Kargath Bladefist (tactics)

Warchief Kargath Bladefist is the final boss of the Shattered Halls, the third wing of Hellfire Citadel in Outland's Hellfire Peninsula.

Quests
Danath Trollbane in Honor Hold and Nazgrel in Thrallmar give quests to kill Kargath and bring back his bladed fist.

Basic strategy
Note: At the start of the fight, pairs of stealthed elite assassins (identical to the ones that attack you in the last hallway) spawn near the bottom of the stairs on both sides of his cage. These assassins will not aggro unless a player gets too close to the bottom of the stairs. Thus, it is very important for all members of the party to stay no more than two steps from the cage.


 * Kargath hits for about 500 on a well-geared tank. Thus, his regular melee attack is normally not a problem.


 * Starting about 30 seconds into the fight, non-elites mobs of various types will spawn in the hallway you entered from, and run towards the group and attack. They spawn slowly at first, but increasingly quickly as the fight goes on. These mobs are not that strong, but over time a large number of them will build up if they are not controlled. Note that some of the adds are Hunter-type mobs that use ranged attacks; if you do not have any ranged DPS assigned to the adds and they start shooting before they get close, you may need to line-of-sight pull them by temporarily stepping into the cage so they run towards you. Because the stealthed elites ignore the other mobs, fear is a viable CC tactic in this fight as well.


 * Kargath's special ability is "Blade Dance". He will first use it 30 seconds after being engaged, and then every 30 seconds from the *end* of the previous Blade Dance. During this attack, Kargath will randomly charge a group member inside the 'cage,' dealing a single shot of melee damage (mitigated by armor) to that target *and everyone near that target.* The attack normally deals 1000-1500 damage to a cloth-wearer, and the overall damage increases as the fight goes on. That sequence is repeated multiple times. Each time he uses the ability, the number of times he charges increases. Due to the nature of this attack, it is very beneficial to spread out as far as possible from each other, and have non-tank melee DPS scatter away from him right before he activates Blade Dance.


 * The key to this fight is balancing DPS between the adds and Kargath while not running the healer(s) out of mana. If you take too much damage from Kargath's special attacks, you will not be able to kill him fast enough. The most straightforward strategy is to have one dedicated tank, one person healing, one or two people DPSing Kargath (preferably ranged DPS), and one or two people dedicated to killing adds. What often works well is to have one DPS on adds, one on Kargath, and one switching back and forth as needed.

Tactics

 * Group members standing about halfway down the executioner stairs on either side of the cage will not be hit by this attack on normal difficulty. If you tank the boss near the middle of the cage, ranged DPS and healing should be able to stay far enough away that they never get hit. Note: As of patch 2.3, on heroic difficulty, standing on the executioner side stairs no longer prevents being charged during Blade Dance.


 * Prayer of Mending is extremely useful in this fight, as Blade Dance will rapidly use up all the charges, negating much of the damage.


 * Lightwell can also be very helpful if your group is melee heavy. Place it where the tank is holding Kargath and the adds, so that the melee DPS can tap it at the end of Blade Dance.


 * Amplify Magic is very useful to aid the healers in this fight, as neither the boss nor the adds do magic damage.


 * One strategy for melee-heavy groups is to have melee DPS focus on the adds and use ranged DPS on the boss, or only use plate-wearing melee DPS on the boss since Blade Dance is mitigated by armor. However, the melee DPS must be very careful not to aggro the assassins.


 * This can be a fairly long fight, so you may be able to use multiple mana/health potions if you use the first one early. Group members who take a lot of damage during Blade Dance and are not attacking adds should bandage themselves when possible.

Suggested Scatter Positioning for Blade Dance
It is important for all players in the cage to spread out as much as possible to avoid multiple hits from Blade Dance. Since this happens on a regular timer, it is not difficult for melee DPS to know when the next one is coming and disengage and move away before it begins.

Here is the positioning that we tend to use, which works very well and results in few injuries. The position of the tank also lets him grab initial aggro on adds as they run in the room to give DPS more room for burning them down.



Three ranged DPS or two ranged/one melee)

 * In this strategy, ranged DPS and healers are placed on the stairs and divide attention between adds and boss.


 * Ranged DPS and healers stay just two steps from the bottom (third step) for the entire fight, while the tank holds the boss near the middle of the cage. (Do watch your aggro; Kargath *will* go onto the steps.) The second step is far enough away to avoid Blade Dance altogether. This greatly reduces the damage that everyone takes, making the fight much easier. Make sure you DO NOT take even one step back or you will aggro the elite assassins that spawn in the hallway.


 * Assign a mage and rogue, or mage and warlock, to burn down the adds immediately. We had a hunter as well and with this technique he was able to DPS the boss the entire fight.


 * This technique is nice because it works with or without a rogue. Also, since nobody but the tank ever gets hit by the boss, it's a cake fight at that point anyway.


 * This strategy is not effective if you do not have at least two players who deal substantial ranged DPS. Otherwise, healing will eventually be overwhelmed by the increasing number of adds and the steadily increasing damage from Blade Dance.

Two ranged DPS/1 melee (non-heroic mode)

 * In this strategy, all group members are assigned a single task, and nobody needs to move. The fight will take a little longer, but be relatively simple.


 * The two ranged DPS on the stairs at either sides and make them watch the stairs. They just slow the adds down and kill them. If they do have time left to DPS on boss, use attacks with low mana costs, since they will be busy killing adds for a while.


 * The healer in the middle of the stairs. He has to stay there for the rest of the fight, and occasionally move back to the second stair (but no further) during Blade Dance.


 * The tank and melee DPS move into the cage to engage Kargath. Tank the boss so that he is facing the stairs to make the healer's job easier. Melee DPS flank him on the opposite side.

Three melee DPS (preferably with paladin tank)

 * In this strategy, the Tank grabs and holds all the adds while the other group members burn down Kargath as quickly as possible. Any adds the tank cannot hold are burned down by an assigned DPSer.


 * The tank should fight the boss (and the subsequent twenty or so adds) at the top of the stairs or one step down. As always, avoid going down too far to avoid the rogues.


 * The tank will need some AoE damage—Consecration and Holy Shield are best (with Blessing of Sanctuary and Retribution Aura), but Thunderclap will work for a warrior. Cleave and Demoralizing Shout will grab adds, but Thunderclap will keep them. Trying to switch back and forth between a dozen mobs (including the boss) and use different abilities on each is extremely difficult.


 * For Warriors, Thunderclap is the most effective skill. It does direct damage and causes fairly high threat. Timing Thunderclaps and other attacks is not easy. Some adds will be missed and will generally go straight for the healer. If this happens, the tank should NOT attempt to pick these mobs back up; one or more DPSers should be assigned to burn down anything that breaks away. The tank needs to stay at the entrance at all times to catch the adds.


 * Blade Dance becomes extremely dangerous when using this tactic, since everyone is clumped up. Melee DPS *must* spread out when he does it to avoid everyone taking multiple overlapping hits.


 * As soon as the boss dies, all the adds will run away and despawn, so you don't need to worry about killing them.


 * The advantage to this strategy is that it's a pretty fast fight *if* the tank can hold everything while the healer keeps him up. Because no DPS is wasted on the adds, the boss can be killed quickly, before too many adds appear and overwhelm the group.


 * This strategy requires either an extremely well-geared tank (since otherwise your healer will either pull aggro or be unable to keep the tank up when 10+ adds are attacking), or extremely high DPS from the other players (so that Kargath can be killed before too many adds appear and overwhelm the tank/healer). Paladin tanks are much better at holding aggro in this manner, due to Consecration and Retribution Aura.

3 -manable?

 * This instance can be 3 maned on normal mode, using average level 70 characters. A Fully Protection Pally, An Affliction Lock and a Holy priest. The Tank had 440 defense and 12k buffed health (nothing really special)


 * For some reason when you aggro the 3rd boss, and use the above strategy,(pally keeps consecration down to hold adds, and he is tanked at the top of the stairs) Kargath dosent use his Blade Dance ability. This may be down to the fact that there were only 3 of us, but it makes the fight so much easier, because you dont have massive damage spikes to heal. Infact 3 manning the instance turned out to be easier than doing a full 5 man group.


 * This is only recommended if you know the other players well, and they fully understand their class. PUG-ing or attempting to PUG a 3man Shattered Halls run, is NOT advised. If you have headsets and/or mic's this is useful, communication was vital for this final boss. (especially if the tank fails to grab an add)


 * Was done between 15.00 and 16.30 realm time on English (Europe) realm *Aggramar* On the 17/10/08

Heroic mode strategy

 * Kargath gains a Charge ability (he charges the player furthest from him for 2000-3000 damage). This is frequently done immediately after a Blade Dance. Often this will kill a group member that was weakened by Blade Dance, making it critical to keep everyone near full health as much as possible. Group members should bandage/potion (or self-heal) aggressively.


 * Damage from all of Kargath's attacks is increased. Your tank must be uncrittable to stand much of a chance.


 * The adds have substantially more HP. Strategies involving tanking or CCing the adds (rather than trying to kill them) may be more effective in Heroic. Again, the adds all run away and despawn as soon as Kargath is killed.


 * Amplify Magic is especially helpful to aid healing.

Quotes
Execution Order (Horde): Aggro: Killing a player: If pulled too far: Death:
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