Xhul'horac nutshell guide
#1
Xhul’horac is a four-phase encounter:

Phase One lasts until the death of an add
Phase Two lasts until the death of another add
Phase Three lasts until 20% health
Phase Four lasts until the boss dies

Phase One
This phase lasts until the death of Van guard Akkelion, an add that spawns during the phase.

Xhul’horac’s Abilities in Phase One
Fel Strike:  anti-tank ability, massive fire damage.
Fel Surge:  Targets 3+ raid members, applies a 5-second DoT.  When it expires, leaves a patch of green flames (Chaotic Felblaze) which lasts to the end of the fight and gradually spawns more fires around it.  Players standing in it get a 15-sec fire DoT called Ablaze.

Adds
Shortly after the fight begins, Xhul’horac begins spawning a number of adds:
* Vanguard Akkelion:  lots of health, can be tanked.  When Akkelion takes damage, Xhul’horac takes the same damage.
Felblaze Flurry: anti-tank ability.  damage + 7-sec stacking debuff.  Requires a tank swap.
Chains of Fel:  Tethers a random number of raid members together (the more tethered, the more damage).  Chains broke by moving AWAY from each other.

* Wild Pyromaniacs: spawn in waves of 3-4 every 45 seconds.  Appear near the boss.  Can’t be tanked and do no melee damage.  They just spam Fel Orb:
Fel Orb:  Interruptible ability that these guys cast constantly.  Fires an orb in a random direction.  When the orb reaches a wall it leaves behind a patch of fire (Chaotic Felblaze)  Players can INTERCEPT the orbs, thus preventing the fire patch from spawning, but they receive the Ablaze fire debuff.

Strategy
* Kill Akkelion as quickly as possible.  Don’t worry about DPSing Xhul’horac.  
* The boss and Akkelion must be tanked through Phase One.  We'll tank them on the left side of the central circle.  A tank switch must be performed to deal with Felblaze Flurry — switch both the boss and Akkelion.  Tanks should rotate cooldowns for Xhul’horac's Fel Strike.
* Ranged stand between the boss and the edge of the room.
* When targeted by Fel Surge, drop the fire patches at the edge of the LEFT side of the room.
* Players tethered together must spread out as quickly as possible to break the chains.
* Interrupt the Wild Pyromaniac’s Fel Orb casts as mush as possible, then kill these adds as quickly as possible.  For the Orbs that go through, ranged raid members who don’t have the Ablaze debut should intercept them to precent the fire patches from spawning.

Phase Two
This phase lasts from the death of Akkelion until the death of Omnus.  This phase is VERY similar to Phase One

Xhul’horac’s Abilities in Phase Two
* Void Strike:  anti-tank ability
* Void Surge:  targets 3+ raid members, applies a 5-sec DoT.  When it expires, leaves a patch of Creeping Void, which lasts until the end of the fight and spreads.  Players standing in it acquire a 15-sec DoT called Wasting Void.
—> If a patch of Creeping Void TOUCHES a patch of Chaotic Felblaze from Phase One, an add called a Shadowfel Annihilation spawns.  This erases the two patches, and all the patches within 20 yards.  It ALSO does massive damage to players within 20 yards.
—> If a raid member debuffed with Wasting Void touches a patch of Chaotic Felblaze will ALSO trigger a Shadowfell Annihilation.  Note:  we can use this to our advantage by having a player with Wasting Void clear out fire patches.

Adds
* Omnus:  Lots of health, can be tanked, and when Omnus takes damage so does the boss.
Withering Gaze: anti-tank ability + 7 second stacking debuff.  Requires a tank swap.
Black Hole:  opens a portal near the middle of the room.  It does moderate damage to the entire raid and slowly drags all raid members towards it.  If any raid member enters the Black Hole, they unleash a Singularity.  Players can avoid being pulled in by running away from it.
—> A singularity deals a lethal amount of shadow damage evenly divided between all players standing within 11 yards of the middle of the Black Hole, and destroys the Black Hole.

* Wild Pyromaniacs continue to spawn like they do in Phase One.  Players who intercept the Fel Orbs still get Ablaze.  If they also get a Wasting Void debuff (from the Creeping Void zone) this will trigger a Shadowfel Annihilation.

* Unstable Voidfiends:  waves of 3-4 spawn every 45 seconds or so.  Can’t be tanked, no melee damage.  Instead, they spam the Volatile Voidstep ability.
Volatile Voidstep:  3.5 sec cast that teleports the add to the nearest raid member’s location, inflicting heavy shadow damage if that player doesn’t move in time, AND spawns a patch of Creeping Void at that location.  When the cast begins, a ground effect appears under the targeted player’s feet, which gives them time to move away.

Strategy
Very similar to Phase One:
* Ignore the boss, kill Omnus as quickly as possible.
* Tank swap to deal with Withering Gaze.
* Rotate defensive cooldowns for Void Strike.
* Tank the boss and Omnus at the right side of the central circle.
* Ranged stay in close formation around the boss.
* Players targeted by Void Surge drop their fire at the right edge of the room.  We don’t want the two kinds of fire to meet.
* Two assigned members should walk into the Black Hole to trigger the Singularity, split its damage, and get rid of the Black Hole.
* Interrupt the Wild Pyromaniacs’ Fel Orb casts.  Orbs that get through:  intercept those heading toward the raid.  Let the ones headed toward green fire go.
* Have an assigned raid member stand close to the Unstable Voidfiends to bait the Volatile Voidstep, move out of the ground effect, and kite the adds.  Ranged should kill the Voidfiends as a second-highest priority, after killing the Pyromaniacs.

Phase Three
This lasts until the boss reaches 20% health.  During this phase, we’ll fight the boss plus the Wild Pyromaniacs and the Unstable Voidfiends.

Abilities
Xhul’horac uses both Fel Surge / Void Surge and Fel Strike / Void Strike, alternating between them every cast.  These abilities are the same as their Phase One and Two Versions, with one difference:  IF a tank who is struck by Fel Strike, takes damage from Void Strike afterwards, and vice versa, then a Shadowfel Annihilation is triggered.  Therefore, Fel Strike and Void Strike are tank swap mechanics.

Strategy
Move the boss to the middle of the room.  Here, raid members have more room.

* Perform a tank swap so that only one tank is hit by Fel Strikes, while the other is hit only by Void Strikes.  This means taunting off one another whenever a strike of any kind lands.
* DPS priority: Get the adds down, then get the boss to 20% as quickly as possible.

* Place fire patches on those of the same type:  Place green ones on green, and purple ones on purple.

Phase Four
The boss retains his abilities from phase Three, and gains an additional ability, Overwhelming Chaos.  He uses this every 10 seconds.  Heavy raid-wide damage and increases his damage done by 20% each time it is cast.  This damage eventually becomes unhealable.  There are no more adds, but any adds that are still alive at 20% remain in the fight until killed.

Strategy
*  Intense DPS race.
*  Push the boss over 20% when few or no adds are alive to make this phase easier.  If any adds are still alive, kill the Wild Pyromaniacs first, then cleave down the Unstable   Voidfiends.  Kill the boss as quickly as possible, use cooldowns etc.
* Tanks must do the same things they did in phase three (one tank takes the Fel Strikes, while the other takes the Void Strikes).
* Stack up behind the boss to maximize healing.

Bloodlust & rings
We’ll use Bloodlust during Phase Four. 

Use legendary DPS rings on the Pyromaniacs and Voidfiends, but save one for Phase Four.  Use healer legendary rings as you like until Phase Four, then save it until damage becomes too high to keep up with in Phase Four.  Tanks use their rungs when alternating between taking the boss and the large adds during phase one and two.  In Phase Three and Four there are no more large adds, so the ring can be used as a DPS cooldown.
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#2
Here is the two-minute video guide to Xhul'horac by Line of Sight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlA2x7wVZpE
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#3
And here is a quick visual guide:
[Image: Ew2tFur.jpg]
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#4
Essentials.

This is a four-phase fight.  Xhul’horac starts with FIRE in phase one, then switches to SHADOW in Phase two, then switches rapidly between them in phase three, then enrages at 20% for the fourth phase.

During the fire phase, the boss causes players to drop fire patches.  During the shadow phase we drop shadow void zones.  Players who touch either one will get a fire or shadow 15-sec debut.  If you have a fire debuff and step in a shadow void zone, or vice versa, it will cause an explosion that damages everyone and cleared all fire/shadow patches within 20 yards, and spawns an add called a Shadowfel Annihilation. 

Now, the FIRE phase.

He uses Fel Strike against the tank, which is an anti-tank fire attack and debuff, and he casts Fel Surge on players which causes them to drop a fire patch after 5 seconds.  These fire patches last the whole fight and gradually spawn more patches nearby.

We’ll start with the boss on the LEFT side of the central circle of the room.  Drop your fire patches to the far left side of the room.

He’ll summon WILD PYROMANIACS.  These cast Fel Orbs which travel in a straight line.  If intercepted, they apply a stacking DoT.  If NOT intercepted, it leaves a fire patch at the edge of the room.  Interrupt the Fel Orb cast as much as possible.  If any Orbs get through, intercept them.  We don’t want them dropping fire patches!

He summons an add, Vanguard Akkelion.  This guy does increasing fire damage to its tank.  It also chains three players together.  Run away from each other to break the chains.  Damage done to Akkelion is copied to the boss —> can ignore the boss.

Interrupt and DPS the Pyromaniacs, intercept the orbs, run your fire to the edge, and DPS Akkelion after Pyromaniacs are down.

For the SHADOW phase, he has the same abilities but they do shadow damage this time.

We’ll drag the boss to the opposite side of the central circle, and will run our shadow void zones to the edge of THAT side of the room.  NOTE:  players with the Feltouched debuff can run to the GREEN side of the room to clear fire there.  Rogues are a good choice for this as they can cloak.

So, as in Phase One, he does a strike against the tank, but it’s shadow damage this time and called a Void Strike.

He’ll summon Unstable Voidfiend adds.  These target the NEAREST player and cast Volatile Voidstep (purple swirl at that player’s feet).  At the end of the cast the add TELEPORTS to the swirl location.  If the player is still standing in the purple swirl, it’ll spawn a void zone.  Players can kite these Voidfiends together so they can be killed.

He’ll also summon a big add called Omnus which does increasing shadow damage.  It also summons black holes that suck players in and do raid-wide damage.  Anyone who steps through will cause a huge 11-yard explosion with shared damage.  Players with damage-reduction cooldowns should step in this hole to close it.  Damage done to Omnus is copied to the boss.

For the switching phase, he’ll alternate between fire and shadow.  Tanks must swap every 7 seconds or so, so that one always takes Fel  Strike while the other takes Void Strike.  Fire and Void zones everywhere, be aware of surroundings and try to drop them safely.

He enrages at 20%.  Deals huge damage with Overwhelming Chaos every 10 seconds which does more damage each cast.  Blow cooldowns and get him down as fast as possible.
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