Shirrak the Dead Watcher is the first boss
of the Auchenai Crypts in Auchindoun. He is located at the end of the Bridge of
Souls. One minor detail that should be noted before entering this fight is that
he is not a Demon like observers, but undead horror created by Exarch Maladaar.
Adventure
Guide
Shirrak was constructed by Exarch Maladaar
to guard over the fallen draenei spirits who wander the Auchenai Crypts. A
necrotic mass of eyes, teeth, and tentacles, this undead construct absorbs
arcane energy with hungry abandon, and will not suffer the living to pass.
Abilities
Inhibit Magic — Shirrak the Dead Watcher is
surrounded by a field of anti-magic, reducing the cast speed of all players
within 0 yards. The amount of reduction in cast speed is increased as players
move closer to Shirrak.
Attract Magic — Shirrak the Dead Watcher
pulls all players within 50 yards towards him.
Ability druid rake.png Carnivorous Bite — Shirrak the Dead Watcher
bites all players within 0 yards, inflicting Physical damage every 3 seconds
for 20 sec.
Focus Fire — Shirrak the Dead Watcher targets
a player's location, firing a barrage of missiles that inflict Fire damage to
all players within 0 yards.
Strategy
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.
Opening: The main tank should charge
Shirrak and either tank him in the middle of the elevated area or pull him over
to one of the walls, in order to give the rest of the party plenty of room to
move. As soon as the tank charges, the rest of the party should move past
Shirrak to the large flat area behind him and take up position. All casters
should stay at their maximum cast range and stay spread out to avoid flares
(below).
The Fight: 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 to provide consistent damage. Channeled spells
are also reportedly affected by this debuff. Melee classes have to deal with
the stackable Carnivorous Bite. It's best to get out of melee range to let it
fade if this gets stacked to 3.
All the while, Shirrak will drop his flare
bombs on randomly selected party members, announcing it each time with
"Shirrak the Dead Watcher focuses his energy on <target>" text
in the center of the screen. These bombs travel to the current location of the
<target>. Giving that location a wide berth until the flare explodes will
mitigate the issue.
You will have approximately 3–5 seconds to
vacate the area after the raid message appears, so ignore accumulated combo
points, forget about that skill you were just about to use or that spell you
were in the middle of casting—RUN! Strafing away is often the quickest method
of leaving the area. One untried strategy includes running behind the abutments
along the wall (out of line-of-sight), which should also disrupt the damage.
Final thoughts: Another way that has worked
for some groups is to use a warlock Felguard to tank the boss. The warlock is
able to spam his pet heal while the healer keeps the rest of the party up. This
especially works when your party has tons of melee DPS to take Shirrak down
before mana pools are exhausted.
Healing
The Inhibit Magic debuff stacks more times
depending on how close you are to him, so try to stay as far away from the boss
as possible. The outer range for the debuff is about 45 yards and a priest's
heals have a maximum range of 40 yards, so it is impossible to heal the tank
without at least one application of the debuff. The debuff becomes active the
moment you step within 45 yards of the boss, or maybe a half-second or so after
that, so you can't really avoid it by moving in and out. It is critical to stay
positioned so that you only have a 50% cast time penalty; unless you are a
Restoration-spec'd Druid, it is unlikely that you can keep the tank up with
just instant-cast HoTs, and with a 100% time debuff you just take way too long
to cast even 1.5-second spells like
[Flash Heal]. Running out and back in does nothing to reduce the debuff,
but it does reduce the time you are healing or attacking, so don't move unless
you get a flare bomb near you or Shirrak moves towards you (for example, if the
tank has to move Shirrak to avoid a flare bomb).
If you position the tank on the far side of
the boss and your other melee DPS on the near side, you might be able to heal
the melee DPS and ranged DPS with no penalty, but then you won't be able to
reach the tank at all. This doesn't seem too worthwhile, since ranged DPS takes
very little damage in this fight. It might make sense for a secondary healer to
try to position themselves this way, however, as it would make keeping everyone
but the tank up a trivial job.
The bleed effect due to Carnivorous Bite
DoT on melee DPS is sometimes the hardest part to deal with. Keeping HoT spells
active on melee DPS is a good idea.
If you get knocked back, reposition
yourself immediately. If you are the <target> of the "Focus
Fire", abort your spell-casting and run. It goes without saying that in
order to do this, you have to have an eye out for the raid warning that pops up
in the center of the screen, don't just be looking at your party's health bars.
Totally solo heal-able, and an absolute
cakewalk if you have two classes along with HoTs.
Priest
as healer
As a Priest, don't bother with Greater
Heals, even with only 1 debuff. By the time you can finish it off most likely
you'll be interrupted by Shirrak's pull, need to run out of fire, or sudden
absence of tank whom you were going to heal.
Instant cast spells are your best friends
for this fight. If you have Circle of Healing, theres your main healing spell.
If you don't, it is still doable. Keep Renew up on anyone that is taking damage.
This can be your tank, melee DPS with the dot-debuff or people that got to low
health through the fire. [Power Word:
Shield] is a healing spell too! It stops approximately 1.5-2k damage and thus
roughly equivalent to a Flash Heal. Last but not least: Prayer of Mending —it will be especially
effective if you have at least another melee player (or hunter's/warlock's pet)
except for tank, affected by Carnivorous Bite—it will jump rapidly between them
on each tick healing large amounts of damage.
Fortunately, Shirrak doesn't do that much
of melee damage. However healing people caught in the beacons' fire AoEs (if
they somehow manage to survive... that fire does over 11k damage on heroic)
would be really hard. They should bandage themselves in order to ease your task
a little.
If you keep Power Word: Shield on the tank,
correctly timed, it will absorb carnivorous bite long enough for the debuff to
fade.
Druid
as healer
Druids make an excellent healer in this
boss fight. With at least 31 points in Restoration, any lv 64+ druid wearing
proper gear can solo heal the fight easily.
At the start of the fight, cast
Rejuvenation and Lifebloom on the MT while moving. After the Global Cool Down
of Lifebloom, cast [Regrowth] regardless of MT's HP. Your Regrowth
should land perfectly due to the longer casting time. Apply another Lifebloom
and use Swiftmend to consume Rejuvenation, then apply a new Rejuvenation.
Now the MT should have 3 HOT on him and be
safe for a while. It is time to use HOT on other melee classes to counteract
Carnivorous Bite.
When the CD of Swiftmend is done, cast it
again on the MT to consume Regrowth. Now wait for 3 seconds then repeat the
procedures you have done to MT. If MT has less than 40% HP, perform a “Nature's
Swiftness + Healing Touch” before you repeat the procedures.
Paladin
as healer
A paladin can be an effective healer for
this boss. First you need to understand your limitations. Lack of instant cast
HoT makes healing a challenge. Stick to casting Flash of Light because Holy Light
will simply take too long to cast. Spam Flash of Light early and often even if
the MTs life seems to be full, because by the time the spell goes off MT will
surely take damage.
Mana will not be a problem for this boss.
Technique will be everything. Make sure to coordinate with the MT to make sure
you are at maximum range without the risk of MT moving out of range.
The clutch move Paladin has to offer is
Blessing of Protection. Often overlooked ability of Blessing of Protection] is
that it removes all Bleed effects which the dreaded Carnivorous Bite is. This
gives Paladins the unique ability to remove the stacked Carnivorous Bite
effect. Have the MT call it out when Carnivorous Bite stacks three times and
cast Blessing of Protection on the MT, immediately followed by another
Blessing. It's important you do the second blessing immediately so that the MT
does not lose aggro.
If you get behind in healing remember
that [Divine Shield] removes the Inhibit
Magic debuff and will make you immune to further applications of the debuff for
the duration of the shield. This will allow you to cast spells at normal speed
and also allow you to ignore Focus Attack.
Secondary
healer
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.
A secondary healer, especially one that can
transition between dps and healing, helps a lot during this fight.
If your other DPS can do the job, even a
feral druid with good healing gear can be valuable in this fight as a second
healer. Simply stand in the middle between melee and ranged groups, using
nothing but HoTs to get around the cast time debuff.
Tanking
One of the biggest risks to the tank are
being hit by a "focus fire" attack on either the tank directly or on
a nearby DPS unit. Tank the boss to the left or right, and when a flare appears
strafe to the other side ASAP to avoid the damage. Since healers can't spam big
heals, standing in range of a flare when it detonates is the primary cause of
tank death.
Non-conventional tanking strategies of
using warlock or shaman pets have proven successful for some groups. Shaman
pets are immune to bleed effects (i.e. Carnivorous Bite) and some have reported
that Shirrak doesn't target pets for his "focus fire" attack. Hunter
pet is not an option because hunter pets are not immune to Carnivorous Bite.
DPS
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-spec'd
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.
Melee DPS is great for avoiding the cast
time debuff, but it increases the chance the tank will have a flare appear
under them. Melee DPS might have to run to the healer to get heals if they are
positioned on the far side of Shirrak from the healer. If you get more than 2-3
stacked Carnivorous Bite DoTs on you, it's a good idea to step back out of
melee range to let them fade—especially if it looks like the healing is having
trouble keeping up with it.
Caster DPS should be at MAX range. They can
bandage or get a heal if the healer can spare it. A good caster strategy is to
simply chain-cast instant spells, disregarding the Inhibit Magic debuff. Keep
in mind that caster DPS will be severely decreased for this fight, whatever
strategy is undertaken. Wait until you are pulled in to the boss (by his
Attract Magic ability) before trying to evocation or bandage, as his Attract
Magic will interrupt evocation and bandage.
Heroic
mode
The abilities are the same except the
damage is increased. The Focus Fire is increased to nearly 3800 Fire damage,
and there are 3 balls of flame shot at the target. At the end of the fight his
Carnivorous Bite can tick up to 2,500 damage every 3 seconds. A good strategy
is to have the healers stand on opposite sides of the area to prevent getting
double fire-balled while healing and have them use Power Word: Shield and
Prayer of mending liberally. HoTs help out considerably on this encounter. As
long as you pay attention to the flare/fireball area the encounter is simple.
To avoid taking heavy damage from high
stacks of carnivorous bite, it is possible for the tank to move out of melee
range when Shirrak focuses on a player and stay out of range long enough for
the debuff to fade. This will prevent Shirrak from adding another stack of
carnivorous bite onto the tank (which also resets the fade timer on the
carnivorous bite). At high stacks the damage from carnivorous bite is high
enough to negate two druids HOTs, and only the best healers can heal through
it. This tactic is made easier if the tank positions Shirrak on one side of the
room early in the fight. Since Shirrak moves slowly, there is a good chance
that carnivorous bite will have faded by the time he reaches the tank again.
Obviously, DPS party members must not pull aggro while the tank is waiting for
carnivorous bites to fade.
If there is an off-tank in the group, a
potentially easier way to avoid this "carnivorous bite" problem is to
have an off-tank pick up the boss when there are three or more stacks on the
main tank. The main tank can then move out of melee and let the debuff fade
before retaking aggro.
If you have a paladin in your group, he can
use blessing of protection to clear the bleed from the tank (and a quick follow
up with another blessing will prevent Shirak from going after anyone else). A
good time to use this is after the fourth Attract Magic/Carnivorous Bite combo,
while running back to position.
A group make-up including a healing
paladin, any type of shaman, and leatherworker is ideal. Since Shirrak has
relatively low HP, one good round of healing should be enough to keep the party
up long enough to burn him down. The group should wait until several members of
the party need drastic healing (60% health remaining). Shirrak should be at
around 40-70% by then. The Paladin should use Divine Shield to remove the
casting slow effect. At the same time have the shaman use Heroism and the
LeatherWorker throw out his drums. This will enable the paladin to quickly
restore everyone back up to full while still dps-ing. If the party is still
getting in a bind, using holy shock as a fast heal (since it is an instant
cast) works the best (albeit mana inefficient).
Race: Construct (Undead)
Location: Auchenai Crypts, Auchindoun
Status: Killable
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