ULDUAR
Ulduar features 14 bosses, 11 of which have a "hard difficulty" level. Each difficulty has tactics of its own. However, before starting the actual Uludar raid, you will need to beat Flame Leviathan. This encounter tactic requires you to use various vehicles (demolishers etc.), and you will have the ability to set different difficulty levels for this fight as well.
Like Naxx, for normal runs, Ulduar strategies require 2 tanks 3 healers and the rest DPS. For heroics Ulduar Tactics require 3 or 4 tanks and 6 -7 healers. Ulduar Tactics require a lot more team work from your raid members, so numbers may vary according to how well your raid member can implement those tactics.
Flame Leviathan
First and foremost, this is a complex fight and there are many ways to do it depending on your group's individual gear and skill level. Don't be afraid to experiment and find what works best/easiest/fastest for your group. The following strategy is based on a group with mostly Naxx gear.
This fight can be very tricky on 10-man because there are a lot of jobs that have to be performed and not a lot of seats available to perform them all. Begin by simply filling up all vehicle seats with the exception of the chopper passengers, and make your way down the Iron Concourse. Before pulling the final trash, make sure to establish a kiting path and try to stick to it at all times, if possible. Once the last group of trash is cleared, have one of your demolisher passengers load themselves into the catapult to be shot onto the Flame Leviathan. It is highly preferable that the person being launched up be a caster (Mage or Warlock), as they are the only ones who can effectively DPS both turrets. This person should work to bring down both the turrets. Optionally, you can wait to fully stun the boss until he has around 10 stacks of Gathering Speed. The reason for this is to minimize the number of times you fire someone to the boss to reduce potential mistakes, and the boss is easily kitable while at 10 stacks or less.
While one person is working on the turrets, kiting the boss and staying ahead of him is the priority. Siege engines should make use of Steam Rush while turret passengers should fire rockets at the boss and throw up the shield if necessary. While not kiting, Siege Engines should focus on interrupting Flame Jets using Electroshock.
Demolishers should stay at max range, in case they get targeted for kiting, and DPS with Hurl Boulder. Because one Demolisher launched it's passenger up to the boss, only one Demolisher will have a passenger. The demolisher with a passenger can DPS with Hurl Pyrite Barrel, but only if the passenger is on point about refilling the ammo. If the Demolisher with a passenger gets targeted, its as simple as using Increase Speed to stay ahead of the boss. If the Demolisher without a passenger gets targeted, the driver must simply be as clever as possible to stay away from Flame Leviathan for 30 seconds. Optionally, that driver can switch to the passenger seat, use the Speed buff, and then switch back; however, this will use half of the vehicle's ammo, and with no passenger, its a challenge to recover.
During this time, Choppers need to be laying Tar in the boss' path. It is the Choppers' responsibility to lay the tar in the boss' path; it is not the kiter's responsibility to direct the boss through your tar. If you establish a kiting path and stick to it, this shouldn't be a problem. Between Tar cooldowns, you can DPS with Sonic Horn but watch out for Flame Jets as it will shred your Chopper in a matter of seconds.
Once both Turrets come down, the boss will be stunned, take 50% more damage, Gathering Speed will reset to zero, and the turret DPSer will be launched into the air. At this point all Siege Engines and Demolishers should go all out DPS. Demolishers should spam Hurl Pyrite Barrel. One chopper should be assigned to collect the turret DPSer and bring him back to his Demolisher as quickly as possible.
After the stun wears off, simply repeat the process over again. At this point, depending on how low the boss is on health, you can choose to shoot the turret DPS back up, or just finish him off without bothering. Remember that the turret DPSer needs to do about 120k damage in order to kill both turrets and a well coordinated group is likely to be able to bring the Leviathan down before the DPSer finishes.
Ignis the Furnace Master
Tanking
Choosing tanks
For all modes, you will need a Main Tank to kite Ignis, and either an off-tank or a very skilled kiting DPS (probably two or even three on 25 man). If you attempt to turn the Iron Constructs molten and destroy them, you'll probably prefer an off-tank because of the mitigation and large buffer of health compared to a DPS. However, if you are going to simply DPS him down immediately (you will need to average about 3500 dps on 10 man for all 5-7 DPS), you can get away with a player who is able to aggro, dodge, and CC the constructs (prot warriors, prot paladin, mages, hunters with a pet, warlocks with a voidwalker, or a druid). Also, the constructs can be snared into place so any kind of druid is the best option.
How to tank
As the main tank, have a hunter misdirect the boss to you, or simply run up and get aggro on him immediately. You should choose and make known which direction or area of the room you're going to kite him so the rest of the raid knows where to position themselves. Some groups choose to strafe him left to right (either across the room, or length wise near the constructs), around the entire room, or around one half of the room; note that he should never be tanked in front of the water if you are going to be destroying the constructs, as scorch will be dispelled. However, this is the optimal location for tanking him to reduce damage on the tank, and keep everyone in the same position throughout the fight.
The second way to tank him is to bring him to the direct center of the room. Have the tank turn him away from the raid and when he scorchs the ground, turn him to the left or right and keep the melee DPS where they are. Then, after then 2nd scorch run aross the boss and tank him in the opposite direction so the 3rd scorch goes to the right or left and the melee DPS can stay where they are. After the 3rd scorch comes, the 1st one should be down by now and you go back to the starting point. If done right, no one should take any damage from contrucsts blowing up nor should they lose Heat stacks. The off tanks should be ready to taunt them to water when they go molten and get out of the way of them blowing up.
Main Tanking - what to look out for
Naxxramas geared tanks (item levels 200 and 213) can take upwards of 25000-30000 damage per hit from Ignis' melee strikes. As the fight goes on, his melee strikes will gain an additional 15% damage from each Iron Construct that is active (eventually, if left unchecked, it will get to the point where you are one shotted). His scorch is a cone that will damage anyone he is facing, so your back should always be away from the raid. Flame Jets will throw you into the air briefly, but since you aren't a caster, your abilities should not become locked. After a scorch has landed on the ground around you, strafe out of it quickly to avoid taking damage and get your melee DPS into a safe spot as well. You should not aggro any constructs unless you wish to cause additional stress to your healers.
Off-tanks and kiters
For the first 15 seconds of the fight, DPS Ignis. He doesn't have a cleave, and scorch won't be fired until 12 seconds into the fight (and you can stand behind him safely). When the first Construct appears, grab aggro and begin moving away from it. The more constructs that are up, the faster they move so eventually they will outrun you if you don't do anything about it. Off-tanks should only take about 1-2k damage per swing, so the damage they deal is negligible, however, since this affects your healers, if you can do something about it you should (as a prot warrior, you can charge constructs and then run past them, or intervene to a close ally to get away from enemies). If you're kiting them and you're not a tank, CCing abilities are vital to your group's survival. Frost Nova, Frost Traps and pet tanks, Void Walkers and destruction warlocks' AOE stun, and druid roots and travel form are all possible solutions, however they tend to only be effective for a few minutes. If your group is going to be destroying the Constructs, make sure you have a healer that can either heal you through scorch, or you have good CCers that can keep the constructs in the flames of scorch long enough to heat it up (moonkins and mages are very handy for that).
Healers
Healers need to be on the ball to keep the main tank healed because of the significant melee damage dealt by Ignis. Casters, particularly healers, should take care to stop casting before Ignis uses Flame Jets, otherwise they will be locked out of their spells for 8 seconds. All players should make sure to move out of Scorch areas. Random players will periodically be charged and placed in the Slag Pot attached to Ignis' stomach. Whichever player is charged should be healed through the DoT (they gain a debuff to help identify it on your raid frames). You should instruct your raid members to stack on you for AOE healing.
DPS
As a DPS, your job is to not stand in scorched areas, to call out when you are inside of the Slag Pot, and stand behind Ignis at all times (preferably stacked on your healers for AOE healing). Ranged DPS should be used to destroy Brittle Iron Constructs if your raid decides to kill the adds (only powerful abilities like Chaos Bolt, Frost Fire Bolt, Pyroblast, Aimed Shot, and Starfall should be used to beat the 5000 minimum damage requirement). If you survive being stuck in the Slag Pot, you should use the haste buff as best you can (10 second duration) to fire off your slower, more powerful attacks. Since this fight is heavily reliant on DPS, every DPS member of the party should have a minimum of 3500 DPS (4000+ group average recommended) for the duration of the fight.
Razorscale
On normal (10-man), the fight proceeds exactly like the 25-man variant, except that only two turrets need to be repaired and fired instead of four.
This boss fight consists of three phases, alternating air and ground phases until 50% damage taken, and then a pure ground phase from 50% to 0%.
Recommended Setup: 3 Tanks, 3 Tank Healers, 3 Raid Healers, 0-2 Floating Healers, 14-16 DPS (composition irrelevant).
Talking to the Expedition Commander will begin the event with Razorscale in her air phase.
As of patch 3.1.1, Razorscale has a ten minute berserk timer across all phases.
Air phase
The air phase consists of defending the Expedition dwarves while they repair the harpoon turrets. During this phase, the focus should be on defeating adds (Sentinels are priority, Watchers must be CC'd and killed second, Guardians last), and staying out of Devouring Flame. As the turrets get repaired one at a time, they can be clicked to fire a harpoon at Razorscale.
25-man positioning
The raid should be split into three groups, one near the far side of the circle opposite the harpoons, and two groups positioned slightly round the circle back towards the harpoons. Each group should engage the spawns from a single pod and destroy them, there is no need for crowd control and AoE can be used. If a sentinel spawns all 3 DPS groups should focus fire this target as it presents the greatest and only tank threat amongst the spawned adds.
Raid healers should be assigned behind the three groups to support heal and heal the players assigned to trigger the harpoons.
10-man positioning
The raid should be split into two groups in a sort of 'V' shape at the start, with the vertex in the center of the large circle. Tanks will pick up adds and attempt to kite them back towards everyone else to be AOE'd. Healers and ranged DPS should be back slightly to avoid whirlwinds and chain lightning. Shaman are very useful in interrupting Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt, which should help kite them together with the rest of the adds (of course, rogues and warriors will be helpful with that as well). In most cases, watchers will automatically begin melee-ing after a single cast; if you can take the damage, then don't waste time dealing with them separately.
In the 10-man version, there are only 2 Harpoons that become active to bring Razorscale down.There are two main ways of handling the Harpoons. The first way to do this is to activate the first harpoon when its ready, then when the second one is ready, wait in till your DPS/Tanks call that most adds are down and to fire the harpoon. This way everyone, tanks and healers (mana permitting) can concentrate on Razorscale and max DPS without having to worry about adds and keeping tanks alive. The easiest way to do this is to assign a ranged DPS to "Harpoon duty" and call out in vent when they are ready, then have a Tank or DPS call out on vent when to fire the second Harpoon. The second way to handle this part is to activate the second harpoon immediately when ready and the adds can be brought in front of Razorscale while the DPS switches to Razorscale when she lands, that way when she does her breath attack to free herself it hits all the adds and mostly kills them. The downside to this method is you have adds up which means healers and Tanks must focus on them and not on Razorscale. It is very important to DPS as much as possible when she is Harpooned to the ground to get her into the second "ground" phase (50% health) before she enrages in the air.
During this phase it is important to ensure that the raid healers keep members of their party above 12,000 health as this prevents losing targets to a single fireball or devouring flame; a double or even triple breath is possible (and common) so healing must be fast and effective (Paladins are ideal in this role due to Holy Shock). Healers' first priority must be to keep themselves alive, however any loses in this fight can be detrimental to the raid's ability to beat the enrage timer.
Watching for projectiles
Razorscale's fireballs and devouring flames will annihilate a group that isn't paying attention. There are no addons that currently track either projectile, so it must be watched closely. To do this, have one or two healers, prior to the fight, look up and target Razorscale and then use /focus. Make sure cast bars and target of target can be seen on the focus (test on a player in the group). During the fight, have the healers, between healing, watch the focus for Razorscale's targets. Each target can only be seen briefly, for less than half a second so they have to be on their toes. If no cast bar is shown, but someone is targeted, it means a fireball will hit them (it can miss). Priests can shield these targets, and others can just pre-heal to get them up immediately after being struck. It's important to keep them healed in case they get targeted multiple times in a row. When Razorscale uses Devouring Flame, a 1 second cast bar will appear, and the target will appear right as it finishes. The person who as targeted should be notified immediately, and that person needs to begin moving (preferably away from others in the raid) or be ready to move immediately. The devouring flame will track the target briefly (if you move, it will move) before striking the ground (you can see a blue ball fall into the location before spreading into flame). If you move early, it's hard to know where it will hit. If you stand in one place, you can position yourself safely and then run when the flames are about to appear.
Devouring Flame patches
Devouring Flame always targets the closest ally to Razorscale (i.e. a player or a pet). This makes it possible to have a healer or ranged DPS "tank" the Devouring Flame patches, as the projectile doesn't follow a moving player--it will only go to the spot the player was when fired. This can reduce unpredictable damage considerably. In the first air phase, Razorscale hovers over the central circle. For subsequent air phases, Razorscale's initial position is on the northeast side of the fighting area (look for pets that have yet to come off of Razorscale: they will stand still directly below the boss and also be the first targets for Devouring Flame). Using a harpoon will bring Razorscale back to center, as in the first air phase. Keeping Razorscale targeted or focused can make the use of Devouring Flame obvious (through the cast bar) and the Devouring Flame tank can walk a simple path around the point closest to Razorscale, keeping the flames off other raid members and avoiding most of the damage himself.
Ground phase
Once all four turrets have been repaired and fired, Razorscale will be forced to the ground where she will remain stunned for several seconds. Everyone should immediately move behind her, and DPS should focus on bringing her HP down as much as possible while the tanks hold any remaining adds. After the stun wears off, Razorscale will breath then return to the air and begin the air phase again.
For this phase tanks should converge onto the rear of Razorscale allowing their DPS to be added to that available in this phase, with 5s remaining until the stun wears off the tanks should move with any remaining adds towards the furthest point on the circle and allow full raid AoE damage to be applied to the adds. As new pods appear tanks should move their adds back to their regular tanking positions.
Phase 2
Once Razorscale is brought to 50% health, she will land permanently, at which point she will need to be tanked facing away from the group to avoid breaths. The fight from this point is very simple, she will continue using Devouring Flame, she will do a knock back to everyone within 35 yards, and inflict the Flame Buffet debuff. During this ground phase, the DPS should go all out in order to defeat Razorscale before the Flame Buffet debuffs cause the tank to be one-shot.
There is another debuff that happens during this fight. In phase 2, when you are tanking Razorscale around your tanks will get a debuff called "Fused Armor" which adds a slowing effect to the tank. When this debuff hits 5 stacks the tank can't move or use any abilities, including taunt. You need to change tanks when the debuff gets to 2 stacks in order to finish the fight.
Note as of 4-15-09 on live you can no longer dps boss while it is in the air.
XT-002 Deconstructor
Preparation
As with all WoTLK raids, a standard raid composition is OK. No special resistances or equipment are needed. In normal mode the damage dealers need to average about 3k DPS (3.5k DPS if using only 5 damage dealers). In Heroic mode, an average of 5k DPS per damage dealer is required.
The fight starts with fairly standard tank-and-spank (Phase 1) until the boss is at 75%. It then takes a little nap (20 seconds), during which it exposes its heart and summons adds (Phase 2), after that Phase 1 continues until at 50% (and 25% again) a Phase 2 takes place.
Gravity Bomb and Light Bomb
Dealing with these two debuffs must be learned by each raid member. Since they both are a threat to other raid members, debuffed players must separate from the raid as fast as possible. Melee can set up in a circle around the Deconstructor, since it has no cleave or short-range AoE. Healers and ranged DPS should stay 10 yards away from Tanks and Melee, and then agree on one of the following setup possibilities:
-concentrated on one spot
-Distributed over two spots within healing range of each other
one long line with about 0.5 yards between players (Tank healers first, raid healers next, ranged DPS furthest away from the boss)
-two shorter parallel lines, 6 yards apart
-It's also possible to set up in a wide circle around the tank spot, with as much space between players as possible (preferably close to 10 yards).
The Deconstructor keeps the two Bomb debuffs up at all times (that is as soon as one of them expires on a player, another player gets it), only during Tantrum the Bomb debuffs are not refreshed. The two players with Bomb debuffs must run away from all other players, either to explode in safety (Gravity Bomb), or in order not to damge others (Light Bomb). Gravity Bomb does not kill, so if that player starts at full health, no healing is required. Light Bomb can kill, for that reason one healer should be assigned to put a HoT or two the current Light Bomb victim.
Even with fast player reaction, Light Bomb inevitably deals some AoE damage to the raid. The raid healer(s) need to be quick to AoE heal this.
Tympanic Tantrum
Once per minute, Tantrum is cast. The one-minute cooldown is reset by exposing the heart (getting below 75%, 50% or 25% respectively), so high-DPS groups can completely avoid Tantrum. If the boss casts Tantrum, every raid member takes 120% damage within 12 seconds, and is slowed by about 40%. This means that AoE healing must be well organized so that nobody dies from this damage, and that the raid should be on top health prior to Tantrum. The standard avoidance methods do work, but reduce DPS (which may prove fatal). Hunter Deterrence is ineffective, Rogue Feint does reduce Tantrum damage.
Phase 2: Exposed Heart and Adds
Whenever the boss gets below a 25% threshold (at 75%, 50% and 25%), it switches for 20 seconds to Phase 2. During this time, the boss itself cannot be targeted, but it exposes its heart, takes double damage, and adds are summoned. Three types of adds spawn from the scrap heaps in the four corners of the room:
XS-013 Scrapbot: heals XT-002 for 60k each if they reach it.
XE-321 Boombot: explode for ~16k fire damage when their health reaches 50%, damaging players and NPCs in range.
XM-024 Pummeler: these deal low single-target damage.
The Scrapbots need to be AoE'd down and must not reach the boss. They are susceptible to most snares (stun, frost nova, knockback, etc.). The Boombots should be single targeted and nuked by ranged. It is best if they explode when surrounded by scrapbots or near the Heart. The Pummelers should which should simply be off-tanked and kited during the whole fight around the room. No damage dealer should ever target a Pummeler.
Scrapbots spawn in ~7-10 groups of 5. The groups can appear simultaneously and at varying times. Have people keep an eye out and call out where and when they are coming. When scrapbots get closer to the raid group, they need to be AOE'd down immediately (a Priest using Mind Sear can help reduce the number of DPS wasted on scrapbots). Boombots need to be DPS'ed when they are near the Heart or scrapbots (or when not close to players). Personal Electromagnetic Pulse Generator, from Engineers can be extremely helpful to stop the closest Scrapbots, stunning all mechanicals within roughly 20 yards for 3 seconds. When the heart goes back up into the boss and XT becomes targettable again, unkilled adds stay alive. The Heart has 10 M hitpoints (HC) or 1.5 M in normal mode. Since the heart takes double damage, and all damage it takes is passed through to the boss, every damage dealer should try to concentrate on the Heart as much as possible. Melee should stay on the heart exclusively during the whole phase. Even healers can deal some damage in this phase, Mana permitting (else healers can use this phase to regenerate a little). While it's desirable to deal as much damage to the heart as possible, destroying it invokes hard mode, pay attention that this doesn't happen by accident.
In order to maximize the number of players who profits from DPS cooldowns it's better to use it during the first adds phase. If there are not many deaths it's more effective to use Heroism or Bloodlust in the third adds phase, because in that phase usually 20% boss health is reached, and players with Execute or Decimate profit from the last few seconds.
Assembly of Iron
Phase 1: All three alive
Players can choose to kill the trio in any order that they wish, though the popular and easiest route is Steelbreaker, then Molgeim, then Brundir. Be warned that when you kill a boss, the remaining bosses will return to full health. This prevents the raid from being able to take down multiple bosses at the same time.
Just like Maulgar, Illidari Council, Karathress, etc. all of these bosses have to be pulled and tanked away from each other in precise positions. Molgeim and Steelbreaker can be tanked in the two front corners of the room, but Brundir must be tanked towards the back for his Overload (30 yards) which will deal a lot of damage to anyone that is not a tank (often times killing them). Note that Brundir's tank can simply eat the Overloads, since the tank should have a dedicated healer, otherwise only doing raid healing. If it is an issue, the tank should move away as well, then move right back to Brundir when the channeled cast is over. Any casters and the tank on Stormcaller Brundir that can interrupt should be interrupting chain lightnings whenever possible. The healer assigned to Brundir's tank should be close to Steelbreaker's back when the fight begins, 35+ yards away.
Molgeim will often put a rune of power underneath either Steelbreaker or Brundir so they must be pulled out of the rune far enough to where they're no longer benefiting from the buff and melee or ranged players can bunch up in this rune and output higher damage upon the primary target.
Steelbreaker on occassion will deal a Fusion Punch which the tank must call out for focused healing and a magic dispel of the nature debuff that is inflicted from the punch. Use either a Paladin's Cleanse or a Priest's Dispel Magic. If you are killing Steelbreaker first, melee must bunch up to benefit from Circle of Healing and Chain Heal used to counter the nature aura damage.
Phase 2: One Boss Dead
When one of the Iron Council dies, the other two will gain additional abilities. For the most part, they will be tanked in the same general areas but these new abilities will compensate for the dead boss.
Steelbreaker will gain Static Disruption which will cause a random raid member not in melee to take 75% more nature damage for 20 seconds. The whole raid will need to be spread out as this is an aoe and will be extremely irritating to heal through if it hits more than one player.
Molgeim now has a Rune of Death, which will be cast on a random raid member. It is a big, green rune that is impossible to visually miss. Melee and ranged must bunch up and be ready to move in the same general path to avoid confusion, splitting up, and getting out of range of heals.
Brundir will gain Lightning Whirl, which animates like whirlwind and will shoot random lightning bolts at raid members which will deal a large amount of nature damage to random raid members. It can, and should, be interrupted.
Phase 3: Two bosses dead
When two of the three bosses are dead, the last one will separate into a unique phase different from their usual abilities in the previous phases. Players must be alert during this phase because elements are introduced that will almost instantly wipe the group if they don't coordinate around them.
Steelbreaker
Blow Bloodlust/Heroism and hit Steelbreaker with an almost impossible amount of DPS to kill him before you run out of tanks due to Meltdown. The DPS and healing requirements of this achievement are extremely high so it is not reccomended for most groups.
Runemaster Molgeim
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Molgeim will open up a rune of summoning (purple voidzone spawn akin to the voidwalkers in TBC) which will spawn lightning elemental adds which will explode for a high amount of damage to anyone within 30 yards when they reach their aggro target. They spawn one at a time, but up to 8 or 9 adds total will be spawned rapidly. They are not tauntable, and will race after the random players. The adds do not appear to be affected by movement slowing effects. All players should move as far from the zone as possible, dropping aoe's in prep for the add arrivals. All aoe helps, however every effort should be made to avoid meeting the adds in melee. If an add bolts free of the aoe, targeted members should run while ranged helps dps down the loose add. Good communication and proper reaction to the add spawns is essential.
Stormcaller Brundir
Brundir will lift up into the air and gain Lightning Tendrils. Anybody within a 10 yd range of Brundir will get hit by these tendrils for high nature damage; standing near him for more than a couple seconds will prove fatal if you are not a tank. He is tauntable, but will clear aggro every time he lifts up into the air. The three tanks can work out a rotation to keep him in the same area of the room while ranged players nuke him down. Occasionally he will fall to the ground and melee can move in to attack, but he will lift again without warning and hit them with his tendrils.
Kologarn
Kologarn remains completely stationary in this encounter at all times. He cannot be turned or range tanked. If his aggro target is not in melee range, he casts Petrifying Breath on the raid, which will cause a wipe. His arms do not need to be offtanked, but can be separately targeted and hit within Kologarn's hitbox. Since their hitbox overlaps with Kologarn's, you need to face his torso to melee, not face the arm itself.
Two to three tanks need to be in taunt rotation front and center to Kologarn. Every 10–15 seconds, he casts Overhead Smash, which reduces the tank's armor by 25%. Stack it on one tank 1-2 times and rotate to the next tank. Keeping all tanks alive are vital, or you won't have enough tanks to rotate the debuffs. However, the debuff seems to be either avoidable with dodge/parry or somewhat random in its timing, because it will often drop off tanks for no obvious reason.
His arms each have unique raid-damaging abilities:
-His left arm sweeps the raid and simultaneouly hits everyone for 12,000. Healers must quickly heal the entire raid after a Shockwave from the left arm.
-His right arm uses Stone Grip on 3 random players (1 on normal) to squeeze them until the right arm takes 450,000 damage. Those who are affected must be kept alive until the damage limit is hit.
-Killing an arm will spawn a pack of earth elementals, which should be picked up by a tank and killed immediately.
The arm respawns 60 seconds later, but when destroyed will take health equal to the arm's from the boss. Since they do a lot of AoE damage on 25 man and give a debuff that increases physical damage taken, they should be tanked away from the main group with a dedicated tank. On 10-man, dragging them to the boss and killing them with incidental AoE works. Do NOT use AoE taunts on the elementals if you are not in melee range of the boss. Taunting the boss while out of melee range results in him casting petrifying breath on the raid.
Auriaya
Have your offtank stand atleast 20 yards away from where Auriaya will be tanked. The rest of the raid except for the two tanks and a hunter should stand out of line of sight of Auriaya to ensure the sentries don't pounce them. After the add's are both under control, the raid should move between them, staying grouped up for Sonic Screech. After a fear always group back up.
The Pull
The pull is the most crucial element to the fight, and it is not uncommon for groups to spend longer learning how to pull than actually learning the fight. The two panther adds that follow the boss will Pounce on the initial aggro target if they are out of melee range but within line of sight. The goal is to not have the 2 adds Pounce anyone, so the pull must be done while both tanks are out of LoS from the boss until she is within melee range.
A good place for the tanks to stand at the beginning is in the small enclave with the urn to the side of the stairs. Various classes have abilities that can be used to pull the boss, it is recommended that your group contains at least one of these classes:
Shaman: Totems can be placed in the center of the circular area at the end of the path the boss takes. She will gain contact aggro onto the shaman, and will walk up the stairs into melee range of the tanks hiding in the enclave, who will then taunt their targets. Due to the Tremor Totem requirement for this fight, totems will be the standard pull mechanic for most 10-man groups unless a Hunter is available.
Hunter: Misdirects can and should be used, or traps placed on the ground similar to totems.
Death Knight: Death and Decay can be placed in the center from range similar to traps or totems. The timing is important, if the Death Knight is too slow to run back around into the enclave they will be pounced. This works best if the Death Knight in question is one of the tanks.
The panthers also buff themselves if they're within close range to each other so splitting them up is highly recommended.
The Fight
Kill the two Sentries. If the off tank is going to pick up the remaining Sentry after his target is dead, they need to be sure not to taunt from outside of melee range because the Sentry will still pounce even after the fight begins. Once the adds are dead, focus on Auriaya until she summons the Feral Defender. Always be sure to have the ranged grouped up, and have the Main Tank facing the boss towards the raid. That way, melee behind the boss are the only ones that need to move for Sonic Screech. A well placed tremor totem can cover the raid group, main tank, and possibly the melee with this setup.
Have your Off tank ready for once the Feral Defender spawns. It's difficult to control, and will jump around all over the place. Killing it gives you 30 seconds or so to focus solely on Auriaya, but creates a void zone that can cause issues when people are feared through it at low health. Always make sure to kill the Feral Defender outside of where your raid is standing to minimize the risk of people running through it while feared.
Alternating between killing the Feral Defender and Killing Auriaya will let you kill her with plenty of time left. If you're going for the achievement Nine Lives, simply repeat this sequence without doing too much DPS to Auriaya while waiting for the Feral Defender to repop.
Mimiron
Phase 1
On engage Mimiron immediately jumps into the 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 45s. 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 dot aura seems to have been removed on the live realms (10 man at least)
Healing on this phase is priority on the main tank, then people hit by Napalm Shell.
This phase requires a melee tank.
Phase 2
When Leviathan MKII is destroyed, Mimiron gets in the VX-001 Anti-personnel Assault Cannon. Everyone should move into close melee range as Mimiron is transitioning, taking care to avoid the mines. Sometimes mines appear to despawn but are still active.
Once in melee range, everyone should spread out equally around the boss. Rapid Burst does minimal damage compared to the other attacks. Rocket Strike causes a red target to appear on the ground. People must move out of this target within 3s or they will die. Only one rocket is fired each time in Phase 2. As soon as the dps observes that the VX-001 is casting Spinning Up, everyone must move behind the VX-001. Standing in front of P3Wx2 is instant death.
Healing in this phase is mostly AoE since the two attacks that you expect the raid to take are raid damage. This phase is untanked.
Phase 3
When the VX-001 is destroyed, Mimiron gets into his 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. The range tank (or any ranged) needs to immediately pick up the boss. The melee tank(s) should start picking up the smaller bots that start spawning around the room.
Loot should be on Free For All during this phase so that the 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
When the raid kills the Aerial Command Unit, Mimiron forms all of the weapons used previously into 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 is still untanked. The raid should stand either directly behind the main tank or directly in front of the main tank (directly behind the MKII). 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. They all need to die within 10s. Melee cannot reach the top section.
Healing on this phase should be split up between the melee tank, ranged tank, and the raid. The raid healer should switch to the melee tank during plasma blast.
This phase is melee and range-tanked.
Freya
The fight takes place in a lush oasis like valley inside Ulduar. There are three Elder boss-tree mobs you can choose to kill or not. They are similar to Sartharion's hard mode: if you choose not to kill them the fight gets considerably harder as each elder buffs Freya and her adds.
As you engage Freya, she will cast a HoT on herself and a buff that increases her received healing by 4% per stack, starting with 150 stacks for a total of +600% healing which makes her basically invincible at the beginning of the encounter.
Freya will then spawn six waves of adds in a fixed interval of 60 seconds. Defeating these waves will remove various amounts of stacks from her buff until it is completely removed by the last wave. The waves are of three different types, cycling through twice in a random order.
The fight hinges on controlling the adds. Having said that, add-killing is far more central to this fights strategy, as it is essential adds are killed not merely because they will wipe the raid if it is overwhelmed, but also because in order to beat Freya's healing versus damage dealt to her, the adds MUST be killed. Throughout the whole encounter a slim, glowing tree called Eonar's Gift with 65k (20k in 10 man) HP will spawn somewhere near to Freya about every 45 seconds. It will grow for 10 seconds after which it will heal Freya and all her summoned adds in the zone for 60% of their maximum health (30% in 10 man). This tree should be killed immediately by a few designated spotters or else killing the adds within the 60 seconds time to the next wave becomes a lot harder.
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 Snapslasher as well as spells with a long cast time or two-handed melee weapon strikes.
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 bombing 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 1.9M 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 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. 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.
Thorim
At the start of the fight when you engage the Jormungar Behemoth and the other adds, Thorim will cast Sheath of Lightning on himself, making him almost entirely invulnerable to attacks. Have one tank turn the Jormungar away from the raid, and have the rest tank and AoE the adds, focusing primarily on the healers (the smallest one in front and the dark runed dwarf in the back).
After the initial mobs are down, the lever next to the gate on the left will become active. The raid should now split in half; one half should go down the hallway to reach Thorim, and the other half needs to stay and fight off adds and attacks by Thorim. At this point you will want to have both fire and nature resistance. You will have 5 minutes to complete the gauntlet (getting to Thorim) before he enrages and wipes the raid.
Once Thorim is activated, he will proceed with the fight, progressively gaining damage and attack speed as the fight goes on. This is a passive enrage timer, so speed is not a dependent requirement on his tank phase, but it is helpful.
The Gauntlet
The gauntlet requires a minimum of a tank, a DPS, and a healer. It is best to have additional DPS, preferably as much as you can spare from the group killing adds, to quickly reach the end of the gauntlet where Thorim will engage the party. Speed is key at this point, because after five minutes he will wipe the raid. It is also important because everyone in the raid will be taking a lot of damage and healing becomes an issue during the encounter with Thorim.
Entrance Room
Those staying in the room will need to stack up in the middle to avoid the charged orbs around the sides. This will also make AoE healing to allies and AoE damage to enemies easier to dish out. Your priority here are the large runed Vrykul who appear (the tall humanoids). But make sure to spread out when he targets someone with a stormhammer.
Alternatively, you can stay bunched up for stormhammers as damage taken during this phase is light unless someone gets too close to an overcharged orb. If your group chooses this method, it is optimal to make sure the healer with the center group has instant cast and group heals.
Boss Fight
Once the gauntlet group reaches Thorim he will jump down, he needs to be picked up by the MT immediately. About 15 seconds in he will do his first Unbalancing strike, when he does this, the OT needs to taunt immediately. When you see the little lightning balls coming from a column this means he is about to use lightning charge, and that side of the room in a 60 degree angle around the column wil be shocked for a very large amount of damage, one shotting players after the third one. Spread out around him to avoid chain lightning links as well.
Hodir
Upon the start of the encounter, players need to keep moving because of the Keristrasza-esque aura that stacks up frost damage the longer you stand in place. Moving, strafing, or jumping removes a tick per second. For example, if a player stands still to collect five stacks, not all of them are removed upon moving.
Hodir also randomly roots members of the raid with a magical frost nova-like debuff. Anyone around the target within a 10 yard radius will also be rooted. To counter this, priests can use Mass Dispel, or Paladins can individually Hand of Freedom other players.
Icicles fall from the ceiling and will hit players in the raid if they do not move away from them in time. They are visually cued by snowflakes pouring down before they land, also if you have Projected Textures on in visual options, there will be circles on the floor. Anyone hit by them takes 12000 frost damage and gets knocked back around 30 yards if they are not rooted.
Periodically Hodir gains a self-buff called Frozen Blows. It reduces his physical damage, but in turn buffs frost damage to his attacks (up to 40000 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. The frost resist tank 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 new 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 icicles icicles queue up to fall (two on 10 man). These specific icicles create a mound of snow which can protect everybody from getting frozen during the fight. To avoid confusion because other icicles may be falling, the circle projected on the ground is much larger than the other icicles. Get near the icicles but not in them and you will have no trouble getting onto the mound of snow and continue. Anyone who is encased should be broken out immediately before returning to the boss, or they will die when the frost aura stacks up too high.
All in all, this fight is nothing more than an endurance test. Avoid taking raid damage from Biting Cold and icicles, and definitely do not be caught on the ground during a Flash Freeze.
In depth - Mage NPC's
The two Mage NPCs will randomly Conjure a Toasty Fire, These stop players from having to move around to get rid of the Biting Cold debuff. But, on top of that affect, any DPS caster that should have the Toasty Fire buff will also apply the stacking effect Singed to Hodir, which increases magic damage taken. This can stack up to 25 times (the tool tip on Wowhead is incorrect), increasing all spell damage taken by 50%. The Mages also have an ability called Melt Ice, which they cast on the other NPCs who are caught by Flash Freeze. This does (from what i have personally witnessed) between 5 and 15% of the total life of an Ice Block, although, this isn't enough for your raid to ignore the other NPCs. Because of these abilities, To simplify the encounter even more Mages need to be your priority NPC to release from the Ice Blocks.
Mage/Singed tactics
Because the Mages will only spawn fires about 5-15 yards around them selves, assigning a caster to each of the Mages will ensure that the debuff stay's up at all times. Before you start the encounter, i suggest you mark each of the Mages before you begin (using Diamond and Moon, as these are less likely to be used by any addons), their names are Amira Blazeweaver and Veesha Blazewaver and can be targeted using the /Target command (their Ice Block stops them from being clicked).
Once the encounter starts, release the mages first, as they will help your raid to release the rest of the NPCs. The assigned casters will be looking out for the fires they spawn, Once up, practicaly stand on top of them and start casting to get the debuff rolling (remember, You can't run though them once he starts casting Flash Freeze!). Singed has a 30 second duration, and a 30% apply chance. To help with keeping the Debuff stacked, It's important for the raid to release the mages as fast as possible.The mages will help you to release the rest of the NPC's, Which is a nice little bonus! Assigned casters get back to their respective NPC, and refresh Singed.
General Vezax (The Faceless one)
Pre-fight
General Vezax strategy step 1:
-Before pulling General Vezax assign casters to groups to rotate through the process of regenerating mana through the clouds.
General Vezax strategy step 2:
-Pull General Vezax, and start DPSing.
Core fight
General Vezax strategy step 3:
Interrupt Searing Flames when General Vezax starts casting it.
General Vezax strategy step 4:
When General Vezax casts Surge of darkness stop all DPS on him. Have the tank kite him, since General Vezax will move 55% slower. It should be the perfect time for your casters to start taking the clouds for mana regeneration, and the healers to start AOE healing them.
Rotate through the caster groups to not overwhelm your healers.
Yogg-Saron
Phase One: Pick up the spawning Guardians of Yogg-Saron and kite them around the room away from the clouds. Anyone touching the clouds on the ground will spawn a new Guardian of Yogg-Saron possibly leading to a wipe. Guardians of Yogg-Saron will mind control random people. Do not kill the Guardians unless they are right beside Sara. The way to end this phase is to blow up 9 Guardians right beside Sara. It can be helpful to spawn an extra Guardian intentionally early on to start phase 2 faster as the Guardian spawn rate picks up the longer you remain in phase one.
Phase Two: Try to get the Guardians of Yogg-Saron remaining down before phase two begins because you will immediately be swarmed by tentacles. If you are using Freya and your sanity gets low the green beams on the sides of the room will restore your sanity.
Crusher Tentacle: Melees hard, has a ton of HP and has an aura that reduces damage done by the raid by 20%, stacks with other crusher tentacles so these must go down fast. Melee-ing these will interrupt their aura but they gain a temporary buff that increases their damage and attack speed when they are hit so this is dangerous if they are being DPS'd.
Corruptor Tentacle: Casts various debuffs, Curse of Doom, Apathy, Draining Poison and Black Plague. Dispellers will need to be on the ball. These are interruptable.
Constrictor Tentacle: These have very little HP and appear underneath random players, grab them and hoist them into the air doing damage every few seconds until killed.
Sara will hover above Yogg-Saron's main body casting various abilities such as Psychosis, Brain Link and Malady of the Mind as well as Death Ray which is similar to Kologarn's Eye Beam but will instantly kill you on being touched.
Every 90 seconds or so Portals will open into Yogg-Saron's mind. All melee DPS must take the portals. Do not take the portal if your sanity is low you will lose sanity the longer you are below. You will see one of three random illusion rooms along with some disguised tentacles and laughing skulls floating around the room. The skulls cast Lunatic Gaze so you must strafe around the room with your back to the skulls at all times. The illusion will shatter once you kill all the tentacles in the room. Melee must then run into the brain room and try to get some DPS on the brain before taking the portal back up. The Brain begins a 60 second induce madness cast when the portals open so the melee must complete their task and get whatever DPS they can on the brain within 60 seconds or they will emerge from Yogg-Saron's mind insane. After four portal phases the spawn rate of Yogg-Saron's tentacles increases to levels completely impossible to keep up with.
Phase 2 ends when the Brain is killed. This removes the invulnerability from Yogg-Saron's main body.
Phase Three: This is a burn phase, if you took three portal phases to defeat Yogg-Saron's Brain the 15-minute hard berserk timer on the encounter will become a very constricting factor and you will generally have no more than 5-6 minutes to complete this phase before Yogg-Saron berserks and one shots the entire raid ala Archimonde. Yogg-Saron will have 16.5 million HP left on 25-man and 3.3 million HP on 10-man. Tentacles will stop spawning, any up will remain. Faceless Immortal Guardians that hit very hard will spawn very rapidly in this phase. You must pick up and kill the Immortal Guardians(or burn Yogg-Saron extremely fast if you are not using Thorim) while also keeping enough DPS on Yogg-Saron to kill him within 5 minutes. Sara's abilities continue. Yogg-Saron will begin to cast Lunatic Gaze in this phase so DPS must be ready to avert their eyes. Yogg-Saron will also heal the faceless ones with empowering shadows. It is reccomended to save Bloodlust for this phase.
Algalon the Observer
Guild hasn't cleared this boss yet
-Important to note that I have taken information from WoWWiki.com and my guild's site for all non-healer information I needed since tanking and dps'ing aren't roles that I play in.
Ulduar features 14 bosses, 11 of which have a "hard difficulty" level. Each difficulty has tactics of its own. However, before starting the actual Uludar raid, you will need to beat Flame Leviathan. This encounter tactic requires you to use various vehicles (demolishers etc.), and you will have the ability to set different difficulty levels for this fight as well.
Like Naxx, for normal runs, Ulduar strategies require 2 tanks 3 healers and the rest DPS. For heroics Ulduar Tactics require 3 or 4 tanks and 6 -7 healers. Ulduar Tactics require a lot more team work from your raid members, so numbers may vary according to how well your raid member can implement those tactics.
Flame Leviathan
First and foremost, this is a complex fight and there are many ways to do it depending on your group's individual gear and skill level. Don't be afraid to experiment and find what works best/easiest/fastest for your group. The following strategy is based on a group with mostly Naxx gear.
This fight can be very tricky on 10-man because there are a lot of jobs that have to be performed and not a lot of seats available to perform them all. Begin by simply filling up all vehicle seats with the exception of the chopper passengers, and make your way down the Iron Concourse. Before pulling the final trash, make sure to establish a kiting path and try to stick to it at all times, if possible. Once the last group of trash is cleared, have one of your demolisher passengers load themselves into the catapult to be shot onto the Flame Leviathan. It is highly preferable that the person being launched up be a caster (Mage or Warlock), as they are the only ones who can effectively DPS both turrets. This person should work to bring down both the turrets. Optionally, you can wait to fully stun the boss until he has around 10 stacks of Gathering Speed. The reason for this is to minimize the number of times you fire someone to the boss to reduce potential mistakes, and the boss is easily kitable while at 10 stacks or less.
While one person is working on the turrets, kiting the boss and staying ahead of him is the priority. Siege engines should make use of Steam Rush while turret passengers should fire rockets at the boss and throw up the shield if necessary. While not kiting, Siege Engines should focus on interrupting Flame Jets using Electroshock.
Demolishers should stay at max range, in case they get targeted for kiting, and DPS with Hurl Boulder. Because one Demolisher launched it's passenger up to the boss, only one Demolisher will have a passenger. The demolisher with a passenger can DPS with Hurl Pyrite Barrel, but only if the passenger is on point about refilling the ammo. If the Demolisher with a passenger gets targeted, its as simple as using Increase Speed to stay ahead of the boss. If the Demolisher without a passenger gets targeted, the driver must simply be as clever as possible to stay away from Flame Leviathan for 30 seconds. Optionally, that driver can switch to the passenger seat, use the Speed buff, and then switch back; however, this will use half of the vehicle's ammo, and with no passenger, its a challenge to recover.
During this time, Choppers need to be laying Tar in the boss' path. It is the Choppers' responsibility to lay the tar in the boss' path; it is not the kiter's responsibility to direct the boss through your tar. If you establish a kiting path and stick to it, this shouldn't be a problem. Between Tar cooldowns, you can DPS with Sonic Horn but watch out for Flame Jets as it will shred your Chopper in a matter of seconds.
Once both Turrets come down, the boss will be stunned, take 50% more damage, Gathering Speed will reset to zero, and the turret DPSer will be launched into the air. At this point all Siege Engines and Demolishers should go all out DPS. Demolishers should spam Hurl Pyrite Barrel. One chopper should be assigned to collect the turret DPSer and bring him back to his Demolisher as quickly as possible.
After the stun wears off, simply repeat the process over again. At this point, depending on how low the boss is on health, you can choose to shoot the turret DPS back up, or just finish him off without bothering. Remember that the turret DPSer needs to do about 120k damage in order to kill both turrets and a well coordinated group is likely to be able to bring the Leviathan down before the DPSer finishes.
Ignis the Furnace Master
Tanking
Choosing tanks
For all modes, you will need a Main Tank to kite Ignis, and either an off-tank or a very skilled kiting DPS (probably two or even three on 25 man). If you attempt to turn the Iron Constructs molten and destroy them, you'll probably prefer an off-tank because of the mitigation and large buffer of health compared to a DPS. However, if you are going to simply DPS him down immediately (you will need to average about 3500 dps on 10 man for all 5-7 DPS), you can get away with a player who is able to aggro, dodge, and CC the constructs (prot warriors, prot paladin, mages, hunters with a pet, warlocks with a voidwalker, or a druid). Also, the constructs can be snared into place so any kind of druid is the best option.
How to tank
As the main tank, have a hunter misdirect the boss to you, or simply run up and get aggro on him immediately. You should choose and make known which direction or area of the room you're going to kite him so the rest of the raid knows where to position themselves. Some groups choose to strafe him left to right (either across the room, or length wise near the constructs), around the entire room, or around one half of the room; note that he should never be tanked in front of the water if you are going to be destroying the constructs, as scorch will be dispelled. However, this is the optimal location for tanking him to reduce damage on the tank, and keep everyone in the same position throughout the fight.
The second way to tank him is to bring him to the direct center of the room. Have the tank turn him away from the raid and when he scorchs the ground, turn him to the left or right and keep the melee DPS where they are. Then, after then 2nd scorch run aross the boss and tank him in the opposite direction so the 3rd scorch goes to the right or left and the melee DPS can stay where they are. After the 3rd scorch comes, the 1st one should be down by now and you go back to the starting point. If done right, no one should take any damage from contrucsts blowing up nor should they lose Heat stacks. The off tanks should be ready to taunt them to water when they go molten and get out of the way of them blowing up.
Main Tanking - what to look out for
Naxxramas geared tanks (item levels 200 and 213) can take upwards of 25000-30000 damage per hit from Ignis' melee strikes. As the fight goes on, his melee strikes will gain an additional 15% damage from each Iron Construct that is active (eventually, if left unchecked, it will get to the point where you are one shotted). His scorch is a cone that will damage anyone he is facing, so your back should always be away from the raid. Flame Jets will throw you into the air briefly, but since you aren't a caster, your abilities should not become locked. After a scorch has landed on the ground around you, strafe out of it quickly to avoid taking damage and get your melee DPS into a safe spot as well. You should not aggro any constructs unless you wish to cause additional stress to your healers.
Off-tanks and kiters
For the first 15 seconds of the fight, DPS Ignis. He doesn't have a cleave, and scorch won't be fired until 12 seconds into the fight (and you can stand behind him safely). When the first Construct appears, grab aggro and begin moving away from it. The more constructs that are up, the faster they move so eventually they will outrun you if you don't do anything about it. Off-tanks should only take about 1-2k damage per swing, so the damage they deal is negligible, however, since this affects your healers, if you can do something about it you should (as a prot warrior, you can charge constructs and then run past them, or intervene to a close ally to get away from enemies). If you're kiting them and you're not a tank, CCing abilities are vital to your group's survival. Frost Nova, Frost Traps and pet tanks, Void Walkers and destruction warlocks' AOE stun, and druid roots and travel form are all possible solutions, however they tend to only be effective for a few minutes. If your group is going to be destroying the Constructs, make sure you have a healer that can either heal you through scorch, or you have good CCers that can keep the constructs in the flames of scorch long enough to heat it up (moonkins and mages are very handy for that).
Healers
Healers need to be on the ball to keep the main tank healed because of the significant melee damage dealt by Ignis. Casters, particularly healers, should take care to stop casting before Ignis uses Flame Jets, otherwise they will be locked out of their spells for 8 seconds. All players should make sure to move out of Scorch areas. Random players will periodically be charged and placed in the Slag Pot attached to Ignis' stomach. Whichever player is charged should be healed through the DoT (they gain a debuff to help identify it on your raid frames). You should instruct your raid members to stack on you for AOE healing.
DPS
As a DPS, your job is to not stand in scorched areas, to call out when you are inside of the Slag Pot, and stand behind Ignis at all times (preferably stacked on your healers for AOE healing). Ranged DPS should be used to destroy Brittle Iron Constructs if your raid decides to kill the adds (only powerful abilities like Chaos Bolt, Frost Fire Bolt, Pyroblast, Aimed Shot, and Starfall should be used to beat the 5000 minimum damage requirement). If you survive being stuck in the Slag Pot, you should use the haste buff as best you can (10 second duration) to fire off your slower, more powerful attacks. Since this fight is heavily reliant on DPS, every DPS member of the party should have a minimum of 3500 DPS (4000+ group average recommended) for the duration of the fight.
Razorscale
On normal (10-man), the fight proceeds exactly like the 25-man variant, except that only two turrets need to be repaired and fired instead of four.
This boss fight consists of three phases, alternating air and ground phases until 50% damage taken, and then a pure ground phase from 50% to 0%.
Recommended Setup: 3 Tanks, 3 Tank Healers, 3 Raid Healers, 0-2 Floating Healers, 14-16 DPS (composition irrelevant).
Talking to the Expedition Commander will begin the event with Razorscale in her air phase.
As of patch 3.1.1, Razorscale has a ten minute berserk timer across all phases.
Air phase
The air phase consists of defending the Expedition dwarves while they repair the harpoon turrets. During this phase, the focus should be on defeating adds (Sentinels are priority, Watchers must be CC'd and killed second, Guardians last), and staying out of Devouring Flame. As the turrets get repaired one at a time, they can be clicked to fire a harpoon at Razorscale.
25-man positioning
The raid should be split into three groups, one near the far side of the circle opposite the harpoons, and two groups positioned slightly round the circle back towards the harpoons. Each group should engage the spawns from a single pod and destroy them, there is no need for crowd control and AoE can be used. If a sentinel spawns all 3 DPS groups should focus fire this target as it presents the greatest and only tank threat amongst the spawned adds.
Raid healers should be assigned behind the three groups to support heal and heal the players assigned to trigger the harpoons.
10-man positioning
The raid should be split into two groups in a sort of 'V' shape at the start, with the vertex in the center of the large circle. Tanks will pick up adds and attempt to kite them back towards everyone else to be AOE'd. Healers and ranged DPS should be back slightly to avoid whirlwinds and chain lightning. Shaman are very useful in interrupting Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt, which should help kite them together with the rest of the adds (of course, rogues and warriors will be helpful with that as well). In most cases, watchers will automatically begin melee-ing after a single cast; if you can take the damage, then don't waste time dealing with them separately.
In the 10-man version, there are only 2 Harpoons that become active to bring Razorscale down.There are two main ways of handling the Harpoons. The first way to do this is to activate the first harpoon when its ready, then when the second one is ready, wait in till your DPS/Tanks call that most adds are down and to fire the harpoon. This way everyone, tanks and healers (mana permitting) can concentrate on Razorscale and max DPS without having to worry about adds and keeping tanks alive. The easiest way to do this is to assign a ranged DPS to "Harpoon duty" and call out in vent when they are ready, then have a Tank or DPS call out on vent when to fire the second Harpoon. The second way to handle this part is to activate the second harpoon immediately when ready and the adds can be brought in front of Razorscale while the DPS switches to Razorscale when she lands, that way when she does her breath attack to free herself it hits all the adds and mostly kills them. The downside to this method is you have adds up which means healers and Tanks must focus on them and not on Razorscale. It is very important to DPS as much as possible when she is Harpooned to the ground to get her into the second "ground" phase (50% health) before she enrages in the air.
During this phase it is important to ensure that the raid healers keep members of their party above 12,000 health as this prevents losing targets to a single fireball or devouring flame; a double or even triple breath is possible (and common) so healing must be fast and effective (Paladins are ideal in this role due to Holy Shock). Healers' first priority must be to keep themselves alive, however any loses in this fight can be detrimental to the raid's ability to beat the enrage timer.
Watching for projectiles
Razorscale's fireballs and devouring flames will annihilate a group that isn't paying attention. There are no addons that currently track either projectile, so it must be watched closely. To do this, have one or two healers, prior to the fight, look up and target Razorscale and then use /focus. Make sure cast bars and target of target can be seen on the focus (test on a player in the group). During the fight, have the healers, between healing, watch the focus for Razorscale's targets. Each target can only be seen briefly, for less than half a second so they have to be on their toes. If no cast bar is shown, but someone is targeted, it means a fireball will hit them (it can miss). Priests can shield these targets, and others can just pre-heal to get them up immediately after being struck. It's important to keep them healed in case they get targeted multiple times in a row. When Razorscale uses Devouring Flame, a 1 second cast bar will appear, and the target will appear right as it finishes. The person who as targeted should be notified immediately, and that person needs to begin moving (preferably away from others in the raid) or be ready to move immediately. The devouring flame will track the target briefly (if you move, it will move) before striking the ground (you can see a blue ball fall into the location before spreading into flame). If you move early, it's hard to know where it will hit. If you stand in one place, you can position yourself safely and then run when the flames are about to appear.
Devouring Flame patches
Devouring Flame always targets the closest ally to Razorscale (i.e. a player or a pet). This makes it possible to have a healer or ranged DPS "tank" the Devouring Flame patches, as the projectile doesn't follow a moving player--it will only go to the spot the player was when fired. This can reduce unpredictable damage considerably. In the first air phase, Razorscale hovers over the central circle. For subsequent air phases, Razorscale's initial position is on the northeast side of the fighting area (look for pets that have yet to come off of Razorscale: they will stand still directly below the boss and also be the first targets for Devouring Flame). Using a harpoon will bring Razorscale back to center, as in the first air phase. Keeping Razorscale targeted or focused can make the use of Devouring Flame obvious (through the cast bar) and the Devouring Flame tank can walk a simple path around the point closest to Razorscale, keeping the flames off other raid members and avoiding most of the damage himself.
Ground phase
Once all four turrets have been repaired and fired, Razorscale will be forced to the ground where she will remain stunned for several seconds. Everyone should immediately move behind her, and DPS should focus on bringing her HP down as much as possible while the tanks hold any remaining adds. After the stun wears off, Razorscale will breath then return to the air and begin the air phase again.
For this phase tanks should converge onto the rear of Razorscale allowing their DPS to be added to that available in this phase, with 5s remaining until the stun wears off the tanks should move with any remaining adds towards the furthest point on the circle and allow full raid AoE damage to be applied to the adds. As new pods appear tanks should move their adds back to their regular tanking positions.
Phase 2
Once Razorscale is brought to 50% health, she will land permanently, at which point she will need to be tanked facing away from the group to avoid breaths. The fight from this point is very simple, she will continue using Devouring Flame, she will do a knock back to everyone within 35 yards, and inflict the Flame Buffet debuff. During this ground phase, the DPS should go all out in order to defeat Razorscale before the Flame Buffet debuffs cause the tank to be one-shot.
There is another debuff that happens during this fight. In phase 2, when you are tanking Razorscale around your tanks will get a debuff called "Fused Armor" which adds a slowing effect to the tank. When this debuff hits 5 stacks the tank can't move or use any abilities, including taunt. You need to change tanks when the debuff gets to 2 stacks in order to finish the fight.
Note as of 4-15-09 on live you can no longer dps boss while it is in the air.
XT-002 Deconstructor
Preparation
As with all WoTLK raids, a standard raid composition is OK. No special resistances or equipment are needed. In normal mode the damage dealers need to average about 3k DPS (3.5k DPS if using only 5 damage dealers). In Heroic mode, an average of 5k DPS per damage dealer is required.
The fight starts with fairly standard tank-and-spank (Phase 1) until the boss is at 75%. It then takes a little nap (20 seconds), during which it exposes its heart and summons adds (Phase 2), after that Phase 1 continues until at 50% (and 25% again) a Phase 2 takes place.
Gravity Bomb and Light Bomb
Dealing with these two debuffs must be learned by each raid member. Since they both are a threat to other raid members, debuffed players must separate from the raid as fast as possible. Melee can set up in a circle around the Deconstructor, since it has no cleave or short-range AoE. Healers and ranged DPS should stay 10 yards away from Tanks and Melee, and then agree on one of the following setup possibilities:
-concentrated on one spot
-Distributed over two spots within healing range of each other
one long line with about 0.5 yards between players (Tank healers first, raid healers next, ranged DPS furthest away from the boss)
-two shorter parallel lines, 6 yards apart
-It's also possible to set up in a wide circle around the tank spot, with as much space between players as possible (preferably close to 10 yards).
The Deconstructor keeps the two Bomb debuffs up at all times (that is as soon as one of them expires on a player, another player gets it), only during Tantrum the Bomb debuffs are not refreshed. The two players with Bomb debuffs must run away from all other players, either to explode in safety (Gravity Bomb), or in order not to damge others (Light Bomb). Gravity Bomb does not kill, so if that player starts at full health, no healing is required. Light Bomb can kill, for that reason one healer should be assigned to put a HoT or two the current Light Bomb victim.
Even with fast player reaction, Light Bomb inevitably deals some AoE damage to the raid. The raid healer(s) need to be quick to AoE heal this.
Tympanic Tantrum
Once per minute, Tantrum is cast. The one-minute cooldown is reset by exposing the heart (getting below 75%, 50% or 25% respectively), so high-DPS groups can completely avoid Tantrum. If the boss casts Tantrum, every raid member takes 120% damage within 12 seconds, and is slowed by about 40%. This means that AoE healing must be well organized so that nobody dies from this damage, and that the raid should be on top health prior to Tantrum. The standard avoidance methods do work, but reduce DPS (which may prove fatal). Hunter Deterrence is ineffective, Rogue Feint does reduce Tantrum damage.
Phase 2: Exposed Heart and Adds
Whenever the boss gets below a 25% threshold (at 75%, 50% and 25%), it switches for 20 seconds to Phase 2. During this time, the boss itself cannot be targeted, but it exposes its heart, takes double damage, and adds are summoned. Three types of adds spawn from the scrap heaps in the four corners of the room:
XS-013 Scrapbot: heals XT-002 for 60k each if they reach it.
XE-321 Boombot: explode for ~16k fire damage when their health reaches 50%, damaging players and NPCs in range.
XM-024 Pummeler: these deal low single-target damage.
The Scrapbots need to be AoE'd down and must not reach the boss. They are susceptible to most snares (stun, frost nova, knockback, etc.). The Boombots should be single targeted and nuked by ranged. It is best if they explode when surrounded by scrapbots or near the Heart. The Pummelers should which should simply be off-tanked and kited during the whole fight around the room. No damage dealer should ever target a Pummeler.
Scrapbots spawn in ~7-10 groups of 5. The groups can appear simultaneously and at varying times. Have people keep an eye out and call out where and when they are coming. When scrapbots get closer to the raid group, they need to be AOE'd down immediately (a Priest using Mind Sear can help reduce the number of DPS wasted on scrapbots). Boombots need to be DPS'ed when they are near the Heart or scrapbots (or when not close to players). Personal Electromagnetic Pulse Generator, from Engineers can be extremely helpful to stop the closest Scrapbots, stunning all mechanicals within roughly 20 yards for 3 seconds. When the heart goes back up into the boss and XT becomes targettable again, unkilled adds stay alive. The Heart has 10 M hitpoints (HC) or 1.5 M in normal mode. Since the heart takes double damage, and all damage it takes is passed through to the boss, every damage dealer should try to concentrate on the Heart as much as possible. Melee should stay on the heart exclusively during the whole phase. Even healers can deal some damage in this phase, Mana permitting (else healers can use this phase to regenerate a little). While it's desirable to deal as much damage to the heart as possible, destroying it invokes hard mode, pay attention that this doesn't happen by accident.
In order to maximize the number of players who profits from DPS cooldowns it's better to use it during the first adds phase. If there are not many deaths it's more effective to use Heroism or Bloodlust in the third adds phase, because in that phase usually 20% boss health is reached, and players with Execute or Decimate profit from the last few seconds.
Assembly of Iron
Phase 1: All three alive
Players can choose to kill the trio in any order that they wish, though the popular and easiest route is Steelbreaker, then Molgeim, then Brundir. Be warned that when you kill a boss, the remaining bosses will return to full health. This prevents the raid from being able to take down multiple bosses at the same time.
Just like Maulgar, Illidari Council, Karathress, etc. all of these bosses have to be pulled and tanked away from each other in precise positions. Molgeim and Steelbreaker can be tanked in the two front corners of the room, but Brundir must be tanked towards the back for his Overload (30 yards) which will deal a lot of damage to anyone that is not a tank (often times killing them). Note that Brundir's tank can simply eat the Overloads, since the tank should have a dedicated healer, otherwise only doing raid healing. If it is an issue, the tank should move away as well, then move right back to Brundir when the channeled cast is over. Any casters and the tank on Stormcaller Brundir that can interrupt should be interrupting chain lightnings whenever possible. The healer assigned to Brundir's tank should be close to Steelbreaker's back when the fight begins, 35+ yards away.
Molgeim will often put a rune of power underneath either Steelbreaker or Brundir so they must be pulled out of the rune far enough to where they're no longer benefiting from the buff and melee or ranged players can bunch up in this rune and output higher damage upon the primary target.
Steelbreaker on occassion will deal a Fusion Punch which the tank must call out for focused healing and a magic dispel of the nature debuff that is inflicted from the punch. Use either a Paladin's Cleanse or a Priest's Dispel Magic. If you are killing Steelbreaker first, melee must bunch up to benefit from Circle of Healing and Chain Heal used to counter the nature aura damage.
Phase 2: One Boss Dead
When one of the Iron Council dies, the other two will gain additional abilities. For the most part, they will be tanked in the same general areas but these new abilities will compensate for the dead boss.
Steelbreaker will gain Static Disruption which will cause a random raid member not in melee to take 75% more nature damage for 20 seconds. The whole raid will need to be spread out as this is an aoe and will be extremely irritating to heal through if it hits more than one player.
Molgeim now has a Rune of Death, which will be cast on a random raid member. It is a big, green rune that is impossible to visually miss. Melee and ranged must bunch up and be ready to move in the same general path to avoid confusion, splitting up, and getting out of range of heals.
Brundir will gain Lightning Whirl, which animates like whirlwind and will shoot random lightning bolts at raid members which will deal a large amount of nature damage to random raid members. It can, and should, be interrupted.
Phase 3: Two bosses dead
When two of the three bosses are dead, the last one will separate into a unique phase different from their usual abilities in the previous phases. Players must be alert during this phase because elements are introduced that will almost instantly wipe the group if they don't coordinate around them.
Steelbreaker
Blow Bloodlust/Heroism and hit Steelbreaker with an almost impossible amount of DPS to kill him before you run out of tanks due to Meltdown. The DPS and healing requirements of this achievement are extremely high so it is not reccomended for most groups.
Runemaster Molgeim
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Molgeim will open up a rune of summoning (purple voidzone spawn akin to the voidwalkers in TBC) which will spawn lightning elemental adds which will explode for a high amount of damage to anyone within 30 yards when they reach their aggro target. They spawn one at a time, but up to 8 or 9 adds total will be spawned rapidly. They are not tauntable, and will race after the random players. The adds do not appear to be affected by movement slowing effects. All players should move as far from the zone as possible, dropping aoe's in prep for the add arrivals. All aoe helps, however every effort should be made to avoid meeting the adds in melee. If an add bolts free of the aoe, targeted members should run while ranged helps dps down the loose add. Good communication and proper reaction to the add spawns is essential.
Stormcaller Brundir
Brundir will lift up into the air and gain Lightning Tendrils. Anybody within a 10 yd range of Brundir will get hit by these tendrils for high nature damage; standing near him for more than a couple seconds will prove fatal if you are not a tank. He is tauntable, but will clear aggro every time he lifts up into the air. The three tanks can work out a rotation to keep him in the same area of the room while ranged players nuke him down. Occasionally he will fall to the ground and melee can move in to attack, but he will lift again without warning and hit them with his tendrils.
Kologarn
Kologarn remains completely stationary in this encounter at all times. He cannot be turned or range tanked. If his aggro target is not in melee range, he casts Petrifying Breath on the raid, which will cause a wipe. His arms do not need to be offtanked, but can be separately targeted and hit within Kologarn's hitbox. Since their hitbox overlaps with Kologarn's, you need to face his torso to melee, not face the arm itself.
Two to three tanks need to be in taunt rotation front and center to Kologarn. Every 10–15 seconds, he casts Overhead Smash, which reduces the tank's armor by 25%. Stack it on one tank 1-2 times and rotate to the next tank. Keeping all tanks alive are vital, or you won't have enough tanks to rotate the debuffs. However, the debuff seems to be either avoidable with dodge/parry or somewhat random in its timing, because it will often drop off tanks for no obvious reason.
His arms each have unique raid-damaging abilities:
-His left arm sweeps the raid and simultaneouly hits everyone for 12,000. Healers must quickly heal the entire raid after a Shockwave from the left arm.
-His right arm uses Stone Grip on 3 random players (1 on normal) to squeeze them until the right arm takes 450,000 damage. Those who are affected must be kept alive until the damage limit is hit.
-Killing an arm will spawn a pack of earth elementals, which should be picked up by a tank and killed immediately.
The arm respawns 60 seconds later, but when destroyed will take health equal to the arm's from the boss. Since they do a lot of AoE damage on 25 man and give a debuff that increases physical damage taken, they should be tanked away from the main group with a dedicated tank. On 10-man, dragging them to the boss and killing them with incidental AoE works. Do NOT use AoE taunts on the elementals if you are not in melee range of the boss. Taunting the boss while out of melee range results in him casting petrifying breath on the raid.
Auriaya
Have your offtank stand atleast 20 yards away from where Auriaya will be tanked. The rest of the raid except for the two tanks and a hunter should stand out of line of sight of Auriaya to ensure the sentries don't pounce them. After the add's are both under control, the raid should move between them, staying grouped up for Sonic Screech. After a fear always group back up.
The Pull
The pull is the most crucial element to the fight, and it is not uncommon for groups to spend longer learning how to pull than actually learning the fight. The two panther adds that follow the boss will Pounce on the initial aggro target if they are out of melee range but within line of sight. The goal is to not have the 2 adds Pounce anyone, so the pull must be done while both tanks are out of LoS from the boss until she is within melee range.
A good place for the tanks to stand at the beginning is in the small enclave with the urn to the side of the stairs. Various classes have abilities that can be used to pull the boss, it is recommended that your group contains at least one of these classes:
Shaman: Totems can be placed in the center of the circular area at the end of the path the boss takes. She will gain contact aggro onto the shaman, and will walk up the stairs into melee range of the tanks hiding in the enclave, who will then taunt their targets. Due to the Tremor Totem requirement for this fight, totems will be the standard pull mechanic for most 10-man groups unless a Hunter is available.
Hunter: Misdirects can and should be used, or traps placed on the ground similar to totems.
Death Knight: Death and Decay can be placed in the center from range similar to traps or totems. The timing is important, if the Death Knight is too slow to run back around into the enclave they will be pounced. This works best if the Death Knight in question is one of the tanks.
The panthers also buff themselves if they're within close range to each other so splitting them up is highly recommended.
The Fight
Kill the two Sentries. If the off tank is going to pick up the remaining Sentry after his target is dead, they need to be sure not to taunt from outside of melee range because the Sentry will still pounce even after the fight begins. Once the adds are dead, focus on Auriaya until she summons the Feral Defender. Always be sure to have the ranged grouped up, and have the Main Tank facing the boss towards the raid. That way, melee behind the boss are the only ones that need to move for Sonic Screech. A well placed tremor totem can cover the raid group, main tank, and possibly the melee with this setup.
Have your Off tank ready for once the Feral Defender spawns. It's difficult to control, and will jump around all over the place. Killing it gives you 30 seconds or so to focus solely on Auriaya, but creates a void zone that can cause issues when people are feared through it at low health. Always make sure to kill the Feral Defender outside of where your raid is standing to minimize the risk of people running through it while feared.
Alternating between killing the Feral Defender and Killing Auriaya will let you kill her with plenty of time left. If you're going for the achievement Nine Lives, simply repeat this sequence without doing too much DPS to Auriaya while waiting for the Feral Defender to repop.
Mimiron
Phase 1
On engage Mimiron immediately jumps into the 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 45s. 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 dot aura seems to have been removed on the live realms (10 man at least)
Healing on this phase is priority on the main tank, then people hit by Napalm Shell.
This phase requires a melee tank.
Phase 2
When Leviathan MKII is destroyed, Mimiron gets in the VX-001 Anti-personnel Assault Cannon. Everyone should move into close melee range as Mimiron is transitioning, taking care to avoid the mines. Sometimes mines appear to despawn but are still active.
Once in melee range, everyone should spread out equally around the boss. Rapid Burst does minimal damage compared to the other attacks. Rocket Strike causes a red target to appear on the ground. People must move out of this target within 3s or they will die. Only one rocket is fired each time in Phase 2. As soon as the dps observes that the VX-001 is casting Spinning Up, everyone must move behind the VX-001. Standing in front of P3Wx2 is instant death.
Healing in this phase is mostly AoE since the two attacks that you expect the raid to take are raid damage. This phase is untanked.
Phase 3
When the VX-001 is destroyed, Mimiron gets into his 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. The range tank (or any ranged) needs to immediately pick up the boss. The melee tank(s) should start picking up the smaller bots that start spawning around the room.
Loot should be on Free For All during this phase so that the 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
When the raid kills the Aerial Command Unit, Mimiron forms all of the weapons used previously into 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 is still untanked. The raid should stand either directly behind the main tank or directly in front of the main tank (directly behind the MKII). 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. They all need to die within 10s. Melee cannot reach the top section.
Healing on this phase should be split up between the melee tank, ranged tank, and the raid. The raid healer should switch to the melee tank during plasma blast.
This phase is melee and range-tanked.
Freya
The fight takes place in a lush oasis like valley inside Ulduar. There are three Elder boss-tree mobs you can choose to kill or not. They are similar to Sartharion's hard mode: if you choose not to kill them the fight gets considerably harder as each elder buffs Freya and her adds.
As you engage Freya, she will cast a HoT on herself and a buff that increases her received healing by 4% per stack, starting with 150 stacks for a total of +600% healing which makes her basically invincible at the beginning of the encounter.
Freya will then spawn six waves of adds in a fixed interval of 60 seconds. Defeating these waves will remove various amounts of stacks from her buff until it is completely removed by the last wave. The waves are of three different types, cycling through twice in a random order.
The fight hinges on controlling the adds. Having said that, add-killing is far more central to this fights strategy, as it is essential adds are killed not merely because they will wipe the raid if it is overwhelmed, but also because in order to beat Freya's healing versus damage dealt to her, the adds MUST be killed. Throughout the whole encounter a slim, glowing tree called Eonar's Gift with 65k (20k in 10 man) HP will spawn somewhere near to Freya about every 45 seconds. It will grow for 10 seconds after which it will heal Freya and all her summoned adds in the zone for 60% of their maximum health (30% in 10 man). This tree should be killed immediately by a few designated spotters or else killing the adds within the 60 seconds time to the next wave becomes a lot harder.
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 Snapslasher as well as spells with a long cast time or two-handed melee weapon strikes.
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 bombing 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 1.9M 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 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. 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.
Thorim
At the start of the fight when you engage the Jormungar Behemoth and the other adds, Thorim will cast Sheath of Lightning on himself, making him almost entirely invulnerable to attacks. Have one tank turn the Jormungar away from the raid, and have the rest tank and AoE the adds, focusing primarily on the healers (the smallest one in front and the dark runed dwarf in the back).
After the initial mobs are down, the lever next to the gate on the left will become active. The raid should now split in half; one half should go down the hallway to reach Thorim, and the other half needs to stay and fight off adds and attacks by Thorim. At this point you will want to have both fire and nature resistance. You will have 5 minutes to complete the gauntlet (getting to Thorim) before he enrages and wipes the raid.
Once Thorim is activated, he will proceed with the fight, progressively gaining damage and attack speed as the fight goes on. This is a passive enrage timer, so speed is not a dependent requirement on his tank phase, but it is helpful.
The Gauntlet
The gauntlet requires a minimum of a tank, a DPS, and a healer. It is best to have additional DPS, preferably as much as you can spare from the group killing adds, to quickly reach the end of the gauntlet where Thorim will engage the party. Speed is key at this point, because after five minutes he will wipe the raid. It is also important because everyone in the raid will be taking a lot of damage and healing becomes an issue during the encounter with Thorim.
Entrance Room
Those staying in the room will need to stack up in the middle to avoid the charged orbs around the sides. This will also make AoE healing to allies and AoE damage to enemies easier to dish out. Your priority here are the large runed Vrykul who appear (the tall humanoids). But make sure to spread out when he targets someone with a stormhammer.
Alternatively, you can stay bunched up for stormhammers as damage taken during this phase is light unless someone gets too close to an overcharged orb. If your group chooses this method, it is optimal to make sure the healer with the center group has instant cast and group heals.
Boss Fight
Once the gauntlet group reaches Thorim he will jump down, he needs to be picked up by the MT immediately. About 15 seconds in he will do his first Unbalancing strike, when he does this, the OT needs to taunt immediately. When you see the little lightning balls coming from a column this means he is about to use lightning charge, and that side of the room in a 60 degree angle around the column wil be shocked for a very large amount of damage, one shotting players after the third one. Spread out around him to avoid chain lightning links as well.
Hodir
Upon the start of the encounter, players need to keep moving because of the Keristrasza-esque aura that stacks up frost damage the longer you stand in place. Moving, strafing, or jumping removes a tick per second. For example, if a player stands still to collect five stacks, not all of them are removed upon moving.
Hodir also randomly roots members of the raid with a magical frost nova-like debuff. Anyone around the target within a 10 yard radius will also be rooted. To counter this, priests can use Mass Dispel, or Paladins can individually Hand of Freedom other players.
Icicles fall from the ceiling and will hit players in the raid if they do not move away from them in time. They are visually cued by snowflakes pouring down before they land, also if you have Projected Textures on in visual options, there will be circles on the floor. Anyone hit by them takes 12000 frost damage and gets knocked back around 30 yards if they are not rooted.
Periodically Hodir gains a self-buff called Frozen Blows. It reduces his physical damage, but in turn buffs frost damage to his attacks (up to 40000 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. The frost resist tank 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 new 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 icicles icicles queue up to fall (two on 10 man). These specific icicles create a mound of snow which can protect everybody from getting frozen during the fight. To avoid confusion because other icicles may be falling, the circle projected on the ground is much larger than the other icicles. Get near the icicles but not in them and you will have no trouble getting onto the mound of snow and continue. Anyone who is encased should be broken out immediately before returning to the boss, or they will die when the frost aura stacks up too high.
All in all, this fight is nothing more than an endurance test. Avoid taking raid damage from Biting Cold and icicles, and definitely do not be caught on the ground during a Flash Freeze.
In depth - Mage NPC's
The two Mage NPCs will randomly Conjure a Toasty Fire, These stop players from having to move around to get rid of the Biting Cold debuff. But, on top of that affect, any DPS caster that should have the Toasty Fire buff will also apply the stacking effect Singed to Hodir, which increases magic damage taken. This can stack up to 25 times (the tool tip on Wowhead is incorrect), increasing all spell damage taken by 50%. The Mages also have an ability called Melt Ice, which they cast on the other NPCs who are caught by Flash Freeze. This does (from what i have personally witnessed) between 5 and 15% of the total life of an Ice Block, although, this isn't enough for your raid to ignore the other NPCs. Because of these abilities, To simplify the encounter even more Mages need to be your priority NPC to release from the Ice Blocks.
Mage/Singed tactics
Because the Mages will only spawn fires about 5-15 yards around them selves, assigning a caster to each of the Mages will ensure that the debuff stay's up at all times. Before you start the encounter, i suggest you mark each of the Mages before you begin (using Diamond and Moon, as these are less likely to be used by any addons), their names are Amira Blazeweaver and Veesha Blazewaver and can be targeted using the /Target command (their Ice Block stops them from being clicked).
Once the encounter starts, release the mages first, as they will help your raid to release the rest of the NPCs. The assigned casters will be looking out for the fires they spawn, Once up, practicaly stand on top of them and start casting to get the debuff rolling (remember, You can't run though them once he starts casting Flash Freeze!). Singed has a 30 second duration, and a 30% apply chance. To help with keeping the Debuff stacked, It's important for the raid to release the mages as fast as possible.The mages will help you to release the rest of the NPC's, Which is a nice little bonus! Assigned casters get back to their respective NPC, and refresh Singed.
General Vezax (The Faceless one)
Pre-fight
General Vezax strategy step 1:
-Before pulling General Vezax assign casters to groups to rotate through the process of regenerating mana through the clouds.
General Vezax strategy step 2:
-Pull General Vezax, and start DPSing.
Core fight
General Vezax strategy step 3:
Interrupt Searing Flames when General Vezax starts casting it.
General Vezax strategy step 4:
When General Vezax casts Surge of darkness stop all DPS on him. Have the tank kite him, since General Vezax will move 55% slower. It should be the perfect time for your casters to start taking the clouds for mana regeneration, and the healers to start AOE healing them.
Rotate through the caster groups to not overwhelm your healers.
Yogg-Saron
Phase One: Pick up the spawning Guardians of Yogg-Saron and kite them around the room away from the clouds. Anyone touching the clouds on the ground will spawn a new Guardian of Yogg-Saron possibly leading to a wipe. Guardians of Yogg-Saron will mind control random people. Do not kill the Guardians unless they are right beside Sara. The way to end this phase is to blow up 9 Guardians right beside Sara. It can be helpful to spawn an extra Guardian intentionally early on to start phase 2 faster as the Guardian spawn rate picks up the longer you remain in phase one.
Phase Two: Try to get the Guardians of Yogg-Saron remaining down before phase two begins because you will immediately be swarmed by tentacles. If you are using Freya and your sanity gets low the green beams on the sides of the room will restore your sanity.
Crusher Tentacle: Melees hard, has a ton of HP and has an aura that reduces damage done by the raid by 20%, stacks with other crusher tentacles so these must go down fast. Melee-ing these will interrupt their aura but they gain a temporary buff that increases their damage and attack speed when they are hit so this is dangerous if they are being DPS'd.
Corruptor Tentacle: Casts various debuffs, Curse of Doom, Apathy, Draining Poison and Black Plague. Dispellers will need to be on the ball. These are interruptable.
Constrictor Tentacle: These have very little HP and appear underneath random players, grab them and hoist them into the air doing damage every few seconds until killed.
Sara will hover above Yogg-Saron's main body casting various abilities such as Psychosis, Brain Link and Malady of the Mind as well as Death Ray which is similar to Kologarn's Eye Beam but will instantly kill you on being touched.
Every 90 seconds or so Portals will open into Yogg-Saron's mind. All melee DPS must take the portals. Do not take the portal if your sanity is low you will lose sanity the longer you are below. You will see one of three random illusion rooms along with some disguised tentacles and laughing skulls floating around the room. The skulls cast Lunatic Gaze so you must strafe around the room with your back to the skulls at all times. The illusion will shatter once you kill all the tentacles in the room. Melee must then run into the brain room and try to get some DPS on the brain before taking the portal back up. The Brain begins a 60 second induce madness cast when the portals open so the melee must complete their task and get whatever DPS they can on the brain within 60 seconds or they will emerge from Yogg-Saron's mind insane. After four portal phases the spawn rate of Yogg-Saron's tentacles increases to levels completely impossible to keep up with.
Phase 2 ends when the Brain is killed. This removes the invulnerability from Yogg-Saron's main body.
Phase Three: This is a burn phase, if you took three portal phases to defeat Yogg-Saron's Brain the 15-minute hard berserk timer on the encounter will become a very constricting factor and you will generally have no more than 5-6 minutes to complete this phase before Yogg-Saron berserks and one shots the entire raid ala Archimonde. Yogg-Saron will have 16.5 million HP left on 25-man and 3.3 million HP on 10-man. Tentacles will stop spawning, any up will remain. Faceless Immortal Guardians that hit very hard will spawn very rapidly in this phase. You must pick up and kill the Immortal Guardians(or burn Yogg-Saron extremely fast if you are not using Thorim) while also keeping enough DPS on Yogg-Saron to kill him within 5 minutes. Sara's abilities continue. Yogg-Saron will begin to cast Lunatic Gaze in this phase so DPS must be ready to avert their eyes. Yogg-Saron will also heal the faceless ones with empowering shadows. It is reccomended to save Bloodlust for this phase.
Algalon the Observer
Guild hasn't cleared this boss yet
-Important to note that I have taken information from WoWWiki.com and my guild's site for all non-healer information I needed since tanking and dps'ing aren't roles that I play in.
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