| Name | The Complete Karazhan Guide: Part 2 |
| Category | Raid |
This is the second part of the Complete Karazhan Guide. This will cover the trash mobs after the Opera Event until Shade of Aran.
The Broken Stair
After the Opera event, the Side Entrance to the Broken Stair section can now be opened. The Side Entrance can be located by going up a small tower outside Karazhan. From the main entrance, cross the small river to the right, then continue to the abandoned small tower that you'll see. Climb up a series of stairs, then cross a narrow bridge at the top and you'll reach the Side Entrance gate. You can choose to continuously clear the balconies of the Opera House for gold from Ghostly Philanthropists, or you can go back out of Karazhan and go to the side entrance immediately to skip the Ghostly Philanthropist mobs. The balcony outside of this section is where Nightbane can be summoned, or the quest of reading Medivh's Journal can be done.
Trash mob information
Ghostly Haunt - Undead spirit that hit hard. Also has Ethereal Curse, which decreases hit by 15%, and stacks. Can also Shadow Shock, that deals an instant shadow damage at around 4000. They come in single pulls, but they can be crowd controlled (shackle, trap) if ever you accidentally pull another.
Trapped Soul - Undead spirit that also hits hard. Has the Cone of Cold ability, and also can buff himself with Elemental Armor which increases all resistances by 200. They also come in single pulls, but they cannot be crowd controlled.
From the Side Entrance door, you'll encounter single pulls of 2 types of undead wraiths until you reach the top. They generally hit hard, so get ready to do some overheals on the tank. This section of Karazhan is just a series of stairs going up and eventually leading to the Menagerie section.
The Menagerie
This is a very little section after reaching the top of the Broken Stair. At the large hallway is where Curator can be found patrolling.
Trash mob information
Arcane Watchman - Mechanical giants that come in pairs. They generally hit hard, and can also do a Crystal Strike attack which deals around 3000 instant arcane damage to the tank. Can also cast Overload on a random person on the raid. This debuff causes the person to explode several times like an Arcane Explosion, dealing arcane damage to anyone near the person with Overload. The arcane explosion damage is initially 200, then doubling every explosion until the person explodes with 3200 arcane damage. The debuff is not dispellable, so it is imperative to have the person move away from the raid if he gets Overloaded, but still in range from healers.
Arcane Anomaly - Arcane elemental that comes with several Syphoners. This mob has a non-dispellable mana shield, which absorbs 100% of all damage but instead drains its mana. Can also blink and do an Arcane Volley right after, which deals around 2000 arcane damage. When it dies, it does a tranquility-like effect which restores 175 mana per second for 20 seconds to anyone on the Loose Mana effect range.
Syphoner - Arcane eels with drain mana. They don't hit very hard, and they can also be crowd controlled with most crowd control abilities.
**These mobs respawn after 45 minutes. Linked to Curator, so killing it will stop the respawns.
Once you reached the top of the Broken Stair, go through the small hallway to the Menagerie. You'll see 2 Arcane Watchmen at the corners, so pull them and tank them individually. Make sure that anyone who gets Overload needs to move away from the raid, or s/he may kill the whole raid with all the arcane explosions s/he'll be doing. Make sure to heal the Overloaded person as well. Focus fire on one Arcane Watchman first, then kill the other afterwards. When they are dead, move in to the room where they were initially standing. This will be the room where you'll be fighting the next several mobs before Curator. Misdirection pull is the best way to pull each mob from the next room. Misdirect the Arcane Anomaly to the tank, and place a Frost Trap at the floor so the Syphoners are slowed down. Kill the Arcane Anomaly fast and just fear bomb the Syphoners. Warlocks can use Drain Mana to the Arcane Anomaly to drain its mana shield fast. Mana Burn from priests, however, doesn't work. After killing the Arcane Anomaly, kill the Syphoners either by AoE, or just one at a time. Continue doing misdirection pulls until all the arcane mobs in Curator's room are cleared. Also be careful not to pull Curator along with the mob, since it patrols from the center of the room to the other end of the room. Once the room is cleared, the raid moves in to the room and gets ready.
The Curator
This is the 5th boss you'll encounter in Karazhan. It is an arcane mechanical construct that guards the Menagerie, and is the boss that drops the first obtainable tier4 token, the gloves.
Key Abilities
Astral Flares - The Curator summons an Astral Flare every 10 seconds until it runs out of mana. Summoning a flare costs 10% of Curator's mana, so it can summon 10 adds before it runs out of mana. These flares have low hp, around 11-13k hp, and deals arcane damage to people. Also can cast Chain Lightning on up to 3 people within 10yard distance for around 675-825 arcane damage. These are not tauntable, and generally goes to a random person upon summon.
Hateful Bolt - Periodically, the Curator casts a Hateful Bolt, which deals around 4-5.5k arcane damage. The target of this bolt is the 2nd person in the aggro list, so its best to have a tank with high hp to soak up the bolts and keep himself 2nd on the aggro list. Best candidate for bolt soaker are warlocks.
Evocation - When the Curator runs out of mana, it evocates to full mana for 20 seconds. During this time, the Curator will not summon an Astral Flare or attack. Also, the Curator will take 200% damage from all attacks while evocating.
Enrage - At 15%, the Curator enrages, increasing its melee attack and also increasing the rate it fires the Hateful Bolts. While enraged, it will no longer summon flares nor evocate.
Berserk - After 12 minutes, the Curator will berserk and will wipe the raid.
Once you engage the Curator, everyone needs to be spread out to avoid chaining the Chain Lightning from the Astral Flares too much. The key to this fight is add control. Whenever Curator summons an Astral Flare, all DPS except the bolt soaker should ignore Curator and focus on killing the flare immediately. The DPS priority should be the adds first before Curator. If there is too little DPS on the flares, they will accumulate and will wipe the raid. Do not worry about DPS on the Curator itself, because there is the Evocation phase for that. Just focus on killing adds immediately, and if you still have time before the next add is summoned, you can go and deal damage to Curator, but remember to go back to killing adds when they are summoned. Once the last add is summoned, Curator will start to evocate, so you need to kill that last add immediately so you'll have more time to DPS Curator while in Evocation phase. Save your trinkets, Bloodlust/Heroisms, drums for when Curator evocates so you can deal much damage during the phase. Also, the warlock can time its Curse of Doom to go off during an Evocation as it will deal a very large damage to Curator. Once it's done evocating, he will resume on summoning flares again so make sure you don't forget about focusing on killing the flares fast. When it gets to 15%, Curator enrages, so DPS it down as fast as you can. During enrage, Curator won't summon any more flares so you don't have to worry about them anymore and you can focus on killing Curator.
For the Hateful Bolt soaker, a warlock is a good choice to be the soaker since they have high stamina and they can keep up on the aggro list for being the soaker. They don't need to DPS the flares since they need to maintain their rank on the aggro list to be the bolt soaker.
Healers should be focused on healing the main tank and the bolt soaker. If you have enough healers, assign one to be healing the raid, otherwise just have one on the main tank always, then one on the raid and the bolt soaker. When Curator enrages, get ready to overheal the tank, and heal the soaker more often since Curator will cast the Hateful Bolts more often at this stage.
Once Curator has been killed, loot it and get ready for the longest part of Karazhan.
The Guardian's Library
This is the largest section of Karazhan, located right after killing Curator. This section has a variety of mobs, mostly linked to Shade of Aran, but some others are linked to either Terestian Illhoof or to Netherspite.
Trash mob information
Arcane Protector - Mechanical giant that has several abilities depending on its mode of operation, and hits quite hard. When in defense mode, it hits harder but moves slower. Its advisable to kite it for a bit while in this mode, but if your tank can handle it (or your healers can keep up with the healing) you can just tank it straight on. Also can summon Arcane Sparks, similar to Curator's flares, but weaker. Another ability is Return Fire, which fires 750 damage arcane bolts back to the attacker, depending on the mode. You can check the last letter of the mode for this. If the last letter is M, it returns fire to melee. If S, it returns fire to spellcasters, otherwise if it is R, it returns fire to ranged attackers. These mobs are immune to crowd controls and stuns. These come in single pulls, but make sure to pull it far back to avoid aggro on nearby mobs.
Arcane Watchman - Same as the pair encountered before Curator. You'll encounter them just after the ramp going down to the library right after Curator's room.
Chaotic Sentience - Arcane elemental which deals arcane melee damage for about 2k damage. Also casts Unstable Magic, which is a magic debuff which increases spell damage dealt by 300 and spell damage taken by 600. This debuff can be dispelled. Comes with Mana Feeders. This mob is immune to banish or stuns.
Mana Feeder - Arcane eels similar to Syphoners, but totally immune to magical effects including wands (except for some warlock pet skills). Comes in packs of 3. Has an Astral Bite attack, which deals small arcane damage. Also does an ability that drains mana, similar to mana burn.
Magical Horror - Arcane elemental that comes with 2-3 Mana Warps. Casts Arcane Volley periodically, so its imperative that this mob dies first. Also has an undispellable debuff called Power Distortion which increases spell and ability costs by 100%.
Mana Warp - Smaller arcane elementals which come with the Magical Horror. Has an ability called Warp Breach, which they cast when they are about to die. This ability makes the Mana Warp explode and deal around 5.5k arcane damage to a very wide area. These mobs can be crowd controlled (banish, fear, trap).
Spell Shade - Mana wraiths that phases occasionally, and comes in several packs (after the room with the Magical Horrors). These mobs are spellcasters in general, with Frost Bolt, Shadow Bolt, and Fireball as their spell arsenal. Can be crowd controlled (shackle, fear, trap), and they are also vulnerable to Curse of Tongues.
**These mobs respawn after 2 hours. Linked to Shade of Aran, so killing him will stop the respawns.
Shadow Pillager - Humanoid mobs which has warlock abilities. They only appear in a single room with a bunch of Homunculus, right before entering the small hallway going to Terestian Illhoof. Immune to crowd control.
Homunculus - Imp mobs that comes in packs. Warlocks can enslave or banish them.
**These mobs respawn after 2 hours. Linked to Terestian Illhoof, so killing him will stop the respawns.
Sorcerous Shade - Larger mana wraiths similar to Spell Shades. Only difference is that their spells come as volleys. They come with a pack of Spell Shades. Immune to crowd control, so they should be killed immediately.
Ethereal Thief - Ethereal mobs which can Disarm, thus resetting threat on that tank. Hits very hard, and it also cleaves so the raid needs to be careful on aggro. Unless the tank has "Immune to disarm" equipment, at least 2 tanks are needed so in case the MT gets disarmed, the OT can catch him. Also has an AoE aura ability called Spatial Distortion, which reduces 2 attributes by 3% per stack. The Ethereal Thief's version of Spatial Distortion is reduction of Strength and Agility. Cannot be crowd controlled or taunted.
Ethereal Spellfilcher - Ethereal mobs that phases, and has Arcane Volley ability, which deals around 2.3k arcane damage. Also has a self buff called Steal Magic, which increases spell damage by 8%. This buff can be stolen by mages, and stacks. Occasionally, it casts a magic debuff on the tank called Transference, which transfers heals made on the tank onto the spellfilcher. This debuff needs to be dispelled immediately or the heals may chain off to a nearby spellfilcher you didn't pull, thus aggroing it onto the unsuspecting raid members. Similar to the Thief, it has Spatial Distortion aura debuff, but their version is the reduction of Intellect and Spirit instead of Strength and Agility.
**These mobs respawn after 2 hours. Linked to Netherspite, so killing him will stop the respawns.
The Library is a very large section of Karazhan, which connects to smaller sections leading to 'optional' bosses. The bosses located in the Library section are generally optional, and are not required to be killed to reach Prince Malchezaar. It is advisable to kill Shade of Aran first before proceeding, to remove a huge chunk of trash mob respawns. Wiping can be very time consuming, considering the travel time from the side entrance door going to the point where the raid wiped inside the library, so its essential to kill at least Shade of Aran to avoid reclearing for respawns for another 30 minutes or so. Also, when Shade of Aran is killed, teleportation to his room is enabled through the Doorman NPC near the front entrance of Karazhan. This way, less time is spent on running back from a wipe.
The first set of trash mobs after Curator is linked to Shade of Aran. Your first trash mob pull should be the patrolling Arcane Protector. Ignore the two Arcane Watchmen beside the bonfire and wait for the patrolling Arcane Protector while hugging the walls to avoid aggroing the Watchmen. When it comes, pull it, and bring it up the ramp. After killing it, proceed to killing the 2 Watchmen. Now the raid can move down the ramp and move to the side of the circular ramp going down. Single pull the patrolling Protectors here, bringing them to the corner of the wall and killing them there, to avoid aggroing nearby mobs. Once the patrols are cleared, proceed to pulling the Mana Feeders and the Chaotic Sentience packs. Remember that Mana Feeders are completely immune to most magical effects including wands, so casters can go and hit them with your staff / sword / dagger or something. They occasionally go wandering around targetting random raid members, so its advisable to stay close together. After the first set of Mana Feeder packs, resume pulling on the patrolling Arcane Protectors. After clearing the patrols below the ramp, pull the Mana Feeder pack at the opposite side of the ramp, so the way up will be cleared. You don't need to clear the Chaotic Sentience packs on the walls or the ones surrounding the NPCs, unless you need to do the quest. Killing them will consume respawn time so if you want more attempts on the boss, you might as well skip the NPCs and focus on killing Shade of Aran first to clear the respawns. You can just visit the NPCs after a soft reset where the mobs are already gone, then continue the quest to kill Aran on the next week of raiding Karazhan. You'll encounter a few more patrolling Arcane Protectors up the ramp, so kill them. After these, you'll be reaching a large circular room filled with arcane elementals called Magical Horrors and Mana Warps. They come in packs of 1 Horror and 2 Warps each, except for the one in the middle with 3 Mana Warps instead. Also, there are hidden Spell Shades on some sides so be careful if you accidentally pull one with a Magical Horror pack. You can shackle or fear the Shade if ever you pulled one. When dealing with the Arcane packs, crowd control the Mana Warps first by banishing or fearing or kiting, and focus on killing the Magical Horror first. Once its dead, proceed to killing Mana Warps one by one. Don't kill them simultaneously or you'll just wipe the raid with the explosions they'll do when they are about to die. The explosion deals around 5.5k arcane damage so its essentially raid wipe if both explodes simultaneously or just a short time with each other. Just crowd control, and kill one at a time. If you want to prevent the explosion, time your stuns so that they will interrupt its Warp Breach, or at least it'll get stunned and it won't be able to cast Warp Breach before he dies. Spell Shades in this room are single pulls, so they are fairly easy at this point. Clear the whole room then get ready for the Spell Shade packs above the ramp. Spell Shades at this point come in packs of 4 or so, so you'll need to tank each, and crowd control the others, or they will kill the raid members with their spells. The spells kinda hurt so if your tank is taking on 2 Warps simultaneously, make sure healers are on their toes and heal the tank. These shades can be shackled, feared (Turn Undead by paladin) or trapped, so crowd control as many as you can, then tank the loose ones. Kill them one by one and you'll do fine.
After this room, there is a descending ramp going to a room with the Homunculus pack and the Shadow Pillagers. These mobs are connected to Terestian Illhoof, and you'll just encounter one set of them so don't worry about them. Warlocks can Enslave Demon or Banish the imps. Tanks should pick up the humanoids since they can't be crowd controlled. In this room, there is a clickable bookcase by the wall which leads to a secret hallway going down. This is a mini section of the Library, the Repository, where Terestian Illhoof resides. You can skip this section if you are not going to kill Illhoof yet.
Terestian Illhoof
The satyr boss inside Karazhan, located inside the Repository section of Karazhan. He has an imp pet named Kil'Rek which can be annoying for the fight. Before reaching Illhoof is a final Homunculus pack which you need to pull and kill. Just AoE these imps. Once they're dead, get ready to do more AoE on the boss fight itself.
Key Abilities
Illhoof
Shadow Bolt - Illhoof fires a shadow bolt to the highest person on the aggro list, namely the tank.
Sacrifice - Periodically, Illhoof will target a random raid member other than the main tank to be a sacrifice. The person will be teleported to the center of the room, at the center of the green circle rune thing on the floor and will be shackled by the Demon Chains, paralyzing the person and taking 1.5k unresistable / unabsorbable shadow damage per second. The chains will heal Illhoof for a high amount very quickly, so if the chains are up for too long, or the sacrificed person dies from the chains, Illhoof is going to be healed for a very high amount. This Demon Chains should be the raid priority and should be killed immediately.
Berserk - After 10 minutes, Illhoof will go berserk and will start spamming shadow volleys of 7k damage each on the raid.
Kil'Rek
Amplify Flames - Kil'Rek has the ability to cast Amplify Flames on the person with the highest aggro on its list. This undispellable debuff increases fire damage taken by 500 for 25 seconds.
Broken Pact - When Kil'Rek gets killed, he will debuff Illhoof with 25% more damage taken. After a short while though, Illhoof will revive Kil'Rek.
This fight will be AoE and healing intensive, because of all the imps that Illhoof will summon. You'll be needing at least 1 AoE class for the fight, 2 (mage + warlock) would be better. Before engaging, Paladins and shamans make sure to keep Fire resistance aura/totems up all the time. Upon engaging, misdirect Kil'Rek to the main tank immediately, or if there are no hunters in the raid, wait for the tank to gain aggro on the imp as well before opening fire. After 10 seconds upon engaging, Illhoof will open 2 portals behind him, which will be the source of the summoned imps. The tank should position Illhoof at the center so all imps can be in range of the Seed of Corruption explosion from him. Also, this way it will be easier for melee to shift targets to the Demon Chains when its up. Kil'Rek is a minor add in this fight, and should not be focused on. He will eventually die from all the AoE the mage and/or lock will be doing so the debuff Kil'Rek will be giving will just be a plus for the fight. Similar to Curator, DPS priority shouldn't be the boss itself. Whenever the Demon Chains are up, every DPS should target the Demon Chains and kill it immediately before it kills the sacrificed person. The main tank can help for a bit on the Demon Chains if he can help it. Once the Demon Chains are down, resume DPS on Illhoof.
Healing will be pretty intensive on the fight. Aside from healing the main tank, you'll need to keep the AoE people alive, since without AoE you'll be overwhelmed with all the imps summoned. Also, when a person gets sacrificed, that person needs fast healing or he won't survive the 1.5k shadow damage per second from the Demon Chains. Flash Heal / Flash of Light / Swiftmend are best heal spells to use on the sacrificed person. At least 2 healers are required here, one on the MT, one on the raid/AoE. If a healer gets sacrificed, its the task of the other healer to keep him up, that's why DPS should be fast and hard on the Demon Chains to reduce stress on the healer for the sacrificed person. Also, Demon Chains can be avoided by Paladins and Mages since paladins can bubble out of it, and frost mages can ice block out of it.
For the AoE, the mages and warlocks should focus on AoE as their top priority. Most likely, they'll be spending the whole fight just spamming Arcane Explosion / Seed of Corruption. If they have time, or just waiting for imps to accumulate, they can DPS the boss, but remember to have the mana to be able to AoE. If there's a druid in the group, its advisable to give the innervate to the mage. Also, for the warlock, spam the Seed of Corruption on Illhoof alone. Since Illhoof is at the center, SoC will explode, hitting most of the summoned imps accumulated in the center of the room.
Kil'Rek will eventually die in the fight, with all the damage from the AoE that he'll receive. When this happens, he will debuff Illhoof with 25% more damage taken. At this point, you can go and pop your trinkets / Bloodlust / Heroism for additional damage on Illhoof. After a while, Illhoof will resurrect Kil'Rek, so the tank should get ready to pick him up again to avoid having him run wild on the raid. A hunter misdirect can help with this, or if there's no hunter, just have an offtank get him and bring it near the main tank. Just keep AoEing the imps, kill the Demon Chains as fast as possible, and you will kill Illhoof eventually.
Once the Shadow Pillager room is cleared, proceed up the ramp to kill more shade packs. After this room is a ramp, with the final pack of Spell Shades you'll need to kill to reach Shade of Aran. Once they are dead, you'll see a closed door to the left. On the other side of this door is where Shade of Aran is.
Shade of Aran
The powerful mage boss in Karazhan with a huge arsenal of spells on all fire, arcane and frost trees. He resides in his tiny circular room above the Library. This boss can be classified as very hard to very easy, depending on how people do their roles, and how they react to situations.
Key Abilities
Frostbolt - Similar to a mage's, Aran casts a powerful frostbolt, dealing around 4k frost damage plus slowing effect on the target.
Fireball - Similar to a mage's, Aran casts a powerful fireball, dealing around 4k fire damage plus a fire damage DoT which lasts for a few seconds.
Arcane Missiles - Similar to a mage's, Aran channels a volley of arcane missiles onto a single target, dealing around 1.5k arcane damage per missile.
Chains of Ice - Occasionally, Aran casts an ice shackle on a player, making the player immobile for 10 seconds. This root effect doesn't break on damage. Can be dispelled.
Mass Slow - Just before Aran casts a powerful Arcane Explosion, he pulls everyone to the center, then slows everyone down. This is a magic debuff, so this can be dispelled, or removed by other means (druid shapeshift, gnome escape artist).
AoE Counterspell - Oftentimes, Aran will cast a mass counterspell, affecting everyone within 10yard radius around Aran. This is fairly similar to a mage's Counterspell, which interrupts casting and locking down that spell tree for several seconds.
Flame Wreath - Aran's special ability which targets 3 random people on the raid. After Aran finishes casting for 5 seconds, a ring of fire will appear on these 3 people. The ring of fire is potentially harmless, but it has a trigger on it. When anyone passes through the flame, either going out or going in (essentially moving on the flame itself), it will explode, dealing a huge fire damage (around 3-4k) on everyone in the room. To counter this ability, anyone affected should not move from his/her position at all (s/he can still attack/heal/do whatever, just not move). The Flame Wreath expires in 15 seconds.
Blizzard - Another one of Aran's special abilities. He initially calls down a shard of ice which falls on the floor at a random side. After this, an animation of a small, blue whirling thing will appear and revolve around the room in a clockwise direction. This is an indication of where the Blizzard will fall. Since the blue whirl is constantly revolving clockwise, the Blizzard will also move, so essentially everyone needs to move away from the Blizzard's area of effect, similar to C'Thun's Dark Glare but less damaging. The Blizzard itself deals around 1.2k frost damage per tick, and also slows you down. If you get caught in one, don't follow it, instead cross the room passing through the center and move to where its tail is.
Arcane Explosion - One of Aran's special abilities. He teleports to the middle of the room, then pulls everyone to him. Right after he pulls everyone, he casts Mass Slow, which affects everyone in the room, then starts charging up for a very powerful Arcane Explosion. The casting time is 10 seconds, so everyone should immediately run towards the walls, particularly towards the small spaces between pillars in the room. The arcane explosion radius is 20 yards, which generally affects anyone from the center to the pillars. The Mass Slow is dispellable, so anyone who can dispel should watch out for people who are lagging behind or those who are caught in Chains of Ice and dispel them. The explosion damage is very huge, around 8-10k arcane damage.
Water Elementals - When Aran reaches 40% health, he summons 4 Water Elementals on 4 corners of the room. These elementals cast Waterbolts which deal around 1-1.2k frost damage. They can be crowd controlled (banish, fear). These elementals stay up for 90 seconds, and have very low hp. The raid can decide on what to do with the elementals, either crowd control them for 90 seconds, kill them one by one, or crowd control + tank them for 90 seconds.
Regenerate Mana - When Aran's mana reaches around 20% or around 20-30k, he casts Polymorph on everyone, conjures water, then drinks to full mana. After he does this, he casts a Pyroblast volley which affects everyone and deals around 7-7.5k fire damage. Everyone should be using their Healthstones as soon as they come out of polymorph. Druids can cast Tranquility to quickly heal the group of the Pyroblast damage. Additionally, priests can do Prayer of Healing to quickly heal the group. The polymorph and/or pyroblast can sometimes be resisted. Also, instead of doing a pyroblast, Aran will just use a mana potion to restore his mana. He does this very rarely as alternative to pyroblasting the raid, but will definitely do it if his mana gets low again after doing a pyroblast earlier and the raid still survives.
This fight is generally a full DPS and survival fight. Warriors don't need to wear their tanking gear for this, and should be wearing DPS gear instead to help on the DPS. Aran doesn't really have an aggro table, and will target any random person in the raid. The key to the fight is interrupting his spells and locking down his spell trees. Warrior pummels, rogue kicks, shaman earthshocks, mage counterspells should do the trick. This way, he can't use his deadly bolt spells and will be forced to melee (which is weak). Also, interrupting his spells will make him 'conserve his mana', delaying the time that he will use his Polymorph-Pyroblast ability. Everyone should be on their toes, and should know how to react on Aran's abilities in the fight. Healers should also be alert, and heal the raid as necessary, since Aran's spells are very deadly and can kill anyone in a few hits. There are several approaches for the fight, concerning Aran's mana, and his 40% elemental phase.
Pyroblast Approach 1: Wait for Pyroblast
This approach will have the raid wait for Aran to do his Pyroblast ability, before bringing him down to 40% elemental phase. Basically, the raid should DPS Aran down to around 43-42%, and still doing interrupts to delay the Pyroblast. Once it's been reached, raid should stop all DPS, and start draining Aran's mana (hunter Viper Sting, warlock Drain Mana) to make him drink and do his Pyroblast. If Aran's mana drops too early before hitting around 43-42% health, the raid has a problem with interrupts. This approach requires that everyone can survive his Pyroblast, basically having everyone with enough health for it. Waiting for the Pyroblast will lessen the burden on the raid on the elemental phase. If Aran does the Pyroblast while the elementals are up, several people will definitely die from the Pyroblast, since they are getting additional damage from the elementals. This is a better approach if you know your raid can't kill him before his mana runs low to do a Pyroblast, or his mana runs low while elementals are still up.
Pyroblast Approach 2: Don't let Aran do a Pyroblast
This approach will have the raid do full DPS on Aran, while maintaining constant interrupts on his bolts. The raid should be going all out, and the people know when to interrupt what spell. This approach is best for raids with very good coordination, and has great DPS. Everyone should be alert and know what to do on each situation, since you'll need to keep Aran's mana high enough that he'll be dead before he can do a Pyroblast. Also, if you can keep Aran's mana high enough that he will do a Pyroblast AFTER the elementals despawn / die, you can do this approach.
Elemental Phase
At 40% health, Aran will summon 4 Water elementals at 4 corners of the room. They have low health and can be crowd controlled, but they can be annoying since they add more damage to the raid other than Aran's basic abilities. There are several approaches on how to handle them. One is by crowd controlling them all. If you have 2 warlocks in the raid, crowd controlling them will be a piece of cake since 2 elementals can be banished, then the other 2 can be chain feared. Basically, the warlocks just need to control the elementals until they despawn. Another approach is by having warriors on frost resist gear and tank the adds. This approach can be very hard, since there is a chance that Aran will use Flame Wreath while the elementals are still up. When this happens, and the tanks are wreathed, they can't reach the elementals to tank them, so they're basically useless until the wreath expires. In this approach, the tanks just need to gain aggro on the elementals, so they will focus fire on just the tank instead on the raid. This way the healers can focus on healing the tanks instead of having dispersed healing on the raid with the elementals hitting everyone. The last approach for the elemental phase is to kill the elementals. Since the elementals have very low hp, you can just basically focus fire on one elemental at a time, and kill them one by one until they are all gone.
Aran's Special Abilities
Every 30-35 seconds or so, Aran will do one of his special ability. This is random, and completely independent from having his spell tree locked down, meaning he can still use Blizzard for example, while his frost spell tree is locked down.
Dealing with Blizzard
Blizzard is one of Aran's special ability. When he does this, he will emote "Back to the cold dark with you!" or "I'll freeze you all!", and teleports back to the center of the room. Once he does this, he's free to do his other abilities again, since he doesn't need to channel the spell. The start of the Blizzard is indicated with a falling shard. It then turns into a small blue whirl on the ground, tracing the ground while revolving around the room clockwise. This whirl indicates the head of the Blizzard. The Blizzard keeps on moving and will last for a few seconds on an area. To avoid the Blizzard, everyone on ranged needs to move to the left of where the tail of the Blizzard is. With this, they can cast a few spells or attack for a few seconds while waiting for the blizzard tail to dissipate. After its gone, move clockwise and just keep on being behind the tail of the blizzard. The Blizzard revolves quite fast, and can keep up with you, so you need to move fast and avoid the head of the blizzard. Alternatively, you can move to the center of the room to avoid the Blizzard. Doing this will render you vulnerable to Aran's AoE counterspell, so be careful. Do this only if you get caught in the blizzard.
Dealing with Flame Wreath
Flame Wreath is another special ability of Aran. He will emote "Burn you hellish fiends!" or "I'll show you this beaten dog still has some teeth!" and teleports to the center of the room when he does this ability. He will then proceed to casting the 5 second Flame Wreath spell. This is the time where you need to position yourself favorably before the Flame Wreaths appear. Casters and ranged people need to move away immediately from Aran to avoid his AoE counterspell, and melee people should move in to melee range. Everyone should be fast, and just move for about 3 seconds just to be safe. Don't push your luck and try to keep moving, or you might get the Flame Wreath on yourself, then trigger it and blast everyone for a huge damage, or maybe wipe the raid with the explosion. Once you are in position, EVERYONE MUST NOT MOVE A MILLIMETER. You don't need to be all spread out, you just need to STOP MOVING right before the Flame Wreaths appear. Once they appear to the 3 people that are targeted, anyone far from the wreaths can now move, but not INTO the wreath or it will just explode. This can sound easy, but when it happens on the elemental phase, people can panic and forget about the wreath casting. Everyone should be alert and stay on their toes to prevent the Flame Wreath from exploding onto the raid.
Dealing with Arcane Explosion
This is the most powerful special ability of Aran, but the easiest to avoid. He will emote "Yes, yes, my son is quite powerful... but I have powers of my own!" or "I am not some simple jester! I am Nielas Aran!" and teleports to the center of the room when he does this ability. Consequently, he pulls everyone to the middle of the room with him, then casts a Mass Slow on everyone which slows everyone's movements. At this point, he will start casting his powerful Arcane Explosion for 10 seconds. To avoid this, everyone just needs to run to the edges of the room, to the small cubby holes between pillars before Aran finishes casting. If you see anyone lagging behind, priests or paladins dispel them immediately so they can still run and make it to the edge before Aran finishes casting. Sometimes the slow spell can be resisted, so you can freely run to the sides quickly and wait for the explosion before resuming DPS (if you're a melee). Other classes such as druids can shapeshift to rid themselves of the slow effect and run to the edge quickly. Make sure you are staying beyond the pillars and closer to the walls, or you'll be hit by the explosion and you'll most likely die from it.
Interrupts
The key to the fight is interrupting Aran's bolt spells and locking down his spell trees with it. This will make him 'conserve mana' and will delay his use of Pyroblast when he runs out of mana. You just need to interrupt his 2 spells, Frostbolt and Fireball. They both have 3 second cast and will only expend mana once the spell has been completed. To efficiently interrupt him, make sure to interrupt near the end of his casting. This way he will waste 1-2 seconds with his casting animation for some free DPS time without him doing anything. You can just assign classes to interrupt which spell. As for the Arcane Missiles, its not really advisable to interrupt the spell since the mana gets spent immediately once the cast starts. Only interrupt it if the target won't be able to survive the hits.
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