Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by Tyrsenus

Although Kael'thas seemed to have died in his encounter in Tempest Keep: The Eye, upon turning in his Verdant Sphere to A'dal, he appears in Shattrath revealing that he survived thanks to Priestess Delrissa. He is now the final boss of Magisters' Terrace, being kept alive by a crystal etched into his chest. He has taken M'uru, the source of the Blood Knights' power, and is using Anveena to summon his master Kil'jaeden into Azeroth through the Sunwell itself. Players will notice that he is missing one of his three signature verdant spheres, as one was given to A’dal.

Kael'thas drops two epic items on heroic mode unlike other heroic bosses. The Swift White Hawkstrider may also drop in addition to the two epics.

Comment by Seregon

Tactics for the Kael fight in the Magister's Terrace:

Kael'Thas basically has two phases. He starts off by doing mostly melee attacks and the occasional fireball on a random party member. Fire resistance shouldn't be an issue, but anything you've got with you will do basically.

He will spawn a phoenix which should be kited by a ranged class as it does a fire based AoE around him. After a while the phoenix will blow up, dealing massive fire damage and an AoE knockback to anyone within range. Still uncertain about the range on this though. We just stayed a good 40 yards away from it. Once it is dead it leaves a phoenix egg that must be nuked down or else it will be reborn.

At 50% Kael'Thas enters his 2nd phase where he will use Gravity Lapse. Gravity Lapse throws the entire party up in the air and you are free to move as if you were swimming under water. He will also start channeling arcane magic to the entire party ticking for about 350 damage every few seconds. A healer with an AoE heal is much appreciated here. He will also spawn arcane orbs which will deal 2,000 damage if they hit you. Swim around and avoid the orbs and keep dps up on Kael.

Gravity Lapse will eventually end and you will get a few seconds to heal up and deal some damage to Kael before he casts Gravity Lapse again. Stay alive and keep DPS up and he should be down in no time.

Comment by 128104

From the sound of it, this promises to be a fun fight. I love when Bliz actually decides to make fights interesting with strange new features, such as gravity lapse, rather than just making bosses hit harder and summon more adds.

Looking forward to it!

Comment by Conceited

Normal Instance Strategy:

Kael will cast Fireballs which can be interrupted, whether you do or not doesn't matter much, they don't hit hard.

He summons a Phoenix which moves very slowly. It does a hellfire type effect while moving. It should be aggro'd and kited by someone with range while killing it. The Phoenix explodes on death, stay away. Once it dies it leaves an egg behind, kill that asap.

When Kael reaches 50% he cast a spell called Gravity Lapse. A beam will lift and stay on each party member causing small but steady amounts of damage. A healer with HoT's is best for this. He also spawns arcane orbs which slowly follow people around. If you get too close to them they do a large amount of damage to you. You can continue to damage him during this time in the air. If you go and walk on the ground you will be punted back into the air and not be able to move for a couple of seconds. If you are near an orb at this time it can be fatal.

The best tactic I found for this stage was to have your entire group "swim" to the front of the room where the door is, cast some DoT's/HoT's/Direct Damage spells and when the orbs get close everyone swim to the front and left side of the room, repeat damage. Then move to the back, repeating damage, then to the other side of the room. Always staying ahead of the orbs. By now the Gravity Lapse is over and you have about 10 seconds to DPS Kael hard before he casts the Gravity Lapse again.

All in all an easy fight if your group is paying attention and knows what to do.

Klair - Kul'Tiras

Comment by 112746

Anyone have any idea how well geared you have to be to successfully take down kael'thas in the normal mode dungeon?

Comment by 50617

The fight is pretty simple, but the phoenix add was quite a surprise when I saw it.

In normal mode it hits like a truck, so you really don't want to leave it alive (It was getting 2k whites and 1.5k AoE ticks on my hunter), but if you choose to, or don't kill the egg, when he sends you up in the air, it will start casting fireballs (4 second cast rather than 3 I think, it took a while), and they hurt. Also, its kind of fun to watch while your flying in the air, because it slowly patrols back and forth in a half circle motion.

It is a very slow mob, so kiting it or killing it are both options (We had a lock on one side and me on the other side of the room just kill it, it doesn't have a super high amount of health, and the egg dies quite fast)

Another thing, Kael'thas WILL kill your pets... I don't know if its a bug or not, but every time he does his gravity lapse my pet dies. All in all pretty simple fight if you avoid the things being thrown at you (While your floating you can cast spells as if you were in water/on land.)

Comment by camane

Run from the glowing balls!
It's not that difficult if everyone just pays attention and stays away from them

Comment by Furkel

All I'd like to know is, does he actually ACTUALLY die this time?

Comment by SimpsonsParadox

The Emerald that rips through is heart is a Fel Crystal that is providing him the Fel Energy that A) He's addicted to and B) That he requires to live (Since he did get throughly trashed in Outlands.)

Also, I'd like to add that, unless it has been changed recently, Warriors can also spell reflect his Fire attacks back at him in P1.

Comment by Shorty

Kael becomes untankable at 50%. It'd be a good idea for the tank to switch out his weapons and help the group another way once he gets that low.

Warriors can DPS; paladins can help heal; druids can either heal or DPS based on what's needed more.

Comment by supertao

"The air around you hums - a gentle hum. The naaru are aware of your victory. Perhaps they are the reason you were compelled to pick up this sphere from the ***still-twitching*** remains of Kael'thas Sunstrider. What secrets could it hold?"

"The sphere... Strange. Did you know that he lived? Yes. It is here - in the sphere itself. Maimed for certain. He calls to a higher power now. No, not Illidan.

Higher.

Kil'jaeden the Deceiver comes...

Not here..."

---Upon returing the verdant sphere taken from Kael'thas's body (after he is defeaten in TK) to A'dal

Thus proving he was STILL ALIVE when it was taken.

Comment by Tekunin

Just got done doing this fight. It was rather fun.

On a humorous note: My group was a horrible fail pug. At about 25% everyone but me (UA warlock) died. Since all his damage ceased except the aoe damage tick and the orbs, I was able to solo him by drain tanking. We had a pretty good laugh.

Comment by 40753

Ran into a interesting "issue" with Kael'thas. Not sure if this is intended

First time running it heroic mode, we got to kael no worries, but started off on him a bit slow. He was getting close to 50% when he shielded and next thing we see a pyroblast warning. We were going wtf at that when it hit the tank and one-shotted him for 43k damage..! Same shield spell effect as the Tempest Keep version of Kael.

Next attempt we just zerged him down and there was no pyroblast. Go figure.

Comment by 56506

If you can avoid this guy's damaging spheres once he hits 50% then you're probably going to do fine.

The phoenix and egg are important to destroy quickly, but he hopefully won't get more than one of those off.

Comment by jaxsonbateman

Have done Kael a few times today. He's not too difficult at all.

First up, I haven't done him on heroic - but at least on normal, he doesn't melee very hard, and his fireballs are interruptable. So if you keep the interrupts up, really, you don't need a mainstream tank. The first time we killed him I was the tank (tankadin), and I served little use in phase 2. The second time we had our druid tank do P1 in kitty gear (as bear), and go kitty for P2, and this worked really well.

For phase 2, the aim of the game is to stay alive during gravity lapses. It's all too easy for melee to hit a few orbs trying to dps while in the air, and getting squished, but he goes down like a piece of cake when his lapse ends, so as long as you stay alive while in the air, you'll get your loot. Actually, on the first attempt we were down to a rogue, priest and myself (tank), and after realising that we just had to stay alive we were still able to take him down the last 30%.

So, to sum up - phase 1, interrupt those fireballs, kite that phoenix, win. Phase 2, stay alive, win. I'd imagine the only difference in heroic is to save your cooldowns for the P1 shock barrier + pyro, but I'll try and post after I've tried it out to shed some light.

Comment by Jderache

Again no warrior tank loots from bosses... And they say blizz doesn't make discriminations...

Comment by 140502

he also drops

Comment by yodadoe

Killed this guy last night, and boy was he a pain in the arse... Hard to Kill, indeed. Here are some pointers, until a more detailed guide is posted by someone...

Phase 1 -- Standard boss-tanking scenario, though he really doesn't hit very hard. A phoenix will spawn, which procs a steady Hellfire (like the fire elementals in Mech, though without the fire trail) and slowly goes straight for the healer. Have ranged DPS take it down (and slow it, if possible) immediately while tank sticks to boss. Melee DPS should probably stay on boss too, since the Hellfire is pretty damaging. After it explodes upon death (don't be near that!), an Egg will spawn, which should be destroyed to avoid a respawn (it is a phoenix!). Also of note, the Boss will randomly target someone (seems like it was the tank most of the time) with an AoE spell -- simply move out of it, or you'll die. It's hard to miss -- bright orange/pink aura with rotating spheres.

Phase 2a -- At 50% health, Boss "turns the world upside down" (Gravity Lapse). This throws everyone up into the air, applies a steady arcane DoT, and spawns large pink bubbles that result in large damage if you run into them. (It is a good idea to make sure you've killed all Phoenix and Eggs before you DPS him down to 50%, so those guys won't be in the way, though the phoenix do stay on the ground.) You can swim through this stuff like it is water, only at normal movement speed. Have ranged DPS continue to burn the Boss, but mainly, survive and heal is the most important thing to do here. Long casting spells are not ideal, due to the interruption from the DoT. Everyone else simply move around to avoid bubbles and whoever can, apply heals, especially HoT or any instant spells. Do NOT tank boss during this 10-15 second period and do NOT touch the ground! It will throw you up into the air and stun you, at which point you're likely to fall to your death when he stops the Gravity Lapse.

Phase 2b -- This is a period of perhaps 10 seconds, where the boss is stunned and prone to 150% damage. DPS the hell out of him, everyone! Druid tanks, go cat to help DPS him, since he doesn't fight back. If he's still alive after this, he goes back to Phase 2a...wash, rinse, repeat.

We wiped several times. It takes practice. He dropped epic plate boots for us... bah!

Comment by 14172

I had the opportunity to tank him last night and here are some things to keep in mind:

You can spell reflect his fireball which does decent damage to him and helps hold aggro
You can Shield Bash and interrupt his fireball while spell reflect is down

His melee hits are pretty weak and with Thunder Clap and Demo shout up you should have no problems with the incoming damage if are able to avoid his fireballs with Shield Bash and Spell Reflect as much as possible.

One more fairly important tip is that when he summons the phoenix you may want to move because the AOE fire damage that it does can take your life down pretty quickly so move back for a few seconds while a ranged DPS pulls and kites the phoenix then move back into melee range with Kael after the phoenix is away. You shouldn't lose aggro if you have been spell refelcting his fireballs.

The most important thing to do during gravity lapse is avoid the orbs and don't touch the ground or he will throw you back into the air and damage you. I have roughly 15000 unbuffed HP and can survive the ticks of the gravity lapse very easily as a tank so the healers should concentrate on healing those who have lower HP. The ticks were hitting me for 241 in defensive stance and if the floating orbs hit you they were doing roughly 1800 damage. As the tank during this phase I wasn't doing much just avoiding the orbs and dpsing when I could, but as prot spec that isn't anything to brag about.

When Kael is stunned after a gravity lapse he takes 50% increased damage so blow your cool downs and try and take him down before he casts it again.

Comment by Cracked

Pyroblasted for 52k!

Comment by Arslaan

Kael has a 10k damage shield on Heroic mode. Cannot be dispelled. His fireballs have lower cast times and he uses them more frequently.

As a pally tank, I had to bubble up right before pyroblast hit and remove the buff asap before he killed the dps.

Comment by orcsmash

On heroic mode he will bubble and start casting pyroblast. All dps must switch to him at this point to burn down the shield and interrupt the cast, or else someone's going to get 1 shot by a 45k pyroblast.

Comment by 119728

omg it sucked... did it over 5times and with no AoE heal... it sucks... I cant imagine heroic

Comment by 140706

Ran through a small bug on him, was drinking a super mana potion the moment he threw us all in the air, I ended up stuck on the ground while all my allies thrown up, I then got a hit similar to the one in TK and died :(

Maybe its a bug am not sure

Comment by 81181

Did this today with a pug group, fun fight really, just make sure you kill the pheonix and the egg fast before going on Kael again, then at gravitry lapse watch out for the orbs, you will swim really fast so it wouldnt be a problem. Gravity lapse hits you for 300 every 3 sec.

Comment by littlidabbi

Heroic Mode.

Did him as:
Protection Paladin
Retribution Paladin
Restoration Druid
Affliction Warlock
Shadow Priest

He has the same abilities he has in normal and a Pyroblast

All his abilities do much higher dmg in Heroic.

Fireball was hitting Protection Tank for 5000 each.

Flamestrike killed our Retri Pala fast when she got caught in it.

Phoenix does alot of dmg aswell, if it got close to any1 they died in seconds. Can be slowed, Curse of Exhaustion worked well.

He will do a shield and begin to cast a 50.000 dmg pyroblast. The shield must be dps'd down and his Pyroblast interrupted. Our group had no interruption but Divine Shield saved me from the Pyroblast.

He will start Gravity Lapse at 50%, same as in Normal Mode.

Had our Druid, Lock and Retri Pala die at 40%. Killed him from there on with me(Protection Pala) healing and Shadow Priest dps-ing. Once u get to gravity lapse its pretty much over.

Comment by 77060

Heroic:

Edit: Fireballs are unresistable. Dont worry about the FR, just do regualr tanking

Kael will cast something that looks like a Power Word: Shield, then begin to cast Pyroblast. When you see him start casting it, all dps must stop what their doing and burn through the shield, then interupt the cast with a kick/charge/earthshock (immune to a Priest's Silence).

If you can get him to phase 2 (flying phase) fast enough, then you dont have to worry about the blast.

If you dont burn it down, the blast will hit you for between 40-60k, oneshotting what is most likely your tank. I think it's probably on a timer since we've gotten it 3 of the 5 times we've done the boss, and on the 2 times we didn't get it, we use'd Bloodlust.

Side note, Untankable in phase 2, so switch to dps weapons / Catform and loot his sweet sweet epix

Comment by 137856

How to kill Kael'thas Sunstrider in Heroic Mode

Pref. Group Settings
Any tank (Druid, Warrior, Paladin)
Any healer, HoT abilities prefered (Druid, Priest/ Shaman, Paladin)
2 Caster/CC DPS (Mage, Warlock)
1 Melee/Range DPS (Rogue, Hunter)

Kael'thas Abilities
Fireball - Hits for 4k to 5k most of the time, it's his normal attack
Flamestrike - A flamestrike that acts like a bomb, once the flame blows up it will hit players standing on it for 3k to 5k hp, taking periodic damage
Phoenix - A phoenix will spawn and chases player with the highest aggro on it
Shield + Pyro Combo - A shield that has 10k hitpoints is placed on Kael'thas that reflects partial damage, Kael'thas will start casting a 4 second pyroblast that will one shot the target with aggro, dealing 45k to 50k damage
Gravity lapse + 3 orbs - Pulls everyone to Kael'thas and send them swimming in the air, increasing your movement speed but allowing 3 deadly orb to slowly follow a player, instant death if touched for more than 2 seconds because you will get zapped for 2.5k every second. The party also takes 300 damage periodically during gravity lapse

Phoenix Abilities
Passive Flamestrike - A mini flamestrike wherever the phoenix moves, happens every 2-3 seconds and hits for 2k if you are standing on it

How to kill Kael'thas effectively
First off, make sure that your party is buffed up and possibly potted with cheap buffs because DPS is vital. If you have a warlock in the group, get him to put Soulstone on the main tank.

When battle is engaged, Kael'thas will start casting fireballs at the player with the highest aggro, the tank. It can be interrupted and should be to minimise heals required.

A phoenix will spawn shortly after, you will need to get a range class to DPS it heavily to kite the phoenix while slowing it with any slow abilities. After the range class grabs aggro, he kites it around while the group starts to DPS the phoenix down, when it turns into an egg, kill it off.

If you have a druid and priest, get them to cast HoTs on every target frequently because the next part requires heavy healing. If you have a resto shaman, get everyone to stack up before gravity lapse for chain heals, paladin can cast divine shield to lessen heals required.

At around 60%, Kael'thas will activate a shield that has 10k hitpoints and reflects partial damage, doing so, he will begin casting pyroblast. There are multiple strategies to counter this but the straight forward method is to take down the shield with very heavy DPS (About 700 per person), if you feel that he is going to activate his pyro combo soon, get party to load up their bursts and interrupt the pyroblast immediately when the shield is down. Another strategy is to either Divine Shield/ Blessing of Forberence through the pyroblast if you are a prot paladin tank. You can also resurrect back up with Soulstone and rebirth after the Pyro hits. The pyroblast cannot be reflected.

Kael'thas will put you into gravity lapse mode pulling everyone to him, 3 orbs will spawn and follow a player, the party will start taking 300 damage periodically. All you have to do is distance yourself as far as possible away from the orbs and start hitting Kael'thas. When the lapse is over, he will drop you to the ground, you will have a split second to do double DPS on him while he is powerless before he starts to cast gravity lapse again.

Kael'thas will eventually die, you can enjoy your drops now.

TL;DR version

-Interrupt fireballs
-Kite phoenix around and kill it
-HoTs on everyone frequently, same with chain heals
-DPS shield down and interrupt his pyro/ Divine Shield/ Blessing of Forberence through the pyro/ SS or Rebirth through it
-Dodge the orbs in gravity lapse, DPS at max distance

Comment by 113820

This one MIGHT be a bit hard. But really easy dooable if you know how. We didnt bother to read the extremly LONG explanations on how to kill it.. it was just to much to read:P Here is the easy way to explain it:

Phase 1:
Start off with the tank tanking, the rest dps like hell.
When the phoenix comes, all the dpsers change targets to the phoenix, then hit the egg, then do the boss.
Phase 2: After a while, he casts a gravity spell, you will now "swim around" in the air above him, you can still cast spells. Swim around, avoid the energy balls. (Zoom the camera out to the max, place it above your head) Heal when needed.If you have enough dps, you can down him in the first gravity thing.

NOTE:
We actually downed him in the first gravity thing, so we never had the problem with the thing he does on the ground (DOnt remember what it is:P
and his RANDOM fireball wasnt random:P It kept hitting the tank ONLY. Will test this today to check if it is random or not.

Comment by DSitC

Tactial Information:

If you manage to get him into Phase 2 you are able to kill him, as long as you have a healer alive. He will deal no damage but the DoT applied throughout the Gravity Lapse.

I, for example, was able to solo him to death as a holy priest. Just keep yourself topped of, avoid the charged spheres and dps whenever possible.

Note: If anyone dies, they are able to run back into the instance and re-join the fight. As soon as a new gravity lapse starts, all party members will be teleported into the room, no matter were they are in the dungeon. :-)

Comment by LoKHor

On heroic, he is pretty tricky. The best tactic I've found is to burn him really really fast (use all trinkets and cooldowns). This is especially doable if you have a hunter who can misdirect for that initial aggro. When the first phoenix comes, zerg it fast, kill the egg, and then go back to intensely burning down Kael'thas. If you have the dps, you will manage to get him below 50% before a. The second phoenix spawns; and b. He pops his shield and casts a pyroblast that one-shots your tank.

Once you are in the air (phase 2), swim around, avoiding the bubbles and relying on your healer to keep you up from the aoe damage that everyone takes. The damage is only 300 per tick so it should be no problem to stay alive, so long as you can avoid the orbs. Do whatever DPS you can, but the trick here is to stay alive. When you land, your trinkets should be up again and you should DPS him as hard as possible (don't waste any time). If he puts you into the air again, just repeat it: stay alive by swimming around, then do hard DPS when you land on the ground again.

Collect or disenchant your epics ;)

In response to archeronx's post: you are correct; his fireballs are not random but are aimed at the person who is highest on the aggro list - which should be the tank ><

While swimming around, it can be hard to keep up any DPS and avoid getting hit. Not every group makeup will be able to get him down in the first gravity lapse, but since he doesn't do anything nasty aside from the orbs, waiting it out and zerging once you land again is fine.

LoKHor

Comment by 121020

Phase one :

Stay out of fire ,stay away from bird (the bird damages itself each tick - it can be kited) When bird explodes, kill egg to stop bird rebirth.... Nuke Kael to 50% -

Phase two :

Stay off ground, Just Swim around avoiding the orbs, use Hot's Pot's HS's,ranged dps, hybrid tanks help heal (Kael does not need tank in phase two) Every so often Gravity debuff ends for a few seconds THEN NUKE KAEL! (repeat till he's dead)

Comment by 1909

I doubt I'm right, but does spell reflect work on Pyroblast? Or does it at least serve as a way to circumvent the damage?

Comment by 123668

I recently did this on heroic mode. My group wiped once during magister's terrace due to a bad trash pull. Honestly, i did not find Kael'thas to be much harder on heroic. He summoned one phoenix in all. When he shielded to do his pyro we had the shield down within 1 or 2 seconds and i(a mage) simply counterspell'd him. On gravity lapse he's the same, you just have to not be dumb and move away from the orbs. His shield seemed to have absorbed about 5-6k damage and then dissipated.

Group consisted of

Me(frost mage)
Warrior(prot)
Druid(feral)
Priest(holy)
Hunter(Marks)

The druid did a small amount of off healing but not so much that you cant do this without it.

GL!

Comment by Tamika

One small tip for tanks, at his pyroblast and groups with lack of DPS or just incase. What I did:

1. Told a healer to have me topped when Kael starts casting pyro.
2. Used Shield Wall and Last Stand.
3. Used Bulwark of the Ancient Kings (150 stamina, optional). Also you can use some stamina-giving-trinkets or Nightmare Seed if you don't feel confident (don't think you'll need it if you got that far into the instance).

then I received a 10k pyro while having more than 24k hp overall, party even didn't notice that.
Do not "save a cooldown for a better situation" because a pyro starts at around 60% and at 50% you (tank) become useless.

...Well not that useless, if you manage to "aggro" some bubbles letting thus another ppl be more relaxed and continue DPS, remember to execute at 19% (if you get there hehe).

Good Luck!

EDIT: Spell reflect DOES NOT work on pyroblast, that's why I wiped on the first try :)

Comment by 9074

It's not listed under the Heroic drops for Kael'thas, but he can drop the Phoenix Hatchling on both difficulties. I've personally seen it drop in both places. Please add this to the initial boss loot post.

Comment by Toldry

The phoenixes can be easly kited on the ramp behind Kael'thas.

Comment by 52689

He's changed... he looks.. undead? Hurts that we killed him, he looked way better then :0

Comment by 72709

He dropped the enchanting formula for Boar's Speed on normal mode for me the day before yesterday.

The formula was Bind on Pickup, unlike the world drop recipe. Also got Steelweave the same run.
Just thought I'd mention the Boar's Speed formula, since it's not a listed drop yet.

Comment by kauski

this is a joke after he done his pyroblast and phoenix

was hunter and healer alive after those and kael'thas around 20% health and it was very easy to nuke down

in heroic.

Comment by danleo

Does anyone know if Kael is supposed to drop a Primal Nether in Heroic Mode ?

Comment by alexiel

Random BoP patterns seem to drop off him too.

Comment by Distress

Some tips for low DPS groups for Kael'thas:

Soulstone the tank if you have warlock, because hes usually the one to die on pyroblast. After 50% Kael can be pretty much killed by a healer and any ranged dps.
Finished heroic run where lock and paly killed boss down from about 35%.

Comment by 140733

The Hatching can drop in heroic mode.

Comment by 141323

As a warrior tank, I found that this fight is very easy if you set up a Shield Bash --> Spell Reflect rotation. You can mitigate/stop most if not all his spell dmg on you by timing this correctly. Once he's into phase two, as others have said, no worries about tanking... just spank him.

(Normal Mode)

Comment by 141327

I am an extremely well geared warlock that needed to do this place on normal for the heroic key. My group was very under geared and I carried them though most of the instance. When we got to Kael, our tank(a prot pally) couldn't hold aggro for anything and I eventually ended up tanking him after a few failed attempts. One of our dps left and I put on my pvp stam gear and tanked him as if he was capernian/illidan/leotheras. Our prot pally put on healing gear and our other dps (a mage) kited the phoenix around. This was a very unconventional way of fighting him but it works if you have good healers and/or a crappy tank.

Comment by 85139

Just beat Kael on Heroic!

priest as heal,
druid as tank,
lock, mage, and rogue as dps.

First thing, if you are surrounded by spinning fire, RUN! after 2 seconds you will die, if you do not relocate. Second, dps the first bird down, and then dps the egg even quicker. Continue to dps Kael and he will begin to cast pyroblast. Pyroblast will kill you tank, but dont worry you dont need a tank anymore. Next, with only 4 people, quickly dps the second bird and egg. By now, you should be in antigravity. Simply swim away from Orbs of Death while keeping some dps. Kael will release you from antigravity for 10 sec while he is vulnerable, again no tank is needed because he is vulnerable. Keep repeating antigravity and vulnerable stages with you remaining four players until Kael is DEAD!

Comment by 132869

i was doing this right now. the group was realy retarded,a rogue(me)shadow priest,druid(full green gear, i mean greens from quests in hellfire)holy priest,and a mage. we wiped 4 times.at the first phase just tank him down,and when he summons the pheonix egg kill it asap, i mean it. in the 2. phase if not killed it will give you dmg while in air. if oyu survive the 1. phase just stay alive

Comment by 68112

Sounds scripts for Kael :P

Quotes are already mentioned in this thread so ill just paste the scripts.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceKaelthasSunstrider\\BROKENKAELAGGRO.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceKaelthasSunstrider\\BROKENKAELDEATH.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceKaelthasSunstrider\\BROKENKAELFLAMESTRIKE.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceKaelthasSunstrider\\BROKENKAELMOREAIR.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceKaelthasSunstrider\\BROKENKAELPHASE2.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceKaelthasSunstrider\\BROKENKAELPHOENIX.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceKaelthasSunstrider\\BROKENKAELWEAKENED.wav")

Comment by 134676

Heroic MgT Kael fight

@tanks that are in a group having problems taking down the shield during the pyroblast

If you aren't a pally (you can divine shield yourself to avoid pyroblast, simply click off the buff after it "hits") simply take the pyroblast as close to 50% as possible, while making sure the bird has been killed, as well as the egg that spawns after the bird, you will die, and that's fine, a prot warrior or feral druids dps/heals will be almost useless anyway, so simply die, encourage the 3 dps and healer to continue on and assure them it's easy-mode as long as they stay in LoS of the healer and don't touch the ground or the orbs

feel free to add anything else

Comment by 25333

he drops Haste Potion recipe

Comment by 89228

The best tactic I found for this stage was to have your entire group "swim" to the front of the room where the door is, cast some DoT's/HoT's/Direct Damage spells and when the orbs get close everyone swim to the front and left side of the room, repeat damage. Then move to the back, repeating damage, then to the other side of the room. Always staying ahead of the orbs. By now the Gravity Lapse is over and you have about 10 seconds to DPS Kael hard before he casts the Gravity Lapse again.

During Phase 2 (50% Health), Kael'Thas can be soloed as a Affliction Warlock. I've done it, in normal difficulty, using that strategy.
To add some more details, be sure to have your Healthstone and Health Potion, as well as your imp out for Dark Pact. As soon as Kael casts Gravity Lapse, 'swim' to the room's entrance, and while doing so throw your instant DoTs. Once there, while you wait for the orbs, cast Unstable Affliction and start to Drain Life. When the orbs get close, swim to one side of the room and then to the back, and then to the other side of the room, and then back to the entrance (while renewing your dots). At each of these four points (entrance, left side, back, right side), be sure to Drain Life (so that Kael's dot doesn't kill you).
Use Dark Pact to recover mana, and if you really need to: use your Potion (yes the potion first), and if you need again use the Healthstone (that way you're be able to heal a 3rd time if the potion's cooldown is already gone. When Kael stops the Gravity Lapse, trinket and start casting Shadow Bolts, and be sure to renew your DoTs, but always keeping an eye on your mana and health (if you need health, Drain Life instead; for mana, Dark Pact)
This doesn't require "great" gear, but just good strategy and be able to keep an eye on your health to not be killed by Kael's DoT.

Comment by 141525

On Heroic MagT tonight he dropped a BOP JC recipe: Runed Living Ruby

Comment by 81854

I've noticed that Kael only seems to cast Pyroblast if the Phoenix lives too long. I don't have an exact timer for it but it's something to keep in mind.

Comment by 32660

Just attempted him on heroic difficulty. We could not down him, and stopped after 5 wipes simply because we were done trying to do something useless.

Group makeup:

Prot Warr, T4/Kara, some SSC Gears
Rogue in Kara Epics
Lock in Kara/SSC Epics
Priest in Kara/SSC Epics
Ret Pally in Kara/S1 Glad Epics (Me, and BTW its entirely possible up to here with this group makeup)

His Phoenix is pretty much the same as normal, a little more damage (2k-2300ish) on his aoe, but easily doable by intelligent people (read: not a PUG). His main attack, the Fireballs, went as follows:

-Hit our 15000hps tank for about 5k per
-Was definitely resisted once according to combat logs (Dodged maybe?)
-Can be reflected by a warr/kicked by a rogue
-Cannot be Spell Lock'd by lock pet

After the first Phoenix, he casts Pyroblast, which hits for like 40k+. We tried burning through this "shield" thing that we read about and couldn't. Seems ridiculous that there is a freaking "gear check" requiring T5+ when the epics he drops aren't that level of gear. Also:

-Cannot be Spell Reflected by a warrior
-Cannot be interrupted by Spell Lock, Kick, Shield Bash (at least during shield)
-Cannot be LOS'd. After slowly dragging him over to the left of the stairs and waiting for the pyro, our tank ran behind the wall there and Kael pyroed her through it. Evidently, the laws that apply to everything else in this game don't apply to this pyro.

So evidently Blizzard finally found a way to make everyone really really love paladin tanks; make it so you have to take one into their new dungeon. Or be in T6.

Comment by Hyperstalker

I have noticed that kael seems to drop a plan/patter/recipe of some sort each kill on heroic.. It is BoP but the plan/pattern/recipe was perviously avaible as a BoE..
First kill gotten - Vitaity
Second - healing potion injector

Comment by 124900

First, thanks to all of comments above with valuable info. We got him in heroic mode last night.

Timing on the pyro is tricky for the tank, but we figured out that sacrifying our tank is ok. Also if we dps hard enough to burn him quickly down to 50% from about 65% when he begins casting pyro, we can avoid pyro at all, but managing threat can be hard in doing so.

After the pyro, he's pretty weak as long as we can dodge those orbs properly (otherwise suffering 2k dmg/sec/orb). We found swimming to the door can buy us more space.

Having said that, this battle is kinda luck based. There were several times he summoned a phoenix right before entering the swiming phase then wiped us.

Comment by 70265

I've done this two times now on heroic and he is definitely one of my favorite encounters. I've found that if your DPS is really good you wont even see the pyroblast in heroic.

There are two ways that I have found that works with this boss:

1. If your DPS is subpar, it is worth stopping dps 60% and wait for the second phoenix, kill it... kill the egg... then drop him below 50%. You don't want to be in the air when the second phoenix is up, it just becomes another thing to dodge and screws you up when you get the free dps time after the gravity lapse.

2. If your DPS is really strong, I've seen him drop below 50% before he gets a pyroblast or a second phoenix. This is significantly better because it is significantly less to worry about.

In either situation, I have found that the best way to deal with KT when he is gravity lapsing is to have everyone run to the back of the room, wait for the bubbles to float near to you, then sneak around them toward him and do damage to him. The gravity lapses are survival times, not damage times. After the gravity lapse completes he goes into a weakened state and cannot attack back for a few seconds. At this point DPS should be full tilt.

Fire resistance is good, but don't gear for it, its only about 4-5k damage every few seconds and a tank should easily have enough HP to take that if you are this far into the instance. Fire resist aura was enough to toss up a few resists...His melee is weak... ~800-900 on plate.

Comment by 62976

One more addition to heroic strategy:

If phoenix is alive during gravity lapse, it will stop moving and instead spam fireballs. Dunno if this is true on normal too.

Comment by lordofthedice

Just down Kael'thas on Heroic for the first time. We had quite a few problems with him, the worst of which was the Pyroblast. The Pyroblast is not reflectable with a warrior's Spell Reflect. It hits for 40K and therefore is instant death to anyone it hits. The normal way to avoid this is to nuke Kael'thas as fast as possible to get his shield down and then interrupt the spell. We had problems with doing this before time ran out. So, what we did was we had our Warlock put a Soulstone on the tank and made the tank eat the Pyroblast while the ranged DPS handled the Pheonixes. The Pyroblast hit, tank popped and reestablished aggro. Was able to keep the group alive for the second phase. After this it is a easy task of keeping away from the bubbles and DPSing Kael'thas down. The swimming to the entrance and then around the bubbles works very well here.

Comment by 100439

As tank, this is how i dealed with the Pyro on heroic:

Due to lack of dps, I popped shieldwall and last stand when he started casting his pyroblast.
This way, the pyroblast only hit for 10k. Immediatly after it hit, I used a healthpot, a Healthstone, and one of those Depleted crystal foci from BeM.

Hope this helps :D

Comment by firewulf

An interesting note on the patterns he drops: They're Bind on Pickup, not the normal versions.

Comment by GenXCub

Just to add my $.02

On normal difficulty, the group was Bear tank, pally healer, mage, mage, shadow priest (I played mage). I found that just me on phoenix duty was not the best use of the time, because by the time I was trying to kill the egg, we'd be at 50% and Gravity Lapse would make me unable to finish off the egg before hatching.

When the shadow priest and I killed the phoenix and egg, it allowed the both of us to go back to dps on Kael and made the fight cake (using the 'swimming' rotation above).

Comment by 18754

I have done this a number of times with strong melee groups : 1 tank, 2 melee dps, 1 ranged dps and 1 healer.

The ranged dps should have enough dps to take out the bird and egg solo. When the phoenix spawns DO NOT fully kill him, take him down to about 10% and continue to kite until Kael is on 70% then kill the phoenix and the egg. In this respect a second phoenix wont spawn prior to the 50% gravity phase.

Also Kael is susceptable kick, however he is immune to cheapshot and kidney shot.

In Gravity Phase (2) with a melee heavy group just use your ranged weapons in the air and go all out dps when back on the ground. It should take 2-3 rotations before he is dead.

Rogues can also cloak of shadows through the phoenix's aoe damage and through some of the gravity damage.

Comment by haloman800

here's the link to the Kael'thas in Tempest Keep: The Eye https://www.wowhead.com/tbc/npc=19622

Comment by haloman800

im not sure if someone already posted it (dont wanna read the 100 comments) but according to GM he is the hardest heroic boss in game so far

Comment by conneich

The awesome of the awesome! Just killed Kael'Thas! What makes it awesome? Im a Resto Druid, on phase 2 all party had died but me, I solo'd him to 10% then party popped into instance and ported to him to finish him off! Resto Druid FTW! No frap though, happened too quickly >.<

But let it be known, if you have a good running and you die while fight, during phase 2 you will be ported from the entrance of the instance to Kael'Thas' room!

Comment by 110353

It is possible on normal mode to have a Warlock solo phase 2.
Using spells like Drain Life and Siphon Life heals the player through the damage, while they can DoT and avoid the orbs. They can then use the free time on the floor to nuke or Life Tap.

The only major problem a lot of groups encounter is the fact that they may get a stray pheonix just before the second phase. it's caused many wipes, because the pheonix will cast fireballs which ignore Line of Sight if your party is in the air.

Comment by 123407

I obviously did not read all those 100 posts before me, but let me say a couple things that i noticed on heroic.

First, a dps+healer is more than enough to kill him in phase 2, not sure an affl warlock could do in solo, but i did coupled with a druid and all went REALLY easy.

The other and maybe more important thing is about his shield. If the warlock in your gruop casts "Curse of Doom" immediately after the pull, it will detonate on the shield, almost deleting it with one shot (with 1000spelldmg my amplified one did 8700 the time i timed it too late, so if timed correctly takes out a large amount of the shield).

I hope this helps. (and thanks Kael for dropping your cloth chest at first try)

Comment by 134198

Something I thought about after giving this encounter a shot the first time. Since you are "swimming," would a swim speed potion make you move even faster in the second phase? I understand a health pot or mana pot would be better to use in this phase, but I can't help but wonder. If it does work and the game mechanics as if you are in the water, it would be possible to wait untill the last possible second, use the pot, zoom up and accross the room in half the time to get a little more DPS time in. Just more out of curiousity and if anyone has/could try it just for grins and giggles I would be interested in knowing if it has the same mechanics as swimming in water.

Comment by Venara

Heroic Mode:

Kael will only cast a pyroblast if you don't manage to dps him to 50% quickly. I can't get a clear timer, but we tried it a few times (wipes for testing purposes!) and he definitely never casts a pyroblast if you manage to get him to 50% / P2 about 2-3 minutes after the fight starts. If it takes you longer than those 2-3 minutes he will cast a pyroblast and kill your tank (if it happens *not* to be a paladin).

We did it with T5/6 equipped people (Prot Warrior, Balance Druid, Fire Mage, Enhancement Shaman and me as a Holy Priest). With this equip its probably pretty easy getting him down to 50% in time. I think people who just hit 70 with blue gear will not be able to do it without a pyroblast.

Venara

Comment by 121095

Anyone else think this dork should drop a primal nether on heroic?

Comment by 143390

You do NOT need a pally tank for Heroic mode!

DPSing through the shield can be a hella pain in the ass, especially if he drops a Flamestrike right before he does it. But a Warrior can pop Shield Wall and Last Stand and survive.

Of course you can only do this once every 30 mins, so be sure to kill him.

Hope this helps, sure did for us.

Comment by Kciroj

View in 3D Links

Kael'thas Sunstrider <Lord of the Blood Elves>

Selin FireheartVexallusPriestess DelrissaKael'thas SunstriderMagisters' TerraceThe EyePhoenix HatchlingSwift White Hawkstrider

Quotes (12)

Gains

After killing this NPC you will gain:

Normal
- 120 reputation with Shattered Sun Offensive

Heroic
- 250 reputation with Shattered Sun Offensive

Kael'thas Sunstrider <Lord of the Blood Elves>

Quotes (12)

Gains

Related

Contribute