Friday Strats – Kologarn

LOUD NOISES!

So now that we’ve gotten that dumb ol’ Siege of Ulduar area out of the way, it’s time to start with the Antechamber of Ulduar.  When you initially walk in, you’ll have to fight your way down a short hallway and you’ll arrive at a large foyer with a set of stairs and hallways off to the left and right.  Some guilds will break left and go take out Iron Council first, but we usually make our way up to the stairs and take out Kologarn first, so that’s the order I’m going in.  When you first get everyone set up on the terrace, make sure that nobody enters the room.  It looks safe, but if you go too far past the archway, Kologarn will pop up out of the ground and smash your face pretty quickly.  So make sure to get everyone on the terrace for the prep and not any farther forward.

The Prep

You’ll need at least three tanks for Kologarn, but some people suggest using four.  We’ve done it with only three, but our preferred method is with four as it makes the fight about ten times easier.  Once you have your tanks assigned, you’ll need at least 4 healing assignments, two for the Kologarn tanks and two who are dedicated to just raid healing with your leftovers helping out back and forth where necessary.  There’s going to be a lot of raid wide damage and a lot of spike damage on the two main tanks, so make sure you have heavy hitters for AoE and tank heals.  

You’ll need the raid to spread out behind the melee once Kologarn pops up.  Your best bet is to have everyone line up that way if they get eyebeamed sometime during the fight they can simply turn around and run away and avoid dragging the beams through someone else.  Casters and healers will also have to be careful not to get too close to Kologarn as he will hit you with an ability that interrupts casting and school locks you for a few seconds afterwards.  Once assignments have gone out and everyone is aware of their positioning, have the raid buff up and run in with the first main tank in the lead.

The Fight

Kologarn himself is actually comprised of three targetable mobs.  Himself in the middle, his right arm (your left when you enter) and his left arm (your right).  Each part of him has it’s own special attacks and all three will be working simultaneously during the fight.  The middle part, Kologarn himself, has three unique attacks.  The first is called Overhead Smash, which decreases the target’s armor by 25% and interrupts casting for up to 8 seconds.  This is the reason you need multiple tanks dedicated to the boss as once the main tank gets two stacks of this debuff, which lasts 45 seconds, the other main tank will have to taunt and pick Kologarn up.  Your MT healers will also have to be very quick on their feet and ready to heal spike damage that will be incoming while the MT has reduced armor.

His second attack is an eyebeam that will focus on random players and chase them around for a few seconds.  The beams deal up to 4,300 nature damage on whoever they hit and will continually tick every second, killing you pretty quickly if you don’t move.  Some people run all the way out of the room, I usually make a long curved line along the back, going from one side of the room to the other.  Either way, you’ll see two beams begin to focus in on you if you get targeted, at which point you must move right away to keep from getting eaten alive.  

The third attack is called Petrifying breath and he’ll only cast this spell if his main aggro target is not with melee range.  This spell has a 4 second channel and once it goes off, it will deal up to 21,500 nature damage on the entire raid and leave behind a debuff that increases damage taken by 20 seconds for 8 seconds.  For this reason, it’s extremely important whoever the main tank is, they are always within melee range.  This shouldn’t be a problem for most people, just be careful when you’re moving in as you can fall off the edge in front of Kologarn if you’re not careful.

So now that you’ve got your two main tanks focused on Kologarn himself, you’ll need the dps to be working on his right arm (your left).  This arm will attack by casting stone grip on random people, pulling them into his fist and squeezing them, which deals up to 5,600 damage every second and will eventually one shot them if you don’t break them out quick enough.  The only way to break them out is to deal 450,000 damage to the arm.  This is why it’s smart to have your dps simply killing the arm instead of focusing on Kologarn himself.  Once the arm is dead, it will disappear, deal about 15% of his total health in damage to Kologarn, and spawn a pack of about 6 or 8 earth elementals that need to immediately be picked up by a tank and pulled away from the raid.

In heroic, these mobs will be dealing AoE damage and leaving a debuff behind that increases damage taken for a few seconds, which will spell doom if either of your main tanks get, so it is vital that they are pulled away from the raid.  In ten man, it’s actually suggested that your off tank pull the rubble into the melee as they do not have the AoE damage and debuff and you can AoE the elementals and Kologarn.  DPS needs to switch from the boss to the rubble so they can be destroyed as quickly as possible.  In twenty five man, if any of these mobs start running through the raid, it can easily spell doom, so we usually have two off tanks ready to pick them up and pull them to the same spot.  The arm will respawn after 60 seconds.

The left arm (your right) can largely be ignored for most of the raid.  The one attack it has is an AoE damage strike called Shockwave that hits the entire raid for up to 13,400 nature damage.  Raid healers must be prepared to counter this damage which he will cast often.  Generally we simply heal through that damage, but if Kologarn himself and the left arm are both low after destroying the right arm, we’ll kill the left quickly in order to just have it deal the damage of a dying arm and hopefully kill Kologarn.  This arm spawns the same type of elementals as the right does when it dies, so you’ll need to have tanks ready for that as well.

Some guilds simply switch back and forth on arms, killing the right first and then dpsing the left till the right re-spawns and switching back to that one.  Healers will need to be aware of when off tanks have the adds on them and be ready to heal bomb them in order to keep them up.  If the adds get loose in the raid, it’s all over.  The main tank healers will also need to be prepared for spike damage on the tank and watch for when they’ve got 50% armor reduction as they will need all you’ve got to stay standing during those few moments.  If you have four tanks and one of your main tanks goes down, have one of the off tanks step in while the other takes over add duty by him or herself.

The Loot

10 Man

Emerald Signet Ring – This is an very sweet little hit rating ring.  Shadow priests will definitely want to look out for this one.

Spark of Hope – I don’t know about this one or any other of Ulduar’s somewhat lackluster trinkets.  Probably only attractive for holy priests, I would probably only recommend this if you’re having mana problems.  Would come in very handy for General Vezax though.

Pendant of the Piercing Glare – Another very very attractive piece of hit gear for shadow priests.

25 Man

Bracers of Unleashed Magic – With hit and haste, these are and ideal shadow priest wrist slot item.

Robes of the Umbral Brute – With the utter lack of spirit, I would say leave these for shadow or disc priests, but holy might still want to give these a look-see if they need the upgrade.

Handwraps of Plentiful Recovery – These are sweet gloves for any spec, just make sure not too lose too much crit for the haste on them.

Ironmender – One of only three off hand frills in Ulduar and the only heroic one without a hit rating, this one has more of a dps feel to it.  The one that drops from normal Ignis is probably a better match for a healer.

So that’s Kologarn.  He’s really not that difficult of a fight as long as raiders are mobile when eye beams come out and healers are on the ball about throwing out heals to counteract the spike and raid wide damage that he does.  Next week we’ll be heading on over to the Assembly of Iron for a little metallic fun.

-Dueg