High Priestess Arlokk

The troll Arlokk was the High Priestess of the Primal God Bethekk, the goddess panther. In order to quell Hakkar the Soulflayer, the trolls of the land banded together and sent a contingent of High Priests into the ancient city of Zul'Gurub. Each priest was a powerful champion of the Primal Gods, but despite their best efforts they fell under the sway of Hakkar. Now the champions and their Primal God aspects feed the awesome power of the Soulflayer. Any adventurers brave enough to venture into the foreboding ruins must overcome the High Priests if they are to have any hope of confronting the mighty blood god.

Setup
Two tanks in the 'pens' (places with straw and fence), a druid and shaman facing them with their backs to the wall on side of the room with the gong, MT in the middle of the room, ready to gain aggro on Arlokk, and the rest of the raid with their backs to the wall with the big shield on it.

Encounter
High Priestess Arlokk is spawned by hitting the gong in her room. She spawns near the entrance to the room in priest form using Shadow Word: Pain and standard melee attack. She can also Gouge while in humanoid form, so you'll want an offtank near the back of the room ready to taunt and bring her back. Have your tank get her to the back of the room near the rest of the group and start the DPS as soon the tank calls it. You want to end the fight quickly so you're healers don't run out of mana or get killed by her opener.

Immediately upon engaging her, multiple level 60 (non-elite) panthers spawn from cages on each side of the room, about one every 5 seconds. Do NOT bother killing the panthers, as they will respawn indefinitely. The panther spawns are stealthed and will path out around the fence towards the back of the room with the big shield on the wall and the rest of the raid. Your tanks in the pens will have to gain aggro on the panthers and hold them for the duration of the fight. Have both the tanks in the pens use Bloodrage as the fight begins and stand at the inside or end of the fence ready to smack the first panther that comes by them.

Let the 'pen' tanks keep getting panthers from his cage until they can start spamming Demoralizing shouts. Once they do this, they can stop attacking and just stand there, spamming Demoralizing Shout, which will aggro any panthers spawning in the cage and the others they are holding. Panther spawns hit for about 30ish on plate, which isn't much but with 20+ panthers attacking it can add up. To neutralize a lot of the damage, have the shaman near that tank be in his group and have him lay Stoneskin totem. The druid can lay some HoTs and whatever else they want to do to keep the 'pen' tanks up, but make sure they conserve mana for the most part because the fight can be long.

High Priestess Arlokk has the ability to 'mark' someone, which looks like a large V over their head. This is usually a person with a high amount of aggro and can sometimes be the 'pen' tank or their healers (if that is the case, have a healer from the back come up and take the spot of the marked healer since the marked healer might die). This mark attracts panthers to the marked person if they are in LOS (line of sight) of the panthers. To make sure you don't pull ALL the panthers off the 'pen' tanks, run to the very back of the room with the rest of the raid and pray you haven't already aggroed them. If you did, have all your mages and warlocks AoE the panthers until they are dead. This will make the panthers respawn from the cages so the tanks can reaggro them. After one minute she stealths. She does not attack while stealthed, but she has a powerful opener that can easily 2-shot clothies and usually targets those healing the OTs.

Alliance: Holy Paladins can be placed as Healers for the Pen Tanks. We use a Druid and Paladin set-up. Paladin "bubbles" remove the mark effect. As such, if the paladin receives the mark, Divine Shield will remove it. If the druid receives the mark, Blessing of Protection will remove it.

Be wary, when she unstealths she WILL 2shot the druid. We have taken to using a bear form druid or 4th tank if available to stand next to the druid during the stealthed phase to prevent her from ganking the healer.

Another Alliance Strategy: This strategy revolves entirely around a Paladin and a healer (or two) to keep him/her alive. The little-used spell "Blessing of Sacrifice" transfers 55 damage taken per hit after mitigation to the Paladin. Because the panthers deal countless tiny hits (about 55-60 on cloth) the Paladin will be taking the damage of the panthers. The spell has no cooldown, so if multiple people are marked the Paladin can take damage for all of them. The beautiful simplicity of the strategy is that Paladins are quite durable and healers can keep Heal-over-times on this Paladin constantly, more easily than targeting multiple people for heals. Should the situation turn ugly, and in case of the Paladin's impending death, Divine Shield will NOT cancel the effect. Instead, the Paladin stops taking 55 damage and instead is hit for "0". This frees up all AoE casters to turn the Priestess into a fine red mist when she unstealths.

Strategy 1
Setup: This requires 3 warriors, preferably with 1h and shield unless geared out. The MT will be on Arlokk while the two OT's will be at the panther cages. The rest of the raid group will begin the battle with their backs to the wall opposite of the gong (door side).

Combat: This is a fairly simple fight if executed as dictated.

Have a non-tank member ring the gong to initiate the fight. Arlokk will spawn immediately, which will require the MT to begin the aggro process. Once the tank has Arlokk on lock-down, the entire raid (except the Off-tanks) must focus on DPSing down Arlokk.

During the battle, panthers will spawn in great numbers. Arlokk will also place a 'mark' on a raid member, who will become the main target of the panthers. When a player is marked, he/she should run to the other side of the room from the gong, where he/she can't be seen by most panthers.

The job of the off-tanks is to drop demoralizing shout and any other aggro-grabber to strip the panthers off the marked member. To that end, the off tanks should drink rage potions and use Bloodrage when the gong is hit so they can get aggro from the panthers as quickly as possible. They can then spam Demoralizing Shout. This process will continue until Arlokk vanishes.

Once Arlokk is gone, kill all the panthers which are aggroed on the casters, but leave the panthers which are fighting the OTs alone. This is very important. If you kill the panthers which are on the OTs, new ones will spawn quickly and at first go for the casters and the Marked One. SO DO NOT KILL THE PANTHERS ATTACKING THE OFF-TANKS! The panthers have an upper limit to their number at which they stop spawning, and you want to have them all to fight the OTs. Since the panthers do so little damage to tanks, the OTs can be healed by an off-healer each. It is, however, advisable to have an additional healer paying attention to the OTs and their off-healers, just in case.

When Arlokk reappears, she will be in panther form and activate a red aura, which indicates her double-cleave. AVOID THE CLEAVES! The rogues should not be anywhere near her when she is in panther form and able to cleave. Continue going full-out DPS on Arlokk, and continue to have the OT's taunt the panthers. By the end of the 2nd vanish, she should be well below 50%. By that time, the panthers should all be aggroed on the OTs, so the casters can really all stand around and twiddle their thumbs until she is back. Even the marking should not aggro any panthers on the casters now.

When she reappears, again watch for the cleave. Continue DPSing Arlokk until she is dead, then nuke the panthers. Most guilds can do this in about 3-4 vanishes. Better guilds will kill her before the 2nd vanish. The key to this is constant, heavy DPS while she is out, and leaving the panthers on the OTs alone. It is tempting to nuke the panthers which are attacking the OTs, but this will only make your job a lot more difficult since the OTs need to reaggro the respawns. The off-tanks should have a healer assigned to each of them.

Strategy 2
Setup: The whole raid assembles at the gong, only the main tank keeps to the middle of the room to grab Arlokk when the gong has been sounded. after grabbing the aggro, the whole raid focuses on dps on Arlokk, the panthers are being feared by Warlocks and Priests with their ApE fearing abilities. No offtanks are needed here. Once Arlokk vanishes, the mages Frost Nova the panthers and the whole raid goes AoE against them. The panthers die rather fast (at least in our raids, they are non-elite mobs). The main tank just stays in the middle of the room during the slaying of the panthers. Once Arlokk is visible again, and the main tank regained aggro, again the whole raid focuses on her to dps her down, fearing/ignoring the spawning panthers.

Main Points: - keep dps on Arlokk as long as she is visible - mass fear the panthers during the dps stages - aoe kill panthers once Arlokk vanishes - the main tank needs to keep Arlokk out of the group because of her cleave attack.

We manage to kill Arlokk before she vanishes a 2nd time with this strategy.

Strategy 3
Setup:
 * 3 tanks. 1 MT on Arlokk, 1 Main OT in one pen, and 1 Secondary OT in the other.
 * 3 mages by the gong on a Frost Nova rotation.
 * Healers along the pen walls facing the center.
 * Ranged DPS along the wall near the entrance.

Strategy: The MT rings the gong to summon Arlokk and immediately gets her attention. The MT and DPS open up on her once the MT has sufficient aggro and ignores the panthers. The 3 mages by the gong have to be careful to keep their mana levels high enough to maintain their Frost Nova rotation. The OTs grab the attention of the panthers however they want and hold aggro without killing them. When Arlokk marks a target, they run to one of the OTs so the OT can strip the panthers off them. Once all the panthers have spawned the OTs drag them to the gong, preferably into a corner at the back. When the panthers are in the recess with the gong, the mages begin alternating their frost novas. When the panthers are all frozen in place the secondary OT is free to DPS Arlokk with the rest of the raid. Every 8 seconds the next mage in the rotation runs into the gong area and fires off his frost nova to renew the root. The primary OT needs to stay with the mages and keep the panthers in the back. Because Frost Nova only has an 8 second duration with a 25 second cooldown the OT will have to make sure the panthers don't get out of the bottleneck. With 3 mages there will be a minimum of 1 second every rotation that the panthers aren't frozen unless one of the mages has at least a single point in Improved Frost Nova. If the mages have enough frost specialization to have a fully covered rotations (or there happen to be four of them), the OT should still stay by the mages just in case the panthers break early. Note: My bad on the 15 seconds...I don't play a mage and there was some confusion on that point...fixed now though. '''The 8 second rotation is important! Frost Nova has a 25 second cooldown normally and an 8 second effect. This means that with three mages alternating frost novas every 8 seconds you will have the OT tanking the panthers that just broke out of the root, one mage with 1 second left on the timer, one mage with 9 seconds left on his cooldown, and one mage with 17 seconds left on his cooldown. I suggest that each mage make a /y macro, and hit it whenever their frost nova cooldown reaches 19 seconds. This gives the next mage in the rotation 2 seconds to finish casting whatever and get into position.''' If any of the panthers resist the frost nova or break early, it is the job of the primary OT to keep them off the mages and out of the raid proper. When the next mage in the rotation is ready to Frost Nova the OT will keep the panther in place while the nova is fired. Once Arlokk is dead, the panthers can be AOEd.

Strategy 4: Easy Mode (Hellfire)
This boss has always been infamous. Recently those I raid with have discovered easy mode...using a warlock to hellfire. It's the simplest and most successful strategy I've seen. Simply have a warlock hellfire the entire time right in the middle. Put a big X on him with the new icon system and have everyone stand on him. The warlock can single handedly kill the adds with only occasional assistance from other AoEs. They simply hellfire the entire time, the healers just need to keep a couple Heal-Over-Times on the warlock.

Notes:
 * 1. The warlock will never be attacked by the panthers unless he is marked, or there is no one marked at all
 * 2. Though mage's AoEs are good in other situations they aren't as mana efficient or as high DPS as hellfire. Frost Nova is bad because a frozen mob will attack the first person in reach and no longer only attacks the marked target.
 * 3. The warlock should make a macro to shout when he's marked. Once marked your hellfire will be interrupted almost instantly and you will not be able to AoE.  Someone else...another warlock or mage needs to take over.
 * 4. When the panthers get real bad mages should throw a couple arcane explosions and other warlocks might consider one hellfire, but it's not needed that often.
 * 5. This tactic can also be supplemented with a supply of Oil of Immolation for the whole raid group.

The rest is easy, DPS the boss when she appears.

Strategy 5 - safer, for less well-equipped Guilds
What isn't mentioned in any of the above guides is that if you kill a Panther, it respawns, with more health. Our strat is geared around NOT killing any of the panthers.


 * 4 tanks. 1 by each pen. 1 on Arlokk. 1 final tank responsible for looking after the raid. The Pen tanks are positioned along the imaginary horizontal line from the pen edge to the wall - this is so the Panthers do NOT have line of sight to the raid.
 * 2 Paladins (or 1 paladin if well equipped) looking after the Pen tanks, with Retribution and Thorns on these Tanks (to increase aggro)
 * Some Warlocks and Priests

Tactics:


 * The raid lines up, backs to the wall, at the opposite end to the going. This ensures that panthers attacking Marked players have the longest route possible to take. Pen tanks attempt to Demoralizing Shout on all Panthers that spawn.


 * When any Panthers slip past the Pen tanks, the 4th tank will attempt to aggro them in a similar fashion.


 * Warlocks and Priests should attempt to save any Marked casters by using AoE fear.


 * When she disappears, do NOT kill the Panthers - they come back with MORE health. Initial Panther spawns have around 2,000 hp. I've seen this get as high as 25,000 hp for later ones! Just keep them away from the party.


 * When she reappears, Hunters should Aimed Shot, whilst Mages Pyroblast. This gives plenty of time for the tank to build up his aggro, and then DPS can resume.


 * You should have her killed before her 3rd vanish with this tactic, even if you're not epic equipped. The main bonus of this tactic is that it saves *all* Mage mana for pure DPS.


 * Once she is down, all tanks should converge on the Mages, who can Frost Nova and CoC. They should die within a few seconds, as they will have minimal health.


 * The hardest part of this fight is by far and away persuading the entire raid not to kill all those 'easy' Panthers, but to maintain DPS on Arlokk (or wait for her to re-appear)

Common (incorrect) legends:


 * Warlocks use Detect Invisibility. This does not work.
 * Hunters use Flares to unstealth her. This does not work.
 * The spawned tigers no longer increase in HPs if killed, or at all during the course of the battle. So, you are free to kill them if your strategy requires it.  This was confirmed on Oct 5, 2006 by the Cottage Cheese Pirates.

Quotes
Aggro: Marking player: Death:
 * Bethekk, your priestess calls upon your might!
 * Feast on, my pretties!
 * At last, I am free of the Soulflayer!