Grand Empress Shek'zeer


 * "Even in my sleep, I hear her terror. grips her mind and body. The Empress is no longer fit to rule the empire."
 * — Korven the Prime

Grand Empress Shek'zeer was the Sha-corrupted ruler of the mantid, and the final boss of the Heart of Fear.

Shek'zeer is the main antagonist of the Dread Wastes storyline and is the one responsible for the mantid swarm plaguing Pandaria. Despite the Sha driving her being a remnant of the mantid's patron god Y'Shaarj, the Klaxxi and their Paragons believed the Empress was leading their race to ruin and made it their goal to depose her. They were successful with the aid of the adventurers who awakened them. She is responsible for the deaths of Klaxxi'va Ik, Klaxxi'va Kek, Klaxxi'va Krik, Klaxxi'va Set and Klaxxi'va Zan.

Upon her death, her soul entered the Shadowlands and was later harvested of essence by the death knights of the Ebon Blade.

Adventure Guide
''The ancient Klaxxi order has come to a mournful decision: the tainted grand empress Shek'zeer must be deposed. Traditionally, mantid rulers are displaced in their old age by a carefully chosen successor. However, Shek'zeer's intended replacement is still too young and weak to unseat her, leaving the Klaxxi with no choice but to kill the current empress. If action is not taken against her soon, all of Pandaria may crumble before the mantid's ravenous swarms.''

Stage 1: A Perilous Battle
Grand Empress Shek'zeer health:



Stage 2: The Empress Retreats!
When the Empress runs out of sha energy, she retreats to her chrysalis and calls for her royal guard.



Set'thik Windblade
Set'thik Windblade health:

Kor'thik Reaver
Kor'thik Reaver health:

Stage 3: Ultimate Corruption!
At 30% remaining health, the Sha of Fear breaks the Empress' chrysalis and imbues her with a profound corruption.



Strategy
Shek'zeer is a three-phase encounter, cycling between phases one and two until she reaches 30% health.

Phase one
Start out with the two tanks charging in and the rest of the raid spreading out in a wide semi-circle in front of her to avoid Dread Screech splash damage. The tanks will need to taunt off each other after every few Eyes of the Empress casts, as if it reaches five stacks, her current target will be charmed and deal a lot of damage to the raid.

Shek'zeer will summon three Dissonance Fields at random locations in the raid. Dissonance Fields absorb magic cast by players, whether voluntarily or not. This is useful for mitigating the Cry of Terror, where a randomly selected player deals Shadow damage to the entire raid every two seconds unless standing in the field. After absorbing enough magic, the field will explode with a Sonic Discharge, doing a healthy chunk of raid-wide damage. It is very important to get the three Fields to pop at different times to keep the fields from dealing unhealable amounts of damage to the entire raid.

In Heroic mode, the Sha of Fear will occasionally Corrupt a Dissonance Field, causing it to deal Shadow damage to random members of the raid until the field discharges.

Phase one lasts until Shek'zeer runs out of sha energy (150 seconds) or she reaches 30% health. Sha energy is displayed as her power bar that counts down from 150. When she runs out, she will retreat and summon her royal guard, starting phase two.

Phase two
Phase two brings out royal guard, in the form of several Set'thik Windblades and Kor'thik Reavers. All guards within eight yards of each other are affected by the Band of Valor and deal 20% more and take 10% less damage for each guard within range. Thus, the most effective way to kill them is to keep them in two groups (one for each tank), then pull one away from the group and focus it down.

Reavers tend to lob Poison Bombs at random players but may use their frontal cone ability Toxic Slime. They will also inflict Poison-Drenched Armor on their current target, which causes that target to occasionally deal bonus Nature damage. Reavers have a huge amount of health, to the point that it is faster to use the amber traps to kill them. Let windblades create sticky resin pools and have players run through them to congeal them to amber traps, then kite reavers through the traps.

Windblades will either Fixate on a random target, who must kite it around the room lest it get hit with Sonic Blade, or channel an interruptible Dispatch ability, which acts much like a rogue's Fan of Knives. Windblades also coat the ground with Sticky Resin, which acts as a void zone. If enough resin-coated players run into a pool of Sticky Resin, it will congeal into an Amber Trap, dealing 5% of the victim's health as damage every few seconds. The trap only works on mantid, not on players, so use this to defeat the reavers. Windblades will try to free trapped reavers, so focus on on the windblades to ensure the reaver dies in a reasonable amount of time.

Phase two lasts for a set length of time or until all adds are dead, at which point phase one restarts.

Phase three
At 30% remaining health, phase three begins. All members of the raid except the tanks should stack up immediately behind the empress for group healing purposes. Shek'zeer retains Eyes of the Empress, but otherwise gains a new set of abilities. She starts casting Sha Energy, dealing Shadow damage to 2-5 random players. She will also use Calamity, which knocks off half of each member of the raid's remaining (not total) health. She casts a dispelable Visions of Demise on a random player, which after four seconds causes that player to run in fear for 20 seconds and deal damage to nearby allies.

Her big ability this phase is Consuming Terror, which will do a large amount of damage and fear targets caught in a 70-yard cone in front of her for eight seconds. She also casts Amassing Darkness, which bounces a small amount of damage around the raid.

In Heroic mode difficulty, she will also cast a Heart of Fear in the direction of a random target. However, a player can stand between the heart and the target, taking the damage instead.

Related Achievements

 * Nightmare of Shek'zeer
 * Heroic: Grand Empress Shek'zeer
 * Timing is Everything
 * Heart of Fear Guild Run
 * Heroic: Grand Empress Shek'zeer Guild Run
 * Ahead of the Curve: Grand Empress Shek'zeer
 * Cutting Edge: Grand Empress Shek'zeer
 * Realm First! Grand Empress Shek'zeer

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Cry of Terror
 * yell


 * Phase 2 (Retreats)
 * yell
 * yell


 * Phase 2 (Returns)
 * yell
 * yell


 * yell
 * yell


 * Eyes of the Empress
 * yell


 * Phase 3
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Wipe
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * Cackling madly, the Sha soars upward and smashes through the ceiling, disappearing from sight.

Raid Finder

 * - Fury Warrior

10-man Heroic

 * (1080p) - Mage, Boss voice, vent, 5.2 patch Post-Nerf kill.

10-man Normal

 * (1080p) - Elemental Shaman
 * (1080p) - Timing is Everything achievement, Mage, boss voices, vent.

25-man Normal

 * (1080p) - Timing is Everything achievement, Mage, boss voices, vent, guide in description.