Megaera

Megaera is the fifth boss encounter in the Throne of Thunder. In order to be summoned the three Eternal Guardians must be slain and bells behind them rung.

Adventure Guide
''Even the most callous among the mogu quaver at the thought of the dark experiments performed at the Thunder King's behest. Long ago, a young cloud serpent was twisted into a multi-headed hydra and left to languish beneath Lei Shen's throne. Now the twisted creature lurks deep in the Forgotten Depths, awaiting the moment it may finally inflict its terrible agony upon others.''

Encounter Design
''The inspiration for this boss fight was the Lernaean Hydra that Hercules battled in Greek mythology —a beast with many heads that regrew two heads in place of each that was severed. That foundation, combined with the concept of three distinct types of heads, resulted in the beast that now awaits players beneath the Thunder King’s lair in patch 5.2.''

One Body, Many Heads
When one of Megaera's heads is destroyed, her body takes damage equal to the head's maximum health and two heads regrow in its place.











Flaming Head




Frozen Head




Venomous Head




Arcane Head

 * Nether Wyrm
 * Nether Wyrm



Looking For Raid
This fight is only available as a 25 man raid in Looking for Raid, and requires 2 tanks, 6 healers and a healthy mix of 17 melee and caster DPS. As this is the strategy for Looking For Raid, the mechanics have been simplified by the Blizzard development team. Keep in mind that the normal versions of the Megaera encounter are more difficult and require that raiders pay more attention to mechanics than what follows in this strategy.

The positioning is pretty simple. One tank will always be focused on a Venomous Head, and the other tank will always be focus on a Flaming Head. The hit box for each of Megaera's heads is fairly large, so DPS and healers will remain stacked about 8-10 yards behind one of the tanks, depending on which head is being killed at the time. There is a lot of AoE damage done during this encounter, so it helps to have the DPS and healers stack. This means there will be two stack points: One for Venomous Head DPS and the other for Flaming Head DPS. Using raid light beams may assist in quicker stacking between shifts.

The fight begins by having the DPS kill the Venomous Head first while healers maintain tank health via single target healing and AoE heals for the group. When the Venomous Head dies, more heads will spawn, and the raid group will relocate to the second stack point behind the tank with the Flaming Head. When the Flaming Head dies, the cycle will begin anew, and the raid group will return to the first stack point behind the Venomous Head that will respawn. This mechanic will continue until the Megaera is dead.

DPS and Healers will have an additional mechanic they must pay attention to: Cinders. Every so often a single player will be targeted by the Flaming Head and will be marked with the Cinders debuff. The player will only have a few seconds to leave the stacked group and stand about 10-15 yards away. When the player is far away enough, a healer will need to cleanse that player before the player can return to the group. If this mechanic is ignored, the Cinders will kill the player and the raid.

10 player (Normal)
While this encounter appears complicated, the strategy is rather simple. For the 10 man encounter, 2 tanks and 2-3 healers will be required, and a healthy mix of 5 melee and caster DPS. Some raid teams may want to have a hybrid class player who can easily switch to a back-up healing role as needed, such as an elemental shaman or balance druid.

The hit box for each of Megaera's heads is fairly large, DPS and healers can remain loosely spread out for the most part, and then remain stacked about 8-10 yards behind one of the tanks, depending on which head is being killed at the time. There is a lot of AoE damage done during this encounter, so it helps to have the DPS and healers stack when noted.

When the encounter begins, the raid will want to focus their DPS on the Frozen Head. After it dies, the raid should stack up in a location close to one of the other heads, while the raid endures the AoE damage of Rampage. There is no way to avoid this mechanic, it is simply an ability that must be healed through.

Rampage has a 20 second duration, and afterwards the raid can once again spread out loosely. Each of the two tanks will then aggro one of the two heads, and tank them facing away from the raid. They will need to perform a tank switch between these two heads. DPS one of the remaining two heads.

At this point, the raid will need to begin handling the abilities cast by the heads at the back of the cave:

The player(s) afflicted by Cinders must run over any  Icy Ground void zones available and then be dispelled in a safe location (away from the raid and in a place where the resulting void zone will not interfere with the raid's movement.

The player(s) chased by Torrent of Ice must run from the beam of ice. They must be careful not to kite it over the raid's location, and, if possible, to kite over any existing fiery void zones to extinguish them.

The entire raid should move away from the impact location of Acid Rain to minimize the damage that is taken. Moving 15-20 yards away is sufficient.

The raid will continue DPSing to the heads one at a time, while handling the mechanics cast by the heads at the back of the cave, and enduring the increased damage as each head dies. Each head is worth about 14% of Megaera's health, so the raid will need to kill 7 heads to defeat the encounter.

Heroic Mode
Only significant differences is than raids will need to ignore greed and kill the other heads instead, as the acid rain damage, along the fact 3 players are targeted by it, is extremely hard (if not impossible) to heal regularly.

A new head,the arcane head, enters on the rotation and spawns after the flaming head dies. The head has a breath abilities like the others but also summons 3-5 nether wyrms regularly than deals damage to random players, can channel a stun on them as well,and they respond to normal threat tables. Due to their low hp,the raid can simply ignore them,heal though the damage and dispel the stun.And only kill them just after a head has been killed, since the raid cannot dps any head for a couple of the seconds. Rampage damage is extremely high on Heroic mode. 3rd and following ones will require to coordinate raid cds to heal though it and almost always make use of 3 heals.

Additionally, the ice torrent of the frozen heads on heroic grows till it fills thrice as much from its original size.And the Cinder debuff now leaves a fire pool every 3 secs instead of when dispelled. The raid should make sure to move away from the stack points for rampage to not compromise it with fire or ice.

A ideal strategy for this phase is to set lock portals between 2 points of the room and when a player is targeted by torrent they can use a portal to go to the other way of the room and when a player is debuffed with cinders they can use the same portal to leave the fire pools over the ice and smelt it to release some space for the raid.

The Fight still requires 7 heads to beat it, much like on Normal mode. Once 7 heads are killed, the encounter is complete.

Related Achievements

 * Forgotten Depths
 * Heroic: Megaera
 * Head Case
 * Throne of Thunder Guild Run

10 player heroic

 * - MW Monk POV