Lei Shen (tactics)

Lei Shen is the twelfth and final boss encounter in the Throne of Thunder on Looking for Raid and Normal Mode.

Adventure Guide
''Tyrant. Dictator. Conqueror. Emperor. These titles of the Thunder King were earned by bringing absolute misery to every race of Pandaria. Resurrected into a world where his people no longer rule, Lei Shen is bent on ending the farce and bringing the land under his heel once more.''

Encounter design
''The core concept for the Lei Shen fight developed during a brainstorming session as members of the encounter design team were throwing around ideas for potential fight mechanics, trying to see if anything would stick. A popular idea was for him to need to pause and recharge periodically, but someone suggested an interesting twist on that idea—the Thunder King isn't just a battery that needs to recharge; he's actually a power source himself. So instead of him drawing power from his citadel, the citadel draws power from him. He is a mighty warrior in his own right, with distinctive weapon and lightning attacks, but his mere presence energizes and activates portions of his citadel’s defenses, and managing those becomes a central element of the encounter. With a wide array of incredible visuals provided by our effects artists, and an awesome dungeon backdrop (those walls aren't entirely decorative...), Lei Shen is an epic final encounter to wrap up an epic raid zone.''

Spells and abilities
The Thunder King will go Berserk after 12 minutes, or 15 minutes in Raid Finder mode.



Stage One: Thunderstruck!
Lei Shen equips his Axe, Thunder, which he can throw with deadly accuracy and cause lightning to strike the ground wherever it lands. Lei Shen will charge any Conduit that he is near.









Intermission: Supercharge Conduits!
At 65% health, Lei Shen casts Supercharge Conduits, becoming invulnerable and activating all four Conduits at once, supercharging them and increasing their level by one. Lei Shen can only maintain Supercharge Conduits for 45 seconds.





Stage Two: Lightning Will End You!
Lei Shen equips his Polearm, Lightning, allowing him to call lightning from the sky. Lei Shen will charge any Conduit that he is near.









Intermission: Supercharge Conduits!
At 30% health, Lei Shen casts Supercharge Conduits, becoming invulnerable and activating all four Conduits at once, supercharging them and increasing their level by one. Lei Shen can only maintain Supercharge Conduits for 45 seconds.





Stage Three: The Final Countdown!
Lei Shen equips both his Axe and Polearm, wielding Thunder and Lightning in unision against his enemies. Lei Shen casts Overwhelming Power and consumes all electricity from the Throne of Thunder, destroying any remaining functional Conduits, preventing their further activation.











Strategy
Before starting the encounter, the raid must split in to four groups in order to handle the intermissions. Ideally, the raid should split as evenly as possible (6/6/6/7 or 2/2/2/2). In 25-player raids, a healer should be in each corner. In 10-player, have a healer between two corners, hopefully in range of both sets of players. It helps to use world markers to identify each corner, as they all look the same during the frenzy of combat.

Stage one
Start the encounter by having the tanks charge at Lei Shen from the center of the platform, with the rest of the group following behind, though not stacked on top of one another. Save Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp for stage three.

During this stage, no matter where Lei Shen is in the room, he has several abilities: While not charging a conduit, he will Discharge the room, ticking increasing amounts of damage to every player on the platform while he is between conduits. The tanks need to be aware of Decapitate and tank swap after each cast. The rest of the raid needs to be aware of Thunderstruck, a ground-targeted area of effect ability that does less damage the further players are away from the point of impact, and Lightning Crash, which summons a pool of lightning on the ground for 45 seconds.

While Lei Shen is tanked within a few yards of a conduit, he will charge it. This charging is shown by the conduit's power bar, and if the bar fills up, the conduit gains a level and the ability it grants Lei Shen will do more damage and affect more players. Thus, the tanks must move Lei Shen from corner to corner to keep conduits from gaining levels prematurely. Lei Shen is tauntable, so to move him quickly, have the (current) off-tank run toward the next conduit and taunt him from range. Tanks should also be aware of the relative charge levels of each conduit, as in Raid Finder and Normal difficulties, the conduit with the highest charge will be disabled for the rest of the encounter at the end of each intermission. Heroic mode reverses this, as the conduit instead grants Lei Shen its' ability for the remainder of the encounter.

Each quadrant of the room brings a different ability in to play: the north conduit has Static Shock, zapping one player and dealing a huge amount of damage that needs to be split by players stacking on top of the afflicted player. The east conduit has Diffusion Chain, which acts much like Chain Lightning, but will spawn an add for each player that gets hit by the chain. The south conduit has Overcharge, which roots a player in place and will damage and stun players not within a few yards of the target. Finally, the west conduit has Bouncing Bolt: Lei Shen will launch several bolts that target random locations on the ground (denoted by swirling clouds). Players must stand where the bolt lands and absorb the damage, or the bolt will summon an add and bounce again, repeating until it hits a player.

Damage Lei Shen to 65% health and he will end stage one and start the intermission.

Intermission
During the intermission, Lei Shen will become immune to all damage and run to the center of the room. At this point, the raid must split into the four corners and prepare to handle the conduit abilities. All four conduits are active in this stage, so Lei Shen could cast each of the four abilities on any corner of the room. So, stay spread out by default to limit spawns caused by the Diffusion Chain, and to quickly get to the location of the Bouncing Bolt to keep it's Unharnessed Power adds from spawning, but collapse on players targeted with Static Shock and Overcharge. At best, only a single Diffused Lightning add will spawn whenever Lei Shen casts Diffusion Chain, and those elementals are quickly focused down.

The intermission lasts 45 seconds, and at the end of the intermission, the conduit with the highest power level will overload, disabling it and flooding that quadrant of the room with lightning that deals damage to players standing in it.

Stage two
In this stage, Lei Shen retains Discharge and the remaining active-conduit abilities, but no longer casts Decapitate, Thunderstruck, or Lightning Crash. Tanks must swap after getting hit by Fusion Slash. He will Summon Ball Lightning at the feet of random members of the raid. Stay spread out, then after he summons the ball lightning, have the raid collapse on Lei Shen so the balls are all collected at one spot and can be quickly taken out with AoE damage. He will also crack his Lightning Whip across the floor, inflicting likely-fatal amounts of damage to any player hit by it. If players are stuck on the wrong side of the whip during a conduit transition, they can jump over the lightning graphic on the ground to avoid damage.

In non-Heroic mode, only three conduits remain active, so be aware of which direction Lei Shen is taken around the platform. Lei Shen will end this stage when he reaches 30% health remaining, starting another intermission. In Heroic mode, whichever conduit had the most power will grant that ability to Lei Shen no matter his position in the room.

Intermission redux
Much the same as the first intermission, but this time the group whose conduit has been deactivated should split up evenly, spreading out to the remaining three groups. This intermission also lasts 45 seconds.

Final stage
Lei Shen ends the intermission and starts this final stage by casting Overwhelming Power, destroying the remaining conduits. Lei Shen can be tanked wherever the raid pleases, but should be in the middle of the two non-charged quadrants, as he gains a new ability: Violent Gale Winds, which will push players about the room in a random direction, potentially off the platform, into a lightning whip, or into one of the charged quadrants. He also retains Thunderstruck, Summon Ball Lightning, and Lightning Whip from previous stages. Continue to collapse on Lei Shen after the ball lightning, and run away from the thunderstruck and lightning whip areas of effect.

This is the time to use Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp. Violent Gale Winds acts as a soft enrage, but Lei Shen will go berserk after a while.

Related Achievements

 * Pinnacle of Storms
 * A Complete Circuit
 * Heroic: Lei Shen
 * Ahead of the Curve: Lei Shen
 * Cutting Edge: Lei Shen
 * Heroic: Lei Shen Guild Run
 * Throne of Thunder Guild Run

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Thunderstruck
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Lightning Whip
 * yell


 * Violent Gale Winds
 * yell


 * Conduit Charge
 * yell
 * yell


 * Phase 2A
 * yell


 * Phase 2B
 * yell


 * Phase 3A
 * yell


 * Phase 3B
 * yell


 * Berserk
 * yell


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


 * Death
 * yell

10-man Normal

 * - Ele Shaman POV
 * - MW Monk POV
 * - Mage, Boss voice, Vent

25-man Normal

 * - Mage, Boss voice, Vent

Trivia

 * World First heroic kill on 25-man achieved on 25.3.2013 by Method of Twisting Nether EU.