Yogg Saron Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

Yogg-Saron is the final fight of the raid, being one of the most difficult and lengthy battles in the zone. This fight has multiple difficulties it can be fought on depending on which of the previously defeated Keepers you choose to assist you in battle or not. The hardest difficulty is without the assistance of any of the four Keepers. It is considered one of the most difficult achievements in this raid.

• Do not be greedy for damage in Phase one. Allow the tanks to pick up and position the Guardian of Yogg-Saron when they spawn, and do not risk dying to DPS them.
• Be mindful of your position constantly. You will often need to stop damaging or casting and move away from nearby mechanics such as gas clouds, tentacle spawns, or Death Rays.
• Always be aware of your Sanity, especially in phase 3.

• If your raid is melee heavy, you may want to rotate defensive raid cooldowns every time a Guardian of Yogg-Saron dies in phase 1.
• Focus on dispelling the numerous debuffs throughout phase 2.
• Coordinate with your tanks for defensive cooldowns when there are multiple Immortal Guardians alive late into the phase.
• You do not need to face your Yogg-Saron at all in phase 3, you can keep your back to him at all times and never lose Sanity.

• Be aware of any Crusher Tentacles, you will want to be near them and ready to interrupt them, but not tanking them.
• Coorindate with your raid for defensive cooldowns when there are multiple Immortal Guardians alive late into the phase.

• Sara's Anger
• Sara's Blessing
• Sara's Fervor

• Guardian of Yogg-Saron
• Dark Volley
• Shadow Nova
• Dominate Mind
• Unstable Affliction

• Sanity

• Brain Link
• Death Ray
• Malady of the Mind
• Psychosis
• Sanity Well
• Induce Madness

• Constrictor Tentacle
• Squeeze
• Corruptor Tentacle
• Apathy
• Black Plague
• Curse of Doom
• Draining Poison
• Crusher Tentacle
• Diminish Power
• Focused Anger
• Crush

• Lunatic Gaze
• Deafening Roar

• Immortal Guardian
• Empowered
• Drain Life
• Shadow Beacon
• Empowering Shadows

You can make this fight much more manageable by choosing to speak with the Keepers in the Observation Ring. Each Keeper you speak with will provide the raid with a unique buff during the encounter, significantly increasing your odds of defeating the boss. These buffs prevent you from dealing with some of the more complicated mechanics and abilities that would otherwise make this fight challenging. Defeating Yogg-Saron without the help of Keepers rewards you with better loot, depending on how many Keepers you have assisting you.

• Hodir
• Fortitude of Frost
• Hodir's Protective Gaze

• Thorim
• Fury of the Storm
• Titanic Storm

• Freya
• Resilience of Nature
• Sanity Well

• Mimiron
• Speed of Invention
• Destabilization Matrix

Phase one starts with Sara standing in the middle of the room where you would expect Yogg-Saron to be. Sara is considered a friendly target, not allowing your raid to attack her directly. However, She will constantly spawn in gas clouds and Guardian of Yogg-Sarons in this phase, making her anything but friendly.

As Sara can not be directly attacked, she must be killed by the Guardian of Yogg-Sarons death explosion Shadow Nova; it will take 8 novas for her to die. Melees should avoid being near the Guardian of Yogg-Saron whenever they are about to die as the Shadow Nova is likely to kill any nearby players. Make sure to wait for threat and allow your tanks to position the Guardian of Yogg-Saron before killing it. Interrupt their Shadow Nova casts and Dispel Magic or Purge any player affected by Dominate Mind.

Phase two will start when Sara reaches 0 health. The illusion will be shattered, and Yogg-Saron will appear in the center of the room. He will be protected by Shadowy Barrier, again preventing you from directly attacking him. Instead, you will need to survive the constant waves of adds until you can enter the mind of Yogg-Saron and directly attack his brain.

This phase brings the Sanity mechanic for all players to worry about. You will start this phase with 100 Sanity, gradually decreasing throughout the fight as you deal with the mechanics and adds, essentially acting as a soft-enrage for the fight. Reaching 0 Sanity will cause a player to be mind controlled by Yogg-Saron, requiring the raid to kill them. Watch your Sanity at all times.

Throughout phase two, Yogg-Saron will constantly spawn in multiple tentacles that must be handled in different ways. The most deadly is the Constrictor Tentacles as they will cast Squeeze on a random player, dealing severe damage over time till it is killed. You will want to use any immunity spells available such as Ice Block, Divine Shield or Hand of Protection to break out of the grip sooner and quickly finish the tentacle off.

The next tentacle you will want to focus down is the Crusher Tentacles. These will frequently channel Diminish Power on the raid, reducing all damage done by 20%, stacking with other debuffs if multiple tentacles are alive at once. A tank will need to be near these to quickly move in and interrupt this cast and move back out to avoid their deadly melee damage as they gain a stacking buff Focused Anger every time an attack or spell hits them. Anyone stepping into its melee range will be targeted with Crush, a deadly line attack in the direction of the nearest player in melee range. This is why melee DPS should avoid these at all costs, and tanks must be faced away from the raid when stepping in to interrupt the Diminish Power channel.

Lastly, you have Corruptor Tentacles, which will constantly debuff random raid members with nasty debuffs like Apathy, Black Plague, Curse of Doom and Draining Poison. These can and should be removed by any available decurses, dispels, disease, and poison removals as quickly as possible. The Corruptor Tentacles is the ideal target for melee DPS as they have no melee-based attacks.

Sara continues to attack the raid during all of this, with her spells now focusing on diminishing the raids Sanity. Psychosis is her main attack, dealing 5,000 Shadow damage to a random player and removing 12 Sanity. She will also frequently cast Malady of the Mind, causing a random player to be horrified for 4 seconds. At the end of the 4 This debuff will jump to any nearby players within 10 yards of the first victim. To prevent this debuff from chain jumping from player to player, everyone must be ready to move away from whoever gets it, as they will be horrified and running in fear, unable to control their movements.

Sara will also debuff 2 random players with Brain Link, linking them together with a yellow beam. These players must stay within 20 yards of each other, or the beam will turn red, dealing 3,000 Shadow damage a second and removing 3 Sanity from both players until both players get within 20 yards of each other again.

The most deadly ability she uses is Death Ray, which spawns 4 green laser beams in random locations in the room. After a few seconds, these will expand into large beams, dealing deadly damage to anyone caught in their path as they slowly move around. Everyone must be aware of these when they spawn and be mindful of their movement patterns, as they are guaranteed death if you get hit by them.

While all of this is going on, you must focus on the main task of phase two: Attacking Yogg-Sarons brain. After one minute into phase two, 10 portals will open all around Yogg-Saron. One player can click these portals to use the portal, removing it and allowing that player to enter the mind of Yogg-Saron temporarily.

Players entering the portals will have 60 seconds before they are returned to the normal realm. You must use these 60 seconds to quickly defeat all enemies in the room to open the path to the Brain of Yogg-Saron. Each illusion enemy has the Grim Reprisal aura, which reflects 60% of damage taken back at the attacker. DPS players must be mindful of their health when attacking the illusions as you can easily die to reflect damage here. There will also periodically be Laughing Skulls spawning in random locations. These cast Lunatic Gaze on anyone that looks at them directly, so you must avoid facing them as much as possible.

Upon reaching the brain, you will have until the end of the Induce Madness cast to deal as much damage as possible to the Brain of Yogg-Saron. Players inside the brain room must take one of the nearby portals out before this cast finishes, as it will remove all of your Sanity and mind-control you for the rest of the fight. While the brain is under attack, all tentacles will be stunned. Phase two ends when the Brain of Yogg-Sarons health reaches 30%.

Phase three starts when the Brain of Yogg-Saron reaches 30% health. All players inside the mind must quickly leave, and you will want to finish off any remaining tentacles in the area before stacking up behind Yogg-Saron. This phase is a DPS race against the clock, as people will need to worry about their Sanity and the constantly spawning adds.

Yogg will frequently summon in a Guardian of Yogg-Saron during this phase. These adds will quickly add up and become the soft-enrage timer before your tanks and healers are overwhelmed. The Guardian of Yogg-Sarons deal more damage the higher their health is thanks to their Empowered buff, making them the most dangerous at full health.

Drag these adds on top of the melee group to get passive cleave damage on them and gradually reduce their health over time. This will help severely reduce the damage tanks take during this phase, but keep in mind that the main focus of your DPS must be on Yogg-Saron as this phase is a hard DPS race. Occasionally they will cast Drain Life on a random target, do your best to interrupt this as much as possible to prevent them from regaining too much health, increasing their damage output.

From time to time, Yogg-Saron will also buff up to 3 of the Immortal Guardians with Shadow Beacon, giving them the Empowering Shadows aura, which heals other nearby Guardians every second. Keep the Immortal Guardians near the melee so they can continue to cleave their health back down, and you can mostly forget about this ability.

The main focus of the raid during this phase, besides burning down Yogg-Saron as quickly as possible, is Sara channeling Lunatic Gaze. Whenever she channels this ability, you must look away from her, or you will take 6,000 Shadow damage a second and 4 Sanity. Whenever this is channeled, look away till the end of the cast before returning to DPS.

Lastly, if facing Yogg-Saron with the aid of less than all 4 Keepers, Yogg-Saron will also cast Deafening Roar every 30 seconds, dealing 8,000 Physical damage to all enemies and silencing them for 4 seconds. This is one of the most dangerous times, especially towards the end of the fight, where the tanks will have multiple Immortal Guardians attacking them at once. Rotate defensive cooldowns for this and make sure your tanks have full HoTs and shields up before this lands.

Item	Type/Slot
Faceguard of the Eyeless Horror	Plate Helm
Pendant of a Thousand Maws	Neck
Chestguard of the Wayward Conqueror	Tier Token
Chestguard of the Wayward Protector	Tier Token
Chestguard of the Wayward Vanquisher	Tier Token
Leggings of the Insatiable	Mail Legs
Treads of the Dragon Council	Cloth Feet
Royal Seal of King Llane	Trinket
Kingsbane	One Hand Dagger
Touch of Madness	One Hand Axe
Abaddon	Two Hand Sword
Devotion	Staff
Deliverance	Crossbow

Item	Type/Slot
Amice of Inconceivable Horror	Cloth Shoulder
Soul-Devouring Cinch	Leather Waist
Signet of Soft Lament	Finger
Vanquished Clutches of Yogg-Saron	Trinket
Caress of Insanity	One Hand Mace
Hammer of Crushing Whispers	Two Hand Mace

Item	Type/Slot
Cowl of Dark Whispers	Cloth Helm
Garona's Guise	Leather Helm
Shawl of Haunted Memories	Back
Mantle of the Wayward Conqueror	Tier Token
Mantle of the Wayward Protector	Tier Token
Mantle of the Wayward Vanquisher	Tier Token
Chestguard of the Fallen God	Mail Chest
Chestguard of Insidious Intent	Mail Chest
Godbane Signet	Finger
Sanity's Bond	Finger
Blood of the Old God	Trinket
Soulscribe	Main Hand Dagger
Earthshaper	Two Hand Mace

Item	Type/Slot
Legguards of Cunning Deception	Leather Legs
Treads of the False Oracle	Cloth Feet
Seal of the Betrayed King	Finger
Show of Faith	Trinket
Dark Edge of Depravity	Polearm

Yogg Saron is just one of the 14 encounters present in the Ulduar raid of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. If you would like to learn more about the other fights and their respective loot, please see our Ulduar Raid Hub page below.