Resto Shaman vs. Kaz’Rogal - A Healing Guide
Posted on September 10, 2008 - Filed Under Guides, Healing, Shaman
This is one in a series of posts covering resto-shaman-specific information for tier4 and tier5 Burning Crusade 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.
Previous guides for Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, SSC, TK: The Eye, and other tier 6 guys can be found here.
Meet Kaz’Rogal. He’s big, he’s mean, and he’s in ur Horde camp, blowin’ up ur manz.
Ahem.
Anyway! Kaz’Rogal is a doomguard - one of the commanders for the Burning Legion. Though most of these guys are content to serve under the Lords of the Burning Legion, some ascend the ranks (and many of the demon-controlled areas on Azeroth, like Jaedenar and Mannoroc Coven, are led by Doomguard Lords). This guy is the third boss in Mount Hyjal, and the first of two that you’ll fight in the Horde controlled camp.
Kaz’Rogal Basics
- First - a moment about the trash. All of the trash in Hyjal is done gauntlet style. You have between 90 seconds and 3 minutes (depending on the wave) to complete each of 8 waves before each boss. The waves of trash get harder as you get closer to the boss, and as you progress deeper into Hyjal. If you wipe on the trash OR the boss, you start the entire event over again. (The only exception to this is Archimonde, who has no trash, and therefore resets like any other boss). Kaz’Rogal’s trash introduces gargoyles and frost wyrms.
- As soon as you kill the last mob in wave 8, the boss will spawn. He can be distracted (by Rogues) to keep him away from the raid for a few moments in order to buy healers more time to drink/etc. Make ABSOLUTELY SURE you have a full mana bar to start this fight.
- Kaz’Rogal doesn’t have a defined enrage timer, but there is a soft timer at about 3.5 minutes into the fight (Similar to the soft timer on Gruul with respect to Growths)
- Same as with the other two guys, this fight has only one phase. In fact, of the fights so far in Hyjal, this is by far the least complicated - though definitely not the easiest.
- This fight is a DPS race, pure and simple. Can you kill him before he blows up all your healers?
- Kaz’Rogal hits *hard*. REALLY hard. His normal melee is 3-5Kish on plate, and he does a 7-10K frontal arc cleave. This is an instant, and doesn’t replace his normal melee swing, meaning your tank can easily take 18K damage (or more) over 3-4 seconds. (Did I mention this guy hits hard?)
- He also does a Warstomp, stunning everyone within 15 yards for 5 seconds, and doing around 2K damage. This one isn’t a huge deal, unless it’s paired with someone exploding, because Kaz’Rogal is SO FREAKING HUGE that melee can actually stand outside the 15 yard radius and still hit him.
- Exploding, you ask? Yes. Exploding. Here’s how this works. Kaz’rogal places a debuff on everyone in the raid (called Mark of Kaz’Rogal). It does nothing to anyone that doesn’t have a mana bar, but drains 600 mana per second for 5 seconds from everyone else. HOWEVER - if you have no mana to drain (or go out of mana with the debuff), you detonate, doing 10-11K damage to everyone in a 15 yard radius. BOOMSPLAT.
- Try, if at all possible, to be at least 15 yards from everyone.
- The longer the fight goes on, the more frequently Kaz’rogal casts the Mark - generally after about 3.5 minutes, things become really insane. Because of this, it’s a good idea to drag Kaz’rogal back to engage Thrall and as many NPC’s as possible. The raid + NPCs will need to push 4.2 million points of damage in that 3.5 minutes.
Group Considerations: Group up for maximum DPS buffs first, and mana-regeneration second.
totems, Totems, TOTEMS!: Mana spring, Mana spring, Mana Tide, Mana Spring. Did I mention mana spring?
Heroism/Bloodlust: When called for - this is another fight where it can be valid to blow heroism/bloodlust early on, once the tank has a secure aggro lead, in order to maximize DPS before anyone gets blown up… but it can also drain mana quickly.
Don’t stand in the… Cleave. Really. Also, stay 15 yards away from everyone else. Exploding due to your own lack of mana is one thing. Exploding 30 seconds in because a mage didn’t get the memo and takes out the healers is another thing altogether.
Shaman friendly or unfriendly? A little of both - everyone is really spread out, making chain heal less effective, but Mana Spring/Mana Tide, Heroism, and Water Shield all help make this fight a lot more tolerable. It’s kind of a mixed bag, but as healers go, Shamans only disadvantage in this fight is the lack of innervateability. Also, ancestral healing can really be a lifesaver on the pull, since usually the tank will be dragging Kaz’Rogal around.
Other stuff:
- Shadow Resist gear can help you resist both the Mark of Kaz’Rogal AND the damage done when you/someone else blows up. Both full resists and partial resists on the damage. Wearing around 200 SR gear can SAVE YOUR LIFE.
- If for some reason the last trash pull pre-Kaz’Rogal goes wonky, and none of the healers have mana, and the distract doesn’t work - have the warlocks soulstone the healers with the least mana. They can then pop back up if they blow up, and you won’t be forced to wipe and do all of the trash again.
- Thrall and his NPC buddies can do as much as 15% of the damage on this fight. Getting them in the game is a *good idea*.
- Bring lots of mana potions. I highly recommend Mana Potion Injectors. Keep your friendly engineers in business! Demonic runes and Night Dragon’s Breath are also options if you’re really struggling.
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4 Responses to “Resto Shaman vs. Kaz’Rogal - A Healing Guide”
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Actually he DOES have a hard enrage timer after 10 minutes. We hit it on our first real try on him (the only surviving healer that long being me as a restoration druid). I can get some WWS for proof if you want/need it =)
Egladors last blog post..Weird gravity?
@Eglador: Well, technically so does Gruul (I think the hard enrage on Gruul was 30 growths? I’ll have to look it up). But most groups won’t want to be alive past the 3.5 minute time, when he starts casting the Mark of Kaz’rogal almost constantly.
RE: Thrall
This is oh so true. He can actually solo the last percent or three if your raid wipes, which is what happened the first time we did him.
Gruul doesn’t have a hard enrage, there’s a vid of some full avoidance rogue tanking him and they said that Gruul resets to growth 1 after being 5 minutes on 30.
Egladors last blog post..Weird gravity?