Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle. -- Firefly, "Our Mrs. Reynolds."

Just as a recap, this is what we've covered so far in the OverAchiever: Glory of the Hero series:

• Part I: Ahn'kahet
  
• Part II: Azjol-Nerub and Culling of Stratholme
  
• Part III: Drak'Tharon Keep
  

Having finished the first of the two "troll dungeons" in Wrath, let's head to the second: Gun'drak! Gun'drak is interesting in that it houses both the easiest heroic achievement and (arguably) the most annoying all at once, What the Eck? and Less-rabi respectivey. If you're planning on doing all of these achievements in one go (which may or may not be a good idea depending on group composition), I would recommend taking a group with a Bloodlust/Heroism (you may have seen me make mention of this point before) and several interrupts. A Shaman with Reverberation can be useful on Moorabi. You will also need an off-tank and off-healer for Share The Love.

Snakes, Why'd It Have to Be Snakes?

As a note, this achievement seems to be individually- rather than group-based; you can get it even if someone else gets wrapped. However, if you're interested in getting multiple people the achievement all at once, there are ways to ensure it doesn't happen at all.The easiest way to do it is to tank Slad'ran at the very top of the stairs (technically more of a ramp), right around where you first enter the instance. This is obviously easier with a Hunter using Misdirect or any player with a speed bonus/ability aggroing him then running off, but in a pinch any tank can manage it too.

Keep him there. Due to the distance from his spawn spot, you'll have adequate time to kill Slad'ran before the adds reach you if you're packing great DPS. With good to mediocre DPS, all of the adds will be confined to the narrow ramp and can be AoE'd down easily. If the adds are consistently killed, they'll never get the chance to wrap a player, and bingo -- enjoy your achievement.

Less-rabi

I'll lay it out for you: either you'll nail this achievement on the first try, or (more likely) you'll spend the better part of an evening resetting the fight and trying over...and over...and over...

The directive of the achievement itself is simple; keep Moorabi from Transforming. The ability is a spell and can be interrupted by any standard player interrupt ability (although it can't be silenced, so you can forget about trying to preempt a Transform cast by running in and casting something like Arcane Torrent). What makes Less-rabi difficult is that Moorabi's attempts to Transform become faster and faster as his health drops, to the point of becoming functionally instant. However, as he attempts to cast Transform at a predictable rate -- before 50% health, he casts it every 10 seconds, and after 50%, every 5 seconds -- you can nail an interrupt without actually having to see the cast go off. Then again, if there's any server- or client-side lag, what you think is a timely interrupt and what Moorabi thinks is a timely interrupt may be two different things. Don't try this if the instance server's not behaving itself.

Here's the deal: any group with at least 3 interrupts on short cooldowns should be able to manage this, but if you want to stack the deck in your favor, take two or more of the following:

• Protection Warrior
  
• Shaman (one specced into Reverberation helps out a lot)
  
• Rogue

EDIT: I had previously suggested a Mage with Improved Counterspell for this fight, as that was once one of the better ways to give your group uninterrupted DPS past 50% health. Although the ability was said to have been hotfixed in 3.0.9, two groups I took into heroic Gun'drak for achievements past that point successfully used Improved Counterspell, so I left the suggestion in, assuming that the Wowhead thread was inaccurate. Multiple commenters below have noted that more recently it has not worked, so I'm going to go ahead and say that it was finally fixed. Past 50% health, Moorabi will attempt to Transform every 5 seconds like clockwork no matter what you do. As of patch 3.1, count on a Shaman with Reverberation (or the Rogue technique described in the comments) being the most pain-free way to get this achievement done.

Plan on your DPS being able to manage something in the region of 2.5K-3K DPS each to pull this off successfully. Count on using consumables, Bloodlust/Heroism, and trinkets, especially if gear quality isn't stellar.

Once you've got your group together, huddle up in Moorabi's room and agree on a game plan concerning who's interrupting when. If your DPS is very good, Moorabi will die within 30-35 seconds, giving you 3 to 4 Transform casts. The most crucial casts will be the third and -- if it happens -- the fourth. If you've tried this and you know your group should realistically expect to see a fourth Transform cast occur past 35% health, you may want more than one person trying to interrupt at that point to increase the odds that someone nails it.

Aggro Moorabi. if you have a Bloodlust/Heroism, pop it straight off the pull. The first Transform cast will occur shortly. It will be a fairly lengthy cast, and the first interrupter should wait until the last moment to do it to allow more damage in the interim.

The second Transform cast should also be relatively easy. At 50%, players should pop cooldowns and trinkets and go for broke.

The third Transform cast, assuming your DPS is good, will be tougher but still doable as long as the player concerned isn't on the GCD at the time. Moorabi should be clocking in under 50% health at this point and will begin attempting to cast Transform every 5 seconds. Begin counting down (or, better yet, use the ingame stopwatch) to count off 5 seconds immediately following the last of your interrupts past 50%. This is where a Shaman with Reverberation helps, as they can simply try spamming Earth Shock as it comes off cooldown, and it should automatically interrupt Moorabi's casts as they share the same cooldown.

Of course, Moorabi can also use his AoE stun ability in the interim, and you can watch your good work go down the drain as he casts Transform unimpeded. All you can do is try again. While this is an ability he's only supposed to have in mammoth form, I've seen him use it all too often in troll form, which often ends any shot you've got at Less-rabi. Whether this is a bug or an intended consequence of attempting to keep him from Transforming, I don't know, but it does throw an additional (and highly unwelcome) element of luck into the achievement.

You are most likely to lose this once he's past 15% health. If he Transforms successfully, at that point you'll have to pray that any DoT's or bleeds on him don't kill him as you run for the exit and try to reset the fight.

What the Eck?

In return for having to do Less-rabi, you're rewarded with this extremely easy achievement. How easy is it? Stand in front of Eck the Ferocious while he's casting Eck Spit, get the debuff, and then go kill Gal'darah.

The only catch here is that immunity effects like Divine Shield and Ice Block will remove the debuff, in addition to the more standard route of losing it if you die. Because this achievement is so easy, you may actually want to save this for another run where you're not working on Share The Love, especially if you're a healer without an off-healer in the group.

Share The Love

Speaking of which, this is the final achievement in Gun'Drak and another relatively easy one overall as long as you've got an off-healer and off-tank with you. The only real trick to this is to have the off-tank taunt after they've been Impaled, because Gal'darah never targets the player at the top of his hate list for this ability, so the use of an off-tank is the only way to get the main tank Impaled. An off-healer is helpful, not only for the increased damage an off-tank is likely to take, but also for the time in which the main healer or a clothy is Impaled.

There's some luck involved -- people can get Impaled multiple times before you cycle through 5 unique Impales, and that's frustrating -- but otherwise this achievement is really just a waiting game and a test of your healer's reflexes. It's gear dependent to the extent that if your tank/s and healer/s aren't well-geared, it's going to be difficult to keep everyone up if you get unlucky with Impale continually hitting the same player, but otherwise it's not overly tough.

Tags: achievements, arcane-torrent, bloodlust, counterspell, divine-shield, eck-the-ferocious, galdarah, glory-of-the-hero, gundrak, heroism, ice-block, improved-counterspell, less-rabi, moorabi, overachiever, reverberation, share-the-love, snakes-whyd-it-have-to-be-snakes, what-the-eck

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Features, Bosses, Achievements, The Overachiever