Newest WOTLK Raid Guide - Colliseum

This raid guide is for the newest raid in WOTLK; The colliseum. For this raid, I recommend a good raid makeup. Paladin and Warrior tanks are best for the Majority of the fights here, and druid tanks do well in some situations. Healers; I would greatly recommend one paladin healer to keep up both tanks in almost every fight in this raid. You will also need some sturdy raid healers, a shaman or a holy priest as well as a resto druid are great for most of the fights. You should have a varied dps team, consisting of both melee and ranged dps. Depending on your healers, the majority of this raid can be 2-healed, and I in fact have 2-healed this as a resto shaman with a holy priest assisting me. (This is assuming 10 man Trial of the Crusader, normal mode; More healers for 25 man, and a third healer is often recommended for 10 man heroic mode.) Having one or two druids to get battle rezzes out is extremely useful, because there are often people that die, and it's great for the Beasts of Northrend since it's such a long fight and it's necessary to have the entire raid alive for the whole fight, especially the tanks, and the jormungars often get messy.

Beasts of Northrend, 10 man (25 man is done the exact same way)

Assuming the group isn't going for achievements, this fight is very simple. In phase 1, Gormuk the impailer appears, and the tanks will need to immediately pick him up and turn him towards the door he comes out of. One tank should start with aggro, and the tanks should be switching off aggro as each gets 3 stacks of the impale debuff. The tanks can be BoP'd after they've lost aggro to the other tank to lose the stacks of the impale debuff and ease the healing. The main focus of this fight is to quickly kill the Snowbolds that are thrown at random members of the raid. These snowbolds leech onto the back of the selected raid member and silence them while doing damage, and occasionally throwing fire bombs (a dangerous AoE fire) at the ground. These need to be downed quickly, and can be tab-targeted quite easily. If these are on healers or tanks, they need to be downed extra fast, and all melee should be switching, even if they're on healers or casters. Once 4 snowbolds are killed, no more will be thrown at the raid, and the boss is a dps race.

Once the impaler is down, two jormungars will come out. The first you will see is dreadscale. One tank should immediately pick dreadscale up, turn him from the raid, and begin kiting him around the room, facing away from the raid. The rest of the raid will be waiting for Acidmaw to emerge. When acidmaw appears, the other tank will tank acidmaw and kite on the opposite side of the room, keeping the melee out of the poison he drops. Now is a good time for a shaman to pop heroism. If the raid gets the green debuff, they will need to go to someone with the red debuff, and vice versa, or the raid will take heavy damage. The people with red debuff (the dreadscale tank will almost always have it) needs to stay AWAY from the raid at all costs, as it does increased damage to targets nearby. Once acidmaw is down, dreadscale gets a buff causing him to deal 50% more damage, this is no big deal and can be healed through, the main focus of this part of the fight is to keep dreadscale away from the raid, and when the raid gets the red debuff to get away from other members of the raid immediately. When dreadscale goes down, the tanks need to be ready to pick up icehowl, as he will be out soon.

Icehowl is a rather simple fight, he is a tank and spank up until a certain point. While burning this boss, he will occasionally knock back melee and stun them. Also, take note that the more the raid can spread out (especially the healers) the less damage the raid takes from his freezing breath (a random cone aoe that freezes everyone in it, can heal through, keep raid topped off). At one point, icehowl will go to the center of the room, and crash everyone up against the walls. At this point, he will set his gaze on someone, and everyone must run out of the way he is facing. If he hits no one, he gets a debuff causing massively increased damage to Icehowl; so blow all cooldowns. If icehowl hits someone, they are instantly killed, and he gets an enrage. At this point, anesthetic poison or tranq shot are required or the tank will die rather quickly.

Lord Jarraxus (10 man normal: Heroic and 25 man are the same.)

Lord J is a rather simple fight. Lord J will need to be picked up and tanked by one tank for the entire fight. You will need a second tank to pick up the mistress add that spawns, and to try to tank the infernals that spawn from volcanoes Lord J spawns. Whenever adds are alive, they need to be burned quickly. The first add will be a mistress, and then infernal adds will come from volcanoes, these are not tankable and must be downed quickly. There are two debuffs to worry about here; Legion Flames and Incinerating Flesh. These are both given to random members of the raid, and must be dealt with quick or people will die. Incinerating flesh is a healing debuff; All heals are absorbed, and if the debuff isn't taken off (a certain amount of heals must be absorbed), then the target will explode after 15 seconds. One healer dedicated to raid and incinerating flesh is required. Legion flames is a DoT that drops a flame AoE under the target every 2 seconds for 10 seconds or so. The player with this should be moving to avoid killing theirselves, and away from raid to avoid killing other players. The only other thing to worry about during this phase is a buff that Lord J gets, causing him to do massive increased damage. This buff can be stolen by mages, and purged by shamans. Also, having a rogue or death knight on Lord J to interrupt for the entire fight is very helpful for the healers. Stay spread out for this fight to minimize raid damage done.

Faction Champions (fight varies based on make up)

Faction champions are similar to the fight in the five man version of Trial of the Champion. The makeup of the group you'll be against are completely random, and varies based on your own personal faction. Be aware that it is almost always best to take down healers first, especially druids and shamans. Disc priests are a good priority to take down too. However, this fight can be done in many different ways. I prefer to have a death knight or two pop army in the beginning, and have one (tank or not) death grip one healer from the group (good time to pop heroism as well) and this healer can be quickly burned down, silenced, and interrupted. This is a good time for the offtank to run in (warriors and druids are great) AoE taunt, and run a bit away from the raid to keep them from assisting the healer(s) you're quickly burning down. Once the healers are down, work on the dps that Crowd Control or hit terribly hard. Warlocks are troublesome, so it's good to take these down first. Mages and their silence is very annoying as well, and taking these down is helpful. Then work down the rogues, enhancement shamans, and paladins. Cleansing and tremor totem are particularly useful in this fight, and if you can get a shaman in every group, do it. The more interrupts or sheep, hex, stuns, etc that your players can do on this fight, the better. It is pvp, and some of these adds aren't easy to tank. Healers will have to kite, silence, and interrupt adds they pull.

Twins (10 man; The fight doesn't varry much on other modes)

The twins are a relatively easy fight. The main focus of this fight is organization; People need to have the correct essence and be on the correct target at every moment of the fight. Split the dps and healers up evenly. If you are dpsing light boss, you should have dark essence. If you are dpsing dark boss, you should have light essence. When you are dpsing, healing, or tanking either boss, you should be standing near an essence of the opposite color so you can quickly change if it's needed. Take note, the tanks should also have the opposite color of the boss they're tanking, because it will cause them to cause more threat. These bosses have a shared health pool, and will go down evenly regardless of dps on both sides. The key to this fight is to pay attention to the special ability that the boss uses every 30 seconds or so. These are: Light and Dark Vortex (EVERYONE IN RAID must switch to the same color; if light vortex, switch to light and the opposite, or you will die), and Twin Pact. During twin pact, one of the bosses gets a shield. If light boss gets a shield, all dps must switch to dark essence and get on light boss, to dps down the shield fast enough for someone to interrupt the healing ability. If dark boss gets the shield, all must get light essence and dps dark boss. Once the shield is down, the cast must be kicked or silenced immediately, or the bosses will gain health. The only other thing to worry about during this fight is the orbs on the ground. If you have light essence, allow the white orbs to hit you, and the opposite. You will take greatly increased damage if you're hit by an orb of the opposite color. Take note, if you hit an orb of the same color as your essence, you will get "empowered light, or empowered darkness" increasing damage output, so go nuts. The main focus of this fight is having the correct color essence.

Anub Arak (10 man, varies slightly on 25 man)

While you are explaining this fight to your raid, make sure the raid doesn't kill the scarabs. They respawn constantly and apply a debuff to whoever they hit. The boss should be tanked where he stands for easiest explanation. Make sure the tank turns the boss away from raid and that no melee dps gets in front of the boss at any given time. Assign one or two ranged dps to dps down the orbs in the sky (3000 health, quickly burned) to apply permafrost AoE effects to the ground. Permafrost is important to the raid. While the boss is up, large adds will spawn. The first add should be tanked on the permafrost by your offtank, and should be burned quickly. The second add should be tanked on the permafrost (not tanking them on permafrost will cause them to burrow, and you will have to deal with multiple adds later), but not dps'd down because the boss will burrow soon and dps should remain on the boss. When the boss burrows, all dps should burn down the add that is alive, and then switch to scarabs. While the boss is under ground, he will randomly pursue a member of the raid. If this member runs on top of permafrost, the boss will continue pursuing, and the spikes that come from the ground will follow him until he hits the permafrost, at which the permafrost will break and no one will take any damage; the boss will pursue a new target. Once the boss is back up, he will need to be turned away from raid by the main tank (he keeps aggro from when he was on top of land last.) The same thing is done until the boss is at 30% (burning down the first add, leaving the second until he burrows, then keeping the raid on permafrost and downing adds and more permafrost). Once the boss is at 30%, he will remain on the ground. This is a great time to pop heroism, and it is a dps race from here. The healers will have to be very careful here. The tanks should be topped off, however the rest of the raid shouldnt go above 40% health, because the boss will start to gain health. Be aware that the damage done to the raid is 10% of their current maximum health every other second, so the less health each person has, the less damage they take. Healing must be assigned before the fight, and 2 or 3 healers is fine. If dps and healers are getting healed for over 50%, the boss is going to gain a lot of health. That's it to this fight, just keep the health at the appropriate level, and the boss will be down quick! And congratulations, you've downed all of the bosses in trial of the crusader 10 man!