You've probably heard that the Chinese guild Stars has pulled off the world-first Alone in the Darkness, killing Yogg-Saron with no watchers helping. You may have seen the video they posted of their winning strategy. But here's something even more interesting, for me: a Q&A with the guild about their strategy and their experience with the fight.

It was originally in Chinese, but a poster on the MMO-Champion forums did a translation. It's a really interesting read. For one thing, Affliction Warlocks turned out to be the most valuable class, since DPS have to turn away periodically in phase 3 to avoid Lunatic Gaze and a heavy DoT-based class doesn't lose as much doing this.

The hardest part of the fight, according to Stars, was dealing with the adds and Shadow Beacon in phase 3. Shadow Beacon is randomly used on between three and five adds, and these adds need to be separated from each other and taken away from Yoggy (or else bad things happen). Basically, the way Stars do it, it's a matter of Hunters using Distracting Shot on the Beaconed adds, and of proper tank positioning (see picture, above-right).

There are a few more interesting tips throughout the interview. They didn't immediately turn around when Yogg cast Lunatic Gaze; instead, they sat through one tick of it to maximize DPS uptime -- they feel that the fourth Beacon is basically unsurvivable, so phase 3 has a 3-minute "soft enrage."

Finally, they call Yogg+0 the hardest boss ever in WoW, saying Sunwell is "not even comparable." They think the fight is well designed, with the exception that it's imbalanced with respect to warlocks - the more Affliction locks you have, the easier it will be. They also say the fight is "less interesting than Mimiron."

There seems to be a lot of love for Mimi out there in the raiding community, and I can see why - it's a great fight. But really? More interesting than Yogg-0? Anyway, I always enjoy these post-mortem talks with leading-edge guilds - it's cool to see the kind of stuff they think about and try.

Tags: alone-in-the-darkness, hard-mode, interview, q-and-a, raiding, stars, ulduar, ulduar-raid, yogg-0, yogg-saron

Filed under: Guilds, Raiding, Bosses