Blackheart the Inciter

Blackheart the Inciter was one of the few two-headed ogres within the Shadow Council.

History
He was dispatched alongside Vorpil to investigate Auchindoun, and remained there for many years. In time, Ner'zhul, Teron Gorefiend and Kilrogg Deadeye fled to Auchindoun to take shelter from the pursuing Alliance armies. They had been unaware of the presence of other orcs here, but Vorpil and Blackheart welcomed them. When presented with news of the betrayal of Gul'dan, Vorpil pledged himself to Ner'zhul. When Danath broke into Auchindoun to rescue Kurdran, Vorpil and Blackheart fought to stop them, but were beset by ghosts of dead draenei. In the confusion, Danath slew Kilrogg Deadeye in single combat. Ner'zhul and Gorefiend teleported themselves to the Black Temple, and Vorpil and Blackheart fled back into the Shadow Labyrinth. Till this day they remain there, tampering with cosmic forces such as Murmur. Their followers form what is known as the Cabal.

Adventure Guide
''When the orcish Horde first invaded Azeroth through the Dark Portal, two Shadow Council members instead turned their attentions to the ancient draenei burial grounds of Auchindoun. The unquiet spirits in the area proved to be excellent subjects for the warlock Blackheart to perfect his mind control abilities.''

Room clearing
All of the mobs in the room will aggro when you start combat with him so the room must be fully cleared. In addition to the Instructors and the nasty four and five-pulls, there are one to several wandering stealthed Assassins that must be dealt with before you start the fight.

General strategy
This boss does rather low amounts of melee damage (in Normal mode) and as long as the Tank has aggro he can be nuked down fairly quickly. During the fight, along with the Incite Chaos party MC, he will also periodically do a War Stomp/AoE Knockback that will kick anyone near him back a significant distance and reduce their aggro significantly. This often happens in combination with a Charge ability, making it extremely difficult at times for the Tank to hold the boss. It is a good idea to position the boss in a corner so the Tank isn't knocked completely out of range by the stomp and can more easily reestablish aggro. Popular spots for this include the left mound behind him and the doorway behind him. The Knockback also does a fair amount of damage, so it is best for anyone who does not need to be in melee range to be well away from him.

A lot of his abilities during this fight reduce or erase the aggro table. Incite Chaos will completely reset the table, while his Knockback and Charge abilities cause significant aggro reductions. After these abilities are used, it is critical for the party to step back and let the Tank reestablish his hold on the Inciter. Stop attacks and heals and run towards the Tank so he can pick up Inciter. In normal mode there is some leeway because he does not hit all that hard, groups running Shadow Labs in Heroic mode need to get this down pat because he can two or three shot clothies if he is left on them too long. Keeping the Tank topped off with HoT's can help a lot with this so that healers do not draw aggro during this time. Lifebloom is particularly useful as the ending tick dumps some aggro onto the Tank.

The standard strategy is to have the tank hold him against the wall on top of the left mound behind him. The rest of the party stands on the right mound and does damage. When the tank loses aggro, this arrangement makes it easy to pick Inciter back up, especially if the tank is a Warrior who can Intervene to grab him very quickly.

Incite Chaos
The main ability of this boss is a 15-second Party Mind Control called Incite Chaos in which he stands back and laughs at you while you merrily beat each other to death. The ability not only causes your party to turn against one another, it also completely wipes the aggro table. This turns the fight into more of an endurance test and test of your healers than a brute force fight, as high-DPS parties are apt to kill one another very quickly during Incite Chaos. Some general tips for surviving it:
 * Party members can remove their weapons right before an Incite Chaos to drastically reduce damage against group members.
 * Burn all dangerous and/or expensive abilities as quickly as possible, so they cannot be used against you. It is important for Paladins to ensure their Lay on Hands is on cooldown before starting the fight, as it will consume all of their mana if used during MC.
 * Rogues should not use poisons and Warlocks should try to burn their mana as quickly as possible.
 * If you have a Hunter, have them set up a Freezing Trap under the party's main healer. While ice blocked they can't waste their mana and they can't do damage to their fellow party members.
 * Bring a tree-form Druid. During the MC, a tree-form Druid will do no damage to the party and will generally just stand there healing itself. This helps two ways, as you have one less party member damaging another, and your healer is apt to finish the MC at full health or near to.
 * Hand out a (or, or ) to each party member before the fight, and make sure it's bound on a convenient hotkey. Use it when Blackheart announces "Time for Fun!". If timed correctly, this will allow the party to skip up to 12 seconds of the 15-second Incite Chaos, plus the entire party will end up with nearly full health and mana.
 * Barkskin/Tranquility (requires Druid Tank). A druid who is tanking Blackheart can cast Barkskin (to avoid interruption) and then Tranquility immediately following one of the MC's during the fight (10min cooldown means you can only do this once). This has two benefits: First, it will quickly top off the party's health without using your healer's mana. Second, it will generate a significant amount of healing aggro (Tranquility is one of the highest aggro-generating spells in the game), allowing the druid to shift to bear and tank Blackheart without chasing after him. (Verified, patch 2.1.x)
 * Curse of Doom. Warlocks in the party can use their Curse of Doom as a sort of short-term kiting mechanism if timed correctly (if you're using a pally tank this can allow the rest of the group a significant amount of free DPS time just before the beginning of an Incite Chaos. Because there are 40 seconds between Incite Chaos phases and Incite Chaos lasts 15 seconds you can time a Curse of Doom to go off at a pre-determined time with practice. If you hug the tank's threat and put some distance between the Inciter and yourself just before the curse goes off you can get him to chase you. This will give the warlock a significant threat-lead over the rest of the party and allow the other DPSers to go all out for 5–7 seconds before the Inciter casts Incite Chaos again and resets his threat list. If you have a timer the timing is easy. If you don't you can use your regular DoTs to time them. Note: because of the Inciter's 55 second phase cycle, you can only do this 2-3 times before you lose a phase purely to Curse of Doom's cooldown.

After the MC the party will need to pause for a bit and let the Tank re-establish aggro on Inciter. There are only 40 seconds between each Incite Chaos, so once the Tank has some hate built up, it is important for the party to start slowly ramping up damage on the boss as soon as possible.
 * Ice Block. If used at the proper time, it may allow you to avoid part/all of the MC.
 * Vanish. If used at the proper time, it may allow you to avoid part/all of the MC.
 * Succubus. If the Warlock keeps his Succubus out and on "Defensive", when MC'ed she will cast Seduction on the Warlock. The effect of the seduction will end when Incite Chaos ends.
 * Before the fight, Priests can mind-control a Cabal Acolyte during the clearing of the room. The Acolyte has a greater shadow protection spell that can be applied to everyone in the party, absorbing up to 3000 shadow damage.

Cubby hole
Drag him to the cubby hole area on the right side of the room. Place the group with their backs to the pillar and the tank on the outer wall. This positioning allows all party members to dps (particularly those who need to stand at his back), prevents line of sight issues, and tends to limit the scattering caused by the group mind control. It is still a long fight, but positioning the boss in this way is much easier on the tank.

Another approach is to fight him at the back of the room (at the exit door). When he walks to the right side of the platform, the party can run to the back on the left side. If you stand at the exit door, he will not aggro until you are ready to fight. This positioning works extremely well to mitigate knock backs and scattering, although it does not allow players to fight him from behind. The Cubby Hole strategy is excellent, but difficult to get a PUG to do. Telling everyone to follow you around to the back of the room has the advantage of simplicity for even the most lackluster players.

High DPS
The logic to this strategy is twofold. One is that Blackheart doesn't hit hard at all. This allows any DPS class, even clothies, to absorb hits without getting two shotted. The second point is that Blackheart wastes the healer's mana already on mana intensive spells like Chain Lightning and Holy Nova. It is better to waste your mana healing than doing damage to your friends, right?

For this strategy, you still need to blow short cooldowns that last less than 10 seconds like Adrenaline Rush. However, cooldowns that last longer, like Bloodlust, should not be wasted. Healers should not be afraid to use their top heal per second heals.

When you engage Blackheart, give your tank 2 seconds to get one sunder, or whatever aggro holding move on Blackheart. Then go all out, using all your short cooldowns. Don't worry about pulling aggro. Blackheart hits like a chump. Just lay it all at him. Blackheart will randomly mind control you after a few seconds of beatings.

After the first mind control, wait one second for the tank to try to hold aggro. If the tank doesn't, don't worry. Just lay it on Blackheart. Again, if you pull aggro, the healer should not worry about wasting mana. Its going to be wasted anyways.

At the 3rd mind control, you should have Blackheart at less than 60%. If you don't, then you either don't have enough DPS, or you are waiting too long to DPS. After the 3rd mind control, the healer needs to use his/her mana regaining ability. If it's a priest, shadow fiend. If it's a druid, innervate. If it's a shaman, mana pot (or mana tide). If it's a Paladin, pot. At this stage, your DPS again needs to go all out. Don't worry about heals. They will keep coming.

After he gets his 4th mind control off, it's do or die. The healer is probably out of mana at this point. If he isn't a resto shaman, paladin, druid, or priest, he probably wasted his potion cooldown timer. If the healer can use something like wardrums, or dark runes, or any alternative mana regaining ability, use it now. All DPS needs to bandage, and then DPS Blackheart down. If you don't down him this try, or get him down to at least 2-5%, it's a wipe.

Rogue Garrotte
A properly timed rogue garrotte may be able to delay or reset the timer on Incite Chaos.

Loot
(Note: Spirit Shards are obtained when your respective faction has the PvP buff.)

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell
 * yell


 * yell
 * yell


 * yell
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Help
 * yell
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell
 * yell

Trivia

 * Blackheart is voiced by Marc Graue.

Speculation
Before joining the Shadow Council, he may have been a part of the Gorian Empire.