Kil'jaeden (tactics)

Kil'jaeden is the last boss in the Sunwell Plateau raid instance. Anveena, Kalecgos, and the blue dragonflight play a role in this encounter.

Since the Sunwell Plateau instance was revealed, Kil'jaeden was the most powerful boss in the game pre-WotLK. On May 20, 2008, the 3rd gate of the Sunwell Plateau was brought down on US Servers unlocking the encounter.

Strategy
The 5 phases of the Kil'jaeden encounter get progressively more difficult. Throughout phase 2 through 5, Kalecgos is flying from high above attacking Kil'jaeden with arcane bolts.

Phase 1
Initially, three Hands of the Deceiver are positioned next to the Sunwell, channeling Anveena's powers into the Sunwell. They have a significant aggro range, and are linked; however, due to the nature of their abilities, it is recommended that they be dragged apart immediately after the pull and tanked separately afterwards.

Abilities:
 * ~200K HP
 * Melee attacks that hit for ~2K on a plate-wearer.
 * Can be stunned and silenced (but see below)
 * Spell Shadow ShadowBolt.png Shadow Bolt Volley: Deals 850 to 1150 shadow damage to all raid members within 30 yards, and places a stackable debuff that increases all shadow damage taken by 750.
 * Spell Shadow Shadesofdarkness.png Soul Portal: Opens a portal that periodically causes Volatile Felfire Fiend to spawn; these imps will run towards nearby raid members and explode, dealing significant damage to all nearby characters. The imps have extremely low health, and can be killed with a single instant cast spell (Ice Lance, Shadowburn, Shadow Word: Death); however, dying also causes them to explode.
 * Spell Shadow ShadowWordDominate.png Shadow Infusion: At ~20% health, the Hand will gain a self-buff that makes him immune to stun and silence effects. At this point, the raid must quickly finish him off.

Ensure that the Hands are tanked far away from each other, stay out of the 30 yard range of the shadowbolt volleys if possible, mind the stacking debuff they apply, and this phase should be easy to master in a few pulls.

Once all three Hands are defeated, phase 2 begins.

Phase 2
Kil'jaeden arrives in a blaze of glory (literally). Upon spawning, he will knock back all players that are standing within the Sunwell. The knockback causes no damage. He is constantly doing ranged spell damage on mostly random targets.


 * Spell Shadow SiphonMana.png Soul Flay - 3 second channel. Deals 3000 Shadow damage per second and reduces movement speed. This ability is cast almost constantly on the player with the highest threat regardless of their range. Not resistible or dispellable.
 * Spell Nature ChainLightning.png Legion Lightning - 2 second cast. A chain lightning-like ability that hits the first target for 3007 to 3493 Shadow damage and then leaps to 4 additional targets, inflicting diminishing Shadow damage to each successive target. It will also drain 1500 mana from each character that takes damage from it. The range for the initial lightning and each successive jump is 50 yards, so it cannot be realistically outranged. Fully resistible.
 * Spell Fire Burnout.png Fire Bloom - Instant cast. Places a debuff on up to five random targets that deals 1619 to 1881 Fire damage to the debuffed player and all other raid members within 10 yards every 2 seconds. Lasts 20 seconds. Not dispellable (except by immunity effects).
 * Spell Shadow SoulGem.png Summon Shield Orb - Spawns a Shield Orb add that is similar to Doom Blossoms in the Teron Gorefiend encounter. They are constantly shooting Shadow Bolts at the raid (up to 3 bolts within 1 second). Since they are targetable and have only 20k HP, it is recommended for ranged DPS to take them down as quickly as possible to reduce incoming raid damage. During phase 2, they will always spawn northeast of Kil'jaeden, and then orbit him counterclockwise.

Once you reduce Kil'jaeden to 85% HP, phase 3 will begin.

Phase 3
Bringing Kil'jaeden down to 85% will engage phase 3. At this point he will begin casting Shadow Spikes and summon Sinister Reflections. When the Shadow Spikes have finished, Kalecgos will empower 1 of the 4 Orbs of the Blue Dragonflight (which will from now on be referred to as dragon orbs for simplicity) located around the room. Kil'jaeden gains the following abilities:


 * Spell Shadow ShadowBolt.png Sinister Reflection: Used at the beginning of phase 3, instant cast. Spawns four Sinister Reflections of a randomly targeted raid member that look identical to the target, and have the abilities of the target's class. These abilities are not tied to the character's talent build or gear selection (for instance, a shadow priest's reflections will cast Smite and Renew). Their melee attacks deal an incredible amount of physical damage (2k on plate per hit per Reflection) and their casts do considerable damage/healing. These mirror images are not CC'able in any way (not even cyclone), but do have normal threat mechanics. As of 2.4.3, they can be interrupted.
 * Spell Shadow Shadowfury.png Shadow Spike: 28 second channel. Bombards randomly targeted raid members with Shadow Spikes that function like Void Reaver's orbs, floating towards the target's position upon the moment of cast and exploding. The explosion inflicts 5100 to 6900 Shadow damage to all characters within 8 yards and applies a debuff that reduces all healing effects by 50% for 10 seconds. Resistible.
 * Spell Fire Flare.png  Flame Dart Explosion: Instant cast. Every 3 seconds, all raid members will be hit by Flame Darts that cause 1663 to 1837 Fire damage. If they do not have "Breath: Haste" (see the Dragon Orbs section below), they will deal 500 splash damage to raid members who are too close to them and a debuff will be applied that reduces movement speed by 50% and lasts 15 seconds. Resistible, but not dispellable.
 * Spell Shadow SoulGem.png Summon Shield Orb: This ability will now cause 2 Shield Orbs to spawn instead of 1. They will initially appear on opposite sides of the room, and will rotate in opposite directions.
 * Spell Shadow BlackPlague.png Darkness of a Thousand Souls: Kil'jaeden does a raidwide emote ('Kil'jaeden begins to channel dark energy') and covers himself with wings. After 8 seconds, he will hit all players inside the instance for 47500 to 52500 Shadow damage. This is countered by the Shield of the Blue ability (see the Dragon Orbs section below). ~45 second cooldown. Not resistible.

It's imperative that you bring him down to 55% (engaging phase 4) before the third Darkness of a Thousand Souls of the phase or there will be no dragon available to use Shield of the Blue.

Phase 4
Bringing Kil'jaeden down to 55% starts phase 4, summoning new Sinister Reflections and causing him to start casting another round of Shadow Spikes (after which, Kalecgos will empower another dragon orb). This phase is almost identical to phase 3, however he gains a new ability (that's 9 for those counting):


 * Spell Fire Fireball02.png Armageddon: A hellfire graphic will appear on the ground in a random location for approximately 8 seconds before a meteor lands in its place that deals 10000 damage to anyone under it or in the immediate range around it. It's worth noting that standing in the hellfire effect prior to the meteor itself does not do any damage. 3 of these will be in flight constantly throughout this phase and they will stop spawning while he is casting Darkness of a Thousand Souls.
 * Spell Shadow SoulGem.png Summon Shield Orb: Kil'jaeden will now summon 3 shield orbs instead of 2.

Keep in mind that he will continue to use all of the abilities he uses in phase 3. Again, it's imperative that you bring him down to 25% (engaging phase 5) before the third Darkness of a Thousand Souls of the phase or there will be no dragon available to use Shield of the Blue.

Phase 5
Bringing Kil'jaeden down to 25% will begin phase 5, causing him to summon another set of Sinister Reflections and begin casting Shadow Spikes again, and at the end of them Anveena sacrifices herself applying the following debuff to Kil'jaeden:


 * Spell Holy CircleOfRenewal.png Sacrifice of Anveena: Anveena instantly sacrifices herself, causing Kil'jaeden to take 25% increased Holy damage.

After Anveena sacrifices herself, Kil'jaeden will be stunned for approximately 5 seconds, all 4 dragon orbs will be empowered and he will start using Darkness of a Thousand Souls on a very short cooldown (approximately 25 seconds). It's vital that you kill him within 8 Darkness of a Thousand Souls or there will be no dragons left to use Shield of the Blue. It's worth noting that 5 Armageddons will be in flight at any given time and will continue to spawn while Darkness of a Thousand Souls is being cast during this phase, and in addition Shield Orbs will stop spawning.

Upon his defeat is a very awesome "dismissal" scene.

Dragon Orbs
Approximately 35 seconds into phase 3 and 4, Kalecgos will empower 1 of the 4 "Orbs of the Blue Dragonflight" around the room (or in the case of phase 5, all 4 will be empowered approximately 45 seconds in). Clicking one of these while it is empowered will transform you into a blue dragon with the following abilities for 2 minutes:


 * Spell Arcane Blink.png Blink: Like the Mage spell of the same name, it teleports the dragon 20 yards forward.
 * Spell Arcane Arcane03.png Breath: Revitalize: Breathes arcane energy in a 13-yard cone in front of the caster, causing friendly units to regenerate 2250 health and mana over 10 sec. 10 second cooldown.
 * Spell Fire BlueFlameBreath.png Breath: Haste: Breathes arcane energy in a 13-yard cone in front of the caster, increasing the attack, casting, and movement speeds of friendly targets by 25% for 30 sec.  Also grants immunity to effects that reduce movement speed. 10 second cooldown.
 * Spell Arcane ArcaneResilience.png Shield of the Blue: Extends a powerful shield around the caster that reduces all incoming and outgoing damage on friendly targets within 10 yards by 95%, but stuns the dragon and drains 10% of the dragon's health per second.  Lasts 5 sec. 20 second cooldown.

It's important to note that an orb can only be used once per phase and that the Shield of the Blue ability can only be used twice before the dragon dies.

At level 80
Ideal Raid Composition: 4 healers, 2 tanks, 19 dps


 * Strategy

At level 80, the Kil'jaeden encounter is much less likely to wipe a raid due to the increases in health, hp and healing (let alone make it a requirement to use a dragon as dps can kill him before this). The following rules (broken down by phase) should be observed and followed to ensure a quick kill (avoiding Darkness of a Thousand Souls completely) with minimal deaths to the raid:

Phase 1 (Hands of the Deceiver)

1) It is possible now to group up the Hands of the Deceiver and aoe them along with any imps that are summoned as you should have the dps, hp and healing to do so.

Phase 2 (100% Health)

1) Assign 2-4 dps to immediately kill any Shield Orbs that are summoned. This goes for phases 3 to 5 as well.  As the fight progresses, more Shield Orbs will be summoned at once.

Phase 3 (85% Health)

1) Tanks need to be ready to pick up Sinister Reflections immediately. This goes for phases 4 to 5 as well.

2) Dps should be strong enough at this point to bring him into phase 4 (resetting his Darkness of a Thousand Souls ability cooldown (45sec)) before the need to use a blue dragon shield/orb.

Phase 4 (55% Health)

1) Immediately move out of his Armageddon ability (hellfire graphic).

Phase 5 (25% Health)

1) Kil'jaeden will take 25% increased Holy damage at this point. If you can spare it, have 1-2 of your holy based healers start damaging him before he casts Darkness of a Thousand Souls (which is now on a shorter cooldown).

Quotes

 * Orders (before the encounter)
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Emerge
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * say
 * yell


 * Casting Darkness of a Thousand Souls
 * yell
 * yell


 * yell
 * yell


 * yell
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell (Eredun)


 * Casting Sinister Reflection
 * yell
 * yell


 * Phase 4
 * yell
 * say
 * yell


 * Phase 5
 * yell
 * say
 * yell
 * say
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Victory
 * say