When you first enter, head to your left past a couple Corrupt Living Waters that split into smaller Corrupt Droplets when they die. Around the corner will be the first boss: Wise Mari.

You’ll notice he’s standing in the center of a pool of water, and the most important thing about this fight is to avoid stepping into that water as much as you can. He starts off immune to damage, so you’ll need to deal with his 4 Corrupt Living Waters one at a time first while avoiding the waves and fountains from his Hydrolance. When the Waters die, they’ll split into smaller adds and leave a puddle of Sha Residue behind, so just drag the adds away and kill them. When all 4 adds die, his bubble will burst (don’t be near it) and he’ll cast Wash Away and start spinning clockwise while shooting a continuous jet of water. Rotate around him to stay ahead of it while DPSing him down and he should go down easily. Make sure you don’t step into the water too much though.

Once he’s dead, go back to the entrance and head right this time. You’ll enter the Library and go through a couple trash packs composed of Lesser Sha and Haunting Sha, and some storybook characters come to life: the Two Jugglers, the Talking Fish, the Songbird Queen, the Crybaby Hozen, the Golden Beetle, and the Nodding Tiger. When you hit the ground floor, destroy the Scroll to face either the Trial of the Yongol against Strife and Anger or the Champion of the Five Suns.

If you get Strife and Anger, the encounter is a going to be a little interesting. Both targets will gain a buff or debuff based on whether you’re attacking them or not. Whichever one is being attacked will gain stacks of Intensity which does more and more AoE damage until it gets up to 10, at which point they gain Ultimate Power for 15 sec. If you ignore them and don’t attack at all, they’ll gain Dissipation instead, reducing their damage by 10% per stack.

On the surface of it, the strategy would seem to be to focus your attacks on one target and letting it get to 7 (maybe 8 stacks), then switching all your DPS to the other one, swapping back and forth so you never get too many stacks of Intensity on any one target. In this way you can keep doing damage without making it go immune. In practice however, coordinating pugs in such a manner usually doesn’t work too well, and you end up with both targets becoming immune and doing a full 10 stacks of damage each. The simpler (and more annoying) strategy is just to DPS one target until it’s dead before switching over to the other one. You’ll have to deal with a full stack of damage and having to wait out the immune timer constantly, but the other target will be doing hardly any damage at all.

If you get the Five Suns, it’ll be an extremely simple fight. Kill the Suns and then clean up the Haunting Sha that spawn from them. Once they’re all taken care off, take out Zao Sunseeker.

Once you’ve cleared the Library, keep going into the central courtyard and get rid of all the Minions of Doubt (stay out of the Shadows of Doubt puddles) and Lesser Sha packs. Liu Flameheart will show up.

Liu’s pretty straightforward, in phase 1 she’ll use fire abilities, including a Serpent Kick that fires off waves of fire in 4 directions that should be avoided. At 70% she’ll gain Jade Serpent abilities: her Jade Serpent Kick now knocks you back, and the waves now leave behind fire on the ground. Make sure to move back to your original position after the knockback so the fire trails don’t blanket the area. At 30% she’ll become immune and summon the Jade Serpent Yu’lon. He’ll breathe Jade Fire, leaving behind a pool of fire on the ground. Stay spread out and out of the fire and you’ll bring him down easily.

Inside the temple itself is the last boss: the Sha of Doubt. Another straightforward fight, your group should stay spread out initially so his Touch of Nothingness doesn’t hit too many before it can be cleansed. You’ll want to group up when he summons the Figments of Doubt however, so you can AoE them all down before they Gather enough Doubt to explode and heal the boss.

So in short, the entire raid clumps up together so that Seething Hate damage is manageable. Tanks taunt immediately when Skewer hits the other tank and just switch off each time it happens. And when she does her Blade Dance, spread out all over before grouping back up once it ends.

Morchok is actually one boss that has no major changes. You’ll still want to swap tanks after 2-3 Crush Armor stacks though.

In Normal mode, Warlord Zon’ozz‘s Void of the Unmaking is meant to be bounced between two groups, Ranged and Melee, in order to split the damage it does and stack it up to 5 before letting it hit Zon’ozz. Because of this, when doing the initial pull you want to keep him facing toward the Ranged until after the ball is spawned, then turn him around so Psychic Drain doesn’t hit everyone. In LFR however, the Void ball’s damage is negligible, and only one person is needed to bounce it back and forth by themselves. For that reason, when doing the initial pull it’s best to spin him around and face away from the raid right off. The OT can handle the Void easily enough, and once it hits ten stacks it’ll bounce to Zon’ozz automatically. Because the damage is still being split though, it’s not a disaster anymore if it starts bouncing near the raid (used to do full damage to everyone in range until the hotfix).

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping‘s difference lie in the oozes. Shadowed (Purple) should always be first in Normal and LFR, to avoid the explosions that happen whenever someone receives more than 5 heals. In Normal, Acidic (Green) deals splash damage which is why it’s a priority. However in LFR there is no splash damage, so there’s little reason to prioritize it. Personally I think Yellow is a bigger issue. Another minor difference to keep in mind is the Cobalt’s (Blue) Mana Void: in Normal when the void is killed, it only restores mana to people within 30 yards, but in LFR that range is 100 yards. Tanks will still want to swap after 3-4 Void Bolt stacks.

Hagara the Stormbinder in Normal mode periodically traps players in Ice Tombs that block LOS, and during Frozen Tempest causes Icicles to drop from the sky while you run from the Ice Waves. In LFR you don’t have to worry about Tombs or Icicles. In either difficulty though, there’s no reason to stand there and tank the entire Focused Assault cast. Moving away will cause her to cancel it prematurely to chase after you. Now I don’t mean you should turn around and run, strafing or backing away works just fine.

Ultraxion‘s Hour of Twilight in Normal mode will kill the Aspects if no players are hit by it, which is why a Tank is meant to stay and use a cooldown to survive it. In LFR the Aspects never get hit by it, so there’s absolutely no reason for anyone at all not to be hitting their Heroic Will button to avoid Hour of Twilight. Because of Fading Light‘s threat wipe, you absolutely need to be good about tank swaps. Trying to single tank this fight means that either DPS will die or healers should be watching very carefully who’s highest on threat behind the tank.

Warmaster Blackhorn in Normal has Twilight Sappers to deal with, and Twilight Onslaught (large purple swirl) and Twilight Barrage (small purple swirl) deal more damage to the ship. In LFR there are no Sappers to worry about and you can safely ignore Barrages. You still want as many people as possible to group up inside every Onslaught to soak up that damage though. Remember to tank swap every 2-3 Devastate once Blackhorn lands.

In Normal Spine of Deathwing, the Corruption tentacles cast a channeled stun called Fiery Grip, which is why you kill 3 of them and then get Deathwing to do a Barrel Roll to get rid of the extra Hideous Amalgamations. In LFR though, there’s no Fiery Grip so there’s no reason to kill more than one Corruption each stage. Killing more than one means more Amalgamations which means more damage on the tanks and can cause problems stacking up the buff on the correct one. Of note is that each Blood stack increases its damage and attack speed, so getting too many stacks while it still has a lot of health is generally a bad idea. At 9 stacks it starts to AOE so you want to hold that off until it’s close to dead. You also don’t have to kill Bloods right next to the Amalgamation in order to get the stacks, you can drag it over the patches left on the ground after a Blood dies.

Madness of Deathwing doesn’t really have any major differences, you still want to tank swap after each Mutated Corruption’s Impale. It’s a good idea to tank the Regenerative Bloods near the Limbs for the cleave and splash damage, and once you’re on the final platform, make sure to tank the Elementium Terrors inside Nozdormu’s Time Zone (big glowy yellow bubble) while it’s up. Once it fades feel free to drag them over to Deathwing to take advantage of cleaves and splash damage here as well.

You’ll want to watch out for the Shrink Heart debuff, which can be removed by moving. If you stand still and let it stack up to ten though, you’ll be frozen in place by Snow Crash. Christmas trees will sometimes pop up, if you’re near one, get away as quickly as possible. The Greench will make a beeline for it and knock anyone nearby into the air with Abominable Crush, likely killing them in a single blow. Snowmen will also periodically show up also to throw…snowballs. Once you kill him, talk to Metzen to set him free and don’t forget to loot one of the bags. If you’re lucky, your reward for this daily might be a Lump of Coal!

First up is an Earthen Destroyer and an Ancient Water Lord. The Water Lord should die first, not only does it cast Flood, but on dying it will leave behind Pure Water which negates the Destroyer’s Dust Storm as long as you’re inside it. The Destroyer also tosses out Boulder Smashes.

Next is an Earthen Destroyer flanked by two Earthen Soldiers. You’ll want to take on the Soldiers first here, since they’ll be casting Twilight Corruptions to stack Twilight Rage on themselves.

Then you’ve got an Ancient Water Lord and two Earthen Destroyers. Again, kill the Water Lord first.

And you’ve made it to Morchok. Once past him, just head on in to Wyrmrest Temple. Here, you can talking to the Green dragon Valeera, Assault on Warlord Zon’ozz on the west side to take you over to the Maw of Go’rath to fight Zon’ozz. There’ll be four stationary groups of tentacles to clear here.

• One Eye of Go’rath with Shadow Gaze.
• One Claw of Go’rath with Ooze Spit and Tentacle Toss. You’ll want to have at least two melee keeping the Claw busy so it doesn’t spit all over everyone.
• Three Flails of Go’rath with Sludge Spew and Wild Flail. Killing at least one right away lessens the chance of all three Spewing over the same player and killing them instantly.

On the east side of the temple, talking to the Bronze dragon Eiendormi, Assault on Yor’sahj the Unsleeping sends you over to the Maw of Shu’ma for Yor’sahj. There you’ve got patrolling globules in groups of three. Depending on the combinations, the kill order will be different and that depends on your raid leader’s to make sure everyone’s on the same page. Purple should always be the priority regardless though, followed by either Red or Yellow.

• Acidic Globule (Green): Digestive Acid
• Cobalt Globule (Blue): Cobalt Blood of Shu’ma
• Crimson Globule (Red): Crimson Blood of Shu’ma
• Dark Globule (Black): Black Blood of Shu’ma
• Glowing Globule (Yellow): Glowing Blood of Shu’ma
• Shadowed Globule (Purple): Shadowed Blood of Shu’ma

Once both Zon’ozz and Yor’sahj are down, head back to the Temple and talk to the Red dragon Nethestrasz, Defender of Wyrmrest Summit to fly to the top. Once there, take the portal to the Eye of Eternity to reach Hagara.

There will be two Stormborn Myrmidons and two Twilight Frost Evokers to deal with first. The Myrmidons like Chain Lightning, and as long as you stay out of the Evokers’ Blizzard, it’s simpler to killed the Myrmidons first.

Once they’re down, two groups of a Stormbinder Adept and several Corrupted Fragments will appear, one on each side of the room. The Adept will cast Tornado while the Fragments can easily be AOEd down.

Then there are two groups each composed of a Stormborn Myrmidon, a Twilight Frost Evoker, and a Stormbinder Adept.

Then a final group of Corrupted Fragments to deal with before Lieutenant Shara comes in. Shara has a couple of Ice spells: Frozen Grasp, Frost Corruption, and Shatter, but nothing that should be a problem. Once she’s dead, you’re free to deal with Hagara the Stormbinder.

And when Hagara’s dead, return once again to Wyrmrest Temple for the second half of the Dragon Soul, Fall of Deathwing. Before you can fight Ultraxion, you’ll need to deal with several Twilight Assaulter, Twilight Dragonflight drakes. They’ll be staying at ranged and blanketing the area with lines of fire if you don’t do anything, so Taunt to stop them and they’ll fly down to melee range where you can kill them. Watch out for their Twilight Flames and Twilight Breath.

Once the Assaulters have been taken care of, you’ll be able to start the fight with Ultraxion. The rest of the bosses have no trash to deal with, so good luck with Deathwing!

During the fight, Frozen Servitors will be throwing Icy Boulders (don’t stand in the blue runes), but Thrall will keep their numbers down. Your job is focusing on the boss. Interrupt Hand of Frost when you can and dispel Chains of Frost. Whenever Thrall gets hit by Icy Tomb, break him out quickly or you’ll be overwhelmed by Boulders. At 30%, burn down the boss before Torrent of Frost gets unmanageable.

Once he’s down, talk to Thrall to continue. Protect him from Twilight Assassins, and you’ll soon be ambushed by groups of Twilight Hammer. Stay inside Thrall’s Rising Fire Totems as much as you can, it gives a nice stacking buff that increases your health and damage. You don’t have to follow him too closely, he’s tough enough to take a few hits while you setup any CCs you might want to throw out.

• Twilight Thugs should be your secondary target because of Bash.
• Twilight Bruisers can hit you with Staggering Blow, combined with Mortal Strike this can be trouble.
• Twilight Shadow-Walkers are the most dangerous targets, so kill them as quickly as possible if CC doesn’t stick. Save interrupts for Hungering Shadows and dispel their Siphoning Shadows buff.
• Twilight Rangers can be left for last, but make sure not to step on Ice Arrows.

Asira Dawnslayer makes her appearance once you reach the end. She’s pretty straightforward, just pull her out of her Choking Smoke Bombs and try to stay inside Thrall’s Rising Fire Totem. She’ll cast Mark of Silence on party members which causes Throw Knife, but casters can use Thrall or any melee as a shield for the knife. At 30% Blade Barrier will go up, but you should have someone who can do enough damage to break it (if not, Thrall probably will).

After she’s dead, hop on the drakes and head to the Temple. On landing, you’ll have to get past Faceless Brutes, Faceless Shadow Weavers, and Shadow Borers. I recommend killing the Borers first because of Shadow Bore. The Brutes will Squeeze Lifeless and Tentacle Smash though, so they’re next. Weavers will toss out Seeking Shadows which you can just move away from.

At the bottom of the path, Archbishop Benedictus shows up to get you to “safety.” Spread out so Righteous Shear doesn’t hit more than the target before it’s dispelled. Move away from the Purifying Light‘s Purifying Blast when it lands and interrupt Smite whenever you can. When Wave of Virtue is being cast, you can take refuge inside Thrall’s Water Shell or just move off to the sides to avoid it.

Once Phase 2 starts, Thrall’s out of the fight but the mechanics are the same: stay spread out, dispel Twilight Shear, move away from Corrupting Twilight‘s Twilight Blasts when they land and interrupt his Twilight Blast. Wave of Twilight has a wider area of effect than Virtue and there’s no Water Shell to hide in, but you can still avoid it by moving to the sides. Waves always come from the south, so if you stay near the northern half of the platform you’ll have plenty of time to pick a direction to run clear.

First in your way is a Legion Demon maintaining a wall of fire. He stacks Strike Fear and will jump around using Crushing Leap, but otherwise he shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Once past the Demon, you’ll meet up with Illidan Stormrage and follow him as he cloaks you so you can stealth past the army of demons marching throughout the courtyard. To disrupt the three portals, you’ll need to kill a Corrupted Arcanist and two Dreadlord Defenders at each one. Kill the Arcanist first, his Arcane Annihilation can’t be interrupted, but the Defenders’ Carrion Swarm can be.

When all three portals are out of the way, the demons clear out and you can return to the courtyard to face off against Peroth’arn.

Peroth’arn’s attacks stack Corrupting Touch on you but he should die before it gets unmanageable. Move out of Fel Flames‘s green fire circles and the Fel Decay debuff should be dispelled quickly.

At 60%, he’ll vanish and Eyes of Peroth’arn will spawn in the center of the courtyard. Everyone should spread out away from that area and just run away from the Eyes. If you’re detected you’ll become Easy Prey and he’ll fixate on you. As long as the Eyes don’t spot anyone during this phase, he’ll become Enfeebled. At 20%, he’ll go into Endless Frenzy, finish him off before he kills you.

Afterwards, Illidan leaves you and continues on alone from here, just follow the stairs up and onto the ramp. There’s a pair of Eternal Champions here that use Shimmering Strike.

There will be two packs of three Eyes of the Legion to get through, they cast Fel Lightning but their most dangerous ability is Fel Flames, especially if all three cast it at the same time. Fortunately you can stun them or just move out of the way when you see it casting, they don’t move or turn when firing it off.

Then there’s two packs of two Enchanted Highmistresses and an Eternal Champion. CC or kill the Fire Highmistress first to avoid her Firebomb, while interrupting the Frost Highmistress’ Blizzard.

A pair of Royal Handmaidens are the only things left, but their Choking Perfume and Sweet Lullaby shouldn’t be a problem.

Queen Azshara is the next boss, but you won’t be doing damage to her. Instead you’ll need to deal with her Enchanted Magus. They’ll activate two at a time and once you kill all six, Azshara will get bored and leave. Spread out slightly near Azshara to minimize damage from the Magi’s various AoEs. The first kill priority are any Hands of the Queen that MC party members. As for the Magi, my priority is Arcane > Fire > Frost. Arcane’s Arcane Shock should be interrupted, while trying to avoid Fire’s Blast Wave and Firebomb, and Frost’s Coldflame should be moved out of but there’s nothing you can really do about Blades of Ice. The most important part of the fight is keeping an eye on Azshara and interrupting her when she starts casting Total Obedience.

After Azshara leaves, hop onto a Bronze Drake and watch the cutscene. Once you land you’ll be joined by Illidan and Tyrande Whisperwind as they head to Mannoroth. There will be a large amount of Doomguard Annihilators, but they’ll go down easily as long as you pull them all into Tyrande’s beam of moonlight.

The Abyssal Doombringer‘s Abyssal Flames will quickly kill the whole party, so stay close to Illidan and wait until he douses himself with Waters of Eternity before pulling.

A pair of Shadowbats and their Highguard Elites are the only things left to deal with before you come to the next bosses.

Illidan will be tanking Mannoroth the entire fight, so your job will be dealing with Captain Varo’then first. His only ability is Magistrike, which chains between nearby targets. It’s manageable most of the time, but Mannoroth will sometimes cast Fel Firestorm which you’ll need to run out of. Doomguard Devastators will continually fly down also, but Tyrande will be taking care of them all. She only stops when a pair of Dreadlord Debilitators show up. While she’s disabled, you’ll need to round up the Doomguards as much as you can (while standing near her for the Blessing of Elune buff) but kill the Debilitators quickly so Tyrande can continue on.

Once Varo’then dies, he drops his sword which you can throw at Mannoroth to cause additional damage to him. DPS should switch to Mannoroth while you round up the Felhounds and Felguards that continually come through the nearby portal. Everyone should cluster near Illidan and Tyrande, allowing her to help in killing the demons.

At 50%, Infernals will drop from the sky but Tyrande will kill them them all, although that takes her out of the fight. Demons will still keep coming, but Illidan now gains Gift of Sargeras and grants it to the party also. Stay close together and you can pretty much ignore the demons to concentrate on Mannoroth the entire time.

At 25%, Malfurion Stormrage finally shows up to save you.

At the Azure Dragonshrine, you’ll find the Echo of Jaina. You’ll need to collect 16 fragments before you can fight Jaina, but there are also several packs of 4-5 Time-Twisted soldiers to deal with.

• Time-Twisted Footman can Thunderclap but otherwise not a major worry.
• Time-Twisted Rifleman toss out Multi-Shot, make sure they’re not aiming at your healer.
• Time-Twisted Sorceress will Blink around and may aggro other groups if they’re too close, so try to pull when you’re away from nearby patrols. She’ll also be casting Arcane Blasts.
• Time-Twisted Priest should be the first CC or kill, they’ll be casting Fountains of Light.

Now you can certainly collect all the fragments without aggroing any of the packs, but it’s a good idea to get rid of at least the 2-3 closest groups from where you came in. Jaina Blinks around and may bring a wandering patrol into the fight if you’re unlucky.

Once the area is clear and you’ve got all the fragments, Jaina shows up and you can engage her. When she drops a Flarecore, someone should step on it after making sure no one else is standing close by. After every blink she’ll cast Frost Blades, avoid them or you’ll get stunned. Frostbolt Volley should be interrupted when possible, but the rest of time she’ll be spamming Pyroblast on you which can’t be avoided.

The Emerald Dragonshrine is where the Echo of Tyrande waits. To get to her you’ll have to deal with a seemingly endless stream of Time-Twisted Huntresses, Time-Twisted Nightsabers, and Time-Twisted Sentinels. They all have the In Shadow buff though, so you need to drag them into the beams of moonlight to be Moonlit before you can kill them. Kill as many of them as you can before the moonlight fades, then move on forward to the next beam, and so on until you finish them all off and you get to Tyrande.

Fighting her is pretty simple. She won’t move at all from her rock so spread out in a circle around her, but casters should stay back because of Dark Moonlight. Make sure to interrupt Stardust, and if she’s facing toward you when casting Moonlance, move sideways away from her line of sight. She’ll also summon two Eyes with Piercing Gaze of Elune, just move toward or away from her to stay out of their path.

The Obsidian Dragonshrine is the Echo of Baine‘s area. To get to him you’ll have to deal with the groups of Time-Twisted dragonkin. Be careful when pulling, as the patrols wander pretty close to the stationary groups. CC the Time-Twisted Seer if you can, or kill it first. Make sure to move away from the lava fountains from Call Flames and keep your distance, especially if you have Sear Flesh on you. Move out of the Time-Twisted Breaker‘s Break Armor and Rupture Ground cone effect. Face the Time-Twisted Drake away from the group so Flame Breath doesn’t hit them.

Baine is on the farthest platform. Whenever he does Throw Totem, have someone grab it and Throw Totem back at him to stun him. At certain points he’ll jump toward a party member and Pulverize the platform they’re on. If it’s the one you’re on, swim over quickly to another one, because he’ll be getting the Molten Axe buff as long as he’s in lava which stacks a debuff on you, though it can be cleansed (you do gain Molten Fists in lava too but fighting in fire in generally a bad idea).

The Echo of Sylvanas is at the Ruby Dragonshrine. Clear your way through the packs of Time-Twisted Scourge Beast and Time-Twisted Geists. You should probably kill the Geists first, to minimize damage from the Beast’s Wail of the Dead. You can skip the Time-Twisted Shadowtalons off to the side.

Sylvanas is a simple fight as well, you’ll want to be slightly spread out so her various arrows don’t hit more than one person (Black Arrow, Unholy Shot, Blighted Arrows), but stay all on the same side of her. When she starts her Calling of the Highborne, Risen Ghouls will spawn in a circle around her and slowly move in toward her. Pick one Ghoul to kill quickly, then run out of the closing circle and keep your distance until all the Ghouls are sacrificed.

Once the Echoes are down, you can finally enter the Bronze Dragonshrine. There are two groups of Infinite dragonkin, composed of two Infinite Suppressors and two Infinite Wardens. Kill the Suppressors first to avoid their Arcane Wave and Temporal Vortex.

Once you kill all the Infinites, Murozond will fly down. Have a ranged or healer stand near the hourglass while you tank Murozond. During the fight he’ll be casting Temporal Blast and dropping Distortion Bombs on people, just move out of the glowing yellow circles left on the ground. Infinite Breath means no one should be standing near or behind you. One way to do this fight is by slowly moving him in a wide circle around the hourglass (though realistically you probably won’t get more than halfway around), once you run out of room or there’s no room left near the hourglass, or people are out of mana/about to die, have someone hit the hourglass to Rewind Time. This removes all the Bombs and resets your position back to what they it was at the beginning of the fight. You could also just hit it at each 20% mark, which allows everyone to reuse their cooldowns more often. He does a lot of damage too, so don’t be afraid to use your tanking cooldowns often.