Argon's signed up for this week, so we got a mage for Cauterizing an extra bounce.  Plus we bring a good range dps for this fight.

If there's no problems keeping Sleete up (he's a 390 tank w/4pc) then suggest putting Hitt in the dps role. 

Also I've read in some places that it's good to all group up initially during black phase for aoe heals/defensive cd's while picking off reachable tentacles. After that, keep one melee that has cleave to stick to dps-ing big claw+boss and the rest go kill off a claw of their own.

Thoughts?

Here's a great strat + vid posted on MMO Champion:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N5MXAUiRIwI#!

1. Introduction

Hi, my (character) name is Valérie, and I am currently the guild master and raid leader of the 10 man guild Turtles (http://turtles-bf.wowstead.com/). This is a guide to our strategy on the Heroic 10 man version of the Warlord Zon'ozz encounter, the second/third encounter in the new Dragon Soul raid instance. This guide is written from a raid leader's perspective, and is meant for raid leaders. It does not intend to provide role or class specific tips or pointers. I will also assume you and the rest of your raid are familiar with the mechanics and the strategy for the normal version of the fight. If this is not the case, please check out any Normal mode guides you may find before proceeding to read this one. This is also my very first in-depth guide, and English is not my first language, therefore I apologize for possible typos and/or bad grammar.


1.1 Changes from Normal to Heroic mode

- His health pool is increased from 68 Million HP to 86 Million HP, while the enrage timer stays 6 minutes.
- The debuff Zon'ozz applies to random raid members throughout the fight; Disrupting Shadows, will now also knockback any nearby friendly players when dispelled.
- Focused Anger now increases Zon'ozz' damage by 20% (up from 10%), and attack speed by 5% (down from 10%) with each stack.
- During the Dark Phase, three different types of killable adds (tentacles) will now spawn spread at different locations throughout the room. These locations are always the same.
- Claw of Go'rath: A large Claw tentacle that MUST BE TANKED. If it is not tanked it will deal massive amounts of AOE damage to the whole raid, in most cases causing a wipe. Only one of these spawn in the 10 player Heroic version.
- Eye of Go'rath: Deals heavy single target damage to random raid members. Five of these spawn in the 10 player Heroic version.
- Flail of Go'rath: Small tentacle with little health, deals damage knockback players within 15 yards of it. two of these spawn in the 10 player Heroic version.
- The Black Blood of Go'rath debuff that is active during the Black phases of the encounter will now deal additional damage per tentacle that is still alive. Therefore, you have to quickly kill the tentacles to reduce the incoming raid damage. More detailed information on how to properly do this later in the guide.

All of these changes contribute to turn the rather easy normal encounter of this fight into a challenge that requires heavy output from your DPS and healers, and some careful positioning and cooldown coordination.


1.2 Setup recommendation

- In general you always want to bring 1 tank and 3 healers, while the amount of ranged to meele dps may vary. We recommend 2 meele (at least no more than 3).
- Combat rogues and to some degree multi-dotters (Warlocks, shadow priests, boomkins) are awesome on this fight.
- A DPS with the Mortal-Strike effect (-25% healing reduction) on the boss is of great help, as it works against Zon'ozz' pshycic drain ability which heals him by a huge amount.
- A varied three-healer combination with at least one strong tank healer and one strong raid healer.
- Our setup: Prot paladin, Holy pala, Resto Druid, Disc priest, Combat Rogue, Fury warrior, Arcane mage, Boomkin, Demonology warlock and Elemental shaman.


1.3 Terms

- "Light Phase": the phase where your have to bounce the ball X amount of times before hitting the boss with it, and also deal with the Disrupting Shadows debuff.
- "Dark Phase": the phase you enter when the boss absorbs the ball and summons the Black Blood of Go'rath, and when the tentacle adds spawn.
- "The debuff": short term for the Disrupting Shadows debuff.


2. Overview

2.1 Raid marks
2.2 Claws, flails and eyes.

This is an overview of the positions we used to place our raid marks during the encounter. I will be referring to these when explaining our strategy:



Explanation:
- The huge blue circle in the middle surrounding the four raid marks is the water pool in the middle of the room where you are fighting Warlord Zon'ozz.
- The gray circles with numbers from 1-5 represent the spawn point of the Eyes (these are also marked in-game).
- The smaller green Circles with numbers from 1-2 represent the Flails and their spawning positions.
- Blue raid mark: claw spawn point.
- Red raid mark: boss spawn point.
- Yellow raid mark: placed in healing range from Blue/Red, while in ranged DPS range to Flail(2) and Eye(5).
- Purple raid mark: placed in healing range from Red, while in ranged DPS range to Eye(1) and Eye(2).

It is very important that you position these correctly if you choose to copy our strategy.



3. Strategy


4. Light Phase

4.1 Raid positioning

Stack up your raid at the Blue mark when pulling. You should aim to have split your raid into two somewhat even groups, four to five players in meele: 1 tank, 1 tank healer, 2-3 dps, and five to six players in ranged: 2 healers, 3-4 dps. The ranged group stay at the blue mark, while the tank starts tanking the boss at the Red mark, turning him towards the ranged group until the ball spawns, then turning the boss 180 degrees.


4.2 Bouncing

There are different ways of dealing with the bouncing, and also different amounts of bounces which might best fit your own group. Some prefer to go 7 or 5 bounces for every phase, while others might decide to do 7-5-5-5, 7-5-5-3 or perhaps even 5-5-5-3. A total of between 20-28 bounces over four phases is recommended. Try to find the amount of bounces that best fits your own group.

We went seven bounces on the first, then five the rest of the phases (7-5-5-5). We had our Resto druid, Disc priest, Arcane mage, Bookin and Elemental shaman in the ranged group bouncing the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th times, while the Holy pala, Demo lock, Combat rogue and Fury warrior bounced the 2nd, 4th and 6th times. After the 7th bounce, the meele group ran away and prepared to regroup with the rest at the blue mark, while the tank moved the boss into the ball while not getting hit by it himself. After having successfully done so, our priest quickly life-gripped him so he could start tanking the Claw together with the boss at the blue mark immediately.


4.3 Tank damage and cooldowns

At ball bounce number five and further, the Focusing Anger stacks on Zon'ozz has reached a critical point where it is essential that proper cooldown usage by the tank/healers is being used efficiently together with strong, focused heals to keep the tank alive through the massive amounts of damage (from meele hits, pshycic drain and the ball bounces). Plan out a rotation for these cooldowns ahead of time, and make sure you have enough cooldowns for all of these critical phases throughout the fight. In the start we had some trouble with this, resulting in quite a few wipes due to tank deaths.


4.4 The debuff

On heroic mode, the Disrupting Shadows debuff also knocks back nearby players. Beacuse of this, when a player gets the debuff he has to run out of his group before being dispelled. This debuff is only cast while in the Light phase, but you might end up getting the debuffs right as you transition into the Dark phase. If the situation arise where running out of the debuff is not doable or wise, it might be easier to simply outheal the damage from the debuff DOT ticks. This will vary depending on the group, so find out what is best for your own.

Be very careful that the target with the debuff is at a high HP% when being dispelled, as the dispel deals quite a lot of direct damage. Also note that after being dispelled you have to be careful not to soak impact damage from the ball bouncing if you are still not healed up, as the radius of the explosion and the damage is very large, and might cause a quick unessecary death.


5. Dark Phase

5.1 Raid positioning and surviving the initial damage

The dark phase is where things get really heavy, especially for the healers. Make sure your whole group stacks up at the blue mark as quickly as possible, including the tank and the boss, and make use of some raidwide damage reduction or healing cooldowns (PW: Barrier, Aura Mastery, Tranquility, Divine Hymn, Raid wall, Rallying Cry etc). Make a similar rotation to these cooldowns as you did with the tanking cooldowns. The reason to stack up this way is to make it possible for the healers to heal through the extreme initial damage in the dark phase without wasting all their mana, by using strong mana-efficient AOE heals and cooldowns, until some adds are dead, reducing the damage from the Black Blood of Go'rath debuff.

After the Dark phase is over and you enter the 2nd or 3rd Light phase, the tank should continue to tank the boss at the blue mark, while your ranged group stays at the red mark where the boss was originally tanked.


5.2 Splitting your raid into assigned groups

You also want to have your raid split up into different groups with their own assignments. Assuming you are running a setup with 1 tank, 3 healers, 4 ranged and 2 meele dps, you should split up your raid into the following groups:

- Ranged group 1: 2 ranged dps + 1 assigned healer
- Ranged group 2: 2 ranged dps + 1 assigned healer
- Meele 1: 1 meele DPS and the tank
- Meele 2: 1 meele DPS + 1 healer for both Meele group 1 and Meele group 2.

These groups will have their own assigned targets to prioritize when entering the Dark phase. Below I will show you some pictures to better demonstrate each group's assignments. The black arrows show the group's movement path while red arrows represent their nuke targets.


5.3 Ranged group 1



Explanation:
- Ranged group 1 move to the blue mark to stack up with the raid and start nuking Eye(4).
- Once it is dead, move to the yellow raid mark and nuke Flail(2) then Eye(5). The dark phase should end shortly after moving.
- When the boss spawns the new ball near the red mark, one of these ranged players should immediately move there to help soak the ball bounces, while the other ranged DPS finishes off the last add (the Eye(5) which should be at around 50% or lower at this point).
- Make sure 1 of your healers are assigned to, and focused on healing this group. The healer can however, move straight to the red mark after the Dark phase. He should also help the tank/meele healing if necessary.


5.4 Ranged group 2



Explanation:
- Ranged group 2 move to the blue mark to stack up with the raid and start nuking Flail(1). You should be able to reach it from here, if you don't, you have stacked up at the wrong position.
- Once it is dead, move to the purple raid mark and nuke Eye(1) and Eye(2). The dark phase should end shortly after moving.
- Similar to Ranged group 1, have one of your players and your healer move back to the Red mark in time to help soak the ball bounces, while the other ranged DPS finishes off the last add.
- Make sure 1 of your healers are assigned to, focused on healing this group AND FOLLOWS THEM to purple/red mark to still be in range of healing the group.


5.5 Meele

Meele 1: the tank and one meele dps (the combat rogue if you brought one) should nuke down the Claw while cleaving the boss. It should die as the Dark phase ends, or shortly after.
Meele 2: the other meele DPS kills Eye(3). Having a meele dps with good mobility is useful for this, such as a warrior who can charge/heroic leap to the Eye and then back to the Claw/Boss.


5.6 Repeating the phases

When the whole ranged group has stacked up at the red mark, and the whole meele group and the boss at the blue mark, start bouncing the ball and simply repeat this process until you enter the fourth Dark phase.


6. The fourth dark phase: the burn

Assuming you are doing 7-5-5-5 bounces, you should reach the last bouncing phase when there is slightly more than 1 minute left of enrage. At this point, bounce the ball the amount of times your group has decided, then enter the fourth Dark phase. The boss should be at or below the 30% when entering this phase. Everyone stack up on the blue mark as usual, however this time ONLY THE TANK ATTACKS/TANKS THE CLAW WHILE EVERYONE ELSE NUKES THE BOSS. Pop all your remaining cooldowns including Bloodlust at this time (remember the second pot!) to bring him down before the enrage hits.


7. We do everything you say in your guide, but we still can't beat this boss!

- Keep in mind this is a guide to our own guild's strategy for this boss, it might not be as effective for your own group, and adjustments might have to be made by the individual raid leader for it to be successful, especially in the case of different setups.
- If you struggle to stay alive in the last Dark phase, you might want to try and save more raid CDs from previous black phases, or do additional bouncing to delay the phase. However, remember that you will not gain the additional damage debuff stacks on the boss as quickly either.
- If you struggle with having enough DPS for the enrage timer, you might want to try to do additional bounces earlier in the fight to gain more damage debuff stacks on the boss. Consider to try and swap around on the different ranged DPS in ranged group 1 and 2, or even replace some of your players for a better setup or just in general better performance. If your healers are extraordinarily good, you might also want to try to 2 heal the fight, by taking less bounces thus reducing the healing needed in the light phases.
- If none of this work, you might need to wait a few more weeks to gain additional gear to make the fight easier, or you might just need more practice.

Agree...I suggest all but one melee should be on stalks during that phase.  Preferrably the melee that should stay on the big stalk + Zonozz is a warrior to keep up the MS debuff.