Resto Shaman vs. Karazhan - A Healing Guide Part 2
Posted on June 1, 2008 - Filed Under Healing, Raiding, Shaman
This is one in a series of posts covering resto-shaman-specific information for tier4 and tier5 boss fights. It will NOT be a boss kill strategy, rather a list of tips and tricks for your friendly neighborhood shaman to make these fights run a little more smoothly.
You can see other guides (includes Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair and all of Serpentshrine Cavern) here.
Welcome to raiding! You’re on your way to Karazhan, likely the first step into a raiding group of more than 5 people you’ve made since level 60… or at all, depending on when you started playing Warcraft! Karazhan is a large castle full of cool lore and cooler music… and about ten thousand bloodthirsty undead. This will cover the second four fights of Karazhan - that is, Nightbane, The Curator, Terestian Illhoof, and Shade of Aran. Click for parts one and three!
Before we get started - Make sure you have your Consumables, and that you know enough about Totem Synergy to buff your group appropriately. Also - remember Earthshield and Heroism/Bloodlust!
Nightbane
Nightbane is a big undead dragon (formerly known as Arcanagos) that Medivh got peeved with and lit on fire. He died back in the hills around Karazhan and is still pissy about the whole thing. Someone in the group must have completed the quest chain to summon him, which includes heroic Sethekk Halls and heroic Shattered Halls. If this is your first week in Karazhan, you likely won’t be summoning him, as his difficulty level is on par with Netherspite and Prince Malchezzar.
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Nightbane has two phases. Ground Phase and Flying Phase. He switches phases every 25%, so you will have four Ground Phases and three Air Phases in total.
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Ground phase:
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He does a typical dragon fear. Keep tremor totems down. Also, a typical frontal arc dragon cleave. Don’t stand in front of him, be prepared for tank spikes - Earthshield your tank! Aaaand he breathes fire and bashes stuff with his tail.
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Charred Earth - Chars the ground underneath a random player, causing an AOE ground effect that does 3K fire damage per second. If you move out of the char spot, the debuff goes away, so pay attention and move!
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Ground Phase strategies might include splitting the healers into two camps - north and south - to avoid everyone getting charred earth at the same time, and also to help keep fears to a minimum (try to keep your group together for tremor totem).
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Air Phase:
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Casts Rain of Bones on a random player/pet - everyone will need to bunch up on one target (usually the main tank)
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Summons 5 Restless Skeletons
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Shoots a smoking blast every second for 15 seconds at a high-threat target (usually a healer) with a fire DOT that can be dispelled
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General Air Phase strategy is to pile up on the tank and AOE down the restless skellies. As a healer, once the smoking blast starts, you can move to the edge of the AOE - be careful! Heal-aggro is a MAJOR ISSUE here, and it’s easy to blow all your mana.
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Both Fire and Earth Elementals are useful against the restless skellies. If you have two shamans, that’s one elemental per Air Phase.
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Be prepared to drink a few potions on this fight, as it can be rather long if your DPS are having trouble. Also - be *very* aware of Charred Earth. It BURNS!
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The Curator
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Curator is immune to arcane, poison, and mana draining effects.
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He will hateful bolt a high-aggro non-tank for 4.5-5.5K damage
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Every 10 seconds he will summon an astral flare that costs 10% of his mana. These *MUST BE KILLED*. When he runs out of mana (every 90 seconds) he will evocate, taking 200% increased damage for 20 seconds
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At 15% health, he enrages, doing more melee damage and no longer evocating or casting astral flares. At 10 minutes, he wipes the raid.
What you need to keep an eye on: Heroism. Make sure you drop heroism/bloodlust approximately 10 seconds before Curator is going to Evocate, to help your DPS take out the last flare and do the most damage during the evocate phase. Keep an Earth Shield either on the main tank or the hateful bolt tank (if you have one designated). Also be aware that this is a healing intensive fight - another one where chain heal really shines - so be sure you have enough mana pots and other consumables. The melee DPS will be running after the flares - and ALL of them will be taking arcane damage from it.
Curator is a gear check - either you have the DPS to take him out, or you don’t. It’s not an overly complicated fight, but can be frustrating. A lot of Curator problems can be solved by killing the flares faster.
(If you have a warlock, make sure they time Curse of Doom so that it will pop during the Evocate - that means casting it about 55 seconds before the actual evocation phase)
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Terestian Illhoof
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Terestian hits relatively light on the tank, but will cast a 4K shadow bolt at the person who is #1 on the aggro list. Don’t out-aggro the tank.
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Two portals will open up in the back corners of the room, summoning fire imps. If you get heal aggro from one/several, it will cause a lot of spell pushback.
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Periodically Illhoof will summon a player to the middle of the room and encase them in demon chains that damage the player for 1.5K per second and heal Illhoof for 3K per second. This lasts until the chains are destroyed, the player dies, or the debuff runs out. DPS will need to focus on killing chains, you will need to focus on healing the sacrifice.
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Illhoof has a pet imp named Kil’rek - if you kill Kil’rek, Illhoof is weakened for 45 seconds and becomes 25% more susceptible to damage. For this reason, most raids kill Kil’rek whenever he spawns.
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After 10 minutes, Illhoof wipes the raid.
What you need to keep an eye on: Whichever target gets Demon Chains will need healing PRONTO. That means Lesser Healing Wave sometimes. This is another mana intensive fight, especially since you have to spam heal a random target during every Sacrifice. Make use of your fire elemental to tank the imp spawns if your warlocks/mages need an extra bit of help. If you’re seeing a lot of spell pushback, try casting your Earth shield on yourself.
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Shade of Aran
Aran is a mage, and the ghost of Medivh’s father. He does magey hijinks.
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He does the three basic spells - frostbolt, fireball, and arcane missiles, as well as a 10 second ice-chains debuff that roots a target to the ground. He also has a ten yard AOE permanent counterspell aura. Every 30 to 35 seconds, he does one of his magey special effects.
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Blizzard: large AOE that moves slowly clockwise around the room - very visible graphic.
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Slow/Arcane Explosion - pulls everyone to the center, casts AOE slow, and then casts an arcane explosion. You have *just* enough time from the time he casts slow to the time the explosion goes off to get to the walls of the room - don’t dawdle. The explosion hits for 9 to 11 thousand damage. Ow.
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Flame Wreath - creates a fiery aura around three players. If one of those players moves AT ALL, they (and everyone within range) will explode, dealing 3-4K damage to everyone in the room and knocking them up into the air. DO NOT MOVE.
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At 40% health, he summons 4 frost elementals that must be feared, banished, or killed. They despawn after 90 seconds
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At 20% mana (or less) he will polymorph the raid and sit to drink, after which he does an AOE pyroblast that hits the whole raid for 7K.
What you need to keep an eye on: The special abilities. Don’t move in the flame wreath. Stay out of the blizzard. Don’t get too close to Aran or you’ll get counterspelled. You may get called upon to earth shock (rank 1 again) Aran to interrupt one of his magic schools to drain his mana either faster or slower, depending on your strategy, so pay attention to that too.
Heroism/Bloodlust is best used at 40% when the elementals spawn and must be killed. Your Earth Elemental can tank one, if he gets a few heals.
Ok so this part of Karazhan I definitely didn’t see a whole year ago. It took us about a month to down Curator the first time, and we didn’t attempt Illhoof until after we were clearing Aran and added a second day to the raid. Nightbane is really one of the “last three” bosses of Karazhan (with Netherspite and Malchezzar) so don’t worry about trying to take him out before you’re at least clearing through Aran, if not farther.
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3 Responses to “Resto Shaman vs. Karazhan - A Healing Guide Part 2”
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Two tips for Nightbane. Fist, have your spell effect video setting all the way up. If you do not, the charred earth affect will not show up underneath you. That had been one of our major issues during this fight. Gratned we should have noticed the debuff icon as well. Also, have the group bunch up against the wall or the dome. Charred earth is a radial AoE and if you hug the walls you can move sideways to get out of the affect rather than forward or backward.
Good guide!
Some additional tips on Terestian Illhoof:
- He will target the person he’s going to sacrifice a second before he actually does it. Knowing this allows you to prepare a big heal on the unsuspecting victim.
- A shaman’s fire elemental is awesome against the imps. It is immune to fire damage - but the imps themselves are not.
And for Shade of Aran:
- This fight, although it can be long, is not about big heals or conserving mana, it’s about surviving. Put on stamina gear and keep looking at your own health bar first.
- Lesser healing wave is your friend during the blizzard phase. You can’t afford to stand still and throw big heals.
- Do not interrupt his arcane missiles, as this will cause him to run from his spot in the center. Instead, have people call out when they are targeted by the arcane missiles and try to heal them through it.
Nightbane:
- at the very start of an air phase, toss a fresh Earth shield on the tank, and hold your heals as long as possible. Hopefully your tank will grab “healing aggro” off Nightbane from the earth shield procs alone.
Another tip on the Charred Earth, if like us your party puts the healers at maximum range. If you get 2 overlapping Charred Earths so you can’t go sideways anymore move forwards, not backwards! Otherwise you’ll end up out of range like I did.
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