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Comment by Dimanoid

No idea why last boss is called "Kronus" here, actually his name in "Loken".
Doing moderate melee damage, from time to time casting AOE lighting which can be easy avoided - just run away (include tank). Had no problems with him, killed from the first try.

Comment by 92105

Used to be called Kronus but Blizzard changed it.

There's a "Thorim" in Storm Peaks who is Loken's..brother, I think? Something like that, at anyrate. Thorim is the "good" one and Loken the "bad" one.

Given the massive grab from Norse mythology throughout Northrend, it's clearly a stab at Thor and Loki.

Comment by Ceryx

He'll give the entire party a debuff that does damage based on how far away from the boss they are (and will put everyone in combat by doing so, will remove stealth as well.) Damage from this can be minimized by having the entire party stack close, and having everyone run out from the AOE to the same spot.

Comment by 214152

Really easy boss, unforgiving when you don't know what to do tho. Basically the same as Murmur on Heroic mode. Stack on boss when dpsing, and run away when he's casting his aoe. This is for regular mode. Also take note not to run too far away. The further you run, the more aoe damage you take from his aura. Hits rather hard too.

Comment by ArgentSun

A relatively easy way to do this fight is to have the group DPS him on the circle he starts at, and run back the line towards the circular area where the two giants were roaming. After his Lightning Nova is finished, just go back to the circle, rinse and repeat.

Comment by 86526

Moving together as a group when out-ranging his nova is definately a viable strat, but one ability Loken has that makes the fight harder than you might realize is a lightning dot he casts on a seemingly random player that jumps to another nearby player after it ends and starts again increasing its damage each time. The damage eventually caps but especially on heroic mode this ability will continue to do a lot of damage unless the player with the dot moves away from the rest of the group. (and takes more damage himself from the range-based aura) Loken will cast a new dot soon after, but its damage will be reset to the initial minimal ticks.

Comment by 83565

Lightning nova can NOT be LOS'd.

Comment by 247691

Did the boss in heroic mode today, the AOE lightning does around 14k, and his debuff does around 1.5k at 10y distance. Just stay under the boss and move away when he cast the AOE, everyone needs a lot of healing, so a Druid or Priest is much prefered.

Comment by HolgerDK

Seems like he only casts Arc Lighting after Lightning Nova.

Comment by Nokturnal

HEROIC MODE

The trick to the fight is basically the Eagle Boss from ZA in reverse.

Stay collapsed on top of him entire fight until he casts Lightning Cloud, then run away from him.

DO NOT run as a group from Lightning Cloud as previously mentioned in comments, stay spread out.

Lightning arc is a dot he randomly casts during fight that targets one player, after it ticks on you it will try to jump to someone else, if you are spread out it can't jump anywhere. The dot gains dmg with each jump so staying spread out during Lightning Cloud is a good idea.

Comment by amphitrite

No...do stay together on heroic.

3 things that make this fight one of the easiest fights in the game on heroic.
1. His aoe tick is based on you near him and near your group. It hits harder the farther you are apart.
2. His big aoe will one shot you
3. after his big aoe, he will run right at the tank

If you stay on the white line..make it so easy.

Group on your tank in the center circle and smack him down until his aoe. Run down the white line until his aoe goes off...like 1 second, and go again. When he aoes, run down the white line again. You'll get 3-4 aoes down the white line. Once he does it again, go back up the white line towards the circle. Back and forth...

Your party will take up for 5k ticks from his normal aoe if you spread out. If you stay together when you run, hell come right to your tank and you'll only take one big tick.

We wiped 3 times trying it every other way. Once we did this we easily one shot him, and I was more then 1/2 mana still.

Comment by Shooya

His epic drops are:

Mail Girdle of the Audient Earth
Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver
Advanced Tooled-Leather Bands
Woven Bracae Leggings

Comment by SamLocke07

Not sure if anyone has tried this yet but I recently watched the Project Lore: Boss Kill, Loken. (http://www.wowhead.com/?projectlore=wotlk-2.9) and they LoS (line of sighted) the AoE and took no damage what so ever.

All they did was group up on the boss, causing only 400-500 dmg per aura tick and then on the AoE they all went behind 1 of 4 pillars around Loken, causing no damage to any of them.

Can someone test this and let me know? Thanks.

Comment by lazareth

We found that we were able to interrupt his AoE if we kicked it at the last couple seconds of his cast. Not sure if this is a bug or intended.

Comment by 130654

Well, in heroic mode we attempted many times to alternate 2 spots where to tank him, but usually someone died very fast once he moved a bit more away from Loken.

We decided to try and soak the lightning nova,and just stand still all the time, so his aura does minimal harm. We all had healthstones, blessing of sanctuary, devotion aura to help healing and nature resist totem, and everyone party was over 13k hp...stam food or such can help there.

This way you have minimal damage going on cept the nova. While the nova has 4s cast time, you can make sure everyone is topped off before it hits, and a shammy could heal it up really fast so we were safe for next nova.

Thanks to this causing all the party damage being completely predictable, as long as your healer can keep up and your party wont get oneshot (not many people have less than 14k hp lately), it makes the fight really easy, also, judgement of light and such things help a lot here.

EDIT: ok,today we had a holy pally there, no healthstones or pots, and the group insisted on moving from the nova...after 4 wipes they decided to give my stupid idea a try, and gotta say that even with holy pally, who lacks any sort of AoE heals, the fight is extremely easy when everyone just stands on top of tank.

Comment by Fugazi

This boss can be easy or big pain in the ass.

What you need to know:
- You want to stay close to him.
- You do not want to stay close to someone else.
- You do not want to be hit by aoe.

So simply you need to be close to boss keeping distance of each other (tank especially) and when he cast aoe you run away 20+ yards and then come back as soon as possible.

- If you got hit by Lightning Nova - you ran too slow or/and not far enough.
- If you got hit by Arc Lightning by someone (not boss) or you hit someone with it - you were too close to each other.
Keep avoiding above and try to stay as close to boss and possible and it will be easy.

EDIT: Above is for heroic.

Comment by ThyFlame

Just use the big white line on the ground, the throne and the orb as your reference points.

Start at the throne. After the first nova, run south to the orb (roughly to the stairs). Everyone stops and waits and healer does his thing.

Tank WAITS for the boss to COME TO HIM. If you charge back in, everyone is now separated, loses DPS time and more importantly gets you behind on healing.

Second nova run back to the throne.

Rinse and repeat.

Don't pug this and don't bring healers with lag or slow reaction times. They will fail (first hand experience).

Comment by 255048

We had some serious problems with this boss due to coordination and running out in time. I decided to just stand in and soak the AoE(14k unresisted damage) but had the shaman drop nature resist totem(it IS nature) and dropped it to 8-9k, a very manageable AoE.
Hope that helps.
Our group setup was also a feral tank/balance druid/arms warrior/frost mage/restoration shaman

Comment by Kickkiller

my grp was

me (resto shaman)
DK unholy
Hunter
Mage
Warrior tank

What we did was we kited him futher away from his throne each time.

I have a good sence of time, and i counted chain heals between AoE thing, and it was 6 CHs, which is around 20 seconds..

so every time i made 5 CHs i moved away and charged my new CH to prepare etc.

We did it easyly when we got control of it..

Also, a good thing is to move before he starts casting, so you dont have to either cancel a spell, or wait for it to go off!

Comment by Mazuli

My group consisted of 4 melee and me, a resto shaman. Basically we tanked him at the throne until the nova. When he did the nova we ran south down the white line. He died after 3 novas. We made sure all melee stood in front of him next to the tank so they could get away from the nova in time as well, even if it meant parried attacks. After that we ran back to him and repositioned ourselves. Rinse and repeat. As the healer all I did was lesser healing wave. Chain heal takes too long to cast and the fight is so short (and I'm taking damage that eats water shields) that mana efficiency isn't a problem. Very easy fight if everyone can be coordinated. Later on it'll be easy when people are geared and make stupid mistakes but for now only take competent people.

Comment by Martyr017

If your having troubles on this boss, I have made a video to help you with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3Z5ZGQEuY

Best luck to you.

Comment by Spinnacer

Probably the hardest 5-man HC boss. It's barely PUGable. It sounds easy enough but he also casts http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=52921#used-by-npc a dot that damages all nearby groupmebers, ticks every sec, add to that his aura. There goes 8k hp for everyone, meanwhile the tank is getting meleed hard.

Oh someone didn't quite make it out the nova.. etc..

If you're going in PUG, Bring 2 healers, seriously. (Note. Holy Paladins can't handle all the AoE damage. Get someone with proper AoE-heals.

Comment by 151381

Listed as WoW's Most Dangerous Mob on the official site for Nov 25th 2008, with over 88,000 people wiping on him!

Comment by 254912

We killed him yesterday on heroic mode.
1 warrior (me) tanking, shaman healer, deathknight, rogue and druid dpsing.
In order to avoid positioning him properly between novas we had preset a route I'd take towards the entrance of the room and everyone followed that direction everytime he started casting nova.
So no running back and forth needed and the whole group was automatically standing in front of him in order to minimize the distance people had to run.
Nova is 20yards radius so you can check when to stop running by looking at your taunt button.

Comment by derxer89

I can only warn you from trying this guy with pugs.
it needs only one lowbob that screws up when the nova comes and you wont likely be able to dps him down fast enough.

Comment by ksjoet

After dowing this boss a couple of times and wiping the best strategy is to designate a running path to everyone when they run from nova. You need to do this to get rid of the arc lightning debuffs. So have one party member run south, one west, one north and one east. The tank can be standing to soak it up if you got a good group or he can run. If the tank is running I suggest he runs in almost the same direction as the healer. This is to minimize the running distance for the healer so he can as much as possible stand still and heal.

So hug him, spread out when nova comes, run back in and pew pew. Even if 2 DPS dies you can still get him down if the rest of you do it correctly. Also if someone is lagging or have bad MS it's almost impossible to run away from the nova. I had 600ms the other day and even if I were standing at 5-10yd from the boss I still never managed to run out even if I was way clear of it on my own screen.

Comment by 100447

just killed by 3men group (HC). Warr tank, restosham, lock.
Combat duration 3.23min, but longer fight is better for healer then heal 5man group damaged by aura dmg.......
You should try it :)

Comment by Nishika

Easy boss. Stay together, nuke him down, run away when he does AoE. Drag him down the white line on the floor, then it's easy for people to stay together. If you run out of space, any decent tank knows how to force the boss to step backwards :-)

This is how we do it:
http://www.wegame.com/watch/Loken_in_Halls_of_Lightning_Heroic/

Comment by wutz

My guildmates have killed him in heroic recently with achievement (kill him in less than 2 min). After several wipes they decided no to avoid AoE and just stayed in boss all the time. His aoe hits for 10-15k, so if the whole group has more than 15k hp, you can try this tactics. Seems to be very easy with resto shaman or holy priest.

Comment by Dimanoid

If you have good DPS (no matter ranged or melee) and any type of AoE healer you can kill him just by zerging. All stand together and nuke. Dont run away even on nova, it strikes hard but you can survive with good equip. Resto shaman is the best choice, heroism+chainheal. Killed him 2 times this way on HC.

Comment by azanul

My group spent 2 days trying to clear this guy on heroic, we tried every strat...
We tried healing through the aoe, kiting down the white line, running through him at start of the cast.
We tried a constant kite strategy, nothing worked.

How we finally cleared it:
Have your tank, pull him and stand in the circle in front of his throne. Stand at max melee range from Loken... mark your tank with a raid symbol, and have everyone stand ontop of your tank (at max melee range). This will cause a bit more damage from the dot due to being further away from Loken but it makes running a lot easier.

(A helpful hint, pan your view around so your screen is facing in the direction you're going to be running to. Wait for the system message "Loken begins to cast" and just click both mouse buttons forcing your character to run in the direction of your view...)

Run down the line about 10 yards, have your tank turn Loken around so you're facing his throne...stay at max melee range again. Next cast run to the circle where you first pull him. Rinse and repeat. We cleared him first attempt and got the 2 minute achievement trying it this way.

Comment by Lightrain

Ok, from a holy pally PoV, who actually doesn't have much gear, but enough for heroics.....

Did this on heroic, and was actually quite easy as long as everyone gets out of the AoE cast. That is the deal breaker.

My plan as a pally, since I have Beacon of Light, is stack stack stack. This makes this fight very easy, and very managable. Since I, the healer, can not move once I'm casting, everyone stacks on me after nova. The fight starts, stack on tank, if he takes damage, an instant holy shock(BTW, as a pally, starting a fight is the most crucial. Seal of * that you use for healing, Beacon of light on tank as well as Sacred shield. Everyone stacks, and this makes the Jumping attack a benefit. When it jumps, heal the party member that takes damage. This heals the tank as well. Beacon of light makes this fight easy as long as everyone is quick enough to get out of the aoe. You move as a group. After the aoe, the tank gets the boss to stop a few yards away, backs up to the party, and the fight resumes. The "bounce" damage actually makes it so the gradual damage from his aura gets healed as well eventually. This makes coordination easy. I don't see why a small heal or HoT can't handle the same function, and do this the same way with the other healing classes. Start at the top, and travel down toward the bottom of the stairs.

Stacking on the tank seems to reduce his damage intake. Is this part of the fight?

Comment by 219351

Man this boss took me 8 deaths,5 hours and 2 groups to finally kill. Your whole group needs to be on the ball because one stuff up will meen a wipe. Finally downed him when everyone miraculously followed me to next tanking spot, didn't get hit by lightning nova(alot) and used cool downs at the right time.

Edit:This boss is topping the wow top list:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/toplist/

Comment by 183171

Our best attempts on heroic involved the tank not moving and eating the nova. Party members spread around the boss in a circle, maintaining enough distance to avoid spreading the lightning debuff but also being close enough to minimize the aoe tick damage. When he cast his lightning nova, all members except the tank merely moved backwards five or six yards to avoid the nova then moved right back in. No kiting involved. This avoided the nova spike damage and the quickness of the movement meant that the healer was less troubled by not being able to heal due to running. Unfortunately, we were simply under geared for the encounter and lost some people right before repops.

Comment by Darkomicron

Loken has several abilities:

An aura that deals nature damage, to everyone, each second, the further you stand away from him, the more damge you receive.
A Lightning Nova, that deals around 14k damage on heroic, with nature resistance this damage will be reduced
A dot that will have a chance to bounce between party members

Tactics:
Tank Loken at the throne, hug the boss, if someone gets the dot, he should stand a bit further away from the boss, he will receive more damage from the aura but the dot wont jump over to other party members.

When he starts casting a nova, everyone should run to the stairs, and immediatly, because you don't have much time from the start of the cast to get out of range.

Keep going on doing this, you can't LoS the aura or aoe

Comment by 136677

From playing this morning it seems the big AE did not affect my ghoul pet. Possible pets do not get targeted by it.

Comment by 267369

Ok just did this with a group of Pally tank (me), resto shammy, ret pally, hunter and shadow priest. What we did and made this fight really easy was to put aspect of the wild on (130 nature resist) and just stack on him... Nobody moved and just take in the nova and just heal through it After 3 nova.. he is dead and we even get the achievement :)

But maybe what made this really easy was the fact that our shadow priest is aoe healing right after the blast. We just ignored anything else and dps him down.

Comment by 235419

Just downed him as a level 77 DK tank (Yes..I tanked it)

EASY fight, barely got me below 60%. Surprisingly dropped TWO of his items too. The necklace and hood. NO DAMN SEAL!. :(

We just stuck together at his feet and healed through everything. Extremely easy for me.

Comment by 267397

Confirmed..
the easiest (best) way not to get wiped is to use the line and move ... staying close all together.
Most important.. After the Nova do not aggro the boss. Just wait for him to come to the tank.
This way the healer will have the time to do his job...

Comment by 267546

This boss when killing someone with his Nova, should yell :

"You got stuff, but your skill suxx. Try again and defeat me newbie. Until then burn in hell."

This boss reveal skill of people, even good stuffed one, can #$%^ an entire party... I know it, I have been there...

Comment by 267551

Heroic:

Group Make-up:

Paladin (Holy, Healer)
Priest (Shadow, Healer)
Warrior (Protection, Tank)
Death Knight (Unholy, DPS)
Paladin (Retribution, DPS)

Death Knight had T7 (from the 10 man version) leggings and chest. Warrior had T7 (from the 10 man version). Rest of the group was in a various assortment of Heroic and crafted gear.

Our strategy was simply to eat the Lightning Novas. What we would do, is that I (Holy Paladin) would keep up the tank and myself. The Shadow Priest would heal instead of DPS, and keep the group up. We were unaware of the DoT he put on a group member that spread to others, and we just healed through it. It probably helps that our 2 DPS classes are very high DPS classes, although I believe that even with a bit lower DPS it would work, because of our two healer setup. I strongly reccomend to any group trying this for the first time, or even a group that just can't beat it, to use two healers. We also managed to get the achievement for downing him in less than two minutes.

Comment by Sgtown

According to Blizzard, Loken is by far the deadliest NPC in Wrath, by a large amount.

Most Dangerous Creatures

Comment by goto2

moderate difficulty with a priest or druid, painful with a paladin healer

Comment by 67373

a trick to make it a bit easier to heal for a holy paladin is to use beacon of light on him/herself and just stay far enough away from loken so its not needed to move when he does his nova

Comment by mpmagi

Possible to use Anti-Magic Zone to get through this

DPS'ed through Nova by using Anti-Magic Zone on first one. Tranquility on the next. Ran from it on the third Nova.

Comment by 63385

STACK-N-STAY VERSION (Heroic Mode)

We stayed clumped up in a nice, neat little bunch the entire fight and here is how we killed him:

We had a hunter with Aspect of the Wild activated to reduce damage. Since we were stacked, we only took 800 damage/tick
Our shaman healer, with +2000 bonus heal, maxed out everyone's health when Loken started to cast his nova.
Once nova hit, our health was all around 20 - 35%, and healer quickly AoE healed back up.
We only took 2 novas and finished in under 2 minutes, granting us the Timely Death achievement,

Comment by 275370

The boss's all do nature damage, and if you have a shaman their nature resistance totem will trivialize this encounter. I dropped it yesterday on heroic, and the AoE does far less damage, and can easily be healed through. Provided everyone has the health to absorb the brunt just in case Loken gets lucky. Make sure the moment he starts casting the group is healed to full.

If you're a shaman don't listen to the melee who think that a haste totem would be better, the nature resistance totem makes this guy a joke. Just tell them to stand in one spot, and drop the nature resistance totem, have everyone healers included stand in the AE.. it will be weak.

Once again resists trivialize a heroic boss encounter.

Comment by 275371

We tried to stay close but that really didnt worked out. We managed to get him somewhere 60% when there were just tank(pala) and healer(priest). From that point on everything went smooth. So just try to get your groub killed. Only tank and healer is needed to take this boss down! Done in heroic.

Comment by 274900

On Heroic Loken can be tough if you bring the wrong people. If you bring a decent group he is a joke and goes down like a sack of potatoes but I noticed a huge difference when I just invite anyone who asks...I still do for fun and all...What I noticed it is hard to carry this fight by yourself, but what I do to make it easier (as the tank) is put a raid marker above my head so they know to stay on me and run out. The camera tip on this thread was also very helpful...to have your camera facing backward while tanking and use the mouse to run out...although trying to explain it to my group was like pulling teeth as they seem to run any direction they want.

So anyway, depending on whos in your group you are going to either kill this guy with ease or take a few wipes until they figure it out. Another thing to do is explain to the healer who is on high priority to get healed if he cannot keep everyone up, that way you have a chance. Some players may have to be "let go" by not receiving heals for the overall success of the fight if they are not playing properly. I'm talking about rogues who not only do not run out of the nova but also do not use cloak of shadows to eat the nova, instead relying on the healer to pamper them. Rogues who get hit by the nova yet arent even using sprint give me a good laugh too. I never booted anyone but I guess if you can identify the problem maybe just replace with a better player, because I've let a lot of things slide and let a lot of players stay even when they refuse to shape up...

At least they know who is running the show when it is just me and the healer left alive over Loken's dead body...or sometimes just me...mostly because Loken's damage is laughable on Death Knight tanks if you pop the right cooldowns at the right time. I still just invite anyone for the challenge...cuz I dont need his drops at all...but if I was concerned I'd stack the group with DPS who can keep themselves alive while DPSing.

That means classes like Warlocks, Shadowpriests, Shamans for the elemental resist totems...I usually have poorly played rogues, hunters, and cat druids so I really gotta step it up....class wouldnt matter too much if people knew how to play their class. Talking about crap like the feral druids who dont even HoT themselves up before they run in but wonder why they go down first...yep...just bring a good crew if you are worried about this guy and he is cake.

I'd say any healer works for this also, even did it with a ret paly healing us (no beacon obviously), mostly about the DPS taking unnecessary damage by not running out or running too far away or running in the entirely wrong direction....walk the line with the group, thats what its for. Dont run too far, just enough to avoid the nova (range is small IMO). Lots of people like to blame the healer or the tank but I've noticed a lot of DPSers are just lazy and want to be carried, I mean, you guys do realize some tanks run recount and can see who is carrying their weight. You know, all you 10% damage done DPS people out there when you should be pulling around 20-30 like the rest of us? Yeah, I know who you are...seriously...some people need to stop at the AH and buy some upgrades before they try HoL as their first heroic....

Comment by Nycteris

We did this on normal mode last night. Have the group gather in the small circle in front of him and stack on the tank. We had a hunter in the group who had to stand a bit back to use his ranged attacks - about 5 yards or so. There is no need to run. Just soak the damage and heal through the AOE. Damage is managable. He went down very quickly.

Comment by 57197

Nothing hard about it, just need to pay attention to AOE Nova warning! Lather, Rinse, Repeat

10 (12-15-2008) Timely DeathDefeat Loken in the Halls of Lightning on Heroic Difficulty in 2 minutes or less.
10 (12-15-2008) Heroic: Halls of LightningDefeat the Halls of Lightning bosses on Heroic Difficulty.
10 (12-15-2008) Shatter ResistantDefeat Volkhan in the Halls of Lightning on Heroic Difficulty without allowing him to shatter more than 4 Brittle Golems.
10 (12-15-2008) Lightning StruckDefeat General Bjarngrim in the Halls of Lightning on Heroic Difficulty while he has a Temporary Electrical Charge.

Comment by bumba

I want to emphesize this is an idiot check, not a healer check. The first time i stepped into this instance I was 77 and we one shotted it.

Tho those that have dps who don't follow the strat. Kick them. Its not worth the repair bills.

Its even recommended that your group take 5 mintues before the fight to read up on it, discuss it, plan your route, and execute.

Comment by 230695

Duo'd in normal mode with me as a tank and my fiance on her Pally healing.. she had ~1200 spellpower and roughly ~200 haste rating (enough to make Holy Light 2 second cast) and I had ~22000 HP buffed, just under crit cap(about 520) with about 36% avoidance(Frost Spec DK) my gear was less than perfect.. still is.

How this came about was.. we engaged the boss with our group.. a mage and a shaman were with us.. I told them to make sure they followed me (in hindsight I should have raidmarked myself) and within the first nova they were both dead. From that point on it was up to me to bring down all 85% of his HP by myself, she stuck on me like glue (for the most part) and ate one nova during it, we finished with her having ~2000 mana and full hp on both parts.

Since then I am crit capped and about 2k more health. Boss is just as simple in heroic.. I doubt we could duo it, or if we could it would be a long fight, even in normal it took us roughly 6 min to single dps him down, and she had to mana pot once.

Tips for those of you who have(nt) read ghostcrawlers "hey noob" post about how to do this boss:

When he starts channeling Nova he has a sort of pulsing radius around him on the ground, this is roughly the range of the nova.. run just a few feet more and you'll be safe (i'd venture to say it's less than 15yd range). I don't recommend moving too much further than that point.

If you wish to move further to feel like you're out of range then it's your call, I however like to use the ramp and it's nice "prelit" line as a guide when I am running, so the less I run the more space I have to kite him before I have to turn and bring him back to the throne. This also saves time for dps to begin on the boss again.

Mark your tank. What this does is gives everyone else that can't pay attention or is caught up in the battle a visual to know where to run, they should already know when by the big emote that flashes in the center of the screen. When the emote flashes, follow the {skull} or whatever, wherever he may go. The tanks position is key to this fight because his "aoe" damage starts when melee begins (on his part or the tanks); this should mean when he reaches the tank.

Why? well because A) you have to get out of range and B) when Loken hits his nova he starts moving toward the tank and if he reaches the tank and starts to attack before you can reach him, you'll start taking aoe damage, this makes it hard on the healer (especially paladins) and most likely in heroic will result in your death.

That being said there is no reason to eat the novas. Unless perhaps to go for the achievement if your dps is undergeared and your healer can handle the aoe.

Comment by MizukoK

I've seen a few people still asking how to down this boss, so I thought I would post what we usually do in the runs I'm in.

My guild members and I usually just do a few things in this fight.
I'm a SV hunter, so I pop my Aspect of the Wild, MD the tank, and it begins. I shoot a few shots as everyone runs in, and then I follow them.
The tank will take him where he stands, and then Loken will step back twice, right back to his seat. We fight him there.
We stand on his feet, literally, and dps him down. From time to time I may back out in between the blasts to hit him with a few shots - serpent, explosive etc etc- then I'll run back in and lay an immolation trap.
Repeat, gather badges, gg.
Set up is usually a priest healer, oomkin, pally, (me as the hunter) and a random fifth.
There's never really a time where we're low enough to be worried, as the healer we have is on top of things, and I feel that my disengage/shoot for a bit/run like hell back to his foot keeps my dps pretty decent.

Comment by 60999

90% of the time when I've downed this boss successfully on heroic, even with pugs, we just rely on the healer to keep us up through the nova. As a DK I already don't take hardly any damage from the nova with strategic use of Antimagic Shell, Bone Shield, and Icebound Fort. Between those and deathstrike, the healer can throw a hot on me and focus on other players. Everyone should be using whatever defensive methods they can right at the time the nova hits, to ease the pressure on the healer.

Rogues should cloak of shadows. Warrior switch to defense stance. Mages iceblock. Non-tank pallies bubble. Locks have soulstones and healthstones(and possibly soul link and/or VW to sac). Priests can PW:S and/or heal themselves. Druids and shamies can also self-heal.

Bascially if everyone is on the ball, you let your DPS rip Loken down before he gets off more than about 2 or 3 novas. IMO it's alot simplier and easier to do this way, especially if your healer is well-geared.

Comment by Ryder

He is the hardest 5-Man Heroic boss and should be nerfed by a simple change , instead of the stupid 4 secs cast make it 5 secs like normal mode.
All what i can say to those people farming him is either they are TOO overgeared for him or very lucky.

Comment by reidsb

Strangely, we ran this today and it made the group roll for the Stone Keeper Shards, as opposed to having enough for everyone.

Not sure why.

Comment by Slythas

I have another tactic that worked for me and my group (Heroic Mode). We even got the achievement, Timely Death with this.

My group consisted of: Combat Rogue (me), Holy Priest, Enhancement Shaman, Fire Mage and Protection Warrior.

We hugged each other during the whole fight and nuked the best we could. The priest and Shaman healed through the Nova's. Got him in 1 minute and a few seconds. This was, atleast by our experience, the easiest way of getting him down :)

Comment by 130410

Allegedly the hardest heroic boss, I still think Anub'arak and that first boss in Gundrak are more difficult. This one just requires everyone to pay attention and not watch the dps meters for a change.

Comment by 235419

Loken. Is. Strong.

He hits fairly hard. Has a constant DoT which does more damage the further you are away from him and does an INSANE AoE.

Definetly the single hardest boss in all of the heroics of WoTLK. I had people turning me down for PUG's saying they'd rather run it with guildies because it's "Too hard"

Managed to down him with a few randoms just a few minutes ago and it only took us a few wipes.

I think the most important thing is to keep the tank and healer up. As long as they're alive it can get finished. Albeit a long time, but it'll get done eventually.

Comment by 286249

For heroic mode with a holy priest healer:

Get on vent everyone to explain fight, clear vent during fight

Tank: fight him in the circle the whole time, absorbing the 13k novas every 15(?) sec and 1k pulses every 2 sec.

Healer: stand on the step closest to the circle, which is just outside of nova range - don't move - and heal yourself through 3k pulses every 2 sec. As this is a dps race, blow mana with aoe heals after the 1st nova to keep the dps alive long enough to take Loken down.

DPS: move and re-position and keep awareness so that you are a) not right next (10yds) to another player ( else 3k arc lightning that jumps), while being b) close enough to Loken when dpsing to take the minimum 1k pulse, but c) not so close to him that you can't move out of range (20yds - not far really) of his nova during its 4 second cast time, while also d) not moving too far out during nova cast, as that will reduce dps and increase pulse damage.

Comment by 252180

Does Anti Magic Zone or Anti Magic Shell have any effect on his AOE?

Comment by 267510

December 23, 2008 Loken is the most dangerous mob.
Kill Counter
~Ackbar~

Comment by Heckler

On heroic: We like to 'wing it' on bosses we've never tried before, Loken's not a great guy to do this on. Our 3 DPS died in the first 10 seconds, but once me (feral druid) and the healer (resto shaman) got it figured, we 2 manned him the rest of the way down. Other than it taking a ridiculously long time, it made it clear that the concept of this fight is pretty simple (actually a lot MORE simple with only 2 people involved)...

Stay close to him until he starts to Nova, then get away until its over. Rinse and repeat.

Comment by Niroshi

Something that could help you with running away quick enough if you're melee is just to keep your right mouse button held down, and face your character a little to the side. You will still be able to hit Loken, Block/Dodge/Parry him (for Tanks) and all you will need to do when you see Lightning Nova is hit your strafe key to get away.

My groups usually follow the white line down the center of the room and then move back towards his throne whenever you run into the globe, using Lightning Novas as a signal as to when to move him. If you can just avoid his Nova then really you could kill him even with just a Healer and a Tank alive. Once you get the timing down the fight is remarkably easy.

If you're a Pally healer and having a hard time with this fight, one of the suggested tactics is to Beacon yourself and stand out of Nova range and just heal everyone up. It worked for my groups until everybody got the above strategy down.

Comment by 288022

Been farming this instance for a while for the Healing trinket from Ionus. This boss is simplified by just staying in for the AoE Lightning nova. Have your 3 dps and healer stand under the bosses feet and the tank in front of the boss ofc.

In terms of healing the novas, use any sort of interrupt protects you can ie. Earth Shield, Concentration Aura, Power Word: Shield even and have your big heal ready to land .1s after the nova. So prayer healing for priest, Wild Growth for Druid, Chain Heal for a Shaman, and Holy Light(with beacon of light on the yourself NOT the tank but heals aimed at the tank) And the boss becomes a doddle. Pop cooldowns when arc lightning makes it difficult to top the group off. If you have stones, use them after the Second Nova as you may have two arc lightings up and keep hots up if at all possible in between big heals.

Easily healed this the day I dinged 80 with 13.5k hp with a kings as a restoration shaman with a reasonably geared paladin tank.

Comment by 288077

The easiest heroic boss in game. Just be sure for everyone to stand on top of him all the fight. His nova hits for ~14k (9k with nature res totem) - easily healed by priest/shammy. Got him down in 50s: tankadin (me) / enh sham / rogue / retadin / holy priest

Comment by 274900

Yes, I can stand there tanking novas, in fact I'd say they do trivial damage to me because I have so many ways to reduce magic damage. Yet I still put the raid marker over my head and teach the group how to avoid them. Its a matter of skill...I want to see how good my DPSers are sometimes. When they stand there with their thumb up their butt and go down and it is just me and the healer standing at the end...well, then they know they need to step it up. If they cant follow me on the light beam given the long cast time window then maybe they deserve to be on the ground.

Even though he is easy now I still consider him a dangerous heroic boss, because people who hit 80 and are wearing the greens and the blues and never did Loken before are going to be in for a surprise the first time they fight him. Some groups cant even beat him if they are full of fresh 80s, then they gotta call in Big Papa Kurouzu to show them how its done...been there, done that.

Comment by 291354

Did this guy first time today.

Tank asked if I could heal is AOE attack, I said dunno worth a try.

I was a 79 Restoration shaman, equipped with full Stormhide (LW crafted mail) and some other bits and bobs.

At the start of the fight we tried running away. Didn't work too well, whole group took damage, tank obviously took damage and while running I couldn't heal.

After this I decided we stayed put. Kept the chain heals on the go with lesser healing wave for quick top ups. Popped Heroism at around 50%. Very easy. 30% odd mana of 13500 left at end of fight with everyone alive.

The elemental boss was harder, popped everything and still ran out of mana and had causalities.

Comment by DKRakiel

Copy/pasting from my comment on overall HoL part:

Killing Loken in under 2 minutes is quite possibly; its just a DPS check on the fight.

Suggested Loken Strategy:
If you notice on the dais that his throne sits on, theirs two bronze bands that run along the length of the stairs. These are going to be your left/right boundary markers. Due to the fact this fight is based on movement I suggest any movement buffs; I particularly like using DK's with Unholy Auras for this factor - just because theres fifty billions DK's and its a passive speed buff that doesn't give you a daze if your hit.

Loken himself is rather easy - he is fairly squishy; and he doesn't hit that hard - the reason he's such a pain is his abilities can easily ruin your day:

DoT Aura: The further you are from Loken the more damage you take. So melee ranged targets take the least damage, but if you get far from him you can quite easily end up being one shotted by the aura DoT.
Negating It: The way you have to get around this is rather simple.. Stay close to him; stay in melee range whether or not your melee preferably. Hunters are only really ones that have any issue with melee range and as long as your within the 5 yards it's really all the same anyways.

Arc-Lightning: This is the reverse of the DoT aura; its fundamentally a chain lightning that is really.. Really.. Really evil. You get hit with arc, and anyone near you gets zapped. And than anyone near them gets the arc bounced off them. For pretty nasty damage. Its not so much an issue in normal as it is in heroic, but its a health concern as it will bounce among your group if your all clustered together. However to be fair, with a solid healer and heavy DPS you can simply eat it and therefore not have to worry about positioning.
Negating It: Arc lightning in my opinion is generally the trickiest to negate - the aura you just have to stay close.. The arc lightning you want to try to have 5 yards on each other. What I normally is form a semi-circle on Loken. For a mental image, assume the tank moves Loken to the left boundary marker, and than turns Loken so he's on it and the tanks back is to the right boundary marker. The group than spreads out on the frontal arc of Loken, no-one behind. This makes it so when they have to run, they all run in the same direction and don't have to cross through Loken.

Nova: This is the culmination of all the abilities, and the main reason why people wipe directly - arc lightning might cause big issues or take down someone or two, but Nova will often or not be the closing statement on any wipe. It was stated you can tell when its coming based on the gathering energy at his feet; 5 coils means nova time - but I've never seen this or tried it. Nova simply will eat you alive if you get hit by it - fortunately its easy to avoid. Sort of.
Negating It: Nova is quite easy to escape - it involves Loken standing still and channeling something. However, you have to watch for it and get out of its range. I run on high graphics so I don't know how applicable this is to everyone - but I assume Blizzard puts essential graphics on a "must render" setting. If you look at the ground when Loken starts his Nova, you can see the exact radius it has by the boundaries of the crackling lightning and flashing strikes of lightning. Get out of the animation boundaries, your out of Nova.

Taking Him Down:
Loken is a spank and tank beyond those three abilities. So what you want to do is to grab him and pull him to the aforementioned left boundary marker - the side doesn't really matter, but just stating one for consistency. Once you pull him there, reface him so your back is to the right boundary marker - your group should already be in a loose semi-circle around him. If you get a Arc Lightning bouncing off someone, give them a bit more room. When he starts to channel his Nova, run back to the right side marker. To be honest; you generally only need to run about half way if Lokens on the left marker, but if your having issues on not wiping its better to be safe than sorry.

Once Loken finishes his Nova (hopefully sans destroying your group), he will run over to you - reface him so your back is to left boundary and than rinse and repeat. He should die rather easily for you than.

-Rakiel

Comment by 293411

This boss encounter isn't hard at all as long as everyone focus and do their thing. Easiest way to do this by far is simply by:

1. Start off as a circle around the boss, not standing too close to each other to prevent being hit by the arc lightning.
2. Once the nova starts to cast everyone should move away from the boss. Example: Tank = south, Healer = SE DPS1 = E DPS2 = W DPS3 = SW. The aura is based on distance to Loken, not distance between every team member, meaning which direction you move is irrelevant, as long as you keep at a safe distance to avoid nova + close enough not to get hit too hard by aura.
3. Once nova is cast, everyone move back to the circle in front of his throne, still keeping a safe distance between one another to prevent the Arc Lightning from hitting.

Repeat this procedure and the boss will be down faster than you can say Loken. Damage is easily avoided in this fight, so the healer will have plenty of mana. Just keep dps steady and stick to the tactics and I guarantee you, he will go down. Used this tactic today and we managed to do it with 3 ppl in early heroic gear.

Comment by shadowspa

ive done all hcs and raids for the champion of the frozen wastes title exept HoL,and all bosses in hc HoL exept loken becouse of his damn retard healer killing spell...oh the horror when the same old cycle repeats:
loken starts casting Lightning Nova
lokens Lightning Nova hits Somerandomhealerguy for 14k
Somerandomhealerguy Dies
Somerandomtankguy dies
Somerandomhealerguy leaves the group
Somerandomtankguy leaves the group
DPS leaves
your group has been disbanded

loken is right:I CANNOT RUN FROM FATE wich is that ill probably never get that damn title and COME CLOSER.HE WILL MAKE THE WIPE QUICK so i can start looking for another group

Comment by Remendador

Dont run, even in Heroic.
Bring a hunter with Aspect of the Wild and make sure your party is good on dps classes.
I'm a priest with Lightwell.
Just make your party use lightwell as soon as Loken begins to cast his aoe so everyone has high amount of HP.
I begin my Prayer of Healing cast just after Loken begins his cast, so after his hit I can heal everyone fast, than use Circle of healing and always cast prayer of mending.
Its an easy fight if you do this way.

Comment by 14493

here the tactic I am using and so far at a 100% succes rate, at all times stand ontop of the tank and stand still there taking the damage from the AoE, which hit's for about 14.000 damage, and just outheal it. Do this and you should manage to get the achivement to.

This tactic have so far been executed by me as a Druid Healer, just make sure you have HoT's on everyone before the hit and use Wild Growth and Tranquilty. I have also been a part of groups where I was DPS with a Priest healer that started to cast Prayer of Healing before the big hit, also have done it with a Shaman which have Glyphed Chain Heal, he ontop of that used Nature Resistance Totem.

Comment by 294987

I did this as a resto shaman, with quite a different strat than mentioned above.

First, Nature resistance is godly here, so keep a nr totem down.
Second, I had the group not move at all, we just sat on loken the whole time. I could heal through everything spamming chainheals as fast as I could fairly easy.

It may be backwards but it worked better than 95% of everything else iv tried on lokan.

Im fairly geared btw, naxx10-25 level.

Comment by 146010

Teach your group to turn and run with the mouse instead of their keyboard. I find that the people who always get caught in it (and inevitably swear they moved) are keyboard turners. Show them the wonders of using the mouse, and let them be enlightened...and often it means they can actually get out of the nova in time the next attempt you make.

Though I suggest making them practise before you pull, just to be sure. :P (Yes, I'm serious. My sucess rate on loken has gone up since I started doing this.)

Comment by 275366

Some guildies just did it without moving.

Just stack on him, and have healer max out everyone's HP before nova goes off, that is if your healer is capable.

Our priest did this;

When you see AOE coming do Prayer or Healing, then do 2 Circle of Healing
And use Blinding Heal to keep tank and healer up.

Comment by withmyrice

All you rogues: This is yet ANOTHER effect you can CoS through, in case you just HAVE to have that extra 75 dps on your meter at the end of the fight. But I'm sure you all already know that :)

Comment by 70634

- You want to stay close to him.
- You do not want to stay close to someone else.
- You do not want to be hit by aoe.

^ This is the most important thing to know about the fight. I had a rough time with it as a Holy Paladin, but once I understood how the right worked we were able to beat it.

I raid marked the tank, who stood almost inside the boss. Then the remaining 4 people stood in a 4-corner position around the boss, 10 yards apart, but very close to the boss. His aura does more damage the further you are away, and you need to be 10 yards apart to avoid chaining too many Arc Lightnings.

When he starts to cast Lightning Nova, run down the stairs using the white line in the middle of the room as your guide. If you start out tanking him at the very top platform, you should run to the next platform below and STOP at your tank (who is marked), and resume the 4-corner positioning around the boss.

What made the difference to me is explaining this positioning to the DPS so they didn't just go screamingyelling all the way down the stairs, further away from Loken where they start taking increased damage. Once they have their damage controlled, it's really very easy. You can use Holy Shock on the run, or even queue up a Divine Favor + Holy Shock + Instant Flash of Light for the run. Use your cooldowns early in the fight and don't be afraid to Holy Light big damage when it happens.

Comment by 88369

So yeah. I just did this on Heroic and the Pally tank wanted us to do it his way. We would stand at the top of the stairs and he would tank him by the throne. Needless to say I was VERY skeptical but hey why not. The raid was full of range, the tank and a pet were the only melee. Doing it this way kept the party out of Nova. The Paladin was able to get out of every Nova and reposition him by the throne. I am a Resto Shaman so I was able to raid heal the group.

If you have a range heavy group and have good AoE heals I really recommend this strategy as it almost completely removes the Nova from the equation.

Comment by Moggit

Just 2 manned him on normal

Stood right by him and healer ran when he did his nova. Took a while as dps were killed as soon as they got back to his room from ressing (Due to being far from him)

Comment by 43569

One thing that is really helpful. Get an Enhancement Shaman, group up on him, and have the Enh shaman use his Insta-casts for CH. Doesn't heal for much, but it helps.

Comment by 301516

Unfortunately my group has a hard time doing this on normal mostly because they were too slow on running from Lighting Nova not to mention two of them turned with keys to make it worst a dps leaves the group I invited a Death Knight to dps we killed it and my trinket drops(I'm the tank) and so the DK that I just invited needed it, won it, saying that he's going to tank at 80 and after well over two hours of running through the instance and the many wipes that is my reward :P I must have the worst of luck huh?

Comment by Karoxen

In the face of his other two abilities, Arc Lightning is trivial. Stacking on top of each other and moving as a group tends to work best regardless of it.

Also, Lightning Nova is 20-yard range exactly so certain abilities like shaman shock spells can serve as 'measuring sticks' as to when you get far enough, although going up and down his stairs the natural markers work fine.

Comment by xevbe

Did it yeseterday on heroic with:

Prot war
DPS war
Feral Druid
Shaman healer
Demo/Destro lock(me)

Wiped a few times because of the movement not working out so on the last try we figuered we all ate the nova. Shaman popped a nature res totem and spammed chain heal... Worked like a charm.

No one ever came close to dying, shaman had 30% mana left, no bloodlust (used it on try before). Obviously got the achievement for killing him under 2 min.
We all had gear from heroics/naxx.

If you are geared enough, just stack up at him and dps him down.

Comment by 178740

Easiest way to avoid the nova is to turn on enemy cast bars, or get an addon that displays your target's cast bar somewhere on screen. It's a good idea to have them on in general, but for this fight it's extremely helpful.

As a healer, make Loken your focus target and watch his cast bar that way. Everybody else will simply have him targeted at all times. As soon as you see him channel a spell, run! The only spell he casts that has a casting time is Lightning Nova, so you won't confuse it with anything else.

You don't need to watch him to do a casting animation, you don't need to watch your chat box for the emote text, you don't need to turn down your spell effects... just look out for a cast bar. Simple!

Comment by tahini

Your best bet is to stay in and heal through it. This works if your healer is good enough. The running method is even harder to heal, potentially.

Comment by 208752

Loke And Tor are brothers

When it's thundering in norway we say ''Tor whit the mighty hammer is over us and he is angry xD''

Comment by Thorshadow

Does anti-magic shield work on this boss

Comment by 305475

K, to make everyones life ALOT easier...

get a hunter or a shaman in your group.

Hunters use aspect of the Wild, idc if it drops my dps by like 150... it helps, and shamans use nature resist totem.

do this and you'll be just fine.

oh... and DO NOT MOVE DURING NOVA. messes people up, and gets Loken away so his aura kills, just stand there in one place and DPS race him down. no moving needed at all.

Comment by 305475

Yes it does, use it whenever you can.

Comment by 119706

According to what i know of bosses so far, is that Loken is the hardest boss in-game at the moment.
With countless whipes behind me, i decided to look more into it.
The hardest part is not the AoE, that is easily avoided thanks to Deadly boss mod,
(or any other addon that shows boss-skill cd's) It's the damn DoT wich makes us whipe!
Here is what i found out (this goes for HEROIC encounter only!):

Lightning nova

- 20-30 yard range
- 4 second cast
- 10-14k Nature damage that can be decreased with totem and normal resistance stats

Arc Lightning

- 50 yard range
- Jumps to friendly plaYers within 10-20 yards
- 3-4k nature damage

Unnamed aura

- infinite range
- 100 dps per yard (estimated) from loken's target sircle.

So, when you encounter him, you should stay within his melle target ring.
Have Deadly boss mod ( http://www.deadlybossmods.com/ ) show you
the times between his AoE, start running round 1 sec before he starts his cast.
Now the hard part.
Run TOGETHER away from loken, doesn't matter where as long as you get out of AoE's range.
When he has casted it, the tank should STAY at current spot and let loken come to him/her.
You will get ONE juicy tick from the aura, but with a healer who can AoE heal, it should do fine.
Estimated it should only be round 4-5k damage the tick does, depends on range ofc.
Repeat and you should do fine.

Weird no one has considered DBM here...

Comment by Inekadam

Loken is the best boss i've ever seen.

He wears a skirt and sandals and you can get under his skirt.

Not sure how people kill him despite feeling all that bad smell coming from his foot.

Comment by 274415

As posted this fight was a joke on heroic with me (resto shaman) as healer. We didn't run out of the lightning nova once and we got the under 2 min achievement.

Comment by Skalken

Just ran tonight with a perfect group. Here was our strategy.

Main tank aggro's Lokken in the circle. All off tanks attack as well. Ranged DPS and Healers need to be a couple steps in front of the top step. This will minimize the ranged dot from Lokken.
When he casts the nova you will see a white pulse on the ground. You just need to be outside of the white pulse and you won't be hit with the AE. Main tank needs to not move and take the hit.

We used this strat and main tank never dropped below half and nobody ever lost much health at all. Almost got the under 2 minutes achievement. It was 2 min 2 secs... Next time...

Hope this helps.
Skalken...

Comment by bluephantom

As decently geared healing priest, it's possible to just have your group stay in for the novas. Have your group topped off before the novas, and time a Prayer of Healing to land right after the nova hits. If there are party members with a low HP pool, however, they may not survive it. I'm not sure about other classes, but if your healer is a confident priest, then this might be a fun way to do it :). He goes down very fast.

Comment by Shuned

I recommend tanking him in the middle, and when his Nova begins, run left or right not backwards, because you're wasting time spinning around and bolting it, just run the way you're facing, doing this we have never wiped.

Comment by 132039

We wiped 4 times on this boss on heroic, our healer said the tank had to stay under the boss NO MATTER WHAT, and on top of that, he never ran far enough so he always got one shotted and then he goes and blames it on the tank for DRAGGING TTHE BOSS TOWARDS HIM because our tank was smart and didnt stay under the boss.

If your healer was willing and able to heal your tank through the damage, then it sounds like your healer was right. The tank shouldn't have moved. The healer should have run just far enough to be out of range of the aoe so that the healer wouldn't take excessive damage, and it was the tank's fault for moving Loken.

If your healer was unable to heal your tank, then it was smart for the tank to move. But even then he should have let the group know he was going to move so the others knew to run farther.

How can the ranged and healing know how far to run if they don't know what the tank plans to do? If the tank was going to move the boss after someone else said not to, he HAS to tell other people his plans beforehand, or the wipe's his fault.

Based on your description of the situation, and that's all I have to go on, it sounds like the tank was behaving foolishly and the healer was in the right.

Comment by 240929

as a rogue, you don't need to run away if you have a nice healer. just use new feint and cloak of shadows to reduce lightning damage where he is close to cast the lightning nova and keep hitting.

Comment by Dauntar

Fun little thing, if you use a focusing lens on him he will stand up in an angry pose.

Comment by 257676

As a hunter, you can just pop on aspect of the wild, and the damage done by his AOE and his aura will be minimal, the healer will have a lot easier of time. I am guessing this will work with shaman totems too, but if you have a hunter in your group (or any other class that has nature resist that effects the whole group)this fight can go a lot more smoothly.

Just an example, when i was fighting him it said something like: -380 (840 resisted)

Comment by lizbliz

Finally, a fight where Apsect of the Wild actually came in handy. We whiped 3 times against his guy and on the 4th times I actually remember I had that dam aspect (the last time I used it was in Maraudon, seriously) and we took so much less damage as a group it wasn't even funny.

(I plan on running HoS for the pants that drop off of the boss and I looked him up to find he did mostly natural damage as well. Looks like Aspect of the Wild is a good idea for both of these bosses if you are having issues with too much damage happening to the party as whole.)

I can haz 130 nat resist ftw please?

Comment by 321871

Just finished this boss for the second time on heroic so here´s my 2 cents on Loken:

Everyone just hug him, stand real close to each other. Even on AoE, just stand there, as long as you got a decent/good healer it´s definitely easier to stand around him and "hug" him. Don´t split up your group because you´ll take one hell of alot more damage from his aura if you step away from the others.

Our groupsetup was a DK unholy tank, a blood DK, combat rogue, affliction warlock and holy paladin(me). Last time I was there we tried to run from the nova with lil´ to no success, we got separated and well, at least I died, and in that wiping the whole group. That being said I was badly geared back then.

This time however we just hugged Loken, I simply put up Beacon of Light on the tank and spamhealed everyone after the AoE. Having the Glyph of Holy Light helps seeing how you heal every groupmember within five yards of the healing-target whenever you cast Holy Light. Having the Glyph of Flash of Light also helps seeing how you crit more with your 1.5 sec cast spell. And of course; Holy Shock.

We even got the achievement, so as long as everyone got more than 14000 hitpoints (our lock just had 15000) I´d say the hug-strategy is a lot easier and time efficient than the run back and forth strategy.

Comment by deustele

Did this last night as a pally healer. We went for the timed kill and did it in 51 seconds. Using a ranged dps group, everyone stacked on me at the top of the stair's. Beacon the tank and let him start the fight, tanking him on the base of the throne, focus on using HL spam on the stacked group, while having the tank soak the nova, The bouncing aoe is at best a joke and the aura is steady damage to everyone allowing HL glyph to shine. All in all a very smooth and quick kill.

Comment by TheNocturnal

This is my first post on WOWhead and I just really had to post this after reading so many peoples tactics on trying to fight LOKEN.... honestly when you all read this and try it , you are gonna laugh at how easy LOKEN is....

so dont worry about running from his AOE
his DOT ...pshh is no big deal...
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS HAVE THE WHOLE GROUP STAND BETWEEN HIS LEGS! the whole group is never hit by the AOE if standing directly in the middle of his legs right under LOKEN.... then you can just TANK and SPANK all to hell !

And I actually had never knew this or tested it til Heroic Mode...which it worked 100% even in Heroic.... So for everyone out for the Skull-Clad Cleaver... Never fear anymore when you run this...for everytime will be just as easy as the last.

HOPE THIS HELPS! ENJOY! ---- Lesnar - Deathknight Tank from sever Muradin

Comment by 196275

Just did Loken for the first time on Heroic as holy priest.
It was a piece of cake. We even got the Timely Death achievement.
We basically just hugged the boss the entire time even on the nova. I was quick to aoe heal the group back to full health after nova with Prayer of Healing (+Prayer of Healing glyph). I started to cast in the middle of his Nova spell so the heal would land right after damage taken so the small dot wouldent becomne a problem
It was important to keep everyone topped off right before Nova or they would have died.

This strategy requires everyone to have at least 19k+ health. With less health the nova would probably have become pretty deadly

Group was:
Priest(Healer)
Druid(tank)
Mage
Rogue
Death Knight

Comment by 332875

I had to comment because I found a way that was easier than anything I read about here. We had tank/healer pallies and 3 warlocks, on heroic. All we had to do was this:

Start in a close group facing the same way. When he starts to cast, everyone just walk backward! That is all! Then stop backing up when he's done!

No AoE damage, hardly any damage at all, healer did very little healing. It was sooooo simple. No turning to run, nothing. Just hit the backarrow key. Got the fast kill achievement as well.

Comment by 336033

Thought I would throw my two cents in. I tanked this for the first time the other night and took two tries, the first time we did the run from his nova spell and that did not work. The second we stacked and it worked very well and this is how we did it.

First off I am a unholy Dk Tank and this is a very good fight for unholy dk tanking specs. You should Tank him right under were his is sitting in the white circle area. When he cast nova the first time just drop your anti-magic shell and it will keep the group from taking much dmg at all the first round of the nova and the heals will have an easy time dealing with that. The second time he cast nova the healer should have the whole party as close to topped off as possible and the dk tank uses his personal anti magic shield and takes basically no dmg so the healer can focus on himself and the rest of the party( and at this point I think its more important to make sure heals keeps themself alive than the other dps) . After this point its just matter of the tank mitigating dmg and the healer doing the best he can to heal himself and the tank and remaining dps to kill Loken as fast as possible. If your party understands that there is a good chance they will die on this boss(the dps) then there should not be a big problem. When we did this only the rouge died and he was under geared for the dungeon.

Tank- Unholy Dk
Heals- Druid
Dps- Dk
Dps- Rouge
Dps- Hunter

Comment by 337557

I personally think it's a shame, that one of the "greater" northern gods, is listed as one of theese low level dungeon bosses... (In level 80 means.)
I mean, so much northern lore is based upon him - so why drop him in such a low position?
Anyhow, no time to moan.
Although he crushed me with his lighting last time, I still find him silly...

Comment by Eugee

Found a new way to heal this guy as a Holy Paladin:

Tank keeps him in one spot (we did left pillar).
Healer stands outside Nova range, with Beacon of Light on themselves.
DPS stand at max melee a little spread out for arc-lightning.

As Loken casts Nova the tank soaks it while the DPS range it. The healer will time a Holy Light right after it lands. Very easy to range the nova like this and the tank and healer stay healthy. Beacon more than counters the damage from being at range.

Comment by Jinton

As a norse guy

I can 100% guarantee that you are in fact not norse. From a nordic country, Scandinavian, Norwegian, maybe. Norse - no. The vikings were norsemen. The era of vikings ended about 1000 ad.

Norse and Norsemen,are applied to the Scandinavian population of the period from the late 8th century to the 11th century.
Quoute from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsemen

And for all of you debating and arguing about specifics in mythology: It is a waste of time.

The stories are, like the biblical stories, mouth-to-mouth recollections of tales invented thousands of years ago, long before vikings.They were told and retold in endless variations changing from one person to the next and altering each time it was told. That Snorre Sturlasson wrote some of those variations down does not make his Edda the one correct version.

TL DR: Your version is NOT the correct version - ever.

Comment by 169549

Hail,

I am interested if anyone tried to Pickpocket him, or even skin him.

Comment by 182762

Incredibly easy on heroic.
My group (Retadin, Holy Priest, Prot Warrior (me), Demon Lock, and a Frost DK)
We got the achievement on the first try. We stayed in for his lightning blasts. He's not that hard. Get everyone over 17k health, and it's super easy

Comment by 134628

Shaman healers want to have everyone stack on the boss and stay there, not moving.
Drop nature resist totem and keep riptide ticking on the person with the lowest HP. Cast chain heal right after nova starts on that person, so it hits right after. Then 2-3 CHs through the tank, and repeat.

This greatly increases DPS and makes the fight so much simpler for you.

People will end up taking Much less damage, as the aura will be doing next to nothing.
If you think about it, ~10k dmg isn't a lot to heal through, especially when you know it is coming.

Keep a NSed CH ready if things get bad, but the fight only takes around a minute thirty, so you will have Heroism / BL up half of the fight.

I have done this with 3 pugs and 1 shotted each time.

Comment by yzerman

Just ran this 4 times in a row and finally got the strategy down.

There are 3 levels to the platform he is on, tank him on the middle platform facing away from where the tank wants the group to run. The trick to this tactic is to have everyone stack close to Loken (melee range). Where most groups fail is the next part of the tactic:

When the raid warning shows - everyone run to the bottom of the stairs to the lower platform. Once everyone gets to the bottom of the platform turn and run back as quick as possible. The trick is not to outrun Lightning Nova, but to run as far away as nova will reach (~30 yards) and get back as quickly as possible before the Lightning debuff procs, as on Normal it hits for about 5k at 30 yards, Lightning Nova hits for about 4k at melee range. Melee range the lightning debuff is almost unnoticable to most people. To make my point, the last run we 4 manned this fight with a 80 DK tank, 80 Shammy heals, 78 DK melee DPS and an 80 Warlock, and noone came close to dying.

Comment by 293302

If you learn to avoid his AoE, he is extremely easy.

I have 2-manned him as Holy Pala + Prot Pala.

Comment by ricekrispieslol

i think he looks bored.........dont all bosses? i mean they just sit there and wait to be killed...................i know id want to fight if i had to just sit there

Comment by 71095

I have done Halls of Lightning more than 20 times and I can say that Loken is the easiest boss ever if you have a Shaman in your group, either healer or DPS. The tactic I use is very simple:

- All people should stay near each other, hug the boss during the whole fight, and NOT run away when Loken does his AOE.
- The Shaman should put Nature Resistance Totem and begins to cast Chain Heal while Loken is casting his AOE. 2-3 Chain Heals and all people will be at full health again.

You can use this tactic with both Restoration and DPS Shamans. If the Shaman is DPS, just tell him to stop DPSing and spam 2-3 Chain Heal to help the healer. Add Bloodlust and Fire Elemental Totem (if available) and you will easily get this at first try.

All people used to fear Loken and consider it one of the hardest Heroic bosses, but I can guarantee that this tactic makes him the easiest boss ever. Killed him more than 20 times and never wiped, even with bad groups.

Comment by 236163

Bit of trivia:

The voice of Loken was done by Joe T. Thomas.

He also voiced Krik'thir the Gatewatcher and the Death Knight's ghoul pet.

Comment by PinkWolf

there's an Aman in wetlands that looks exactly like Loken...odd

Comment by Pipolla

As a Holy Paladin, this fight can be rather hard keeping everyone up. After many wipes i suggested this strategy, resulting in a clean easy kill:

The Paladin should keep Beacon of Light on himself throughout the fight, this mitigates the increased damge taken from Loken's pulsing aura.

I hope this helps any Paladins/Groups having trouble with this encounter.

Comment by 316283

Was the range of the nova changed recently?
I remember the nova only being like 20 yards long and it was more than enough time to run away, even with a bad ping and keyboard turning ...
but now I can't make it anymore not even with strafing IMMEDIATELY

Comment by 363545

hey so i was running this about a week ago and something weird happened. Everytime he did lightning nova, none of us would move and the Aoe wouldnt effect anyone. I dont know if this was a glitch or what? but it was the easiest fight i have ever done. Give me some feedback on to what you guys know about this, thanks.

Comment by 318094

This fight is absurdly easy to heal through for a priest on Heroic.

The first time I came here, I tried the ranged tactic I did on normal to little success. Even if you escape the Lightning Nova, the periodic AoE effect will eat you alive and you cannot properly heal your group if you're constantly worried about yourself. After two wipes, we tried a different tactic. Hug that sucka, which seems to be the preferred approach in the comments regardless.

This fight is where Holy Nova SHINES, Discipline OR Holy, and I'm Holy. Everyone stands as close as possible, right under him if you can. The tank tries not to move too much so people don't gain distance from him. The priest spams Holy Nova ALL the time, except for when Circle of Healing and/or Prayer of Mending are off cooldown. Critical heals and damage save lives here (Disc will continually proc Divine Aegis; Holy will continually proc Surge of Llight, which guarantees a free heal to one party member or a free Smite to Loken).

When you get the message that he's casting Lightning Nova, you shield yourself, and time a Prayer of Healing or Divine Hymn to hit right after the blast. Then you get back to the HN spam. If you run out of mana, target Loken and pop your fiend, who will not have much to worry about AoE-wise so you'll get a lot of mana back.

There is no priest you can have except for one with weak healing that won't be able to heal through this AND get the Timely Death achievement for you.

Some observations I've made: Druids and Shamans should be able to heal through this without worry because of their nature resist buffs and/or totems. Holy Pallies should be able to heal through this by systematically healing with Holy Light (glyphed) to keep everyone up. They should probably continually shift the target of their beacon so that they're always healing two people at a time for a lot while everyone else benefits from the little heal that the glyph provides (which should be significant because of Holy Light crits). If someone's life is too low to survive a Nova, I suspect that Divine Intervention will keep them up and they can immediately join the fray after the blast. It really isn't complicated regardless of the healer involved.

I will say this: Hunters, even if you have to occasionally abandon your shooting range to avoid taking huge damage, it's more prudent to keep as close as possible and maybe just let your pet do the fighting, step out to fire a quick ability, then hop right back in. I think Hunters have the hardest time with Loken because in order to do their dps, they've gotta stand farther away which hurts them more in the long run. After my first time running H HoL with a hunter in our group and seeing him get ripped to shreds from the AoE after a Nova, I give hunters that very warning. Stay close even if you have to abandon your dps to do it.

But yeah. This is the definition of tank n' spank otherwise. At least as long as I'm healing for ya.

Comment by 364466

This boss is pretty hard, but having a shaman, priest, or a druid healer can make it easyer. Remember to run away when he uses his nova, on heroic my group wiped 2 times because most people didn't move away

Comment by mathos22

To confirm Kronus was his original name, after you kill him, check your recount (if you have it). As of 6/15/09, recount still registers Loken as "Kronus".

Comment by 272357

I'm just gonna repeat what fieryshadowcard said and that is that as a priest Loken was veery easy with holy nova spamming.

We tried Loken scattered all over the place first trying to avoid the nova. Wipe. Alt + tab and read his/hers reply about holy nova (had forgotten all about it) and next try we gather at his legs and I spam HN and he went down very fast (got the ach).

I did it as a disc priest.

Comment by 418201

For everyone saying that tanks drag the boss towards the party when using the AoE: Loken doesn't move period when casting it and in fact helps the party because he runs towards them after casting it, reducing the aura damage. And I've found that tanking him from pillar to pillar to be extremely easy, no real distance judgment calls besides getting to the pillar on the other side.

Comment by 409787

Loken was once a noble keeper within the titan city of ulduar, but recently the old god Yogg-Saron has taped into the minds of Ulduar's greatest guardians in attempt to release himself from the prison he was trapped in many years ago. Loken had succumbed to the beast's will and gone insane along with other guardians. Loken had taken the wife of his dear brother Thorim causing Thorim much anger.

In one quest within the storm peaks Thorim challenges his brother Loken, but thorim was defeated and taken back to ulduar where he had fallen under Yogg-Saron's grasp.

Comment by tobindax

I hope wowhead had most important comments on the top, and not the earliest - and more clueless.

THIS IS NOT ONLY ABOUT RUNNING FROM NOVA.

IT'S ALSO ABOUT STAYING TOGETHER.

IT AOES MORE IF YOU ARE FAR APART.

I wish this was on top comment.

ALMOST ALL pugs I join think it's only about running away, so we have 2 or 3 wipes before I CONVINCE THEM WITH CAPITALS (yes, sometimes it's the only way) that you don't just have to run in 7 directions, but to hug one person, usually the tank.

That, or aoe heal it with an imba healer stationary (not able to half of the time).

Comment by 368256

easiest way to do this boss if everyone has more than 14k HP is to just stand on him and let him hit everyone with nova (using nature totem hunter aura etc as needed) and heal through it...only disc preists should have trouble healing this (due to a slightly less abundant choice of AoE heals) but still a cakewalk ^_^

Comment by Modibybob

Strategy as a resto shaman.

Everyone else piles up under him as normal, drop healing stream totem and nature resist toem. This mitigates much damage from the aura. The shaman stays a tad farther away than everyone else and here is why.
The very second he begins casting nova, run out of range and start casting chain heal.
If timed right, the chain heal will hit everyone immediately after the nova. Chainheal again if you need to, and riptide/lesser yourself for the aura damage and go back in. Repeat as needed.

Comment by 288048

This fight isn't really as hard as the other comments take it to be. (might've been nerfed in 3.1)

I just finished this fight on heroic with me (a blood tank), and a Ret paladin healing me due to the fact that our first charge at him the nova 1 shotted our healer and 2 dps leaving me and the pali for 75% of the fight.

This may not work so well for other tanking classes but if you hug the boss even on heroic the damage he pulls out is laughable to the point that the ret palli was keeping both of us up with little trouble considering he was in ret greens and blues. (little trouble given those circumstances is still kinda painful)

the only huge issue was the nova which I just shelled the first and fourth, sacced my ghoul for the second and used vamp. blood along with my health tap for the third. the paladin had about 20k health so he just focused on healing himself when the nova hit us both.

When you do this fight just pay attention to your health, the AoE damage is huge but between 2 characters the fight really isn't to hard.

I bet this could be done with a prot palli fixing himself up after the nova as well if he lost his healer like me. (this is assuming a dps can off heal a little bit)

Funny thing about our run was the pali was barely breaking 500 dps and was looking to be useless until that final fight.

Comment by 124872

If you're having problems healing everyone at the same time, try padding everyone up ! Just have the party buff up on Nature Resistance...
Bring a hunter or a shaman, even just a druid might work, have the party get some Lesser Flasks of Resistance and even Mighty Nature Protection Potions, and this boss will be a walk in the park. It worked wonders against Akil'zon, it works wonders here too (and against most other bosses with AoE damage).
Loken seems to have little to no Spell Penetration. Just from a hunter's aura or a shaman's totem, I resist 10 to 25% of the damage from each of his Novas, and over 50% of that of his Pulsing Shockwave ! Which makes the Achievement all that more reachable. Note that http://www.wowwiki.com/Resistance really doesn't talk about AoE spells, at the Blizzard link they have in the References, it was specified that the table was for Direct Damage spells.
NR is especially helpful against Arc Lightning, too: the more NR individual party members have, the better the chance on each leap that it will be resisted and stop spreading !
Sure, NR is optional if the whole group is alert enough to be able to get out of the Novas correctly. But if you know you have difficulties with that, then stack up on NR, and you'll be able to afford staying at a distance despite his permanent AoE hurting more (or somewhere in between, where running away from the Nova is a lot easier; or as others have suggested, just soak up the Novas). Maybe even wear one or two NR greens from the Auction House, you'll lose some stats, but you lose even more dps or healing power when you croak ;) Plus relieving strain from the healer seems to be crucial, here.
So try it before knocking it (or at least before downrating this post), you'll be surprised... Players stack up on Resilience for the Arenas. Do you really think Blizzard put Magic Resistance in the game for no reason ?

Comment by 434436

I have found this easiest healing as a holy paladin.

Tank should tank him somewhere in the middle, and dps and heals stack on him too help with the AOE, when Nova begins to cast, all DPS run, begin casting holy light on yourself, so when the nova is cast, you get the heal and it is beaconed off to the tank, cast holy light and holy shock on any DPS who may of got hit and top everyone off ready for the next nova.

Comment by 150475

The name Loken is reference to the Nordic god Loki, the trickster god. Brother to Thor.

Comment by kabookiejoe

easiet way to do this fight imo

have any ranged stand at bottom of his stairs(closet set to his throne) have melee, engage him by his throne. when he novas run to ranged and pretty much good game

Comment by 54671

Once you have the gear to survive the lightning nova with about 10-15% of your health, definitely stay grouped for the nova.

Just got him down in 44 seconds on heroic, so that's definitely the way to do it.. stay in tight, don't move, and just burn him down.. If you have any sort of bubble or shield, throw it up so it's on when Nova hits, but otherwise, don't worry about it.

The last boss of Heroic HoS has a much more nasty lightning nova then this guy does.

Comment by jGarand

With the overall gear level changes for casual players in 3.2, even the most average geared DPS has enough HP to survive his nova, the common strategy seems to be to just ignore the Nova and burn him.

Last i was in a group (as a healer) he only managed to cast once, dying midcast his second.

Comment by jaq1010

Easy fight on both modes now. Heck I just did a run helping some lower geared people on normal and we beat him with only myself (Level 80 Blood DK geared for Trial of the Crusader) and a lower geared Pally tank, and a brand new 80 Druid healing. Loken's a piece of cake with the amount of gear you can get now.

Comment by 312797

Successfully soloed as a protection paladin. My group died on the first nova. What I did was threw up seal of light and divine plea and just judged light. When he'd do his nova I'd run out and heal myself. Easy enough to desperately solo once you have the gear.

Comment by 358623

lol i did this to but i purposly did the run to see if it was possible.
first i ran thru the place naked dying quite a bit.
then i put on my a T-8 25 man gear (blood DK). threw up Mark of blood with frost presence. whenever loken started to cast the nova i just used AMS. death strike and blood tap? (whatever its called, heals for 20% max health) kept me above 50 % the whole time. took about 5 mins to do. used one potion, AotD, and ghoul and IBF

Comment by 285678

looking at his abilities seems like he is only caster?

is he just casting => only spell dmg output?
or he also hits melee too?

thx for answer(s)

Comment by Yolandryll

dk dps my first attempt on Loken and leader said just stay close, So stood there, hacked away, got 2 min achievement and no-one died!

Comment by knarel

everyone needs to be stacked up ot your group goes to hell. i had to solo this &*!@# from 38K to 0 as the tank, lemme tell you its very hard.

Comment by 450260

I found out today that it is possible to kill him before he casts lightning nova.

Comment by Rankkor

his voice is very similar to Christopher Lee, ok so maybe CL doesn't voice loken, but whoever it does has one awesome voice.

Comment by 553050

As you get close to him, before engaging in combat, he says something like ""I have witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the birth and extinction of entire species. Throughout the milennia, the foolishness of mortals hass remained the only constant. Your presence here confirms this. My masters have shown me the future, and you have no place in it. Azeroth shall be reborn in darkness. YoggSaron shall be released. The Pantheon shall fall. Now you die."" Pretty epic sounding, too.

Comment by 365842

soloed as lvl 79 cata geared frostmage,mirrors at start ,mage ward on nova,than coldsnap pop waterelemental and iceblock .(can solo this,but can que for HC or cata normal dungs,blizz failed!)

Comment by cephadex

Loki was sexier.

Comment by leaderavia

you can skip the first boss, but the other two are required to get to loken. it's still a pretty fast run through.

Comment by Valdan

Now has a chance to drop: Music Roll: Mountains of Thunder

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Loken

This NPC can be found in Halls of Lightning .

Halls of LightningGeneral BjarngrimVolkhanIonarLokenLokenHalls of LightningTimely DeathOverview

The primary goal of the fight is receiving as few damage as possible. The farther you stand away from Loken, the more damage you receive through an aura.

When Loken casts Lightning Nova, players have the choice to either run out of its range immediately and receive more aura damage or stay and suffer the other kind. Geared players tend to skip running away.

AbilitiesLoken

Pulsing Shockwave: Inflicts Nature damage to all players every 2 seconds over the course of the fight. Damage depends on the distance to Loken.

Arc Lightning: Inflicts 3,238 to 3,762 Nature damage to a random target. Has a chance to jump over to a nearby player.

Lightning Nova: Inflicts 6,013 to 6,987 Nature damage to all players within 20 yards range. Cast time 5 seconds.

Loken

Pulsing Shockwave: Inflicts Nature damage to all players every 2 seconds over the course of the fight. Damage depends on the distance to Loken.

Arc Lightning: Inflicts 3,238 to 3,762 Nature damage to a random target. Has a chance to jump over to a nearby player.

Lightning Nova: Inflicts 10,638 to 12,362 Nature damage to all players within 20 yards range. Cast time 5 seconds.

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Encounter Journal

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Gains

After killing this NPC you will gain:

244 reputation with Valiance Expedition
244 reputation with The Taunka
244 reputation with Explorers' League
244 reputation with The Silver Covenant
300 reputation with Tushui Pandaren

Guides

Guide to Getting the Garrison Jukebox and Music Rolls Halls of Lightning (Timewalking) Dungeon Strategy Guide Ulduar Timewalking Wrath Timewalking Guide

Heroic		Mythic
Deadly		Important
Tank		DPS
Healer		Interruptible
Magic		Curse
Poison		Disease
Enrage

Loken

Encounter Journal

Quotes (21)

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