Finally, a fight that actually require the tank to do some heavy lifting. As usual, this is not intended to be a complete guide, but rather a supplement for tanks who are working on the heroic mode. I expect you to know the basic mechanics of this fight.
Changes between Normal and Heroic
- Disrupting Shadows, the debuff that can be applied to anyone who’s not the tank, knocks the target and surrounding players back as well as dealing AoE damage.
- During the dark phase a very large tentacle, Claw of Go’rath, will spawn. This add needs to be tanked or else it will do a high-damage AoE spell on a random player.
- Also during the dark phase, the small tentacles will deal increased AoE damage depending on how many are left alive (more tentacles = more damage).
Preparation
- This is a strictly one tank fight. We used three healers.
- It has a very tight dps requirement with a 6 minute enrage.
- Zon’ozz is unusual in that there is dangerous physical as well as magical damage. You can pick between magic reduction or flasks, depending on what you or your healers prefer (I went with agility flasks).
Our Basic Strategy
- There are likely many ways to complete this fight, but I’ll explain how we did it, which will hopefully help with understanding the rest of this post.
- 1st Ping Pong Phase: Let the boss get 9 stacks of Focused Anger, using big cooldowns on the tank.
- 1st Dark Phase: Ranged kill small tentacles, melee kill big tentacle or interrupt eye tentacles (they have a cast that can be interrupted, even though you can’t see the cast bar) then burn the boss.
- 2nd Ping Pong Phase: 7 stacks of Focused Anger
- 2nd Dark Phase: Same as the first, kill tentacles, burn boss.
- 3rd Ping Pong Phase: 7 stacks of Focused Anger
- 3rd Dark Phase: Same as usual.
- 4th Ping Pong Phase: 5 stacks of Focused Anger
- 4th Dark Phase: Ignore tentacles, burn boss. If he doesn’t die here then you’ll hit the enrage and likely die.
Void of the Unmaking
- As the tank, you’re responsible for positioning the boss so that he spawns Void of the Unmaking in the appropriate spot.
- When you pull, be extra careful that the boss is pointed exactly toward the ranged group. Spin him around once he spawns the Void.
- After your first dark phase, you should tank the boss near where the Claw spawns because it will be easier to pick up the Claw later (I’ll talk more about the Claw later). The ranged will probably stay in their same spot, so be sure to point the boss toward them again.
- If you’re unsure about how to do this, watch videos.
- Once your guild is ready, make sure Zon’ozz hits the void and the black phase will begin.
- There is a bug where the Void will stay in one spot. Sometimes you can save the day by pulling the boss all the way over to the unmoving void, but usually you will have to wipe.
Claw of Go’rath
- The first thing you should do during the black phase is to locate the Claw. It always spawns in the same spot (again, consult videos).
- The Claw must be tanked or else it will start killing random players.
- Once Zon’ozz finishes spawning tentacles, he will run back to the tank. He doesn’t hit very hard during this phase because he does not gain stacks of Focused Anger.
- I’ve heard of a bug where the Claw will sometimes cast it’s high-damage AoE spell when the tank is not currently targeting it, even though the tank is in the right spot. For this reason, I usually only target Zon’ozz to put debuffs on him, and then return to the Claw until it is dead.
Focused Anger
- This is Zon’ozz’s stacking buff. You will need cooldowns to survive anything more than 5 stacks. You’ll definitely need to call on your healers for help surviving.
- I used my lesser cooldowns (Barkskin) at around 4 stacks. I called for Hand of Sacrifice at around 5 to 6 stacks, and used my big cooldown (Survival Instincts) at 7 stacks.
- I made a Power Aura so that I could easily see how many stacks of Focused Anger the boss accumulated so far:
Version:4.23; target:true; icon:Spell_Shadow_UnholyFrenzy; buffname:Focused Anger; x:-272; owntex:true; size:0.34; y:-6; stacks.enabled:true; stacks.x:-267
Druid Specific Stuff
- I used unglyphed Frenzied Regen (with Tier 13 4 piece) during the first and third dark phases. The reason is that sometimes you have to send melee to interrupt the eye tentacles (I think those are the right ones, correct me if I’m wrong), which often leaves them out of healer range. The FR heal will reach them even when healers can’t.
- The best time to use Berserk is during the dark phases, when you can attack both Zon’ozz (who takes more damage during that phase) and the tentacle.
Other Notes
- Psychic Drain hits moderately hard, though since you’re saving most of your cooldowns for high Focused Anger stacks, there’s not a lot you can do about it. Make sure that no one except the tank is standing in front of the boss when it is cast so that they don’t take damage and heal him. He doesn’t cast it until long after the Void spawns, so don’t worry about hitting your raid with it while positioning the ball.
- Be careful to stand far enough from the melee group that you don’t get hit by the Void AoE. You don’t need to take any more damage than you already are.
- If you use a pull timer or countdown, pull a few seconds before it ends (I pull when there’s 2 seconds left in the count down). Overeager dps who hit the boss a few milliseconds before the tank will change the position of the boss slightly (even if they don’t actually pull aggro) and possibly mess up Void positioning. And if your guild is anything like mine, this is entirely the tank’s fault. :|
- When positioning the boss, use your own body to line him up with the intended Void location, not his body. He has this sort of lop-sided stance that can easily mess you up if you use him as a guide.