Auriaya

Do you remember way back while you were in Uldaman? There was a particularly cool "Indiana Jones" moment. You combine two pieces of a staff, and place it in the middle of a giant map. The light filters down through the jewel in the staff, and strikes the distant, hidden door just so. The door opens and Ironaya comes stomping out.

Well, she's back. Not literally, but someone who's kind of like her bigger, badder twin sister. Her name is Auriaya, and just like everything else in Ulduar, Yogg-Saron has driven her completely bonkers. And, of course, she now has friends. You'll note the pair of kitties in the picture above. Each is a Sanctum Sentry, which complicates the fight.

Pulling Auriaya is the most difficult part. Once you can manage to get the fight started smoothly and cleanly each time, you probably won't have too much trouble with the fight itself. As such, after a short description of her abilities, we're going to look at some pictures to make sure we explain this right.

Auriaya's Abilities

• Terrifying Screech - The screech strikes fear into the hearts of all nearby enemies, causing them to flee in horror for 5 seconds. All your usual Fear defenses apply here, though Tremor Totem is the best.
  
• Sentinel Blast - Inflicts Shadow damage and increases Shadow damage taken by 100% for 5 seconds, and will stack up to 5 times.. You can interrupt this ability.
• Sonic Screech - A Sonic Shockwave that deals huge Physical damage to all enemies in its path. The Shockwave damage is split between all targets in its path.
• Guardian Swarm- Summons a swarm of smaller panthers.

Sanctum Sentry

• Savage Pounce - A savage pounce that will quickly kill your raid members.
• Rip Flesh - A deadly attack that inflicts heavy Physical damage every 2 sec for 20 seconds. Stacks up to 100 times.

Feral Defender

• Feral Essence - Each essence increases the damage dealt by the Feral Defender by 50%. The Feral Defender can revive himself at the cost of one of his Feral Essences. This starts out stacked to 9.
• Feral Pounce - The Feral Defender pounces the target, stunning them for 4 seconds and inflicting 602 to 698 Shadow damage every second.
• Feral Rush - Charges an enemy, dealing damage and causing them to bleed .
• Seeping Feral Essence - When the Feral Defender dies, it leaves behind a "void zone," in which you should not stand. If you stand there, you will likely die.

Putting it all together

The nice thing about the Auriaya fight is that it introduces pole-dancing to a raid-wide arena. Because of the pounce abilities possessed by the Defender and Sentries, you generally want to try and stay out of "LoS." By forcing the kitties to come into melee distance of you, you rob them of their ability to Pounce. That's good for you.

There's a big pole in the center of the room. Stand behind it, leaving a Consecrate, Snake Trap, or something like that in her path. When she hits that area, she and her sentries will aggro. Your tank will pick up the adds as they come around the corner.

Kill the adds first, obviously, then go to work on her. When your raid gets hit by her Terrifying Screech, though, that spreads everyone out -- that dynamic makes it much more likely someone's going to get hit by a pounce. I like to have folks load up their PvP trinkets, to try and minimize the number of times that happens. (Of course, if you have a Tremor Totem, that may not be necessary.)

Once the first two adds are down, she'll summon either her Guardian Swarm or her Feral Defender. The Guardian Swarm kitties aren't very dangerous, and you can generally just use Area Effect spells against them very quickly. Paladin tanks, of course, are very helpful in rounding those guys up quickly.

The Feral Defender uses a lot of random-target attacks, and does the same pounce-based attack that the Sentries did. If you need to, kite the raid around the pole. That forces the Defender to keep coming into melee range, minimizing the number of pounces that happen. When you kill the Defender, however, it drops a void zone where it dies. You need to try and move it away from the group for the final kill, so that you don't drop the void zone where your main fight is happening.

This is a movement fight, but it's not that tough once you understand its movement. The Defender's void zone stays the entire fight, so try not to paint yourself into a corner. This is a technical fight -- it tests your ability to move as a group, stay out of zones, and control the adds. But, like Ignis, once you get it down, the fight's not that bad.

See you next week for The Keepers of Ulduar.

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Ready Check is here to provide you all the information and discussion you need to bring your raiding to the next level. Ready Check appears twice a week, with writers Jennie Lees and Michael Gray.

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