Warlocks @ Black Temple

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Path: Classes | Warlock | Warlocks @ Raid Bosses

Contents 1 High Warlord Naj'entus 1.1 Trash 1.2 The encounter 2 Supremus 3 Shade of Akama 3.1 Central DPS Team 3.2 Side Spawn Teams 4 Teron Gorefiend 4.1 Soulstones 5 Gurtogg Bloodboil 5.1 Taking a Bloodboil 5.2 Taking a Fel Rage 6 Reliquary of Souls 6.1 Trash 6.2 Phase 1 6.3 Phase 2 6.4 Phase 3 7 Mother Shahraz 8 Illidari Council 8.1 Trash 8.2 The encounter 8.3 Pulling with Imp 8.4 CoTing Lady Malande 9 Illidan Stormrage 9.1 Cursing 9.2 Eye Beam Early Warning 9.3 Tanking Demon Form 9.4 Killing Shadow Demons

High Warlord Naj'entus

Trash

The large elementals before Naj'entus spawn smaller elementals that can rip the raid apart with their poison volleys. It's a good idea to banish the small ones, so they can be dealt with properly when the large ones are dead.

Do not banish the elementals that accompany the Coilskar Generals until the generals are both dead. Casting any CC while Generals are up will trigger a dispel that also buffs the target.

The encounter

Naj'entus is a pretty standard fight, from a warlock point of view. Just make sure you have a solid (10k) health pool for this fight, which shouldn't be a problem for warlocks in tier 5 level gear. The fight is mostly about spreading out to avoid splash damage and quick reactions when it comes to looting and throwing of spines.

Pick Curse of Agony over Cure of Doom for this fight. If CoD happens to detonate when the shield is up, you'll loose all of that nice dps.

External strategy guide

Supremus

On Supremus warlocks, again, have a standard ranged pew pew role. The things to remember for this encounter are:

• Always dps from max range.
• Do not stand in fire.
• Do not stand near volcanoes.
• DPS OFF near the end of the kiting phase, threat resets.

External strategy guide

Shade of Akama

Central DPS Team

If you're assigned to the central DPS team your job is to kill all Ashtongue Channelers (the mobs standing around Shade at the beginning of the fight) and Ashtongue Sorcerers (the mobs that spawn during the fight, replacing fallen Channelers). Channelers and Sorcerers do not aggro, so DoT them all and go nuts on dps.

Side Spawn Teams

There will be two side teams, to deal with the adds coming from the doorways. If you're assigned to a side team your job is as follows.

At the start of the fight all Channelers (central mobs) must be cursed with CoE and CoR. Warlocks on the side teams should do this, to allow warlocks on the central team to cast CoA.

When mobs spawn from the doorway they will be picked up by the side-tanks and killed in the following order:

1. Spiritbinder
2. Elementalist
3. Rogue

If you have time between waves of adds, either help kill the Channelers or cast CoW on the Defenders being off-tanked near the real Akama.

External strategy guide

Teron Gorefiend

One of those fights where we get to nuke our hearts out. That is, if we don't get Shadow of Death.

Soulstones

Soulstones should be used in combat, to bring back those that get Shadow of Death. We generally skip the first two players to get Shadow, to see if it's going to be a good attempt or not. If there are no constructs in the raid when the third Shadow is cast, we begin SSing. The order will be set in advance, usually alphabetically. Do not soulstone the shamans, as they can use Reincarnate.

Main strategy thread
External strategy guide

Gurtogg Bloodboil

Taking a Bloodboil

Warlocks will generally be in the groups that take turns soaking Bloodboil. When taking a Bloodboil, make sure you move back into position directly after you get it, in order to avoid taking a second one. While the Bloodboil is ticking, keep a close eye on your health. If healing is stressed, use Drain Life to help them keep you alive.

Taking a Fel Rage

If you get targeted for Fel Rage, do everything in your power to stay alive:

• Battlemaster trinket
• Healthstone
• Potion
• Deathcoil
• Drain Life, lots and lots

External strategy guide

Reliquary of Souls

One of my favorite encounters in Black Temple. We'll be using some of our special abilities here, in addition to what we do best: nuke nuke nuke!

Trash

• Put Detect Invisibility on the tanks.
• Stay with the group.
• Hellfire and Rain of Fire are good, Seed of Corruption too risky.

Phase 1

• If you have Demonic Sacrifice, sac a Felhunter for mana regen.
• Nuke like crazy, threat is irrelevant.

Phase 2

• Sac a Succubus if you can.
• Don't use CoD, too risky.
• In fact, don't use any DoTs at all, unless you're Affliction spec. The returned damage pushes back our SB casts too much. Affliction locks don't have this problem.
• Nuke hard, but do watch your threat. It's all too easy to pull aggro in this phase, which will almost certainly lead to a wipe.
• Do NOT use Soulshatter.

Phase 3

• This is where we go ALL OUT!
• Maximizing dps requires delicate timing of Soulshatter. Try not to use it too soon, but do use it.
• Don't forget to use Healthstone, Potion and Deathcoil to stay alive near the end. This phase is basically designed to slowly overwhelm healers. It's up to the dps to end it in time, preventing a wipe.

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Mother Shahraz

• Not at all related to being a warlock, but since it's so important I'll mention it here: stack Shadow Resistance! You want to be as close to the resistance cap as you can (295 unbuffed, 365 buffed).
• Demon Armor is useless, use Fel Armor instead.
• Because the tanks will be only in partial SR, threat is not an issue.
• Switch from Shadow Bolt to Incinerate during Prismatic Aura: Frost and Prismatic Aura: Shadow.
• Shadow Ward is your friend on this fight, especially if you get Fatal Attraction.

Main strategy thread
External strategy guide

Illidari Council

Trash

Promenade Sentinels deliver a hefty amount of raidwide Arcane damage. Equipping the Soulcloth set and Violet Eye trinket helps loads.

The encounter

Our job here is basically this: stay alive and nuke Gathios the Shatterer. Things to avoid are Flamestrike, Blizzard and Consecration. Also, you do not want to get close to High Nethermancer Zerevor, who will be tanked in the west corner of the room. If you take damage, especially a combination of things such as Blizzard plus Deadly Poison, do not hesitate to chuck away a Healthstone and a potion. It's all too easy to die, and if a few people do, it's likely going to be a wipe (even if it doesn't become apparent until much later).

Pulling with Imp

One warlock will be tasked with pulling by imp. Here's a handy macro:

#showtooltip [nopet:Imp]Summon Imp,Firebolt
/petattack [target=High Nethermancer Zerevor,pet:Imp]
/cast [nopet:Imp]Summon Imp
/stopmacro [nopet:Imp]
/rw >> IMP AWAY! <<

The procedure is as follows:

1. Park imp at the west corner of the platform. Make sure Firebolt is on auto-cast.
2. Go back and stand with the raid.
3. Misdirects will go up.
4. Imp Pull will be called, click the macro. No need to target Zerevor.

CoTing Lady Malande

CoT should be up on Lady Malande at all times, except when she's magic immune. One warlock can take care of this. An easy way to do this is to put her in your focus and use with the following macro:

/cast [target=focus]Curse of Tongues

Works best if you have an add-on that shows debuff timers on your focus, for example Quartz.

Main strategy thread
External strategy guide

Illidan Stormrage

Another favorite of mine. A great challenge, not in the least for the tanks, but with a very low randomness factor, meaning with practice the fight can be controlled and be very enjoyable!

Being a 5 phase fight, this encounter is obviously very complex. You want to get familiar with the basic strategy first (linked below). I'll go over the special warlock tasks only.

Cursing

Illidan can hit like a truck. CoW is good, especially during the enrages in phase 5 and at times where the tank gets Sheared. CoR is bad.

Eye Beam Early Warning

Because warlocks have Sense Demons, we are able to provide the Flame tanks with an early warning for incoming Eye Beam during phase 2. Here's how.

There are four different paths an Eye Beam can take. Two of them threaten the west Flame tank, while the two others threaten the east Flame tank. Prepare a set of four warning macros, and arrange them on your button bar in such a way that they form a square. The macros should look like this:

Upper left macro:

/w Atroz >> Beam inc NORTH <<<

Upper right macro:

/w Lorf >> Beam inc NORTH <<

Lower left macro:

/w Atroz >> Beam inc SOUTH <<

Lower right macro:

/w Lorf >> Beam inc SOUTH <<

Obviously, you'll want to replace the names of Atroz and Lorf with whoever is assigned to tank the Flames. In this example Atroz is the west tank, and Lorf is the east tank. Make sure you do not mix up east and west! Check with the tanks who's tanking which side.

Now for the warning part, it will go something like this:

1. At the start of P2, position yourself at your groups designated spot as per normal.
2. Set minimap zoom level to 2 clicks below max zoomed out.
3. Wait for Illidan to throw down his blades, spawning the Flames of Azzinoth.
4. Look closely on your minimap. You'll see Illidan fly off to one of four corners, around the center circle.
5. Click the button that corresponds to Illidan's location.
   

   Illidan NW → click upper left

   Illidan NE → click upper right

   Illidan SW → click lower left

   Illidan SE → click lower right

   This way you'll be able to tell the correct tank where the next beam on his side will land.

6. After every Eye Beam, Illidan will continue to hover at that location for a short while, throwing down Fireballs into the raid. After that, he will move to another corner.
7. As soon as you determine which corner will be next, click that button. Sometimes Illidan will cast Dark Barrage first, when he arrives at his new location, but an Eye Beam will always follow swiftly. So just click your macro as soon as he moves into a new corner. Note that Eye Beams never come from the same location twice in a row.
8. Rinse and repeat until phase 3!

Tanking Demon Form

One warlock will be tasked with tanking Illidan in phase 4, a.k.a. Demon Within. The checklist:

• Need capped Shadow Resistance (295 unbuffed, 365 buffed), a solid healthpool and, if possible, close to 200 Spell Hit Rating.
• Your position during phase 4 is to the north-east of the circular grate, at maximum range from Illidan. Make sure you get there before he transforms into a demon.
• Click off Salvation.
• Spam Searing Pain.
• Use Shadow Ward if and when your threat is at a safe level.

Killing Shadow Demons

Once during every phase 4, Illidan will summon a bunch of Shadow Demons. These need to be dealt with swiftly. Hunters and mages will slow them down. Warlocks will spam Seed of Corruption, ideally killing them all in one big blow.

The thing about killing Shadow Demons is it requires good timing. You'll want to start casting SoC about 2 seconds before they are summoned. BigWigs provides a very accurate timer to make this possible. Once they are summoned, tab-cycle through the demons, casting as many SoC as you can. With 3-4 warlocks casting SoC, this should take care of all of them. If one escapes the AoE, burn it down quickly, before it reaches its target.

The warlock tanking Demon Form will likely be standing too far away to cast SoC. Try to assist with Shadow Bolt instead. You should not leave your tanking spot.

Affliction locks with Curse of Exhaustion can help slow the demons down, but do make sure to cast a few SoC first. Use CoEx only if demons escape the initial AoE.

Main strategy thread
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