Karazhan boss strategies

Getting The Master's Key

Everyone in the raid needs The Master's Key to be able to enter the instance.

The key can be gotten by following the following questline (Starts just outside Karazhan, with an Archmage of the Violet Eye (48,76)):

* [70] Arcane Disturbances (You need to check up some readings in the Master's Cellar, nearby, with a crystal)
o [70] Contact from Dalaran (Go to Dalaran)
+ [70] Khadgar (Go talk with Khadgar in Shattrath City)
# Entry Into Karazhan(First key part to be found in the Shadow Labyrinth, Auchindoun)
* The Second and Third Fragments (The Second key part to be found in The Steamvault and The Third and last key part to be found in Arcatraz)
o The Master's Touch (Talk with Medivh in the "Opening of the portal" instance in Caverns of Time. He'll give you his own key.)
+ Return to Khadgar (Just return to Khadgar)

Attumen the Huntsman

Attumen the Huntsman is the first boss in Karazhan. He comes with his horse, Midnight. He is commonly seen as a gear check.

General Information

* Level: Boss
* Location: Karazhan
* Type: Undead
* Health: 351k

Attacks and Abilities
Phase 1

Attumen

* Basic Melee: Melees from anywhere between 1600 and 2100 damage
* Shadow Cleave: Cleave for around 4k
* Mount Up: When Midnight is at 25% Attumen will Mount up. All agro wll be wiped and Attumen will be fully healed. Phase 2 will then start.

Midnight

* Basic Melee: ??

Phase 2

* Basic Melee: Melees for anywere around 1600 to 3300.
* Shadow Cleave: Same as Phase 1.
* Charge: Does a knockdown to the targetted player.

Strategies
Tank and DPS

Before Phase 1 Draw agro on Midnight. After a few seconds Attumen will show up. Presumably when Midnight is at 95%.

Phase 1

Attumen should be offtanked a bit away from the raid. DPS Down Midnight. Do so until Midnight is at 25%, when Phase 2 will start. Remember, all agro will be wiped and Attumen will be back at 100% and top off everyone because he may charge someone randomly.

Phase 2

DPS down Attumen. Watch out for random charges. Bandages and healing potions are plus here.

Role Specifics

Tanks This seems to be a very agro sensitive fight so watch out just incase you lose agro.

DPS Again agro sensitive do anything you can to stay below the tank in the agro meter.

Healers Keep the tank alive.

Moroes

Moroes <Tower Steward> is an undead rogue boss found in Karazhan. Moroes is accompanied by 4 level 70 elite undead adds; the 4 adds are randomly picked from 6 possibles ones.

General Information

* Level: Boss
* Location: Karazhan
* Type: Undead
* Health: ??

Abilities

*
o Basic Melee: ??
o Vanish: Vanishes, does not drop aggro.
o Garrote: After reappearing from Vanish, he will immediately garrote someone, dealing 1000 damage every 5 seconds. This cannot be dispelled. After he garrotes, he will immediately return to the highest aggro prior to the vanish.
o Blind: Occasionally blinds the second-highest aggro, causing them to wander.
o Gouge: Gouges the highest aggro, incapacitating them. Moroes will attack the second highest aggro.
o Enrage: At 30% Moroes Enrages.

Adds

Moroes will have different adds in every instance, much like Chromaggus' breaths. Each add will be based off a class and spec.
Baron Rafe Dreuger Retribution Paladin Health: ??
Baroness Dorothea Milstipe Shadow Priest Health: ??
Lady Catriona Von'Indi Holy Priest Health: ??
Lady Keira Berrybuck Holy Paladin Health: ??
Lord Crispin Ference Protection Warrior Health: ??
Lord Robin Daris Mortal Strike Warrior Warrior Health: ??

Strategies

The pull should be executed by the main tank's, simply by running up to the platform and gathering up their adds and Moroes. The crowd controlled adds immediately crowd controlled.

As many adds as possible should be crowd controlled. They can be crowd controlled by priest Shackle and hunter freezing traps. The remaining uncontrolled adds should be tanked and killed. If you have the Holy Priest, she should be killed first. If you have either of the warriors, they should be shackled and kept shackled.

Two tanks will be on Moroes. One tank should be building aggro on both Moroes and the uncontrolled add(s). The adds need to be killed quickly, and then Moroes. The off-tank should consistently remain second aggro, because after a sap Moroes will go to second-highest aggro.

The crowd controlled adds cannot remain broken for long, as many of them can easily one shot cloth wearers or heal Moroes. It is recommended shackle be applied every 5 seconds or so. If an add is broken loose, a tank should taunt it, however he should not attack since the crowd control should be reapplied soon.

Things like shadow fiend and even hunter pets should not be used during the encounter, for risk of breaking the crowd control.

DPS down Moroes steadily, and be sure to heal through the garrotes. Loosing even one person on this fight can be devastating.

After Moroes dies, his adds will remain, and need to be killed.

NOTE: Exiting the room Moroes is in resets the encounter.

Maiden of Virtue

Abilities

* Holy Fire - 1 sec cast 2 sec cooldown, Consumes an enemy in flames 1619-1881 damage, burning it and inflicting additional 1750 Fire damage every 2 sec. over 12 sec. (Dot dispellable)
* Holy Ground - Waves of virtue emanate from the caster, infusing nearby ground with holy power. 240-360 holy damage every sec. 12 yards. Prevents spellcasting.
* Holy Wrath - AoE chain, inflicting more damage for every target it hits.
* Repentance - Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 10 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Only works against Humanoids. (Anyone outside of Holy Ground will be hit by this periodically.) She casts Repentence ca. every 45 seconds.

Strategy

Maiden should be tanked where she is standing. While a warrior can do the job, a druid tank is preferred for this, as only humanoids are effected by Repentence.

Everyone should spread out as best as possible, to avoid chaining Holy Wrath. Casters should be outside of the circular area she is tanked in, with Maiden being tanked inside.

Holy Ground can be healed through, and it is safe to have melee DPS on her. Melee should also spread out as best as possible. Maiden has a large area from which she can be hit by melee.

Opera event

Opera event includes 3 random boss encounters

Wizard of Oz

Abilities

Tinhead

Cleave: 5 yd range. Instant. Inflicts Physical damage to an enemy and its nearest allies, affecting up to 3 targets.

Frost attacks will cause a Rust debuff, which slows Tinhead 10% and stacks up to 8 times, permitting kiting.

Roar

Roar is rather cowardly, and susceptible to fear. However, often he will run into one of the two doors and go out of line of sight making him very difficult to keep constantly feared. Be prepared for many early breaks and resists, as he seems to do this quite often.

Frightened Scream: Instant. Lets out a scream, causing up to 3 nearby enemies to flee for 2 sec.

Dorothee

Water Bolt: (Uninterruptible) Cast Time 1.5 seconds, Frost Damage 2025-2475

Summon Tito: Summons Tito. 35k HP. Ability: Annoying Yipping. Instant. Pacifies and silences an enemy, rendering it unable to attack or cast spells for 2 sec.

Untankable: Shoots her Water Bolt at a random raid member.

Strawman

Burning Straw: Chance for Strawman to be disoriented for 6 seconds when fire damage hits.

Brain Bash: Stunned.

The Crone

Cyclone: Knocks the player up into the air. Interrupts casting, although insta-cast spells can still be used while in the air. Avoidable by moving around the stage.

Chain Lightning: 45 yd range, 2 sec cast, Strikes an enemy with a lightning bolt that arcs to another nearby enemy. The spell affects up to 5 targets, inflicting greater Nature damage to each successive target. 2775-3225 damage.

Strategy 1

Summary:

1. Kill Dorothy
2. Gain threat on Roar
3. Tank Strawman (and kill)
4. Fear Roar
5. Gain threat on Tinhead, apply frost & kite (Mage)
6. Kill Tinhead
7. Kill Roar
8. Kill Crone

Dorothee is untankable and will attack at random, so have everyone unleash full DPS and burn her down as fast as possible.

Now, each add is not spawned (or "enabled") at the same time. Dorothee and Roar are attackable upon engagement, followed in 15 seconds by the Strawman, and 15-20 seconds later by Tinhead. Strawman is tanked in the Southwest corner. The off-tank should build aggro on Roar until Tinhead spawns, which will keep Roar coming back to him for the entire duration of the fight. The off-tank leaves Roar as soon as Tinhead engages and leaves Roar to be feared by the Warlock. If you have a hunter, you can have warlock fear Roar as soon possible to minimize damage and have the hunter misdirect to OT and distracting shot roar while he is feared.

A mage starts to cast frostspells at Tinhead when the tank has some aggro, and when 8 stacks have been reached the warrior stops producing aggro on Tinhead, leaving him to be kited around the room by the mage spamming Ice Lance.

When Dorothee and Toto are killed, DPS moves on to the Strawman and kills him. After that, the Warrior starts building threat on Roar again and tanks him in the Southwest corner. The Warlock also stops fearing Roar now and starts DPS'ing Tinhead, who is being kited around by the mage and by now should be at around 50%.

When all of these are killed there is a short break before The Crone spawns. The Crone is very easy; he is a tank and spank without a lot of HP, the only thing is the cyclone that goes around the room counter-clockwise that you have to watch out for. This means everyone has to keep moving almost constantly. This is not a problem for the healers, as two renews can keep the MT up.

Strategy 2

The overall strategy being somewhat similar to the one above, instead you do the following:

1. Kill Dorothy, Kill Toto
2. When Roar agros, fear him every 4-6 seconds
3. When Strawman agros, apply non-stop fire damage to disorient him
4. When Tinman agros, tank him in the far right corner of the stage, away from everyone
5. Once Dorothy Dies, Kill Strawman
6. Kill Roar
7. Kill Tinman
8. Kill Crone, move in a clockwise movement around the stage to avoid the cyclone.

Big Bad Wolf
The Big Bad Wolf is a worgen boss in the Opera House in Karazhan.

Attacks and Abilities

Terrifying Howl - Instant. Causes nearby enemies to flee in fear for 3 sec.

Little Red Riding Hood

* Description: Marks the target as Little Red Riding Hood. This increases the likelihood that the Big Bad Wolf will chase them and try to gobble them up!
* Effect: Reduces the target's armor and resistances to 0. Increases speed 50% to flee the Big Bad Wolf. Pacifies and Silences.


Strategy

Tanking

* Generally only one tank is needed. A warrior, protection paladin or feral druid can fulfill the role, but warriors have an advantage due to berserker rage.
* The wolf should be tanked along one wall a medium distance away from the rest of the raid. If possible, switch to berserker stance to berserker rage just before a fear.
* If that is not possible, a Dwarf or Draenei Priest's Fear Ward can counteract the fear. If that is not available, a Shaman in the tank's group can drop a Tremor Totem immediately after a fear. Since the fear is melee range, the shaman won't be feared and the tank's fear will be dispelled immediately and the wolf will go back to the tank.
* Beside his fear, the wolf is not terribly difficult to tank and does not do a huge amount of damage.

Damage

Ranged dps classes can continuously damage the wolf provided that the tank does not lose aggro. They can continue damaging while the wolf is chasing little red riding hood. Melee dps classes have to be more careful due to the fear.

Little Red Ridinghood

All nonmelee classes (ranged dps and healing) should stand close together in a corner about 1/3-1/2 the stage length from the wolf being tanked on the adjacent wall. When the wolf casts the red ridinghood debuff, the affected person needs to run around the perimeter of the stage. Do not touch or hug the wall because it will slow down your running speed, but stay very close to it. The wolf should be a short distance behind you at all times, but out of melee range. After running about 1.5 times around the stage, the debuff will wear off and the wolf will most likely run back to the tank as long as sufficient aggro was generated.

* All healing should be focused on whomever has the debuff. It is often possible to survive one attack from the wolf as long as the runner is healed as soon as they are hit. Healers should use preemptive heals, canceling at the last moment if the runner does not get attacked. A priest should use Power Word: Shield. Earth Shield and heal-over-time spells can also help.
* Be aware that while chasing little red ridinghood, the wolf will continue to fear all nearby players, including the runner. Tremor Totem and Fear Ward on the runner can help.
* Warriors can Intervene to whomever gets the "little red" debuff to provide a bit of extra protection.

Romulo & Juliane
http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?action=view_guide&guide_id=18

The Curator

The Curator is an Arcane Guardian boss in the Menagerie in Karazhan. He has over one million HP and high armor.

His normal attack will hit for somewhere around three-thousand on a well-geared warrior tank.

Abilities

*
o Summon Flares: The Curator will summon 1 add at time, summoning the add will drain some of his mana. After a short period of time (around 10 seconds or less) he summons another add. The adds has a good amount of HP and instead of meleeing will use a AoE lightning ability on everyone within melee range for ~400 arcane damage. Everyone needs to be spread out to avoid this damage.
o Evocation: When The Curator runs out of mana, he will Evocate his mana, during this evocation he will take 200% damage. During evocation, The Curator will not attack or summon adds.
o Hateful bolt: The curator occasionally shoots a single target arcane bolt for ~4000 arcane damage. This only occurs on the second-highest aggro target.
o Berserk: After 12 minutes he goes berserk and will wipe your raid.
o Enrage: At 10% he goes into Enrage mode. This largely increases his melee DPS against the MT, but greatly increases the rate at which he shoots Hateful Bolts. He is unable to summon adds or become Weakened while he is Enraged.

Strategy

Depending on raid composition, some DPS should be kept on the Curator. Two is what is usually used, normally rogues/feral druids/warriors. Casters and hunters deal with adds, and the DPS on Curator will assist when needed.

The adds are tankable, however it is pointless to do so. The only damage they deal is to everyone within melee radius, with no increase to the main aggro. The only tank that should be used in this fight is the one on the Curator.

He should be tanked where he stands when he is nearest to the entrance of the room on his patrol, facing away from the group. The raid should be spread out at the wall nearest to the entrance. (Note: Curator has a very large aggro radius.)

Adds will spawn fairly quickly, and the basic goal is to burn one down before another spawns. Once Curator is out of mana, the remaining adds should be finished off and all DPS on The Curator.

At 10%, he will enrage, increasing his melee damage and his attack speed. He will fire Hateful Bolts extremely fast, and no longer summon adds or evocate. At this point, DPS should finish off any remaining adds and nuke down The Curator.

The adds and The Curator himself are immune to taunt.

Chess Event

Chess Event is an encounter where the raid plays a sort of chess match against Medivh. At the end of the event, a Dust Covered Chest appears with the loot.

Talk to the your respective faction (Horde or Alliance) king piece to start the game. Each raid member can control any member of the chess board and each piece on the chess board has different capabilities. They don't all follow the standard movement's you would expect from a chess piece on a chess board. You can dismiss your current piece and change to another piece however you will suffer a 15 second debuff that doesn't allow you to control another character. The main aim is to kill the enemy King before they kill your king.

Overall this is a very easy fight and not much more information is needed, it has been soloed on many occassions and recommended that if Karazhan is not being done that week or a player with the ability to stealth misses out, just stealth to the game and solo it for free loot.

* From 2/20/07, the Arcane Guardians see through stealth, making it much more difficult, if possible at all, to solo to the event.

If you fail the chess board is reset and you can try again after a very short delay.

NOTE: There is an issue that makes the players unable to reset a game that was started after the event was already done, applying Game In Session debuff with a complete silence effect in the room and that above. This makes it very hard to encounter the following packs of Fleshbeasts. Soft reset will work.

Chess Piece Abilities

Most of the information below is translated from a Chinese post Source

Horde and Alliance skills are basically mirrors each other, only animation differs.

Chess will auto attack whoever it faces, and you can move, use ability or change facings.

Cooldown for move is 5 secs.

There is a minimum shared cooldown for every skill as 5 secs.

Code:
* King High Health/High Damage
o Frontal Cleave: Deals 4,000 damage to 3 enemy units in front of you. Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: Front 1 space, 3 chess pieces at most (including 2 chess pieces at front 45 degree)
o Heroism: Grants 50% increased damage to all ally humanoids in range Cooldown 15 secs.
+ Range: 1 space, all around 8 adjacent spaces, not effective to self.
o Move: Moves the king 1 space
o King dies, you lose, Enemy King dies you win.
* Queen Medium Health/High Damage
o Skill 1: Deals 4000 damage to any chess piece, Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: 4 space straight any direction or 3 space 45 degree any direction.
o Skill 2: Deal 6000 damage pieces to any chess piece and hostile chess pieces adjacent to target. Cooldown 15 secs.
+ Range: 4 space straight any direction or 3 space 45 degree any direction.
o Move: Moves the queen 4 space straight any direction or 3 space 45 degree any direction.
o Major damager.
* Priest Low Health/Low Damage
o Skill 1: Heals 6000 damage to any chess piece, Cooldown 10 secs.
+ Range: 1/2 length of the chess board.
o Skill 2: Deals 2,000 damage to 3 enemy units in front of you. Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: Front 1 space, 3 chess pieces at most (including 2 chess pieces at front 45 degree)
o Move: Moves the Priest 1 space.
o Only healer.
* Knight Medium Health/Low Damage
o Skill 1: Deals 3000 damage to front 1 target, Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: 1 space.
o Skill 2: Reduce damage of all adjacent hostile chess pieces for 50%, last for 10 secs. Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: 1 space, all around 8 adjacent spaces.
o Move: Moves the Knight 2 space straight or 1 space 45 degree.
o Good Meatshield.
* Tower Low Health/Medium Damage
o Skill 1: Deals 3000 damage of all adjacent hostile chess pieces. Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: 1 space, all around 8 adjacent spaces.
o Skill 2: Reduce damage done to self by 50%, last for 5 secs. Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: Self
o Move: Moves the Tower 1 space.
o Good Damager but need careful use.
* Pawn Low Health/Low Damage
o Skill 1: Deals 1000 damage to front 1 target, Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: 1 space.
o Skill 2: Absorbe 500 Damage. Last 5secs. Cooldown 5 secs.
+ Range: Self
o Move: Moves the Pawn 1 space.
o Cannon Fodder


Strategy

This fight is amazingly simple. The first moves you should make are to move forward the 4 central 'pawns' (In the front row) out 2 spaces. This will allow for your king, queen, knights, and elementals to move forward. The healers (The units next to the king and queen) need to stay a few squares back from the king to main heal him. The king has a large AOE, as well as heroism which boosts nearby unit's attack speed. The objective is to nuke the other team's healers, and then ignore all other pieces while moving onto the king- his health will go down drastically once they are dead.

A chest will appear once the enemy king is down. GG. Free Loot.

Terestian Illhoof

Attacks and Abilities

* This fight was made significantly harder in patch 2.0.8

* Terestian Illhoof comes with an elite imp minion.
o Terestian deals a high amount of melee damage
o The imp does decent melee damage (1500-2000 on cloth).

* If the imp is killed, Illhoof gains a debuff called "Broken Pact" which increases all damage done to him by 25%.

* Terestian summons a constant stream of non-elite imps that fireball for around 250 (500+ with amplify flames) and have 5k HP.

* Terestian will occasionally Sacrifice one player. This teleports them to the altar in the center of the room, wraps them in Demon Chains, paralyzes them, and deals 1.5k per tick (about 2-3 ticks per second!) while healing Terestian extremely fast.
o The Dark Chains must be DPSed down to free the affected player IMMEDIATELY and the player in the chains must be spammed with heals so they do not die. This is similar to Maexxna's Web Wrap, but far far more damaging.
o The chains have ~12,500 health.

* Terestian's pet applies the Amplify Flames debuff, increasing fire damage taken by 500. This makes the imps hit much much harder.
o Kil'Rek (his imp) must be offtanked and killed as fast as possible so that Illhoof gets the Broken Pact debuff, and so no one gets the Amplify Flames debuff.
o It is possible for a hunter pet (cat or bear) specced for extra health, armor and some FR to off tank Kil'Rek assuming the hunter controlling him is on the ball.

* Terestian will enrage after approximately 10 minutes, the specifics is unsure but our raid got from all being at 90%+ life, to all almost instantly dead.

Strategy

* Healers will take heavy damage from imp fire, they spend alot of mana healing themselves.
* Focus DPS on Terestian, doing as much melee AoE to kill his elite imp pet. After it is at ~30% hp and a demon chain kill it, this give you ~20 seconds of 100% more damage to Terestian. Keep in mind that Terestian's pet will constantly cast the Amplify Flames debuff, increasing fire damage taken by 500. He often times casts it on the healers, who are already getting attacked by the imps. This spell makes it much harder for the healers to heal themselves and the raid.
* The most important thing in the fight is to DPS down Demon Chains as soon as they appear. Otherwise, the Sacrifice victim will die very quickly, and Terestian will heal a lot.
* Every once in a while, the raid leader should call AoE to clear out the non-elite imps. Once most of them are dead, the group should resume hard DPS on the boss.
* Warlocks can enslave one of the elite imps in the pack before Terestian in order to add a substantial amount of DPS and Mana for those who Dark Pact. They shoot a fireball that hits for about 800-1600 every second.
* The best addition to your raid setup is a destruction warlock specced with Nether Protection and spamming Seed of Corruption on Illhoof. He also gains immune to the sacrifice damage when his Nether Protection is active. A mage with Magic Absorbtion and heavy Fire Resistance is also a great way to make the kill if you have no warlock, the mage acts as the bolt soaker, and thanks to the talent, will continually regenerate mana, assuming a high enough FR, thus allowing continual AoE on the imps.
* Let somebody offtank and build aggro on Kil'Rek with damage while your main tank tanks Illhoof. Let him taunt and get on the top of his hatelist with some ability. That way the healing is only focused on two targets (the warlock and the main tank, most of the time)
* Get Kil'Rek below 20% when the sacrifice starts and let your main tank execute (if he is a warrior) Kil'Rek so that you can fully extend the Broken Pact debuff.

Shade of Aran

The Shade of Aran is a boss in the abandoned tower of Karazhan. He is the spirit of Nielas Aran, the father of Medivh, killed in a battle to contain the future Guardian when the power inside him awakened. How his spirit became trapped inside his son's tower is unknown.

He is a powerful mage, he uses Frostbolt, Fireball, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, Flame Wreath and Summon Water Elemental.

Basic Info

Aran is located in the Guardian's Library in Karazhan. He has ~650k HP and very low Armor - melee DPS is brutally effective against him. He must be fought in a very small arena which is a circle maybe 35 yds in radius. He is completely untankable - he almost never melees, doesn't have a standard aggro list, and if he gets away from the center of his arena, he'll run right back.

In patch 2.0.7 the change was made that Berthold the Doorman would be able to teleport players to the Shade of Aran's room. This option only becomes available when players have defeated the Shade of Aran.

Attacks and Abilities

All of Aran's basic spells have infinite range and are semi-randomly targeted. (he is intelligent and will keep nuking a target that's low on HP) They can all be affected by counterspell/pummel/earth shock etc. It should be noted that earth shock is a poor substitute for other forms of interrupts and spell locks for this fight due to earth shock only being able to lock down the school for 2 seconds. If you have an enhancement shaman in the raid, great get him to lock down a school, any other type of shaman is better off healing/dpsing depending on spec. If someone accidentally pulls Aran and you just zoned in at the start of the instance, he can still nuke you.

* Aran has a weak melee attack that he will only use if all 3 spell trees (Fire/Frost/Arcane) are locked out by Counterspell-type abilities.


Basic Attacks

* Frostbolt 3 sec cast, 4400ish damage.
* Fireball 3 sec cast, 4400ish damage.
* Arcane Missiles 5 sec channeled, 1500 damage per missile.
* Chains of Ice - 10 second Root, does not break on damage. Dispellable.
* Conflagration - Deals 8000 fire damage over 10 sec to the affected player, and a smaller amount of damage to nearby players. Conflagged players are disoriented and cannot use any spells or abilities.
* Slow: Reduces movement and melee attack speed by a considerable amount for 10 seconds. Dispellable. Druids can shapeshift to remove the reduce movement effect.

Special Abilities

* Nielas Aran's special abilities cannot be locked out by Counterspells. For example, if you CS a Fireball, he can't fireball for 10 seconds, but he could Flame Wreath at any time.
* Counterspell - 10yd radius AoE around Aran, occurs very often. Any caster in range is quickly rendered useless.
* Blizzard 1700/second, large AoE that moves slowly clockwise 360 degrees around the edge of his arena. Kinda like a less damaging C'thun dark glare. The blizzard has a large area of effect, and it covers one side of the room. You will be hit by the Blizzard if you are meleeing him and on the side it's traveling on.
* Magnetic Pull / Super Arcane Explosion - Pulls everyone to the center of the room, Slows everyone, then starts a 10(?) second uninterruptable cast that deals 12,000 damage to a 30 yard radius (note that the room is only 35yds wide). If you start running as soon as you're pulled, you can avoid the AE even while Slowed. Rogues using Cloak of Shadows can get rid of the slow and maybe even avoid the Super Arcane Explosion, that should really only be used as a last resort in case of lag or something were you cannot get out of the way in time.
* Flame Wreath - 5 sec uninterruptable cast. Targets 3 random people in the raid. If there is no one close to them, nothing happens. If there are any other players near the target, it creates a circle of fire on the ground for 15 seconds. Anyone who crosses the flame wreath (moving in or out) will trigger a 3-4k Explosion that hits everyone in the room. Do not use ANY abilities which makes yourself immune to magic effects (such as Divine Shield, Ice Block, Cloak of Shadows) while in a Flame Wreath, as this will cause an explosion. Pets will set off flame wreath if they cross the wreath.


Water Elementals

At 40% HP, Nielas Aran summons 4 elite Water Elementals. They have tons of HP(maybe even more than Aran himself) but will despawn after 90 seconds. They shoot a constant stream of frostbolts for 2000ish damage. They can be banished and feared, and Fear is the main method of controlling them.


Enrage

When Nielas Aran gets about 33,000 mana, he will do an emote ("Give an old man some time for a refreshing drink"), polymorph the entire raid (causing you to regain most if not all of your hp) and start drinking. After he drinks for 10 seconds he will start casting an AoE Pyroblast. The Pyroblast does 7000-7500 damage. Two druids using tranquility and independant heals can heal back the whole raid.

*
o Note** A druid using tree form or a shaman using one of their totems (Ie Fire elemental or earth elemental) can disrupt the whole entire enrage. His Enrage Drink will restore mana quickly. Fire Elemental totem is better then the earth totem because of the fast attack speed. The totem hopefully interrupts him when he first starts drinking which will leave him no mana for pyroblast. This strat should be used as a supplement to regular strat and should not be counted as a 100% success due to the random factor of the elementals attack matching the second he sits to drink.

Strategies

* Raid DPS must stay high in order to prevent Aran from running out of mana and Enraging. Full out DSP is the best strat if you have the DPS. You will be able to bridge the gab on dps by makeing sure all healers have a dot on the boss and max dot him. DPS hybrids should be on max DPS if they are not a primary healer. The idea is to kill him before he enrages. DPS is the key.
* Under the circumstances that Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Missiles are on cooldown due to kicks, counterspells, and etc, he WILL melee very fast for 2400 crushing on leather.
* Healing on Aran's target must be extremely fast, 5k nukes can kill people very quickly.
* Counterspells (pummel kick etc) should try as much as possible to interrupt Fire and Frost spells right before they finish casting. If you interrupt a spell right as it starts, he'll just start casting another. Waiting to interrupt causes him to waste more time without doing damage, and also prevents him from running out of mana and Enraging. Earth Shock on 6 sec cooldown and 2 second tree lock is not enough. He will resume casting in that tree very shorly and before the cooldown on earthshock is up. Its best to have the shaman focus on dps/healing and assist with shocks when they can.
* Conflag is Aran's most damaging "regular nuke" and can rapidly kill someone. Make SURE to heal the conflagged guy!
* Dealing with Arcane Explosion is easy - even if you are Slowed the whole time, 10sec is more than enough time to get away from AE. In order to maximize raid DPS, meleers can stay in and melee for 5-6 seconds while he casts AE. As long as someone dispels Slow off them, it only takes 3 seconds to run out.
* Blizzards are a horrible threat to ranged DPS, standing still in a blizzard you'll take probably 13k damage before it moves off you. The easiest way to deal with Blizzard is to move to the center, the only place that doesn't get blizz'd. Unfortunately, this means you're exposed to Counterspell for at least 10 seconds, and you're clumped up for Flame Wreaths.
* Flame Wreath can wipe a raid in a matter of seconds. The best way to handle Flame Wreath is to prevent it altogether. Stay spread out any time you're not dodging Blizzards, so even if he does cast it there's a chance it won't stick. When it does occur, just stay away from flame wreath.
* At 40%, you've got 90 seconds to DPS the heck out of Aran while keeping people alive against 4 extremely strong Water Elementals. Fear is the recommended method of CC for water elementals, but Counterspell works well too - locking out Frost for 10 seconds means that they can't use their main attack. (Frostbolt)
* Your raid can easily survive Aran's "enrage", just make sure everyone has over 7500hp. On most succesful kills, the polymorph > pyroblast cannot be avoided.
* If you lack the raw dps, then dps him until 42-45%, wait for him to go oom and polymorph the raid. Once everyone is back to full health continue strong dps on him to 40%, and then CC the adds for 90 seconds while maintaining interrupts and dps on Aran. The reason for this is if you have elementals out and he polymorph's the raid it is usually a wipe. This way you can control the adds and not have to worry about keeping his health below his mana for the fight.
* Now that the normal game interface allows you to see "enemy castbar" is it vital to use against this boss to have a few seconds of warning as to what he will use.
* It is possible (and recommended especially for priests and other rather low-hp classes) to have an imp stand in the middle of the room set to "stay", thus not triggering flame wreath but giving the blood pact aura for the whole room.

Prince Malchezaar

Attacks and Abilities

* Summon Infernal - Every 45 seconds or so, Malchezaar will summon an Infernal which, about 3 seconds after landing, casts a Hellfire AoE roughly the size of the one Baron Geddon uses. Each Infernal lives for about 180 secs, it has no limit for how many Infernal up at the same time. Typically you will have 3-5 infernals up at a time until the end of Phase 3 (see below). These infernals are stationary, and can be avoided by the raid.
* Enfeeble - Periodically Enfeebles the 5 people with the highest aggro, excluding the tank (or whoever has the highest aggro at that point), which reduces their max hit points to 1, and healing effects and health regen to 0% for about 7 seconds. Do not try to heal these people as it will do nothing. Enfeebled people must stay 30+ yards away from Malchezaar and watch out for Infernals. After the Enfeeble is up, players return to their previous health.
* Shadow Nova - Malchezaar will cast Shadow Nova (3-second-cast) 3-5 seconds after Enfeeble that has a range of about 30 yards. It deals about 3000 shadow damage, increases spell damage taken by 1500 for 15 secs, and includes a knockback. This attack can be outranged by healers and ranged DPS, so even if they are enfeebled it does not cause much concern. Melee must get out of range, however as long as they start running right away they will have plenty of time to avoid the Shadow Nova.
* Shadow Word: Pain - Cast periodically on the MT. Can be dispelled. Cannot be reflected.


General Tips:

* If you dispel Shadow Word: Pain fast enough, a mage can cast Amplify Magic on the MT to make healing easier.
* This is an extremely mana intensive fight. 4 healers are recommended to take him down.
* Healers can stand at max range for heals on the MT and be out of range of the shadow nova, thus able to continue healing during enfeeble.
* A paladin can heal till OOM and LoH at the beginning of Phase 2, and then pop a Super Mana Potion and Flask of Distilled Wisdom to regain ~5000 mana.
* If a healer is OOM at the end of the fight they can die and resurrect with a soulstone or combat rez to regain some mana instantly. This is a dangerous maneuver and must be executed quickly. It could save the raid but it could also wipe it.
* Malchezaar cannot use Enfeeble on the highest target on his aggro list. However, since aggro is not pulled until 110% of the MTs aggro for melee and 130% for ranged, it is possible for someone to be higher than the MT without pulling aggro, and thus cause the MT to be a target of Enfeeble.
* The range of the Hellfires from the Infernals are not nearly as big as it seems graphically which means that there is some leeway to where you can move and avoid damage.


Prince Malchezaar has 3 phases:

Phase 1:

* Tank Malchezaar in a corner somewhere with the tank's back to the wall to avoid knockback.
* DPS him steadily down to 60%, being mindful of Enfeeble, Shadow Nova, and the Infernal AoE.
* If you start to get cornered by Infernals, have your tank move to another part of the platform. Try to do this before Phase 2.

Phase 2:

* At 60% health, Prince Malchezaar will warp in axes, which substantially increases his melee damage.
* Applies Sunder Armor (stackable) to the main aggro target.
* Melee Cleave.
* Stops casting Shadow Word: Pain.
* Continues to Enfeeble and Shadow Nova.
* DPS him as quickly as possible down to 30%, being mindful of Enfeeble, Shadow Nova, and the Infernal AoE.
o You can watch the Infernals fall from the sky and have a good idea of where they are going to land. This will allow you to move to a safe spot before they hit the ground in the middle of your raid.

Phase 3:

* At 30% health, Prince Malchezaar throws away his axes and they fly around attacking a raid member.
* Stops using Enfeeble however he continues to Shadow Nova without warning other than his 3 second cast-time.
* Melee damage on the tank returns to normal.
* Resumes casting Shadow Word: Pain
* No longer sunders or cleaves.
* Make sure the person being attacked by the axes communicates to the raid in vent so they can be healed. The damage they do is easy to heal through.
* At 30% the Infernals will start to spawn much more frequently and Malchezaar must be killed as soon as possible. Raid movement and communication is paramount during this phase to avoid taking damage from the Infernals. Each infernal will land on a 10 second timer -- you literally have 50 seconds before there will be too many Infernals up, and you wipe. Burn him.
* Below 30% he will random cast amplify magic on raid members, this will greatly increase magical damage they take. It is a short duration debuff which is non dispellable.

Netherspite

Prior to Battle
Netherspite patrols the back section of his room, but his aggro radius is not particularly large, allowing the entire raid to comfortably enter the room before the pull.

Attacks and Abilities
Basic Melee: Netherspite hits for roughly 8k on cloth, without any buffs stacked on him.
Nether Burn: Aura type spell, deals 1200 shadow damage every 5 sec, affected by line of sight. This damage is resistible, so shadow resist buffs beforehand can negate much of it. Only active during Portal phase.
Void Zone: Opens a massive void portal that lasts 25 sec., inflicting ~1k shadow damage every 2 sec. to all enemies in the selected area. (Similar to that in the Four Horsemen fight of Naxxramas, or Zereketh the Unbound in Arcatraz) Simply move out of the affected area immediately.
Netherbreath: An attack hitting everyone in front of Netherspite for 4500 arcane damage in addition to knocking them back for ~20 yards. Will be chain cast during Banish phase. Cast time: 2.5 seconds.
Empowerment: Undispellable self-buff that increases damage by 200%. Cast during Portal phase a few seconds after beams come up and will remain for the whole phase.
Enrage: After 9 minutes, Netherspite will enrage, increasing his damage done by 500%. Will generally make quick work of your raid, dealing upwards of 30000 damage per hit in melee.
Strategy
There are two phases to this fight, which alternate between each other. The Portal phase, which is the first one and lasts for a minute, and the Banish phase, which lasts for half a minute. They alternate until the encounter is over or Netherspite enrages.

During all phases Void Zones will spawn under random players, dealing large amounts of shadow damage in a short frame of time to those who aren't moving out of them quick enough.

Portal phase
At the beginning of this phase, three portals of different colors will spawn at fixed locations in the room and will begin emitting a beam of their respective color (see below) towards Netherspite.

If the beams are allowed to hit Netherspite freely, they are granting him stacking buffs which strengthen or even heal him. The buffs on Netherspite last 5 seconds from last application (instead of the 8 to 20 seconds it does on players). The beams can (and must) be blocked by players who position themselves between a portal and Netherspite. Players blocking the beams are also affected by a stacking buff, having a positive and a negative effect which grow with each second that they spend in inside the beam. Although the positive effects are quite helpful for the fight, the negative effect makes it hard to nearly impossible for one player to block a beam for the complete duration of the Portal Phase.

Once a buff "ticks out" (player leaves the beam long enough to lose the debuff - 8-20 sec), another debuff is applied to the player called Nether Exhaustion, which prevents him from intercepting that color beam for the next 90 sec.

Red Beam
Perseverance (red) - Tank beam:
Lasts for 20 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:
Damage taken reduced by 1% per tick.
Hits Player:
Netherspite will aggro you.
If no one is standing in the Red Beam, Netherspite uses his standard aggro table.
Damage taken is reduced by 1% per tick.
Defense is increased by 5 per tick.
Health is modified - the first application gives +31,000 maximum health, with additional stacks reducing maximum health by 1000 per stack.
Replenishes full health every tick.
Green Beam
Serenity (green) - Healer beam:
Lasts for 10 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:
Heals for +4000 health per tick. (Stacking so it heals for 4K, 8K, 12K, 16K etc. -- it is very important not to let Netherspite get hit by this beam.)
Hits Player:
Healing done is increased by 5% per tick.
Spell cost reduced by 1% per tick.
Greatly increases mana regeneration rate.
Maximum mana reduced by 200. Stacks up until your total mana pool reaches 0. Affects druids in feral forms as well.
Blue Beam
Dominance (blue) - DPS beam:
Lasts for 8 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:
+1% spell damage increase per tick.
Hits Player:
Damage dealt is increased by 5% per tick.
Healing received reduced by 1%.
Damage taken by spells is increased by 8%.
Portals will always spawn at the same locations in the room during all Portal phases, but their colors will semi-randomly change each time after the first Phase.

Beam Blocking Assignment
Players should block all three beams as soon as possible in the fight. The beams are generally assigned to individual players before the pull using the following criteria:

Red Beam - Classes with high armor, defense and health (i.e. Warriors, Bear Druids, Paladins, Shamans and Hunters). The red beam gives them the massive healing and health needed to tank Netherspite. But despite the replenishment to full health every second, Netherspite can sometimes crit them for very high numbers well above 10,000 (even on plate). So leather and cloth wearers can still get easily one-hitted despite the augmented health maximum. Resilience from PvP gear is a useful attribute here.

Blue Beam - DPS classes (preferably with high health or shadow resistance). While their damage output increases rapidly, the damage received by them from Netherspite's shadow aura is also rapidly increasing and healing spells on them will become more and more ineffective. Players staying inside this beam for too long are also becoming highly prone to be killed by a Void Zone appearing under them.

Green Beam - The "Healer Beam". Can also be blocked by classes without a mana pool (Warriors and Rogues) who remain entirely unaffected by the beam. A manaless class can stay for a whole beam's duration within the beam and still be used to take their turn blocking the red or blue beam in the following phase.

Those not blocking a beam will be DPSing, or raid healing.

A good strategy to assign beam blockers for a regular Karazhan raid composition (3 healers, 2 Tanks and extras) could look like this:

Class Odd Portal Phases Banish Even Portal Phases Banish
Healer A
Healer B
Healer C
Tank A Red Beam Green Beam
Tank B Green Beam Red Beam
Melee A Red Beam
Melee B Blue Beam Red Beam
Damage Dealer A Blue Beam
Damage Dealer B Blue Beam
Damage Dealer C Blue Beam

Notice that the first Red Beam blockers of a Portal phase in this example are your main tanks. This is highly advisable, because they should also be the ones to grab Netherspite's aggro after a Banish phase and have to be able to withstand 10 seconds of his melee attacks without the augmentation of the Red Beam.

Healers are entirely unassigned in this example, so that they don't have to bother with locating a portal and moving towards it when they should actually all be concentrating on healing up the raid after a devestating Banish phase. Thus the tank who isn't used to block the red beam in that phase sees after that instead. Healers can still choose to take the green beam from them anytime they find the opportunity and need for it.

Beam Blocker Transition
Players who are setup as beam blockers for the second half of a Portal phase should be positioning themselves in front of the beam blockers of the first half once those have their beam secured. Once these have acquired 25 stacks of the beam's buff, they simply need to move out of the beam to have it hit their successor in front of them.

Banish Phase
The Banish phase lasts about 30 sec:

Netherspite is banished, remains mostly stationary but still vulnerable to all damage.
Netherspite is still able to deal melee damage to you during the Banish phase if you get too close to it. Only tanks should stay in melee range.
Damage from Nether Burn aura will stop and no new Void Zones spawn during this phase.
After a few seconds of inactivity he randomly fires Netherbreath hitting up to three players standing in a cone in front of him, inflicting up to 4.5k arcane damage on each, accompanied by a knock back.
Dealing with high damage bursts from Netherbreath becomes another difficult challenge after the raid has learned to cope successfully with beam management. Everyone who does not have a maximum health pool of more than 9000 HP is prone to be killed by two consecutive bolts if Netherspite aims his breath in the same direction twice in a row. It is mandatory that every player's health is kept above 4,500 HP at all times. Every players should use Healthstones and healing potions in this phase rather than rely on healers who will often have range problems due to the knock back effect. It's also possible to use bandages, since the Nether Burn aura is inactive during this phase.

Players should stand either very close to Netherspite so they are likely still in range of a healer after a knock back, or at maximum range, so that they are being knocked out of Netherspite's breath range and can bandage themselves safely before running back in. In any case, healers should make sure to spread out equally around Netherspite to cover every angle of him.

DoT effects should be timed very carefully in this phase, because after 30 seconds Netherspite will unbanish and reset his aggro table which he will go by for the next 10 seconds until someone can block the Red Beam again. The next Red Beam tank should immediately try to gain his aggro (save up some Rage for this during the Banish phase as he can't be taunted) and position himself between the dragon and the next Red Portal.

Miscellaneous Hints
No one should ever cross the Red Beam behind its designated blocker. He would temporarily gain Netherspite's aggro who would move in order to reach this player and together with him the Green and Blue beams - which might slip off their respective blockers.
The Green Beam can be temporarily "stolen" from its blocker to gain a few stacks of its buff for its mana regeneration effect. Make sure to move out after you've gained 5-6 stacks or the original blocker will become unable to accept the Beam back due to having gained Nether Exhaustion.
Warriors should never use Berserker Stance when blocking the Red Beam. Netherspite can crit them for up to 30,000 damage if they do so.
Red Beam blockers do not need to move out of Void Zones. It's better to keep Netherspite fixed in its place, so that the other beams will not move when he does. Let the healing of the beam take care of the damage from the Void Zone too.
Warlocks can sustain a full duration of the Blue Beam by keeping themselves healed with Drain Life, since drains are not affected by the decrease in healing effects and the increase in damage done is almost as great as the increase in damage taken from Nether Burn. Warlocks with 2 points in the Soul Siphon talent can even surpass the increase in Nether Burn damage when there are 6 Affliction debuffs on Netherspite.
Shadow Priests can also sustain a full duration of the Blue Beam if they have 2 points in the Improved Vampric Embrace talent. Since Vampric Embrace scales with damage done, the reduction to healing effects is offset. This in turn also benefits the Priest's entire group with massive health gains, since the Priest is the only one affected by the Blue Beam.
The three different portals always spawn at the same location in the first Portal Phase:
Red to the right of the entrance
Green to the left of the entrance
Blue opposite of the entrance
During the Banish phase, healers should spread out to cover every side of Netherspite, so that no one ever gets knocked back out of every healers' range. It's a good practice to put raid target symbols on your healers so they can better coordinate their positioning.
Another way to deal with the Banish Phase is to simply have everyone but one healer and one tank move out of range of the Netherbreath, at the back of the room. Netherspite will still attempt to target players that are out of range, and thus will not use Netherbreath as often on the two remaining behind. This requires Netherspite to be tanked at the far front of the room, and the raid will have to be quick to reposition themselves for the next Portal Phase.