The Fallen Protectors Detailed Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included)

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. Health Values
    • 1.1.1. Bosses
    • 1.1.2. Adds
  • 1.2. Enrage Timer
  • 1.3. Raid Composition
• +2. Loot
  • 2.1. Armor
  • 2.2. Weapons
  • 2.3. Rings, Cloaks, and Trinkets
• 3. Overview of the Fight
• 4. Class-specific Advice
• 5. A Word on Structure
• +6. Abilities
  • 6.1. Rook Stonetoe
    • 6.1.1. Desperate Measures
  • 6.2. He Softfoot
    • 6.2.1. Desperate Measures
  • 6.3. Sun Tenderheart
    • 6.3.1. Desperate Measures
• +7. Strategy
  • 7.1. General Strategy
  • 7.2. Desperate Measures
    • 7.2.1. DPS Priority
    • 7.2.2. Rook's Desperate Measures
    • 7.2.3. He's Desperate Measures
    • 7.2.4. Sun's Desperate Measures
• 8. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• +9. Summing Things Up
  • 9.1. Tanks
  • 9.2. Healers
  • 9.3. DPS
  • 9.4. Everyone
• 10. Learning the Fight
• +11. Heroic Mode
  • 11.1. Differences From Normal Mode
  • 11.2. Strategy
• 12. Concluding Remarks
• 13. Changelog

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with The Fallen Protectors in Siege of Orgrimmar. It is targeted at anyone who desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

The fight against The Fallen Protectors is the second encounter in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. This is a council-type fight that will test your raid members' ability to react to mechanics and work together as a team. Specifically, moving and repositioning accordingly is very important in defeating this boss.

During the encounter with The Fallen Protectors you will face three bosses at the same time. They do not share health, and each one has its own individual abilities.

The central element of the encounter is a mechanic called Desperate Measures. Each boss casts this ability (although the effects differ for each boss) when they reach 66% and 33% health. In essence, when a boss casts Desperate Measures, it disappears from the fight, spawning one or more adds in its place. These adds have certain abilities, and your raid must kill them. When the adds are killed, the boss will return (with the same health it had when it disappeared), and the fight will continue.

It is also important to note that all three bosses must be killed at the same time (within the space of about 10 seconds). If your raid fails to do this, then the boss that was first brought to 0% health will heal itself, thus setting your raid back considerably.

Videos:

• PTR Preview — a short overview of the boss, based on PTR testing, which is extremely useful for getting a rough understanding of the fight;
• Video Guide — a video guide of the boss, based on live-realm experience.

On our forums, we are maintaining threads with class-specific advice for each of the fights of Siege of Orgrimmar. So, make sure to check them out, and if you have things to share, do not hesitate to contribute!

Class	Forum Threads
Death Knight	Blood Frost/Unholy
Druid	Balance Feral Guardian Restoration
Hunter	All specs
Mage	All specs
Monk	Brewmaster Mistweaver Windwalker
Paladin	Holy Protection Retribution
Priest	Discipline Holy Shadow
Rogue	All specs
Shaman	Elemental Enhancement Restoration
Warlock	All specs
Warrior	Arms/Fury Protection

Given the nature of the encounter, you will have to handle the abilities of all three bosses for extended periods of time. Additionally, you will have to handle the special abilities from Desperate Measures several times during the fight. As such, we will first present the abilities of all three bosses, before explaining the adequate strategy to complete the encounter. While it may appear more natural to present the abilities for a boss followed immediately by the strategy to handle them, this would not be efficient since none of the abilities can be adequately discussed apart from those of the other two bosses.

When not in a Desperate Measures phase, Rook Stonetoe makes use of several abilities.

• Vengeful Strikes is an ability that Rook uses to stun his current target. Shortly afterwards, he deals high Physical damage in a cone in front of him.
• Corrupted Brew is a shadow-crash type of mechanic, whereby Rook throws a keg of brew at a random ranged raid member, which deals damage in a 5-yard radius when it lands, also slowing any affected players.
• Clash is an ability Rook uses to charge a random raid member. As soon as Rook charges the player, he starts channeling Corruption Kick, dealing damage in a 10-yard area for 4 seconds. Players hit by Corruption Kick also receive a DoT that lasts for 6 seconds, dealing moderate Shadow damage, and which can be dispelled.

When reaching 66% and 33% health, Rook Stonetoe disappears and summons three adds: Embodied Misery, Embodied Sorrow, and Embodied Gloom. Your raid must kill these three adds for Rook to re-appear. While Rook is gone, he does not cast any of his normal abilities.

Embodied Misery casts Defiled Ground. This knocks the Embodied Misery's tank back, damaging them in the process, and leaves behind a damaging void zone.

Embodied Sorrow casts Inferno Strike. This ability selects a random raid member and, a few seconds later, deals a massive amount of damage split between all players within 8 yards of that player. The affected player, as well as the relevant 8-yard radius around them are indicated by means of a red circle.

Embodied Gloom casts Corruption Shock, an interruptible nuke that deals damage in an area around random players.

When not in a Desperate Measures phase, He Softfoot makes use of several abilities.

• Garrote is a bleed that He applies on random raid members. It has an unlimited duration, and it cannot be dispelled, but it is automatically removed from all raid members when He enters his Desperate Measures phases.
• Gouge is an ability that He uses on his current target, incapacitating them for 6 seconds and changing target to a random raid member for this duration. If the tank is facing away from He when Gouge is cast, they will not be incapacitated, and instead they will only be knocked back a short distance (which also prevents He from changing targets).
• He also has two buffs that he alternates using on himself. Each buff lasts about 20 seconds.
  • Noxious Poison causes He's melee attacks to leave behind void zones on the ground.
  • Instant Poison causes He's melee attacks to deal a large amount of additional Nature damage.

When reaching 66% and 33% health, He Softfoot disappears and summons an add with a large amount of health, called Embodied Anguish. Your raid must kill this add for He to re-appear. While He is gone, he does not cast any of his normal abilities.

The Embodied Anguish casts Mark of Anguish on a random raid member. This is a debuff that roots the player in place, and that also deals Shadow damage over time to them. The Embodied Anguish fixates on that player, moving towards them to melee them. When the Embodied Anguish melees a player, it applies a stack of a debuff called Shadow Weakness on them, increasing the damage they take from Mark of Anguish.

Players affected by Mark of Anguish can pass this debuff on to another raid member of their choice (forcing the Embodied Anguish to fixate on that player), by using an extra action button with which they are provided. Passing on the debuff causes the entire raid to receive a stack of Shadow Weakness, and causes the targeted player to receive a stack of Debilitation, reducing their armor by 50% for 2 minutes.

When not in a Desperate Measures phase, Sun Tenderheart makes use of several abilities.

• Sha Sear is a channeled spell that Sun uses on random raid members, which deals damage to that player and any other players within 5 yards of them. The spell can be interrupted, but doing so only causes Sun to immediately re-cast it on a new target.
• Shadow Word: Bane is a DoT that Sun applies on random raid members. Each time the DoT ticks, it copies itself onto a new target, with each instance of the DoT affecting a maximum of 4 players at the same time. Shadow Word: Bane can be dispelled.
• Calamity is a raid-wide damaging spell that Sun uses. It deals 30% of players' maximum health as Shadow damage, and removes all applications of Shadow Word: Bane when doing so.

When reaching 66% and 33% health, Sun Tenderheart disappears and summons two adds: Embodied Despair and Embodied Desperation. These have no abilities of their own, and they do not need to be tanked, but your raid must kill these two adds for Sun to re-appear. While Sun is gone, she does not cast any of her normal abilities.

During Sun's Desperate Measures, the entire raid takes damage every 0.5 seconds from an ability called Dark Meditation. This damage is reduced by 35% by standing inside a protective barrier, called a Meditative Field, which is located in the center of the arena.

Additionally, during Sun's Desperate Measures, small adds called Despair Spawns and Desperation Spawns will spawn from random raid members. These adds have no abilities, and any damage taken by these adds will be mirrored onto the two large adds (Embodied Despair and Embodied Desperation, which technically create the small adds).

To begin with, your raid must learn a general strategy that will allow you to handle the non-Desperate Measures phases of all three bosses at the same time. After that, you will also have to understand how to master each Desperate Measure phase (while contending with the normal abilities of the other two bosses at the same time). You must always avoid having more than one boss in a Desperate Measures phase at one time, since this will complicate matters greatly.

Given the complexity and length of the strategy, we have divided it into sub-sections.

He Softfoot and Rook Stonetoe must be tanked, whereas Sun Tenderheart spends most of her time channeling Sha Sear on players. We will provide you with a brief outline of what you must do, before providing a few more explanations.

• Tanks
  • Tank Rook facing away from other raid members (in order to avoid anyone other than the tank being damaged by Vengeful Strikes).
  • Tank He away from the raid and move him whenever he places a poison void zone. Use a minor defensive cooldown to survive Instant Poison.
  • He's tank must turn their back to He whenever he casts Gouge, in order to avoid being incapacitated.
• Healers
  • Dispel Shadow Word: Bane before it has a chance to tick, whenever possible.
  • Be prepared to heal the high and unavoidable damage of Garrote and Calamity.
• Everyone
  • Avoid being hit by Corrupted Brew.
  • If targeted by Sun's Sha Sear move away from other raid members so that the damage is minimised. Do not bother interrupting Sun.
  • Whenever Rook begins casting Corruption Kick, move out of his close proximity to avoid the damage.
  • Be mindful of He's poison void zones.

Your raid should be mildly spread out. This is ideal for several reasons, but mostly because it helps minimise the damage taken from Sha Sear, and because fewer players will need to move away from Rook to avoid the damage of Corruption Kick.

He Softfoot should be tanked outside of the raid so that no one except for his tank has to worry about the poison void zones that this boss leaves behind. Rook should be tanked facing away, because he will regularly deal high frontal cone damage. Sun Tenderheart should be tanked close to Rook, to allow for cleave damage. You can interrupt her casts to help move her into position.

Players must be ever-vigilant to avoid taking damage caused by being in the wrong place. Specifically, everyone must make sure to be far enough away from the target of Sha Sear, they must carefully and quickly avoid the projectiles of Corrupted Brew, and they must always make sure to get away from Rook when he casts Corruption Kick.

The first thing to discuss is the order in which you should prioritise DPSing the bosses. This is important because it determines the order in which you will face their respective Desperate Measures phases, which in turn is very significant due to the way in which Garrote and Shadow Word: Bane work.

These two DoTs are both removed automatically from all raid members as soon as the casting boss enters their Desperate Measures phase. In the case of Garrote, there is no way to remove the bleeds without pushing He into Desperate Measures, while in the case of Shadow Word: Bane it is very difficult to reliably dispel every instance of it (because dispels have a cooldown). This means that, in order to keep the raid damage manageable, you will have to regularly have He and Sun go into their Desperate Measures phases, and you cannot afford to simply leave one alone until the end of the fight.

The order in which you choose to bring the bosses to Desperate Measures, beyond what we have just mentioned, is up to you. Here is an example that could work.

1. Take Rook to 66%.
2. Take He to 66% (this will clear all Garrote bleeds from the raid).
3. Take Sun to 66% (this will clear all Shadow Word: Bane from the raid).
4. Take Rook to 33%.
5. Take He to 33%.
6. Take Sun to 33%.
7. Kill all three bosses.

In practice, you will of course not keep two bosses at 100% health while you bring the other to 66%, since you will be doing some cleaving damage and some players will be multi-DoTting.

Handling Rook's Desperate Measures phase is the most complex of the three. During this phase, you will have to deal with three abilities.

• Defiled Ground is cast on the tank of Embodied Misery. It places a void zone at this tank's location, meaning that the mob has to be kited slowly.
• Corruption Shock, which is cast by Embodied Gloom, must be interrupted whenever possible.
• Inferno Strike, cast by Embodied Sorrow, is the biggest problem during this phase. It requires the entire raid to stack up on the person being targeted by it, so that the damage is soaked. This last ability is the most problematic, because stacking up causes problems with Sha Sear.

The best way to handle this phase is to remain spread out, tanking the Embodied Misery away from the raid, and to only stack very briefly each time Inferno Strike is being cast. Players who are currently targeted by Sha Sear should not stack with the rest of the raid.

Your first priority is to kill Embodied Sorrow, in order to get rid of Inferno Strike. Once that is done, you should kill Embodied Gloom, to remove the need for constant interrupts. Embodied Misery can safely be killed last because, aside from being annoying to its tank, the add is not really problematic.

He's Desperate Measures can be handled very easily. You can have whoever has Mark of Anguish cast on them simply pass the debuff along to the tank that was tanking He before Desperate Measures, and that tank can simply survive the attacks of Embodied Anguish until your raid kills the add. Nothing else really changes, and this phase is actually easier than when no bosses are in Desperate Measures, since all other abilities belonging to He are not being used.

The tank with Mark of Anguish will also be debuffed by Debilitation, reducing their armor, so they should make sure to have a defensive cooldown available just in case.

The strategy for handling Sun's Desperate Measures is essentially simple, although it can be difficult. The idea is to have the entire raid stacked together inside the Meditative Field, where the damage from Dark Meditation is greatly reduced. While inside, ranged DPS players should kill the Embodied Despair and Embodied Desperation adds.

Melee DPS players will have to handle the Despair Spawns and Desperation Spawns, since doing so allows them to stay inside the Meditative Field. Any damage they do to these small adds will then be mirrored onto the larger adds, so melee DPS can still contribute to ending the phase faster.

Complications can arise during this phase when Rook begins casting Corruption Kick inside the Meditative Field. If this happens, players will simply have to move. The raid will have to try to dodge Rook's Corrupted Brew casts within the field, or else move out briefly to avoid them.

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp at the start of the fight, mainly because there is no benefit to using it at another time, and using it at the start allows all raid members to use their DPS cooldowns.

In this section, we will very briefly summarise what the players belonging to each of the three roles have to do during this fight.

• Face Rook away from other raid members.
• Pick up Embodied Misery, Embodied Sorrow, and Embodied Gloom when they spawn. Kite Embodied Misery to avoid the void zones it places.
• Only for He's tank
  • Face away from He when he casts Gouge.
  • Beware of the extra damage from Instant Poison, and the void zones from Noxious Poison.

• Beware of high damage on Rook's tank during Vengeful Strikes.
• Beware of the damage from Embodied Sorrow's Inferno Strike.
• Beware of the damage the target of Mark of Anguish takes.
• Dispel Shadow Word: Bane before it has a chance to tick.
• Beware of the high raid-wide damage of Calamity and Dark Meditation.

• DPS the appropriate target (assigned by your raid leader).
• When the Desperate Measures adds are up, DPS them with priority.

• Avoid the shadow-crash mechanic Corrupted Brew.
• Move away from Rook when he casts Corruption Kick.
• Stack together when Inferno Strike is being cast.
• Interrupt Corruption Shock.
• Spread out to minimise damage from Sha Sear.

This is a fight where there are many different aspects mixing together, and your raid has to master them all more or less simultaneously. That said, you should focus on the positioning of your raid members, both during Desperate Measures phases and outside of them, since proper positioning (spread out, bosses being faced away/tanked away, and so on) can make the entire fight much easier to learn.

The Heroic mode of the encounter against The Fallen Protectors is almost identical to the Normal mode, as far as mechanics are concerned.

In addition to all mobs having increased health and dealing increased damage, there are a few changes in mechanics. All of these changes have the same purpose, namely to prevent your raid from not pushing any specific boss into their Desperate Measures phase often enough. In a way, these are soft enrage mechanics, but much like He's soft enrage in Normal mode ( Garrote being undispellable and having unlimited duration, but disappearing when he enters Desperate Measures), they are reset when the respective boss enters Desperate Measures.

• The travel time of the projectiles fired by Rook's Corrupted Brew decreases by 0.5 seconds every two casts. This effect is reset when Rook enters Desperate Measures.
• The adds that appear during Rook's Desperate Measures now have a shared health pool.
• The Debilitation debuff applied during He's Desperate Measures now reduces armor by 80% for 4 minutes, up from 50% for 2 minutes in Normal mode.
• Sun's Calamity deals 10% more of players' maximum health with each cast. This effect is reset when Sun enters Desperate Measures.

The strategy for the fight remains unchanged from Normal mode, by and large. The Heroic mode changes simply mean that you really cannot afford to avoid pushing a boss into Desperate Measures for too long, but if you follow the suggestions we give for defeating the Normal mode, then this should never happen in the first place.

The increase in travel speed for the Corrupted Brew projectiles may make some of them unavoidable even if you are not delaying pushing Rook into Desperate Measures, but this must simply be healed through. The fact that Rook's Desperate Measures adds share health has no real implications on the strategy.

Likewise, the increased damage done by subsequent casts of Calamity must simply be healed through, although we also recommend using raid cooldowns when available.

10-man raids who are starting out their progression on this encounter will find it very beneficial to use 3 tanks, since the damage going around in the fight can be quite high.

While doing the fight following the Normal mode strategy is simple and safe, there is one trick that you can try using if the aforementioned strategy does not work for your raid. Namely, you may find the encounter easier to defeat if you push Sun and He into Desperate Measures at the same time. This is because otherwise, going through Sun's Desperate Measures (and the raid damage that this brings) while the raid is affected by He's Garrote is very difficult. On the other hand, the Desperate Measures phases are not very difficult, so stacking these two phases to avoid Garrote damage is preferable.

While it might be possible (particularly in 25-man) to have a tank take the Mark of Anguish and survive, despite the Debilitation debuff having been made more powerful in Heroic mode, we do not advise this strategy. Instead, we advise you to set up a rotation of players who will pass the debuff between themselves until the Embodied Anguish is killed. So, whenever Mark of Anguish is cast, the affected player should wait a few seconds, and then pass the debuff on to the first player in the rotation (who should have moved at maximum range from this affected player). From then on, each subsequent player in the rotation should move at maximum range from the preceding one, and then the debuff should be passed on. By the time the debuff has been passed around between 3-4 players, the Embodied Anguish should be dead.

This concludes our raid guide for The Fallen Protectors. We hope you have found it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have on our forums.

• 24 Nov. 2013: Improved various parts of the Heroic mode strategy.
• 29 Sep. 2013: Added Heroic mode strategy. Also fixed an issue whereby we were claiming that damage done Despair Spawns and Desperation Spawns is mirrored to raid members, when instead it is mirrored to the Embodied Despair and Embodied Desperation adds.
• 15 Sep. 2013: Made more updates.
  • Added a link to the video guide.
  • Added mention of the Debilitation debuff that players receive when the Mark of Anguish is passed on to them.
  • Clarified that during Sun's Desperate Measures, there are two types of adds that spawns, Despair Spawns and Desperation Spawns (although they are identical in everything but name).
  • Confirmed that it is possible for a tank to hold on to the Mark of Anguish.
• 13 Sep. 2013: Made updates after doing the fight on live servers: updated 10-man health values, and added 25-man health values.
• 29 Aug. 2013: Added Summarising Things Up section.

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