Talk:Shade of Aran

Spell Lock
Why the several references to 15-second lockouts? No player ability locks a school for more than 10 seconds at a time. Unless you're bringing some of those Scarlet Archmages from Tyr's Hand to the party, you ain't locking shit for 15 seconds. Eorl 18:25, 28 January 2007 (EST)


 * This comment was moved by me to make the Discussion page more readable. Stillfresh 19:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Last night we had some confusion among our raid about the difference between spell lock and silence. So I thought it may help everyone here too if I shine some light on this:

Interrupt abilities can either just simply interrupt a spell casting (like stuns normally do) or are accompanied by two different side-effects: spell lock and silence. In a few cases liked Improved Counterspell, they can even have both.

Spell lock only locks out spells of a certain school of spells, meaning that if a fire spell was interrupted, a Mage will not be able to cast any other fire-related spell for a certain amount of time, but still frost and arcane spells. If the same Mages was subjected to an interrupt with a silence effect, all his spells will be locked out for a certain amount of time.

Now often some players who interrupt Aran will get an "Immune" message and get cunfused about this. But the interrupt and the spell lock actually have worked - the immune message is only caused by Aran's immunity to silencing effects. This is why a mage with the regular non-silencing Counterspell will see no immunity feedback while mages with Improved Counterspell will receive this message. Nevertheless both spells have the same effect on Aran. -- Rondaru 13:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Rogues could dps while Super Arcane Explosion
When he uses the magnetic pull and the Super Arcane Explosion, couldn't you have rogues stand there and dps and when he AE's they could use Cloak of Shadows(trainable at 66, not spec required)? Or is that a little risky? (Considering CoS only gives a 90% resist, not 100%) If not, they could always wait for some time and use Cloak of Shadows to remove the slow, and then run away.

--We typically assign Priests/Pallies to cleansing the non-Gnome Rogues (Escape Artist), as Cloak of Shadows can be handy in a pinch. Meleers can easily stay in until the explosion is 75% through casting. -Svidrigailov

Shade is not a DPS race, it is a dance with the Shade of Aran. Don't worry about doing extra DPS, just avoid his abilities. http://youtube.com/watch?v=l0DB4lzAttw


 * Way to risky to keep rogues in. Rogues are a huge source of DPS on this fight as ranged need to move around a lot during the encounter.  Just have them move out with everyone else, it won't hurt for the 3-5 seconds that the explosion occurs.
 * 13:36, 25 April 2007 (EDT)


 * Dead rogues deal no damage, best for everyone to run out. --Kochira 23:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Flame Wreath
I've noticed when learning this fight that any small, non-combat, pets (panda cubs, murlocs, netherdrake whelps, etc) can trigger a Flame Wreath explosion if the pet wanders into the Flame Wreath. Combat pets such as Priest Shadowfiends, Warlock Demons, Hunter Pets, Mage Water Elementals, etc can also trigger a Flame Wreath. You're best bet is to not use ANY PETS at all. If it moves and isn't directly controlled by the player, it can cause a wipe.


 * The best bet is to use pets but order them to stand still and activate abilities manually. A centrally placed imp for stamina aura or a felhunter with manually triggered spell lock ar both nice additions. Standing still does not trigger anything. --Dreamshine 03:50, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Note: A recent patch fixed this. Note: Its not fixed, Warlock pets (other then imp), Priest Shadowfiend, Buff pet from the healing book all will trigger flamewreath, not fixed by the patch on the 26th.

Looks like 2.1 fixed this. Our guild has done this fight after patch 2.1 with a mage water elemental and two Egberts crossing wreaths (the latter two many times at great speed) without triggering it. I have removed the warning from the Flame Wreath description. --Dreamshine 12:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Last time I tried, snakes from a trap didn't appear to trigger Flame Wreath. Can anyone confirm? --Kathucka, 3 July 2007

My friend says his group's hunter's pet and snake traps do not trigger flame wreath, and in fact take much of the damage when they fight Aran. The bug fixes from a while back does say that pets will not trigger flame wreath, I will confirm and post again --- Xylia (6:50, 15 July, 07)

Turning during seems to be ok now since I and my raid do it at will during the flame wreath, would someone care to double check that? -- Thunder_Child (6:27, 8/13/2007)
 * Yeah turning seems to be fine now. --Bendyr 21:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Turning does not trigger Flame Wreath, nor does Bloodlust, or accepting a Rebirth/Soulstone. If it did before, it no longer does. If you cross the Flame Wreath from or to the inside, you will blow up the others. Fr0 09:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Flame Wreath Targeting
It does not just target 3 players randomly. It is definitely cast on a player and that player will be under the debuff. I have also seen up to 5 players at once be wreathed. Can anyone confirm this? --Odarus, 6 Sept 2007

I've only ever seen 3 people with it at one time. Fr0 09:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Killing Elemental
(Moved from main page)

-I'd like to add something here that we found after wiping on him countless times: The elementals he summons currently (after patch 2.07) DO NOT have more HP than him. They have about 40k health. Last night we decided to try to kill one just to see how hard it is. 1 hunter, 1 lock and 1 fire mage managed to kill one of the elementals very fast, this gave our healers a lot of space because the nuking of the elementals along with the extreme damage he dishes out is unhealable. We plan to visit him again today and focus fire on the elementals as we found that if he enrages (it is almost unavoidable) with elementals still arround even for a few seconds it is a certain wipe as Aran is clever and will nuke those with fewer HP. So if everyone in the raid has about 1-2k HP after the aoe pyroblast and elementals are still arround it is a wipe. You need to keep everyone alive until he has about 5% HP left. We also found that it is better to save counterspells and silence for Aran as the frostbolts from the elementals don't hit for more than 1500 damage while his spells do at least 4-5k, and they go down really fast if 5 people focus on one. Also is people can drink a major frost protection pot a bit before he summons the elementals will make them very easy. The problem is that with the damage he an do you might have potion coldown, if that's the case announce it to your raid via vent or macro so they can focus heal you. It is not uncommon for him to cast an instant pyroblast after his frost school is locked, and when this is locked start channeling very high damage arcane missiles. Generally when he focuses on one person the healers should focus as well because the damage is insane. The difficulty of the fight is that it is very random, he uses his abilities with no predictable order and because he is a very clever boss he often casts combinations of spells that make it very hard to move and heal, he often for example has blizard still ticking while casting flame wreaths, stay in the blizard if you have to as its damage is predictable and healable, while the flame explosion wipes the raid.
 * I believe killing the adds is going to be a more viable solution in the next patch (2.1) as they are "significantly" lowering the add's hitpoints. As it is now, it's much easier to have a warlock banish and fear kite.
 * 13:40, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Ice Block / Divine Shield
I noticed that in 2.06 they made is so that cloak of shadows will not trigger flame wreath. Is the same true with ice block and divine shield? A comment about this on the page would be useful if someone knows with certainty.

Flame Wreath 2
So I was lagging this one time when Blizzard was up and I was moving. Didn't notice Flame Wreath was up and I blow up the raid. Then I seen that it was MY damage not the bosses. Everyone had 3-4k damage over their heads and I was shot up into the air. Does this mean no one takes dura lose because it was a player kill? Also, my DPS jumped high and I am a healer. lol

Yes, we attempted him yesterday and since it's player's damage done from the Flame Wreath, there is no durability damage taken (2.0.12). -- User:Sunami 16 April 2007

This also counts as "friendly fire" if you use recount, so if you're looking for the "who done it", simply check that and it's quite obvious. ~Eulogy 3/1/08

Have blown up my raid a few times while learning this fight, but never been thrown up into the air, never even heard of it.. untill last night. Would like to have this explained plz, to prevent it from happening again, if anyone knows? This is what happened: I was standing perfectly still, had even let go of my mouse and all keys on my keypad that could make me move, just to be safe. Started to throw arcane missiles, and they make me turn a bit, but that has always been perfectly ok, and is stated to be ok here aswell. Had 1 missile left on my channel (so had been still atleast 3 secs allready after the turning) when I (suddenly) was thrown high up in the air, would have died of the fall dmg hadnt I used Slow Fall. When I landed on the ground at full HP (without reciving any heals while I was in the air) I noticed the raid was almost down. Checking my recount after, it was I who triggered the flame wrath, and it said I had taken dmg from it aswell, but I hadnt lost a single HP. So, mainly im curious about the being thrown into the air thing; when / why does that happen, since I've never seen it before, but still have been running around during flame wrath and wiped the raid more than once in my still-being-a-noob days? And, can anyone figure out what might have triggered it? wasnt lagg, since I had been still for atleast 7-8 sec before I was thrown up, apart then from my arcane missiles turning me. I had a theory about that it was the being thrown into the air thing that triggered it, but reading here now, I get the impression I was thrown up due to the flame wrath... Im confused.. can anyone plz help on this?

(hmm, just got to know another player in my grp was thrown up into the air the same way I was, but not during a flame wrath, makes me even more confused..) 18/7-08

spawns
Does killing aran stops the spawning of mobs in that area? , its not listed in the article 03:46, 30 March 2007 (EDT)
 * Yes, it does. --FallingDown 03:21, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Berserk
Anyone has any idea after how long does he go berserk and what does he use to wipe raid? There seems to be his speech for this case in data files. --Drundia 06:08, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

The door locking bug...
Now second week in a row that this has occurred with my group, it seems that any sort of damage that kills him during his "drinking" phase will cause this bug as well as a respawn on a soft reset of the instance. One issue is hunter auto-shot. A blizzard was still making its round on the room and hit the hunter that was sheeped. His auto-shot killed him, so be mind-full of this at low percentage of mana. CONFIRMED: His does drop different loot when killed after a soft reset due to this bug. Steelclash 13:07, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Aggro List
The article mentions some stuff about aggro list. This seems to be incorrect, will delete it unless someone objects. SakkuraBalnazzar 17:35, 11 May 2007 (EDT)

Clean-up underway
I started by cleaning up the strategy, I plan to continue to make the article more readable. If something you really wanted got deleted, go ahead and reply here. Stillfresh 19:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Polymorph
I've not yet tested in other than treeform, but the mass polymorph spell does not affect druids in treeform. Just ran three separate attempts in tree each time on the poly, and I was never poly'd. Perhaps this was changed in a recent patch? Would be good to have confirmation to see if this is true in other druid forms as well. Ashdog137 03:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Wasn't changed. —Pzychotix (talk &middot; contr) 04:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Healing Arcane missles
This may be a little obvious, but it's a great help to me as a priest for healing this fight, I use a macro (below) in order to stay on top of healing arcane missles, and with a little timing it's fairly easy to have someone topped off as soon as the missles end. Simply target Aran (or focus if thats your style) and use this macro about 2or 3 seconds into his missles.

/cast [target=targettarget] Greater Heal

I hope healers find this useful for keeping up with the chaotic healing needed in Aran. Also note that only one person should do this, otherwise your overhealing alot.

Zebralazza (15:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC))

No spell school lockout?
Our mages and warriors are saying that spell schools can't be locked out. They'll shield bash or c/s and then the Shade will cast the same school right away. Has anyone else noticed this? Popegonzo 02:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * They may have been landing too late, if the same spell is used again. The specials aren't considered "in school". --Falos 01:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Blizzard expansion/rotation/contraction
As far as I can see, the blizzard follows this kind of pattern:



Perhaps it would be useful to include this diagram or update the article to explain this in greater detail?

Zaqzon 13:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Druids Aren't Inherently Immune to Polymorph
Druids are immune to polymorph in shapeshifted forms. So I'm fixing that line. In Tree of Life, there is a buff on the druid specifically making them immune to polymorph. This effect may be broken in other forms on this boss. Can anyone confirm the polymorph does or does not work on certain forms?

Larethorn 12:27, 23 July 2007 (EST)


 * Polymorph should "Only works on Beasts, Humanoids and Critters" - the Tree of life is an elemental form. 16:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Clarification: Regardless of the fact that a mage's Polymorph spell can be cast on beasts, shapeshifted druids are completely immune to any kind of polymorph effects in all of their various forms. Furthermore, a druid that gets polymorphed while being in his original humanoid state can break out of polymorph anytime by shifting into any of his forms. Rondaru 11:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Having done Aran as all specs: Feral forms aren't immune for Aran's polymorph. Moonkins aren't either. Trees are because elementals are not a valid target for the Mass Polymorph spell. It can't be broken with shapeshifting and I would guess the PvP trinket doesn't break it either because it's considered a "Debuff unaffected by invulnerability.". --Jeffrey0 18:14, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I can confirm this, he still polymorphs druids, and we cannot break it. Mr Rabies

It seems that its rather buggy since I and other druids in my guild has sometimes resisted the poly while in form. (Keilden 11:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC))


 * I've noticed before 2.2 came out, druids in Tree of Life form were immune to polymorph, but after 2.2, me as a druid in Tree form was polymorphed as well. Even our feral druids were sheeped.  If this is a bug with being sheeped when you shouldn't or vice versa, I hope Blizzard knows about it and will fix it. -- 11:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I expect this is the desired behavior by Blizzard as a boss mechanic (no poly immunity against Aran). Otherwise the druid can just start throwing HoTs up on everyone, trivializing the pyroblast.   18:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Blizzard rotation?
I'm convinced that the Blizzard goes around more than once. I think it's once and a half (540 degrees), or perhaps twice (720 degrees). I know I have to run around a lot to avoid it. If it were only 360 degrees, I would have to move only a little. Can anyone confirm? Kathucka 00:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Playing Shade of Aran's Emote Sounds
Shade of Aran's emote sounds can be played at anytime using the PlaySoundFile command ( ie you dont have to be in the Shade of Aran encounter itself you can be sitting in Ironforge or flying on a bird somewhere)

To do it copy one of the lines below, switch to World Of Warcraft , hit your enter key and go paste.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro02.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro03.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranArcane01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranArcane02.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranDies01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFire01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFire02.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFrost01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFrost02.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranGameOver01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranOutOfMana01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSeeStaff01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSlay01.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSlay02.wav")

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSummonElem01.wav")

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by.


 * About the staff one,


 * /script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSeeStaff01.wav")


 * Supposedly, it's a special file that triggers when Aran kills a player that has Atiesh. He says "Where did you get that? Did he send you?!", obviously a reference to Atiesh's former owner, Medivh (Aran is Medivh's father and all that).


 * However, I don't have Atiesh, so I've been unable to confirm this myself. I plan on adding this to the main article once someone around here confirms it, so can anyone help me out with that? --Throrion 21:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Answer to that question: Aran does this emote whenever he targets a player wearing Atiesh, not when he kills the player. I don't have atiesh either, but I know someone who does. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by.


 * Great, thanks. However, maybe I read a little too quickly last time, or maybe someone added it in the meantime, but the information is there by now, and I guess that's what matters. --Throrion 23:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Arcane Explosion timing change?
This is simply based on ancedotal evidence, but it appears that Aran now casts his Arcane Explosion for the first time within a few seconds of the raid engaging him. The past 2-3 times I've run it, no sooner does the tank engage Aran and the ranged start to spread out does Aran pull us all to the middle, I'd say within 15 seconds of engagement.

Has anyone noted this change? Or is it just a matter of coincidence that i've seen it on multiple occasions? Athegon 05:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Anecdotal. I have seen him perform one of his three special attacks (Flame Wreath/Blizzard/Arcane Explosion) quickly after engaged, but this is semi-random and he still can wait a while before beginning it.  00:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Blizzard DOT removes Mass Polymorph
On this evening's run I had Mass Polymorph removed by the Blizzard DOT, as shown in the log here (also on WWS at the bottom of the page and top of next - I'm Sifr): 2/6 22:15:40.107 Your Mass Polymorph is removed by Blizzard (Shade of Aran) 's Blizzard. I need to be more careful to stay out of the Blizzard, but thought it was interesting enough to mention anyway :) --Throng 23:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Rogues can escape Pyroblast?
Last night we fought Shade, and right after the polymorph effect expired I Vanished. The Pyroblast graphic still shot toward me, but I saw no damage taken on my health bar. If someone could confirm this, I'd like to see it added as a rogue tip in the Polymorph/Pyroblast section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by.

Confirmed. I was actually going to suggest this added if I didnt see it on here. Pyroblast still looks like it hits but no damage is taken. --Sniffle 19:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Mage Counterspell
My guild just ran this and Aran is immune to counterspell. I will try and verify on reset.--Skem 00:19, 29 April 2008 (GMT)


 * He is not immune to counterspell, the immune message you get is the effect on improved counter-spell the interupt effect still works even if you get an "immune" message for the silence proc.--Golieguy19 20:19, 1 May 2008 (GMT)

Taboo Arcane Missiles
Whenever I have a new guildy or pug player who has downed shade previously, odds are that when I assign someone to interrupt Arcane Missiles (because I am often short on heals), they panic and start to scream about "Oh noez we are sheepzorz!". In all the times I have killed him, and all the references to Shade on the internet, nowhere can I find validation for this Warcraft Myth of keeping his health below his mana or his mana below his health or never interrupting Arcane Missiles. His health hits 40% you get elementals, his mana hits 20% you get poli. Is there any reason for players' insistence that this boss must be even more complicated?Sulhir (talk) 19:14, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If you lock out all three of his magic schools, he'll run around meleeing people instead, doing a fair bit of damage and generally being rather uncontrollable. Therefore it's usually better to bash the fireballs and frostbolts and leave the arcane missiles, as they're the least damaging of the three (or do just arcane missiles and leave the fireballs and frostbolts if you're having trouble with the polymorph and elementals happening too closely and need to bleed his mana faster). -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 03:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, he spends the mana for Arcane Missles up front, so if you *are* trying to keep him high on mana to avoid the poly/pyro, there is no benefit to actually countering it (other than preventing some damage). In fact, it will just make him cast another spell even sooner than he would have normally. Matthias99 (talk) 05:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. I thought he used mana as he cast the missiles, not all at once.  That clears it up.Sulhir (talk) 01:25, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Polymorph breaking on Damage
I was going through a routine Shade Fight on My Horde Retribution Paladin and I used Seal of Blood for the duration of the fight (because it does the best possible damage). When Shade ran out of mana, he did his usual mass polymorph, but as he did it, I swung at nearly the same time, and the Backlash from Seal of Blood broke me out of Polymorph and I finished off Shade for his last 2%, was that a glitch or does his polymorph break on damage?
 * Polymorph always breaks on damage. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 08:33, 16 August 2008 (UTC)