This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Kor'kron Dark Shaman in Siege of Orgrimmar. It is targeted at anyonewho desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft MoP 5.4.

The Kor'kron Dark Shaman is the seventh boss encounter in the Siege ofOrgrimmar. Your raid will face two Shamans in a twins-type of fight. Thebosses share health, and the fight becomes more difficult and more complexas the bosses' health drops lower.

1. General Information↑top

2. Loot↑top

2.1. Armor

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Main Stats
Toxic Tornado Treads (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Cloth	Feet	Intellect/Hit
Iron Wolf Hood (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Cloth	Head	Intellect/Spirit
Darkfang Mask (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Leather	Head	Intellect
Damron's Belt of Darkness (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Leather	Waist	Agility
Riou's Vigilant Leggings (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Leather	Legs	Agility
Shoulderguards of Foul Streams (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mail	Shoulders	Intellect
Belt of the Iron Prison (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mail	Waist	Intellect
Haromm's Horrifying Helm (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Mail	Head	Agility
Shoulderplates of Gushing Geysers (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Shoulders	Intellect
Shackles of Stinking Slime (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Wrists	Intellect
Breastplate of Shamanic Mirrors (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Chest	Strength
Ashen Wall Girdle (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Waist	Strength/Mastery
Wolf-Rider Spurs (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Plate	Feet	Strength

2.2. Weapons

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Kardris' Scepter (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	One-Hand Mace	Intellect/Spirit
Haromm's Frozen Crescent (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	One-Hand Axe	Strength/Parry

2.3. Amulets, Cloaks, Rings, and Trinkets

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Ashflare Pendant (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Amulet	Intellect/Hit
Kardris' Toxic Totem (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Trinket	Intellect/Additional damage
Poisonmist Nightcloak (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Cloak	Agility
Haromm's Talisman (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Trinket	Agility/Additional damage
Bloodclaw Band (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Ring	Strength/Mastery
Ring of the Iron Tomb (LFR, Flexible, Heroic)	Ring	Strength/Dodge

3. Overview of the Fight↑top

The Kor'kron Dark Shaman are two twin-style bosses, Earthbreaker Harommand Wavebinder Kardris, who share health and engage your raid at the sametime. At the start of the fight, in addition to facing the two shaman, your raidwill also face their mounts, Darkfang and Bloodclaw. Due to theirlow health, the mounts will die quickly, leaving your raid to fight the twobosses.

The difficulty of the fight escalates as you progress. Initially, each bossonly has one ability. However, as their health decreases, additional abilitiesbecome available to them. The bosses each gain a new ability upon reaching 85%,65%, and 50% health. Moreover, upon reaching 25% health, the bosses will gaina buff that increases their damage and haste by 25%.

Videos:

• PTR Preview —a short overview of the boss, based on PTR testing, which is extremelyuseful for getting a rough understanding of the fight;
• Video Guide— a video guide of the boss, based on live-realm experience.

4. Class-specific Advice↑top

On our forums, we are maintaining threads with class-specific advice for each of thefights of Siege of Orgrimmar. So, make sure to check them out, and if you have things toshare, do not hesitate to contribute!

Class	Forum Threads
Death Knight	Blood Frost/Unholy
Druid	Balance Feral Guardian Restoration
Hunter	All specs
Mage	All specs
Monk	Brewmaster Mistweaver Windwalker
Paladin	Holy Protection Retribution
Priest	Discipline Holy Shadow
Rogue	All specs
Shaman	Elemental Enhancement Restoration
Warlock	All specs
Warrior	Arms/Fury Protection

5. Abilities↑top

5.1. Darkfang and Bloodclaw

Darkfang and Bloodclaw each have the same two abilities.

• Swipe is a frontal cone attack that deals Physical damage in asmall cone.
• Rend is a stacking bleed effect.

5.2. Kor'kron Dark Shaman

In addition to the abilities we mention below, the two shaman have a sharedability. When reaching 25% health, they buff themselves with Bloodlust, increasing their damage done and haste by 25% until the end of the fight.

5.2.1. Earthbreaker Haromm

Earthbreaker Haromm's basic ability is Froststorm Strike. Thisdeals high Frost damage to Haromm's tank, and affects them with a stackingdebuff that causes them to take 25% increased damage from Froststorm Strikefor 30 seconds. This debuff stacks. This ability requires a tank switch.

When reaching 85% health, Haromm gains Toxic Mist. This is anundispellable 30-second DoT, cast on random raid members, that deals Naturedamage every 3 seconds. With each tick, the player also gains a stack of adebuff that increases their Nature damage taken by 10%. This debuff wears offat the same time as the DoT. The damage of Toxic Mist goes through allimmunities.

When reaching 65% health, Haromm gains Foul Stream. This abilitytargets an area on the ground, in the shape of a long, wide line. The area ismarked with a green effect, and a few seconds later, any players standingthere take high Nature damage. Haromm casts Foul Stream roughly every 30seconds.

When reaching 50% health, Haromm gains Ashen Wall. This summonsa wall of stationary Ash Elementals that attack players who are in their meleerange for very high amounts of damage. The Elementals cannot be tanked orkilled, and they last for a very long time (possibly indefinitely). Theability is cast roughly every 30 seconds.

5.2.2. Wavebinder Kardris

Wavebinder Kardris' basic ability is Froststorm Bolt. This is anuninterruptible nuke that Kardris regularly casts on his tank. It deals a veryhigh amount of Frost damage.

When reaching 85% health, Kardris gains Toxic Storm. This abilitysummons a cloud that moves slowly around the arena, dealing damage to anyplayers who are under it. Moreover, the cloud regularly creates ToxicTornadoes, which also move around the arena, dealing damage to any players they touch, and knocking them up slightly. The ability is cast roughly every 30seconds, and each cloud lasts for about 90 seconds, meaning that it eventuallyleads to spacial constraints.

When reaching 65% health, Kardris gains Foul Geyser. Kardrischannels Foul Geyser for 8 seconds, dealing damage to any players around himand summoning many adds called Foul Slimes. The Foul Slime adds can betanked, and they have an aura that constantly deals Nature damage to anyplayers within 3 yards of them. Foul Geyser is cast roughly every 30seconds.

When reaching 50% health, Kardris gains Falling Ash. This abilitytargets a large area on the ground, marking it with a red effect. About 15seconds later, a fiery projectile will land in this area, dealing lethal damageto anyone inside it, as well as a moderate amount of raid-wide Fire damage. Theability is cast roughly every 30 seconds.

6. Strategy↑top

The strategy for defeating the Kor'kron Dark Shaman is quite straightforward.Most of the abilities of the bosses are purely reactive in nature, so your raidmembers will need to handle them accordingly while dealing damage to the bosses.We will go into details with regards to each stage of the fight, in thesub-sections below.

Generally speaking, the bosses should be tanked together at all times, nearthe outer edge of the fighting area. Your ranged raid members should be in thecenter of the fighting area. This will make it possible to cleave the bosses,increasing raid DPS. Once Ashen Wall starts being used, the bosses willneed to be moved whenever a wall is created at their location.

The tanks will need regularly perform a tank switch to account for thestacking debuff applied by Earthbreaker Haromm.

6.1. Darkfang and Bloodclaw

The first step, at the pull, is for your raid to get rid ofDarkfang and Bloodclaw. Have each tank pick up one of the two mobs(as well as one of the bosses each), and have them tanked facing away from theraid (and from each other). Darkfang and Bloodclaw have low health, so by havingyour DPS players focus them, they will die quickly (before the bosses reach85% health). After they have been killed, you can focus on the bosses.

6.2. 100-65% Health

Initially, the bosses simply deal damage to their tanks, requiring a tankswitch.

When the bosses reach 85% health, they begin using their first specialabilities.

Haromm begins casting Toxic Mist on random raid members. The healershave to respond to this ability by doing extra healing on affected players, but other than this there is nothing else to handling Toxic Mist.

Kardris begins casting Toxic Storm, and summoning Toxic Tornadoes.Since these move around, your raid members will have to always be aware oftheir surroundings, and they will have to avoid them at all times. As the fight goes on, the number of tornadoes present will increase, causing your raid tohave less and less space. This acts a soft enrage timer.

6.3. 65-50% Health

At 65% health, Haromm begins casting Foul Stream. This ability dealsvery high damage to any players it hits, and, once more, your raid memberswill have to be prepared to react quickly to their surroundings. All playershave to do is move out of the affected area quickly.

Kardris begins casting Foul Geyser at 65% health. This ability is themost problematic one in the entire fight. The resulting Foul Slimescannot be tanked effectively in melee range due to their very high damage aurapresent within 3 yards of them, so they will need to be killed immediately, orkited. We advise you to kill them if your raid DPS is good enough for this.Melee players should move away from Kardris when Foul Geyser is being cast,and they should use any abilities they can on the resulting adds. Ranged DPSplayers should go all-out on DPSing the Foul Slimes. Given the fact that theydo not all spawn together, it is possible to kill some before the others spawn,meaning that the damage of the aura can be kept somewhat under control. Healersshould pay attention to the health of melee players when this happens, and theyshould not hesitate to use cooldowns.

If your raid opts to kite the adds instead, tanks who can reliably generatesolid threat at range, so Brewmaster Monks, are good for this task.Alternatively, you could have them kited around by a ranged DPS player, suchas a Hunter or a Mage.

6.4. 50%-25% Health

At 50% health, Haromm begins casting Ashen Wall. Like with most of theother abilities in this fight, players will simply have to immediately moveaway from where the wall is placed. It appears that Haromm summons these addsat his location, and if this turns out to be the case on live severs, you willwant to tank Haromm near the outside of the arena after he reaches 70% health.This is because, as we said, the Ash Elementals appear to last indefinitely, sothey will impose an increasing space restriction on your raid the longer thefight goes on. For this reason, you should try to organize the Ashen Walls asefficiently as possible. By kiting the bosses around the outer edge of thefighting area whenever an Ashen Wall is placed near them, as we suggestedabove, you should be able to manage throughout the fight.

Kardris begins casting Falling Ash at 50% health, and this ability isvery easy to deal with. Players have around 15 seconds to make sure that theyare not standing within the marked area on the ground, which is more thanenough time. When the fiery projectile of the ability lands, the entire raidwill take a moderate amount of Fire damage for which the healers must beprepared. We strongly advise using a defensive cooldown each time thishappens.

6.5. Sub-25% Health

When the bosses reach 25% health, their damage increases by 25%. This part ofthe fight will be the most difficult one, because your raid will be running lowon space (due to the Ashen Walls and the increasing number of Toxic Stormclouds) and probably also on mana. Defensive cooldowns are best used here, butaside from this, the strategy does not change.

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

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp either at thestart of the fight, or when the bosses reach 25% health and cast Bloodlust.

Generally speaking, the start of the fight is the ideal momentfor Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp because your raid DPS benefits the most from it wheneveryone's cooldowns are available. That said, given the fact that the boss'Bloodlust phase may prove to be very difficult, that may actually be a moresuitable time. We will need to see what the tuning of the fight is like on liverealms before we can make a clear judgement.

8. Summing Things Up↑top

In this section, we will very briefly summarise what the players belonging toeach of the three roles have to do during this fight.

8.1. Tanks

• Pick up the bosses and their mounts at the start of the fight (a boss and amount for each tank), and face the mounts away from raid members until theyare killed.
• Perform a tank switch on the bosses.
• Tank the bosses together so your raid can cleave them.
• Move the bosses away from Ashen Walls.
• If assigned to do so, keep aggro on the Foul Slimes and kite them insuch a way that they do not pass through the raid (since they have a damagingaura around them). Do not attempt to tank them in melee range for more than afew seconds.

8.2. Healers

• Heal the damage done to random raid members by the Toxic Mist DoT.Beware that its damage ramps up as the DoT reaches the end of its duration.
• Heal the unavoidable raid damage caused by Falling Ash.
• Use defensive raid cooldowns when the bosses drop below 25% health.

8.3. DPS

• Focus DPS on Darkfang and Bloodclaw at the start of the fight.Once they are dead, switch to the bosses.
• Cleave and multi-DoT whenever it is a DPS gain for your class, since thebosses share health.
• When Foul Slimes spawn, ranged DPS players should kill themimmediately.
• If assigned to do so (ranged DPS player only), kite the Foul Slimes in such a way that they do not pass through the raid, until they are killed.

8.4. Everyone

• Move out of the areas affected by Foul Stream and Falling Ash.
• Move away from Ashen Walls.
• Avoid standing under the clouds from Toxic Storm. Do not come in contactwith the resulting Toxic Tornadoes.
• Do not be near Wavebinder Kardris when he channels Foul Geyser.

9. Learning the Fight↑top

Since most of the abilities in this encounter are reactive, your raid membersmust first learn how to properly react to them. In the case of abilities that mustbe avoided by moving out of them ( Foul Stream and Falling Ash), the issueis simple. In the case of others, such as Toxic Storm and Ashen Wall,raid members will need to get acquainted with the best ways to avoid these spells,something that comes with practice.

Aside from making sure that players avoid all abilities that may damage orkill them, the other important issue to learn in this fight is how to handle theFoul Slimes. Whether you are having your tank handle them, or if a DPS playeris kiting them, it is important that you iron out the kinks in your execution. Afterthat, defeating the boss will simply be a matter of putting in the progressiontime.

If you feel like your raid needs more time to practice certain boss abilities"in peace", then you can stop DPS on the bosses before their next set of abilitiesunlock, allowing your raiders to focus only on the problematic mechanics. Forexample, if you feel like you want to practice handling the Foul Slimes forextended periods of time, make sure not to bring the bosses to 70% health. Thiswill enable you to practice handling the Slimes without interference from Ashen Wall and Falling Ash.

10. Heroic Mode↑top

The Heroic mode of the Kor'kron Dark Shaman encounter is very similar toits Normal mode counterpart. There are two additional mechanics, but thesedo not change the fight very much. That said, the tuning of the fight can turnit into a pretty intense battle.

10.1. Differences From Normal Mode

In addition to the mobs doing increased damage and having increased health,each of the two bosses gains a new ability when they reach 95% health.

• Earthbreaker Haromm gains Iron Tomb. Iron Tomb creates a tomb(a solid, stationary object that blocks movement and lasts until the end of the fight) at the location ofa random raid member. When the tomb is created, all players in a 3-yard radiustake a very high amount of Physical damage, and they are knocked up slightly.Aside from this initial effect, the Iron Tomb does not do anything.
• Wavebinder Kardris gains Iron Prison. Iron Prison is a debuffthat is applied to a random raid member. The debuff lasts for 60 seconds,during which time it is harmless. However, when it expires, the affected playertakes 100% of their maximum health as Physical damage (although this is notreduced by armor).

Both abilities are used every 30 seconds.

10.2. Strategy

The strategy for the fight remains similar to that for Normal mode, but afew changes have to be made to account for the Heroic-only mechanics, and forthe very high damage of certain abilities.

To get the easiest part out of the way, we will talk about how to handle the Iron Prison debuff. Since the damage from Iron Prison is not reduced byarmor, players will not survive it even if they are topped off. This meansthat, in order to survive, they will need not only to be topped off, but alsoto use defensive cooldowns or to have a Power Word: Shield (or otherdamage-absorption effect) placed on them when the debuff is about toexpire.

Handling Iron Tomb only requires that your raid isspread out at least 3 yards apart, so that as few players as possible areaffected by the damage a tomb does when it spawns.

As far as the overall strategy for the phase is concerned, there aremultiple options that have proven to be viable in certain situations. Despitethis fact, we will only present in detail the strategy that we feel is mostaccessible to raid groups who are at the start of their progression on thisencounter.

The abilities of the two bosses are limited by a maximum range. This meansthat, for instance, Earthbreaker Haromm cannot cast an ability on a raid memberwho is too far away. In Heroic mode, the most difficult part of the fight isdealing with overlapping abilities. The result of this is that the easieststrategy is to separate the two bosses, tanking them as far apart from oneanother as possible. This will almost guarantee that each boss will onlycast their abilities on the raid members near them, making everything muchsimpler.

You will need to use 3 tanks for this fight, since Haromm requires a tankswitch, and with Kardris' tank being so far away, 2 tanks cannot performthis task alone. We recommend that your raid assigns 2 tanks and a number ofhealers (1 in 10-man and 2-3 in 25-man) to Haromm, tanking him in a locationthat is far from Kardris (up on the hill is a popular location). For the entirefight, these tanks will perform a tank switch, while they are kept alive by the healer (or healers, in 25-man). These players will only beconfronted with Haromm's abilities, which they should be able to handle withrelative ease. On the other side of the fighting area, the rest of the raidwill be fighting Kardris. Regarding the Foul Slimes, we advise you tosimply have players with good AoE damage kill them as soon as they spawn.

Other alternative strategies involve having the bulk of the raid attackingHaromm instead of Kardris, kiting the Foul Slimes instead of killing them,or even tanking both bosses together and cleaving them, but these strategiespresent a higher difficulty and a higher risk, so we do not advise them.

The damage of Falling Ash is very high in Heroic mode, making itpractically mandatory to use a defensive raid cooldown each time this spellis about to be cast.

11. Concluding Remarks↑top

This concludes our raid guide for the Kor'kron Dark Shaman. We hope you havefound it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have onour forums.

12. Changelog↑top

• 26 Nov. 2013: Made a few improvements to the Heroic modestrategy.
• 22 Nov. 2013: Made a few fixes to the Heroic mode strategy.
  • Corrected an error that stated that the damage of Iron Prison isreduced by armor.
  • Corrected an error that stated the Iron Tombs block line of sight.
  • Added more variation for the strategy options (namely how to tank thebosses, and how to split the raid).
• 21 Nov. 2013: Added Heroic mode strategy.
• 20 Sep. 2013: Fixed the guide to correctly state that Falling Ash projectiles land 15 seconds after the ability is cast, andnot 30 seconds as previously stated.
• 19 Sep. 2013: Added a link to the video guide.
• 17 Sep. 2013: Made several updates.
  • Added 25-man health values.
  • Edited the guide to account for the fact that bosses now gain newabilities at 85%, 65%, and 50% health (instead of 90%, 80%, and 70%).
  • Improved several strategic suggestions (especially boss positioning and Foul Geyser handling).