Overview

Kalecgos is the first boss in Sunwell and sets you up for what to expect in the rest of the zone:

  • Damage on the tank is high - your tanks will need full T6 (BT/MH) gear (do not expect an alt tank to handle this fight well at all)
  • DPS needs to be solid (although control is more important than high dps)
  • Every raid member has personal responsibility both to live and to click at the right time
  • Healers need to follow assignments

DPS isn't as important as surviving, since Kalecgos is more about execution than a dps zerg. 10k is a good minimum health target for the raid; you can supplement this with a bit of arcane resistance as well.

The fight takes place in two realms: Sunwell (where you start -- dragon) and Inner Veil (portal -- demon), and the raid is split into two halves, with groups moving between the two sections The deaths of the two mobs need to be coordinated.

SunwellRadiance is in effect.


Contents


Auxiliary Pages

none

Summary

The Fight

At the start, decide on a symbol for each of the four groups and put those on the main tank healers in each group. We do groups 2, 3, 4, and 5, with the healers for group 2 being in group 1, and the three tanks filling the other three group 1 positions.

Kalecgos positioning on engage
Kalecgos positioning on engage

The fight begins in the dragon realm.

You can either position Kalecgos basically where he stands, or you can bring him along one of the walls. We like the middle for the following reasons:

  • It allows twice as much space around Kalecgos for melee.
  • All ranged can reach Kalecgos no matter where they stand (if you move him to a wall, only hunters/mages can reach him from the furthest back row.)
  • There are clearer "zones" for the groups to stand in, which makes it easier to know where to go and when it's your portal.


But many guilds find it easier to have him along the wall.

Note - For slightly better positioning you can split the melee on either side of the dragon (one melee at each leg allows them to out range the portal splash damage and still not get the Frost Breath or the Tail), it is far more important for your melee to avoid tail lashes and have time on target then it is for your Off-Tanks. Also, some grouping up is fine early on before the debuffs stack, after the debuff stacks above 3-4 stacks you need to make sure you are out of range of other people.


Shortly after engage the first portal will spawn. The person who gets the portal should call out their symbol and no one else. "But I thought I saw it on our group" is a common cause for portal confusion. Everyone whose symbol was called needs to run over and click it. Remaining groups can spread out a bit.

The first person who gets ported as well as the first couple people to go through the portal should have shadow pots, healthstone, etc. ready, there is a 100% chance you will eat every shadow bolt until there are 4 or more people down there, if you die it is because you weren't prepared. Also, on the first portal, try to make a point of allowing heals to go through first with DPS and tanks going in last.

This continues until all groups have gone down, after that point the rotation will remain the same due to how the debuff works (you can not get ported while you have the debuff).


The demon realm is simple: tanks can take over tanking once they see that a raid symbol is standing behind them. That is how healers indicate they are ready to begin healing. Call it out in vent and taunt.

All healers and DPS should be between Kalecgos and Sathrovarr, to take advantage of the casts of Revitalize, which is a frontal cone with a rather short range. Ideally the tank will be standing 180 degee opposite to prevent parries. The Shadow Bolt volley that Sathrovarr casts hits 3 targets every time, so there is no penalty for grouping up, and it will heal and restore mana to everyone in the cone.

As soon as you pop back up to the top go back to your original spot. If you are with the wrong group, you can cause portal issues as well as crowding. While you still have more than five to ten seconds on your exhaustion debuff, you can clump with your group a small bit to allow groups near you more room if necessary, as a portal cannot target you during this time.


Note that you should never stand in front of him (unless you are tanking) or behind him. In front he casts Frost Breath, which will reduce your attack speed by 75%. From behind, you'll get hit by Tail Lash.

It is vitally important that you do not drop the demon's (or dragon's) health too low too quickly. When either of them reaches 10%, both enrage, gaining a stacking buff. When the dragon hits 0%, he banishes and stop spawning portals. The easiest way to balance these is through the use of Bloodlust/Heroism, simply use it in whichever realm is higher.

Alternative Positioning

If your guild is good at taking portals, but you're having issues with people spreading out or with healing, an alternative is to place Kalecgos along the wall. This has the following different set of advantages:

  • It's harder to get tail swiped
  • It's harder to accidentally take the breath
  • Everyone can cluster after they pop back out of the demon realm


With this strat, you are spread out at the start, but when you come back to the dragon realm, you collapse into the center until 10 seconds remaining on your debuff, and then you move back and spread out. The inner circle is the "safe zone" for people guaranteed not to catch a portal. This maximizes group heals, and helps make subsequent ports clear.

See the section above for the advantages of the other positioning.

Abilities Reference

Kalecgos (dragon)

  • image:arcane-buffet.jpg Arcane Buffet: Deals minimal damage on its own, but applies a stacking debuff that increases arcane damage taken. Cannot be dispelled but can be removed with iceblock, cloak, and divine shield
  • image:frost-breath.jpg Frost Breath: Damages in a cone in front of Kalecgos and also has a 75% slow; shouldn't land on anyone other than the MT. Can be dispelled.
  • image:tail-lash.jpg Tail Lash: Deals 1900-2500 damage and stuns; avoidable if you aren't standing on his tail
  • image:wild-magic.jpg Wild Magic: periodically afflicts a random player with a random one of:
    • +100% Healing
    • +100% Cast Time (healers may need to call on vent if they get this when there aren't many other healers in their realm)
    • -50% Physical Hit
    • +100% Melee / Spell Critical Damage (be careful of this at the start of the fight)
    • +100% Threat (be careful of this at the start of the fight)
    • -50% Mana / Rage / Energy Costs.
  • image:spectral-blast.jpg Spectral Blast: Creates a portal to the Inner Veil every 20-25 seconds; also does AE arcane damage when it spawns (this is the reason for the raid to spread out, especially for the later portals in the first round when groups will have high arcane debuff stacks from Arcane Buffet.) When you exit the Inner Veil you cannot click another portal or be ported while you have the Spectral Exhaustion debuff (lasts one minute.) Spectral Blast cannot be cast on his current aggro target (this becomes very important later.)
  • image:spectral-exhaustion.jpg Spectral Exhaustion: while you have this, you cannot take a portal or be a target for a port.

Sathrovarr (Inner Veil)

  • Curse of Boundless Agony: Deals more damage as time passes. If decursed, it bounces to someone else in the same realm, but resets itself back to the lowest damage. Below 30% it basically needs to be chain-decursed because there are so many going around the raid. This ability also acts as a soft enrage, since eventually you get overwhelmed by curses. There is absolutely no way you can make one disappear after it's been cast, it's with you until wipe or win.
  • Shadow Bolt Volley: only hits three players, can hit any players in the Inner Veil (so there's no reason to spread out to try to avoid it)
  • Corrupting Strike: Cast on his main aggro target, it deals about 10k shadow damage, stuns the target for three seconds, has a 1k/second dot for three seconds
  • Revitalize: If you stand on or right behind the human Kalecgos in the Inner Veil, you will periodically get hit with this spell.

Composition

Tanks

Kalecgos can be killed with only two tanks, but it is much more controllable and doable if you bring 3 tanks. All need to be solidly T6 geared; alt tanks need not apply. Sathrovar hits like a truck, and trying to tank him without Illidan-level tanking gear is an exercise in futility. If your tank can handle Illidan (especially during enrage), she or he is ready for Sathrovar (the demon) and Kalecgos (the dragon). Tanks can be any mix of druid, paladin, or warrior, although paladins are not recommended as the incoming hits are moderately slow and very hard. Ideally you want at least one warrior to tank Kalecgos during his enraged phase.

Healers

Eight healers is enough to cover this fight: 4 aoe healers (resto shamans, CoH holy priests) and 4 single-target healers (paladins, priests, druids). If you are learning this fight for the first time, bring 9-10 healers, as survival is much more important than dps as you learn the encounter.

The healers should be divided into pairs and assigned to one of the four portal groups. Put one tank healer together with one raid healer in each group, and try to balance the shamans as best you can. Group composition is iffy for this fight anyway, so if there's something weird, it's not the end of the world.

Note that druids will be decursing heavily from 30% on, so having a 9th healer can actually help a lot during that phase.

Paladins are especially strong tank healers for Kalecgos as they can bubble off high stacks of Arcane Buffet and continue healing the tank.


Heal stacking isn't as useful on this fight because the raid gets split, and split randomly, so you can't guarantee how many healers in any given realm at any time unless you go from 8 to 12, which isn't doable. If you're having trouble stablizing the very start of the fight, an extra healer may be useful, however. The other use for a 9th healer would be to allow a resto druid to go full-time decursing at 30%, so group the 9th with the decursing druid.

DPS

4 decursers is ideal for this fight. If you have more, feel free to bring them (for example, 3 mages, 2 resto druids).

Group Composition Notes

Having your groups arranged for portals is far more important than building perfect dps groups due to the nature of the fight.

Assuming G1 is "tank" and G2 is melee: Groups 3, 4, and 5 should all have two healers and a decurser in them (one decurser might also be a resto druid healing.) G2 is a normal melee group with appropriate synergies, and their two healers (one of which is a resto druid for decursing) are in G1. The other three members of G1 are the tanks. Having a second stacked DPS group is not a bad idea because it allows more flexibility to channel Bloodlust/Heroism through either the melee group or the other group to help balance the hp's of both bosses.

Tanking

Ideally, your main tank (best geared) should engage Kalecgos and tank him for the first 2 minutes or so. Your two off-tanks (assuming you bring 3 from here on) should be in position on Kalecgos (see diagram above) ready to take a portal and go through.

Assign one tank as the theoretical "first port" tank. There are basically two situations:

  • theoretical "first port" tank or your third tank get targeted for portal
  • non-tank gets targeted for portal


Your strategy must be ready for either of these things to happen. If a tank (which may not be your preferred first tank) gets targeted and is portaled into the Inner Veil, there should be a group designated to follow him immediately. He should know the symbol for this group and call it out immediately so they can find his portal and come through behind him.

If a raid member gets targeted for the first portal, a designated tank must be ready to find that group and transition with them. Not getting a tank into the Inner Veil on the first port can often lead to a wipe many minutes later when Kalecgos (Human form) runs out of HP early. Get through the portal!!

Once through, tanks should move into position and debuff Sathrovar (the demon). Under no circumstances should a tank immediately taunt. Once the tank is sure that the symbol-wearing main-tank-designated-healer is through the portal, and is in position (ask the healers to call this out when ready), the tank should call out on vent: Taunting demon in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... taunting and then begin tanking. You should watch Kalecgos (human) for the effect from Corrupting Strike, and taunt immediately after it goes up. If you taunt into a strike, you can easily get 2-shot, and that's really not a fun experience for your healers.

Ideally, tanks want to transition on portals 1, 3 and 5. The first tank down will exit the Inner Veil after 60 seconds. When this happens, the tank should move up and stand next to the MT and wait patiently. The sequence of events must occur as follows:

  • PortalTank1 emerges from Inner Veil
  • PortalTank1 goes and stands next to Main Tank at the front of Kalecgos (dragon)
  • PortalTank1 waits until the fifth portal spawns on a raid member
  • PortalTank1 taunts Kalecgos (dragon)
  • former Main Tank goes to the portal #5 and goes through, taking his or her turn as the Sathrovar tank


Very important: if you taunt Kalecgos early, the main tank can conceivably be the only person without the debuff, and be the only possible target for a portal. If this happens, an entire group will miss their assigned portal, and it can have devastating consequences. In a perfect world, a tank will never be targeted for a portal. It makes the fight much more controllable when this happens.

Ideally, around 20% your main tank (best geared, probably a warrior) will take over as Kalecgos (dragon) tank. From this point on, there will be no taunting of Kalecgos (dragon). This tank should use all consumables and cooldowns available when the enrage occurs.

As a Sathrovar tank, do not be afraid to allow Kalecgos (human) to tank. That's what he's there for, and he has a full HP pool that you can use as breathers for your healers. Only taunt when you are sure that everything is under control and your healers are ready for the incoming damage. Human Kalecgos has quite a lot of threat and may steal aggro from you; that's okay, you can taunt it back.

Healing

Kalecgos is largely about tank healing, with periodic spike damage on the raid. Tank healers should be ready for heavy healing on Sathrovar tanks, and on Kalecgos (dragon) tanks immediately following Portal #3 and during enrage. When Portal #3 happens, the first group is just emerging and moving back into position, and whichever tank healer is assigned to the group that will end up getting Portal #4 is solely responsible for the main tank. Keep him or her alive!

Raid damage is fairly weak for the first 30 seconds or so, but once Arcane Buffet stacks reach 6 or more, be prepared for extremely large burst. The raid must be topped up before the next burst occurs or someone (or multiple someones) can die. Also be aware that the portal does a burst explosion when it spawns that can easily kill someone who just got hit by Arcane Buffet. Be prepared for this and try to keep people topped at all times.

Raid healing during Inner Veil phases is fairly trivial. There are shadowbolt volleys that hit for moderate amounts and are easily healable. If you have spare GCDs, help heal the Sathrovar tank.

Keep in mind that, in the Inner Veil, Kalecgos hits very hard and can pull aggro on Sathrovar. Just keep healing your tank, because he'll be taunting to get Sathrovar back.

The only time a healer should not take their assigned portal is post-enrage. If Sathrovar enrages, and your portal spawns after that occurs, do not take the portal. Instead, stay up and assist in healing both the raid and the current main tank. Enraged Kalecgos hits extremely hard, and losing a tank can be a wipe on what should have been a clean kill. If you are a paladin, use your Divine Shield at this point if your Arcane Buffet stacks are going to keep you from being effective as a tank healer.

Beware of Kalecgos's Frost Breaths: when there are a lot of people up top, 1-2 non-tanks can end up eating it. If their arcane buffet stack is also high, they can gib quickly; make sure their healing is covered.

Ranged DPS

Do not overnuke Kalecgos; save your cooldowns for Sathrovar. DPS on Kalecgos is always higher than Sathrovar, so try to focus most of your energies into nuking the demon, not the dragon. Bloodlusts can be used any time you have your entire group in one spot, but typically are used in the Inner Veil between 70% and 40% on Sathrovar. The final burn is a non-issue since there are typically 3 groups in the Inner Veil when the demon hits 10%, and it's trivial to dps him to banish mode in a reasonable amount of time.

Be aware that mages are on mostly decurse duty from 30% down, and should be focused more on keeping the raid alive than on their dps.

The only hard thing for dps is knowing when to not take a portal. If Sathrovar hits 10% and enters enrage, and there are already multiple dps groups in the Inner Veil, taking the portal is useless. You will enter around the time Sathrovar hits 4%, and he will soon after hit Banish mode, and you will have to stand around for 45 seconds while others above kill Kalecgos. The only time you take a portal to the Inner Veil during enrage is if the portal occurs between 9 and 11% on Sathrovar. In that case, you will be a large contributor to the dps, and should take it.


If you are having trouble with tanks repeatedly dying during the dragon's enrage, you can burn bloodlusts then instead of in the demon realm.

Melee DPS

Melee dps is in an interesting position. On one hand, the melee group do the lion's share of the dps to Sathrovar in the Inner Veil. However, on the other hand, melee dps being idiots on Kalecgos (dragon) typically results in multiple deaths, and lower rDPS.

There really isn't enough space on Kalecgos for 6 melee to spread out, dps him, and still stay on one side. Accordingly, if someone needs to be pushed out, make that your priority over anything else. Standing in a clump, or close enough to someone that the BigWigs boss mod notifies you of it is a Very Very Bad Idea. When the portal occurs, especially if it occurs late, the explosion can easily kill 2-3 melee if you are clumped.

From engage to your group's first portal, stay spread out: DPS is meaningless; survival is paramount. When you emerge from your first portal to the Inner Veil, you can easily clump for 60 seconds because you are guaranteed to not get ported again for 60 seconds. Watch your debuffs, and so long as you have the debuff up that prevents you from being targeted for portal, you are free to clump very tightly at the dragon's side and dps your heart's out. When the debuff gets to 5 seconds, spread to max distance and prepare for a portal.

Save cooldowns for the Inner Veil and use them after your tank has taunted. You need to do the majority of your dps to Sathrovar: make it count.

Rogues and ret paladins should be prepared to cloak/divine shield the Arcane Buffet stacks if they get excessively high.


If you are having trouble with tanks repeatedly dying during the dragon's enrage, you can burn bloodlusts then instead of in the demon realm.


Another option: there is plenty of room for at least 5 entirely clear melee positions including the tank. If the tank is at max range at the head, you can position 1 melee at each leg without any issue or danger of taking splash damage. For this reason it is preferable to only bring 4 melee DPS to the fight, however, if due to your roster that is not an option, you have the option of stacking rogues at one of the positions, they will require extra healing, and they will need to cloak at ~5 stacks of the debuff, but it is entirely survivable. At no point should a melee be standing out in the middle of no where doing nothing, it is far better to have the OT go stand with their group and lose their ~500 DPS instead of the 2000+ a melee will contribute.

The main thing the melee need to watch, until they go through the portal the first time, is threat. Between the tank being slowed and the damage/threat buffs that you can get, it is exceptionally easy to pull aggro early on, play it safe until you get ported the first time, at that point it should be virtually impossible to pull aggro for the rest of the fight.

Miscellaneous Tips

Ack, a tank got ported!

Plan ahead for this, since it's very possible he'll pick tanks in the first round of ports (everyone except his current aggro target is a valid target.) Assign a group ahead of time for "if this tank is ported, you'll go", and the tank needs to call out that group's symbol for a port.

First group down has deaths

On the very first portal to the Inner Veil, the first few people (2-3) through the portal are likely to get targeted for the shadowbolt volley that Sathrovar does. Be aware that this hits for 4-6k, and if you are not topped up when you go through the portal, you will instantly gib. If you are not the person targeted for the portal, hit a consumable before entering, or wait slightly until your healers get you topped up.

If you are the very first person in the entire fight targeted for a portal, hit your healthstone the instant you get to the Inner Veil, and pray a healer follows you quickly enough to keep you alive. No guarantees.

Last group down has deaths

The fourth group will have very high Arcane Buffet stacks. Those healers can help their group by not taking the portal immediately but instead healing their group first and then going down.

Melee keep dying on portal spawn

Dragon DPS is the least important part of the fight. It won't hurt some of the melee to just back off and hang out in the area with their healers until their portal goes off. this will cut down on deaths significantly.

People keep missing their portal

Make sure the group is in the right quadrant: no one should ever have to run or look far for their portal.

As the raidleader, watch for as long as you can (until you get ported) to see if the issue is people never moving, people moving late, or groups confused.

Don't tolerate "helpful" people calling out which group got ported. The call *must* come from the person ported unless they cannot talk on vent/use a macro, in which case a designated buddy should call it for them.

The dragon keeps dying before the demon

Have the raid use their cooldowns on the demon (we actually use our bloodlusts there, although you can save them for 10% instead too). Track their health closely; call for DPS to stop on the dragon if need be.

Portals keep skipping, and I heard...

We do not get skipped portals except on very very rare occasions. All of the following are guaranteed to NOT be reasons for skipped portals:

  • Pets
  • Totems
  • People in groups 6-8
  • The color of your underwear


The only thing, in fact, that we've repeatedly observed causing skipped portals is people standing too far towards the edges and standing in the bushes. Even being *near* the bushes is a problem, since the entire portal graphic needs to be able to fit around you without clipping into the bushes in order for it to be cast successfully.

Maybe this will be fixed some day, but until then, don't accept other excuses and just hound your guild to not stand in or near the bushes.

WWS Samples

Note that WWS is extremely unreliable on this fight, because one realm does not get data from the other. Do not trust most of what you see here in terms of damage done, healing done, hits taken, etc. They are only linked for completeness's sake.

Videos

Discussion

Feel free to visit to talk about the fight or post questions:

http://www.fusion-guild.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=30

Loot


T6:


Other drops:


Sunmote Turnins:

Patch History

2.4.2

  • Revitalize now properly affects mana users
Retrieved from "http://www.stratfu.com/strats/Kalecgos"