The Ironsong Tribe

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Nutshell guide: Sha of Pride

This is the fourth boss in the Siege of Orgrimmar, and the last boss before we reach the gates of Orgrimmar. This is a creative, intense fight. Raid members will have to carefully manage a fight-specific resource called Pride, and the fight has a brutal end in which we must race to kill the boss before it is too late.

This is a single-phase fight, though once the boss reaches 30% we enter a very intense DPS burn phase which is almost its own phase.

All players have a Pride resource bar during this fight. Players start with 0 Pride, and certain abilities in the encounter, some avoidable and some unavoidable, will grant players Pride.

The only way to remove Pride is to get the boss to 30%, at which point Pride is reset to zero (and starts to grow again, this time unavoidably).

Pride does no damage to a player in and of itself, but every 60 seconds the boss uses an ability called Swelling Pride, which does damage AND does negative things to players based on how much Pride they have. The more Pride a player has, the more harmful the effects of Swelling Pride will be.

Players who reach maximum Pride of 100 become mind controlled when Swelling Pride is cast -- this outcome must be avoided at all costs.

When the Sha of Pride reaches 30% health, everyone's Pride is reset to 0, and the boss begins dealing constant raid-wide damage. After this time, everyone unavoidably gains 5 Pride every 10 seconds, meaning that we have limited time to defeat the boss before becoming mind controlled.

Players who have 100 Pride receive a buff, called Overcome, which increases their healing and damage done by 50%, UNTIL the next Swelling Pride hits, at which point they become permanently mind controlled.


Sha of Pride Abilities

The Sha of Pride is stationary in the center of the room, and uses Reaching Attack to deal damage to the entire raid if nobody is in melee range.

* Wounded Pride: debuff applied to his current target. When active, any melee attacks from the Sha of Pride cause that player to gain 5 Pride. This requires a tank switch.

* Corrupted Prison: ability cast 45 seconds after the start of the fight, and every 60 seconds after that. Around the room there are 4 TITAN PRISONS, which are basically large circles on the floor. When the Sha casts Corrupted Prison, one raid member (in a 10-man) is imprisoned. Anyone within 12 yards of the prison is knocked back, takes a lot of damage, and receives 5 Pride. Players who are imprisoned are stunned, and take a high amount of Shadow damage every second, and gain 5 Pride per second too. The only way to be freed from a Titan Prison is for two other raid members to stand on the two LOCKS of the prison (clearly marked by a glowing orange color), one on each lock. This immediately frees the player.

* Mark of Arrogance: SHadow damage DoT applied on random raid members. This DoT stacks and will do more damage with a larger stack. It has an unlimited duration, but can be dispelled. Dispelling the DoT causes the DISPELLER to gain 5 Pride. There is a mechanic that grants players a temporary immunity to Pride gains which can be used to dispel the Mark of Arrogance.

* Swelling Pride: This is the central mechanic of this fight. This is a raid-wide damaging attack that the boss uses every 60 seconds (he has an energy bar that builds up unavoidably -- when it reaches 100 he'll cast Swelling Pride). Swelling Pride does a lot of shadow damage to the entire raid, grants players 5 Pride, and causes additional effects on players depending on how much Pride players have:

--> Players with between 0 and 24 Pride are unaffected.
--> Players with between 25 and 49 Pride are affected by Bursting Pride. This creates a void zone at their location which explodes after 3 seconds, dealing lots of shadow damage to anyone within 5 yards. Players hit by the explosion also gain 5 Pride.
--> Players with between 50 and 74 Pride are affected by Projection. This creates a projection of the target, 15 yards away. 6 seconds after appearing, the projections explode, dealing lots of raid-wide shadow damage and granting all members 5 Pride, UNLESS the player from whom the projection spawned is standing on top of it.
--> Players with between 75 and 99 Pride are affected by Aura of Pride. They receive a debuff that lasts 25 seconds, which deals high shadow damage every second to any allies standing within 5 yards. Any players hit by Aura of Pride gain 5 Pride.
--> Players who have 100 Pride (who have therefore received the Overcome buff) will have their health increased by 100% and become permanently mind controlled.

* Self-reflection is an ability that the Sha uses on a number of random raid members. Small adds that melee, called Reflections, will spawn from the locations of these raid members 2 seconds later, dealing a lot of raid damage within 2 yards of the area where they spawn. Players hit by the spawning damage gain 5 Pride. The Sha of Pride casts this ability 2- seconds into the fight, and every 60 seconds after that. Each time the spell is cast the Sha chooses players who have higher Pride than those chosen for the previous cast (the first cast targets players regardless of their Pride level, the second cast targets players with at least 25 Pride, then 50 Pride etc.)

* Manifestation of Pride add. A Manifestation of Pride add is summoned 60 seconds into the fight, and every 60 seconds after that. They melee and have two abilities:

--> Mocking blast. Interruptible nuke that targets a random raid member, dealing a lot of damage and granting them 5 Pride.
--> Last Word: ability that causes the two nearest players to the Manifestation of Pride to gain 5 Pride when the mob dies.

* When the Sha of Pride reaches 30% health, the Pride of all raid members is RESET to 0, and the Sha of Pride becomes Unleashed. The boss deals very high, raid-wide damage which ticks every 10 seconds. Each tick also causes all raid members to gain 5 Pride.

During the fight, Norushen will be assisting our raid. Several random raid members will receive a buff called Gift of the Titans (the players are chosen randomly, but one or more healers will be chosen each time, which makes it possible to dispel Mark of Arrogance regularly). This buff lasts 20 seconds and grants these players IMMUNITY to Pride gains. When all players who are buffed with Gift of the Titans stack within 8 yards of oen another, they all gain another buff, lasting 15 seconds, called Power of the Titans, which increases the haste and damage done of these players by 15%.


STRATEGY

The mechanics appear complicated but the strategy is straightforward.

* Tank swap: Tanks perform a tank switch on the Sha each time one of them is affected by Wounded Pride.
* Current off-tank picks up the Manifestations of Pride.
* Kill the Manifestations of Pride quickly. Interrupt any casts of Mocking Blast.
* Reflections: Move away from the areas of the floor where Reflections will spawn, when self-reflection is being cast. The tank must pick up the resulting reflections, then the raid must AoE them down.
* Nobody stand on top of the Titan Prisons. But when a player is imprisoned, two others must be ready to move there quickly to get that person out.
* Healers under the effects of Gift of the Titans must dispel Mark of Arrogance from as many players as possible.
* Handle the Swelling Pride effects:
--> don't take damage from the Bursting Pride void zones
--> players who spawn a projection must stand on top of their projection within 6 seconds
--> players who are affected by Aura of Pride must stay at least 5 yards away from other raid members until their debuff expires.

* Make sure that nobody reaches 100 Pride
* When the Sha reaches 30%, use offensive and defensive cooldowns and finish the boss off before the entire raid reaches 100 Pride.

Positioning

The raid will stack up in melee range of the boss, except for the tank, who will be within melee range on the opposite side of the boss. This way, we will gain the most from Gift of the Titans. This also keeps everyone from the Titan Prisons.

However, while stacked up, we risk taking great damage from Reflections, Bursting Pride, and Aura of Pride. So everyone must be very quick to MOVE AWAY as needed.

Also, don't kill the Manifestations of Pride on top of the raid, as we want to control who gains 5 Pride (it should be people low on Pride).


Managing Pride

You can't get rid of Pride aside from the reset at 30%, so everyone must be VERY careful to receive any additional Pride.


Corrupted Prison

Players imprisoned must be freed ASAP, since they gain 5 Pride per second while imprisoned. In a 10-man, three players with high mobility will be designated to go free them as soon as possible.


Self-Reflection

Two seconds after this is is cast on players, Reflections spawn from the ground from their location, dealing damage and granting Pride to everyone within 2 yards. --> When Reflection is cast, everyone must move away from the affected areas on the ground.

The off-tank will pick up the reflections and the raid will AoE them down.


Mark of Arrogance

This can be dispelled only with single-target dispells. Dispelling should be done ONLY by players with the Gift of the Titans buff. Healers will have to heal the damage from the Mark until it can be dispelled.


Manifestations of Pride adds

These adds must ALWAYS be interrupted, so they can't cast even one Mocking Blast.

The raid must be very careful about WHICH players are closest to the Manifestation when it dies, as the two closest players will gain 5 Pride each. Nobody with dangerously high Pride should soak this. It is also good if soakers are not close to hitting a new Swelling Pride threshold (thresholds are at 25, 50, or 75 Pride). So, a player with 25 or 30 Pride is a better soaker than a player with 20, as the latter would be pushed over the next threshold.


Bursting Pride (void zone created by Swelling Pride under players with 25 to 49 Pride)

Everyone must move away from the locations where Bursting Pride is about to explode (large void zones). To make this easy, all players who have between 25 and 49 Pride must move away from the rest of the raid when Swelling Pride hits.


Projection (projections are created by Swelling Pride 15 yards from players with 50 to 74 Pride)

Players with between 50 and 74 Pride must watch for their projections when Swelling Pride is being cast. Then they have SIX SECONDS to move on top of their projection. This is not hard as they're pretty close.


Aura of Pride (players with between 75 and 99 pride receive a 25-sec debuff that damages and inflicts Pride on anyone within 5 yards)

Players with between 75 and 99 Pride must move out of the raid, and away from each other, when Swelling Pride is cast. They'll have to remain outside the raid until their debuff expires (so, for 25 seconds).


To summarize Swelling Pride strategies:

As each Swelling Pride is being cast, if you have:
* Less than 24 Pride: no special instructions.
* Between 25 and 49 Pride: run out of the raid to drop your void zone.
* Between 50 and 74 Pride: watch for your projection, and when it spawns run to yours and stand on it. You have 6 seconds.
* Between 75 and 99 Pride: run out of the raid & stay 5 yards away from anyone else, so you don't hit others with your Aura of Pride debuff (which has a 5-yard radius). Stay out of the raid until the debuff expires, which takes 25 seconds.


Sub-30% phase

At 30% everyone's Pride is reset to zero. But from this point on, everyone gains 5 Pride every 10 seconds, and ALL other means of gaining Pride are STILL in effect. We will have about 200 seconds before we reach 100 Pride and become Overcome, and then only as much time as there is before the next Swelling Pride to kill the boss. And this assumes minimal Pride gain from other sources.

So this is a strict DPS burn phase. Strategy is the same as before, except that there is not high raid damage, in a burst every 10 seconds.

We will use bloodlust at 30%.


SUMMARY

Tanks:
* Tank swap on the boss
* Pick up Manifestations of Pride when they spawn

Healers:
* Dispel Mark of Arrogance whenever you are buffed with Gift of the Titans

DPS:
* Prioritize killing the adds when they are up

Everyone:
* Stack up behind the boss (except for the tank)
* Beware how the next Swelling Pride will affect you, and act accordingly
* Don't gain any more Pride than you absolutely have to
* Stay away from Corrupted Prison locations before Corrupted Prison is cast, BUT
* Free Corrupted Prison targets immediately

The MAIN issue of this fight is Pride management. There are lots of mechanics, but the thing that really matters is that each raid member must minimize the amount of Pride they gain.