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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Tanking Guide to Karazhan

Tanking in Karazhan can be fairly, complex, with each boss requiring vastly different tactics. However our job as a meatshield has the ever simple goal of taking damage.

In this Kara guide I will not talk about trash mobs, they are all fairly simple to tank. Instead I will go through tanking the bosses of Kara with a step by step walkthrough.

So, starting from the beginning!

Attumen the Huntsman and Midnight. (His mighty Steed)

Attumen is the first Karazhan boss, and a very simple fight, but is preferably done with two tanks.

Off-Tank Role.

Take the horse (Midnight) from the beginning of the fight, this is a fairly quick phase and only lasts till midnight reaches 95% health.

When Midnight reaches 95% attumen will spawn, the main tank should take him.

When this occurs take midnight out of the way and against the wall, keep good agro here as all DPS should attack midnight till he reaches 25% health

When this happens Attumen the Huntsman will mount Midnight and reset agro, stop attacking while the main tank gains some agro.

The Main Tank has a fairly easy role in this boss fight, though he does have a couple of moments where he may need to survive without healing for a few seconds.

In the first phase the Main tank should do nothing, however they must be prepared to take control of agro when Attumen spawns in phase 2

When phase 2 occurs attumen will appear and attack randomly. The main tank must gain agro ASAP. Healers can grab agro incredibly easily here so you should suggest they wait two or three seconds before throwing on the heals.

The tank should remember to use shield bash and spell reflection to avoid his curse and keep DPS from Attumen down.

After that you simply have to keep Attumen busy while the DPS knock down Midnight.

When Midnight reaches 25% hp Attumen will mount him. Agro resets again here so both DPS and healers should drop off their task for another 2 or 3 seconds.

You should as main tank face him away from the raid group, however it is imperative that you make sure all raid members get directly behind Attumen and Midnight to avoid his charge ability, something that can easily wipe a raid.

Once this set up is complete it is a nice and easy tank and spank

Maiden of Virtue

The Maiden of Virtue is the second boss in Karazhan. She requires only one tank who should keep her positioned in the middle of her platform.

As a tank you should stock up on healing potions, healthstones and so on, since the repentance cast by maiden can take out all your healers.

If all your healers do get taken out you can remove their stun by moving maiden towards the healer then moving away again once Maiden's holy ground causes some damage and breaks the healers stun.

If you see yourself as the target during a Holy Fire cast use spell reflect if you are a Warrior, it can cause some nice damage!

All in all a pretty easy fight for a tank, rely on the rest of the raid to do their job and you should be fine!

Moroes

Moroes is probably the first real challenge you will have in this instance. For starters Moroes has four adds, or 'dinner guests'. To get around these as many as possible should be crowd controlled till Moroes dies or off tanked and taken down immediately.

On Moroes himself you must have a main tank and an off-tank, this is required because every so often Moroes will gouge the main tank and attack the off tank (or if things go wrong whoever else is second in the threat list) until the incapacitation fades.

Apart from this you will simply have to withstand a large amount of damage and control a rather chaotic fight!

Every so often Moroes will vanish and garrotte a random player, you have to run over and quickly attack him to ensure you do not lose agro to the DPS.

Opera

Opera has three events which must be handled differently.

Firstly The Big Bad Wolf.

This guy hits fairly weakly but has some rather random abilities he can and will randomly turn one of your raid members into little red riding hood. If this happens overload all your threat abilities to try and regain agro, unless of course it is you that gets turned. If this happens run, fast.

He also does a fear, if you can stance dance out of this, fantastic, if you are not too happy about that tactic then make sure priests fear ward you and you have an antifear trinket handy.

Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is a two stage fight, firstly you have Dorothee and her pals, then you have the wicked witch.

In the first phase the Main Tank should be on Tinhead. This guy deals massive damage but his movement speed gradually slows, meaning that towards the end of the fight he can be kited with no healing required. Off tanks should try and gain agro on Roar and Strawman. Roar is resistant to fear though and this should be kept up, be careful not to interrupt it!

Don't bother tanking Dorothee or Tito, Dorothy is unagroable, she should be nuked by DPS. Tito should not be killed till after Dorothee is dead, otherwise she will enrage.

After all these guys are down the crone will appear, main tank should get on her right away, be careful to keep moving away form the cyclones though!

Romulo and Julianne is a fairly tough fight, just because of the accuracy required when taking them both down.

Julianne will spawn first, take her down and keep in mind that all her spells can be interrupted, especially her heal! keep her tanked in one corner.

When Romulo spawns should be tanked by a warrior for the disarm ability, tank him in the opposite corner.

When Romulo dies both will come back to life. Tank them in their opposite corners. Ranged DPS on Romulo to avoid his DPS attacks and melee on Julianne for their spell interrupts.

The hard part is making sure that both bosses die within ten seconds of each other or one will resurrect their partner.

As a tank you will not take an alarming amount of damage, make sure to keep your disarm/interrupts up though!

Nightbane

Nightbane is one of the hardest bosses in Karazhan and many groups skip him.

However if you are going to take this boss down there are several things that should be considered.

In the ground phase the tank should keep Nightbane against the outer wall, Nightbane fears so a warrior tank is good for stance dancing, but either way it helps to keep things such as fear ward up constantly.

Look out for the charred earth AoE, this can cause disruption in your group and can make movement required under two circumstances

Firstly if Charred Earth spawns below the tank, in which case the tank should move back and the rest should follow. (this is rare but has been known to happen)

Secondly if all the Ranged DPS areas suffer from charred earth, if this happens move back so your ranged DPS and healers can re-position.

During Nightbanes flight phase several things happen, either way the best way to avoid them is for everyone to regroup around the tank, this avoids Nightbane firing fireballs at you.

A secondary tank, preferably a paladin but any others will do, should cast an agro generating AoE as soon as 5 skeletons spawn around you, these guys only have ~13.5k hp so can be taken down quickly.

When Nightbane begins to land all players should go back to their previous positions, with the tank ready to instantly gain agro should he have lost it to healers.

Using an offtank is not required for Nightbane, but it can be useful incase the main tank goes down, If you decide to use an offtank they should sit behind Nightbane in the DPS melee position to avoid overstretching the healers. Only pull one in for this if your main tank dies towards the later stages of the battle though.

Curator

Curator is a gear check in Karazhan. He is a good indication that your group is geared enough for bosses upto Prince and Nightbane.

As a tank in this there is not a huge amount you need to do, keeping the Curator focused on you is your primary concern and is not that hard to do. During the evocation phases you should burn your cooldowns, including any taunts, since DPS will be doing 300% more damage.

Terestian Illhoof and Kil'rek

For this boss you are best using two tanks.

Neither boss is particularly damage intensive on the tanks, infact Terestian Illhoof is fairly easy to tank. Kil'rek can cause problems however as when he respawns he can instantly go for an AoE'r

Both bosses and maybe even imps should be tanked close together to maximise AoE damage.

Paladins are very effective at tanking here, with fire res aura and consecrate they can sometimes even tank both bosses and the imps solo.

A little fire resistance gear here can help, but is definitely not necessary.

Shade of Aran

Aran is one of those bloody annoying bosses with no agro control. Almost singular in Karazhan it is still a pain when you can not direct his damage.

Off tanks should jump into DPS gear for this one, the main tank should still maintain agro since some attacks are based on the agro list, however if your tank feels confident he should switch out for some DPS kit.

Remember to keep an eye out for some of Arans special moves (here) as you still need to correctly negotiate each one.


Netherspite

Netherspite is probably one of the trickiest bosses you will tank, if only for beam management.

You will require two tanks working in rotation, one for each portals phase.

The portals are three zones that open up and fire a beam towards Netherspite, as a tank your main concern is the red one

A single tank can handle this red beam in each phase, he simply has to move in and out of the beam every 5 seconds to remove both Netherspite -damage%taken buff and keep their own max hp higher.

The red beam has several benefits which make it obvious why your tanking class should be using it

Lasts for 20 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

Damage taken reduced by 1% per tick.

Hits Player:

Netherspite will aggro you.
If no one is standing in the Red Beam, Netherspite uses his standard aggro table.
Damage taken is reduced by 1% per tick.
Defence is increased by 5 per tick.
Health is modified - the first application gives +31,000 maximum health, with additional stacks reducing maximum health by 1000 per stack.
Replenishes full health every tick.


Once you have two tanks on the red beam you will also require two manaless players tanking the green beam, this can be DPS as well as tank classes. However the green beam MUST be kept of Netherspite, its properties are.

Lasts for 10 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

Heals for +4000 health per tick. (Stacking so it heals for 4K, 8K, 12K, 16K etc. -- it is very important not to let Netherspite get hit by this beam.)

Hits Player:

Healing done is increased by 5% per tick.
Spell and ability cost reduced by 1% per tick (including abilities that require Rage or Energy, in addition to Mana).
Maximum mana reduced by 200. Stacks up until your total mana pool reaches 0. Druids in Bear/Cat Form will have their hidden mana bars affected as well. Rage and Energy maxima are unaffected.
Similar to the red beam, mana is restored to the new maximum with each tick.
If a Hunter uses Feign Death while tanking the green beam they will become exhausted and not be able to tank it anymore, most likely wiping the raid.

Make sure tanking rotations are clear before the fight starts, and try an get your timing right for moving in and out of the beams!

Managing this fight is more to do with practice than gear, once you have the technique down you will have no trouble with this boss!

Chess Event

No tanking required on this one!

Hop onto a chess piece and go!

Prince Malchezaar

The prince is fairly simple to tank, it is however important to keep an eye on the raid.

If possible make sure you keep pots and healthstones for Princes second phase, even when tanking in great gear Prince deals out a huge amount of damage with his weapons and healers may lose a vital couple of seconds healing by an unlucky infernal drop!

If your raid is getting boxed in lead him around the edge of his platform to somewhere were the DPS have more space to move around. Infernals drop regularly and do massive AoE damage, if your group gets stuck, or even worse, separated from you then it will be a wipe.

Good geared druids make good tanks for Prince due to their High Armour and health


And that is how to tank Karazhan!

Addon Spotlight - Gatherer - Tools to Help You Grind

In this weeks addon spotlight I will be suggesting gatherer.

There are several rival addons to Gatherer, including Cartographer. Gatherer does however have a much easier to use interface, importable data files (Great for downloading comprehensive and complete mine and herb locations) not to mention the fact that it not only records resources gathered by yourself but by all of your guild members using the addon too!.

Gatherer should be an essential addon for anybody who has a gathering profession, Its easy to use interface, intuitive symbols for different ores/herbs etc and ability to track other items (Such as treasure chests) make this a fantastic addition to your addon collection.

Karazhan Chess Event

Karazhan Chess Event

The Chess event in Kara is a fantastic and fun little break in the middle of your raid.

After downing boss after boss this little mini game provides a little light relief for the raid group, allowing your players to select a piece, wether it be a pawn, king or healer and jump into battle against the opposing chess pieces.

Once the battle is started you can select any piece that takes your fancy as long as it is not currently controlled. Different pieces have different skills, so most people will try and get one of the major pieces before a pawn.

You move and attack by selecting the appropriate icons from the pet bar that will apear, movement is controlled by this as well as changing the direction you face.

Kings are the most powerful units, they have high health and deal high damage. Alliance have King Llane, hode Warchief Blackhand. These guys have a sweep/cleave effect which deals 4k damage to 3 enemy units infront of him and has a heroism/bloodlust efefct which grants a 50% increase to damage dealt by all allied humanoids within 8 adjacent spaces.

However if your king dies it will signal the loss of the game and you will not receive any loot. It may help to keep your bishops (healers) on the king to keep him alive while he deals some major damage to the opposition.

The Queen has medium health and high damage. The queen will be a human conjurer on the alliance and an Orc warlock for the horde. She has an elemental blast/fireball which deals 4k damage to any piece within 4 spaces (3 diagonally) as well as a rain of fire / poison cloud that deals 6000 damage to any chess pieces adjacent to the target.

The Bishop will either be a Human Cleric or Orc Necrolyte. He has a 12k heal on a 20 second cooldown and a holy lance/shadow spear which does a meagre 2k damage. The bishop has low health and low damage, but its healing is invaluable.

The Knight will be a Human Charger or an Orc Wolf, with a 3k damage dealing smash / bite on 5 second cooldown and a stomp/howl effect that reduces damage dealt by 50% on all enemies adjacent to you. He has medium health but low damage.

Your rook will either be a Conjured Water Elemental or a Summoned Deamon. It will have either a Geyser or Hellfire effect which deals 3k damage to al adjacent hostile pieces as well as a fire shield/ water shield effect that reduces damage received by 50% for 5 seconds. This guy has low health and medium damage.

Your Pawns will be either Human Footmen or Orc Grunts. These guys have low health and damage with a 1k vicious strike/heroic blow and 500 damage absorbing Shield Block/Weapon Deflection.

Once you have chosen your piece and jumped into the fray you may find it easier if you all move quickly towards the oppositions king. Take hmi out quickly and you will win.

It wont be that easy though, Medivh will at some point cheat!

He will either put into place a Healing cheat, healing his king and possibly all other pieces to full hp. A damage cheat, which will surround random pieces on your team with fire causing massive damage (Move quickly out of this to avoid death) Or possibly a Berserking cheat, this increases several of the oppositions pieces size, speed and damage massively! If this happens take down the effected pieces ASAP!

After this however you will find the fight fairly easy.

Key strategies tend to involve a rush to the king, taking down healers and the queen on the way. It is however fairly hard not to lose this fight if you keep your king topped up with health and use him as a pretty much close to invunerable DPS Tank.

Terestian Illhoof and Kil'rek - Karazhan

Terestian Illhoof and Kil'rek are an optional (but advisable) set of bosses in Kara. This duo can give unwary raiders a few problems, in most part because of sacrifice but in several cases because of overwhelming numbers of imps.

There are fortunately a few simple tactics that can make Illhoof not just easy, but incredibly simple. You will however need a warlock!

First though here is the stats and spells for this demonic duo and their pets.

Terestian

• Basic Melee - Illhoof hits for around 1800 damage on a tank, 3-4k on DPS.
• Shadow Bolt - Illhoof fires a 4k damage Shadow Bolt at the highest target on the aggro list.
• Sacrifice - A random character is summoned to the centre of the room and is paralyzed, suffering 1,500 shadow damage per second until the chains are destroyed. While the chains are up, Illhoof is healed for 3k hp per second. The chains have roughly 13k health and can be removed with Ice Block or Divine Shield. It will not be cast on the main tank. A druid can use barkskin while chained to reduce damage taken.
• Berserk - After 10 minutes, Illhoof goes berserk, spamming high-damage Shadow Bolt Volleys on the entire raid every few seconds.

Kil'rek

• Basic Melee - 2,000 on cloth.
• Amplify Flames - Undispellable debuff that increases fire damage taken by 500.
• Broken Pact - Debuffs Illhoof on death, making him take 25% more damage until Kil'rek respawns (~45 seconds after death).

Summoned Imps

• Basic Melee - Approximately 400, rarely used.
• Firebolt - 200 fire damage, up to 700 if Amplify Flames is on the target Cast very quickly.

Now onto the tactics.

The most important thing about this fight is the sacrifice. It is important that your DPS jumps straight onto attacking the chains the instant a person is sacrificed, when this happens the sacrificed player will be teleported to the middle of the room.

Because the chains heal Illhoof it is imperative these are downed ASAP, a macro such as
/target demon chains

or, if you fancy something more spiffy,

/cleartarget
/target Demon Chains
/stopmacro [nodead, harm]
/target Kil'rek
/stopmacro [nodead, harm]
/target Terestian Illhoo

Will help significantly in selecting the correct target.

Ten seconds after the fight starts Illhoof will open two portals from which a constant stream of Imps will appear. The best way of dealing with these is for a warlock, or if possible two warlocks to spam seed of corruption, this is incredibly effective at taking out the imps. If you do not have a warlock mages AoE or a rogue single target speedily taking them down can also work.

Killing Kil'rek is simply a matter of choice for your raid. If you can take him down in under 20 seconds it is advisable, anything more and you would probably be better off leaving him on the off tank. The befit of getting Kil'rek down is a 45 second debuff on Illhoof which increases his damage taken by 25%, quite a bonus!

It is preferable to fight this with two tanks, the main tank on Illhoof and the offtank keeping agro off the healers when new mobs get agro'd by the Warlocks seed of corruption. The tank should keep Illhoof between the two imp portals to maximise damage from the AoE effects used.

One healer (Paladins are best for this) should be assigned to instantly keep the sacrificed player up, other healing classes should put up HoT's to help mitigate the damage though

DPS go all out on this one, If you are killing Kil'rek wait until Illhoof receives the debuff before using cooldowns.

All in all Illhoof and Kil'rek are a fairly easy takedown, raids new to this boss may find it takes a couple of tries due to this battle becoming rather chaotic at times, but once the basics have been learnt you will breeze through Terestian Illhoof.

Gruul the Dragon Killer - Gruuls Lair (Not spelt Grull!)

Gruul is a fairly mean mother and can be found in the Blades Edge Mountains. His level, and that of the instance is pretty much aimed for those that can clear Kara without breaking a sweat, and his loot tends to be a nice improvement on what you will have gained from Kara.

When you get to Gruul everyone must stand inside the instance, the gates will close on you otherwise when the fight begins. But lets get to the basics, who is Gruul?

Well Gruul is named because he kicked the Black Dragonflights arse, he is also the overlord of the ogres in outlands, so beware his power!

His health stands at 3,415,000 hp and he has a few spells and effects that can decimate your raid group, these are

• Basic Melee: 3k to 3.5k at the start of the fight on tanks about once every 2 seconds.
• Growth: Self-buff, increases damage done by 15% every 30 seconds, size increased by 10%.
• Hurtful Strike: Hits the 2nd highest aggro in melee range. A second and third tank is needed to mitigate this, it hits for 12350-13650 physical damage. If no secondary target is within melee, this hits the first target available within melee range. This damage increases after each growth.
• Reverberation: A raid wide silence for 4 seconds. Not dispellable. Can be reduced by anti-silence abilities.
• Cave In: Random AoE which causes ~3000 damage every 3 seconds in the area. The AoE damage is preceded by ground shake in the affected area and is visible on the roof. This occurs more frequently as the fight progresses. Cave in damage counts as melee damage and can be mitigated by armour. Growth also affects Cave In.
• Ground Slam: Zone-wide knock back into a random direction, starts the effect Gronn Lord's Grasp.
• Gronn Lord's Grasp: Stacking debuff after a Ground slam that reduced movement speed by 20%. stacks 5 times after 5 secs then causes Stoned. This can only be dispelled by complete Immunity effects and Cloak of Shadows (possibly escape artist, Blessing of Protection does NOT work). Players who dispel Gronn Lord's Grasp will STILL shatter, which makes it important that they still stay away from others.
• Stoned: Stuns the player Occurs after 5 stacks of Gronn Lord's Grasp.
• Shatter: After being Stoned, Gruul will shatter everyone in the raid, the damage dealt increasing if players are closer to each other. This damage is physical, and goes through immunity shields such as Divine Shield and Ice Block. The Damage changes according to range from 1100 if just within 15 yards of another player to over 8k if next to the player.(Pets will get stunned but will not effect the shatter)

Because Gruul is constantly growing High DPS is essential, with each DPS player in your group having a minimum of 600-700 DPS to ensure he goes down fast, in addition priests should have a minimum 1800 + healing and very good MP5, since the fight generally takes just under 8 minutes and requires constant tank and raid healing.

This boss will cause a lot of raid damage if your team is not 100% on the ball, cave ins and shatter do huge amounts of raid damage, and will exhaust all healers from mana if DPS do not help themselves recover from it.

All DPS should carry bandages, healthstones and healing potions for this boss. Whenever any significant damage is taken use some of these things immediately. It is amazing how often DPS and even tanks will shout at healers for not using mana pots while in the same breath they will argue against using potions themselves.

Healers here should be looking at around +1800 healing to be able to keep on top of raid and tank damage, which will be significant. And tanks should have around 18-21k hp with high armour mitigation and uncritability/crushability (If possible for class)

Gruul is pure melee damage, so mages cast amplify magic on the group!

The tactics are fairly straightforward, your three tanks must constantly top the agro meters to avoid hurtful strike taking out your DPS. After shatter everyone without exception must heal themselves with bandages, pots or healthstones. This is a very intensive fight on all classes, in Gruuls Lair Healers have to do a massive amount of raid wide healing, DPS need to get Gruul down before he simply grows too large and the tanks take a significant amount of damage, especially towards the end of the fight. You should use everything at your disposal to make sure this goes well.

While the tactics are debateable I have found that the most effective method with an average group is to save cooldowns till the first grow (30 seconds into the fight). This allows your tanks to get their agro up and then lets your DPS all out nuke the boss down.

Cave ins can be avoided completely, you have 3 seconds to get out of them. You should not be taking any damage from these.

Shatter is the usual cause of wipe in Gruuls Lair. In most cases significant damage can be avoided, however it is fairly luck based. Too many people get thrown together and it is simply impossible to move quickly enough. Fortunately there is a safe zone that can be utilised, if you get on top of or behind the rocks you can prevent yourself from being flung across the room. Obviously only one person can do this in each group of rocks, as you will still shatter, however it can be a raid saver to have your healers remain at full health.

Deadly Boss Mods or a similar add-on is pretty much essential for this boss, it will warn you when you are in a cave in and it brings up a little box telling you If you are too close to somebody.

The key to shatter is only worry about the people in front of you, run into a space and trust the raid member behind you will not follow you. The problem with this is that everyone in your raid group needs to conform to this rule, otherwise chaos can ensue.

Apart from shatter this boss is fairly easy, he is however quite an obvious gear check. Defeating Gruul is a way to say your guild is ready for ZA and Magtheridon.