Hellfire Citadel

Boss Description:

Xhul'horac is a 4-phase encounter during which your raid will have to contend with Xhul'horac himself as well as with a number of different adds.

• Phase One lasts until the death of a specific add.

• Phase Two lasts until the death of another specific add.

• Phase Three lasts until the boss reaches 20% health.

• Phase Four lasts until the boss dies.

 

Tank Responsibilities

• During Phase One, perform a tank switch on the boss and Vanguard Akkelion when the Felblaze Flurry debuff stacks too high.

• During Phase Two, perform a tank switch on the boss and Omnus when the Withering Gaze debuff stacks too high.

• During Phase Three, perform a tank switch for each Fel Strike or Void Strike.

• Throughout the fight, use defensive cooldowns for each Fel Strike and Void Strike.

 

Healer Responsibilities

• Use defensive healing cooldowns on tanks when they are about to get struck by Fel Strike and Void Strike.

• Save as many healing cooldowns as possible for Phase Four.

• Take care to heal raid members affected by Ablaze or Wasting Void.

 

DPS Responsibilities

• DPS the targets that appear in the following priority:

  1. Wild Pyromaniacs

  2. Unstable Voidfiends

  3. Vanguard Akkelion/Omnus

  4. Xhul'horac

 

Everybodies Responsibilities

• When targeted by Fel Surge or Void Surge, drop the void zones that spawn in their designated areas of the room (Fel Surges go left, Void Surges go right, for example, or vice versa).

• Have an assigned group of players close Black Holes by walking into them together. 3 people is ideal, but 2 is possible.

• Have an assigned ranged DPS player kite the Unstable Voidfiends around by always being the closest to them, while avoiding their Volatile Voidstep by stepping out of the ground effect constantly.

• Be extremely careful not to step in Creeping Void with Ablaze, and in Chaotic Felblaze with Wasting Void.

• Intercept Fel Orbs if you are not debuffed with Ablaze or Wasting Void.

• Interrupt Fel Orb as much as it is possible.

 

Phase One

Phase One lasts from the start of the fight, until Vanguard Akkelion, an add that spawns during this phase, is killed.

 

Abilities

Xhul'horac

• Fel Strike deals massive Fire damage in a single strike to his current tank.

• Fel Surge targets a random amount of raid members, but always at least 3, and applies a 5-second DoT on them that deals moderate Fire damage every second. When the DoT expires, the affected player leaves on the ground a patch of Chaotic Felblaze, which lasts until the end of the fight and gradually spread (by spawning other patches around it). Standing in this patch afflicts raid members with Ablaze, a stacking, 15-second, Fire damage DoT.

 

Adds

• Vanguard Akkelion is an add that spawns shortly after the fight begins. Akkelion has a high amount of health, and can be tanked. When Akkelions takes damage, that damage is also taken by Xhul'horac.

  • Felblaze Flurry deals high Fire damage in a number of rapid strikes, and increases damage taken from Felblaze Flurry for 7 seconds to current tank. This effect stacks, and requires a tank switch.

  • Chains of Fel targets a random amount of raid members and tethers them together with visual fel chains, and deals moderate Fire damage to them every second. This effect stacks based on how many raid members are tethered together, which is entirely random. The Chains of Fel can be broken by having tether players move far away from each other.

• Wild Pyromaniacs are adds that spawn roughly every 45 seconds in waves of 3 or 4. They seem to always appear near the boss. They cannot be tanked, and deal no melee damage. Instead, they just spam their Fel Orb ability.

  • Fel Orb is an interruptible ability. It fires an orb in a random direction. When the orb reaches the wall of the room, it leaves behind a Chaotic Felblaze Fire patch (just like when Fel Surge expires) that applies Ablaze to players standing in it. Players can intercept the orb, preventing the Fire patch from spawning, but this causes Ablaze to be applied on them.

 

Strategy

During Phase One, your raid's main goal is to kill Akkelion as quickly as possible, all the while surviving the abilities used against you. The raid should not focus any DPS on Xhul'horac at this time.

 

Tanking Concerns

Xhul'horac and Akkelion must be tanked throughout Phase One. We advise you to tank both of them close to either side of the room. In Phase Two, we advise tanking the boss and Omnnus (the tankable add during that phase) on the opposite side of the room. This will allow void zones from both phases ( Fel Surge in Phase One and Void Surge in Phase Two) to be placed on opposite sides of the room, preventing these void zones from ever touching, which is important.

 

A tank switch must be performed to deal with the Felblaze Flurry cast by Akkelion. When this happens, the tank who was tanking Akkelions should take Xhul'horac, and vice versa.

 

Tanks should try to rotate defensive cooldowns for every Fel Strike cast by Xhul'horac.

 

Handling the Mechanics

Raid members targeted by Fel Surge should drop their Fire patches on the side where Xhul'horac is currently being tanked, but as far away from him as possible. This will make Phase Two easier.

 

Players targeted by Chains of Fel must spread out in all directions as quickly as possible, to break the chains and minimize damage taken from its ticking debuff.

 

Finally, the raid will have to handle the Wild Pyromaniacs' Fel Orb. These casts must be interrupted as much as possible, and the Pyromaniacs must be killed as quickly as possible. For the Fel Orbs go through, ranged raid members that are not already affected with Ablaze should intercept them to prevent Fire patches from spawning.

 

Players affected with Ablaze should wait for the DoT to drop before going back on Orb-intercepting duty. While the DoT runs its course, these players must be healed.

 

Phase Two

Phase Two lasts from the death of Vanguard Akkelion until the death of Omnus.

 

Abilities

Xhul'horac

• Void Strike deals massive Shadow damage in a single strike to current tank.

• Void Surge targets a random amount of raid members, but always at least 3, and applies a 5-second DoT on them that deals moderate Shadow damage every second. When the DoT expires, affected players leave behind a patch of Creeping Void, which lasts until the end of the fight and spread. Standing in this patch afflicts raid members with Wasting Void, a stacking, 15-second, Shadow damage DoT.

  • If a patch of Creeping Void comes into contact with a patch of Chaotic Felblaze from Phase One, a Shadowfel Annihilation is triggered. This erases the two patches and deals massive Shadowflame damage to all players within 20 yards of where the two patches met. Additionally, all patches of Creeping Void and Chaotic Felblaze disappear within 20 yards of this explosion. Finally, raid members debuffed with Wasting Void that touch patches of Chaotic Felblaze also trigger a Shadowfel Annihilation.

 

Adds

• Omnus is an add that Xhul'horac spawns shortly into Phase Two. Omnus has a high amount of health, and can be tanked. When Omnus takes damage, that damage is also taken by Xhul'horac.

  • Withering Gaze deals massive Shadow damage in a single strike to current tank, and increases damage taken from Withering Gaze for 7 seconds. This effect stacks and requires a tank switch.

  • Black Hole opens a portal near the middle of the room. It deals moderate Physical damage to the entire raid every second, 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 into the Black Hole by running away from it.

    • Singularity deals a lethal amount of Shadow damage that is 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. Intercepting their Fel Orbs still applies Ablaze. If a player affected by Ablaze also receives the Wasting Void debuff (from a Creeping Void void zone), this will trigger a Shadowfel Annihilation.

• Unstable Voidfiends are adds that spawn throughout the phase roughly every 45 seconds, in waves of 3 or 4. They cannot be tanked and deal no melee damage. Instead, they just spam the Volatile Voidstep ability.

  • Volatile Voidstep is a 3.5-second cast that teleports the Unstable Voidfiend to the nearest raid member's location, inflicting heavy Shadow damage to that raid member if they do not move in time, as well as spawning a patch of Creeping Void at that location. When the cast begins, a ground effect is placed at the location of the targeted raid member, giving them time to move away.

 

Strategy

The strategy for Phase Two is very similar to that for Phase One. You will mostly ignore attacking Xhul'horac, and instead try to kill Omnus as quickly as possible, while handling the abilities used against you.

 

Tanking Concerns

Xhul'horac and Omnus must be tanked throughout Phase Two. We advise you to tank both of them close to the opposite side of the room from where Xhul'horac and Akkelion were tanked in Phase One. This will allow ranged raid members targeted by Void Surge to run to the opposite side of the room and place their Creeping Void void zones there, where they will not come in contact with Chaotic Felblaze void zones and trigger a Shadowfel Annihilation.

 

A tank switch must be performed to deal with the Withering Gaze cast by Omnus.

 

Tanks should try to rotate defensive cooldowns for every Void Strike cast by Xhul'horac.

 

Positioning

For Phase Two, we recommend pulling the boss towards the side of the room opposite from Phase One and tanking him there. The ranged camp should stay in rather close formation around the boss.

 

Handling the Mechanics

Players targeted by Void Surge should move as far away from Xhul'horac as possible, and more importantly, away from any Chaotic Felblaze patches left in Phase One. This is to avoid them ever meeting and triggering a Shadowfel Annihilation, as well as allowing the raid as much space as possible.

 

To deal with Black Hole, assign a group of at least 2 raid members to walk into the Black Hole together to trigger a Singularity and split the damage amongst themselves. Immunities do not work for avoiding this damage.

 

The Wild Pyromaniacs' Fel Orb casts should still be interrupted as often as possible. For any Fel Orbs that go through, you should let them travel to the wall if they are moving towards the Chaotic Felblaze on the other side of the room, since the Shadowfel Annihilation that will be triggered is too far away to do harm to your raid. If they are moving towards the raid, intercept them like you would in Phase One.

 

In order to handle Volatile Voidstep, assign a single raid member to stay closest to all of the Unstable Voidfiends, and kite them away from the raid by moving away from the ground effect when it appears. Since Volatile Voidstep is always cast on the nearest player, they will continue casting it on this assigned player. Ranged DPS players should focus on killing the Voidfiends as second-highest priority, after the Wild Pyromaniacs.

 

Phase Three

Phase Three starts when Omnus dies, and it lasts until Xhul'horac reaches 20% health.

 

During this phase, you will only fight Xhul'horac together with Wild Pyromaniacs and Unstable Voidfiends.

 

Abilities

Xhul'horac

Xhul'horac uses both Fel Surge/ Void Surge and Fel Strike/ Void Strike, alternating between them for every cast made. These abilities are very similar to their Phase One and Two versions, with one difference. If a tank who is struck by Fel Strike takes damage from a Void Strike afterward and vice versa, a Shadowfel Annihilation is triggered. Thus, Fel Strike and Void Strike both become tank switch mechanics.

 

Adds

The Wild Pyromaniacs and the Unstable Voidfiends continue to spawn and behave as during Phase Two.

 

Strategy

Throughout this phase, your raid has to handle Xhul'horac and the Wild Pyromaniacs and the Unstable Voidfiends adds. The goal of the phase is to bring Xhul'horac to 20% health (in order to reach Phase Four) as quickly as possible, all while prioritising dealing with the adds.

 

Tanking and Positioning

Perform a tank switch so that only one tank is hit by Fel Strike, and another is only hit by Void Strike.

 

We recommend moving the boss to the middle of the room. Here, raid members have the best access to both sides of the room, where the Chaotic Felblaze void zones from Phase One and the Creeping Void void zones from phase two are located (as we will see, this is important for the strategy of this phase).

 

Handling Abilities

For Fel Surge, place the Chaotic Felblaze fire patch among the others that were placed in Phase One, and for Void Surge, place the Creeping Void shadow patches among the others that were placed in Phase Two.

 

Your DPS players will have to prioritize killing the adds, while still doing enough damage to Xhul'horac to bring him to 20% health as quickly as possible. The adds' abilities should be dealt with in exactly the same way as during Phase Two.

 

Phase Four

Phase Four lasts from the end of Phase Three until Xhul'horac is killed.

 

Abilities

During this phase, Xhul'horac retains his abilities from Phase Three ( Fel Surge/ Void Surge and Fel Strike/ Void Strike), and gains an additional ability. No more adds spawn during this phase, but any adds still alive when the boss reaches 20% health remain in the fight until killed.

 

Overwhelming Chaos is the new ability Xhul'horac gains in Phase Four. He uses this ability every 10 seconds. It deals heavy Chaos damage to all raid members, and increases his damage done by 20% for each time it is used. As time goes on, the damage from Overwhelming Chaos becomes unhealable.

 

Strategy

Phase Four is an intense DPS race where healers will have to keep the raid alive long enough for Xhul'horac to die. Ideally, your raid should aim to push Xhul'horac past 20% health when few or no adds are alive, in order to make this last phase easier. If any adds are still alive, Wild Pyromaniacs should be killed right away, while Unstable Voidfiends can be cleaved down next to Xhul'horac.

The primary goal of Phase Four is to kill Xhul'horac as quickly as possible. DPS cooldowns should be saved for this point in the fight.

Tanking and Positioning

As far as tanking Xhul'horac, the tanks will have to do exactly the same thing they did during Phase Three, namely ensuring that only one tank is hit by Fel Strike, and another is only hit by Void Strike.

We recommend stacking up behind the boss, in order to get as much healing on everyone as possible.