Wind Lord Mel'jarek Strategy Guide
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Abilities
Watchful Eye
Dispels all crowd control effects if more than 3 allies are incapacitated.
Whirling Blade
Hurls a blade at a player's location, inflicting 200000 Physical damage to all enemies in its path. After the blade reaches its destination it will return to Mel'jarak, inflicting 200000 Physical damage to all players in its return path.
Wind Bomb
Wind Lord Mel'jarak hurls a volatile bomb at a player, inflicting 175000 Nature damage to all players within 5 yards. After 3 seconds, the bomb arms and will detonate if any players come within 6 yards.
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Cowards!
Removes all crowd control effects from Mel'jarak's allies.
Rain of Blades
Rains blades down on all enemies every 0.5 sec., inflicting Physical damage.
Recklessness
At the sight of seeing his warriors fall, Mel'jarak fights more recklessly, increasing his damage done by 50% and damage taken by 33%.
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Strategy
This fight is an add/crowd control fight. There are three groups of adds, and each group has three adds making 9 adds total. The raid will kill the adds then the boss. Each unique set of 3 adds share a health pool and damage done to one will not break cc on others (even though they are losing health also). Killing one add will, therefore, kill all three. The shared health pool and tight enrage timer also makes heavy AOE damage more attractive.
Although the adds are vulnerable to any form of crowd control, they are also vulnerable to a crowd control ability specific to the fight called Impaling Spear. In the back of the room, the raid will find 4 weapon racks. Clicking on a rack will give a player this ability, which incapacitates a single add for 50 seconds. Only 4 players in the raid will have this ability, so the raid must assign who will get them. Like other crowd controls, any direct damage on these adds will break the crowd control.
The third mechanic the ability Watchful Eye. At the beginning of the fight, if more than 4 adds are crowd controlled, then the boss uses Cowards!, which breaks all forms of crowd control. This means it is crucial that the raid sets up crowd control assignments, and no one else uses any form of crowd control, including stuns. When the raid kills one of the three groups, the ability changes to Watchful Eye, which breaks all forms of crowd control if more than 2 adds are incapacitated. Finally, when a second group is killed, the boss gains Watchful Eye, which breaks all forms of crowd control, even if a single add is incapacitated. This means none of the adds from the final group can be crowd controlled.
The boss uses a few abilities throughout the entire fight. First, he has Whirling Blade throwing his sword like a boomerang. He will select a target, and throw his sword in that direction. Anyone caught in the path will take 120k (200k) physical damage. Remember that the blade comes back to the boss.
Pard Tip: Late in the fight the whirling blade will kill players if they get hit twice with the whirling blade. Players will need to be conscious of the blade and dodge the blade at least on the return route.
His next ability is Rain of Blades. This lasts 12 seconds, where the boss does 9.8k (18k) damage to the raid every 0.5 seconds. This just needs to be healed through. Ideally healer cooldowns are used for this ability and late in the fight will be required.
Although the adds are vulnerable to any form of crowd control, they are also vulnerable to a crowd control ability specific to the fight called Impaling Spear. In the back of the room, the raid will find 4 weapon racks. Clicking on a rack will give a player this ability, which incapacitates a single add for 50 seconds. Only 4 players in the raid will have this ability, so the raid must assign who will get them. Like other crowd controls, any direct damage on these adds will break the crowd control.
The third mechanic the ability Watchful Eye. At the beginning of the fight, if more than 4 adds are crowd controlled, then the boss uses Cowards!, which breaks all forms of crowd control. This means it is crucial that the raid sets up crowd control assignments, and no one else uses any form of crowd control, including stuns. When the raid kills one of the three groups, the ability changes to Watchful Eye, which breaks all forms of crowd control if more than 2 adds are incapacitated. Finally, when a second group is killed, the boss gains Watchful Eye, which breaks all forms of crowd control, even if a single add is incapacitated. This means none of the adds from the final group can be crowd controlled.
The boss uses a few abilities throughout the entire fight. First, he has Whirling Blade throwing his sword like a boomerang. He will select a target, and throw his sword in that direction. Anyone caught in the path will take 120k (200k) physical damage. Remember that the blade comes back to the boss.
Pard Tip: Late in the fight the whirling blade will kill players if they get hit twice with the whirling blade. Players will need to be conscious of the blade and dodge the blade at least on the return route.
His next ability is Rain of Blades. This lasts 12 seconds, where the boss does 9.8k (18k) damage to the raid every 0.5 seconds. This just needs to be healed through. Ideally healer cooldowns are used for this ability and late in the fight will be required.
Finally, each time a group dies, the boss gains a stack of Recklessness, which increases his damage done and taken by 50% for the remainder of the right. This means healers need to be ready to watch the main tank more as each group dies.
When the boss is reaches 50% health, he'll begin using Wind Bomb. The boss will throw a bomb at a player at random. This does 100k (175k) nature damage to everyone within 5 yards of the player and does a 5 yard knock back. After 3 seconds, the bomb is armed. Anyone caught within 6 yards of the bomb triggers it, and the raid takes 350k (450k) nature damage. Triggering the bomb will likely cause a wipe.
2Add 1-Sra'thik Amber Trapper
Amber Prison
Imprisons an enemy in amber, stunning them until they are freed.
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Corrosive Resin
Covers an enemy in Corrosive Resin, inflicting 30000 Nature damage every second for 30 sec. Moving while afflicted by Corrosive Resin removes a stack of Corrosive Resin and creates a Corrosive Resin Pool.
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Residue
The residue from destroying an Amber Prison prevents you from breaking another prison for 1 min.
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Amber-Trappers have two main abilities. First, they have Amber Prison. For each add active, one player will be trapped in a prison and cannot do anything until someone else clicks on the prison. The player clicking on the prison will get the debuff Residue, which prevents them from clicking on another prison for 2 minutes. Players targeted with amber prison should not be stacked with other players, this is vital for melee players to watch otherwise multiple players will get imprisoned.
The second ability is Corrosive Resin. For each add active, a player will get 5 stacks of this debuff, where each stack does 10k (30k) nature damage per stack. The player can remove the stacks by moving. For each stack removed, a Corrosive Resin Pool spawns underneath the player for 45 seconds. Standing in the pool is a bad idea since it does 30k (70k) nature damage per second. The trick is to keep the floor controlled by minimizing the pool area. Any player with the debuff should move in a small area to keep the pools stacked on each other and ensure these polls are dropped in a convenient (out of the way) location when possible.
Add 2-Kor'Thik Elite Blademaster
Kor'thik Strike
Charges to an enemy, inflicting 160000 Physical damage.
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These adds have one main ability: Kor'thik Strike. All Kor'thik adds not incapacitated will attack a single player simultaneously. Each add does 150k (160k) physical damage, meaning the damage can go up to 450k (480k). To prevent a player from getting one-shotted from this ability, the raid must crowd control at least one of these adds.
Add 3-Zar'thik Battle Mender
Quickening
Quickens all of Mel'jarak's swarm, increasing their damage done and attack speed by 35% for 15 sec. This effect stacks.
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Mending
Heals a group of Mel'jarak's swarm for 35% of their maximum health.
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These adds have two main abilities. First they have Quickening. For each successful cast, the boss and adds gain a 25% damage and attack speed boost for 15 seconds. This does stack, so it can become quite deadly if all three adds cast this ability.This buff can be dispelled. The second ability is Mending. This heals one of the groups for 15% of their maximum health. This must be interrupted, and an interrupt rotation will be assigned prior to the fight.
Phase 1-Burning Adds
The strategy is to crowd control specific adds to minimize the initial chaos. Once the first group dies, the fight becomes substantially easier. You should crowd control 1 Battle-Mender, 2 Amber-Shapers, and 1 Blademaster. This means you will have to deal with interrupts on two healers at the beginning of the fight but can do more cleave damage to eliminate these adds more quickly. If you struggle with interupts crowd control 2 battle menders instead, having 2 Blademasters and 2 Amber-Trappers up is manageable. One tank will handle the boss and both Blademasters, while the other tank will handle the 2 Amber-Shapers and 1 Battle-Mender. The second tank will move his/her group to the right side of the room. This will allow the DPS assigned to crowd controlling to be in range of both their CC and DPS assignments.
Pard Tip: For those assigned to CC, they should use focus targets and the following macro if they get the new CC ability:
#showtooltip Impaling Spear
/cast [target=focus] Impaling Spear
The raid will kill AOE the adds focusing on Battle-Menders first. Because of Quickening, it is extremely important that all active adds and the boss are dispelled immediately. Assign DPS with dispel abilities (Hunters, Mages, Shamans, etc.) to handle specific adds. We'll also have Mass Dispel ready if needed. Since 4 adds are CCed, there will be 6 dispel assignments.
Pard Tip: For the assigned DPS, they will use a focus Dispel macro on their respective target. The macro is as follows:
#showtooltip <Name of Dispel>
/cast [target=focus] <Name of Dispel>
Since two Amber-Shapers are up, the raid must be ready to react to Amber Prison and Corrosive Resin. Bloodlust/Time Warp can be used to help kill adds more quickly (if needed). However, because we have a Battle-Mender up, it's crucial to interrupt Mending and Quickening. The 4 players assigned to crowd control must be ready mid-fight to continue incapacitating their assignments. The focus CC macro should make it easier.
Once the Battle-Mender group is down, the raid can only crowd control 2 adds. Continue crowd controlling 1 Blademaster and 1 Amber-Shaper. DPS will focus on the Blademasters next since having 3 up at any point in the fight can instantly kill a raider.
Once the Blademaster group is down, the raid will burn the Amber-Trapper group. Recall that none of these adds can be incapacitated.
Phase 2-Burn Phase
Once the final group is down, all DPS focus on the boss while avoiding his boomerang sword and bombs. What makes this fight difficult, especially in 25s is the wind bomb mechanic. The boss selects ranged players and will create bombs on the ground (similar to cobalt mines in Stone Guard). After a few seconds any player who triggers a bomb will likely wipe the raid. As the fight progresses the areas to stand diminish greatly and in order to survive the Rain of Blades ability we run in and stack while using healer CDs to survive. A spread raid during Rain of Blades will often lead to deaths since healers have a much harder time managing single target healing and players are inevitably going to be out of range of CDs like tranquility, healing tide, and Spirit link totem. Players will also still need to dodge the boomerang sword since getting hit twice in this phase is a certain death.
Pard Tip: As of now (week 1) there is no DBM warning for the wind bombs, players will need to pay special attention to these or else it will cause a lot of wipes. Also, the DPS requirement is very tight so you will want to use the least amount of healers possible. Phase 1 is very manageable but phase 2 can be very intense. Good use of hybrid class cool downs for Raid of Blades will be needed if you are shorting the raid of healers.
Pard Tip: Ranged players will also want to control the locations of the wind bombs, in order to do this players should group near the edges of wind bombs as shown below.
Heroic Strategy
For the heroic mode, there are several significant changes to the fight. Some mechanics make the fight easier, while others make the fight much harder. First there is a 10 minute berserk timer. However,this should not be an issue. Next, the boss will break all forms of crowd control if more than 3 adds are incapacitated at any time for the whole fight, regardless of the number of groups killed. While this may make the fight much simpler, two things happen when a group dies that make the fight a lot harder.
First, when a group dies, another group of the same type returns to the fight 45 seconds later. The raid never really kills the groups, so they have to deal with all three groups during the entire fight, except for 45 second windows where there are only two groups. Second, whenever a group dies, Recklessness behaves differently. Instead of giving the boss a permanent 50% damage dealt and taken buff, the boss increases his damage dealt by 100% and damage taken by 600% for 30 seconds. While this buff is active the raid should only focus on the boss.
On Heroic we choose to crowd control 2 Blademasters and 1 Amber-Shaper. This is because we want to kill the Battle Menders first, and having all three up means they will die more quickly from the aoes. One tank will handle the boss and a few remaining adds, while the other tank will handle the rest. Ideally, the off-tank will handle 5 of the adds, and the main tank handles at most one add, since the boss will hit pretty hard. To help with CCing the initial adds, a dps DK can grip the adds to the side. That way, the chance they receive splash/cleave damage, and break CC too soon is minimaized.
The raid should be positioned on the sides of the room and leave the middle area open for melee to run out for Amber Prison.
First, when a group dies, another group of the same type returns to the fight 45 seconds later. The raid never really kills the groups, so they have to deal with all three groups during the entire fight, except for 45 second windows where there are only two groups. Second, whenever a group dies, Recklessness behaves differently. Instead of giving the boss a permanent 50% damage dealt and taken buff, the boss increases his damage dealt by 100% and damage taken by 600% for 30 seconds. While this buff is active the raid should only focus on the boss.
On Heroic we choose to crowd control 2 Blademasters and 1 Amber-Shaper. This is because we want to kill the Battle Menders first, and having all three up means they will die more quickly from the aoes. One tank will handle the boss and a few remaining adds, while the other tank will handle the rest. Ideally, the off-tank will handle 5 of the adds, and the main tank handles at most one add, since the boss will hit pretty hard. To help with CCing the initial adds, a dps DK can grip the adds to the side. That way, the chance they receive splash/cleave damage, and break CC too soon is minimaized.
The raid should be positioned on the sides of the room and leave the middle area open for melee to run out for Amber Prison.
The raid will kill the Battle Menders first. To make sure none of their heals go off. Melee DPS will assigned to interrupt each Battle Mender. Once the Battle Mender group is down, the raid will switch to the boss and use all cooldowns and Bloodlust. Remember that Wind Bombs will begin to spawn once the boss is below 75% health. Hitting even a single one will guarantee a wipe.
After the first burn phase, the raid will resume DPSing the adds. This time, the kill priority will be the Amber-Shapers. When the Battle Menders return, marks will be placed on each one, so we the raid can resume interrupting them. When the Amber-Shapers are down, the raid switches back to the boss. After the second burn phase, ranged DPS and healers will move towards the middle, so they have more room to dodge Wind Bombs. However, they still need to leave an opening in the middle for melee DPS.
After the first burn phase, the raid will resume DPSing the adds. This time, the kill priority will be the Amber-Shapers. When the Battle Menders return, marks will be placed on each one, so we the raid can resume interrupting them. When the Amber-Shapers are down, the raid switches back to the boss. After the second burn phase, ranged DPS and healers will move towards the middle, so they have more room to dodge Wind Bombs. However, they still need to leave an opening in the middle for melee DPS.
The raid will continue switching between killing Battle Menders and Amber-Shapers until Blademasters are low. Then, the raid will finish them off to get a quick burn phase. If DPS does well, the boss should go down in 4-5 burn phases.
The last thing to note is if the boss does Rain of Blades during Recklessness, there will need to be a few cooldowns ready to keep the raid alive.
The last thing to note is if the boss does Rain of Blades during Recklessness, there will need to be a few cooldowns ready to keep the raid alive.
Pard Tip: Atonement is extrememly powerful during recklessness so with a disc priest cycle healing CDs for each rain of blades equally. If you lack a priest then use your best mitigation/throughput combo when the boss has the buff or consider timing the rain of blades for when he doesnt have the buff.