Yogg-Saron
Abilities
Phase 1:
Sara:
Sara's Blessing (Debuff) - Heals a raid member initially but also applies a dot to deal shadow damage over time.
Sara's Anger (Buff) - She will buff Guardian's of Yogg-Saron.
Sara's Fervor (Buff) - Increases damage done by 20% but also increases damage taken by 100%.
Guardian of Yogg-Saron:
Dark Volley (Shadow & Debuff) - Hits everyone near for Shadow Damage and decreases healing effects by 25%.
Shadow Nova (Shadow) - Exploding when dying, dealing damage to everyone around, friend or foe.
Phase 2:
Sara & Yogg-Saron:
Shadowy Barrier (Buff) - The caster is impervious to all attacks.
Brain Link (Debuff) - Links the brain of two raiders. Whenever they are more than 20 yards apart, they lose sanity. Linked by a visible red/yellow line.
Malady of the Mind (Shadow & Debuff) - Deals Shadow Damage, fears and reduces Sanity. Tries to jump to another close target when the effect wears off.
Psychosis (Shadow) - Deals Shadow Damage and reduces Sanity.
Constrictor Tentacle:
Erupt (Physical) - Deals Physical Damage and knocks you back when appearing below you.
Squeeze (Physical) - Squeezes you every two seconds, dealing Physical Damage.
Corruptor Tentacle:
Draining Poison (Debuff) - Deals Nature Damage and drains mana, can be cleansed.
Curse of Doom (Debuff) - Inflicts Shadow Damage after 12 seconds, can be decursed.
Black Plague (Debuff) - Stuns you periodically for 2 seconds, can be cleansed.
Apathy (Debuff) - Reduces your attack/cast/movement speed by 60%, can be dispelled.
Crusher Tentacle:
Crush (Physical) - Deals Physical Damage to all targets in a path.
Diminish Power (Debuff) - Reduces all damage done by 20% on everyone, will be channeled over 5 minutes. Disrupted when engaged in melee combat.
Focused Anger (Buff) - Increases damage dealth and attack speed by 3% whenever attacked. Lasts 2 seconds.
Yogg-Saron's Illusion Room:
Grim Reprisal (Shadow) - Throws Damage back on the attacker. Used by all Illusion Tentacles.
Lunatic Gaze (Shadow) - If you look into the skull's face, you will take Shadow Damage and lose Sanity. Used by the Laughing Skulls.
Induce Madness (Debuff) - Once you enter his Mind, you've one minute to leave before you turn insane.
Shattered Illusion (Debuff) - Once you shatter his illusion, everything will be stunned for the remaining duration of his Induce Madness cast time.
Illusion Room (Buff) - As long as you are in the Illusion Room, your movement speed is increased by 30%.
Phase 3:
Yogg-Saron:
Lunatic Gaze (Shadow) - He'll cast his Gaze for 4 seconds - as long as you watch him, you'll lose sanity and take damage every second. So you need to turn away from him quickly.
Shadow Beacon (Buff) - Marks a target for Empowering Shadows. Will be applied after 10 seconds.
Empowering Shadows (Heal) - Heals friendly units around the target for 37500 each second for 20 seconds.
Immortal Guardian:
Weakened (Debuff) - Vulnerable to Titanic Storm if low on health.
Titanic Storm - Finishes off an Immortal Guardian.
Keepers:
Hodir:
Fortitude of Frost (Buff) - Increases damage done by 10% and reduces damage taken from all sources by 20%.
Hodir's Protective Gaze (Buff) - Iceblock on people that would have received a deadly blow. He only cast it on the player once.
Freya:
Resilience of Nature (Buff) - Increases all damage done by 10% and healing received from all sources by 20%.
Mimiron:
Speed of Invention (Buff) - Increases all damage done by 10% and movement speed by 20%.
Destabilization Matrix (Debuff) - Destabalizes the molecular structure of the Crusher and Corrupter Tentacles, reducing attack speed by 100% and casting speed by 300%.
Thorim:
Fury of the Storm (Buff) - Increases all damage done by 10% and total health by 20%.
Class requirements
3 tanks, at least 5 healers and heavy dps (melee and ranged).
The pull
Starts automatically as soon as a player enters the room.
Positions and strategy
Phase 1:
The tanks will pick up the Guardian's of Yogg-Saron and tank them near the entrance. Once damaged down by the raid to 30-50%, they will start kiting them down to Sara, evading all clouds on their path. The range dps will take down the Guardian's tanked by Sara.
After you blew up 8 Guardians next to her, you will enter Phase 2. It is important no cloud gets touched during the Phase 1 as this will trigger additional Guardian's which will result in a swarm sooner than later.
Phase 2:
Yogg-Saron appears now, but is invulernable due to a barrier. He will summon a large amount of different tentacles during the encounter that need to be dealt with. Throughout the phase 10 portals will appear around Yogg-Saron that lead to his Brain Room. Inside this room you need to defeat all Illusion Tentacles disguised as NPC's fitting into the current scenario. After these are killed, new portals to his actual brain will appear where you can finally hurt Yogg-Saron.
The raid will be split into 2 groups. Group One will consist of 9 dps and a healer, the Portal Team. Group Two will stay outside and clear the tentacles when they spawn.
Group One:
Every member of the Portal Team will get one specific portal that (s)he'll use to teleport into the Brain Room. The portals vanish once used, so it is important you don't use another players portal. Given the sign, everyone of the Portal Team will teleport and then fight off the tentacles at his position. Then s(he)'ll use the nearest portal to get to Yogg-Saron's Brain.
It is important that you listen to your leader when to leave the room, as you'll turn insane after 1 minute inside!
For an in-depth guide to the portal team, see below.
Group Two:
Your group will take out the tentacles outside, starting with Constrictor Tentacles to free players. The tanks will engage the Crusher Tentacles to stop their Dimish Power debuff and most of Group Two will focus fire on those first. 2-3 people (depending on the raid layout) will focus on the Corruptor Tentacles. While Mimiron's up, he'll slow down their casting speed, so they are easy to interrupt.
Group Two will stay together and run around Yogg-Saron as a team. So everyone stays in range of the healers and dispellers. One person from this group will be marked as a leader, follow him.
The goal in this phase is to get Yogg-Saron's Brain to 30% health as fast as possible, aiming for only 3 portal phases.
Also, you need to watch out for Sara's Brain-Link as well as your sanity. If it's below 50%, you should look for Green Beams to replenish your sanity.
Phase 3:
The raid will bunch up at the place the raid leader decides with their backs to Yogg-Saron, who now lost his barrier.
During the fight, Immortal Guardians will spawn, which need to be zerged down as fast as possible from the melee dps. At the start of the phase, range dps will help out with Guardians as well, but then focus on Yogg-Saron to get the last 30% down.
Every so often, he'll cast his Lunatic Gaze (violet skull above his 'head') for 4 seconds. If you look at him during those seconds, you'll take massive Shadow Damage as well as losing sanity. So you need to be aware of the timer and turn around quickly before you get hit too much.
Tanks will have a tough time tanking the Guardians at the start, but their damage will decrease once they start losing health. Once they are low on health, they will be finished off by Thorim.
In-Depth Portal Team Instructions:
Portal Team setup:
The portal team will classically consist of 7 melee as their skills are best suited for clearing the brain room, 1 shaman for totems and Heroism if needed, 1 hunter for Aspect of the Pack as a quick ride to the brain, and 1 healer to keep them alive in there. Of course, the shaman may also be the healer or a melee.
Each of the portal team's members will be assigned a number from 1 to 10. This number represents the portal a member will take, according to the following chart:
1 is at his spine; facing his spine, 2 is to the left of it and 10 to the right. The three people entering those portals will have to get behind Yogg-Saron (north side of the room) well before the portals spawn.
3 and 9 are in between the two "tentacles" going into the saronite pool on his side. 4 and 8 are between his cheeks and the front "tentacle". 5 and 7 are at the sides of his mouth. The six people entering those portals will have to get to the sides (east or west side of the room, depending on where their portals are located) of Yogg-Saron well before the portals spawn.
Finally, portal 6 is right in front of his maw. Only the healer should take this one, as it is the one most easily accessible, and position him/herself in front of Yogg-Saron (south side of the room) well before the portals spawn.
Learn where your portal is, take it, and only it, each time. As with airplane emergency exits, if you do not feel up for the task of portal duty, please ask to be assigned another spot.
Portal Phase:
Yogg-Saron will spawn portals about every 1.5 minutes. Look at your timers and be in position before he spawns them, to have a maximum amount of time inside the brain room. Use the portal as soon as it spawns.
When inside, depending on which of the three rooms (see below) you spawn in, you will have to fight a number of 8 to 10 tentacles. These are usually "disguised" as neutral attackable mobs inside the room, and need to be attacked ASAP. To that end, you want to split the portal team to attack all tentacles throughout the room simultaneously. The split will work as follows:
The position of your assigned portal is also the position of the mob you will be attacking. If you have portal 10, you will attack a mob at the far left of the room, if you have been assigned portal 5, you will be attacking a mob at the front right, and so on.
Tentacles will go down fairly easy, but bear in mind you will be taking damage proportional to the damage you do to them. If you are low on health, stop attacking until you receive a heal. Also make sure you are in line of sight to the healer.
One other thing to note are the floating skulls along the room. When you face them, you will receive damage and lose sanity. When your health or sanity are low, look away from the skulls, even if it means you have to stop DPS for a bit.
As soon as all the tentacles are down, the door to Yogg-Saron's brain will open. You will see a raid warning on screen when that happens, so do not run to the door immediately after you killed your tentacle, but help others on their's where applicable. The door is located at the place where you spawned upon entering the portal. The hunter will have to hit Aspect of the Pack soon as it opens, so all players will be at the brain in as little time as possible. Now hit the brain with everything you have, use all cooldowns, especially on the first portal phase. The brain should lose a good 25% health each phase.
However, there is a catch: After one minute in the brain room, you will automatically go insane. Near Yogg-Saron's brain you will find exit portals. Use these when there is 5 seconds left on the Induce Madness timer in your boss mods, at the latest! The portal leader will also announce the last possible chance to get out, at about 7 seconds. When you hear this, drop everything, do not finish any attacks, do not refresh any debuffs, just run out. If you have to refresh debuffs, do this at 10 seconds left. Do not fully rely on the portal leader, either. He/she may be dead, disconnected or lagging at any time. Use your own timers for maximum safety.
Portal Phase Aftermath:
You will exit Yogg-Saron's brain room via his maw, so you will be positioned south of him. The most important thing to do right now is replenishing your sanity via the green rays of light at the edges of the boss room. Be aware, however, that you can be constricted while standing in these, so the best place to replenish your sanity is near where the rest of the raid are fighting Crushers. That way you can also pump out some damage on crushers yourself. Bear in mind, though, that your damage is reduced while standing in the green rays. As soon as your sanity is back up to more than 80%, move to the position of your portal again.
Lather, rinse, repeat, and that is pretty much all the magic.
Normal Difficulty
No difference in the tactic.
Boss Kill:
