Throne of the four Winds

**Vrakir** Sun Jan 23, 2011 6:49 pm

Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Throne of the four Winds Raid Guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll show you all you have to know about The Conclave of Wind, the first encounter in this new raid instance. We completed this fight with 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS, but similar raid configurations may work just as well.

The Conclave is a council type encounter where you fight three Djinn at the same time, but this fight comes with a twist: All three enemies are on different platforms, and while you can move between platforms by jumping into the wind streams, you have to split up your raid intelligently to make it work. On top of that, each conclave member has to die within a minute of the first one's death, or the first djinn will regain all his health.

The three Djinn are Anshal, Nezir and Rohash. Rohash does basic wind attacks and can easily be tanked by a healer or ranged raid member. Ideally you want to leave one healer and two ranged raid members with him for most of the fight. Anshal is a nature-based enemies that spawns adds and will require a tank and a healer along with your leftover DPS. Nezir is ice-based and will also require a tank and a healer.

This fight would be simple if it wasn't for the fact that all the Djinn have an energy bar, and when their energy bar is full (in other words, when it reaches 90), they will execute their ultimate abilities. All djinn will reach full energy at the same time, and you can never leave a platform completely abandoned or it will result in a raid wipe. Let's go over the djinn's abilities.

Rohash is fairly straightforward. He has a wind slash with which he'll attack from a range, occasionally a few cyclones will circle around his platform - obviously you don't want to get caught in these or you'll take damage and get knocked back - and on a timer he uses Wind Blast, an ability that makes him slowly spin around his platform, and anyone in front of his face will get knocked back 200 yards. Yes, 200. You have been warned. This works similarly to The Lurker Below's Spout, if you were an active raider in the Burning Crusade you may remember it.

His ultimate ability is Hurricane, which creates a huge vortex of wind and anyone on the platform will get lifted up and take continuous damage for 15 seconds, after which you get dropped to the floor and take more fall damage. It's pretty much the same as Malygos' Vortex ability. This is easily healed through.

Anshal's first ability that you'll see is called Soothing Winds and looks like a green circle he puts on the ground. It heals all of Anshal's allies and silences enemies, so pull him and his adds out of it and stay away from it yourself. His second ability, Nurture, will summon multiple Ravenous Creeper adds that will use Toxic Spores, an AoE aura that deals stacking damage to anyone within 8 yards. These kinda hurt especially since your melee are likely at this platform, so they should be taken out quickly.

His ultimate ability is Zephyr, which heals all of his allies currently on the platform by 25000 per second and gives them 15% increased damage for 15 seconds. Make sure that no adds are up by the time Anshal casts Zephyr and this should not pose a problem.

Lastly, Nezir. Nezir is where it gets complicated. Nezir has both a channeled cone spell that deals frost damage called Permafrost and an ice puddle he puts on the ground that deals frost damage and slows anyone in it. His main ability is Wind Chill, which deals frost damage to everyone on the platform and more importantly increases their Frost damage taken by 10% per stack. Combined with his other abilities this means that anyone remaining on the platform for too long will get killed outright.

His ultimate ability is called Sleet Storm. Sleetstorm deals about 30000 damage per second to anyone on the platform for 15 seconds. However, Sleetstorm's damage is divided by everyone on the platform. So, as you can see, you want to have as many people as possible on Nezir's platform when his energy bar is about to turn full.

However, you also need to switch Nezir's tank and healer team with Anshal's tank and healer team periodically to avoid getting too many stacks of the debuff and at the same time you want to avoid switching too much.

What worked well for us was to switch the teams right before the Djinn cast their first ultimate (the DPS from both other platforms also need to be at Nezir's platform before every ultimate he casts, while a single healer remains at Rohash and the original Nezir tank and healer team fills in at Anshal). After the ultimate finishes, the DPS return to their original platforms. The original Anshal tank and healer team however remains at Nezir's platform until right before his second ultimate takes place, which is when they change places with the tank and healer team that filled in at Anshal again.

This cycle repeats until the Djinn are low, which could be as soon as after the second ultimate. Rohash and Anshal will likely be a lot lower in health than Nezir, but that's okay. When you're at the point that you can finish off both Rohash and Anshal around roughly the same time, do so. Afterwards everyone should move over to Nezir's platform and finish him off. You have about a minute to do this, so the timer is lenient.

It is worth noting that you cannot switch platforms in the 15 seconds that the Djinn cast their ultimates, so any switching of platforms has to occur at about 80 energy to account for travel time.

I've attached the full encounter so you can see how we dealt with the various mechanics in detail. Good luck and have fun!

**Vrakir** Sun Jan 23, 2011 6:50 pm

Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Throne of the Four Winds Raid Guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll show you all you have to know about Al'Akir, the final boss in this new raid instance. We completed this fight with 1 tank, 3 healers and 6 DPS, but similar raid configurations may work just as well.

This encounter is split into three phases. The first one's fairly short, it lasts from 100-80% of his health. The second phase is the longest, it lasts from 80-25%, and you only have to endure the third phase for the last 25%. For once in a fight, the first phase is actually the hardest one you have to deal with!

In the first phase, Al'akir is firmly rooted in the middle of his little platform, and if his main threat target is not in his melee range, he will instead Electrocute it, which is a channeled spell that deals massive amounts of damage. To counter this, always stay below the tank's threat and don't "accidentally" pull the boss, okay? Okay. Also, any caster should stand towards the back of the platform, since he will randomly interrupt spells cast close to his body.

When you reach the platform, have your raid spread out over at least half the platform, each person on their own or in groups of 2 if you'd rather. Do make sure that 2 healers are in range of your tank, and every DPS is in range of at least 1 healer. If you're doing this in 25-man mode, utilize the whole platform and split your raid up into self-sufficient little groups of 3-4 people with a healer each.

This is because of Al'akir's Lightning Strike, which is basically a Chain Lightning except it chains to everyone in a huge cone around his target. The markers on the floor are a huge help here - if each group stacks up on a little marker, you'll never chain Lightning Strike to another group.

His second ability is Ice Storm, which spawns a Blizzard that moves rather randomly around the platform. If you stand in it, you get slowed and take damage. This is not a big issue by itself, but you'll notice that Al'akir tends to put the storm right in the middle of the platform, and this tends to get annoying due to his next two abilities:

Wind Burst and Squall Line. Squall Line is basically a line of Tornadoes he summons that have a random "hole" in them. If you've done Sartharion in Wrath, it works like his Flame Wall. To avoid getting picked up by the Squall Line and potentially die, stand in the opening until the tornadoes pass by. Al'akir will always have one of these active and moving around the platform. When the Squall Line is about to disappear, they'll kinda fizzle out - at that point they won't deal damage anymore.

Wind Burst is a spell with a 5 second cast time that he'll approximately use twice per minute. When the cast is finished, everyone on the platform will get knocked back a considerable distance, and if your raid is not extremely close to his body at the point it goes off, they'll likely get blasted off the platform. You don't die when this happens, but you'll be out of the fight for at least 10 seconds and if you get unlucky, you'll get picked off by tornadoes right when you land. To avoid this, run towards Al'Akir when he's casting Wind Burst.

The tricky part is the timing of Squall Line and Wind Burst together - make sure you're safe from any tornadoes when Al'akir is about to cast Wind Burst or else you might get blasted into one and die. Also, account for increased run times if you have an ice patch on your part of the platform. It's most important that no raid member gets picked up by tornadoes, so if it comes down to you having to choose between getting blasted off the platform or getting picked up by tornadoes, pick the getting blasted off. It's worth noting that you can currently life-grip people out of tornadoes should you absolutely have to.

Thankfully, when his health hits 80%, phase 2 starts, and this one is considerably easier and.. more boring. You still have to deal with the Electrocute, the spell interrupt close to him and the Squall Line in phase two, so make sure to look out for it and preferably call new tornadoes and their openings out on vent.

Phase 2 has a soft enrage mechanic called Acid Rain, which makes your raid take increasing nature damage every second until you bring Al'Akir down to 25%. The new mechanic this phase are Stormlings - little electric adds Al'akir will summon every 20 seconds. They deal nature damage to everyone within 20 yards of them, so have your ranged members stand in a separate pile away from your tank and melee whenever you don't have to deal with a tornado.

When a Stormling dies, Al'akir receives a debuff called "Feedback". Feedback makes him take 10% more damage for 20 seconds, and this stacks with every new Stormling that dies. However, keep in mind that Feedback only lasts for 20 seconds, so you need to time your Stormling kills just right to avoid losing the buff.

If you have very high DPS in your raid, you may choose to only have a few people on Stormlings to avoid killing them too fast and creating a gap between killing one and having the next one spawn. However, most people that are just starting to raid will want the majority of their DPS on the Stormlings when they're out. Try to find the right balance to always kill a Stormling right before another spawns, that way you should keep stacking up Feedback on Al'akir and get him to 25% before the increasing damage from Acid Rain kills your raid.

Once you do hit 25%, phase 3 starts and Al'Akir will lift your entire raid up into the sky. For the rest of the encounter, you fight him in 3-dimensional space! This phase is also a bit of a soft enrage timer, since eventually you'll run out of room to move. To give your raid the most amounts of space, have everyone fly to the very bottom of Al'akir as soon as the phase starts - fly as far down as you can without touching the lightning at the bottom.

Everyone should be at roughly the same altitude, but do make sure to spread out horizontally since Al'akir uses a chain lightning and an ability called Lightning Rod, that will cause a random person to emit lightning in a pretty wide area. The animation is very obvious and anyone affected by lightning rod needs to make sure to get away from anyone nearby.

The reason your whole raid started out at the bottom of the area is Lightning Cloud, which Al'akir summons at the altitude of a random raid member. This will look like a gigantic cloud that spans the whole area, and after 5 seconds the cloud will begin to emit lightning to anyone at the same altitude. When a cloud spawns, your entire raid needs to move upwards out of the affected altitude, since being in a Lightning Cloud will kill you within 2-3 seconds.

Al'akir uses Wind Burst in this phase, which is now instant. When you get hit by it, just return to wherever you were before. If you're too far away from him at the time he casts this and get knocked out of the Eye of the Storm, you might find yourself getting thrown around a wind hose for 6 seconds. This is usually bad news, since there's a high chance that it'll pop you out into a Lightning Cloud, so try not to move too far from Al'akir when you can avoid it.

That however concludes his phase 3 abilities, so if you burn him down quickly enough and everyone moves out of the Lightning Clouds, this phase should not cause an issue for your raid. As always, good luck and have fun! I've attached footage of the whole encounter in case you'd like to see how we dealt with the various mechanics in detail.

Throne of the four Winds

Throne of the four Winds

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