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?

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.