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Consumable Preperation
Everyone in the raid should have the appropriate flask, food and weapon buffs on them at all times as the fight is very dependant on DPS speed and the survival of all raid members.
Raid Makeup
A well balanced raid works well for Kael'thas. The fight is slightly more favorable towards ranged casters that can AoE well, but for the most part an equal representation of all classes can work.
A minimum of 3 tanks are required, 4 is heavily recommended. Feral druids can take the role of protection warriors extremely well here, but at least 2 well geared protection warriors are required.
You want about 6-8 healers in the fight as well depending on how confident you are in them, but the fewer the better.
The rest of the raid slots should be filled with the highest DPS available, AoE also plays a big role in a certain phase of the fight.
An example of an idea group setup would be something like this:
G1 - Protection Warrior 1 / Protection Warrior 2 / Tree Druid / Paladin / Warlock
G2 - Feral Druid / DPS Warrior / Rogue / Rogue / Restoration Shaman
G3 - Shadow Priest / Resto Shaman / Warlock / Mage / Mage
G4 - Shadow Priest / Resto Shaman / Warlock / Mage / Mage
G5 - Shadow Priest / Paladin / Paladin / Hunter / Warlock
Phases
There are 5 phases to the Kael'thas Sunstrider fight. For simplicity, the phases will be briefly explained here and then explained in-depth later on.
Phase 1
The raid fights Kael'thas' 4 advisors one by one. Each of them have special unique abilities. Phase 1 begins from the pull and ends when the last advisor is killed.
Phase 2
The weapons of the advisors are summoned in front of Kael'thas and set loose on the raid. There are 7 weapons total which all use unique abilities. Phase 2 ends approximately 2 minutes and 5 seconds after it begins, regardless of whether or not all the weapons have been killed.
Phase 3
The 4 advisors previously killed are all resurrected by Kael'thas and set loose on the raid. During this phase the raid must deal with all 4 advisors at once and whatever weapons are left alive from the previous phase. Phase 3 ends approximately 3 minutes after it begins, regardless of what is alive or dead.
Phase 4
Kael'thas himself comes out and the raid must deal with him and his unique abilities while also having whatever hasn't been killed from the previous phase up.
Phase 5
At 50%, Kael'thas will play a small in-game cinematic, destroy the walls of his room and start using different abilities. Phase 5 continues until his death.
Phase 1 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas has 4 advisors, all of which will be fought 1 by 1 during this phase. Exact raid positioning is not important at all, as long as when you are fighting them 1 by 1 they die near the spots they MUST be tanked in for Phase 3. Check the Phase 3 diagram to see where you should kill them.
Thaladred the Darkener
This is the add wearing the tier 5 warrior set and using the 2 handed axe. He has about 600k HP. Thaladred is much like Buru the Gorger from AQ20, he emotes that he sets his eyes on a certain player and then follows them around for a period of approximately 8-12 seconds, before switching his gaze again. He has no aggro table, the person who he currently has his gaze set on will have full aggro for the duration. He also has 2 unique abilities. The exact emote is...
"Thaladred the Darkener sets his gaze on $n."
Silence - a small range AoE silence aura that lasts for 8 seconds and ticks approximately every 4 with a 10 yard range.
Psychic Blow - a 30 yard range physical knockback attack that does his weapon damage.
He melees on plate for about 3-4k damage, and leaves a rend dot that ticks for 2500 damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds.
Because of these abilities, the strategy to Thaladred is to have the player affected by his Gaze simply kite him around the room while DPS classes burn him down and watch their range so they are sure not to fall victim to an instant swing and kill when he switches targets. It is also advisable for melee DPS to stay out, as he can set his Gaze on them and quickly kill them. Healers should be watching over the whole raid and healing people up after Psychic Blows. His movement speed is slightly slower than a player's run speed, if you have at least 10 yards on him before he gazes you simply turning around and running will be enough.
It is also very important to note that if the person he sets his gaze on uses an immune ability like Vanish or Divine Shield, he will immediately turn to the highest aggro target for the remainder of that gaze period. So, for example, if a warlock is number 1 damage on Thaladred and he Gazes a rogue, and then that rogue presses Vanish, he will turn to the warlock for the remainder of the rogue's Gaze period. Because of that it is important to call out on voice comms when using things such as Divine Shield, Iceblock, etc. are necessary.
After approximately a minute, he should die and the second advisor should come out.
Lord Sanguinar
This is the add wearing red armor with a shield and mace. Sanguinar also has about 600k HP. He melees for about 3-4k on plate and uses Bellowing Roar, an AoE fear similar to that of many previous raid bosses, approximately every 30 seconds. Sometimes the fear comes a bit quicker than the berserker rage cooldown so it is advisable to have 2 warriors building threat and alternating stance dances if Fear Ward is not available. Healers should all be on the tanks as he uses no other abilities. Other than that, he is fairly simple and is nothing more than a burn down. Once he dies the 3rd add comes out. It is also very important to position Lord Sanguinar to the far south of the room so that when he respawns in Phase 3 his fear is out of range of the majority of the raid.
Grand Astromancer Capernian
Caperinian is the female caster add and she has about 420k HP.
Arcane Explosion - much like the Twin Emperors Arcane Explosion, when any player is in melee range she uses this and does approximately 4-5k arcane damage to anyone in range and knocks them back, leaving a debuff that slows movement speed.
Fireball - her primary ability. She chain casts this on her highest aggro target, just like Twin Emperors. It does approximately 5-7k fire damage.
Conflagration - a random secondary ability. She picks a target within 30 yards and puts a Conflagration debuff on them, dealing 900 damage every second for 10 seconds, chaining to anyone within 8 yards. This also disorients the players affected for the duration. Conflagrated players also deal 300 fire damage a second to anyone that comes near them.
A warlock of any talent build can tank Capernian with zero fire resistance. This warlock tank and two healers should be on one side of Capernian with the rest of the raid greater than 30 yards behind her. All classes who must be less than 30 yards to attack must either stand back and sit this advisor out entirely or avoid using attacks with a range below 30 yards. Remember this phase is not a race so lowering your DPS on Capernian a little bit is manageable.
Instead of having a warlock dampen his/her damage by wearing fire resistance gear to deal with Conflagration, have one of your protection warriors wear 150-200 unbuffed fire resistance gear (this is dual purposed for phase 4). This protection warrior must stay closer to Capernian than the warlock tank at all times, but no closer than 15 yards (to avoid her Arcane Explosion). Assign one healer, who will stay over 30 yards from Capernian, to heal this Conflagration Tank. The Conflagration tank must also position him/herself properly so that he/she is in range of this healer.
If executed correctly, the warlock should never be affected by Conflagration and should take all Fireballs. The two warlock tank healers should have no problem keeping this warlock alive and other than the warlock tank and the FR Tank, no one else should take any damage at all.
Master Engineer Telonicus
The final add for phase 1. He is the mob wearing the T4 hunter set and has about 600k HP.
Throw Bomb - Telonicus will use this as his main ability, throwing bombs for approximately 6-7k damage on his highest aggro target. The bomb explosion is an AoE effect so no one should be near the tank.
Remote Toy - approximately every 15 seconds Telonicus will debuff a random player with Remote Toy for 60 seconds. When under the effect of the debuff, the player is randomly stunned for 4 seconds every once in a while, much like the Bronze Affliction from Chromaggus.
This fight is for the most part also a tank and spank, a warrior should pick him up as he comes out and then the raid should burn him down asap. Melee DPS should watch to not be near the tank so they don't take AoE bomb damage. Besides that, all healers should just watch the tank. The only thing to watch out for is to make sure that you do not kill him when any tank is debuffed by Remote Toy. If they are, simply stop DPS and wait for the debuff to wear off then burn him down, because holding aggro on weapons in the next phase with the Remote Toy on you is a near impossibility as it keeps you stunned for approximately 50% of the duration of the debuff.
Once he dies, Phase 1 ends and Phase 2 begins.
Phase 2 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas will summon 7 weapons during this phase and give you 95 seconds to kill as many as you can. The weapons all spawn at the top of his room, where he stands for the whole fight. Once they die, they must be looted and equipped, as they are critical to the fight. All weapons can be looted by any number of people in the raid and they despawn approximately 1 minute after death (so they must be looted quickly). All these adds are rootable, snarable and stunnable.
The 7 weapons spawned are as follows.
Devastation - 2h Axe, swings on plate for 3-4k and does a channelled Whirlwind ability every 25-30 seconds that lasts for 2 hits, each one doing about 5k on plate.
Cosmic Infuser - 1h Mace, swings on plate for about 1-2k. It instant casts a Holy Nova every 10-20 seconds that heals all the other weapons for about 1500 and deals equivelant holy damage to any enemies nearby. It also attempts to cast pretty significant 3 second heals on anything in range low on HP so it is wise to have a melee on it always to control the casted heals.
Warp Slicer - 1h Sword, swings on plate for about 2-3k, leaves a stacking rend dot that ticks for 500 every 3 seconds per application and stacks up to 10 times.
Phaseshift Bulwark - Shield, swings on plate for about 2k and has a shield spike that does about 800 damage per swing to anyone that swings at it. It also uses Shield Bash on a random nearby target.
Netherstrand Longbow - Bow, shoots plate for about 2k, also single target Arcane Shots its main target for 4-5k arcane damage. The bow will also randomly teleport around out of melee range of its primary target and will shoot a Multishot, hitting a random number of targets in range for 2-3k each ocassionally.
Infinity Daggers - Daggers, they don't do anything special but swing fast and hard on the person tanking them. They each hit for about 2-3k damage and swing fairly quick so watching the tank on them is important.
Staff of Disintegration - Staff, Frostbolts people for about 4k damage and Frost Novas everyone around it in place. Melees fairly weakly, for only about 1k on plate. The Frostbolts are interruptable.
All of the weapons have approximately 300k HP, besides the staff which has about 100k less and the shield which has about 100k more.
The strategy to the this phase is fairly simple. Ideally there should be 4 tanks in the raid. The tanking should be divided as follows...
Tank 1 - Axe
Tank 2 - Sword + Shield
Tank 3 - Mace
Tank 4 - Daggers + Staff
Hunter Tank - Bow
Once the adds spawn, hunters should Misdirect whatever the raid feels necessary to whichever tank needs it, and then all the weapons (besides the axe and bow) should be clumped up because they will all be AoEd. The diagram shows them in the middle of the room, but you can group them wherever you want, including where they spawn. The bow will obviously be out of the raid since it randomly teleports around the room and should be tanked by a hunter. The axe can also be included in the AoE, but requires precise positioning by Warriors so that its Whirlwind does not hit anyone besides the tank.
Where exactly the mobs are tanked are not important, so long as they are all within range of each other for AoE and the axe's Whirlwind does not hit people. It is also important for the Hunter that tanks the bow to face it away from the raid so it doesn't Multishot.
Healers should divide themselves up between the tanks equally, with more focus shown to the tank on the sword and shield as they together hit fairly hard. All other weapon tanks can be solo healed.
About 15 seconds after they spawn and all the tanks are ready, AoE should begin. Rogues/shadowpriests/hunters should focus on the mace first due to it's dangerous healing abilities. After the mace dies, they should move on to the shield so they can level its HP down with the rest getting AoEd, and after that they should slowly just pick every weapon off. Mages and warlocks AoEing should be able to bring down every weapon in the clumped up area before Phase 3. Fast DPS is important here so it is vital that potions/heroisms/trinkets/etc are used to burn down the weapons as quick as possible. Once all of them in the main AoE clump die everyone should quickly move to the teleporting bow and burn it down.
At least the mace and the staff should die before the end of the phase so that Capernian's warlock tank and 1 healer (different from phase 1) can get their weapons and in position at least 5 seconds before phase 3 begins.
If done correctly, all weapons should be dead before phase 3 begins. At this point, it is imperative that all classes get the weapons that are beneficial to them. All mages/warlocks should get the staff, every rogue should get a dagger and sword, all warriors should get a dagger, shield and sword, all healers should get maces and all hunters should get the bow. Everyone should equip their weapons and use the abilities as soon as they can and keep the abilities up throughout the fight. It is important to pick up the weapons rather quickly as they despawn approximately 1 minute after death. If someone is busy and cannot pick up a weapon, runners can pick up a weapon and trade it to him/her; these weapons do not bind, however, you can only pick up one of each weapon.
Exact weapon info can be found here:
Cosmic Infuser
Tempest Keep
Unique Main Hand Mace
14 - 221 Damage Speed 2.80
(41.8 damage per second)
+40 Stamina
+40 Intellect
+40 Spirit
Requires Level 70
Equip: Restores 30 mana per 5 sec.
Equip: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up to 600.
Equip: Friendly targets of the caster's heals gain an effect that reduces the damage taken by Fire and Shadow spells by 50% for 30 sec.
Cosmic Infuser - The buff procced from casting heals on the mace lasts 30 seconds and should be used on the Kael'thas MT, the phoenix tanks and the Caperinian/Telonicus tanks. Every healer in the raid should be using the mace so keeping the buff up on all people taking fire damage should not be difficult.
Devastation
Tempest Keep
Unique Two-Hand Axe
496 - 744 Damage Speed 3.90
(159.0 damage per second)
+75 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 50.
Equip: Increases attack power by 150.
Chance on hit: Increases your movement speed by 50%, and your melee attack speed by 20% for 30 sec.
Devastation - when DPSing with the axe, there is a very high procrate for the chance on hit ability which does exactly as the tooltip says. The buff lasts 30 seconds and should be up full time on anyone using the axe, and is beneficial for running from Kael'thas to phoenixes and back.
Infinity Blade
Tempest Keep
Unique One-Hand Dagger
171 - 318 Damage Speed 2.00
(122.3 damage per second)
+35 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 25.
Equip: Increases attack power by 70.
Chance on hit: Increases magical damage taken by the target by 5%, and dispels a special magical effect. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.
Infinity Blade - The damage buff proc hits quite often and it takes under 10 seconds to stack it fully. It is important to have the full stacks on all mobs being DPSed from this point on (besides Caperinian as you can't melee her). The dispel effect on the dagger is used for Mind Controlled people in Phase 4.
Netherstrand Longbow
Tempest Keep
Unique Ranged Bow
256 - 385 Damage Speed 2.90
(110.5 damage per second)
+20 Stamina
Classes: Hunter
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves ranged critical strike rating by 50.
Equip: Increases ranged attack power by 70.
Equip: Increases your ranged weapon critical strike damage bonus by 50%.
Use: Summons a bundle of Nether Spikes for use as ammo.
Chance on hit: Increases Physical damage taken by the target by 5%. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.
Netherstrand Longbow - The buff on the bow is exactly the same as the one on the dagger except it buffs physical DPS and should be kept up at all times on the primary DPS target.
Staff of Disintegration
Tempest Keep
Unique Two-Hand Staff
131 - 310 Damage Speed 2.80
(78.6 damage per second)
+75 Stamina
+50 Intellect
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves spell critical strike rating by 75.
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 325.
Equip: Increases attack power by 1125 in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms only.
Use: Places a mental protection field on friendly targets within 30 yards, granting immunity to Stun, Silence, and Disorient effects.
Staff of Disintegration - The staff's buff has no duration. It acts like a Paladin's aura, except of course it is coming from a weapon. Only one person's staff buff can be up at each time so if one player uses the staff, then a second player uses it in the same area, everyone who was affected by the first player's buff will have had his/her buff replaced by the second player's. Now if the second player unequips the staff, everyone who had that aura will lose it even if the first player is still in range. At that point, someone else will have to use the staff again. It is essential that everyone in the raid has a staff buff at all times. It is essential that DPS casters learn how this buff works and use it correctly.
Warp Slicer
Tempest Keep
Unique One-Hand Sword
248 - 461 Damage Speed 2.90
(122.2 damage per second)
+35 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 25.
Equip: Increases attack power by 70.
Chance on hit: Increases your movement speed by 50%, and your melee attack speed by 20% for 30 sec.
Warp Slicer - The sword buff is identical to the axe, but because it is a 1h it is important for all rogues/non tanking warriors to be using both weapons in Phase 3 and 4 so it is easy to keep up the magic damage debuff, cleanse MCs and minimize travel time around the room.
Phaseshift Bulwark
Tempest Keep
Unique Off Hand Shield
7313 Armor
208 Block
+40 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases defense rating by 40.
Use: Shields the caster, absorbing 100000 damage and making the caster immune to Fear and Snare effects for 4 sec.
Phaseshift Bulwark - The Use ability is mainly for the Kael'thas MT and the Sanguinar tanks. It is important for those two tanks to have this as it is the only means of dealing with a certain Kael'thas ability discussed later on and the only way to reliably break fears during Phase 3.
Phase 3 - In-Depth Look
After the 2 minutes and 5 seconds pass from the beginning of Phase 2, Phase 3 will start. Phase 3 lasts 3 minutes until Kael'thas comes out. If you still have 1 or 2 weapons up at low HP it should be ok, just get rid of them quickly. Any more and the fight will be very difficult.
During phase 3, all the adds will respawn in the spots they died and you will have 3 minutes to kill as many as you can. Their abilities, damage output and HP stay exactly the same, so all that the raid has to do is pick a proper kill order and take care of them. Refer to the diagram and note the tanking positions.
Lord Sanguinar should be quickly picked up and positioned in the far south by a warrior and a healer. Because of his fear, a warrior is required. Using the shield buff, the warrior must alternate every fear Lord Sanguinar uses with a Berserker Rage and then the use ability of the Shield (4 second immunity to fear). He should be tanked in a predetermined spot far away from the raid as he will die later on.
Caperinian should also be quickly picked up by the warlock tank and a healer and moved to the south. Because of the disorient immunity gained from the staff and the 50% fire damage taken reduction gained from the mace, it is very easy for a single healer and warlock to tank her for as long as they want off in a corner. She will be killed last as she is the smallest risk.
The engineer also does very little damage due to the mace buff, and the silence immunity gained from the staff makes solo healing a tank on him very easy. He should be tanked anywhere against a wall, so long as the bombs don't affect people. The staff also grants immunity to the stuns from his Remote Toys.
Finally, Thaladred continues to wander the room and use his Gaze ability. Because the raid only has 3 minutes to kill as much as they can before Phase 4 begins, it is smart to kill him first because he poses the biggest threat to the raid.
Because melee cannot effectively DPS Thaladred, the smartest course of action would be to have all melee DPS + the hunters get on the engineer while all casters burn down Thaladred. Since you want the 25% magic damage debuff gained from the daggers on for the casters, one tank should constantly follow Thaladred around keeping the debuffs up.
With an average balanced raid makeup, Thaladred should die before the engineer, so when he dies all the casters should quickly move to the engineer Telonicus and help the rogues finish him off.
Once Telonicus dies, everyone should move on to Lord Sanguinar. With all the DPS burning him down with the dagger and bow debuffs he should drop very quickly.
With an ideal raid where everything goes as planned, the 3 minute marker of Phase 4 should come soon after killiing Sanguinar. If you are a little bit behind it isn't very important: so long as 2 adds are dead you are doing fine.
Phase 4 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas will now come out right where he sat from the beginning of the fight. He hits for about 3-4k on a tank, is Taunt immune and has about 4 million HP. He has several abilities.
Fireball - a 2.5 second cast, he uses it very often on his main aggro target. It hits for about 25k base, but is reduced by the mace buff. Fireball is interruptible.
Shock Barrier - every minute he will put up his Shock Barrier. When active, the barrier absorbs 100,000 damage and gives him immunity to interruption effects. It lasts 10 seconds, but it is required to burn the shield down quicker in order to be able to interrupt his spells.
Pyroblast - used every minute in conjunction with Shock Barrier. Pyroblast does 45-55k base damage and is a 4 second cast. He single target chain casts 3 pyroblasts on his main target right after he puts his shield up. The strategy to deal with this is discussed later.
Mind Control - every 30 seconds he will Mind Control 2 people in the raid for 30 seconds. Mind control is dispellable by the dagger's special proc effect. Unlike most NPC Mind Controls, Kael's does not buff the player to do more damage, but simply takes them out of the fight for 30 seconds. Due to the importance of DPS on phoenixes and through Kael's shield it is important to bring people out of Mind Control with daggers asap.
Arcane Disruption - every minute or so he will cast this, dealing approximately 2000 arcane damage to everyone in the raid and disorienting them for 10 seconds. The staff aura makes you immune to the disorient effect. For the most part this is a non-issue, as long as all people tanking get the buff since the disorient is a complete aggro wipe while under the effect. So for example, if the Kael'thas MT gets hit with the disruption while he does not have a staff buff, he would get disoriented and Kael'thas would run around the room for the next 10 seconds killing people until it wore off.
Flamestrike Shortly before Kael'thas summons a Phoenix he will cast a Flamestrike. A large graphic will appear, marking where the Flamestrike is strike to hit about 3 seconds before it hits. If you still are within the initial radius of the Flamestrike after this time, it will deal 50,000 to 100,000 damage. For a few seconds after the Flamestrike there will be an aura with a graphic similar to Paladin Consecration which will deal 2,000 damage per second if you stand in it. Absolutely no one should ever die to a Flamestrike. A few seconds later Kael'thas will summon a Phoenix. There is no direct connection between where the Flamestrike animation occurs and where the Phoenix spawns. Flamestrike is targeted on a seemingly random player, the Phoenix spawns are not.
Pheonix Rebirth - Every minute Kael'thas will do a Flamestrike and then spawn a pheonix add. The add has approximately 100k HP, and flies around chasing the highest aggro target and constantly using a Hellfire type ability that ticks for 4-5k damage. The hellfire ability also causes the pheonix to lose 5% of it's own HP per second. A phoenix melees for about 2k damage on plate.
Phoenix Egg - When a phoenix is killed, an egg spawns on its corpse. The egg has 70,000 HP and hatches after 15 seconds. It is imperative to kill the egg before it hatches a new phoenix, since there is no limit to the number of phoenixes Kael'thas himself spawns and they can easily overrun the raid.
The fight is fairly straightforward and easy for this phase. The tank and 2-3 healers along with all the melee should be on Kael'thas, picking him up right where he spawns as he comes out and rotating interrupts for the first minute of this phase. A player with the staff is also essential to have up there, so the tank does not get disoriented. During this time, the rest of the raid should be finishing off adds as quickly as they can. You should have all of the advisor adds dead by the time Kael'thas uses his first phoenix or Shock Barrier.
Once the advisors all die, the raid all moves in on Kael'thas. Everyone should go all out on him and be sure to have the full debuff stacks of the bow and dagger on him at all times.
About a minute after phase 4 begins, Kael'thas will do his Flamestrike and summon a phoenix. The former Conflagration tank with his 150-200 unbuffed fire resistance should intercept the phoenix and move it out of the raid. Everyone else must be aware of where the Phoenix will be tanked and move away. This phoenix should be tanked about 20 yards away from Kael'thas so that melee will have an easy time moving from Kael'thas to the egg. Ranged DPS should locate themselves so they can quickly change target between Kael'thas and the Eggs. Assign 1 healer to the phoenix tank and otherwise ignore it while focusing DPS on Kael'thas.
The phoenix will kill itself in 20 seconds and will spawn an egg. Generally, this will occur right after you take down Kael'thas' shield. At that point all DPS should move from Kael'thas to the egg and destroy it. If you happen to have an egg spawn a new phoenix it is essential you do not panic, simply go back to DPS-ing Kael'thas and let the tank hold the new phoenix. If you get 2 phoenixes at the same time just have a hunter Misdirect the new phoenix onto the phoenix tank. If this Tank gets Mind Controlled, do not panic. Rogues or other protection warriors should be able to move to him and pop him out of Mind Control before the phoenix gets far from him (they move very slowly).
All protection warriors besides the main tank should be on Mind Control duty. Whenever people get MC-d they should quickly intercept and chain-use Hamstring on them with the dagger equipped to dispel the MC long before the 20 second duration wears off. It is imperative to get people out of MC quickly. If you brought more feral druids than protection warriors have a couple of rogues on the job. It is important to note that killing Mind Controlled people with such high DPS weapons isn't that hard to do, therefore it is important to use the lowest damage instants such as Shiv and Hamstring to bring people out of MC.
Shock Barrier + Pyroblast is the most difficult part of this encounter and should be be the priority, even over phoenixes. The 1 minute timers for Shock Barrier and phoenixes are independent so someone in the raid should run a mod or keep track of it and announce it constantly.
It is very important for everyone in the raid, even healers, to burn Kael'thas once his shield comes up. The strategy behind dealing with the 50,000 damage Pyroblasts is simple in concept, but difficult to execute. Because the shield lasts 10 seconds and Pyroblast is not interruptible with the shield up, Kael'thas will get off 2 Pyroblasts every minute if nothing is done about it. To counter this, two things must happen. On the first Pyroblast, the tank must use his Shield's use ability and absorb all the damage. For the second, it all lies on the rest of the raid. To not have the tank take an unavoidable Pyroblast, everyone needs to rapidly DPS and burn through the 100kHP shield within a maximum of 7 seconds after it is raised, so the 2nd pyroblast can be interrupted. After that, the 3rd can also be easily interrupted. When this strategy is perfected, the fight is all but won. Repeating this rotation about 4 or 5 times while taking care of phoenixes should get you to 50% and into Phase 5.
Note: it is also important to know that, in case you do not get to break a shield in time and you are close to 50%, it is possible for the MT to live using either Last stand or Shield Wall while having the mace buff on him. Frozen Rune + Major Fire Protection Potions also work if the tank has enough base HP.
You will get Kael'thas to 50% very quickly but you may have a phoenix or two up when you push him to 50%. When he hits 50%, he will do a cinematic which will give you about a 10 second window when all DPS must target one egg and destroy it. After Kael'thas is done with the cinematic, your main tank must go back to tanking him while the rest of your DPS cleans up any other eggs or phoenixes that are still up.
Phase 5 - In-Depth Look
At 50%, Phase 5 will begin. During Phase 5 a small cinematic plays and then the fight continues. Kael'thas loses his ability to Pyroblast and MC in this phase, and instead gains several other abilities.
Gravity Lapse - within a 1 minute to 1 minute and 30 second window, Kael'thas will portal the whole raid right into his body. At that point he will put a Gravity Lapse debuff on everyone which launches you into the air and makes you fly around for 30 seconds. The effect of Gravity Lapse is no different than swimming. Kael's whole room effectively turns into a giant swimming pool and your character's movement behaves exactly as if you were swimming, only without the water.
Nether Beam - While the raid is flying in the air, he will randomly shoot off Nether Beam, which is the arcane equivalent of Chain Lightning, dealing 1800-2200 damage to the target and jumping to nearby people.
Nether Vapor - during the Gravity Lapse stage, anyone within 8 yards of Kael'thas will get a debuff that ticks every 5 seconds or so which deals about 900 shadow damage and reduces total HP of the player by 10%, lasting for 1 minute. This debuff stacks up to 9 times.
Besides these new abilities, he continues to use Arcane Disruption, Fireballs and Shock Barrier on his regular timers. The strategy to this phase is a bit more different than most.
Every time he pulls everyone into the middle of the room and casts Gravity Lapse, everyone has to float away (so they don't stack Nether Vapor) while spacing themselves out from each other vertically as well as horizontally (so Nether Beams don't chain). During this time everyone can DPS him, so long as they are far enough away and spread out widely enough.
When the 30 seconds ends, everyone is launched into the air a small amount and takes minor falling damage. The amount of damage you take depends on how high you are, so towards the end of the debuff it is beneficial to slowly descend so as to not take major falling damage from all the way up at the ceiling.
Also, during the Gravity Lapse stage, if you are near the ground Kael'thas will punt you back up into the air. It is advisable to stay about 10 yards, or higher, above the ground during the entire stage right through to the very end. Falling about 10 yards is negligible. You will know if you are too low because you will get punted back up into the air. This takes experience to get right. As always, don't panic.
After the Gravity Lapse ends, Kael'thas will begin casting Fireball on the person with the highest threat. It is very important that mages Counterspell Kael'thas so that he will run to the MT and the MT can continue building threat. The MT should also fly away during Gravity Lapse. Kael'thas will then run to him at the end of the stage so long as no one has passed him in threat during the Gravity Lapse. Gravity Lapses are not threat wipes: his aggro table is still active and if anyone passes the MT during Gravity Lapse he will run over and kill them as soon as it is over.
All raid behavior should stay the same as in Phase 4. It is important to note however, that phoenixes do no damage and are immune to all damage in Gravity Lapse stages. Also, due to the absence of Pyroblasts, it is not nearly as important as before to break through his shield. In fact, simply leaving it alone and letting it wear off is a much better choice at this point.
When you get this far his damage output falls down greatly and surviving becomes very easy as long as people perform correctly during Gravity Lapse and do not chain the beams. After 4 or 5 Lapse stages, Kael'thas should be dead and your raid should be that much closer to Hyjal. Congratulations.
Consumable Preperation
Everyone in the raid should have the appropriate flask, food and weapon buffs on them at all times as the fight is very dependant on DPS speed and the survival of all raid members.
Raid Makeup
A well balanced raid works well for Kael'thas. The fight is slightly more favorable towards ranged casters that can AoE well, but for the most part an equal representation of all classes can work.
A minimum of 3 tanks are required, 4 is heavily recommended. Feral druids can take the role of protection warriors extremely well here, but at least 2 well geared protection warriors are required.
You want about 6-8 healers in the fight as well depending on how confident you are in them, but the fewer the better.
The rest of the raid slots should be filled with the highest DPS available, AoE also plays a big role in a certain phase of the fight.
An example of an idea group setup would be something like this:
G1 - Protection Warrior 1 / Protection Warrior 2 / Tree Druid / Paladin / Warlock
G2 - Feral Druid / DPS Warrior / Rogue / Rogue / Restoration Shaman
G3 - Shadow Priest / Resto Shaman / Warlock / Mage / Mage
G4 - Shadow Priest / Resto Shaman / Warlock / Mage / Mage
G5 - Shadow Priest / Paladin / Paladin / Hunter / Warlock
Phases
There are 5 phases to the Kael'thas Sunstrider fight. For simplicity, the phases will be briefly explained here and then explained in-depth later on.
Phase 1
The raid fights Kael'thas' 4 advisors one by one. Each of them have special unique abilities. Phase 1 begins from the pull and ends when the last advisor is killed.
Phase 2
The weapons of the advisors are summoned in front of Kael'thas and set loose on the raid. There are 7 weapons total which all use unique abilities. Phase 2 ends approximately 2 minutes and 5 seconds after it begins, regardless of whether or not all the weapons have been killed.
Phase 3
The 4 advisors previously killed are all resurrected by Kael'thas and set loose on the raid. During this phase the raid must deal with all 4 advisors at once and whatever weapons are left alive from the previous phase. Phase 3 ends approximately 3 minutes after it begins, regardless of what is alive or dead.
Phase 4
Kael'thas himself comes out and the raid must deal with him and his unique abilities while also having whatever hasn't been killed from the previous phase up.
Phase 5
At 50%, Kael'thas will play a small in-game cinematic, destroy the walls of his room and start using different abilities. Phase 5 continues until his death.
Phase 1 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas has 4 advisors, all of which will be fought 1 by 1 during this phase. Exact raid positioning is not important at all, as long as when you are fighting them 1 by 1 they die near the spots they MUST be tanked in for Phase 3. Check the Phase 3 diagram to see where you should kill them.
Thaladred the Darkener
This is the add wearing the tier 5 warrior set and using the 2 handed axe. He has about 600k HP. Thaladred is much like Buru the Gorger from AQ20, he emotes that he sets his eyes on a certain player and then follows them around for a period of approximately 8-12 seconds, before switching his gaze again. He has no aggro table, the person who he currently has his gaze set on will have full aggro for the duration. He also has 2 unique abilities. The exact emote is...
"Thaladred the Darkener sets his gaze on $n."
Silence - a small range AoE silence aura that lasts for 8 seconds and ticks approximately every 4 with a 10 yard range.
Psychic Blow - a 30 yard range physical knockback attack that does his weapon damage.
He melees on plate for about 3-4k damage, and leaves a rend dot that ticks for 2500 damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds.
Because of these abilities, the strategy to Thaladred is to have the player affected by his Gaze simply kite him around the room while DPS classes burn him down and watch their range so they are sure not to fall victim to an instant swing and kill when he switches targets. It is also advisable for melee DPS to stay out, as he can set his Gaze on them and quickly kill them. Healers should be watching over the whole raid and healing people up after Psychic Blows. His movement speed is slightly slower than a player's run speed, if you have at least 10 yards on him before he gazes you simply turning around and running will be enough.
It is also very important to note that if the person he sets his gaze on uses an immune ability like Vanish or Divine Shield, he will immediately turn to the highest aggro target for the remainder of that gaze period. So, for example, if a warlock is number 1 damage on Thaladred and he Gazes a rogue, and then that rogue presses Vanish, he will turn to the warlock for the remainder of the rogue's Gaze period. Because of that it is important to call out on voice comms when using things such as Divine Shield, Iceblock, etc. are necessary.
After approximately a minute, he should die and the second advisor should come out.
Lord Sanguinar
This is the add wearing red armor with a shield and mace. Sanguinar also has about 600k HP. He melees for about 3-4k on plate and uses Bellowing Roar, an AoE fear similar to that of many previous raid bosses, approximately every 30 seconds. Sometimes the fear comes a bit quicker than the berserker rage cooldown so it is advisable to have 2 warriors building threat and alternating stance dances if Fear Ward is not available. Healers should all be on the tanks as he uses no other abilities. Other than that, he is fairly simple and is nothing more than a burn down. Once he dies the 3rd add comes out. It is also very important to position Lord Sanguinar to the far south of the room so that when he respawns in Phase 3 his fear is out of range of the majority of the raid.
Grand Astromancer Capernian
Caperinian is the female caster add and she has about 420k HP.
Arcane Explosion - much like the Twin Emperors Arcane Explosion, when any player is in melee range she uses this and does approximately 4-5k arcane damage to anyone in range and knocks them back, leaving a debuff that slows movement speed.
Fireball - her primary ability. She chain casts this on her highest aggro target, just like Twin Emperors. It does approximately 5-7k fire damage.
Conflagration - a random secondary ability. She picks a target within 30 yards and puts a Conflagration debuff on them, dealing 900 damage every second for 10 seconds, chaining to anyone within 8 yards. This also disorients the players affected for the duration. Conflagrated players also deal 300 fire damage a second to anyone that comes near them.
A warlock of any talent build can tank Capernian with zero fire resistance. This warlock tank and two healers should be on one side of Capernian with the rest of the raid greater than 30 yards behind her. All classes who must be less than 30 yards to attack must either stand back and sit this advisor out entirely or avoid using attacks with a range below 30 yards. Remember this phase is not a race so lowering your DPS on Capernian a little bit is manageable.
Instead of having a warlock dampen his/her damage by wearing fire resistance gear to deal with Conflagration, have one of your protection warriors wear 150-200 unbuffed fire resistance gear (this is dual purposed for phase 4). This protection warrior must stay closer to Capernian than the warlock tank at all times, but no closer than 15 yards (to avoid her Arcane Explosion). Assign one healer, who will stay over 30 yards from Capernian, to heal this Conflagration Tank. The Conflagration tank must also position him/herself properly so that he/she is in range of this healer.
If executed correctly, the warlock should never be affected by Conflagration and should take all Fireballs. The two warlock tank healers should have no problem keeping this warlock alive and other than the warlock tank and the FR Tank, no one else should take any damage at all.
Master Engineer Telonicus
The final add for phase 1. He is the mob wearing the T4 hunter set and has about 600k HP.
Throw Bomb - Telonicus will use this as his main ability, throwing bombs for approximately 6-7k damage on his highest aggro target. The bomb explosion is an AoE effect so no one should be near the tank.
Remote Toy - approximately every 15 seconds Telonicus will debuff a random player with Remote Toy for 60 seconds. When under the effect of the debuff, the player is randomly stunned for 4 seconds every once in a while, much like the Bronze Affliction from Chromaggus.
This fight is for the most part also a tank and spank, a warrior should pick him up as he comes out and then the raid should burn him down asap. Melee DPS should watch to not be near the tank so they don't take AoE bomb damage. Besides that, all healers should just watch the tank. The only thing to watch out for is to make sure that you do not kill him when any tank is debuffed by Remote Toy. If they are, simply stop DPS and wait for the debuff to wear off then burn him down, because holding aggro on weapons in the next phase with the Remote Toy on you is a near impossibility as it keeps you stunned for approximately 50% of the duration of the debuff.
Once he dies, Phase 1 ends and Phase 2 begins.
Phase 2 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas will summon 7 weapons during this phase and give you 95 seconds to kill as many as you can. The weapons all spawn at the top of his room, where he stands for the whole fight. Once they die, they must be looted and equipped, as they are critical to the fight. All weapons can be looted by any number of people in the raid and they despawn approximately 1 minute after death (so they must be looted quickly). All these adds are rootable, snarable and stunnable.
The 7 weapons spawned are as follows.
Devastation - 2h Axe, swings on plate for 3-4k and does a channelled Whirlwind ability every 25-30 seconds that lasts for 2 hits, each one doing about 5k on plate.
Cosmic Infuser - 1h Mace, swings on plate for about 1-2k. It instant casts a Holy Nova every 10-20 seconds that heals all the other weapons for about 1500 and deals equivelant holy damage to any enemies nearby. It also attempts to cast pretty significant 3 second heals on anything in range low on HP so it is wise to have a melee on it always to control the casted heals.
Warp Slicer - 1h Sword, swings on plate for about 2-3k, leaves a stacking rend dot that ticks for 500 every 3 seconds per application and stacks up to 10 times.
Phaseshift Bulwark - Shield, swings on plate for about 2k and has a shield spike that does about 800 damage per swing to anyone that swings at it. It also uses Shield Bash on a random nearby target.
Netherstrand Longbow - Bow, shoots plate for about 2k, also single target Arcane Shots its main target for 4-5k arcane damage. The bow will also randomly teleport around out of melee range of its primary target and will shoot a Multishot, hitting a random number of targets in range for 2-3k each ocassionally.
Infinity Daggers - Daggers, they don't do anything special but swing fast and hard on the person tanking them. They each hit for about 2-3k damage and swing fairly quick so watching the tank on them is important.
Staff of Disintegration - Staff, Frostbolts people for about 4k damage and Frost Novas everyone around it in place. Melees fairly weakly, for only about 1k on plate. The Frostbolts are interruptable.
All of the weapons have approximately 300k HP, besides the staff which has about 100k less and the shield which has about 100k more.
The strategy to the this phase is fairly simple. Ideally there should be 4 tanks in the raid. The tanking should be divided as follows...
Tank 1 - Axe
Tank 2 - Sword + Shield
Tank 3 - Mace
Tank 4 - Daggers + Staff
Hunter Tank - Bow
Once the adds spawn, hunters should Misdirect whatever the raid feels necessary to whichever tank needs it, and then all the weapons (besides the axe and bow) should be clumped up because they will all be AoEd. The diagram shows them in the middle of the room, but you can group them wherever you want, including where they spawn. The bow will obviously be out of the raid since it randomly teleports around the room and should be tanked by a hunter. The axe can also be included in the AoE, but requires precise positioning by Warriors so that its Whirlwind does not hit anyone besides the tank.
Where exactly the mobs are tanked are not important, so long as they are all within range of each other for AoE and the axe's Whirlwind does not hit people. It is also important for the Hunter that tanks the bow to face it away from the raid so it doesn't Multishot.
Healers should divide themselves up between the tanks equally, with more focus shown to the tank on the sword and shield as they together hit fairly hard. All other weapon tanks can be solo healed.
About 15 seconds after they spawn and all the tanks are ready, AoE should begin. Rogues/shadowpriests/hunters should focus on the mace first due to it's dangerous healing abilities. After the mace dies, they should move on to the shield so they can level its HP down with the rest getting AoEd, and after that they should slowly just pick every weapon off. Mages and warlocks AoEing should be able to bring down every weapon in the clumped up area before Phase 3. Fast DPS is important here so it is vital that potions/heroisms/trinkets/etc are used to burn down the weapons as quick as possible. Once all of them in the main AoE clump die everyone should quickly move to the teleporting bow and burn it down.
At least the mace and the staff should die before the end of the phase so that Capernian's warlock tank and 1 healer (different from phase 1) can get their weapons and in position at least 5 seconds before phase 3 begins.
If done correctly, all weapons should be dead before phase 3 begins. At this point, it is imperative that all classes get the weapons that are beneficial to them. All mages/warlocks should get the staff, every rogue should get a dagger and sword, all warriors should get a dagger, shield and sword, all healers should get maces and all hunters should get the bow. Everyone should equip their weapons and use the abilities as soon as they can and keep the abilities up throughout the fight. It is important to pick up the weapons rather quickly as they despawn approximately 1 minute after death. If someone is busy and cannot pick up a weapon, runners can pick up a weapon and trade it to him/her; these weapons do not bind, however, you can only pick up one of each weapon.
Exact weapon info can be found here:
Cosmic Infuser
Tempest Keep
Unique Main Hand Mace
14 - 221 Damage Speed 2.80
(41.8 damage per second)
+40 Stamina
+40 Intellect
+40 Spirit
Requires Level 70
Equip: Restores 30 mana per 5 sec.
Equip: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up to 600.
Equip: Friendly targets of the caster's heals gain an effect that reduces the damage taken by Fire and Shadow spells by 50% for 30 sec.
Cosmic Infuser - The buff procced from casting heals on the mace lasts 30 seconds and should be used on the Kael'thas MT, the phoenix tanks and the Caperinian/Telonicus tanks. Every healer in the raid should be using the mace so keeping the buff up on all people taking fire damage should not be difficult.
Devastation
Tempest Keep
Unique Two-Hand Axe
496 - 744 Damage Speed 3.90
(159.0 damage per second)
+75 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 50.
Equip: Increases attack power by 150.
Chance on hit: Increases your movement speed by 50%, and your melee attack speed by 20% for 30 sec.
Devastation - when DPSing with the axe, there is a very high procrate for the chance on hit ability which does exactly as the tooltip says. The buff lasts 30 seconds and should be up full time on anyone using the axe, and is beneficial for running from Kael'thas to phoenixes and back.
Infinity Blade
Tempest Keep
Unique One-Hand Dagger
171 - 318 Damage Speed 2.00
(122.3 damage per second)
+35 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 25.
Equip: Increases attack power by 70.
Chance on hit: Increases magical damage taken by the target by 5%, and dispels a special magical effect. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.
Infinity Blade - The damage buff proc hits quite often and it takes under 10 seconds to stack it fully. It is important to have the full stacks on all mobs being DPSed from this point on (besides Caperinian as you can't melee her). The dispel effect on the dagger is used for Mind Controlled people in Phase 4.
Netherstrand Longbow
Tempest Keep
Unique Ranged Bow
256 - 385 Damage Speed 2.90
(110.5 damage per second)
+20 Stamina
Classes: Hunter
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves ranged critical strike rating by 50.
Equip: Increases ranged attack power by 70.
Equip: Increases your ranged weapon critical strike damage bonus by 50%.
Use: Summons a bundle of Nether Spikes for use as ammo.
Chance on hit: Increases Physical damage taken by the target by 5%. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.
Netherstrand Longbow - The buff on the bow is exactly the same as the one on the dagger except it buffs physical DPS and should be kept up at all times on the primary DPS target.
Staff of Disintegration
Tempest Keep
Unique Two-Hand Staff
131 - 310 Damage Speed 2.80
(78.6 damage per second)
+75 Stamina
+50 Intellect
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves spell critical strike rating by 75.
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 325.
Equip: Increases attack power by 1125 in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms only.
Use: Places a mental protection field on friendly targets within 30 yards, granting immunity to Stun, Silence, and Disorient effects.
Staff of Disintegration - The staff's buff has no duration. It acts like a Paladin's aura, except of course it is coming from a weapon. Only one person's staff buff can be up at each time so if one player uses the staff, then a second player uses it in the same area, everyone who was affected by the first player's buff will have had his/her buff replaced by the second player's. Now if the second player unequips the staff, everyone who had that aura will lose it even if the first player is still in range. At that point, someone else will have to use the staff again. It is essential that everyone in the raid has a staff buff at all times. It is essential that DPS casters learn how this buff works and use it correctly.
Warp Slicer
Tempest Keep
Unique One-Hand Sword
248 - 461 Damage Speed 2.90
(122.2 damage per second)
+35 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 25.
Equip: Increases attack power by 70.
Chance on hit: Increases your movement speed by 50%, and your melee attack speed by 20% for 30 sec.
Warp Slicer - The sword buff is identical to the axe, but because it is a 1h it is important for all rogues/non tanking warriors to be using both weapons in Phase 3 and 4 so it is easy to keep up the magic damage debuff, cleanse MCs and minimize travel time around the room.
Phaseshift Bulwark
Tempest Keep
Unique Off Hand Shield
7313 Armor
208 Block
+40 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases defense rating by 40.
Use: Shields the caster, absorbing 100000 damage and making the caster immune to Fear and Snare effects for 4 sec.
Phaseshift Bulwark - The Use ability is mainly for the Kael'thas MT and the Sanguinar tanks. It is important for those two tanks to have this as it is the only means of dealing with a certain Kael'thas ability discussed later on and the only way to reliably break fears during Phase 3.
Phase 3 - In-Depth Look
After the 2 minutes and 5 seconds pass from the beginning of Phase 2, Phase 3 will start. Phase 3 lasts 3 minutes until Kael'thas comes out. If you still have 1 or 2 weapons up at low HP it should be ok, just get rid of them quickly. Any more and the fight will be very difficult.
During phase 3, all the adds will respawn in the spots they died and you will have 3 minutes to kill as many as you can. Their abilities, damage output and HP stay exactly the same, so all that the raid has to do is pick a proper kill order and take care of them. Refer to the diagram and note the tanking positions.
Lord Sanguinar should be quickly picked up and positioned in the far south by a warrior and a healer. Because of his fear, a warrior is required. Using the shield buff, the warrior must alternate every fear Lord Sanguinar uses with a Berserker Rage and then the use ability of the Shield (4 second immunity to fear). He should be tanked in a predetermined spot far away from the raid as he will die later on.
Caperinian should also be quickly picked up by the warlock tank and a healer and moved to the south. Because of the disorient immunity gained from the staff and the 50% fire damage taken reduction gained from the mace, it is very easy for a single healer and warlock to tank her for as long as they want off in a corner. She will be killed last as she is the smallest risk.
The engineer also does very little damage due to the mace buff, and the silence immunity gained from the staff makes solo healing a tank on him very easy. He should be tanked anywhere against a wall, so long as the bombs don't affect people. The staff also grants immunity to the stuns from his Remote Toys.
Finally, Thaladred continues to wander the room and use his Gaze ability. Because the raid only has 3 minutes to kill as much as they can before Phase 4 begins, it is smart to kill him first because he poses the biggest threat to the raid.
Because melee cannot effectively DPS Thaladred, the smartest course of action would be to have all melee DPS + the hunters get on the engineer while all casters burn down Thaladred. Since you want the 25% magic damage debuff gained from the daggers on for the casters, one tank should constantly follow Thaladred around keeping the debuffs up.
With an average balanced raid makeup, Thaladred should die before the engineer, so when he dies all the casters should quickly move to the engineer Telonicus and help the rogues finish him off.
Once Telonicus dies, everyone should move on to Lord Sanguinar. With all the DPS burning him down with the dagger and bow debuffs he should drop very quickly.
With an ideal raid where everything goes as planned, the 3 minute marker of Phase 4 should come soon after killiing Sanguinar. If you are a little bit behind it isn't very important: so long as 2 adds are dead you are doing fine.
Kael'thas will now come out right where he sat from the beginning of the fight. He hits for about 3-4k on a tank, is Taunt immune and has about 4 million HP. He has several abilities.
Fireball - a 2.5 second cast, he uses it very often on his main aggro target. It hits for about 25k base, but is reduced by the mace buff. Fireball is interruptible.
Shock Barrier - every minute he will put up his Shock Barrier. When active, the barrier absorbs 100,000 damage and gives him immunity to interruption effects. It lasts 10 seconds, but it is required to burn the shield down quicker in order to be able to interrupt his spells.
Pyroblast - used every minute in conjunction with Shock Barrier. Pyroblast does 45-55k base damage and is a 4 second cast. He single target chain casts 3 pyroblasts on his main target right after he puts his shield up. The strategy to deal with this is discussed later.
Mind Control - every 30 seconds he will Mind Control 2 people in the raid for 30 seconds. Mind control is dispellable by the dagger's special proc effect. Unlike most NPC Mind Controls, Kael's does not buff the player to do more damage, but simply takes them out of the fight for 30 seconds. Due to the importance of DPS on phoenixes and through Kael's shield it is important to bring people out of Mind Control with daggers asap.
Arcane Disruption - every minute or so he will cast this, dealing approximately 2000 arcane damage to everyone in the raid and disorienting them for 10 seconds. The staff aura makes you immune to the disorient effect. For the most part this is a non-issue, as long as all people tanking get the buff since the disorient is a complete aggro wipe while under the effect. So for example, if the Kael'thas MT gets hit with the disruption while he does not have a staff buff, he would get disoriented and Kael'thas would run around the room for the next 10 seconds killing people until it wore off.
Flamestrike Shortly before Kael'thas summons a Phoenix he will cast a Flamestrike. A large graphic will appear, marking where the Flamestrike is strike to hit about 3 seconds before it hits. If you still are within the initial radius of the Flamestrike after this time, it will deal 50,000 to 100,000 damage. For a few seconds after the Flamestrike there will be an aura with a graphic similar to Paladin Consecration which will deal 2,000 damage per second if you stand in it. Absolutely no one should ever die to a Flamestrike. A few seconds later Kael'thas will summon a Phoenix. There is no direct connection between where the Flamestrike animation occurs and where the Phoenix spawns. Flamestrike is targeted on a seemingly random player, the Phoenix spawns are not.
Pheonix Rebirth - Every minute Kael'thas will do a Flamestrike and then spawn a pheonix add. The add has approximately 100k HP, and flies around chasing the highest aggro target and constantly using a Hellfire type ability that ticks for 4-5k damage. The hellfire ability also causes the pheonix to lose 5% of it's own HP per second. A phoenix melees for about 2k damage on plate.
Phoenix Egg - When a phoenix is killed, an egg spawns on its corpse. The egg has 70,000 HP and hatches after 15 seconds. It is imperative to kill the egg before it hatches a new phoenix, since there is no limit to the number of phoenixes Kael'thas himself spawns and they can easily overrun the raid.
The fight is fairly straightforward and easy for this phase. The tank and 2-3 healers along with all the melee should be on Kael'thas, picking him up right where he spawns as he comes out and rotating interrupts for the first minute of this phase. A player with the staff is also essential to have up there, so the tank does not get disoriented. During this time, the rest of the raid should be finishing off adds as quickly as they can. You should have all of the advisor adds dead by the time Kael'thas uses his first phoenix or Shock Barrier.
Once the advisors all die, the raid all moves in on Kael'thas. Everyone should go all out on him and be sure to have the full debuff stacks of the bow and dagger on him at all times.
About a minute after phase 4 begins, Kael'thas will do his Flamestrike and summon a phoenix. The former Conflagration tank with his 150-200 unbuffed fire resistance should intercept the phoenix and move it out of the raid. Everyone else must be aware of where the Phoenix will be tanked and move away. This phoenix should be tanked about 20 yards away from Kael'thas so that melee will have an easy time moving from Kael'thas to the egg. Ranged DPS should locate themselves so they can quickly change target between Kael'thas and the Eggs. Assign 1 healer to the phoenix tank and otherwise ignore it while focusing DPS on Kael'thas.
The phoenix will kill itself in 20 seconds and will spawn an egg. Generally, this will occur right after you take down Kael'thas' shield. At that point all DPS should move from Kael'thas to the egg and destroy it. If you happen to have an egg spawn a new phoenix it is essential you do not panic, simply go back to DPS-ing Kael'thas and let the tank hold the new phoenix. If you get 2 phoenixes at the same time just have a hunter Misdirect the new phoenix onto the phoenix tank. If this Tank gets Mind Controlled, do not panic. Rogues or other protection warriors should be able to move to him and pop him out of Mind Control before the phoenix gets far from him (they move very slowly).
All protection warriors besides the main tank should be on Mind Control duty. Whenever people get MC-d they should quickly intercept and chain-use Hamstring on them with the dagger equipped to dispel the MC long before the 20 second duration wears off. It is imperative to get people out of MC quickly. If you brought more feral druids than protection warriors have a couple of rogues on the job. It is important to note that killing Mind Controlled people with such high DPS weapons isn't that hard to do, therefore it is important to use the lowest damage instants such as Shiv and Hamstring to bring people out of MC.
Shock Barrier + Pyroblast is the most difficult part of this encounter and should be be the priority, even over phoenixes. The 1 minute timers for Shock Barrier and phoenixes are independent so someone in the raid should run a mod or keep track of it and announce it constantly.
It is very important for everyone in the raid, even healers, to burn Kael'thas once his shield comes up. The strategy behind dealing with the 50,000 damage Pyroblasts is simple in concept, but difficult to execute. Because the shield lasts 10 seconds and Pyroblast is not interruptible with the shield up, Kael'thas will get off 2 Pyroblasts every minute if nothing is done about it. To counter this, two things must happen. On the first Pyroblast, the tank must use his Shield's use ability and absorb all the damage. For the second, it all lies on the rest of the raid. To not have the tank take an unavoidable Pyroblast, everyone needs to rapidly DPS and burn through the 100kHP shield within a maximum of 7 seconds after it is raised, so the 2nd pyroblast can be interrupted. After that, the 3rd can also be easily interrupted. When this strategy is perfected, the fight is all but won. Repeating this rotation about 4 or 5 times while taking care of phoenixes should get you to 50% and into Phase 5.
Note: it is also important to know that, in case you do not get to break a shield in time and you are close to 50%, it is possible for the MT to live using either Last stand or Shield Wall while having the mace buff on him. Frozen Rune + Major Fire Protection Potions also work if the tank has enough base HP.
You will get Kael'thas to 50% very quickly but you may have a phoenix or two up when you push him to 50%. When he hits 50%, he will do a cinematic which will give you about a 10 second window when all DPS must target one egg and destroy it. After Kael'thas is done with the cinematic, your main tank must go back to tanking him while the rest of your DPS cleans up any other eggs or phoenixes that are still up.
At 50%, Phase 5 will begin. During Phase 5 a small cinematic plays and then the fight continues. Kael'thas loses his ability to Pyroblast and MC in this phase, and instead gains several other abilities.
Gravity Lapse - within a 1 minute to 1 minute and 30 second window, Kael'thas will portal the whole raid right into his body. At that point he will put a Gravity Lapse debuff on everyone which launches you into the air and makes you fly around for 30 seconds. The effect of Gravity Lapse is no different than swimming. Kael's whole room effectively turns into a giant swimming pool and your character's movement behaves exactly as if you were swimming, only without the water.
Nether Beam - While the raid is flying in the air, he will randomly shoot off Nether Beam, which is the arcane equivalent of Chain Lightning, dealing 1800-2200 damage to the target and jumping to nearby people.
Nether Vapor - during the Gravity Lapse stage, anyone within 8 yards of Kael'thas will get a debuff that ticks every 5 seconds or so which deals about 900 shadow damage and reduces total HP of the player by 10%, lasting for 1 minute. This debuff stacks up to 9 times.
Besides these new abilities, he continues to use Arcane Disruption, Fireballs and Shock Barrier on his regular timers. The strategy to this phase is a bit more different than most.
Every time he pulls everyone into the middle of the room and casts Gravity Lapse, everyone has to float away (so they don't stack Nether Vapor) while spacing themselves out from each other vertically as well as horizontally (so Nether Beams don't chain). During this time everyone can DPS him, so long as they are far enough away and spread out widely enough.
When the 30 seconds ends, everyone is launched into the air a small amount and takes minor falling damage. The amount of damage you take depends on how high you are, so towards the end of the debuff it is beneficial to slowly descend so as to not take major falling damage from all the way up at the ceiling.
Also, during the Gravity Lapse stage, if you are near the ground Kael'thas will punt you back up into the air. It is advisable to stay about 10 yards, or higher, above the ground during the entire stage right through to the very end. Falling about 10 yards is negligible. You will know if you are too low because you will get punted back up into the air. This takes experience to get right. As always, don't panic.
After the Gravity Lapse ends, Kael'thas will begin casting Fireball on the person with the highest threat. It is very important that mages Counterspell Kael'thas so that he will run to the MT and the MT can continue building threat. The MT should also fly away during Gravity Lapse. Kael'thas will then run to him at the end of the stage so long as no one has passed him in threat during the Gravity Lapse. Gravity Lapses are not threat wipes: his aggro table is still active and if anyone passes the MT during Gravity Lapse he will run over and kill them as soon as it is over.
All raid behavior should stay the same as in Phase 4. It is important to note however, that phoenixes do no damage and are immune to all damage in Gravity Lapse stages. Also, due to the absence of Pyroblasts, it is not nearly as important as before to break through his shield. In fact, simply leaving it alone and letting it wear off is a much better choice at this point.
When you get this far his damage output falls down greatly and surviving becomes very easy as long as people perform correctly during Gravity Lapse and do not chain the beams. After 4 or 5 Lapse stages, Kael'thas should be dead and your raid should be that much closer to Hyjal. Congratulations.
