Shad'har Tactics and Strategy guide
Welcome to our strategy and tactics guide for Shad'har the Insatiable in Ny'alotha. Here, we tell you all you need to know to defeat this boss. We also include a role by role breakdown of the strategy, so that you can quickly see what you need to do depending on your role: DPS, tanks, or healers.
Fight Overview
- This is a three-phase fight that is essentially single target (one add type
does spawn but it will not be damaged or tanked).
- Phase One lasts until 66% health, Phase Two until 33%, and Phase Three lasts until the boss is dead.
- Shad'har has a number of abilities shared between all phases, and a few phase-specific abilities in each phase.
- This is mostly a gear-check sort of encounter, where high healing and DPS numbers are crucial.
Fight Summary / TL;DR
Tanks
- During Phase One
- Tank Shad'har in the center of the room, and make sure he never comes in contact with the water that surrounds the arena.
- Perform a tank swap to deal with
Crush and
Dissolve. Normally, you should have each tank take one of these
debuffs (by taunting the boss after it casts an ability).
- During Phase Two
- Continue tanking the boss in the center and tank swapping as during Phase One.
- During Phase Three
- Continue tank swapping as during the previous phases.
- Move Shad'har as needed to ensure that raid members do not end up
coming in contact with the
Bubbling Overflow void zones (the center
of the room is no longer safe during this phase).
Healers
- During Phase One
- Beware of high damage on players targeted by
Debilitating Spit,
and on the player fixated by the 
Living Miasma.- On Heroic mode, the entire raid will take some damage (based on proximity) when a Living Miasma explodes.
- Heal the raid-wide damage from
Umbral Mantle.
- Beware of high damage on players targeted by
- During Phase Two
- In addition to the tasks from Phase One, make sure to give extra healing
to players soaking
Entropic Buildup orbs. - The raid-wide damage in this phase will be higher.
- In addition to the tasks from Phase One, make sure to give extra healing
to players soaking
- During Phase Three
- In addition to the tasks for Phase One, coordinate with the other healers to chain healing cooldowns, as the raid-wide damage during this phase will be very high.
DPS
- During Phase One
- DPS the boss.
- During Phase Two
- DPS the boss.
- During Phase Three
- Use all cooldowns and second potions to kill the boss as quickly as possible.
Everyone
- During Phase One
- Stay out of the water surrounding the arena at all times.
- If fixated on by a Living Miasma, kite the add until you are
as far away from the rest of the raid as possible, and let it reach you and
explode.
- This will damage you a lot, so if you are not topped off, consider using a personal cooldown to help the healers.
- Avoid the boss's breath attack; when he turns to face his target, get away from in front of him.
- When an
Umbral Eruption area appears under you, side-step it to
a safe location.
- During Phase Two
- Do everything you have to do during Phase One, except handling
Umbral Eruptions, which are no longer present in Phase Two.
- When an Entropic Buildup orb appears, help soak it by standing
on top of it for a few seconds. Coordinate with the rest of your raid to
figure out rotations for orb soaking.
- Do everything you have to do during Phase One, except handling
- During Phase Three
- Do everything you have to do during Phase Two, except handling
the Entropic Buildup, which is no longer present during this
phase.
- Beware of the Bubbling Overflow void zones that appear during
this phase and do not stand in them.
- Use any personal cooldowns available to make this gruelling phase easier for your healers.
- Do everything you have to do during Phase Two, except handling
the
Shared Abilities
For a full list of the shared abilities used by this boss, check out our dedicated Shad'har Encounter Journal page.
Notes
The fighting area is surrounded by water; this water is very dangerous to players, dealing high damage every second to anyone in it, and it also permanently buffs Shad'har if he comes in contact with it.
The 
Living Miasma adds have high health and should not be
attacked (generally, perhaps your live strategy may differ).
Phase One
Phase One lasts until Shad'har reaches 66% health.
Abilities
In addition to the shared abilities listed above, Shad'har uses a few more abilities during this phase. You can find them on our dedicated Shad'har Encounter Journal page.
Notes
Umbral Breath can be avoided by everyone, including the player it is
cast at, because once the boss chooses his facing, he will not adjust it to
follow the player.
Strategy
Shad'har should be tanked in the center of the room, and the tanks must be careful never to bring the boss in contact with the water that surrounds the arena.
Tanks will want to perform tank switches so that the same tank is not hit by
both 
Crush and 
Dissolve. These abilities have a
3-second cast time, and if he is taunted during the cast, he will use the
ability on the new target at the end of the cast.
The order in which these abilities are cast is random, so tanks will need to adapt on the fly. It is possible that a tank will be forced to take two debuffs, depending on how the boss uses these abilities. In our experience, it is preferable for a tank to take one instance of each debuff than to accumulate more than one stack of a single one.
The boss's 
Debilitating Spit should simply be healed through, but
healers will need to pay attention to the health of the affected players,
particularly the first one on which the DoT is applied.
Living Miasma adds should not be damaged. Instead, the player that
is being fixated on by the adds should kite the add at least 15 yards away
from the rest of the raid and let the add reach them and explode. This will
deal a large amount of damage to that player, and healers should pay attention,
but the damage should be survivable.
As far as Phase One-specific abilities are concerned, healers will simply
have to contend with the period raid-wide damage of 
Umbral Mantle, and
all players will need
to move quickly to avoid being hit by the Umbral Breath; the boss will
turn to the targeted player, and then there will be a short period of time
before the breath is cast, during which players should be able to move.
As for the 
Umbral Eruptions, it is recommended the players spread
out loosely during this phase, so that it is easier to avoid the
projectiles. The melee group may struggle to find the space to do this, so
they can stack on a single (marked) player and simply move to a new location
as a group whenever Umbral Eruption is cast.
Phase Two
Phase Two starts at 66% health and lasts until the Shad'har reaches 33% health.
Abilities
Shad'har uses all the shared abilities listed earlier, as well as a few phase-specific abilities, but he no longer uses any of the Phase One-specific abilities. Check out our dedicated Shad'har Encounter Journal page.
Notes
The 
Entropic Breath behaves in the same way as the
Umbral Breath from Phase One, in the sense that it can be avoided by
everyone, including the player it is cast on.
Strategy
In principle, the raid should employ the same strategy as during Phase One to deal with the shared abilities. The only difference is that the raid no longer needs to spread out, and can instead be stacked to make healing easier.
On the subject of healing, the 
Entropic Mantle that replaces
Umbral Mantle is more dangerous and will deal more damage, so
healing during this phase will be more intense. Healers are advised to
start considering cooldown rotations, particularly towards the end of the
phase, as the casts of Entropic Mantle increase in frequency.
Finally, during this phase, the raid will have to soak each
Entropic Buildup orb. Ideally, each orb would be soaked for long
enough that it will disappear altogether, but this is not absolutely
necessary and the raid can get away with soaking it less than that.
When soaking orbs, it is important to have a few different players rotating soaking for each orb, since soaking applies stacks of a DoT to the soaker, and you want to keep these stacks at around 5 or fewer per player.
Phase Three
Phase Three starts when Shad'har reaches 33% health.
Abilities
During Phase Three, Shad'har uses his shared abilities, as well as a few phase-specific abilities. They are all listed on our dedicated Shad'har Encounter Journal page.
Notes
The 
Bubbling Breath used during this phase has the same targeting
behaviour as the breath attacks used in the previous phases.
The center of the arena will be occupied by a 
Bubbling Overflow
void zone, which appears as the phase begins.
Strategy
Phase Three is a brutal DPS and healing race. Tanks should continue to swap
as before, but the boss cannot be tanked in the center of the room
anymore, because of the Bubbling Overflow void zone that will be located
there. Moreover, the boss will need to be moved if any additional
Bubbling Overflow void zones appear under him. Eventually, the room will
be entirely covered in these very damaging void zones, and the raid must
kill the boss before this happens.
The raid damage during this phase is high, both due to
Noxious Mantle being more damaging than previous Mantle effects, and
also because of the boss's 
Frenzy.
Heroism/
Bloodlust/
Time Warp, as well second
potions and any remaining cooldowns should be used during this phase.
Heroic Mode Changes
There are two Heroic mode changes.
The first is that in each phase, the boss will cast his breath attack more and more often as the phase goes on. This simply means that the raid will have to avoid it more often, but otherwise it does not change anything else.
The second change is that the Living Miasma adds no longer deal
damage in just a 15-yard radius when they explode, but instead they now deal
raid-wide damage that is lower the farther away players are from the
explosion. Essentially, the ability is handled in much the same way as before,
except that raid members will want to move away from an exploding Living
Miasma add, rather than just ensuring that they are out of its 15-yard
radius.
Loot
Spec by Spec Advice for Ny'alotha
| Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid |
|---|---|---|
| Hunter | Mage | Monk |
| Paladin | Priest | Rogue |
| Shaman | Warlock | Warrior |
Changelog
- 22 Jan. 2020: Guide added.
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