Boss Strategy - Intro & Phase 1

Introduction
The Old God Yogg-Saron can be engaged after the defeat of General Vezax in Ulduar. Entering his room will begin the encounter (unlike many bosses in Ulduar his aggro radius is massive). It is a three phase encounter, beginning with defeating Sara with her own guardians, then defeating the Brain of Yogg-Saron and finally defeating the body of Yogg-Saron. At the beginning of the encounter players will receive a debuff with 100 stacks called "Sanity". If this hits zero the players will have lost their mind and will to Yogg-Saron and will both be slaves to his will and see their entire raid as Faceless Ones.

An ideal Yogg-Saron (10) raid should be composed of one or two tanks, three or four healers, and the rest DPS classes. An ideal raid composition should contain at least one healer capable of dispelling offensively and should slightly favor ranged DPS classes.

Phase one hinges on raid coordination but phases two and three will put significant strain on players' gear. Healers and DPS classes will be hard pressed in phases two and three, and tanks may take serious spike damage.

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Fight Overview
Yogg-Saron is a three phase fight and the entire encounter will take as long as 15 minutes to complete. Raid coordination is extremely important throughout the fight, and particularly important in phases one and two.

All players in the raid will start with 100 "Sanity" points (always visible as a debuff on your character and in your chat log) and this number will degenerate over time as players are targeted with various harmful abilities. In phase one the Sanity debuff is not significant, but in later phases it is necessary that all players constantly monitor their Sanity and keep it at a safe level.


Keepers of Ulduar (Difficulty Modes)
Before you start the encounter, you will need to talk to the Keepers of Ulduar (Thorim, Freya, Mimiron, Hodir) to activate their blessings. You can reach them quickly by porting to the Shattered Walkway and circling the area where you fought Auriaya. If you do not talk to the keepers of Ulduar, you will not gain their blessings and you will instead fight hard mode Yogg-Saron.

Mimiron - Talking to Mimiron will grant you Speed of Invention, increasing movement speed by 20% and damage done by 10%. It will also cause him to reduce the damage done by tentacles in phase two.

Thorim - Talking to Thorim will grant you Fury of the Storm, increasing health by 20% and damage done by 10%. It will also cause Thorim to cast Titanic Storm in phase three, allowing the raid to kill the Immortal Guardians of Yogg-Saron.

Freya - Talking to Freya will grant you Resilience of Nature, increasing healing received by 20% and damage done by 10%. It will also cause her to spawn Sanity Wells in phase two and three that allow raid members to regain Sanity.

Hodir - Talking to Hodir will grant you Fortitude of Frost, reducing damage taken by 20% and increasing damage done by 10%. It will also cause him to cast Hodir's Protective Gaze any time any raid member takes damage that would have otherwise killed him/her. Note that this ability has a cooldown.

Phase 1 - Guardians of Yogg-Saron
The first phase of the Yogg-Saron encounter is simple but very important to your success in the second and third phases. A poor transition from phase one to phase two can lead to the raid being too heavily burdened in phase two.

The raid will initially fight Sara (Yogg-Saron), who can be seen levitating over a pool in the middle of the room. Sara is still considered a friendly target and she can only be damaged by dragging Guardians of Yogg-Saron on top of her and 'detonating' them on her.

Three or four green clouds will slowly circle the room and Guardians of Yogg-Saron will periodically spawn from these clouds. They will spawn in singles and slowly at first, but as the phase progresses the adds will spawn progressively faster until the raid is overwhelmed. It is important to finish the phase quickly and efficiently.

Note that if a player walks into a cloud or even stands too close to the edge of a cloud, an extra Guardian will be spawned.

These enemies have the following abilities:

Sara's Anger - Sara periodically casts this ability on a random Guardian of Yogg-Saron, inflicting 12,500 shadow damage to it every 3 seconds, but increasing its physical damage done by 12,000 for 12 seconds. This buff can and should be removed by abilities such as a Hunter's Tranquilizing Shot or Rogue's Anesthetic Poison.

Dominate Mind - This instant cast ability is periodically used by Guardians of Yogg-Saron on a random player in the raid. The player will be mind controlled for 10 seconds and his/her Sanity will also be reduced by 4%. A mind controlled player can be a danger to the raid in many ways. He/she can worsen the flow of adds by running into a cloud and spawning an additional Guardian of Yogg-Saron, or complicate the phase in other ways (for example, he/she may cast Hand of Protection on a Guardian of Yogg-Saron). For this reason, any class with the ability to offensively dispel should consider it top priority. The mind control can also be removed with abilities such as Every Man for Himself, Cloak of Shadows, or Divine Shield, so this should be noted. Tanks should note that they will need to Taunt anything they were tanking prior to being targeted with a mind control, as the spell will wipe their threat completely.

Dark Volley - This ability is periodically cast by Guardians, dealing about 10,000 to 15,000 shadow damage to targets within 35 yards and reducing their healing done by 25% for 10 seconds. This ability has a 1.5 second cast time and it can and should be interrupted when possible. Dark Volley is not particularly dangerous but it puts unnecessary strain on healers. Tanks that are dragging Guardians to Sara will also have a harder time doing this if the Guardian happens to be casting instead of following them. Tanks will need to drag Guardians to Sara because when they die they will cast Shadow Nova.

Shadow Nova - When a Guardian of Yogg-Saron is killed, they will use this instant cast "self-destruct" ability to deal about 10,000 to 15,000 shadow damage to anything within 15 yards. Sara is still considered a friendly target in phase one so the raid will need to use this ability to "kill" her by dragging Guardians over near her and then killing them by her.


The Pull
When Sara (Yogg-Saron) is engaged, the raid should run into the room and take up positions near the closest chain on the left of the room. A cloud will be automatically activated and a Guardian of Yogg-Saron will spawn shortly.

A player with a speed boost (for example, a Druid or Rogue using sprint) should run to a different cloud and touch it to activate a second add spawn. This will give the raid a small head start on the Guardians before they start spawning too quickly to be controlled.

Tanks should begin picking up Guardians of Yogg-Saron and bringing them to the raid to be damaged.

Positioning
There are four transparent blue chains located in Yogg-Saron's room. Clouds circle the room but they do not tend to move near these chains. For this reason, raid members should position themselves close to the chain on the left side of the room, shown in the picture above as a white circle. If a cloud begins to move in, players should adjust their positions accordingly. Tanks should drag Guardians to the rest of the raid here until they are sufficiently damaged, then drag them into the middle of the room near Sara.

One or two caster DPS classes should position themselves closer to the middle to be able to execute the Guardians from range. One or two healers should also position themselves in range of the middle area so tank healing can continue when tanks are bringing Guardians into the middle. This is shown in the picture above as two red circles.

Tanks should maneuver around clouds as they bring Guardians to the raid or to Sara in the middle.

Phase Strategy
It is very important that all members of the raid (including tanks) watch for incoming clouds and keep their distance from them. Touching a cloud will spawn an extra Guardian of Yogg-Saron that will further hinder the raid's progress. If multiple clouds are touched, the raid will be quickly overwhelmed. Obviously, the one cloud that is intentionally touched off at the start of the fight is an exception to this rule.

Tanks will need to pick up Guardians of Yogg-Saron and bring them to melee DPS so they can be damaged efficiently. When the guardians are damaged to a reasonable amount (anywhere from 30-70% health), the tanks will need to bring them to Sara (within 15 yards of her) and tank them there until they are executed by ranged DPS. When the Guardian dies it will explode, damaging Sara. This needs to be repeated until Sara reaches 1% health. In total, at least 8 Guardians will need to be dragged to Sara and detonated on her.

Meanwhile, the tanks will need to maneuver around clouds and make sure they don't trigger an additional spawn. Tanks should consider picking up speed boosts for this fight through enchants such as Tuskarr's Vitality or talents such as Pursuit of Justice.

The Guardians have relatively little health and they may randomly stop to cast Dark Volley on the raid group. Assist the tanks in bringing them to the middle by interrupting any casts they start. DPS classes, especially ranged, should be careful not to kill a Guardian before the tanks have brought it within 15 yards of Sara. The phase will not end until Sara reaches 1% health, so it is extremely important that a "detonation" is not missed.

While tanks are busy bringing Guardians to the raid or to Sara, Feral Druids or Plate-wearing DPS classes can further stabilize the phase by picking up any additional Guardians and keeping them off the healers and weaker DPS classes until a tank can get them.

When Sara reaches 1% health, the green clouds will despawn and no additional Guardians will be spawned. Any remaining Guardians should be tanked away from the raid and killed separately, as they will still explode when killed. It is important to kill them quickly as the fight will soon transition to phase two and the raid will have new priorities.

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