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This week the Blog Azeroth shared topic was suggested by Gryphonheart and the title goes as follows: “10 changes that will make ___ more heroic.” I chose to write about Scarlet Monastery and seeing how big place it is I might be bending the ‘10 changes’ rule a little… Let’s take a look.

The Library

Houndmaster Loksey

Right after engaging Loksey he will randomly mark one player and send his Scarlet Tracking Hounds attack him for 10 seconds, they will focus on the marked player and cannot be taunted or aggroed in any way until the mark has weared off. Dogs will also stack a debuff that reduces healing done to the afflicted player: 10% reduction / stack, max 5 stacks. The debuffs will last until Loksey is defeated. 15 seconds after the mark has weared off he will cast a new one.

You can kill the Scarlet Tracking Hounds first before going for the boss and reduce the difficulty significantly but there is an achievement for not doing so. When Loksey reaches 30% health the dogs will enrage and focus on person at top of Loksey’s aggro list for rest of the encounter. Loksey will no longer mark players after this point.

Arcanist Doan

Few seconds after being attacked Doan will cast a magical barrier on the entrance, limiting players movement to the room he’s in. No tank is required for this encounter since Doan chooses targets randomly rather than based on aggro.

Basic abilities:

Arcane Missiles: 5 second channeled cast on random player, cannot be interrupted.
Arcane Explosion: 2 second cast AoE that does damage to players within 8yd around of him, can be interrupted
Slow: every 10 seconds he will cast a slowing effect on random player, reducing their movement speed by 60% for 10 seconds, can be dispelled.
Flame Strike: cast every 10 seconds under two different players and dealing heavy fire damage to anyone standing on it within 8yd radius, lasts 8 seconds.
Polymorph: random target with no specific timer although it has 15 second internal cooldown.

Special abilities:

AoE Polymorph: at 50% health Arcanist Doan will cast AoE Polymorph (cannot be dispelled, trinketed, bubbled etc.) and unlike normal Polymorph, you will not rapidly gain health
Arcane Detonation: right after the AoE Polymorph Doan starts casting Arcane Detonation which will remove the polymorphs on players and reduce their total health to 50% from what their current health was while polymorphed. Example: if you were at 20k health when AoE Polymorph was casted your max health for the remaining fight will be 10k.
Flaming Floor: after 50% health Arcanist Doan will gain a special ability called Flaming Floor, turning the floor of the room into fiery inferno. It has a 5 second warmup cast and after that Doan will keep channeling it for another 10 seconds until the floor turns into normal again. To avoid being hit by this players need to quickly run on top of the various chairs and tables in the room. Doan will not cast any other spells while channeling this spell and it has a 30 second cooldown.

Key features to surviving this encounter is moving quickly out of the various AoE spells and healing. Especially prior reaching 50% everyones health should be topped up.

Quotes:
Flaming Floor: Let’s turn up the heat.
Killing a player: Quiet! This is a library.

The Cathedral

Scarlet Commander Mograine and High Inquisitor Whitemane

Just like in the classic version this is a scripted two-part boss encounter and first you will be fighting Mograine.

Mograine’s key abilities:

Crusader Strike: physical damage with additional 10% holy damage, stacks a debuff that increases holy damage taken by 10%, max 5 stacks.
Consecration: Consecrates the land beneath Mograine doing holy damage over 8 sec to players who enter the area.
Hammer of Justice: 5 second stun on random player, can be dispelled.
Divine Shield: at 70, 40 and 10% health Mograine shields himself and becomes immune to all damage for 10 seconds. However just like all pro retri paladins he does not heal himself. Can be dispelled.
Overconfident: just after using Divine Shield Mograine believes he has the upper hand and gains 30% attack speed increase for 10 seconds or until Divine Shield is dispelled.

When Mograine is defeated High Inquisitor Whitemane joins the fight.

Quotes:
After casting Divine Shield: Hahaa! I have the power!

Smite: 2 second cast holy damage spell
Holy Fire: 2.5 second cast holy damage spell, does additional 50% holy damage over time, can be dispelled.
Greater Heal: 2.5 second cast single target heal, can be interrupted
Psychic Scream: causes all players within 10yd to flee for 8 seconds, 30sec cooldown, can be dispelled.

At 50% health Whitemane will cast Deep Sleep on all players making them unable to interact for 15 seconds. After this she casts Scarlet Resurrection (10 second cast) on Mograine and heals him back to full health. Mograine casts Lay on Hands on Whitemane and players will have to engage both bosses at full health again.

Easiest way to do this encounter once both bosses are up is to kill Whitemane first since she keeps casting her Greater Heal and if you kill Mograine before her she will just start casting Scarlet Resurrection again which cannot be interrupted. She however does not cast Deep Sleep again.

High Inquisitor Fairbanks

Unlike in the classic version you can’t just sneak up on Fairbanks to kill him. In order to fight this boss you have to do Mograine and Whitemane encounter the hard way. You will have to DPS them both down equally and keep Whitemane’s heals interrupted. Once they’re both pretty much dead you finish off Mograine and right after Whitemane starts to cast Scarlet Resurrection. You got 10 seconds to kill Whitemane before her spell lands. Should you succeed, Whitemane will scream like a frustrated banshee and awaken Fairbanks in his tomb. Fairbanks will walk out into the inner chapel and you will be able to engage him.

Fairbanks’ key abilities:

Mind Flay: shadow damage over 3 seconds, slows target movement speed by 50%, channeled, cannot be interrupted.
Shadow Word: Pain: does shadow damage over 18 seconds, can be dispelled.
Psychic Scream: causes all players within 10yd to flee for 8 seconds, 30sec cooldown, can be dispelled.
Mind Control: mind controls all players for 15 seconds and makes them randomly attack each other, after MC is over he will not cast a new one for at least 30 seconds. During Mind Control Fairbanks does not attack players, he justs sits back and laughs at you.

Quotes:
After hearing Whitemane’s scream: Knock it off you two! What is all this ruckus… you awaken the dead!
Mind Control: *manic cackle* Time for fun!
Wipe: I can’t believe I got up for this…

The Armory

Herod

The Armory is only one boss and stupid amount of trash before him. So in order to make clearing up to him more rewarding he now has a chest next to him with additional loot and emblems. However if you want the additional loot you must reach and aggro Herod within 15 minutes after entering the courtyard area at the start of the instance.

After enganging Herod the doors leading to the room will close.

Herod’s basic abilities:

Mortal Strike: does additional melee damage and reduces healing done on target by 50% for 10 seconds.
Blades of Light: Bladestorm like ability that makes him move slowly but dealing tons of damage to anyone in melee range, lasts 10 seconds, 30 second cooldown.

Roughly every 40 seconds Herod chains 3 different abilities twice, he is untankable during this phase and will reset aggro after it.

Charge: randomly pics a player and charges him, does moderate damage.
Intimidating Shout: causes all players within 10yd to flee for 8 seconds, always used after Charge.
Leap: jumps at random player, does moderate damage and stuns him for 1 second, always used after Intimidating Shout.

Charge -> Intimidating Shout -> Leap -> Charge -> Intimidating Shout -> Leap

After this he will go back to his normal abilities. Keeping the players bunched up will limit his movement but it is also very risky if he uses Blades of Light right after the kombo.

All in all this was quite fun post to write. Definitely could do it again for some other instance.