The Fallen Protectors 10 H

The First of Three Council Fights

Quick Facts

Introduction

This fight is characterized by constant, raid-wide damage and a high number of different abilities. It requires the group to move around a lot, constantly switch targets, and position themselves precisely. A lot happens at once or in quick succession.
If possible, have two healers handle the fight, as this will prevent it from dragging on too long. However, three healers will work as well. We got our first kill in 2013 with three healers, then had our second kill with two, and it felt a lot easier.

Below are the abilities of all bosses outside their transition phases. This is quite a lot to take in at once, but it’s necessary to fully understand the fight, since the abilities don’t just deal damage; some require special attention.
We can’t go into every little detail, as that would go beyond the scope of this guide, but much of it becomes clear after a handful of attempts.
During the transition phases, the respective boss leaves the arena and special adds appear that must be dealt with and killed.
Despite these many abilities, it is still an entry-level fight, as there are no strict requirements for healing or damage.

The cooldown on boss abilities is merely “planned” here. They are often delayed because bosses trigger their transition phases and disappear.

Rook

Because of his cone-shaped main attack, Rook needs to be faced away from other players. Still tank him next to other bosses, to maximize cleave damage. There is enough time between his attacks to reposition him if necessary.

Ability: Vengeful Strikes

Every ~20 s | 1 s Cast Time | Frontal Cone

The Vengeful Strikes are cast for the first time after a few seconds into the fight. They stun the tank and then are thrown at him. No one should stand near the tank due to the frontal AoE damage. They deal 300 k physical damage every 0.5 seconds over 3 seconds.

🛡️ Rook Tank Because of the characteristics described above, you should always turn Rook away from the group. However, for AoE potential, you should always keep him as close as possible to the other enemies. If the boss has spun around beforehand (see below), the next attacks may be significantly delayed.

Ability: Corrupted Brew

Every ~10 s | Instant Cast w/ Travel Time

Corrupted Brew is cast for the first time after approx. 18 seconds. The boss throws a keg at the position of a random player, which strikes after a short time, deals approx. 400 k shadow damage, and reduces movement speed by 50 % for 15 seconds. Since it only targets a player's position, it can be dodged during its flight.

⚠️ Change on Heroic Difficulty The keg's flight time is reduced by 0.5 seconds with each use, making it increasingly difficult to dodge. The transition phase of Rook resets the flight time.

Ability: Corruption Kick

Every ~45 s | AoE

Corruption Kick is cast for the first time about 45 seconds into the fight. You may skip it because Rook enters his transition phase beforehand; in that case, you’ll see it for the first time 45 seconds after Rook’s first transition.

This is a combo ability; in your boss mods, it’s likely labelled as Clash. Rook charges at a random target in the raid and will immediately begin to spin around for 4 seconds. The ability causes approx. 160 k physical damage per second and also leaves a DoT that deals approx. 100 k damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. You must run out of this.

He

After He applies the puddle-creating poison, he shouldn't be kited in the centre of the arena or at a world marker, to keep those areas free of puddles. However, the extra cleave damage is more important than constantly moving him around, so he should continue to stand near the other enemies whenever possible.

Ability: Garrote

Every ~20 s

Garrote is a dispellable debuff that is also removed when He's transition phase is triggered. It deals 108 k physical damage every two seconds.

⚠️ Change on Heroic Difficulty The ability can no longer be dispelled and is only removed from players twice in the whole encounter, when He enters his transition phase. This means healers must keep up with the healing and have to take it as an additional, non-preventable damage source.

Ability: Gouge

Every 30 s | 1,5 s Cast Time

Gouge is cast on the tank for the first time after about 25 seconds and then every 30 seconds. The spell works the same way as a Rogue's.

🛡️ He Tank During the brief cast time, turn your back to him to avoid the stun. If the stun lands, He will target a random player for the six-second duration - that must not happen.

Ability: Poisons

Switching Poisons Every ~20 s

He has two poison abilities that he alternates between, each lasting 20 seconds, but phases and other abilities can throw off his timing a bit. One of the poisons is always active. Instant Poison deals additional damage, Noxious Poison creates poison puddles. Characters can jump over these puddles. He always starts with the Instant Poison, so you can tank all bosses next to each other at the start of the fight.

🛡️ He Tank While the Noxious Poison is active, you should always pull He to the edge of the arena so that the puddles don't block your path or make gathering points inaccessible.

Sun

Sun doesn't need to be tanked and remains stationary, as she is constantly busy casting her Sha Sear or other spells.

/tar Sun
/cast <Name of your interrupt>
/targetlasttarget

Ability: Sha Sear

Throughout | 1 s Cast Time | 5 s Channel | 5 y AoE

Sha Sear is cast continuously by Sun and works like a Priest's Mind Sear.
After 5 seconds or if interrupted, it seeks a new target. If you are grouping up for other abilities, the person with the Sear must leave the raid. In all other cases, no one should stand near them.
You should interrupt the spell every now and then after one-third of its duration to take some damage out of the raid, as each tick deals increasing damage.

The ticks of a full cast are roughly as follows:

• 45 k damage
• 65 k
• 85 k
• 100 k
• 120 k
• 140 k

Ability: Shadow Word: Bane

Every ~20 s | 2 DoTs

Shadow Word: Bane is cast on two players and deals 135,000 shadow damage every three seconds. With each tick, the DoT copies itself onto another player. So if you leave it untreated, it replicates very quickly, and you’ll take a lot of additional damage.

💚 Dispel Dispel both players within three seconds, and the DoT will not copy. Once it escalates, you may be able to remove it with a Mass Dispel. It is also removed by Calamity.

Ability: Calamity

Every ~40 s | 5 s Cast Time

Calamity affects the entire raid and deals damage equal to 30 % of each player's health. It removes all remaining effects of Shadow Word: Bane.
During transition phases (including those of the other bosses), Sun does not cast Calamity. Therefore, the number of Calamities you get during the fight depends heavily on your playstyle and killing speed.

⚠️ Change on Heroic Difficulty This ability deals 10 % more damage with each subsequent use (40 %, 50 % ...). This buff is reset when Sun enters her transition phase.

Encounter Strategy

All bosses have an ability that becomes faster, deals more damage, or affects more and more players in the raid. This behaviour resets when a boss reaches 66 and 33 % health. These are the transition phases which are referred to in-game as “Desperate Measures”.
So, for example, if He has already placed a few Garrotes on players and you bring him down to 66 or 33 %, these debuffs are removed from the players and the process starts over after his transition phase.

The order in which you should trigger the transition phases is as follows: Rook > He > Sun > Rook > He > Sun.
So first bring Rook, then He, then Sun to 66 %, and then, in the same order, to 33 %. This ensures that the more dangerous abilities are reset in between (He/Sun) and allows the relatively harmless Rook to remain active a little longer.
Because if you bring one boss down to 33 % first and play through its transition phase, you’ll then have to bring the other two bosses down to 33 %, play through their transition phases, and then kill them all within 15 seconds. This means that the first boss you bring down to 33 % has plenty of time to have their abilities grow stronger.

At the start of the fight, you can tank all three bosses side by side and use Bloodlust. After that, you’ll move from transition phase to transition phase with only little “non-transition gameplay”. So you won’t be able to always tank everything in the same spot. You should deal maximum damage to all three bosses throughout the entire fight, but of course with the goal of progressing through one transition phase after another. So always keep a bit of a buffer in the boss HP to avoid having multiple transition phases at the same time unexpectedly. With Heroic gear and planning, this is possible later on.

Here is the sequence of abilities up until roughly the first transition phase. This should be taken only as an estimation, since abilities can be delayed even this early in the fight and don’t always occur at exactly the same time. However, the list clearly shows that there’s a lot going on in this fight.
In the following phases, you must always pay attention to the order of the boss timers, as from then on, hardly any two fights are alike.

• 0:01 Sha Sear from Sun (throughout, interrupt every now and then).
• 0:07 Vengeful Strikes onto Rook's tank (don't stand next to the tank).
• 0:16 Shadow Word: Bane (dispel) and Garrote.
• 0:18 Instant Poison (extra damage).
• 0:20 Corrupted Brew onto a random player (dodge).
• 0:25 Gouge on He's Tank (turn back on boss).
• 0:27 Vengeful Strikes onto Rook's tank (don't stand next to the tank).
• 0:30 Corrupted Brew onto a random player (dodge).
• 0:33 Calamity (AoE).
• 0:36 Garrote.
• 0:38 Shadow Word: Bane (dispel).
• 0:40 Corrupted Brew onto a random player (dodge).
• 0:45 Noxious Poison (puddles), Corruption Kick.

You'll likely have Rook down to 66 % well before 45 seconds. His abilities (Brew, Vengeful Strikes, and Corruption Kick) are disabled during the transition phase, and the three abilities of his adds now take their place. Rook’s Corruption Kick will likely be delayed by this first transition phase and will occur for the first time after 1:30 or even later.

Your fight consists of short phases in which all three bosses are active at the same time. Most of the time, however, one of the three bosses is in a transition phase. You’ll need to develop a “best practice” strategy for the transition phases based on the abilities of each transition phase and the bosses that are active during that time.
If you execute your tactics cleanly and deal similar damage across the attempts, they will run at roughly the same pace for you, and you can learn the fight quickly.

During this phase, three adds with shared health pools in Heroic Mode appear and must be killed. A total of 50 million damage must be dealt to the adds, which can be significantly sped up by multidotting. Each add has an ability that disappears when it dies.
In Normal Mode, you first kill the Embodied Sorrow to get rid of the Inferno Strike; in Heroic Mode, due to the shared health pool, all abilities remain active throughout the entire phase, as the adds can only be killed simultaneously.
It’s best to group up near the stationary Embodied Sorrow and bring the Embodied Gloom over so that melee DPS can interrupt and cleave. The ranged DPS should interrupt Sun’s Sha Sear from time to time.
The tank who had Rook should take the Embodied Gloom. The other tank continues to tank He and the Embodied Misery, so that he now has two void-placing enemies attacking him.

Ability: Defiled Ground

Every Few Seconds | Void

Defiled Ground is repeatedly cast under the Embodied Misery and requires constant kiting. The voids disappear after the transition phase. Tank the Embodied Misery on the outside, as the voids are relatively large. Melee DPS won’t be able to deal any damage here anyway, so as a tank, feel free to position yourself well away from the group.

Ability: Corruption Shock

Every ~6 s | 1,5 s Cast Time | AoE

Corruption Shock is cast by the Embodied Gloom and must be interrupted with a rotation, as it deals approximately 300 k AoE damage around the target.
After the first interruption, pull the add to the stationary Embodied Sorrow for cleave damage.

Ability: Inferno Strike

Throughout | 10 s Cast Time | AoE

Inferno Strike is continuously cast by the stationary, untankable Embodied Sorrow and deals 3.6 million damage to its target after 10 seconds, which is shared between all players within a radius of 8 yards. The area of effect is indicated by a circle around the affected player.
A challenge arises because Sun’s basic ability, Sha Sear, continues to be cast, as does the Corruption Shock from the Embodied Gloom. Players should therefore spread out somewhat within the area of effect of Inferno Strike, constantly interrupt the Corruption Shock, and the player affected by Sha Sear should quickly move away from the group.

He will summon an add that needs to be killed. You can try tanking the other two bosses and the add at the same spot. You can use an extra-action-button macro here.

/tar <Player name>
/click ExtraActionButton1
/targetlasttarget

Ability: Mark of Anguish

Throughout

The Mark of Anguish is a debuff placed on a player that roots them, deals damage, and causes this phase's add, the Embodied Anguish, to lock onto that player. The add itself deals negligible damage (6–12,000 per hit). Kill it to end the phase.

The affected player continuously gains stacks of Shadow Weakness, which causes the Mark of Anguish to deal more damage, so it must be passed on via the EAB after a short time. Each time it is passed on, the entire raid receives a stack of the debuff as well, which is intended to prevent you from simply tossing the Mark back and forth the whole time. The debuff fades at the end of the phase. The challenge of this phase is to ensure that this debuff does not become too high on the players who hold the Mark.
Players with the Mark receive an additional debuff, which reduces armour by 90 % for four minutes. This is to prevent the Mark from being passed to a tank. With proper cooldown planning, this is still possible, but not recommended for the first kills.

You can “tank” the Mark for a while using cooldowns or immunities like Ice Block or Divine Shield. The easiest way is for a few assigned players to pass the Mark around at 5–7 stacks, or to throw the Mark to a Mage first, who can sit it out in Ice Block for 10 seconds. The add has only 50 million HP, and it should only take 3 to 4 transfers of the Mark.

In Normal Mode, you can pass the Mark to He's tank and leave it there, since it only reduces armour by 50 % for two minutes, instead of 90 % for four minutes, and the increased damage from the Mark on the tank is negligible.

Sun's transition phase is relatively simple, just like He's, and as mentioned below, they can also be completed at the same time.

Ability: Dark Meditation

Throughout

Dark Meditation deals 54,000 raid-wide damage per second to every player and can be reduced by 35 % by a dome that conveniently appears in the centre of the arena. All DPS and healers should gather there. Since Rook is active, you may need to briefly step out of the dome when he uses his Corruption Kick. He should be tanked by the tank outside the dome when he has his Noxious Poison active. To ensure the dome isn’t covered in poison puddles, He shouldn’t have placed any puddles there beforehand either.
Outside the dome, two stationary, untankable adds appear, each with approximately 25 million HP (not shared). They get killed by the ranged DPS. For melee DPS, small adds constantly spawn at player positions, and the damage they take is also applied to the two large adds.

Kill Video

This video is our first kill from October 3, 2013, as seen from our monk Brewmaster's perspective.

Class Tips: Rogue

Cloak of Shadows prevents damage from Mark of Anguish, Inferno Strike, Calamity (also reducible by Feint) and the poison puddles.
The general rule here is: if you have low health, use Feint or Cloak of Shadows.
If you can spec into Combat, you should do so. With Blade Flurry, you deal far more damage here than with the other specializations.

Class Tips: Priest (Discipline)

Always keep dispel on cooldown; if there are a lot of “Shadow Word: Bane” debuffs, use Mass Dispel.
Prayer of Mending is very strong here, as it can reach its full potential due to the many debuffs. Otherwise, Smite and occasional healing should suffice.
It is best to place your Power Word: Barrier during Rook’s transition phase (Inferno Strike) or during Sun’s transition phase in the purple dome in the centre. The alternative is during a Calamity.
Spirit Shell can be used to absorb the later Calamities or simply in between to give you some breathing room.