High Council Nutshell Guide
#1
The High Council is (surprise!) a council-style fight.  There are three bosses: Gurtogg Bloodboil, Blademaster Jubei’thos, and Dia Darkwhisper.  They don’t share health and all three are active at the same time.  It’s a one-phase fight, but each boss gains a new ability when it reaches 30% health.  There is no penalty for killing one boss way before the others, but certain kill orders are more difficult than others.

Blademaster Jubei’thos Abilities

* Fel Blade: hurls a green blade at the raid, injuring everyone it touches.  He indicates the direction he’ll throw the blade with a yellow arrow on the ground.
* Felstorm:  Raid-wide damaging spell.  The boss spins around, dealing damage to all player for 8 seconds.
* Windwalk:  Mirror-image spell.  The boss fades out and summons a bunch of mirror images that cast the same spells he does.  The mirror images can’t be tanked, but they can be killed.  Any damage done to the mirror images is ALSO done to the boss.  The boss re-appears once all the mirror images have been killed, or after 45 seconds.  If the boss reappears at 45 seconds and mirror images are still up, the mirror images will disappear.

* AT 30% HEALTH he’ll start casting Wicked Strike, an attack that hits a random half of the raid.  Once the boss is killed, he’ll CONTINUE using Wicked Strike on single players until the encounter is over.  The damage gets progressively worse (even after he’s been defeated).

Gurtogg Bloodboil  Abilities

* Bloodboil:  damages the 5 FURTHEST players from the boss.
* Acidic Wound:  Stacking debuff on tank.  Stacks up to 60 times and lasts 30 seconds.  This ability requires a tank switch, though the stacks will most likely drop off when Gurtogg uses Fel Rage.
* Fel Rage:  Fixates on a random raid member for 25 seconds.  While fixated, the player’s max health is increased and their damage taken is reduced.  Any attacks Gurtogg makes on the target cause his attack speed to increase by 10% per stack.  This fades when the fixate ends.
* Demolishing Leap:  Large, orange void zones in random parts of the room.  Damage inflicted decreases with distance.
* AT 30% HEALTH he’ll start using Tainged Blood.  This reduces max health of raid members by 10%.  The effect stacks until Gurtogg dies, and lasts until the encounter is over.

Dia Darkwhisper Abilities

* Void Bolt:  Anti-tank attack
* Void Haze:  Passive ability that makes the other two bosses IMMUNE to damage if they stand within 25 yards of Dia.
* Nightmare Visage: Buffs her melee attacks
* Mark of the Necromancer:  Shadow damage DoT.  Lasts indefinitely, and damage increases the longer it’s active, but it can be dispelled.  When dispelled, the whole raid takes moderate damage and the Mark JUMPS to the TWO closest allies, with its damage being reset to its initial value.
* Reap:  used against targets afflicted by Mark of the Necromancer.  It removes the Mark and places a large void zone beneath them.  These void zones last indefinitely.
* Wailing Horror:  For 30 seconds the room will be mostly covered in shadow that deals high damage to everyone standing in it.  There are a few safe spots in the room, though.  Soon after this ability is cast, Wailing Horrors (unattackable NPCs) will fly over the middle of the room, inflicting high shadow damage to everyone in their path.  It’s easy to make out where they will go based on how they are facing.
* AT 30% HEALTH she’ll apply Mark of the Necromancer to a random half of the raid.  And at 30% she will no longer use Reap.  She will continue to cast Mark of the Necromancer after she dies, until the encounter is over.  

GENERAL STRATEGY

* Bring all the bosses close to 30% health before taking any of them below that point.
* Don’t allow more than one boss to be below 30% at the same time.
* Use DPS cooldowns optimally, but save them if a boss is about to go below 30% health.  Additionally, DPS cooldowns should be available for when Dia drops below 30%.


RECOMMENDED KILL ORDER

(1) Gurtogg Bloodboil
(2) Blademaster Jubei’thos
(3) Dia Darkwhisper

This is the recommended kill order because Gurtogg’s 30% ability does not worsen after he is defeated, so he should go first.  The Blademaster’s 30% ability DOES get worse even after he has been defeated.  Dia Darkwhisper goes last because her sub-30% ability is the most powerful as she keeps casting Mark of the Necromancer after she is defeated.  The combination of her marks and the Tainted Blood debuff will be very intense.


TANKING CONCERNS

* Dia Darkwhisper must be tanked 25 yards away from te other two bosses.  Location is not important.
* Acidic Wound, the stacking anti-tank debuff, will drop off on its own while Gurtogg is using his fixate, Fel Rage.  If it’s still up when the fixate is over, the tank should kite him for a little while to allow the stacks to expire.  If the tank can’t remove the stacks, tanks should swap.
* Nightmare Visage deals high damage to Dia’s tank, so the tank s should use a defensive cooldown.


GURTOGG BLOODBOIL STRATEGY

* Have five high-resilience players stand furthest away from Gurtogg, as he attacks the 5 furthest with Bloodboil.
* When fixated with Fel Rage, players should stand still and TANK Gurtogg.  This is better than kiting him since he’s pretty fast and the damage he does is low enough that it doesn’t justify the positioning problems incurred by moving him.  Note, though that the damage done to the fixated player increases over time until it gets very high.  Ad that point, defensive and external cooldowns may be needed to keep the player alive.
* Raid should move as a single unit to minimize damage taken from the void zones of Demolishing leap.
* Sub-30% health:  He’ll put Tainted Blood on half the raid, reducing the max health of all players by 10%, and it stacks.  


BLADEMASTER JUBEI’THOS STRATEGY

* Dodge Fel Blade.  Spreading out slightly help.
* Heal through Felstorm.
* During Windwalk, ranged players must switch to the mirror images to kill them as quickly as possible.
* Sub 30% health:  He’ll cast Wicked Strike, an ability that damages half the raid.  This must be healed through.  It will get progressively worse as the phase goes on.  Once he is defeated he’ll keep casting it on random individual raid members.


DIA DARKWHISPER STRATEGY

* Mark of the Necromancer and Reap:  Mark of the Necromancer has to be dispelled every now and then, because it increases in damage over time, even though dispelling it will cause it to jump to two new people.  It’s damage will be reset by the jump. Dia’s Reap ability removes Mark of the Necromancer from affected targets.  Therefore, dispellers should DISPELL the Mark shortly before Reap.  This will cause it to jump to a bunch of new players and be removed by Reap.  Raid members should move to the edges of the room to drop their void zones.

* During Wailing Horror, raid members should move to safe areas of the ground.  These safe areas are in two lines that form a cross.  Raid members must also avoid being in the path of the Wailing Horrors.

* Sub-30% ability:  She’ll cast Mark on half of the raid.  As it is no longer removed by Reap, it becomes a shadow damage DoT that must be healed through until the damage becomes very high, at which point it must be dispelled.  Dispelling it will basically cause it to jump to the entire raid, at which point healers should use healing cooldowns.  We’ll ALSO be dealing with Gurtogg’s max health reduction at the same time, so damage will eventually become unmanageable.  Kill Dia as quickly as possible before damage gets out of hand.

BLOODLUST

When Dia reaches 30% health.


IMPORTANT NOTES FOR SUCCESS

* Place the void zones from Reap at the edges of the room.
* Finish the Windwalk phase as quickly as possible, by killing the mirror images.
* Don’t die to positional mistakes during Wailing Horror


SUMMARY

Tanks

* Tank Dia 25 yards from the other two.
* The stacking anti-tank debuff, Acidic Wounds, should not be a problem as it will drop off naturally when Gurtogg fixates a player.  If it does become a problem, perform a tank swap.

Healers


* If Mark of the Necromancer becomes too strong, dispel it to save players from dying.  Be conservative with dispels, though, to avoid being overrun with debuffs.
* Use healing cooldowns for Windwalk (mirror-image ability)

DPS

* Bring all three bosses close to 30% before taking any of them below 30%.
* Kill order:  Gurtogg, Jubei’thos, Dia.
* Don’t let more than one boss be below 30% at the same time.
* Save cooldowns for when the bosses are below 30%.
* Kill the mirror images as quickly as possible.

Everyone

* When Dia casts Reap, players debuffed with the Mark of the Necromancer must move to the edge of the room.
* Avoid the paths of Dia’s Wailing Horrors
* Avoid the Fel blades thrown by Jubei’thos and his mirror images.
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#2
TL;DR version (Thanks, Kretol!)

We fight three bosses at once.  They don't share health.  At 30% each one gains a new ability, a version of which persists after each boss' defeat.  So we take all three bosses to low-40% health, then take them below 30% and kill them one by one.

Tanks:
* tank Dia Darkwhisper away from the other 2 bosses (because she'll make them immune to damage.)
* Tank the other two together.
* High tank damage with Nightmare Visage.
* Gurtogg's tank will get stacks of Acidic Wound, but no need to swap as it will drop off when he fixates.

Healers:
* Dia Dots players with Mark of the Necromancer.  Its damage increases over time (color changes: purple indicates weak damage, yellow moderate, red high).  When dispelled, it jumps to two players and damage is reset.  Healers dispel it at red.

Everyone:
* Dia does a long cast called REAP which removes all the Mark of the Necromancer DoTs AND drops a void zone.  Dotted players must move to the edge to drop their void zones.

* For 15 seconds room will go dark and purple while Dia does raid-wide damage and summons ghostly adds called Wailing Horrors that spawn at the outer edge of the room and rush toward the middle.  Find a safe spot to stand, use cooldowns, avoid the path of the Wailing Horrors.  The horrors are unattackable.

* Have five high-resilience players stand furthest from Gurtogg as he attacks the five furthest people.

* Gurtogg will fixate on a player (Fel Rage).  Player can either tank Gurtogg or kite him away from the tank to allow tank's stacks to fall off.

* Gurtogg will Demolishing Leap to a location, lots of raid-wide damage on impact.  Damage decreases with distance.

* Jubei does an occasional whirlwind-type attack.

* Jubei throws a Fel Blade (damage + knockback) to players in its path.  Direction indicated by green arrow, get out of path.

* Jubei will disappear and spawn 8 mirror images.  He'll reappear 45 seconds later or when all images are dead.  Images are weaker versions of him.  Ranged should kill these as quickly as possible.

PUSH ONE BOSS AT A TIME TO 30% AND KILL IT

* Gurtogg's 30% ability is Tainted Blood on all players.  Lowers max health by 10% per stack.  After he dies, players will still have their stack.  Aim to have three or fewer stacks.

* Jubei's 30% ability is Wicked Strike every 8 seconds.  Summons an image of himself behind half the players and deals damage.  Damage increases 5% each time.  The strike continues on individual players even after he is dead.

* At 30% Dia casts Reap to remove all existing DoTs, then will immediately give half the raid fresh DoTs.  Eventually everyone will have one.  Healers should dispel on CD because the new, low-damage Mark will overwrite the old high-damage ones.  The DoTs persist until all bosses are dead.
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