Reliquary of Souls

[Shadowwolf]

Links:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Reliquary_of_Souls
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=23418#.


Video:
[youtube=500,425]R0bxUuflG34[/youtube]

Abilities:

Reliquary of Souls (RoS from now on), is a boss that consists of three different phases, each one very different from the previous and challenging in a new way. Each phase has an "Aura" that affects the entire raid throughout that phase.

Melee: Between 1,000-1,500. Cannot critically hit.

Melee damage is not that important outside Phase 1; you will be worrying much more about the abilities detailed below.

Essence Of Suffering ("EoS") - Phase One

• HP ~2,300,000
• [spell=41292]Aura of Suffering[/spell]: Healing effects reduced by 100%. Regeneration effects reduced by 100%. Armor reduced by 100%. Defense reduced by 500. Affects the entire raid. [item]Nightmare Seed[/item]s, Battlemaster's Trinkets, And Last Stand can all be used to temporarily restore health despite this aura.
• [spell=40893]Fixated[/spell]: A player gains aggro when marked with this debuff.
• [spell=41303]Soul Drain[/spell]: Randomly targetted debuff that deals/drains 2625-3375 health/mana every 3 seconds for 30 seconds. Can be dispelled and it is resistable.
• Enrage: Every minute it will enrage and start dealing a lot more damage. Lasts for 15 seconds.

Damage dealers and healers should go all out on damage as there is no aggro besides the targeted player.

Essence Of Desire ("EoD") - Phase Two

• HP: 5,300,000
• [spell=41350]Aura of Desire[/spell]: Damage taken is equal to 50% of the damage dealt. Healing increased by 100%. Decreases maximum mana over time every 8 seconds.
• [spell=41410]Deaden[/spell]: Increase damage taken of any school by 100% on the current target. Lasts 10 seconds. Spell Reflection can be used as well as being interrupted.
• [spell=41426]Spirit Shock[/spell]: Disorients the main tank and deals 9250-10750 Arcane damage. Each time it is successfully cast, the cast time decreases and the spell disorients the target for 5 seconds forcing a tank switch. Must be interrupted. Cast every 5 seconds.
• [spell=41431]Rune Shield[/spell]: Essence of Desire will self-shield causing 50000 damage to be absorbed. Becoming immune to spell interrupt effects and increases attack and casting speed by 100%. A Felhunter can use Devour Magic as well as a mage using Spellsteal as quickly as possible.

Essence Of Anger ("EoA") - Phase Three

• HP: 3,000,000
• [spell=41337]Aura of Anger[/spell]: Starts with dealing 100 shadow damage every 3 seconds and increases damage dealt by 5%. Effects increase over time by adding the initial the starting amount. Affects the entire raid.
• [spell=41377]Spite[/spell]: Randomly targetted on individuals in the raid. After 2 seconds of immunity to all damage, the player will get hit by 7444-7556 nature damage.
• [spell=41545]Soul Scream[/spell]: A frontal cone area of effect ability that deals 2625-3375 shadow damage, mana burned for 4375-5625 and/or rage by 1000. Every rage burned adds 100 damage.
• [spell=41520]Seethe[/spell]: A debuff that increases threat generated by 200%. Lasts 10 seconds and is only given once the boss switches target.

Enslaved Souls

• Melee: ~600 on cloth
• [spell=41542]Soul Release[/spell]: 15 yard AoE, restoring about 30% health and mana upon death

Suggested Strategy:

Phase 1 Positioning

This phase is all about positioning and repositioning in a tightly coordinated way. On the diagram, the selection ring of EoS is shown. This is the actual red glowing ring that apears beneath the boss when it is your current target. Point A is at the center of that ring, in the middle of the boss. Point B represents any spot on the border of that ring.

[attachimg=1]

With perfect execution, the boss will never move throughout the entire stage. Realistically, you will get some small shifts even with a good execution, The positioning of raid members outside of these points is not important.

Phase 2 and 3 Positioning

These phases are not really a problem positioning-wise. Stay in two camps to keep it easy. Good assignment of healers is needed into three groups: tank healers, melee DPS healers and ranged DPS healers. Shamans prove to be good at chain healing the packed groups so use them wisely.

[attachimg=2]

Phase 1 Fight
As soon as phase 1 begins, heals will be nullified by the aura.

At the start, have your hunters run in and stand at point A. EoS will Fixate on one of them. The Fixated hunter should move to point B. This prevents EoS aggroing onto the same hunter twice, because the hunters at point A are "closer" to EoS, but won't cause EoS to shift its own position, because point B is still in range. As soon as the first hunter is Fixated, begin DPS, but without any non-hunters moving inside the selection circle.

After 5 seconds, EoS will move onto the next hunter. The first hunter should move well out of the selection circle and start DPS-ing the boss with his ranged attacks.

All DPS throughout all of phase 1 can go all out. There is no danger of drawing aggro.

Continue this process until each hunter has been Fixated. When the last hunter is fixated, he moves to point B like the ones before him, and the entire rest of the raid moves to stand at point A.

This procedure now continues with the entire raid. The Fixated person moves to point B, and those who are able to take the next Fixate stand at point A. Any class is capable of surviving at least one Fixate; they only take 5 hits. The important things are: not to move too far away when Fixated, not to be asleep and miss the fact that you have been Fixated, and generally to be alert.

When moving from point A to point B, edge out in small steps. You want to avoid moving outside the circle and then back in, as this will move the boss and cause compilcations.

When Enrage is about to be cast, the raid should run outside of the selection circle, with these exceptions:
1) The currently Fixated player, who stays at point B. A very common eror is for this player to run off with everybody else, and thus move the boss.
2) Tanks: protection warriors and feral druids and anybody else who can survive a powerful attack.

The procedure for the Enrage is the same as the rest of phase one, except you have now reduced the possible targets to your tougher classes. EoS behaves in exactly the same way, only it hits a lot harder. It lasts for 3 Fixates (15 seconds).

Don't overestimate the capacity of your tanks to survive solo tanking without heals. As soon as the Enrage is over, the rest of the raid must move back to point A and resume the procedure outlined above. You may find rogues are a good class to move in first as they can Evasion tank the tail end of the Enrage fairly effectively if necessary. Power Word: Shield can also be used during Enrage to keep the Fizated person alive if necessary.

When melee classes do not wish to take a Fixate (because they could not survive it or because they are saving their health for the next Enrage), they can move outside of the selection circle and stay in melee range.

Blessing of Potection is a gamble in this phase, and should be strictly a last resort, avoided altogether if possible. Like other Fixate-type mobs in the game, EoS does have an aggro list, only Fixate overrides it. If you BoP the Fixate target, you will probably see EoS fly off at great speed towards a mage or warlock and kill it, then start Fixating the nearest target. This will often lead to a wipe, so only use BoP if you are certain a player is about to die.

With good DPS, you will need to live through 2 Enrages. Needing to go through 3 Enrages is very normal.
Finally, when you get the boss to 1%, it goes back to its spawn spot and give you a little rest time.

After EoS is defeated, it goes back into the Reliquary. At that point, several ghosts spawn and head towards the raid. To maximize the health and mana gain, the raid should all stand on one spot. It's a good idea to use mana intensive abilities (such as making mana gems or summoning new demons) at the beginning of the ghost phase so that the players can start the next phase with full mana. Paladins with Improved Lay on Hands can use it on the tank at the very start of this phase to give him the 30% armor buff.

Phase 1 Tips

• Damage dealers and healers should go all out on damage as there is no aggro besides the targetted player.

Phase 2 Fight

As soon as phase 2 begins, the tank will run to the spawn spot and start building threat. This tank must be a warrior, since the main tank will be the one Spellreflect-ing the Deaden.

Also a new aura will be applied. This aura reduces mana, increases healing done and every single point of damage you do to EoD will be returned to you as 50% of what you did.

Example:
You Frostbolt EoD for 4,600
You take 2,300 damage.

This ability, combined with [spell=41410]Deaden[/spell], can two-shot any caster, so be sure to keep them warned about their crits.

There are several things to do here so let's try to keep it as simple as we can:

First of all, the [spell=41431]Rune Shield[/spell] EoD casts must be removed as soon as possible or you will not be able to interrupt its spells (which will quickly wipe you). There are several ways of doing it: mages Spellstealing and felhunters helping with Devour are good enough.

At the same time, we have the Deaden and Spirit Shocks. You want to Spellreflect Deaden onto the boss to boost your DPS and interrupt the Spirit Shock to avoid a wipe because of the disorient effect and the consequent MT switch (thereby killing your melee, most likely).

For interrupts, you will need rogues, mages and warriors setting a good rotation on Kick/Pummel/Counterspell, otherwise your raid will be done for. You can't keep a tank second on the threat list as the raid DPS needs to be very high. As the Kick cooldown is comparatively short, a good system is to use 3 rogues in rotation, with another player standing by for backup. It's important not to interrupt the Deadens, as they need to be reflected back on the boss to boost raid DPS (and there's always "Essence of Desire's Deaden is resisted by Essence of Desire"). The Deadens are precious, the Spirit Shocks are deadly, and the cast times are short, so a lot of work and focus must go into the interrupting.

From a healer's point of view, you will be either constantly healing the main tank to keep him up with the damage he is receiving or constantly healing DPSers because of the half damage taken from their own damage dealt. Shamans prove to be really good at healing the packs of people because of their Chain Heal.

Finally, and as you can imagine, this is yet another DPS race where you fight against your mana, since the aura will be decreasing your mana pool over time. Clever use of Deaden and correct assignment of healers for the tank and melee (between 2 and 3 healers in total) and the casters (the rest of the healers), is the way to get this correctly done.

There are some further survival tricks that can get you down the last 5% even if you are out of mana. Each priest can save their Inner Focus to dispel EoD's Rune Shield to remove it. Paladins can use Lay on Hands to keep the tank alive. The other critical abilities; Kick and Spellreflect; are of course unaffected by the mana shortage.

Once again when EoD reaches 1%, it will go to the spawn spot and another ghost phase begins.

Phase 3 Fight

A short time after the ghosts are dead, this last phase begins. Your tank has to run again to the spawn point and start building aggro.

The MT must turn Essence of Anger's back to the raid immediately to keep Soul Scream off the raid. Of course the MT will still be getting hit by Soul Scream, which will burn his rage and deal extra damage.

The Aura of Anger will be boosting the aggro from DPS faster than that from the tank, as his extra aggro abilities like Sunder Armor, Shield Slam, etc will not be affected.

[spell=41377]Spite[/spell] can be dealt with by taking [item]Major Nature Protection Potion[/item]s, as explained in the ability above.

[spell=41520]Seethe[/spell] should not be cast if EoA is not aggroed from the MT or Taunted back. If Seethe hits anyone but the MT, they need to cut right down on all high aggro or damage abilities until it wears off.

This will be a major DPS test for your raid. Blood Lust/Heroism, Haste Potions, Destruction Potions, cooldown abilities, trinkets: EVERYTHING has to be used in order to deal maximum damage to the boss, including using a Healing Potion to keep yourself up for one last tick from the Aura. You realistically need to take down the boss in about 100 seconds, by which time half the raid will be dead.

In addition to the above, the Aura will also be increasing its damage done to the raid quite fast. In the end, it will reach peaks of 3-4k per tick, making it impossible to heal. By this time, EoA should be dead or almost dead since you won't be able to take much from the Aura at that stage.

As a healer your main priority will be keeping up the main tank (Soul Scream plus the Aura will be tough) and also everyone will be taking damage from the Aura, which you need to heal through. Healers will most likely need a few tries on this phase before they get used to what's going on and adapt to the most effective healing strategies. Make sure everybody is in a role where they can get the most healing per second out of their class and spec. People should use Healthstones and potions when the Aura ticks start becoming high (2,000-3,000) in order to ease the healers' work.

Important: The Aura resets on an individual basis when you die, meaning that if it was ticking for 3,000, you die, and you ankh or soulstone, it will start over on you individually from the intial damage level (103). It will still be ticking for 3,000 on the rest of the raid, of course. A proper use of soulstones on low HP people can boost your DPS a fair bit, but you shouldn't rely on this to win the fight.

It should be noted that [item]32852[/item] Potions work equally to help healers in phase 3. They can be drunk in unison at about 80% health on Essence of Anger. This allows the healers a chance to catch up on healing, and at 70% you can use Bloodlusts and all cooldowns. This way, you increase DPS because players are not thinking about when they need to react to the Spite being applied, and the healers can still catch up on healing (also, it simplifies cauldron making because Shadow Protection Potions work well for Mother Shahraz too)

Phase 3 Tips

• Use your rage as quickly as possible! Doing so will result in less damage from Soul Scream. Stance-dancing helps greatly to get rid of excess rage.
• Be careful about pulling aggro as many tank abilities are not effected by the aura and the damage dealer abilities will be.
• Taking a [item]Major Nature Protection Potion[/item] will probably be needed before the 2 seconds of immunity over for the Spite or you'll die from it or by a combination of the aura.

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[Belandand]

Given our recent accomplishments in SSC/TK/MH, I strongly believe that RoS is up next on our list. However, there is one thing I would like to know:

During his Anger stage, he enrages every minute for 15 seconds. Will the new anesthetic poison dispell his enrage? If so, this could make Phase 1 a little nicer.

[Shadowwolf]

I doubt it, the strategy never suggested Tranq Shot from hunters and since 3.0, Anesthetic basically does the same thing as Tranq Shot.