On the excite-o meter, this one doesn’t top very high, but it IS very easy once your raid group gets the hang of it. Besides, get past these guys and you’ll be doing Blood Queen Lana’thel, and that’s an encounter with some fun mechanics.
The Blood Princes
There are 3 bosses sharing health on this fight, and you will be jumping from boss to boss as one or another gains power. Throughout the encounter, one boss at a time will become Empowered. While the other two bosses will drop their health to 1% (no, you can’t kill them while they’re not empowered, sorry), the Empowered prince will have a health bar and strengthened abilities.
Allow me to introduce you to the mouthy little princes you’ll be dealing with:
Haven't we heard this somewhere before..
Prince “Merely a Setback” Valanar
This guy is into some shocking behavior (/rimshot). We usually tank Valanar in the front of the room, bottom middle of the steps (there are good reasons to run away from him, so we leave room all around him). Careful, though; too far up the steps and you’ll be out of LoS for the healers.
Shock Vortex. Valanar casts this when he is NOT empowered, so you need to be careful of this. He will choose a random target and create the Vortex around them. It’s a big swirling circle of light and easily avoidable. Don’t stand in it, as it does a considerable amount of damage and a knockback to anyone near it.
Empowered Shock Vortex. When empowered, Valanar casts this on all raid members within 30 yards. Not only will those players take damage, but anyone near them will also take damage and be knocked back. Ranged need to be spread out around the room, and when Valanar is casting Empowered Shock Vortex, everyone needs to run away from everyone else. Chances are, you’re probably going to get hit by at least one other person at some point, and that’s pretty easily recoverable. Getting hit by 3 is inexcusable, so /distance 12 on this fight, please.
Kinetic Bombs are balls of light Valanar casts around the room that float down (anyone else notice the ball theme in this expansion?). When they hit a solid surface, they explode (this can be floor or ceiling). Each time damage is done to them, they float up, but be cautious, as too much damage will cause them to blow up on the ceiling and rain down pain.
My best advice for dealing with these is to use hunters. It’s what we do and it generally works perfectly, as their pets can be assigned to certain balls and do just enough damage to keep them up in the air. Hunters can also babysit the ones that don’t have a pet on them and easily send a shot in their direction. One of our hunters is really good about calling out where the balls are spawning so they can keep an eye on them.
Fellow Moonkin, I’m sorry to say that you will probably be asked not to Starfall on this fight for fear that you will over-damage kinetic bombs or pull aggro on Keleseth’s pets, which I’ll get into in a minute. It stinks, I know.
"You're just jealous 'cause I glitter," said the Prince.
Prince “Glittery” Taladaram
Sparkly boy here is the fire boss, and we tank almost directly where he spawns as well, just pulling him to the bottom of the steps.
Conjure Flame is Taladram’s casted, non-empowered spell. He will target a player and then form a ball of fire that will chase that person. It does splash damage when it hits, so go ahead and run to the back of the room to minimize damage.
Empowered Conjure Flame requires a bit more effort. It works as before, but this time it will shoot off flames at anyone in its path, and this is a good thing. The more times it shoots other people, the lower its final damage will be. The person targeted should run, and other raiders should try to run in range of the ball while it’s traveling.
However, and this is a big however, the ball does not split damage upon impact! It will hit everyone in range of the targeted person for the exact same amount, so for the sake of your healers, don’t stand next to the targeted person, and for heaven’s sake don’t stack on them.
Glittering Sparks is my favorite spell in the whole encounter. It’s a well-deserved poke at Twilight, and it also does pretty icky damage. He will target a random player and do a cone of sparks. It hurts and it slows movement speed, and it’s just another reason for healers to cringe.
Can your warlock catch the purple balls...? o.O
Prince “Balls” Keleseth
Keleseth can be a pretty big jerk (typical warlock), and while he can theoretically be tanked by a melee tank (choose your favorite DK if you go this route), we’ve had much more success with a warlock tank.
If everyone understands the encounter and you have a good warlock tank, this boss is the easiest one in the room. If either of those things is not the case, your warlock tank will die a miserable death and he will go around shooting 80k shadow lances at people until you’re all wallowing in self-pity.
Shadow Lance hits for around 17k and he casts it when he’s not empowered. He only casts it on his aggro target, so keep your warlock topped off.
Empowered Shadow Lance hits for a whopping 85-90k (yes, really). But if your lock tank (and everyone else) does what they’re supposed to, most of this can be mitigated, using…
Shadow Resonance. Through the encounter, Keleseth will be using this ability to instantly create Dark Nuclei (more balls, yay!). These Nuclei attach themselves to people, and you want them all attached to your lock tank, as they increase shadow resistance (makes sense now, yeah?). This is why we prefer the lock; he can grab aggro on them quickly and carry them around, as long as no one else attacks the Nuclei. They cannot be misdirected. If you get one attached to you somehow, find the guy running around with all the purple balls floating above his head and let him take it off of you. NO ONE ELSE SHOULD ATTACK THE NUCLEI, kk? If your lock tank is able to pick up most or all of the balls (and keep them alive, which is why AoE is a bad choice), then Keleseth’s Empowered Shadow Lance won’t one shot him (take a look in the comments below for tips for your warlock tank!).
That’s everything. The power will jump from one to the other throughout the fight, so just keep on the one with the active health bar and avoid the bad stuff, then get your fangs ready for Blood Queen Lana’thel.
Tastes Like Battle Chicken 