Ko'ragh Nutshell Guide

[Zlinka]

If we kill Tectus and the Twin Ogron, we'll get to this guy.

OVERVIEW

Ko’ragh is a single-phase fight during which we’ll face Ko’ragh and one type of adds. The fight revolves around the fact that Ko’ragh has a MAGIC DAMAGE ABSORPTION SHIELD on himself. This shield absorbs a large amount of magic damage, and when it is depleted, Ko’ragh goes to the center of the room and spends 20 seconds recharging his shield. At this time, a raid member can join Ko’ragh at the center of the room and gain a massive damage absorption shield of their own. This is required to complete the fight, since one of Ko’ragh’s abilities causes several magic balls to fall slowly toward the floor. These balls deal high raid damage if they hit the floor, or lethal damage to anyone who intercepts them, EXCEPT if the intercepting player has a damage shield on. So part of the fight’s strategy involves getting some players shielded so that they can go around intercepting the falling balls.

ABILITIES

* Nullification Barrier: this is Ko’ragh’s magic absorption shield. It absorbs a massive amount of damage. It just needs to be DPS’d through. Important elements of this barrier:
—> Breaker’s Strength: self-buff that Ko’ragh stacks on himself while the barrier is active. It increases his damage every 10 seconds. When the barrier is removed this self-buff is also removed.
—> As soon as the barrier is removed, he moves to the center of the room (and Volatile Anomalies begin to spawn, see below). A rune appears on the floor and Ko’ragh spends 20 seconds on the rune recharging his barrier. THE FIRST RAID MEMBER to enter the rune receives a buff called Caustic Energy.
—> Caustic Energy deals a moderate amount of unavoidable damage to its target every second, and causes them to receive 35% less healing. It disappears as soon as the the player exits the rune. When Ko’ragh is done recharging his barrier, the player affected by Caustic Energy ALSO receives a Nullification Barrier, the size of which is proportional to the amount of time spent in the rune. The maximum size is 15 million damage. The barrier lasts a long time so it’s possible for one player to still have one when the second one becomes available. The barrier cannot be refreshed.

* Overflowing Energy: these are the energy balls that slowly fall from the ceiling to the ground. When it reaches the ground it explodes, dealing a high amount of Arcane damage to all raid members. If it is intercepted (e.g. a player is standing under it), it kills that player instead and does not damage the raid. This Arcane damage cannot be reduced and it bypasses all immunities.

* Suppression Field: Charges a random player’s location (he seems to prefer ranged) and does high damage in an 8-yard radius. This leaves a void zone that damages and silences players who stand in it. This silence effect ALSO affects the Volatile Anomaly adds.

Then he has four “Expel Magic” abilities:

* Expel Magic: Fire: 10-second Fire DoT on all raid members that explodes when it expires, damaging all within 5 yards.

* Expel Magic: Arcane: anti-tank ability. Places a debuff on the tank, causing them to mark their location every half second for 10 seconds. 1.5 seconds after a location is marked, it explodes, dealing high damage in a 5-yard radius. When active, the debuff also causes the tank to take 100% increased physical damage. This requires a tank switch.

* Expel Magic: Frost: Creates a Frost Orb that moves slowly around the room. When the orb spawns it does raid-wide damage. It persists for 20 seconds, and it slows the movement speed of all players within 30 yards by up to 85%. The slowing effect weakens with distance from the orb.

* Expel Magic: Shadow: Places a debuff on all raid members that absorbs healing.


VOLATILE ANOMALIES

When Ko’grah is in the center of the room, Volatile Anomalies spawn. These only do melee damage, but when they die, they do raid-wide damage UNLESS they die in a Suppression Field void zone.

Ko’grah doesn’t need to be tanked during this time, so the tanks can focus on picking up the adds and moving them toward one of the Suppression Field void zones.

During this time, DPS should focus on DPSing the adds, but only kill them off when they’re inside a void zone. It’s not terrible if they die outside the void zone, but this will place unnecessary strain on the healers.

The anomalies spawn in three waves, spaced about 8 seconds apart, so picking them all up together is difficult. One strategy is to have the raid DPS Ko’ragh while the tanks pick up all 9 anomalies, then have DPS players switch to them.


STRATEGY

* Tank swap: Tanks should swap whenever Ko’ragh affects his tank with Expel Magic: Arcane. The affected tank should run out of the raid to avoid damaging anyone with the explosion.

* Avoid the Charge: Avoid the Suppression Field charge (he’ll face his target for the duration of his cast bar, before charging). Don’t stand in the void zones.

* Designate a rotation of ranged raid members to gain the Nullification Barrier and intercept the magic balls. The #magic balls increases through the fight so we’ll need more players to soak them. Note: it is not possible to intercept ALL the falling balls, but the damage from those that get through should be manageable.

* Tanks should pick up the Volatile Anomaly adds and have them die inside the Suppression Field void zones.

* Expel Magic: Fire (10-sec Fire DoT that explodes when it expires): everyone spread out at least 5 yards apart (including melee). Lots of splash damage here.

* Expel Magic: Frost (Slowing orb): get away from the orb. There’s a graphic effect that shows where it will spawn.

* Expel Magic: Shadow (Healing absorption debuff): use healing cooldowns to heal the raid up through the healing absorption.


SUMMARY

Tanks
* Perform a tank swap when the tank is targeted by Expel Magic: Arcane. The affected tank should run out.
* Pick up the Volatile Anomalies and drag them to a void zone as they are about to die.

Healers
* Watch for when Volatile Anomalies are about to die
* Watch for when Expel Magic: Fire is about to expire (10-sec Fire DoT that explodes when it expires)
* Pay attention to the player who is gaining the barrier
* Use cooldowns to heal the raid up quickly when they are affected by Expel Magic: Shadow (healing absorption debuff)

DPS
* If assigned to do so, pick up a Nullification barrier and intercept falling balls.
* DPS the Volatile Anomalies, but only kill them when they are in a void zone.

Everyone
* Don’t stand in the void zones
* Spread out at least 5 yards when Expel Magic: Fire (Fire DoT that explodes when it expires) is about to expire.
* Stay away from the Frost orb

[Zlinka]

I've done more research on this fight, and here are some tips and strategy ideas to consider:

(1) Positioning

Idea #1" "Stack up strategy:" This strategy is designed to help he healers and control where the void zones spawn. Have all the ranged stack up. Ko'ragh will drop the suppression fields on them. Ranged can move as a group out of the field. The next one can be dropped so that it overlaps the first.

So he'll turn, charge a ranged member (should just be a couple steps), drop the field on someone in the ranged group, ranged and melee step right out of the field, and we settle back in to DPS.

Stacking like this helps the healers, and ranged can help manage suppression field placement by dropping them so they're slightly overlapping.

We'd just need to spread out for the fire debuff, then stack back up again. We don't want the boss running all over the room.

Idea #2: "Ko'ragh in center strategy:" This is designed to maximize DPS time on the boss. Ko'ragh is held in the center, and melee forms a circle around him, ranged forms a curve around the outer circle. Ko'ragh will charge one of those ranged, going from the middle to the outer circle, just a few steps. Melee loses only 1-2 seconds on the boss.

When his shield is at 5-10%, drag him out of the center. He'll run to the middle to recharging his shield. The tanks gather the adds while DPS hammers on the boss who's recharging, and the healers keep the soaker up. Once Ko'ragh is out of his charge circle, the add-tanks drag the adds to a void zone and DPS kills them in one go. Then back on the boss.

(2) Handling the adds

Very important: have the DPS use misdirects, tricks, snares, stuns, slows and roots as much as possible. DPS really needs to help with add control here, getting the adds on to the tanks, slowing or stopping them, and killing them.

Note: Casters can do extra damage to Ko'ragh while he's charging his shield, which is during the add phase, so it may work best for casters to hit the boss while the other DPS manages and kills the adds, and casters can help with stragglers. We will need to balance damage on the adds with damage on the boss here.

Positioning idea: Can have ranged can stack up behind the tank, so the adds will move toward the group and it's easier for the tank to pick them up. DPS will still need to focus on add control but most of them should be moving in one direction this way.

Add control idea: have DPS warriors go Gladiator and glyph Mocking Banner so the adds go to the tank. However, Mocking Banner has a 3 minute cooldown so won't be available all the time.


(3) Handling the orbs

The first person to pick up a shield should try to stay in the nullification barrier as long as possible. That player will take damage and inbound healing will be reduced due to the debuff, so healers need to be on the ball here. This shield should last the player the rest of the fight.

Only the first person really needs to be in the nullification barrier the whole time. With each new charge phase players picking up a shield can be in there less and less. So if the healers are having trouble keeping later soakers up, the soaker can step out, get healed to full (health should spike to 100 with all the heals being poured on) and step back in, with minimal loss of barrier size.

Note: The encounter is designed so that there will be ONE more orb dropping than we have players to absorb them. This is normal and should be healable. If we have more than one extra orb dropping then we're behind on DPSing the shield, which means we need to pour on more magic damage.

Ideally, we should be getting him down around the 3rd or 4th recharge phase.

(4) Raid setup

We need both magic and physical DPS for Ko'ragh. Magic to wear down the shield, which means more nullification barriers for players, which reduces overall raid damage. Physical DPS to damage the boss himself.