Galakras Detailed Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included)

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. Health Values
  • 1.2. Enrage Timer
  • 1.3. Raid Composition
• +2. Loot
  • 2.1. Armor
  • 2.2. Weapons
  • 2.3. Rings and Trinkets
• 3. Overview of the Fight
• 4. Class-specific Advice
• +5. Fight Structure
  • 5.1. Friendly NPCs
• +6. Phase One
  • 6.1. Abilities
    • 6.1.1. Mini Bosses
    • 6.1.2. Other Adds
  • 6.2. Strategy
    • 6.2.1. Handling the Mini-Bosses
    • 6.2.2. Handling the Adds
    • 6.2.3. General Timeline of the Phase
• +7. Phase Two
  • 7.1. Abilities
  • 7.2. Strategy
• 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 Galakras 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.

Galakras is the fifth boss in the Siege of Orgrimmar. This is a fight that will remind Wrath of the Lich King raiders of the encounter against Razorscale. In similar fashion, players will have to defeat mobs and use Anti-Air turrets to bring the proto-drake boss down to the ground where it can be fought and defeated.

The Galakras encounter is a two-phase fight.

Phase One requires your raid to defeat several groups of mobs, including 4 powerful mini-bosses, in order to gain access to two Anti-Air Turrets. Using these Anti-Air Turrets simultaneously forces Galakras to land, initiating Phase Two.

Phase Two pits your raid up against Galakras, a large proto-drake. The boss only has two abilities in this phase, and there is a soft enrage mechanic in place that turns this phase into a DPS race.

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

To start the fight, you have to talk to your faction leader.

During Phase One, you will only be fighting adds. Many types of adds come into the fight in waves. There are 8 waves and while some specific adds cannot come together in the same wave, the composition of the waves appears mostly random to us. That said, there are mini-bosses that come at predictable times and appear either on the ground or atop one of the two towers where the Anti-Air Turrets are located:

• Wave 1: random mixture of different types of adds;
• Wave 2: random mixture of different types of adds;
• Wave 3: random mixture of different types of adds and ground mini-boss;
• Wave 4: random mixture of different types of adds and tower mini-boss;
• Wave 5: random mixture of different types of adds;
• Wave 6: random mixture of different types of adds;
• Wave 7: random mixture of different types of adds and ground mini-boss;
• Wave 8: random mixture of different types of adds and tower mini-boss.

When the mini-boss appears on top of a tower, the gate blocking access to that tower opens, and your raid can start climbing up (through a stairway located inside the tower). Raid members who enter the tower will notice a Tower Control bar appearing on their screen. It starts out fully red, meaning that your raid has no control over the tower whatsoever. As your raid members make their way up the stairs, they will be met by various types of (relatively weak) adds, which they must defeat. Each add that your raid kills will push the Tower Control bar slightly in your raid's favour. Killing the mini-boss on top of the tower will affect the Tower Control greatly, ensuring that it becomes fully controlled by your raid. When your raid controls a tower, you can use the Anti-Air Turret located on top of it to shoot at Galakras.

Having access to both towers, and using both Anti-Air Turrets to shoot down Galakras at the same time will cause the boss to come down and engage your raid, starting Phase Two.

Throughout the fight, your raid will receive assistance from three prominent members of your faction. Alliance players will receive help from King Varian Wrynn, Lady Jaina Proudmoore, and Vereesa Windrunner. Horde players will receive help from Lor'themar Theron, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, and Archmage Aethas Sunreaver.

These NPCs have very high amounts of health, and if one of them is killed by the enemies, your raid instantly wipes. While it is possible to heal them, their large health pools make it unfeasible to do so. You are much better off protecting them instead.

During Phase One, your raid will have to face a large number of adds. The goal of this phase is to gain control of the two towers located in the fight area, in order to use the Anti-Air Turrets located on top of them to bring the boss down.

Korgra the Snake is the first mini boss that your raid will have to face. She enters the fight about 2 minutes after the start (as part of the third wave), and she engages your raid on the ground, making use of several abilities (more than any of the other mini bosses). Two Dragonmaw Ebon Stalkers enter the fight together with Korgra.

• Poison-Tipped Blades is a stacking debuff that Korgra applies to her main tank, which deals Nature damage every second for each stack.
• Poison Clouds are damaging void zones that Korgra places at her location.
• Curse of Venom is a self-buff that Korgra casts when she reaches 50% health, and which lasts until her death. This grants her a new ability that she regularly casts: Venom Bolt Volley.
  • Venom Bolt Volley is a standard, uninterruptible raid-wide nuke that does not leave behind any debuffs or DoTs.
• The Dragonmaw Ebon Stalkers often teleport behind random raid members, and, a few seconds later, inflict fatal damage to these players if they are still in melee range. Players can move away from the Ebon Stalkers to avoid being hit.

Lieutenant Krugruk is the second mini boss your raid will face. He spawns on the southern tower roughly 2 and a half minutes after the start of the fight (as part of the fourth wave). He uses two abilities against your raid.

• Arcing Smash deals damage in a cone in front of Krugruk, knocking back any affected targets. The boss turns to face a random direction each time he casts this spell.
• Thunder Clap deals damage in a rather large area around the boss (covering almost the entire top of the tower), slowing any affected players. The slow stacks.

High Enforcer Thranok spawns on the ground about 4 minutes after the start of the fight (as part of the seventh wave). He uses three abilities against your raid.

• Shattering Strike is a cleave attack that hits his current target and other targets near it.
• Crusher's Call hooks a number of random raid members with chains, pulling them to him. In 10-man, Thranok pulls 5 players, and in 25-man he pulls 10 players. Immediately after pulling them to him, Thranok begins channeling Skull Cracker for 2 seconds.
  • Skull Cracker deals a massive amount of Physical damage to all players in a 10-yard radius of the boss.

Master Cannoneer Dagryn is the fourth and final boss to spawn. He appears on top of the northern tower, about 5 minutes after the start of the fight (as part of the 8th and final wave). He uses two abilities against your raid.

• Shoot deals moderate amounts of Physical damage to random raid members. Dagryn spams this attack.
• Muzzle Spray is a succession of a several frontal cone attacks that deal damage and knock players back. Dagryn moves to the center of the tower, and then casts this ability. Each separate frontal cone attack is oriented in a different, random direction.

In addition to the 4 mini-bosses listed above, your raid will have to handle a large number of smaller adds, which enter the fight in waves of different compositions.

Dragonmaw Bonecrushers charge a faction leader and cast Fracture on them, dealing 10% of the target's health in damage every second.

Dragonmaw Tidal Shamans cast interruptible healing spells on their allies, and they also create Healing Tide Totems, which can be attacked and killed (their health is very low).

Dragonmaw Flameslingers shoot fire-tipped arrows at random raid members, dealing damage to them and leaving behind small fiery void zones on the ground.

Dragonmaw Grunts deal heavy melee damage, and sometimes use a ranged attack on random raid members.

Dragonmaw Wind Reavers enter the fight on the backs of flying proto-drakes called Dragonmaw Proto-Drakes. On the PTR, these adds used to engage your raid on the ground as well as flying above it, but so far from our live server experience we have not seen them fighting on the ground. All they appear to do is fly around in the air and damage random raid members. They can be attacked from the tops of the towers, but it is much more efficient to damage them using the Anti-Air Turrets.

Dragonmaw Flagbearers put down banners that buff other enemies, increasing their melee, ranged, and casting speed, as well as increasing their damage. The banners can be destroyed (their health is very low).

Kor'kron Demolishers enter the fight one at a time, and immediately begin firing projectiles at the tower that your raid is currently trying to take control of, dealing heavy damage to any raid members inside the tower.

Despite appearing very complicated, the strategy for this phase is actually quite simple. Your raid will often be faced with such an overwhelming number of adds with different abilities that carefully strategising is simply not possible. Instead, you will have to react instinctively to the mechanics you are up against, while keeping a few broad guidelines in mind.

There are a few very important things to keep in mind during this phase. We will outline them before going into more details.

• Always kill Healing Tide Totems and the banners created by Dragonmaw Flagbearers right away.
• Kill the Kor'kron Demolishers as soon as they appear.
• Be very wary of the Dragonmaw Ebon Stalkers and move away from where you were standing as soon as they teleport behind you.
• Kill Dragonmaw Bonecrushers as soon as they appear, because these mobs deal very heavy damage to your friendly NPCs.

The abilities of the mini-bosses are very straightforward.

In the case of Korgra the Snake, you can simply attack and kill her while the tank moves her whenever she places a Poison Cloud at her location. Aside from that, remember to avoid the attacks from the Dragonmaw Ebon Stalkers that come with her.

Lieutenant Krugruk requires that the raid members who engage him always make sure not to get hit by Arcing Smash, because the knock-back can throw players off the tower, causing great problems for the raid.

High Enforcer Thranok's lethal Skull Cracker can be avoided by simply running away from him as soon as he casts Crusher's Call. No one should try to survive the damage of Skull Cracker, not even tanks.

Master Cannoneer Dagryn's only problematic ability is Muzzle Spray, for which raid members will have to dance for a few seconds in order to avoid being knocked back.

Most of the abilities of the adds should be handled in obvious ways (which is not to say that doing so is always easy). Damage that is done to random raid members has to be healed through. Players have to avoid standing in the fiery void zones left behind by the Dragonmaw Flameslingers, and so on.

It is not easy to set a priority for killing the adds, since this can depend on many factors. Also, if you consider that certain mobs, such as the Dragonmaw Bonecrushers and the Dragonmaw Tidal Shamans, have as much as 10 times more health than some other mobs, a kill order often becomes quickly apparent. Use the following guidelines.

1. Dragonmaw Bonecrushers and Dragonmaw Tidal Shamans should be AoE-ed together with any smaller adds that join the fight with them (Bonecrushers and Shamans will not be in the same wave at the same time). The smaller adds will die very quickly.
2. Kor'kron Demolishers (which mostly spawn on their own) should be killed very quickly.

The Dragonmaw Proto-Drakes should be damaged with the first Anti-Air Turret that your raid takes control of.

At the start of the phase, your entire raid will be together on the ground, and you will face the first three waves of adds together. As soon as the southern tower opens, half of your raid (complete with one tank and one or more healers) will have to make its way up the tower. Once at the top, they will have to defeat the mini-boss present there.

When the second tower opens up, your tower team will have to take control of this tower as well, in the same way as with the first tower. When both towers are under control, one raid member should enter each of the two Anti-Air Turrets, and shoot at Galakras at roughly the same time. This will cause the boss to descend, starting Phase Two.

Note that any adds that are still alive when you shoot down Galakras will not despawn, and you will have to fight them at the same time as the boss, so you may want to consider clearing the area before bringing the boss down.

During Phase Two, adds stop spawning, and your only enemy is Galakras, so engages your raid on the ground.

Galakras uses only three abilities during this phase.

• Galakras has a stacking DoT that it applies on its current target. This deals Fire damage and it requires a tank switch.
• Flames of Galakrond is the main attack that Galakras uses during this phase. The boss shoots a large ball of fire at a random player, which travels slowly through the air. Each player that intercepts the ball of fire has a moderately damaging, 15-second Fire damage DoT stacked on them, but also causes the ball of fire to lose potency, causing it to deal less damage to subsequent players. When the ball reaches its final destination (the location of the targeted player), it lands, exploding and dealing a large amount of raid-wide damage. The amount of damage that this explosion does is reduced for each player that had intercepted the ball of fire while it was flying.
• Pulsing Flames is a raid-wide damaging aura that ticks throughout this phase. It deals a moderate amount of Fire damage to all players, and each tick stacks a buff on Galakras that increases the boss' fire damage done by 2% per stack.

The strategy for Phase Two is fairly simple. Your tanks must perform a tank switch on Galakras to handle the stacking tank DoT.

In order to handle Flames of Galakrond, the raid should employ the following positioning. Your melee players should be stacked into a group and positioned behind the boss. All ranged raid members should form a group located about 30 yards behind the melee group. This way, the damage of every single ball of fire from Flames of Galakrond will be reduced by the melee group, and in the event that it targets a ranged raid member, it will also be reduced by the ranged group. The result is that each ball of fire will end up doing very little damage, and your raid can remain stationary. As you can guess, the drawback of this strategy is that all the players who soak the balls of fire will have stacks of the Fire damage DoT placed on them. Depending on how quickly Galakras dies, this may not be a problem. If the phase ends up taking a very long time, though, you should have those players with the highest stacks move out of the group for a short while until their stacks drop off.

Dealing with the stacking buff that Galakras gains, and the damage that Pulsing Flames does, is just something that the healers have to be prepared for (so, save healing cooldowns).

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp during Phase Two, specifically when Galakras reaches 40% health or so. This part of the fight is the most difficult one, and it is here that your raid will have to contend with increasing damage due to Pulsing Flames, so you will need as much raid DPS and healing as possible.

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

• Tank all the mobs that enter the fight. Move Korgra around to avoid her void zones. Face Thranok away from other players.
• Tank Galakras in Phase Two, and perform a tank switch.

• Beware of the many sources of damage that your raid will be subjected to.
• In Phase Two, beware of the increasing raid-wide damage caused by Pulsing Flames, and by Flames of Galakrond explosions.

• Always DPS adds based on their priority (or on your raid leader's instructions).

• Avoid the many ground-based attacks in the fight ( Arcing Smash, Muzzle Spray, etc.).
• Immediately move away from Dragonmaw Ebon Stalkers if they are behind you.
• Move away from Thranok when he is casting Skull Cracker.
• Dispatch part of your raid to deal with the mini-bosses on top of the towers.
• In Phase Two, intercept the ball of fire caused by Flames of Galakrond.

It is not really possible to boil down the learning process of this fight to one or two steps. The most difficult aspect to learn will be how to best handle all of the abilities of the many adds that your raid has to face during Phase One, and this is something that has to happen through practice. If you follow the guidelines that we have laid out in the guide (killing the Kor'kron Demolishers and the Healing Tide Totems, and so on), you should be well on your way.

Another important aspect to consider before you pull the boss is how to split your raid up into a tower team and a ground team, so that the teams are well balanced and so that each one is suited for its task. You can and should look to rebalance this split after you have pulled the boss a few times, in order to improve the groups.

The Heroic mode of the Galakras encounter is almost identical to its Normal mode counterpart, and it is quite accessible to raids.

All mobs in the encounter have increased health and deal increased damage.

As far as mechanics are concerned, there is only one difference. Instead of the two towers becoming accessible to your raid automatically, each one is unlocked by a friendly NPC. The NPC takes about 90 seconds to unlock a tower, during which time some Dragonmaw Grunts will attempt to kill it. If the NPC dies, a new one will spawn shortly afterwards, and the tower-opening process will be re-started (that is to say, the progress of the previous add will be reset).

The strategy for this Heroic mode is practically unchanged. The only difference is that your raid should assign a few DPS players to stand near the tower that is going to open next, and protect the NPC that attempts to open the tower. Ranged DPS players are ideal, since they can deal damage to the other mobs when there is nothing to attack near the tower, but melee can work too.

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

• 15 Nov. 2013: Added Heroic mode strategy.
• 20 Sep. 2013: Improved the Phase Two strategy somewhat, removing mentions that implied that Flames of Galakrond can only be cast on ranged raid members (it can be cast on melee and ranged alike).
• 16 Sep. 2013: Added a link to the video guide.
• 15 Sep. 2013: Made several updates.
  • Added 25-man health values.
  • Clarified the mechanics of the Proto-Drakes, and mentioned that you can (and should) damage them with the Anti-Air Turrets.
  • Improved the strategy and positioning for Phase Two.
• 29 Aug. 2013: Added Summarising Things Up section.

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