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Boss Strategy
Munch Thu May 07, 2009 10:42 am
Introduction
Kologarn is the sixth boss encounter in Ulduar. He guards the Shattered Walkway into central Ulduar where not only is he protecting the bridge, he is the bridge. Players fight not only him but two detachable arms that appear to be separate mobs that can be broken off of him.
Kologarn Abilities
- Overhead Smash: Kologarn swings both arms at the tank, dealing 125% of his normal melee damage and reducing the tank's armor by 20% for 25 seconds. This effect stacks, and the three "main tanks" should rotate after they receive 2 stacks of this debuff. Overhead Smash is cast every 15-20 seconds, as is the second version of it listed below.
- Overhead Smash Take 2: If he only has one arm left, Kologarn swings his remaining arm at the tank, dealing 125% of his normal damage and reducing the tank's armor by 25% for 45 seconds. This effect stacks. Because of the longer timer on the one-armed debuff, a rotation of three main tanks is recommended for the fight. Like the previous Overhead Smash, this ability is cast every 15-20 seconds.
- Petrifying Breath: Kologarn deals ~20,000 damage per second to the entire raid if no one is in melee range of him. Don't let this happen!
- Arm Sweep: Kologarn sweeps his left arm across the raid, dealing ~10000 damage to the entire raid. This ability has a 10-second cooldown, and is one of the main sources of raid damage in the fight. This ability is no longer used if the left arm is destroyed, though many strategies call for ignoring the left arm altogether.
- Focused Eyebeam: Kologarn targets a random player not in melee range and focuses his eyes on them, shooting beams out that land on either side of the player. After 2 seconds of focus time (where the player doesn't get hit) the eye beams converge and begin to deal ~3000 nature damage per second to anyone within a 3 yard radius of their convergence point, which follows the focused player. The easiest route is to run out of the room while being followed by the beam. The melees should stand directly infront of Kologarn as it prevents them from being targeted by the Eyebeam. The beam pursues the targeted player for 10 seconds, and is cast again 15-20 seconds after the end of the last beam (meaning one beam every 25-30 seconds).
Stone Grip: grabs a random player in the raid to stun, dealing 3,238 to 3,762 damage per second until that player is dead or the arm has sustained 150,000 damage.
Rubble
When one of Kologarn's arms is destroyed, it spawns 5 "Rubble" adds. These adds have a nature damage point-blank AoE and put a stacking +5% damage taken debuff on their tank. They should be tanked by the raid's assigned off tank and AoE'd down by ranged DPS casters while being kept away from the melee stack. Each add has 200k HP. Rubble adds swing for 2-3k on a well-geared plate tank. Alone this isn't a big deal, but with 5 Rubble adds per arm, it can add up to quite a bit. Pay attention to your off-tank!
Stone Nova: This deals ~7,000 damage to all targets within 10 yards of the Rubble add. It applies a debuff which increases physical damage taken by 5% per stack for 10 seconds. This ability can stack to one hundred stacks. Each Rubble add can cast this ability every 5-10 seconds, however it counts as a melee attack and can be dodge, parried, and blocked like a normal melee swing. In addition, sometimes Rubble will choose not to cast it - it can be quite random and a tank may end up with 4 stacks or 15 by the time the Rubble is all dead.
Rubble adds appear exactly like standard earth elementals of varying sizes, but they are not immune to nature damage like most earth elementals. Hurricane works fine as an AoE spell, and Moonkin should chain cast Hurricane on them for the attack speed reduction as well as for damage.
Fight Strategy
Kologarn remains completely stationary in this encounter at all times. He cannot be turned or range tanked. If his aggro target is not in melee range, he casts Petrifying Breath on the raid, which will cause a wipe. His arms do not need to be offtanked, but can be separately targeted and hit within Kologarn's hitbox. Since their hitbox overlaps with Kologarn's, you need to face his torso to melee, not face the arm itself.
Two to three tanks need to be in taunt rotation front and center to Kologarn. Every 10–15 seconds, he casts Overhead Smash, which reduces the tank's armor by 25%. Stacking it on one tank 1-2 times and then rotating to the next tank. Keeping all tanks alive is vital, or you won't have enough tanks to rotate the debuffs. However, the debuff seems to be either avoidable with dodge/parry or somewhat random in its timing, because it will often drop off tanks for no obvious reason.
Killing an arm will spawn a pack of earth elementals, which should be picked up by a tank and killed immediately. The arm respawns 60 seconds later, but when destroyed will take health equal to the arm's from the boss. Since they do a lot of AoE damage on 25 man and give a debuff that increases physical damage taken, they should be tanked away from the main group with a dedicated tank. On 10-man, dragging them to the boss and killing them with incidental AoE works. Do NOT use AoE taunts on the elementals if you are not in melee range of the boss. Taunting the boss while out of melee range results in him casting Petrifying Breath on the raid.
The Right Arm needs to continuously take damage to free raid members caught in Stone Grip. Because of this, killing the Right Arm every time it is alive is the best strategy for quick success. Additionally, damage done to the Right Arm is almost 100% replicated onto Kologarn each time the Arm dies, meaning little to no DPS is lost by killing the Arm. Over the course of the fight, probably 30%, 45%, or 60% of your damage to Kologarn will come from Arm deaths, with the rest being made up during the "in between" phases while the Right Arm and its Rubble adds are dead.
Positioning
The raid should spread in a line or half-circle around Kologarn so everybody has enough room to run out if they are targeted by the Focused Eyebeam.
The strategy for killing Kologarn is quite simple and can be described in four easy steps:
1. Kill Kologarn's Right Arm (The arm on the raid's left).
2. Kill the Rubble adds.
3. DPS Kologarn (torso) until the Right Arm regenerates.
4. Repeat Steps 1-3 until Kologarn dies!
Healing
Healers should be split up as such:
1 Healer Focussed Solely on MT (Preferably Priest or Shaman)
1 Healer Focussed on Stone Grip & Additional MT Heals (Preferably Druid, Paladin OK)
1 Healer Focussed on Raid Damage (Preferably Druid or Shaman)
Priests in particular should be assigned to MT healing for their available tank saving cooldowns (more on this below).
As described above, there are three main sources of damage in the fight: Stone Grip, Arm Sweep, and normal MT damage (which can be spiky with reduced armor debuffs). Each of these require dedicated healers because of their frequency or intensity. By the time a player is Stone Gripped, it's too late for other healers to react - the raid needs healers ready to land heals on the Stone Gripped player immediately. Set up Grid or your raid frames to recognize the Stone Grip debuff; this helps a ton. Raid healers should be able to heal the entire raid every 8 seconds, while the MT healers should be good at coordinating with the tanks about their armor debuff rotation. If just two MTs are used in the tank rotation, then the tank healers should be prepared to use tank saving cooldowns like Pain Suppression or Guardian Spirit in case a tank ever receives a 3 stack of the Overhead Smash debuff.
Finally, the healers assigned to Stone Grip should heal the Rubble adds OT once the Right Arm dies, and then help heal the MTs or top off the raid during the interim period before the Right Arm regenerates.
Tanking
Tanking Rotations
This fight has, at any given time, one MT and one OT (who only comes into play when an arm is destroyed to pick up Rubble adds.) The arms themselves merely grant different abilities to Kologarn, but do not need independent tanks.
However, because of the armor debuff Kologarn uses on the MT (see the Overhead Smash abilities) there need to be 1-2 extra tanks in position to Taunt Kologarn and take over the MT role, allowing the previous MT's stack of Overhead Smash debuffs to clear.
No matter which debuff the tanks are dealing with, tanks should rotate as soon as the current MT has a 2 stack of the armor debuff. Depending on Kologarn's "arm status" this can either be 40% or 50% armor reduction and last 25 or 40 seconds. Because of the "long" timer possibility, using three tanks in the MT rotation is recommended.
Tanks should be clear about which order they are going in and be clear in communicating that to their healer team so that the healers can switch healing targets immediately. In addition, if only two MTs are being used in the rotation, tanks should communicate when they plan to Taunt and let healers know when one of the MTs might have a 3 stack of Overhead Smash, meaning that they need shields, tank saving cooldowns, and very large heals to compensate for the incoming damage. This coordination is essential to survival, as Kologarn can casually kill any tank who has a 3 stack of the Smash debuff and who isn't properly cared for!
Fight Wrap-Up
Kologarn is a fight that is not "by the numbers" challenging. The DPS target of the fight is easy to meet and most raids will not have trouble healing the raid or tanks or Stone Grip targets in terms of the total amount. The challenge of the fight lies in coordinating all the moving pieces of the fight that all need to happen successfully for Kologarn to die. If everyone knows their job exactly, Kologarn will be one of the easiest bosses in Ulduar.
Kologarn is the sixth boss encounter in Ulduar. He guards the Shattered Walkway into central Ulduar where not only is he protecting the bridge, he is the bridge. Players fight not only him but two detachable arms that appear to be separate mobs that can be broken off of him.
Kologarn Abilities
- Overhead Smash: Kologarn swings both arms at the tank, dealing 125% of his normal melee damage and reducing the tank's armor by 20% for 25 seconds. This effect stacks, and the three "main tanks" should rotate after they receive 2 stacks of this debuff. Overhead Smash is cast every 15-20 seconds, as is the second version of it listed below.
- Overhead Smash Take 2: If he only has one arm left, Kologarn swings his remaining arm at the tank, dealing 125% of his normal damage and reducing the tank's armor by 25% for 45 seconds. This effect stacks. Because of the longer timer on the one-armed debuff, a rotation of three main tanks is recommended for the fight. Like the previous Overhead Smash, this ability is cast every 15-20 seconds.
- Petrifying Breath: Kologarn deals ~20,000 damage per second to the entire raid if no one is in melee range of him. Don't let this happen!
- Arm Sweep: Kologarn sweeps his left arm across the raid, dealing ~10000 damage to the entire raid. This ability has a 10-second cooldown, and is one of the main sources of raid damage in the fight. This ability is no longer used if the left arm is destroyed, though many strategies call for ignoring the left arm altogether.
- Focused Eyebeam: Kologarn targets a random player not in melee range and focuses his eyes on them, shooting beams out that land on either side of the player. After 2 seconds of focus time (where the player doesn't get hit) the eye beams converge and begin to deal ~3000 nature damage per second to anyone within a 3 yard radius of their convergence point, which follows the focused player. The easiest route is to run out of the room while being followed by the beam. The melees should stand directly infront of Kologarn as it prevents them from being targeted by the Eyebeam. The beam pursues the targeted player for 10 seconds, and is cast again 15-20 seconds after the end of the last beam (meaning one beam every 25-30 seconds).
Stone Grip: grabs a random player in the raid to stun, dealing 3,238 to 3,762 damage per second until that player is dead or the arm has sustained 150,000 damage.
Rubble
When one of Kologarn's arms is destroyed, it spawns 5 "Rubble" adds. These adds have a nature damage point-blank AoE and put a stacking +5% damage taken debuff on their tank. They should be tanked by the raid's assigned off tank and AoE'd down by ranged DPS casters while being kept away from the melee stack. Each add has 200k HP. Rubble adds swing for 2-3k on a well-geared plate tank. Alone this isn't a big deal, but with 5 Rubble adds per arm, it can add up to quite a bit. Pay attention to your off-tank!
Stone Nova: This deals ~7,000 damage to all targets within 10 yards of the Rubble add. It applies a debuff which increases physical damage taken by 5% per stack for 10 seconds. This ability can stack to one hundred stacks. Each Rubble add can cast this ability every 5-10 seconds, however it counts as a melee attack and can be dodge, parried, and blocked like a normal melee swing. In addition, sometimes Rubble will choose not to cast it - it can be quite random and a tank may end up with 4 stacks or 15 by the time the Rubble is all dead.
Rubble adds appear exactly like standard earth elementals of varying sizes, but they are not immune to nature damage like most earth elementals. Hurricane works fine as an AoE spell, and Moonkin should chain cast Hurricane on them for the attack speed reduction as well as for damage.
Fight Strategy
Kologarn remains completely stationary in this encounter at all times. He cannot be turned or range tanked. If his aggro target is not in melee range, he casts Petrifying Breath on the raid, which will cause a wipe. His arms do not need to be offtanked, but can be separately targeted and hit within Kologarn's hitbox. Since their hitbox overlaps with Kologarn's, you need to face his torso to melee, not face the arm itself.
Two to three tanks need to be in taunt rotation front and center to Kologarn. Every 10–15 seconds, he casts Overhead Smash, which reduces the tank's armor by 25%. Stacking it on one tank 1-2 times and then rotating to the next tank. Keeping all tanks alive is vital, or you won't have enough tanks to rotate the debuffs. However, the debuff seems to be either avoidable with dodge/parry or somewhat random in its timing, because it will often drop off tanks for no obvious reason.
Killing an arm will spawn a pack of earth elementals, which should be picked up by a tank and killed immediately. The arm respawns 60 seconds later, but when destroyed will take health equal to the arm's from the boss. Since they do a lot of AoE damage on 25 man and give a debuff that increases physical damage taken, they should be tanked away from the main group with a dedicated tank. On 10-man, dragging them to the boss and killing them with incidental AoE works. Do NOT use AoE taunts on the elementals if you are not in melee range of the boss. Taunting the boss while out of melee range results in him casting Petrifying Breath on the raid.
The Right Arm needs to continuously take damage to free raid members caught in Stone Grip. Because of this, killing the Right Arm every time it is alive is the best strategy for quick success. Additionally, damage done to the Right Arm is almost 100% replicated onto Kologarn each time the Arm dies, meaning little to no DPS is lost by killing the Arm. Over the course of the fight, probably 30%, 45%, or 60% of your damage to Kologarn will come from Arm deaths, with the rest being made up during the "in between" phases while the Right Arm and its Rubble adds are dead.
Positioning
The raid should spread in a line or half-circle around Kologarn so everybody has enough room to run out if they are targeted by the Focused Eyebeam.
The strategy for killing Kologarn is quite simple and can be described in four easy steps:
1. Kill Kologarn's Right Arm (The arm on the raid's left).
2. Kill the Rubble adds.
3. DPS Kologarn (torso) until the Right Arm regenerates.
4. Repeat Steps 1-3 until Kologarn dies!
Healing
Healers should be split up as such:
1 Healer Focussed Solely on MT (Preferably Priest or Shaman)
1 Healer Focussed on Stone Grip & Additional MT Heals (Preferably Druid, Paladin OK)
1 Healer Focussed on Raid Damage (Preferably Druid or Shaman)
Priests in particular should be assigned to MT healing for their available tank saving cooldowns (more on this below).
As described above, there are three main sources of damage in the fight: Stone Grip, Arm Sweep, and normal MT damage (which can be spiky with reduced armor debuffs). Each of these require dedicated healers because of their frequency or intensity. By the time a player is Stone Gripped, it's too late for other healers to react - the raid needs healers ready to land heals on the Stone Gripped player immediately. Set up Grid or your raid frames to recognize the Stone Grip debuff; this helps a ton. Raid healers should be able to heal the entire raid every 8 seconds, while the MT healers should be good at coordinating with the tanks about their armor debuff rotation. If just two MTs are used in the tank rotation, then the tank healers should be prepared to use tank saving cooldowns like Pain Suppression or Guardian Spirit in case a tank ever receives a 3 stack of the Overhead Smash debuff.
Finally, the healers assigned to Stone Grip should heal the Rubble adds OT once the Right Arm dies, and then help heal the MTs or top off the raid during the interim period before the Right Arm regenerates.
Tanking
Tanking Rotations
This fight has, at any given time, one MT and one OT (who only comes into play when an arm is destroyed to pick up Rubble adds.) The arms themselves merely grant different abilities to Kologarn, but do not need independent tanks.
However, because of the armor debuff Kologarn uses on the MT (see the Overhead Smash abilities) there need to be 1-2 extra tanks in position to Taunt Kologarn and take over the MT role, allowing the previous MT's stack of Overhead Smash debuffs to clear.
No matter which debuff the tanks are dealing with, tanks should rotate as soon as the current MT has a 2 stack of the armor debuff. Depending on Kologarn's "arm status" this can either be 40% or 50% armor reduction and last 25 or 40 seconds. Because of the "long" timer possibility, using three tanks in the MT rotation is recommended.
Tanks should be clear about which order they are going in and be clear in communicating that to their healer team so that the healers can switch healing targets immediately. In addition, if only two MTs are being used in the rotation, tanks should communicate when they plan to Taunt and let healers know when one of the MTs might have a 3 stack of Overhead Smash, meaning that they need shields, tank saving cooldowns, and very large heals to compensate for the incoming damage. This coordination is essential to survival, as Kologarn can casually kill any tank who has a 3 stack of the Smash debuff and who isn't properly cared for!
Fight Wrap-Up
Kologarn is a fight that is not "by the numbers" challenging. The DPS target of the fight is easy to meet and most raids will not have trouble healing the raid or tanks or Stone Grip targets in terms of the total amount. The challenge of the fight lies in coordinating all the moving pieces of the fight that all need to happen successfully for Kologarn to die. If everyone knows their job exactly, Kologarn will be one of the easiest bosses in Ulduar.
Last edited by Munch on Thu May 07, 2009 10:42 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Sticky)
Munch- Guild Officer
- Posts : 319
Join date : 2009-05-06
Age : 39
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