U10: Yogg+1

This guide, focusing on the Yogg +1 hardmode, will assume that your guild knows the basics of killing Yogg with all four keepers up. If you don't know those basics, I have a lovely little comic about them: here!

• Raid Makeup
• Video
• P1
• P2
• P3
  

One Light in the Darkness

This achievement is earned by only sending down one of the four available Keepers; the lack of buffs from the remaining three makes the fight quite a bit more difficult. It is required for the Glory of the Ulduar Raider achievement and, subsequently, the Rusted Protodrake (Russet Potatodrake?). The one Keeper you have is entirely your choice, but there are pros and cons to each:

• Freya provides a way to restore sanity (as well as a buff).
• Thorim is the only way you can kill adds in P3 (as well as a buff).
• Mimiron debuffs the crusher and corrupter tentacles, making them slower to cast and attack (as well as a buff)
• Hodir will ice-block players to save them from something that would otherwise have killed them (as well as a buff)

Vortex chose to go with Thorim, allowing us to run with only 1 tank and thus maximize our dps, as well as cut down on tank deaths and the confusion of possibly having too many adds up at once and having difficulty targeting among them. This means we gave up the buffs and raid-saving abilities of the other 3 Keepers: there was no saving grace of ice blocks, crushers/corrupters were going haywire, and sanity was a very, very precious thing!

---

Raid Makeup

On our first Yogg+1 kill, Vortex used:

• Prot Pally
• Fury Warrior
• Kitty Druid
• DK (frost dualwield)
• Affliction Warlock
• Fire Mage
• Elemental Shaman
• Survival Hunter
• Holy Priest
• Resto Druid

You will note a slightly different color scheme than I use for my other guides, because I am splitting the DPS according to their P2 assignments: the purple (mostly melee) were our Brain Team, while the pink (ranged) were the Topside Team along with the healers and the tank. There are only 4 portals available in the ten-man version of Yogg, so your brain team can only be a maximum of 4 players.

For totem and group-heal effectiveness, cluster your Brain Team members together in one party (perhaps with the tank as well), and your Topside Team in another party. This is especially important if you have a shaman, as their cleansing totem will only cleanse members of their party.

Make sure your raid has someone available to cleanse each type of debuff: poison (druids, shaman, pallies), curse (druids/mages/restoshaman), magic (priests/pallies/felhunters), and disease (priests/pallies/shaman).

---

Video

Due to the length, it had to be cut into two parts on Youtube.

Phase 2 Transition @ 2:55
Dragon-room Portal @ 4:01
Square-room Portal @ 5:32

---

Phase 1: Frogger Doom

As with normal mode, don't touch the clouds (video of cloud movement pattern). This is pretty simple and repetitive and gets downright boring after a long night of wipes, but a simple mistake or bad luck can still wipe you in this phase!


Lacking Mimiron's 20% movement speed buff, your raid will have to be more pro-active in dodging clouds. The ranged DPS and healers should try to stick together, as the dots do stack and are boosted by Sara's Fervor. Healers should add the Debuffs to your raid frames (Grid directions can be found here) of Sara's Blessing and Sara's Anger; boss mods such as DBM and Bigwigs will call out the third debuff Sara's Fervor over raid chat.

Resto Druids: toss out a rejuv and a regrowth on those afflicted by DoTs to help buffer them against the damage. I recommend keeping rejuvs up on the entire melee team as well, and using Wild Growth to heal them up after explosions.

Melee and the tank should stay in the middle of the green puddle around Sara, shifting as necessary to avoid the clouds. The tank will need to taunt the adds as they spawn to keep them off of healers, who will assuredly pick up first aggro. Melee DPS should have the HP to survive the explosion each time an add dies, though the melee should join the ranged players when they get Sara's Fervor placed upon them, as the damage boost will assuredly spell their death on an explosion (many wipes may be caused by a very unlucky timing of an explosion right as a melee gets marked by fervor!). The tank should be able to easily survive an explosion when marked by Fervor, though will of course be taking heavier damage.

Assign a specific player to also have the job of interrupting the adds' casts of Dark Volley. This needs to be a very vocal person who is not afraid to call out for help if they think they will miss an interrupt. If it is a melee player, make sure someone else takes over the interrupts whenever they must leave melee because of the Fervor debuff.

Once Sara has been angered by the constant explosions on her, toss her a kiss if you haven't before and move to "Clean Up:" if there are any other adds up, the tank should move them out of the center of the circle where Yogg is about to spawn, and ranged should group up nearby and continue killing the add. All ranged need to pay attention to where they are in relation to the add to make sure they don't kill themselves when it explodes!

---

Phase 2: The Hard Part

You know the tentacles: Crushers to be tanked by the tank (and everyone else to stay away from), Constrictors to be DPSed immediately to rescue whoever's being Squeezed, and the Corrupters that keep debuffing the raid. Designate a leader for the Brain Team and a leader for the Topside Team (that is not the tank): these are the players their team will follow when there's any doubt of where to go. The tank, meanwhile, makes it a priority to get to the Crusher tentacle ASAP. Since the tank could leave Topside team behind due to constrictor tentacles, another distinguishable player should be the one the Topside team will group up on and follow. We found it easiest to say "follow the tree." The leader then just makes an effort to reach the tank and crusher as quickly as possible while calling out for constrictors, as necessary. Boss mods will likely wipe any raid icons you attempt to use.

If you have opted for Thorim over Freya, Sanity becomes a commodity that must be protected. If there is anyone near you that is feared, move away from them, because the fear and resulting sanity loss will jump from them to you when their fear ends! Avoid these chain fears as much as possible.

-- Topside team priority:

1. Avoid Green Beams
2. Keep the Mind-Links "happy"
   
3. Move away from any raid member who is feared
   
4. Kill Constrictors
5. Kill Crushers
6. Kill Corrupters

Healers have the messy job of keeping them all cleansed and healed; any shaman in this team should keep a cleansing totem down with the group and move it around as necessary. Healers should also add the Squeeze debuff to their raid frames so that they have a quick and easy way to tell who in their party is taking that damage.

The tank will chase after Crushers, possibly leaving the rest behind as they deal with Constrictors, which is why a non-tank leader should be set in this group, to prevent the team from splitting up and going around opposite sides of Yogg to meet at the tank (which runs a high risk of loosing a member to a constrictor when they're far away from the rest of the team). The group needs to keep a careful balance of sticking together (cleanses, constrictor rescue, heals, mind links) and spreading out (watching for green beams, not chaining fears/Malady).

Whenever Yogg is about to finish casting Induce Madness (and thus the Brain Team will be evacuating), the Topside team leader should call out their location in the room relative to Yogg's Mouth, in order to facilitate the Brain Team regrouping with the Topside team for heals, cleanses, and mind links.


-- Brain team priority:

1. Not Going Insane
2. Avoid Green Beams
3. Reaching Portals
4. Move away from feared/maladied raid members
   
5. Keeping Mind-Links "Happy" (these will break when reaching Portals)
   
6. Killing the Illusions
7. DPSing the mind
8. Killing Constrictors
9. Killing Corrupters

These raiders have the toughest job in this fight, and failing their number 1 priority is what will often spell the doom of the raid. It will be useful to have cleansers/an off-healer in this team, such as a ret pally, enhancement shaman, or feral druid, who can cleanse and heal their team members within the Mind when they're near death. You will want to avoid having more than 3 brain phases, so these will need to be strong DPSers, and your entire brain team needs to be very vocal with each other when coordinating portal assignments and killing illusions.

When getting to a portal, if any of the Brain Team is affected by a Mind Link or Constrictor or other effect that may hold them back, they need to call out that they "Need a Near Portal" to let the others of their team know to leave them a portal up that they can reach quickly when they are free. It can help for these players to also be assigned to a specific portal, that they will station themselves near when the portals are about to spawn; just be ready to switch portals if a member is unable to get into position due to fears or links or constrictors. Mind Links will break when entering a portal.

Once in the portal, any of 3 room layouts may spawn. There are some good pics at this link :)

Your Brain Team will need to pre-arrange which direction each member will go to kill illusions. If any member is having difficulty with low health or low sanity and cannot finish clearing their side of the room, they will need to call out for assistance to ensure that the whole team can quickly clear the room and reach the brain.

Once all of the illusions are destroyed, the tentacles on the topside will freeze, allowing your topside team to more easily dispatch them while the Brain Team works on Yogg himself. At 30%, Yogg will transition to phase 3, however the Brain Team will need to portal out of the Mind before he finishes casting Induce Madness. Any who are caught in the mind when this is finished casting will immediately go insane and must be killed by the other raid members.

If you go insane, call it out quickly and ask to be destroyed, or else you may wipe the raid. Insane players will still be insane if they res after dieing, including Soulstones, Ankhs, and Battle Resses. If you went insane and got killed, just stay down!

The topside leader should be calling out where the topside team is when the Brain team exits; the Brain team should make their way quickly to regroup with the team in order to get any needed heals or cleanses, and to ensure bad things don't happen with mind links; however, if a member of their group is constricted, they will need to break him out quickly and not leave him behind! Once regrouped and healed, the Brain Team will take out any lingering corrupters while waiting for the next portals to spawn, and should stick together to rescue each other from constrictors.

---

Phase 3: More Adds

When the Brain Team is about to transition Yogg to Phase 3 (at 30%), they will need to call out a warning, and possibly hold off DPS until the Topside team has killed all crushers and have corrupters under control (use your best judgment, raid leaders!). Try to avoid going for more than 3 rounds in the brain room, however; the Brain Team may be forced to push past 30% before Induce Madness finishes casting, even if a Crusher is still up.

When Yogg transitions, the tank should immediately begin picking up the adds as they spawn, because they can and will one-shot healers. These are not the fluffy C'thulu bunnies of phase 1. All DPS assigned to Yogg will need to move to destroying any remaining tentacles, while those assigned to DPS adds need to reach the tank and begin DPS immediately. The healers should work their way towards the door to the room while the tank moves to place herself between Yogg and the healers, in order to provide as much time as possible to pick up the adds before the reach and one-shot a healer.



At this point, your raid's sanity will be very bumpy, with some members nearing insanity if you chose to not have Freya and her Sanity Wells as your Keeper (like we did). Healers can permanently face themselves away from Yogg, though the DPS and tank will need to be monitoring the cooldown and casting of Lunatic Gaze. I recommend having one person constantly watching the cooldown and calling out when the raid needs to turn its backs; provided you are no where near Yogg's enrage timer, it is preferable to loose some DPS time on Yogg over having a raider go insane.

Add DPS: if you are low on sanity, it is possible to situate yourself so that your back is permanently to Yogg and his skulls, allowing you to continue dpsing on the adds throughout the Lunatic Gaze. This has the downside of placing yourself where the adds spawn as opposed to behind the safteyline of the tank, but it has the bonus of being able to ignore the dps-halt of turning away from Yogg. Your goal is to dps down the adds as quickly as possible WITHOUT pulling threat off of the tank, and interrupt the Drain Life! Thorim himself will kill the adds with a hammer when they are down to 1%, if you have kept Thorim as your Keeper. We had the following players on adds:

• Prot Pally Tank
  
• DK (frost dualwield)
• Mage
• Fury Warrior
  
• Ele Shaman
  

Yogg DPS: after ensuring that all remaining tentacles are dead, your only concern is to kill Yogg as fast as possible without going insane, and to turn away from Yogg every time he casts Lunatic Gaze. If you are dpsing from the backside of Yogg, you will not be in range of the healers, so be ready to move to the front of Yogg if you are in need of healing. We had the following players on Yogg:

• Kitty Druid
• Warlock
• Hunter

Your two healers should be capable of keeping up the tank without too many mana concerns, provided your add DPS is able to balance their threat with their damage and not pull aggro nor let the tank take too many heavy hits. Healers can rotate their cameras to watch when adds are coming in, so that they can time larger heals to coincide with the tank picking up a fresh add who is at high health (and thus will be hitting hard). The healers will be the primary aggro on the adds as they spawn if HoTs are kept running and heals are pouring out constantly, which is why they place themselves up near the door where the adds will take longer to reach them.



Walk it down and avoid going insane from the Lunatic Gaze, and you've got yourself an achievement with a single Light in the Darkness :)