I am gonna explain some tactics for the required achievements, how to do them.
But first, let's see what are they and how hard they are:
Hard
All You Can Eat - By far, the most frustrating achievement. We played normally until phase 3, where the second tank would take cover behind the first Ice Block. As soon as his stacks went off he'd run in and taunt, the previous tank would take cover behind the ice block. When this tanks' stacks were gone, he'd shout out to kill the Ice Block and run in and taunt, the other tank going to the next ice block. Repeat. It's mostly a matter of control. We lost this one week because someone lagged and didn't notice he blew the stacks. To combat this, I reccomend the addon Smorgasbord. Just remember to turn it off if you're not doing the achievement or you'll see massive amounts of spam.
How-to:
Your OT breaks behind the first block (he has 2 stacks, drops them 2 seconds after the block drops) then leave that block alive and have your MT drop behind it as well, who will then call for the block to be destroyed and taunt the boss again.
That way (given your DPS is alright), the block still dies before the seconds drops but your OT will have 3 stacks (instead of the MT having 4) when moving towards the second block, resulting in a maximum of 4 stacks when he breaks LOS hence giving you one extra stack (6 seconds) of fault tolerance.
Medium
Been Waiting a Long Time for This - Have the first person who gets the plague dispel it outside the group and just stack the remaining diseases. Nothing to hard, per se, but if you skip over 30 (say, having a 29 merge with a 2 giving you 31), you fail it, and it takes a bit of time. Furthermore, if you're short on DPS the Enrage timer might become troublesome.
How-to:
This is simple to get. Here is how:
Raid Comp:
This actually does not matter a whole lot. You want a disc priest per normal LK mechanics, but really any normal raid comp will work. Some groups may want a DK Tank for easier add control, however a blocking tank will take less damage and thus require less healing. I highly recommend running a 3 healer comp. Obviously you want a group of people with a decent amount of Lich King experience so you are not dying in later phases after the time investment in phase 1.
Process:
1. Stack ranged and healers together in a tight clump. Have the OT tank the adds roughly 20-25 yards away from the raid.
2. In our example, the OT was to the left of the raid. The first person with the plague runs to the RIGHT and is dispelled.
3. The second plague goes out, this person runs behind the adds being tanked by the OT, is dispelled, and returns.
4. Every other plague receiver runs RIGHT to be dispelled away from the adds and raid. You DO NOT want 2 plagues in the adds if possible, it produces a chance of failing the achievement.
5. Burn LK down to about 72% then have DPS hard stop.
6. The plague continues to bounce after LK is pushed. You want to allow the plague to bounce to 30 less the number of adds you have up then push, maybe giving an extra 1-2 just in case. Normally, you can push LK at about 25-28 stacks depending on how many adds you have up.
7. The rest of the fight is exactly as normal.
What this does:
- Ensures that you do not merge plagues and accidentally go from 29-31 stacks (you must hit 30 exactly or you will not receive credit).
- Simple execution. Your raid members only need to be able to pay attention to DBM (or whatever they are using), count, and discern left from right. If members of your raid struggle with this, odds are you will struggle with basic fight mechanics later on.
- Ensures that you will not run out of adds before that plague has stacked high enough.
Your aim is to stack Necrotic Plague to 30 stacks, this has nothing to do with the Plague Siphon debuff on the Lich King. Simply stated, you want to track the debuff that is bouncing around, not the buff on the Lich King.
Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion - Simply don't slow the slimes. If you're not well geared bump this up a bit, as I imagine that, for a non-horribly overgeared group, this one could be pretty painful. The abom still has to eat the goo, but this does give him time to help out with DPS more, hurrying the fight along.
How-to:
Regurgitated Ooze is a spell cast by the Abomination on a slime that puts a damage DOT on it and slows its movement speed by 50%. This achievement requires that you do NOT use this spell.
The biggest loss will be the movement speed debuff, without it, the slime will come at full speed towards the person it targets.
Everytime a slime spawns, the abomination should IMMEDIATELY beginning helping to melee DPS the slime as much as possible, ignore the slime pools until the individual slime is dead.
Green Slime - The slime will almost certaintly reach its target without a movement speed debuff, so everyone should DPS it down as much as possible, then stack up on its target when it reaches that person, so the damage is spread out. Once it knocks everyone back, DPS it again before it reaches its 2nd target.
Red Slime - You can kite these, but without the movement speed debuff its hard, we gave every raid member a swiftness potion to help out and it really made a difference.
Phase 3 of the fight does not involve slimes, so nothing is changed there.
One thing to note about the Abomination's damage output, it seems to be somewhat related to spec or what gear you have on (need confirmation of some sorts on this one). Our paladin who was controlling the Abomination was originally prot, and noticied his damage was significantly lower than when he was Retribution wearing DPS gear. So we had him go Ret and did 7 DPS, 2 Healers, 1 Tank for Phase 3. Yes, you can do one tank on Phase 3 assuming you have bloodlust and good enough DPS to burn the boss before the tank reaches 6 stacks of debuff.
Full House - First, pray to your god of choice to make the RNG kind. This one can be very frustrating if you don't get the right mobs turned. Empowered adherents don't count, by the way, so feel free to kill those. We had a hunter kite the deformed around and our OT simply kept aggro on the other mobs and ran around. This does mean your MT will not have a lot of threat, so be careful. If you feel safe doing it, you could have your OT taunt off aswell, but then you have to make sure no one uses any abilities that deal even incidental AoE damage.
How-to:
Achievement Strategy:
For this achievement, your raid must leave the adds stated above up throughout the second phase of this encounter. In order to do so, you must plan which adds you will be killing and which adds you will be CCing, and when.
In our case, we have ALL the DPS on the boss until something happens to one of the first set of adds.
Deformed Fanatic - Kited around by our Hunter. CAN NOT let it hit anyone. Will one shot anything but a tank, which will die in 2 hits.
Reanimated Fanatic - Shackled by our priests.
Reanimated Adherent - Left alone. His damage should be easy to heal through.
After we have these three adds alive and the boss' mana pool is almost empty. We kill all remaining adds except for the marked three stated above. Once all the adds are dead, we bring her as low as possible and wait for the new set of adds. When the new set of 3 adds spawn, we immediately bring her down to keep from having any become Empowered, Deformed or reanimated.
Once she is down, tanks taunt off of each other when their threat debuff stacks get high and all DPS goes to her. Finish off the 6th add you do not need for the achievement. Blow Bloodlust and burn her down.
Tips:
Make sure you have a decurser for the Curse of Torpor.
Having a priest or Paladin to CC an undead is good.
And having a Hunter is a very welcomed asset for his kiting abilities on the Deformed mob.
Youtube video of the achievement
Portal Jockey - Do this with 4 healers, if possible. Send 3 in through the portals everytime. It makes the fight go by faster, though you might have some DPS issues if your group isn't quite that well geared yet.
Dances with Ooozes - I'm not sure how hard this is in a properly geared group. You can either merge 2 small ones into a big one, and merge that with another big one, still only increasing the stack by one, or doing what we did - simply leave everyone out and nuking on the boss, only having an OT ready in case a few melee get it and it grows in size.
How to: This is a very complicated boss fight which requires skill, timing and situational awareness from all members of your raid group.
To start, spread out all around Rotface as much as possible. He will be solo tanked by your MT in the center of the room where he stands due to Ooze Flood which will encompass a quarter of the room at any given time.
You need to spread this way to avoid Slime Spray which is a spray that targets a random raid member and must be avoided. Have the member that is targeted move away, and back again when the spray is over.
The OT will be running around the room and kiting the Oozes around. 1 Small Ooze will spawn after Mutated Infection dissipates from the raid member. (It can be dispelled) 2 Small Oozes will merge together when within range of one another and gain 2 buffs. One is an AoE damage Radiating Ooze and the other is Unstable Ooze which stacks up to 5. (6 Ooozes)
As the Oozes grow in size with each stack... they do significantly more damage and can not be tanked. They must be kited. Once the stack reaches 5 the Ooze casts Unstable Ooze Explosion and rains down Ooze all over the raid at the location of each member at the point of explosion.
That is pretty much it, however, the Oozes spawn small puddles that you just need to avoid.
Now for the Achievement!
In order to get this achievement, you must coordinate the spawning and merging of the Small Oozes.
To keep the large Ooze from reaching 5 stacks and exploding, you need allow the oozes that spawn to stay on the current target that obtained the debuff.
Once the oozes start spawning, it is a DPS race and you must burn Rotface down as fast as possible before you get overrun by oozes.
In the case that 2 oozes merge, make sure you have your off tank there to pick up the ooze and begin kiting.
You need to try and keep 1 ooze on each person, this is easily healable, however, if too many spawn... just wipe it and start over.
Tips:
Make sure the OT is taunting the Large Oozes ASAP to avoid raid damage.
The tank CAN run through the slime in the room. It will help kite the Ooze and your healers should be able to heal him through it.
Have good healers.
Easy
Flu Shot Shortage - Have the first two people who get the debuff run out. Then, the next time, have the peopel that got the first batch run out and everyone should have one stack. Then for the third and final, have everyone clump up. Should someone get the debuff twice in a row, just make sure they run out on the third. This one's a bit RNG, I suppose - I guess there's a chance the same person gets the debuff 3 times in which case, just wipe it up and try again. The damage should be fairly easy to heal through.
Detailed how-to:
This boss is pretty much a tank and spank, however there is very little movement involved.
Festergut will start the encounter by filling the room with a Gaseous Blight. At certain intervals (Time TBA) he will cast Inhale Blight and do an AoE raid damage. After this occurs, he will attack 30% faster and do 30% more damage per stack, up to 90%. To counter this you must stack Inoculated.
To become Inoculated, Gas Spores will appear over 2 random players' heads and everyone must run to them within 12 seconds to receive the AoE explosion from the spore.
Also, you will need 2 tanks for this encounter due to Gastric Bloat which will increase the tanks damage done by 10% per stack, however it will make the tank explode at 10 stacks. Have the OT taunt as soon as the first tank gets 9 stacks.
The last thing you need to look out for is Vile Gas. It will cause the target to throw up, and if within 8 yards of another player, will cause them to throw up too.
Now for the achievement!
In order to get this achievement, you must have good communication and good healing throughout the entirety of the fight.
The way to do this is to have each of the first two people who get the spores be the only ones to get the debuff. However, the second time around, you need to have everyone EXCEPT the first two get inoculated.
So right now, you should have everyone at 1 stack. Good.
After everyone is at one stack, you need to have EVERYONE get inoculated on the 3rd spore, which will bring everyone to 2 stacks and 50% resistance.
Now in order to finish the boss off and get the achievement, you must make sure to pop Bloodlust and any damage reduction right before Pungent Blight in order to survive... Everyone will be taking massive amounts of damage.
If you survive Pungent Blight, good job, finish him off and grats on the achievement.
Tips:
Act accordingly if someone get the spores more than once. If someone gets it 3 times however, bad RNG, wipe it and start over.
If you aren't killing him before the 2nd Pungent Blight, try 2 healing it to burn him faster.
Have good healers.
Once Bitten, Twicy Shy - Not a very hard achievement, in fact, many will get it incidentally. That said, just arrange bite orders properly and if someone doesn't want to get bit, make sure they don't attack the boss until the first bite's gone out. If you can get her down in Heroic, you should not have any issues with biting the 'wrong' people. Will take more than one run to get, however.
I'm on a Boat - Split the raid into half. We left the cannoners on our ship at all times, so each jumping group consisted of 4 players - though you can arrange 5 peopel to jump, if you so chose. Have the first group jump the first two times, and then the second group the last two. After they land the second time, make sure they stay put on the ship in case there's a fifth freeze. Furthermore, don't have them jump around on the ship - It might count as landing an extra time.
Incidental
These ones you, essentially, get by killing the boss in question normally. If you're capable of doing the heroic modes, you probably have the achievements already. But, in case not...
Boned - Make sure that everyone attacks the bone spikes immedeatly. This can be rough in heroic because of the spikes popping up in the Bone Storm phase aswell, so you might want to do it on normal.
I've Gone and Made a Mess - Avoid the beasts like the plague, and don't stand to clumped up. Getting 3 debuffs is common in the Heroic version of the fight, so again, I advice doing this on normal.
The Orb Whisperer - Make sure that the tank on the Shadow guy has his stacks high, and soak as much as possible of the empower flame orbs when the fire guy has the orb.
Removed
Neck-Deep in Vile - This one's not required for the Meta anymore, and as such I haven't done it. It appearently requires pretty heavy ranged AoE stacking, but I really can't comment. It looks pretty rough, though.
In detailed way:
17 Eylül 2010 Cuma
Ruby Sanctum - Halion
Strategy
Preparation
The fight requires at least two tanks. It is advantageous to have a balanced mix of ranged and melee DPS.
It takes place in two places, the physical and the twilight realm. During Phase 1 everyone is in the physical realm. At 75%, Halion shifts to the twilight realm and opens a permanent portal so the raid can follow for Phase 2. At 50%, the Dragon is present in both realms at the same time. During Phase 3, the raid must split and maintain balanced DPS in both realms.
Like many dragons, Halion has a frontal cone breath attack, a tail swipe and a cleave. The tail swipe stuns. He retains these abilities over all three phases. Unlike many dragons, he does not use fear and can be taunted.
Heroism/Bloodlust
Heroism/Bloodlust is best used in Phase 2, unless there is good coordination, communication and more than 1 Shaman in the raid during phase 3, otherwise, it quite possible that one realm will rapidly outdo the other realm, resulting in the realm that used heroism/bloodlust to stop DPS while the other realm catches up, wasting the buff.
Phase 1: Physical realm
A few seconds after the pull, a circle of flames appears around the boss, closing off any players not in the stage. In the physical realms, two special effects must be taken care of.
Mark of Combustion is a debuff which is put on a random player. It gains one stack every few seconds and expires after 10 (?) stacks. When it expires or is dispelled, it places a circular AoE centered on the player the diameter of which depends on the number of stacks (more stacks = larger). This AoE deals damage to players in it, and also knocks away players inside when it forms.
In order to deal with Mark of Combustion, affected players must run towards the outer edge of the battle area and be dispelled there quickly. Failing to react fast means a larger or badly positoined AoE, which usually hampers melee DPS.
The second effect in the physical realm are random fireballs, which fall from the sky and hit for AoE fire damage, leaving a patch of flame where it hit, plus four flames going in different directions. The location where the fireball hits is indicated by a hellfire graphic. Players must move away from the point of impact and the residual flames.
Phase 2: Twilight realm
After the dragon has vanished to the twilight realm, it's important that a tank enters the portal first, other classes die too fast when alone. The rest of the raid should follow quickly, the tank should pull the dragon away from the entrance point, else the raid may die from breath. It is usually a good idea to leave a healer and a tank in the physical realm in preparation of phase 3. These two just wait out phase 2.
In the twilight realm, Mark of Combustion is replaced by Mark of Consumption, which behaves quite similar, but pulls players into its AoE instead of knocking them away.
The fireballs are replaced by Shadow Cutter. Two shadow orbs circle clockwise around the outer edge of the area opposite to each other. Every 20 seconds, a beam connects the orbs for 10 seconds. This beam (= Shadow Cutter) deals very high damage to everybody who touches it. All players (including the tank) must move on a circular path to avoid this beam.
Shadow Cutter Positioning
One possible positioning is to tank the boss in the center of the area. The tank waits until an orb is near his right side, and then strafes to the left, so that the orb stays right of the tank at all times. If the beam appears, it should be in the area right of the tank, but pretty close to him (so that the beam runs nearly lengthwise through the dragon). This allows players to stand on both sides of Halion, although the dragon's left side (right of the tank) is a little safer. On that side, the only danger is a tail swipe, while on the other side (right of the dragon, left of the tank) people may get hit by breath or cleave, which is more dangerous. It's still advantageous to stand on both sides to minimize confusion from Mark of Consumption.
When learning the encounter (or with small groups) it may be helpful to instruct everyone to stand on the dragon's left side, and to move to avoid the tail. While explaining the encounter this situation can be simulated with a mounted raid member posing as the dragon.
Player Deaths in the Shadow Realm
Dead characters appear in the physical realm, so it's rather difficult to battle rez them. If all characters die in the twilight realm, characters still alive in the normal realm are still in combat, but can not be attacked by Halion. To end the encounter, they either must enter the twilight realm and die, or get out of combat using some ability (like Feign Death, Vanish, Divine Intervention).
Phase 3: Both realms
At the start of Phase 3, two portals appear in the twilight realm which lead back to the physical realm. If no tank was left behind, the tank must use that portal first.
Until the end of combat, Halion exists in both realms, and the raid must split in two. The encounter mechanics in both realms remain the same, that is Shadow Cutter in the twilight and Fireballs in the physical. When a Fireball spawns on the melee group it may force them to move out of melee range, while the constant movement required by Shadow Cutter hampers ranged DPS more than melee. For this reason, it's a good idea to keep all melee in the shadow, while all ranged move to physical.
The new element in Phase 3 is that Halion receives a buff called Corporeality. It starts at 50%, and it's advantageous to keep it close to 50%. It changes when Halion takes more damage in one realm than in the other. 100% corporality means that Halion is present only in the realm player is in, 0% means he's only in the other realm. When he takes more damage in one realm, he moves towards the realm where he takes less. Depending on the value of Corporality, Halion also deals and takes more damage in one realm than the other. Changes to corporeality are signified by the warning: "Your (or your companion's) efforts have forced Halion further
As an example, if Halion had way too much DPS on him in the Physical realm, his corporeality might be down to 20% in that realm. This means Halion takes 50% less damage and deals 30% less damage in the Physical realm. However in the Twilight realm, Halion's corporeality is 80% and he takes double damage and deals 60% more damage. The problem is the increase of damage dealt by Halion, tanks die too quickly if Corporality is too far from 50%.
If DPS in both realms is fairly balanced, the corporeality buff does the fine-tuning by itself, since in the realm where less damage is dealt, the damage taken is increased. Stopping DPS in either realm should never be necessary.
DPS numbers of individual players should be used when determining who goes where, rather than splitting the DPS 50/50 between both realms.
Heroic Mode Changes
In phase 1, Fireballs cause a blast wave upon landing. Fireballs also spawns a Living Inferno and some Living Embers on 25-man. The zones that appear after a Combustion put a dot on anyone inside them that does increasing damage per stack rather than flat damage.
In phase 2, four shadow orbs circle the stage instead of two, so that players can be caught behind or in front of Halion during a Death Beam, and therefore get hit by a tail swipe, cleave, or dark breath. The zones that appear after a Consumption put a slow on anyone stood in them - the slow lasts for 2 seconds and is applied every 1 second, so it can't easily be removed except by Hand of Freedom - this will cause difficulties running from the cutter unless the zones are placed very carefully.
In all phases, the void zones from combustion/consumption appear and affect both the Twilight and Physical realms, not just one. This gives the raid less space in both realms to move around, and is mostly an issue in Phase 3. A single misplaced zone in phase 3 can very easily cause a wipe.
Ulduar - Algalon the Observer - 10m
Algalon's Abilities // 10 man
10-man
Algalon dual wields and his swing speed is extremely fast, with ~18,000 main hand and ~10,000 offhand swings coming every second or less.
Cosmic Smash – Calls an abyssal boulder from the sky that deals 41,438 to 43,562 Fire damage.
Black Hole Explosion – Instantly casts 16,088 to 16,912 Shadow damage to enemies.
Quantum Strike – Strikes at an enemy, inflicting 15,675 to 17,325 Physical damage within a 5-yard radius.
Phase Punch – Massive blow that inflicts 8,788 to 10,212 damage within a 5-yard radius, and slowly fades the target to another plane of existence.
Big Bang – Inflicts 76,313 to 88,687 Physical damage to nearby enemies. 8-second cast with a 3-second cooldown.
Berserk - Algalon the Observer enrages after 6 minutes.
Ascend to the Heavens – Is a 2-second cast that inflicts 655,500 to 724,500 Arcane damage to enemies.
Strategy
Phase 1
Algalon transforms the arena into space and immediately begins attacking the player with the highest threat. Algalon hits very hard and fast; he casts Quantum Strike on the tank with high frequency, so healers must ensure that the tank remains at full health at all times. All DPS merely attack the boss the best they can. Algalon can be positioned anywhere, as he has no frontal cleave or cone attacks.
After 15 seconds, Algalon begins casting Phase Punch on the current tank every 15 seconds and also summons four Collapsing Stars. Once the tank gets 5 stacks of the Phase Punch debuff, that tank is ported out for 10 seconds as if he stepped into a Black Hole, whereupon the debuff is completely removed. Algalon then switches to the second highest on his threat table. Your off-tank should be ready to taunt, with healers ready to change targets, as the off-tank begins taking substantial damage very quickly. Algalon will be Phase Punching the tanks throughout the fight; tanks must keep switching after.
Assign one or two ranged DPS to kill the Collapsing Stars one at a time. Since they slowly lose health on their own (1% health per second), if left alone, they will all explode at the same time and wipe the raid. Alert the healers so they are ready before a Collapsing Star is killed, as the entire raid takes roughly 16,000 shadow damage regardless of positioning (a tank who is too low on health when a star explodes can die and likely cause a wipe). When a star dies, it leaves behind a Black Hole, which is both a void zone and a portal to another realm. Collapsing Stars keep spawning throughout the fight until Phase 2 and should always be killed.
Every 25 seconds, Algalon casts Cosmic Smash on a random player, including a tank. This appears as a red fissure, which explodes after a few seconds. Everyone—not just the targeted player—should move away from the red fissure, as it causes splash Fire damage, based on player distance with the impact point.
Note: On 25-man, Algalon casts three separate Cosmic Smashes on three random players.
Fifty seconds after the initial pull, Algalon summons three Living Constellations that cast Arcane Barrage on random players and have normal threat tables. It is unnecessary to DPS a Living Constellation. Instead, a single player can aggro these and run behind any available Black Hole, as any Living Constellation that passes through a Black Hole dies instantly, causing that Black Hole to disappear. The player assigned to do this should be careful to run around a Black Hole instead of through it to avoid being portaled. Death Knights are an ideal choice for this, as they can stand behind Black Holes and use Death Grip to pull the Constellations into the hole.
Every 90 seconds from the initial pull, Algalon begins casting an 8-second lethal spell called Big Bang. To avoid getting hit by Big Bang, everyone must enter a Black Hole created by a killed Collapsing Star except for one person. For this reason, all players should be aware of the location of remaining Black Holes after Living Constellations are killed. Players need not enter the same Black Hole as everyone else; all Black Holes lead to the same dark realm. Once inside the Black Hole, players take roughly 1,500 Shadow damage per second and must avoid elite adds called Dark Matter scattered throughout the realm until Algalon finishes casting Big Bang, and automatically portals everyone back to the normal realm.
If everyone enters the Black Holes and Algalon has no player in the normal realm to target, he kills the raid with Ascend to the Heavens, then disappears. For this reason, one player must remain in the normal realm to eat the Big Bang. A player protected with a Holy Priest's Guardian Spirit, a Shadow Priest casting Dispersion, or a tank blowing all cooldowns are all capable of eating the Big Bang. Note: Big Bang ignores immunity effects such as Hand of Protection, Ice Block, and Divine Shield.
Entering a Black Hole also resets all threat of the player. If the currently Phase Punched tank stays outside to eat the Big Bang, the off-tank can taunt to gain all the threat he had upon return to the normal realm, ensuring that the rest of the raid doesn't pull aggro.
This phase continues until Algalon reaches 20%.
Phase 2
When Algalon reaches 20%, Collapsing Stars and Living Constellations despawn and stop respawning, and all open Black Holes disappear. Algalon continues to cast Quantum Strike, Phase Punch, Cosmic Smash, and Big Bang.
Algalon then summons four new Black Holes in a square pattern. Every 30 seconds, four Unleashed Dark Matters will spawn, one from each Black Hole. The off-tank needs to pick these up and tank them to the side for the rest of the fight, and DPS must burn down Algalon before these adds pile up and become too much to handle.
When this phase begins, consider swapping tanks, as the current tank will very likely have the Phase Punch debuff and the off-tank will have a hard time surviving if he has to tank the adds and Algalon together. If you swap once the Black Holes spawn, you'll be given about 45 seconds to defeat Algalon before a forced tank-swap which should be long enough. Players also need to keep alert about Cosmic Smashes as Algalon will still be using this.
Once Algalon reaches 1-2%, he is defeated, all adds and Black Holes despawn.
Icecrown Citadel - Blood Prince Council
Strategy
The encounter consists of one phase. The 10 minute enrage timer is generous and should not be of any consequence. Three tanks are required, one of them can be a ranged tank (e.g. Warlock).
At all times, one of the three princes has Invocation of Blood. The two without the buff have 1 HP and cannot be damaged, only the buffed prince has a proper health score and can take damage.
Invocation of blood always starts on Prince Valanar (middle), and switches randomly every 30 seconds to another prince.
All three princes have rather low armor and thus take high melee damage. DPS cooldowns should be used on Keleseth, if the tank has sufficient threat, since he frequently casts Shadow Lance which makes it impossible for him to dodge.
Prince Keleseth
This prince can basically be tanked by any class with a ranged attack. He does not use any melee abilities, he instead spams Shadow Lance.
For this reason, the Keleseth tank must gain shadow mitigation from the Dark Nuclei. These spawn randomly around the room, and the Keleseth tank must grab them to gain the stacking Shadow Resonance buff. Dark Nuclei do not follow the normal aggro table, they instead attack the last player that hit them. Melee aoe abilities do not pull Dark Nuclei off the Keleseth tank (excepting Hammer of the Righteous and Heartstrike). The Dark Nuclei destroy themselves over time, necessitating finding more to keep the shadow resistance buff up. Note that the damage reduction from Dark Nuclei is multiplicative not additive, so even with 6 Nuclei the tank still takes some damage. More than 6 Nuclei is not advisable, since at that point the tank takes more damage from the Nuclei than from Shadow Lance.
Some 10 player groups have had success using a tanking geared Death Knight, or a Protection Paladin as the ranged tank. The other tank then tanks Valanar and Taladaram. 3 healers can be positioned between the 2 tanks. When Keleseth is empowered, and the ranged tank requires more attention from the healers, the Valanar/Taladaram tank can use a survival cooldown or two, during this time.
Prince Valanar
Valanar summons Kinetic bombs so that 2/3 (10/25 player) are up at all times. These Bombs float in the air and slowly move to the floor, upon impact they explode for ~16k damage. Every time they take damage, they float a little upwards. After 1 minute, they despawn.
To prevent the bombs from exploding, they must be continually damaged. The easiest method to achieve this is to use a warlock or hunter melee pet. A melee pet set on a bomb just sits below the bomb until it floats low enough, then attacks it until it floats up out of range again. This may fail though when the pet is effectively kicking the bomb up the stairs. They best way to ensure that this does not happen is to position the pet so that the bomb is between the door from which the raid enters the room and the pet, not the pet between the door and the bomb. Using a warlock imp is not optimal either, as the imp may use all its mana and then be unable to keep the bomb up.
Ranged damage dealers can do this too, but this leads to loss of DPS on the bosses. Players thus want to switch from the Bomb to a boss and back, but this can lead to errors (like accidentally targeting Nuclei). Switching on nameplates or using a targeting macro will help avoid these errors.
Sometimes a kinetic bomb glitches and gets stuck in the floor and not go back up, no matter how hard it's being hit. If this is the case, then someone needs to continually beat on the bomb until it dissipates, otherwise it explodes. This tends to happen on the raised stage in the back of the room.
Valanar puts shock vortexes under random raid members, which are preceded by a small white swirl for 1.5 seconds before expanding into a full vortex, knocking back any player that enters it. The white colored vortexes have a radius of approximately 12 yards, persist for about 20 seconds, and should not be approached. Because of the short cast time, not much can be done about this attack.
When he gains Invocation of Blood he casts Empowered Shock Vortex which creates this effect on every player in the room; melee needs to scatter and get away from each other, while the rest of the raid should already be spread out. Players must keep 12 yards away from everyone else to avoid damaging and knocking around other raid members when it goes off.
Prince Taldaram
Prince Taldaram conjures balls of flame which follow a random raid member and explode when they reach their target. When they pass through other players, the damage they do is reduced, down to a minimum of 10k. When Taldaram has Invocation of Blood he launches Empowered Balls of Flame which follow the same mechanism, but deal higher damage, and also damage the players they pass on their way to their target.
Players who are NOT targeted by Empowered Balls of Flame should stick together and stay close to the route of the ball, especially ranged dps. In this way you drain the energy of the Empowered Balls of Flame and that makes it hurt less.
Also Priests should avoid fading during this fight while an Orb is in play, as this can cause the Orbs to detarget and change directions. This is especially bad during an Empowered Orb.
Taldaram also casts Glittering Sparks in a random player's direction so spreading out mitigates that somewhat.
Heroic Difficulty
In Heroic Mode, the Shadow Prison debuff is added, which does increasing damage to players every second whenever they move or jump. Therefore, all players (except the Keleseth tank) must minimise movement during the entire fight.
Kinetic Bombs are now summoned closer to the ground and drop faster. With the reduced movement, one or two ranged players cannot keep all Kinetic Bombs in the air. Spread ranged players all over the room, and all of are responsible for any Kinetic Bombs in their area. This is especially important when someone in their area is targetted for Empowered Conjured Flame.
Glittering Sparks now reduces movement speed by 40%. Assign a priest to mass dispel melees when Valanar is empowered so they can run out for Empowered Shock Vortex. A chained Empowered Shock Vortex most likely results in multiple deaths.
Keleseth also hits much harder in heroic mode. A normal melee tank is therefore recommended over a ranged tank.
Icecrown Citadel - Lich King
Lich King main abilities:
Infest (Raid Wide DoT about 25 seconds CD):
The lich king does about 10K, and a high DoT that gets removed when the target has more then 90% health.
Necrotic Plague (Very high DoT):
The lich king puts a massive DoT on a random player that will kill it in a few seconds. This needs to be dispelled. When it is dispelled, the plague will jump to the nearest target, that includes the lich king Adds, and you should pass it to them. Making it jump to another target will also increase the lich kings power. If fades after a few jumps but the more it jumps the more damage it does.
Remorseless winter (Massive AOE):
The lich king does about 10K damage/ second.
Pain and Suffering (AOE DoT):
About 3K damage/sec, can be stacked up to 5 times.
Defile (AOE):
High damage AOE that gets larger whenever a player gets inside it. Soul Reaper (Debuff): The lich king will place a Debuff on your tank that will cause a massive damage on it (about 55 K) after 5 seconds.
Harvest soul: (DoT, 70 seconds CD):
About 15 K damage (in 25 man) ever second. When it ends the target (if still alive) is transferred to Frostmourne.
Lich King tactics Step by Step:
This tactic plan requires 2 tanks
Lich king Tactics step 1:
If you have a disc priest shield as many players as possible (will help with infest later)
don't pull with MissDirect you will need it later. Therefor wait until tank gets good aggro before starting DPS
Lich king Tactics step 2:
Have the tank pull the lich king to the edge of the platform
Lich king Tactics step 3:
The Lich king opens with infest, quickly top off all the players for more then 90% so the DoT is removed. Do so every time Infest is cast.
Lich king Tactics step 4:
The lich king summons the adds.
Ghouls should be picked up by the tank, but do not DPS them directly.
Lich king Tactics step 5:
When Shambling horrors spawn you should misdirect to get them on the Off Tank and make sure they are tanked facing away from the raid. When they get enrages tranquilize them or stun them.
Lich king Tactics step 6:
When lich king casts Plague on a player, have the player stand next to an add (preferable ghoul) and then dispel it to make it jump to the add. Eventual it will reach a horror and will hopefully kill it as well.
Lich king Tactics step 7:
Before the lich king reaches 70% and changes phases kill all the adds, and dispel the plague off the adds Off Tank when he stands alone so that it doesn't jump to anyone else, and the buff is removed from the lich king. Also make sure you don't cross the 70% line when a new horror is about to spawn.
Lich king Tactics step 8:
At 70% the lich king moves the middle of the platform stats the transitional phase that will last 1 minute. He will cast remorseless winter and summon adds.
Because he was tanked at the edge it will take him several seconds to get to the middle of the platform. Quickly run to the edges of the platform to avoid this damage. (a new extension of the platform is formed in this phase)
Lich king Tactics step 9:
The lich king will also summon raging spirits to spawn from a random player. These melee hard and have a frontal cone shape silence, so have OT pick them up, face away from the raid, and kill them ASAP. 3 spirits will be summoned on the targeted player in total.
Lich king Tactics step 10:
Orbs will start floating towards raid member and should be killed, or else when they reach the target it will get a lot of damage, and will be thrown off the edges of the platform.
Lich king Tactics step 11:
While all of this goes on stay relatively spread to avoid as much of the damage of Pain and Suffering as possible.
Lich king Tactics step 12:
When the lich king ends this transitional phase quickly run back to inner platform because the platforms extension will collapse.
Lich king Tactics step 13:
Phase 2 starts.
Have the lich king tanked in the middle of the platform.
Lich king Tactics step 14:
The lich king will start casting Defile (dark cloud like AOE). Avoid getting in it is high priority because otherwise it will spread and cover the whole platform and you will wipe.
Lich king Tactics step 15:
When you run out of defile try to run to it's left and right edges (when facing the middle of the platform) so that if you're targeted by a Val'Kyr (read below) you will not be pulled above the defile, or too close to the edges of the platform.
Lich king Tactics step 16:
The lich king will summon Val'kyr Shadowguards that will attempt to pick up raiders and drop them off the edges of the platform. They need to be killed ASAP. They can also be (and should be) slowed.
This may get tricky when the Val'kyr moves threw a Defile AOE zone.
Lich king Tactics step 17:
After soul reaper is applied rotate your tank.
Lich king Tactics step 18:
Before reaching 40% kill a Val'kyr so it's not alive while transitioning.
When the lich king reaches 40% another transitional phase occurs. Repeat what you did in the first one. This time 4 spirits will spawn.
Lich king Tactics step 19:
Phase 3 starts and the lich king starts summoning vile spirits that will first over the lich king's head for a few seconds, and then attempt to explode on your raid. Because of this, spread out your raid, ans kill them before they reach the players to avoid as much of the damage as possible.
Lich king Tactics step 20:
Infest and Val'kyrs will stop at this phase.
The lich king will start casting harvest soul on random players. They need to be healed threw the DoT. Use damage shields and damage reduction to make sure they don't die cause it hits hard. When it ends they will be transferred to frostmourne
Players transferred into frostmourne will watch a battle between King Terenas and a spirit. They can either Heal King Terenas or DPS the Spirit. Either choice will result in the Spirit's death and the player will escape frostmourne. It is advisable to stun the spirit is possible when it starts channeling or interrupt it. If you die inside (you have to escape in 60 seconds) the lich king will gain a big buff for 15%.
Lich king Tactics step 21:
At 10% The lich king will kill the whole raid. Do not release and watch the ending scene. You will then be resurrected.
Icecrown Citadel - Sindragosa
Sindragosa Tactics Basics:
The Sindragosa tactics basics are all about switching between Sindragosa's ground phase and air phase.
Sindragosa Abilities:
Frost Aura:
Sindragosa does 4.4K Frost damage every 3 secs raid wide.
Unchained Magic (debuf):
Spells cast by the target will trigger backlash after 8 seconds, and will cause 2K damage. Stacks the more spells are cast.
Cleave (physical AOE):
Sindragosa does normal damage plus 50 to an target and up to 10 nearby players.
Permeating Chill:
Sindragosa reduces movement speed of melee players hitting her by 1000% for 8 sec seconds.
Frost Breath (frontal cone AOE, 1.5 sec cast):
Sindragosa does about 40K Frost and reduces targets' attack speed and chance to dodge by 50% for 6 sec.
Frost Beacon:
Sindragosa marks a target for imprisonment in an Ice Tomb
Ice Tomb (AOE CC):
Sindragosa put Ice Tomb on the target and enemies within 10 yards. Ice Tombs have 786k HP.
Frost Bomb (10 yards AOE):
About 6K Shadow damage to target and players in 10 yards range.
Tail Smash (Physical back cone AOE):
Sindragosa inflicts 11250 to 18750 damage on enemies behind her and knocks them back.
Blistering Cold (AOE, 25 yards, 5 seconds cast):
Sindragosa does 35K Frost damage to enemies within 25 yards
Icy Grip (30 yards pull):
Sindragosa pulls all nearby enemies to her.
Sindragosa tactics step by step:
Sindragosa Tactics Step 1:
Prepare all frost resistance tools (auras etc, if necessary switch a couple of gear to frost resist).
In Adittion you may want place smoke markers on the ground where you want the Ice tombed players to go (read below).
Sindragosa Tactics Step 2:
Position your raid to her side, to avoid her frontal and back cone AOEs. Don't stand too clumped together.
Sindragosa Tactics Step 3:
When frost breathe hits it lowers the dodge of the tank by 50%, remove it ASAP.
Sindragosa Tactics Step 3:
When melee start stacking too much of the chill debuff (from attacking her) they should stop attacking for a while until it wears off.
Sindragosa Tactics Step 4:
When Sindragosa pulls everyone to her run away ASAP to avoid Blistering cold that will be cast right after
Sindragosa Tactics Step 5:
Sindragosa will start lifting up in the air, all raid need to run away to the entrance.
Sindragosa Tactics Step 6:
As Sindragosa lifts up she will mark the players that are about to get Ice-Tombed. They need to run away from the raid and stand in a group between the raid member sand Sindragosa, to create a protective wall out fo the ice tomb, but not too close, as they may kill each other when the ice cube lands.
A good place can be on the bottom on of the stairs, where the rest of the raid can clump up on the top on the stairs and be protected from Sindragos's breath. .
Sindragosa Tactics Step 7:
When Ice Tombs appear the raid switchs to DPS them to free the trapped players, make sure you leave at least one of them up as a wall to hide behind as long as Sindragosa is still in the air and attacking. .
Sindragosa Tactics Step 8:
While this is going to, Sindragosa will drop frost bombs on the floor. You can see where they're about to land: it's the ice swirl patches on the ground. Move away from it, and hide behind the icecubes to avoid damage. .
Sindragosa Tactics Step 9:
Sindragosa lands, get back to step 2
Sindragosa Tactics Step 10:
When Sindragosa reaches 30% health she stays on the ground but conitnues her abilties. In addition she will put a stacking debuff on the entire raid that increases damage done to them. Have the Ice-Tombed players run to a predertmined location.
Sindragosa Tactics Step 11:
While on the ground she will keep Ice Blocking indiviidual players, they should run to separate places in alternation (good places may be the near her head an near her tail) so that players can keep those places clear for the Icu Cubes to go off and then use them as a shield when her debuff gets too high (once out of LoS from Sindragosa the Debuff will reset).
This includes the tanks that need to rotate every few stacks to clear the Debuff.
Icecrown Citadel - Professor Putricide
Putricide tactics Basics:
The Putricide tactics basics is split into 3 phases, the second being the most complicated, and the third one being a DPS race. One of the offtanks will need to mutate itself into an abomination add at the start of the fight for the Putricide tactics to work.
Putricide main abilities:
Abominations:
An abomination is actually your offtank that in the start of the fight runs and drinks a potion from potion table. He will then be able to:
Eat the slime pools that Putricide creates. This will also charge them with energy.
Slow down the clouds and slime adds that spawn in the fight (they chase players)
Use the "leftovers" energy to put a debuf on Putricide to increase the raids damage.
Mutated Slime (AOE, about 4.5K damage / second):
Putricide creates a slime AOE at the targets location, that keeps growing. Should be eaten by Abomination.
Ooze:
Putricide summons an Oooze to chase a player. The player is rooted in place, and when caught explode for massive damage split between nearby players, and create a new ooze..
Gas Clouds:
The gas clouds will chase players like oozes, and link themselves to that player, doing massive damage to him. However, they can't be killed. The damage they do will just gradually fade. If they reach the player they will do massive AOE damage.
Choking Gas Bomb (exploding AOE, about 5.5K damage/ second):
Professor Putricide throws Gas Bombs around him that explodes after 20 seconds for 16K damage.
Goo:
Malleable Goos are bouncing slime balls that target someone in range and they hit anyone on their path. These should be avoided at all costs.
Putricide tactics step by step:
Putricide tactics step 1:
Phase one starts until Putricide is down to about 80%
Putricide tactics step 2:
Have your main tank pull Putricide, and have one of you offtanks (you need 3 in 25 mode) run to the table and turn into an abomination.
Putricide tactics step 3:
Putricide is tanked facing away from the raid.
Putricide tactics step 4:
Putricide will start forming slime puddles on the floor. Avoid them and have your abomination eat them ASAP.
Putricide tactics step 5:
Putricide will form the first Ooze. Your abomination should slow it ASAP and DPS should kill it.
Putricide tactics step 6:
If you think the Ooze will reach the rooted target, have the closest players clump on said player to split damage, and quickly switch to the new Ooze.
Putricide tactics step 7:
Quickly after Putricide should drop to 80%, when he does phase 2 starts and he will stun the raid for a few seconds, and then start using his abilities more frequently.
Putricide tactics step 8:
Avoid the bouncing goos
Putricide tactics step 9:
When a gas cloud spawns and start chasing a player, have your Abomination slow him and the player keep running from it until the damage fades.
Putricide tactics step 10:
If you abomination notices his energies are too low, have him leave one puddle on the floor as a "food source"
Putricide tactics step 11:
Make sure the Putricide reaches 35% health with no adds alive and no puddles on the floor.
Putricide tactics step 12:
Putricide reaches 35% and stuns the raid when switching to phase 3
Putricide tactics step 13:
Your abomination turns back into an offtank, and he should join the main tank and they need to rotate every few stack of a debuf on the tank that causes raid wide damage. Ideally you will switch every 3 stack of the debuf, and in 25 run will need 3 tanks for the purpose.
Putricide tactics step 14:
Since there will be no abomination to eat puddles on the floor, it is a matter of time before the whole room is flooded, making this phase a DPS race. Burn all DPS cooldowns and finish Putricide.
Ulduar - General Vezax
General Vezax Abilities
Health Points: 25,100,000 (heroic), 6,275,250 (normal)
Shadow Crash – deals 11,310-12,690 shadow damage and knocking back all enemies near the impact point. Leaves a magical area at the impact point for 15 seconds that increases magic damage by 50%, reduces healing by 50%, and reduces mana cost by 30%.
Searing Flames - deals 13,875-16,125 fire damage to all players within a 20 yard radius. Reduces armor by 75% for 10 seconds. 2 second casting time, can be interrupted.
Surge of Darkness – increases physical damage by 100% and reduces movement speed by 55% for a 10 second duration. When the General buffs himself with this you must kite him.
Aura of Despair - prevents normal mana regeneration through out the fight. You can still gain mana via evocation, mana pots, etc. You can destroy the crystals flying around the room to get mana. These crystals drop a cloud on the ground, which will convert your health into mana.
Profund of Darkness – deals 500 damage to all enemies and increases shadow damage by 10% per stack. Stacks on the raid (related to achievements)
General Vezax Boss Strategy
For the most part this is a pretty standard tank and spank fight…with a few slight variations. When you engage General Vezax simply start DPS like normal, have your DPS interrupt searing flames as often as possible. When General Vezax casts surge of darkness all DPS should stop, allowing your tank to kite General Vezax around the room. This is a great time for your casters to take advantage of the clouds for mana regeneration. Make sure you are rotating your casters appropriately, it’s important everyone maintains thier mana (particuarlly healers).
Continue to DPS General Vezax until he is about 35% health. Before reaching 35% you’ll want to make sure all your casters have enough mana, if not slow DPS and allow them to get some mana regeneration going. After you take Vezax to 35% he will summon Saronite Animus. Generally you want to simply off tank Saronite Animus and finish off the general. If you want to complete the achievement you need to kill Saronite Animus before Vezax. Continue burning down the General until he’s dead.
General Vezax Hard Mode Strategy
The hard mode is the same type of fight as I’ve detailed above, except you cannot use any of the mana-regeneration clouds for the duration of the fight.’
Ulduar - Yogg-Saron
Part 1 & 2:
Part 3:
Yogg-Saron
Overview
There are three phases:
Phase 1, the raid is together up top and fights the Guardians of Yogg-Saron to force him to appear.
Phase 2 the raid splits into two groups, one group staying up top to fight his tentacles and the other taking portals into his mind to attack his brain directly.
Phase 3, the final phase, the raid is reunited and work together to kill him.
Phase 1: Guardians
This is the "door strat" for Yogg. Alternatively if your raid is good at clouds, it's easier to simply have everyone in the middle.
The raid should enter Yogg’s room and remain close to the door.
The green clouds that swirl around the room will spawn Guardians of Yogg-Saron on a set timer. They will also spawn Guardians if a player runs into the cloud. Keeping the raid at the door minimizes the chance that a raid member will step into a cloud.
The goal of phase one is to kill Guardians while they are standing next to Sara, in the middle of the room. Killing them near Sara will cause damage to her, eventually reducing her HP to 0 and transitioning the fight to phase 2.
Most of the raid should remain near the door for this phase with only a few people moving up. The tanks who drag the Guardians to the middle as well as a few assigned ranged DPS/interrupters and possibly a healer should be the ones moving forward in this phase. The assigned ranged dps must finish killing off the Guardians after the tank has them positioned.
Interrupts on Dark Volley are needed both while they are tanked and while they are being moved to Sara: an Immortal pausing too long to cast could die out of range of Sara and not damage her with their Shadow Nova on death.
Two tanks seems to work best for most of this phase with a third tank as backup for any spawns that happen while both other tanks are out of camp dealing with dragging Guardians to Sara or making their way back.
It's absolutely critical that the entire raid dodge clouds and avoid spawning extra Guardians.
After Sara’s HP is reduced to 0, Yogg appears and phase 2 beings, kill off any remaining guardians as quickly as possible and prepare for tentacles.
Phase 2: Portals and Tentacles
In this phase you will have two distinct groups. A group that remains “up top” at all times, killing tentacles, and a group that will break off and go down portals.
Keep in mind that you do not have to send as many people down portals as is possible, the goal is to keep the top stable while getting the brain to 30% fast enough to avoid the enrage timer.
Both groups need to keep a careful eye on their sanity! There's no reason for anyone in either group to go insane as long as everyone plays well and pays attention.
Tentacle group
This group deals with the spells cast by a hostile Sara:
* Brain Link
* Psychosis
* Death Ray
* Malady of the Mind
For Brain Link, the two afflicted people simply need to stand together for the duration. If one takes a portal it's broken with no ill effects.
Death Ray is a killer only if you aren't paying attention: simply run away.
Complete descriptions of the abilities are listed in the abilities section.
There are three different types of Tentacles that spawn in phase 2, listed in priority kill order:
* Crusher Tentacles
* Constrictor Tentacles
* Corruptor Tentacles
Crusher Tentacles
Crusher Tentacles are kill priority number one for your ranged dps.
They are the most dangerous tentacle and must be dealt with as quickly as possible. The goal is to never have more than one up at a time, and ideally to have enough time between spawns to kill other tentacles.
These Tentacles each channel Diminish Power on the raid (including those in the portal.) Diminish Power reduces the amount of damage done by 20% and will stack up to 4 times (one per crusher alive) if crusher tentacles are allowed to pile up.
They will not channel this ability if there is someone in melee with them however, so a free tank can help keep the raid free of the debuff. Their damage also increases each time they take damage, so the tank needs to be adept at dancing in and out to avoid dying when damage gets high.
The raid can also reset the damage buff by pausing dps for a moment; based on your raid dps this may not be necessary.
Constrictor Tentacles
Constrictor Tentacles simply grab members of the raid dealing damage to them while the player remains in their grasp.
These are melee priority number 1 and ranged priority number 2.
Free your raid members as quickly as possible by killing the tentacles, while following the priorities. Ranged should keep in mind that they can continue casting while in the Constrictor and can thus continue killing Crushers or help free themselves if a Crusher is not active/in range.
Corruptor Tentacles
Corruptor Tentacles cast a multitude of debuffs on raid members (dispellers and interrupters need to be ready to help deal with this). These are last on the DPS priority list.
They can cast:
* Curse of Doom
* Apathy
* Black Plague
* Draining Poison
Portal Group
Portals spawn roughly once every 90 seconds and the assigned portal group must get down the portals as quickly as they can (one person per portal).
You may want to send down a healer with the DPS down the portal to help offset any damage taken while in the portals.
Once down the portal the images/tentacles must be killed as quickly as possible. In addition to the images, there are skulls down the portal which will attack any players who look at them (dps as much as possible with your back to them).
The skulls cast Lunatic Gaze at those who are facing them while in the portals. This deals shadow damage and decreases sanity.
After all of the images/tentacles are dead, a path will open to the Brain of Yogg-Saron. The brain must be killed as quickly as possible in the allotted time, getting it to 30% will transition the fight into phase 3.
The brain channels Induce Madness, starting with the spawning of portals and lasting for 60 seconds. If anyone is still in the portal after the 60 seconds have passed and the channel is complete, they are immediately driven insane and mind controlled by Yogg.
In order to be safe, you should allow for around 5 seconds of time to get over to the portal back to the top and click on it.
It is important that while the portal group is up top that they make sure to check/refill their sanity and kill as many tentacles as possible in order to reduce the total number of tentacles alive in phase 3 as much as possible.
Phase 3: Boss and Immortals
After the brain is brought to 30%, phase 3 begins. Yogg is now directly attackable.
Any leftover tentacles from phase 2 will remain active unless killed so it is important to be as caught up on tentacles as possible.
During this phase, Yogg will spawn Immortal Guardians. These must be tanked and dpsed down to 1% so that they can be finished off by Thorim’s Titanic Storm ability.
The Immortal Guardians do less damage to the tanks as their HP goes down, so keeping on top of DPS on them will reduce tank damage significantly and increase the tanks ability to be mobile for picking up new spawns.
While DPS on the Immortal Guardians is important it is also important to kill Yogg. He has roughly 15-16 million HP in this phase and must be killed before the 15 minute enrage.
We use melee on the Immortal’s with ranged DPS helping in order to keep them under control. It is generally a good idea to have ranged DPS with “execute range” abilites/damage buffs on Yogg as much as possible.
During this phase Yogg will cast a beefed up version of the phase 2 spell, Lunatic Gaze. This damage and sanity reduction is avoidable by facing away from Yogg when he casts the ability.
Tanks and healers should position themselves with their back to Yogg as much as possible, and DPS need to be quick at turning around when the spell goes off in order to reduce raid damage and keep their sanity high (the better you handle turning around quickly, the better raid dps will be, as people will not have to waste time refreshing their sanity at a well.)
During the time when they are turned away from Yogg, ranged can continue to assist in killing immortals guardians as long as they are tanked a bit away from Yogg to allow for space.
Yogg will also attempt to heal Immortal Guardians who are engaged with the raid using Empowering Shadows, a very powerful hot. This makes it important to focus dps as much as possible to get spawns killed off before they can be healed.
This phase really breaks down to quick tank pickups in order to prevent deaths and then finding a dps balance that allows Yogg to be killed quickly while also keeping the Immortal Guardian spawns manageable.
After people have had a chance to learn the fight, turning around should become second nature when Lunatic Gaze is cast, and long term this ability should not cause much issue.
Common Problems
Raid Leader Note: It is a good idea to do some vocal reminding over vent during the encounter to encourage players to do a “Sanity Check”)
HARDMODE VIDEO:
elcome back to the TankSpot Ulduar raid guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll explain the strategy used for One Light in the Darkness, the hard mode of the yogg saron encounter needed to complete Glory of the Ulduar Raider.
If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.
You can choose to have any or none of the Keepers assist you in the Yogg fight after defeating them. For One Light in the Darkness, Thorim is usually the Keeper of choice to be left up.
With the rest of the Keepers not assisting, you lose the following buffs and abilities compared to normal mode:
* A 30% damage bonus, as each keeper gives you an extra 10%
* Mimiron's 20% movement speed increase
* Freya's 20% healing received bonus
* Sanity Wells - there will be NONE at all
* Hodir's 20% reduced damage taken buff
* Hodir's occasional ice tomb saves
Tentacles in phase 2 will attack twice as fast and cast three times as fast.
With Thorim left alive you do however retain a 20% health bonus and the Immortal Guardians in Phase 3 are killable.
The most important part about making this fight work for you is precision and team work. Your raid members need to carry out their assigned jobs and be prepared to deal with random RNG happenings such as a constrictor tentacle right before a portal spawn.
Apart from added difficulty, the fight stays exactly the same. For instance, you still have to kill 9 Guardians of Yogg-Saron close to Sara to trigger phase 2.
Whether you dance around the clouds like our raid is doing here or have your raid assembled at the entrace of the room is up to you. Cloud dancing does speed up the entire phase by a lot though, and you have a lot less AoE damage going out.
Make sure to have all melee move away from a guardian before it explodes. Failing to get out in time can very easily mean a death. You also want to try and avoid having raid members touch a cloud. While you should reasonably be able to deal with an extra or two, it's essentially wasted time and could be an obstacle later on especially while you're still learning the fight.
Your raid should always be moving as a group. In phase 1, your ranged members will have to move as a group as best as they can so no one accidentally moves away from a healer and gets Sara's Blessing cast on them. In phase 2, you'll split your raid into an upstairs and a downstairs team that also always needs to move together as best as they can.
If you have a hunter or a rogue aboard, they should watch for guardians that receive the Sara's Anger buff and tranquilize them.
When Sara's health hits 0, phase 2 is triggered. This part of the fight is all about targetted and efficient DPS. Of course, the "stay out of bad stuff on the ground" rule still applies. Your upstairs team should have the following priority system for killing tentacles:
Constrictor Tentacles before Crusher Tentacles before Corruptor Tentacles. Shadow priests and warlocks should be rolling dots on everything they can possibly reach.
You can have anywhere from one to four brain phases but with a bit of practice at the fight you should shoot for two at the most. We send a melee team with a hunter downstairs. Assign a portal to each of your downstairs DPS ahead of time. They have to be ready at their portal as soon as they spawn. Each of them should also be assigned to specific areas of the room downstairs. You should aim to burn down the Influence Tentacles downstairs in no more than 20 seconds to give your upstairs team enough time to clear every mob up top without the annoying Diminish Power debuff from Crusher Tentacles.
Do take care to avoid the Death Rays on the ground. From the time you see them popping up until they start moving around you have approximately 5 seconds, that should give even your slowest raid member enough time to put a safe distance in between them and a ray.
You can no longer be targetted with Malady of the Mind or Psychosis if you have less than 40 sanity left, but you still want to avoid chaining Malady as best as you can. If someone close to you gets targetted with it, run away from them.
Once your downstairs team pops out of the brain room, have a healer meet up with them to heal them and then have them take care of nearby corruptor tentacles until they have to move back to their portal positions.
Dispels, cleanses and decurses up top need to be quick and thorough. You simply can't afford to have someone impaired in their movement or take a chunk of extra damage. Have healers or other people that are assigned to cleanse debuffs set up macros or keybinds ahead of time. If possible, have a ret paladin in your downstairs team so he or she can cleanse black plague and Apathy off any unfortunate soul that took a portal but got a debuff at the last moment.
Assign a meet-up spot upon triggering phase 3 so your downstairs team has the shortest possible path to the rest of the group.
In phase 3, healers should keep their back turned to Yogg Saron at all times. We primarily have ranged dps and dot classes on Yogg himself while melee work on the Immortal Guardians. Depending on whether DPS on the Guardians or DPS on Yogg is lacking, we may ask someone to help out temporarily.
Watching your sanity is of extreme importance as you can't just walk over to a sanity well and refill it. Don't chance it if you're low on sanity and keep your back turned when Yogg's Lunatic Gaze cooldown is up.
Tanks need to be able to pick up any guardian that spawns before it reaches the person it initially had aggro on. They should also keep guardians at least 20 yards away from Yogg so that Empowering Shadows only heals the guardians and not Yogg himself. As long as the guardians die quickly and don't build up too much, it's a controlled phase that just requires some execution and communication.
Part 3:
Yogg-Saron
Overview
There are three phases:
Phase 1, the raid is together up top and fights the Guardians of Yogg-Saron to force him to appear.
Phase 2 the raid splits into two groups, one group staying up top to fight his tentacles and the other taking portals into his mind to attack his brain directly.
Phase 3, the final phase, the raid is reunited and work together to kill him.
Phase 1: Guardians
This is the "door strat" for Yogg. Alternatively if your raid is good at clouds, it's easier to simply have everyone in the middle.
The raid should enter Yogg’s room and remain close to the door.
The green clouds that swirl around the room will spawn Guardians of Yogg-Saron on a set timer. They will also spawn Guardians if a player runs into the cloud. Keeping the raid at the door minimizes the chance that a raid member will step into a cloud.
The goal of phase one is to kill Guardians while they are standing next to Sara, in the middle of the room. Killing them near Sara will cause damage to her, eventually reducing her HP to 0 and transitioning the fight to phase 2.
Most of the raid should remain near the door for this phase with only a few people moving up. The tanks who drag the Guardians to the middle as well as a few assigned ranged DPS/interrupters and possibly a healer should be the ones moving forward in this phase. The assigned ranged dps must finish killing off the Guardians after the tank has them positioned.
Interrupts on Dark Volley are needed both while they are tanked and while they are being moved to Sara: an Immortal pausing too long to cast could die out of range of Sara and not damage her with their Shadow Nova on death.
Two tanks seems to work best for most of this phase with a third tank as backup for any spawns that happen while both other tanks are out of camp dealing with dragging Guardians to Sara or making their way back.
It's absolutely critical that the entire raid dodge clouds and avoid spawning extra Guardians.
After Sara’s HP is reduced to 0, Yogg appears and phase 2 beings, kill off any remaining guardians as quickly as possible and prepare for tentacles.
Phase 2: Portals and Tentacles
In this phase you will have two distinct groups. A group that remains “up top” at all times, killing tentacles, and a group that will break off and go down portals.
Keep in mind that you do not have to send as many people down portals as is possible, the goal is to keep the top stable while getting the brain to 30% fast enough to avoid the enrage timer.
Both groups need to keep a careful eye on their sanity! There's no reason for anyone in either group to go insane as long as everyone plays well and pays attention.
Tentacle group
This group deals with the spells cast by a hostile Sara:
* Brain Link
* Psychosis
* Death Ray
* Malady of the Mind
For Brain Link, the two afflicted people simply need to stand together for the duration. If one takes a portal it's broken with no ill effects.
Death Ray is a killer only if you aren't paying attention: simply run away.
Complete descriptions of the abilities are listed in the abilities section.
There are three different types of Tentacles that spawn in phase 2, listed in priority kill order:
* Crusher Tentacles
* Constrictor Tentacles
* Corruptor Tentacles
Crusher Tentacles
Crusher Tentacles are kill priority number one for your ranged dps.
They are the most dangerous tentacle and must be dealt with as quickly as possible. The goal is to never have more than one up at a time, and ideally to have enough time between spawns to kill other tentacles.
These Tentacles each channel Diminish Power on the raid (including those in the portal.) Diminish Power reduces the amount of damage done by 20% and will stack up to 4 times (one per crusher alive) if crusher tentacles are allowed to pile up.
They will not channel this ability if there is someone in melee with them however, so a free tank can help keep the raid free of the debuff. Their damage also increases each time they take damage, so the tank needs to be adept at dancing in and out to avoid dying when damage gets high.
The raid can also reset the damage buff by pausing dps for a moment; based on your raid dps this may not be necessary.
Constrictor Tentacles
Constrictor Tentacles simply grab members of the raid dealing damage to them while the player remains in their grasp.
These are melee priority number 1 and ranged priority number 2.
Free your raid members as quickly as possible by killing the tentacles, while following the priorities. Ranged should keep in mind that they can continue casting while in the Constrictor and can thus continue killing Crushers or help free themselves if a Crusher is not active/in range.
Corruptor Tentacles
Corruptor Tentacles cast a multitude of debuffs on raid members (dispellers and interrupters need to be ready to help deal with this). These are last on the DPS priority list.
They can cast:
* Curse of Doom
* Apathy
* Black Plague
* Draining Poison
Portal Group
Portals spawn roughly once every 90 seconds and the assigned portal group must get down the portals as quickly as they can (one person per portal).
You may want to send down a healer with the DPS down the portal to help offset any damage taken while in the portals.
Once down the portal the images/tentacles must be killed as quickly as possible. In addition to the images, there are skulls down the portal which will attack any players who look at them (dps as much as possible with your back to them).
The skulls cast Lunatic Gaze at those who are facing them while in the portals. This deals shadow damage and decreases sanity.
After all of the images/tentacles are dead, a path will open to the Brain of Yogg-Saron. The brain must be killed as quickly as possible in the allotted time, getting it to 30% will transition the fight into phase 3.
The brain channels Induce Madness, starting with the spawning of portals and lasting for 60 seconds. If anyone is still in the portal after the 60 seconds have passed and the channel is complete, they are immediately driven insane and mind controlled by Yogg.
In order to be safe, you should allow for around 5 seconds of time to get over to the portal back to the top and click on it.
It is important that while the portal group is up top that they make sure to check/refill their sanity and kill as many tentacles as possible in order to reduce the total number of tentacles alive in phase 3 as much as possible.
Phase 3: Boss and Immortals
After the brain is brought to 30%, phase 3 begins. Yogg is now directly attackable.
Any leftover tentacles from phase 2 will remain active unless killed so it is important to be as caught up on tentacles as possible.
During this phase, Yogg will spawn Immortal Guardians. These must be tanked and dpsed down to 1% so that they can be finished off by Thorim’s Titanic Storm ability.
The Immortal Guardians do less damage to the tanks as their HP goes down, so keeping on top of DPS on them will reduce tank damage significantly and increase the tanks ability to be mobile for picking up new spawns.
While DPS on the Immortal Guardians is important it is also important to kill Yogg. He has roughly 15-16 million HP in this phase and must be killed before the 15 minute enrage.
We use melee on the Immortal’s with ranged DPS helping in order to keep them under control. It is generally a good idea to have ranged DPS with “execute range” abilites/damage buffs on Yogg as much as possible.
During this phase Yogg will cast a beefed up version of the phase 2 spell, Lunatic Gaze. This damage and sanity reduction is avoidable by facing away from Yogg when he casts the ability.
Tanks and healers should position themselves with their back to Yogg as much as possible, and DPS need to be quick at turning around when the spell goes off in order to reduce raid damage and keep their sanity high (the better you handle turning around quickly, the better raid dps will be, as people will not have to waste time refreshing their sanity at a well.)
During the time when they are turned away from Yogg, ranged can continue to assist in killing immortals guardians as long as they are tanked a bit away from Yogg to allow for space.
Yogg will also attempt to heal Immortal Guardians who are engaged with the raid using Empowering Shadows, a very powerful hot. This makes it important to focus dps as much as possible to get spawns killed off before they can be healed.
This phase really breaks down to quick tank pickups in order to prevent deaths and then finding a dps balance that allows Yogg to be killed quickly while also keeping the Immortal Guardian spawns manageable.
After people have had a chance to learn the fight, turning around should become second nature when Lunatic Gaze is cast, and long term this ability should not cause much issue.
Common Problems
Raid Leader Note: It is a good idea to do some vocal reminding over vent during the encounter to encourage players to do a “Sanity Check”)
HARDMODE VIDEO:
elcome back to the TankSpot Ulduar raid guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll explain the strategy used for One Light in the Darkness, the hard mode of the yogg saron encounter needed to complete Glory of the Ulduar Raider.
If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.
You can choose to have any or none of the Keepers assist you in the Yogg fight after defeating them. For One Light in the Darkness, Thorim is usually the Keeper of choice to be left up.
With the rest of the Keepers not assisting, you lose the following buffs and abilities compared to normal mode:
* A 30% damage bonus, as each keeper gives you an extra 10%
* Mimiron's 20% movement speed increase
* Freya's 20% healing received bonus
* Sanity Wells - there will be NONE at all
* Hodir's 20% reduced damage taken buff
* Hodir's occasional ice tomb saves
Tentacles in phase 2 will attack twice as fast and cast three times as fast.
With Thorim left alive you do however retain a 20% health bonus and the Immortal Guardians in Phase 3 are killable.
The most important part about making this fight work for you is precision and team work. Your raid members need to carry out their assigned jobs and be prepared to deal with random RNG happenings such as a constrictor tentacle right before a portal spawn.
Apart from added difficulty, the fight stays exactly the same. For instance, you still have to kill 9 Guardians of Yogg-Saron close to Sara to trigger phase 2.
Whether you dance around the clouds like our raid is doing here or have your raid assembled at the entrace of the room is up to you. Cloud dancing does speed up the entire phase by a lot though, and you have a lot less AoE damage going out.
Make sure to have all melee move away from a guardian before it explodes. Failing to get out in time can very easily mean a death. You also want to try and avoid having raid members touch a cloud. While you should reasonably be able to deal with an extra or two, it's essentially wasted time and could be an obstacle later on especially while you're still learning the fight.
Your raid should always be moving as a group. In phase 1, your ranged members will have to move as a group as best as they can so no one accidentally moves away from a healer and gets Sara's Blessing cast on them. In phase 2, you'll split your raid into an upstairs and a downstairs team that also always needs to move together as best as they can.
If you have a hunter or a rogue aboard, they should watch for guardians that receive the Sara's Anger buff and tranquilize them.
When Sara's health hits 0, phase 2 is triggered. This part of the fight is all about targetted and efficient DPS. Of course, the "stay out of bad stuff on the ground" rule still applies. Your upstairs team should have the following priority system for killing tentacles:
Constrictor Tentacles before Crusher Tentacles before Corruptor Tentacles. Shadow priests and warlocks should be rolling dots on everything they can possibly reach.
You can have anywhere from one to four brain phases but with a bit of practice at the fight you should shoot for two at the most. We send a melee team with a hunter downstairs. Assign a portal to each of your downstairs DPS ahead of time. They have to be ready at their portal as soon as they spawn. Each of them should also be assigned to specific areas of the room downstairs. You should aim to burn down the Influence Tentacles downstairs in no more than 20 seconds to give your upstairs team enough time to clear every mob up top without the annoying Diminish Power debuff from Crusher Tentacles.
Do take care to avoid the Death Rays on the ground. From the time you see them popping up until they start moving around you have approximately 5 seconds, that should give even your slowest raid member enough time to put a safe distance in between them and a ray.
You can no longer be targetted with Malady of the Mind or Psychosis if you have less than 40 sanity left, but you still want to avoid chaining Malady as best as you can. If someone close to you gets targetted with it, run away from them.
Once your downstairs team pops out of the brain room, have a healer meet up with them to heal them and then have them take care of nearby corruptor tentacles until they have to move back to their portal positions.
Dispels, cleanses and decurses up top need to be quick and thorough. You simply can't afford to have someone impaired in their movement or take a chunk of extra damage. Have healers or other people that are assigned to cleanse debuffs set up macros or keybinds ahead of time. If possible, have a ret paladin in your downstairs team so he or she can cleanse black plague and Apathy off any unfortunate soul that took a portal but got a debuff at the last moment.
Assign a meet-up spot upon triggering phase 3 so your downstairs team has the shortest possible path to the rest of the group.
In phase 3, healers should keep their back turned to Yogg Saron at all times. We primarily have ranged dps and dot classes on Yogg himself while melee work on the Immortal Guardians. Depending on whether DPS on the Guardians or DPS on Yogg is lacking, we may ask someone to help out temporarily.
Watching your sanity is of extreme importance as you can't just walk over to a sanity well and refill it. Don't chance it if you're low on sanity and keep your back turned when Yogg's Lunatic Gaze cooldown is up.
Tanks need to be able to pick up any guardian that spawns before it reaches the person it initially had aggro on. They should also keep guardians at least 20 yards away from Yogg so that Empowering Shadows only heals the guardians and not Yogg himself. As long as the guardians die quickly and don't build up too much, it's a controlled phase that just requires some execution and communication.
Ulduar - Mimiron
Phase1: Leviathan MKII
Ranged should spread out around him just outside the circle of mines. Melee other than the tank should group up behind the MKII inside the circle of mines. He will cast plasma blast every 45 seconds. All healing should be on the tank unless someone is likely to die otherwise. Shock blast usually follows closely after plasma blast. The tank should run directly away from the front of the MKII and then reengage along the same vector after the blast, and hopefully face him the same direction.
Ranged DPS/Healers who are hit by Napalm Shell do not need to move after being hit. The flame effect is only graphical.
Healing on this phase is priority on the main tank, then people hit by Napalm Shell.
This phase requires a melee tank.
Phase 2: VX-001 Anti-personnel Assault Cannon
Ranged can stay at a distance from the boss and everyone should spread out equally around the mimiron, as soon as the mines have despawned (be careful - sometimes mines appear to despawn but are still active).
Rapid Burst does minimal damage compared to the other attacks, but that deals damage to all targets in front of VX-001. Rocket Strike causes a red target to appear on the ground. People must move out of this target within 3s or they die. Only one rocket is fired each time in Phase 2. As soon as the dps observes that the VX-001 casts Spinning Up, everyone must move behind it. Standing in front of P3Wx2 is instant death.
During the Laser Barrage melee should stand at the edge of the cannon's hit box as meleeing from the center can move you into the laser barrage.
Healing in this phase is mostly AoE.
This phase is untanked.
Phase 3: Aerial Command Unit
Everyone should move into one third of the room, as marked out by the lines on the floor. The Healers and ranged except for the ranged tank should be in the back middle as far away from the bot spawns as possible. A warrior can use Spell Reflection on the Plasma Balls throughout the phase and maintain good threat which will endure into phase 4. This avoids most of the damage from the Plasma Balls and allows proper allocation of a DPS class. The ranged tank needs to immediately pick up the boss. The melee tank(s) should start picking up the smaller bots that start spawning around the room, staying away from and killing the Bomb Bots that the Aerial Command Unit drops. He can be seen casting "Bomb Bots' when he drops a single bomb bot to the floor below, it will then chase a random player until killed or meeting with that player and exploding. Bomb bots can be slowed. The following macro can be used by DPS, Healers and even Tanks with instant ranged attacks to ease the burden of bomb bots. With the raid as a whole using it bomb bots can be destroyed easily before they reach the raid.
/cast [target=Bomb] [Instant Ranged Ability]
Alternatively a plate DPS can stand under the Command Unit and taunt the Bomb Bot as it lands. The bot will move to them and explode. This damage is easily sustainable (25 man) with fire resistance and healers aware of when the bot is incoming. The rest of the raid should stand back from this bomb soak with melee moving in when the Command Unit is grounded. Be aware that if you move in while not on full health you may be caught in the blast of the last bomb dropped before grounding so hold on for a heal before moving in to DPS. No bombs will be dropped during the ground phase. This approach will allow more predictable healing of bomb damage and save DPS time trying to kill it (as it will kill itself).
The Deadly Boss Mods addon is very useful during this phase. It will automatically change the loot setting to Free For All during this phase and will return it to its previous setting at the end of the phase. This is so electromagnets can be picked up by melee. They drop off the Assault Bots. Once picked up, this item should be used underneath the Aerial Command.
Melee dps should be focusing on the small bots until he is pulled down by the electromagnet. At that point all dps should be on the Aerial Command Unit. Ranged dps should be on the bombs that spawn under the Aerial Command Unit and on the Aerial Command Unit otherwise.
Healing on this phase is focused on the range tank and melee tank(s).
This phase is range-tanked.
Phase 4: V-07-TR-0N
Each of the previous phase's targets have their own health pool and can be targeted separately. All three targetable sections begin this phase at 50% health.
The main tank needs to pick up the MKII the same as in Phase 1. The ranged tank needs to pick up the Aerial Command Unit the same as in Phase 3. From what we could tell, there is no threat reset between the phases. The VX-001 remains untanked.
The raid should stand either directly behind or directly in front of the main tank. Ranged should be outside the land mines, Melee should be inside.
Due to the timing of the cooldowns on the current live realms, the first and third shock blasts happen very near in time to the P3Wx2 attack from the middle section. It is essential that the tank move away and approach back along a vector that does not pass in front of the VX-001. The P3Wx2 seems to start to the side of where the MKII is facing. Everyone should move behind the VX-001.
2 Rockets spawn at a time during this phase. They are still a one shot kill.
Dps should be split up between the 3 sections. All sections need to die within 10 seconds, else they respawn. Melee cannot reach the aerial command unit.
Healing should be split up between the Leviathan's damage on the melee tank, the Aerial Command Unit's damage to the ranged tank, and the raid damage done by the VX-001. The Leviathan will no longer Plasma Blast the melee tank or Napalm the raid, and the VX-001 will no longer Heat Wave the raid.
Firefighter
DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!
The Firefighter Hard Mode is initiated by pressing the Big Red Button. This will dramatically change the encounter. All of Mimiron's normal abilities will continue.
Note: If your raid members still die with any regularity to Proximity Mines, Shock Blast, Rocket Strike or Laser Barrage DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS HARD MODE.
Firstly all vehicles and bots in the encounter gain 30% damage and health.
Secondly every 30 seconds three patches of flame will spawn near random players (this makes the spawn locations of the fire controllable). These flames hit for 10,000 fire damage per second. They will slowly creep towards the nearest player (this makes the Fire's location controllable). These flames spawn in all phases and continue spawning between phases.
Thirdly the room will self destruct after 10 minutes, putting a new enrage timer on the encounter.
Fourthly Mimiron will gain new abilities and a new type of bot in phase 3:
Leviathan MK II: Flame Suppressant. Once per phase 1 the Leviathan MK II will extinguish all existing fires and slow the casting speed of the raid by 50% for 8 seconds. Removable via Ice Block and Divine Shield.
VX-001 Anti Personnel Assault Cannon: Frost Bomb. The VX-001 will drop a very obvious blue bomb on a random area of the room every ~45 seconds or so in both phase 2 and phase 4. This will explode after 10 seconds, dealing 50,000 frost damage to nearby players and extinguishing all fires within 30 yards.
Emergency Fire Bot: These spawn from new blue beams in phase 3. They have a Deafening Siren which will silence all nearby players within 15 yards. This acts as an aura. They will run around the room seeking out fire patches and extinguishing them with a 15 yard radius Water Spray that does 20,000 frost damage to any players hit, knocking them back 200 yards. They spawn rapidly, have very little HP and are very dangerous should the healers become silenced so a ranged DPS or two should be assigned to exclusively killing them.
The main difficulty to Firefighter is controlling the fires. You want to stay near existing fires so that fires will overlap and give you more of the room to work with. Most of the room will be covered in flames by the end of phase 3. If you do not control fires well you will run out of room and burn to death. Always try to stay together and keep the fires overlapping and to the outside edges.
Ulduar - Hodir
Fight Tactics:
This is a single-phase fight that remains the same from beginning to end when Hodir is at 1% health. Making effective use of the friendly NPC buffs can increase raid DPS tremendously, and is necessary to complete the encounter in hard mode, which requires killing Hodir within 3 minutes. Note: Turn on the "Projected Textures" option in the game video settings for this fight (as of patch 3.1.1, this option is on by default), as much of the avoidable raid damage requires seeing the glowing white target circles on the ground.
Once the encounter begins by pulling the boss or attacking an iceblock, all players must be aware of Hodir's Biting Cold aura. This aura cannot be outranged and will stack a DoT debuff every few seconds whenever a player is not moving. The amount of damage done every tick increases rapidly with every stack of the debuff, so players that accumulate more than a few stacks will likely die. Moving will only remove one stack of the debuff every second, so players who have multiple stacks of the debuff must remain moving for several seconds before the debuff is completely removed.
Throughout the fight, Hodir will randomly cast Freeze, a Frost Nova-type spell centered on a random member of the raid. The targeted player—along with any other players within 10 yards—become rooted for 10 seconds. Dispel this as quickly as possible. Priest Mass Dispel works well for this. Paladins can help free players with Hand of Freedom and Mages can Blink to free themselves. Gnome characters can also use Escape Artist, so gnome mages have two escapes from this root effect. Humans can use Every Man For Himself and Rogues have Cloak of Shadows and Vanish. The major problem with Freeze is if it prevents players from moving out from under an Icicle, or to safety from Flash Freeze. It may be worth saving one's personal escapes for these situations.
Icicles will fall from the ceiling onto players randomly during the fight. They are visually cued by snowflakes pouring down before they land and, with projected textures, a white target circle on the ground. Players have a few seconds to move from the area before the Icicle hits the ground, causing significant damage to all players in the area and knocking them back around 30 yards if they are not already rooted by Hodir's Freeze spell.
Periodically, Hodir gains a self-buff called Frozen Blows. It reduces the physical damage he does, but in turn buffs frost damage to his attacks (up to 40,000 unresisted). While Hodir has the Frozen Blows buff, he also deals 4,000 frost damage to the whole raid every 2 seconds, so healers will have to be prepared when they hear Hodir roar. If the raid is employing a frost resist tank, he needs to watch for the emote tied to this and immediately taunt him. Healers also need to be paying attention for the emote to switch targets onto the frost resist tank. When the buff wears off, the original tank must taunt back immediately and the healers must switch back right away again.
When Hodir starts casting Flash Freeze, three large icicles will begin to fall (two on Normal). The areas where these icicles will fall are immediately marked by a mound of snow and a large white targeting circle on the ground. Players should get next to, but not inside one of these large circles as soon as possible. After several seconds the large icicle will crash into the ground causing tremendous damage to anyone in the circle and knocking them 30 yards away. After the icicle has hit the ground, all players have only a couple seconds to run into the circle where a large icicle has just fallen. Any NPCs or players who are not in one of the large circles will be frozen in an iceblock by the Flash Freeze. Players and NPCs in iceblocks should be freed immediately prior to resuming DPS on Hodir.
Overall, this fight is mostly a test of endurance. No players should get more than a couple stacks of the Biting Cold debuff. Very few should ever get hit by falling Icicles. And no one should get frozen by Flash Freeze.
Ulduar - Thorim
Here we continue with Thorim.
watch the video fully, and you have no probs.
Phase 1
The fight is started by killing the trash mobs in the Arena (healer first). Thorim casts Sheath of Lightning on himself, making him almost invulnerable. After the mobs are down, the lever next to the gate on the left becomes active. The raid should now split in two, one part goes down the hallway to reach Thorim, and the other part stays in the arena to fight waves of adds.
The Gauntlet
The gauntlet team needs one tank and one healer. In 10 player mode, 1-3 damage dealers suffice, in 25 player mode an extra healer and about 7 damage dealers should be sent. Ranged DPS is better suited for the gauntlet, mages in particular. The gauntlet team must move quickly, because after 5 minutes Thorim wipes the raid.
There are 3 groups of 3 Warbringers. They can be Crowd Controlled, (Polymorph in particular). Two mobs should be CC'd while the others are killed. At the end of the hallway is a large golem. In regular intervals it raises one arm and does damage to anyone on that side of the hallway, much like Skadi. A short time after it is engaged it gains a buff which decreases damage taken by 50%, so if using cooldowns it's best to use them early.
After defeating the golem, the door behind it opens and mobs start spawning on top of the stairs. Defeat or CC the two sets of two mobs already standing there and quickly run up. When the giant aggros, he buffs any adds still alive, but the adds stop spawning. The healers must have LOS to the tank but stand outside the giant's stomp. When the giant is positioned at the top of the stairs, the healer can stand about halfway down.
After the giant is defeated the gauntlet team runs towards Thorim and jumps down into the arena. Someone must use any ability on Thorim to make him join. While running the large circles on the ground must be avoided, they are traps which briefly stun players standing on them.
Arena
Those raid members which are positioned closest to Thorim gain initial aggro from all adds wich spawn.
A simple setup for the arena team is to stack up dead center in the room. This avoids getting hit by the charged orbs, and also greatly increases the effects of both, AoE healing and AoE damage. The disadvantage of this method is that it makes the raid more susceptible to Stormhammer - it's possible to just take Stormhammer, but the group can also try to quickly spread out when it hits.
The most dangerous mobs are the Dark Rune Champions which do a whirlwind atteck. They need to be kept away from the main raid, and/or disarmed. The Evokers casts heals-over-time that heal for massive amounts and also cast magic damage shield that can be stolen by mages. Both are dispellable and need to be dispelled/stolen quickly. Wound poison helps to reduce the amount healed.
Phase 2
Once Thorim is activated, he jumps down into the Arena. The mob waves stop spawning. During the whole of Phase 2, Thorim gains an extra Lightning Charged buff every 10 seconds. This buff stack progressively increases damage and attack speed, it's in effect a passive enrage timer. From about 7 stacks on, healers and tanks need to use some CDs to survive, after about 15 buffs Thorims melee hits can one-shot even the best geared tank.
After Thorim is in the arena, he needs to be picked up by the MT immediately. The raid should spread out to avoid extra damage from Thorims' chain lightning. Every time Thorim uses Unbalancing strike (which is every 15-20 seconds), tanks need to taunt him off each other. When Thorim uses Lightning Charge, small lightning balls come from a column. After a short time, that column deals large amounts of AoE damage in a 60 degrees angle, this damage may be enough to one-shot players after the third Lightning Charge.
editHard mode: Lose your Illusion
The illusion of Sif controlling Thorim
If the gauntlet team reaches Thorim within 2:45 min (6:15 on Heroic) of killing the adds in the entrance, the illusion of Thorim's wife Sif joins the fight. Additionally, Thorim gets +43% health and +67% damage compared to Normal Mode (it is not only +30%/+40%, since the debuff Touch of Dominion being applied for Normal Mode reduces his stats by -30%/-40% from the Hard Mode values).
While the increased damage is not a large deal, the additional HP make the fight longer, which means a substantially higher stack of Lightning Charged.
In hard mode, Thorim's Chain lightning is very dangerous to melee, so it is advisable to form 2-3 melee camps more than 8 yards from each other around the boss, as with Kel'Thuzad at 60.
Raid Positioning
Sif herself is unattackable. She has four abilities which when chained together can kill raid members very quickly.
Frostbolt Single: This does 11,000-13,000 Frost damage and is chain cast on random targets when Sif isn't casting anything else.
Frostbolt Volley: This is the same damage as her single target frostbolt and hits everyone in the room every 10-15 seconds.
Frost Nova: Sif frequently teleports to a random location starts a 2.5 sec cast of Frost Nova. It does high amounts of damage (13,000-15,000) so avoiding it by running away is paramount but not always possible due to the snares.
Blizzard: Much like Shade of Aran Sif conjures a Blizzard which orbits the centre of the room, making the centre 'safe'. It does 4,500 Frost damage every 2 seconds and snares targets by 50%.
When Thorim is defeated 'Sif' reveals itself for what it is: an influence tentacle of Yogg-Saron.
Tips
Demoralizing Shout cuts the damage the tank receives from unbalancing strike by 40%.
Shadow priests can MC a Dark Rune Warbringer. Besides dealing high damage, they also give all nearby allies a permanent buff called "Aura of Celerity", increasing melee, ranged and spell haste by 20%, practically a permanent Bloodlust (also requirement for the achievement Who Needs Bloodlust? / Heroic: Who Needs Bloodlust?). When mind controlled, these mobs also do more DPS than most player characters[1].
watch the video fully, and you have no probs.
Phase 1
The fight is started by killing the trash mobs in the Arena (healer first). Thorim casts Sheath of Lightning on himself, making him almost invulnerable. After the mobs are down, the lever next to the gate on the left becomes active. The raid should now split in two, one part goes down the hallway to reach Thorim, and the other part stays in the arena to fight waves of adds.
The Gauntlet
The gauntlet team needs one tank and one healer. In 10 player mode, 1-3 damage dealers suffice, in 25 player mode an extra healer and about 7 damage dealers should be sent. Ranged DPS is better suited for the gauntlet, mages in particular. The gauntlet team must move quickly, because after 5 minutes Thorim wipes the raid.
There are 3 groups of 3 Warbringers. They can be Crowd Controlled, (Polymorph in particular). Two mobs should be CC'd while the others are killed. At the end of the hallway is a large golem. In regular intervals it raises one arm and does damage to anyone on that side of the hallway, much like Skadi. A short time after it is engaged it gains a buff which decreases damage taken by 50%, so if using cooldowns it's best to use them early.
After defeating the golem, the door behind it opens and mobs start spawning on top of the stairs. Defeat or CC the two sets of two mobs already standing there and quickly run up. When the giant aggros, he buffs any adds still alive, but the adds stop spawning. The healers must have LOS to the tank but stand outside the giant's stomp. When the giant is positioned at the top of the stairs, the healer can stand about halfway down.
After the giant is defeated the gauntlet team runs towards Thorim and jumps down into the arena. Someone must use any ability on Thorim to make him join. While running the large circles on the ground must be avoided, they are traps which briefly stun players standing on them.
Arena
Those raid members which are positioned closest to Thorim gain initial aggro from all adds wich spawn.
A simple setup for the arena team is to stack up dead center in the room. This avoids getting hit by the charged orbs, and also greatly increases the effects of both, AoE healing and AoE damage. The disadvantage of this method is that it makes the raid more susceptible to Stormhammer - it's possible to just take Stormhammer, but the group can also try to quickly spread out when it hits.
The most dangerous mobs are the Dark Rune Champions which do a whirlwind atteck. They need to be kept away from the main raid, and/or disarmed. The Evokers casts heals-over-time that heal for massive amounts and also cast magic damage shield that can be stolen by mages. Both are dispellable and need to be dispelled/stolen quickly. Wound poison helps to reduce the amount healed.
Phase 2
Once Thorim is activated, he jumps down into the Arena. The mob waves stop spawning. During the whole of Phase 2, Thorim gains an extra Lightning Charged buff every 10 seconds. This buff stack progressively increases damage and attack speed, it's in effect a passive enrage timer. From about 7 stacks on, healers and tanks need to use some CDs to survive, after about 15 buffs Thorims melee hits can one-shot even the best geared tank.
After Thorim is in the arena, he needs to be picked up by the MT immediately. The raid should spread out to avoid extra damage from Thorims' chain lightning. Every time Thorim uses Unbalancing strike (which is every 15-20 seconds), tanks need to taunt him off each other. When Thorim uses Lightning Charge, small lightning balls come from a column. After a short time, that column deals large amounts of AoE damage in a 60 degrees angle, this damage may be enough to one-shot players after the third Lightning Charge.
editHard mode: Lose your Illusion
The illusion of Sif controlling Thorim
If the gauntlet team reaches Thorim within 2:45 min (6:15 on Heroic) of killing the adds in the entrance, the illusion of Thorim's wife Sif joins the fight. Additionally, Thorim gets +43% health and +67% damage compared to Normal Mode (it is not only +30%/+40%, since the debuff Touch of Dominion being applied for Normal Mode reduces his stats by -30%/-40% from the Hard Mode values).
While the increased damage is not a large deal, the additional HP make the fight longer, which means a substantially higher stack of Lightning Charged.
In hard mode, Thorim's Chain lightning is very dangerous to melee, so it is advisable to form 2-3 melee camps more than 8 yards from each other around the boss, as with Kel'Thuzad at 60.
Raid Positioning
Sif herself is unattackable. She has four abilities which when chained together can kill raid members very quickly.
Frostbolt Single: This does 11,000-13,000 Frost damage and is chain cast on random targets when Sif isn't casting anything else.
Frostbolt Volley: This is the same damage as her single target frostbolt and hits everyone in the room every 10-15 seconds.
Frost Nova: Sif frequently teleports to a random location starts a 2.5 sec cast of Frost Nova. It does high amounts of damage (13,000-15,000) so avoiding it by running away is paramount but not always possible due to the snares.
Blizzard: Much like Shade of Aran Sif conjures a Blizzard which orbits the centre of the room, making the centre 'safe'. It does 4,500 Frost damage every 2 seconds and snares targets by 50%.
When Thorim is defeated 'Sif' reveals itself for what it is: an influence tentacle of Yogg-Saron.
Tips
Demoralizing Shout cuts the damage the tank receives from unbalancing strike by 40%.
Shadow priests can MC a Dark Rune Warbringer. Besides dealing high damage, they also give all nearby allies a permanent buff called "Aura of Celerity", increasing melee, ranged and spell haste by 20%, practically a permanent Bloodlust (also requirement for the achievement Who Needs Bloodlust? / Heroic: Who Needs Bloodlust?). When mind controlled, these mobs also do more DPS than most player characters[1].
12 Eylül 2010 Pazar
Ulduar - Freya
Phase 1
Every minute waves spawn in a random order:
Wave Type 1:
Storm Lasher, Ancient Water Spirit and Snaplasher. They have varying HP from 500k to 1M and yet they all need to be killed at about the same time, otherwise 12 seconds after death they resurrect (reminiscent of the High Priest Thekal raid boss adds). All three adds can be stunned and interrupted. Reduces Attuned to Nature stacks by 10 each.
Snaplasher: Has a debuff that every time an attack is made against the Snaplasher its damage is increased by 10%. Can stack up to 99 times. In 10-man each stack will also reduce its movement speed by 5% so once the stack reaches 20 the Snaplasher will be immobilized at which time tank and melees should move away and let ranged classes dps it down safely. In 25-man they need to be picked up by an off tank and start getting DPSed. The off tank has to monitor the stacking buff and once it reaches ~50 all attacks must stop. If no attacks are made against the lasher for 4 seconds the debuff will reset. Stacks will increase only once per executed attack or spell, not on periodic, reflective or procced damage, thus DoTs and channeled spells are the safest way to deal damage against the Snaplasher as well as spells with a long cast time or two-handed melee weapon strikes.
Unlike many mobs, Snaplashers (on 10-man) will not melee a target next to them if the person highest on their threat list is out of melee range. In a melee-heavy raid, the DPS can work on the other adds first while the tank builds up threat and periodically lets the debuff fall off. When ready, the tank can simply walk away and the other DPS can hit the snaplasher with impunity.
Another option is to kite the Snaplasher with a high-threat class like a hunter, helped by any slowing ability (Slow from Arcane Mages, Hamstring, Crippling Poison, etc..). This way you can go all out on DPS on it, as it has the highest amount of the three, and completely cancels the effect of its debuff; this method also frees up a tank so in a typical 3-tanks raid allows better control of the other two adds.
Storm Lasher: Casts damaging nature spells and a chain lightning that hits up to 5 (10-man: 3) other players. Should be stunned and interrupted as often as possible.
Ancient Water Spirit: Periodically surges forward in a straight line and knocks back any player in its way. Should be tanked facing away from the rest of the raid.
Wave Type 2:
Detonating Lasher: They come in a waves of 10, spawning in a circle around Freya.
They have 234k HP, are untankable, and randomly run from player to player. When one dies it does a short ranged AoE for 8k~ (around 15 yards) which makes AoEing them all at once on one spot a bad idea.
Reduces Attuned to Nature by 2 stacks per mob.
Wave Type 3:
She will also spawn a bigger add at some point, an Ancient Conservator with 2.2M HP. This is wave type 3. Just off-tank him and kill him to remove 25 stacks from Freya. He periodically uses Conservator's Grip to silence and pacify all members of the raid. Staying under the Healthy Mushrooms that spawn during this time in the zone will remove and protect against this debuff. A paladin using Aura Mastery with Concentration Aura can offer temporary protection from this debuff if no mushrooms are near. He can also cast Nature's Fury on a random player who will damage all nearby players for 10 seconds, so he should quickly move away from the rest of the raid.
Reduces Attuned to Nature by 25.
Phase 2
The waves will stop spawning, Freya has the same abilities as phase one with the exception of the healing augmentation buff. It is a tank and spank phase. Freya will begin throwing out Nature Bombs in this phase and raid members must be careful to move away or they can prove lethal. If too many raid members are lost it may become impossible to DPS through Freya's Touch of Eonar.
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