Introduction to the World of Warcraft Raid Guide

Welcome to WoW Raid Guide, an indepth guide to raiding in World of Warcraft the Wrath of the Lich King and beyond!
In this blog I will be writing walkthroughs and videos on how to take down those WoW raid bosses that have been giving your guild trouble, how to survive PUGs and how to advance into the end game content of World of Warcraft with step by step instructions and guides. Ontop of how to beat WoW instance bosses I will be giving boss and class information, helping you improve how you play your character and which professions may prove useful to you in and out of the instances and raids in World of Warcraft.

Tuesday 18 March 2008

High King Maulgar (And his High Council) Gruul's Lair

High King Maulgar is the first boss in Gruuls Lair. A lot of guilds have trouble with this boss due to his four adds (High King Maulgar's Council) turning this fight into a non crowd controlled overpowered version of Moroes from Karazhan.

High King Maulgar (Not King Mulgar!) hits for around 6.5k on plate, with 10k Crushing blows. With demoralizing shout you can knock this down to 4.5k hits with 7k crushing, but this still requires intensive healing from your priests.

He also has several abilities that you MUST watch out for, these are :

  • Arcing Smash, 5000-6000 damage on plate when debuffed, cleaves
  • Mighty Blow, 5000-7000 damage on plate when debuffed, horizontal knockback
  • Whirlwind, 4000-5000 damage on plate when debuffed, he moves at 50% speed while active
  • At 50%, he will begin charging random raid members


High King Maulgar's council are all heavy hitters, there are some tricks to get around them though. But first their stats

Krosh Firehand (Mage)

  • Has around 301,000 hp
  • Spell Shield - Reduces Damage by 75%
  • Blast Wave - Deals 6k damage to all players around him for 15 yards.
  • He is immune to debuffs such as curse of tongues, counterspell and silence
  • His Fireballs Ignore all Fire Resistance Gear, grounding totems and Spell Reflections.

Olm The Summoner (Warlock)

  • Has around 276,000 hp
  • Casts a shadow DoT that cannot be removed and Stacks
  • Summons Wild Fel Stalkers
  • Deals a Death Coil (Cannot be Spell Reflected)
  • Melee hits for around 5k

Kiggler the Crazed (Shaman)

  • Health is around 301,000
  • Hexes (Polymorphs) Primary Target
  • Deals a lightning bolt for around 3k on a single target.
  • Arcane Blast - 2500 damage over 10 yards (Very infrequent so he can be meleed)
  • Arcane Shock - Deals 720-800 damage plus additional damage every 3 seconds for 12 seconds
  • Melee damage ~6k


Blindeye the Seer (Priest)

  • Health - Around 297,000
  • Power Word: Shield
  • Prayer of Healing
  • Prayer of Mending (Heals himself to Full! - 10 second cast, casts Shield first which must be taken down before standard interrupts. However the following can be used while the shield is active. Priest: Silence, Rogue: Improved Kick, Hunter: Silencing Shot, Hunter: Intimidation, Warrior: Improved Shield Bash, Warrior: Intercept, Mage: Improved Counterspell)
  • Normal Heal (Around his 5% of HP)
  • Melee around 2k (800-900 on well geared tank)

Tactics!

The first thing you need to do in this fight is ensure everyone knows where they should stand. Correct positioning means you can avoid AoE effects, or worse getting knocked from the warlocks AoE Into another, instant death for any clothies!

The basic kill order for King Maulgar's is Priest, Warlock Mage, Shaman. Though if you group is low on warlocks sometimes the Warlock is taken down first.

Both the priest and warlock can be taken down by ranged and melee so tend to die very fast, the shaman and the mage should only be hit by Ranged DPS, wit the melee moving onto High King Maulgar (But make sure they are very aware of his AOE or you will be in trouble!

Be careful not to get him below 50% until both other adds are down, as he randomly starts charging raid members, this is one of the main raid wiping problems in this fight (What happened to skill hey blizz?). Ranged DPS is much more preferable for this fight, though it is unrealistic to have a raid group comprised of melee.

The great thing about this fight is that it does not have the usual tanking roles, mages and hunters will both have to work hard for this.

The Hunters should make the pull on this, each firing Misdirect onto the relevant tank, giving them a good 2k threat head start. Remember to assign misdirect targets and boss targets for each hunter to avoid confusion.

You should have a mage tank Krosh Firehand (The mage). This is for the 75% damage reduction shield, which your mage should spellsteal at every opportunity. Krosh Firehand should be tanked at the far right of the room. Since mages are not natural tanks it is important they do not have blessing of salvation and cast any instant spells to gain maximum agro. A good pulling point is from just behind the steam vent on the right, go any further than this and you risk pulling the entire room.

Once the mage has agro he should move to the far right of the room so the raid does not have to worry about his flame wave ability. One healer should be enough to keep the mage tank up. The mage tanking Krosh should have some good stamina gear prepared for this fight to increase survivability, around 12k hp buffed is preferable, with around +16% spell hit (+6% with 5 points in the mages arcane focus talent) to reduce the chance of Spellsteal being resisted. Hunters do not use arcane shot on this boss, it removes his shield and prevents the mage from stealing it!

High King Maulgar should be tanked by the gate leading to Gruuls Lair on the far left. This leaves little possibility of knockbacks or fears sending you his AoE/Cleave Range. If you have a spare hunter keep him using misdirect on the main tank to make sure he has the highest possible agro. Two healers should be positioned on the tank. Druids are great for tanking High King Maulgar due to their high health and armour.

Kiggler the crazed should be tanked by either two warlocks or hunters who are using siphon life/drain tanking him. He can also be drained by a feral/moonkin/treeform druid because of their immunity to polymorph. Nature Resistance is a bonus here. Try and keep at maximum range to avoid the arcane blast. Shamans can be useful here as their grounding totem can absorb the Lightning Bolts. A feral druid will however take more damage as the lightning bolts are fairly puny.

A good tanking position for him is in the entrance corridor, keeping him safely out of the way.

Blindeye the seer should be pulled into the closest available space, preferably towards the back of the room and can be tanked by a DPS warrior if you are low on tanks. All DPS should be on him ASAP to get this guy down, keep interrupts up and stuns to delay his shield/full heal. A rogue with mind numbing poison or a warlock with Curse of Tongues should ensure that this is always in place to keep Blindeye's heal cast time extended. An Arms Warrior with Mortal Strike can also be extremely beneficial here.

Olm the Summoner should be tanked at the back of the room, he has no AoE so can be tanked close to Blindeye the Seer, this also allows the DPS to reposition quickly to take him down. Warlocks are good for tanking Olm with the Fel Hunters he summons (Which have taunt, woohoo!), enslave these ASAP and turn them on him, Olm will cast DoTs onto the Felhounds, this can be dispelled by one of the Felhunters own spells. If you have more than two felhounds tanking Olm send them off to Krosh and taunt him. Krosh will quickly dispose of the felhound and leave a bit of breathing space for your mage tank.

Taking down high King Maulgar

Once you have defeated the adds the spare healers and caster DPS should take a quick breather to regain some mana. Melee should not enter the fight till they see his first whirlwind pass, once this occurs move in for around 25 - 30 seconds then retreat till whirlwind passes again. A mod such as Deadly Boss Mods can help keep an eye on this for you!.

When Maulgar hits 50% he enters phase two. In this phase he drops his hammer, significantly reducing melee damage, you cannot miss this phase as he turns big and red!

In this phase he will charge random party members, which is VERY healing intensive. He will also cast intimidating shout fearing your main tank for four seconds. You should have an offtank keeping up agro and with a taunt ready allowing the main tank to recover for incapacitation and retaunt Maulgar back. If you decided to have a warrior tank Maulgar he can stance dance through this!

It is heavily advised to keep two tanks up here, Maulgar's whirlwind increases his speed dramatically, so if your main tank becomes feared he will dance around the room causing huge amounts of damage.

If you can keep this up you should have absolutely no problem downing High King Maulgar!

Suggested group layout for this is,

  • 4 Hunters - (3 misdirection pulls onto Mage Tank, Maulgar Tank and Olm tank, one straight onto Kiggler)
  • 1 Mage Tank
  • 2 Warlocks on Olm
  • 2 Tanks on Olm
  • 1 Tank on Maulgar
  • 1 MS Warrior on Blindeye
  • 1 Tank on roaming Fel Hounds (in case of resist from a Warlock)
  • 7 reasonably geared healers
  • 2 Rogues

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