Freya (tactics)

Freya is one of the boss encounters in Ulduar, similar to Sartharion when it comes to her hard mode. She is in the center of the valley in Ulduar, surrounded by three ancients which all have unique abilities that will make the fight harder if players choose not to kill them prior to fighting Freya.

Bosstiary
''The watcher Freya was formerly a protector of all living things, aided by three stoic elders. Trough [sic] her conservatory remains lush and verdant, she has also succumbed to the Old God's maddening presence.''

Adventure Guide
''The watcher Freya has served as protector of all living things, aided by three stoic elders. Though her conservatory remains lush and verdant, she too has succumbed to the Old God's maddening whispers.''

Overview
During Stage One, stacks of Attuned to Nature must be removed by defeating the Allies of Nature. Once the Allies of Nature are defeated, Stage Two will begin.

[[file:Dps_icon.png]] Damage Dealers

 * Spread out to avoid damage from Detonate while the Detonating Lashers are present.
 * Interrupt Lightning Lash cast by the Storm Lasher.
 * Be near a Healthy Spore to prevent being Silenced or Pacified by the Ancient Conservator's Conservator's Grip.
 * Destroy the Lifebinder's Gift before Freya is able to cast Lifebinding Heal.

[[file:Healer_icon.png]] Healers

 * Spread out to avoid damage from Detonate while the Detonating Lashers are present.
 * Be near a Healthy Spore to prevent being Silenced or Pacified by the Ancient Conservator's Conservator's Grip.

[[file:Tank_icon.png]] Tanks

 * Be near a Healthy Spore to prevent being Silenced or Pacified by the Ancient Conservator's Conservator's Grip.
 * Be quick to gain the attention of enemies summoned by Freya's Summon Allies of Nature.

Stage One: Allies of Nature

 * Freya
 * Eonar's Gift
 * Ancient Conservator
 * Healthy Spore
 * Ancient Water Spirit
 * Storm Lasher
 * Snaplasher
 * Ancient Conservator
 * Healthy Spore
 * Ancient Water Spirit
 * Storm Lasher
 * Snaplasher
 * Healthy Spore
 * Ancient Water Spirit
 * Storm Lasher
 * Snaplasher
 * Ancient Water Spirit
 * Storm Lasher
 * Snaplasher
 * Snaplasher
 * Snaplasher
 * Snaplasher

Stage Two: Nature's Wrath
Once Attuned to Nature has been removed Stage Two begins.


 * Freya
 * Eonar's Gift
 * Eonar's Gift
 * Eonar's Gift
 * Eonar's Gift

Hard Mode
While the Elders in The Conservatory of Life are alive they will grant Freya additional abilities.


 * Elder Brightleaf Alive
 * Elder Ironbranch Alive
 * Elder Stonebark Alive
 * Elder Ironbranch Alive
 * Elder Stonebark Alive
 * Elder Stonebark Alive
 * Elder Stonebark Alive

Strategy
The fight takes place in a lush oasis-like valley inside Ulduar. There are three Elder boss-tree mobs you can choose whether or not to kill. They are similar to Sartharion's hard mode: if you choose not to kill them, the fight gets considerably harder as each elder buffs Freya and her adds.

As you engage Freya, she will cast a HoT on herself and a buff that increases her received healing by 4% per stack, starting with 150 stacks for a total of +600% healing which makes her basically invincible at the beginning of the encounter.

Freya will then spawn six waves of adds in a fixed interval of 60 seconds. Defeating these waves will remove various amounts of stacks from her buff until it is completely removed by the last wave. The waves are of three different types, cycling through twice in a random order.

The fight hinges on controlling the adds. Having said that, add-killing is far more central to this fight's strategy, as it is essential that adds are killed not merely because they will wipe the raid if it is overwhelmed, but also because in order to beat Freya's healing versus damage dealt to her, the adds must be killed.

Throughout the whole encounter a slim, glowing tree called Eonar's Gift with 65k (20k in 10-man) HP will spawn somewhere near to Freya about every 45 seconds. It will grow for 10 seconds after which it will heal Freya and all her summoned adds in the zone for 60% of their maximum health (30% in 10-man). This tree should be killed immediately by a few designated spotters or else killing the adds within the 60 seconds time to the next wave becomes a lot harder.

Phase 1
Every minute waves spawn in a random order:

Storm Lasher, Ancient Water Spirit and Snaplasher. They have varying HP from 500k to 1M and yet they all need to be killed at about the same time, otherwise 12 seconds after death they resurrect (reminiscent of the High Priest Thekal raid boss adds). All three adds can be stunned and interrupted. Reduces Attuned to Nature stacks by 10 each.
 * Wave Type 1


 * Snaplasher: Has a debuff that every time an attack is made against the Snaplasher its damage is increased by 10%. Can stack up to 99 times. In 10-man each stack will also reduce its movement speed by 5% so once the stack reaches 20 the Snaplasher will be immobilized at which time tank and melees should move away and let ranged classes dps it down safely. In 25-man they need to be picked up by an off tank and start getting DPSed. The off tank has to monitor the stacking buff and once it reaches ~50 all attacks must stop. If no attacks are made against the lasher for 4 seconds the debuff will reset. Stacks will increase only once per executed attack or spell, not on periodic, reflective or procced damage, thus DoTs and channeled spells are the safest way to deal damage against the Snaplasher as well as spells with a long cast time or two-handed melee weapon strikes.

Unlike many mobs, Snaplashers (on 10-man) will not melee a target next to them if the person highest on their threat list is out of melee range. In a melee-heavy raid, the DPS can work on the other adds first while the tank builds up threat and periodically lets the debuff fall off. When ready, the tank can simply walk away and the other DPS can hit the snaplasher with impunity.

Another option is to kite the Snaplasher with a high-threat class like a hunter, helped by any slowing ability (Slow from Arcane Mages, Hamstring, Crippling Poison, etc..). This way you can go all out on DPS on it, as it has the highest amount of the three, and completely cancels the effect of its debuff; this method also frees up a tank so in a typical 3-tanks raid allows better control of the other two adds.


 * Storm Lasher: Casts damaging nature spells and a chain lightning that hits up to 5 (10-man: 3) other players. Should be stunned and interrupted as often as possible.


 * Ancient Water Spirit: Periodically surges forward in a straight line and knocks back any player in its way. Should be tanked facing away from the rest of the raid.

They have 234k HP, are untankable, and randomly run from player to player. When one dies it does a short ranged AoE for 8k~ (around 15 yards) which makes AoEing them all at once on one spot a bad idea.
 * Wave Type 2
 * Detonating Lasher: They come in a waves of 10, spawning in a circle around Freya.

Reduces Attuned to Nature by 2 stacks per mob.

She will also spawn a bigger add at some point, an Ancient Conservator with 2.2M HP. This is wave type 3. Just off-tank him and kill him to remove 25 stacks from Freya. He periodically uses Conservator's Grip to silence and pacify all members of the raid. Staying under the Healthy Mushrooms that spawn during this time in the zone will remove and protect against this debuff. A paladin using Aura Mastery with Concentration Aura can offer temporary protection from this debuff if no mushrooms are near. He can also cast Nature's Fury on a random player who will damage all nearby players for 10 seconds, so he should quickly move away from the rest of the raid.
 * Wave Type 3

Reduces Attuned to Nature by 25.

Phase 2
The waves will stop spawning, Freya has the same abilities as phase one with the exception of the healing augmentation buff. It is a tank and spank phase. Freya will begin throwing out Nature Bombs in this phase and raid members must be careful to move away or they can prove lethal. If too many raid members are lost it may become impossible to DPS through Freya's Touch of Eonar.

Normal mode
To engage Freya in normal mode you must kill the three Elders within the area before engaging her. The three Elders are easy mini bosses but require a little strategy to kill smoothly. Make sure to clear out any trash mobs between the mini boss and freya as it's easy to gather a patrol while moving around on the mini bosses and have them link Freya into the fight.


 * Elder Brightleaf is located in the north-west corner of the conservatory of life. He drops a Sunbeam affect that you need to move him out of or else he'll quickly heal. He also has an aoe effect called Solar Flare that does nature damage to your raid.


 * Elder Stonebark is located on the eastern side of the conservatory a few trash pulls in. He has a Ground Tremor aoe that hits your entire raid for physical damage. He also has a Petrified Bark ability that works like thorns but with limited charges. Finally he has a self-buff called Fists of Stone that will give him the ability to one shot a tank. When he casts this have an offtank taunt the boss and kite him till the buff wears off in which your main tank can taunt and tank the boss.


 * Elder Ironbranch is located in the north eastern corner of the conservatory of life. He has two main effects you need to watch for. First he does an ability called Impale that does massive damage over five seconds that needs to be healed through. Second he'll root people with an ability called Iron Roots. These roots need to be targed and destroyed to free the affected player before they are killed.

Hard mode
The Elders, left alive prior to engaging Freya, do not engage combat, but banish themselves and provide the following buffs, while granting Freya some of their abilities as well:
 * Elder Brightleaf - The essence of Elder Brightleaf increases Magic damage dealt by Freya and her Allies of Nature by 60%. Freya also gains the ability to cast Solar Flare, a nuke that may hit multiple targets.
 * Elder Stonebark - The essence of Elder Stonebark increases physical damage dealt by Freya by 75%. Freya also gains the ability to cast Ground Tremor, a 2 second cast, 100 yard AoE that deals a large amount of physical damage and interrupts spellcasts, locking out interrupted spell schools for 8 seconds.
 * Elder Ironbranch - The essence of Elder Ironbranch increases Physical damage dealt by Allies of Nature by 50%. Freya also gains the ability to cast Iron Roots, a single target root with a large DoT component. The roots are attackable like Web Wraps which frees the afflicted.

Suggested Elders to leave up:


 * 1 Elder - Ironbranch. Strengthened Iron Roots have little health and die quickly; the real change with Ironbranch up is that it becomes exceedingly fatal to fall behind on killing waves of adds.

Hard mode
The following achievements are for the encounter's hard mode.

Quotes

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Aggro with Elders alive
 * yell


 * Summoning Conservator
 * yell


 * Summoning the Trio
 * yell


 * Summoning Detonating Lashers
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Berserk
 * yell


 * Defeated
 * yell

Mortals, I am indebted to you for freeing me from the terrible corruption that besets this place. Though I have not yet recovered fully, I can help you battle Yogg-Saron.
 * Buffing for Yogg-Saron's encounter

I can grant you and your friends the Resilience of Nature, increasing your damage and increasing healing taken from spells and effects. In addition, I can conjure Sanity Wells that will allow you to recover your Sanity when your grip on reality falters.




 * yell

Sound Files
See Sound Files of Ulduar: Freya