Gruul's Lair Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

Gruul’s Lair is a two-boss Raid with both bosses being very simple as long as mechanics get handled correctly. This is one of the first 25-man raids that will be available in Phase One of TBC Classic. Gruul's Lair is located in Blade's Edge Mountains, north of the Flight Path that is located in Ruuan Weald.

As mentioned, Gruul's Lair only has two bosses that are quite simple, but both drop not only good pieces, but some pieces that last for most of the expansion. So expect to be in here weekly, with some smooth clears for the juicy loot. Below is an in depth guide to handling both High King Maulgar and Gruul the Dragonkiller.

High King Maulgar is the first of two boss encounters in Gruul's Lair. While this fight looks hectic, it is actually a very easy fight as long as you get the pull right. This is an add fight, meaning that you will kill the adds in a specific order and then finish off High King Maulgar himself.

1. Start with Blindeye the Seer.
2. Once Blindeye goes down, send all of your DPS to Olm the Summoner.
3. After Olm goes down, have the melee DPS go on High King Maulgar, while sending your Ranged DPS go on Kiggler the Crazed.
4. Once Kiggler goes down, have the Ranged DPS go on Krosh Firehand.
5. Once Krosh goes down, have the Ranged DPS help finish off High King Maulgar.

• Tank High King Maulgar near the entrance where you came in from.
• Tank Kiggler the Crazed and Krosh Firehand where they stand since they are casters.
• Tank Blindeye the Seer and Olm the Summoner together by the wall across from where High King Maulgar stands.

• Heal
• Prayer of Healing
• Greater Power Word: Shield

Blindeye the Seer is the healing add. He casts Heal that heals him for 100% of his Health that can and must be interrupted. Most importantly, he has a 10-second cast called Prayer of Healing that heals all enemies in the encounter to full. You must set up a stun rotation between Rogues, Paladins, and Warriors of any spec to help prevent this cast. Assign interrupts for the Heal and Prayer of Healing and just do anything you can to make sure both of those abilities do not ever get a cast off. Before he casts Prayer of Healing, he will always cast Greater Power Word: Shield to protect himself and he cannot be interrupted until your DPS take the shield down. Once you see the Bubble you can simply burn through it or make use of a Priest's Silence to stop the Prayer of Healing cast regardless of the shield's presence.

• Dark Decay
• Death Coil
• Summon Wild Felhunter

Olm the Summoner, as you might gather from the name, is a Warlock-esque enemy that summons huge Wild Fel Stalkers that will tear through your raid unless they are properly dealt with. Fortunately, all you have to do to deal with them is have one of your own Warlocks Enslave Demon, Banish, or Fear the Fel Stalkers as they come out. Not only are you elimating the only dangerous part of Olm's abilities, but these Fel Stalkers deal an insane amount of damage when enslaved. Simply set up Enslave Demon rotations with your Warlocks and have them send their newly-enslaved Fel Stalkers back against Olm himself.

Olm the Summoner can also apply a DoT called Dark Decay on the tank that will eventually be unhealable, so the tanks that are tanking the Olm and Blindeye the Seer must taunt off each other after they reach 4 stacks. He will also Death Coil as well; however, the damage from it is minor.

• Lightning Bolt
• Arcane Shock
• Arcane Explosion
• Greater Polymorph

Kiggler the Crazed is a Mage-like add. He will often cast Greater Polymorph, so use a Balance Druid to tank him since they are immune to Polymorph effects while in a shapeshift. If you for some reason do not have a Balance Druid in your raid, you can use two ranged DPS to do this as well — two Hunters, two Mages, and such. A Balance Druid is merely the best suggestion as they can solo-tank this add. Kiggler the Crazed needs to be attacked by only your ranged DPS because his Arcane Explosion does decent damage while also knocking back anyone in range. It also triggers more often if there are players or pets nearby.

• Blast Wave
• Greater Fireball
• Spell Shield

Krosh Firehand is another ranged add that frequently casts Blast Wave, which is a 10-yard AoE around himself. Due to that, only ranged DPS can handle him. Because of this, among his other unique mechanics to be covered, Krosh must be tanked by a Mage with high Stamina. We suggest that the Mage has at minimum 10k health. Anymore than that is nice for safety, however be aware that his Greater Fireball is capable of hitting up to roughly 9,000 damage. Krosh also has a Spell Shield that reduces magic damage taken by 75%. This is why a Mage must be the tank for this enemy. With the help of Spellsteal, they can then protect themselves from Krosh’s Greater Fireballs.

Once again, it is imperative that the Mage tanking Krosh Firehand maintains at least 9k HP. This Mage may wish to wear uncommon gear with the “of Stamina” suffix until they reach that Health threshold. The Mage will not have the Spell Shield buff on them 100% of the time, meaning there are windows where they must take a Greater Fireball at full damage value that can deal 8-9k damage. Healers should make sure to keep an eye out for this oncoming damage and keep the Mage up until the DPS work their way around the other adds and then onto Krosh Firehand

• Whirlwind
• Arcing Smash
• Mighty Blow
• Flurry
• Intimidating Roar
• Charge

Contrary to the chaos from his other adds, High King Maulgar himself is actually really easy to deal with. He does have a handful of mechanics, however most of them are a non-issue as long as he is positioned correctly. Our suggested position is away from everyone and back in the tunnel where you came in from, but makes sure your tank is still in range for your healers. This ensures that the tank is far enough away from everyone.

High King Maulgar's first and most annoying mechanic is a Whirlwind. As you can imagine, this is very easy to avoid; just simply move away from the boss when he starts to spin. Healers must make sure the tank is healed up so they can survive as they quickly run out to avoid it.

Next he has an ability called Arcing Smash, which will hit your tank and cleave to whoever is in front of High King Maulgar. This is nothing to worry about, as your tanks should always be tanking him facing away from the raid.

Mighty Blow is another ability of High King Maulgar, which does not do much damage but will knock your tank far back. This is nothing to worry about, because your tank should have their back to the wall which completely eliminates the issue.

Once you get High King Maulgar to 50% health, he will get a few new abilities with the first one being Flurry which increases his damage and attack speed. This is where your tank should start using their personal defensive cooldowns to survive the onslaught. He also now will Charge a random player, which stuns them and does some slight damage. Lastly Maulgar gets an ability called Intimidating Roar, which will stun your tank while fearing any nearby players. He will do this often and it is imperative that your tank be very quick at taunting after the Charge. There can be a bad overlap of mechanics where Maulgar can Charge someone in the raid and then Whirlwind. It is pretty comical to see, but deadly to your raid as you might imagine.

Overall you should have no worries downing this boss if you follow the kill order and position correctly, make sure you get your kick and stun rotations figured out beforehand, and, most importantly, do not pull threat off your tank. With all that in mind, down the boss and collect your precious loot.

Item	Item Type	Slot
Belt of Divine Inspiration	Cloth	Belt
Malefic Mask of the Shadows	Leather	Head
Pauldrons of the Fallen Champion	Tier 4 Chest token	Chest
Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender	Tier 4 Chest token	Chest
Pauldrons of the Fallen Hero	Tier 4 Chest token	Chest
Maulgar's Warhelm	Mail	Head
Bladespire Warbands	Plate	Wrists
Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi	Cloak	Back
Hammer of the Naaru	Two-Handed Mace	Weapon

This fight is actually much simpler than the previous encounter and is objectively considered to be an easy boss. Once again, this fight boils down to positioning, which we will go over. First, we will take a look at his abilites, what they do, and how to handle them.

• Reverberation
• Cave In
• Hurtful Strike
• Growth
• Ground Slam
  • Gronn Lord's Grasp
  • Stoned
  • Shatter

Reverberation is a silence that happens periodically. There is nothing that you can do to avoid it. Healers should have the tanks topped off and full of HoTs before the silence goes off.

Cave In causes the to ceiling cave in, doing a good amount of damage. Simply move out of it so you do not take any unnecessary damage. You should be able to avoid this, as the ground will show when and where the Cave In will be.

Hurtful Strike will have Gruul the Dragonkiller randomly hit whoever is both second on threat and in melee range. This actually does a lot of damage, but since it is Physical, you can mitigate it. Since you know it will hit whoever is second on threat and in melee range, you can ensure that you have a beefy melee or offtank soak the hit. It will never hit a ranged player, ssuming they are not in melee range.

Growth is one of the main abilites of the encounter. Gruul the Dragonkiller will get bigger over time, increasing his size by 10% for each stack while also doing 15% more damage per stack. This means that the longer the fight is, the more damage Gruul will do to your tank. If not killed fast enough, your tank could die. Take note that Growth also affects the damage of Cave In. It is suggested to have your healers adjust accordingly based on the number of Growth stacks currently on the boss, going easy on healing early on and have enough Mana for the later stages of the fight. The same is true with debuffs; it is fine to use Curse of Recklessness early on but take it off around the 8th stack.

Ground Slam is the other main ability of this fight that more or less involves a couple other mechanics that your raid must pay attention to no matter how easy the fight may be. This will occcasionally toss everybody in the raid up in the air, knocking everyone in random directions, while also applying a debuff called Gronn Lord's Grasp. This debuff is only caused by Ground Slam and will slow your movement speed down by 20%, stacking up to 5 times. As soon as you get to 5 stacks of this debuff, you will be Stoned, which renders you unable to move. Shortly after, Gruul the Dragonkiller will use an abilty called Shatter, which deals a significant amount of damage based upon how close you are to anyone that is Stoned. It is suggested to try and be 12-15 yards away from everyone before they get Stoned.

As mentioned earlier, this boss is considered really easy. Positioning is key, so start by tanking Gruul the Dragonkiller in the middle of the room, pretty much exactly where he is before you start the fight. Separate your groups and have them spread out around Gruul. We suggest having the Warlock group on one side. For this example we will have them on the right side of Gruul. Send your Mage/Spriest Group to the left side of Gruul. Have the Hunter group by the entrance where you came in and have EVERYONE spread out. Position your melee around Gruul, but still spread out around him. All of your ranged DPS should be as far away toward the wall as they can possibly get while ensuring that they are still in range to reach the boss. Finally, position your healers in between the ranged DPS and melee DPS, so that they can easily be able to heal whoever might be in need of it.

The main issue guilds will stuggle with is the Ground Slam and Shatter combo. When you get tossed in the air from Ground Slam, do not panic as this is what causes many wipes. Instead, just try to run as far away from any other raid members as you can before you are Stoned. Do not worry about your damage during this mechanic; just run away to a safe spot, eat the Shatter, then get back to your spot and continue to do as much damage as you can. Once Gruul the Dragonkiller is defeated, collect your precious loot.

Item	Item Type	Slot
Collar of Cho'gall	Cloth	Head
Cowl of Nature's Breath	Leather	Head
Leggings of the Fallen Champion	Tier 4 Chest token	Chest
Leggings of the Fallen Defender	Tier 4 Chest token	Chest
Leggings of the Fallen Hero	Tier 4 Chest token	Chest
Gronn-Stitched Girdle	Leather	Belt
Gauntlets of the Dragonslayer	Mail	Hands
Windshear Boots	Mail	Boots
Gauntlets of Martial Perfection	Plate	Hands
Teeth of Gruul	Accessory	Neck
Bloodmaw Magus-Blade	One-Handed Sword	Main-Hand
Axe of the Gronn Lords	Two-Handed Axe	Weapon
Aldori Legacy Defender	Shield	Off-Hand
Eye of Gruul	Accessory	Trinket
Dragonspine Trophy	Accessory	Trinket
Earthen Signet	Quest Item	Misc