An Early Guide to the Will of the Emperor Dance

I am tempted to call this dance The Emperor’s New Groove.

So far, I’ve only had the chance to do this fight on heroic. We never got very far, either. But in an attempt to learn how to do this fight properly once the time comes, I am cataloging what I’ve learned. Of course, this guide will be useful to exactly zero people until MoP releases or they decide to test these bosses again. Oh well. At least Google will have plenty of time to rank this post.

The Will of the Emperor is the final boss of Mogu’shan Vaults. During the fight, waves of various trash mobs with different powers spawn, two of which are actual bosses. The tanks each pick up one boss and tank them at opposite ends of the room.

Both of the bosses go through a combo attack, which tanks, and any melee on them, have to perform a little dance to avoid. They perform an animation, and then cleave in a large arc. The location of the cleave depends on the animation. In heroic mode they will do ten (I think?) of these cleaves in a a row.

The bosses can cleave in front of them, behind them, in the center (basically just melee range), to their right, or to their left. You can either look at their swords, the blue strikes, or their feet to figure out where they’re going to cleave. They are huge guys so looking at their feet is usually easier, if less intuitive.

The TLDR is to go where the the back foot stands.

(Please forgive my poor screenshots. These are taken from my fraps recordings.)

Cleave on Boss’s Left

Look for:

1. Weapon raised to boss’s right (so he can swing to the left).
2. Both feet are on the ground.
3. Right foot is in the back.

Go to: The boss’s right.

Cleave on Boss’s Right

Look for:

1. Weapon raised to boss’s left (so he can swing to the right).
2. Both feet are on the ground.
3. Left foot is in the back.

Go to: The boss’s left.

Cleave to Boss’s Front

Look for:

1. Weapon raised to boss’s front.
2. Front foot off the ground.
3. Back foot at center.

Go to: The boss’s back.

Cleave to Boss’s Back

Look for:

1. Weapon raised, pointing behind the boss.
2. Both feet on the ground but nearly side-by-side.

Go to: The boss’s front, move out of melee range.

Cleave at Boss’s Center

Look for:

1. Not sure where weapon points, though it’s probably toward the ground.
2. Front foot high off the ground.
3. Back foot off center.

Go to: Anywhere out of melee range.

Other Info

• Tanks can’t go too far out of melee range because the bosses will death grip their primary target to them.
• For left, right, front, and back the danger zone is more than half of the cleave area, so if you’re heading for back feet be sure to go a little further out than that. (If you watch my video, you can see me make this mistake a few times.)
• In heroic mode, melee and tanks get a short but significant damage boost if everyone successfully dodges all cleaves in a sequence. This will probably be key to defeating Will of the Emperor in heroic mode.