Talk:Fathom-Lord Karathress

Question on the Kill Order

The article says hunter then schaman, other guides say schaman first, and I think the priest could be the biggest problem eg heal ruining the try. Also the death of the priest has no effect on tanking/healing karathress.

So why this order and why the heck dont kill the boss first? Karathress has only about double the hitpoints of his adds, so he could be dead the same time the schaman would be dead in this article.

Xara 09:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've never before heard of killing the Shaman first, nor seen a video. Numerous guides and videos kill the Hunter first (without necessarily stating why), but I'm curious to know what all of these "hosts of problems" are from doing this, because apparentally, all of Warcraft enjoys the challenge. --Furi November 7th

On November 12th, we downed Karathress. We tanked the Shaman by the Hunter and DPS'd the Hunter down first, while killing totems (quickly). Moved onto the Shaman, and then went onto the Priest. The only thing I see we could have done different is place more interrupts on the Priest add, as her heals are lethal to the fight and straining on the enrage timer. You probably *can* kill the Shaman first, and kiting the boss away from the planted spitfire totems is easier than healing through an enrage with less healers on the boss than you'll have at the end. Also, the Shaman add is probably more powerful and deadly than the boss, due to his incredible burst damage. Either way, it's pretty easy, but Sharkkis' Viper Sting is pretty annoying for healer mana. As for killing Karathress first, your healers will probably go out of mana keeping fight going with everything constantly firing. Remember, Karathress gains an ability, not all of their abilities. I advise killing the Hunter first, though. I see no issue from doing it, but if you must, kill the Shaman first, as I equally see none. I do suggest editting the Strategy section of the article, though, to make note of the variables. --Furi December 1st

I've added an explanation for the kill order on the page. We've gone back and forth ourselves, and we find killing the Shaman first to make the most sense. -- Adonran 17:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, the linked movie (rogue PoV) at the bottom of the Fathom-Lord wiki page shows them killing the Shaman first. However, I do agree that most of the boss guides that I've read (and many of the movies) show them killing the Hunter first. In my earlier edit I mention that the kill order is not a hard-and-fast rule, and that some guilds choose to kill the Hunter first. -- Adonran 21:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Cataclysmic Bolt targetting

After looking through a number of tries it seems as if the Cataclysmic bolt only targets mana users. Can anyone confirm this?

After reading this, that seems to be accurate, though I'll investigate it more before adding it to the article. I've also noticed that the Cataclysm isn't exactly 50% of your HP, and has easily done more than that, though this may be accounted for when Karathress obtained the Beast Within from Sharkkis dying, and I believe that increases his Cataclysm Bolt damage, as well as melee and even Spitfire totem damage, similar to how they hit over 10,000 when his enrage timer is reached. I'll verify it, though. --Furi, January 03, 2008.

It is a base damage of 50%, then increased by The Beast Within, and any other effects, as the article says. After watching NUMEROUS Cataclysm Bolts, 100% of them have hit a user with mana. They never hit our feral druid, as well, but he went into human form to battle rez, and he then was hit. I believe my observations are accurate enough to place into the article, keep looking to see if it will hit any non-mana users in the future. Due to this new discovery, under tanking Sharkkis, the alternative for a protection paladin probably shouldn't be recommended, as a Sharkkis + Pet with beast within, and then an instantly half-of-your-HP bolt hitting the tank would probably be an easy death. I won't remove the recommendation, but I'll make note of this danger. --Furi, January 03, 2008.

It makes little sense for a targeting restriction like this to be put in place. I'd suggest against putting it into article, as not a single guide I've seen has ever mentioned it. —Pzychotix (talk · contr) 11:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

WWS has a ton of archived fights. I looked at 10 fights where Fathom-Lord casts over 30 Bolts, and I could not find any indication that it struck non-mana users. I could very easily find evidence that it struck mana users though (with 30+ bolts, everyone should get 1-2 on average). Quick way to tell: Cataclysmic Bolt is the only shadow damage that Fathom-Lord does. So look through the non-mana people and in their "Dmg In" section see if they ever take any Shadow damage.

Because this is unique to WowWiki, we might want to add a reference, or explanation supporting this observation. Otherwise people might be skeptical of this.

That said, I don't know if it means it would hit a Pally tank. It's quite common for boss special abilities to exclude the tank. -- Adonran 21:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing their reasoning behind it is so it doesn't hit the tanks. Kind of similar to how Terestian never sacrifices the main tank or Prince Malchezaar enfeebling the main tank. 50% is a pretty giganitic burst of damage, especially for a decently geared warrior in SSC. If you honestly find it has to be removed, go ahead, but note not all guides will fail to catch very fine details such as this. When healing in this fight, I now notice, after reading this, that the tanks have never actually been hit by Cataclysm Bolt, and I've somewhat confirmed it. Since I video tape everything, I've watched nearly every Cataclysm Bolt follow this behavior, and I'll continue to watch if it makes you feel comfortable. --Furi, January 05, 2008.

Well I would think that something like this would be found by now. It's been many months since Karathress has been first downed, already. This is in addition to our guild already using a paladin tank on the Hunter multiple times, and no problems. Unfortunately, we don't run SSC any more (unless we need more attunements), so I can't personally run combat logs on this. What I suggest is to run WWS and to see what he actually hits with Cataclysm Bolts as compared to running a video. —Pzychotix (talk · contr) 12:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

On November 9th, a protection Paladin commented on the forums that they were unable to tank Karathress, due to taking 75% damaging Cataclysm Bolts while he had the Beast Within, and switched with a warrior. --Furi, January 05, 2008.

Anyone doing the Karathress fight soon, please try to be alert on this and help confirm or deny it. I'll edit it to show that it is a speculative belief, rather than completely removing it, if that's alright. --Furi.

I don't see how this can be called a speculative belief, when 300+ casts have been examined and all found to target mana-users. All it would take would be a single link to a WWS capture quoting a rogue/warrior being hit, to disprove it utterly. Mattlistener 17:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

This week we did Karathress again and this time we brought a Protection Paladin. Due to this belief, I suggested we don't have him tank anything dangerous, and he was placed on the Pet. Again, only mana users took Cataclysm Bolts, and the Paladin even took three (two of them in a row). Again, I have never seen a bear or warrior hit by it, imitated again in this video. I'm not changing it from speculative belief to fact, but go ahead if anyone else finds it appropriate. --Furi, January 09, 2008.

The Whirlwind

"It pushes the players up in the air for about 3-6 seconds and gives a debuff that reduces casting time." Does this really reduce the casting time?Tifi 08:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe the auther intended to say increases casting time--even I often say the same thing, on accident. It increases the time it takes to cast a spell, but I cannot say by what variable. I can say, though, that depending on what tank you're healing, having this debuff can lead to that tank's death, most specifically the Shaman tank, and should be avoided even if you are not healing a very hard tank. --Furi, January 03, 2008.

Killing Karathress First?

Today our raid was incredibly slow on DPS, and we attempted to skip killing the Priest in order to kill the boss, otherwise Karathress would enrage, easily wiping the raid. I recall someone previously suggesting killing him first, but this is advised against, due to the fact I've discovered he will say, "Your overconfidence will be your undoing! Guards lend me your strength!" when he appears to reach 75% health when ANY of the adds are left alive. Once this occurs, Karathress gains a buff called "Blessing of the Tides" stating "Damage done increased by 65%. Time between attacks reduced by 65%." He will not instantly gain buffs from any adds still alive, as the quote he states appears to say, although any dead adds buffs will, obviously, still remain. Although it is still easily possible to heal the MT through this buff, this also increases all sources of his damage and increases the cooldowns on all of his spells. He will spawn Spitfire Totems faster and he will shoot Cataclysm Bolts much faster, and due to the increased damage, the Cataclysm Bolt has hit certain players for 11,000 and continued to one shot players. I'm going to add this Blessing of the Tides to Karathress' section, and possibly the quote to the quotes. --Furi, January 03, 2008.

Very cool info. Here's what Thottbot said about this ability: "Increases damage dealt by 65% and reduces time between attacks by 65% for 10 min. Stacks up to 3 times.". Off-topic: btw, are you using 4 ~ to sign your talk posts? -- Adonran 15:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not, and neither am I a computer whiz, though it's probably not required to discover why. Nice find on the buff stacking, though; we only got one since the priest was left alive, basically confirming how impossible skipping all three would be. Though skipping one add seems possible, at least to our raid, it also.. doesn't, unless you have some mad DPS to beat the raid slowly dying. If your raid is incapable of downing his adds and Karathress in 10 minutes, then the raid just simply needs more work. --Furi, January 05, 2008.

Searing Nova?

Does anyone have a clue as to where this ability comes from? In our WWS reports, we see it as coming from Fathom-Lord Karathress, and it only happened AFTER all 3 adds had been killed. It doesn't *appear* to come from the Spitfire Totem, but it's possible that it's just being reported correctly.

Anyone have a clue as to where this ability is coming from?

I saw this recently as well. I play a rogue, and I had just assumed that Fathom-Lord gets the ability as soon as Tidalvess the shaman dies, but your observation that it only happened after all 3 adds had been killed is interesting. I'll check our combatlog as well. (btw, please sign your talk posts with four ~) -- Adonran 16:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As a healer who solo-heals the Karathress tank commonly, I've noticed he has casted this ability from the very beginning, before any adds die. I'll reconfirm it on my videos, but I assumed he was summoning a Spitfire Totem. In the past, I never noticed the melee taking extra damage until recently, though, due to this ability. While healing the Main Tank, it does no actual damage (to him) and I welcome it to delay his melee attacks. --Furi, January 09, 2008.

This is actually a 3k melee range AoE (Sear Nova) that Karathress does on a random basis. I've updated the main page to reflect this. WoWWiki-Flowers (talk) 16:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite

Just wanted to say, awesome job on the rewrite. We're working on Karathress, this went from "use the page to get to the links at the bottom" to "take a look at the info here, it'll be a big help".--Scrotch 01:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Cataclysmic Bolt Timing

On the main page, it comments that bolts have been observed with a 6 second cooldown, rather than the 10 second mentioned elsewhere. Could it be that this was observed after Karathress gained one stack of the Blessing of the Tides buff, by being taken to 75% health with one add up? A 65% cast speed increase would change a 10 second cooldown into a 6 second one exactly. WoWWiki-Flowers (talk) 16:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

After perusing my combat logs in more detail, I noticed that that timing is very random, and there are intervals as low as 7 seconds (and Karathress did not get Blessing of the Tides at any point). While there are certainly periods with very clean 10 second intervals, I suspect that's just random, and it can be as low as 6 seconds if you get unlucky. WoWWiki-Flowers (talk) 20:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Class Royal Guard

can this be noted ? --DarckArchon Might of Aiur 12:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)