GRUUL TACTICS First Boss: High King Maulgar part 1

Suggested Group Makeup

4 Hunters - (3 misdirection pulls onto Mage Tank, Maulgar Tank and Olm tank, one straight onto Kiggler)
1 Mage Tank
2 Warlocks on Olm
2 Tanks on Olm
1 Tank on Maulgar
1 MS Warrior on Blindeye
1 Tank on roaming Fel Hounds (in case of resist from a Warlock)
7 reasonably geared healers
2 Rogues



Abilities

Single target damage on a Karazhan geared warrior is around 4,500, up to 7,000 crushing with Improved Demoralizing Shout up. Without demoralizing shout, damage is around 6,500 with 10,000 crushing blows. This makes it an ideal encounter for a Druid in Bear form as they typically have an exceptionally high amount of armor and will mitigate much more of the consistent damage.

Arcing Smash, 5000-6000 damage on plate when debuffed, cleaves

Mighty Blow, 5000-7000 damage on plate when debuffed, horizontal knockback

Whirlwind, 4000-5000 damage on plate when debuffed, he moves at 50% speed while active

At 50%, he will begin charging random raid members

Council Abilities


Krosh Firehand (Mage)

Health: About 301,000
Level: ??
Melee: n/a?
Casts a Spell Shield which a mage can Spellsteal. It reduces incoming spell damage by 75%, and lasts for 30 seconds.
Krosh has a Spell Shield which reduces magic damage taken by 75%. A mage must Spellsteal this to remove the Spell Shield from Krosh and protect himself from Krosh's fireballs and must also and maintain aggro with modest DPS. The only exception to this maintained aggro is that it is a common strategy for Warlocks who are Enslaving Olm's Wild Fel Stalkers to place them on Krosh to have them disposed of. The mage (and the entire raid for that matter) should be running a threat meter (Omen) and you'll find that it doesn't take that much dps to maintain aggro even with dps-impaired gear. This is an important detail for mana management so the mage need not be casting full-time until such time as the raid focuses on Krosh to down him.

All mages taking on the task should study the list of mage stamina gear and the Krosh Firehand page. The stamina gear page has tables of useful mage gear and other important information on how to prepare before the raid and the Krosh page contains detailed mage tank strategies.

The mage tanking Krosh should have upwards of 12,000 HP when buffed, a good amount of spell hit, and a decent mana pool. The tanking mage should gear for stamina until he reaches a minimum of 10500 health unbuffed (13k is more ideal). Spell Hit is critical and the mage should be near the full +16% spell hit (202 rating) to minimize the chance of having Spellsteal resisted. With 5 points in the Arcane Focus talent you would need just +6% spell hit (75 rating) from gear. Mana should not be disregarded, as repeated Spellstealing is costly (29% of your base mana). Spell Damage and Crit are good too but are lower priority, as again, it doesn't take that much dps to maintain aggro.

Important Notes:

Casts Blast Wave AoE which deals roughly 6000 damage and has a short range (15 yard). No one should take Blast Wave damage. No one is to go near Krosh, nor any pets and should be downed entirely with ranged DPS. The only exception to this is with Warlock Enslaved Wild Fel Stalkers in order to dispose of them.
He is immune to almost all debuffs: Curse of Tongues, Counterspell, Silence and his Greater Fireballs ignore fire resistance gear, grounding totems and spell reflections.
Paladins should ignore their instincts and not put Blessing of Salvation on the tanking mage. Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Wisdom are ideal. Blessing of Light is a good idea if a pally is going to do the healing.
An Elemental Shaman can be very beneficial to the tanking mage when Totem of Wrath and Mana Spring Totem are deployed in his vicinity.
Hunters should be reminded NOT to use arcane shot while attacking Krosh as this will dispel his shield, preventing the mage from stealing it.








Olm the Summoner (Warlock)

Health: About 276,000
Level: ??
Casts a heavy shadow DoT which cannot be removed and stacks,
Summons Wild Fel Stalkers,
Occasionally Death Coil. (As of patch 2.1.0, this can no longer be Spell Reflected.)
Melee : 5000?
He should be tanked by his own Felhounds via Enslave Demon. Olm will place a stacking debuff on the Wild Fel Stalker that must be removed by the pet, which is an ability that is not auto cast but on a short cooldown. The Felhounds also come with taunt. The Summoner can be tanked with 2 Felhounds or 1 Felhound and a tank. Additional Felhounds must be Banished or enslaved by remaining warlocks. They are not stunnable. A good way to dispose of an excess felhound is to put it on Krosh and then taunt, this will pull aggro from Krosh where Krosh will quickly dispatch the felhounds with a couple of Greater Fireballs and his blast wave AoE. This saves the tanking mage from a couple of hits too.

If two tanks are available to tank Olm, having them tank is also viable. A warlock is still need to Fear and/or Banish the Felhounds. The benefit of this strategy is that it is a bit less chaotic and not prone to spell resists that can happen with a warlock tanking Olm.

NOTE: Due to the new mechanics on how mobs target feared players, Olm will follow tanks affected by Death Coil since his aggro table no longer resets. This can make holding him in position difficult. If Olm is being tanked by players, try setting up a taunt rotation to keep him in place.

ALERT: As of patch 2.1.2, he can now death coil the felhounds. Unsure if this is a bug or not.







Kiggler the Crazed (Shaman)

Health: About 301,000
Level: ??
Hex
Lightning Bolt, approximately 3000 damage single target
Arcane Blast, 2500 damage 10 yards PBAoE, he casts this very infrequently so he can be meleed.
Arcane Shock, 720–800 damage plus additional damage every 3 secs for 12 secs. Ranged attack he uses infrequently on the person with the highest threat.
Melee : 6000?
Typically attacks with ranged lightning bolts and Arcane Shocks and may be tanked by any ranged DPS class. The Lightning Bolts are nature based and the arcane shocks are arcane based but both do relatively little damage. One healer is typically enough to handle the damage. He will sometimes Hex (Polymorph) his primary target, so you must have either 2 ranged tanks or a Moonkin form druid, which are immune to polymorph. Kiggler also has a point-blank area-effect attack (similar to Arcane Explosion) which deals damage, lowers all targets' threat, and knocking all targets back. Moving him away from the Krosh-tank is important to keep him from knocking the Krosh-tank into Krosh's Blast Wave. Nature resistance is helpful but not necessary. Not stunnable. Shaman's Grounding Totem can absorb the Lightning Bolts as well.

An alternate strategy is to tank him with a feral druid, as they are also immune to the polymorph. A feral druid meleeing him will definitely take more damage than a ranged tank, but it is a fairly simple strategy, and more comfortable for many guilds than moonkin tanking. If they are comfortable with their aggro on him, the feral druid can also back out to range and just sit there eating the lightning bolts for a while before returning to melee him to build more threat. This strategy is simpler for most guilds, but requires an additional melee and more healing, both of which are often subbed out after Maulgar for a more ranged DPS heavy Gruul group.

It is also possible to just have a tree druid attack Kiggler long enough to build a bit of threat and then go to tree form to avoid the poly and heal tank him. A good bit of hot spamming to keep himself up and some hots on other people with salvation canceled is usually more than enough to hold aggro on him. When he does the deaggro, drop tree form, nuke him a few times, then go back to what you were doing. When the raid goes to kill Kiggler, just have one of the other tanks that is now free pick him up as actual damage on Kiggler should hopefully out what the healer has built up since his aggro wipe.

read part 2 now :-)