Taran Zhu (tactics)

Taran Zhu is the leader of the Shado-pan, corrupted by the power of the Sha of Hatred, and is the last boss of Shado-Pan Monastery.

Adventure Guide
''The Sha of Hatred has tainted Taran Zhu, the Shado-pan's pragmatic and mighty leader. Once devoted to protecting his beloved home, Zhu now burns with seething hatred for all life, twisting his perception of everything--and everyone--around him.''

Strategy
Taran Zhu is a one phase fight, and he will use all of his abilities from the pull until he is defeated. His abilities are exactly the same on both Normal and Heroic, with the only difference on Heroic mode being the increased amount of damage.

The main mechanic of this fight is the Hatred bar which appears at the bottom-middle of your screen; the meter ranges from 1 to 100. Various abilities the boss performs will increase your hatred, and once it reaches 100, you will enter a Haze of Hate, reducing your chance to hit by 90%, your healing done by 25% and increasing the physical damage you deal by 20%. As soon as you receive Haze of Hate, you should use your extra action button to Meditate. This will stun you for a few seconds, but doing so will reduce your hatred to 0 and remove the Haze of Hate debuff. Meditate has a very short cooldown, and it is possible (and very likely) for you to reach 100 hatred several times during the fight.

Periodically throughout the fight, Taran Zhu will cast Rising Hatred, steadily increasing the hate of everyone in the group. This can and should be interrupted by anyone capable of doing so. This spell can be cast whilst others are in play, leading to large spikes of hate. If other mechanics are in play whilst this is being channelled, it should be last on the priority list; it deals no damage, whilst other abilities, especially the Ring of Malice, can kill.

Taran Zhu will also cast a combination of two spells; Ring of Malice, and Sha Blast. Ring of Malice is a large circle of shadow bolts that fly around the boss, and will move when he does. It is important for all party members to avoid standing in the ring. Importantly, whilst Ring of Malice is active, Taran Zhu will move 80% slower. This coincides with his next ability, Sha Blast, which will deal roughly 80,000 shadow damage to the tank and knock them back; through the Ring of Malice. If the Tank repeatedly returns to Taran Zhu whilst Ring of Malice is active, they will be repeatedly knocked back and take large amounts of damage (their hate will increase rapidly too). The trick here is to simply kite Taran Zhu for the 10 or so seconds whilst Ring of Malice is active. As a note for warriors or other tanks with quick movement abilities, Sha Blast seems to have a very small range, and if you react quickly enough you can leap outside of the Ring of Malice without taking a single blast.

Finally, Taran Zhu will periodically summon Gripping Hatred - these are stationary enemies that are attackable, with a moderately sized pool of shadow around them. The shadow deals a small amount of shadow damage (and increasing their hate) per second to those standing within, but more importantly, once summoned each Gripping Hatred will begin to cast Grip of Hate, which, after 10 seconds, will pull everyone in the group to them. This spell cannot be interrupted, but the Gripping Hatreds can be stunned, forcing them to restart the 10 second cast once the stun ends. Taran Zhu will summon three of these, with a 1-2 second break in between each spawning. By stunning the last one to appear - or the one furthest away from the DPS - you will buy time for your group to kill all three without ever being gripped. These must be killed as soon as they appear; however, they don't have a lot of health and shouldn't be too difficult to kill.

A lot of the abilities in this fight can combine, leading to large spikes of damage and hate for everyone in the group. DPS prioritising the Gripping Hate and everyone avoiding the Ring of Malice will lead to less hate, which will lead to less time Meditating, which will result in a faster kill. Once Taran Zhu has been reduced to roughly 100k health, he will turn friendly and the Sha of Hatred will leave him, ending the fight. The loot for the encounter can be found in a chest which will spawn in the gazebo, just behind where he stands before you engage him.

Related Achievements

 * Shado-Pan Monastery (achievement)
 * Heroic: Shado-Pan Monastery
 * Hate Leads to Suffering

Quotes
The Sha of Hatred is mind controlling Taran Zhu and will yell the quotes.


 * Intro
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Killed a Player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Defeated
 * yell
 * yell