This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with The Spirit Kings in Mogu'shan Vaults. It is targeted at anyonewho desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft MoP 5.4.

The Spirit Kings comprise the fourth encounter in the Mogu'shan Vaults raidinstance. The encounter rather complex, and its difficult increases as timegoes on, leading up to an intense final act.

While the fight puts a strain on all roles in your raid, its mostchallenging aspect comes from the large amount of movement that you must do.Indeed, adjusting your positions and switching from a stacked to a spread-outformation are the key difficulties you will face.

1. General Information↑top

2. Loot↑top

2.1. Armor

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Main Stats
Hood of Blind Eyes (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Head	Intellect/Spirit
Undying Shadow Grips (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Hands	Intellect
Bracers of Dark Thoughts (LFR, Heroic)	Leather	Wrists	Intellect
Bracers of Violent Meditation (LFR)	Leather	Wrists	Agility
Meng's Treads of Insanity (LFR, Heroic)	Mail	Feet	Intellect
Subetai's Pillaging Leggings (LFR, Heroic)	Mail	Legs	Agility
Girdle of Delirious Visions (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Waist	Intellect
Shoulderguards of the Unflanked (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Shoulders	Strength/Parry
Breastplate of the Kings' Guard (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Chest	Strength/Mastery

2.2. Weapons

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Screaming Tiger, Qiang's Unbreakable Polearm (LFR, Heroic)	Polearm	Agility
Steelskin, Qiang's Impervious Shield (LFR, Heroic)	Shield	Strength/Parry

2.3. Amulets and Cloaks

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Zian's Choker of Coalesced Shadow (LFR, Heroic)	Amulet	Intellect/Spirit
Amulet of the Hidden Kings (LFR, Heroic)	Amulet	Agility
Mindshard Drape (LFR, Heroic)	Cloak	Intellect
Arrow Breaking Windcloak (LFR, Heroic)	Cloak	Agility

3. Overview of the Fight↑top

The Spirit Kings encounter is a council-type fight, in which you will face4 bosses, one at a time, in a predefined order. Each new boss becomes activewhen the previous one has been defeated (i.e., killed). Each of the bosses hashis own health pool and his own set of abilities.

Each boss has one ability which he retains after being defeated, and whichhe will continue to use against the raid for the remainder of the fight(while you are fighting the other bosses). This means that the fight becomesharder as you near the end, reaching its difficulty peak when you are fightingthe final boss.

Because the order of the bosses is always the same, you can easily predictwhich combinations of retained abilities you will have to deal with.We detail this in the guide.

The fight involves a lot of movement, and proper positioning is animportant requirement for success, throughout the course of the fight.

3.1. Video by Inner Sanctum

4. Qiang the Merciless↑top

Qiang the Merciless is always the first active boss.

4.1. Abilities

Qiang the Merciless makes use of 3 abilities. We describe them below,starting with the ability that he retains after being defeated.

• Flanking Orders summons a row of Mogu warriors. They walk forwardindependently of any raid actions, and are unattackable. The wave spawns at arandom edge of the arena and slowly moves across it in a predictable fashion.The row is not very long, meaning that players can easily avoid it by movingto either side of it. The warriors constantly deal a massive amount ofPhysical damage to all enemies in front of them, essentially one-shotting anycareless raid members who do not move out of their path. The boss uses thisability every 40 seconds while he is alive, and every 75 seconds after he isdefeated.
• Massive Attacks is a frontal cone attack that deals a massive amountof damage, split between all affected players. The boss uses this abilityevery 5 seconds.
• Annihilate is an AoE attack that deals a very large amount ofdamage in an area on the ground. The spell has a 3-second visual effect onthe ground, before it deals its damage, making it easy to get out of its way.The boss uses this ability every 40 seconds.

4.2. Strategy

The strategy for defeating Qiang the Merciless can be summarised thus:

• Have your tanks tank the boss in the center of the room.
• Have your entire raid stacked up in front of the boss, so as to minimisethe damage taken from Massive Attacks.
• Make sure that everyone promptly moves to avoid both Annihilateand Flanking Orders.

Your raid will essentially treat this boss as a tank and spank fight. Theonly difficulties will arise from avoiding Flanking Orders and Annihilate,both of which we detail in the sections below.

4.2.1. Flanking Orders

Being in the center of the room allows your tanks to choose an efficientpath to avoid the Flanking Order wall. The rest of the raid must moveaccordingly, otherwise the Massive Attacks can kill those still left in frontof the boss.

Once the Flanking Orders have passed, the boss should simply be movedback to the center.

4.2.2. Annihilate

Whenever the boss casts Annihilate, the ground in front of him begins torumble in an unmistakable fashion. All raid members (including tanks) shouldmove out of the affected area. Everyone should run through the boss, since thisis the shortest path to avoid the affected area. The raid can then simplyremain on the other side of the boss (which will now once again be facing them,as he has turned to the tank after casting Annihilate).

5. Subetai the Swift↑top

Subetai the Swift is always the second active boss.

5.1. Abilities

Subetai the Swift makes use of 3 abilities. We describe them below,starting with the one which he retains after being defeated.

• Pillage causes Subetai to charge a random raid member and debuff allplayers within 8 yards with Pillaged. This debuff, which lasts 15seconds, reduces damage and healing done by 50%, and increases Physicaldamage taken by 50%. The boss casts this ability every 40 seconds.
• Volley is a 3-step frontal cone attack. First, Subetai fires avolley of arrows in a wide cone in front of him, dealing a moderate amount ofPhysical damage. A second later, he fires again, but this time the cone isless wide and the damage is higher. A second after that, Subetai fires a finalvolley, in a narrow cone, dealing massive damage.
• Rain of Arrows targets a random raid member, and fires a volley ofarrows at that location. All players in an 8-yard radius of this locationare stunned by Pinning Arrows, which deal Physical damage to the playersevery second. The Arrows are attackable and killable, something that isrequired in order to free the players.

5.2. Strategy

As you can see, the abilities of Subetai require your raid to be spread out,which makes them rather trivial to deal with. However, depending on whichdefeated bosses you are facing at this stage of the fight, this may notalways be easy.

5.2.1. Pillage

Subetai will channel Pillage for a few seconds, and during this time,players in his vicinity have time to run away. The Pillaged debuff isonly applied at the end of the cast. Having your raid spread out as much aspossible, so that as few players as possible are within 8 yards of one another,makes avoiding Pillage easier. The players who are unfortunate enough to bepillaged do not have any way of getting rid of the debuff and its negativeeffects, so they must simply endure them.

There are two things that players who have been Pillaged must payspecial attention to.

• Do not use any cooldowns (such as DPS or healing cooldowns), since theireffect will be greatly diminished.
• Be extra careful not to be hit by Volley, since its damage isPhysical and you are taking increased Physical damage.

5.2.2. Volley

Volley is easily dealt with. All it requires is that players move away fromthe front of the boss when this ability is cast. Getting hit by the firstwave of arrows will not always be easy to avoid, but this is hardlyproblematic, and it should not kill anyone.

5.2.3. Rain of Arrows

Rain of Arrows is generally neutralized by the fact that your raid isspread out. Players who are pinned down by the arrows must be freedimmediately by killing the arrows.

It is interesting to note that players can escape the Arrows by usingabilities that grant them immunity, as well as abilities such as Blink.

5.2.4. Retained Ability Strategy

While Subetai is active, you will have to deal with Qiang's Flanking Orders. This ability is not very problematic while facingSubetai, so simply avoid the rows of Mogu warriors as you normally would.

6. Zian of the Endless Shadow↑top

Zian of the Endless Shadow is always the third active boss.

6.1. Abilities

Zian of the Endless Shadow makes use of 3 abilities. We describe thembelow, starting with the ability that he retains after being defeated.

• Undying Shadows selects the location of of a randomraid member, and a few seconds later summons an attackable add there. The addfixates on the nearest raid member, and follows that player around, dealingdamage to all players within 10 yards of it. When the add is killed, it formsa large void zone. Over the course of 30 seconds, the void zone shrinks insize, until it finally transforms back into the original add. This add thenfixates on the nearest target once more, and the process repeats itself. Afterthe void zone shrinks for the second time, it disappears entirely, and no addspawns. Zian casts this ability every 40 seconds while he is alive, and every85 seconds after he is defeated.
• Shadow Blast is an interruptible spell that Zian often casts atthe location of a random raid member. Shadow Blast deals a large amount ofShadow damage to everyone within 8 yards of the target's location. Zian castsShadow Blast every 4-5 seconds.
• Charged Shadows is a spell that deals a high amount of Shadow damageto a player, and then jumps to any targets within 8 yards of that player,damaging them as well.

6.2. Strategy

Charged Shadows simply requires that your raid spreads out, and Shadow Blast must always be interrupted. There is no complexity indealing with these abilities.

6.2.1. Undying Shadows

The best way of dealing with Undying Shadows can be summarised thus.Have the person that the Undying Shadows fixate on kite them to the edge ofthe room, and then kill the Undying Shadows immediately.

Doing this will result in the void zones generated by Undying Shadowsbeing out of the way of your raid, and not hampering your movement whenavoiding other abilities.

Even though it is tempting to DPS the Undying Shadows as soon as theyappear, doing this can cause them to leave their void zone in entirelyundesirable locations, which should be avoided.

Ranged DPS players are best suited for DPSing the Undying Shadows.

6.2.2. Retained Ability Strategy

Flanking Orders does not interfere with your raid's strategy fordefeating Zian in any meaningful way.

Pillage is the least problematic of the retained abilities. It simplyrequires that your raid members be spread out at least 8 yards apart. Evenwhen more than one raid member is Pillaged, this is not very serious foryour raid.

7. Meng the Demented↑top

Meng the Demented is always the fourth and final active boss.

7.1. Abilities

Meng the Demented is a bit different from the other Spirit Kings, in thesense that he has an insanity bar that increases slowly over time. When theinsanity bar reaches maximum capacity, it resets, and the boss' insanity beginsto grow once more. Meng has two passive abilities, only one of which is activeat one time. The two passive abilities alternate, changing each time Meng'sinsanity reaches maximum capacity.

• Crazed increases Meng's physical damage by 200% of his currentinsanity.
• Cowardice causes Meng to reflect damage back to the raid, equal to50% of his current insanity. So, if Meng has 60 Insanity, he will reflect 30%of the raid's damage.

Meng also has 2 active abilities that he uses regularly. We describe thembelow, starting with the ability that he retains after being defeated.

• Maddening Shout is a spell which turns all raid members hostile toone another, allowing them to attack each other. Moreover, it causes allraid members to suffer Shadow damage every 3 seconds. The effect ends when eachplayer has sustained 40,000 damage from another player (20,000 in LFR). Mengcasts Maddening Shout every 50 seconds while he is alive, and every 85 secondsafter he is defeated.
• Crazy Thought is an interruptible spell that increases Meng'sinsanity by 10. He casts this ability very often (every 5 seconds or so).

7.2. Strategy

The strategy for defeating Meng revolves around Maddening Shout. It is alsoimportant to understand how to properly react to his current insanitystate.

7.2.1. Maddening Shout

The strategy for dealing with Maddening Shout is simple. Your entireraid should be positioned around Meng, spread out loosely. When Maddening Shout is cast, everyone should move in. Certain players shouldbe assigned to cast AoE spells that deal the minimum amount of damage neededto break the effect.

After the effects of Maddening Shout have worn off, your raid can spreadout again.

It is important to note that Maddening Shout is not a mind control, and itdoes not cause loss of control of your character in any way. It simply makesall raid members hostile to you.

It is also very important that no one uses any abilities that have secondaryeffects such as stuns, fears, or other debuffs.

7.2.2. Meng's Insanity

As we mentioned above, Meng's insanity increases steadily over time.Additionally, it can increase faster if he completes casts of Crazy Thought. With this in mind, you must be prepared that Meng will havevery high insanity several times while he is alive.

When Meng is Crazed, the more insanity he has, the higher the damagedone to the tank will be. When Meng is under the effects of Cowardice,the more insanity he has, the more damage will be reflected back to yourraid.

The key to handling these aspects correctly is the way in which youinterrupt the Crazy Thought casts that the boss regularly performs.

The idea is to always interrupt the casts when the boss has low insanity,and to allow him to cast the spell when he has high insanity. The exact amountof insanity where you should stop interrupting depends on many factors, butwe recommend 60.

Doing this will cause Meng to spend more time at low insanity, and less timeat high insanity. In other words, you are intentionally increasing his insanitygeneration, when he is already high on insanity, in order to get him to maximuminsanity (when it is reset to zero) faster.

There are two things you should be aware of regarding Meng's high-insanityphases.

• When the boss is Crazed, the tank will require a large amount ofhealing.
• When the boss has Cowardice, the raid should stop DPSing in order toavoid taking excessive damage.

7.2.3. Retained Ability Strategy

One possible problem will be if the path you wanted to take in order toavoid the Flanking Orders is blocked by a void zone from Undying Shadows. In this case, the best thing you can do is calculate anew path, avoiding Flanking Orders on the other side. If this is not possible,then you should simply run through the Undying Shadows, as their damage isconsiderably lower than that of Flanking Orders.

When dealing with Undying Shadows, one of the biggest problems will ariseif your raid is stacked up (such as to deal with Meng's Maddening Shout).When this happens, DPS players will have to resist the temptation of quicklykilling the Undying Shadows, and the player on whom it has fixated must movethe Shadows out of the raid.

Even though we do not advise you being careless, it should be noted thateven if the Undying Shadows are killed right under your raid, the void zonewill not be very problematic. This is because the damage from the UndyingShadows void zone is quite low (even in heroic mode, it is only 60,000 persecond; in normal mode, it is much lower than that). The position of the bosswill simply have to be re-adjusted.

Pillage is a problem when you have to stack tightly, such as for Maddening Shout. In this case, you will have to respect the stackingconstraint, since failing to do so is much more punishing than failing tospread for Pillage. Fortunately, these abilities to not seem to be cast at thesame time very often.

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

The choice of the optimal timing for Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp is not verystraightforward.

On the one hand, using it early allows your raid to stand still and DPS(since there are fewer abilities to avoid), taking greater advantage of thecooldown. On the other hand, using it late in the fight means that you get aboost of DPS during the most difficult part of the encounter, allowing you toget through it faster.

The choice is yours, and if one strategy turns out to be better than theother we will update the guide to reflect this.

9. Learning the Fight↑top

As with many other fights, the most important thing to emphasize is thatyour raid members all learn to properly handle each mechanic on its own. Thisis especially true for the retained abilities of the bosses. Once thisis accomplished, your raid should have no problem overcoming the otherchallenges of the encounter.

10. Heroic Mode↑top

The Heroic mode of the encounter against The Spirit Kings makes for a verychallenging fight. While the fight is very difficult, we feel that raids thathave successfully killed the first 3 bosses on Heroic difficulty have what ittakes to defeat The Spirit Kings.

The fight has a rather strict enrage timer, as well as several deadlymechanics.

10.1. Differences from Normal Mode

In addition to the bosses' increased health, and the increased damage ofall their abilities, there are several key differences from Normal mode. Someof the old mechanics are slightly changed, and each boss gains a newability.

10.1.1. Changed Mechanics

The most important change is that a new boss no longer becomes active whenthe previous one dies, but rather when the previous one reaches 30%health. Therefore, you will have to contend with two bosses active forshort periods of time, several times throughout the fight.

The second change is that Qiang's Flanking Orders ability now createstwo rows of Mogu warriors, instead of one. These two rows appear at the sametime, and behave exactly as they do in Normal mode. The locations anddirections of the two rows appear to be random, and they can sometimes comefrom opposite sides, meeting in the middle, or even from the same side andrunning almost on top of one another.

10.1.2. New Abilities

Each of the 4 bosses gains a new ability in Heroic mode. Each of theseabilities is on a rather long cooldown (40 seconds), meaning that they willonly come up twice while each boss is alive (in normal circumstances, anyway).We also feel that it is important to note that none of these abilities isretained by the bosses after they are defeated.

• Qiang the Merciless gains Impervious Shield. The boss places ashield on himself, which renders him immune to all damage. While the shield isup, all attacks done to Qiang will be retaliated back to the attackers. Theshield can be dispelled by Mass Dispel and Shattering Throw.
• Zian of the Endless Shadow gains Shield of Darkness. The bossplaces a shield on himself, which deals 300,000 Shadow damage to the entireraid whenever a damaging ability hits Zian while the shield is active. Theshield is a magic effect and can be dispelled.
• Meng the Demented gains Delirious. This is a buff that the bossgains, which causes him to gain twice as much insanity as he does normally. Thebuff is an enrage effect and can be dispelled.
• Subetai the Swift gains Sleight of Hand. This is a 10-second buffthat the boss gains, which causes any attacks done to him while the buff isactive to debuff the attacker, reducing their damage done and armor by 50% for25 seconds. While Sleight of Hand is active, Subetai can be stunned.

10.2. Strategy

Simply put, your raid will have to deal with all the usual challenges ofthe encounter, in addition to which you will need to react accordingly to thebosses' new abilities. We will summarise this below, before going into moredetail.

• Whenever Qiang casts Impervious Shield, stop attacking him and dispelthe shield immediately.
• Whenever Subetai gains Sleight of Hand, stun him and only attack himwhile he is stunned (he cannot debuff players while he is stunned).
• Whenever Zian casts Shield of Darkness, stop attacking him and dispelthe shield immediately.
• Whenever Meng gains Delirious, dispel it immediately.

Dispelling the bosses is the duty of any players in your raid who haveoffensive dispels. In the case of Zian, Shamans' Purge, andPriests' Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel are very useful. ForMeng, the enrage effect can be dispelled by Hunters' Tranquilizing Shot,Druids' Soothe, and Rogues' Shiv.

Qiang's shield can only be removed through abilities that generally removeinvulnerabilities, namely Mass Dispel and Shattering Throw.

10.2.1. Stopping DPS

One of the most important parts of the fight, and the one most likely tocause you problems, is the requirement to stop attacking Qiang and Zian whenthey shield themselves, as well as Subetai, when he gains Sleight of Hand. Even though it is detrimental to attack any of thesebosses at these times, Zian is by far the deadliest, so we will focus onhim, but the general idea also applies to Qiang and Subetai.

The shield is on a predictable timer, so, even though the enrage timeris quite strict, it is advised to stop attacking the boss a few good secondsbefore the shield goes up. DoTs, bleeds, and pet attacks do not trigger thedetonation of Zian's shield, so that is not a problem.

Having a quick dispel on the boss minimises the risk of someone detonatingthe shield, and also reduces the amount of time your raid is unable to attackthe boss.

Having said that, you should be prepared for many wipes to this ability,as it is quite unforgiving.

For Subetai, Sleight of Hand cannot be dispelled, but the boss should bestunned for as much of the 10-second duration of Sleight of Hand as possible(stunning him for 10 seconds is possible, but the stuns are subject todiminishing returns). Players should make sure not to attack him when he isnot stunned.

10.2.2. Transitions/Dealing with Two Bosses at Once

Another very delicate point in the fight is whenever the current bossreaches 30% health. At this point, the next boss will activate, and you willhave to deal with both of them until the first one is defeated.

Since we still advise using a single tank in Heroic mode, the tank willhave to tank both bosses at once. Doing so will result in a lot of damage,so both the tank and the healers should be prepared with cooldowns.

Additionally, when the boss that is being brought to 30% health isZian, we advise waiting for the Shield of Darkness to be cast anddispelled before bringing the boss to 30% health, and then using DPS cooldownsto bring him to 0% before another shield is cast.

11. Achievement: Getting Hot In Here↑top

The Getting Hot In Here achievement is part of the Glory of the Pandaria Raider meta achievement. It simply requires that allyour raid members use a /dance emote on Subetai the Swift aftergetting hit by his Pillage ability.

You should use a macro for this purpose.

The obvious difficulty is that getting the entire raid hit by Pillage cancause many problems. Fortunately, since the achievement does not appear torequire that you defeat the encounter in the same attempt, you can simplycomplete the achievement, wipe, and re-start.

However, this should not be needed, especially if Subetai is the firstor second active boss. Having your entire raid Pillaged will reduce DPSfor a short while, which is not a problem. The greater problem is the increaseddamage that the tank will be taking from Subetai, and the reduced healing thatthe healers will be doing. We believe that this can be countered withhealing and defensive cooldowns. In the worst case scenario, if the tank dies,they can be resurrected later.

12. Concluding Remarks↑top

This concludes our guide for the encounter against The Spirit Kings. Wealways welcome your comments and suggestions on our forums or by e-mail.