I've decided to write up a guide for all those guilds out there who are struggling with getting through phase 2 of the Kael'Thas Sunstrider encounter. This is obviously the phase where Kael summons the legendary weapons that you must defeat quickly before phase 3 pops.

This guide is going to explain an AoE strat on the weapons as well as what your single target DPS will be doing. I also assume you are at least familiar with how this phase works as I won't be explaining what weapons each class will loot. Please see the Bosskillers strategy if you must for that kind of info.

I'm also assuming that your raid isn't stupid and all DPS are bringing flasks + food buffs + any other consumables they can bring to help get Kael down.

I strongly suggest all casters go with Flask + Food Buff + Superior Wizard Oil for the fight.

Raid/Group Setup

I recommend bringing 3 mages and 3 warlocks to the fight. This covers your AoE requirement for the fight. Any extra AoE you bring will just make it even easier but it's definitely not required. We have done it fine with 3 mages and 2 locks with this strat several times. On a side note, we bring 7 healers to the fight.

It's also nice if you have at least 2 Shaman in the raid of which they are specialized in resto or elemental. The reason for this is that you will place these Shaman in the same group as your mages/warlocks for Wrath of Air totem. The extra damage is going to be a very nice advantage in getting the weapons down in time for phase 3.

Our two caster groups will look something like this:

Mage / Mage / Mage / Shadow Priest / Elemental or Resto Shaman
Warlock / Warlock / Warlock / Resto Shaman / Any other caster

One last thing regarding your caster group setup. You as the raid leader will kindly ask each of those AoE casters to equip a +damage trinket for the fight. Icon of the Silver Crescent will do nicely. When it's time to AoE the weapons, the combination of the Wrath of Air totem for each caster plus the trinket poppage will be nearly like having another caster in the raid for the next 20 seconds.

Strategy

Tank Assignments - I will go over our guild's setup but you can make it work easily with whatever classes you have.

1 Prot Tank is assigned to the Sword and the Shield (Warp Slicer + Phaseshift Bulwark). We use a Prot Pally for this job. This is our Phoenix tank for phase 4 and 5.

1 Prot Tank is assigned to the dagger (Infinity Blades). We use a warrior. This is our Kael tank.

1 Warrior in tank gear is assigned to the mace. (Cosmic Infuser). This is your Sanguinar tank for phase 3. I strongly suggest this warrior go prot to get your first couple of kills on Kael. After you master the fight, this warrior can be a DPS warrior but he must have very good tank gear at least for Sanguinar. Yes you need a warrior for this job. You need someone who can break fear reliably on Sanguinar.

1 Tank is assigned to the Axe (Devastation) which is obviously pulled to the back of the platform away from the other tanks. See the bosskillers strat if you're unfamiliar with exact positioning of this weapon. We use a Feral Druid for this job. This tank also picks up Telonicus in phase 3.

1 Hunter tanks the Bow. Assign 1 healer to ensure this hunter doesn't die.

Ok so that takes care of 6 out of 7 weapons. The only one left is the Staff.

THE STAFF IS THE WEAPON YOU WILL BE KILLING FIRST.

The staff is a source of confusion in the fight. Once you kill it, phase 2 is very easy from a control point of view. It's hard to tank because it frost novas everyone in place and then gains range + begins casting. Don't ever consider tanking this in the AoE group, you are asking for a ton of headaches. Phase 2 also becomes super easy to heal through after the staff dies. Granted you will be healing through the multi-shot at times from the bow but it's much better than trying to heal through Multi-Shot + AoE from Staff + Random frost bolts from the staff. We have had bad luck in the past doing phase 2 a different way with a clothie dying from Multi-Shot + Frost bolt at the same second.

Don't argue with me, kill the staff first :)

If you have a DPS warrior in the raid then great, he can tank the Staff. He will be in full DPS gear. He doesn't even need to wear a shield. You will kill the Staff so fast that it will only perform a couple of melee strikes in total. Our WWS report shows the Staff melees on average for 1948 on our DPS warrior in full DPS gear without a shield. Our last kill it got 4 melee strikes off on our DPS warrior and not a single frost nova or frost bolt. A rogue could easily evasion tank if needed. Hell, even an enhancement Shaman could tank it.

The Pull / Kill Order

As you are killing Telonicus in phase 1, ensure you stop DPS at 15%. Have a Paladin put up Judgement of Wisdom on him and have your casters wand back their mana until he reaches 5%. Stop all DPS and ensure that no tank has Remote Toy before you proceed into phase 2.

Ok, so you have your tank assignments out. Great! Phase 2 is about to pop, everyone knows what they are tanking. Tanks can even make /target macros for the weapons they are tanking to ensure they can acquire their targets very fast. It's definitely a huge help while you are learning the fight.

Follow these easy steps for phase 2 domination.

1. Kill the Staff first.

ALL DPS IS ON THE STAFF ALL OUT.

Use a Shadow Priest silence on the staff or simply any kind of interrupt when making the pull. If you have a DPS warrior, ask him to go defensive stance and taunt it so it may be dragged slightly closer to the raid. Otherwise, keep the Staff to the left of the other weapons just like where it is when it initially spawns. Once the Staff is in potition for the kill, stun the crap out of it while you kill it. It will drop very fast. Assign one warlock to put up Curse of Shadows on all of the other weapons except the Bow (it will teleport around likely not taking AoE damage) while the raid is killing the Staff.

Remember you don't want the Cosmic Infuser to heal so ask your resto/elemental Shaman to put up a focus frame for it while they the raid is killing the Staff. The warrior on the Cosmic Infuser plus two shaman for rank 1 earth shocks is more than enough interrupts to ensure it doesn't heal ever while your melee DPS is helping take out the Staff. It will likely only try to heal once if at all while you are killing the Staff.

2. Staff is Dead. All casters loot the staff. LOOT IT FAST, DON'T SCREW AROUND!!! The Dagger, Sword, Shield, Mace should all be piled on top of each other for AoE at this point. Tanks, remember to take 2 steps away from each other when your weapons are about to die. It makes looting them much easier. I said 2 steps, not 10!!! :)

3. All melee DPS switch to the Cosmic Infuser once the Staff dies. Do not stun the Cosmic Infuser when it is less than 20% health. The tank will need to drag it slightly backwards to make it easier to loot. He can't drag it back if it's stunned.

4. Casters listen up. The Staff is dead, you have just looted it right? The Shaman in your group have Wrath of Air Totem down too right? Make sure! One of the casters should call in vent, "AoE Begin". When this is called, all casters pop their trinkets, Shaman pop Bloodlust for your casters, and away you go on AoE. Mages will be using Arcane Explosion and Warlocks will be using Seed of Corruption. This will take advantage of the Curse of Shadows that your assigned warlock so kindly put up on the weapons. Hopefully the warlock that put up those curses had 3 points in Malediction as well. It's a scaling debuff which really does alot of damage to these weapons especially when your casters are just absolutely going to town with alot of extra +damage provided by Wrath of Air Totem + Trinkets being popped. It's made of win and you will see for yourself!!!!!!!! All Shaman in the raid, please pop your Fire Elemental totems here as well. The extra AoE damage they provide is just gravy. If your Fire Elemental totem is on cooldown, all Shaman should drop a magma totem instead.

A small note for the warlocks. Please drop DoTs on Devastation before starting AoE. Warlocks renew your DoTs on Devastation when they expire. You should have some kind of mod to show you when your DoTs are about to expire. Don't be a nubcake warlock.

Oh... and yes your raid will use Bloodlust for phase 2. If you can go into phase 3 with lots of control, it's much easier. All weapons dead + Time to loot weapons = Control = Win on Phase 3.

4. All classes who can be considered ranged single target DPS will kill weapons in this order.

Staff->Bow->Axe.

So.... all hunters, shadow priests, elemental Shaman will switch focus to the Bow after the staff is dead. Switch to the Bow fast. Don't be slow at acquiring targets. Having at least 4 ranged single target DPS on the Bow will be enough to bring it down and still have time to get on the Axe. After that Bow dies, target Devastation QUICKLY! Like I said already, don't be slow at acquiring targets. You cannot afford to be slow!

5. So at this point you have the Staff, Bow, Cosmic Infuser dead. The Sword and the Dagger will die to the AoE easily shortly after. You now have 5/7 weapons dead as phase 2 is winding down. Devastation should be focussed on by all ranged DPS for the remainder of the phase while melee DPS finishes off the shield. Make sure melee DPS is hitting the shield from behind. It will do damage to you if you strike it from the front.

(Continued....)

Even if you have the Axe and Shield at 30% going into phase 3 you are still in good shape. But you should have them to 10% or less with some practice. They should both be dying literally seconds after phase 3 pops. Once you master this strat, you will have all of the weapons dead easily before phase 3 starts.

I won't go into phase 3 setup/assignments since this post is long enough.

If there is enough demand for it, I can post it.

On a final note, we tried several... and I mean several ways of doing this phase. This strategy worked so much better for us than any of the others. The key is killing the Staff first.

Good luck, I hope this helps someone out there!!!

We kill the bow first and on most attempts can get all weapons down before phase 3 now.

Is it really that big of a hurdle, one phase for most guilds?

Phase 4 is the phase my guild struggled most in.

A fixed strategy is moot on kael and vashj. the most difficult thing for guilds is finding out what strategy will work for them. we spent 80% of our kael and vashj attempts finding a strat that works, and we killed them both in two days after that.

We kill the bow first, then bring the staff into the aoe with everything else.

It works fine. One thing to keep in mind is the weapons only last a certain amount of time, so by killing the staff first you leave your raid more open to Disorients at low %s, which can lead to some discouraging wipes.

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Q u o t e:
We kill the bow first, then bring the staff into the aoe with everything else.

It works fine. One thing to keep in mind is the weapons only last a certain amount of time, so by killing the staff first you leave your raid more open to Disorients at low %s, which can lead to some discouraging wipes.

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I disagree strongly with this.

This has never happened to us nor should it be happening to you.

Prescribing to not kill the most dangerous weapon first because your guild stinks at DPS for phase 5 is terrible advice.

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Q u o t e:


I disagree strongly with this.

This has never happened to us nor should it be happening to you.

Prescribing to not kill the most dangerous weapon first because your guild stinks at DPS for phase 5 is terrible advice.

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C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER

I don't understand how you're actually losing the weapon due to time in phase 5 but NOT losing the fight much earlier? The DPS needed to get him through 4 & 5 before weapons despawn should be much less than the DPS needed to get the weapons killed before the advisors spawn anyway, right?

weird.

Killing the bow first is absolutely not optimal. We used to do it. If it works for your guild, then great... but it's still not optimal. We've killed him by killing the bow first as well, it's not nearly as good as the staff going down first.

The AoE greatly benefits from the Staff plus removing the headache factor makes it easier to repeat time and time again.

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Q u o t e:


I disagree strongly with this.

This has never happened to us nor should it be happening to you.

Prescribing to not kill the most dangerous weapon first because your guild stinks at DPS for phase 5 is terrible advice.

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We single target bow, then AOE the rest. Everything is dead with about 5-15 seconds to spare to set up for phase 3. This is on our first night of attempting Kael'thas.

Tailor a strategy for you guild, not the other way around.

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Q u o t e:
Killing the bow first is absolutely not optimal. We used to do it. If it works for your guild, then great... but it's still not optimal. We've killed him by killing the bow first as well, it's not nearly as good as the staff going down first.

The AoE greatly benefits from the Staff plus removing the headache factor makes it easier to repeat time and time again.

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And I strongly disagree with this. Looting is not for sure, I've had plenty of times where picking up my mace is a giant pain in the ass because of one person on it, or a totem, or just it died in a bad spot.

We do not loot during Phase two, until all weapons are dead. With a Bow --> Aoe strategy, you leave melee on the mace then staff and we kill all weapons before phase 3.

Killing the bow may not be optimal for YOUR guild, but it is for ours, and it is for plenty of other guilds.

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Q u o t e:
Killing the bow first is absolutely not optimal. We used to do it. If it works for your guild, then great... but it's still not optimal. We've killed him by killing the bow first as well, it's not nearly as good as the staff going down first.

The AoE greatly benefits from the Staff plus removing the headache factor makes it easier to repeat time and time again.

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the 100+ spell damage isnt a "great benefit" when your aoes get little to none of your spell damage.

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Q u o t e:


I disagree strongly with this.

This has never happened to us nor should it be happening to you.

Prescribing to not kill the most dangerous weapon first because your guild stinks at DPS for phase 5 is terrible advice.

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Does it happen to us now? No. Could it happen to a slightly undergeared guild first trying Kael? Easily - it's one of the easiest ways to get a low % wipe.

Would it be optimal for us to switch? Maybe... but we generally don't try to fix something that isn't broken. We basically down him 100% if we don't have an idiot factor, so why change?

when my guild was having trouble, we would bring in 5 warlocks and 4 or 5 mages....suffice to say phase 2 didnt last very long.

Everyone was in position by phase 3 and things went very smoothly.

Disclaimer: This strat won't work for every guild. Take what he says with a grain of salt. We do our Kael kills entirely different in terms of who tanks what, who dps's what, and when.

And guess what OP? We kill him too!

Definiely not trying to say this is the only way it can be done guys.

No need for negativity surrounding that.

It's just meant to try to help some new guilds on Kael phase 2 with what I believe is a somewhat optimal strat in terms of DPS efficiency.

You can definitely skin this cat more than one way.

This strat should help a guild who has the AoE for the weapons and is perhaps feeling they may be slightly undergeared for the fight. The staff dying first is money in the bank. The bow dying first doesn't help your AoE damage and is definitely not optimal.

Sure, if you've been killing the bow first and have no issues getting through the rest of the weapons, there is no need to change. I can appreciate that.

If there is one guild that this post can help, then I'm glad I did it.

Cheers.

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Q u o t e:
Definiely not trying to say this is the only way it can be done guys.

No need for negativity surrounding that.

It's just meant to try to help some new guilds on Kael phase 2 with what I believe is a somewhat optimal strat in terms of DPS efficiency.

You can definitely skin this cat more than one way.

This strat should help a guild who has the AoE for the weapons and is perhaps feeling they may be slightly undergeared for the fight. The staff dying first is money in the bank. The bow dying first doesn't help your AoE damage and is definitely not optimal.

Sure, if you've been killing the bow first and have no issues getting through the rest of the weapons, there is no need to change. I can appreciate that.

If there is one guild that this post can help, then I'm glad I did it.

Cheers.

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Optimal depends entirely on a guild's strengths and weaknesses. If they try to use a strat that brings out their weaknesses, then it's going to be tough.

This strat obviously worked well for your guild and might work well for similar guilds, but it's by no means the only optimal strat. In fact, it may very well be a suboptimal strat for many guilds.

As the OP clearly says, there are alot of different ways to do this, and no way is perfect. A guide like this can definitely be helpful for a new guild just starting Kael, I don't think he should be begrudged for obviously spending alot of time writing this up.

That being said, while this may be the best way to go from a control and incoming-damage sense, I don't think killing the staff first like you propose is really the optimal way to get the most DPS out of all your characters. Killing the bow first does get you more damage, in most strategies.

Keep in mind no matter what you do, you need to dps down a finite amount of HP from each weapon, and therefore a finite total amount of damage for phase 2 (its approximately 1,725,000 HP for all weapons together). Also, other than the bow, which will teleport away, every other weapon can be AOE'd. It might increase your raid's incoming damage somewhat, but I think we can all agree that AOE'ing them is possible, even if some would argue not optimal.

So, lets assume a mage is casting arcane explosion to AOE. Every time he casts it hits a mob for 1000 dmg (no idea if that's accurate, nice round number). So if he is AOE'ing 4 things in your example (shield, dagger, sword, mace), every cast of his AOE puts out 4000 damage. If we change and have the AOE hit the staff and the Axe (very possible w/ careful positioning), every cast of his AOE puts out 6000 damage, cause it is hitting 6 targets. (I understand this doesn't keep working as numbers of mobs get higher, and there is a cap on AOE dmg, but it doesn't come into play here)

If you have your AOE'ers spend time burning the staff first, you are wasting that 1000 damage from every arcane explosion. The staff is going to die anyway from the AOE. The 15 or 20 seconds your single target guys spent burning the staff could have been better spent on the bow...it will not get hit by AOE, and its 210K HP needs to go down somehow eventually.

My guild has not even killed Kael yet, but we rarely have any issue on phase 2, and the staff damage is never an issue (I think the holy nova from the mace does more damage anyway than the frost nova). If we switched to single target burning the staff, we'd basically just be throwing away the Damage we get from every AOE spell that hits the staff. By having our single target guys burn the bow first, and letting AOE kill the staff, your squeezing an extra amount of damage out of your raid's abilities.

Again, if your stage 2 problem is the staff killing people, I suppose this is a way around it, although ultimately tanking it w/ an enh shaman or having a rogue go on it from the start is probably still more optimal. Single target burning the staff (~175k HP) is basically a wasting 175k damage that could be applied elsewhere.