Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by stevenclark

Special Attacks

INHIBIT MAGIC – Aura around the boss. Increases your casting time by 50%, stacks up to 4 times.

CARNIVOUROUS BITE – bleed attack when Shirrak pulls players toward him

FOCUS FIRE – Shirrak will emote “Shirrak the Dead Watchers focuses on (party member name)!” beneath that player a flare will appear, about 3 seconds later he will shoot 3 AoE blasts around flared location for 1600-1700 fire damage.

- STRATEGY -

Shirrak Will remain at the top of the stairs, so send in the tank and follow him up.

Healers should be aware almost immediately Inhibit Magic will have stacked 4 times and all spells will take 200% longer to cast.

SPREAD OUT a good amount for this fight, that way when Shirrak does his Focus Fire only 1 party member has to move.

The hardest thing is timing the heals with his Focus Fire, it will take 200% longer to cast spells.

He will go down fast so just keep the tank up and be aware of focused fire.

Comment by 12781

Positioning is everything, stand in all 4 corners to make it easier.
Mages: Arcane missiles and fireblast works great here.

Comment by Zanarkand

Inhibit Magic seems to stack according to the distance between you and the boss.
A mage and a priest who stood on max distance had only one stack throughout the encounter, while those who were in melee range got all four.

Comment by 18001

We tanked him in the middle of the platform, and spread out the other 4 party members at the corners, like the 5-pattern on the face of dice. Whenever he Focus Fired on someone, that person just ran to their corner. It appears he fires an artillery-like shot at where the person was standing, so party members and the targeted person just has to move away from that location. Good luck!

Comment by 25941

With heals on longer cast time I found that using sheild + renew along with shadow mastery spells most effective in keeping the tank alive, vamp embrace+shadow ward pain and mind flay provided a solid source of healing

Comment by 26147

Heroic:

Basically the same fight. Have DPS in the corners near the doorway, healers near the bridge. Have healers rotate in and out so the aura doesn't get too nasty.

Group was 2x Arcane/frie mages (spamming AM's), 1 ret pally (healing), 1 holy pally, 1 prot warrior.

Comment by Tamika

How to kill him EASILY in heroic mode (suggestion for tanks/rogues/other melee).

When someone gets caught in "focus" of Shirrak, get the MT and another classes that might have got the Carnivorous Bite debuff away from the boss. The reason to do it is because when Shirrak casts his bombs he stays still till bombs drop, and if you get away from him these few seconds you will most probably lose the Carnivorous Bite debuff, otherwise you'll still get debuffed if you stay in melee range.

If you tank him this way you'll get 300-500 pathetic melee damage from his hits and healing won't be problemathic. (Carnivorous Bite damages like 600 damage each tick per stack).

We did him with 2 pallies (holy) , rogue, mage and me (tank). I think casters didn't even spend half their mana...

Comment by Kegsta

just did it on heroic, had a terrible priest he died about 5 seconds into the fight from fire balls every attempt, so i ended up using rock elemental and solo healing it while we dpsed boss down, rock is immune to bleeds so he did basicly no damage.

Comment by 6341

This boss encounter is not that hard when you follow the tactic. First time we've been there a priest told us what to do, and so we wiped twice.

Third time we tried something like that... Warrior was tanking boss at the top of the stairs (but still he was standing on the stairs) and casters were standing below the stairs, so they got only 1 stack of his aura. When Shirrak started focusing on someone, that person just ran up to the upper platform and the AoE-bomb didn't do any dmg to any groupmember (sometimes it mgiht happen that the runner will suffer a bit from the blastwave though). A good tactic is to keep Shirrak in the middle and others spread to the corners

Comment by 40406

As a warlock, the long casting times suck when casting sadowbolt. BUT, if you have talents in Nightfall, just start by casting Corruption, then Drain Life. Don't try to spend almost 6 sec trying to get off a shadow bolt. Wait for Nightfall to proc from the corruption and drain life. Oh, and have a healer that is actually specced for healing. That helps a lot.

Comment by Tigraine

We just did him on Heroic and our Warlock managed to die @ 90% ..
Somehow we got him downed with only 4 ppl.

The Tank should make shure that he has enough avoidance (I'm currently at 19% dodge, 18% parry and 496 def) so the stack will run out all the time. Moroes pocketwatch helped a lot too.

Anything else is quite easy. Try to stay out of those bombs he throws. And he should go down smoothly.

Our Setup was 2 Shadowpriests, 1 Resto Shamman, 1 Warlock and Warrior (me)

Comment by 47813

We killed him yesterday with a different tactic.

I (as an healer) stayed at top of the stairs, tank at the bottom (but not too close to them), and other 2 casters (warlocks) way behind him.
I got only 2 stacks of the boss aura and i easily managed the bombs directed to me, that didn't hurt anybody else because i was alone there.
Easy fight now ^^

Comment by 4047

Use insta-cast spells and channelled spells.

For warlocks, dots and drains work great.

For others, instant spells and hots.

Comment by Enfilade

It dosent only stack 5 times, ive seen it go up to 9 times. Its kinda like the second boss in BM, you just have to hope that you block / parry / dodge it enough times in a row to reset back to 0, then one.

Comment by 66796

This boss isn't too bad to be honest. Just very annoying if you don't know whats going on.

This group I was in, was the first time we had been there on heroic. We found it very difficult to be frank. Getting to this boss was the most annoying thing we have ever done. Now I know why it's so hard to find groups for.

However, the boss it self, is difficult. Basacially we put the 4 casters on the bridge one at each cauldron thing in the middle and me tanking the boss as far away as I possibly could.

When the bomb came, basacially we all ran forward to me and then ones it was gone we would go back to our spots.

Took us about 5 goes but got it in the end.

It was lucky, I got my shoulders and the tanking gem. Hopefully I never have to go back there!

Comment by 65019

This guy is a pain in the ass. My tank stood in the middle of the stairs and I, paladin healer stood at max range and healed and never got the debuff stacked.

Comment by 51698

Here's an alternative strategy I have used successfully in Normal mode:

(1) Let the tank pull the boss - and let him tank the boss at the bottom of the stairs.

(2) Everyone else stands on the bridge, behind the tank. Do not stand too close to the tank, but don't stand too far away either. In the crude ASCII diagram below, the Tank will be tanking the boss at (Z), whilst everyone stands at (Y). NB: As Kreynor says above, if you keep your distance, casters seem to get less debuff.

======================================
(Bridge) - - - - - - (X) - - - - (Y) - - - - (Z) ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ (Stairs)
======================================

(3) Start adding DPS whilst the tank keeps the boss busy.

(4) When the boss targets a party member, the targeted party member must run back on the bridge, away from the group. All other party members who are not targeted runs towards the boss. If you do this right, the boss' fire balls will not hit anyone. In the crude ASCII diagram above, the target person runs from (Y) to (X), and everyone else runs from (Y) to (Z). NB: I have never seen the boss target the tank for his fire ball attack, but if the tank does get targeted, then perhaps the tank can simply move up the stairs to avoid the fire balls and then resume position at (Z).

(5) Once the fire ball shooting is over, everyone resumes their original position behind the tank (That's (Y) in the crude ASCII diagram above), and start doing (2)-(4) again.

(6) If you get teleported to the boss, simply run back and rejoin everyone else.

The key points here are, (a) the tank does not move; (b) the targeted person runs away from the group; and (c) the non-targeted people runs towards the tank.

Obviously, this works best if you only have ranged DPS - e.g if you have a rogue in your group, you will have to improvise a bit - perhaps the rogue should stand at (Z), and then run up the stairs if he gets targeted and then run back to (Z). Never tried it with a rogue in group so dunno if it works, but try it and let me know how it works!

Good luck!

Comment by markus9312

dued by 70 resto druid, 70 feral druid, mana was never a problem,but getting of the heals was, feral druid had 1k atp, and resto drud 850+ healing,so our gear was lolzzz

Comment by DarkFury

something to try:

Tank shirrak with an earth elemental, elementals are immune to bleed effects. Earth elemental with earth shield would be just funny.

Comment by Bubbladin

hmm i am a lvl 65 paladin and i wonder if u can go outrange of the aura he got i tried many times but it doesn't seem to work coz it's extremly hard to heal whit 50% slower spells =/ b

Comment by cyberhrc

well tbh
we played HC and im SL / SL lock.. our tank died when boss was on 8-% so i had 2 tank him... it went without ANY probs
he hit for 600 - 1200 top (except his fire crap) and since he makes our spell cast 200% longer same happened 2 drain life.. 1 cast 20 sec so u have no prob with interupts and recast.... was fun 2 watch tbh :)

Comment by Stainer

If you are tanking him as a paladin you bubble will ofc remove bleed effects, just popp it and turn it quickly off att 3 stacks or so, and blessing of prot removes other members bleed effekt, so handy if you have a melee like shaman, rogues can use evade to stay melee and get rid of the effect

Comment by floom

As someone mentioned, Divine Shield will remove the effect of Inhibit magic for a while, I suggest using it if your party members drops low.

Comment by Nycteris

We found it very difficult to down this boss. We could not actually. Our group consisted of 1 feral druid (tank), 2 rogues, 1 arms warrior (me), and a holy paladin.

I would recommend having ranged dps for this fight. It is considerably more difficult if all party members except the healer have to be right at the boss' side to deal dps.

Comment by 12652

soloable as a 70 epic feral druid. probably as a 70 epic prot pally too.

good source of large prismatics.

Comment by 112652

He will never cast Focus Fire if you try and solo him - luckily.

Comment by 10656

Resto druids take note, the slow casting debuff applies to tranquility too. <3

Comment by 18560

One question about the fireballs:
Is it possible to interrupt the casting of those?

My party was:
Prot Warrior
Enhance Shaman (me)
Shadow Priest
Holy Priest
Hunter

During the fight (wariior tanked him on the top stair) he aimed a few times at us, but never shot any fireballs. I thought I heard a shield bash or shield slam of our warrior during his aim.... so I was wondering, can you actually interrupt his Fireballs in some way? Or was our encounter just buggy because of our tanking position?

I noticed this on heroic, dunno if this changes in normal mode

Comment by 144063

this boss is way too hard.. i had a lvl 70 warrior, 66 warrior, 65 mage and 65 warlock and im a lvl 69 holy priest with 800 healing 17% crit. and i cant heal with this guys aura.. we tried 6 times to kill him and everyone's armor broke and we had to quit. no good .. i think this is impossible

Comment by Serai

after reading nevinera's post i decided as a epic feral druid (tier 4 with 2 shattered sun pieces) to try my luck soloing shirrak.

it is doable, but it requires a bit of luck and a potion
he hits laughable, and most attacks dont land, his fire spells arent even used as they dont target the top aggro

most of the dots should be dodged or else run out after 1 or 2 stacks, should the stack reach higher than 3 you will notice that your pretty much dead

it went fine till 10%, then i got 3 stacks and my hp was plummeting quickly. killed him with 1k hp left

i think other classes, especially if they are dwarf stand a good chance against this boss alone

Comment by 70304

interesting tidbit: his aura breaks stealth but not shadowmeld..

Comment by 181599

lvl 67 Holy BE Pally
782 +heal
7181 Mana

As a holy pally this is the hardest boss I've ever faced. For the sole reason that we don't have HoTs or efficient instance cast heals. That being said, also possibly of having a 5 sec cast time on your Holy Light spell and Flash of Light cast time of 3 sec, this boss is a pain.

My biggest tip is when he uses Attract Magic (Reverse Knockback) is to bubble (Divine Shield). You are unaffected by the the cast time debuff allowing you 12 secs of free cast time. Get your tank up first, use a free FOL on the Melee dps who have taken dmg and run back out to max cast range before the debuff hits again.

If you do this and the rest of your team remembers to run away when they are being targeted you should have a pretty clean fight. Hope this makes sense - ßübblës (Darrowmere)

Comment by Abron

As of 2.3, all cast timer classes will now feel useless against this boss thanks to channeled spells being affected by cast timer effects.

Comment by 172222

67 Draenei Shaman

All I have to say is Ouch! Today was my first time in this dungeon and this boss ate our group for lunch. If you are a restoration shaman and the only healer in the group this is going to be a tough battle. If you are focused on at any point and have to move the group is likely going to die.

Maybe with the right potions and above average gear. My suggestion is bring another healing class and restoration shamans beware. The last thing you want to be doing is running around during this fight but that is pretty much pure luck if you don't have to.

If anyone has some potion suggestions or trinkets that could help resto shamans please link them.

Comment by iMathias

Healing advice:

As a holy priest, this fight really freaked me out, I never noticed the debuff on my main lock character due to the fact.. we dont cast we dot. But it was fairly easy when i reached lvl 65 and had my new Renew spell. + I have Gift of the Naaru.

If it's a pala tank you can easily shield him before he pulls. After that it's a mather to use renew and shields all the way.

With a druid or warrior tank this is figt is a bit more tricky since druids and warriors use rage, again use renew but wait until they have at least 50% - 75% rage to shield, as rage can go down very quickly.

Shielding yourself might be a good option too, since you are the healer the chanche that he will throw the fire on you is very big.

As a healing druid... this fight should be extremely easy the main healing spell is afterall an instant cast.

Comment by 205247

Paladins, fire resistance aura up! Fully resisted atleast one of those blasts.

Comment by 178057

I cracked up laughing when I saw that screenshot. He looks so happy. One of the funniest looking bosses in the game.

Comment by 292117

i engaged this boss 3 times with my holy priest and we were wiped 2 times hehe. 3rd time was ok, cos that time we had a plan :) renew, and shield works alright but the players need to drink a health potion cos i couldnt keep everybody healthy all time. some players didnt notice the red ground due to the fact they had had there video options on low haha. be ready to step aside when that happens ;) dont stand on the brdige cos theres a change u will be blown away and fall down... this boss was nasty, didnt like him haha. so my advice is: think a bit about a plan before trying to kill him. its no easy tank and spank boss.

Comment by 318094

I beg to differ. This is actually a very easy boss to tank and spank. This is a much, MUCH harder boss to heal, however. The tank has little to worry about if he's competent. Decent avoidance and armor work well here because Shirrak's melee isn't that painful; his DoT will be eventually. Also, the tank is the only member of the group who doesn't have to live in fear of Focus Fire. You could go a fairly long while without healing the tank and focus on keeping DPS alive. The issue comes if your tank is undergeared (which your tank should not be; there are several other instances with a LOT more tank gear that a tank would consider before approaching Crypts, which is a heavily caster-friendly and somewhat tank-indifferent instance to begin with loot-wise).

For melee classes, there's not much you can really do except wail on the bastard till he drops, so yeah. You've got very little to worry about on the front lines except keeping your dps and threat mitigation on point.

I tried my hand on my Holy Priest. It's not fun, I will agree. It feels really crippling when you're forced to rely solely on Renew and PW:S. Plus, you have to hope to god that all meleers are geared enough that they won't fall to pieces in seconds.

But I will say this. The most important thing a tank can do for the healer is to engage Shirrak at the far back of the hall, something I've always done when I played my Warrior. Healers without insta-cast options will love the tank long time for this, since it keeps the cast time debuff at its bare minimum.

Every time that I have wiped here, it is because the tank engaged Shirrak on the stairs and I either had to struggle with line of sight issues, the more extreme levels of the cast time debuff, or a combination of them.

The biggest headache, however, is the pull Shirrak tends to do every so often. For a priest, living through it is easy. Slap on PW:S mid-flight, land, and make your way to the back. For the group, it's harder. The time you spend doing this is to keep yourself alive before they die, and more often than not, you'll be frantically clamoring back while your ever-healing diligence has dropped. My most recent encounter with this guy was successful although I could not keep two dps alive because he pulled me at inopportune times and I do not like being ticked away by a DoT that deals 1600 damage per tick because I was too close.

Comment by error10

This was an incredibly difficult solo as an 80 frost mage, but I managed it on the second attempt. I let water elemental pull him and build up some threat, then I popped Mirror Image, waited a couple of seconds for THEM to build up some threat, and then started wailing on him from max range. I couldn't stay out of range once he decided to focus on me, though, obviously. I had to burn Cold Snap (to get pet back up) then Ice Block and barely got him down before he got me. On the second pet summon it was just for a few more DPS; he couldn't pull the boss off me anyway.

Comment by 483757

This boss can be a pain in the butt if you don't have a proper team build. Mine was :

64 Fury Warrior
66 Feral Druid
65 Tank DK
67 Fury Warrior
65 Resto Shaman (that's me, though it is Off-spec)

1st try failed miserably, cause this is the first time I entered AC as off-spec healer and didn't realized about the casting time debuff. We got wiped for another 4 times before we gave up and moved on to Mana Tombs because I still get a horrible cast time even with only 1 debuff. Generally, an all-out melee-DPS plus Restoration Shaman is a perfect mix of disaster. If the druid had been dual-speccing to Resto Druid, things will go much easier. Unfortunately he didn't have it. D:

But all in all, this is due to the fact that some of them never been to this instance before.

So generally, for shamans out there, do not ever think of coming here as a healer. You will get yourself into huge trouble, even with Riptide and Earth Shield. (5 second CD Riptide, hello?) For those who love Melee-DPS (Warrior,Retardin,DKs,Enhance shaman), they should also be decently geared to do this. I have a feeling that any caster DPS can do this stupidly easier.

Comment by 491231

Just solod as an 80 feral druid on heroic... I've been going back through all the BC heroics doing heroic attempts and so far I've aced everything I've attempted. My stats suck, (34k health, 64% reduction, 35% dodge, 35% crit, 4.5k AP) so this is certainly possible on a mostly Naxx 10 geared feral.

I have to say, of the bosses I've done this certainly in the top 5. The stacking bleed ended up hitting me for almost 5k per tick on my first attempt and I took 72k total dmg. After reordering my CDs so that I blew all my dps CDs at the beginning and all my dmg reduction CDs at the end I managed to finish him with 72% health left and I only took 22k dmg. This guy has to be dropped fast, even the most geared tanks can't take that dot ticking away, especially if it is stacked as high as 15% of their health...

I still have Arc, Shattered Halls, and the CoT instances still to go.

GL all!

Lifebloom - Aegwynn

Comment by 250820

Mages can use Invisibility to skip this boss.

Comment by Thottbot

anyone know of a Strat on this fight? He has a casting speed debuff that stacks to 200% and Watches someone...then dmgs that person for a lot of dmg..plz help

Comment by Thottbot

Group stands on the bridge.
Tank pulls the boss to the bridge, then the usual tank and spank.
The boss has an aura that MASSIVELY increases casting time.
Priests use renew and shields only. (the debuff makes even your flash heals 3-5 sec casts)
Once the boss is focusing on someone, everyone needs to get out of his sight (INCLUDING the MT) or they will find themselves 2-shotted by an aoe-attack.
Just go and stand behind one of those pillars and everything should be fine.

Took us 3 wipes to come up with this strategy and another one in which the healer got knocked away just before the boss started to focus.

Good luck and have fun ��

Comment by Thottbot

there's a nice guide on wowwiki
http://www.wowwiki.com/Shirrak_the_Dead_Watcher

Comment by Thottbot

here's how we did it and it worked great:
1. tank him at the top of the stairs and have the rest of the group spread out around the area where the boss normally stands.

2. when the boss puts glowing lights on the floor, everyone - including the tank - needs to move away as fast as possible.

3. casters should try to stay as far away from the boss as possible, he stacks up a debuff that greatly increases cast time. healers should use as many instant casts as possible.

4. the boss hardly does any damage as long as you dont get hit by the fireballs he shoots at the glowing lights on the floor. he also dies quickly assuming your dps stays alive.

the main thing is to move away from the lights on the ground. as long as you dont have people getting hit by that, its easy to heal through the fight and damage him down.

Comment by Thottbot

? Inhibit Magic (Aura): After you have cleared the bridge, as soon as you get near the stairway you will notice an aura affecting you -- similar to the Baron Rivendare aura, but ranges to around 40 yards or more. You can't avoid it. However, this aura inhibits your magic. If your big heal or fireball casting time is 3 seconds, with the Inhibit Magic aura it will double or triple its casting duration. It stacks up to 4 times depending on how close you are to him. ie Tank has 4, healers and casters should be at max range and have only 1.

? Carnivorous Bite: On cloth-gear, Carnivorous Bite does over 914 - 1,359 damage. And can inflict it three times in a row for a total of over 3,000 damage. Leather wearers tick for around 450 damage and so on. Don't stay near him too long if you aren't a melee player. Not dispellable that I can see.

? Telekinesis: Shirrak will randomly toss you into the air and pull you from afar toward him. He does this for no good intention. Stop casting and run back to your position.

? Fire Bomb (AOE): When you see a red-orange glow below his tentacles, you should worry. It will tell you on your scrren that you are being targeted. You will also see a flare at your feet. He is channeling a fire bomb AOE. You can run away and escape the fireball if you carefully watch your screen and the ground for flares. Do not try to walk away from it or back up, you have to iether turn and run or strafe side to side. Upon impact, the bomb spreads nearly 20 yards afflicting everyone within its radius for 2,500+ damage. He does fire bomb every 12 seconds.

STRATEGY

There are basically two strategies to beat Shirrak the Dead Watcher.

First: Tell your team to take positions. Imagine a square. It has four corners. Two players on the left, and two players on the right -- if most are ranger/casters. The tank needs to pull him to one of the square corners. Your priest or main healer needs to survive. Therefore, the priest goes by the stairs -- this helps priests avoid the fire bomb. The square-position helps a lot because when everyone is spread, the fire-bomb won't cause damage to more than two players.

Second: Priests and/or druids save the day. Cast instant spells. Priests should cast renew on everyone starting with yourself, the tank, then everyone else. The only player you should use Big Heal is the tank -- because the aura of Shirrak slows the casting time of your big heal's 3 seconds-cast to nearly 10 seconds. Power-Word: Shield is the most important part of this boss event. Shield all players the whole length of the event and toss a renew. Make sure to redo Power-Word Shield once Soul Weakness is over. Don't wait until people gets damage. Just spam renew on all players, then a shield on each player. Then redo until Shirrak is dead. You won't need mana pots, but take a few just in case.

This is a no-joke boss. He means business with that fire bomb. Once you know how to position yourself, and how to run away from the fire bomb, it is easy.

Shamans should place a Mana totem at the center of the square and help toss instant-heals to the tank. Hunter, Mage or Warlocks should bandage themselves or bandage the priest at all times when possible. Tanks can optionally drink a fire resistance potion. If everyone DPS and watches the fire bomb, and the priest has done a good job rotating renews and shield, Shirrak the Dead Watcher will die in one minute and fourty-five seconds. (1:45)

Comment by Thottbot

We had a rogue a warlock a warrior a shadowpriest and an enhancement shaman.
We wiped 4 times trying to heal.
Then we tried another tactic, the warlock made healthstones (again) and everyone just did max dps, shadowpriest to shadowform shaman into dps-gear, he only got out 1 AoE and we could continue the dungeon.

Comment by Thottbot

about that carnivoures bite thing? real pain in tha as sindce we didnt hd a druid.
after 3 stacks it hitted me each time for 1100dgm.
he only hits around 500 to 600 on me but that DOT killz!

Comment by Thottbot

Worst boss ever, i couldnt kill him, i would strongly recommend group where all are 70...

Comment by Thottbot

It's not too bad. All you need to keep in mind is to keep moving if he watches you or else you'll get hit by that fire attack. As for the healer, shielding and renew is all you need.

He's pretty much exactly like Broggok in Blood Furnace -- same floating head, low HP.

Comment by Thottbot

!@#$ed up fight, melee gets a wound debuff, casters 200% casting speed, he does 3x aoe and you have to get away even if you're healer and even if your tank is dying

Comment by Thottbot

doesn't hit for a lot? only 1.5k on average... + he hits when he's casting that damn aoe

Comment by Thottbot

I agree, this boss is seriously retarded. Is there any way to avoid that damn wound-debuff? Me, as a rogue gets raped by it =( My hp ticks down like crazy, and the damn thing stacks too. The healer will have a hell trying to heal the tank with constant damage, me with the damn debuff, and the unlucky ones who can't dodge the AoE in time.

Is there any way to counter the wound-debuff?

Comment by Thottbot

1) DPS wise it really helps a lot to have a hunter, because:

he is not meele, so doesn't risks getting bleed debuff
he is no caster, so doesn't have problem with casting time debuff

Also affliction locks / arcane mages don't have big problems as they have instant/channeled spells.

2) It's good to have 2nd healer/off-healer, because if your healer is targeted by bombs he can't heal even if tank is dying (priest and druid can still use shied/HoTs though, even on the run).

I have killed Shirrak with only holy pala healing - and he had it hard due to no instants. Affli lock (me) and hunter + rogue were DPSing.

Comment by Thottbot

Our group was made up of a hunter, warrior, rogue, warlock, and priest. We wiped twice before having the hunter put her pet on stay/aggressive in the middle of the room then she pulled the boss to the center of the bridge, feigned death to get aggro off her and onto the tank and pets, and then everyone else stood around the boss in a circle straight DPSing. When the boss targets you just run away and run back to your place once you're not targeted.

Comment by Thottbot

lol doing it on heroic, this instance SUCKS, rather have heroic arca, i mean DAMN!

Comment by Thottbot

I've healed this boss before on my priest and never had a problem. Now I come there as a restoration shaman and it seems like a difficult fight to heal. I wanted to ask all other shamans out there if you were healing this fight how did you do that?
Our group set up was a 68 mage, a 66 warlock, a 66 warrior, a 68 hunter, and me - lvl 66 shaman. Basically I was spending the whole fight dodging the Focus Fire and running away after getting pulled. Shirrak absolutely destroyed our tank.
We then tried a different strategy where Felguard was tanking. There were two healers for him (warlock was spamming Health Funnel). It did not go well. The boss managed to drop DoTs on all of us and drained our health significantly fast.
So my biggest concern is his bite (DoT). Is there any way to avoid being pulled? Perhaps stepping out of LoS every 10 seconds?

Comment by Thottbot

Killed him in heroic auchenai crypts with
Protection Warrior
Rogue
Paladin
Fire Mage
Frost? Mage

Positioning is key..I tanked him near the opening to the north,while clothie dps nuked him from a nearby pillar in the corner. When he lights flares,people will strafe to the side or get out of range,and resume dps on the boss. Got him down after 4 tries. Anyways fight isn't too hard,but I've sure had a lot of headaches trying to down this boss. And Fanblade Pauldrons didnt drop..boo!

Comment by Thottbot

This boss was pretty difficult for a noob pub group, i am a 67 enhance shaman, i was melee dps, we got him to about 30 percent and everyone was dead, i used a potion but i kept attacking + stormstrike + and ES, killed him with about 1k health to spare.

Comment by Thottbot

This boss is a @#$%^.
My pparty (me 66 shadowpriest, 65 holy pala, 66 Warrior (tank spec), 68 warrior (fury/arms) and pve specced rogue 68) had hideous trouble here. All players are very skilled as ive been playing with them all for a while but due to that ARSING debuff we could do virtually nothing. we died 4 times HOWEVER this is how you beat the boss in the siuation of no ranged dps i.e. hunter.

Start battle by both warr's charging in. keep one in attack mode and one tanking the boss obviously, rogue constant dsp whole battle. The pala used Dshield at the start to keep the debuff off as long as pos and i ran to the back of the room whilst the pala stayed on bridge. I then shot a SWpain and a Vampiric embrace at the boss. and heres the kicker ive heard noone mention. Mind flay. Just, dont stop, shadowfiend if nessisary but mind flay the WHOLE TIME. the only thing the mob does is increasethe dps because with mindflay the damage is done PER SECOND, not total cast time. so basically aboout 3X as much damage for mana as a normal mind flay. this twinned with VE can provide a reasonable ammount of HoT to hopefully last.

Oh.

and the leather resto druid helm dropped.

We
were
pissed.

Comment by Thottbot

Ok...best bet on here is to have a team made up for 2 or 3 ranged DPS..hunter prefebly....hunters work both better and worse but overall since they have alotta hi DPS shots without a cast time they are ebst for it...

Now you guys need to make a simple X form...you all pick a corner...run up the stairs and do it..heres how our setup looked

hunter hunter

tank

Druid Healer Enhancement shaman

this way when he beginns to focus you all ahve a spot away from the other to run to so nobody gets killed...tank never ever moves...

aslong as you trust your healer spamming back to back ehals shouldt be to hard for him but if itsw a pickup group i reccomend 2 healers

its really not worth it for the loot..but happy hunting XD Kaisho Blackwater raiders C(<>.<>)3

Comment by Thottbot

guy from before, with the leather drop two posts ago.

Just did this gy again, all between 67-69. Rogue, me (shad priest) holy pala, warrior and hunter. Fight started, warrior died, then pala died in about 10 seconds. Watcher wason 75% health.

Pulling eveyrthing we had we actually managed to kill this guy with 3 dps classes.

Now that is what you can awesome skill.

(auchindoun, Outcast-guild name. Cease- player.)

Comment by Thottbot

with all 66s we 3 manned him to 20%, 2 druids and a priest, it was pretty hilarious

Comment by Thottbot

Heroic Dead Watcher is not an easy fight.
How to beat Dead Watcher

1) Have people in your group who can LISTEN to directions & follow them out.
2) Run from light
3) Tank runs from boss to let bleed DOT fade
4) Understand that this fight is not a caster friendly fight, the closer you get to boss the slower your cast times. Hunters & warlocks are ideal dps classes.

-------------------------------------
1) if you have people who do _not_ listen or follow orders, you will probably wipe 3 times before you kill him. When the boss throws bombs, they will not run & cause wipes.

2) RUN OUT OF THE LIGHT
When "Shirrak the Dead Watcher focuses his energy on <target>" he will throw bombs at a player that will light up the ground.
*STAND IN LIGHT = DIE
*STAND TWO STEPS OUTSIDE OF LIGHT = DIE
*Stand in light, finish hitting boss/healing _then_ move = DIE

Stop whatever you are doing & RUN OUT OF THE LIGHT.
There is no time to do anything but RUN. So many times have I been in groups where the bomb is under a rogue/healer & they finsih dps'ing/healing then start moving out of light just to die 1 second later. Then they'll turn around & say they had no chance to get away when they obviously did >.<
The boss throws THREE 3,500 dmg bombs at the same time to one spot, they explode after 3.5 seconds.
RUN OUT OF THE LIGHT. This is why having people who can listne is so important, if they cannot listen they will probably die at the first bomb almost ensuring a wipe.\

3) Tank must run from boss to let DOT fade off, or else be killed by it.

If the bombs don't kill you, his stackable DOT will kill your tank & cause a wipe. The boss's DPS is weak & won't hurt the tank much. Its his DOT stacked 7 times doing a few thousand damage a tick that'll kill your tank.

Boss does a bleed DOT on those in melee range that can stack multiple times (I've witnessed atleast up to seven). Even with two druid's (one of which is resto) healing you up with HOTs, when you have many DOTs stacked on the healing won't do a thing & you'll take damage anyway. At 3 stacks expect it to tick for 1k damage atleast, every new stack renews the 19second DOT timer.
The only way to get rid of the DOT is to let it fade off by RUNNING from the boss (Yes I am telling the tank to run from the boss). But the boss will chase you apply another DOT renewing the fade timer. What the tank must do is this.

Tank the boss in one side of the area. When the boss does his emote "Shirrak the Dead Watcher focuses his energy on <target>" THE BOSS CANNOT MOVE! While the boss is in that side of the room & cannot move, the tank must RUN to the other side of the room. If you time it right, and have enough agro in first place, the boss will not be able to get to you to reapply the DOT, and it will fade off & the tank will be safe.

4) The closer you are to the boss, the worse your cast time.
Stand close to boss = minus 200% cast speed
Stand max distance to boss = minus 50% cast speed

...this boss is hell for mage dps, and pally / shaman healers. Preferred classes are warlocks & hunters, and healers with HOTS. Any melee class is good if they can grasp the concept to move out of the light & move away from the boss to let the bleed DOT fade off- if not they will die quickly.

I've probably killed this boss 20 times, more so than anybody I know on my server. I've probably wiped on him maybe 60-70 times. He's only dropped the fanblade pauldrons twice & the claw of the watcher once.

Comment by Thottbot

Almost impossible to heal as a pally. Recommend
priest/druid or 2 healers.
We made it in the end though :)

/67 Paladin, 1k +healing.

Comment by Thottbot

First time i did this our group got smashed :P
2nd time was cake. Am a 66 Resto-Sham and was grouped with 65mage,65lock,67tank and 67 s-priest.Dodging the AoE isnt hard at all, as a healer the debuff clearly was my main concern but just means you have to over compensate your heals and not let it stack too much.Popped NS when i got pulled towards boss ofc but anyways if everyone knows to avoid the AoE fire then its not 2 hard at all.

Comment by Thottbot

Tried this on heroic mode, boss was insane. Out group was:

Druid tank-me 28k armor unbuffed
pali healer-18k healing
rogue
hunter
mage

we wiped several times before giving up. He was only hitting me for about 300 and his bleed thing he does to melee was only doing about 1k fully stacked, so damage wasnt a problem, after about the 3rd time everyone was used to the flare, so that wasnt the problem. The problem was he would flare the pali, pali would move, flare would go off and immediately flare the pali again, so with the casting debuff and the pali constantly getting flared and the pali not having any instant healz it would be a good 20 seconds before the pali could pull off a heal on me. We got him down to 10% twice so It's not impossible with a pali healer, however, I would suggest either not bringing one or if you have a pali healer bring a shaman/shadow priest or a druid that is not tanking so if your healer gets spamed flared someone can throw a hot or instant cast heal on tank.

BTW I now hate AUC Heroics, they have the worst bosses, easiest AUC heroic is definetely Shadow Labs, only had problems with 3rd boss but we got him after about the 3rd wipe.

Comment by Thottbot

ANY HOLY PRIEST, Just spam circle of healing, and shadow feind him.

Comment by Thottbot

LUFFA! (It's worth a shot)

Comment by Thottbot

cake, but maladaar is harder. i have fought him with a affliction warlock, 64. this is what we had

Tanks - 70 warrior (protection) and 68 warrior (protection)
DPS - 64 warlock with two peices of raid armor.(Zanzil's Seal) and (bloodmoon cloack)...i haven't got to get a new one yet so please don't tormemt me. i am also Affliction and 66 Frost Mage.
Healer - 70 shaman with karazhan gear. (holy)

healer stayed on the bottom of stairs a bit where the debuff of casting time was reduces went off.
Tanks went on top of stairs but in range of where the shaman can heal them.
i was dpsing from the top. which this was my first run (2 70's and haven't run this place yet...) Anyways... Mage was dpsing at the bottom where the healer was while i got the debuff (obviously he knew what he was doing.) mage died by focused fire of Shirrak the Dead watcher.

NUMBER ONE RULE FOR THIS GUY IS THIS. If it says something like this in the raid warning thing where people put raid warnings, it will say

*Shirrak the dead Watcher is now focusing on (Name)*
when he focuses, he will shoot a hunter flare as it will look like. get out of the flare or you will die. mage died 2ice becaise of the flare. 1st time he got to 1% and i was the only one living, killed at 1% and i died...
next time we did the same thing, but putting the flares in the DPS area so the tanks did not die. killed him...yay...and he dropped some trinket...

Comment by Thottbot

Since the tank kept on having to move around because of the fires, it was hard for me, being the healer to find the max range of the aura.... so for casters, its a good idea to have the tank tank as far as possible from the stairs, and casters should keep moving up and down the stairs making the debuff expire off you (each thing only lasts for like 4 seconds) so you can sneak in a cast (perferrably a long one) during the time that your debuff is only at 50% increase, because as soon as it becomes 100% increase, casting becomes a huge pain...

Comment by Allakhazam

He has the aura which gives you debuf for longer casting. It stack and depends on how close to him you're. Interesting fight for healers. :-)

It's important for healers to stay as far as possible so they have only one debuf and spred out.

When he Focuses on someone. He shoots him fith fireball 2k-4k fire dmg + AOE 10-15yrd to everyone near that person. Enjoy. :-)

Comment by Allakhazam

I'd say the easiest strategy we had for this fight was the healer (me) stayed at the bottom of the stairs and the tank at the top. Got him to 30% before I got blown up.

Comment by Allakhazam

Easy fight if you and/or your group isn't full of idiots. Just move out of the fire on the ground before it explodes and you'll be fine. I healed this fight with GHEAL 7, even with sometimes having 4 debuffs it's still easy.

Comment by Allakhazam

I had no problem healing this fight. Before I respec I was Disc, now I just went in respec'd holy and it was much easier. The aura is a problem and it is up to the competency of thehealer to judge timing, start a greater b4 the tank gets hit, youll heal right on time, another excellent spell to keep up is Mending, hehe, and since respecing I have fallen in love with circle of healing. So basically, I had full aggro on fireballs, wait for the flare to show, move out of the circle continue healing, and don't be afraid to sheild your tank, if he has rage. In closing, easy boss for the competent player, use your heads, timing is everything, and make sure to bring a lock, if not you will be sucking. I even through some DPS on em when my instasmite proc'd...enjoy, don't get beat b4 the fight starts and make sure your Renew and mending are up at all times.

Comment by Allakhazam

how the *!@# do you avoid the carnivorous bite?

Comment by Allakhazam

Pretty easy, wiped once cause only one of us, the rogue, had done the boss.

Had a druid healer, me, a hunter, a mage, a fury warrior tank, and a rogue.

keep your dps spread out. tank him by the top of the stairs and everyone else move toward the doorway so they have room to move out of the flares.

i just threw a rejuv on the rogue every once in a while to keep him from dieing from the melee debuff (anyone know if you can dispel it, apparently it stacks?)

Comment by Allakhazam

I'd just like to say..screw this guy. I see a lot of posts saying he was easy, I think with anything less than a perfect group, he's suicide. We wiped..probably 10 times in a row i'd say. We had a feral druid tanking, a frost mage, a fire mage, and a rogue, I was main healing (holy pally). I had no problem keeping the tank up on heals really. The main problem was that every time we attempted him, he changed his strategy up. First he spent his time flaring the mages, who were busy humping each other and myself the entire fight which meant every time we got a flare, we had to drops dps and healing. Then he started flaring me every chance he got and popping me up in the air, effectively making it impossible for me to get heals off. We tried again and he started flaring the rogue, and the tank and the rogue just didn't have the reaction time to get out of the way. We finally got the timing down and tried again but this time the tank decided to back up instead of strafe and kept going out of range on my heals. I hate this boss, I hate the developer who invented him, and i'd like to find that guy and kill his firstborn child :P Seriously though..3 warlocks, a tank, and a healer, and i bet he'd go down easy. I won't attempt him again with any other group setup.

Comment by Allakhazam

This guy is a plain $%^&er on heroic. The flares rape you, and he blasts you into the air more often. Took my group a good 5 tries to get it down. At last, we nailed it with TWO main healers. They stayed far away from each other, with DPS standing in between them. This ensured that even as one healer got flared, the other could easily keep the tank up. BTW, Prayer of Mending, Power Word: Shield, HoT's, and even tranquility in this fight are awesome.

Comment by Allakhazam

ehh dude was easy

move outa the way then you see your in the flare zone

i used a channel with the debuff. i think it worked.

keep heals goin,

dropped prety quick

Comment by Allakhazam

Pretty near impossible with melee-only DPSers. Goodbye rogues, hello hunters.

Comment by Allakhazam

Oculus of the Hidden Eye]

Comment by Allakhazam

Well, as for my group - downed him first time heroic.

Priest (Holy)
Priest (Shadow)
Shaman (Elemental)
Rogue (No one really cares)
Warrior(Tank mode)

The debuff is nasty for casters (chanelled spells rule here) but so long as no one is stupid... it's easy.

Little tip, strafing is faster than moving backwards or forwards.

<--------------x--------------->

not
^
|
|
|
|
x
|
|
|
|

Thought the diagrams might help some of the rogues out there

Edited, May 11th 2007 8:34pm by Tripodmatt

Comment by marulol

hunters are by far the best dps against this boss.

View in 3D Links

Shirrak the Dead Watcher

Auchenai CryptsShirrak the Dead WatcherExarch MaladaarShirrak the Dead WatcherAuchenai CryptsAbilities

Inhibit Magic: This aura places a debuff on all players in its range, which increases casting time by 50% per stack. Stacks up to 4 times for a total of +200% to cast time. The maximum level of stacking is related to the distance the player stands from the boss; the closer you stand the higher it stacks. Casters can (and should) stand at maximum range to minimize the effect of this debuff.

Attract Magic: Area effect attack that pulls party members closer to him like a reverse knockback. If you are far away, you are also pulled significantly upwards; if Shirrak is between you and the stairs, you can actually be thrown down them and take significant fall damage. This (obviously) interrupts casting, and being pulled in will give you the full Inhibit Magic debuff, which can be tough on healers if he does it multiple times. You can cast instant-cast spells while in midair.

Carnivorous Bite: Melee range bleed debuff that is applied on all nearby players roughly every ten seconds. This can stack if you stay in melee range, dealing considerable damage. He seems to always trigger it right after using "Attract Magic" (so that everyone getting pulled in will get it before being able to move away).

Focus fire: Shirrak emotes "Shirrak the Dead Watcher focuses his energy on <target>" (this is actually a "raid message" type message, not an emote that only shows up as text). He places a static (non-targetable) beacon under one player; after 3-5 seconds, the beacon will "explode" and emit several pulses of AoE fire damage. This is about 1650 fire damage per hit in normal mode; 3500 in heroic. This is by far his most dangerous ability, and much of the fight relies on keeping good positioning and quickly reacting to this attack.

General Tips

This fight is fairly straight-forward, but the party must have room to maneuver. This means that you must fight him on the elevated areas where he spawns after you first enter the bridge of souls. Fighting him on the stairs and bridge will spell disaster in most cases.

Shirrak's debuff will affect all casters so healers will need to put some lead time into their casts. DPS casters should focus on instant and channeled spells to provide consistent damage.

Having a main and off-healer can be a life-saver, especially with the casting debuff. The main healer can focus on the tank while the off-healer catches the rest of the party. This also gives you backup when a flare focuses the main healer and they have to run.

It is a great advantage in this fight to have at least some physical-based DPS, since the debuff will cripple casters. A hunter is ideal since they will remain mobile and not run the risk of attracting the boss' "focus" near the tank. An affliction-specced warlock is also an asset: using dots and drain life, he will pretty much do as much damage as in another fight, while healing himself and avoiding bites.

Incarnation: Tree of Life druids make excellent healers for this fight since their instance cast heal over time spells are not impaired by Shirrak's aura.

Gains

After killing this NPC you will gain:

Heroic
- 250 reputation with Lower City

Normal
- 80 reputation with Lower City

Normal
- 80 reputation with Lower City

Heroic
- 250 reputation with Lower City

Shirrak the Dead Watcher

Gains

Related

Contribute