Hellfire High Council Detailed Strategy Guide (Heroic+Mythic Modes included)

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. LFR Difficulty
  • 1.2. Normal, Heroic, and Mythic Difficulty
  • 1.3. Enrage Timer
• 2. Overview of the Fight
• +3. Summing Things Up
  • 3.1. Tanks
  • 3.2. Healers
  • 3.3. DPS
  • 3.4. Everyone
• +4. Abilities
  • 4.1. Blademaster Jubei'thos
  • 4.2. Gurtogg Bloodboil
  • 4.3. Dia Darkwhisper
• +5. Strategy
  • 5.1. Recommended Kill Order
  • 5.2. Tanking Concerns
  • 5.3. Gurtogg Bloodboil
    • 5.3.1. Sub-30% Health
  • 5.4. Blademaster Jubei'thos
    • 5.4.1. Sub-30% Health
  • 5.5. Dia Darkwhisper
    • 5.5.1. Sub-30% Health
• 6. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• 7. When to use Legendary Rings
• 8. Learning the Fight
• +9. Mythic Mode
  • 9.1. Differences From Normal/Heroic Mode
  • 9.2. Strategy
• +10. Loot
  • 10.1. Armor
  • 10.2. Weapons
  • 10.3. Amulets, Cloaks, Rings, and Trinkets
• 11. Concluding Remarks
• 12. Changelog

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Hellfire High Council in Hellfire Citadel. It is targeted at anyone who desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.2.

The Hellfire High Council fight is a council-style encounter in the Hellfire Citadel raid instance. During the fight, you face 3 bosses which are all active at the same time, and which do not share health. It is a straightforward encounter, but the correct strategy must be followed if your raid is to succeed.

This guide is written and maintained by Azortharion, a top Hunter with 6 years of raiding experience, who currently raids in Ðanish Terrace, a world top 20 guild.

For the Looking for Raid version of the fight, we provide you with a special LFR guide. This will tell you everything you need to know in order to complete the encounter, in a quick and concise way.

This guide covers both the Normal and Heroic versions of the encounter, as far as mechanics and general strategy is concerned. The only difference between these two modes is found in the tuning, with Heroic being more difficult.

When we speak of extreme situations (such as the difficulty of a soft enrage timer, or damage from a certain source being too high to survive), we mostly refer to Heroic mode.

The hard enrage timer for this encounter is 10 minutes.

The Hellfire High Council encounter is a council-style fight during which you face 3 bosses: Gurtogg Bloodboil, Blademaster Jubei'thos, and Dia Darkwhisper. The bosses are all active at the same time, they each have their own abilities, and they do not share health. The fight has a single phase, but each boss gains a new ability when they reach 30% health, becoming much more dangerous.

Unlike other council-style fights, there is no penalty for killing one boss long before the others, but certain kill orders can make the encounter much more difficult than others.

In this section, we will very briefly summarise what the players belonging to each of the three roles have to do during this fight. This is by no means meant to provide sufficient information to master the encounter, and it is only supposed to give you a very rough idea of what to watch out for.

• Perform a tank switch when Acidic Wound stacks to uncomfortable levels. Note that this should not normally happen, as Acidic Wound will often (if not always) drop off while Gurtogg is using Fel Rage.
• Tank Dia at least 25 yards away from any other boss.

• If Mark of the Necromancer becomes too strong, dispel it to save players from dying. Be conservative with dispels, as otherwise you may be overrun with debuffs.
• Be prepared to use healing cooldowns for when Jubei'thos uses Windwalk.
• In Mythic mode, beware of the high damage taken by Bloodboil soakers who are also affected by Mark of the Necromancer, and of the additional raid damage caused by dispelling Mark of the Necromancer.

• Ensure that the bosses reach 30% health in the correct order (usually Gurtogg > Jubei'thos > Dia), and ensure that no two bosses are ever below 30% health at the same time.
• Save DPS cooldowns for when a boss reaches 30% health and focus your attacks on it to ensure that it dies as quickly as possible.
• Kill Jubei'thos' Mirror Images as quickly as possible.

• When Dia casts Reap, players debuffed with Mark of the Necromancer must move to the far edges of the room.
• Avoid Dia's Wailing Horror by standing outside the Horrors' movement path.
• Avoid the Fel Blades thrown by Jubei'thos and by all of his Mirror Images.
• When Gurtogg fixates on you during Fel Rage, stand still and tank the boss. Towards the end of the fixate, you may need to use defensive cooldowns.
• In Mythic mode, two groups of 5 ranged raid members and healers each must alternate soaking Bloodboil by being farther away from Gurtogg Bloodboil than anyone else.

All the bosses are active at the same time, each using a number of abilities against your raid. Upon reaching 30% health, each boss gains a new ability. We cover all of these abilities in the following sub-sections.

• Fel Blade is an ability that Blademaster Jubei'thos uses regularly throughout the fight. The boss hurls a large, green blade in the raid's general direction, inflicting moderate damage to everyone it comes into contact with. Jubei'thos will place a yellow arrow on the ground, pointing in the direction in which he will throw his blade.
• Felstorm is an ability that Blademaster Jubei'thos occasionally uses throughout the fight. The boss spins around, dealing moderate Fire damage to all players every second for 8 seconds.
• Windwalk is an ability that Blademaster Jubei'thos occasionally uses throughout the fight. The boss fades away, summoning many Mirror Images that will deal high Fire damage to random players by using slightly weaker versions of Blademaster Jubei'thos' own Fel Blade and Fel Storm abilities. These Mirror Images can not be tanked, but they can be damaged and killed. Any damage done to the Mirror Images is also done to Jubei'thos. The boss re-appears once all of the Mirror Images have been killed, or after 45 seconds have passed since Windwalk was cast. If the boss re-appears after 45 seconds, it appears that any Mirror Images still up at that time disappear on their own a few seconds later.
• When Blademaster Jubei'thos reaches 30% health, he begins to frequently cast Wicked Strike. This hits a random half of the raid for moderate Fire damage Once Blademaster Jubei'thos is defeated, he will continue using Wicked Strike on single players until the encounter is over. The damage of Wicked Strike increases progressively as the fight goes on (even after he has been defeated).

• Bloodboil is an ability that Gurtogg Bloodboil regularly uses throughout the fight. It is an attack that deals moderate Physical damage to the 5 furthest players from the boss.
• Acidic Wound is a stacking debuff that Gurtogg will regularly apply to his current tank, inflicting fairly low Nature damage every 2 seconds and reducing their armor by 100. This effect stacks up to 60 times and lasts for 30 seconds. This ability requires a tank switch, but its stacks will most likely drop off each time Gurtogg is using Fel Rage (see below).
• Fel Rage is an ability that Gurtogg uses occasionally throughout the fight. He fixates on a random raid member for 25 seconds. For this duration, the raid member's maximum health is increased and their Physical damage taken is reduced. Any attacks that Gurtogg makes on this target cause his attack speed to increase by 10% per stack. Gurtogg's increased attack speed fades when Fel Rage ends.
• Demolishing Leap is an ability that Gurtogg occasionally uses throughout the fight. Gurtogg will spawn large, orange void zones in random parts of the room, dealing high Physical damage to anyone standing in and near them. Players take reduced damage from these void zones the further away from them they are. 3 Demolishing Leap void zones spawn in quick succession each time the ability is cast.
• When Gurtogg Bloodboil reaches 30% health, he will begin casting Tainted Blood. This reduces the maximum health of all raid members by 10%. The effect stacks until Gurtogg dies, and lasts until the encounter is over.

• Void Bolt is an ability that Dia Darkwhisper will frequently use against her current tank, dealing moderate Shadow damage.
• Void Haze is a passive ability that effectively makes the two other bosses immune to damage if they stand within 25 yards of Dia.
• Nightmare Visage is an ability that Dia Darkwhisper occasionally uses to buff her melee attacks for 14 seconds, causing them to deal high Shadow damage.
• Mark of the Necromancer is a Shadow damage DoT that Dia occasionally uses throughout the fight. This DoT lasts indefinitely and its damage increases the longer it is active on a target, but it can be dispelled. When dispelled, Mark of the Necromancer jumps to the 2 closest allies of the affected target, with its damage being reset to its initial value. When Mark of the Necromancer is dispelled, the entire raid also takes a low amount of Shadow damage.
  • Reap is an ability that Dia Darkwhisper will occasionally use against all targets afflicted by Mark of the Necromancer. Reap removes the Mark of the Necromancer debuff from afflicted players, and places a large void zone beneath them, dealing moderate Shadow damage to all players standing in it. These void zones last indefinitely.
• Wailing Horror is an ability that Dia Darkwhisper occasionally uses throughout the fight. For 30 seconds, much of the room will be covered in Shadow that deals high Shadow damage to all players standing in it every second. There are, however, a few safe spots in the room. Soon after the ability is cast, Wailing Horrors (unattackable NPCs) will begin to fly over the middle of the room, inflicting high Shadow damage to all players caught in their path. It is fairly easy to make out where they will go based on how they are facing.
• When Dia Darkwhisper reaches 30% health, she will apply Mark of the Necromancer to a random half of the raid. Additionally, after reaching 30% health, she will no longer use Reap.

Your raid has to combine several different elements in order to successfully defeat the Hellfire High Council. While the majority of the fight requires your raid to handle the 3 bosses' abilities at the same time, the most difficult part of the fight is handling their special, sub-30% health abilities. This is especially true since the effects of these abilities persist even after the respective bosses have been defeated, meaning that they will eventually overwhelm you.

We will summarise the most important things your raid has to focus on, before going into more detail in the following sub-sections.

• Bring all the bosses close to 30% health before damaging either one of them below this threshold. This way, the fight will last as little as possible after the first boss has gone below 30% health.
• Control damage done to each of the bosses, ensuring that the correct boss kill order (indicated below) is followed. Never allow more than one boss to be under 30% health at the same time, as you will be overwhelmed by their dangerous abilities otherwise.
• Manage DPS cooldowns optimally. They should be used whenever they are available, but they should always be saved if one of the bosses is about to be pushed below 30% health. The top priority, however, is to have all DPS cooldowns available for when Dia drops below 30% health, even if this means saving them up for a long time.

In this sub-section, we are going to explain the ideal kill order of the bosses. The order entails bringing them below 30% health in this order as well, and finally killing them off as quickly as possible. The basic idea of the recommended kill order is to make the 30% health phases as painless as possible, and, to some extent, minimise the negative impact of the abilities that persist after the bosses die.

We would also like to remind you that you should make sure to bring all 3 bosses close to 30% health (probably around 40%, to allow for subsequent incidental damage) before bringing any single one to 30% health.

We recommend a kill order of:

1. Gurtogg Bloodboil
2. Blademaster Jubei'thos
3. Dia Darkwhisper

We recommend killing Gurtogg Bloodboil first, because even though his sub-30% ability, Tainted Blood, persists after he is defeated, its power will not increase after he has been defeated. By contrast, Jubei'thos' Wicked Strike increases in damage even after he has been defeated.

Thus, Jubei'thos should be killed second, since you want to minimise the time between when he reaches 30% health and the end of the fight (as we will see, it is not feasible to kill him last).

Dia Darkwhisper should be killed last because her sub-30% ability is by far the most powerful, as she will continuously cast Mark of the Necromancer after she dies, until the encounter is over, and especially because she will no longer use Reap to remove the DoTs. Note that the combination of this extreme damage and the Tainted Blood debuff your raid will have acquired when killing off Gurtogg Bloodboil will be very healing intensive.

Once Dia Darkwhisper is defeated, the encounter is over.

Because of Void Haze, Dia Darkwhisper must be tanked 25 yards away from any of the other two bosses, as they will be immune to damage if they stand too close. The other two bosses can be tanked wherever, although your raid has to be mindful of how damage is dealt to them as you do not want any of the 3 bosses to be below 30% health at the same time at any point.

Acidic Wound will normally drop off on its own while Gurtogg is using Fel Rage. In the event that Acidic Wound is still up when Fel Rage is over, his tank should try to kite him for a little while to allow the stacks to expire. In the event that the raid fails to remove these stacks, a tank switch should be performed.

Nightmare Visage deals high damage to Dia's tank, so it is advised for this player to use defensive cooldown when this happens.

Bloodboil should be dealt with by having 5 fairly resilient players being further away from Gurtogg than anyone else. These players should attract all casts of Bloodboil to them, so healers should keep an eye on them throughout the fight.

When Gurtogg casts Fel Rage, the players on whom he fixates should stand still and tank Gurtogg. This is preferable to trying to kite Gurtogg around, since he is quite fast, and his damage done is not really high enough to justify the positional problems caused by kiting him.

That said, the damage Gurtogg does to the fixated player does increase over time, until it becomes very high. At this point, defensive and external cooldowns may be needed to keep this player alive.

Finally, Gurtogg uses Demolishing Leap. When it is cast, ranged raid members must try to put as much distance between them and the Demolishing Leap void zones as possible, in order to minimise damage taken. It is generally recommended that the raid move as a single unit so that everyone will still be in healing range.

Following our recommended kill order, Gurtogg Bloodboil should be the first boss to reach 30% health.

When Gurtogg reaches 30% health, he will begin to stack Tainted Blood on the entire raid. Each stack of Tainted Blood reduces the maximum health of all raid members by 10%. The 10% health reduction is recalculated for each stack, meaning that if raid members have 100,000 health, they will first go down to 90,000 health, then 81,000, and so on.

There is not much that can be done to handle this ability, specifically. The negative impact of having reduced maximum health becomes much more prominent once Dia's sub-30% phase is reached, which will be by far the most intense part of the fight. Healers should conserve high throughput for this.

Fel Blade must simply be dodged by your raid. Spreading out slightly makes it easier to dodge and minimises the negative impact of mistakes.

Felstorm must just be healed through.

When Blademaster Jubei'thos casts Windwalk, ranged DPS players must switch to the Mirror Images that spawn and kill them off as quickly as possible in order to minimise the damage taken from them, and in order to bring back Jubei'thos to the fight as quickly as possible.

Following our recommended kill order, Blademaster Jubei'thos should be the second boss to reach 30% health.

When Jubei'thos reaches 30% health, he will cast Wicked Strike on a random half of the raid, dealing increasing damage over time to them. This must simply be healed through, which it will become progressively more difficult to do as the phase goes on. When Blademaster Jubei'thos is killed, he will continue casting Wicked Strike on single raid members, but there is nothing to do about this except to heal through it and hope that you can finish the encounter as quickly as possible.

Dia Darkwhisper uses a number of abilities against your raid, but there are two elements of handling her that are more important than the rest.

Firstly, your raid will have to correctly manage the combination of Mark of the Necromancer and Reap. Mark of the Necromancer has to be dispelled every now and then, despite the fact that doing so causes it to jump to two other players each time. The reason for this is that its increasing damage will end up killing affected raid members, if they are not dispelled.

Given that Reap removes Mark of the Necromancer from all affected targets, a particular strategy emerges. Your healers should dispel Mark of the Necromancer very shortly before Dia uses Reap. This will ensure that, while the initial Mark of the Necromancer targets will take a lot of damage, the much greater number of subsequent targets will have the Mark removed from them quickly by Reap.

Since Reap causes void zones to spawn at the locations of all raid members from whom it removes Mark of the Necromancers, players will have to be very mindful of their positioning. When Reap is about to be cast, all players affected by Mark of the Necromancer should move to areas of the room that are not required by the raid.

Secondly, your raid will have to handle Dia's Wailing Horror. There are two parts to this. One is that, as soon as Wailing Horror is cast, all raid members will have to move to safe zones on the ground, to avoid being damaged by Shadows. The safe zones are clearly visible, and they are essentially two lines in the form of a cross. The other part of this ability is that the Wailing Horrors will fly over the raid, damaging players in their path. All raid members must avoid being in the path of the Wailing Horrors when this happens.

Aside from this, Dia also uses three other, less problematic abilities.

Void Bolt must simply be healed through. Only Dia's main tank will take damage from this ability, but healers must be aware of the state of this tank.

Void Haze is the exclusive concern of the tanks, as we have explained in the previous section.

Following our recommended kill order, Dia Darkwhisper should be the last boss to reach 30% health.

When Dia reaches 30% health, she will cast Mark of the Necromancer on a random half of the raid. Since Dia no longer uses Reap, Mark of the Necromancer becomes a simple Shadow damage DoT that must be healed through until the damage becomes excessive, at which point it should be dispelled. Dispelling it from the affected players will effectively cause it to jump to the entire raid, at which point healing healing cooldowns will likely be needed. That said, it is highly advised to kill Dia as quickly as possible, before the damage gets out of hand.

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp as soon as Dia Darkwhisper is reduced below 30% health. Mark of the Necromancer becomes extremely powerful very quickly and this is compounded by the maximum health reduction caused by Gurtogg's Tainted Blood.

DPS players should use their Legendary Ring roughly on cooldown, while saving usages for when each of the bosses reach 30% health.

Healers should use their Legendary Ring when also dispelling Mark of the Necromancer, and especially during Blademaster Jubei'thos' Mirror Images.

Tanks should use their Legendary Ring when Dia Darkwhisper casts Nightmare Visage, and otherwise use it roughly on cooldown.

There are only a few mechanics that can kill your raid members in the Hellfire High Council encounter. Handling these mechanics perfectly while handling the other dangerous mechanics of the fight at the same time to an acceptable level is required to kill the boss.

Consistently placing void zones caused by Reap removing Mark of the Necromancer at the sides of the room is possibly the most important aspect to look out for.

This is followed by ensuring that Jubei'thos' Windwalk phase is finished as quickly as possible, by killing all of the Mirror Images, and by not dying to positional mistakes during Wailing Horror.

If all of those are mastered, the rest of the fight will largely resolve itself. As with many fights, it is a matter of staying alive and not becoming overwhelmed during the fight's more hectic moments.

Regarding DPS cooldown management, the primary objective is to use them as many times as possible throughout the encounter. That said, it is very important to have DPS cooldowns available for when bosses drop below 30% health, and practically mandatory to have all DPS cooldowns available for when Dia Darkwhisper reaches 30% health.

The Mythic mode of the Hellfire High Council encounter is very similar to the Normal/Heroic versions of the encounter. No new mechanics are introduced per se, but two abilities gain new elements and become more dangerous.

Aside from everything dealing more damage and mobs having more health, as is to be expected of any Mythic mode, two Normal/Heroic mode abilities are modified.

• Gurtogg Bloodboil's Bloodboil now also applies a stacking 24-second Fire damage DoT to all players hit by it (still the 5 furthest raid members from Gurtogg). It deals high damage per second for each stack, and Gurtogg casts Bloodboil every 8 seconds.
• Dia Darkwhisper's Mark of the Necromancer deals moderate raid-wide Shadow damage when it is dispelled (through an ability called Burden of the Necromancer). Additionally, when dispelled, Mark of the Necromancer now jumps to 3 new targets, up from 2.

The srategy of the Mythic version of Hellfire High Council does not differ significantly from Normal/Heroic mode, and while the fight is naturally more difficult, it is not overwhelmingly so.

The most important addition to the strategy is how your raid deals with the new stacking effect of Bloodboil. We recommend that 2 groups of 5 ranged raid members and healers each are assigned to soaking Bloodboil. These groups should alternate being farthest away from Gurtogg, making the switch when the players in the soaking group reach around 7 stacks of Bloodboil.

A particular complication can arise when players in the soaking group are targeted by Mark of the Necromancer. If this happens, these players should simply use cooldowns to survive, and healers will also have to pay attention to them.

The kill order of the three bosses remains the same, but it is essential that Gurtogg Bloodboil dies very quickly. In particular, his sub-30% health phase must last as little as possible (ideally before more than 2 stacks of Tainted Blood are applied), and this is when we advise you to use Bloodlust/ Heroism/ Time Warp.

Once Gurtogg Bloodboil dies, the melee raid members should focus on Blademaster Jubei'thos (who should have taken quite a bit of damage from passive cleave when the raid was killing Gurtogg), while ranged raid members focus on Dia. Once Dia is brought to around 50% health, everyone should switch to Blademaster Jubei'thos and kill him off quickly. Finally, Dia should be killed in the same fashion.

A final mention should be made that dispelling Mark of the Necromancer is even less feasible than in Normal/Heroic mode. Unless the raid is topped off and defensive cooldowns are in use, a dispel can instantly lead to a wipe.

In this section, you will find the loot table for Hellfire High Council. The section is divided in 3 subsections: armor, weapons, and the rest (neck, back, finger, and trinket items).

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Secondary Stats
Cursed Blood Bracers (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloth	Wrists	Mastery Multistrike
Sash of Guttural Intonation — LFR	Cloth	Waist	Mastery Haste
Dia's Nightmarish Leggings (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloth	Legs	Versatility Haste
Void-Pact Leggings — LFR	Cloth	Legs	Multistrike Haste
Gurtogg's Discarded Hood (Heroic, Mythic)	Leather	Head	Critical Strike Multistrike
Blood-Tanned Pauldrons (Heroic, Mythic)	Leather	Shoulders	Multistrike Haste
Fel-Crazed Pauldrons — LFR	Leather	Shoulders	Versatility Multistrike
Bloody Berserker's Bracers (Heroic, Mythic)	Mail	Wrists	Mastery Versatility
Gauntlets of Reckless Assault — LFR	Mail	Hands	Multistrike Mastery
Kilt of Self-Reflection (Heroic, Mythic)	Mail	Legs	Haste Mastery
Bladewalk Boots — LFR	Mail	Feet	Versatility Haste
Wailing Woe Pauldrons — LFR	Plate	Shoulders	Multistrike Mastery
Girdle of Savage Resolve (Heroic, Mythic)	Plate	Waist	Versatility Mastery
Blade-Chipped Wristguards — LFR	Plate	Waist	Versatility Haste
Acid-Etched Legplates (Heroic, Mythic)	Plate	Legs	Mastery Haste

Item Name	Type	Main Stats	Secondary Stats
Hellfire Mindblade — LFR	1H Sword	Intellect	Haste Mastery
Mindbender's Flameblade (Heroic, Mythic)	1H Sword	Intellect	Critical Strike Multistrike
Spring-Loaded Jawstaff — LFR	Staff	Agility	Versatility Multistrike
Viscera-Stained Longsword — LFR	1H Sword	Strength	Versatility Mastery
Blazing Demonhilt Sword (Heroic, Mythic)	1H Sword	Strength	Mastery Multistrike
Rivetspike Cleaver — LFR	2H Axe	Strength	Versatility Haste
Fel-Burning Blade (Heroic, Mythic)	2H Sword	Strength	Mastery Critical Strike

Item Name	Type	Main Stats	Secondary Stats
Spiked Bloodstone Pendant (Heroic, Mythic)	Amulet	Agility Strength	Bonus Armor Critical Strike
Gorget of Induced Madness — LFR	Amulet	Agility Strength	Bonus Armor Mastery
Windswept Wanderer's Drape (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloak	Agility	Multistrike Mastery
Rugged Bloodcaked Drape (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloak	Strength	Mastery Multistrike
Shadowmoon Ancestry Ring — LFR	Ring	Intellect	Critical Strike Multistrike
Hazy Voidstone Band — LFR	Ring	Intellect	Spirit Haste
Shimmering Voidstone Band (Heroic, Mythic)	Ring	Intellect	Spirit Haste
Desecrated Shadowmoon Insignia (Heroic, Mythic)	Trinket	Mastery Intellect on proc
Mirror of the Blademaster (Heroic, Mythic)	Trinket	Agility Summons on use
Smoldering Felblade Remnant — LFR	Trinket	Agility	Critical Strike

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

• 18 Jul. 2015: Made a small tweak to the explanation of Windwalk, to state that any remaining Mirror Images disappear a few seconds after Jubei'thos reappears naturally (once 45 seconds have gone by).
• 12 Jul. 2015: Added a mention of tanking Gurtogg if fixated on by Fel Rage to the Summing Things Up section.
• 09 Jul. 2015: Added hard enrage timer and added a few improvements to the Mythic strategy.
• 07 Jul. 2015: Added Mythic mode strategy.
• 04 Jul. 2015: Added link to LFR guide.
• 25 Jun. 2015: Clarified some aspects of Jubei'thos' Mirror Images, following our experience with the fight on live servers (the fact that damage done to the Mirror Images damages Jubei'thos as well, the fact that any Images still up after 45 seconds disappear when Jubei'thos reappears, and the fact that they always spawn with the same amount of health).

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