Kael'thas Sunstrider: Welcome to the Future

So you've braved your way through SSC, soldiered on through Tempest Keep, and are now staring at the lord of the blood elves, Kael'thas Sunstrider. Congratulations! Are you prepared? Of course not.

Oh sure, you've got the gear if you've killed Vashj, but if ever there was a learn-by-doing fight, Kael and his buddies are that encounter.

Yes, I said buddies. Did you think we were killing a limping, half-dead blood elf leader only kept alive by the power of a giant pulsing crystal strapped to his chest? Nope, this is the Eye, where you fight Kael and friends in all their shining, unnerfed (okay, slightly nerfed, but still pretty difficult) glory. Let's introduce the players:

The dude in the center there is Kael. You might recognize him from the giant statues of himself he had installed in this very room. A little gauche, if you ask me.

To his left and right are his four advisors, each with their own M.O.s: Thaladred of the mighty hammer and six second attention span, Sanguinar the constantly-fearing warrior, Capernian the constantly-conflagging mage, and Telonicus the stun-happy engineer. In phase one, your raid gets to fight and kill them, one at at time.

Once you've killed his advisors, Kael summons up seven legendary weapons for you to fight. After your tanks get the positioning right, phase 2 isn't so bad; most of them will die in your raid's massive cloud of AOE. When a weapon dies, you have 60 seconds until it despawns, during which time anyone (or really everyone; they're multi-drop) can loot the weapons for use in the rest of the fight. So every time we fight Kael, I get to equip the [Staff of Disintegration]. Shiny!

Moving onward. Yes, I know your raid's still fighting weapons, but take a look at the clock. It's been about two minutes since phase 2 started, hasn't it? Think back to those advisors you killed in phase 1. Wouldn't it be really inconvenient if they all came back to life at the same time, right about... now? Well, Kael thinks so too. So good luck with that!

If you've got the weapons down and looted them while studiously avoiding Capernian and Thaladred, you're making nice progress. Now focus fire on the advisors: melee on Telonicus, ranged on Thaladred, warlocks tanking Capernian in one corner and a regular tank tucking Sanguinar in a different corner. We like to do Telonicus, Thaladred, Sanguinar, and then Capernian, but be sure your Kael tank has looted the shield and is ready to go, because Kael's going to start phase 4 whether you're ready or not.

Sometimes one must take matters into one's own hands. Kael really hates dirty work, but it's hard to get proper help these days. While you finish off the last advisors, your tank had better grab him. Pretty soon, he's going to start flame striking all over the place, and once he starts casting shock barriers and pyroblasts... well. Let's just say that if it weren't for that legendary shield ([Phaseshift Bulwark]) your tank grabbed at the end of phase 2, there'd be no way he could eat an 50k fireball, much less two in a row if your raid doesn't dps that shock barrier down and kick Kael in the face before he casts another one.

Speaking of kicks to the face, did you bring enough melee dpsers? I hope they looted that dagger from phase 2, because any second now Kael is going to start mind controlling random members of your raid, and someone's going to have to shiv them with an [Infinity Blade] to dispell it. Also, how are you on phoenixes? You remember those little guys from A'lar? Pretend they had a constant AoE pulse and could resurrect themselves, and you've got a pretty good picture of phase 4.

But you've made it! You've killed phoenix eggs, you've destroyed shock barriers, you've interrupted pyroblasts and shanked mind controls and spam-healed your tank like there's no tomorrow. Kael's down to 50%, how much more complicated could this fight get?

Honestly, that depends on how you feel about gravity.

In just a few seconds, Kael's going to teleport you to him and turn off the room's gravity, then start chaining nether beams through the raid. So spread out along the X, Y, and Z axis (aim for ~10 yards above the ground) until the gravity lapse ends. Once you get used to swimming around in mid-air, phase 5's pretty easy, and then you can take a congratulatory screenshot like we did. Huzzah!

Come to think of it, after looting his body of all the shinies, we totally forgot to check Kael for a pulse before portaling out in our rush to Hyjal! Damn. I guess we'll have to scrounge up five luckless adventurers to finish off the job once Sunwell hits. Any takers?

Lady Vashj Swims With the Fishes

Much celebration last night as my raid took down Vashj for the first time. If you've never fought her before, the final boss of Serpentshrine is not a nice lady. Just look at those fangs!

She takes 10+ hours of concerted learning wipes for your average raiding guild, which for us (splitting our time between TK and SSC, with some attendance issues to boot) meant we've been working on her for over a month.

Why so long, you ask? Lady Vashj is a major test of raid coordination. Her second phase requires you simultaneously to tank incoming elite nagas, manage AOE-fearing fen striders who will one-shot the casters in charge of kiting and killing them, kill elementals constantly spawning from over a dozen locations around the room, and play an ultimate frisbee-esque minigame of killing, looting, and tossing drops from "tainted elementals" in order to disable her protective shield and move the fight into the final phase.

If practically anyone dies before you take out her shield generators, you're toast, but either way, a lot of people are likely to die soon after. Once you move into phase three, Vashj calls forth a small army of toxic spore bats which drop poison clouds. If you don't take her down quickly, they'll soon blanket the platform on which you fight her.

Above all, taking down Vashj requires good coordination and lots and lots of practice. I'm proud to say we've finally beaten her. Now it's on to Kael!

Fighting Nalorakk: You Got Your Troll in My Bear! No, You Got Your Bear in My Troll!

Ok, neither bears nor trolls are great tastes, but when it comes to the Amani lord of bears, they go together whether you like it or not. My 10 man raid spent Friday night fighting the good fight against finnicky PTR instance servers and the first boss of Zul'Aman, and here's what I've got to report.

Nalorakk isn't a pushover, but he's not an especially complicated boss either. Best of all, you only have to clear about six pulls to get to him: one AOE pull after you talk to Harrison Jones (it'll have two elites, too), a double troll pat, a couple of angry bears, and then some packs of trolls and trolls riding bears that Nalorakk sends at you as you get closer to him. Quick tip on the bear-riding trolls: their bears' growl debuff stacks, so be sure to space your tanks far enough away from each other.

Once you get through that trash, you'll need two tanks for the bear boss himself; one for each phase. Nalorakk will start as a troll, and alternate between troll and bear form. In troll form he casts mangle, which increases bleed effects. Then in bear form he hits whoever's tanking him with a lacerate and rend. (You can remove his mangle with stoneform, but if you've got it, save it for that emergency missed taunt.) Put your better geared tank on bear form, and have your tanks swap each time Nalorakk shifts to bear or troll. Finally, you want your tanks to stand on top of each other so that when he uses his 14k brutal swipe attack, its damage will be split between both of them.

Aside from the tanking, it's pretty straightforward. In troll form he'll charge at random and can cleave anyone around his target, so spread out. In bear form his deafening roar will damage everyone for ~1.3k and silence the raid for two seconds. Other than that, he's a tank and spank with 1.7 million health, so pile on the damage. The best kind of bear-troll-thing is a dead bear-troll-thing, after all.

How to Call the Headless Horseman

A former knight of the Silver Hand, the Headless Horseman is a cursed paladin who lurks within the Scarlet Monastery graveyard during Hallow's End (October 18th-November 1st). He's a fun fight with a small loot table of Heroic-level purples, plus fun things like temporary BOE broom mounts and a noncombat pumpkin pet. Sure, you may still be hungover from Brewfest or punch-drunk off the PTRs, but Halloween is on the way! Here's the Girl Meets WoW guide to summoning and defeating WoW's first five-man holiday boss.

First, find a group of level 70 players and take a field trip to the Scarlet Monastery. The graveyard is the first instance portal on the left, and you'll need to lazily clear through two hallways and a room to get to the horseman. On the right side of the SM GY grounds is a Pumpkin Shrine, which gives the daily quest [70] Call the Headless Horseman. Someone in your party must accept this quest, and then click on the Loosely Turned Soil behind the shrine to place a Dreary Candle.

The Horseman will then aggro on whoever placed the candle, starting the fight. Here's how the fight works:

Phase One
Allow your tank to pick up aggro on the Horseman, and dps him down (watch out for cleaves). At 1% he will toss his head in the air and then wander around disoriented (and immune to your attacks), and the Head of the Horseman will become active. It has ~27k health, and you'll need to take a third of that off to start the next phase.

Phase Two
The Head and the Horseman will recombine at the start of Phase Two. During this phase, the Horseman can Conflagrate, so ranged and healers need to keep their distance. As before, dps him to 1%, he'll separate, and then you need take off another third of the head's health. Note that after he separates, the Horseman will also whirlwind this time, so spread out and drop the head as fast as you can.

Phase Three
Head and Horseman will recombine again, and will toss out four Pulsing Pumpkins, which grow into adds which can crit for about 1k on cloth. They have about 10k health apiece, so while you could AOE them, you might just want to have your tank pick them up and keep dpsing - they'll go away when he dies. Drop the Horseman back down to 1%, and he'll toss his head again - kill it, and you win.

How Many Times a Day Can You Summon the Horseman?
In theory, you could farm him indefinitely within the constraints of the four instances per hour limit, but keep in mind that he's summoned by a daily quest, so once everyone in your party has summoned him, you'll have to either bring someone new in, or wait 24 hours to be able to get the Call the Headless Horseman quest again.

What Does the Horseman Drop?
The Horseman's Helm - A dps plate helm.
The Horseman's Signet Ring - A dps caster ring.
Ring of Ghoulish Delight - A melee dps ring.
Witching Band - A healing ring.
Hallowed Helm - This has no stats; it's a pumpkin you can wear on your head.
Magic Broom - A temporary level 40 ground mount. The most likely to drop.
Swift Magic Broom - A temporary epic ground mount.
Flying Broom - A temporary regular flying mount.
Swift Flying Broom - A temporary epic flying mount. The rarest broom.
Sinister Squashling (BOP noncombat pet) - An evil-looking walking pumpkin pet. When idle, he folds up into himself and "sits down" as a jack-o-lantern.
Tricky Treat - Candy that increases your movement speed for 30 seconds.

Sound complicated? It's really not that bad, but if my walkthrough has you curious or if you just can't wait until the 18th, you can always go watch a video of the fight (warning: very odd music selection).

Leggings of Tirisfal: World's Most Expensive Pants

This past weekend my raid took down Karathress for the first time, and I walked away with my tier 5 pants token. After a few days of putting my gear, gems, and talents in order, I've decided that moving to 2/5 Tirisfal Regalia (which pretty much demands an arcane spec, in my mind) makes this the most expensive epic I've ever looted. Here's how it all broke down:

Unlearning talents: 15g
Relearning talents: 5g
Ten primal manas for a Runic Spellthread: 94g
Gems for the new pants: 95g
Mystical Skyfire Diamond for T4 helm I pulled out of the bank since the pants broke my Spellstrike set: 160g
Additional gems to satisfy meta requirement & drop my +hit down to 16% again: 144g
Glyph of Power: 90g
-------------------------------------------------------
Total cost: 603 gold

Oh, and having POM-pyro again? Priceless.

How to Stab Solarian in the Eye

Now that patch 2.2 has come out, the new Solarian mechanic makes her laughably easy. No more bouncing debuffs, no need for arcane resist gear. She's pretty much Baron Geddon if he spawned intermittent packs of adds. The new wrath debuff is incredibly easy to see: your character turns an evocation shade of blue with lightning bolts coming out of you, and then you have about 6 seconds to run away from everyone before you get "bombed" up into the air. Anyone within about 10 yards will also get knocked into the air, and unlike the person with the debuff, will take falling damage. We positioned ourselves in a close semicircle in front of her and went to town. As soon as you get your raiders to remember Running Away 101, this fight's a cakewalk.

I Was Wrong, Leotheras Dies

I have to apologize. Remember how I said on Tuesday that I didn't feel like my Serpentshrine raid was really getting the hang of Leotheras? Well, we went back into SSC last night and kicked the everlovin' demonic pants off him on our second try.