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by Josh Myers 
Jul 6th 2011 at 2:00PM
When you zone into the post-4.2 Baradin Hold, the first thing you'll notice that last patch's Demon Containment Unit trash have been deactivated. The now defunct Destroyed Containment Unit stand silent in the hallways, leaving room for you to engage this patch's new trash, the Eyes of Occu'thar. If you've learned anything from Cataclysm raiding, it should be that trash mobs will do everything in their power to kill you, and it's in your raid's best interest to be prepared. These optical oddities are no different.
Occu'thar
Following Baradin Hold/ Vault of Archavon tradition, Occu'thar is a boss of few mechanics and should provide little challenge to a well-geared and competent raid group. He has 23.7 million hit points on 10-man difficulty and 71 million on 25-man. With his 5-minute enrage timer, you should expect your DPS on 10-man to average around 15,000 DPS, with 25-man having a slightly more forgiving DPS requirement of around 14,000 per person. For 10-man, my group killed it with two tanks, three healers, and five DPS, though two good healers should suffice. For 25-man, we used two tanks, six healers, and 17 DPS, but those numbers are also not required.
Searing Shadows
Occu'thar's first main ability is called Searing Shadows. Searing Shadows is the reason you need two tanks for this encounter. A 2.5-second cast, Searing Shadows hits everyone in a frontal cone for massive shadow damage, and then increases their shadow damage taken by 100% for 30 seconds. Due to this, your off tank will taunt as soon as the main tank receives Searing Shadows, and then the main tank will taunt back once the off tank gets debuffed. This continues until Occu'thar is dead.
Focused Fire
The second ability Occu'thar uses is Focused Fire. In true wannabe-Beholder style, Occu'thar will turn around and fire giant eyebeams of death at a random player. This leaves a huge and very visible patch of pink energy on the ground, which will tick for large amounts of fire damage every 1 second for 12 seconds. In our 3-minute kill, Focused Fire was used 10 times, so expect this ability to be used around every 18 seconds.
As far as I'm aware, Occu'thar cannot cast Focused Fire on melee. If he can, the easy strategy to deal with this would be to have melee stacked on one side of the boss, and have them run through to the other side on Focused Fire casts. Focused Fire is the main source of raid damage in the Occu'thar encounter, so do your best to keep your distance from allies and run away from the highly visible cast.
The Eyes of Occu'thar
If you've survived the trash leading up to Occu'thar, you're already prepared to deal with his third and last mechanic: the Eyes of Occu'thar. Approximately once per minute, Occu'thar will summon Eyes of Occu'thar for every member of the raid. Just like the trash at the beginning of the instance, they will cast Gaze of Occu'thar on their chosen raid member to deal minor DOT damage for 10 seconds. At the end of that 10 seconds, those Eyes left alive will explode for around 25,000 damage to every raider.
The last thing to remember about the Eyes of Occu'thar phase is that it will always be immediately followed by a Focused Fire. Since everyone is stacked in the add phase, it's of absolute importance to be ready to spread to your original positions as soon as the add phase ends. Personal cooldowns should be used to mitigate incoming damage, and this is probably the optimal time for resto druids to blow their Tranquility. This transition from Eyes to Focused Fire will be the most healing-intense part of the fight, and if you can get through it easily, there's no reason you cannot down the encounter.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new tier 12 armor!Filed under: Raiding, Cataclysm, Raid Guides
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Rai Jul 6th 2011 5:25PM
Well, I suppose you could pull them into the fiery stuff...
Skarn Jul 12th 2011 2:06PM
Grrr!
I can't damage the Eyes while standing in the group! Drives me nuts. Get some range to solo target my Eye while I kill the rest!
Actually, ONE Eye exploding isn't a problem. So if all the others die, don't worry about mine! :)
Josh Jul 6th 2011 5:13PM
Was a bit annoyed there wasn't an achievement for this. They easily could've made one like the achievement for Argaloth. Would also help with pug groups wanting you to know the fight
Arrohon Jul 6th 2011 9:23PM
Sounds fairly easy while still being fun.
Sam Jul 6th 2011 9:37PM
I'm surprise there's NO mention whatsoever about the ilvl 371 season 10 viscious gear that blizzard decided to put in there a week after 4.2 for no reason.
As of now, there's over 5 thread since yesterday about this and blizzard have made no excuse for it. Each of the prevous thread's been cap, hence why there's 5 now.
So, blizzard made me spent 5 hours a day for a week farming for honors for subpar gear that I wasn't aware of and now I gotta do the same for the season 10 viscous.
Too bad that was the straw that made me realize how much time I've spent on WoW and what a waste I've been doing to myself.
Arrohon Jul 6th 2011 9:49PM
What do you want them to say? They added the new gear a week after 4.2 because season 9 ended when 4.2 hit and the next pvp season always starts a week after the previous one ends. They've been doing this for a long time now. Either you're a troll, new to the game, or haven't been paying attention to the game.
Zenotho Jul 7th 2011 12:49AM
Arrohon - you misunderstood him. They changed the Vicious gear from ilvl 365 during season 9 to ilvl 372 for season 10. It's the same gear that was purchasable with honor last week and honor this week, except now it's slightly higher ilvl. In other words, people who spent last week building their vicious set now have outdated gear this week. Blizz has apologized for this and said it was an "oversight".
Sam - here's your blue post: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2786569136?page=2#22
kumquat Jul 7th 2011 1:27PM
It's actually not the same gear, Zenotho -- the stats on the "new" Vicious gear with the higher iLevel are actually slightly better than the "old" Vicious gear, which has been removed from the game. That's one of the big reasons why some people are piiiiiiiiiissed.
Zenotho Jul 7th 2011 2:45PM
Yeah.... I know.... hence my statement that "people who spent last week building their vicious set now have outdated gear this week" and the blue post that I submitted. And typically higher ilvl gear has increased stats >.
Recorder Jul 11th 2011 3:28PM
Great guide! I'm gonna try getting him killed now...
Last time (before reading this) we went with one tank only... Instant fail...
Thx for the guide!
BloodCrow Jul 12th 2011 11:09AM
We actually found it easier to all get on vent and listen to the RL say where to move and when. Everyone stacked in one location and moved together when a beam struck. That way, we were always in the same place when the eyes showed up. We would AoE them down without having to group up first. Spread across the room like that, its hard to collapse and kill them in ten seconds. Hunters are at a loss here. We drop two traps and then just burn the boss. Once again, sucks to be us. "Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right...."