This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Grand Empress Shek'zeer 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.

Grand Empress Shek'zeer is the sixth and final boss in the Heart of Fearraid instance. This is a very difficult encounter, and one worthy of being anend-raid boss.

The fight will place the highest stress on your healers, who must go throughseveral very intense moments. It also requires a high amount of raid DPS.

1. General Information↑top

2. Loot↑top

In addition to the items listed below, Shek'zeer drops the tokens thatyou will need for buying your Tier 14 Chest parts.

2.1. Armor

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Main Stats
Leggings of Shadow Infestation (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Legs	Intellect
Hood of Dark Dreams (LFR, Heroic)	Mail	Head	Intellect
Crown of the Doomed Empress (LFR, Heroic)	Mail	Head	Agility

2.2. Weapons

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Kri'tak, Imperial Scepter of the Swarm (LFR, Heroic)	Mace	Intellect/Spirit
Claws of Shek'zeer (LFR, Heroic)	Fist Weapon	Agility

3. Overview of the Fight↑top

The encounter against Grand Empress Shek'zeer is a three-phase fight.

Phases One and Two will alternate until the boss reaches 30% health, atwhich point Phase Three begins. We detail this cycle below.

Phase One begins when the boss is engaged, and ends after 2 minutesand 30 seconds. During this phase, your only enemy is Grand EmpressShek'zeer.

Phase Two begins at the end of Phase One, and ends when all the addsthat spawn during this phase are killed, or when 2 minutes and 30seconds have elapsed since the start of the phase. Shek'zeer is not presentduring this phase, and cannot be damaged.

Phase One then starts again, and this cycle continues until Shek'zeerreaches 30% health, at which point Phase Three begins.

Phase Three begins when the boss reaches 30% health (something whichcan only happen during a Phase One, since the boss is not attackable duringPhase Two), and ends when the boss is killed. During this phase, your onlyenemy is once again Shek'zeer.

The fight appears to have an enrage timer that is lenient enough to allowfor at least two Phase One-Two alternations, but if your DPS is reasonablyhigh, you should only go through one such alternation.

4. Phase One↑top

Phase One lasts for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. The boss has an energy barduring this phase, which starts out at 150 energy and depletes slowly overtime. When the energy bar reaches 0, the phase ends. However, this is of noconcern to you, as the energy resource plays a purely cosmetic role in theencounter, and the phase will always end after 2 minutes and 30 seconds.Shek'zeer's energy has no interaction with her or your raid's abilities.

Once the phase ends, Shek'zeer disappears and cannot be attacked.

4.1. Abilities

During this phase, the boss will use several abilities.

4.1.1. Dissonance Fields And Cry of Terror

By far, the most important, and most problematic ability that you will haveto deal with during this phase is Dissonance Field. This ability is tiedto another boss ability, called Cry of Terror, so we will explain themtogether.

Twice during Phase One (30 seconds into the phase, and 60 seconds afterthat) Shek'zeer will place two Dissonance Fields on the ground, a little wayapart from one another. For lack of a better description, these are yellowishswirly zones.

The Dissonance Fields have health pools, but they cannot be damaged byconventional means. They instead lose health each time a raid member casts aspell. Eventually, this causes the Dissonance Fields to die. All spells castby your raid affect both Fields equally, so that they will normally die at thesame time. Each time a Field dies, it deals a large amount of raid-widePhysical damage, through an ability called Sonic Discharge.

Your raid's goal is to avoid having both fields die at the same time, sincethe combined damage will most likely cause several deaths, if not a wipealtogether. In order to make one Dissonance Field die faster thanthe other, you should have players stand inside the field and cast spellswhile in there. These spells will cause that particular Dissonance Field totake more damage than the other. The best way to ensure that the fields do notdie together, though, is through the use of a debuff called Cry of Terror. Cry of Terror is a debuff that Shek'zeer places on a random caster orhealer in your raid (it is never cast on tanks, melee DPS, or Hunters), 4times during Phase One. Whenever the debuff is active, every raid membersuffers a moderate amount of Shadow damage every 2 seconds. The debuff lasts20 seconds.

Very importantly, when the player debuffed by Cry of Terror moves insideone of the Dissonance Fields, several things happen.

• Cry of Terror no longer damages the raid.
• The Dissonance Field takes increased damage (as compared to the otherDissonance Field), causing its health to go down faster.
• The player cannot be healed while inside the Dissonance Field, all spellson them being absorbed. Interestingly, absorption effects such as Power Word: Shield still work to mitigate the damage that this playertakes.
• The player continues to take damage from Cry of Terror while inside thefield, in addition to which he also takes a moderate amount of damage everysecond from the Dissonance Field itself.

4.1.2. Other Abilities

During Phase One, Shek'zeer also uses two other abilities.

• Eyes of the Empress is a debuff that Shek'zeer stacks on her currenttarget. If the debuff reaches 5 stacks, the target becomes a Servant of the Empress, essentially turning into a very powerful hostilemob, that is immune to crowd control.
• Dread Screech is an ability that Shek'zeer casts at random raidmembers (melee DPS and tanks not included), every 6 seconds or so. It affects2 players in 10-man, and 5 players in 25-man and LFR, dealing a high amount ofPhysical damage to them, and any other allies within 5 yards.

4.2. Strategy

We will begin by stating two basic things that your raid must do during thisphase, namely spread out at least 5 yards apart and perform a tankswitch. These two tasks constitute the foundation of your strategy.

Additionally, your raid will have to handle the Dissonance Fields, andthis will prove to be the greatest challenge of the phase.

The idea is that you should avoid having two Dissonance Fields dying withina few seconds of one another. To do this, you will have to choose a DissonanceField to kill first, and have the player affected by Cry of Terror moveinside it.

We will now go into further detail regarding these aspects.

4.2.1. Tanking Shek'zeer

As we mentioned, your two tanks will have to alternate tanking Shek'zeer.We advise tanks to switch at 4 stacks of the debuff. There is no complexity tothis task.

In case a tank reaches 5 stacks, and thus becomes fully corrupted, youhave no option but to DPS them down and resurrect them, in an attempt tocontinue the fight. In reality, though, this will probably lead to a wipe.

4.2.2. Positioning

Your raid will have to spend the entire phase spread out at least 5yards apart, to avoid taking unnecessary damage from Dread Screech. Whenplayers affected by Cry of Terror have to move to a Dissonance Field, they may briefly come within 5 yards of other players,but this is not really avoidable, nor should it cause any real problems.

4.2.3. Dissonance Fields

As we have stated above, handling the Dissonance Fields is by far thegreatest challenge of this phase.

Your raid leader will designate which of the two Dissonance Fields shoulddie first. While it is possible to decide ahead of time (since the Fieldsalways spawn in the same locations), it is probably better to designate thatField which is located near to the random player targeted by Cry of Terror. By doing this, the affected player will not need to movethrough the entire raid to get to the Dissonance Field.

Players cannot spend too long inside the Dissonance Fields, becausethe Field deals damage to them, all the while preventing them from beinghealed. These players must also leave the field at least a few seconds beforeit dies, so that there is time to top them off before the raid-wide damage.

Your raid's goal will be to have the Sonic Discharges far apart fromone another. This will give you ample time to top off the raid. Obviously,the more time a player affected by Cry of Terror can spend inside a DissonanceField, the less raid damage there will be from Cry of Terror, so this isbeneficial.

In any case, you will have to experiment with this and see, in practice,what timing works best for your raid. Keep in mind that the first set ofDissonance Fields spawn 30 seconds into the fight, and the second set spawns60 seconds after that. This means that you will have 60 seconds to deal withthe first set, and 60 seconds to deal with the second set before the phaseends.

For mitigating the damage of the Dissonance Field explosions you shoulduse raid cooldowns like Rallying Cry and Tranquility. Since theraid cannot stack, you cannot make good use of cooldowns such as Power Word: Barrier or Spirit Link Totem (although they can be used onthe melee). Additionally, cooldowns that reduce magic damage do not work, sincethe damage is Physical.

5. Phase Two↑top

2 minutes and 30 seconds after the start of Phase One, Grand EmpressShek'zeer will disappear, and Phase Two will begin.

Phase Two ends when all the adds that spawn during this phase are killed,or after 2 minutes and 30 seconds have elapsed from the start of the phase. If2 minutes and 30 seconds go by, Phase One will re-start even if there are addsleft alive. The adds will not despawn.

5.1. Abilities

As soon as Phase Two starts, several adds will join the fight.

In both 10 and 25-man, 2 Kor'thik Reavers and 6 Set'thik Windbladesspawn.

Set'thik Windblades are small adds that have several abilities.

• Fixate sometimes causes the Windblade to fixate on a randomtarget, moving towards that target at highly reduced movement speed. TheFixate effect lasts for 30 seconds.
• Dispatch is an interruptible spell that deals high amounts ofPhysical damage to random raid members.
• Sonic Blade is an attack that the Windblade uses on its currenttarget, which deals a high amount of damage and interrupts spell casting.
• Sticky Resin is a sort of void zone that the Windblade places onthe ground. When a player walks over a void zone, the void zone sticks tothe player (being removed from the ground), and applies a debuff that deals amoderate amount of Nature damage every second to that player, also slowingtheir movement speed by 30%. When a player with this debuff walks over anothervoid zone, the debuff disappears and the two void zones merge. If thisprocess is repeated 3 more times (so when a total of 4 void zones are brought to anexisting one), they turn into an Amber Trap, which stuns the first mob thatit comes in contact with and deals 5% of the mob's maximum health in damageevery 2 seconds. The trapped add will remain stunned and continue to takedamage until it dies. However, if any Windblades are alive when an add istrapped, they will go to them and free them from the trap.

Kor'thik Reavers are large adds that also have several abilities.

• Poison Bomb is a 10-second debuff that the Reavers will sometimescast on random players. When the debuff is applied, it deals a moderate amountof Nature damage to its target. Afterwards, it deals a small amount of Naturedamage to a random raid member every 2 seconds.
• Toxic Slime is a frontal cone attack that deals a high amount ofNature damage.
• Poison-Drenched Armor is a debuff that the Reaver places on its currenttarget. The debuff deals moderate Nature damage to the affected player, butalso gives nearby raid members a chance to deal additional Nature damage witheach attack.

When an add is within 8 yards of another add, they will both benefit froma buff called Band of Valor, which increases their damage done by30% for each add within 8 yards.

5.2. Strategy

Your raid's goal during this phase is to kill all the adds as quicklyas possible. Generally speaking, you should kill the Windblades before theReavers, and aim at having the Reavers trapped in Amber Traps.

Since you are trying to build two Amber Traps, you will need to wait for Sticky Resin to be cast at least 10 times. This means that you may need tostop DPS on a few Windblades so that they have a chance to cast the finalSticky Resins that you need.

5.2.1. Dealing with Abilities

We will begin by stating that the 30% damage done increase that the addsget when in proximity of one another, from Band of Valor, is not reallyproblematic, as long as you do not tank all the adds together. In both 10 and25-man, you should tank the adds in two groups. Therefore, you will have 1Reaver and 3 Windblades on one tank, and the other Reaver and 3 Windblades onthe other tank. Alternatively, you can have both Reavers on one tank, and allWindblades on another.

The Kor'thik Reavers will need to be tanked at all times, and facedaway from the raid. Their tank will take damage from the frontal cone attack,from Poison-Drenched Armor, as well as from the rather high melee attacksof the Reavers.

Whenever a Set'thik Windblade begins casting Dispatch, itmust be immediately interrupted. Whenever a Windblade fixates on a player(something that they do rarely), that player should kite it, and makesure not to get hit by it. Ideally, the Windblade should be kited in a circularmanner, so that it remains in or around the other Windblades at all times.The Windblade's movement speed is very low while fixating, making it easy torun away from it.

By tanking the Windlbades next to a Reaver you will benefit from the damagebonus from Poison-Drenched Armor, helping you kill the Windblades veryquickly. The Reavers do not need to be very close for this to work.

5.2.2. Creating Amber Traps

During this phase, players will have to create Amber Traps by merging5 Sticky Resin void zones. Creating the traps is a matter of rather basiccoordination. Someone will pick up the first Sticky Resin zone and take it toanother one, after which time it is the role of players who are relativelyfree to move around to bring the other Sticky Resins to the same location.Ranged DPS players, or even healers (provided that the damage is relativelylow) can perform this task.

We recommend trapping the Reavers (by kiting them over the trap), and onlyonce all the Windblades are dead. This means that you will typically end thephase with the Reavers trapped, and all other adds dead. Given that it takesa Windblade quite some time to free a Reaver from an Amber Trap, you can affordto the trap the Reaver just as you are killing the final Windblades.

Moreover, it is perfectly safe to enter Phase One again while you have theReavers trapped, as the add will remain trapped for as long as it takes for itto die.

6. Phase Three↑top

Phase Three begins when Grand Empress Shek'zeer reaches 30% health.At this point, the boss gains a series of new abilities (and only retainsone of her old ones). It is a burn phase, that lasts until the boss iskilled.

6.1. Abilities

Shek'zeer retains her Eyes of the Empress ability from Phase One.

In addition to this, she gains several new abilities.

• Sha Energy is a spell that Shek'zeer uses to deal a moderate amountof Shadow damage to random raid members. It affects 2 targets in 10-man, and5 targets in 25-man.
• Consuming Terror is a frontal cone attack that deals a high amount ofShadow damage and fears all affected players for 8 seconds.
• Visions of Demise is a two-part debuff applied to a number of randomraid members (2 in 10-man and 5 in 25-man), at regular intervals throughoutthe phase. Initially, it is 4-second debuff, which does nothing to the affectedplayer, except trigger the second debuff. After 4 seconds, the player willhave a new debuff applied to them and any other players within 8 yards,causing them to be feared and take a moderate amount of Shadow damage everysecond for 20 seconds. This second debuff can be dispelled. Shek'zeer castsVisions of Demise roughly every 15-20 seconds.
• Calamity is a spell that Grand Empress Shek'zeer casts roughlyevery 6-10 seconds, which deals Shadow damage to all raid members, equal to 50%of their current health.
• Amassing Darkness causes a random target to take a moderate amountof Shadow damage. The spell affects an increasing number of players, eventuallydealing a large amount of raid damage. We are currently uncertain of thespecifics of this mechanic, but players who have killed the boss on livereported that it only resulted in raid damage that they healed through.

6.2. Strategy

This phase is extremely brutal, and your raid's healing will be put to thetest more than at any point so far in Tier 14 Normal mode encounters.

Preliminarily, your raid should remain spread out, so that Visions of Demise does not affect more players than necessary. Your tankswill still have to alternate tanking the boss, and Shek'zeer should be facedaway from the raid at all times.

Her frontal cone attack has a cast time, making it possible to avoid it. Anyplayers unfortunate enough to be hit by it should have their feardispelled.

Additionally, regarding dispelling, players who are affected byVisions of Demise should be dispelled as soon as possible (once the initial4-second debuff turns into the second, dispellable one).

The hardest part of the phase is surviving the immense raid damage thatyour raid will encounter. Even though Calamity appears to dictatethat you should have players at low health, so as to ensure that they take lessdamage from this ability, this is not really the case. Sha Energy and Amassing Darkness deal a lot of damage and make it extremely risky to haveplayers at low health. Additionally, you will have to account for the damagefrom Visions of the Demise, for the few seconds that it has a chance to tick oneach player. Therefore, it is best to try to top people off as much aspossible.

In 10-man, it is possible to have your raid stack up behind Shek'zeer, inorder to facilitate healing, and simply having the players affected by Visionsof Demise move out of the raid immediately. This may also be possible in25-man, but the increased number of players who must move out isproblematic.

This is a standard burn phase, where you will want to use all your raid'scooldowns to stay alive and increase your DPS on the boss.

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

The best timing for Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp is PhaseThree. This phase is the most intense in the encounter, and it also coincideswith the execute phase for many DPS classes.

Alternatively, if you are having difficulty reaching Phase Three with asingle transition to Phase Two, you can use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp duringPhase One, since there is little raid movement during this phase, allowingyou to burn the boss relatively undisturbed.

8. Learning the Fight↑top

Considering that this is an encounter where you can only progress on aphase-by-phase basis, your raid will naturally learn the encounterprogressively.

That said, there are a few factors which will prove harder to managethan others. Chief among them is the handling of the Dissonance Fieldsduring Phase One. Your raid will have to learn to detonate one Field beforeanother, and then to survive the damage of the detonation. It is simply amatter of practice, and of getting your healers used to the high amounts ofincoming damage.

During Phase Two, you will have to maximise your DPS on the adds, so as tohave everything cleaned up before the 2 minute and 30 second mark. Propertrapping of the adds will be important here, but again, this is a skill thatyou will have to practice to get the hang of it.

Phase Three is not so much complex as it is brutal in terms of incomingraid damage. In addition to your healers being on top of their game, and yourDPS players burning Shek'zeer down efficiently, you will have to learn tomaster dispelling of Visions of Demise.

Overall, there are not many tips that we can provide for learning theencounter, and it will be up to your raid members to execute the fightaccordingly.

9. Achievement: Timing is Everything↑top

The Timing is Everything achievement is part of the Glory of the Pandaria Raider meta achievement. The achievement requires thatyou kill both Kor'thik Reavers within 10 seconds of each other, and thendefeat the boss.

As the name of the achievement suggests, timing is indeed everything. Youwill have to DPS both Reavers simultaneously, and only kill them when they areboth low enough that they will die within the 10 seconds required for theachievement. Obviously, this will make the phase more strenuous for yourraid, since the Reavers are very dangerous.

10. Heroic Mode↑top

The Heroic mode of the Grand Empress Shek'zeer encounter presents fewchanges from the Normal mode, although it is a considerably more difficultencounter overall.

10.1. Differences from Normal Mode

There are three differences from Normal mode.

Firstly, the boss and the adds have increased health and deal increaseddamage. This is a natural thing for all Heroic modes, so it should come as nosurprise.

Secondly, during Phase One, Shek'zeer will cause one of the two Dissonance Fields present at any one time to become corrupted, which inturn causes the field to deal Shadow damage to random raid members until it isdetonated.

Thirdly, during Phase Three, Shek'zeer casts a new ability called Heart of Fear. This creates an object at a random location, which targets arandom raid member, shooting a beam of Shadow at them and dealing very highShadow damage. This beam can beintercepted by other players, which causes them to take the damageinstead of the initially targeted player. Heart of Fear is cast roughly every10-15 seconds, and there is only ever one up at a given time.

10.2. Strategy

10.2.1. Phase One

During Phase One, the only change comes from dealing with the corrupted Dissonance Fields. Whenever a Dissonance Field is corrupted, your raidshould focus on detonating it right away. This means that whoever is affectedby Cry of Terror should go and stand in that field until it detonates.

To ensure that the player who is inside the field does not die (due to notreceiving any healing while inside the field), you can cast a Hand of Protection on them a few seconds before the Dissonance Fielddetonates.

In order to make sure that the corrupted Dissonance Field is detonated asquickly as possible, you should maintain a balance between the health of thetwo existing fields while neither of them is corrupted. This means that youshould alternate which field you send Cry of Terror players to, so that bothfields lose health equally. This ensures that the corruption will never go ona full-health field.

Needless to say, you must make sure not to transition into Phase Threewhile you still have Dissonance Fields up, as their detonation during PhaseThree will almost certainly results in deaths.

10.2.2. Phase Two

Nothing really changes in this phase from Normal mode, except for theincreased health and damage of the adds. This means that you need to be morecareful than ever before.

25-man raids will want to consider tanking the adds in 3 groups, instead of2, since the damage of all 6 Windblades combined may be too much for a singletank to take.

Even 10-man raids will want to pay special attention to their tanks'survival, since the adds melee extremely hard.

10.2.3. Phase Three

The only change in strategy during Phase Three comes from the introductionof the new ability, Heart of Fear. As we mentioned, this targets a randomraid member and deals damage to them. The damage is extremely high on itsown, and coupled with the various other sources of raid damage in Phase Three,it can easily cause deaths.

The best and easiest way to handle this ability is to always have the tankthat is not currently tanking Shek'zeer intercept the beam, thus soaking thedamage. The damage should be rather easy for a tank to survive, and thistotally trivializes the mechanic.

Since the beam follows the initially targeted player, it is important thatthis player remain stationary, once the tank is in position and soaking.

10.2.4. Unusual Raid Compositions

As you will have noticed from the suggested raid compositions for thisfight, we suggest using up to 4 healers in 10-man and up to 9 in 25-man. Thisis because the raid damage in both Phase One and Phase Three is truly brutal.Using this many healers, assuming that your roster allows it, will make theinitial kills considerably easier.

11. Concluding Remarks↑top

This concludes our raid guide for Grand Empress Shek'zeer. We hope youhave found our guide helpful, and we remind you that we always award greatconsideration to your feedback, both on our forums or by e-mail.