Twilight Guild Forum

Links:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Kael%27thas_Sunstrider_%28tactics%29 (http://www.wowwiki.com/Kael%27thas_Sunstrider_%28tactics%29)
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=269 (http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=269)

Video:

[youtube=500,425]4AjBSnBTLoA[/youtube]

Abilities:

All mobs in this fight are immune to Taunt, Crowd Control and all snare or slow effects.

Thaladred the Darkener

• ~360k HP
• Melee â€" 3-4k on plate plus 2.5k every tick for 12 seconds
• Gaze â€" Fixes aggro to a random person in raid; 9 second cooldown
• Psychic Blow â€" 4-5k damage plus knockback to his current target, 30 yard range
• Silence â€" Silences anyone within 8 yards

Lord Sanguinar

• ~350k HP
• Melee â€" 3-4k on plate
• Bellowing Roar â€" 35 yard AoE fear centered on himself, 1.5 second cast, no agro reset

Grand Astromancer Capernian

• ~210k HP
• Fireball â€" 6-7k single-target fire damage
• Conflagration â€" Randomly targets players within 30 yards; causes disorient effect with 600-900 damage per second plus 300 damage per second to all players within 8 yards of the debuffed player. Capernian will not attack players afflicted by conflagaration.
• Arcane Explosion â€" 4.5k Arcane damage plus knockback and slow debuff; only used if players are in melee range

Master Engineer Telonicus

• ~360k HP
• Bomb â€" 7-9k fire in a small AoE centered on current target's location, 1.5 second cast
• Remote Toy â€" 60 sec debuff placed on a random player, periodically stuns the affected player for 4 seconds

Kael'thas Sunstrider
Phase 4 specific abilities:

• ~3.6 million HP
• Melee â€" ~4k on plate
• Fireball â€" 2.5 sec cast, ~16-20k fire damage, interruptible
• Flamestrike â€" 3 sec cast, ~3k fire damage per second AoE for 10 sec
• Summon Phoenix â€" periodically summon a Phoenix
• Arcane Disruption â€" 1750-2250 Arcane damage and a 10 second disorient to every raid member, 20 sec cooldown
• Shock Barrier â€" a shield which absorbs 80,000 damage, lasts 10 seconds and prevents spells from being interrupted
• Mind Control â€" Mind controls 2-3 people in the raid
• Pyroblast â€" 4 sec cast, 45k-55k fire damage, interruptible, 60 sec cooldown; begins casting immediately after casting Shock Barrier

Phase 5 specific abilities:

• Gravity Lapse â€" All members of raid are teleported to him and then swim in the air for 30 sec
• Nether Beam â€" 1850-2150 arcane damage to a random target, jumps to nearby players, damage doubled for each jump (similar to C'Thuns eye beam)
• Nether Vapor â€" Small black clouds floating in the air near Kael'thas. If touched they add a stacking debuff which reduces max health by 10% each time, stacking up to 9 times, to 90% reduction.

Suggested Strategy

Phase 1: Introducing the Advisors

[attachimg=1]

The raid can leisurely kill each advisor. To make phase 3 easier, each advisor should be killed in a pre-planned location.

The advisors engage in the following order:

• Thaladred the Darkener fixes aggro on ("sets his gaze on" emote) a raid member at all times, and, for the duration of the gaze, walks toward that target, who run away and thus kite him while ranged DPS attack Thaladred. For brief intervals between gazes, or if the gaze target dies, Thaladred may melee or follow the target with the most threat. Nobody should be closer than 10 yards when a gaze shift takes place.
• Lord Sanguinar is a simple tank and spank boss, made interesting only by his fear ability (which no longer resets aggro).
• Grand Astromancer Capernian casts Arcane Explosion if there are people in melee range, making this another ranged-only fight. Conflagrate must be avoided by everybody except her tanks. One possible setup is to have a fire resist tank stand rather close to her (about 15 yards, still outside Arcane Explosion range) to eat the conflagrations, while a Warlock kills her from 30 yards away. Such a setup needs two healers on the warlock, and one on the fire tank. Alternately, she can be tanked by two warlocks which take turns - when one is conflagrated, the other takes over. Warlocks tanking her must not have Nether Protection, or she closes range, melees and casts Arcane Explosion after one of her spells is resisted.
• Master Engineer Telonicus is probably the least dangerous of the advisors. His Remote Toy debuff is potentially fatal if active on a tank during phase 2 (significantly hampering threat generation and making positioning difficult), so delay killing Telonicus until no tank has the debuff. In phase 3, the debuff is made irrelevant by the staff's anti-stun aura.

Phase 2: The Weapons

[attachimg=2]

After all advisors are dead, Kael'thas summons his arsenal of seven legendary weapons. By killing and looting these weapons all raid members can equip themselves with legendary weapons for the rest of the fight (the weapons are multi-drop but unique; one player can theoretically pick up one copy of each). Killing the weapons is a mixture of AoE and focus fire. There should be an AoE kill zone, where most of the weapons are held, while the remaining DPS concentrate on one weapon after the other. Here's an overview of the weapons in a reasonable kill order:

[item]Netherstrand Longbow[/item] ~210k HP

• Has a Multi-Shot attack, drops agro if any melee or pet attack it. Preferably tanked by a hunter facing it away from the raid to avoid Multi-Shot hitting others. This is the most dangerous weapon and should be killed first by all hunters and ranged DPS which do not take part in the AoE

[item]Staff of Disintegration[/item] ~170k HP

• Low melee damage, attacks with Frostbolt and Frost Nova. It likes to cast a Frost Nova, run away 10-15 yards and then start to Frostbolt. It's a highly desirable item because its "use" ability grants immunity to the Remote Toy debuff, and it increases the damage output of casters. It also has low HP and dies faster than the other weapons

[item]Cosmic Infuser[/item] ~280k HP

• Low melee damage. Heals itself and friendly targets, which must be interrupted. The melee damage dealers should control and kill this

[item]Infinity Blade[/item] ~210k HP

• Hits normal but attacks very fast. Has a Thrash ability (similar to Prince Malchezaar's phase 2 ability) that grants it two extra attacks

[item]Warp Slicer[/item] ~290k HP

• Hits for 1-1.5K every 2s on plate. Applies a stacking Rend DoT. Each stack ticks for an additional 500 damage every 3s for 15s; the Rend attack that applies the DoT can miss, be dodged or parried.

[item]Devastation[/item] ~230k HP

• Frequently Whirlwinds, which one-shots any non-tanks. Must be tanked slightly away from the other weapons, near the edge or even outside the AoE zone. Not very useful for most raid members, therefore it's not a problem if it doesn't die quickly.

[item]Phaseshift Bulwark[/item] ~290k HP

• Does high damage. Has a "shield spike"-like ability which when activated can reflect a lot of damage to a fast attacking melee DPSer. Also has much higher HP and armor than the other weapons. The tanks can manage phase 3 without it, but they must absolutely have it to tank Kael'thas in phase 4.

Suggested Weapon tank list:

    * Main Tank: Axe
    * Main Tank: Sword + Shield
    * Offtank #1: Mace + Dagger
    * Offtank #2: Staff
    * Hunter: Bow

The weapon corpses despawn after 60 seconds, and the looted weapons disappear 15 minutes after being looted. Players also lose them when releasing (after a death) or when the encounter is reset.

It's not a big problem to have two weapons alive (e.g. the [item]Phaseshift Bulwark[/item] and [item]Devastation[/item]) when phase 3 starts.

It's important that everyone loots their weapons before phase 3 starts. Healers should pick up the staff just in case (It will be needed later, to use the aura against Kael'thas).

Phase 3: The Advisors, Reloaded

Exactly two minutes after the start of Phase 2, Kael'thas resurrects all the advisors at once. The advisor tanks and their healers should start to move to their assigned advisors (or rather their corpse) about 10 seconds before the end of Phase 2, so that they can immediately pick up the advisors.

Advisor tank list:

    * Main Tank: Sanguinar
    * Off-tank: Telonicus
    * Warlock/fire resist Tank: Capernian

Suggested Kill order

As before, Thaladred and Capernian should be avoided by melee. All four advisors can be safely attacked by ranged. Since Thaladred is the biggest nuisance, ranged DPS should concentrate on him first. One melee damage dealer with the [Infinity Blade] should put the debuff on him, but very carefully - the player must be highly aware of imminent gaze shifts, move away *before* each shift, and get back in only when a target other than themself gets the gaze.

All other melee damage dealers should concentrate on Sanguinar first and Telonicus second.

After Thaladred is down, ranged DPS can either help the melee group at Sanguinar, or start on Capernian. This decision mainly depends on whether the melee group is strong enough to kill Sanguinar on their own, or the ranged DPS have to help.

When all other adds are down, Telonicus is finished off last by all damage dealers together.

Phase 4: Taking matters into one's own hands

[attachimg=3]

Three minutes after the start of Phase 3, Kael'thas himself enters the fight. If only one advisor is still up at that point, a smooth kill is close. If two or more are still up, a wipe is highly probable.

Fireball should be interrupted as much as possible.

Mind Controlled raid members should best be sheeped. It's also possible to use the [Infinity Blade] with low damage skills (e.g. Hamstring, Shiv) to dispel the MC. Stuning is not always effective because the buff from the [Staff of Disintegration] may be in effect.

Flamestrike MUST be avoided at all costs by everyone in the raid. Set Spell Details to High to see the glow on the ground, which is visible during the 3 sec cast time before it hits. The AoE looks similar to a Paladins Consecration.

Every 30-40 seconds Kael'thas summons a Phoenix. The graphic effect for this summon is identical to Flamestrike, however the cast time is much shorter, and it deals no damage.

Phoenix handling

After its birth, the phoenix can either be kited by a ranged damage dealer, or simply be tanked by the fire resist tank. It continually uses a hellfire ability which damages itself (5% HP) and everybody around it for ~3,500 fire damage (post-Infernal Protection mitigation) per second, resulting in a 20 second life span. Upon its death, it will do a final large knockback within melee range and then turn into a Phoenix egg. This egg has ~70k HP and must quickly be killed, else it spawns a new Phoenix after 15 seconds.

Pyroblast

Every 60 seconds Kael'thas casts an invariable sequence of Shock Barrier, 3 successive Pyroblasts and an Arcane Disruption.

Even with all the possible mitigations in effect, Pyroblast damage can be up to 23,265 fire damage. Tanks with the [Phaseshift Bulwark] can use it to absorb one Pyroblast. If the damage dealers are up to it, the best course of action is to burn down the shield fast enough to interrupt the second pyroblast. Failing this, a tank with ~20k HP can just barely survive one pyroblast (with the Infernal Protection buff from the [Cosmic Infuser], a Fire Protection Potion or Nightmare Seed and PW:Shield). If a raid consistently fails to interrupt the second pyroblast, it's possible to have the tank eat the first one and absorb the second. This gives the healers enough time to bring the tank up to survive the immediately following arcane disruption. The third pyroblast can always be interrupted, because the shock barrier autmatically wears off after 10 seconds, which leaves 2 seconds cast time remaining.

Event Cycle

In summary, there's a 60 second rotation which takes place over the entire phase:

[0sec]->[20sec](MC + Arcane Disruption)->[40sec](Phoenix + MC + Arcane Disruption)->[60sec](Shock Barrier + 3 Pyroblasts + Arcane Disruption).

Flamestrike can happen all the time.

Phase 5: True Power

Once Kael'thas' health reaches 50%, he does a short cutscene and becomes invulnerable for a while. During this time, all remaining Phoenixes and their eggs should be killed. With unlucky timing it's possible that he reaches 50% just as he begins a pyroblast cycle, and thus become invulnerable (and truly uninterruptible) while casting 3 pyroblasts (= wipe *unless your tank has Shield Wall up*). Although this is a rare event, it doesn't hurt to pay attention to this possibility, and slow down some DPS if it could occur.

Gravity Lapse

In Phase 5, he no longer uses Mind Control and Pyroblast, instead he regularly casts a combination of Gravity Lapse, Nether Vapor and Nether Beam. Gravity Lapse teleports the entire raid to Kael'thas' position and up in the air from there. In order to avoid the Nether Vapor debuff and Nether Beam chaining, the raid must move away from Kael and spread out, best in three dimensions. Near the end of the 30 sec duration, people should try to keep close to the ground to minimize falling damage, but must not get too low, else they take damage and get launched back up high in the air.

Kael'thas continuously uses Shock Barrier during a Gravity Lapse, and the phoenixes go into a kind of evade mode. There's no point in trying to deal damage during that time.

At the end of a Gravity Lapse, Kael'thas and the phoenixes return to their prior targets, there's no agro drop. Mages should Counterspell Kael's first Fireball so that he runs to the MT. The raid should initially be careful with DPS because the tank needs to build some rage first. This is a good opportunity to burn down the phoenix and his egg.

Enrage

Kael'thas has no built-in hard enrage timer. The only problem is that the legendary weapons looted in phase 2 despawn 15 minutes after acquiring them. It's possible to bring him down using normal equipment, but the strain on the healers caused by the Arcane Disruptions will eventually be too much.

well...umm.......er....yeah....nice music sometimes in there at least...

we do well as a guild handling bosses with adds...this does seem a lot more complex than a hex lord or high king add control though....were going to have our hands full for sure..

i think weve all run MgT heroic enough now that having actually just Kael is going to be the easy part....

Kael is more or less considered the bench mark for "end game" content... he's going to be tough and will most likely take a lot of practice (consider each phase like it's own boss). But we'll get it

For bow tanking, at the end of it I tanked it by keeping my back to the wall behind Kael.  There might be a better spot for it.  There's an alcove to the northeast of Kael, it's that small space there in the picture.  No one should get hit by the multi-shot and it'll be easier for healers and range dps to get to.  Also, for bow there can be NO melee at all on it, including pets.  It'll cause the person tanking the bow to lose aggro which could end up being bad.

For tanking the weapons, only the bow and axe need to be pulled away from the raid.  Everything else can be aoe tanked.  This should free up our other tanks to be ready for the advisors to pop up. 

Some things to watch out for:

• The mace needs to have a rogue or warrior on it to interrupt it's heals.
• The shield has alot of health and will end up probably being the last one up.
• For aoeing weapons, we should wait 6-8 seconds to give tank time to get aggro.  Instead, have range dps on bow until it's dead or the 6-8 seconds have passed.

For weapons to pick up, I have an idea.  We have all the melee/range classes (except the warlocks tanking) pick up the needed weapons.  This will allow our healers and tanks to focus on healing/tanking.
The needed weapons to get are: [item]Staff of Disintegration[/item], [item]Cosmic Infuser[/item], [item]Infinity Blade[/item], and [item]Phaseshift Bulwark[/item]
Dps classes run to the tanks/healer and give them the mace or shield.  Have tanks/healers call out in raid if there still missing one.
Dps classes will still need to pick up there needed weapon. Like hunter's needing the bow.

Were going to need to divide up healing for the tank's come phase 3, and be ready so the tank's don't die.

We usually take down the Staff first.  It doesn't have a lot of HP so it goes down fast, and the bonus it gives to everyone within 30 yards is critical for stopping conflags for the warlock tanks and the "toy" debuff to the random healer.  We kill it and make everyone who can use it loot it, equip it, then make sure they right-click on the weapon to activate the stun immunity.  Technically only one person needs to do this, but just in case we have multiple people do it.

We also tank the axe away from melee and the pally tank, but still close enough to be in range of SoC.  This is kind of a hard task, as this was usually my job as a feral tank, but as long as all the weapons stayed in a group on the stop of the stairs, I was able to bring the axe within SoC range while watching it's whirlwind and making sure it doesn't show the little hit graphic on the pally tank or melee. 

You guys will get the weapons handled much easier the next time, but as they are going down, you will have to deal with the Advisors again at the same time.  The only NOOB thing I notice so much is when Thaladred comes back to live, and he gazes on a melee or healer who is unaware that he/she is the target then proceeds to 1shot him/her.  If everyone can pay attention to who is getting the "GAZE" then I think we can go deep into phase 3.

Please read up on this encounter, prior to our TK runs this week.