Ready Check: Yogg-Saron
by Michael Gray 
Sep 2nd 2009 at 9:00AM
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.
This is the show stopper. The big guy, the final countdown. Yogg-Saron is the last normal boss in Ulduar. (The only other dude is a freaky guy made from stars. Let's stick to the Old Gods here.) Yogg-Saron is the second Old God raid boss in the game, and shares an important dynamic with his predecessor: in-order to kill Yogg-Saron, you have to go inside him and fight a vital organ. Pretty freaky, huh?
Yogg-Saron is actually my favorite fight thematically. Perhaps as a purposeful shout-out to game mechanics from the Call of Cthulu, your raid members will have to manage a buff called Sanity. That dynamic was a signature, revolutionary aspect of the tabletop game, and Blizzard uses it very similarly in this boss fight. At least, I hope it's purposeful. It's possible they were simply inspired by Lovecraft's stories the same way that tabletop designers were. Still, I prefer my little world where those guys threw some dice and stared at their SAN score.
Anyway, let's get to talking about the boss fight.
Ever have one of those fights that are really really hard to explain, but then once you've done them, they don't seem so bad? That's Yogg-Saron in a nutshell.
The super, duper quick and dirty version of Yogg-Saron is that he's a three-phase fight. In the first phase, you blow up his illusory form by dragging exploding mobs on top of it. Then, in the second phase, you kill some tentacles while melee run into a room and kill more tentacles. Once the melee have finished up killing their tentacles, they kill Yogg-Saron's brain. Then, lastly, having roughed up his brain, you kill his body. While you're doing all this, the four Keepers will be buffing you with fantastic abilities to help you take down the Old God.
Like I said, that's the super, duper quick version. It's so quick and summarized that it has almost no bearing on the actual fight. We're going to have to go piece by piece for this to make sense. Following tradition, I'm going to summarize everybody's abilities first, and then describe the fight itself.
You -- You! The player! You start with a special buff on you called Sanity. You start with 100 stacks of Sanity. If you run out of Sanity, you go Insane. When you go Insane, you obviously become a fairly serious detriment to your raid, as you're doing your Yogg-given best to kill them all. Your raid will have to kill you. You cannot be battle rezzed in any way, or you will simply return from the dead still Insane.
Your Help, the Keepers
Mimiron
- Speed of Invention - Increases all damage done by 10% and movement speed by 20%.
- Destabilization Matrix - Mimiron channels a beam of Titan energy that destabilizes the molecular structure of certain Saronite-based creatures, reducing attack speed by 100% and casting speed by 300%. Cast on tentacles that appear during Phase Two.
- Resilience of Nature - Increases all damage done by 10% and healing received from all sources by 20%.
- Sanity Well - Freya conjures a Sanity Well that regenerates the Sanity of anyone who stands within it. These green beams look like a big, stable Starfire animation, but green.
- Fury of the Storm - Increases all damage done by 10% and total health by 20%.
- Titanic Storm - Thorim channels a storm of Titan energy that periodically strikes at enemy targets with bolts of lightning strong enough to destroy weakened immortal creatures.
- Fortitude of Frost - Increases damage done by 10% and reduces damage taken from all sources by 20%.
- Hodir's Protective Gaze - Allows Hodir to save a friendly target who sustains fatal damage by encasing them in a nearly impenetrable block of ice for 10 seconds. Hodir must rest after performing this action, so it can only happen every so often.
Sara (Phase One)
- Sara's Fervor -- Increases a friendly target's damage by 20%, but also increases damage taken by the target by 100%. Lasts 15 sec.
- Sara's Blessing -- Heals a friendly target for significant damage, but causes killing-blow Shadow damage over 20 sec.
- Sara's Anger -- Inflicts Shadow damage every 3 sec, but increases Physical damage done. Lasts 12 sec.
- Shadowy Barrier -- Prevents you from being able to do any damage to Sara during the first phase.
- Shadow Nova -- Inflicts shadow damage to any targets within 15 yards when the Guardian of Yogg-Saron dies (including Sara).
- Dark Volley - Inflicts Shadow damage to the entire raid. Reduces healing effects by 25%. Lasts 10 seconds.
- Psychosis - Inflicts Shadow damage. Also reduces Sanity by 12%. One second cast, chain cast on random players in the raid when Sara is not casting anything else.
- Brain Link - Links the brains of two players. Afflicted targets suffer Shadow damage and lose 2% Sanity every 1 sec. whenever they are more than 20 yards apart.
- Malady of the Mind - Inflicts Shadow damage and causes the enemy target to run in horror for 4 sec, then attempts to jump to another enemy within 10 yards. Also reduces Sanity by 3%.
- Death Ray - Blasts the target with a stream of deadly energy, performing an instant death.
- Diminish Power - Weakens enemy units in a large area around the caster, reducing the damage they do by 20%. Channeled. Stacks up to 4 times. This can be interrupted via melee.
- Focused Anger - Enrages the caster when hit by attacks and spells, increasing attack speed and damage dealt. Stacks up to 99 times. Damage dealt is increased by 3% and attack speed is increased by 3%. Lasts 1 second. Refreshes upon being hit. You'll need to back off periodically to let this buff drop.
- Curse of Doom - Dooms the target, inflicting Shadow damage after 12 sec. The curse is dispellable.
- Apathy - Reduces the attack and casting speeds of an enemy target by 60% and slows its movement by 60%. Lasts 20 sec. Magic dispellable.
- Black Plague - Infects an enemy target with the plague, causing it to periodically retch uncontrollably and be stunned for 2 seconds. Lasts 24 seconds. Disease dispellable.
- Draining Poison - Causes Nature damage inflicted every 3 sec. Mana drained every 3 sec. Lasts 18 seconds. Poison dispellable.
- Squeeze - Grabs a nearby enemy and squeezes the life out of them, inflicting heavy Physical damage every second. Also cancels druids' shapeshifts. You can bubble out of this if you are a Paladin or a Mage, which also has the benefit of destroying the tentacle.
Okay, so now we've been through the lists of what everyone can do. Let's put it all together.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Retropally Sep 2nd 2009 9:18AM
I wish they had made Ulduar in 3.2 and the AT in 3.1, it feels like i'm going backwards going into ulduar each week...but that doesnt stop it being awesome.
Seaborn Sep 3rd 2009 4:09PM
I have thought about this several times myself. They would have had to hold the 5 player AT part till 3.2 but i think it would have made sense that way. It was the naxx grind, then the Uld grind. AT has turned Naxx 10 into a ghost yard. Some are still running Naxx 25...for some reason. I could see doing it to get to Saph and K/T but all the work it takes in a pug is not really worth it considering the gear is way better in a 5-man Heroic.
Of course there are exceptions and i know there are reasons to do some of the older stuff. It is a weird feeling though to look back on WotLK and how the progression has worked. I am not one to play alts and have a dk that I am VERY slowly leveling up. Amazes me to think that once i hit 80 on it how getting gear will be different than the first time around. I guess the game is getting extremely casual. I don't all together think that's a bad thing. I think it will be nice to be able to have some decent gear and a life too for many people. I have played the game for many years now and it doesn't pull me in like it used to. Under the old system, I wouldn't have the same chance to experience the end game the way I do now.
outdps Sep 2nd 2009 9:30AM
Aww man, you guys beat me to it! I have just about this exact post in my wordpress drafts! :(
I guess I'll have to re-work the post to focus more on the hunter specific advice. Excellent guide, btw.
/stink-eye
Kheldul Sep 2nd 2009 9:42AM
Poor Eurip. Your guides are good too. Buck up.
Taskmaster Sep 2nd 2009 10:13AM
Call of Cthulu was a great board game. Insanely hard and everyone on your team has to be competent, it's pretty interesting the parallels it has with the Yogg fight itself. Manage your sanity, don't go out on your own where people can't help you, and killing a bunch of demons before facing the bid bad demon himself.
Squeek Sep 2nd 2009 12:33PM
Hi.
You did a pretty good job this time, but you missed quite a few points again.
Phase 1:
Whether you do the ferry method or the tank-in-the-middle method, there's one very important thing you need to worry about: Dark Volley. This reduces healing effectiveness by quite a lot in addition to doing a bit of damage. It's interruptable and has a short range in addition to a quick cast time (1.5s). Be very quick about interrupting it, or dedicate someone to doing it. The other option is to simply keep it away from everybody else as it will only hit the tank that way.
The ferry method really only works with multiple tanks, and it has a ton of downfalls. Stopping DPS at exactly the right time to way for dots to tick down, maneuvering around the clouds as you get to Sara as quickly as possible, etc. The best thing we've found is to simply say "learn how to move" and have the other people move around the clouds. Have one person in vent call out incoming clouds from certain directions and where you plan to move next and when you plan to move next. Since Melee can't do much in phase 1, this is best assigned to them.
The debuffs DO matter, by the way. Sara's Fervor on a tank with Dark Volley debuff being hit by two adds? That hurts! You need to make sure the healers know when the tanks have Fervor.
The other important thing to mention here is that it's extremely important for the tanks to get aggro IMMEDIATELY. This is also necessary in phase 3. The adds hurt everybody else for a lot of damage.
I've only done 10-man myself, but we found that having two tanks in 10-man was just too much lost DPS in the brain room (since we only ran with 3 melee and one of those would have to switch to tank). The warrior, whose offspec was tank, simply put on his shield and tank sword for phase 1 and taunted adds if the main tank still had adds in the center ready to blow up. He couldn't soak a lot of hits, of course, but just having someone there keeping the adds off the dps and healers is really helpful.
Phase 2: Now this is where I start to get picky about your description.
"Just avoid the skulls and kill the adds!"
That's not good advice. That's the same as saying "stay out of the fire".
Before you even go into the brain room, look at your debuffs. If you have any debuff other than the poison, don't go in! Apathy will render you useless. The Plague will render you useless. The Curse will kill you. The poison hurts, but it's not too big of a deal.
And here's the other fun part. Yogg always spawns a Constricter tentacle before the portals open. If this grabs any of your melee when they're about to click a portal, they're screwed. You gotta make sure they don't head for the portals unless they're still in range of the range DPS.
Speaking of which, my best advice for the Constricters is to make a macro. Simply "/tar constr" will handle it. They're annoying to try to click on otherwise as Yogg's bubble is wtfhueg. Bind this macro to something you'll remember to hit (middle click works well) and you're good to go.
The other thing to mention is Brain Link. Brain Links are severed if you click a portal.
The brain group needs to worry about three things: Time, placement, and Sanity. You will need practice runs to get the hang of the three rooms. One of them is aoe-friendly, one of them has stringent line-of-sight problems, and one of them is pretty normal. The key thing to mention here is that the adds take zero damage on your first attack. Do not use your most powerful hit on the first damage. There are many ways to cope with this, like having someone spam single hits on everything in the room as fast as possible or just smacking it once with a melee attack to get it to show its real form. Whatever the case, it is this very reason that makes caster DPS so useless in the brain room, in addition to the skulls.
You will probably not have a lot of time left to DPS the brain if the room you are in is not the Cult of the Damned room, but expect 20-30 seconds on it assuming you get a good shot. You MUST get out before the timer is up or you will fail the run right there. DBM is set to tell you at 5 seconds when to get out. I was counting down the time remaining in Vent starting at 15 just so they knew time was of the essence and to start leaving Dots on him to tick while they were outside.
The only thing that worked for my group was to send four DPS into the brain room. If you've been reading so far, you realize I said we only had three melee. I, the Elemental Shaman, went into the brain room to utilize offhealing and cleansing in addition to clearing the front two tentacles in the two non-Cult rooms. In the Cult room, I bloodlusted as soon as the last tentacle went down and we had a full duration to DPS the brain.
Make sure you don't go into the brain with less than 50 or 40 Sanity. It drains fast in there, especially when you're not used to it. We found it best to spend one outside phase re-genning sanity and the next one killing Corrupters. So, phase 2 begins, you kill corrupters until portals spawn, go in, do some damage, come out, kill more corrupters, go in, do damage, come out, re-gain sanity, go back in, finish him up, come back out.
Now, the outside group.
Once again, as I mentioned before, priority #1 is Constricter tentacles. They will completely ruin your attempt at getting to phase 3 if they grab a melee as the portals open. The best advice here is to stick together so you can see when someone is grabbed and use that macro I mentioned earlier. Caster DPS and healers are not really affected by this too badly. You can heal while constricted and even DPS down the tentacle yourself as a caster.
#2 is Crusher, and you need to be careful in how you do it. Every few seconds he will begin to cast / channel Diminishing Power. You need to have one of two things happen. One is to stop DPS until the stacks of damage he's been gaining from your attacks wear off (one second of no damage), then have the tank run in and smack it once. The next thing to do is to have your tank learn to joust. He will run into melee range for a split second--just long enough to hit it once, then run away before the tentacle can hit him. Either way, you must have a melee hit on the tentacle to stop the channel / cast of Diminishing Power.
#3 is corrupter, and these only get killed if the melee left them low before going back into the brain room or you have nothing else to do (all other tentacles dead). You can pretty much ignore these if you have any left up in phase 3.
You have, at most, 4 phases in the brain room. If you take more than 4, you lose. Ideally, you want 3 at most. This is why it's important to send four DPSers into the brain, and particularly ones who can cleanse the debuffs (ret pally, enh shaman, and kitty druid are the best). Having an offhealer in there is great too, since finishing up the tentacles with 5-10% HP left and not getting it healed before you leave is a good way to die once you leave the room. Sending an actual healer may be necessary for your group, but you will need great DPS to cover for the loss of the 4th one.
Phase 3 begins abruptly. The tentacles do not despawn. There's absolutely no time between phases.
As a rule of thumb, if there are any Crushers left up, you lose. You have roughly ten seconds to kill any remaining Crushers or it becomes extremely difficult to win due to not having a tank to remove the Diminishing Power channel and needing to do huge DPS to beat the enrage timer. Any remaining Corrupters are fine, and if you only took 2-3 brain phases to get him to phase 3, you can try to clean up some Corrupters.
Healers: FACE AWAY FROM YOGG. This phase is so easy for you.
Tank: Tank the adds perpendicular to Yogg, or use a 45 degree angle from him. Whatever you do, don't face Yogg.
Melee: DPS the Guardians from 90 degrees away from the tank. Hard to explain, but basically if you're facing Yogg, you're doing it wrong. If you have to stand on top of the tank, fine. Just don't face Yogg.
Ranged/Casters: DPS Yogg. Make sure you turn away as soon as he begins to channel Lunatic Gaze. You will almost always take one tick, which is fine, but don't just stand there looking at him.
If you're on the adds in phase 3 (all melee) and you were in the brain room, don't worry about your Sanity unless it's really, really low (like below 10%). You won't be facing Yogg at all in phase 3, so you won't be losing any Sanity for the rest of the fight. In fact, the roles are a complete reverse from phase 2, where the casters/ranged weren't taking most of the sanity hits, now they will.
This helpful guide missed a huge ability he does that makes phase 3 so impossible in Alone in the Darkness, which is Empowering Shadows. When he's "About to cast Empowering Shadows", that's your cue to finish off any add remaining as it's about to heal for an insane amount of health every second. In AitD, you CAN'T kill them, so they heal up. When they heal up, they do more damage! This is bad.
Also, this is not a tank and spank. There are no tanks on Yogg. He has no threat table. This is a strategic burn phase. Your tank must be lightning quick to pick up adds or he will one-shot anyone else in the raid. Your healers must position themselves correctly and continue cleansing debuffs if there are any Corrupters remaining. Your melee DPS must be on top of their game, not pulling aggro off the tank while burning every single add one at a time as fast as possible. Your casters must be quick to turn their character (FOR GOD'S SAKE DO NOT KEYBOARD TURN) and make sure to keep their Sanity up above a healthy number.
Yogg takes a lot of practice and will probably take 3-5 lockouts to finally beat. He's not impossible and you will feel fantastic when you finally defeat this guy. It definitely will feel worth all the wipes it took you to get to that final kill, and it's worthy of a screenshot.
(Disclaimer: I've never done this in 25. If any of this information is wrong for 25, please correct me.)
zappo Sep 2nd 2009 3:28PM
Hodir's Protective Gaze - this is actually as annoying as it is helpful at times. During phase 1 if your health gets low, you get frozen... and a cloud may overtake you. In phase 2 you can get frozen while on your way to a portal. It might be a good idea to have a macro handy to cancel the buff if you think you may get stuck. Being more aggressive on healing MIGHT help if you think your mana can sustain it.