This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Garalon in Heart of Fear. It is targeted at anyonewho desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft MoP 5.4.

Garalon is the third boss of the Heart of Fear raid instance. During theencounter, you will be fighting Garalon, as well as damaging and regularlykilling his four legs.

There are several other important mechanics, all of which are centeredaround your ability to move and kite the boss. There are, naturally, somefairly intense damage and healing requirements, as well.

1. General Information↑top

2. Loot↑top

2.1. Armor

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Main Stats
Xaril's Hood of Intoxicating Vapors (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Head	Intellect
Sandals of the Unbidden (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Feet	Intellect/Hit
Robes of Eighty Lights (LFR, Heroic)	Leather	Chest	Intellect
Bonebreaker Gauntlets (LFR, Heroic)	Leather	Hands	Agility
Grips of the Leviathan (LFR, Heroic)	Mail	Hands	Agility
Grasps of Panic (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Hands	Intellect
Garalon's Graven Carapace (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Chest	Strength
Garalon's Hollow Skull (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Head	Strength/Parry

2.2. Amulets, Cloaks, and Rings

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Necklace of Congealed Weaknesses (LFR, Heroic)	Amulet	Strength/Mastery
Legbreaker Greatcloak (LFR, Heroic)	Cloak	Agility
Stormwake Mistcloak (LFR, Heroic)	Cloak	Intellect/Hit
Ring of the Shattered Shell (LFR, Heroic)	Ring	Strength/Dodge

3. Overview of the Fight↑top

Garalon is a single-phase fight. The boss does not melee, and must insteadbe kited for the duration of the encounter. Tanks are still required,however.

Garalon will always fixate on a random raid member, and move towards them.Who he fixates on is determined by a debuff that the boss applies, which canbe passed from one player to another. Therefore, your raid can control who theboss is following. The same player cannot have the debuff for very long,though, since it deals increasing damage to them.

All 4 of Garalon's legs are separate NPCs which can be attacked andkilled. Killing one of his legs damages and slows Garalon (the slow effectis proportional to the number of legs killed). Slowing Garalon makes kitinghim considerably easier and ensures that the kiter does not get close enoughto get hit by very damaging abilities that Garalon uses. Garalon willperiodically revive his legs, so killing them is something that must be donethroughout the entire fight. Note that attacking the legs is not a DPS lossas the damage dealt to the legs is transferred to Garalon.

The tanks' only role in the encounter is to soak the damage from a frontalcone attack that the boss does and that needs to hit at least two players.

4. Abilities↑top

There are three separate elements to the Garalon fight, and you mustunderstand them all, as well as their synergy, in order to understand thefight.

4.1. Pheromones Debuff

You must understand the debuff that Garalon applies, since this isthe key to the encounter. When engaged, Garalon will cast Pheromones onthe player that pulls him. He only casts this debuff once, but it will remainactive for the entire duration of the fight. Pheromones has several effects.

1. While Pheromones is active (so, always), it will constantly deal a small,yet increasing amount of Nature damage to the entire raid, every 2 seconds.
2. Garalon fixates on the player who is currently carrying Pheromones, andmoves towards them.
3. The player who is currently carrying the Pheromones is affected in twoways.
   • They receive a stacking debuff, called Pungency, which increases thedamage that Pheromones deals (to all raid members), by 10% of itsbase damage, per stack. Pungency lasts for 2 minutes in 10-man, 4 minutes in25-man, and 20 seconds in LFR. A new stack is applied every 2 seconds, and inLFR, the stacks are capped at 20.
   • They leave a trail of damaging void zones behind, called Pheromone Trail.
4. Pheromones can be passed on to a different player, simply by coming intocontact with them. This is to say, when the player currently carrying thedebuff comes within 2 yards or so of another player, the debuff will move tothe new player.

The damage of Pheromones is reset to its base value each time the carryingplayer changes. So, for example, if the player currently carrying the debuff has10 stacks of Pungency, then Pheromones will deal 100% extra damage to all raidmembers. When the debuff passes to a new player (who has no stacks ofPungency), Pheromones will deal its base damage to all raid members (includingto the player with the Pungency stacks). Therefore, the damage that the raidtakes from Pheromones will have a predictable pattern oflow-medium-high-low.

If, however, a player who already has stacks of Pungency takes the debuffwhen it is passed on, Pheromones will deal its damage based on this player'sstacks of Pungency.

If the player currently carrying the debuff dies, the debuff willremain on their corpse, and its number of stacks will continue to increase.If this happens, someone has to move over to the player's corpse and takethe debuff from them just as they would if the player were alive.

4.2. Garalon's Attacks

The next aspect that you must understand is the damage that Garalon deals.Garalon has two damaging abilities.

• Crush is a raid-wide damaging attack that Garalon can cast.It deals a high amount of damage to all raid members, and an extremely highamount of damage to any raid members who are under Garalon. The boss caststhis when one of the following two conditions is met:
  • the Pheromones debuff passes to a new target (only in 10/25-man, not inLFR);
  • a raid member is under Garalon.
• Furious Swipe is a frontal cone attack that Garalon casts roughlyevery 8 seconds. This deals a high amount of Physical damage. While thisattack can be avoided, if it does not hit at least two players each time, theboss gains a stack of a stacking buff, called Fury.
  • Fury increases Garalon's damage and movement speed by 10% perstack.

For the purpose of the mechanics in the encounter, under Garalonmeans within 12 yards of the center of his hitbox. Since Garalon has a massivemodel, the 12 yard radius is still under his model. This 12-yard radius isindicated visually by a circle on the ground, under Garalon.

4.2.1. Garalon's Legs

Garalon's legs are separate NPCs which can be targeted, attacked,and killed. They do not share a health pool, neither with each other, nor withGaralon himself. These legs are located on the outer edges of Garalon's massivemodel, in the four corners (if you imagine Garalon as being a square).

Each time one of Garalon's legs is killed, Garalon takes 3% of his maximumhealth in damage, and receives a stack of a debuff that slows him for 15% perstack, stacking up to 4 times.

Killing the legs is made easy by Weak Points, a buff that playersreceive when they are within 12 yards of one of Garalon's legs. This increasesthe damage that they deal to that leg by 100%. Players who are in the 12-yardradius around a leg must be careful not to accidentally move under Garalon.

Garalon will periodically cast Mend Leg, which instantly revives oneof his legs.

4.3. Visual Aids

As you engage Garalon, you will notice a circle around his model. This is avisual aid meant to indicate the area that counts as being under theboss. If any raid member is in this area, the boss will cast Crush, and Crush will deal increased damage to players in thisarea.

There are also visual aids in place to help players see the exact range of Weak Points. These are only visible to players who are already near one ofGaralon's legs.

5. Strategy↑top

The strategy to defeating Garalon can be summarised as follows.

• Pass the Pheromones debuff between players. You must do this asseldom as possible, so that Garalon does not cast Crush too much,but you must also make sure that no one carries the Pheromones for too long,so that the raid damage does not overwhelm the healers.
• Make sure that the player kiting Garalon does so in an efficient way,which minimises the amount of space taken up by the Pheromone Trail.
• Have each Furious Swipe soaked by the two tanks, and make sure that noone else is hit by it.
• Ensure that no one triggers a Crush by being under him, andthat no one is under him when a Crush occurs.
• Make sure that all 4 of Garalon's legs are dead at all times.

Keep in mind that in LFR, Crush is only cast when a player is under theboss, and not when the Pheromones are passed between players. Additionally,Crush has a cooldown in LFR, meaning that Garalon will only be able to cast itevery so often, regardless of how frequently players are under him.

In the following sections, we will go into detail about each of theseaspects.

5.1. Tank Duties

The tanks have a single task in this encounter, namely to always be infront of Garalon. They will have to soak the damage of the Furious Swipe, which is cast quite often by Garalon. The damage of thisability is not really problematic for tanks, unless they are already low onhealth.

Since Garalon will change direction based on the location of the player heis fixated upon, it is important that the tanks pay attention to this and makesure they adjust their position accordingly.

5.1.1. Rogue Tanking

It is possible to have two Rogues tanking Garalon instead of two actualtanks. The Rogues can survive Furious Swipes each time by using Feint to mitigate the damage. Additionally, the Rogues can use the Elusiveness talent, and the Glyph of Feint, both of which providesome nice perks for this strategy.

This increases the raid DPS, by allowing you not to take any tanks.

5.2. Managing Pheromones

The greatest challenge in the encounter will come from the way in whichyour raid handles the Pheromones debuff. Your goal is have to have thedebuff passed among players as few times as possible. Given normalcircumstances, the debuff carrier should consider passing it on when theyreach around 20 stacks. At 20 stacks, you can expect Pheromones to tick forabout 45,000 every 2 seconds. Keep in mind also that a new stack isadded every 2 seconds, meaning that the same player can generally hold thedebuff for about 40 seconds. This means that you will need to pass itbetween 3-4 players in 10-man, and between 6-8 players in 25-man, before thefirst player's stacks wear off. In LFR, it is possible for a single player tohandle the Pheromones debuff for the entire fight.

You should assign specific players to handle this debuff. Because theplayer who is carrying it has to constantly move because of the void zones theyleave behind, it is best to assign classes who do not suffer very much frommovement. Hunters, tanks and healers are the preferred options, but you willnot always have the luxury of choosing (especially in 10-man).

The first player who receives the debuff will be the player who isnearest to Garalon when he is engaged, so you can easily control thesuccession of players who get the debuff.

In LFR, you can assign the two tanks to handling the Pheromones debuff,if they are up to the task. Otherwise, any two players who are confident intheir ability can do this.

You must also remember the interaction between passing the Pheromonesdebuff and Garalon's Crush ability. Each time the debuff ispassed along, Garalon will cast this, dealing raid-wide damage and stunningall players for 2 seconds. This does not apply to LFR, where Crush is onlycast when a player is under Garalon.

While we cover the healing concerns brought about by Crush in a subsequentsection, you must keep in mind the over-arching idea: do not pass the debuffalong more than is absolutely necessary. You must especially avoidsituations of miscommunication, where the players attempting to pass the debufffrom one to the other remain in melee range and continue to pass the debuffbetween themselves.

5.3. Kiting Pattern

The player who is carrying the Pheromones is going to be fixated onby Garalon. This player must kite the boss, keeping in mind two things.

• They must always be far enough away from Garalon that his frontal coneattack will not hit them. The range of this attack is around 15-20 yards.
• They must move in such a way that the Pheromone Trail that theyleave behind does not impede the raid's movement and positioning.

Ideally, Garalon should be kited around the outer edges of the room. Theplayer who is first fixated on should go to one corner of the room, wait untilGaralon is near, and then begin moving along the side of the room.

Also, it is important to minimise the amount of space that the void zonesleft behind take up. This means that, as soon as a void zone is spawned, theplayer should move out of it only as much as needed, and should stand at theedge of the zone until a new one spawns. This will cause the void zones topartially overlap, taking up less space.

5.4. Healing Concerns

There are several significant sources of damage in this fight.

Firstly, the two tanks will regularly receive large hits, so they mustremain at stable health values throughout the fight.

Secondly, the whole raid will constantly be taking a varying amount ofNature damage every 2 seconds. This damage is low each time Pheromones switchestargets, but increases the longer the current target holds onto the debuff.As we stated earlier, you can expect ticks of over 40,000 every 2 seconds inthe worst-case scenarios.

In addition to this, there are three other potential sources of damage.

• A large amount of raid-wide damage from Crush. If your raid'sexecution is controlled, you should be able to anticipate when this happensby knowing when the Pheromones debuff will be passed on.
• Damage from raid members who stand in or walk through the void zones leftbehind by the Pheromones carrier.

Any players who are under Garalon's model when he casts Crush will beinstantly killed, so even though they technically do they take damage, theyare not really a concern.

5.5. Killing the Legs

Throughout the course of the fight, your DPS players will have to killGaralon's legs. More specifically, they will have to kill all 4 legs at thestart, and kill any legs that Garalon revives later on.

When killing a leg, it is very important to take advantage of the Weak Points buff. This means that all players DPSing the legs should moveinto melee range of that leg.

When doing so, players must be careful not to enter the area that countsas being under Garalon (as we mentioned, this is clearly marked by a circle),since doing so will trigger a Crush, and kill them in theprocess.

Note that Combat Rogues (thanks to Blade Flurry), Arms Warriors (thanksto Sweeping Strikes), and Fire Mages (thanks to Inferno Blast) candamage the boss while attacking his legs. This obviously results in a large DPSincrease. Maximising damage in this way will make it considerably easier tobeat the enrage timer. Until the 11th of November 2012, the damage thatsplashed to the boss was also increased by 100%, thanks to the Weak Points buff, however a hotfix made it so that only the damagedone to the leg is increased, whereas the boss will take normal damage.

6. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp↑top

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp at the startof the fight. This is when everyone's cooldowns will be available, and you canensure that the entire raid will be alive.

7. Learning the Fight↑top

The main issues that you will encounter while your raid learns theGaralon encounter are proper management of the Pheromones debuff,proper arrangement of the Pheromone Trail void zones, as well as generallygood positioning for your raid.

We recommend that you begin by focusing on making sure that no oneexcept the tanks is in front of Garalon, while the person who has thePheromones debuff runs as far away as possible from the boss. This will giveyou a lot of time to get accustomed to the mechanics.

Your DPS players should always focus on killing Garalon's legs, since thisslows him down and will buy you a considerable amount of time.

Next, you will have to set up an order for players to take thePheromones debuff.

Once these aspects are sorted out, you can begin to fine-tune yourexecution, focusing on optimising the DPS on the legs and the boss, and onimproving the arrangement of the void zones from Pheromone Trail.

8. Heroic Mode↑top

The Heroic mode of Garalon is extremely similar to the Normal modeversion of the fight, although there are two key differences.

8.1. Differences from Normal Mode

In addition to Garalon dealing increased damage with all abilities, andhaving increased health, there are a few changes in mechanics.

• Garalon no longer casts Crush when the Pheromones arepassed between players, and instead casts it regularly every 35 seconds.
• The Pungency debuff lasts 4 minutes in 10-man, and 6 minutes in25-man.
• When Garalon reaches 33% health, he ceases to follow the player carryingPheromones, and instead melees his main aggro target. He also travels muchquicker, essentially meaning that he must be tanked. He continues to cast allof his normal abilities during this time.

8.2. Strategy

8.2.1. General Strategy

The strategy for the fight does not change much, but there are a few thingsto take note of.

Due to the fact that Crush is on a fixed timer, youmust be careful not to have many stacks of Pheromones when Crush is beingcast, since the combination of these two sources of damage can be fatal (inNormal mode, this is not an issue since Crush is always cast just as thePheromones have been passed to a new player). Because of this, it may betempting to pass the Pheromones around more freely, in order to keep theirdamage low, but remember that you cannot do this easily because of theincreased duration of the Pungency debuff. Indeed, the duration ofPungency will make it so that even when switching at roughly 20 stacks, youwill need to have most of your raid members in the rotation.

You will have to evaluate the situation for your raid, and see how manyplayers you can reliably have in the rotation for the debuff. The more playersyou can have in the rotation, the less likely it will be that Crush will catchyou at a moment of having high stacks, and the easier the fight will be.

8.2.2. Sub-33% Phase

Dealing with Garalon's sub-33% phase is not complicated. One ofyour tanks will simply have to pick up and tank Garalon, and both tanks willhave to continue soaking every Furious Swipe. Players who are carrying thePheromones no longer need to worry very much about Garalon's position, since heno longer follows them, and instead can just focus on DPS, and on placing the Pheromone Trail in an efficient way.

8.2.3. Tip: Reducing the Duration of the Sub-33% Phase

As a tip to help you get through the last phase quicker, in the event thattank damage is a problem for you, we point out that you can bring all ofGaralon's legs to low health as he approaches 33% health. Then, as soon as theboss reaches 33% health, simply finish off all 4 legs. This will take down alarge chunk of Garalon's remaining health. Keep in mind that it is unlikelythat you will be able to do this if you are also struggling against theenrage timer.

9. Achievement: Like an Arrow to the Face↑top

The Like an Arrow to the Face achievement is part of the Glory of the Pandaria Raider meta achievement. The achievement requires thatyou defeat Garalon without destroying any of his legs.

While this achievement makes the fight more difficult due to Garalon'sincreased movement speed (which makes kiting him properly much harder), thetrue difficulty comes from the DPS race that your raid will have to gothrough. Indeed, since you cannot kill any of the legs, you will not benefitfrom the Weak Points buff, and the enrage timer of the fight will be morepressing than ever.

There are no tips or tricks for getting around this problem, and you willsimply have to have a very large amount of raid DPS (due, in no small part,to your gear).

10. Concluding Remarks↑top

This concludes our raid guide for Garalon. We hope you havefound it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have onour forums.