GRUUL TACTICS First Boss: High King Maulgar part 2

Blindeye the Seer (Priest)

Health: About 297,000
Level: ??
Power Word: Shield
Prayer of Healing
Normal Heal spell
Melee: 2000 (Hits for 800–900, non-crushing, on a well-geared protection warrior or paladin.)
The healer of the group, he has a small heal with which he heals himself for approximately 5% of his maximum health and a very powerful 10-second cast Prayer of Mending which heals him to full. Before he casts Prayer of Mending he will always Power Word: Shield himself first and can't be interrupted when the shield is up. As soon as he shields, DPS must break down the shield before they can interrupt his Prayer of Mending. He is vulnerable to Curse of Tongues and Mind Numbing Poison which can aid players in the interrupt process of his dangerous heals. A tank druid can easily range pull him with immediate aggro using Faerie Fire (Feral) if no Misdirections is avaible.

Alternatively, there are eight ways to interrupt Blindeye's Prayer of Mending while the shield remains up:

a priest with Silence
a rogue with Improved Kick
a hunter with Silencing Shot
a hunter with Intimidation
a warrior with Improved Shield Bash
a warrior with Intercept
a mage with Improved Counterspell
Note that Blindeye is immune to a rogue's Kidney Shot while the shield is up. Kidney Shot can, however, be used to stun him before he pops his shield, potentially delaying his use of the shield.


He is typically tanked by a DPS warrior(In DPS gear, for avoidance causes rage starvation when fighting Blindeye) or feral druid.





Strategy
Once the initial trash (3) are killed, the raid has 1 hour to do attempts on the King and his council. The 1 hour timer is based on when the first patrolling trash mob first aggroes.

The key to get into this fight is the pull. Everyone needs to stand in the correct position to minimize the impact of the area-effect abilities. The typical kill order is Priest, Warlock, Mage, Shaman, and finally Maulgar. Priest and Warlock can both be focus-fired by melee and ranged together, so they go down quickly. Shaman and Mage are ranged-only DPS and die more slowly. Due to many of the ogres having anti-melee damage (fire nova, AoE knock-back, Maulgar whirlwind), ranged DPS is more of an asset than melee DPS for this specific fight.

Having a mod such as RLAssistFU or the entire raid on Teamspeak / Ventrilo will synchronize the pull as much as possible to reduce the impact of certain mobs running the wrong way.





The Pull
Just as a general way of making this pull a lot easier is to have 5 hunters, all with Aimed shots all Misdirect with synchronized shots so as to have each tank immediately start out with a good 2k+ threat. Makes pulling much much easier, especially when ventrillo or some other voice communication is being used.

Krosh Firehand Mage PositionThe mage tanking Krosh Firehand should place himself completely to the right and move straight forward. Just in front of Krosh Firehand there's a slight graphical "clip" (i.e., a place where the graphics texture pieces do not align well) and that is where you should stand before the pull takes place. Be sure not to move too close to the "clip" or you will aggro the room. A good reference point can be used just before the clip, there is a portion of the wall to your right that makes a "corner" (with a little steam vent) that is a safe reference point to stay at when preparing for the pull. When High King Maulgar gets aggroed you shoot any instant-spell you have (fire blast, PoM pyro) at Krosh Firehand and Spellsteal his shield immediately afterwards. Positioning Krosh is easy. When you aggro him, he will run to you until he is right next to you, then he will stay at that point and fireball you. Make sure that you position him in the far right corner so the raid does not have to worry about the flame wave ability. This is easily done by running to the corner after a Fire Blast and just waiting until he gets to you and then blinking to get out of the range of the flame wave.

High King Maulgar
High King Maulgar is best tanked by the gate leading to Gruul, on the far left; this gives the least chance of a knockback or fear into him. He remains in this position at all times during the fight. It is recommended to use a spare hunter with misdirection on the main tank to ensure his aggro is as sticky as possible straight from the start.

Kiggler the Crazed
Kiggler the Crazed can be tanked by a combination of two hunters or two warlocks who are siphon life/drain tanking him. Alternatively he can be tanked by a Moonkin druid because of the immunity to polymorph. Nature resistance should be a priority to the class(es) tanking him to avoid large damage spikes. Stay at max range to avoid the Arcane Blast. A good position for him is down the entrance corridor - be careful not to get knocked back through the instance portal. Tanking him here gains a 30 yard sphere of safety inside the main cave, where space is limited.

Blindeye the Seer
Blindeye the Seer should be pulled and tanked in a safe place in the room. Pre-determining where he should go can be tricky, due to the difficult nature of positioning the rest of the adds. All DPS are on him doing damage, he should be dead as soon as possible.

Olm the Summoner
Olm the Summoner, the tanks and the warlocks run straight to him, but beware of the Blast Wave of Krosh Firehand. He should be tanked in the back of the room. Since he has no AoE, he can be tanked next to Blindeye the Seer, so your dps can switch fast and easy.

If there are enough Hunters available, a misdirection pull on the Olm, Maulgar and Krosh can make the beginning of this fight a much more stable affair.






Killing the 4 adds

It is important that you have enough damage to make Blindeye the Seer's shield disappear. Have someone giving information when the shield is up and then just burst his shield down. Once the shield is down, his healing ability can be interrupted by any physical damage. Alternatively you can use Silence, Silencing Shot, Improved Kick, Improved Shield Bash or Improved Counterspell to interrupt him even with the shield up. Optimally you should only have to deal with two or three shields while damaging him down, then all the melee should go to Olm the Summoner while all ranged DPS concentrates on Krosh Firehand. While you walk to those two encounters, make sure to avoid Krosh Firehand's Blast Wave. Stay calm, be cautious, and bring those two adds down. Once Olm the Summoner is down, Krosh Firehand should follow right after. Finally everyone DPSs Kiggler the Crazed down.

Notes:

Also, make one of your rogues apply Mind-numbing Poison on his off-hand, or a warlock cast Curse of Tongues, thus greatly increasing your chances to interrupt Blindeye the Seer's healing spells.
Bring an Arms warrior to apply Mortal Strike which reduces healing done, or use another rogue with Wound Poison (even use Shiv or a Hunter with Aimed Shot to be sure it is stacked 5 times the whole fight) so that even if the priest manages to cast a healing spell on him it will only heal him for 50% of the amount.


Defeating High King Maulgar

Phase 1
After all 4 adds are down, ensure your healers have enough mana. All free healers should recover some mana before entering the fight against High King Maulgar. Same goes for caster-DPS. High King Maulgar hits very hard (about 12k on cloth), so its advised to keep available attack power debuffs up all the time (Demoralizing Shout/Demoralizing Roar, Thunder Clap). Meleers don't enter the fight right away, they have to wait until High King Maulgar does his first Whirlwind. When the Whirlwind vanishes you can enter the fight for about 25-35 seconds, then you should move away to prevent his Whirlwind from hitting you!

Phase 2
At 50% High King Maulgar enters Phase 2. He becomes big and red and drops his hammer reducing his melee damage by a good amount so that the OTs can survive a few seconds without heal after a taunt. In this phase he will charge random party members. He will also cast Intimidating Shout on the main tank which will incapacitate him for 4 seconds and fear everyone around him. To deal with intimidating shout, have a second tank taunt Maulgar after all the other adds are down (the MT should immediately taunt him back) and then run out of range of the fear and wait. When Maulgar Intimidating Shouts the melee, his aggro will switch to the off tank until Intimidating Shout breaks. Once Intimidating Shout breaks, the off tank can intervene the MT to get Maulgar back in position. It's also possible for the MT to "stance-dance" through the fear. The first fear usually come about 5 seconds into phase 2. After that, Maulgar fears approximately every 15 seconds. (As of 2.3.1, Maulgar no longer switches targets upon fearing. He does however still maintain some degree of 'Mob ADD,' just not as regards Intimidating Shout. When he charges a random party member, there is some sort of aggro reduction on the top tank. A two tank strategy is therefore still advisable.)

His whirlwinds can be dangerous in this phase if he begins one while the main tank is feared or right after a charge so keeping tabs on the whirlwinds and spreading out are very important. If you have 20 or more people still up once the 4 adds are dead, you should have no trouble getting Maulgar down. Be prepared and spread out for Phase 2.




Notes
Killing Maulgar stops the Lair Brutes at the front entrance from respawning. The ones after the door are unaffected however.