.A.R.D.M.O.D.E as this routinely overlaps with Magneto Arm and is sandwiched by Giga-Zaps.