Pandaria, her hills of gold, in dark and mournful times of old, did once a hopeless horror hold.
When from her sacred veil did spring, with storm and flash, a monstrous thing, his name Lei-Shen, the Thunder King.
His thunder boomed across the land, and none who dared and fought could stand, against the iron tyrant's hand.
A palace grand, a walled domain, such mighty works born of his reign, built by slaves, their hearts in chains.
But seasons change and tyrants die, his fury spent in times gone by, the thunder slept beneath Kun Lai.
By Zandalari hands he has been taken, by Zandalari voice he has awakened.
Exhumed's heroes came to pwn, the Thunder King's gone, the Thunder King's gone.

Last week my guild, Exhumed, killed the Thunder King, server 21st, EU 7880 and world 12474. In the grand scheme of things nothing fantastic but for a guild that raids for only 6 hours a week in a casually hard-core style I’m proud as hell of the 14 guys and gals that got us the kill. It means that we’ve got the “Ahead of the Curve” achievement for the 2nd straight tier and something that we were not able to do at all prior to Mists. Sure were rocked in Dragon Soul but that was only AFTER the nerfs came in and we took Deathwing HC down literally 2 hours before Mists launched. 

Heroic modes now await us until the Siege of Orgrimmar arrives to occupy our attention and that is something of a dilemma for me, not because I don’t think we are capable (our blitz through the first 11 bosses in less than 3 hours this week is proof that we are more than ready) but rather the way Blizzard has the HC bosses tuned. The order goes something like:

1. Jin'rokh the Breaker (1st boss)
2. Ji-Kun (6th boss)
3. Horridon (2nd boss)
4. Tortos (4th boss)
5. Iron Qon (10th boss)
6. Council of Elders (3rd boss)
7. Twin Consorts (11th boss)
8. Megaera (8th boss)
9. Durumu the Forgotten (7th boss)
10. Primordius (8th boss)
11. Dark Animus (9th boss)
12. Lei Shen (12th boss)

This means that for optimal progression you need to waste a lot of opportunities especially this late on in the tier of killing HC bosses. I am likely to not bother attempting Ji’kun heroic because we could spend time more wisely by going straight to Horridon after Jin’rohk dies on HC mode despite the fact we lose HC tier legs. Likewise once Horridon HC dies the council at 6th toughest doesn’t seem worth passsing by to go to Tortos HC because of the HC tier gloves there.

All in all the HC progression should be linear if the instance is linear. However that begs the question should raids be linear (as every raid instance in Mists has been), winged like Naxxramas and ICC was or more freestyle like Ulduar and Firelands was?

My personal preference is freestyle like Ulduar/Firelands it means progression in HCs can be more illogical without the need to kill normal mode bosses get to the HC boss you want to try next. I also prefer this layout for normal modes as it gives you options to vary the route you take and if there are a few “optional” bosses along the way it allows you to miss them out completely if nobody needs loot from them and therefore gives you more time to work on progression.

If you were able to design your perfect raid what style would you have? Would you bosses rise in difficulty in a logical order on heroic modes? Would you have optional bosses in normal mode?

more »

The Dark Animus encounter is a very different fight and seems very chaotic as in addition to the boss there are a large number of adds called golems and killing a golem causes the nearest inactive golem (including the boss) to activate. This is because of Anima, the resource that animates the golems and the boss.

• 25 Anima Golems (max 4 anima, 4 anima on pull);
• 8 Large Anima Golems (max 8 anima, 0 anima on pull);
• 2 Massive Anima Golems (max 36 anima, 0 anima on pull);
• 1 Dark Animus (max 100 anima, 0 anima on pull);

The Dark Animus has several abilities which are unlocked by Anima level and at 100% he will wipe the raid.

We need to balance killing enough golems to minimise damage while minimising the amount of Anima being transferred to the Dark Animus.

WTF is Anima?
Anima is the energy source of the golems, much like our blood. All types of golems, and the Dark Animus, have Anima pools of different sizes. When one golem is killed, its Anima automatically jumps to the nearest golem who has room in its Anima pool to accommodate the new Anima.

There is always 100 Anima, shared between the boss and the golems.

Anima Golems
There are 25 Anima Golems, these have an Anima pool of 4 and at the start of the fight their pool is full. Anima Golems melee their main aggro target, and they have a single ability, called Acceleration Link. When an Anima Golem is within 2 yards of another Anima Golem, they both receive a damage and attack speed incrase of 250%.

13 of the 25 Anima Golems are disabled these do not attack and cannot be killed and therefore the Dark Animus will start draining them when he becomes active.

Large Anima Golems
There are 8 Large Anima Golems, these have an Anima pool of 8, and they all start out with 0 Anima. When a Large Anima Golem receives 8 Anima, it becomes active, and it uses its only ability, Crimson Wake, a very damaging void zone that lasts for 30 seconds, and fixates on a random raid member, following them.
3 of the Large Anima Golems are disabled these do not attack and cannot be killed and therefore the Dark Animus will start draining them when he becomes active.

Massive Anima Golems
There are 2 Massive Anima Golems, these have an Anima pool of 36 and they all start out with 0 Anima. When a Massive Anima Golem receives any Anima, it becomes active. They have two abilities.

• Matter Swap: a dispellable 12 second debuff which when dispelled (or after 12 seconds) the victim has their position swapped with the raid member farthest away from them and damage equal to the victim's max HP is split between the two players, the of damage is dependant on the time remaining on the debuff;
• Explosive Slam: a frontal attack dealing damage to all players within 12 yards that causes them to take increased damage from future Explosive Slams;

There are no disabled Massive Anima Golems

Dark Animus
The Dark Animus has an Anima Pool of 100 and he starts out with 0 Anima. When the Dark Animus receives any Anima, it activates. The Dark Animus 2 main abilities and 3 others that activate at 10, 25 and 75 anima.

• Siphon Anima: every 6 seconds, he drains 1 Anima from any golems in the room that have Anima;
• Touch of the Animus: an undispellable DoT cast on a random raid member, which deals Fire damage every 4 seconds;
• Anima Ring: at 10 Anima he creates a ring of spheres around the tank, which closes in on the target. Coming in contact with a sphere consumes it, applying a stack of a debuff that increases damage taken from melee attacks by 50% for 15 seconds.
• Anima Font: at 25 Anima he casts this on a random player which causes AoE damage to allies in a small area around them.
• Interrupting Jolt: at 75 Anima he casts a raid wide AoE attack that also interupts spellcasting AND silences 9 seconds.

Optimal Dark Animus Activation
Before activating the Dark Animus, you want to have a Massive Anima Golem at 36 Anima so it takes the Dark Animus 36 casts of Siphon Anima (3 minutes 36 seconds) to drain all the Anima from that golem, and reach 100 Anima.

The optimal activation is to bring one Massive Anima Golem to 36 Anima, then kill an Anima Golem next to the Dark Animus to activate the boss with 4 Anima.

• After 24 seconds, the Dark Animus will be at 68 Anima and all adds except the Massive Anima Golem will be deactivated.
• After 66 seconds, the Dark Animus will be at 75 Anima and he will gain Interrupting Jolt.
• After 216 seconds, the Dark Animus will have drained all the Anima and he will wipe the raid.

Strategy
This strategy ignores the Large Golems and their annoying Crimson Wake ability which greatly simplifies fight.

At the pull assign a golem to all players (2 to each tank) and stay spread apart.

The Anima Golems need to be killed slowly in order so their Anima jumps to a Massive Anima Golem which will need to be tanked when it activates.

Tank the Massive Anima Golem in the middle of the room killing the Anima Golems near it sso that it fills completely once at this is full the Dark Animus needs to be activated.

Use DPS cooldowns and burn down the Dark Animus while tanking the the Massive Anima Golem.

Dispel Matter Swap after 5 or 6 seconds so the damage is shared equally between the two players. Dispelling too early would cause the victim to take most of the damage, while dispelling too late would cause the victims partner to take most of the damage.

Avoid being hit by Explosive Slam (the affected area on the ground is clearly indicated).

Make sure the tank affected by Anima Ring has a path cleared by a melee DPS so the tank can run out of the ring.

If you are targeted by Anima Font spread out from other raiders.

Do not to cast when Interrupting Jolt is being cast.

DPS Priority
/dance with your Anima Golem until it needs to be killed to fill up the Massive Anima Golem and the do nothing until the boss is activated. Once the boss is activated all DPS focus is on the Dark Animus as we need the Massive Anima Golem alive to give us maximum time.

Healing Concerns
There is nothing overly taxing for healers during the fight, the biggest issue is range on the pull so healers should be evenly spread around the room and for this reason it is safer to run with 3 healers.
However, healers must ensure that they dispel Atter Swap after 5 or 6 seconds and also that they do not get silenced by Interupting Jolt. more »

Overview

Primordius is a simple single-phase fight, Primordius will take only 75% of your normal damage however, you can buff your stats (and therefore your damage) by standing in red void zones left behind after killing the ooze adds that spawn continuosly during the fight, (they have no aggro table and do not attack players, they simply move to the boss and will buff him when they hit him). This will randomly give you increases in stats, haste, mastery, and critical rating. If you reach 5 stacks of these buffs you will get the Fully Mutated buff enabling full damage to be dealt to Primordius for 2 minutes. Once Fully Mutated you will need to avoid the void zones as they now give you a stat debuff

Abilities

Primordius only has two abilities and a buff.

• Primordial Strike is a frontal cone attack cast every 20 seconds;
• Malformed Blood is a stacking debuff that Primordius applies to the tank that deals Nature damage every 3 seconds forcing a tank switch;
• Mutated Abomination is a buff that causes Primordius to take 25% reduced damage from players not Fully Mutated;

Temporary Abilities

Primordius has an mutation bar which increases slowly over time and speeds up when a Living Fluid reaches him. Whenever the mutation bar reaches 100%, the boss permanently gains a stack of a Evolution, which increases his damage done by 10%, and his mutation is reset to 0. Each time the boss gains a new stack of Evolution, he randomly gains one of the following abilities:

• Ventral Sacs: a raid-wide AoE ability that deals Nature damage every second.
• Caustic Gas: causes Primordius to deal a very large amount of Nature damage in a 25 yards radius around him that is shared between all players;
• Acidic Spines: a single target attack that deals splash damage to players within 10 yards;
• Volatile Pathogen: places a debuff called Pathogen Glands on random raid members that deals 100k damage per second for 10 seconds;
• Metabolic Boost: a 50% haste buff that also reduces his ability cooldown by 50%;
• Erupting Pustules: a non-targeted ranged attack that deals Nature damage in random areas of the room.

Primordius can not have more than 3 of these abilities active at one time and upon gaining the 4th Evolution he will lose the oldest ability.

Living Fluids and Player Buffs

Living Fluid adds will spawn from the edges of the room and simply head straight for the boss. They have very low health and they cannot be stunned or slowed. When it reaches Primordius, the boss gains a certain amount of mutation, pushing him closer to the next level of Evolution.

Killing a Living Fluid leaves behind one of two void zones.

• >Mutagenic Pools are small red void zones that provide beneficial buffs to players who stand in them;
• >Volatile Pools are large damaging purple void zones that move slowly towards Primordius, buffing him if they reach him;

Standing in a Mutagenic Pool gives a stack of one of the following buffs (at random):

• Thick Bones grants a 5% increase in all stats.
• Clear Mind grants a 10% increase in Mastery.
• Improved Synapses grants 10% increase in Haste.
• Keen Eyesight grants a 10% increase in Critical Strike chance.

When a player reaches a combined total of 5 stacks of these buffs, they gain a 2-minute buff, called Fully Mutated. This renews the timer on the previous buffs and transforms the player into a Saurok. While Fully Mutated standing in a Mutagenic Pool will apply a stack of one of the following 5 minute debuffs (at random):

• Fragile Bones reduces all stats by 10%.
• Clouded Mind reduces Mastery by 20%.
• Dulled Synapses reduces Haste by 20%.
• Impaired Eyesight reduces Critical Strike chance by 20%.

Dispelling players is possible, but a single dispel will remove all mutations from that player.

Volatile Pools

If Primordius hits a Volatile Pool he instantly gains a new stack of Evolution, and he is healed for 10% of his maximum health. If a player comes in contact with one of these void zones, they take a large amount of damage and receive one of the debuffs mentioned above. The Volatile Pools move very slowly towards Primordius' location.

Strategy

The strategy for this fight is extremely simple, and we will summarise it before going into more details.

• All DPS players who are not Fully Mutated kill Living Fluids, and absorb the Mutagenic Pools to gain mutation stacks;
• All DPS players who are Fully Mutated exclusively DPS Primordius;
• No adds to be killed near Primordius to avoid a Volatile Pool healing Primordius for 10% of his health;
• Tanks face Primordius away from the raid, and alternate tanking him, in order not to let the stacks of Malformed Blood get too high.
• The tank who is not currently tanking Primordius should be attacking the Living Fluids, as Malformed Blood grants increased damage against these adds.
• Kite Primordius away from any Volatile Pools that are coming his way.
• Ventral Sacs requires the healers to heal a large amount of raid damage.
• Caustic Gas requires EVERYONE to be within 25 yards of Primordius, to split the damage between them.
• Acidic Spines requires players to spread out at least 5 yards apart.
• Pathogen Glands requires the targeted random raid members to be healed intensely.
• Erupting Pustules requires raid members to avoid the falling projectiles.

DPS Priority
Kill adds until Fully Mutated, DPS boss while Fully Mutated. more »

Ji-Kun is a fight of 2 halves. The platform fight and the nests fights. This is a fight with a steep learning curve and only once the nest teams have mastered their task will success occur.

The Platform Fight
On the platform Ji-Kun uses SIX abilities:
1) Infected Talons is a stacking Nature damage DoT.
2) Talon Rake applies a debuff which causes the target to take increased damage from Talon Rake for 1 minute.
3) Down Draft is a spell that Ji-Kun casts roughly every 2 minutes. It is a channeled spell that pushes all players away from Ji-Kun for 8 seconds. Players must run towards Ji-Kun to avoid being pushed back.
4) Caw is a nuke that Ji-Kun casts often which deal damage in an 8-yard radius of their point of impact.
5) Quills is a raid-wide AoE attack that Ji-Kun channels for 8 seconds roughly every one minute that deals damage to ALL players.

Feed Young
The sixth ability is Feed Young is regularly cast throughout the fight to feed the Hatchlings in the nests below. When there are no Hatchlings alive Feed Young is cast on the platform and leaves leaving a green void zone upon landing. These void zones have several characteristics.

Standing in a void zone for 3 seconds causes players to become Slimed which is a DoT and a debuff causing them to take increased damage from further applications of Slimed that is only removed when Ji-Kun dies. If a player who is flying intercepts the food thrown by Ji-Kun while it is in the air, they prevent the void zone from spawning, and they gain a stack of a 30-second buff called Primal Nutriment, which increases damage and healing done.

When Feed Young lands at the location of the Hatchlings, they begin to eat for 10 seconds and if they're still alive after this, they become more powerful adds called Fledgelings.

The Nests Fight
Below Ji-Kun's platform are 5 nests, with several unattackable and untargetable eggs. When the nest is activated, these eggs spawn 4 Hatchlings who have a single ability which causes a small amount of damage to their target. When they hatch, the Hatchlings call for food, and Ji-Kun's next Feed Young targets them. If they turn into Fledgelings, they deal much higher damage and after a while, the Fledgelings lay eggs which will spawn Juveniles.

The 3 nests above Ji-Kun's platform contain Mature Eggs of Ji-Kun. When one of these nests is activated, Juveniles will hatch out after 20 seconds. After hatching, Juveniles fly above the raid and throw balls of slime, which also leave behind void zones. The Juveniles are out of range from the platform and as the void zones act as a soft enrage, Juveniles must be prevented from hatching.
Nest Activation
When the fight starts, the north-eastern lower nest activates and every 30 seconds the until the end of the fight, a nest activates. Nests activate in a clockwise direction and sometimes, both a lower and an upper nest activates together.

The order of activation is:
00:30 -> lower nest.
01:00 -> lower nest.
01:30 -> lower nest.
02:00 -> upper nest.
02:30 -> upper nest.
03:00 -> upper nest.
03:30 -> lower nest.
04:00 -> lower nest.
04:30 -> lower + an upper nests.
05:00 -> upper nest.
05:30 -> upper nest.

This order repeats but Ji-Kun will most likely be dead or wipe the raid should it last too much longer.

Moving to Nests
To get to the lower nests you can run and jump off of Ji-Kun's platform, if you miss the nest you are carried slowly back up to the platform.

You can also fly between nests by running over a feather dropped by a hatchling when it dies and you will get a buff with 4 charges, called Daedalian Wings and an extra action button with the ability Flight. Using Flight allows you to fly (orly?) but only for 10 seconds, removes 1 charge of Daedalian Wings and you are prevented from using flight again for 15 seconds. If your Flight buff ends while you are still flying, you will not take fall damage.

You can only pick up a feather once per minute.

Strategy
Basics:

• You need 2 tanks to allow the Infected Talons and Talon Rake debuffs not to get out of control;
• You need 2 nest groups of 2 DPS and 1 healer to go to the nests and rotate them;
• Spreadout on Ji-Kun's platform to minimise damage from Caw;
• Stand as close to Ji-Kun when she is about to cast Down Draft and run towards her;
• If you have spare Flight stacks intercept as many of the balls of slime that Ji-Kun throws to prevent the Feed Pools from spawning, and  for the damge buff;
• Despawn Feed Pools on the platform by standing inside them for 3 seconds;

Nest Teams
00:30 -> lower nest -> Team 1
01:00 -> lower nest -> Team 2
01:30 -> lower nest -> Team 1.
02:00 -> upper nest -> Team 1.
02:30 -> upper nest -> Team 1.
03:00 -> upper nest -> Team 1.
03:30 -> lower nest -> Team 1.
04:00 -> lower nest -> Team 1.
04:30 -> lower -> Team 2 + an upper nests -> Team 1.
05:00 -> upper nest -> Team 1.
05:30 -> upper nest -> Team 1.

After clearing the nests, teams should return to the platform and spread out to minimise Caw damage.

Everyone be close to Ji-Kun and run towards her when she casts Down Draft and use any movement-speed-increasing abilities to help keep you on the platform. The nest teams should NOT use charges of Flight unless they have just returned from a nest.

Maximising DPS
Players with Flight should to fly up in the air when Ji-Kun casts Feed Young on her platform, and intercept balls of slime when they can as this will boost their DPS.

Heroism /Time Warp should be used towards the end of the fight as things begin to get messy.

Healing Concerns
The only healing concern is quills. The cooldown on this matches Spirit Shell perfectly and therefore a Discipline Priest is awesome during this part. If there is no discipline priest available your healers should use raid cooldowns during this phase.

Because the nest teams are also vulnerable to quills, players not on the platform when quills is cast should use personal defense cooldowns and may need emergency treatment when they finally land back on the platform. more »

OVERVIEW
Durumu the Forgotten is three-phase fight. The phases are.

1. The Normal Phase: Durumu uses his less harmful abilities during this time.
2. The Colorblind Phase: at 0:30, 3:30, 6:30 and 9:30 Durumu targets 2 raid members with a differently coloured cone of light. Each player will have to "kite" the cones around the platform until they reveal 3 invisible adds which must be killed to end the phase.
3. The Disintegration Beam/Maze Phase: at 2:30, 5:30  and 8:30 Durumu will enter the Disintegration Beam/Maze Phase where he channels a deadly beam of light in front of him and slowly rotate around the platform for 1 minute. The floor of the room is covered in extremely damaging ground effects with only a small safe zone which moves slowly around the room and makes the maze which players must stand in to survive.

Durumu: Abilities
Durumu is a turret he cannot be moved from the centre of his platform and if there is nobody in melee range, he will cast Gaze that deals raid wide damage that will eventually wipe the raid.

He has 4 main abilities that he uses during the Normal and Colorblind Phases.

• Hard Stare: a damaging attack cast on the tank that deals damage and applies two debuffs to the target;
• Serious Wound: a stacking heal reduceing debuff;
• Arterial Cut: a bleed effect that is removed when the target is healed to max HP;
• Force of Will: an conal knockback cast on a random player that effects any player standing in this cone;
• Lingering Gaze: a spell cast at 2 random raid members that deals damage in a 15-yard radius when they land and also creates a void zone. Standing in the void zone casues the player to take damage and get a slowing debuff;
• Life Drain: he summons a Hungry Eye which channels Life Drain on a random raid member for 15 seconds, dealing ever increasing damage to the victim every second, and healing Durumu for the life drained. This can be intercepted by placing themselves between the Hungry Eye and the victim which causes the Hungry Eye to drain life from the second player instead.

Colourblind Phase
After 30 seconds and then every 3 minutes Durumu enters the 2nd or "Colorblind" Phase which lasts until the raid finds and kills 3 Crimson Fogs. During this phase Durumu uses all the abilities from the 1st phase.

When the Colorblind Phase starts, three random raid members will be targeted by a red beam, a blue beam, and a yellow beam. After a few seconds, the beams turn into three differently-colored cones of light are created on the floor of Durumu's circular platform: a red cone, a blue cone, and a yellow cone.

The red and blue cones are centered around the players targeted by the red and blue beams respectively, and follow the players around as they move. The yellow cone moves around either clockwise or counter-clockwise (it is chosen randomly).

Players standing in the cones share the damage it deals and if nobody joins the targeted player inside a cone, the raid will take huge damage from that cone.

Finding the Fog Beasts
The Fog Beasts can only be found by moving the matching cloured cone of the light over them. The blue cone will find the Azure Fog, the red cone will find the Crimson Fogs and phase ends when all 3 Crimson Fogs are dead. If the cone is moved past the Fog Beast's location before it is dead, the Fog Beast will go invisible.

Once revealed, the Crimson Fog casts Caustic Spike on random raid members until it dies, the Azure Fog casts Icy Grasp which deals ever increasing damage and respawns immediately after being killed.

Maze Phase

After 2 minutes and 30 seconds Durumu will start channeling Disintegration Beam Precast for the first 8 seconds the beam is harmless and the floor of the room slowly gets covered by Eye Sores which initially cover a random circular sector representing 1/12th of the room before it expands clockwise or counter-clockwise direction (the direction is random) and covers an additional 1/12th of the room every second until the entire room is covered.

After the Eye Sores hit the Disintegration Beam, you will see two safe zones forming next to the beam. One safe zone is close to the boss and the other is further away. The Disintegration Beam will now be "armed" and instantly kill anyone it hits.

The safe zones keep moving with the beam so players simply need to move through the maze to avoid taking damage from the Disintegration Beam or the Eye Sores. Durumu also deals moderate amounts of damage to random raid members but uses no other special abilities or attacks.

Strategy
The first phase is pretty much a tank and spank. The tanks need to switch so Serious Wound does not stack too high so the healers can easily keep the tanks at full health so Arterial Cut damage is minimised.

Players should drop the void zones left behind by Lingering Gaze on the outer edge of the platform and everybody should move out of the  cones created by Force of Will which will kill them as they get knocked off the platform.
When players are targeted by Life Drain, everybody should try to interupt the beam between the player and the Hungry Eye to reduce the healing Durumu receives.

During the Colourblind Phase, the raid must reveal and kill 3 Crimson Fogs as quickly as possible, so the Colorblind Phase is over quickly.

When Durumu casts the 3 beams on the random players the locations of the 4 Fogs are shown by a circle of red/blue fog for a second or two. Someone should mark these locations especially that of the blue fog.

The raid should split evenly between the three cones to even out the damage:

• Melee should stack in the red cone;
• Healers should stack in the blue cone;
• Tanks/ranged should stack in the yellow cone;

Everybody should stand as close to Durumu as they can so the healers can have all of the raid in range.

The player targeted by the red cone must move around the platform to the locations of each Crimson Fog and stand still until it has been killed, before moving on to the next one.

The player targeted by the blue cone should move to the designated blue cone spot (unless the Azure Fog is at that location) so the Azure Fog is not revealed.

The player kiting the red cone should move the opposite direction to the yellow cone and and when moving the red cone through the blue/yellow cones do it as fast as possible to minise incoming damage. The kiter should also NEVER let the 3 beams cross at the same time as this will cause the whole raid to take huge damage.

During the maze phase, mark a player who knows how to move during this phase, and simply ask the rest of the raid to follow them.survival is the key, stand in the safe zone, do not take risks and do not panic the beam will be right up your ass most of the time DPS should be done but getting through the phase safely is more important.

Keys to Success

• Getting through the Colourblind Phase quickly by killing 3 Crimson Fogs and NOT revealing the Azure Fog;
• Surviving the Disintegration Beam Phase;

more »

Megaera is a hydra, and we never get to attack Megaera herself only her heads. To kill her, we need to kill 7 heads to defeat Megaera.

Megaera has three different types of heads.

• Venomous Heads(green) deal Nature damage;
• Flaming Heads (red) deal Fire damage;
• Frozen Heads (blue) deal Frost damage;

Megaera's heads can be in one of two places near the platform or at the back of the cave.

1. Near the platform: 2 heads (each of a different type) will be near the platform and can be attacked and killed, and they deal damage to the raid;
2. At the back of the cave: When one of the heads near the platform is killed, two heads of the same type will spawn at the back of the cave. These heads cannot be attacked or damaged by the raid, and will deal damage to the raid through a special ability;

When one of the two heads near the platform is killed, the remaining head submerges, and then re-emerges together with a new head. The new head will always be of a different type than the one we had just killed.

Strategy

When the fight starts, we will want to focus the raid's DPS on one of the two existing heads. Have the two tanks each pick up one of the two heads, and tank them facing away from the raid. The heads have a HUGE hit box allowing melee to spread out by being at max melee range the ranged and healers should also spread out with DPS at max range from the head while healers fill the spread out in the gap between melee and ranged.


When one head dies, the raid should stack up close to one of the heads, to allow AoE heals during the 20 seconds of Rampage. DPS should continue to nuke the head that is to be killed.

After 20 seconds, Rampage will end and we can spread out again. Tanks should switch between these two heads.

The raid will now have to dea with the special abilities cast by the heads at the back of the cave.

You MUST move away from the impact location of Acid Rain to minimise the damage taken 15-20 yards away is enough.

If you are afflicted by Cinders you MUST run to the drop zone or over any Icy Ground void zones available and then be dispelled in a safe location. DO NOT run to the sides or you will get breathed upon and take avoidable damage.

If you are chased by Torrent of Ice you MUST run from the beam of ice AWAY from the raid and IF possible, kite over any existing fiery void zones to extinguish them. DO NOT run to the sides or you will get breathed upon and take avoidable damage.

Continue DPSing the heads one at a time, while handling the mechanics cast by the heads at the back of the cave, and the increasing damage we will have to endure.

Tanking Concerns

Tanks have a relatively simple task during this fight. While Rampage is being cast, there is no task that tanks must perform, and they should continue to stack with the rest of the raid while attacking the head that is the current DPS target.

Shortly before Rampage ends, the two tanks should each go to one of the two heads, and they should prepare to start tanking them. As soon as Rampage ends, the other two heads will begin to melee and cast their frontal cone attacks.

These two tanks will need to switch the heads they are tanking each time a head dies, and during the subsequent Rampage. Tanks should be using defensive cooldowns if taking a third breaths. The head that the raid is focusing should be dead before a 4th breath ever comes.

Dealing with Back of the Cave Abilities

Acid Rain

Acid Rain is the easiest special to deal with as all you must do is move away quickly from the impact location. Certain classes can afford not to move if they use Magic damage-reducing abilities like Anti-Magic Shell or Cloak of Shadows.

Cinders

If you are afflicted by Cinders you MUST run to the drop zone or over any Icy Ground void zones available and then be dispelled in a safe location. DO NOT run to the sides or you will get breathed upon and take avoidable damage.

The damage of the Cinders DoT is quite high, healers may be forced to dispel you early to stop you dying if you slack at moving and/or spreading out this can cause wipes.

Torrent of Ice

If chased by Torrent of Ice you must run from it immediately or die. NEVER run it through other raid members, and especially not over the place where the raid is stacked. If there are any fiery void zones from Cinders that you can safely run over you should kite the beam over them to despawn them.

Kill Order

Unkilled heads get a stack of Hydra Frenzy and this means if we allow a head to go unkilled all fight it will have 220% attack speed. However with good healing we should be able to deal with that. Therefore the preferred kill order is:

Green - Red - Green - Red - Green - Red - Green - Red

This allows us to not have to deal with the most annoying special ability, Torrent of Ice.

However, if the tanks and healers are unable to deal with that we will need to kill the blue head and the kill order then becomes:

Green - Red - Green - Red - Blue - Red - Green

This will mean that we risk having a healer kiting during the most damaging times but does mean less healing on the tanks.

Healing Concerns

This is a very healing-intensive encounter which starts out with relatively low damage, but this damage continues to increase as the fight goes on.

The periods of highest raid damage are during Rampage and for best results the raid should stack up, and healing and defensive cooldowns MUST be used.

After the first Rampage, the raid may need to move while stacking, to avoid Acid Rain, and some raid members will need to move out if targeted by Cinders or Torrent of Ice.

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Tortos is a static boss with a single phase. Tortos has 6 main abilities:

1. Furious Stone Breath is cast once his Fury reaches 100. This deals massive raid-wide damage and so MUST be interrupted by kicking a Whirl Turtle at Tortos.
2. Rockfall is an ability that causes stalactites to fall from the roof of the cave, dealing high damage to players within 5 yards and lower damage to anyone within 20 yardsof the point of impact, which are clearly marked several seconds in advance, by blue circles.
3. Quake Stomp is an ability that stuns all players for 1 second, and deals 65% of maximum HP as Physical damage and increasing the frequency of Rockfall for 8 seconds.
4. Snapping Bite is a highly damaging ability used on the tank roughly every 8-10 seconds and deals a large amount of Physical damage.
5. Growling Fury is cast if there is no one in melee range of Tortos which increases his fury generation therefore reducing the cooldown on Furious Stone Breath.
6. Whirl Turtles will be cast every 60 seconds and summons 3 adds which cannot be tanked.

Whirl Turtles deal damage to players within 5 yards and a knock back. They can be attacked by melee players from farther away than 5 yards due to their large hitboxes. When a Whirl Turtle is close to dying, it casts Shell Block making it immune to damage and it becomes harmless and stops moving.

When this happens it can be kicked using the extra action button all players are given during this fight. This ability is only available when the player is close to a Shell Blocking turtle. Using the extra action button kicks the turtle in the direction that the player is facing.

Using Kick Shell causes the turtle to fly through the air. When it comes into contact with an enemy, the turtle interrupts their spell cast and debuffs them with Shell Concussion for 20 seconds, causing them to take 25% increased damage. Kicking turtles in this way is essential for interrupting Tortos' Furious Stone Breath. As 3 Whirl Turtles spawn every minute and Tortos casts 1 Furious Stone Breath every 45 seconds there should always be enough turtles to kick, you should never run out of Turtles to interrupt these casts.

Every 30 seconds a group of Vampiric Cave Bats enters the room. The bats have normal aggro tables and their only special ability is Drain the Weak which deals a small amount of damage but heals each bat for 50x the damage dealt IF the target has <350k hp="" nbsp="" p="" remaining.="">
The strategy is ridiculously simple but execution of this needs to be flawless:

• Tanks: MT tanks Tortos the OT should pick up the bats and tank them next to Tortos.
• Melee DPS: focus on killing Tortos and the bats and when the turtles spawn should try to get a few hits and apply slows
• Ranged DPS: focus all DPS on Whirl Turtles and only DPS Tortos when no Whirl Turtles are still up.
• Healers: Keep MT above 65% HP and OT above 360K HP.
• A ranged DPS/healer should be assigned to kicking a Whirl Turtle at the Tortos to interrupt every Furious Stone Breath.
• Everyone: avoid the falling stalactites caused by Rockfall.
• Everyone: use personal defensive abilities if your HP is below 70% when Quake Stomp is about to be cast.

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The Council of Elders is a single-phase encounter during which you must defeat four Trolls: Frost King Malakk, Kazra'jin, Sul the Sandcrawler, and High Priestess Mar'li. They are helped by the spirit of Gara'jal the Spiritbinder by empowering one of them at a time which eventually starts channeling an ability that deals heavy raid-wide damage. To break the empowerment, the raid must remove 25% of the troll's HP, which forces a new Troll to get empowered.

Frost King Malakk has two abilities:

1. Frigid Assault deals Frost damage to the tank and also applies a stacking debuff on them. The debuff does nothing before it reaches 15 stacks. When this happens, the tank becomes stunned for 15 seconds. Dealing with this debuff requires a tank switch.
2. Biting Cold is cast at a random player, which deals Frost damage to the targeted player and causes them to deal Frost damage every 2 seconds to all allies within 4 yards. This effect lasts 30 seconds.

When Malakk is empowered, Biting Cold becomes Frostbite which targets a random raid member and deals Frost damage to them, applies 5 stacks of Frostbite which causes the player to deal Frost damage every second to all allies within 4 yards for 30 seconds. The damage dealt to the afflicted players and the allies within 4 yards is multiplied by the number of stacks.

To reduce the number of stacks to 1 (and avoid death) 2 players should stand within 4 yards of the afflicted player will cause the afflicted player to lose 2 stacks of the debuff;

Kazra'jin has 1 main ability:

1. Reckless Charge, causes him to rush towards a random player, damaging everyone in his path and knocking back players who are still at the targeted location when he arrives. When Kazra'jin is empowered, he becomes stunned for 20 seconds, during which he will reflect 50% of the damage he takes.

Sul the Sandcrawler has two abilities: 

1. Sand Bolt deals Nature damage to a random victim and anyone within 5 yards of them. This ability can and should be interrupted.
2. Quicksand is a void zone that deals Nature damage to anyone standing in it and applies a stack of Ensnared that reduces their movement speed, if they reach 5 stacks Entrapped for 30 seconds.

When empowered, Sul casts Sandstorm every 40 seconds which transforms Quicksand into a Living Sand add that melee attack. When a Living Sand dies, it leaves behind a Quicksand pool.

High Priestess Mar'li has two abilities:

1. Wrath of the Loa is an interuptable spell that targets a random raid member and deals Holy damage to them.
2. Blessed Loa Spirit runs towards the troll with the lowest remaining HP and will heal them for 10% of their max HP if it reaches them (or after 20 seconds). The spirit can be slowed and rooted.

When Mar'li is empowered she casts Shadowed Loa Spirit that fixates on a random raid member if it reaches it target (or after 20 seconds) the victim will die. The spirit can be slowed and rooted.

Positioning

• spread out 7 yards;
• when Kazra'jin charges, he will turn towards his target giving everyone time to get out of the way;
• when Frost King Malakk is empowered, 2 players should move to within 4 yards of the target of Frostbite;
• melee players, will simply have to contend with more damage taken and will often need to move to avoid the charges from Kazra'jin and the Quicksand pools.
• unless Mar'li is empowered noody should be near her except her tank;

Tanking Concerns

• One of the tanks will take High Priestess Mar'li and the other Sul the Sandcrawler.
• Tanks will need to alternate tanking Frost King Malakk, to avoid getting 15 stacks of Frigid Assault.
• The non Malakk tank should pick up the Living Sands.

Healing Concerns

• The  Malakk tank will take higher damage
• When Sandstorm occurs BOTH tanks will be taking a lot of damage
• If a boss gets 100 Dark Energy, they will start casting Dark Power and the damage it deals increase by 10% every cast which can cause raid wide dmage to get out of control.
• When Kazra'jin is empowered you should expect to use a few healing cooldowns.

DPS Concerns

The DPS priority for the fight is the following:

1. Shadowed Loa Spirit;
2. Living Sands;
3. Empowered boss if Dark Power is over 50;
4. Sul
5. Kazra'jin
6. Empowered boss;

Sul should be burned fast to avoid a Sandstorm cast if possible. We found that the DPS loss from killing the Blessed Loa was more than the heal the Blessed Loa delivers and therefore we ignore it and is the reason it is not in the priority list

Boss Kill Order

Sul the Sandcrawler > Kazra'jin> Any

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Just spotted a hotfix blog entry from Blizzard made on the day that I published my whinge at the horrors of healing on Horridon post that has nerfed the encounter a bit more for us 10 man raid teams.

Horridon

• Reduced the health of Farraki Wastewalkers, Gurubashi Venom priests, Drakkari Frozen Warlords, and Amani Warbears in the Horridon encounter by 15% in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Drakkari Frozen Warlord now deals less damage with Mortal Strike in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Risen Drakkari Champions and Warriors now deals less damage with Deadly Plague in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Tortos

• Whirl Turtles now have a reduced base movement speed in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Vampiric Cave Bats now deal less damage in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Both bosses where really rough with many raid compositions and it makes me feel less whinney and more justified now.

However I am baffled by a couple of the other hotfixes:

Council of Elders

• Decreased the power gain rate of possessed council members in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Frost King Malakk now deals less damage with each stack of Frostbite in 10-player Normal difficulty.
• Sul the Sandcrawler now deals less damage with Sandbolt in 10-player Normal difficulty.

Garalon

• Garalon's enrage timer has been increased to 12 minutes, up from 7 minutes in 10-player and 25-player Normal difficulty.

 Neither of these seem justified to me especially the Garalon fix as if the fight lasts more than 7 minutes you'll be hitting the healers out of mana soft enrage anyway. I'll gladly take the Council nerf though as the power gain rate will allow more nuke time on Sul which means a faster death for him and once you're down to 3 elders the fight becomes a faceroll and probably makes it a 2 healer fight already.
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My raid team is 15 people and we run an odd system of "pods" so we have 3 tanks, 3 pure healers, 3 off healers, 3 melee DPS and 3 ranged DPS and rotate people in these pods based on their availability rather than a strict rotation and I'm actually an "off healer" but as my raid team runs with some good DPS, that enables us to run with 3 healers on most fights and allows me to stick primarily to atonement which makes up some of the slack of the missing 6th DPS and allows us that extra security blanket.

On our kills of Horridon in the past few weeks we had a healing team of priest/paladin/druid and priest/paladin/shaman and everything was great. This past week however, we hit a massive issue and actually failed to kill Horridon until 20 minutes before raid end on our 2nd day of attempts. This meant we didn't get a Council kill this week which meant we missed out on a tier piece for the raid. /boo. Why did we have this issue on a "farm" boss?

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Horridon is a messy fight but when broken down into the basics and attention paid to the kill order of the adds becomes a lot easier to understand.

The fight consists of fighting the boss and a variety of adds that spawn from a number of doors around teh arena or from the area above.

We start by pulling Horridon, a big dinosaur who needs to be tanked throughout the encounter. Like most bosses he has 3 main abilities:

1. Triple Puncture applies a stacking debuff that increases the damage taken by Triple Puncture by 10% which forces a tank swap.
2. Double Swipe is a 35-yard conal attack with a 2.5 second cast time that deals damage in front of and behind him. To avoid Double Swipe, players (inc the tanks) should always stay on Horridon's side.
3. Horridon will occassionally charge a raid member and perform a Double Swipe once he reaches them. To ensure the raid don't take damage from the Double Swipe players targeted by Charge should move away to a location from which will require the raid to move as little as possible to avoid Double Swipe.

Before we get to the doors, we'll just take a look at a recurring add, the Zandalari Dinomancer, who will join the fight 1 minute after each door has been opened.

When he joins the fight, he becomes the number 1 DPS priority and needs to be tanked by the OT. While he is above 50% HP, he will try to channel Dino-Mending on Horridon. This MUST be interupted or Horridon is healed for 1% health every second.

When the Dinomancer reaches 50% health, he drops his Orb of Control which needs to be clicked to take control of Horridon and force him to slam into the currently opened Troll door.

40 seconds later the next door will open and a new set of adds spawn.

The Farraki Door

The main things of note here are:

• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid the sand traps;
• Dispel the magic debuffs;
• Group up so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Zandalari Dinomancer > Sul'lithuz Stonegazers > Farraki Wastewalkers > Farraki Skirmishers > Horridon

The Gurubashi Door

Main things of note here are:

• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid the poison pools;
• Interupt the Venom Bolt Volleys cast by the Gurubashi Venom Priest;
• Dispel people with high stacks of the Venom Bolt Volley debuff;
• Group up so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Venomous Effusions > Zandalari Dinomancer > Gurubashi Venom Priests > Gurubashi Bloodlords > Horridon

The Drakkari Door

• Main things of note here are:
• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid the Frozen Orbs;
• Dispel people with high stacks of Deadly Plague;
• Group up so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Zandalari Dinomancer > Drakkari Frozen Warlords > Risen Drakkari Warriors > Risen Drakkari Champions > Horridon (unless he is nearing 30% health)

The Amani Door

Main things of note here are:

• Switch tanks to allow Triple Puncture stacks to drop off;
• Avoid Lightning Nova Totems;
• Amani'shi Flame Caster's Fireball should be interrupted;
• Players need to spread out 5 yards to prevent Chain Lightning from jumping;
• Hex of Confusion should be dispelled;
• Group up (but stay 5 yards apart) so the tank can easily pickup aggro on all adds and enable splash damage to raise DPS;

DPS Priority: Zandalari Dinomancer > Amani'shi Beast Shamans > Amani Warbears > Amani'shi Protectors and Amani'shi Flame Casters > Horridon (unless he is nearing 30% health)

Jalak and Burn Phase

40 seconds after the Amani Door is destroyed, War-God Jalak jumps down into the arena and needs to be off tanked and becomes the focus of all DPS. Jalak should be tanked on Horridon's side and cooldowns used to burn Jalak down fast. As there is high, raid wide damage during this phase, all players excpet the Horridon tank should stack up and if targeted by charge, run to the tank.

After Jalak dies, swap tanks if the stacks of Triple Puncture have dropped off Jalak's tank. and then burn an enraged Horridon who will still do his 3 main abilities.

Priest Tips
As a disc priest the Glyph of Smite is a must here and for both disc and holy Glyph of Mass Dispel is fantstic as it prevents a tick of Blazing Sunlight.

For disc priests atonement healing will give you awesome returns as Horridon takesincreased damage Smite, Power Word: Solace, and Penance spells give you increased damage and bigger heals. 

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This a single-phase, single-target fight and the bosses trademark abitity is called Conductive Water. During the fight, Jin'rokh will summon these void zones one at a time and each one will eventually cover one quarter of the room and so act as an enrage timer.

Standing in Conductive Water will increasing damage done, damage taken and healing received until Jin'rokh changes it into Electrified Waters when it will deal constant damage to anyone standing it. The spawn point of the pools is possibly controllable but the strategies seem unpredictable at present but the pools are placed at the landing position of the victim of Thundering Throw, an ability that Jin'rokh casts at tank 30 seconds into the fight, and every 90 seconds after that.

Every 15 seconds he casts Focused Lightning on a random player which creates an orb of lightning which fixates and moves towards them. When it reaches its target it explodes and deals damage to all players within 8 yards and this damage is increased if standing in Conductive Water so it needs to be kited away from the group and out of the Conductive Water.

Static Burst is an attack that Jin'rokh regularly casts which causes the raid to take a moderate amount of Nature damage, and also applies Static Wound to the current tank. Static Wound causes the victim of Jin'rohk's melee attacks to take increased damage AND third of the damage is also taken by EACH raid member. So tanks must switch when one of them has Static Wound.

Every 90 seconds Jin'rohk casts Lightning Storm a channeled spell that lasts 15 seconds which deals Nature damage to the whole raid. After casting Lighting Storm Jin'rokh turns Conductive Water into Electrified Waters which deals damage to all players who stand in it, so players should hug up for AoE heals and not be in the water.

The fight is not complicated and can be summarised as:

• DPS and healers stand in Conductive Waters
• Tanks switch on Static Wounds
• Kite Focused Lightning Balls away from the raid
• Hug up out of Conductive Waters for Lightning Storm
• Do NOT stand in Electrified Waters

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