Challenge Mode: Temple of the Jade Serpent

[Hybrys 199]

Introduction

 

I've copied Zagam's format, and completed this guide based on my many runs.

 

Temple of the Jade Serpent is one of the easier CMs, with a relatively tight Gold timer.  This guide will assume you are familiar with the Heroic version of the Temple of the Jade Serpent dungeon.  Remember, to do Challenge Mode, you must complete the Heroic version of the dungeon on the character you are trying to do the Challenge Mode.

 

You would typically require an invisibility potion for this.  The 15 second Lesser Invisibility Potion will suffice.

 

GOLD TARGET TIME: 15:00

 

1. Trash to Wise Mari

 

This will be the largest pull of the instance, but it is relatively easy to execute.  Once the challenge mode commences, have your tank run and pick up every single trash mob on your way to Wise Mari.  Once they have the last 4 slimes, you can have your tank stack them up, and AoE them down.  Make sure you’re not standing in the puddles that the large adds leave after they die, as they tick for a moderate amount of shadow damage.  My group would typically use Bloodlust/Heroism on this pull, mostly because there isn’t an effective place to use it again, and still have it available for the last boss.

 

Once the pack is dead, or at least almost dead, you can engage the boss.

 

2.  Wise Mari

 

This fight is very similar to Heroic Mode with a few key differences.  You must be within about 10 yards of Wise Mari (The outer ring that spans his equal level platform), or you will take significant periodic damage.  Along with that, he can explode one of the three zones water areas for a large amount of damage.  If an area of water is shimmering with a black ooze, get at least 3 yards away from it and it’s path to the boss.

 

Progress through the fight as usual, killing the large add, then the small adds they spawn.  Once all four large adds are killed, Wise Mari will finish their cast and cast Bubble Burst, a ~15 yard range knockback.  After that happens, get in position and ready to run; his Water Spout will go twice as fast, and you’re required to run his inner-most circle to keep up with it.

 

3. Trash to Strife/Peril

 

Once the boss is dead, immediately make your way back towards the entrance, and towards the next boss.  When your group assembles and are ready, pull the pack of two Pandaren and one Haunting Sha, as well as the single Haunting Sha in the far corner.  Once this pack is cleared, prepare to use your invisibility potions and run towards the lower level where the boss would normally spawn.  Your tank should save their movement speed increases, and remove their invisibility potion to pull the last two packs with the crane, and the beetle and tiger.  Use those movement speed increases to get to your group, and have them DPS down the pack.  Once they’re at around 30%, you can pull them to the Corrupted Scroll, and kill it as well to spawn the boss.  Once the Corrupted Scroll dies, you have about 15-20 seconds to clean up, and prepare for the fight.

 

4.  Strife / Peril

 

This boss has almost no mechanical changes compared to Heroic, although if you fail the mechanics it can be very punishing.  You’ll want to start by DPSing Strife until he has about 6 stacks of Intensity.  A stack is granted by unique hits to the boss with an ICD of around 2-2.5 seconds.  This means that you can apply DoTs at around 5 stacks, and their ticking damage will not give him another stack.  Once Strife is at 6 stacks, swap to Peril and repeat the same process until both are dead.  If you’re seeing a wide unbalance of their health pools, you should try to spend your CDs on the higher during your DPS window.  Once you feel that they’re low enough that you can kill them before they get 10 stacks, you can call for everyone to stay on the target.

 

5. Trash to Liu Flameheart

 

These trash packs are rather difficult, and will test your healer.  Our group would pull a single pack and the two patrolling larger Shas, DPSing each of the larger Shas down to around 10-20% before pulling the next pack.  Make sure the DPS is finishing each mob or AoEing with a focus on the largest mob active.  Once all of the large Shas are dead, the boss will spawn.

 

6. Liu Flameheart

 

This boss is mechanically the same as Heroic, but the mechanics have a LOT more punishment for failing them.  It’s not uncommon for a wave to one-shot a player.  Try not to spend any DPS or healing cooldowns longer than 2 minutes during this encounter.

 

Phase 1: She’ll start with red fire, a small 360 AoE, and waves of fire.  The waves should be avoided at all costs.  She will also place a moderate ticking DoT on your tank.

 

Phase 2: Once she hits 66%, she’ll enhance each of her abilities, turning each of them into a green fire., with the 360 AoE getting a knockback, the waves of fire getting a pool left behind in it’s path, and the ticking DoT will also have a healing absorb (similar to Necrotic Strike).

 

Phase 3: Once she hits 33%, Yu’lon comes out.  They’re immune for about 5 seconds, so make sure you don’t waste DoTs that have CDs/resource costs until after you’re sure it can be hit.  Yu’lon has a simple frontal cone and can drop fire under anyone’s feet at will.  Make sure to move if you get fire under you.

7. Trash to Sha of Doubt

 

Once Liu Flameheart is down and the door opens, three large Shas will start to pat out towards you.  You can either kill these, or avoid these with a few select mechanics or a little extra time.  Have someone with a hard threat drop (Vanish, Spectral Guise, Feign Death, Shadow Meld, Mage’s Greater Invis) pull all three, and use a speed boost to run them into the upper right corner.  Once they’re about half way, the rest of the group should run in to the left, making sure to not get in combat with the 3 mobs.  Once your group is in, the person with the hard threat drop can use it, and then you can pull the boss without worry about them adding!

 

This same method can be used with a Shaman and Reincarnation, or a Warlock and Soulstone, but you won’t have your food buff for the last boss.  If you’re running short on time, any class can do it, and just get a res afterwards, but that eats up a good 15 seconds extra, and risks the healer pulling either the 3 mobs or the boss.

 

Once you’re clear, engage the boss.

 

8.  Sha of Doubt

There are zero mechanical differences between this fight and Heroic, and you should have no issue cleared the boss.  Because of that, it’s best to look at mechanics to maximize your DPS rather than avoiding damage.

 

Have the tank pull the boss so that the tank is standing on top of the stairs behind him, with the boss midway on the stairs.  Once he’s in position, everyone should stack directly on the tank, as tight as possible and including melee.  Your healer has to be VERY aware of Touch of Nothingness and should dispell it immediately.  Once the Bounds of Reality phase starts, all of the adds should spawn in a neat little pile behind you.  AoE them down, get back on the boss, and hit Hero/Lust and any other DPS cooldowns remaining.  Melee can also go behind the boss now, and he should die before the next Bounds of Reality.

 

And congratulations, you’re done!

Advanced strategies:

 

For the trash to Wise Mari, you can actually pull the boss with the entire hallway of trash.  With Bloodlust/Heroism and every cooldown in the book, it’s not too bad.  Just make sure your tank pulls the hallway up near the boss, so they don’t take the random damage from being out of range.  When you’re doing this, you should focus your damage on each of the large adds that Wise Mari spawns first, so that you progress the fight at a faster pace.

 

For the trash to Strife/Peril, after you invisibility potion and your tank is making their way to the group with the Crane and Beetle/Tiger groups, you could kill the Scroll and pull the boss then.  Cleaving off the boss is recommended so that you can moderate their stacks as in the usual strat.

 

For the trash to Liu Flameheart, you can pull all three packs, if you’d like, but be aware of the extremely high damage coming in to random players at that point.  Using 2-3 min CDs here should have them available again for midway through the Sha of Doubt encounter.

 

Again for the trash to Liu Flameheart, there's a strat where you kill all three of the stationary Minions of Doubt, but leave the patrols/a single patrol up until the boss is engaged.  The NPCs originally fighting the stationary Minions of Doubt will then engage the add and boss, and help damage her.  I don't think it's worthwhile, but if you're relatively close, it may be a good idea.

 

Good luck with your run!  Should you have any questions, you can post them here!

Edited February 24, 2014 by Hybrys

[Belloc 6]

For the third boss's (Lie Flameheart) room and trash: If you leave the patrolling large sha adds alive while killing the 3 packs, the NPCs in the area will remain in the room and assist on the boss. You can finish off the patrol once the boss has been pulled.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Belloc

[Hybrys 199]

They don't do much damage at all, and having even one of the patrols up can spell a wipe, due to the 25% healing debuff often applied to your healer.  So I'm not a huge fan of that strat, and I'm not sold on it saving anything more than 2-3 seconds.

[Belloc 6]

If you say so, I suppose. We learned the instance last week (learning dry run followed by gold run, so two full clears) and killed the pat on our dry run, then left it alive on our gold run and the boss just melted. It definitely felt faster than the dry run and I never heard any complaints from our healer or tank. It's possible that our group comp was better for it or maybe we just had good play/RNG at that point, because it never appeared that anyone was in danger. Stuns, interrupts and dispels, which every challenge mode group should be used to by now, made it a non-issue.

 

I can't provide solid numbers, but the NPC assistance felt like it did a nice chunk of damage. Like I said, you only need to leave one of the patrols up until the boss spawns. If one extra add is wiping you during trash, then that's a huge problem... especially when you suggest pulling all 3 trash packs as an advanced strategy. If you can pull all 3 packs, then you can leave a patrol up long enough to pull the boss.

 

TL;DR: YMMV. It never felt particularly tricky to me.

[Hybrys 199]

Good RNG was probably on your side.  With my group, we pull all three packs and both pats, and go straight into the boss without our healer manaing up.  They were saying at 20% mana, they can't waste the mana dispelling.  We're also getting gold by ~4 minutes in that one with a carry, so it's definitely not necessary for us.

 

I'll try to get some solid numbers on the NPC interaction, though.  AFAIK, it should be around 900 DPS each, for a total of 8100 DPS gain, if they're all hitting the boss, which doesn't seem worth it to me.

 

Either way, I've added it to the Advanced Strategies section.  Thanks for your input!

Edited February 24, 2014 by Hybrys

[Rikeni 0]

 

Trash to Sha of Doubt

 

...Have someone with a hard threat drop (Vanish, Spectral Guise, Feign Death, Shadow Meld, Mage’s Greater Invis) pull all three...

 

I'm not sure stealth talents will work.  These three shas see stealth - you can see the "stealth detection" eyeball graphic on them when you use your vanish/invis ability.  I would assume that Feign Death is the only ability that would work here for the pull to be sucessful without a death.

[Hybrys 199]

I'm not sure stealth talents will work.  These three shas see stealth - you can see the "stealth detection" eyeball graphic on them when you use your vanish/invis ability.  I would assume that Feign Death is the only ability that would work here for the pull to be sucessful without a death.

I know they work for a Mage's Greater Invis and a Priest's Spectral Guise.  I'll try to confirm if a rogues Vanish works tonight.

 

Remember that invisibility and stealth aren't the same thing.  Greater Stealth (from Vanish) is debatable, though.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Hybrys