User:Serillian/Jao Lin

Jao Lin is the third boss encounter located with the Palace of the Risen Emperor. He guards the entrance into the palace's inner corridors.

Background
When Lei Shen seized back control of his Palace, he saw potential in the wild stone beast Jao Lin. Taming the beast for his own ends, Lei Shen granted the quilen a fraction of his power so that it can drive back uninvited guests. Jao Lin still stands to this day, eternally protecting his new master's residence and tearing any intruder to shreds.

Encounter Abilities
Jao Lin stands in Stone Form at the center of the courtyard. On all difficulties, he is surrounded by 4 Ironstone Guardians who are also in Stone Form. Jao Lin and any active Ironstone Guardians will go berserk at 9 minutes. This timer becomes 12 minutes for LFR difficulty.





Jao Lin
The Stone Quilen attacks with such ferocity that will leave his foes shredded and wounded.









Ironstone Guardian
These stonebound beasts are massive and can use their heavy weight to crush their foes.









Strategy
The Jao Lin encounter is quite a challenge but can be defeated through trial and error. He and the four Ironstone Guardian adds start in Stone Form until the fight begins, where Jao Lin will no longer return to Stone Form. The adds will remain in Stone Form until they become involved in the battle, which they certainly will be.

The main resource/mechanic of this encounter is Life Force. At the start of the fight, Jao Lin has 100 Life Force and he will gradually drain this resource through the use of his abilities (he only has three abilities that cost him Life Force). Once he reaches 0 Life Force, he will cast Vitality Drain which drains any active Ironstone Guardian adds of their Life Force and grants the boss and combined amount of that Life Force. However, if all of the adds are in Stone Form and this ability is used, Jao Lin will instantly wipe the raid. Because of this, there must always be an active Ironstone Guardian for Jao Lin to drain from in order to avoid a premature wipe.

Jao Lin
Jao Lin himself does not shift through different phases as the battle goes on. He remains in a single phase using the same set of abilities until he is defeated, enrages, or casts a successful Vitality Drain on the raid.

Jao Lin attacks the tank with Claw Lash that inflicts moderate damage and applies two debuffs, Infected Gash and Bloody Wound. Infected Gash is a stacking effect that lowers healing taken by an increasing amount. Bloody Wound is a stacking effect that deals periodic damage and can only fade off the tank once they have been healed above 90% health. These debuffs should not be that much of a concern for healers and tanks alike (since tanks can switch on a chosen number of stacks). This ability takes up 10 Life Force from Jao Lin.

Ravage is a strong ability that is directed towards the current tank. This attack deals high damage that requires players to split the damage. The special "niche" of this ability is that its damage is not applied to the primary tank but to all other players in front of Jao Lin. Therefore, several players should stack up with the tank (including the offtank of course) to safely soak the damage from this attack. If the main tank is the only player in front of Jao Lin when this ability is used, that player will suffer the entire damage, which is a potential kill (combined with Jao Lin's melee attacks and the bleed DoT). This attack uses up 20 Life Force from Jao Lin and if there is an Ironstone Guardian nearby when Jao Lin performs this attack will gain the spent Life Force and becomes active and joins the fray. This ability costs Jao Lin the most Life Force out of all abilities he has and will end up draining his Life Force really quickly, casting Vitality Drain in no time. In order to avoid a wipe, an Ironstone Guardian must be within range of Jao Lin (and in front of him) each time Ravage is performed to ensure there will almost always be an add active for Jao Lin to drain from.

Despite players having to stack for Ravage, there must be at least one player out at range in order to prevent Jao Lin from prematurely casting Ravage again because he cannot perform Stone Leap. This ability causes Jao Lin to jump towards a targeted player at range, requiring that player to move out of the area quickly or else they will take high damage that potentially leads to death. Upon landing, this attack deals great damage to all players based on distance from the landing point (less damage is taken when far away) and spawns a fissure at the location that will quickly kill anyone standing in it. If players cannot move out of the Stone Leap landing area in time, they can simply jump to avoid the damage which can buy healers a few extra seconds to heal up any previous damage inflicted. This attack costs Jao Lin 5 Life Force and if he lands near an Ironstone Guardian, that add will gain that amount of Life Force and become active during the encounter. Players can control where to have Jao Lin at next whenever he casts this ability by simply having only one player stand at a designated spot (ex. next to another Ironstone Guardian if the previous one has been killed) in the courtyard and moving out of the way as Jao Lin performs his leap.

Jao Lin will also periodically cast Shard Nova on the raid as unavoidable damage. This ability can be healed easily and should not much of a problem on Normal and LFR (this ability applies an important debuff on Heroic).

The Ironstone Guardians
These adds are normally inactive in Stone Form at the beginning stages of the fight but they soon become a very essential aspect of the fight as the encounter cannot be defeated without their involvement (as little as only one add can be used to ensure victory).

Once these adds gain any amount of Life Force, they become active for as long as they have Life Force. Once active, they lose 1 Life Force every 2 seconds until they revert back to Stone Form again. Once they are in Stone Form again (a guardian with 10 Life Force will be active for 20 seconds before going back to Stone Form), Jao Lin gains 10 Life Force back. This gives player some extra time to get another Ironstone Guardian active before the next Vitality Drain occurs.

The guardian will perform a very healable Stone Slice that is just a basic cleave attack used often. The good part of this ability is that it can damage Jao Lin, causing twice the damage to him and this should be used to assist in dealing as much damage as possible to him.

The Ironstone guardian will also cast a Boulder Bolt attack that can have terrible results if handled poorly. The guardian fires a massive boulder towards a random player and if it strikes them, they will take a great deal of damage and is knocked out of the boulder's way. The boulder then continues in the same direction until it hits another Guardian's boulder, causing it to bouncing off that boulder, or it strikes the wall which causes it to stay there. All players must avoid the boulders and allow them to hit the walls or even hit Jao Lin, which deals twice the damage and stuns him temporarily.

While the boulders are stuck against the walls of the courtyard, the Guardian will attempt to cast Rock Gaze on that boulder which causes it to blow up and deal raid-wide damage. Players are damaged for 30% of their max health so it would be worthwhile to have some sort of damage absorb in place to lower some of the damage.

When it comes to dealing with the adds (at most one guardian should be active at all times, preferably the same guardian), keep the guardian facing towards Jao Lin and tanked on near him. This should allow for its cleave attack to strike the boss and only hit the tank. When the boulder is cast, it is more worthwhile to get out of its way than to try and have it collide with Jao Lin for damage. As Jao Lin, whenever he is about to cast Vitality Drain, there should be an add up to all Jao Lin to drain from them to give players extra Dps time on him.

At the beginning of the fight, bring Jao Lin towards a selected Guardian and have most of the raid stack near that add (so that Ravage doesn't kill anyone). Burn the boss as hard as possible and allow the Ravage to bring the add to life, keep that guardian tanked facing towards Jao Lin's side so that its Stone Slice strikes him (and any potential Boulder Bolts that may target players on the opposite side of Jao Lin) as much as possible. Whenever Ravage is about to occur, turn Jao Lin (with the raid repositioning) towards the guardian and allow the Ravage attack to pour more Life Force into that add so that when Jao Lin is preparing to cast Vitality Drain, the Ironstone Guardian will still have Life Force left over for the boss to gain. In addition, when an add turns to Stone on its own, Jao Lin will gain 10 Life Force which allows for the guardian add to gain more Life Force. For Stone Leap, the player that farthest from the boss should 10 yards away from him but near the Ironstone Guardian so that the leap lands near the add and it ends up gaining Life Force. Players may need to readjust due to the resulting fissures from the Stone Leap attack (when the leap is about to go off, players should move far away from the targeted area as possible while using whatever defensive cooldowns necessary to make the damage survivable). This process may take several tries to get the hang of it, but it allows for a less chaotic experience.

Heroic Changes

 * In addition to casting Vitality Drain upon reaching 0 Life Force, Jao Lin will cast this ability as he reaches 75%, 50% and 25% health.


 * Jao Lin will cast his Stone Leap ability twice in rapid succession before incurring its cooldown.


 * Shard Nova applies an important debuff known as Serious Injury that snares players and reduces all players' maximum health by a decent amount that stacks with each cast of Shard Nova.


 * Jao Lin will take five times the damage from the Ironstone Guardian's Stone Slice and Boulder Bolt abilities.


 * The Burst of Life ability comes into play where Lei Shen brings an random Stone Form add to life with 25 Electric Essence that allows it fight until killed, which causes it transfer any remaining essence into Jao Lin, healing him for a percentage of the transferred amount.

Quotes

 * Aggro
 * bossemote


 * Vitality Drain
 * bossemote


 * bossemote


 * Ravage
 * bossemote


 * bossemote


 * Stone Leap
 * bossemote


 * Burst of Life
 * yell
 * bossemote


 * Player Killed
 * bossemote


 * Berserk
 * bossemote


 * Death
 * bossemote

Achievements