The European Horde guild "Ferox" has designed a flash-based simulator to help assist with the Teron Gorefiend raid boss fight in the Black Temple. I've never been to the Black Temple myself, but according to Bosskillers, Mr. Gorefiend will debuff a random player every 30 seconds with "Shadow of Death," which basically gives you a 55-second countdown till you die. But your death isn't the end of the battle for you yet, in fact it's just beginning: four "Shadowy Constructs" will spawn around you, and as a ghost you will get special abilities only you can use on these constructs -- other raiders will be helpless against them.

The flash game based on this fight does a great job at letting you practice the strategies to success, and it even makes for an interesting puzzle for people who like to figure out how to do things on their own. For those of us who are never likely to actually get to go to the Black Temple, simulations like this help convey a taste of what it's like to be there for real, too, so I hope more and more players develop these sorts of simulations in the future. If you want to figure out the simulator from scratch, go ahead and check it out; otherwise I'll explain the basic tools, and then after the jump I'll explain how to win.

The constructs will spawn from the point where you die as the Shadow of Death countdown finishes. From there, they will make their way to the rest of your raid. To win, you have to kill them before they get there. Some of the basic controls are explained in the game itself, but the 5 spells you can cast as a ghost are not clear at first. The first and last abilities, "Spirit Strike" and "Spirit Shield" are useless in the flash simulator, so you can ignore them here. The important abilities you'll be using are the three in the middle, "Spirit Lance," "Spirit Chains," and "Spirit Volley" (which you can use by clicking, or pressing 3, 4, or 5, respectively). Spirit Lance will damage a construct within a certain range and also slow it down, Spirit Chains will freeze nearby constructs in place, and Spirit Volley will do AoE damage to all the constructs around you. Continue reading for the secret cheat codes to give you super-extra-strength and +1000 damage!

Okay I was just kidding about the cheat codes and +1000 damage, but seriously, if you want to figure it out for yourself then stop reading. I'm about to tell you how to do it and ruin all the fun for you. Here goes:

Step 1: Of course you will want to get as far away from the raid as possible before the constructs appear by moving into one of the corners at the bottom of the map. Wait there for a few seconds until you die.

Step 2: Explode all four constructs with Spirit Volley as soon as you can, and then follow this with Spirit Chains to freeze them in place. Any damage on frozen constructs will set them free, so using the volley first gives you a head start until you can use it again. Both spells have a 15 second cooldown.

Step 3: Target the construct closest to the raid and start shooting your Spirit Lances. For me, the easiest way to target was with my mouse, and then once a target is selected, look in the upper right corner to see how much health it has left. I hit 3 repeatedly until the other constructs break free of the Spirit Chains. Targetting is easy while the constructs are standing still, but once they move it gets tricky.

Step 4: The constructs will all break free before you can kill the first one, so you have to hit each of them with lances in order to slow them down till Chains and Volley are ready again. Once the others are slowed, you might be able to go back and finish off the first one, but your first priority is to keep them all close to you and not let one get away. Once your cooldowns are ready, then go back to Step 2 and repeat until all four are dead.

It shouldn't take more than two of these cycles to kill them all. The most difficult part is targeting the right moving construct at the right time, and this just takes practice. World of Raids says that this is actually harder than the real thing, although Mr. Gorefiend actually has lots of extra abilities and challenges to overcome that aren't reflected in the simulation.

Those of you who are currently wiping on Teron Gorefiend all the time now might find this especially handy, but actually anyone can check it out for a few minutes of fun, just to get the hang of it and day dream about yourself as an uber-leet raider. Just remember to show the proper respect!

[Via World of Raids]