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Kael’thas, obviously a rather prominent figure throughout Warcraft lore, taking something of a starring role in the frozen throne expansion for Warcraft 3 as well as being one of the official big bad guys of Outland along with Illidan.
This fight is extremely lengthy and draining, a true test of any raids capabilities to down as it possesses numerous phases each requiring smooth transition without fail or face wiping and beginning again.
Advisors
These are the four adds who’ll be occupying your time for the first phases of the fight, initially introduced in phase one and then resurrected for a return in phase 3 following the legendary weapons.
Thaladred the Darkener
560,000 HP
Melee – Hit’s around 3,000-4,000 average on plate armor.
Silence – 8 yard AoE silence, basically the blood elf racial.
Gaze – Fixes his aggro onto a single target, accompanied by an emote upon activation.
Psychic Blow – 4,000-5,000 damage plus a knockback effect to his primary target, 30 yard range.
Lord Sanguinar
560,000 HP
Melee – Averages 3,000-4,000, similar to Thaladred.
Bellowing Roar – AoE fear with a 35 yard range, 1.5 second cast and 30 second cooldown.
Grand Astromancer Capernian
400,000 HP
Fireball – 6,000-7,000 fire damage to a single target
Conflagration – Targets a random player within 30 yards and conflagrates the area for 8 yards around the target, causing 9,000 damage per second/disorientation to the initial target and 900 damage per second to all within the conflagrated area.
Arcane Explosion – 4,500 arcane damage with an added slow debuff along with a knockback effect, utilized if players are within melee range.
Master Engineer Telonicus
560,000 HP
Bomb – Thrown bomb dealing 7,000 fire damage to a small area, avoidable via movement.
Remote Toy – Randomly targeted 60 second debuff that randomly stuns for 4 seconds.
Kael’thas Sunstrider
3.6 Million HP
Melee – 4,000 average on the tank.
Fireball – 2.5 second cast for 16,000-20,000 fire damage, interruptible.
Flamestrike – 3 second cast dealing 3,000 fire damage per second for a total of 10 seconds.
Arcane Disruption – 1750-2250 arcande damage accompanied by a 10 second disorient debuff to all raid members, 20 second cooldown.
Shock Barrier – Shield that both absorbs 80,000 damage as well as prevents spells from being interrupted, lasts 10 seconds.
Summon Phoenix – An ability periodically utilized to summon a Phoenix.
Phase 4
Mind Control – Randomly mind controls 2-3 players.
Pyroblast – 4 second cast time for 45,000-55,000 fire damage, interruptible and used 3 times every 60 seconds immediately after Shock Barrier.
Phase 5
Gravity Lapse – All players are teleported to the boss and levitated into the air.
Nether Beam – 1850 – 2150 arcane damage to a randomly targeted player, jumps to nearby players doubling in damage each jump.
Nether Vapor – Small black clouds nearby Kael’thas, if touched they debuff the player with a stacking effect which reduces maximum health by 5% each time, stacking to a total of 9 times.
Phase 1 –The Advisors
This phase is fairly simple and leisurely, especially comparative the later sections of the fight, each advisor being released to essentially certain doom at the hands of your raid party, the strategy is easy enough as well.
Thaladred the Darkener
This guy’s only unique feature is the gaze ability, marked by an emote of “Thaladred the Darkener sets his gaze on X,” and for the duration of the gaze walk towards the target. Simply have whoever receives this kite him away as ranged DPS tear him apart.
Lord Sanguinar
Tank n’ spank at its finest, the fear can easily be stance-danced and otherwise this guy’s nothing special.
Grand Astromancer Capernian
Casts the deadly arcane explosion if melee is within range, making this a strictly ranged warfare fight although still fairly easy. Two warlocks can tank this boss, taking turns as aggro is switched after each conflagrate, just keep DPS below the warlocks threat level.
Master Engineer Telonicus
Another simple fight, have someone, a hunter is generally the preferable choice, kite the boss in circles while keeping up as much threat generation as possible, ranged DPS yet again hold back to avoid taking aggro.
Phase 2 – Legendary Weapons
Once all the advisors have died Kael’thas will summon the arsenal consisting of seven legendary weapons, each weapon, upon death, becomes lootable by all members of the raid and allows everyone to deck themselves out in legendary goodness, unfortunately they don’t last more than 15 minutes.
Devastation
230,000 HP
Extremely high damage output as well as frequent whirlwinds that’ll drop anyone except the tank in one shot, tank this far away from others to avoid accidental deaths.
Warp Slicer
290,000 HP
Simply put, a rather tough and damaging weapon, yet possessing of no unique/specially dangerous abilities to watch for.
Phaseshift Bulwark
290,000 HP
Somewhat high damage output as well as a shield ability that reflects damage, making it a bad idea for fast melee to go all out whilst this is activated.
Cosmic Infuser
280,000
Low damage output, instead this one heals both itself and the other weaponry, making it essential for all melee on it to interrupt the spells.
I
nfinity Blade
210,000
Average damage combined with a fast attack speed and a thrash style ability for two extra attacks.
Staff of Disintegration
170,000 HP
Low damage output, however attacks with both Frostbolt and frost nova similar to a caster, freezing all within range before retreating 10 or so yards and casting Frostbolt. Kill this before phase 3 as it’s ‘item use’ ability grants immunity to the Remote Toy debuff.
Netherstrand Longbow
210,000 HP
Possesses a multi-shot attack and is required to be tanked by a ranged character, most likely a hunter that faces it away from the raid to prevent multi-shot from actually hitting multiple players, this should be dropped quickly by ranged DPS.
Priority should be given to dropping the Bow first for ranged DPS alone and making certain to kill the staff as well before phase 3, otherwise use your own discretion as to what’ll benefit you most come phase 3 and 4.
One thing to note is that the tank will truly ‘require’ the Phaseshift Bulwark prior to Phase 4, tanking Kael’thas practically demands this otherwise you *will* almost certainly wipe.
Phase 3 – Advisors MK2
Two minutes after the start of Phase 2, Kael’thas will resurrect all the advisors at once, requiring you to react to their respective abilities as best as possible at this stage.
Somewhere around 10-15 seconds prior to their resurrection the Advisor’s tanks/their respective healers should move into position and prepare for the coming onslaught, allowing them to immediately pick up their targets.
Your main-tank will grab Sanguinar, off-tank to Telonicus and hopefully you have the legendary staff’s immunity buff, and the warlock(s) to Cpaernian. As before Thaladred will be simply avoided.
Ranged DPS will want to drop Thaladred first as he is quite the annoyance to all, dealing with his gaze ability as is necessary and kiting him about whilst burning him down as quickly as possible. Melee will meanwhile drop Sagnuinar as quickly as possible followed by Telonicus.
Finally, as Thaladred is finished off Ranged DPS can either help kill Telonicus should they be required or turn on Capernian, regardless finish the advisors as quickly as possible and prepare for Phase 4 whilst doing so.
Phase 4 – Kael’thas
Entering Phase 4 having an advisor still up isn’t too bad, two is dramatically worse, anything more is highly probable of a wipe.
Mind control can be dealt with as usual, sheep the effected players for the duration of the debuff or risk having havoc wreaked throughout the raid depending on the players class and abilities.
Fireball needs to be interrupted by anyone capable of doing so, keep up a steady rotation of interruptions so as to prevent players wasting their interrupts needlessly and therefore allowing the boss to cast spells with impunity during cooldowns.
Flamestrike can and must be avoided, this can be done so by watching for the glowing effect upon the ground somewhere around 3 seconds prior to impact, run for your life.
Finally, the Phoenix summoning is done every 30-40 seconds, although possessing similar graphics to flamestrike this deals no damage and has a shorter cast time. Upon emerging the Phoenix can either be kited by range or grabbed by a fire resist geared tank.
It will continually utilize a hellfire style ability that both harms itself for 5% of its life per second as well as everyone within a short distance for 3,500 damage with the Cosmic Infusers buff(infernal protection) activated.
Upon death the Phoenix turns into an egg with 70,000 HP and must be destroyed within 15 seconds otherwise another phoenix will spawn.
Pyroblast
Every 60 seconds without fail Kael’thas will cast Shock Barrier followed by 3 pyroblasts and an arcane disruption.
Even with all the buffs you’ll have going the pyroblast can still deal upwards of 23,000+ fire damage, necessitating the need to use the Phaseshift bulwark to soak at least one pyroblast in most cases.
DPS can possibly drop the shield fast enough to interrupt any further pyroblasts, however if necessary the tank can eat a single pyroblast and have the third interrupted as the shock barrier inevitably fades a few seconds before it’s finished casting.
Phase 5 – Finale
Upon reaching 50% Kael’thas will enter a short invulnerability/cinematic mode, use this time wisely to destroy any and all remaining Phoenixes and their eggs.
Upon exiting the invulnerability you’ll no-longer have to watch out for Mind Control and Pyroblast, instead Kael’thas will begin regularly casting combos of his three new abilities, Gravity Lapse, Nether Vapor, and Nether Beam.
Gravity Lapse is unavoidable and quite annoying, however Nether Vapor and Nether Beam can be somewhat countered by splitting the raid into 3 or more sections surrounding Kael’thas, separated far enough to prevent wipe-spread damage from either spell.
When exiting a gravity lapse make certain to interrupt the incoming fireball before everyone is back into position/ready to top the tanks health off.
The only possibility for a wipe really at this point is from surpassing the 15 minute timer on the legendaries and simply running out of mana.
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