Al'Akir (tactics)

Al'Akir is the final boss encounter Throne of the Four Winds, a release raid in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Gifted with great intelligence and cunning, Al'Akir the Windlord once served as the foremost tactician in the Old Gods' horrific armies. In the wake of the Cataclysm, he has aligned with Deathwing and turned his godlike powers against many of the air elementals' ancient tol'vir nemeses.

Phase 3 (25-0%)
Al'Akir shatters his platform and creates a zone-wide Relentless Storm, lifting all players into the air and giving them the Eye of the Storm buff as long as they remain near him.

Strategy
Al'Akir is a three phase encounter that will require one tank on both 10 and 25 player difficulties.

Phase One
Lightning Strike is the main lethal mechanic in this phase. The raid needs to be spread out in groups of 2 (10-man) or 3 (25-man) in order to avoid healer range issues and lightning strike chaining to many players and instantly killing them. Players in the same group will stand on top of eachother, ensuring the damage is a healable 40,000 or 60,000 hit. Players must move into melee range for Wind Burst and avoid the rotating Squall Lines. Wind Burst is on a predictable 30 second timer and players should take into account its timer when moving to Squall Lines since they will need to be in melee to avoid being knocked off the platform. The tank need not fear moving out of melee to dodge Squall Line, Al'Akir will electrocute him instead of melee-ing other players. Lightning Strike is considerably more threatening on 25-player difficulty.

Phase Two
The raid should group up around the tank in phase two. You will still need to dodge Squall Lines. The primary mechanic of this phase is ensuring the Feedback debuff is stacked on Al'Akir. Since the duration of feedback is increased to 30 seconds up from 20 seconds and Al'Akir summons a stormling every 20 seconds, it's no longer needed to time kills but you will have to kill stormlings as soon as possible. Once Al'Akir is at five or six feedback stacks, you should bloodlust/heroism and have all DPS focus on Al'Akir to hit phase three before Acid Rain stacks too high and is unhealable.

Phase Three
The raid will be tossed into the Eye of the Storm, any Stormlings will remain up and the tank should taunt them and keep them out of melee with the raid. A successful strategy is to group up and 'jump' up as high as you can go. Then the raid will move down 10 yards whenever lightning clouds spawn. Players with lightning rod will move down 6 yards to avoid damaging other players. When you are wind bursted back you must move back to your original position, because if you get too far away (or too close) to Al'Akir you will be caught in the relentless storm and killed. You should be able to kill Al'Akir before you run out of room.

Quotes

 * Conclave is defeated
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Wind Burst
 * yell


 * Phase Two
 * yell


 * Squall Line
 * yell


 * Phase Three
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Defeat
 * yell