So this post is for Seren. You wanted a description of the Prince strat for Karazhan. This is that. Enjoy.

Ok, first, an image: Check out the following:

Karazhan Safe/Tank Areas image

The above image shows the correct positions for the tank and the rest of the party. You should move to these positions as the Prince paths away from the those spots and get into position as quickly as possible. There are two slight indentations in the wall at those spots. The tank should be just *past* the indentation (or you’ll have LoS issues healing him). The tank should be careful about getting moved around during combat.

Ok, some general comments first: 3 stage fight. They are detailed below. This fight is very hard on melee dps. They’re pretty gimped for this fight as they’ll be doing alot of running around. For new Kara groups, this is a three healer fight. If your group is pretty well decked out, a 2 healer fight is possible. If you’ve got a pally OT for the group, this is a good spot for them to switch to healing gear and offheal. Oh… also critical, at NO TIME should anyone go past the MT in threat. This is super critical. If most fights, its an inconvenience, in this fight, its a guaranteed wipe. This will also be explained below.

Stage 1:

During Stage 1, MT should be establishing aggro as quickly as possible. Prince does three things during this stage. First, he’s throwing up Shadow Word: Pain on the MT. Dispell as quickly as you can. You’re gonna have enough problems keeping the tank up without that extra damage. Second, he does an effect called “Enfeeble”. Of the 10 people in the raid, 5 will be afflicted with it, and it reduces their health to ONE HEALTH. Yes, thats right. ONE. After 8 seconds after the enfeeble effect, he does a shadow damage AoE. If anyone with the enfeeble is inside the range of the AoE, they’ll die. So … this is where its hard on the melees. Someone in vent should be calling out enfeebles, and when that happens, all melee dps need to run back to the “Safe” group. Note: Whomever is at the top of the aggro chart will not ever get enfeebled. So now you can see why this is a wipe if someone blows past the tank in aggro. If the MT gets enfeebled… he’ll die, no question.

Oh, don’t bother trying to heal someone who is enfeebled. Once the shadow AoE pops, they’ll get their health back. Finally, about 1 minute into the fight, big huge Infernals will start to spawn all around the arena. They do not move. They do, however, cast an AoE fire effect on the ground. If you are in the positions shown, you are about 99% sure of being safe from them. If one of them spawns near the tank, look at the tank’s feet. The AoE effect makes your feet burn. Its pretty easy to see if they’re on fire or not. The key is: DON’T PANIC. Check your feet, if they’re on fire, move slightly to get out of range. Don’t make drastic moves. An infernal also spawns to the left of the safe group .. just barely out of range. If you’re not all grouped up well, you may have one or two people with their feet on fire in the safe group. Again, DON’T panic. Just move slightly until you’re no longer on fire and continue.

The worst part of the infernals is when one spawns BETWEEN the safe group and the tank. This makes it very very hard for the melee dps group to move back and forth during enfeebles, and pretty likely that you’re going to die if you’re enfeebled. So … if that happens, melees are just going to have to stay put and wait until the infernal despawns. Sucks to be you.

Ok, on to Stage 2:

This stage begins when Prince’s health hits 60%. During stage 2, Prince hits harder. All other aspects of the fight remain the same. Healers should be proactively throwing heals out. A crushing blow during this phase can hit for over 4k even on a well geared tank. So be ready, dps should be going all out. Shamans, drop Heroism for this phase, and get through it as quickly as you can. Save any cooldowns for when the vent raid leader calls out for Stage 2, and then light it up. Any healing cooldowns, any dps cooldowns, trinkets, etc. Pop ’em all for stage 2. Lastly …. he doesn’t do Shadow Word: Pain during this phase. Anyway, everything else remains the same. Just burn through this phase as quickly as possible.

Once his health hits 30%, you move on to Stage 3:

Ok, several things change for this phase. First, his damage goes back to “normal”. Second, Shadow Word:Pain is no longer restricted to the tank. He’ll throw it on anyone and everyone. Third, he summons “Axes” which then begin attacking a random member of the party. One of your healers should be assigned before the fight to handle the healing on whomever is being hit with axes. Some groups like to have the person who is being hit with axes to call it out over vent, but … honestly, it isn’t necessary. Just have that person watch the raid’s health, and be raid healing whomever is taking the hits. The axes jump around ALOT. Every 10 seconds or so, they’ll switch targets, so the raid healer will need to be on his or her toes. Finally, no more enfeebles for this phase. So just burn him down, uninterrupted. Honestly, if you make it through stage 2, its smooth sailing in from there. The only thing that wipes people in stage 3 is healers running out of mana. All healers should have at least 3 mana pots for this, and try to keep other mana restoring effects going … vampiric touch, judgement of wisdom, mana fiends, innervates … whatever you need to keep healer and dps mana up and going.

You know the rest, loot! Badges! Congrats!

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