Lord Kazzak (tactics)


 * ''Following the defeat of the Burning Legion at the end of the Third War, the remaining enemy forces, led by the colossal demon Lord Kazzak, pulled back to the Blasted Lands. They continue to dwell there to this day in an area called the Tainted Scar, awaiting the reopening of the Dark Portal. It is rumored that once the Portal is reopened, Kazzak will travel with his remaining forces to Outland. Once the orc homeworld of Draenor, Outland was ripped apart by the simultaneous activation of several portals created by the orc shaman Ner'zhul, and now exists as a shattered world occupied by legions of demonic agents under command of the night elf betrayer, Illidan.

In Blizzard's recent 'The story so far', it has been revealed that Lord Kazzak used an artifact to re-open the Dark Portal, possibly meaning the time he has long awaited has come, and he may rejoin the rest of the Burning Legion. In the Burning Crusade, he is known as Doom Lord Kazzak  Lord Kazzak's replacement on Azeroth after the re-opening of Dark Portal is Highlord Kruul, one of Kazzak's minions. A significant number of the strategies and abilities listed below apply to the Highlord.

Information
Lord Kazzak was a world raid encounter, which means that players are allowed to participate in high-end content without the time investment necessary to hack one’s way to the bottom of the dankest dungeons. Instead, he spawned within the back of the Tainted Scar in the Blasted Lands, a valley that is guarded by elite demonic forces left over from the Third War. The addition of these encounters opens up new game dynamics, both good and bad. While Blizzard expects a certain amount of competition for such high-end creeps, some players have been abusing Kazzak's special abilities with the specific intent to harass other players.

Attacks & abilities
Melee
 * His melee attacks are pretty weak, no more than 1500 hits on cloth users.

Shadowbolt Volley
 * Shoots out an insanely long range volley of Shadowbolts that damage anything it can target in distance for 800-1000 damage. The volley totally ignores all line of sight issues: it cannot be dodged.

Twisted Reflection
 * Casts a magical debuff (on a random player in range other than the player with aggro) that heals Lord Kazzak for 25,000 health each time he deals damage to the player with this debuff. This combined with the Shadowbolt Volley can ruin the attempt.

Mark of Kazzak
 * Casts a curse (on a random player in range with mana) that drains the target's mana for 250 per second and explodes for 4,000 AOE damage when there is no more mana to drain. A living bomb.

Cleave
 * Attacks a number of melee range players around him with a cleaving strike that deals 1000-2000 damage to each. Since a 'blind spot' has not been found, Cleave might be capped to a certain number of players affected.

Thunderclap
 * A point blank area of effect spell, hardly dealing any damage, but slowing movement speed. Some have reported 200 damage, some say it doesn't deal damage at all. Doesn't seem to affect attacking speed either.

Void Bolt
 * A strong bolt he may cast only on the player with aggro, deals 3000 shadow damage (or more!).

Capture Soul
 * When a player, pet or totem gets killed, Lord Kazzak casts this spell to instantly regenerate 70,000 health.

Strategy
From: http://www.thottbot.net/?n=657895

Once he is aggroed and the fight begins, you have no more than three (3) minutes to kill him. I'll explain later why. He starts off with everything he's got. He keeps meleeing the main tank while Cleaving once in a while for rogues swarming around him and keeps sending Shadowbolt Volleys to hurt everyone around. The volleys are not on a timer, instead he casts them as he sees fit. In some rare cases there's about 30 seconds between the casts, sometimes he does it every five seconds. In the meantime, he casts Twisted Reflection and the rarer Mark of Kazzak on random people.

What to do here:

Send your main tank in and let him build some aggro for a short while, just enough so he won't come at you the first time you cast something on him. Then unload. Have your DPS classes give him everything they have. Priests have to be extra mindful about the magical debuff he casts on your group. It has to be removed as soon as possible or the attempt will soon end in a disaster. Priests are also in charge of healing their groups thanks to that Shadowbolt Volley that keeps hitting everyone all the time. Mages need to be on top of the curse situation. Mark of Kazzak can and will cause a wipe if you let it go off on you. Dispel the curse as soon as you can. All casters should also leave about 1000 mana in their mana pool just in case he casts the curse on you. That'll give the mages four seconds to dispel before it goes off. In other words, 1000 mana is out of mana in this raid encounter. Also, anyone dying during the fight is not an option. Unless it happens during the first five seconds of the fight, you've failed already. Do not use grounding totems, pets or other small things he can kill for the 70,000 health heal.

Your group will have exactly three minutes to finish the demon off. If you fail to kill him in that time due to lack of DPS, people dying or not dispelling Twisted Reflection properly, Lord Kazzak will enter what is called the Supreme Mode. Named after his yell once it triggers, the supreme mode causes him to cast his Shadowbolt every second. That's 800-1000 DPS on everyone, and that means a wipe.

Loot
There are a number of epic items that a player could only acquire by killing Lord Kazzak, this loot table is identical to that of Highlord Kruul post Burning Crusade. Each of these ten items are listed below. Since there are ten items, each item had a 10% chance of dropping from Lord Kazzak after a successful kill. Also note that he dropped more than one item.

One interesting item that players could get from Lord Kazzak is, a component in the Priest epic class quest. The reward is a staff that can transform to suit the talent build of the Priest: /. The reason this is important is that there is a 100% chance Lord Kazzak will drop this item, which is significantly better than the 0.5% chance a Priest will have on the Demons in Darkwhisper Gorge, Winterspring. Some items he drops grant shadow and fire resistance.

Quotes
Aggro:
 * For the Legion! For Kil'Jaeden!

Kill:
 * Your own strength feeds me!

Notable Attempts

 * Lord Kazzak was kited to Stormwind on numerous servers. Due to the fact that he becomes virtually unkillable after three minutes, he would wreak havoc until a GM intervened. This kiting is no longer possible as Lord Kazzak now will not travel beyond the Blasted Lands.
 * Shortly after the introduction of Reckoning (a retaliatory attack that can be stored as charges), a paladin on Server:Azgalor was able to solo Lord Kazzak with a reckoning attack that had 1816 charges. Reckoning was hotfixed shortly after to only allow a maximum of 4 stored charges. Video of this event.