Shade of Aran Guide

[Alkhara Majere]

Really, ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW-
http://shadeofaranchant.ytmnd.com/


The Shade of Aran is a boss in the abandoned tower of Karazhan. He is the spirit of Nielas Aran, the father of Medivh, killed in a battle to contain the future Guardian when the power inside him awakened. How his spirit became trapped inside his son's tower is unknown.

Basic Info

Aran is located in the Guardian's Library in Karazhan. He has ~900k HP and very low armor - melee DPS is brutally effective against him. He must be fought in a very small arena which is a circle approximately 35 yards in diameter. He is completely untankable - he almost never melees, doesn't have a standard aggro list, and if he gets away from the center of his arena, he'll run right back.
In patch 2.0.7, a change was made that allowed Berthold the Doorman to teleport players to the Shade of Aran's room after the Shade's death.



Spells and Abilities

All of Aran's basic spells have infinite range and are semi-randomly targeted. (He is intelligent and will keep nuking a target that's low on HP.) They can all be affected by Counterspell/Pummel/Earth Shock etc. If someone accidentally pulls Aran and you just zoned in at the start of the instance, he can still nuke you. It should be noted that Earth Shock is a poor substitute for other forms of interrupts and spell locks for this fight due to earth shock only being able to lock down the school for 2 seconds.

• Aran has a weak melee attack that he will only use if all 3 spell trees (Fire/Frost/Arcane) are locked out by Counterspell-type abilities.
• Aran has a threat list for his melee. This means if you lock down all 3 spell trees, he will melee whoever is at the top of his threat list. This can cause 2 things to happen: he will chase people around the room to attempt to melee and he will crushing blow for 4k+ on poorly armored targets, sometimes killing people in combination with spells. If this is causing any trouble at all, have a Druid DPS him in bear form to maintain the top of the threat list.

Basic Abilities

• Frostbolt - 3 sec cast, 4400ish damage.
• Fireball - 3 sec cast, 4400ish damage.
• Arcane Missiles - 5 sec channeled, 1500 damage per missile.
• Chains of Ice - 10 second Root, does not break on damage. Dispellable. And can also be broken by Vanish
• Conflagration - Deals 8000 fire damage over 10 sec to the affected player, and a smaller amount of damage to nearby players. Conflagged players are disoriented and cannot use any spells or abilities.
• Slow - Reduces movement and melee attack speed by a considerable amount for 10 seconds. Dispellable. Druids can shape shift to remove the reduce movement effect. He usually casts this just before Arcane explosion.

Special Abilities

NOTE: Aran's special abilities cannot be locked out by Counterspell-like abilities. For example, if you lock out a Fireball, he can't Fireball for 10 seconds, but he could Flame Wreath at any time.

• Flame Wreath - 5 sec uninterruptable cast. Targets 3 random people in the raid. If there is no one close to them, nothing happens. If there are any other players near the target, it creates a circle of fire on the ground for 15 seconds. Anyone who crosses the flame wreath (moving in or out) will trigger a 3-4k Explosion that hits everyone in the room. It is important that everyone in the raid hold still as his flame wreath finishes casting, even if standing in a blizzard. If you continue moving, it is possible to step across a wreath before it becomes visible on your screen.

NOTE: As of 2/26/07 pets no longer trigger this effect. Additionally, a rogue using Cloak of Shadows that remains still will also not trigger Flame Wreath. (Cloak of Shadows had previously proc'd it.)

• AoE Counterspell - 10 yard radius AoE around Aran, occurs very often. Any caster in range is quickly rendered useless. Note that this will only affect you if it pulses *while* you are casting; instant-cast spells won't get you silenced, and you're free to stand next to Aran as long as you're not actively casting any spells.

• Blizzard - 1700 damage per second, large AoE that moves slowly clockwise 360 degrees around the edge of his arena. Resembles a less damaging C'Thun dark glare. The Blizzard has a large area of effect and it covers one side of the room. You will be hit by the Blizzard if you are meleeing him and on the side it's traveling on.

• Magnetic Pull / Super Arcane Explosion - Pulls everyone to the center of the room, Slows everyone, then starts a 10(?) second uninterruptable cast that deals 12,000 damage to a 30 yard radius (note that the room is only 35 yards wide). If you start running as soon as you're pulled, you can avoid the AE even while Slowed. Rogues using Cloak of Shadows can get rid of the slow (and possibly avoid the Super Arcane Explosion, though this should really only be used as a last resort in case of lag or other circumstances prevented you from escaping in time). Aspect of Cheetah/Pack will also speed your run to the outside if you are delayed in the middle. Priests and paladins should keep an eye out for any slow reactions (or anyone in "Chains of Ice"), since the slowing effect can be dispelled. Druids can shift into or out of the form to lose the slow effect.

Water Elementals

NOTE: The elementals have recently been nerfed. They now have about 30,000 HP and are most killable.

At 40% HP, Nielas Aran summons 4 elite Water Elementals. They have about 30,000 HP, and will despawn after 90 seconds. They shoot a constant stream of frostbolts for 1000-2000ish damage. They can be banished and feared, and Fear is the main method of controlling them.Also if you have a warlock in your raid they can put up Curse of Tounges on the adds and it will reduce their casting time by 60%
A second option is taking a high aggro class, such as a warrior or druid, dressed up in frost resistance gear. Prot Tanks are obviously preferred as their damage is less critical on Aran than another class would be (and there's a spell damage reduction talent that compliments this option nicely.) Since the Water Elementals use exclusively frost damage, a high frost resistance tank can make them a non factor relatively easily. This eliminates the need of a second warlock but one is absolutely crucial: asking a tank to maintain aggro on four adds is not suggested, but tanking two is certainly feasible.


Enrage

When Nielas Aran gets down to about 30k mana, he will do an emote ("Give an old man some time for a refreshing drink"), polymorph the entire raid (causing you to regain most if not all of your hp) and start drinking. After he drinks for 10 seconds he will start casting an AoE Pyroblast. If Aran is interrupted while drinking, he will simply Potion and Pyroblast. The Pyroblast does 7000-7500 damage. Two druids using tranquility and independent heals can heal back the whole raid.




Known Bugs

• As of 03/24/07, when dots kill him while drinking the Door keeps locked. This is fatal! After a ticket a <GM> told us that Aran in our Instance-ID is still alive. So if we would leave Karazhan for more than 30 Minutes he would respawn, furthermore no porting to his room works. This is really jacked up, no solution :/

• Bug also seems to occur if he's killed by dots while not drinking.. it is recommended to stop applying new dots around 10%

Strategies

• Raid DPS must stay high in order to prevent Aran from running out of mana and Enraging. Full out DPS is the best strategy if you have the DPS. You will be able to bridge the gap on DPS by making sure all healers have a dot on the boss and max dot him. DPS hybrids should be on max DPS if they are not a primary healer. The idea is to kill him before he enrages. DPS is the key.
• Under the circumstances that Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Missiles are on cooldown due to interrupts he WILL melee very fast for 2400 crushing on leather.
• Healing on Aran's target must be extremely fast, 5k nukes can kill people very quickly.
• Counterspells (pummel, kick etc) should try as much as possible to interrupt Fire and Frost spells right before they finish casting. If you interrupt a spell right as it starts, he'll just start casting another. Waiting to interrupt causes him to waste more time without doing damage, and also prevents him from running out of mana and Enraging. Earth Shock on 6 sec cooldown and 2 second tree lock is not enough. He will resume casting in that tree very shortly and before the cooldown on earth shock is up. Its best to have the shaman focus on DPS/healing and assist with shocks when they can.
• Conflagration is Aran's most damaging "regular nuke" and can rapidly kill someone. Make SURE to heal the conflagged guy!
• Dealing with Arcane Explosion is easy - even if you are Slowed the whole time, 10 seconds is more than enough time to get away from AoE. In order to maximize raid DPS, meleers can stay in and melee for 5-6 seconds while he casts AoE. As long as someone dispels Slow off them, it only takes 3 seconds to run out. Gnomes' Escape Artist racial ability also works against his slow.
• Blizzards are a horrible threat to ranged DPS, standing still in a blizzard you'll take probably 13k damage before it moves off you. The easiest way to deal with Blizzard is to move to the center, the only place that doesn't get hit with the Blizzard. Unfortunately, this means you're exposed to Counterspell for at least 10 seconds, and you're clumped up for Flame Wreaths.
• Flame Wreath can wipe a raid in a matter of seconds. The best way to handle Flame Wreath is to prevent it altogether. Stay spread out any time you're not dodging Blizzards, so even if he does cast it there's a chance it won't stick. When it does occur, just stay away from Flame Wreath.
• Your raid can easily survive Aran's "enrage", just make sure everyone has over 7500hp. On most successful kills, the Polymorph > Pyroblast cannot be avoided.
• If you lack the raw DPS, then DPS him until 42-45%, wait for him to go OOM and polymorph the raid. Once everyone is back to full health continue strong DPS on him to 40%, and then CC the Water Elementals for 90 seconds while maintaining interrupts and DPS on Aran. The reason for this is if you have elementals out and he polymorphs the raid it is usually a wipe. This way you can control the adds and not have to worry about keeping his health below his mana for the fight.
• Now that the normal game interface allows you to see "enemy castbar" is it vital to use against this boss to have a few seconds of warning as to what he will use.
• It is possible (and recommended especially for priests and other rather low-hp classes) to have an imp stand in the middle of the room set to "stay", thus not triggering flame wreath but giving the blood pact aura for the whole room.
• It is recommented that mage{s} must have frost ward on them all the time
• Only interrupt Fireball and Frostbolt, and only near the end of casting. Since he only expends mana at the end of the cast you're basically keeping his mana high and he's in casting form for 2s for some free hits. This means you do NOT want to lock out Arcane Missiles as he spends the mana upfront and takes 5s to cast it fully. 5s without him casting something else and he's already blown the mana plus you save an interrupt cooldown.
• You do not want him in melee-mode, do not lock all 3 trees. He might not hit very hard but he will run around the room and completely mess up future interupts and more than likely proc a Flame Wreath due to the tank trying to regain aggro.

Movies-

• http://files.filefront.com//;7015909;/
• http://www.lrguild.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3138
• http://files.filefront.com/6988787 - Schism vs Shade of Aran (Rogue POV)

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[Adosi]

Well nice guide

[Artharian]

couple things, is 900k a lot of health or a little?
Second, WTF does that guy drop? sounds like he would drop like artifacts or legendaries....

[BiG BaLLa]

900k health depending on how geared your guild or whoever you are with to down that boss is not too too much.. as for loot.. http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=16524

[Artharian]

cool, ty for all of it

[pesa]

couple things, is 900k a lot of health or a little?
Second, WTF does that guy drop? sounds like he would drop like artifacts or legendaries....

Gruul has 3,500,000 >.<...And that was after he was nerfed. And nearly all the loot from karazhan sucks balls -_-. Only decent stuff drops from prince, even nightbane drops crap (although he was nerfed to shit as well >.<).

[Artharian]

GTFO! 3.5 mil in health? wow...WTC he drop?

[BiG BaLLa]

Gruul's loot isn't good AT ALL..atleast for mages/casters IMO but uhh heres his stuff http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=19044 its 3.4 mil btw :P you think thats bad..the lurker in serpentshrine has 5.3 mil health lol

[pesa]

haha yeah, cant wait to start serpentshrine ^^