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Comment by 18544

Maulgar v2.0

Comment by 73142

No one appears to have a boss strat post here so here I go:

Fathom-Guard Tidalvess a shaman and is the first kill target in this boss fight. Some argue to kill the hunter first but the Shaman puts out incredible burst damage with Windfury Weapon and Frost Shock. He also has this totem called a Spitfire Totem. It has a 45 yard range pulse attack that does 2k-3k damage. Dps need a /target spitfire macro to change targets and get it down quick. Once the shaman dies, Karathress gains the Spitfire totem ability.

Fathom-Guard Sharkkis is the hunter. He has multishot and a Viper Sting that drains 3k mana over time off of someone. He also has a pet Sporebat or a pet Lurker he can summon that will need to be off tanked by the one tanking the hunter or another tank. He also has a sort of enrage called Beast Within where he and his current Pet go berserk and do more damage. When the hunter dies, Karathress gains the ability to do Beast Within.

Third and final add, Fathom-Guard Caribdis. She has an aoe pulse similar to that of the Spitfire totem ( cept it is frost damage). She has a heal that heals 10% of one of the add's health and is not rangeable nor is it line of sightable. This will need to be interrupted or you lose a lot of dps time on other adds and on Karathress. She also has an ice tomb type ability that afflicts melee with a stun effect. When she dies, Karathress gains the Ice Tomb. (Recommend warrior and shaman healers to deal with the heal).

Now on to Karathress. Hopefully you have about 3 minutes or more till his enrage timer to kill him. Dps goes all out, tank has had nearly 5 minutes or more of solid threat building. Spitfire totems are killed via the macro mentioned above ( /target spitfire). When he does The Beast Within, the tank will need extra healing.

Roles in the fight:

Tanks: The tank on Karathress needs to be able to move the main boss out of range of the spitfire totem early in the fight before dps is on the boss. Makes it way easier to heal.

Tank on shaman: Put as much threat out as you can so the dps kills it quickly.

Tank on hunter: spam any attack that can hit a chain to a target next to your main target. ( cleave, thunderclap, swipe) Makes for easy pick ups on the pet.

Tank on priest: Put your tanking debuffs on her then just trigger heroic strike / shield block while you wait with finger over the shield bash key to interrupt heal.

Dps: kill things before enrage timer.

Healers: Healers on shaman: be prepared for that incredible burst i mentioned about earlier. when the shaman is dead, split half of the healers to go to the main tank on karathress and the others on the hunter. ( the viper sting may have hunter tank healers low on mana.)

Healers on hunter tank: Damage increased with the Beast Within, you are warned. 1-2 healer goes to help with the raid healing on the dps on the priest, ( the frost aoe pulse adds up) the rest go to Karathress.

Healers on the main boss tank: Beast Within increases damage on the tank by a lot, plz oh plz dont let him die. be prepared to move when the tank does so he doesn't die and cause you to wipe. Make sure you are not low on health when the spitfire totem comes up.

Random cyclones will circle in the room, throwing you upward and making you useless till you are let back down. (rarely is there fall damage)

Last thing that is everyones responsibility is to try and stay above 50% health. Karathress has a randomized ranged attack that knocks 50% health off of the target. It may double up on that person. If it does, no worries. Bad luck happens.

Health stats:

Karathress: 1,700,000

Priest: 860,000

Hunter: 850,000

Shaman: 860,000

Total damage is around 4,300,000 damage on all the adds and boss combined. The same four millionish health on most bosses presented in a new way.

If anyone wishes to add something about the fight below my post, go right ahead. we're all human here and i could have left something out.

Comment by 77262

As a tank on the hunter I know it's hard to target the pets. so I made this macro. which is very usefully. at least for me

/target Fathom Sporebat
/target fathom lurker

so if the sporebat isn't up u target the lurker instead. verru handy ^^

Comment by 77262

He can only have one pet up at a time. so its either sporebat or the lurker :)

Comment by JediMaster14

What happens if you kill (or attempt to kill) Karathress first? There doesn't seem to be anyone making any mention of this at any of the guides and strats I've looked at.

Comment by trickyson

Just last night my guild killed Karathress for the first time, we opted to ignore the priest add after killing the previous adds and kill Karathress himself, he didn't enrage and wipe the raid, the enrage timer was removed from even the priest add after he had died.
Only one strange thing happened during the fight, and that was his Cataclysmic Bolt sometimes hit for up to the full hp of its target, myself included... After tanking the hunter add as a Paladin, I was 1 shot with a 16.6k bolt.

I don't believe that this is in fact due to us killing the Priest after Karathress as we had one of our Warlocks get 1 shot aswell, before we'd even downed the first add.

So if your dps is lacking somewhat, but your healers are up to the task and you can keep interrupts on the priest, this strategy works a charm.

Comment by 102243

This fight is kind of straightforward. It's all about the adds in this fight.

Karathress gains the special abilities of the adds you kill - the Spitfire Totem, The Beast Within and Tidal Surge. Not your cup of tea obviously.

The shaman must ALWAYS go down first. His burst DPS is insane, and hope to God Windfury and his Frost Shock don't go off at the same, or near to one another. When I did this fight with my guild one day the druid tank took one hellacious ass-beating when that 6.6k Frost Shock hit along with his melee attack. The Spitfire Totem must go down too. It hurts.

Hunter then goes down, be careful of his Viper Sting and his Multi-Shot. After he's down Karathress gains the Beast Within and can start hitting the MT for 6k. The hunter's pet must then go down.

The priest is saved for last and she'll be casting AoE heals which you have to interrupt and Tidal Surge, which will freeze anyone near her while she pummels on the tank. She's easy to get down really.

Karathress is then the final event and whatever time you have left on the enrage timer is how much time you have to kill him before he goes waco on the raid.

Comment by 103365

There are three things that guilds typically have trouble with on this fight:

- The pull -- it's similar to Maulgar but has the added complexity of Sharkiss' pet spawning a few seconds later and needing to be tanked
- The priest -- this girl AOEs anyone near her, stuns melee, and throws very fast heals on the DPS target, so she's tricky to control
- The shaman -- due to Windfury Weapon his damage is very spiky and can catch healers unaware. Some guilds kill him first but I think it's better to kill Sharkiss first so he doesn't drain your healers dry of mana.

A full guide to dealing with all of these abilities, and beating the encounter, can be found at http://www.worldofstrats.com/Karathress/tabid/66/Default.aspx

Comment by 32272

Video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pub88sW4Jxs

Comment by 43040

Really just a question of curiosity. It seems from the comments and from watching the video, that he may be killed before the adds. If you kill him prior to the adds, and then wipe (your agro by death, etc.) will the adds despawn as is the case with Moroes' adds? Leaving the event completed?

Comment by 103365

Usually the 4th or 5th boss guilds attempt in SSC. This fight has a lot of moving parts, but you've probably already killed Maulgar and Karathress is similar. Every time you get an add down, things get simpler.

- Karathress has three buddies. Sharkkis is a hunter who summons a pet when the fight starts, and uses The Beast Within and a mana draining sting. Tidalvess is a shaman with a searing totem, windfury weapon, and frost shock; he does a ton of damage. Caribdis is a priest with a fast-casting heal, some aoe abilities, and a crazy tornado that floats around the room and tosses people up into the air. Each time you kill an add, Karathress gains one of their abilities. From the beginning, he's also got a "Cataclysm Bolt" he uses constantly which'll damage someone at random for 50% of their max hp.

- Different guilds use different DPS orders for the adds, but Karathress is always the last to die. Caribdis is usually the second to last. If you kill Sharkkis first, you won't have to worry about his mana drain, which can really tax your healers, but Tidalvess does so much damage that many guilds kill him first for fear that his tank will die if he's left up for too long. You can at least reduce Tidalvess' dps a bit by having a shaman use grounding totems to eat the frost shock.

- You're going to pull each add to a different corner of the room when the fight starts, so that their abilities don't overlap. The raid has to think carefully about where they stand, so that they're not getting clobbered by the abilities of two adds at once. Just move around and kill one add at a time until only Karathress is left, then kill him.

There are a lot of other nuances to this encounter that can't really be covered in a comment thread, there's a full Karathress guide here.

Comment by 148497

Is is just me or is Karathress supposed to be female?

Comment by 91032

Lol Maybe not, the original "Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace" from the 1970's series was male not female. Its only in the new version of Battlestar Galatica where she is female. Maybe Blizzard is going old school.

Just for fun.

"You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end."

Comment by 183025

Killed him yesterday but forgot to talk to the Ashtongue dude, will he still be there tomorrow?

Comment by nyctric

First defeated by Death & Taxes of Korgath on the 6th of March, 2007.

Comment by Skadja

4 manned this yesterday.

Bear Tank
Discipline Healer (me)
Frost DK
Fury Warrior

We tried the kill order suggested most (shaman first) and this fight annihilated us. We couldn't keep Caribdis from healing long enough to get the Shammy down and her constant cyclones were keeping me from healing our party effectively - and when your interrupter is cycloned that's bad too. All in all, nasty business when Karathress can take 50% of someone's health in a shot.

We instead used a kill order which I don't see mentioned here (possibly because the earlier strats are all for full raid groups of 70s) and the fight became trivially easy for us. We burned Caribdis first, the Hunter second to eliminate Viper Sting, and the Shaman last.

Tidal Surge didn't seem to cause any real problems for our group. And with our healer no longer being thrown around by Cyclones constantly the extra damage from Beast Within wasn't too big a concern.

If you're using a small group of level 80 players, this may be the kill order for you.

Comment by 703441

I searched "sex" in the search box and this is the only guy who came up o0

Comment by Nobbel

Guides explaining on how to solo a few bosses of Serpentshrine Cavern.
Hydross the Unstable & The Lurker Below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VyAjFXvvzU
Morogrim Tidewalker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haZi95DDDJw
Leotheras the Blind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9K6HueIzrE
There is one more boss that can be done but not by me. He is called:
Fathom-Lord Karathress
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9K6HueIzrE
Lady Vashj is impossible even at 85.

Nobbel 85 Paladin

Comment by Morbius

This guy is probably impossible to solo. On my blood DK I can survive just fine and I figured out a way to deal with the tornado but at a certain point I start getting knocked all over the place and I don't know what's causing it. If I can stop that I think it might be possible to beat him but until then I don't see how he can be soloed.

Comment by Morbius

I soloed this guy today. The key is to kill Caribdis first. Yes she heals herself but you can out DPS her heals and finally kill her. Kill Sharkkis next then Tidalvess. When the hunter's pets spawn focus on them so you don't get knocked around then go back to Caribdis. When there's only Karathress left kill the fire totem then go back to Karathress. It's a tricky fight to get just right.

Here's the full video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqmjRtLI1K8

Comment by 59839

I soloed today. ilvl352 with 176k hp. Blood dk. Yep the key is kill the Caribdis. Use strangulate and Mind Freeze if you can or try overdps :D If Caribdis dead then other guys is easy.

Comment by Discostew

I've been able to solo him as a lvl 85 Combat rogue, with mostly epics, along with a few other items to increase my health. My kill order pretty much like everyone who posted before. Healer, shaman, hunter, boss. My only problem with this fight is that dang whirlwind. If I'm lucky enough to get away from it before it sucks me in, or get punted by one of the pets out of it, then the fight isn't too bad. But, if I can't get out, it's basically game over.

Comment by Skorpion9x

Soloed as a Feral Druid in ilvl 367 dps gear, tank spec. It was quite easy.

On the pull, focus on Caribdis and keep running until the tornado is spawned. Get a good distance away from it and you can avoid it by just constantly backing up pretty much. Once you're far enough, pop berserk and focus on Caribdis, until he dies. Watch closely for the healing spell and interrupt it. The cast time is pretty fast, so you have to be quick to react. Just keep kiting away from the tornado until Caribdis is dead and the tornado despawns.

Once Caribdis is dead, it's not really necessary to kite anymore unless you want to get away from Magma totems, but they don't do that much damage. My second focus target was Sharkkis and his pets, since he keeps summoning them so you can have a bunch of enraged pets hitting you, and the damage will add up.

Once those are dead, kill Tidalvess.

And finally, Karathress himself.

The fight is really easy to solo; the most difficult part is the beginning. Once Caribdis is dead, it's pretty much a pushover.

Comment by citrique

Assuming you have vaguely decent gear, the easier more mindless method of doing this boss as a DK is to simply burn Caribdis down, then ignore the other two adds and just burn the boss.

He will "soft" enrage if you get him below 80% while the other adds are alive, and start hitting twice as hard and twice as fast, but all this does is give you a ton of vengeance, you can easily outheal this damage. Doing this, it takes me about three minutes to kill this boss instead of seven or eight.

Comment by 618266

Just soloed this on my SMF Fury Warrior, wearing full Prot gear (ilvl 355). Full Fury soloing spec (http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0bZhrMssdkRdboc:zkmcwazmM), 153k HP, Mending enchant, Prismatic Elixir, Elixir of the Cobra, Runescroll of Fortitude II, Drums of Forgotten Kings, and Battle Shout.

Total Damage done: 4.57M
DPS: 6,951

Total Healing done: 1.17M
HPS: 1,784

I did this is Defensive Stance with a shield on. I used Shield Block and Bloodthirst on CD and kept Thunderclap and Demoralizing Shout up at all times.

The key to soloing this fight is killing Fathom-Guard Caribdis as quickly as possible while interrupting as many of her Healing Wave casts as you can. It has a very short cast time, but she only casts it every 20-30 seconds or so. She also spawns a tornado that will continuously toss you up in the air if you don't kite out of it. I found the best solution was to Heroic Leap away and run until they caught up to me. This gave me a good chunk of time to just sit in one place and dps/interrupt Caribdis.

Providing you kill Caribdis in a timely manner, the rest of the fight is a breeze. My kill order after her was Sharkkis' pets > Sharkkis > Tidalvess. You will get frozen from time to time, but it's only for a few seconds. If you're specced into Second Wind, you end up getting quite a bit of healing from it. I ignored the totems for the most part since they weren't really doing much damage. Once all of the adds are dead it's a simple burn on Karathress...unless you missed a few interrupts in the beginning.

I actually hit hard enrage (+500% damage) when Karathress had ~275k HP left (because I missed interrupts). I knew it was going to happen, so I saved Shield Wall, Rallying Cry and Enraged Regeneration. With a few CDs, the damage was manageable enough to finish him off. Kill took about 12 minutes. Also, I tried this in Fury gear first and got destroyed.

Comment by 360722

just solo'd this on my 85 BM hunter (ilvl 350). used a turtle, and all the heal / prot talents, glyphs, and spec you can get. just a note. you have to get lucky as hell. no way i'd try farming this.

turns out that healing on this fight is not bad.
- i did NOT have 2 pc T5.
- during the fight, running by to toss a heal once in a while is all he'll need.
- turtle can handle the enrage at the end, but you have to be on the heals and watch it. it can go bad fast.

did it in "hawk", and only needed to turn on "fox" or "cheetah" 3-4 times.
only averaged 7k dps for the whole fight
- this is enough to out dps the Caribdis heals. she will get a few off though.

took down in order, Caribdis, then Tidalveis, then Sharkkis, then Boss. yes, i got nervous, and took them down in the wrong order. wanted to get the hunter down 2nd. oh well.

things i learned from my first ~25 failed attempts
- MM is nice dps, and will interrupt the heal, but you have to wait on it (.9 sec cast). it is almost not worth it. i missed so many.
- take out mobs at both entrances, on patrol. i lost one attempt near the end because pet bounced and aggro'd 5 other mobs.
- pet will get bounced all over. this is an issue. so fight it in the middle of the wide area.
- hunter can bug. if your pet get bounced in a corner. and can summon another pet. this is huge. i have had up to 6 rays on me during some attempts, (4 on my clear just now).
- always move the pet back to the middle, if you see him get bounced in a corner.
- Caribdis will not start to heal until she is UNDER 50%. so really, just take it easy until then.
- Caribdis will try to heal herself to full starting as soon as she begins healing. don't give up though. she only does 20-30% of her health per heal.
- Caribdis seems to heal anywhere between every 10 - 20 seconds. it is random. you can get lucky.
- don't bother killing the hunter's pet. he almost instantly summons another.
- kill Sharkkis if you get Caribdis down. then take his pet(s) down after.
- the WW will stick around for between 10-15 seconds AFTER you kill her. i don't know why.
- disengage will not always get you out of the WW. 10% chance of fail. i have no idea why.
- feign will not reset aggro on ANY summoned pet. but does reset on boss mobs though.
- feign will reset WW 100% of the time, unless you bounce back up too fast.
- you can LOS a WW to go away using pillars. this buys you a few seconds. if you are lucky, she will recast it on your pet. if unlucky, she will cast it directly on you. if disengage is on CD, you are screwed. so it is a gamble i used it often.

this room was not designed well. there are soo many places to get LOS with your pet in a corner, it is not funny. not healing pet, or not dpsing Caribdis is bad.
- move pet back to middle of room asap. this is key to a good fight.

you will lose health, so bring good pots and the best bandages you can. this is nice, because spitfire totem misses you most of the time, and you can often get a full bandage off.

deshya, winterhoof

Comment by WorgN6

Fun fact:

Divine Shield doesn't prevent the tornado from doing bad things to you.

Comment by Ozrek

Just a note here for any Paladin's trying to tank solo this. Its impossible since the spell Cataclysmic Bolt will knock you down by half HP every 10 seconds. Usually 3 will kill you. It only targets people who have mana on their character so ferals and such never get hit by this.

I tried with a feral tank buddy but I died within 20 seconds of the fight due to the Cataclysmic Bolt.

Comment by 919422

Impossible to do this with pally tank. As long you are a mana user, it's impossible. His catalysmic bolt kills alot.

Comment by 924583

solo this as prot paladin in dps gear.

Comment by PanzersSkywall

NOT A JOKE AT 85.

Easiest way is to have NO mana users to down him.

If you have mana users (2-man group) be prepared for a bad surprise.

Comment by Isadora

2/5/2012 - Soloed as a Ret paladin, ilvl 390 with a soloing raid spec I use http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sbhbZobZfbusbksbfz:VcRqRM

Used Prismatic Elixir, Elixir of the Cobra, Runescroll of Fortitude II, Blessing of Kings, Resistance Aura, Beer-Basted Crocolisk and a Magic Resistance Potion.

I prepotted the potion on the pull (put me at 305 shadow resist, found out after the fight it didn't stack with Resistance Aura), popped every CD on the start and focused on burning Caribdis off the start. I was going to kill the hunter next but ended up killing the shaman instead then the hunter than the boss. Still had well over 4 mins on the enrage when I killed him, I had a few close calls but I was saving my holy power for Word of Glory heals. I had to use my Lay on Hands early on because I was stuck in the tornado after Caribdis died but was able to get away and killed him first try.

I have a video of it so you can see where I started the fight at, I'll be uploading it shortly. It helps at the start so you don't have to worry about the tornado, the knockback can be killer though if you get knocked out before Caribdis is dead (which happened to me just after she died)

Video of the kill and some comments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj5_8OzYCyo&

Comment by 961941

soloed this as 85 bm hunter 391 ilvl with turtle tank. killed caribdis first to stop the heals than sharkkis followed by tidalvess and than the boss. was very easy just dpsed and managed the pets health. thats pretty much it. fded when i pulled pet aggro and didnt need to do anything else besides avoid the tornado.

Comment by Esploratore

Soloed this in the past as prot warrior, but normally I am arms (for dps) and fury (for more healing while soloing), so until they implement the triple talent spec, I cba paying 66 gold to get prot and then again 66 to come back to arms\fury, so I stopped soloing him after the second time I did as prot.

As prot I focused on the healer and interrupted her, but was very hard, 0,9 sec cast time + often got hit by tornadoes, but once I killed her it was quite fine, enraged regeneration, killed the other adds and enraged regen was ready again for karathress, also used impending victory when adds were low to get some 17k victory rushes.

Now managed to do it as fury, 392 item level, what brought me to attempt him again was the fact that I won a trinket from raid finder, eye of unmaking, 78 str per hit, stacking up to 10 times, replacing the old level 378 one.

Also to note that I'm reforged for arms, so my dps is not really the one that should be for a 392 fury warrior, warriors of this level can outdps the twins in aq 40, I cannot, so should be even easier for correctly reforged ones.

What I did was using death wish + 2.200 str trinket on the healer, and also heroic rage. Then I got hit by a tornado, heroic leaped away, she healed once, then recklessness, got hit by a tornado when she had 30k, but still managed to kill her.

After that used enraged regeneration, and focused on the naga add, and then the humanoid add, bloodthirst was enough to heal.

After that karathress, killed before enraged regeneration was ready and he wasn't even damaging me, bloodthirst + blood craze heal more.

2 mins and 45 total, takes 6 mins as prot and it's VERY frustrating to kill the healer at start, so I'd suggest doing this as fury if you have fury and prot spec.

----------------------------------

I also have a dk, managed to solo this one back at 318 item level (overpowered class?)! Same tactic, just even as so bad geared dk you have much more healing, so all you have to do is use army to distract a bit some adds, and meanwhile nuke the healer, after that it's very easy; at 372 item level I managed to shorten up the time a lot going boss straight after healer died, done in 2 mins and something, and now with 381 item level I went boss straight, and it took 1 minute and 28, lol, the healer tried to heal, but not much to do aganist 85k death strikes.

Comment by Odaiko

Thought I'd try to burn him down super-fast as a 400+ geared arcane mage and get it done before my mirror images died. With timewarp, all CDs used I got him to about 75%, then his Cataclysmic Bolt hit me for 140k. Would have been 180k without mage armor resistances. Not sure why it 1-shot me like this rather than the 50% of health it's supposed to do.

Comment by Tadziers

It's really easy when you follow this kill order: Female Naga -> Male Naga -> Shaman -> Boss.
Done it today with a Ench Shaman (I'm Surv Hunter) without badass gear.

Comment by Craz

Solo'd pretty easily as lvl 85 arms warrior with second wind item level 392. Opened with recklessness bladestorm, once bladestorm faded, I popped retaliation killing the healer first (Caribdis). Once the tornado spawns, just backpeddle while still facing the rest of the mobs so you can keep doing damage as well as parrying and dodging. The tornado won't catch up to you, if it gets close you can always heroic leap away. You will probably need to rallying cry + enraged regen at this point. Don't forget you can always shield wall, shield block if you really need to. Once at final phase, I started getting frozen (stunned) and second wind would outheal any dps Fathom-Lord Karathress would do alone. As long as you can get to Fathom-Lord Karathress alone with approx 10% hp, you will win, cause second wind will keep you healed.

I found it much easier as Arms than Fury spec with dual gurthalaks. Simply because you dish out a ton of damage with recklessness bladestorm, and second wind will heal you when stunned. With 90 str food, flask, golemblood pre pot (before entering combat) the healer should die before your bladestorm falls off.

Comment by 267546

Paladin protect solo 378 iLvl. (heroic gear) It is possible to kill this boss.

With these talents http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sbhbZGMhcRddRMuc
Template just for this boss, oriented world of glory with heavy damage. 5092 str. (the sta is not important, don't hesitate to put dps trinkets) Glyphs : Seal of insight, World of Glory, Shield of the Righteous, Divine protection, Focused Shield, Lay of Hands (useless in this fight, the glyph not the ability).

So Obviously kill order : 1. Fathom-Guard Caribdis (naga female) 2. Fathom-Guard Sharkkis (naga male) 3. Fathom-Guard Tidalvess (shaman) 4. Boss, Fathom-Lord Karathress

How ?
Seal of insight + Resistance Aura, you need to heal good enought while having some good burst.The str is more important than the stamina in this fight. Since the more sta u got the more you take dmg, the more str you have the more you'll heal and do damage.

Cataclysmic Bolt is what's doing sick damage, but it is resistable, if you can have a couple of Shadesteel shadow resi gear, this boss is going to drop even easier. With these talents when you are below 35% hp, your word of glory will most likely crit, which mean you will be back anywhere between 75 to 100% hp. So don't be too eager to use WoG whenever it's up wait for the boss to use the bolt and then use it.
At the beginning when you focus the healer you have to move around very fast, because she can pop that tornedo, and if you get caught in it, your chances of wipe are through the roof. Once she pops the tornado and you are far away you can relax a bit and concentrate heavily on the damage for a bit.
You need to interrupt the heal. This is very important.

Also Divine protection will assure you a free Cataclysmic bolt.

Don't use Avenger wrath when you pull the boss, this ability can also heal you. So try to use it after the first tornado, when you are commited to kill the healer, while you are also planning to use a word of glory. Your 2-3 first word of glory will decide the entire fight so you need them to be as big as possible.

When there is only the boss left, it's still challenging damage, but keep moving and use all your cooldowns. He enrages at about 10% or so, so keep that in mind too.

The other thing you have to look after is that freeze, so be sure it can come at any time, you need to have enought hp to survive it.

Overall if you can interrupt that heal, avoid the tornado, and maybe you need a tiny bit of luck too on these freeze, and you are set. I can only imagine who easy this become with 400iLvl, granted you have these talents.

If you feel you are going to wipe you can get out of the room the boss will reset.

Comment by auraj1125

2manned this today.
Prot paly
Ret paly

Slammed everything into Boss and ignored the adds.

He died in less than 1minute and we finished the adds after.

Ret paly made it very easy to heal through cata bolt with 2 talent points into selfless healer.

Comment by Lilyi

Not too bad to solo now as a shadow priest in 5.0.4 at 85.

Use the Dark Binding, Renew and Prayer of Mending glyphs (all very important to keep up on healing without dropping shadow form).
Use Body and Soul, FDCL, Angelic Bulwark, and Divine Insight for talents
Get 3 orbs on a trash pack before the pull
Open on the healer with VT -> DP -> Mind Blast -> Pain -> Shadowfiend -> Fade and hope that she casts tornado on your shadowfiend instead of you. If not, try to get out of it before the knockup.
If you get trapped in the tornado, use all divine insight mind blasts and DP on the healer, death her when she gets low, and spam SWP on the other mobs for more insight procs until she dies. Keep a renew and PoM on yourself while waiting for procs.
If you don't get trapped, just finish off the healer and stay away from the tornado.
From here on, shield, PoM, and renew yourself as soon as the previous one expires or the ability is off cooldown.
If SWP and VT are both up, mind blast is on cooldown, there's not already a DP ticking on the target you want to cast it on, and you don't have any procs, feel free to cast less-than-3-orb DP's. It's a small damage loss, but each DP heals you for about 15k at 85, regardless of the number of orbs used to cast it (a little more if you get DP tick procs from mastery).
Prioritize VT on all targets highest if your mana gets low (it shouldn't).
Disperse if you really need the mana (you shouldn't) and try to line it up with a cataclysmic bolt cast.
Kill the hunter next. You can kill his pets before killing him if you want, but you don't have to.
Kill any remaining hunter pets.
Kill the shaman, then the boss.

Comment by FatalD

Tried soloing as a 90 destro lock. Cataclysmic bolt hit me for 190k. Rediculously stupid $%^&ing game mechanics against casters.

Cliffs: ^&*!ing stupid fight

Comment by Lolstorm

If you try to attempt to kill this boss as a druid, I suggest doing it as guardian/feral. The boss will only hit mana-users with his scaling hard hitting ability.

Comment by 405104

Ret pala here , went today to solo him for legs token ( 5.1 ), popped all my CDs , started burning him with 150k DPS and that dude 1 shot me with his bolt , doing 554 501 dmg to me , i got 375k HP ......

Comment by Tykes

Easily soloable as 477 ilvl Assassination Rogue.
Just kill the boss with Evasion up, use Combat Readiness after that and kill adds as last.
Should take a minute or 2-3.

Comment by lac9090

Solo'ed as an Ele Shaman Patch 5.1

After a few "test" pulls it is very obvious that Cataclysmic Bolt is the biggest problem. Tried to follow the above tips in killing the healer first but would get destroyed by the bolt not long after.

So I switched to a new tactic. I picked up the talents Primal Elementalist and Echo of the Elements. Precast Bloodlust and Empower from the Fire Elemental. Then start the fight with Flame Shock on Fathom Lord Karathress, pop Ascendance and hope for good RNG. The first two times I was able to bring the boss down to about 90k'ish hp (1 Lava Burst away from killing) left before getting 1 shotted by Cataclysmic Bolt. But sure enough the 3rd time he went down. The 3 guards are jokes afterwards. The only annoying thing is if you get caught in the tornado you can't really cast any spells for about 10 seconds.

This is basically a 10 second DPS race so use any trinkets or pots you have. Other than that just hope for a lot of Mastery and Echo of the Element procs within that 10 second window.

Comment by Grummulthrus

Soloed as 90 Elemental Shaman (ilvl 485, Patch 5.1).

Confirming that Cataclysmic Bolt is bugged and hits for more than your total health. However, Astral Shift enables you to live through it.

What I did: pre-Bloodlust, Pop Ascendance/Berserking/Spiritwalker, start with Fire Ele/Healing Stream, burn boss, stay out of tornado. Count to 6, then pop Astral Shift/Ancestral Guidance, continue to burn boss. Hope for good RNG before another Cataclysmic Bolt wrecks you.

Died to him without killing his adds, but all the loot was there when I got back. Not sure if this was a bug...it's been that long since I was in here.

Comment by 519379

Just about solo'd as Destro lock with ~490 iLevel in 5.1.

Built up 4 burning embers on trash packs, popped doomguard, dark soul, pulled at max range with CoE, Immo -> 2*Conflag -> Dark Bargain + Unending Resolve into 2 hasted chaos bolts then whatever I could do after that while being thrown into the air by the hurricane thingy.

Comment by 1060945

Tested: Since paladins have mana, we are at the mercy of this fight. It will kill us at level 90 unless we can cause 1.6 million damage in under ~8 or 16 seconds. However, I've found the way to do it.

Do not kill the add first. The focus is Kara'thress. At 75%, He will go berzerk. Timing is the key. 1) Wait for the first cataclysmic bolt, or 2) Start right away with CD's.

1) After the first bolt, time Divine Shield for ~7 seconds after. This should allow you to negate the next bolt, and possibly the one after, allowing you maximum damge time, if not maximum damage, on him.

2) Start right away by blowing everything. Have a timer for ~8 seconds, or self time it. Blow Divine Shield at this time, because at this point, he will more than likely have gotten to 75% or less and gained Blessing of the Tides with three adds, and Cataclysm Bolt will now one shot you. For the mathematically challenged, Cataclysm Bolt causes 50% of your max HP, modified by Blessing of the Tides (66% extra damage for each add alive), so if you have 400k, you will take 200k + 198% of 200k (or 200k + (200k * 1.98)) which equals ~596,000 damage.

If you can't kill him before Divine Shield falls off and before he hits you with the next Cataclysm Bolt, you will need more gear, or to come in with a bunch of friends of your own.

Comment by hogue

Not doable as demo warlock 90 yet (2 attempts, not enough self healing). As blood DK killed without problems by accident (pulled 2 groups and "those in the corner"). Finished with 100% health.

Comment by PanzersSkywall

90 BM Hunter / Ferocity pet (Spirit beast), Item level 465.

I simply blew every cooldowns on Fathom-Lord right off the bat, including stampede. Multi-Shot spam.

Thankfully, we don't have mana anymore for this guy!

Comment by 544862

Solo'd as a lvl 90 boomkin. 392 ilvl. Used Food buff + Crit elixir + Pot. Took 3 attempts, literally just had to kill him before he got a cast off.

Pre-pull: Laid mushrooms infront of me. Incarnation + Celestial Alignment + Nature's Vigil + Trinket + Berserking + Pot.

Starsurge, then starfall, dot, shroom, and just nuke & pray.

Comment by shmonnorshmusie

Solo'd as a lvl 90 Affliction Warlock, ilvl 480. After trying a few times and figuring it to be hopeless I logged off and when I came back on I gave it another shot before I left. Just purely zerging him, I popped Dark Soul, Synapse Springs, Terrorguard, COE, Soulburn + Soul Swap and had my Observer out. About three seconds in popped Dark Bargain, then Unending resolve about five seconds later, and then a quick Healthstone and Mortal Coil about five more seconds later. And to my surprise I managed to get him down. Not sure what my DPS was because his adds screwed it up on Recount, but it is 100% soloable on a Warlock. Also on a side note, the defense cd's I used and the time intervals were not planned out at all and maybe I just got lucky, so try to find a good order for you to use. Keep trying Warlocks!

Also: I did not use any pots, flasks, food or anything else that you can buy to help so bring some of those if you'd like =]

Comment by drimear

Was able to solo as ret with a 470 set of gear, Just popped all cds, and went balls out on karathress.

made sure to have sacred shield up before going in, and had the glyph to make magical damage taken reduced by 40%.

Basically head in, guns a blazing, and pop Divine Protection to absorb the first bolt, then give yourself a leeway of about 5-8 seconds, then bubble and continue to dps. He should be pretty much dead at this point.

Comment by Brenstel

tried about 4 times to solo as a 488 spriest but the stuns and tornadoes made healing cataclysmic bolt overwhelming but after my druid buddy came in to spam heals then we one shotted him.

Comment by Keye

I tried to solo as a fresh 90 Enh shaman (448 ilvl). First time, I was destroyed in a matter of seconds. After reading some tips on here, I had no issues at all the second time.
Using Unleashed Fury as 90 talent, put WF/RB imbues, RB for the 40% damage reduction.
Used Heroism, Spirit Wolves, Elemental Mastery/Lifeblood, and Ascendance, before I pulled. Popped an Agi pot, and charged in. Dropped a grounding totem, which ate the first bolt. UE for 40% reduction, Stone Bulwark Totem, Stoneform (Dwarf, 10% damage reduction), Shamanistic Rage, and Ancestral Guidance.
He died very quickly, and if I took any damage at all, it was so miniscule I couldn't notice it.
Hardest bit was killing the adds after the boss while being tossed around in the tornado.
Indeed doable, as a fresh 90.

Comment by Beranis

Patch 5.3 hammered this guy hard and presented a moderate challenge against non-mana users fighting against the stun.

"For the Fathom-Lord Karathress encounter, Cataclysmic Bolt now deals 10% of the target's maximum health plus 500 damage, down from 50% of target's maximum health, the stun effect is now a Stun mechanic, and can target any player instead of only characters with mana."

The wider range of targets is a buff, yes. But the spell lost a huge amount of it's damage, from hitting like a truck to hitting for a moderate amount.

Comment by NefastusAmph

Successfully solo'd as a 90 Frost Mage.

The trick is to mirror images/time warp before pulling, then burn the boss down as hard as possible. About 6 seconds in, hit Alter Time. Then, when he hits you with the first bolt, you hit Alter Time again and are back at full health. I was able to burn him down before the third bolt. Adds are easy after that, as you can blink out of the tornado.

Comment by mazryken

As of today, 4/21/13, patch 5.2, there's something buggy about the fight. Cataclysmic Bolt is no longer hitting for 50% health, but rather >100% of my health. I have been instantly killed 4 times within 6ish seconds of the pull by cataclysmic bolt doing about 20k over my maximum health in my combat log. It's either reading my maximum health wrong, or there's currently a bug affecting the damage output of this ability. Obviously, 6s is a bit too fast to kill Karathress :) Anyone else experience this problem?

Comment by 1116037

Mazryken:

4/21/13, 6:30 PM: Same issue. Cataclysmic Bolt hits me for 117% of my maximum health on every single cast. I got him to about 20% in one attempt in the first 5-10 seconds, then he one-shot me. I can't burn him before he casts cataclysmic bolt, so I'll simply have to not go after my tier legs until he's fixed.

Comment by RabbleRouser

Confirmed his Cataclysmic Bolt is hitting for >100% of maximum life. My shaman has 349,600 HP currently, and today I was hit for:

428,624
489,856
360,946
515,638

These were all taken on the very first cast, and the variance is due to different damage reduction effects active.

Also of note, Nature's Guardian didn't work against this as expected. I'm guessing it's because the spell only works if the attack brings you below 30% but doesn't kill you, unlike Cheat Death.

Comment by 314764

Soloed as a restoration druid, ilvl 497 with no tier set bonuses. I tried several times as balance, but I couldn't do enough damage fast enough to avoid Cataclysmic Bolt, or heal myself fast enough to live through it, so I figured if I needed heals, I might as well be heals.

For talents, I took Soul of the Forest for the extra Lifebloom ticks, and for some free DPS. I had Nature's Swiftness but didn't end up using it, so Cenarion Ward might be more beneficial.

I pre-hotted myself with 3xLB and a Rejuv, and laid down some mushrooms, then popped and burned down Fathom-Guard Caribdis. After that I took down Fathom-Guard Sharkkis, then Fathom-Guard Tidalvess, then the little adds, and finally Fathom-Lord Karathress. By the time the adds were down, was off cooldown, so I popped that and my Kafa Press (instead of a potion) for the boss. It was not fast, the whole fight took 8 min 6 sec, but I didn't die and the boss did, so mission accomplished.

Healing was a little dicey at times, mostly because as a raid healer I get a little panicky when I see someone lose half their health in one shot. I made sure to keep Rejuv and 3xLB rolling at all times and it saved me several times where I was stunned during or after a Cataclysmic Bolt. I used Swiftmend on cooldown and refreshed LB with the SotF buff for the haste. I alternated Ironbark and Barkskin, and used clearcasting for free Regrowths. Some people have said that Cataclysmic Bolt is broken and doing more than 50% damage, but with all three adds down I did not have this problem, it hit me for exactly 50% health and as a healer it was easy to patch that up and keep going.

Comment by nosf

For those who still are after something and haven't worked around the current Cataclysmic Bolt issue, come 5.3 -

•For the Fathom-Lord Karathress encounter, Cataclysmic Bolt now deals 10% of the target's maximum health plus 5000 damage, down from 50% of target's maximum health, the stun effect can be removed by abilities that free the player from stuns, and the spell now targets any character class instead of only targeting character classes with mana.

EDIT: This fix is live, have fun bouncing in the goddamn tornado while you beat them to death.

Comment by Uziga

Fathom-Lord Karathress Cataclysmic Bolt hit You 302522 Shadow. (196585 Overkill).

Impossible to solo this guy atm.

Comment by gtadem

Just solo'ed this as a 488 elemental shaman. I did use shamanistic rage, gift of the naaru, and healing tide totem. Based on what I'm reading from other comments, I'm guessing my use of a fire elemental totem (2nd target) is how I was able to survive this. First try was successful, but had another 90 at the ready just in case.

Comment by Nevermoor

Just soloed this as an Arcane Mage, ilvl 505. Hurrah for 5.3! Used buff food, flask, etc. Stood in my glyphed Rune of Power. I just went straight for Karathress. Cast Time Warp, Mirror Images, Arcane Power, Alter Time, & then kept Nether Tempest up on him. This way, I had a chance to burn him down, then just had to mop up the three subordinates. Getting aggro off me right at the start was what made the difference, I think.

Comment by 923073

Very easy fight as of 5.3 Solo'd as a 498 SV Hunter. I had food buff and flask, redirected to pet then pre-pot, popped all cool-downs and engaged. I was shocked at how fast he went down. The fight took about 10s, and he did a grand total of 7.1k damage. He never got Cataclysmic Bolt off during the fight.

Good luck!

Comment by bradmc

Pretty much requires you to kill him with burst damage before he can let off 2 Cataclysmic bolts unless you can mitigate them with divine protection and whatnot. If you cant burst at high dps numbers you probably still won't be able to kill him. For casters, after about 15 seconds the adds become virtually unmanageable as your casts will continuously be interrupted

Comment by 1064132

Just soloed him as a 90 combat rogue in pvp gear. He's pretty simple. I didn't even use recoop.

Comment by Illumina4

Soloed as a Shadow Priest with only 19k spell power (Only done a little bit of LFR).

I kept getting owned by this boss until I started nuking down the priestess first. After that it was a walk in the park because I no longer got thrown into the air by her cyclones.

Hope that helps others that has had trouble with this boss. :)

Comment by Sweetcake

I've found out that if you kill Karathress and then run into the next room, the rest will reset but his body will be still there and you will be able to loot him. Worked for me for the last few weeks.

Comment by erikl

Solo'ed today as ilvl 462 prot warrior with second wind.

Clear room of trash first so that you have plenty of room to move around.
The key here as many others have pointed out is to hammer down the priest Caribdis first.
Then DPS down the 2 other adds and finally burn through the boss.
Heroic leap can get you out of the tornado every once in a while if you find it too annoying.
Also it is very handy to put up shield barrier as often as possible at low health as it will absorb most of the damage from cataclysmic bolts

Comment by Calicia

Soloed today as an ilvl 501 fire mage.

Clear all trash, then buff up with everything you have - I used a Flask of the Warm Sun and Mogu Fish Stew in addition to Molten Armor, Arcane Brilliance, and Evocation. Target Caribdis first and blow all cooldowns to burn her down as fast as possible; Blink will get you out of her tornadoes if you get caught in them. Then burn down the other two adds (order doesn't really matter), then Karathress. As soon as cooldowns come back up, pop them again, and don't wait until you're too low on health to use a health pot.

Getting Caribdis down first is vital - the first two times I tried this, I didn't focus on her first and wiped without getting any of them down. Once I focused on getting her down as fast as possible first, I was able to get them all down.

Comment by r00st3r

Last night I soloed this on a 494 discipline priest.

First I killed Caribdis, then I killed Tidalvess and then Sharkkis before finally killing Karathress. Wasn't to hard but then again I was always healing myself via Atonement and Serendipity.

Good luck everyone. Order is key.

Comment by Caglock

Soloed as a 502 Holy Priest, it's really slow but works. Put a Lightwell down before starting, then just spread Shadow Word: Death on all 4, then use Holy Fire and Chastise on your main target whenever they come up. It's near impossible to cast Smite without getting cycloned/frozen/stunned, so don't even bother. It's painfully slow, but at least you won't die. Carbidis is always priority focus.

Comment by Velvetine

2-boxed this one pretty easily 85 (384) Hunter and 90 (512) shadow priest. I was only in there to get the hunter some t-mog gear, so it was just on follow for the first couple of wipes.

1st time I tried to nuke Karathress, huge fail. Go check wowhead - this isn't a faceroll.

2nd time went in the order suggested above by Skadja (Caribdis -> Hunter -> Shaman). Went a lot further this time, but Karathress eventually killed me (he was at ~5%, so just needed a little tweaking).

3rd time I pulled up hunter's pet scorpid, macro'd him to Kill Command & tank the boss. I threw Prayer of Mending and Renew at him (prob only needed Prayer of Mending in hindsight) while I burned the adds in Skadja's order. Clearly 85 scorpid tank takes a hit better than 90 clothie, because keeping the pet up was trivial even while he had all the adds. I could just pick the adds up one by one from "Pinchy". By the time I started burning Karathress, he was at about 30% health. I took aggro from the pet, but it went pretty smoothly from there. I was hit by a couple of stuns, but the dots kept ticking, then I hit him with back to back Shadow Word: Death to finish it.

Comment by SvenL

Did it today on 6.0.2 as a retadin (90 @ 545) and it is a no-brainer. Go for the boss and use AoE-rotation and they soon all fall down.

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Fathom-Lord Karathress

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Fathom-Lord Karathress

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