Alliance ZG Strategies

(note: much of the original information is stolen from the Horde guide, thanks!)

Back to the main ZG page: Zul'Gurub.

Clearing Trash

Use CC. Don't break CC.

• All pulls will be started well away from the raid - do NOT creep forward unless you are responsible for CC.
• MT pulls static groups (for initial aggro). Mages should sheep non-trapped (or high risk) targets without being asked - work out targets as quickly as possible in your class channel.
• On non-AoE pulls, one dangerous caster target (Priest, Shadow Caster, Witch Doctor) will be killed right away. Any additional casters must be priority CC targets.
• On AoE pulls, elites will be offtanked or CC'd then non-elites will be AoE'd AWAY from the elites.
• Watch your position (especially the outer edge of the main path ring). We do NOT pull all the trash and it is possible for static groups to aggro you if you do not remain aware of your surroundings.
• Face Snakes and Hunter type characters away from the raid - they have Cone AoE type attacks.
• Priests have an AoE fear, so fight at range as much as possible.
• Axe throwers can have their whirl attacks cut short via sheeping - please do so even if the thrower is the MA's target.
• Witch doctors spawn ghosts on death (like mobs in ST) that are unkillable, but slow-moving, so whoever has their aggro should keep moving to avoid their damage.
• Berserkers have AoE fear, so allow the puller to bring it to a safe area before engaging in melee combat, and keep pets with dash away. Their AoE knockback acts as a de-aggro, so the OT should stay back with the ranged damage in order to pull the berserker back to the MT position.
• Bat Packs before Jek'lik will have two elites, and a number of normal bats. The non-elites will be AoE'd by the lead mage (who will need healing), and the elites will be pulled to their tanks by hunters. When the elites are low on health (around 35%, but it can be sooner), they will do an emote and explode, so all melee should back out before then.

High Priests and Priestesses

The boss mobs are listed in roughly the order in which they are usually killed.

Jeklik - Bat Priestess

Phase 1

• She will come down in bat form. Standard tank & kill for the most part.
• Healers and AoE classes need to spread out. She has a short range AoE silence that she sometimes does after a random charge. We will position paladins on the left and the right, in order to have them in range for cleanse as much as possible.
• She will summon non-elite bat adds - one mage will be designated as the lead AoE mage, they will draw them AWAY from her before starting AoE.
• Healers keep the AoE classes alive, but don't totally forget about the MT in the process.
• Try to be ready to fill in as needed if others have been silenced.
  

Phase 2

• She will attempt to heal herself. CTRA will give a warning when she is casting her greater heal, this MUST be interrupted. Rogues will be the primary source of interrupts, but others need to be ready to take over if necessary (druid bear stun, paladin hammer of justice).
• Firebombs will drop from the sky, and the area where they land will continue to burn. Stay spread out and move out of the fire as quickly as possible.
• It is possible to see the start of a bomb and hear the bottle break sound and be out of the way before taking any damage.

Venoxis - Snake Priest

• Clear the speaker pull out beforehand.

Phase 1

• CC all but one of the Priest's 4 adds and kill the adds one at a time following the MA.
• Stay spread out and away from the MT's position. The Priest uses either a flamestrike or a holy nova - the nova used on the raid can wipe the raid.
• When dps is called, the raid will engage AT RANGE ONLY. He has a lightning strike that will bounce from one member to another, and on each bounce, it gains power. If there are people in melee range, the lightning can get up to 5000 damage or more.

Phase 2

• The priest turns into a snake and emits a big poison cloud. He will also periodically emit the poison.
• The MT will move the snake out of the cloud whenever the poison is emitted, and melee need to be ready to move out of the cloud quickly.
• Paladins need to use cleanse, druids should be spamming Abolish Poison on anyone in melee range.

20% Life

• Around 20% the snake enrages and starts hitting a LOT harder - healers should pre-emptively overheal the MT at this stage. Thunderclap (from a DPS warrior preferrably) and Hurricane should be re-applied at the 21% mark in anticipation.
• If/When the MT dies at the end, just go full DPS and kite while avoiding the poison clouds.

Mar'li - Spider Priestess

Phase 1

• Killing the spider adds that the Priestess summons is ALWAYS top priority for DPS. Killed early, they are cake. Fully grown (in a matter of seconds) they are devastating.
• The Speaker will be sheeped on the pull and killed after the first wave of baby spiders - be ready to switch DPS onto a baby spider if it comes while killing the Speaker.
• The priestess has an AoE poison effect. If you don't need to be in range, don't stand near her. If you have to eat the poison, be prepared to cure yourself or bandage out of range when the poison is cured (or stay in range and use healing potions/whipper roots).
• Stay behind the designated offtank in a direct line with him, the preistess, and the MT. Be ready for DPS/healing off at the start of phase 2.

Phase 2

• The priestess becomes a giant spider and webs anyone near her - temporarily removing them from the aggro list and reducing their long term aggro.
• When this happens, the designated offtank will taunt/challenging shout/mocking blow to get aggro and start tanking her - moving her back in position. If anyone else gets aggro, they will run forwards, to the MT position.
• DPS is OFF until the big spider is back in position. Healing the old tank should pause as well. Heals to the new tank should try to wait for establishment of aggro - but don't let the new tank die.

Phase 3

• She will at some point (less so when DPS is strong) attempt to heal herself via lifetap on someone in the raid (usually but not always the MT).
• The lifetap must be dispelled from her target (by a priest or paladin) IMMEDIATELY. You can lose 2 minutes of raid damage in seconds if she lifetaps for too long.
• Rumor has it kick, shield bash, pummel, etc can interrupt as well. Better safe than sorry.

Arlokk - Panther Priestess

Start

• Raid stands opposite the gong. MT stands in the middle closer to the door at start.
• Two offtanks (paladins or druids) stand directly in front of the gong.
• Do NOT attempt to run back into the instance if you die - the door is sealed and you can bug the gong.
• Do NOT stay feigned/vanished during a wipe or the gong may bug.
• The priestess has a mark that makes the panthers attack you. The mark will be cleansed off targets until one of the designated offtanks is marked.
• Panther adds will be offtanked at the edge of each of the side pens. Please stay clear.
• All DPS on the priestess, do not attempt to kill the panthers unless there is a stray one that is not on the offtanks, and is chewing on a healer.
• Additional marked players need to STAY AWAY from the pen openings (the mark has a range).

After First Vanish

• The Panther Priestess will occasionally vanish - during this period go ahead and kill straggler panthers, assisting the MA. Try to conserve mana / energy / rage for the Priestess' reappearance.
• Warriors spread out towards the end of the vanish - whoever is closest when the Panther Priestess reappears needs to taunt and tank her until the MT can take over. She must not be attacking healers.
• When she reappears, she usually does a pretty high damage AoE whirlwind attack. You do NOT want to be clustered up when that happens.

When the Hoodoo hits the fan

• In case of emergency (offtank near death) - mages need to be prepared to frost nova the panther pack before they spread out (work out an order ahead of time). While the pack is frost nova'd a backup offtank warrior can attempt to take over (suggestion: challenging shout -> retaliation -> defensive stance). All others stay concentrated on the priestess.
• In case of all hell broken loose - intitmidating shout, flash bombs & fear.

Thekal - Tiger Priest (aka Tony the Tiger)

Phase 1

• On initial pull, quickly kill non-humanoid adds (Assisting the MA). Try to CC the other adds in a place that the MA can find easily (ex. pull to freezing traps just at the start of the open area.
• In the following order: Zath, the Rogue add (stands West/Left of the Priest) to 15%, Thekal the Priest to 10%, Lor'khan the Shaman add (stands East/Right of the Priest) to 15%, then bring them together and kill them all. If they do not die within a short time of each other, they will resurrect each other.
• The MA will call the switches, but be ready for the switch calls - ease up at 18%/13%/18%.
• For Lor'khan, it is worth keeping detect magic up on and dispelling lighting shields etc.
• Thekal hits like a truck - keep thunderclap on him (and hurricane if it can be spared). Try to get by with just PW:S during the MS debuff - conserving healer mana in phase 1 is important.
• Zath and Thekal can be tanked together (shared thunderclap & hurricane), but Lor'khan will heal the others if they are too close.
• Lor'khan will attempt to heal himself, so interrupts are needed.

Phase 2

• Thekal will rise from the dead very quickly after the 3 humanoids are dropped in phase 1.
• Move into the smaller area where the High Priest was before the pull started (but not all the way in the hut - LoS sucks there). Raid on the West/Left, MT (and melee when DPS is on) on the East/Right.
• DPS (and non-emergency healing) is OFF when Tony is not in position. DPS is ON ~1 second after Tony has returned to position.
• An offtank will remain with the healers/ranged and taunt tony back to the MT if aggro does not return immediately.
• While priests will be Group healing as much as they can afford to, be prepared to bandage yourself and/or drink major healing pots and eat whipper root tubers.
• Tony will summon a few tiger adds during phase 2. Freezing traps by the healers, druid sleep, sheep, priest fears, warrior intimidating shotus. Anything but DPS - try not to let yourself be distracted from killing Tony for too long.
• Do NOT put DoTs on Thekal's summoned tigers.
• After Thekal dies, kill any remaining adds.

Hakkar

Hakkar's abilities

• Corrupted Blood: shadow damage with a DoT. Targets one player, and nearby players are hit with splash damage, so spread out.
• Cleave in a frontal cone
• Mind Control: he will periodically (every 15 seconds or so) MC his current target (usually the MT). The MC'd person has a speed increase, so sheep as soon as possible, and the OT needs to be ready to pick up Hakkar.
• Life Tap: every 90 seconds, Hakkar will cast Life Tap on the entire raid. If the raid is succesfully poisoned from the Sons of Hakkar, Hakkar will take 200 dps from each poisoned person. If people are not poisoned, they will be drained of 200 hp per second and Hakkar will heal for 1000 hp per second.
• Enrage: Hakkar basically goes berserk after 10 minutes, so it's no longer possible to rely on the slow damage from the Life Taps to kill him, damage classes need to be dealing significant dps as well.
• If the Priests and Priestesses are not killed first, Hakkar will gain one ability from each.

Strategy

• 2 tanks switching off aggro to deal with the Mind Control, a mage assigned to sheep them
• One or two hunters whose job it is to pull Sons of Hakkar to the raid for poisoning - should have CTRA's boss mod enabled, as it will give warning when the life tap is imminent. Use Beast tracking, and pull from the south, then the north, then the south and so on, as the Sons will not immediately respawn on the same side.

Optional Bosses

Bloodlord Mandokir

• Mandokir aggroes when you kill the speaker. He will ride up to the raid on his raptor, Ohgan.
• An OT needs to grab Ohgan and pull him away from Mandokir. If the raptor is killed, Mandokir enrages and his damage increases significantly, so it may be best to just OT the raptor for the entire fight with some dedicated healing.
• Everyone should be spread out in a semi-circle around Mandokir, since he does random charges which disorient. The semi-circle should be relatively small in radius so that the MT doesn't have to chase very far to get him back after a charge. After a charge, all dps must stop until Mandokir has been moved back to the middle by the MT.
• Mandokir has a spin-attack, similar to the trash mobs. Everyone except the MT must RUN out when this attack starts. Backing up is too slow, run or strafe out.
• If enough people die during the fight, Mandokir will "level-up". Having this happen too many times is devastating. However, there are spirits around who will randomly ressurect people who have died during the fight, so a few deaths are manageable.
• His most special ability is that he periodically chooses someone to "watch". He will yell "<Name>, I'm watching you!", and if this person takes any action, like doing damage or healing, Mandokir will charge them for a lot of damage. Therefore, whoever is being watched must stop all actions immediately. If it is a healer, other healers need to be ready to cover for them. If it is the tank, all dps must stop in order to not steal aggro while the tank cannot act.

Jin'do the Hexxer

Probably the toughest fight in Zul'Gurub!

• Totems: Brainwash Totem (non-dispellable Mind Control), Powerful Healing Totem (approximately 3% health healed per tick), these have higher priority than damage on Jin'do, and the brainwashing totem is the highest priority.
• Hex: turns the target into a frog, dispellable, acts as a deaggro if cast on the MT
• Teleport: he will periodically teleport a member of the raid into the skeleton pit, and a mage or warlock needs to be ready to AoE the skeletons down when it happens.
• Curse: Delusions of Jin'do, which causes 200 dmg per 2 seconds, but also allows you to see the Shades of Jin'do, one of which is summoned each time the curse is cast. Do not dispell this curse. If you are cursed, you must kill shades, since the rest of the raid can't see them, but will be damaged by them. No matter what your job is, kill shades. Too many shades will kill the raid, everyone should try to kill at least one shade while cursed.
• Macro to use for Jin'do to target the totems in the right order is listed here.

Gahz'ranka (Fishing Boss)

• He has a knock-back that knocks you high into the air, you will take fall damage and be removed from aggro list temporarily.
• Also has a frost breath that drains mana and slows movement and attack speed.
• Suggested tactics: clear the moat then fight underwater (warlocks buff with underwater breathing) to negate fall damage from knockback. Or, designate an OT who stands with ranged damage dealers, the OT taunts after knockback and drags back to the MT. This will require healing for melee who take fall damage.

Alchemy Bosses

Just a note on all the alchemy bosses. The raid should try to stay off the vines protruding from the ground, as bosses have been known to frequently evade bug when they target someone on those vines.

• Gri'lek
• A troll berzerker, and generally hard-hitter.
• He has a random AOE stun for people near him, and every 20 seconds or so swells up to a Giant Berzerker and goes after a random person (though his movement is slowed). He can one-shot people in this form, and you should be running. There is an aggro reset when he grows, so the person he's after should head back to the tanks after he has shrunk back down. Healers, make sure to track who this is.
• He will randomly root people. It's magical and dispellable.
• Think of it as a big game of keep away or kite-fest, similar in nature to Buru in AQ20.
• Wushoolay
• Wushoolay creates lightning clouds. Make sure to move away if you're under it. The MT will be moving due to these, so keep your eyes open.
• Hunters, Warlocks, and Priests (as needed) should be keeping Wushoolay mana burned.
• Everyone should be spread out as Wushoolay has a lightning volley. The tank should also try to keep Wushoolay turned away from the raid.
• Renataki
• Renataki is a Rogue with a vanish/ambush and an AOE gouge.
• Hunders should be able to see him with hunter's mark.
• His vanish does not break on dots, but does sometimes break on AOE damage such as demoralizing shout.
• Pretty much a DPS hard and fast fight.
• Hazza'rah
• A troll mage that summons giant illusion creatures that have low hitpoints, but hit hard (can one-shot people). They are priority number 1 for ranged DPS when they spawn.
• He will randomly AOE sleep the entire raid.
• Warlocks and Hunters should mana drain at the beginning. Once he's drained, a hunter should keep viper sting on him. This should help keep him from AOE sleeping the raid as well.
• The raid should be kept spread out.