Heart of Fear: Blade Lord Ta’Yak (10)

Blade Lord Ta'yak is a two-phase fight with no adds. 

Phase One lasts between 100% and 20% of the boss' health. Ta'yak has several abilities which require that you stack up and spread out at various stages.

Phase Two begins at 20% health and in this phase the raid will have to dodge oncoming tornadoes, and deal damage to the boss. 

Throughout the fight, Ta'yak gains a stacking buff that increases his damage done, acting as a soft enrage that will eventually wipe your raid. Additionally, Phase One has a second soft enrage mechanic of its own.

Phase One

During Phase One, Ta'yak use of the following abilities.

Tempest Slash: is used every 20-30 seconds which creates a tornado at the location of a random player. The tornadoes he creates slowly move around the area where they were created, damaging and knocking back players who collide with them. The tornadoes do not despawn, so will continually fill up the space as the phase goes on. Simply move away from the tornadoes and slowly move from one end of the room to the other.

Unseen Strike: is cast every 60 seconds on a random raid member. Ta'yak places a marker on the player and vanishes before appearing at the player's location 5 seconds later and deals 3 million damage in a cone in front of him. As the damage is shared bewtween all hit by it everyone should collapse on the target at the designated point and all face the boss and stand BEHIND his target. The ability has a knock back so the hug point should be in front of a solid object, eg wall or a pillar. This helps to force the boss to attack from a certain angle and also note the the victim will get stunned 2 seconds before getting hit so they only have 3 seconds to get to the collapse point. Cheat death abilities will NOT prevent allow a player to solo soak this ability. because each person will take 300k damage before reduction by armour, ensure that all are at full health to guarantee survival especially for cloth wearers.

Wind Step: every 30 seconds Ta'yak blinks to a random player, and applies a 30-second bleed on them and any other raid members within 8 yards of them. Spread out to avoid this hitting multiple targets.

Overwhelming Assault: cast on his current aggro target and deals a high amount of damage, causes them to take 100% more damage from Overwhelming Strike for the next 45 seconds

Intensify: a self-buff that is applied to Ta'yak every 60 seconds until he hits 20% when it gets applied every 10 seconds. This increases his damage done and haste by 5% per stack.

Just before he hits 20% you should aim to have the raid at high health so that everyone can survive the damage that the boss deals every second during this phase, while the tornadoes are incapacitating the healers.

Phase Two

When Ta'yak reaches 20% health and he will teleport everyone to the middle of a long corridorbefore putting everyone in a tornado will drop you at one end of the corridor, while Ta'yak moves to the other end. Ta'yak will begin summoning tornadoes which will move towards the raid in one of three lanes, so you you constantly need to switch lanes, to avoid the oncoming tornadoes or you will get put back to the end of the corridor, where you need to restart your journey, potentially out of range of healers.

Healing the raid while making your way through through the tornadoes is very difficult, since the damage is quite high, and you do not have the possibility to stand still and heal. Everyone must contribute to healing here, using  Healthstones and defensive cooldowns as there is raid wide damage every second during phase 2 which is increased by the boss' Intensify buff which no stacks every 10 seconds.

When you reach Ta'yak you should move next to him so you are behind the spawning tornadoes. This allows you to simply stand there and DPS or heal until Ta'yak flies away at 10%. Be careful, when moving up to his platform, to walk up using a lane where a tornado has just spawned (and that you have avoided) as if you choose a lane where a tornado is about to spawn, you risk being picked up by this new tornado just as you step up next to Ta'yak. 

When Ta'yak reaches 10% health, he will switch ends and you will have to make your way to him again. Make sure you renew DoTs just before he reaches 10% health and move onto the sides of the corridor as there is an air current. If you step into the air current while Ta'yak is still in his first location, you will be taken back to the start, which is precisely where Ta'yak will move to and you will not need to dodge tornadoes and saves time.