This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with The Stone Guard 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 Stone Guard is the first encounter in the Mogu'shan Vaults raidinstance. The encounter is most likely the first you will experience in Tier14 raiding, and while its mechanics are not overly complex, it is stillquite challenging.

On normal mode, the fight will mostly test your raid's ability to switchtargets and to react to simple mechanics, all while maintaining solidhealing.

1. General Information↑top

2. Loot↑top

2.1. Armor

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Main Stats
Claws of Amethyst (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Hands	Intellect
Jade Dust Leggings (LFR, Heroic)	Cloth	Legs	Intellect/Spirit
Stonebound Cinch (LFR, Heroic)	Leather	Waist	Intellect
Stoneflesh Leggings (LFR, Heroic)	Leather	Legs	Agility
Sixteen-Fanged Crown (LFR, Heroic)	Mail	Head	Intellect
Stonemaw Armguards (LFR, Heroic)	Mail	Wrists	Agility
Heavenly Jade Greatboots (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Feet	Intellect
Star-Stealer Waistguard (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Waist	Strength/Dodge
Jasper Clawfeet (LFR, Heroic)	Plate	Feet	Strength/Mastery

2.2. Weapons

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Dagger of the Seven Stars (LFR, Heroic)	One-Hand Dagger	Agility

2.3. Amulets and Cloaks

Item Name	Type	Main Stats
Beads of the Mogu'shi (LFR, Heroic)	Amulet	Strength/Dodge
Cape of Three Lanterns (LFR, Heroic)	Cloak	Intellect/Spirit

3. Overview of the Fight↑top

This encounter consists in a single phase that repeats until you defeat the4 Quilen Guardians that make up The Stone Guard:

• Amethyst Guardian;
• Cobalt Guardian;
• Jade Guardian;
• Jasper Guardian.

The Guardians have a shared health pool, and each Guardian has its ownindividual energy bar. The Guardians gain energy when they are close to otherGuardians, and when a Guardian reaches maximum energy, it unleashes a verydamaging, raid-wide attack. Each Guardian has its own version of thismaximum-energy attack; these attacks are called Overloads.Fortunately, at any given time, one of the Guardians is also providingprotection to the raid from its own maximum-energy attack, in the form of a90% damage reduction from that attack.

Therefore, the main objective of the encounter is to control the order inwhich the Guardian's energy bars fill up, by moving them close to, and awayfrom other Guardians, depending on which Guardian is applying the debuff.

A few seconds after a Guardian uses its maximum-energy attack, a new Guardianwill start applying its debuff, and it is this Guardian that you must get tomaximum energy.

This cycle continues until you defeat the Guardians.

Additionally, the Guardians have a few damaging abilities, which we willalso detail.

Finally, note that in 10-man and LFR, only 3 of the 4 Guardians are active(which of the 4 are active is chosen at random each lockout), while in 25-manall 4 are always active.

3.1. Video by Inner Sanctum

4. Energy Generation↑top

In their normal state, the Guardians are affected by Solid Stone,which causes them to take 90% reduced damage, and not generate any energy. Thisbuff is removed if a Guardian is within 12 yards of another Guardian.

While a Guardian has the Solid Stone effect, their current energy decreasesslowly over time.

When they are within 12 yards of each other, the Guardians generate energyat a rate of approximately 1.7 per second, regardless of what actions yourraid takes. As we mentioned above, it will be your goal throughout the fightto often move Guardians together, and then apart, in order to control theirenergy generation.

5. Abilities↑top

Besides Solid Stone, mentioned above, all the Guardians havean ability called Rend Flesh. Rend Flesh is a bleed effect that eachGuardian applies on its tank. It lasts 15 seconds and deals a moderate amountof physical damage. This bleed effect does not stack. Overall, it is notproblematic.

In addition to this, each Guardian has its own set of 3 abilities. Whilethese are different for each Guardian, they can easily be categorised asfollows (Amethyst abilities are only used by the Amethyst Guardian, and so on).

• Amethyst Pool, Cobalt Mine, Jade Shards, Jasper Chainsare damaging abilities. Throughout the fight, the Guardians willregularly attempt to damage one or more raid members with these abilities.
• Amethyst Petrification, Cobalt Petrification, Jade Petrification and Jasper Petrification are the Petrificationabilities that one (and only one) of the Guardians will use per cycle. Theseabilities apply a stacking debuff to the raid (it takes the form of a resourcebar that fills up to 100). If the Guardian manages to stack this debuff fully,the raid will become paralyzed. The Petrification is broken by the Guardian'sOverload (explained below). Petrification also greatly reduces the damagedone by the respective Guardian's Overload. For example, Amethyst Petrification only reduces the damage done by Amethyst Overload, but not the damage done by Cobalt Overload.
• Amethyst Overload, Cobalt Overload, Jade Overload and Jasper Overload are the Overload abiltiesthat the Guardians will use when they reach maximum energy. An Overload dealsdamage to the raid, stops the Guardian from casting petrification, and removesthe Petrification debuff from the raid.

5.1. Damaging Abilities

• Amethyst Pool is cast by the Amethyst Guardian. It is a void zone,placed at a random raid member's location, that inflicts Shadow damage eversecond to everyone inside it. It lasts 1 minute and 20 seconds, and it is castroughly once every 5-10 seconds.
• Cobalt Mine is cast by the Cobalt Guardian. It is a cobalt shardlaunched at a random raid member's location. After 3 seconds, the shardbecomes active, and any player who comes within 7 yards of it causes it todetonate, dealing Arcane damage to all allies within 7 yards, also rootingthem for 6 seconds. This is ability is cast every 10 seconds.
• Jade Shards is cast by the Jade Guardian. It is a raid-wide nuke,dealing a small amount of Nature damage to all players. This spell is castevery 10 seconds.
• Jasper Chains is cast by the Jasper Guardian. It links two randomraid members together (indicated graphically by chains). If the two playersare more than 10 yards apart from one another, the chains deal Fire damage tothem every second. The damage is increased by 15% (10% in LFR) for each secondthat the two players are more than 10 yards apart, and being more than 10yards apart for 15 seconds removes the chains. Note that this effect iscumulative, meaning that you do not need to be apart for 15 continuous seconds;for each second that you are apart you get a stack of an otherwise harmlessdebuff, and at 15 stacks the chains are broken. The spell is cast roughly every10 seconds.

5.2. Petrification

Petrification is an ability that Guardians possess, but only one of theGuardians can cast its Petrification ability at one time. It is a stackingdebuff (although it appears on players' screen as a distinct resource bar)that is applied on the entire raid. Petrification reduces the target's movementspeed with each stack. If the debuff reaches maximum, itparalyzes its targets.

• Petrification has a maximum capacity of 100, and it takes around 80 secondsfor it to reach maximum capacity.
• Petrification is cast for the first time 5 seconds into the fight, andagain 5 seconds after each Petrification ends.
• A random Guardian is selected to cast Petrification each time, and thesame Guardian cannot cast petrification twice in a row. There seems to be atendency for the Guardian with the lowest energy to be chosen to petrify theraid, but we cannot confirm this.
• While Petrification is stacking on players, they take 90% reduced damagefrom the school of damage belonging to the respective Guardian
  • Amethyst Petrification: Shadow;
  • Cobalt Petrification: Arcane;
  • Jade Petrification: Nature;
  • Jasper Petrification: Fire.
• Reaching maximum Petrification can only be prevented by the Guardian'sOverload (see below), and not by another Guardian's Overload. For example, Cobalt Overload does not remove Amethyst Petrification.
• Reaching maximum Petrification causes all players to become unable to moveor act. They continue to take damage, meaning that it always leads to awipe.

It is important to differentiate between the two Petrification states:

• The first represents the fact that one of the Guardians is applying thedebuff to the raid, reducing damage taken from their school of damage.
• The second represents Petrification at maximum capacity, when the raid isstunned. This second effect must always be avoided.

5.3. Overload

Overload is the final ability of the Guardians. Overload is only cast whenthe Guardian reaches 100 energy. It deals a large amount of damage of theGuardian's school, and stops Petrification.

• Amethyst Guardian casts Amethyst Overload.
• Cobalt Guardian casts Cobalt Overload.
• Jade Guardian casts Jade Overload.
• Jasper Guardian casts Jasper Overload.

5 seconds after Overload breaks a Petrification, a new Petrificationbegins. An Overload from a Guardian other than the one who is currentlypetrifying the raid will have no effect whatsoever on the Petrification.

6. Strategy↑top

The strategy for defeating The Stone Guard revolves around two concepts:

• Each Guardian who casts Petrification must overload (reach 100 energy)before he finishes petrifying.
• Do not allow Overloads to take place without the respective Guardian'sPetrification being active. For example, Amethyst Overload should nothappen without the raid being protected by Amethyst Petrification.

This means that the Guardians will have to often be moved close and awayfrom one another, in such a way that the petrifying Guardian is always within12 yards of another Guardian (so that he gains energy, in order to overload).At the same time, you should minimise the amount of energy that non-petrifyingGuardians get, by rotating which of them is in close proximity of thepetrifying Guardian.

We detail this in a dedicatedsection.

6.1. Positioning

In 10-man and LFR, you should have two locations for tanking theGuardians. In one location, your off-tank should keep a Guardian that isnot casting petrification, while in the other, your main tank should keep thepetrifying Guardian together with the lowest-energy Guardian.

In 25-man, you should have three tanking locations. This will allow you toonly have two Guardians (of the 4 active) gain any energy. This requiresusing 3 tanks.

The Guardians only have to be more than 12 yards apart in order not to gainenergy, so it is advised not to have the two tanking locations too farapart.

The rest of your raid members should stand close together near the centerof the room. There are two important positioning challenges for your raidmembers.

• Raid members must be quick to move out of Amethyst Pool whenever itspawns underneath them.
• Raid members must be quick to move away from Cobalt Mines when theyare placed next to them.

Finally, Jasper Chains also requires that the affected raid membersmove, which can cause some interactions with the abilities mentioned above,although it should not be problematic.

None of the other abilities of the Guardians pose any positionalproblems.

It is important to keep in mind that as Petrification stacks higher andhigher, movement speed is progressively reduced. This makes moving outAmethyst Pools or away from Cobalt Mines more difficult.

6.1.1. Taunting and Positioning the Guardians

The energy generation of the Guardians is determined entirely by theirpositioning, so it is up to the tanks to make sure that the strategy of theencounter is executed properly. We believe that it is optimal, for severalreasons, for the tanks to remain stationary in the pre-assigned tankinglocations, and to simply perform taunt switches between them, whenever aGuardian must be moved.

Tanks must expect to taunt Guardians roughly every 20 seconds, which isneither problematic in terms of the cooldown of taunt, nor in terms of thediminishing returns of taunt.

The tanking locations we provided in the previous section are approximate,of course, since tanks will sometimes have to move, due to the location of Amethyst Pools or other damaging abilities.

6.2. Guardian Energy Management

The principle for managing the energy of Guardians optimally can best besummarised as always have the petrifying Guardian next to the Guardianwith the lowest amount of energy.

The best strategy is to rotate the Guardians, always moving the petrifyingGuardian next to the lowest non-petrifying Guardian. The ideal time to movethe Guardians is every 25 energy in 25-man, and every 50 energy in 10-man andLFR.

Naturally, when you find yourself in a situation where the energy of thenon-petrifying Guardian you are currently using is less than or equal to theenergy of the other non-petrifying Guardian(s), you should maintain thestatus-quo, for convenience. This is because you will need to choose anon-petrifying Guardian to gain more energy than the other(s) anyway, so itmight as well be the one you are currently next to.

6.3. Dealing with Mechanics

The encounter checks if your raid members are able to react accordingly toa number of abilities, while maintaining the required amounts of DPS, HPS, andthreat. In this section, we will go through each ability and the way in whichit should be dealt with.

6.3.1. Amethyst Pool

Amethyst Pool is simply avoided by stepping out of it. As the fightgoes on, the floor of the room will become increasingly covered by the pools,but finding safe spots should not be an issue.

This ability can interact with Cobalt Mine, which can root players inplace. We will detail this in the section below.

6.3.2. Cobalt Mine

Cobalt Mine should be avoided by moving away from the crystalshard. However, since the floor of the room can become quite crowded, your raidmay opt to detonate some mines on purpose (while making sure that no oneexcept the detonating player is within 7 yards of the crystal).

When the Mine is detonated, it damages and roots all players within 7 yardsof it. The root effect lasts for 6 seconds, and is dispellable. The root effectcan interact negatively with Amethyst Pools, preventing players frommoving out of the pool. In this case, healers should be quick to dispel andheal the affected players.

The ideal time to detonate the Cobalt Mines is when Cobalt Petrificationis being cast, since this reduces the damage that they deal by 90%, making thempractically harmless.

If the room becomes too crowded with all the Cobalt Mines, and you cannotwait for a Cobalt Petrification, certain players can detonate them on purposeand take minimal damage. Ideal examples are Hunters using Deterrence, Shadow Priests using Dispersion, or any otherclasses with immunities or large damage reduction abilities. Make sure that noone else is within 7 yards of a mine that is about to be detonated.

6.3.3. Jasper Chains

Jasper Chains links two random players together. In order for the chainsto disappear, the players must stand 10 yards away from each other for 15seconds. However, standing at this distance causes the chains to dealdamage to the two players, so this is not always the best option.

There is no other way to get rid of the chains.

We advise your raid to implement a "buddy system" for handling theJasper Chains. In short, the system relies on not breaking the Jasper Chainsthat link two players, and having the two players stand close to each otherfor the rest of the fight. This is made possible by the fact that there is alimit to how many chains can be active at one time (3 in 10-man; unknown yetin 25-man), meaning that your raid will only have to control a few buddypairs.

The system we propose works as follows. Every time two players are linkedby chains, they become each other's buddy. The two players shouldalways stand next to each other (within 10 yards), and move togetherthroughout the remainder of the fight.

Since it is problematic if a healer and a melee DPS are linked together,undesirable links can be broken while there is a Jasper Petrificationgoing on (since the damage the chains deal will be vastly reduced). Your raidcan continue to do this until favourable links are formed (melee DPS with meleeDPS, healer with ranged DPS).

Alternatively, it is possible for your raid to pre-assign buddies, andbreak all chains (during Jasper Petrification) that do not correspond to thesebuddies. This is easier to organize beforehand, but it may result in too muchconfusion during the encounter.

As we mentioned earlier in the guide, the linked players do not need tospend 15 consecutive seconds apart - this effect is cumulative, so they cansimply move in and out of range of each other and still eventually break thechains.

6.4. Sources of Damage

Healers will have to contend with the following sources of damage:

• Steady tank damage from melee attacks and the Rend Fleshbleed.
• Regular raid-wide damage from Jade Shards.
• Random avoidable single or multiple target damage to players from Cobalt Mine.
• Avoidable damage from players standing in the void zones created by Amethyst Pool.
• Varying damage from Jasper Chains, depending on the strategy yourraid is using.
• High raid-wide damage from overloads, each time a Guardian reaches 100energy (roughly 200,000 damage after reductions).

A situation of particular interest occurs when a player is rooted by Cobalt Mine while inside a void zone from Amethyst Pool. In thiscase, that player must quickly be dispelled so that he can move out.

6.5. Cleaving and Multi-Dotting

Since two Guardians will always be tanked together, classes with cleaveeffects (Arms Warriors, Combat Rogues) or DoTs (Warlocks, Shadow Priests,Balance Druids) can boost their (and the raid's) DPS greatly by takingadvantage of the situation.

These techniques are highly advised, especially since the Guardians have ashared health pool.

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

The fight does not have different phases, nor does its difficulty changeas it goes on. Therefore, you should use Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp at the start of the fight, tomaximise the benefit of players' potions and initial cooldowns.

8. Learning the Fight↑top

As the encounter is stable in difficulty, and no new phases are unlocked byreaching a certain stage of the fight, the best way for your raid to learn thefight is to ensure that everyone understands fully how to handle each of themechanics individually.

• Players must move out of Amethyst Pool;
• Players must move away from Cobalt Mine;

In addition to this, all that your raid must know is what the basicmechanics of the fight are (Guardian energy generation, petrification andoverloads).

9. Heroic Mode↑top

The Heroic mode of The Stone Guard is an introductory Heroic mode, probablythe first one your raid will attempt in Tier 14. While the encounter isquite difficult (as all Heroic modes are), it is also reasonably accessible fora well geared and well coordinated group. Moreover, the encounter will beeasy for your raid to learn, as it does not differ greatly from the Normalmode version.

9.1. Differences from Normal Mode

As mentioned, the fight does not differ greatly from Normal mode. Your raidwill have to contend with increased health and damage from the bosses, as wellas with a few new fight mechanics.

9.1.1. Increased Damage

In Heroic mode, the Guardians all have greatly increased health pools. Thisaspect turns the fight into somewhat of a DPS race, but this is made trivialby the Heroic-only mechanic of the encounter.

In addition to this, every single mechanic in the encounter dealssignificantly more damage than in Normal mode. This includes the melee attacksof the Guardians.

9.1.2. New Mechanics

The novelty of the Heroic mode of the encounter stems from the interactionbetween your raid, the tiles that make up the room's floor, and severalcrystals that are present in the room. By executing the strategy properly,your raid will benefit from a buff that will greatly increase your DPS andSpirit, allowing you to better handle the boss' increased health anddamage.

In order to obtain this buff, several of your raid members will have tointeract with crystals present around the room, and subsequently stand onspecific areas of the floor.

For each active Guardian, there is a crystal located in the room. In 10-man,where only 3 Guardians are active, there are only 3 crystals. These crystalsare unattackable, and they do nothing on their own. When a raid memberinteracts with a crystal (by clicking it in melee range), they (the raidmember) gains a debuff. This debuff deals damage to the affected raid member,but it also allows them to subsequently buff the raid. The debuff depends onwhich crystal the raid member interacts with, but the only difference betweenthe crystals is the school of magic damage that they deal.

• Living Amethyst Crystal applies Living Amethyst.
• Living Cobalt Crystal applies Living Cobalt.
• Living Jade Crystal applies Living Jade.
• Living Jasper Crystal applies Living Jasper.

Interacting with a crystal, therefore, adds the respective debuff to theplayer. The debuff lasts 30 seconds, and starts out with a number of stackswhen it is first applied (10 stacks in 10-man, and 7 stacksin 25-man). These stacks are progressively lost. For each stack, the playertakes a small amount of damage every second. Even though the damage dealt perstack is rather low, the players will take high damage after having justclicked the crystals, since the stacks will be at their highest.

The next part of the mechanics involves the floor tiles. Whenever a raidmember who is affected by a debuff from a crystal walks on a floor tile, thistile becomes energized, and a stack of their debuff is removed. Indeed, thereare two types of floor tiles, according to the in-game classification.

• White Floor Tiles are the all of the tiles that make up the floorof the room. This excludes the central area, which is of a darker colour, andis also partly covered by a carpet. White Floor Tiles do not do anything ontheir own; this is the default state of the floor, which is modified bydebuffed players stepping on them.
• Energized Tiles are White Floor Tiles that have been steppedon by players affected by a debuff from a crystal. Energized Tiles glowbrightly, and for each one your raid gains a stack of Energized Tiles.
  • Energized Tiles increases the damage done and Spirit of all your raidmembers by 1% per stack. The buff has a 10-minute duration, however all thecurrent Energized Tiles are reset by the bosses when they reach 75% and 40%health.

Finally, the energy of Guardians no longer decreases when they have the Solid Stone effect active.

9.2. Strategy

The strategy for the Heroic mode is very simple and straightforward. Inaddition to performing all of the Normal mode tasks, the heroic strategy canbe easily summarised.

1. Have several raid members take the debuffs from the crystals, and energizeWhite Floor Tiles around the room.
2. Stop energizing tiles at around 100 stacks of Energized Tiles, andsimply focus on DPS the bosses.
3. After the Energized Tiles are reset at 75% and 40%, re-energize them untilyou have about 100 stacks of Energized Tiles.

9.2.1. Energizing Tiles

For the most part, it is the task of your DPS players to energize the floortiles, since tanks and healers cannot move freely (due to the importance ofperforming their own roles). The number of DPS players who will go aroundenergizing floor tiles depends on how well your raid can cope with the damagethat these players will take from their respective debuffs, but the fasteryou reach your desired level of Energized Tiles, the better.

To remind you, at full stacks (10 in 10-man, and 7 in 25-man), the affectedraid members will be taking around 60,000 damage per second. Therefore, coupledwith the damage that the tanks are taking, this results in a lot of damagethat must be healed. Therefore, you will need to judge how many players you canafford to have energizing tiles, based on your own experiences. In any case,the players who are energizing tiles can use their own defensive cooldowns tohelp mitigate the damage.

Additionally, it may be possible for healers to help out with energizingtiles, which can be useful.

Finally, do not forget that floor tiles will have to be re-energized at75% and 40% of the bosses' health.

To avoid confusion, there are a few aspects we would like to mentionregarding the practice of energizing tiles.

• It is not feasible (or required) to only use the crystal of the currentlypetrifying Guardian. Even though this will greatly reduce the damage thatplayers take from interacting with the crystals, it will result in far tooslow energizing of the tiles.
• In order to energize a tile, as mentioned above, all you must do is to runover it.
• As a point of reference, 100 energized tiles are less than half of theroom's tiles.

9.2.2. Other Concerns

Aside from energizing the floor tiles, nothing is different from the Normalmode of the encounter. Keep in mind, however, that all mechanics are far morepunishing in Heroic mode, and your raid will have to execute the strategyflawlessly in order to succeed.

10. Achievement: Must Love Dogs↑top

The Must Love Dogs achievement is part of the Glory of the Pandaria Raider meta achievement. It is a very simpleachievement for your raid. It simply requires that each one of your raidmembers is accompanied by a canine non-combat pet (companion) whendefeating The Stone Guard.

We currently know of the following viable canine companions (based on acomment on Wowhead):

• Perky Pug (easily obtained as a reward for completing roughly 25heroic dungeon through the Dungeon Finder Tool);
• Core Hound Pup (obtained by anyone who attaches a BlizzardAuthenticator to their account);
• Curious Wolvar Pup (a reward from the Children's Week worldevent);
• Worg Carrier (a drop from Quartermaster Zigris in BlackrockSpire);
• Fox Kit (small drop chance from Baradin Foxes in Tol BaradPeninsula).

11. Concluding Remarks↑top

This concludes the guide to defeating The Stone Guard. As you can see, theencounter is quite straightforward, and it acts well as anintroductory fight to the raid instance, and raiding in general in Tier14. If you have any feedback, questions or suggestions, or if you simply wishto share your experiences on this fight with us and the rest of the community,we invite you to contact us on our forums, or by e-mail.