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.