Warlord Zon'ozz

I will update this to keep it up to date with changes from both the PTR and live servers. The strategy that I post is what my guild/group used to kill the boss on PTR or live. If you have a more efficient suggestion please post to let me know.

Countless ages ago, Warlord Zon'ozz and his soldiers waged endless war against the forces of C'Thun and Yogg-Saron. Millennia have passed by the warlord still serves the chaotic might of the Old God N'Zoth. Deathwing has now unleashed this legendary faceless one to crush the defenders of Wyrmrest Temple.

Focused Anger
Warlord Zon'ozz increasing focuses his anger and rage, increasing Physical damage done by 20% and his attack speed by 5%. This effect stacks.

Psychic Drain
Warlord Zon'ozz channels a wave of psychic force in a 30 degree cone in front of himself, inflicting 140,000 Shadow damage and leeching life for ten times the amount damage dealt.

Disrupting Shadows
Warlord Zon'ozz covers random players with Disrupting Shadows. The effect inflicts 36,000 Shadow damage every 2 seconds. The shadows also knockback the targeted player if the effect is dispelled.
Heroic
Knock backs all players within 10 yards

Void of the Unmaking
Warlord Zon'ozz summons a Void of the Unmaking. This void travels forward until it encounters a soul to absorb.

Void Diffusion
When the Void Collides with a player it diffuses, inflicting 180,001/540,001 Shadow Damage split evenly between nearby players. The force of this diffusion causes the void to richocet in the opposite direction (reflect), and the absorbed souls increased the damage the Void inflicts by 20% pre diffusion.

Zon'ozz Diffused
When the Void collides with Warlord Zon'ozz, it inflicts a distracting shock to him. The Void Diffusion increases the damage Zon'ozz takes by 5% for every time the Void of the Unmaking bounces between players. This collision enrages Warlord Zon'ozz, causing him to awaken the Maw of Go'rath and lose his Focused Anger.

Black Blood of Go'rath
Warlord Zon'ozz inflicts 10,000 Shadow Damage every 1 second to all players for 30 seconds.

Heroic
When the Maw of Go'rath opens and adds spawn
In Heroic Difficulty each tentacle of Go'rath inflicts 3,000 Shadow damage every 2 seconds to all nearby enemies. The damage is multiplied by the number of tentacles alive.
Claw of Go'rath
-Oooze Spit: when not tanked the Claw of Go'rath spits ooze at a random player, inflicting 100,000 Shadow damage to the target and any allies within 4 yards
Eye of Go'rath
-The Eye of Go'rath casts its Shadowy Gaze at a random player, inflicting 30,000 Shadow damage.
Flail of Go'rath
-Wild Flail: The flail of Go'rath whips about wildly inflicting 15,500 Physical damage and knocking back nearby units within 15 yards.
-Sludge Spew: The Flail of Go'rath spews sludge at a random player, inflicting 45,000 Shadow Damage

I have another alternative strat I will post tomorrow.

The encounter starts roughly like this

Now i will channel my inner john madden
http://cdn1.bossblueprint.com/php/ge...&img=CBQtXHl4h
NOTE:The encounter does not take place in throne of the four winds. It takes place in a round room. Al'Akirs platform is round. I will update once boss blue prints updates.

The boss is tanked in the center of the room. The majority of dps, and healers stand behind him. The blue marker is where your guild can place a fire mage. You position like this to avoid the boss's Psychic Drain ability.

http://cdn1.bossblueprint.com/php/ge...&img=bmXzBlvuV
After seconds the boss will spawn an orb the 'Void of the Unmaking'. Your Firemage will move to intercept the orb, while the tank moves the boss, out of the way of orbs future path.

http://cdn1.bossblueprint.com/php/ge...&img=89o7J8MEE
The mage intercepts the orb. While the two hundred thousand some odd shadow damage would kill him, he simply cauterizes. And iceblocks the DoT off. The orb now moves to the dps, and healer group. The tank has moved the boss out of the orbs path. And it looks like this

http://cdn1.bossblueprint.com/php/ge...&img=BwYjQJSZk
The tank now moves the boss back into position. The void reflects off of the healer DPS group, which easily eat the damage. The orb reflects off of them. Then hits the boss.

http://cdn1.bossblueprint.com/php/ge...&img=g7ElhmZEF
The boss now AoE's the raid with his Black Blood of Go'rath. For 30 seconds.

Cauterize should roughly be back up by the time the next orb spans. So just repeat.

If you group doesn't have a fire mage. Then assign 3 players to do the job that I had the 'fire mage' doing. Naturally a mage would make it easier, but 3 intelligent people can do the job just as well.

You only bounce the orb twice?

Ie, orb spawns, Mage intercepts, knocks it I to ranged group --> Ranged group bounces orb into repositioned boss?

On the PTR we were doing five bounces then bouncing it into the boss, and I was being decimated in almost full 391 gear. Enrage timer seemed like it could be an issue if we did fewer bounces (the debuff remains on him for the duration of the fight and continues to stack) or if we three healed instead of two.

I'll have my team try this strat tonight, but maybe a middle ground is needed. I'll post up our positioning when I get home

It's also worth noting the void seems to be immune for a few seconds after being hit. Several times it would go through the boss and pop on me. I could just need to improve my positioning, but this seems like a fairly unforgiving mechanic.

The enrage is actually extremely forgiving, we killed it tonight with 22 in raid running 6 heals and only 15 dps. We were having it spawn by ranged, and ranged would bounce it twice and melee once before hitting the boss. The first time none of our 3 mages were on so we simply bounced it between ranged and melee and it works fine the only time the healers felt any strain was when 3 or 4 of the ranged or melee would get the debuff when it was their turn to bounce.

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It's also worth noting the void seems to be immune for a few seconds after being hit. Several times it would go through the boss and pop on me. I could just need to improve my positioning, but this seems like a fairly unforgiving mechanic.

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The void orb is immune for a few seconds to allow it to move away from the group it just hit, it will travel about ten yards in this time. It sounds like your ranged camp was too close to the boss.

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Originally Posted by Bellanca

You only bounce the orb twice?

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I was wondering the same thing. I haven't done the fight myself but it seems like it would be simpler to have the boss throw the orb at the range group, then the tank and melee swap places so the orb bounces between melee and range a bunch of times (10 for the achievement doesn't sound outrageous with raidwide cooldowns). Then melee can move to the side for it to hit the boss and make him take 50% more damage.


A mage could still take a bounce solo by moving forward, ahead of their group. A dispersed shadow priest should be able to eat a bounce solo as well, at least on 10man.

I believe this is a change made form the PTR to the raid :X also I need to update it to a more up to date strat. and for raids that don't have a fire mage or shadow priest

Fun fight, we did it last night on 10 man, took three tries to get the dance down. We put the range and a healer ('lock, Hunter, Shammy) out and the melee and 2 healers (Tank, Rouge, DK, Ret Pally, Shammy, Holy Pally)with the boss; we did three bounces then the melee would move out of the way the let the orb hit the boss - so 7 stacks, I think our RL was saying.

5 or 7 bounces seems to be a reasonable amount for 10 man. On the first one in particular you could maybe afford to go to 7 simply because he spawns it sooner (so the boss will have fewer stacks of his self buff). On later ones there is a significant delay before he spawns it (for the healers to top the raid off) and he builds up more stacks of his self buff before it starts bouncing.

My general recommendation for 10 man normal would be to just go to 5 bounces each time for consistency (ranged bounces it 3 times, melee twice). Because of the continual rampup of damage on the boss it is definately best to save Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp for a late point in the fight, probably the phase two that lands closest to the 1 minute remaining on the berzerk. This I'd recommend for a Normal Mode T12 group doing Normal Mode T13.

Also an important note, he doesn't do the cone drain attach unless the ball is on the court. So it is perfectly safe to stand in front of the boss when there isn't a ball out and have the tank turn the boss as soon as he starts channeling it. This also applies to after every phase 2 (it's safe to be in front of the boss until the ball is out).

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My general recommendation for 10 man normal would be to just go to 5 bounces each time for consistency (ranged bounces it 3 times, melee twice). Because of the continual rampup of damage on the boss it is definately best to save Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp for a late point in the fight, probably the phase two that lands closest to the 1 minute remaining on the berzerk.

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That's where we found our comfort zone. Shooting for 5 bounces - our healers seemed a little excited when it went seven and a time warp after a volley ~35%. This guy was the toughest of the first three encounters imho and still only took 3 or so pulls. I hope the content gets a little more challenging when we get deeper into the raid.

25-man we also simply let it bounce 5 times and then hit.

Our positioning was a ranged group and a melee group 20 yards apart, and 2 tank healers off to the side. I faced the boss toward the ranged group till the ball spawned, then turned him around so the ball could bounce more or less between melee and ranged (sometimes they had to move slightly if the ball bounced at an angle. Note that about 4 seconds after this happens, you can hit cds (mirror works) to lessen the Psychic drain by a lot here.

After it hit 5 times, the melee group briefly ran to the 2 tank healer's position, and I maneuvered the boss to hit the ball. Then everyone clumped in melee range for aoe heal effects while dps'ing hard, with ranged running back to position after the phase ended. Note that you need to have him face ranged again after the phase ends till he creates another ball.

This fight is driving us batty. Three weeks of working on it.
Currently we are trying 7 3 3 3 bounces. Where as an unholy DK I put a AMZ on the melee group on bounce 6 and run to the ranged and use AMS to help spread that damage out as well.
But healers are mana dry at about the second black blood phase.
Our raid composition last night wasn't very good, any idea's.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/4u16da55x3yh5kha/sum/damageTaken/?s=7241&e=7459

Try going 5 3 3 3 (or even 3 3 3 3) instead. It'll go way easier on your healers. We tried to do 5 bounces everytime as most strats suggested but it was way too hard on the healers. Once we dropped the number of bounces, this fight was cake. Make sure to stagger your healer CD's like spirit link and tranq/tree for each dark phase. Having your dps help mitigate damage during this phase will help as well (dk's blood strike, hunter glyphed raptor strike, etc)

@Mandible: Probably a decent part of your problem is a bad group comp. In particular, you're missing shadow resistance (which I believe is all the magic damage's "flavor"). If you can somehow squeeze a paladin or priest in there, that buff alone would probably save a great deal of damage (and less healer drain). I'd also recommend 7 5 5, you can kill him with decent dps before a 4th phase 2. Save Bloodlust for the third phase, have each of your druids pop a tranq for the first two phase 2's. I'll note that your mages are very underperforming (looking at the last and longest attempt here), not sure if that's death related or what.

They get the resistence buff from their Restoration Shaman's Healing Stream Totem (which is glyphed).

At a glance I'd say you're dying due to technique related to healing and positioning. The logs for the druids for example aren't showing spell distributions I'd expect to see. DPS activity levels also seems a bit low.

Glyph of Healing Stream Totem only increases Fire, Frost and Nature resistances.

MoTW also gives resistance but not as powerfully as the Pally/Priest ones.

I was curious about what you all think about just letting Disrupting shadows tick till it falls off? My guild has been working on this fight for 20 pulls or so and, while we did get 1 run to 4% health before he enraged and finished off the raid, most haven't gotten to the 2nd black blood of go'rath phase. I've only been going over the logs for yesterday's 12 attempts for an hour or so, but I'm thinking if our healers don't have to focus so much on dispelling (even though I try to only have a priest doing it), they can focus more on keeping folks (like me, the tank) alive such that we can maybe get 7 bounces on the 2nd and/or 3rd time to help us beat his enrage timer. What do you all think about that?

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/7up89...731/dashboard/

Try 5 is the one where we almost got him dead, Btw

You would prefer they spend 20 seconds healing each target instead of 1 GCD to dispel them and maybe 2 GCDs to heal them?

Why are you using Time Warp so early? Each time you enter phase two, the number of stacks of the debuff is increased by the number of times the orb bounced. So if you were doing 5 each time for example you'd have 5 stacks, 10 stacks, 15 stacks, 20 stacks. The higher the debuff the more damage you deal to him. Damage steadily ramps up on this encounter, provided you don't allow the debuff to fall off (which may not be possible, can't remember). You will note that on your first phase 2 he had Void Diffusion 7. On the second he had Void Diffusion 14. On the third, Void Diffusion 21. The higher his stack, the more damage he takes.

He takes added damage in phase two so while getting more bounces increases his debuff higher, spending more time in phase two allows you to capitalize on it more. You may actually get better DPS doing only 5 bounces simply because you are getting back into phase two more frequently. At the end in particular you can shorten the time between phase two and do only one bounce to immediately get back into phase two. For example on your best attempt you kept bouncing the it and many of your raid died to the berzerk when you were already at 21 stacks and simply could have bounced it once and immediately went back into phase two with 22 stacks.

On 10 man its a bit easier to dispell them, on 25man you cna just raid cooldown and eat the damage since you have that many more healers and raid CD's.