Karazhan Guide Prince Malchezaar

Prince Malchezaar is the last official boss in Karazhan. While Nightbane is harder for most groups to master he is normally tackled fairly early on into the instance, just before curator.

Prince Malchezaar is a fairly simple boss, especially when compared to Netherspite before him. He does however hit hard, and the Netherspite Infernals that surround him can wipe even the best of raids if they land in the wrong place. First things first though, a few quick facts!

Health: around 1,200,000

• Summon Infernal: Summons an infernal that will emit a constant hellfire AoE for 3 minutes. These cannot be killed. The Prince's cooldown for summon Infernals is once every 45 seconds in phases one and two, though this decreases to 15 seconds in phase 3.
• Enfeeble: Only in phase 1 & 2 - Reduces the Health of five raid members (Never the tank) to 1hp for around 7 seconds, any damage = instant death. Healing effects do nothing here. Health returns to normal after this time. Enfeeble is followed by Shadow Nova so all members with this debuff must move at least 30 yards from Prince Malchezaar at this time!
• Shadow Nova: A three second cast spell which deals 3k damage to all members within 25 yards of Prince Malchezaar, it comes with a knock back effect, so be wary of any infernals close by, he may knock you into them!
• Shadow Word: Pain: In phase one this is cast on the tank periodically, in phase two it is cast on random party members. It must be dispelled ASAP and causes 1.5k damage a tick.
• Thrash: Gains two extra attacks a turn in phase 2, cast anywhere between 3 and 30 seconds between each other. Causes large spike damage.
• Parry: Avoids a frontal attack, it also increases the next attack by 40%, causing huge damage if mixed with Thrash. This can be minimised by ensuring all DPS stay behind Prince Malchezaar. This is only in Phase Two
• Sunder Armour: Also in phase two Prince casts sunder armour on the tank, greatly reducing his armour.
• Flying Axes: In phase three his axes fly around and attack a random party member each time. Not much can be done here other than keeping the target healed!
• Amplify Damage: Undispellable debuff cast no raid members in phase 3. Doubles all damage taken.

A fair number of spells to look at, but since most interlink they actually give you a pretty good idea of how things go. The Strategy requires your team to pay full attention to the game as last minute manoeuvres around the battle area are common place.

The most important thing in this game is to designate a spotter. Hunters are good for this because they can just cast auto shoot while looking around. The Spotter should be marked with a symbol so all the raid can find him quickly.

The spotters job is to keep an eye on the sky looking for infernals, which take about 15 seconds to hit the raid. It is important to note that while for the greatest part of the journey they move across the sky they drop like a stone in the last couple of seconds.

Your spotter needs to make sure that you are always in a space with other places to run, he should also shout out to the tank to move if the ranged DPS are becoming boxed in.

When enfeeble is cast many of the melee DPS must run to the spotter, for that reason the spotter should keep ranged raid members at maximum range so the melee do not get confused. The spotter should ensure the path between him and Prince is clear from infernals since an enfeebled player would die almost instantly if he stepped into the AoE.

The tank should face Prince Malchezaar away from the raid and towards the wall, if the tank is against the wall it will prevent him from being thrown too far by shadow novas knockback effect

When your raid is in position, tank against the wall, ranged with a lot of space (the far end of the platform is good for this)

Your DPS should work slowly here, using mainly basic damage to let the tank gain a large amount of agro for the upcoming heavy DPS phases. It is vital that your tanks agro remains at the top of the list as if he drops to second he may become enfeebled, pretty much guaranteeing a wipe. He will cast shadow word pain periodically on the tank, this is best dispelled by a paladin since priests have to move forward to use their dispel effect.

If your group starts to get boxed in remember to move, tank and all to another part of the platform..

When Prince Malchezaar hits Phase 2 at 60% he spawns two axes which substantially increase his damage. He no longer casts shadow word of pain. And instead starts parrying, sundering armour and thrashing, causing huge amounts of damage. Healers need to be on their toes here since Prince can deal upwards of 12k damage in under a second, bugger overhealing meters here and spam heal the tank if he is anything but 100%.

The tank should ensure here that thunderclap and demoralizing shout are constantly up here to mitigate some of the damage.

When Prince hits 30% melee damage returns to normal, as does the skills he uses (Minus enfeeble) and shadow word pain is cast on random raid members. He will throw his axes at random people, who must be healed rapidly to prevent deaths.

He will now bring down infernals much more rapidly, nearly every 15 seconds, so prince must be all out nuked here.

Do not be too disheartened if your group wipes on this boss, most of the time wipes occur due to unlucky infernal drops or prince stringing together some unlucky parries and thrashes.

You will down prince soon enough!