November 5th, 2007

WoW – Mother Shahraz and the Illidari Council

After spending two months in the Black Temple halls, its walls begin to have a familiar feel, not unlike a second home. It is when you let your guard down that the most difficult of times arise to challenge your peace, as we will soon find out while battling Mother Shahraz. We are so close to fulfilling our ultimate goal that we can almost taste victory’s sweet wine, yet the Illidari Council is still standing. We have yet to overcome the great Betrayer himself, Lord Illidan, bane of all banes and destroyer of countless armies, but our hearts hold strong. With these thoughts in mind we breach through the gates to the upper chambers, now unlocked. It must end soon.

Evil breeds decadence

Looking back to past transgressions it became apparent that all masterminds have a soft spot for the delicate pleasures of life. In Karazhan, Medivh ordered a great theatre to be built; a place of emotional contemplation to alleviate the long hours spent studying the mysteries of the arcane. He was a great wizard, with might few could muster, yet he too became corrupt and fell to the dark. We have come a long way from the Karazhan skirmishes, yet we witness similar decadence. The Temple of Karabor used to be a splendor to behold, a shrine of light and a beacon of hope dedicated to the Naaru divine. But now, instead of Draenei monks fulfilling their daily rites we advance through the intimate chambers of the pleasure dome.

Human, blood elf and night elf females are here to entertain the ranks in ways most imaginative. While fighting such large packs of beautiful yet fallen creatures we found out the offensive powers of charm and seduce. Friendly fire would often enough kill a healer because AoE is the way to burn them down. Yet again paladin tanks proved their prowess, far superior to any warrior or druid endeavor. While some find it funny, bluntly put, tanking makes the difference between life and death. It’s only suitable to find succubus roaming this area and you should tank them out of line of sight because they heal each other on occasion. Should you get careless, their damage reflecting shield will most likely kill you and it’s still a mystery if it can be dispelled. Going up the stairs to the main platform, several tall six armed demons crossed our path. Raid members stay spread here to avoid the whirlwind damage from the Priestess of Dementia. Ready your screenshot finger as well, because chances are you’re going to randomly grow in size up to a size comparable to the priestess. The Priestess of delight will polarize the raid. You get electrical charges and depending in the nearby comrades, the combination results in an amplification or reduction of damage; prime agro pulling material. When they are all dead, the beautiful gardens are ready for the big fight.

Mother Shahraz

Mother Shahraz is matron of this establishment and a superior breed of the six armed warrior women we’ve met in Arcatraz. You could consider her a warrior poet, although her secondary weapons don’t lie in wits, but temptation. Don’t let her sensual voice fool you for that will be the last mistake you ever made. “I’m all yours,” she said, but in the end “You play, you pay.” The encounter is a severe gear check and everybody must have their shadow resistance capped (375 shadow resistance buffed). For this reason alone it’s hard to progress further in the Black Temple so be sure to buy green shadow resistance rings, shadow resistance enchants and every other green resistance item you can find. The main idea is to get three to four pieces of craft able epic shadow resistance gear on everybody, but it requires about two months of Black Temple and Hyjal farming for the needed amount of heart of darkness. I’ve heard about guilds killing Mother Shahraz just with green shadow resistance gear so it should be doable even with 275 shadow resistance, if you fancy tiresome head banging against a wall for a lucky shot.

Mother Shahraz needs to be tanked in the middle of the terrace, far away from her starting position, just past the water fountains. It’s the kind of encounter where every man counts so simply run away to reset her when one or two raid members are dead. Melee must be stacked on top of each other, just like the ranged guys. Further away from the raid you’ll find two healers whose only job is to heal fatal attraction targets, ability which randomly teleports two or three raid members to her location. As long as the teleported players are within 30 yards of each other, they will do increasingly more damage to everyone around them. What starts off as 900 shadow damage through full shadow resistance gear will eventually go much higher. That’s the part when everyone runs in a different direction. That can be attained by simply having the beam come straight to your back (meaning you run away from someone and not towards him). It’s not that hard, but with all that graphical action going around, spells being thrown left and right, the teleport will cause moderate lag and you may not be aware of the situation without a slight delay. Three tanks also stay on top of each other to soak saber lash, an ability dealing 80k physical damage distributed evenly to everyone close to the highest agro target. She also casts all sort of nasty shadow damage based beams at the raid, but that’s just a minor detail left unsaid, handled by healing and resistance gear. Every 15 seconds or so Mother Shahraz takes one quarter additional damage from a magic type while taking reduced damage from another school, something like frost coupled with fire.

Unfortunately luck does play a significant factor in the fight. Once Mother Shahraz teleports three raid members unable to sprint, blink or intervene out of the situation, chances are high you’re looking at a wipe. It’s really hard for three individuals to perfectly run away from one another in due time, so healers have to get the rabbit out of the hat and pull off a greater heal when their targets are at maximum range for a last second save. “Stop toying with my emotions” is your cue for enrage so blow all cooldowns to get the job done. In the end, the hard truth hits you in the face as she falls: “I wasn’t finished.” It looks like all that extra protection takes the fun out of such intimate encounters, blade to blade, flesh to steel.

The Illidari Council

With the pleasure halls left behind, we feel light hearted and ready for more, because beyond this last stretch lies the Illidari Council. We still have to go through some annoying packs that require concentration in marking, crowd control and pretty much everything. It’s still a bit hard to focus after the Shahraz fight and the Promenade sentinels aren’t making our lives easier either. The huge constructs cast a moonfire kind of spells randomly throughout the raid and also casts L4 and L5 arcane charges. While you might survive the lower tiered blast if you have enough hit points, the L5 charge deals no less than your full hp worth in damage. Since it’s not interruptible, a quick heal and power word shield are life savers, but don’t put too much stock in healers and quietly wait for resurrection. It won’t take more than twenty minutes and you will be reaching the four blood elves.

Veras Darkshadow is the rogue, Gathios the Shatterer the paladin, Lady Malande the healer and High Nethermancer Zerevor the mage. They all share the same health pool so the fight is all about a successful pull and afterwards, control, definitely not a DPS race. Basically you need two offtanks to take the priest and the rogue, while a mage keeps the nethermancer occupied and your main tanks holds the paladin in check. The pull is one of the most difficult things to master because the beloved council mage hurls 17k damage arcane bolts. Hunters can’t misdirect the tank as he goes in, due to the insane agro range of the council so we’re talking about a dirty body pull. While the paladin and the rogue can be misdirected or simply picked up fast, the two casters are far harder to control.

As Lady Malande’s tank goes in, one mage must go in and counterspell her holy smite because she needs to be moved downstairs. The nethermancer won’t move at all during this fight and gets picked up by the mage tank, which needs more than 10k life and a decent amount of spell hit. The nethermancer casts a special kind of dampen magic which needs to be spell-stolen because it lowers magical damage taken by 75%. When the mage tank’s spell steal gets resisted you just know it’s a wipe so be sure to pack 18% spell hit altogether. Other than that, stay clear of his melee range because arcane explosion will one-shot you and move out of his occasional flamestrikes. The rogue vanishes every thirty seconds just like Moroes and does a garrote on a random target upon reappearing. His tank must be fast to get him under control but other than that it’s ok. The priest is far harder to subdue. Her circle of healing must be constantly interrupted and her holy smites aren’t to be ignore either, thus the warrior tank must pummel and a rogue should kick, on a steady rotation. With few exceptions, all DPS goes to the right, near the stairs and patiently awaits Gathios’ arrival. This paladin is amazing in his damage soaking capabilities. He does have huge armor, but most magic damage you deal gets halved by the chromatic resistance aura. The battle lasts for more than 10 minutes so it will be hard to manage your mana and still deal damage. Truth be told, the raid damage output is pretty much based on melee damage this time. Gathios the Shatterer can spike his tank for massive damage, thus 4 healers must always watch over him. Needless to say that you’re not allowed to run out of mana as a healer so pack each and every mp5 item at your disposal. Each of the other tanks needs a personal healer which will follow him. If you get the pull right, without unnecessary death due to arcane bolts, the rest is pretty easy to handle after a few tries since it’s all about the right setup: 3 tanks, 1 mage tank, 7-9 healers and the rest DPS, physical damage based if possible.

Only one remains

The Illidari Council boredom ends in either your raid disbanding due to the late hour of the night and the inherent concentration issues or after the first successful pull. There isn’t much room for anything in between due to the very straight forward nature of the fight. In the end, they will always die. Once again Akama makes an appearance. Follow him and his two Ashtongue martyrs (they’re spirits) up the stairs, to the highest reaches of the Black Temple. The gate you see here bears the last seal, the only locked area in the whole instance. Beyond lays your final challenge, a riddle for vultures, littered with the bones of those who failed. Behold Lord Illidan, he who ponders on darkness holding the depleted skull of Gul’dan in his hands. Are … you … prepared?