Gara'jal the Spiritbinder

[Guest injustice]

having run it multiple times and paying close attention to who the boss is targeting he WILL NOT even for a second engage the non fixated tank.

[Zagam 1,982]

Sorry, Injustice, as you are incorrect. We have watched the boss turn 90 degrees to face the OT when he is available to mitigate damage, especially in the Berserk phase. He does, indeed, turn to his taunting opponent for the duration of the taunt. Perhaps he was suffering from diminishing returns from taunt when you went to look at the boss?

[Vlad 411]

I'll try to get some further confirmation on this.

[Vlad 411]

I'll try to get some further confirmation on this.

I am getting conflicting sources telling me that it is possible (10-man heroic) and not possible (25-man heroic).

[Guest Estonic]

It may be certain classes can taunt him? As a druid, I was unable to get garajal's attention when he was fixated on the other tank. No matter when I tried to taunt, he just ignored me completely until the other tank was banished.

[Guest Zear]

Neither I (a warrior tank) nor our druid tank have had any success with taunts. He doesn't turn to attack the taunting tank for an instant, no less the duration of the taunt.

[Peelyon 416]

After 30% and 25% wipes (enrage timer) we decided to try and 2 heal the encounter instead. Took a few attempts to get the hang of it but managed to get a 15% then 4% then 1% wipes then a kill with 30seconds to spare on the enrage.

Think it was a combination of dps actually moving / rotating better for spirit totems, a little bit of RNG luck with the voodoo dolls and some well timed cooldowns but it is definitely two heal able on 10man.

Hope that helps any guild who keep getting smashed by the enrage timer - might be a different option rather than waiting for dps to gear up a bit more.

[Vlad 411]

I've removed mentions of being able to kind of taunt the boss. Also added heroic mode :)

[Guest Lighttouched]

My 10 man team ignored the totems at about the 4:30 mark (90 seconds or so before enrage), heroed and burned the boss. Waiting until about the 45 second mark proved too long to wait and keeping both healers in the normal realm allowed them to handle the increasing damage output from the growing pool of adds in the shadow realm.

- Lighttouched, Lightbringer

[Krazyito 521]

We found that using Hand of Protection (Not Divine Shield because it lasts 2 seconds less) on our tank while he was fixated, stopped all damage on the tanks and the voodoo dolls for the duration (10 seconds) So for this fight, it s effectively a tank CD.

[Scrounger 3]

even though its already mentioned i just wanted to confirm (question still comes up regulary on different forums) that tauning when noch affected by vodoo doll has no effect at all (even oin 10m normal):

[22:52:56.108] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder's Voodoo Doll fades from Scroungero

[22:53:17.060] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder hits Scroungero 69696

[22:53:57.802] Scroungero casts Taunt on Gara'jal the Spiritbinder

[22:53:58.008] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder afflicted by Taunt from Scroungero

[22:54:00.991] Scroungero's Taunt fades from Gara'jal the Spiritbinder

[22:54:01.205] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder casts Banishment on Mellux

[22:54:03.229] Scroungero afflicted by Voodoo Doll from Gara'jal the Spiritbinder

The 22:53:17.060 hit is my safeguard on the other tank, so timing this one with shadowy attacks might work, but its not much at all.

Interesting point about the HoP, thanks for that.

[Krazyito 521]

I actually haven't been in the raid when using that since I was going to miss the next day. I was listening to my guild talk about it before the first pull and they tried it and it seemed to work.

My only concern is if his shadowy attacks will go through it or not? or do they count as physical?

[Scrounger 3]

4.2.2. Taunting Gara'jal

The off-tank must be prepared to taunt Gara'jal as soon as the main tank is Banished to the Spirit World. This will happen immediately after Voodoo Dolls expires from the main tank, and it should be easy to track.

While Vodoo Dolls is active on a tank, Gara'jal will only attack that tank, and it is not possible for the other tank to take over.

After the Voodoo Dolls tank is phased into the Spirit World, the off-tank must be quick to taunt Gara'jal. In other words, the off-tank should make sure that their taunt is not on cooldown (from trying to taunt Gara'jal too early) when the main tank is banished.

I would suggest to clarify this taunting stuff even more. Something along the lines of: "make sure that your second tank is second on the threat table wheneven the first one is banished."

Its actually possible to taunt Garajal at any time during the encounter to control your tanks position in the threat table. What works for us is to simply taunt about 2-3 seconds before the banishment. This way even wthout any vengeance and some burstheavy DPS our offtank has no problems taking over.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Scrounger

[Vlad 411]

I would suggest to clarify this taunting stuff even more. Something along the lines of: "make sure that your second tank is second on the threat table wheneven the first one is banished."

Its actually possible to taunt Garajal at any time during the encounter to control your tanks position in the threat table. What works for us is to simply taunt about 2-3 seconds before the banishment. This way even wthout any vengeance and some burstheavy DPS our offtank has no problems taking over.

Thank you for this post. I'll add it to the guide shortly :)

[oscarucb 1]

Helpful addon for automatically and optimally handling the totem assignments, available on Curse:

Gara'jalAnnounce

[Guest Shiezkebab]

Hi there, just a minor mistake which I've noticed, concerning the "damage mirror" % of voodoo dolls.

4.1

Gara'jal turns the current tank and 2 other random raid members (3 raid members in 25-man and LFR) into Voodoo Dolls. 70%

Later in the guide, in the heroic section it says:

Voodoo Dolls take 100% of the damage taken by the Voodoo Doll tank, up from 75% in Normal mode.

[Vlad 411]

Hi there, just a minor mistake which I've noticed, concerning the "damage mirror" % of voodoo dolls.

4.1

Later in the guide, in the heroic section it says:

Thanks! Fixed!

[Guest Maicasfanta]

I actually haven't been in the raid when using that since I was going to miss the next day. I was listening to my guild talk about it before the first pull and they tried it and it seemed to work.

My only concern is if his shadowy attacks will go through it or not? or do they count as physical?

I'd really like to know if shadowy attacks will go through it or not as well.

Tank continued to take damage after i used BoP on him and i don't know the source.

[Scrounger 3]

To answer this:

[21:49:18.263] Idualc casts Hand of Protection on Zânnah

[21:49:18.470] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder hits Zânnah 51023 (A: 20388)

[21:49:18.630] Zânnah gains Hand of Protection from Idualc

[21:49:19.990] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder hits Zânnah Immune

[21:49:25.469] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder Left Hook Zânnah 135712

[21:49:28.442] Gara'jal the Spiritbinder hits Zânnah Immune

[21:49:28.727] Idualc's Hand of Protection fades from Zânnah

So, melee doesnt go through, shadowy attacks do. Its a nice dmg reduce nevertheless

[Guest Splack]

I have to disagree with the statement that dks are weaker tanks on this fight. I actually find I take little to no dmg while tanking the boss when played correctly. Basically while the other tanking is tanking, I build up a full blood shield and just spam rp for dmg or death coil shields. Once I start tanking, I just rotate through all my cds (bone shield, DRW, IBF every other one, AMS, and keep spamming death strike until my blood shield finally wears off(which is usually right before I get ported anyways.

[Vlad 411]

I have to disagree with the statement that dks are weaker tanks on this fight. I actually find I take little to no dmg while tanking the boss when played correctly. Basically while the other tanking is tanking, I build up a full blood shield and just spam rp for dmg or death coil shields. Once I start tanking, I just rotate through all my cds (bone shield, DRW, IBF every other one, AMS, and keep spamming death strike until my blood shield finally wears off(which is usually right before I get ported anyways.

Thank you for your comment.

I'd just like to ask for some clarification, so that I can properly weigh your comment.

• Are you talking about Heroic or Normal mode?
• What average item-level do you have (and possibly the rest of your raid, as well)?
• When you speak about the damage you take, are you accounting for the damage that the Voodoo Dolls are taking, as well?

Thank you, looking forward to your reply!

[Fel 42]

Heroic breakdown for our 2-heal strat, in case some folks find it useful:

Delaying entry into the spirit world on each totem by ~15 - 20 seconds will allow your group to 'de-sync' the application of voodoo dolls from totem spawns at the start of the fight. In practice, you will still have these lining up (or close to) by the time you are seeing the 5 - 6th totems.

Why do this? Using a 2 heal strategy, assuming that you have the HPS and DPS to conquer the enrage timer and incoming damage, your greatest challenge will be Voodoo doll RNG with your healers. If, like us, you need to use 2 healers to reliably ensure that your DPS can beat the enrage, this is the problem you'll face. Delaying the initial and each subsequent totem by about 15 seconds allows you to delay the bad RNG of having NO healer available to go into the spirit realm (because one is voodoo'd and the other has frail soul), until the middle of the fight. In terms of learning encounter mechanics and understanding the ebb and flow of DPS requirements for adds, tank damage, etc, this is quite valuable for training.

In practice, based on numerous attempts, you will probably face at least one totem where you have no healer, two if you are unlucky, none if you are lucky. What you can do to reduce your pain when this occurs is bias sending classes unable to heal themslves, into the spirit realms with the healers. This increases the likelihood that when you are unable to send a healer, the DPS classes that can go in ARE able to heal themselves up. From our attempts, I can confirm that the following DPS classes/specs can enter and heal up reliably:

Ele Shaman

Shadow priest

Retribution paladin

Fire Mage (he may have had help but seemed confident he could manage it on his own if absolutely needed).

Demo warlock

It was important for us to try to plan around the fact of a no-healer totem once in a while, rather than hope for favorable RNG. Once we started biasing in favor of sending the no-self-heal classes down with healers when available (in practice, this was still not all that frequent), our attempts became more managable, and a kill swiftly followed.

We switched out to this strat from an unsuccessful day of 3-heal attempts. Problems encountered for us with that were: falling behind on adds and losing players to being Globaled (3 healers doesnt help if you take 400k damage in <1 gcd :( ), not having sufficient DPS to beat the enrage timer.

Final healer-specific notes: It's quite important for both healers to know at all times who the Voodoo targets are, since they will require the bulk of the healing by far and should always be topped off ASAP. Healers returning from the spirit realm should be prepared to start firing off heals at the voodoo targets the moment they return. Both healers should also be returning to the normal realm ASAP and absolutely blasting the raid while they have the Spiritual Innervation buff.

Side note for paladins: I found it more effective to beacon a Voodoo target than the tank. By and large the tank will take less threatening levels of damage due to rolling Cds, self-heals and various other mehcanics. Beaconing one Voodoo target meant that I could react with greater ease to spike damage, focusing on topping up the non-beaconed Voodoo first, then the beaconed one, and finally the tank. Also, unless I am completely mistaken, our mastery shields DO cut down on the tanks damage taken from all effects, and beacon does not apply these, meaning that you are losing the double-dip benefit of your mastery if the majority of your tankheals are beacon. Obviously, beacon yourself when you enter the spirit realm :P

[Guest Desul]

Couple of things to add to your guide.

Even though Shadowy attacks can't be absorbed, absorbing melee attacks before or after will reduce the spike dmg on the voodoo dolls tremendously and therefor reduce the chance of them dying. That makes (good) DK tanks actually very strong in this encounter, by removing the spike dmg on voodoo dolls.

Also as a voodoo doll, you can't absorb dmg with Iceblock for example. Tried it on my alt mage and just kept on loosing health and dying

Great guide like always.

[Vlad 411]

Couple of things to add to your guide.

Even though Shadowy attacks can't be absorbed, absorbing melee attacks before or after will reduce the spike dmg on the voodoo dolls tremendously and therefor reduce the chance of them dying. That makes (good) DK tanks actually very strong in this encounter, by removing the spike dmg on voodoo dolls.

Also as a voodoo doll, you can't absorb dmg with Iceblock for example. Tried it on my alt mage and just kept on loosing health and dying

Great guide like always.

Thank you very much, good sir. I'll be updating the guide!

[Clisis 5]

Prot Warrior's are GODS for this fight. J/S xD