Zul'Gurub - Bosses
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Zul'Gurub is filled with a number of bosses, each with their own theme, focusing on one of the many animals roaming the jungles of the instance. Due to ZG's circular layout, there's no predefined order in which the bosses need to be killed; you'll simply want to defeat the first five priests listed below before you can make a run on Hakkar. The final two bosses, Bloodlord Mandokir and Jin'do the Hexxer, are separate encounters, but challenging nonetheless.
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High Priestess Jeklik
The "bat lady" of Zul'Gurub changes shape a few times during this battle, has the ability to heal herself, and also calls in bats that will bomb your group at points during the fight.
High Priest Venoxis
Generally considered the easiest of the six boss fights preceding Hakkar, Venoxis has four snakes for guards, which are usually sheeped or sleeped at the start of the fight and then killed off one at a time. Venoxis hits hard and has a few nasty attacks, including a lethal gas cloud that everyone needs to steer clear of.
High Priestess Mar'li
The "spider" boss is accompanied by waves of spiders throughout this fight, some which start out small but quickly grow in size. Mar'li can lifedrain while in priest form, which needs to be interrupted, and can shapeshift into spider form and web players in place, making it easy for her to tear through the raid.
High Priest Thekal
The "tiger boss" presents an interesting fight in two stages. To start, Thekal is pulled along with two guards, Zealot Zath and Zealot Lor'Khan. Like the Core Hound packs in Molten Core, all three must die at roughly the same time, and then Thekal changes to a larger tiger form, while also summoning waves of tigers for the raid to deal with.
High Priestess Arlokk
The "panther lady" is summoned with a gong in the back of her chamber, and then sends waves and waves of panthers to swarm the party. Arlokk casts a "mark" on a player for all the panthers to attack, and will periodically vanish for a while and then return to the fight.
Hakkar
The main boss of Zul'Gurub, Hakkar awaits at the top of the temple at the center of the instance. He has a life drain ability that can be used to your advantage by killing the Sons of Hakkar that spawn around the temple and using them to poison the raid; Hakkar subsequently takes damage when he attempts to lifedrain the poisoined raid. (It is expected Blizzard will be making changes to this event in a future patch.)
Hakkar drops some fantastic loot, including one "Heart of Hakkar" per kill, which -- like Onyxia's Head -- starts a quest that allows you to choose from one of three trinkets: the Zandalarian Hero Badge (defense trinket), Zandalarian Hero Charm (healing trinket), or Zandalarian Hero Medallion (DPS trinket).
Bloodlord Mandokir
One of the most entertaining fights in Zul'Gurub, the Bloodlord arrives on his raptor mount, which is usually killed first. Mandokir is essentially a warrior with Mortal Strike and a nasty whirlwind attack, and a debuff where he "watches" you -- any player being watched needs to stop attacking ASAP or steal aggro and take a pounding. Should you die, there are ghosts in the area that will battle rez you, but Mandokir also "dings" in level as players die, so you'll see him grow in size (and strength) should you lose too many players.
Jin'do the Hexxer
Arguably the toughest boss in all of Zul'Gurub, Jin'Do's head is the key quest item needed to complete "A Collection of Heads." It's an extremely complicated fight: Jin'Do puts out two different totems that will heal himself or mind control members of your party, and also spawns "Shades of Jin'do" throughout the fight. As if that wasn't enough, Jin'do will occasionally teleport a player into a nearby skeleton pit.
Controlling the shades is a challenge in itself, so it becomes urgent that totems are erased in the quickest manner, or else you'll find 3 or 4 mind-controlled raid members helping Jin'do instead of killing him. |