MMOMaven Admin
12-15-2006, 08:07
Since ZG came out in patch 1.7 there have always been tweaks that made it easier and easier, now it can now almost be considered a casual content that you can just take along some PUG ( Pick up Groups ) and clear all bosses within 3-4 hours. And since 1.11 the epic drop rate has been increased plus new epic loot, ZG Class set all been buffed to epics, and ZG Head/Legs enchant are a lot easier to get.
But the problem is creating the group and leading them, ZG and AQ20 requires a good raid leader that will get things moving along as fast as possible. If the run moves too slowly people will become frustrated and leave the raids and things start to fall apart, leaving you with another failed raid. Even when you're in a good guild you will find that ZG run and AQ20 run is rarely organized, because Guild raid leaders are always too busy dealing with MC, BWL, AQ40 and Naxx.
So where do you find a good raid leader? I say why not take it upon yourself to be that person!! Why not? anyone can do it! A great benefit of being the raid leader is that you're guaranteed a spot in the raid, also it makes you a popular player in your server.
I am writing this from my own experiences from being a follower to a raid leader, and after two weeks my PUG group now clears ZG in under 3hours, and also clear AQ20 with ease. I will explain how you can become a great 20man raid leader without doing much at all.
Check out http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/calendar to schedule your raid
Hopefully by the end of this article you will be confident in leading a raid or at least give it a shot.
Take Baby Steps, Gear Yourself Up First
Sorry but if you're not done with DM and UBRS you're not ready for ZG/AQ20, no one will respect a raid leader wearing anything green. You don't need any epic gear for ZG but gear yourself appropriately with blues eg, if you're a tank you need a lot +defense gear and a lot of +healing gear if you are a healer.
Be in a Guild
Being in a guild gives you a great advantage, guilded players are usually more competent and it is easier to find replacements for any people that leave the raid early. And familiarize yourself with other guilds, by checking out the players in major cities. You should know which are the top guilds to the mediocre, so you can kind of judge whether that person is a competent player or not to invite into your 20man raid. You can also use the realm forums http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/realmforums.shtml to find more about the guild in your realms.
Organize Ventrilo Server and CTRaid
You will find all experienced WOW players have ventrilo so its not a big ask for you to ask everyone in your raid to join your vent, if they don't have vent you don't want them in your raid anyway. If you don't have a ventrilo server as your Guild Leader whether its ok for you to use the Guild vent for your raid or for $10 a month you can have your own vent server at nrgservers.net
You will be spamming your vent frequently info so might as well create a macro that will tell everyone your vent info eg /raid striker.nrgservers.net port:3547 password:ultimatewow
Most people should have CTRaid Assist mod, the best function with this is setting up Tank windows and Boss timer and ability announcement.
Creating Your Group
This is the hard part, first you must play at a good time when most people are online so usually between 1PM - 12AM server time. Start by enticing your own guild to start a ZG run, so /g Anyone here would like to run ZG? going to arrange a combine guild run soon.
And see what kind of responses you get, if you have more than 15 guildies online that are not really doing anything special its likely that you will get about 5 or more people from your own guild.
Now message other guilds, and see if any of their members would like to come. You can check to see how many of their players are online by doing a /who Guild Name and message someone that is sitting around in a major city since its likely that they're not busy.
eg you're messaging someone from a guild called Honor
/w SomeGuyInHonor Heya, would you or anyone from Honor would like to do a combine ZG with my Guild?
If you get no response try another person in that guild and do the same to a different person or guild until you get some results. Once you find a person from a different guild that would like to come it is likely that they will have friends that they will want to invite, so the snowball effect will begin and you should fill up your group fast. You can even use the LookingForGroup Channel to find players to fill up spots. Be specific in your Ad and tell people that it is a guild run eg LF1M Experienced Warlock new ZG run with Guildname PST
Telling people that it is a guild run is a lot more enticing than leaving them to think that it is just a random PUG. And when you get messages from people asking you for an invite check what guild they're from first by doing a /whois Playername.
You also have to make the tough decision to boot people that you think may not be 'good enough' to be in the raid. Such as a player with very low quality gear, or inexperience players. Skills can be greater than Gear but good gear is still important, especially for tanking.
Organizing Your Group
The Core of a successful raid is by always having a good Main Tank Warrior. So make sure your tanks are well geared, if they never tank ZG before its not a big problem as long as you're able to explain to them what they should be doing and that they have good gear.
A good group for ZG should consist of at least
3-4 Warriors - You need at least 3 warriors to tank a lot of the Bosses
3-4 Shamans / Paladins - For Healing + Buff Aura / Totems for each party
3-4 Mages - For Polymorph, Decurse and AOE DPS
3-4 Rogues - For Stunlocking Blooddrinkers and Straight DPS
2-3 Priest - For better Healing, Shields, Buffs and AOE fear during panther boss
1-2 Druid - For Buffs, Healing, Decurse and Sleeping Soulflayers
1-2 Warlock - For AOE DPS and Imp Bloodpact Buff for Tanks and Summoning
1-2 Hunters - For pulling Son of Hakkar during Hakkar, DPS, and Freeze Traps
You will have a total of four 'Party of 5' set the group to something like this.
Group 1
2 Main Tank Warriors
1 Shaman/Paladin
1 Warlock
1 Priest Group 2
2 Mages
1 Warlock
1 Priest
1 Any Caster or Healing Class
Group 3
1 Warrior
2 Rogue
1 Any Melee or Healing Class
1 Shaman / Paladin
Group 4
2 Hunters
2 Any class
1 Shaman
Being the Raid Leader
Being the raid leader means that you're the main drive behind the raid. You have to get things done and make fast decisions so you're not wasting anyone elses time.
1. When the raid gets filled about 15 players start spamming the Vent info, and spam it again when a new person joins the raid.
2. Consider promoting someone to help you with the invites, to get things moving even quicker.
3. Make good use of the /RW command (Raid Warning) this will show a message in the middle of every raid member's screen and will also create a *PING* sound to grab their attention. eg /rw HEAD TO ZG, /rw EVERYONE BUFF UP
Only raid leader's and Promoted players can do this.
4. If warlock is available get them to start summoning players to the instance.
5. Arrange the group appropriately eg. 1 Shaman per party so every party will get a Totem buff, Warlock with Imp in Main tank group.
6. Set at least 2 Tank Windows and 3rd Tank window can be assigned to a Rogue to be Main Assist, and remind people that they are assisting 3rd Tank window because they often forget at the start.
7. Make good use of Assign target function by right clicking on the mobs portrait, this will speed things up a lot when some does it fast consistently. Eg Main Tank #1 will always grab Yellow Star and Main Tank #2 will always grab Orange Circle, Mage 1 sheep Purple Diamond etc.
8. You're going to be the main voice in Vent, inform people what is happening and how its going to get done. Quickly explain how to do every Boss Fight just in case somebody has never done one before.
9. Make good use of Blizzard new 'Ready Check' button to make sure everyone is not AFK before a boss fight.
10. Remember to set Group Loot and Master Loot for Bosses, to prevent any 'ninja' looting.
Loot Rules
You should decide before the raid begins what the loot rules are going to be. Generally the loot rules for a PUG ZG/AQ20 run are.
Group Loot set and need roll on all Bijous / Coins and Scarabs.
1 BOP per run
Idols that drops of Bloodlord Mandokir and Jin'do are to be considered as a BOP
What this means is that a player can only obtain 1 item that they desire.
A player can claim a BOP on any item that they really really wish to have even if its green, such as Mats for ZG Trinkets, New Rank Books in AQ20.
During the /random roll player that wish to BOP an item they should clearly state it in raid chat so people know its a BOP roll.
If a player joins late because they are replacing someone else that left the raid, they should roll a 'modified' roll
eg. Player A has just arrived to help finish Hakkar, but a lot of the players in the run have been working hard since the beginning of the raid. Player A can only /random 80 while players that have been playing since the beginning of the raid can /random 100. So the new players still have a chance of winning the loot, but they have lower chance than everyone else because they have done the least amount of work to get there. This should be explained to the new player to avoid any dramas and confusion later in the game.
Well this is just a suggestion on how you should have the loot rules during your PUG raid.
After the Raid
If you just ran a successful raid congratulations! take a screenshot of the people in your Raid or add some of them to your friends list. Before everyone leaves the raid tell them when you are hosting the next one eg /RW AQ20 Tommorow invites start at 1PM PST Me. It is likely that you will get some of the good players to return making your raid much easier to get started and the regulars will make your raid also more elite.
If you didn't finish the left, make a time to complete the raid tommorow or later on in the day, and it is likely that people will return to give it a second attempt, give invite priority to the people that were in the original raid.
Step by Step Zul'Gurub Guide for Raid Leaders
I have seen a lot of guides out there, but none that really show you how to do this Instance as fast as you can. Also there are a lot of outdated and unnecessararily long strategies, I have completed ZG over 50 times and I know from my first hand experience that these are the fastest strategies that work. I will challenge anyone that disagrees.
First thing that you should know about ZG is that in order for you to kill Hakkar you must kill all the High Priest/Priestess Bosses because if you don't Hakkar will be a lot stronger. Jin'Do and Mandokir are optional bosses you can easily skip them but since patch 1.11 they will always drop 1 idol each that is required for people to get their Head / Leg ZG enchant. So they're still important and a lot players only come to ZG just for the idols.
Note: The white path is the fastest path you should take for clearing all the bosses, and skipping unnecessary mobs. The green path to Jin'do is a handy shortcut that you can take, if your group is too slow at clearing the instance, its a good idea to save Jin'do and Hakkar for tommorow's raid and use that shortcut.
Now you have everybody zoned in and Buff up lets get it started.
Entrance -> High Priestess Jeklik Area (Bat Boss)
This is where you begin obviously, follow the path to High Priestess Jeklik, Mobs in the way are
Pairs of Troll Axe throwers- Either get the tanks to pick up one each or Polymorph one while you kill the rest. When the Axe throwers start spinning around and hitting random people this can be stopped by Polymorphing temporarily
Packs of Blue and Brown Snake - Tanks to charge in to grab initial agro and Mages/Warlocks AOE instead of Polymorphing. Priest should shield the Mages, as they will grab agro fast.
Combinations of Snake + Troll Witchdoctor and Axe throwers - Mages should polymorph the witch doctor and kill it last.
Large Berserker Troll - Instruct both your tank to chain taunt the Berserker and while the rest of the group go full DPS. A good tank can keep the Berserker agro by himself Taunt > Mocking Blow > Taunt again.
Move your way up towards Jeklik area after the Berserker and instruct everyone to stick to the left hand side wall and you should be able to skip the mobs to your right. Once everybody is up you should see .
Pairs of Bat riders - Pull only a pair at a time and assign target for the tanks eg Main Tank #1 will always grab Yellow Star and Main Tank #2 will always grab Orange Circle. Casters should AOE the non-elite bats and the rest the group should assist on 1 bat at a time. Melee need to be aware that the Bat rider will explode when it reaches about 1/3 of its health, so they should be ready to run. If your raid DPS is high enough you can kill the bat before it explodes.
Troll Witchdoctor and Hunters - Polymorph the witchdoctor and DPS the hunter first, you just have to be careful not to pull the Bat riders at the same time.
High Priestess Jeklik (Bat Boss)
This is an easy fight, Caster should stay at a good distance away from Jeklik as she will cast an AOE Silence while she is in bat form. Caster should stay a good range from Jeklik and Mages AOE the bats and healers keep tank and mages alive.
- Let the tank have enough agro before full DPS, 2-3 Sunders should be enough then instruct everyone to go full DPS.
- Non Elite bat will arrive and Caster should AOE they're very easy to take down, Healers need to keep everyone alive.
- Jeklik will turn into bat form and sometimes charges at random people if the tank still has good agro she will return to the tank immediately.
- Jeklik will back into her normal form and she will sometimes try to soul drain someone or try to heal the animation of her healing is similar to a priest healing, it is very obvious warriors and rogues should be prepared to shield bash / kick or pummel to interrupt this.
- When Jeklik is close to 20% Bomb bats will come, dropping random bombs in the area, all players including the tank just need to be aware of the fires animation around them and not stand on the fire and that's it!
High Priestess Jeklik Area Area -> High Priest Venoxis Area (Snake Boss)
You should now be able to cross the bridge without any need to fight anymore Mobs and reach the entrance of High Priest Venoxis, and you're 2 pulls away from him, clear the small patroling snake coming from your right before you start on the
Large pack of Snakes - it is much easier to AOE every single one, get warriors to charge in + demoralizing shout for initial agro, Mages and Warlock AOE + Melee DPS tanks should taunt the loose snake that wanders outside of the aoe and try to keep the together with Piercing Howl and Frost Nova. next pull is
Large pack of Snakes + 3 Trolls - Assign target and Polymorph all three trolls and AOE all the snakes then let the tank choose which troll to kill first
High Priest Venoxis
Venoxis is guarded by 4 green snakes assign 3 target for mages to polymorph and the last target the off tank can take it and everyone should assist the off tank to kill one snake at a time. Venoxis ability is simple, while he's in troll form he does a holy fire / nova that can kill casters in 1 shot but deal smaller damage to melee. After about 50% health he will turn into a snake form and deal a much higher melee damage and leave poison cloud at random.
- Assign targets for mages to polymorph
- Main Tank pull by going up the stair hit / taunt Venoxis and quickly run down the stair towards the left side of the area by the bonfire. Main tank should not stay above the stair as he has agro of all the snake as well and they will all try to spit him at the same time for 1200 damage each.
- Caster need to stay away from Venoxis as his holy nova on the way down can kill them in one shot.
- Mages can polymorph the snakes on the way down
- DPS 1 snake at time while the others are sheeped
- Once all the snake are down full DPS on Venoxis, only non-mana users can come close to Venoxis in his troll form
- At about 40-50% Venoxis will turn into snake form Main tank should now move backward in a circle around the bonfire to keep the snake boss and all the melee moving so they don't stay in the poison cloud for too long, and the poison cloud can be dispelled if you move out of it and that's it.
High Priest Venoxis Area -> High Priestess Mar'li Area (Spider Boss)
On your way out there towards Mar'li area there should be
A couple of Large pack of snakes - Warrior charge in and Casters AOE
Berserker Troll - Warriors chain taunt while everyone go full DPS
Some Small spider - easy just kill them.
Head up the ramp into Mar'li area, from here on you only need to make 2 pull, first pull the pack on your left side which are
Pack of Grey Spider and 1-2 Big Red Spider and 1-2 Troll ShadowCaster - Instruct the mages to Polymorph the Big Red Spider and the Trolls and the rest of the spiders in the pack should come to you. AOE all the spiders and healers need to keep the Mages alive. then try to kill the trolls and the big red spider one at a time.
Then pull the pack on your right which is a similar group to the pack that you have just pulled, so use the same strategy.
High Priestess Mar'li (Spider Boss)
High Priestess Mar'li is reasonably easy, the tanks have the most important job. You start off by assigning a main tank to Mar'li and an off tank to the Speaker, and you must again separate the casters about 20yards away from the melee. you can tank her on the right side of the room but don't allow anyone to stand on the Spider Eggs as this will Mar'li the 'Evade' bug. When Mar'li transforms into Spider her attack will cast an AOE web snare and AOE Silence everyone around her for about 8 seconds.
She will then charge towards the caster trying to pick them off, 1 Warrior should stay back with the caster in defensive stance ready to taunt her back to the main tank. All other melee class can DPS Mar'li with the main tank.
In her Troll form she will try to Drain Life or cast Greater Heal, Rogues and Warriors must Interrupt these effects. Occasionally a couple of spider adds will come and and it should be Mages/Casters priority to kill as if you leave them alone for too long they will become bigger and hit harder.
- Assign Tanks one on speaker and one on Mar'li
- When pulling, Spider adds will come everyone except tanks should kill the spiders adds first then the Speaker then full DPS on Mar'li
- One warrior needs to stay behind with the caster
- When Mar'li turns into a Spider Form and charges towards the casters the warrior has to taunt her back to the main tank, everyone should stop their DPS on Mar'li until the main tank gains back agro.
- If warrior taunt resist, Druids can also act as a backup taunt but its the not the end of the world when this happens main tank should run back gain agro and take her back to her original tanking spot.
- Mages should be prioritizing on any Spider adds that may come during this process.
- When Mar'li turns back to troll form Rogue and Warrior need to be ready to interrupt her from casting Drain Life or Greater Heal.
- Repeat this process until she dies.
High Priestess Mar'li Area -> Bloodlord Mandokir Area (Raptor Boss)
From the Mar'li head towards Bloodlord Mandokir area, just before that area after the ramp you will come across a large area with large pack of trolls, to your left there is
4x Troll Blooddrinker, 2x Witchdoctor/Priest, 1x Champion - Make good use of blizzard assign target, and set target for Mages to polymorph all the Blooddrinkers, you should have at least 3 mages in your raid, if you don't have four get a Druid to root one of the Blooddrinker. Warriors should pick up the witchdoctors and champion and tank him by the ramp area this is important as the Witchdoctor can AOE fear players into more mobs. Remind people to assist target one at a time and keep the rest of the troll pollied or rooted Now you're left with
4x Troll Bloodrinker - Let the main tank pick a target and everyone should assist on 1 Blooddrinker at a time. Instruct the Rogues to stunlock the Blooddrinker if they don't the Blooddrinker will continue healing from the players around him. Stunlocking is the fastest way to kill these Trolls but if your Rogues are unable to deal with this task, then have all melee to stay out of range of the Blooddrinker and have Main Tank and Range DPS only.
There is also a Berserker Troll patrolling the area that is a potential hazard, you need to get someone to go by the log on your right and pull the Berserker on his own. Now instruct people to follow you on the left side and you will see
4x Troll Champions - Easy pull assign Mages to Polymorph 3 of them and kill one troll at a time.
By the 4x Champions you might see a pair of Witchdoctors patrolling, you should also kill them when you get the chance, Now go into the entrance into Mandokir area. Instruct everyone to head to the right side corner where its clear from mobs. To your left there is a
Pack of 6-7 Raptors - Easiest way to do this is to have warrior charge in and Casters AOE them all and keep them snared, beware that the raptors hit very hard Priest needs to shield the mages before hand. Now to your right there is a pack of
Troll Blooddrinker, Witchdoctor/Priest, Champion - Pretty easy again, just polymorph the Blooddrinker, Witchdoctor, Priest and Kill the champion first, then by the totem to your left is
4x Troll Champions - Polymorph 3 of them and kill one at a time, then you just have one more group to kill which are
6-7 Raptors - Warrior charge in get initial agro and Caster AOE.
Bloodlord Mandokir
When you fight Mandokir you also have to fight his Raptor as well, but if you kill the Raptor, Mandokir will become enraged for about 30seconds dealing a lot more damage hitting up to 2000 to the main tank. So there is two ways of killing him. One way is to kill his Raptor first then Mandokir. The 2nd way is to kill Mandokir first then the Raptor.
To kill raptor you need 3 Tanks as the Raptor has Sunder Armor that can stack up to 5 times so you need 2 tank to deal with the Raptor when one tank has about 3 Sunder Armor debuff the other should Taunt and tank the Raptor until the debuff wears off and repeat the process until everyone else is finish with Mandokir.
Or a much faster way is to Kill the Raptor first and let Mandokir gets enraged, main tank needs to have Shield Wall ready to use and use it during his Enraged mode. But enraged last for 30seconds so tank shouldn't use it too soon or he will still die. So have mages keep 'Detect Magic' on Mandokir so the tank can tell when he is enraged or not.
During the fight with Mandokir, he will sometime Yell 'Player A I am Watching You' then Player A need to hit ESC and stop DPS immediately for about 8 seconds or else Mandokir will charge Player A and kill him with one hit. If he is watching the Main Tank everybody must stop DPS including the tank until the debuff wears off. If the tank has good agro Bloodlord should not charge people at random if he moves away its because someone pulled agro that person should jump down from the ledge and run towards the Main Tank so he can gain back agro.
If Mandokir killsl a player he will literally gain a level making him a bit stronger, this can cause a nasty snowball effect that he will go around killing one person at a time getting stronger and stronger until its impossible for the raid to win. But don't despair if a couple of people die as the spirit will resurrect them.
- So we will use the Kill Raptor first strategy as it is the fastest and simplest way for a PUG to understand.
- Have all casters / healers on standing on the platform and Assign a main tank on Mandokir and an off tank on the Raptor.
- Kill the Speaker and Raptor boss will come down and separate from the raptor, Tanks should pick up their targets.
- Full DPS on Raptor, Mage should cast detect magic on Mandokir for the main tank to be able to tell that he's enraged.
- Once the Raptor is dead, full DPS on Mandokir tank need to be ready on shield wall and full healing on Main Tank until his enrage buff wears off
- At the same time call out players name in Vent when they are being watched, it should be announced in CT Raid but it helps when people hear their name called out that they should stop all DPS.
- When Mandokir is about to start whirlwind all melee except tank have about 2 second to strafe out to avoid this.
- Repeat the process until he dies.
Bloodlord Mandokir Area -> High Priest Thekal Area (Tiger Boss)
Follow the track towards Thekal area, There are just easy pack of Snakes and a Troll Berserker in the way. You will pass Edge of Madness on the way and you just have to be careful passing the
3x Patrolling Imps - You should be able to skip them however accidents do happen. Try to kill the Imp one at time because when one dies 2 Voidwalker will spawn and they hit very hard. Warlock can banish and Enslave them. Keep going towards Thekal area and you will come across
Very Large Pack of Tigers - They don't hit very hard you can just get someone to mount up and clump them up into one small group and AOE all them. Head up the ram in Thekal Area and clear the room
2-3 Troll hunters, 4-5x Tigers - Easy pull sheep the trolls and AOE the tigers and then the Kill the trolls.
High Priest Thekal
Thekal has two bodyguards with her Zath and Lor'khan, the off tanks take the Zealots about halfway to each corner of the lower area. The Priest is tanked just south of his hut. Lor'Khan needs to be far enough away from the others so he cannot heal them. Zath can be closer to Thekal, but again needs to be away from Lor'Khan. If any of the adds or Thekal dies, the remaining ones will resurrect them. This means all 3 must die simultaneously.
The Priest is tanked just south of his hut. Lor'Khan needs to be far enough away from the others so he cannot heal them. Zath can be closer to Thekal, but again needs to be away from Lor'Khan more than 30 yards. Once the MT has enough agro on Thekal, everyone attacks until 15%. They then switch to Zath, and take him to 15%. Finally, Lor'Khan is taken to 15%. Rogues and Warriors need to interrupt and mages need to silence to avoid him healing, and whoever is tanking Zath needs a 2nd tank (druid) to taunt Zath when he Gouge the tank and deagro, then bring them all together kill them all at the same time.
Phase 2 Thekal will resurrect in Tiger Form, let the main tank hold agro then full DPS, during this time two tigers will spawn mages should poly one and Kill one at a time, then back to full DPS on Thekal. Thekal will deal an AOE Punch that deagro Main tank need to ready to taunt him back if the Main Tank fails off tank should try to help until the main tank has agro.
- Assign Tanks on Thekal, Zath and Lor'Khan
- Let Main tank pull and the other two tanks pull Zath and Lor'Khan away from each other (over 30yard) so that Lor'Khan can't heal
- DPS the Tiger adds first then FULL DPS Thekal to 15% > Zath 15% and Lor'Khan to 15% then bring them all together and AOE them all to kill them at the same time.
- 2nd Phase Main Tank should still have agro on Thekal but let him about 2 sunder before full DPS. Main Tank should tank Thekal back to just South of his hut against a wall so that the tank doesn't get knocked back very far and he can taunt easily.
- Mages Sheep one Tiger add and have off tank pick up the other one and kill both before DPSing back to Thekal
- Main Tank should be ready to taunt Thekal when he deagro and Off tank should help if main tank fails.
- Repeat the process until he dies.
High Priest Thekal Area -> High Priestess Arlokk Area (Panther Boss)
Move down the ramp and have everybody stick to the left side of the path towards Arlokk area, you can completely skip the Mobs to your right and head up the ramp toward Arlokk's Temple. You will come across
Packs of 3x Patrolling Panthers - Just AOE and kill them, all healers need to simply keep the casters alive, and tanks taunt them off casters.
4x Troll Hunters - Assign target to polymorph and kill them one at a time. then you go downstairs and you will come across.
1-2 Toll hunter, 2-3x Panthers, 1-2 Blooddrinkers - Mages just need to keep the Bloodrinker Sheeped and tanks should be able to pick up the left over troll while casters AOE. Then kill the Blooddrinkers one at a time using full DPS + Stunlock. Then there is another easy pack of Hunters, Panthers and Blooddrinkers.
Head down the stairs and ignore the mobs to your right, towards Arlokk Area which should be an empty room.
High Priestess Arlokk
Arlokk is actually an easy fight, To start the fight somebody has to ring the gong and Arlokk will spawn close to the Door which will be blocked off during the fight. The old strategy of having 2 tanks on either side to tank the panther adds is a very bad strategy which doesn't work correctly anymore. I really think this is not how blizzard intended fight to be, which is why they nerfed that strategy.
Arlokk will appear in Troll Rogue form, she hits pretty hard melee and she has the ability to gouge the tank which deagro and she will attack someone else. She also has the ability to Mark someone with a large Purple 'V' over their head which draws all the panthers towards them. For alliance paladins can remove this debuff with BOP and Divine Shield, otherwise healers need to keep an eye on the person with the Mark.
After a while she will transform into Panther form and Vanish, and when she reappears tanks need to be on guard to taunt her off casters, she will eventually transform back to Troll form then back to Panther and Vanish again. During this time the rate of which the panther add spawn will gradually increase so if you don't kill her after her 3rd vanish consider it a wipe. But you should be able to kill her easily with only 2 vanishes or even 1 vanish if your DPS is high enough.
- Casters stand by the door area instead of the Gong area, Main tank as well so he's ready to pick up Arlokk as soon as she spawns.
- Main tank should tank her in the middle of the room away from the casters. This is important especially when she's in Panther form as she does a Whirlwind attack and hits several targets around her. Only 1 warrior is needed to stay in Defense gear as the off tank is only needed to taunt her momentarily.
- Allow tank to build up agro then full DPS on Arlokk ignoring the panther adds, If she gouges the main tank, another warrior should taunt her immediately and keep her close to the main tank.
- On her 1st vanish, casters should try to conserve mana and AOE only a little bit as the melee should be able to handle most of them.
- Healesr pay special attention to any players that have been marked
- After about 30sec Main Tank needs to be ready to taunt Arlokk straight away and bring her back to the middle of the room.
- Tanks and Warriors should also try to cast Demoralizing Shout to gain some agro from panthers add. Most players should still ignore the panthers Priest and Warlocks can AOE fear when it gets too much.
- On her 2nd Vanish, Casters should clear the room of panthers as best as they can. Warriors can AOE taunt to help.
- When Arlokk reappears Main tank should be ready to taunt and bring her back to the middle, by now you should be able to finish her quickly.
High Priestess Arlokk Area -> Jin'do The Hexxer Area
Make your way towards the path to Jin'Do area, stick to the wall on the right side of the path and get everybody around the corner. You will have to pull some Panther patrol and Troll Patrol Witchdoctor and Priest. And by the ramp toward Jin'do there is a Troll Berserker Patrol, pull him and kill it in the safe area if people get feared to more Mobs it can cause a wipe.
Upon Entering Jin'do area the mobs are easy they only consist of
Undead Trolls - Easy to Kill just AOE them all and get warriors to grap initial agro, they can also cast a curse that increases physical damage, so Druids need to decurse.
Voodoo Slaves - They have low HP but can wreak a lot of Havoc with their rain of fire and Infernal summons, it is best if you Polymorph them first and kill them after you finish with the trolls.
so with the Large pack of 6-8x Undead Troll and 3x Voodoo Slave - You must polymorph all the Voodoo slave and AOE kill the Undead Troll. Clear the entire room of Undead Troll and Voodoo Slave and you're ready for Jin'Do.
Jin'Do The Hexxer
- Brain Wash Totem - Jin'do can drop Mind Control totems that will Mind Control the nearest raid member. Mind Control is not dispellable, and the totem must be destroyed to free the controlled person. Powerful Healing Totem - This totem heals Jin'do for roughly 3% per tick. - - - Teleportation - Jin'do will randomly teleport a raid member into the middle of a pit full of skeletons that is located nearby Jin'do
- Hex - Turns a random raid member into a frog. If cast on the Main Tank this will deagro the main tank. Can be dispelled.
- Delusions of Jin'do - A curse that deals 200 damage every 2s. Additionally, someone who has this curse is able to target and attack Shades of Jin'do.
- Summon Shade of Jin'do - Every time someone is cursed, Jin'do the Hexxer will spawn a 'shade'. Shades do 100% shadow damage. Their basic attack hits for 1 damage, but interrupts spell casting. They also do Shadow Shock for 600. This is not partially resistable.
Jin'do's melee attack is weak against tanks so they can ditch the +defense gear and wear DPS gear for tanking, main tank should still hold a shield. The hardest part about the encounter are Jin'do's shades. Because one can only attack shades while cursed, it is imperative that you do not dispel the curse. Whenever someone is cursed they must attack shades. This includes priests, druids, everyone but the main tank. Shades are immune to all forms of AoE except for Stratholm Holy Water. A paladin's retribution aura will not hurt the shades whilst un-cursed, so presumably neither will thorns, crystal spire, etc..
His Brainwash and Healing totems must be killed instantly in priority over Jin'do. Wound poison and Mortal Strike should be kept on Jin'do over the duration of the fight. Finally, one mage must be designated to monitor the pit of skeletons. When someone is teleported into the pit the skeletons must be AOEd. The skeletons will respawn in seconds.
In summary, the priority of damage should be: Shades > Brainwashing totem > Healing totem > Jin'do
If you have enough Priesst you can assign them all to Mana burn, if Jin'do doesn't have any mana he can't drop Healing Totem and he can't Hex the tank.
Jin'Do The Hexxer Area -> Hakkar Area
Without agroing any mobs head to the bridge that leads to Hakkar, after you cross the bridge AOE Kill the Crocodiles to your right so you can use this as a shortcut later in case the raid wipes. Now this is your safe area, time to get the hunter to pull the Pack of patrolling mobs down the stairs and kill them down in the safe area.
You will also see a Troll Berserker on either side of the Stair to Hakkar. You don't need to kill them at all, you can pull the mobs and not agro them. The packs you're about to pull are probably the hardest part in the instance, it is a mixture of
Hunter job to pull is important if Promote the hunter so he can assign the targets to polymorph before he pulls, and hunter can also lay a freeze trap to CC 1 Mob. There should be about 4 Patrols, 2 Smaller patrol and 2 Large Patrols of
4-5 Trolls, Blooddrinkers, Priest Blooddrinkers, Champion, Witchdoctors, 2x Soulflayer (Large Flying Creature), 2x Sons of Hakkars - The easiest way to do this is to Polymorph/CC all the Troll, Druids can cast Sleep on the Soulflayer. Full DPS on the Son of Hakkars first and they should go down very quickly then Kill the Soulflayers, then kill the trolls and leave the blooddrinkers last.
Once all the patrols are dead, you can move everyone up to Hakkar Area, and everyone should wait by the platform. Don't let people linger around the corner area of the temple because Son of Hakkars keep respawning in that area.
Hakkar The Soulflayer
- Hakkar uses a curse called Corrupted Blood which deals shadow damage, and temporarily causes an outbreak on certain servers. This was fixed in the 1.8 patch. In 1.9, corrupted blood will no longer spread. Instead, Hakkar targets a single player. Any nearby players will take splash damage and the target player will be DoTed for approximately 10 seconds. The initial hit does about 1,000 damage unmitigated. Casters need to spread out and not be standing too close to each other.
- Life Drain will occur every 90 seconds starting from when the event is started. If successful, it will drain 200 HP/sec and heal Hakkar for 1000 HP/sec. If you are poisoned (by a Son of Hakkar) when he life drains, you take no damage and Hakkar is hit for 200DPS. This drains from a number of people equal to the number of free debuff slots he has. If he has a lot of debuffs, he won't drain as many people (then again, he won't be able to be damage-drained by poison). This also interrupts healers, so you may want to keep a couple debuff slots full so that one or two healers can be around to heal the MT.
- Mind Control that is cast on whoever Hakkar is currently targeting (the main tank). The ability lasts approximately 8 seconds and Hakkar casts it about every 10-15 seconds. The mind-controlled unit will zip around with a 100% speed increase. Best served sheeped. This ability is not an agro-wipe. When mind control breaks (and the target is not a sheep), Hakkar will regain all previous agro Hakkar's mind control is not dispellable, but Will of the Forsaken undead racial will break the mind control.
Orc Racial is a Disadvantage because of the 50% healing debuff after turning on Bloodfury from MC.
BEFORE THE BATTLE: Assign at least one hunter with pulling Sons from either side of the temple onto the platform across from Hakkar. Assign a mage to sheep the Son when it is pulled. Assign another mage to sheep mind-controlled players. Assign only two tanks to hold agro on Hakkar--any more and it gets confusing for healers as to which tank they should heal. A mod that keeps track of and announces impending life drains will help immensely. Warriors should use Intimidating Shout before the encounter starts (and again when it cools down, during the encounter) in case they get mind-controlled.
DURING THE BATTLE: Tanks should attack Hakkar where he stands and turn him so his back is facing the platform. This way, rogues and other melee DPS can simply run back to the platform as needed without the risk of running through a cleave in the process. Ranged DPS and healers have almost the entire temple room to work with, but should still remain close to the platform. This is to mitigate damage done by corrupted blood.
Hakkar will mind control whoever is tanking him at the time in approximately 20 second intervals. The mage responsible for sheeping the now-hostile target should tab around and sheep the player as quickly as possible. In many cases, Hakkar's mind-control will SAVE a main tank from certain death by MCing them at very low health. In this case, allow the tank to remain sheeped until they have regained 90%+ health, then dispel (if they have not broken out of it already).
Meanwhile, the hunter responsible for pulling the Sons of Hakkar should always be searching either side for a new Son to bring to the group. Timed correctly, there will always be a supply of Sons available, but a hunter should waste no time in starting the search as sometimes the Son will be located a considerable distance from the battleground. At approximately 30 seconds, the raid group must immediately switch DPS to the Son and everyone except the tanks should hop into the poison
Tanks should attack Hakkar where he stands and turn him so his back is facing the platform. This way, rogues and other melee DPS can simply run back to the platform as needed without the risk of running through a cleave in the process. Ranged DPS and healers have almost the entire temple room to work with, but should still remain close to the platform. This is to mitigate damage done by corrupted blood.
Its crucial that the tank stay alive as it is almost to impossible to catch up on agro if the tank dies, if a tank dies early it is best to reset the run, every can just run down the platform and Hakkar will reset as soon as he reach the stairs.
But the problem is creating the group and leading them, ZG and AQ20 requires a good raid leader that will get things moving along as fast as possible. If the run moves too slowly people will become frustrated and leave the raids and things start to fall apart, leaving you with another failed raid. Even when you're in a good guild you will find that ZG run and AQ20 run is rarely organized, because Guild raid leaders are always too busy dealing with MC, BWL, AQ40 and Naxx.
So where do you find a good raid leader? I say why not take it upon yourself to be that person!! Why not? anyone can do it! A great benefit of being the raid leader is that you're guaranteed a spot in the raid, also it makes you a popular player in your server.
I am writing this from my own experiences from being a follower to a raid leader, and after two weeks my PUG group now clears ZG in under 3hours, and also clear AQ20 with ease. I will explain how you can become a great 20man raid leader without doing much at all.
Check out http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/calendar to schedule your raid
Hopefully by the end of this article you will be confident in leading a raid or at least give it a shot.
Take Baby Steps, Gear Yourself Up First
Sorry but if you're not done with DM and UBRS you're not ready for ZG/AQ20, no one will respect a raid leader wearing anything green. You don't need any epic gear for ZG but gear yourself appropriately with blues eg, if you're a tank you need a lot +defense gear and a lot of +healing gear if you are a healer.
Be in a Guild
Being in a guild gives you a great advantage, guilded players are usually more competent and it is easier to find replacements for any people that leave the raid early. And familiarize yourself with other guilds, by checking out the players in major cities. You should know which are the top guilds to the mediocre, so you can kind of judge whether that person is a competent player or not to invite into your 20man raid. You can also use the realm forums http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/realmforums.shtml to find more about the guild in your realms.
Organize Ventrilo Server and CTRaid
You will find all experienced WOW players have ventrilo so its not a big ask for you to ask everyone in your raid to join your vent, if they don't have vent you don't want them in your raid anyway. If you don't have a ventrilo server as your Guild Leader whether its ok for you to use the Guild vent for your raid or for $10 a month you can have your own vent server at nrgservers.net
You will be spamming your vent frequently info so might as well create a macro that will tell everyone your vent info eg /raid striker.nrgservers.net port:3547 password:ultimatewow
Most people should have CTRaid Assist mod, the best function with this is setting up Tank windows and Boss timer and ability announcement.
Creating Your Group
This is the hard part, first you must play at a good time when most people are online so usually between 1PM - 12AM server time. Start by enticing your own guild to start a ZG run, so /g Anyone here would like to run ZG? going to arrange a combine guild run soon.
And see what kind of responses you get, if you have more than 15 guildies online that are not really doing anything special its likely that you will get about 5 or more people from your own guild.
Now message other guilds, and see if any of their members would like to come. You can check to see how many of their players are online by doing a /who Guild Name and message someone that is sitting around in a major city since its likely that they're not busy.
eg you're messaging someone from a guild called Honor
/w SomeGuyInHonor Heya, would you or anyone from Honor would like to do a combine ZG with my Guild?
If you get no response try another person in that guild and do the same to a different person or guild until you get some results. Once you find a person from a different guild that would like to come it is likely that they will have friends that they will want to invite, so the snowball effect will begin and you should fill up your group fast. You can even use the LookingForGroup Channel to find players to fill up spots. Be specific in your Ad and tell people that it is a guild run eg LF1M Experienced Warlock new ZG run with Guildname PST
Telling people that it is a guild run is a lot more enticing than leaving them to think that it is just a random PUG. And when you get messages from people asking you for an invite check what guild they're from first by doing a /whois Playername.
You also have to make the tough decision to boot people that you think may not be 'good enough' to be in the raid. Such as a player with very low quality gear, or inexperience players. Skills can be greater than Gear but good gear is still important, especially for tanking.
Organizing Your Group
The Core of a successful raid is by always having a good Main Tank Warrior. So make sure your tanks are well geared, if they never tank ZG before its not a big problem as long as you're able to explain to them what they should be doing and that they have good gear.
A good group for ZG should consist of at least
3-4 Warriors - You need at least 3 warriors to tank a lot of the Bosses
3-4 Shamans / Paladins - For Healing + Buff Aura / Totems for each party
3-4 Mages - For Polymorph, Decurse and AOE DPS
3-4 Rogues - For Stunlocking Blooddrinkers and Straight DPS
2-3 Priest - For better Healing, Shields, Buffs and AOE fear during panther boss
1-2 Druid - For Buffs, Healing, Decurse and Sleeping Soulflayers
1-2 Warlock - For AOE DPS and Imp Bloodpact Buff for Tanks and Summoning
1-2 Hunters - For pulling Son of Hakkar during Hakkar, DPS, and Freeze Traps
You will have a total of four 'Party of 5' set the group to something like this.
Group 1
2 Main Tank Warriors
1 Shaman/Paladin
1 Warlock
1 Priest Group 2
2 Mages
1 Warlock
1 Priest
1 Any Caster or Healing Class
Group 3
1 Warrior
2 Rogue
1 Any Melee or Healing Class
1 Shaman / Paladin
Group 4
2 Hunters
2 Any class
1 Shaman
Being the Raid Leader
Being the raid leader means that you're the main drive behind the raid. You have to get things done and make fast decisions so you're not wasting anyone elses time.
1. When the raid gets filled about 15 players start spamming the Vent info, and spam it again when a new person joins the raid.
2. Consider promoting someone to help you with the invites, to get things moving even quicker.
3. Make good use of the /RW command (Raid Warning) this will show a message in the middle of every raid member's screen and will also create a *PING* sound to grab their attention. eg /rw HEAD TO ZG, /rw EVERYONE BUFF UP
Only raid leader's and Promoted players can do this.
4. If warlock is available get them to start summoning players to the instance.
5. Arrange the group appropriately eg. 1 Shaman per party so every party will get a Totem buff, Warlock with Imp in Main tank group.
6. Set at least 2 Tank Windows and 3rd Tank window can be assigned to a Rogue to be Main Assist, and remind people that they are assisting 3rd Tank window because they often forget at the start.
7. Make good use of Assign target function by right clicking on the mobs portrait, this will speed things up a lot when some does it fast consistently. Eg Main Tank #1 will always grab Yellow Star and Main Tank #2 will always grab Orange Circle, Mage 1 sheep Purple Diamond etc.
8. You're going to be the main voice in Vent, inform people what is happening and how its going to get done. Quickly explain how to do every Boss Fight just in case somebody has never done one before.
9. Make good use of Blizzard new 'Ready Check' button to make sure everyone is not AFK before a boss fight.
10. Remember to set Group Loot and Master Loot for Bosses, to prevent any 'ninja' looting.
Loot Rules
You should decide before the raid begins what the loot rules are going to be. Generally the loot rules for a PUG ZG/AQ20 run are.
Group Loot set and need roll on all Bijous / Coins and Scarabs.
1 BOP per run
Idols that drops of Bloodlord Mandokir and Jin'do are to be considered as a BOP
What this means is that a player can only obtain 1 item that they desire.
A player can claim a BOP on any item that they really really wish to have even if its green, such as Mats for ZG Trinkets, New Rank Books in AQ20.
During the /random roll player that wish to BOP an item they should clearly state it in raid chat so people know its a BOP roll.
If a player joins late because they are replacing someone else that left the raid, they should roll a 'modified' roll
eg. Player A has just arrived to help finish Hakkar, but a lot of the players in the run have been working hard since the beginning of the raid. Player A can only /random 80 while players that have been playing since the beginning of the raid can /random 100. So the new players still have a chance of winning the loot, but they have lower chance than everyone else because they have done the least amount of work to get there. This should be explained to the new player to avoid any dramas and confusion later in the game.
Well this is just a suggestion on how you should have the loot rules during your PUG raid.
After the Raid
If you just ran a successful raid congratulations! take a screenshot of the people in your Raid or add some of them to your friends list. Before everyone leaves the raid tell them when you are hosting the next one eg /RW AQ20 Tommorow invites start at 1PM PST Me. It is likely that you will get some of the good players to return making your raid much easier to get started and the regulars will make your raid also more elite.
If you didn't finish the left, make a time to complete the raid tommorow or later on in the day, and it is likely that people will return to give it a second attempt, give invite priority to the people that were in the original raid.
Step by Step Zul'Gurub Guide for Raid Leaders
I have seen a lot of guides out there, but none that really show you how to do this Instance as fast as you can. Also there are a lot of outdated and unnecessararily long strategies, I have completed ZG over 50 times and I know from my first hand experience that these are the fastest strategies that work. I will challenge anyone that disagrees.
First thing that you should know about ZG is that in order for you to kill Hakkar you must kill all the High Priest/Priestess Bosses because if you don't Hakkar will be a lot stronger. Jin'Do and Mandokir are optional bosses you can easily skip them but since patch 1.11 they will always drop 1 idol each that is required for people to get their Head / Leg ZG enchant. So they're still important and a lot players only come to ZG just for the idols.
Note: The white path is the fastest path you should take for clearing all the bosses, and skipping unnecessary mobs. The green path to Jin'do is a handy shortcut that you can take, if your group is too slow at clearing the instance, its a good idea to save Jin'do and Hakkar for tommorow's raid and use that shortcut.
Now you have everybody zoned in and Buff up lets get it started.
Entrance -> High Priestess Jeklik Area (Bat Boss)
This is where you begin obviously, follow the path to High Priestess Jeklik, Mobs in the way are
Pairs of Troll Axe throwers- Either get the tanks to pick up one each or Polymorph one while you kill the rest. When the Axe throwers start spinning around and hitting random people this can be stopped by Polymorphing temporarily
Packs of Blue and Brown Snake - Tanks to charge in to grab initial agro and Mages/Warlocks AOE instead of Polymorphing. Priest should shield the Mages, as they will grab agro fast.
Combinations of Snake + Troll Witchdoctor and Axe throwers - Mages should polymorph the witch doctor and kill it last.
Large Berserker Troll - Instruct both your tank to chain taunt the Berserker and while the rest of the group go full DPS. A good tank can keep the Berserker agro by himself Taunt > Mocking Blow > Taunt again.
Move your way up towards Jeklik area after the Berserker and instruct everyone to stick to the left hand side wall and you should be able to skip the mobs to your right. Once everybody is up you should see .
Pairs of Bat riders - Pull only a pair at a time and assign target for the tanks eg Main Tank #1 will always grab Yellow Star and Main Tank #2 will always grab Orange Circle. Casters should AOE the non-elite bats and the rest the group should assist on 1 bat at a time. Melee need to be aware that the Bat rider will explode when it reaches about 1/3 of its health, so they should be ready to run. If your raid DPS is high enough you can kill the bat before it explodes.
Troll Witchdoctor and Hunters - Polymorph the witchdoctor and DPS the hunter first, you just have to be careful not to pull the Bat riders at the same time.
High Priestess Jeklik (Bat Boss)
This is an easy fight, Caster should stay at a good distance away from Jeklik as she will cast an AOE Silence while she is in bat form. Caster should stay a good range from Jeklik and Mages AOE the bats and healers keep tank and mages alive.
- Let the tank have enough agro before full DPS, 2-3 Sunders should be enough then instruct everyone to go full DPS.
- Non Elite bat will arrive and Caster should AOE they're very easy to take down, Healers need to keep everyone alive.
- Jeklik will turn into bat form and sometimes charges at random people if the tank still has good agro she will return to the tank immediately.
- Jeklik will back into her normal form and she will sometimes try to soul drain someone or try to heal the animation of her healing is similar to a priest healing, it is very obvious warriors and rogues should be prepared to shield bash / kick or pummel to interrupt this.
- When Jeklik is close to 20% Bomb bats will come, dropping random bombs in the area, all players including the tank just need to be aware of the fires animation around them and not stand on the fire and that's it!
High Priestess Jeklik Area Area -> High Priest Venoxis Area (Snake Boss)
You should now be able to cross the bridge without any need to fight anymore Mobs and reach the entrance of High Priest Venoxis, and you're 2 pulls away from him, clear the small patroling snake coming from your right before you start on the
Large pack of Snakes - it is much easier to AOE every single one, get warriors to charge in + demoralizing shout for initial agro, Mages and Warlock AOE + Melee DPS tanks should taunt the loose snake that wanders outside of the aoe and try to keep the together with Piercing Howl and Frost Nova. next pull is
Large pack of Snakes + 3 Trolls - Assign target and Polymorph all three trolls and AOE all the snakes then let the tank choose which troll to kill first
High Priest Venoxis
Venoxis is guarded by 4 green snakes assign 3 target for mages to polymorph and the last target the off tank can take it and everyone should assist the off tank to kill one snake at a time. Venoxis ability is simple, while he's in troll form he does a holy fire / nova that can kill casters in 1 shot but deal smaller damage to melee. After about 50% health he will turn into a snake form and deal a much higher melee damage and leave poison cloud at random.
- Assign targets for mages to polymorph
- Main Tank pull by going up the stair hit / taunt Venoxis and quickly run down the stair towards the left side of the area by the bonfire. Main tank should not stay above the stair as he has agro of all the snake as well and they will all try to spit him at the same time for 1200 damage each.
- Caster need to stay away from Venoxis as his holy nova on the way down can kill them in one shot.
- Mages can polymorph the snakes on the way down
- DPS 1 snake at time while the others are sheeped
- Once all the snake are down full DPS on Venoxis, only non-mana users can come close to Venoxis in his troll form
- At about 40-50% Venoxis will turn into snake form Main tank should now move backward in a circle around the bonfire to keep the snake boss and all the melee moving so they don't stay in the poison cloud for too long, and the poison cloud can be dispelled if you move out of it and that's it.
High Priest Venoxis Area -> High Priestess Mar'li Area (Spider Boss)
On your way out there towards Mar'li area there should be
A couple of Large pack of snakes - Warrior charge in and Casters AOE
Berserker Troll - Warriors chain taunt while everyone go full DPS
Some Small spider - easy just kill them.
Head up the ramp into Mar'li area, from here on you only need to make 2 pull, first pull the pack on your left side which are
Pack of Grey Spider and 1-2 Big Red Spider and 1-2 Troll ShadowCaster - Instruct the mages to Polymorph the Big Red Spider and the Trolls and the rest of the spiders in the pack should come to you. AOE all the spiders and healers need to keep the Mages alive. then try to kill the trolls and the big red spider one at a time.
Then pull the pack on your right which is a similar group to the pack that you have just pulled, so use the same strategy.
High Priestess Mar'li (Spider Boss)
High Priestess Mar'li is reasonably easy, the tanks have the most important job. You start off by assigning a main tank to Mar'li and an off tank to the Speaker, and you must again separate the casters about 20yards away from the melee. you can tank her on the right side of the room but don't allow anyone to stand on the Spider Eggs as this will Mar'li the 'Evade' bug. When Mar'li transforms into Spider her attack will cast an AOE web snare and AOE Silence everyone around her for about 8 seconds.
She will then charge towards the caster trying to pick them off, 1 Warrior should stay back with the caster in defensive stance ready to taunt her back to the main tank. All other melee class can DPS Mar'li with the main tank.
In her Troll form she will try to Drain Life or cast Greater Heal, Rogues and Warriors must Interrupt these effects. Occasionally a couple of spider adds will come and and it should be Mages/Casters priority to kill as if you leave them alone for too long they will become bigger and hit harder.
- Assign Tanks one on speaker and one on Mar'li
- When pulling, Spider adds will come everyone except tanks should kill the spiders adds first then the Speaker then full DPS on Mar'li
- One warrior needs to stay behind with the caster
- When Mar'li turns into a Spider Form and charges towards the casters the warrior has to taunt her back to the main tank, everyone should stop their DPS on Mar'li until the main tank gains back agro.
- If warrior taunt resist, Druids can also act as a backup taunt but its the not the end of the world when this happens main tank should run back gain agro and take her back to her original tanking spot.
- Mages should be prioritizing on any Spider adds that may come during this process.
- When Mar'li turns back to troll form Rogue and Warrior need to be ready to interrupt her from casting Drain Life or Greater Heal.
- Repeat this process until she dies.
High Priestess Mar'li Area -> Bloodlord Mandokir Area (Raptor Boss)
From the Mar'li head towards Bloodlord Mandokir area, just before that area after the ramp you will come across a large area with large pack of trolls, to your left there is
4x Troll Blooddrinker, 2x Witchdoctor/Priest, 1x Champion - Make good use of blizzard assign target, and set target for Mages to polymorph all the Blooddrinkers, you should have at least 3 mages in your raid, if you don't have four get a Druid to root one of the Blooddrinker. Warriors should pick up the witchdoctors and champion and tank him by the ramp area this is important as the Witchdoctor can AOE fear players into more mobs. Remind people to assist target one at a time and keep the rest of the troll pollied or rooted Now you're left with
4x Troll Bloodrinker - Let the main tank pick a target and everyone should assist on 1 Blooddrinker at a time. Instruct the Rogues to stunlock the Blooddrinker if they don't the Blooddrinker will continue healing from the players around him. Stunlocking is the fastest way to kill these Trolls but if your Rogues are unable to deal with this task, then have all melee to stay out of range of the Blooddrinker and have Main Tank and Range DPS only.
There is also a Berserker Troll patrolling the area that is a potential hazard, you need to get someone to go by the log on your right and pull the Berserker on his own. Now instruct people to follow you on the left side and you will see
4x Troll Champions - Easy pull assign Mages to Polymorph 3 of them and kill one troll at a time.
By the 4x Champions you might see a pair of Witchdoctors patrolling, you should also kill them when you get the chance, Now go into the entrance into Mandokir area. Instruct everyone to head to the right side corner where its clear from mobs. To your left there is a
Pack of 6-7 Raptors - Easiest way to do this is to have warrior charge in and Casters AOE them all and keep them snared, beware that the raptors hit very hard Priest needs to shield the mages before hand. Now to your right there is a pack of
Troll Blooddrinker, Witchdoctor/Priest, Champion - Pretty easy again, just polymorph the Blooddrinker, Witchdoctor, Priest and Kill the champion first, then by the totem to your left is
4x Troll Champions - Polymorph 3 of them and kill one at a time, then you just have one more group to kill which are
6-7 Raptors - Warrior charge in get initial agro and Caster AOE.
Bloodlord Mandokir
When you fight Mandokir you also have to fight his Raptor as well, but if you kill the Raptor, Mandokir will become enraged for about 30seconds dealing a lot more damage hitting up to 2000 to the main tank. So there is two ways of killing him. One way is to kill his Raptor first then Mandokir. The 2nd way is to kill Mandokir first then the Raptor.
To kill raptor you need 3 Tanks as the Raptor has Sunder Armor that can stack up to 5 times so you need 2 tank to deal with the Raptor when one tank has about 3 Sunder Armor debuff the other should Taunt and tank the Raptor until the debuff wears off and repeat the process until everyone else is finish with Mandokir.
Or a much faster way is to Kill the Raptor first and let Mandokir gets enraged, main tank needs to have Shield Wall ready to use and use it during his Enraged mode. But enraged last for 30seconds so tank shouldn't use it too soon or he will still die. So have mages keep 'Detect Magic' on Mandokir so the tank can tell when he is enraged or not.
During the fight with Mandokir, he will sometime Yell 'Player A I am Watching You' then Player A need to hit ESC and stop DPS immediately for about 8 seconds or else Mandokir will charge Player A and kill him with one hit. If he is watching the Main Tank everybody must stop DPS including the tank until the debuff wears off. If the tank has good agro Bloodlord should not charge people at random if he moves away its because someone pulled agro that person should jump down from the ledge and run towards the Main Tank so he can gain back agro.
If Mandokir killsl a player he will literally gain a level making him a bit stronger, this can cause a nasty snowball effect that he will go around killing one person at a time getting stronger and stronger until its impossible for the raid to win. But don't despair if a couple of people die as the spirit will resurrect them.
- So we will use the Kill Raptor first strategy as it is the fastest and simplest way for a PUG to understand.
- Have all casters / healers on standing on the platform and Assign a main tank on Mandokir and an off tank on the Raptor.
- Kill the Speaker and Raptor boss will come down and separate from the raptor, Tanks should pick up their targets.
- Full DPS on Raptor, Mage should cast detect magic on Mandokir for the main tank to be able to tell that he's enraged.
- Once the Raptor is dead, full DPS on Mandokir tank need to be ready on shield wall and full healing on Main Tank until his enrage buff wears off
- At the same time call out players name in Vent when they are being watched, it should be announced in CT Raid but it helps when people hear their name called out that they should stop all DPS.
- When Mandokir is about to start whirlwind all melee except tank have about 2 second to strafe out to avoid this.
- Repeat the process until he dies.
Bloodlord Mandokir Area -> High Priest Thekal Area (Tiger Boss)
Follow the track towards Thekal area, There are just easy pack of Snakes and a Troll Berserker in the way. You will pass Edge of Madness on the way and you just have to be careful passing the
3x Patrolling Imps - You should be able to skip them however accidents do happen. Try to kill the Imp one at time because when one dies 2 Voidwalker will spawn and they hit very hard. Warlock can banish and Enslave them. Keep going towards Thekal area and you will come across
Very Large Pack of Tigers - They don't hit very hard you can just get someone to mount up and clump them up into one small group and AOE all them. Head up the ram in Thekal Area and clear the room
2-3 Troll hunters, 4-5x Tigers - Easy pull sheep the trolls and AOE the tigers and then the Kill the trolls.
High Priest Thekal
Thekal has two bodyguards with her Zath and Lor'khan, the off tanks take the Zealots about halfway to each corner of the lower area. The Priest is tanked just south of his hut. Lor'Khan needs to be far enough away from the others so he cannot heal them. Zath can be closer to Thekal, but again needs to be away from Lor'Khan. If any of the adds or Thekal dies, the remaining ones will resurrect them. This means all 3 must die simultaneously.
The Priest is tanked just south of his hut. Lor'Khan needs to be far enough away from the others so he cannot heal them. Zath can be closer to Thekal, but again needs to be away from Lor'Khan more than 30 yards. Once the MT has enough agro on Thekal, everyone attacks until 15%. They then switch to Zath, and take him to 15%. Finally, Lor'Khan is taken to 15%. Rogues and Warriors need to interrupt and mages need to silence to avoid him healing, and whoever is tanking Zath needs a 2nd tank (druid) to taunt Zath when he Gouge the tank and deagro, then bring them all together kill them all at the same time.
Phase 2 Thekal will resurrect in Tiger Form, let the main tank hold agro then full DPS, during this time two tigers will spawn mages should poly one and Kill one at a time, then back to full DPS on Thekal. Thekal will deal an AOE Punch that deagro Main tank need to ready to taunt him back if the Main Tank fails off tank should try to help until the main tank has agro.
- Assign Tanks on Thekal, Zath and Lor'Khan
- Let Main tank pull and the other two tanks pull Zath and Lor'Khan away from each other (over 30yard) so that Lor'Khan can't heal
- DPS the Tiger adds first then FULL DPS Thekal to 15% > Zath 15% and Lor'Khan to 15% then bring them all together and AOE them all to kill them at the same time.
- 2nd Phase Main Tank should still have agro on Thekal but let him about 2 sunder before full DPS. Main Tank should tank Thekal back to just South of his hut against a wall so that the tank doesn't get knocked back very far and he can taunt easily.
- Mages Sheep one Tiger add and have off tank pick up the other one and kill both before DPSing back to Thekal
- Main Tank should be ready to taunt Thekal when he deagro and Off tank should help if main tank fails.
- Repeat the process until he dies.
High Priest Thekal Area -> High Priestess Arlokk Area (Panther Boss)
Move down the ramp and have everybody stick to the left side of the path towards Arlokk area, you can completely skip the Mobs to your right and head up the ramp toward Arlokk's Temple. You will come across
Packs of 3x Patrolling Panthers - Just AOE and kill them, all healers need to simply keep the casters alive, and tanks taunt them off casters.
4x Troll Hunters - Assign target to polymorph and kill them one at a time. then you go downstairs and you will come across.
1-2 Toll hunter, 2-3x Panthers, 1-2 Blooddrinkers - Mages just need to keep the Bloodrinker Sheeped and tanks should be able to pick up the left over troll while casters AOE. Then kill the Blooddrinkers one at a time using full DPS + Stunlock. Then there is another easy pack of Hunters, Panthers and Blooddrinkers.
Head down the stairs and ignore the mobs to your right, towards Arlokk Area which should be an empty room.
High Priestess Arlokk
Arlokk is actually an easy fight, To start the fight somebody has to ring the gong and Arlokk will spawn close to the Door which will be blocked off during the fight. The old strategy of having 2 tanks on either side to tank the panther adds is a very bad strategy which doesn't work correctly anymore. I really think this is not how blizzard intended fight to be, which is why they nerfed that strategy.
Arlokk will appear in Troll Rogue form, she hits pretty hard melee and she has the ability to gouge the tank which deagro and she will attack someone else. She also has the ability to Mark someone with a large Purple 'V' over their head which draws all the panthers towards them. For alliance paladins can remove this debuff with BOP and Divine Shield, otherwise healers need to keep an eye on the person with the Mark.
After a while she will transform into Panther form and Vanish, and when she reappears tanks need to be on guard to taunt her off casters, she will eventually transform back to Troll form then back to Panther and Vanish again. During this time the rate of which the panther add spawn will gradually increase so if you don't kill her after her 3rd vanish consider it a wipe. But you should be able to kill her easily with only 2 vanishes or even 1 vanish if your DPS is high enough.
- Casters stand by the door area instead of the Gong area, Main tank as well so he's ready to pick up Arlokk as soon as she spawns.
- Main tank should tank her in the middle of the room away from the casters. This is important especially when she's in Panther form as she does a Whirlwind attack and hits several targets around her. Only 1 warrior is needed to stay in Defense gear as the off tank is only needed to taunt her momentarily.
- Allow tank to build up agro then full DPS on Arlokk ignoring the panther adds, If she gouges the main tank, another warrior should taunt her immediately and keep her close to the main tank.
- On her 1st vanish, casters should try to conserve mana and AOE only a little bit as the melee should be able to handle most of them.
- Healesr pay special attention to any players that have been marked
- After about 30sec Main Tank needs to be ready to taunt Arlokk straight away and bring her back to the middle of the room.
- Tanks and Warriors should also try to cast Demoralizing Shout to gain some agro from panthers add. Most players should still ignore the panthers Priest and Warlocks can AOE fear when it gets too much.
- On her 2nd Vanish, Casters should clear the room of panthers as best as they can. Warriors can AOE taunt to help.
- When Arlokk reappears Main tank should be ready to taunt and bring her back to the middle, by now you should be able to finish her quickly.
High Priestess Arlokk Area -> Jin'do The Hexxer Area
Make your way towards the path to Jin'Do area, stick to the wall on the right side of the path and get everybody around the corner. You will have to pull some Panther patrol and Troll Patrol Witchdoctor and Priest. And by the ramp toward Jin'do there is a Troll Berserker Patrol, pull him and kill it in the safe area if people get feared to more Mobs it can cause a wipe.
Upon Entering Jin'do area the mobs are easy they only consist of
Undead Trolls - Easy to Kill just AOE them all and get warriors to grap initial agro, they can also cast a curse that increases physical damage, so Druids need to decurse.
Voodoo Slaves - They have low HP but can wreak a lot of Havoc with their rain of fire and Infernal summons, it is best if you Polymorph them first and kill them after you finish with the trolls.
so with the Large pack of 6-8x Undead Troll and 3x Voodoo Slave - You must polymorph all the Voodoo slave and AOE kill the Undead Troll. Clear the entire room of Undead Troll and Voodoo Slave and you're ready for Jin'Do.
Jin'Do The Hexxer
- Brain Wash Totem - Jin'do can drop Mind Control totems that will Mind Control the nearest raid member. Mind Control is not dispellable, and the totem must be destroyed to free the controlled person. Powerful Healing Totem - This totem heals Jin'do for roughly 3% per tick. - - - Teleportation - Jin'do will randomly teleport a raid member into the middle of a pit full of skeletons that is located nearby Jin'do
- Hex - Turns a random raid member into a frog. If cast on the Main Tank this will deagro the main tank. Can be dispelled.
- Delusions of Jin'do - A curse that deals 200 damage every 2s. Additionally, someone who has this curse is able to target and attack Shades of Jin'do.
- Summon Shade of Jin'do - Every time someone is cursed, Jin'do the Hexxer will spawn a 'shade'. Shades do 100% shadow damage. Their basic attack hits for 1 damage, but interrupts spell casting. They also do Shadow Shock for 600. This is not partially resistable.
Jin'do's melee attack is weak against tanks so they can ditch the +defense gear and wear DPS gear for tanking, main tank should still hold a shield. The hardest part about the encounter are Jin'do's shades. Because one can only attack shades while cursed, it is imperative that you do not dispel the curse. Whenever someone is cursed they must attack shades. This includes priests, druids, everyone but the main tank. Shades are immune to all forms of AoE except for Stratholm Holy Water. A paladin's retribution aura will not hurt the shades whilst un-cursed, so presumably neither will thorns, crystal spire, etc..
His Brainwash and Healing totems must be killed instantly in priority over Jin'do. Wound poison and Mortal Strike should be kept on Jin'do over the duration of the fight. Finally, one mage must be designated to monitor the pit of skeletons. When someone is teleported into the pit the skeletons must be AOEd. The skeletons will respawn in seconds.
In summary, the priority of damage should be: Shades > Brainwashing totem > Healing totem > Jin'do
If you have enough Priesst you can assign them all to Mana burn, if Jin'do doesn't have any mana he can't drop Healing Totem and he can't Hex the tank.
Jin'Do The Hexxer Area -> Hakkar Area
Without agroing any mobs head to the bridge that leads to Hakkar, after you cross the bridge AOE Kill the Crocodiles to your right so you can use this as a shortcut later in case the raid wipes. Now this is your safe area, time to get the hunter to pull the Pack of patrolling mobs down the stairs and kill them down in the safe area.
You will also see a Troll Berserker on either side of the Stair to Hakkar. You don't need to kill them at all, you can pull the mobs and not agro them. The packs you're about to pull are probably the hardest part in the instance, it is a mixture of
Hunter job to pull is important if Promote the hunter so he can assign the targets to polymorph before he pulls, and hunter can also lay a freeze trap to CC 1 Mob. There should be about 4 Patrols, 2 Smaller patrol and 2 Large Patrols of
4-5 Trolls, Blooddrinkers, Priest Blooddrinkers, Champion, Witchdoctors, 2x Soulflayer (Large Flying Creature), 2x Sons of Hakkars - The easiest way to do this is to Polymorph/CC all the Troll, Druids can cast Sleep on the Soulflayer. Full DPS on the Son of Hakkars first and they should go down very quickly then Kill the Soulflayers, then kill the trolls and leave the blooddrinkers last.
Once all the patrols are dead, you can move everyone up to Hakkar Area, and everyone should wait by the platform. Don't let people linger around the corner area of the temple because Son of Hakkars keep respawning in that area.
Hakkar The Soulflayer
- Hakkar uses a curse called Corrupted Blood which deals shadow damage, and temporarily causes an outbreak on certain servers. This was fixed in the 1.8 patch. In 1.9, corrupted blood will no longer spread. Instead, Hakkar targets a single player. Any nearby players will take splash damage and the target player will be DoTed for approximately 10 seconds. The initial hit does about 1,000 damage unmitigated. Casters need to spread out and not be standing too close to each other.
- Life Drain will occur every 90 seconds starting from when the event is started. If successful, it will drain 200 HP/sec and heal Hakkar for 1000 HP/sec. If you are poisoned (by a Son of Hakkar) when he life drains, you take no damage and Hakkar is hit for 200DPS. This drains from a number of people equal to the number of free debuff slots he has. If he has a lot of debuffs, he won't drain as many people (then again, he won't be able to be damage-drained by poison). This also interrupts healers, so you may want to keep a couple debuff slots full so that one or two healers can be around to heal the MT.
- Mind Control that is cast on whoever Hakkar is currently targeting (the main tank). The ability lasts approximately 8 seconds and Hakkar casts it about every 10-15 seconds. The mind-controlled unit will zip around with a 100% speed increase. Best served sheeped. This ability is not an agro-wipe. When mind control breaks (and the target is not a sheep), Hakkar will regain all previous agro Hakkar's mind control is not dispellable, but Will of the Forsaken undead racial will break the mind control.
Orc Racial is a Disadvantage because of the 50% healing debuff after turning on Bloodfury from MC.
BEFORE THE BATTLE: Assign at least one hunter with pulling Sons from either side of the temple onto the platform across from Hakkar. Assign a mage to sheep the Son when it is pulled. Assign another mage to sheep mind-controlled players. Assign only two tanks to hold agro on Hakkar--any more and it gets confusing for healers as to which tank they should heal. A mod that keeps track of and announces impending life drains will help immensely. Warriors should use Intimidating Shout before the encounter starts (and again when it cools down, during the encounter) in case they get mind-controlled.
DURING THE BATTLE: Tanks should attack Hakkar where he stands and turn him so his back is facing the platform. This way, rogues and other melee DPS can simply run back to the platform as needed without the risk of running through a cleave in the process. Ranged DPS and healers have almost the entire temple room to work with, but should still remain close to the platform. This is to mitigate damage done by corrupted blood.
Hakkar will mind control whoever is tanking him at the time in approximately 20 second intervals. The mage responsible for sheeping the now-hostile target should tab around and sheep the player as quickly as possible. In many cases, Hakkar's mind-control will SAVE a main tank from certain death by MCing them at very low health. In this case, allow the tank to remain sheeped until they have regained 90%+ health, then dispel (if they have not broken out of it already).
Meanwhile, the hunter responsible for pulling the Sons of Hakkar should always be searching either side for a new Son to bring to the group. Timed correctly, there will always be a supply of Sons available, but a hunter should waste no time in starting the search as sometimes the Son will be located a considerable distance from the battleground. At approximately 30 seconds, the raid group must immediately switch DPS to the Son and everyone except the tanks should hop into the poison
Tanks should attack Hakkar where he stands and turn him so his back is facing the platform. This way, rogues and other melee DPS can simply run back to the platform as needed without the risk of running through a cleave in the process. Ranged DPS and healers have almost the entire temple room to work with, but should still remain close to the platform. This is to mitigate damage done by corrupted blood.
Its crucial that the tank stay alive as it is almost to impossible to catch up on agro if the tank dies, if a tank dies early it is best to reset the run, every can just run down the platform and Hakkar will reset as soon as he reach the stairs.