[Study Guide] Algalon the Observer

[gezus]

Last night my 10man Hardmode crew finally got [Firefighter]. As this was the last achievement we needed to gain access to Algalon, we began to look for any and all information we could find on the subject. As you are only given **1Hour** per raid lockout period, we didn't want to go in blind. However, upon hours of scouring the interwebs I started to realize that Algalon is still new enough, and still hard enough to get to that there is very few "guides" or "Strategy" for him. This is my attempt to rectify the situation.

***Warning***

I do NOT claim any of the information found here my own. I merely took the time to compile everything I could find into one solid and organized "Study Guide" if you will.



Part 1: Gaining entry to the Celestial Planetarium.

1. Completing [I Choose You, Steelbreaker] or [I Choose You, Runemaster Molgeim] enables one [Archivum Data Disc] to drop. (It is not party loot.)
2. The quest from the disc directs the player to the Archivum, located beyond the Assembly of Iron.
3. After listening to the Archivum Console speak, Prospector Loren offers [80R] The Celestial Planetarium, asking the player to locate the Celestial Planetarium and return to Prospector Loren. Completing this enables four quests to obtain the Watchers' sigils, which may be performed in any order:
[80R] Freya's Sigil - Complete [Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood]
[80R] Hodir's Sigil - Complete [I Could Say That This Cache Was Rare]
[80R] Mimiron's Sigil- Complete [Firefighter]
[80R] Thorim's Sigil - Complete [Lose Your Illusion]
4. Completing all four quests enables the quest [80R] Algalon. Returning to the Archivum Console rewards [Celestial Planetarium Key].

Part 2: Understanding Algalon's Abilitys.

10-man abilities

Algalon the Observer has approximately 8.37 million hit points. Algalon dual wields and his swing speed is extremely fast, with ~18k main hand/10k offhand swings coming every second or less. This appears intended to advantage block capable tanking classes.

Cosmic Smash - Calls an abyssal boulder from the sky, dealing 41,438 to 43,562 Fire damage.
Black Hole Explosion - 16,088 to 16,912 Shadow damage inflicted to enemies. Instant cast.
Quantum Strike - Strikes at an enemy, inflicting 15,675 to 17,325 Physical damage. 5 yards range.
Phase Punch - Massive blow that inflicts 8,788 to 10,212 damage and slowly fades the target to
another plane of existence. 5 yards range.
Big Bang - Inflicts 76,313 to 88,687 Physical damage to nearby enemies. 8 seconds cast, 3 seconds cooldown.
Berserk - Algalon the Observer will berserker enrage after 8 minutes and one-shot the entire raid via Ascend to the Heavens.
Ascend to the Heavens - Inflicts 655,500 to 724,500 Arcane damage to enemies.

Part 3: The Phases.

Phase 1
Algalon will transform the arena into space and immediately begin attacking whoever has the highest threat. Algalon hits very hard and fast and will cast Quantum Strike very often on the tank so healers need to make sure he remains at full health at all times. All DPS merely attack the boss the best they can. Algalon can be positioned anywhere as he has no frontal cleave or cone attacks.

After 15 seconds Algalon will use Phase Punch on the current tank every 15 seconds and summon four Collapsing Stars. Once the tank gets 5 stacks of the Phase Punch debuff, Algalon will switch to the second-highest on his threat table, so your off-tank should be ready to taunt and your healers should be ready to change targets as the off-tank will be taking a lot of damage very quickly. Algalon will be Phase Punching the tanks throughout the fight and need to keep switching.

For the stars, 1-2 DPS should be assigned to killing the stars one at a time. If they are left alone, they will all explode at the same time and wipe the raid. DPS need to make sure healers are ready before a Collapsing Star is killed as the entire raid will take roughly 16k damage, and if the tank is too low on health when a star explodes, he'll die and will very likely cause a wipe. After each star is killed, a Black Hole is left behind (explained later). Stars will keep spawning throughout the fight until Phase 2 and should always be killed.
Every 25 seconds, Algalon will begin casting Cosmic Smash on a random player. A red fissure will appear that everyone has to quickly move away from or they will die instantly. After the Cosmic Smash hits the spot, it will cause some splash Fire damage which seems to be based off the player distance with the impact point.

Note on 25-man this will be three seperate Cosmic Smashes on three random players.

50 seconds after the initial pull, Algalon will summon three Living Constellations that will damage random players in the raid and have normal threat tables. When a Living Constellation enters a Black Hole, it dies instantly and the Black Hole disappears. A single DPS or probably a healer should get aggro on all three of these and run behind any Black Holes they find. The idea is to kite the Constellations into the Black Hole to kill them instantly. Death Knights are an ideal choice for this as they can stand behind Black Holes and use Death Grip so the Constellations land in the hole.

Every 90 seconds from the initial pull, Algalon will begin casting a 8-second cast spell called Big Bang that is almost guaranteed to kill anyone it hits. To dodge this, everyone but one person needs to enter a Black Hole created by a killed Collapsing Star. Once inside the Black Hole, players will take roughly 1,500 Shadow damage per second and there will be elite adds called Dark Matter scattered everywhere.

Note: If EVERYONE enters the Black Holes and Algalon has no player in the 'normal' realm to target, he will cast Ascend to the Heavens, killing the raid and disappearing. You must have one player eat the Big Bang. A tank blowing *all* cooldowns, a Guardian spirited anyone or dispersioned Shadow Priest are all capable of eating the Big Bang. Big Bang ignores immunity effects such as Hand of Protection, Ice Block and Divine Shield.

Players need to avoid getting hit by these the best they can until Algalon has finished casting Big Bang. Afterwards, everyone is teleported out of the Black Hole and the fight progresses as before. Not sure of this, but each Black Hole seems to have their own separate 'realm' so players need to make sure they enter the same one if possible. Entering a Black Hole also resets all threat of the player, so it is advised the currently Phase Punched tank to stay outside and eat the Big Bang. This way, the off-tank can taunt to gain all the threat he had and DPS don't have to worry about getting aggro.
This phase continues until Algalon reaches 20%.

Phase 2
Once Algalon reaches 20%, Collapsing Stars and Living Constellations will despawn and will no longer spawn anymore. Any currently open Black Holes will also dissapear. Algalon will continue to cast Quantum Strike, Phase Punch and Cosmic Smash however.
Algalon will then summon four Black Holes in a square pattern. Every 30 seconds, four Unleashed Dark Matters will spawn, one from each Black Hole. The off-tank needs to pick these up and tank them to the side for the rest of the fight and DPS need to burn down Algalon before these adds pile up and become too much to handle.

When this phase begins, I suggest swapping tanks as the current tank will very likely have the Phase Punch debuff and the off-tank will have a hard time surviving if he has to tank the adds and Algalon together. If you swap once the Black Holes spawn, you'll be given about 45 seconds to defeat Algalon before a forced tank-swap which should be long enough. Players also need to keep alert about Cosmic Smashes as Algalon will still be using this.

Once Algalon reaches 1-2%, he is defeated, all adds and Black Holes despawn.

Part 4: Tips and Tricks.

Optimize your time - Since you only have 1 hour per lockout period, we thought of adding a few time management tips:
-Recovering from a wipe takes 2-2.5 minutes including buffs. You can buff while running to buy some time.
-Fly up from the graveyard, run on mount to the Base Camp teleport, then take the Antechamber teleport. This is the optimal way to run back and it takes about 90 seconds to reach the Celestial Planetarium this way.
-On the 10 man version using Ankh or Soulstones and resurrecting players can be a few seconds faster than everybody running back.

Fight details (massive spoilers)

A more detailed explanation of Algalon's abilities:

Quantum Strike: this is the main melee ability. Algalon is dual-wielding and has a 1.0 attack speed.

Phase Punch: this ability has a 15 second cooldown, when it reaches 5 stacks, the tank is phased. The debuff has a 45 second duration, so 2 tanks need to rotate by taunting Algalon when it reaches 2-3 stacks.

Big Bang: it has an 8 second cast time, cannot be interrupted, everyone except the current tank must run into the Black Holes to survive. Algalon casts this roughly every 75 seconds. When the spell hits the "outside", players are phased out from the Black Holes automatically. The damage Big Bang deals is physical, the current tank, who must stay outside will have to use CD abilities to survive the mitigated damage and the time until the healers return.

Ascend to the Heavens: this ability is used to wipe the raid if noone is attackable by Algalon, if all players ran into the Black Hole, or if the tank dies to Big Bang while everyone else is inside the Black Hole. Players inside the Black Hole are also affected (Insta Gibbed) by it.

Cosmic Smash: it has a 25 second cooldown and a 4 second cast time, during which a red impact zone will appear on the platform somewhere (in 25man 3 impact zones will appear). Damage dealt by Cosmic Smash is proportional to the range the player has from its center, it can be as low as 3K. At very close, in addition to the high damage, it also has a deadly knockback effect that shoots you high into the... cosmos so that fall damage will surely kill you.

Enrage/Berserk: Algalon's enrage timer is 6 minutes.

You will see four types of adds through the fight:

Collapsing Star - These adds spawn in packs of 4 when Algalon yells "The stars come to my aid". They have no threat list, their HP decrease on their own as well as from player damage. When a Collapsing Star dies, a Black Hole Explosion hits the entire raid, so their deaths (and the Cosmic Smashes) must be timed to avoid wiping the raid. When it dies a void zone looking area spawns around the star and inside a portal appears that leads to the Black Hole. The void zone doesn't deal damage, and you don't have to click on the portal to active it, just stand on it.

Living Constellation - 3 of these adds are summoned after 50 seconds, they have 261K HP on normal mode, they use Arcane Barrage to deal 4.5K damage on average. If they are pulled into Black Holes, they close them. Unlike the Collapsing Stars, they do have threat lists, which must be managed by tanks to protect the healers.

Dark Matter - They look like Wraiths (just like the ones in Stratholme), they can be found inside the Black Hole and players must evade them while waiting for the Big Bang's cast to finish. All Black Holes lead to the same place so the 9 or 24 players share the same phase.

Unleashed Dark Matter - at 20% Algalon will yell "Behold the tools of creation" and summon 4 adds and desummon every other mob. It is recommended to just tank them and not kill them. Every 30 seconds after this point snother pack of 4 will appear.

This picture has living constellations, collapsing stars and a black hole portal too.


The fight essentially revolves around surviving the AOE abilities. Each of them has to be timed perfectly for the healers to manage keeping everybody alive. At the same time, the adds need to be managed, so that Living Constellations don't kill healers, and they don't close Black Holes unintenationally, Collapsing Stars don't die "in the way" so that players don't fall into the Black Hole accidentally, but they are also not that far away for everyone to reach within ~8 seconds. If someone accidentally enters the Black Hole, the only way out is when Algalon casts Big Bang and the Wraiths inside will make sure players don't survive inside long.

Random tips

Algalon admits defeat at 2% health, so you only need to burn 98% of its HP.

Algalon's model is very "light" as you can see it on the screenshots, so if players have trouble noticing the Cosmic Smash impact zones, they should stand on one side of Algalon instead of behind him.

Since Algalon hits very very hard, the Scarab Brooch (which has the same effect as the proc on Val'anyr) helps a lot for this fight, though it's not at all required.
For the same reason, it's very useful for Priests to have the 51 point Holy talent: Guardian Spirit, as well as Glyph of Guardian Spirit in one of their Major Glyph slots

Part 5: Kill Videos

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Part 6: Loot/Achievements/and Celebration Bitches.

I leave this open, as each and everyone of you probably celebrates in your own way . I wish you all good luck. and happy wipes.


***Credits***
Algalon the Observer - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
Wowraid - Wrath of the Lich King PVE Resource
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
Wowhead: +1, Insightful

***Updates***
As I find more relevant Algalon info I will update this post.

[EcHoEs]

Could say fail with the links

[[Ban Hammer]]

Indeed, this is hell messy, what is it about? <_<

[Brolly]

1. Completing /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Shift-click this to place a link into a chat message: \124cffffff00\124Hachievement:2941:"..UnitGUID("player")..":0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[I Choose You, Steelbreaker]\124h\124r"); or /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Shift-click this to place a link into a chat message: \124cffffff00\124Hachievement:2939:"..UnitGUID("player")..":0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[I Choose You, Runemaster Molgeim]\124h\124r"); enables one /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Shift-click this to place a link into a chat message: \124cffa335ee\124Hitem:45857:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Archivum Data Disc]\124h\124r"); to drop. (It is not party loot.)
2. The quest from the disc directs the player to the Archivum, located beyond the Assembly of Iron.

Quoted, that everybody knows about this epic fail, even if you edit it!:wave:

P.S. commen sense imo

[gezus]

Holy cow relax guys.. I wasn't even done just hit Save rather than Preview.. sheesh.

[EcHoEs]

Well, posted it anyways ^^ How could we know you pressed save rather than preview?
It's better now anyways. +4

[gezus]

Added another Video with at view of 25man for posterity.

[Aurakene]

For copy pasting 1 rep)

[gezus]

For copy pasting 1 rep)

Goodness can you guys even read. I made this because if you google for Algalon strats they are few and far between. I just crammed them together so as to actually have somewhat of a guide.

I also stated that FIRST.. BEFORE I wrote anything. AND credited the proper authors.

[Casperx]

You've got 2 vids twice? Anyway, I liked it, I wanted to see this for a long time now ^^ you deserve a rep cookie ^^

[gezus]

You've got 2 vids twice? Anyway, I liked it, I wanted to see this for a long time now ^^ you deserve a rep cookie ^^

Oh my .. musta not been paying attention .. thank you .. and it should be fixed now.

[stangcobra]

very nice guide, assuming my guild gets past mimiron 10 man(1% wipe 3 times yesterday) and past 25man thorim we will use this lol

[gezus]

More Tips and Tricks

Collapsing Stars AOE upon being destroyed and turning into Black Holes. This damage hits the entire raid, which is why they must be killed - they do damage to themselves (hence the name "Collapsing") and without focused dps they will all explode at once and wipe the raid.

At 20%, one Enraged Dark Matter add will spawn out of every Black Hole currently up. This will happen every thirty seconds from that point forward.

Algalon Phase Punches on a 15 second cooldown. This is a massive attack that will phase out the tank after 45 seconds (4 punches). The tank comes back soon after being phased out, but Algalon is free until then, so an offtank is crucial.

The polyhedrons are targetable. They're called Living Constellations. They were not DPS'd at any point in the video. However, when they collide with a Black Hole, they destroy both themselves and the Black Hole, so it is likely that one deliberately kites them into Black Holes to reduce the raid damage.

Also they seem to had Fire Resist Aura all the time, so it looks like Fire Resistance helps reduce the damage caused by the Smash, So I'd recommend to try using buffs that increase fire resistance(GoTW,Aura,Totem)so healers have easier time doing their job.

About Cosmic Smash, it appears to deal damage depending on the distance between the Player and the Red Fissure, as seen on the Resto shammy video, it normally hits him for 3000-4000 fire damage, but at 3:30 he didn't noticed the fissure and moved a bit late, and got hit for 12000 damage, so try to stay as far away from the fissure as you can.

The reason why the MT is left behind to eat the Big Bang is because if he/she goes inside a black hole his/her agro will reset, and that will cause Algalon to randomly target someone in the raid after the Phase Effect.

41.6 million hit points on Heroic, 8.37 million hit points on normal.

Armor doesn't mitigate Big Bang.

[gezus]

Found another great movie of a Algalon kill.

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTcT_xUkjpM[/YT]

[Trubadidudei]

Btw, you're a little misinformed about what ensidia did...

The flowerpower "exploit" was in fact used at Hodir hardmode, which had been buffed (went from 3 min to make the achievement to 2 minutes), after 1 guild already killed hodir hardmode, ensidia came there a little later, facing an encounter that was then mathematically impossible without stacking mages with the so called "flowerpower" buff. Hodirs hardmode was immediatly nerfed again to 3 minutes to complete it after ensidia barely made it (They were at about 2:20 without the flower buff, 1:59.5 with it)

Concerning the more then 1 hour / lockout, i haven't heard of that. Only thing i heard about was a bug that prevented Algalon from resetting, and thus the bridge that leads to his room from respawning. Ensidia managed to circumvent this bug by having Munken disengage out in the void and arcane shot the boss, making him reset the encounter and allowing more tries. However they lost around 20 minutes on this bug, and they were in fact the only guild affected by it, as it was hotfixed before any other guild reached him.

So, i dunno, but i never heard about any exploits other then the flowepower trick, which was more of a clever use of game mechanics then it was an exploit, really.