Garrosh Hellscream Detailed Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included) (2024)

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. Health Values
  • 1.2. Enrage Timer
  • 1.3. Raid Composition
• +2. Loot
  • 2.1. Pets
  • 2.2. Armor
  • 2.3. Weapons
  • 2.4. Trinkets
• 3. Overview of the Fight
• 4. Class-specific Advice
• +5. Phase One
  • 5.1. Abilities
    • 5.1.1. Garrosh
    • 5.1.2. Adds
    • 5.1.3. Siege Engineers and Iron Stars
  • 5.2. Strategy
    • 5.2.1. Handling Desecrated Weapon
    • 5.2.2. Warbringers and Wolf Riders
    • 5.2.3. Iron Stars
• +6. Transition Phase
  • 6.1. Abilities
  • 6.2. Strategy
• +7. Phase Two
  • 7.1. Abilities
  • 7.2. Strategy
    • 7.2.1. Tanking and Positioning
    • 7.2.2. Desecrated Weapon
    • 7.2.3. Touch of Y'Shaarj
    • 7.2.4. Whirling Corruption
    • 7.2.5. Realm of Y'Shaarj
• +8. Phase Three
  • 8.1. Abilities
  • 8.2. Strategy
• 9. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• +10. Summing Things Up
  • 10.1. Tanks
  • 10.2. Healers
  • 10.3. DPS
  • 10.4. Everyone
• 11. Learning the Fight
• +12. Heroic Mode
  • 12.1. Differences From Normal Mode
    • 12.1.1. Heroic-only Phase (Phase Four)
  • 12.2. Strategy
    • 12.2.1. Phase One
    • 12.2.2. First Transition Phase
    • 12.2.3. Phase Two
    • 12.2.4. Second Transition Phase
    • 12.2.5. Phase Three
    • 12.2.6. Phase Four
• 13. Concluding Remarks
• 14. Changelog

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Garrosh Hellscream in Siege of Orgrimmar. It is targeted at anyonewho desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

With the Klaxxi out of the way, your raid will finally have access to thegrand prize: Garrosh Hellscream himself. Garrosh, now under the sway ofY'Shaarj's legacy, will release the brunt of his power against your raid ina gruelling multiple-phase fight.

2.1.

Pets

Garrosh Hellscream drops a rare pet when you defeat him in Heroic mode: Kor'kron Juggernaut.

2.2.

Armor

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Main Stats
Ebon Ritual Hood (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Cloth	Head	Intellect
Belt of the Broken Pact (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Cloth	Waist	Intellect/Spirit
Hopeglow Spaulders (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Leather	Shoulders	Intellect
Seal of Karmic Return (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Leather	Waist	Intellect
Kor'kron Elite Skullmask (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Leather	Head	Agility
Cord of Black Dreams (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Leather	Waist	Agility
Cowl of Smoking Dreams (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mail	Head	Intellect
Penetrating Gaze of Y'Shaarj (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mail	Head	Agility
Shoulderguards of Intended Power (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mail	Shoulders	Agility
Chestguard of Relentless Tyranny (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mail	Chest	Agility
Mantle of Looming Darkness (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Shoulders	Intellect
Chestplate of Fallen Passion (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Chest	Intellect
Spaulders of the Fallen Warchief (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Shoulders	Strength/Mastery
Legplates of Unthinking Strife (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Legs	Strength/Mastery
Greathelm of the Warchief (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Head	Strength/Parry

2.3.

Weapons

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Horned Mace of the Old Ones (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mace	Intellect
Hellscream's Warmace (LFR, Heroic)	Mace	Intellect
Hellscream's Barrier (LFR, Heroic)	Shield	Intellect
Revelations of Y'Shaarj (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Off-Hand Frill	Intellect
Hellscream's Tome of Destruction (LFR, Heroic)	Off-Hand Frill	Intellect
Hellscream's War Staff (LFR, Heroic)	Staff	Intellect
Hellscream's Razor (LFR, Heroic)	Dagger	Agility
Hellscream's Cleaver (LFR, Heroic)	One-Hand Axe	Agility
Hellscream's Warbow (LFR, Heroic)	Bow	Agility
Hellscream's Pig Sticker (LFR, Heroic)	Polearm	Agility
Kor'kron Spire of Supremacy (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Staff	Agility
Hellscream's Doomblade (LFR, Heroic)	One-Hand Sword	Strength/Mastery
Hellscream's Decapitator (LFR, Heroic)	Two-Hand Axe	Strength
Xal'atoh, Desecrated Image of Gorehowl (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Two-Hand Axe	Strength/Mastery
Hellscream's Shield Wall (LFR, Heroic)	Shield	Strength/Dodge

2.4.

Trinkets

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Black Blood of Y'Shaarj (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Trinket	Haste/Intellect on hit
Curse of Hubris (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Trinket	Stamina/Crit on use

The encounter against Garrosh Hellscream is a four-phase fight.During the fight, you will face Garrosh himself and a number of adds.

• Phase One lasts until Garrosh reaches 10% health, at which pointhe heals himself to full and sends your raid into a transition phase. Duringthis phase Garrosh only has two abilities, and he receives help from adds.
• The Transition Phase lasts for 1 minute. During this phase, yourraid has to defeat several simple adds and reach Garrosh in order to interrupta cast channel that increases his power in the next phase.
• Phase Two lasts until Garrosh reaches 10% health once more, atwhich point he heals himself to 25%, and enters Phase Three. ThroughoutPhase Two, Garrosh will periodically send your raid into the realm where theTransition Phase took place, and your raid will have to essentially repeatthe phase in there.
• Phase Three lasts until Garrosh dies. During this phase, Garroshuses mostly the same abilities that he uses during Phase Two.

Videos:

• PTR Preview —a short overview of the boss, based on PTR testing, which is extremelyuseful for getting a rough understanding of the fight.
• Video Guide— a video guide of the boss, based on live-realm experience.

On our forums, we are maintaining threads with class-specific advice for each of thefights of Siege of Orgrimmar. So, make sure to check them out, and if you have things toshare, do not hesitate to contribute!

Class	Forum Threads
Death Knight	Blood Frost/Unholy
Druid	Balance Feral Guardian Restoration
Hunter	All specs
Mage	All specs
Monk	Brewmaster Mistweaver Windwalker
Paladin	Holy Protection Retribution
Priest	Discipline Holy Shadow
Rogue	All specs
Shaman	Elemental Enhancement Restoration
Warlock	All specs
Warrior	Arms/Fury Protection

Phase One starts when you pull Garrosh, and lasts until he reaches 10%health.

Garrosh only uses two abilities during this phase.

• Desecrate targets a random ranged raid member (even if the ranged raidmember is in melee range at the time), dealing damage in a 15-yard radius andcreating a Desecrated Weapon at that location. Garrosh casts Desecrateroughly every 40 seconds.
  • The Desecrated Weapon is a hostile NPC that is surrounded by a largedamaging void zone. The Desecrated Weapon is stationary, and it does not attackor perform any other actions (and therefore it does not need to be tanked). TheDesecrated Weapon can be damaged and killed, and the size of the void zonearound it is directly proportional to its health (the less health the Weaponhas, the smaller the void zone is). When the Desecrated Weapon is killed, thevoid zone disappears.
• Hellscream's Warsong is a buff that Garrosh casts on any adds present,roughly every 30 seconds. It increases the targets' damage done and health by150%.

There are three types of adds present in this phase of the fight, but weonly discuss two in this section, because the third type does not attackyour raid directly, and is instead linked to a fight mechanic that is bestexplained on its own.

• Kor'kron Warbringers spawn in groups of 6 (two packs of 3 adds comingin from either side of the room), roughly every 40 seconds. These adds havea single ability, Hamstring.
  • Hamstring deals a high amount of Physical damage to theWarbringer's current tank, reducing their movement speed by 50% for 10seconds.
• Farseer Wolf Riders spawn one at a time, roughly every 40 seconds.They spawn alternatively from either side of the room. These adds have threeabilities.
  • Ancestral Fury is a buff that causes the Farseer Wolf Rider to gain25% increased casting speed each time one of their spell casts is interrupted.The increased casting speed stacks.
  • Ancestral Chain Heal is a standard, interruptible chain heal that theWolf Rider casts on its allies (other adds and Garrosh).
  • Chain Lightning is a standard, interruptible chain lightningthat deals high Nature damage.

Siege Engineers are adds with very low health, who spawn, two at atime, roughly every 45 seconds. These adds do not spawn in the fighting area,but rather above it, one on either side of the room, on small ledges. Theydo not cast any abilities against your raid, but they play a very importantrole.

Next to each add spawns a very large spiked wheel. For 15 seconds, theSiege Engineers will channel an uninterruptible spell into the wheel, tryingto activate it. If they complete their casts, then the wheels roll down intothe fighting area, sweeping across it lengthwise and crashing into theopposite wall. The wheels, which are called Iron Stars (and which willhenceforth be referred to as such), take up one half of the width of the roomeach, and they have two damaging effects attached to them.

• Any players or enemies who come in contact with an Iron Star that is rollingthrough the room take massive damage and are knocked back. Raid membersunavoidably die from this damage, while the adds simply take a lot ofdamage.
• When the Iron Star reaches the end of the room, it smashes into the wall,dealing a massive amount of Fire damage to all raid members, but the damage islower the farther away players are from the explosion. The wheel is destroyedin the process.

Your raid can prevent the Siege Engineers from activating their Iron Starsby killing them before they complete their casts (ranged raid members canattack the Engineers). After the Iron Stars are activated, the Engineersdisappear.

Regarding the movement of the Iron Stars through the room, we would liketo clarify that each Iron Star only takes up one half of the width of theroom, and that they travel in opposite directions. This means that not onlyis it possible to avoid being hit by an Iron Star by moving out of its path,it is even possible to avoid being hit by either of them by strafing in and outof their path properly.

This phase is quite difficult, but the strategy for it is not toocomplicated. There are several aspects to keep in mind. We will summarise thestrategy before going into further details.

• Have one tank tank Garrosh in the center of the room, while the otherpicks up the Kor'kron Warbringers and Farseer Wolf Riders as theyspawn.
• AoE down the Warbringers, and single-target the Wolf Riders. Make sure tointerrupt the Wolf Riders' Ancestral Chain Heals, but do not interrupt their Chain Lightning casts.
• Make sure ranged raid members stay at range, so as not to causeDesecrated Weapons to be created in melee range. Kill these weapons.
• Have one ranged DPS player assigned to killing one of the twoSiege Engineers, and allow the other one to activate his Iron Star.
• Make sure to get out of the path of the Iron Star, and attempt to useany knock-backs at your disposal to knock the adds back into the path of theIron Star.

The first issue your raid will be confronted with is the Desecratecasts. Since this spell targets ranged raid members, and since it targets thembased on their role and not on their position, it is important to make surethat the potential targets stand well out of melee range, so as not to causevoid zones to spawn on top of the boss and the melee group.

As soon as a Desecrated Weapon is created, everyone should move out of thevoid zone, and your ranged DPS players should kill it. Killing the DesecratedWeapons is not a high priority, so they can be killed just by keeping DoTs upon them.

The Kor'kron Warbringers are not very problematic on their own, soyou do not need to prioritise killing them over damaging Garrosh. That said,you must be careful not to get overwhelmed by the number of adds, and you mustalso avoid having any of the adds buffed by more than one cast of Hellscream's Warsong.

The Farseer Wolf Riders, however, are a top priority. Their Ancestral Fury buff makes them increasingly dangerous the longer theyare alive. Basically, you cannot really afford to have these adds get off evenone successful Ancestral Chain Heal cast, meaning that all such casts mustbe interrupted. By doing so, however, you are causing the Wolf Rider to gainincreased casting speed, which means that eventually they will becomeuninterruptible. For this reason, your raid must be fairly quick in killingthem. Also for this reason, you cannot afford to interrupt any of their Chain Lightning casts, since avoiding the damage those casts dois not worth granting the Wolf Riders a stack of Ancestral Fury.

You will have to stress the importance of not interrupting Chain Lightning,and you must have a solid and efficient interrupter rotation in place.

While it is possible to have both Siege Engineers killed before theymanage to activate their Iron Stars, this is not optimal. Your raid canbenefit greatly from having an Iron Star damage all the adds currently alive,since this will help out with the DPS requirements (naturally, the benefit ofsuch a tactic depends on the tuning of the fight on live servers).

Therefore, we advise your raid to always allow one of the Siege Engineersto finish their cast, while killing the other one. Make sure that no one inthe raid is standing in the half of the room through which the Iron Star willpass, and have your tank position the adds as close as possible to the path ofthe Iron Star (without being it themselves since they would be killed). Then,just as the Iron Star is about to pass by the adds, have someone in the raidwith a knock-back (a Druid or an Elemental Shaman) knock the adds back intothe path of the Iron Star.

If you do not have anyone in the raid with a knock-back, then you may bebetter off simply killing both Siege Engineers.

Finally, if you are allowing an Iron Star to be activated, you should makesure that everyone in the raid is quite far from the wall against which itsmashes, in order to minimise the damage from this event. It is not necessaryto be all the way on the other side of the room, but you will want to be atleast half-way there.

When Garrosh reaches 10% health, he heals up to full health and transportshimself and your raid into the realm of Y'Shaarj. This phase lasts for 1minute.

As soon as the phase starts, your raid will be teleported into a newarea, chosen at random between phased-out versions of The Terrace of EndlessSpring, The Temple of the Jade Serpent, and The Temple of the Red Crane.Depending on which area you are sent to, your raid will have to defeat one ofthree types of adds.

• Embodied Fears are located in The Terrace of Endless Spring,and when they die, they buff any raid members in a small radius with a buffthat reduces their damage taken by 50%, called Consumed Courage. There isa very large number of these adds, but their health is low.
• Embodied Doubts are located in The Temple of the Jade Serpent,and when they die, they buff any raid members in a small radius with a buffthat reduces their damage taken by 50%, called Consumed Faith. These addsare grouped up in packs.
• Embodied Despairs are located in The Temple of the Red Crane,and when they die, they buff any raid members in a small radius with a buffthat reduces their damage taken by 50%, called Consumed Hope. There aretwo Embodied Despairs in each Temple of the Red Crane transition.

The buffs granted by the deaths of these adds last until the end of theTransition Phase.

While any of the adds in your raid's realm are still alive, Garrosh (whois located behind the adds, further into the realm) is immune to damage, and heis "absorbing energy from the Heart of Y'Shaarj". Killing all the adds removesGarrosh's immunity, and attacking him stops him from further draining energyfrom the heart. This energy-draining is not relevant during this phase, but itplays an important role during Phase Two. For now, all you need to know is thatthe less energy Garrosh has a chance to gain, the better it is for yourraid.

Once Garrosh is engaged by your raid, he will spam Annihilate. This is a frontal cone attack that Garrosh spams inrandom directions. It deals lethal damage to anyone in front of him, and veryhigh Physical damage to everyone else.

One minute after the start of this phase, Phase Two will start. Yourbe sent back to the room where Phase One was fought, and you will have to faceGarrosh there. Garrosh will have healed to full health, and his maximum healthwill be about 2.5 times higher than it was during Phase One. Any damage youhave done to him in the Transition Phase will be carried over intoPhase Two.

The strategy for this phase is exceedingly simple. In short, you must killthe adds as quickly as possible, and then deal as much damage as possible toGarrosh without dying to his frontal cone attacks.

As soon as your raid is transported to the realm of Y'Shaarj, you shouldengage any adds present there and kill them. In the Temple of the Jade Serpentand The Temple of the Red Crane, your raid will have to split up into twogroups, since the path to Garrosh splits up as well and adds have to be handled in different areas. This does not take long, and your raid will meet upagain at Garrosh. In The Terrace of Endless Spring, this is not an issue.

While killing the adds, you should attempt to be essentially on top of them,in order to benefit from the damage-reduction buffs that they give out whenthey die.

Regarding Garrosh himself, your entire raid should stack up inside hish*tbox, and always move slightly behind where he is facing. This allows yourraid to stay stacked together (benefiting from AoE and ground-based heals),while also avoiding his Annihilate attacks with relative ease.

Phase Two starts as soon as the Transition Phase ends. Garrosh will be atfull health, minus whatever damage your raid did to him during the TransitionPhase.

During this phase, Garrosh has an energy bar (to be accurate, he had theenergy bar throughout Phase One as well, although it played absolutely norole there). Garrosh gains energy during the Transition Phase (in the timefrom the start of the Transition Phase until your raid engages him), and hegains some energy at various moments throughout Phase Two, as we will seebelow. Garrosh's energy bar determines the state of his abilities.Specifically, Garrosh has 4 abilities in this phase, and each one of thoseabilities becomes empowered when Garrosh reaches a certain amount ofenergy. The empowered ability replaces the non-empowered one, and it isessentially a more dangerous version of it.

• Whirling Corruption is a whirlwind attack that Garrosh channels for6 seconds. During this time, he deals moderate Shadow damage every second toall raid members, with the damage being lower the farther away players are fromGarrosh.
  • At 25 energy, Whirling Corruption becomes Empowered Whirling Corruption. In addition to Whirling Corruption'seffects, this spell also shoots a missile at a random raid member, dealing ahigh amount of Shadow damage to all players in an 8-yard radius, and summoningan add called Minion of Y'Shaarj. These adds have no abilities, but whenthey die, they cast Empowering Corruption, healing other nearby Minionsof Y'Shaarj to full health and granting them 200% increased maximum health anddamage. This buff stacks.
• Touch of Y'Shaarj is a mind control that Garrosh casts on severalrandom raid members. While mind-controlled, these players attempt to castTouch of Y'Shaarj on other raid members, which, if successful, also mindcontrols these players. Mind-controlled players' Touch of Y'Shaarj can beinterrupted, and the mind control is broken when these players reach 20%health.
  • At 50 energy, Touch of Y'Shaarj becomes Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj. This works like Touch of Y'Shaarj, except thatthe mind-controlled players are now turned into Sha, being immune toloss of control effects and having their health increased.
• Desecrate works exactly like it does in Phase One of the fight.
  • At 75 energy, Desecrate becomes Empowered Desecrate. Thedifference here is that the Desecrated Weapons cannot be killed, and theyregenerate health over time. Do note that they can be damaged, and thatjust like with the normal Desecrated Weapons, lowering their health reducesthe size of the void zones they create.
• Gripping Despair is a stacking DoT that deals Shadow damage, whichGarrosh applies to his current tank. This ability requires a tankswitch.
  • At 100 energy, Gripping Despair becomes Empowered Gripping Despair. In addition to Gripping Despair's effects,Empowered Gripping Despair causes Explosive Despair each time EmpoweredGripping Despair wears off or is otherwise removed (such as through immunities,since the DoT cannot be simply dispelled). Explosive Despair deals damage tothe affected player, and stacks a debuff on them. The damage done is equal tothe current value of Gripping Despair on the target (depending on the numberof stacks), and the debuff causes the player to take 10% increased damage fromExplosive Despair per each stack of Empowered Gripping Despair. This debuffcontinues to build up on the player from successive Explosive Despairs, andit has a 2-minute duration, which means that it will not have time to dropoff.

At regular intervals throughout Phase Two, apparently roughly every 2 and ahalf minutes, Garrosh will take everyone into the realm of Y'Shaarj, where yourraid will have to practically repeat the Transition Phase.

The strategy for this phase is highly reliant on proper positioning andmovement. The adds and the Iron Stars from Phase One are gone, so your raidis free to make use of the large fight area.

We will summarise the strategy before going into more details.

• Have your tanks perform a tank switch on Garrosh to deal with the Gripping Despair ability.
• Have your ranged raid members stack together, and start in one corner ofthe room. With each new Desecrated Weapons that spawns on them, have themmove slightly, so as to have each new weapon placed next to the old ones,conserving space. Do not bother killing the weapons. When Garrosh begins using Empowered Desecrate, nothing changes and you should continue to ignore the weapons.
• Make sure players do not stand close to Garrosh when he casts Whirling Corruption.
  • When Garrosh begins using Empowered Whirling Corruption, killthe Minions of Y'Shaarj away from other Minions of Y'Shaarj.
• Make sure players affected by Touch of Y'Shaarj are always interrupted,and have them brought to 20% health quickly in order to break their mindcontrol.
• Whenever you are sent up into the realm of Y'Shaarj, try to reach Garroshas quickly as possible in order to minimise the amount of energy that hegains.

At this point of the fight, due to Gripping Despair, you will need tostart performing a tank switch on Garrosh. Your two tanks should taunt offeach other once the DoT has about 8-10 stacks. Incidentally, this same numberof stacks remains ideal even if Garrosh unlocks his Empowered Gripping Despair, with the only difference here being that thetank who is not tanking Garrosh will sustain high damage from Explosive Despair.

Regarding positioning, we advise you to tank Garrosh in the center of theroom. Your ranged raid members should stack together in an initial position(such as a corner), and then move slightly whenever a newDesecrated Weapon is cast. The idea is to conserve as much space aspossible.

You must aim to end this phase as quickly as possible, so we advise you toignore all the Desecrated Weapons and just DPS Garrosh, following thepositioning we suggested above.

Players affected by Touch of Y'Shaarj should simply be interrupted,stunned, and damaged until they reach 20% health. If your raid is stacked up,as we advise, then you will be able to hit multiple players with stuns andAoE attacks, making the whole process easier.

When Garrosh begins casting Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj, stunningplayers will no longer be possible, so you will have to DPS them quitequickly, to make sure that no further casts of Touch of Y'Shaarj gothrough.

Dealing with Whirling Corruption is a simple matter of staying awayfrom Garrosh when he casts it. He can still be moved while he is channelingthis spell, so the tanks can drag him a bit away from the raid to make thingseasier.

When he starts casting Empowered Whirling Corruption, your raid willhave to simply kill the resulting Minion of Y'Shaarj, and in case severalMinions are up, you must make sure not to kill one next to any others, sincethey would be buffed. The best way to do this is for each ranged DPS player topick a Minion and attack it, pulling it away from other raid members. Sincethere will not be very much time between when Whirling Corruption is cast andwhen the next Desecrate is cast, you will have to make sure that, whilespread out, no one ends up in a position where a Desecrated Weaponspawning on them would cause problems).

Periodically, your entire raid will be sent up to the realm of Y'Shaarj.Here, everything happens exactly in the same way as during the TransitionPhase, and your raid must act accordingly. Reaching Garrosh in time isessential to ensure that his energy stays low throughout the phase, and thathe does not gain access to too many empowered abilities.

When Garrosh is brought to 10% health at the end of Phase Two, he willheal up to 25% health and Phase Three will begin. This phase lasts until Garroshis killed.

Throughout this phase, Garrosh uses only the 4 empowered abilitiesfrom Phase Two, namely Empowered Whirling Corruption, Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj, Empowered Desecrate, and Empowered Gripping Despair.

The strategy for this phase is essentially identical to the strategy forPhase Two, the only difference being that you will have to deal with thestronger versions of all abilities right from the start.

This is a rather brutal burn phase, because you need to kill Garrosh asquickly as possible. While you may run into issues with Desecrated Weaponstaking up too much space (remember, the ones from Phase Two will still be up),the biggest problem will be the Minions of Y'Shaarj, which will be more andmore difficult to handle the less room you have to maneuver.

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp duringPhase Three, in order to kill Garrosh before your raid runs out of room,and before your tanks become unable to survive the damage caused by Empowered Gripping Despair.

In this section, we will very briefly summarise what the players belonging toeach of the three roles have to do during this fight.

• In Phase One, one tank should take Garrosh and the other shouldtake the adds.
• In Phases Two and Three, perform a tank switch on Garrosh and pickup any Minions of Y'Shaarj.

• In Phase One, beware of the raid damage from Iron Starexplosions.
• In the realm of Y'Shaarj, beware of the very high raid-wide damagecaused by Annihilate.
• In Phases Two and Three, beware of the high tank damage caused by Empowered Gripping Despair, and of the high raid-wide damage caused by Whirling Corruption.

• Kill the Farseer Wolf Riders as soon as they appear.
• DoT and kill the Desecrated Weapons in Phase One.
• DPS mind-controlled players.
• Kill Minions of Y'Shaarj away from other Minions of Y'Shaarj.

• In Phase One, do not interrupt the Farseer Wolf Riders' Chain Lightning and make sure not to get hit by the IronStars.
• In the realm of Y'Shaarj, be close to the adds when they die, andmake sure not to get hit by Annihilate.

The encounter against Garrosh is structured in such a way that you do nothave many options in how to experience the various stages of the fight otherthan in the way that they are presented to you. Each phase, with the exceptionof the Transition Phase, requires your raid to perform excellently in order toget through it.

As such, we cannot really give you any tips for easing the learning processof this fight other than to take it one step at a time and make sure that allraid members master each mechanic as they have to face it.

The Heroic mode of the encounter against Garrosh Hellscream makes for anextremely difficult and challenging fight. The complexity of the encounter isnot very great, but there is great emphasis on nearly flawless execution.

There are several differences from Normal mode, in addition to all enemieshaving increased health and dealing increased damage. Some differences have todo with modifications or additions to the Normal mode phases of the fight, butthe Heroic mode also introduces a brand new, Heroic-only phase.

Here are the differences you will encounter in phases One through Three(including transition phases):

• During Phase One, the Kor'kron Warbringers can no longer simply be tanked, instead fixating onraid members. They appear to prefer fixating on the nearest player to them,and they change target (again, mostly to the nearest player) every fewseconds. The target-selection is somewhat unpredictable, however.
• The transition phases (or rather, their setting) now come in a fixed,rather than a random order, and each transition phase setting has an additional mechanic.
  1. The first Transition Phase takes place in the Temple of the Jade Serpent.The difference here is that the adds, once engaged, will regularly try to cast aninterruptible spell called Embodied Doubt. This deals raid-wide damage,and also stacks a debuff on players increasing the damage they take fromfurther Embodied Doubt casts.
  2. The second Transition Phase takes place in the Terrace of Endless Spring.The difference here is that, as long as Embodied Fear adds are alive,many Crushing Fear void zones appear all over the ground. These work on aShadow Crash system, meaning that shortly after a void zone appears, aprojectile lands at that location. Players hit by these projectiles take damageand are feared for 3 seconds.
  3. The third Transition Phase takes place in the Temple of the Red Crane. Thedifference here is that the two adds begin to channel a raid-wide damagingspell a while after they are engaged, but this is not relevant because if yourraid ever gets to see this transition phase it means that you aretoo slow and you will inevitably wipe.
• During phases Two and Three, the Minions of Y'Shaarj gain 10energy each time they perform a melee attack. On reaching 100 energy, theycast Empowering Corruption (the same spell that they cast when they arekilled).

When Garrosh reaches 0% health, he enters a20-second role-playing speech, after which your raid is teleported to aphased Stormwind City location. Here, Garrosh is healed to 60% health, andyour raid must bring him to 0% once again in order to defeat him.

During this phase, Garrosh has an energy bar that plays an important role.He starts at 0 energy, and slowly gains energy over time. As we will see below,Garrosh casts an important ability when he reaches 100 energy, and there isalso a way for him to gain additional energy.

Garrosh uses several abilities.

• Malice is a 15-second undispellable debuff that Garrosh casts onrandom, non-tank raid members. While this debuff is active, the player affectedby Malice will deal damage to a number of random allies (2 in 10-man, and5 in 25-man) selected from within a small radius around them. These playerswill be damaged by Malicious Blast. This applies a short DoT to them,and also stacks a debuff on them that increases the damage that they take fromsubsequent Malicious Blast ticks. This second debuff lasts for 3 seconds. Ifthe minimum number of players (2 in 10-man and 5 in 25-man) is not affected bya tick of Malicious Blast, the entire raid takes damage, and Garrosh gains 5energy. The amount of damage the raid takes is proportional to the number ofplayers missing from the count (missing all required players will one-shot theraid).
• Bombardment is a spell that causes many areas on the ground to betargeted by projectiles, which land a few seconds after the affected areas aremarked. Getting hit by these projectiles is extremely damaging.
• Shortly after Bombardment is cast, Garrosh will perform a check for"clumped" players. If at least 3 players in 10-man, or 7 in 25-man are withinan 8-yard radius, then the boss will summon an Iron Star at the players'location. If Garrosh does notfind any clumped players, no Iron Star is spawned. The Iron Stardeals massive damage to the location where it appears, and then fixates on thenearest raid member, chasing them at a moderate speed. Every 10 seconds, itre-fixates on the nearest player to it. If the Iron Star touches a player orGarrosh, it deals a high amount of raid-wide damage, interrupting playerspellcasting and locking players out of the respective spell school. If theIron Star is kited into Garrosh, it stuns him for a brief period of time,thus interrupting his current cast of Manifest Rage (see below).
• Whenever Garrosh reaches 100 energy, he casts Manifest Rage. Thisspell has a 2-second cast time, followed by a 4-second channel, during whichtime many adds called Manifestations of Rage spawn. These adds haveNormal threat tables, and no abilities. Manifest Rage is interrupted ifGarrosh is stunned by an Iron Star.

The strategy that your raid must employ before Phase Four is very similarto the Normal mode strategy. That said, there are a few changes your raidshould make. In addition to the strategy itself, the fight requires very goodDPS and healing output, as well as almost flawless execution from your raidmembers.

This phase will be executed very similarly to Normal mode. The biggestchange here is due to the fact that both types of adds will regularly fixateon raid members. There is nothing you can really do about this except healthese players to ensure that they survive the damage of the adds, and kill theadds before Garrosh buffs them with Hellscream's Warsong (since the damageof buffed adds will surely kill players on whom they are fixated).

Other than this, all other usual tasks must be performed perfectly.Farseer Wolf Riders must never be interrupted while they are casting Chain Lightning, and so on.

You should always kill one Siege Engineer and allow one Iron Star togo through, making use of it to kill off or damage adds (by knocking them backinto its path).

It is up to you if you want to DPS and kill the Desecrated Weapons, or ignorethem and position them at the edges of the room. Ignoring them will provide youwith higher DPS, shortening the phase, but it creates more positioningdifficulties.

The first Transition Phase will present you with the first trulydifficult aspect of the fight. Your raid must reach Garrosh (that is to say,kill all of the adds in the Temple of the Jade Serpent) before he reaches 25energy. If your raid fails to do this, then Garrosh will start casting Empowered Whirling Corruption from the start of Phase Two, which willinvariably wipe you before you can kill the boss. Even if Garrosh does reach25 energy, you can still continue the fight in order to practice othermechanics, though, since you will not wipe instantly.

This means that your raid must have exceptional handling of all adds inthe transition phase. You should divide your raid up into teams that can handleeach pack of adds, and you should find the most efficient ways of killing theadds within your raid composition.

In addition to merely killing the adds quickly, they must also be preventedfrom casting Embodied Doubt. These casts can be interrupted, and the addscan also be stunned. Do note, however, that not all effects work ( Remorseless Winterdoes not work, for example). Good spells to use here areHunter Binding Shot, Shaman Capacitor Totem, and Warlock Shadowfury. Druids can use Solar Beam, but be mindful that its area of effect is not large enoughto silence an entire pack of adds.

Do note that, while these mobs can be silenced (which prevents their casts),if they die while silenced, they do not spawn the Consumed Faith orbs thatreduce players' damage taken.

Once the adds are dead, your raid members should walk over the ConsumedFaith orbs that the adds have left behind, in order to receive thedamage-reduction buff. This will be needed since the raid damage in the restof the transition phase is very high. Healers will also need to use cooldownshere to ensure the raid's survival, but they will need to do so in such a way asnot to interfere with Phase Two cooldown rotations (explained in the nextsection).

Phase Two is almost identical to its Normal mode version. Before the secondtransition phase (that is to say, the second time your raid is sent into theRealm of Y'Shaarj), nothing different will be going on. The raid will takevery high damage from Whirling Corruption, though, and healers will needto use a cooldown rotation for this spell.

After the second transition phase, the boss will cast Empowered Whirling Corruption, and the Minions of Y'Shaarj will need tobe dealt with as they always are. The Heroic-mode change (the fact that theywill cast Empowering Corruption once they reach 100 energy, after 10 meleehits) is not really a big issue as long as the adds are being kept apart).

When your raid is sent into the Realm of Y'Shaarj for a second time,the setting will be in the Terrance of Endless Spring. Here, your raid willneed to group up all of the adds and AoE them down, all while making sure notto be hit by Crushing Fear projectiles. Fear Ward (especially used ona tank) and Tremor Totem are particularly useful here.

Once all the adds are dead, the Crushing Fear projectiles will cease to befired, and the phase will continue as usual. In this phase, ideally, your raidshould reach Garrosh before he reaches 50 energy, thus preventing him from using Empowered Touch of Y'Shaarj, but this is not a requirement for success.

Phase Three presents your raid with the empowered versions of all Phase Twoabilities, but this phase is not really different from its Normal modecounterpart.

In Phase Four, your raid will have to execute a very specific strategyin order to succeed. We will take you through this strategy step-by-step.

First of all, whenever Malice is cast, your raid will have to makesure that the damage from this ability is properly soaked. If a player isaffected by one stack of Malicious Blast, they will need to be healedand they must move out of the Malice radius. If they are damaged a secondtime (before the first debuff has expired), they will almost surely die ifthey do not have a strong damage-reduction cooldown up. This means that yourraid members will need to employ a rotation, whereby players move out of theMalice radius as soon as they have one stack of Malicious Blast, and move backin once their stack drops.

It is possible for players with very powerful damage-reduction cooldowns(such as Dispersion) to take multiple stacks. Immunities will removethe stacks, but players who are immune are not counted as soaking thedamage.

Second of all, when Bombardment is cast, the raid will need toavoid being hit by any of the projectiles. This is a fairly straightforwardtask. As soon as this happens, Garrosh will also begin checking for clumpedraid members. In principle, you want to avoid being clumped together so thatyou do not spawn any Iron Stars, but you do you want to spawn oneIron Star for each one of Garrosh's Manifest Rage casts. This is anintegral part of the fight.

Once an Iron Star has spawned, a designed raid member should get close to it(so that it fixates on them) and then kite it around the outside of the roomuntil Garrosh starts casting Manifest Rage. Druids and other classes withreliable movement-speed bonuses are ideal, but any class can kite the IronStars well with the help of Priest Angelic Feathers.

Third of all, Garrosh's Manifest Rage must be interrupted, eitherduring the 2-second pre-cast (ideally), or very shortly after the channelhas started. If Manifest Rage is interrupted during the channel, then at leasta few Manifestations of Rage will spawn. These adds should just be pickedup by the tanks and killed. If your raid fails to interrupt a cast of ManifestRage (for example, if the Iron Star hits Garrosh before he actually begins thecast), then you will wipe.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Devotion Aura prevents playersfrom being interrupted by the Iron Star explosions.

This concludes our raid guide for Garrosh Hellscream. We hope you havefound it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have onour forums.

• 07 Feb. 2013: Added Heroic mode strategy.
• 08 Oct. 2013: Added a link to the video guide.
• 17 Sep. 2013: Made several updates.
  • Added 25-man health values and updated 10-man health values.
  • Specified that Garrosh has a different health pool during Phases Two and Three, and that he only heals to 25% health at the start of Phase Three.
  • Greatly improved the Phase Two and Three strategies, with regard to the handling of Desecrated Weapons.

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