Gal'darah

Gal'darah is the last boss of Gundrak, an instance in Zul'Drak.

Abilities
Normal form

Rhino form

Strategy
Gal'darah is pretty much a tank and spank with a twist. He summons Spirit Rhinos that charge your party members, knocking them around for approximately 10 yards while dealing ~3000 damage. Gal'darah transforms into a rhino after two uses of his Whirling Slash ability, and after two uses of Impale, he will transform back into a troll.

Normal form
The tank should range-pull and then back firmly into the wall and stay there for the entire fight. During this phase, melee should be in back of the boss ready to move away from the Whirling Slash, while ranged and healer should stand behind the melee out of Whirling Slash range. During Whirling Slash everyone but the tank should move to safety—the boss will keep aggro on the tank. The healer should focus all heals on the tank during Whirling Slash—the others can do ranged DPS or bandage if needed. The tank should save all blocking and avoidance cooldowns for Whirling Slash. The boss can be disarmed and dismantled on both normal and heroic and, if he is, the Whirling Slash will result in all misses/dodges/parrys/blocks against a tanking warrior, and minimal damage against bears.

Rhino form
At the beginning of Rhino phase, all players should run toward the tank as quickly as possible and should constantly stay as close as they can to the tank even to the point of directly stacking on the tank with backs to the wall to prevent the knockback. Players that get knocked back should immediately run toward the tank to minimize their potential charge distance. This phase is especially challenging for healers that need to stand still to cast. The healer's highest priority should be to keep the tank up regardless of distance from the Rhino. Second priority is to move toward the tank. Third priority is the other players.

Alternate strategy
Start the fight in the middle of the room, with other party members further out, and have the tank run far enough away during Whirling Slash to avoid the massive damage, while simultaneously circling around Gal'darah. This requires that the tank and healer be aware of each others position so as not to get out of range for heals. Random players will most likely get impaled and "ride the horn", possibly more that once, but if the tank is topped up, avoids most of the Whirling Slash damage, uses Enraged Regeneration, Lifeblood (if an herbalist), Last Stand, trinkets, etc, this will give the healer time to heal other group members and themselves before the return of Rhino form. Rinse and repeat until the boss is dead.

Heroic
On heroic, the damage is significantly increased from Gal'darah to the tank (around 8-10k melee plus DoTs) in rhino form, and from the Spirit Rhinos (~5k on leather/~8k on cloth). During phase 2, Gal'darah charges players; the further you are away the more damage taken.

Casters should remain out of range of the knockbacks, but should move in closer to reduce charge damage.

Wipes happen primarily either from Whirling Slash on non-tank players during Troll phase or from charges on non-tank players during Rhino phase. The Rhino knockback is a special concern because it does damage while moving the healer out of range just before a big damage Charge. A very workable strategy is to corner/wall tank the boss using one of the two wall crotches located to the left and right of the boss at about 45 degree angles. The tank and the group can safely move to either wall cavity without aggroing.

Tanks will take a lot of damage during Rhino form, which is then amplified when he enrages for 10 seconds. It is ideal to have a hunter in the group to Tranquilizing Shot each time Gal'darah enrages.

Achievements
The achievements associated with Gal'darah are:
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Strategy for
The boss may be defeated normally for this achievement, so long as players have the Eck Residue buff from. For strategy on getting the buff, see the entry.

Strategy for
The primary goal of this strategy is to keep DPS to a minimum while extending the encounter long enough for each party member to become impaled. The encounter is not a DPS race, and must be controlled through positioning and coordination. The trick to this achievement is the impales are only random for the first two, then afterward it's the third person closet to boss. Because of this, it forces the group to need a secondary tank because the main tank could possibly not be impaled the first two casts.

Recommended group composition:
 * Plate class with tanking gear or a secondary tanking spec who can DPS through the whole instance, then switch into full tanking gear as the second tank makes this encounter much easier. Highly recommended because the way impale works.
 * A Warrior as the main tank can disarm Gal'darah, which helps significantly.
 * One or two off-healers is helpful when the healer gets Impaled since you don't need DPS for achievement.

For example, a group could consist of a protection-specced Warrior, feral Druid with full tanking gear, an enhancement Shaman with full healing gear, an balance Druid with full healing gear, and a Holy Priest main healing.

Normal form:

Gal'darah is pretty weak in troll form; however during Whirling Slash, all party members (including melee) except the main tank should stay away from him as much as possible to avoid any damage. The first tank just tanks the Troll form until he turns into a Rhino.

Rhino form:

When Gal'darah transforms into a Rhino, everyone should line up with the healer between the tank unless it's the healer that needs the impale and the person they want impaled for the third and following casts of impale. That way, the right person gets impaled. The other two DPS and/or tank that isn't tanking should be greater then max range so if he knocks someone back, the order doesn't mess up. Once Gal'darah turns back into a Troll, get away from him as fast as possible if you are not tanking.

Tips:

Remember that during this fight, you BARELY want to be damaging him; do not go DPS crazy AT ALL. Conserve mana, take it slow, and make sure it gets done right.

To ensure sure that your main tank gets impaled, have the main tank tanking until the off-tank gets hit by the impale, at which point the off-tank can taunt Gal'darah, and take over tanking until the main tank is impaled. Once your main tank is free again, he can taunt and tank the rest of the fight. The off-tank is then free to DPS, but being mindful to minimize the amount of damage while everyone takes a turn at being impaled.

Quotes

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Transform
 * yell
 * yell


 * Summon Rhino
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell