Tsulong 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. Cloaks, Rings, and Trinkets
• 3. Overview of the Fight
• +4. Night Phase
  • 4.1. Abilities
  • 4.2. Strategy
    • 4.2.1. Positioning
    • 4.2.2. Tank Switching
    • 4.2.3. Resetting Dread Shadows
• +5. Day Phase
  • 5.1. Abilities
  • 5.2. Strategy
    • 5.2.1. Healing Tsulong and Other Healing Concerns
    • 5.2.2. Dealing with the Adds
• 6. One-Tanking the Fight
• 7. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• 8. Learning the Fight
• 9. Achievement: Who's Got Two Green Thumbs
• +10. Heroic Mode
  • 10.1. Differences From Normal Mode
  • 10.2. Strategy
    • 10.2.1. Night Phase
    • 10.2.2. Day Phase
• 11. Concluding Remarks

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Tsulong in Terrace of Endless Spring. It is targeted at anyone who desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

Tsulong is the second boss in the Terrace of Endless Spring raid instance. In one phase of the fight, your boss will have to DPS the boss and avoid his harmful mechanics, while in the other, you will have to heal him while protecting him from several adds.

The encounter is strenuous for all roles, and presents significant positional and movement challenges.

The encounter against Tsulong is a two-phase fight. The two phases, called the Night Phase and the Day Phase, alternate throughout the encounter, on a fixed timer.

• During the Night Phase, Tsulong is hostile, and your raid must DPS him, while dealing with several of his abilities.
• During the Day Phase, Tsulong is friendly, and your raid must heal him (much like the Valithria Dreamwalker encounter in Icecrown Citadel), while protecting him from various types of adds.

In order to defeat Tsulong, you must either bring him to zero health during a Night Phase, or to full health during a Day Phase. Tsulong's health is reversed each time a phase change occurs, so that the amount of health that is missing from Tsulong's health in the Night Phase becomes the amount of health he has during the Day Phase. For example, if you DPS Tsulong down to 80% health in the first Night Phase, when he enters the Day Phase, he will have 20% health. If you then heal a further 20% of his health during this phase (bringing him up to 40% health), he will have 60% health when entering the Night Phase.

When first engaged, Tsulong will be in the Night Phase, and every two minutes after that he will switch between phases. He has an energy bar that slowly fills up over time, and a phase transition occurs each time the bar is full. However, since the boss always gains energy at the same rate, and does not use his energy for anything, this has no implications for your raid and it is merely a means to tell how close the next transition is.

Tsulong will always enrage a few seconds after the end of the second Day Phase.

The Night Phase is the first phase that Tsulong will be in. The phase lasts for exactly 120 seconds, after which time he enters the Day Phase.

During the Night Phase, Tsulong makes regular use of the following abilities.

• Shadow Breath is a frontal cone breath attack that deals a high amount of Shadow damage and applies a stacking debuff to the affected targets, which increases Shadow damage taken by 100% for 30 seconds, per stack. This ability forces the use of two tanks.
• Dread Shadows is a stacking debuff that Tsulong applies to all raid members every 2 seconds. Each application deals a moderate amount of Shadow damage, and increases the damage that the players take from Dread Shadows by 10%.
  • To counter-act the Dread Shadows debuff, Tsulong regularly creates a Sunbeam at a random location within the inner circle marked on the floor. This is a large beam of light that removes the Dread Shadows debuff from any player who moves into it. However, each second that a player stays in the Sunbeam, its radius becomes smaller, until it eventually disappears.
• Nightmares is a spell that Tsulong regularly casts at the location of a random player. It deals a large amount of Shadow damage to all players within 8 yards of the point of impact, and also fears them for 3 seconds. The fear effect can be dispelled. This ability does not appear to target melee players.

We will begin by summarising the strategy for this phase, before going into more details.

• Have Tsulong tanked facing away from the raid, and perform a tank-switch for every one of Tsulong's Shadow Breaths. Make sure that the tank currently not tanking Tsulong is not in front of him.
• Have the ranged DPS and healers spread out at least 8 yards apart, to minimise the damage and fears caused by Nightmares. Dispel players affected by the fears immediately.
• Make sure that everyone regularly resets their stacks of Dread Shadows by walking into the Sunbeams.
• DPS Tsulong.

As we mentioned, Tsulong should always be facing away from the rest of the raid, and no other players except the tank that is currently tanking him should be in front of the boss. This is important, since the boss' Shadow Breath is extremely damaging.

It seems that the locations where Sunbeams spawn are more or less random (although it could also be that it always spawns in the same place relative to where the boss is facing, and it appears random since the boss often turns to face players when casting Nightmares on them), it may sometimes prove to be in front of Tsulong. In this case, the tanks must be quick to turn the boss (and everyone else must adjust their positions accordingly).

The rest of the raid should spread out in a semi-circle around the boss, making sure that everyone is at least 8 yards away from other players. This will help minimise the damage from Nightmares greatly.

Everyone (including the player originally targeted) can avoid being hit by Nightmares, as the animation on the ground precedes the damaging effect by about 3 seconds, giving players ample time to move out of it. In fact, the spell works more or less like shadow crash spells.

Tanks can realistically only survive Tsulong's Shadow Breath with no stacks of the debuff applied by the breath itself. This means that a tank switch should take place after every breath attack cast by the boss.

Even though we have mentioned it before, we will reiterate that it is very important that the tank currently not tanking Tsulong does not stand in front of him.

A crucial aspect of this phase is making sure that everyone resets their Dread Shadows debuff. Ideally, everyone should reset their debuffs before they exceed 15 or so stacks.

When resetting the debuff by running into the Sunbeam, you must be mindful of two things.

• You should only be in the Sunbeam for a second, moving in and out quickly. This will allow the Sunbeam to persist for longer, increasing the number of players who can use it.
• You should make sure not to have too many players running to reset their debuff at the same time, since they all risk being hit by Nightmares if they are in close proximity to one another.

You will have to assign an order for players to reset their debuffs, and keep in mind that a Sunbeam will not last long enough to allow the entire raid to reset their debuff. It may also be possible (and sometimes preferable, maybe) to simply ensure that players have a means of tracking everyone's stacks of Dread Shadows on their raid frames, and that they just use common sense and on-the-fly assignments for resetting their stacks. In any case, this is something that pertains to the organization of the raid.

Finally, tanks must also remember to reset their debuffs whenever they are not tanking Tsulong.

2 minutes after the start of the Night Phase, the Day Phase will begin. This phase lats for exactly 2 minutes, after which time the Night Phase will once again begin.

During the Day Phase, Tsulong is friendly to your raid.

• Sun Breath is a frontal cone breath attack that Tsulong regularly casts. It deals a very high amount of damage to any adds it hits. If it hits any raid members, it buffs them with Bathed in Light.
  • Bathed in Light instantly restores 25% of the player's maximum mana, and increases their healing done by 500% for 6-seconds.

Three types of adds are present during this phase.

• Embodied Terrors are large adds spawned by Tsulong. They place a dispellable debuff called Terrorize on random raid members and on Tsulong himself.
  • When cast on players, Terrorize damages the player for 20% of their current health each second for 10 seconds.
  • When cast on Tsulong, Terrorize damages him for 2% of his total health every 2 seconds for 10 seconds.
• Fright Spawns are small adds that are created when an Embodied Terror is killed. Each Embodied Terror produces 5 Fright Spawns upon death. These small adds often cast Fright in a cone in front of them, dealing a high amount of damage and fearing all affected players.
• Untable Shas are adds that spawn around the room, and move towards Tsulong. If they reach him, they deal a very high amount of damage to him through Instability, and they disappear. While traveling towards Tsulong, they also cast Unstable Bolt at a random raid member, dealing a high amount of damage, but losing 15% of their own health in the process.

Keep in mind that if there are any adds alive when the Day Phase ends, they will not despawn when the Night Phase begins. Your raid will have to kill them. Any Unstable Shas that reach the boss during the Night Phase will heal him instead of damaging him.

The strategy for this phase can also be summarised rather simply.

• Have your healers always stand in front of Tsulong, so as to benefit from Bathed in Light as often as possible.
• Heal Tsulong.
• Make sure that the Embodied Terrors and the Fright Spawns are tanked in front of Tsulong whenever possible, so that he damages them with his breath.
• Make sure that the Fright Spawns are always facing away from the raid.

Your raid's main goal during this is phase is not only to survive, but also to heal Tsulong as much as possible. As we have explained before, any healing that you do to the boss during this phase is the same as damage done to him during the Night Phase, and contributes to your success in the encounter.

Firstly, healers should always position themselves in front of Tsulong, so as to benefit from the Bathed in Light buff granted by his breath attack. We will remind you that the breath attack does not damage raid members during this phase, and only damages adds. Also, Tsulong often turns around, meaning that he will not always face in the same direction, and the healers must be quick to adapt to the boss' new position.

Also, it is very beneficial for healers to make use of the increased healing received by targets affected by Guardian Spirit and Life Cocoon.

In addition to healing Tsulong, the healers will have to keep the rest of the raid alive. There are several sources of damage to note.

• Tank damage from the melee attacks of the Embodied Terrors and Fright Spawns, as well as very high tank damage from the frontal cone attacks of the Fright Spawns.
• Damage on random raid members caused by the Terrorize debuff, as well as by casts of Unstable Bolt.

Healers must be prepared to dispel the following three effects during this phase:

• the Terrorize debuff from Tsulong;
• the Terrorize debuff from random raid members;
• the fear effect caused by Fright, from tanks or any other raid members hit by this cone attack.

Your tanks and DPS players' only concern during this phase is to kill the adds. This is extremely important, not only for your raid's survival, but also because it reduces the damage that Tsulong takes.

Whenever an Embodied Terror spawns, the tank should pick it up and move it in front of Tsulong. Your raid should kill it, ideally with a few seconds to spare before Tsulong uses his breath attack. If done correctly, this will cause all the Fight Spawns to be instantly killed by the breath attack. If your raid is too slow in killing the Embodied Terror, Tsulong's breath will miss the adds, and your raid will have to kill them, which is going to be quite disruptive due to their fears. The boss mod timers for Tsulong's breath are accurate, and the timing of the Embodied Terror spawns is fixed, meaning that you can train your raid's DPS to kill the Embodied Terrors in time for each wave of Fright Spawns to be killed by the breath.

Untable Sha adds are the top priority, since they must be killed before they reach Tsulong, or else they deal a massive amount of damage to him. These adds cannot be tanked, but you can stun, slow, and knock them back. Death Knights can use Death Grip and Gorefiend's Grasp against them as well.

Only one tank is needed for this phase, since there is a long time between Embodied Terror spawns.

A user on our forums has put forth the possibility of using a single tank for this fight. While this is easy and requires no explanation as far as the Day Phase is concerned, it is a bit more complicated during the Night Phase.

What you must do is have a DPS player taunt Tsulong off of the main tank right before a Shadow Breath, and then have your tank taunt the boss back. This will allow the tank to drop their stacks of the debuff applied by Shadow Breath, and continue tanking.

There are several issues to keep in mind.

• A tank will, at best, be able to survive two consecutive Shadow Breaths. For surviving the second one, they will need to use a major defensive cooldown.
• The debuff applied by Shadow Breaths increases damage taken, and this includes the damage from Dread Shadows stacks.
• Tanks will have to reset their stacks of Dread Shadows while tanking Tsulong, which will involve turning him to the Sunbeam. If the tank makes sure not to do this right as a Shadow Breath is being cast, there should be no issues.

The DPS player who taunts Tsulong must be able to survive his Shadow Breath, and potentially also a melee attack. Whoever does this should use a major defensive cooldown, preferably one that reduces magic damage taken.

This strategy may only be viable in 10-man Normal mode. Additionally, while it will increase your raid's DPS (by allowing you to bring an additional DPS player), it may also cause quite a few complications. We only really recommend it if you are unable to bring two tanks to your raid for other reasons.

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp during a Night Phase. This is because there are fewer distractions for your raid in this phase than in the Day Phases, and we suspect that it is more efficient, in terms of progressing on defeating Tsulong, to DPS him rather than to heal him.

Your raid will have to learn how to properly handle the mechanics in both of Tsulong's phases. Fortunately, since the phase transition happens purely based on time, it is possible just focus on getting through the Night Phase (at the cost of lower raid DPS) simply to experience the Day Phase.

During the Night Phase, the most difficult aspect by far is proper usage of Sunbeams, and properly resetting Dread Shadows. This may take some practice, but once this aspect is mastered, the remaining abilities in this phase should be easy to handle.

During the Day Phase, your raid will have to become accustomed to standing in the way of Tsulong's breath. Additionally, efficient killing of the Fright Spawns will probably prove to make the difference between success and failure in this phase. It is imperative that all players focus on killing these adds as soon as they spawn, to make the learning of the fight easier.

We do not know what the enrage timer of the fight is, nor what the final tuning of the damage values of the abilities is like, but we expect that the fight will provide a considerable challenge in these regards.

The Who's Got Two Green Thumbs? achievement is part of the Glory of the Pandaria Raider meta achievement. The achievement requires that you defeat Tsulong while keeping the Enchanted Plant alive for the entire encounter.

The Enchanted Plant is an NPC located on the right of the stairs which you descent to get to Tsulong after entering the raid instance. The plant does nothing for the entire fight, and it has a relatively low health pool. During the Night Phase, the plant takes steady damage from Dread Shadows, which will require your raid to throw a few moderate heals its way. During the Day Phase, the plant does not take any damage.

Neither the boss, nor any of the adds directly target or attack the plant, so overall it requires minimal healing. Even hybrid classes such as Balance Druids or Elemental Shamans can easily keep the plant alive by healing it a few times during the fight.

The Heroic mode of Tsulong presents two significant changes from Normal mode, although they do not greatly complicate the fight, nor do they alter your raid's strategy significantly.

In addition to Tsulong and the adds having increased health and dealing increased damage, there are two changes in Heroic mode, one in each phase.

During the Night Phase, Tsulong will regularly spawn adds called The Dark of Night. These adds do not do anything except walk directly to the Sunbeam. If an add reaches the Sunbeam, it is instantly despawns. These adds can be slowed and knocked back, and they do not have very much health.

During the Day Phase, Tsulong will regularly spawn a beam of light called The Light of Day. Each beam can be clicked by a player, and this grants that player a 6-second buff that provides greatly increased healing and mana regeneration. The healing increase is diminished over the 6-second period, while the mana regeneration is progressively increased over the 6-second period. Clicking a beam causes it to disappear. The buff granted by these beams does not stack with the one granted by standing in Tsulong's breath during this phase.

In general, your strategy will remain unchanged. For each phase, you will want to make minor modifications to deal with the Heroic-only mechanics, and we will go over these below.

During the Night Phase, your raid must focus on killing The Dark of Night adds before they can reach the Sunbeam. Since they can be knocked back and slowed, your raid shouldn't really have trouble with this.

That said, sometimes, you are better off letting the adds reach the Sunbeam, ignoring them and focusing your DPS on Tsulong (for example, when the beam is just about to expire on its own anyway). Additionally, sometimes the existing Sunbeam will expire naturally while the adds are up, and the new one will spawn directly on top of an add. If this happens, there is nothing you can do and you will have to endure the increased raid-damage caused by not being able to reset your stacks. This is when healing cooldowns should be used to keep the raid alive until a new Sunbeam appears.

During the Day Phase, you will have to make optimal use of the Light of Day beams. These should be clicked by your healers, and they should use the buff to heal Tsulong more. It is ideal to click the beam when you have a cooldown or proc active, so you should have your healers communicating so that no beams are used without cooldowns and procs.

Additionally, as we said, the buff does not stack with the buff you receive from Tsulong's breath during this phase, so make sure that you do not click a beam right before or right after Tsulong's breath.

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