The Stone Guard Strategy Guide
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Abilities
Rend Flesh
62.5k (106k) DoT on tank every second for 15 seconds.
Tanks cannot tank too many guardians at once. Amethyst Pool
The Amethyst Guardian creates a pool that inflicts 60000 Shadow damage every 1 sec. to enemies who enter the area. Lasts 1 min.
Jade Shards
The Jade Guardian Fire shards of jade in all directions, inflicting 26125 to 28875 Nature damage to all enemies.
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Solid Stone
Decreases the time between your attacks by 30% and damage increased by 20% for until cancelled.
Cobalt Mine Blast
The Cobalt Guardian launches a charged cobalt shard at a player's location. After a 3 sec arming time, any player within 7 yds will detonate the shard, inflicting 92625 to 97375 Frost damage and rooting all players within 7 yds for 6 sec.
Jasper Chains
The Jasper Guardian chains two enemy targets together. While the targets are over 10 yds apart the chains inflict 20000 Fire damage every 1 sec. This damage increases by 10% each second they remain apart. The chains will break if the targets remain apart for 15 total seconds.
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Strategy
This council style encounter fight consists of four stone lion guardians: Amethyst, Cobalt, Jade, and Jasper. The health pool is shared, so killing one will kill them all, and classes that benefit from multi-dotting will perform well. Each guardian has one unique ability, and all other abilities are shared.
Now I will discuss each unique ability.
The Amethyst Guardian drops an Amethyst Pool. This spawns a purple pool on the ground. Standing in it deals 60k (75k) shadow damage every second. The pool lasts for one minute. Raiders should not stand in the pool.
The Cobalt Guardian creates a Cobalt Mine. A large blue shard will spawn in the room. After two seconds, the mine is "armed," and anyone within 7 yards of the mine will trigger it. This causes Cobalt Mine Blast, which does 175k (340k) arcane damage and roots the player for 6 seconds. Players need to avoid these mines until the proper time.
The Jade Guardian hurls Jade Shards. These do 50k (87.5k) nature damage to the entire raid. Healers will need to coordinate to keep everyone alive.
The Jasper Guardian targets players with Jasper Chains. This places a stacking debuff on two players at random. When these players are more than 10 yards apart, they will take 20k damage every second they are away from each other. Each second apart also increases the debuff's stack, where each stack increases the tick damage by 15% (25%) and disappears after 15 stacks. For example, the first tick is 20k, the second tick is 23k (25k), the third tick is 26k (30k), and so on. This works similar to brain link on yogg saron. Players can oscillate back and forth to control the ticks of the damage, however, it is best for players to stay stacked to avoid taking damage until the proper time in the encounter.
The key mechanic to this fight is that each guardian has the ability to petrify the raid. At any time, you can have one of the following debuffs: Amethyst Petrification, Cobalt Petrification, Jade Petrification, or Jasper Petrification. Each petrification debuff reduces your shadow, arcane, nature, or fire damage respectively by 90%. This means the raid should remove the Jasper Chains debuff during Jasper Petrification and detonate Cobalt Mines during Cobalt Petrification. The problem with the petrification mechanic is that it increases over time, 5 units about every 3 seconds. Once it hits 100 (60 seconds), the raid is unable to move and/or act, resulting in a wipe (without dying).
The key is to remove the debuffs before the raid is petrified. This is achieved by forcing the guardians to cast Amethyst Overload, Cobalt Overload, Jade Overload, or Jasper Overload, depending on which debuff needs removed. Each overload does 250k (500k) damage to the raid, so cooldowns should be ready for each one. To cause an overload, the guardian must gain 100 energy which is done by being within 12 yards of another guardian for 30 seconds total. Otherwise, it'll have the buff Solid Stone (gaining 0 energy).
To make the fight simplistic, we use four tanks, where each tank is assigned to one guardian. The tanks will separate the guardians in a four corner formation, as shown in the diagram below, to prevent the guardians from overloading at the same time, which would result in a wipe.
Now I will discuss each unique ability.
The Amethyst Guardian drops an Amethyst Pool. This spawns a purple pool on the ground. Standing in it deals 60k (75k) shadow damage every second. The pool lasts for one minute. Raiders should not stand in the pool.
The Cobalt Guardian creates a Cobalt Mine. A large blue shard will spawn in the room. After two seconds, the mine is "armed," and anyone within 7 yards of the mine will trigger it. This causes Cobalt Mine Blast, which does 175k (340k) arcane damage and roots the player for 6 seconds. Players need to avoid these mines until the proper time.
The Jade Guardian hurls Jade Shards. These do 50k (87.5k) nature damage to the entire raid. Healers will need to coordinate to keep everyone alive.
The Jasper Guardian targets players with Jasper Chains. This places a stacking debuff on two players at random. When these players are more than 10 yards apart, they will take 20k damage every second they are away from each other. Each second apart also increases the debuff's stack, where each stack increases the tick damage by 15% (25%) and disappears after 15 stacks. For example, the first tick is 20k, the second tick is 23k (25k), the third tick is 26k (30k), and so on. This works similar to brain link on yogg saron. Players can oscillate back and forth to control the ticks of the damage, however, it is best for players to stay stacked to avoid taking damage until the proper time in the encounter.
The key mechanic to this fight is that each guardian has the ability to petrify the raid. At any time, you can have one of the following debuffs: Amethyst Petrification, Cobalt Petrification, Jade Petrification, or Jasper Petrification. Each petrification debuff reduces your shadow, arcane, nature, or fire damage respectively by 90%. This means the raid should remove the Jasper Chains debuff during Jasper Petrification and detonate Cobalt Mines during Cobalt Petrification. The problem with the petrification mechanic is that it increases over time, 5 units about every 3 seconds. Once it hits 100 (60 seconds), the raid is unable to move and/or act, resulting in a wipe (without dying).
The key is to remove the debuffs before the raid is petrified. This is achieved by forcing the guardians to cast Amethyst Overload, Cobalt Overload, Jade Overload, or Jasper Overload, depending on which debuff needs removed. Each overload does 250k (500k) damage to the raid, so cooldowns should be ready for each one. To cause an overload, the guardian must gain 100 energy which is done by being within 12 yards of another guardian for 30 seconds total. Otherwise, it'll have the buff Solid Stone (gaining 0 energy).
To make the fight simplistic, we use four tanks, where each tank is assigned to one guardian. The tanks will separate the guardians in a four corner formation, as shown in the diagram below, to prevent the guardians from overloading at the same time, which would result in a wipe.
When a guardian begins to petrify, the tank assigned to that guardian will move the guardian around to the other guardians in a clockwise formation. Once the other guardian hits an energy threshold, say 40, the tank with the petrifying guardian will move to the next guardian, and so on until the petrifying guardian overloads. This allows the energy accumulation and overloads among all four guardians to stagger. Once the overload happens, the tank will bring the guardian back to the original spot.
For example, let us say Jasper begins to petrify. That tank will move the guardian to Amethyst. Once Jasper hits 40 energy, the tank will move it on top of Cobalt to minimize the energy on Amethyst. When Jasper has 80 energy (meaning Cobalt has 40 energy), the tank will move it to Jade for the remaining 20 energy and force the overload. The tank then returns Jasper to its original spot. The diagram below illustrates this example.
For example, let us say Jasper begins to petrify. That tank will move the guardian to Amethyst. Once Jasper hits 40 energy, the tank will move it on top of Cobalt to minimize the energy on Amethyst. When Jasper has 80 energy (meaning Cobalt has 40 energy), the tank will move it to Jade for the remaining 20 energy and force the overload. The tank then returns Jasper to its original spot. The diagram below illustrates this example.
It should be noted that not every petrification "phase" will go as smoothly as the example above. In some cases, one or more of the non-petrifying guardians will have extremely high energies. If this happens, the tank with the petrifying guardian should move diagonally to the next guardian or even the one that previously overloaded. This requires all four tanks to be fully aware of the situation at all times.
Since the other three guardians will have Solid Stone periodically and the health pool is shared, DPS should focus on the petrifying guardian and take advantage of multi-dotting and cleaving to maximize damage.
The Keys to keeping this fight simple are:
Since the other three guardians will have Solid Stone periodically and the health pool is shared, DPS should focus on the petrifying guardian and take advantage of multi-dotting and cleaving to maximize damage.
The Keys to keeping this fight simple are:
- Tanks are moving the petrifying guardian correctly.
- Players get out of the pools that spawn from Amethyst.
- Cooldowns are used for each overload.
- Players do not get caught in the Cobalt Mine.
- Players are handling Jasper Chains correctly, by staying together until Jasper Petrification.
Heroic Strategy
The heroic version adds a new mechanic for increasing raid DPS and mana regen. This will be necessary to meet the berserk timer. At the beginning of the fight, each guardian will spawn a respective living crystal consisting of 5 charges. Players can click on the crystal to gain the debuff Living Amethyst, Living Cobalt, Living Jade, or Living Jasper, based on which crystal was clicked. The debuff has 10 stacks and does 7.5k shadow, arcane, nature, or fire damage per second respectively. Whenever a player with the debuff runs over a white tile either on the left or right side of the room, the tile will absorb a stack of the debuff and give the raid one stack of Energized Tiles. Each stack increase raid DPS and spirit by 1%. The more energized tiles, the more damage the raid does and the more mana is regenerated.
The key is to have DPS use up the crystals as quickly as possible to get the raid 140+ stacks of of the energized tiles buff. Since there will be 4 crystals, and each crystal has 5 charges with 10 stacks each, we can get up to 200 stacks of Energized Tiles. While moving around, these players must be aware of the guardian abilities (i.e., Amethyst Pool, Cobalt Mine, and Jasper Chains) and react accordingly. Players with chains will not be able to energize tiles.
Pard Tip: To make moving around easier, we use Warlock gates on both sides of the room to cover more tiles.
When the guardians hit 75% and 40% health, one of them will cast Power Down, which removes the charges from all tiles and thus removing all stacks of Energized Tiles from the raid. This means the raid will need to add new charges to the tiles once the old ones are gone to get the buff back up. During this time the damage is still intense and healers will begin begin running out. Players are also taking extra damage by energizing tiles so a cooldown rotation should be used for 75% and 40% boss health.