Throne of the Four Winds
Warlords of Draenor
WoWHead
MMO - Champion
The three Djinn: Anshal, Nezir and Rohash are on separate health pools, unlike most council fights. You will need to kill the last one within 60s of the first one's death, or the dead ones will resurrect with full health. And likely Berserk soon after that.
Each Djinn occupies a different platform. Traveling between the platforms is possible due to the strong winds that connect the north/middle platform with the other two. Note that there is no direct transportation between the east and west platforms.
The Conclave's members have 90 energy each. They regenerate it at a stead rate throughout the fight, and when they hit 90, which happens at the same time for all three of them - they cast their ultimate abilities. While they channel the ultimates, transportation between the platforms is not possible.
You will want to split your raid before engaging the Djinn. Anshal and Nezir will require a tank each. Rohash can be tanked by any DPS. Each platform will require healing as well - you can split your healers evenly. As far as DPS goes, you want no DPS on Nezir (initially), your casters on Anshal, and your melee on Rohash. If you can't split your DPS evenly between Anshal and Rohash, put more on Anshal and swap mid-fight based on casualties.
Your basic goal will be to burn Anshal and Rohash initially, while slowly dpsing Nezir when grouping up for ultimates. Anshal, especially on normal mode, is a breeze compared to dpsing Rohash, so it will most likely pull ahead on DPS at first, later falling behind as it heals during the ultimate. When Nezir is low enough after several ultimate phases, coordinate Anshal and Rohash's deaths, then have the raid hop back to Nezir's platform and blow Heroism, Bloodlust or Time Warp before the minute is up and the Djinns gather strength.
Anshal
Anshal resides on the western platform. His abilities are life and nature based.
Soothing Breeze will cause Anshal to drop a healing circle on the ground. If the Djinn, or the adds he summons - stands in it, he will heal up. If your raid members stay in it, they will be pacified and unable to attack/cast.
Nurture will summon 5 Ravenous Creepers around Anshal. They have an aura that stacks a DoT on all nearby players, so you want to kill those quickly - and preferably from afar. They can be kited and slowed.
Zephyr is Anshal's ultimate. He will teleport to the center of his platform and channel this spell, healing himself and any adds remaining, as well as increasing his and their damage by total of 225% for 15s. Survival CDs immediately after this ultimate are strongly recommended, especially if you have adds still up. A hunter with Aimed Shot during the ultimate is helpful to reduce healing taken.
If, at any time during the fight, Anshal finds himself alone on his platform, he will channel Withering Winds, which will quickly wipe your raid.
Nezir
Nezir resides on the northern - middle - platform. His abilities are frost based.
Nezir will drop an ice patch on top of a random player's location. The patches will do damage and slow you down, so move out of them quickly.
He will also cast Permafrost, which deals damage in a cone in front of him for 3s and leaves an ice patch when he is done. Don't be there unless you are a tank.
Wind Chill is a stacking debuff that causes all players on Nezir's platform to take more and more frost damage.
Sleet Storm is Nezir's ultimate. He will do damage to everyone on his platform, splitting the damage evenly. The raid should group up and healers pop cooldowns.
If, at any time during the fight, Nezir finds himself alone on his platform, he will channel Chilling Winds, which will quickly wipe your raid.
Rohash
Rohash resides on the east platform. His abilities are, wind based.
Slicing Gale is Rohash's standard attack. Since he doesn't melee, he will simply spam this.
Wind Blast will make Rohash face in a random direction, and blast everyone in front of him off the platform. It will take him several seconds to cast Wind Blast, so stay close to the boss and move behind him when you see the preparatory cast begin.
Hurricane is Rohash's ultimate. He will toss all players on his platform in the air, causing them to take damage over the duration of the spell, as well as falling damage at its end.
If, at any time during the fight, Rohash finds himself alone on his platform, he will channel Deafening Winds, which will quickly wipe your raid.
Ultimates
Since this fight is all about coordination, here is an efficient way of dealing with the Djinn's ultimates. When all three members of the Conclave reach 80 energy, you will see an ingame raid warning, informing you that they are nearing full strength. At this point, you want to do the following:
Anshal - tank and healer(s) switch places with tank and healer(s) from Nezir's platform. All DPS goes to Nezir, burns him for the duration of the ultimate, and then goes back to Anshal.
Nezir - tank and healer(s) switch places with tank and healer(s) from Anshal's platform. There should be no DPS on this platform prior to the ultimate, and there should be no DPS here after the ultimate.
Rohash - all DPS goes to Nezir's platform, and comes back after the ultimate. One healer as well as a DPS with defensive cooldowns or slowfall stays to make sure he doesn't channel his Soothing Winds.
The reasoning behind this strategy is simple. Everyone on Nezir's platform will take increasingly more frost damage, so you want to give people a chance to drop their debuff - hence the tank/healer switch. Again, Nezir's ultimate does damage split between all raiders on the north platform, so you want as many people there as possible. And you want to leave one healer on Rohash's platform, because whoever stays there will need healing to survive the ultimate.
Anshal - the Toxic Spores cast by the adds tick for 20k a stack instead of 1k. The most reliable way to handle the toxic spores is to assign a frost Death Knight to kite the adds. They can also be AoE down before each ultimate, but this is riskier.
Nezir - platform remains similar, except the damage taken by the tanks and raid is greatly increased. Ventrilo communication is key to coordinate tank cooldowns, healers resetting debuffs, and raid healing during ultimates.
Rohash - a new ability, Storm Shield absorbs 150k on 10-man, 450k damage on 25-man and does 30k damage per second to everyone on the platform if unbroken. Save DPS cooldowns to nuke down the shield. The first Storm Shield coincides with Wind Blast, so stay extra alert. Slicing Gale also applies a stacking debuff, increasing nature damage taken by 10% per application.
The Al'Akir encounter consists of three phases. The first phase lasts from 100% to 80% of the boss health, the second phase lasts from 80% to 25% of the boss health and the third and final phase begins when the boss reaches 25% health and ends when he is dead.
During the first two phases, you will face Al'Akir on his platform, while in the third phase, Al'Akir will shatter the platform and your raid will gain the ability to fly for the remainder of the encounter.
In the first phase, your raid will be faced with movement and positioning challenges, and the slightest mistake will cause a death and subsequently a wipe. During the second phase, your raid will have to control adds while executing a DPS burn on Al'Akir due to his soft enrage mechanics in this phase. In the third phase, your raid will need, once again, to make use of good movement and reactivity to finish off the boss.
A lot of the damage in this encounter is nature damage, so having either a Hunter or a Shaman for Nature Resistance is crucial, and almost always a prerequisite of completing the encounter.
Phase 1
Lightning Strike is an ability Al'Akir will cast roughly every 10s, though this does vary sometimes. Lightning Strike will damage everyone standing in a 25 yard cone of a random target for a moderate amount of nature damage for each affected target. In other words, the more people located in range of the target of Lightning Strike, the more damage the ability will do to them.
Squall Line is a wall of 7 cyclones which Al'Akir will spawn repeatedly during this phase, approximately once every 40s. The wall spans from the center of the platform, where Al'Akir is located, to the edge of the platform. It will complete a full lap around the platform before disappearing, and anyone touched by it will be picked up and dragged some distance within the cyclones, also taking large amounts of damage and being incapacitated. Shortly before a Squall Line disappears, a new one spawns, so there is a brief period of time when there are two active. However, the Squall Line that is about to disappear loses consistency and no longer causes its negative effects to players.
There is always a gap in the wall, in varying locations, which players must aim to make their way through in order to avoid the mentioned negative effects. Essentially, the gap can be located in the place of any of the 7 cyclones, and as such it can be anywhere from the edge of the platform to right up close to Al'Akir.
There is no fixed spawn location for Squall Lines, although they appear to prefer spawning on either the far right or far left side of where the tank is. Before spawning and dealing damage, there are about 5s when the Squall Line is visible but not yet fully formed, giving players enough time to react accordingly.
Wind Burst is an ability that Al'Akir will repeatedly cast during the first phase, roughly every 25s. It has a 5s cast time, at the end of which Al'Akir will knock everyone on the platform back roughly 30 yards as well as damage them.
Ice Storm is an icy rain which Al'Akir will cast regularly, targeting random areas of his platform. The rain leaves frost on the ground, which slows and damages any players standing there.
Electrocute is an ability Al'Akir will channel into his main aggro target if this target is not in melee range. The spell will deal increasing nature damage to the target (generally the tank), who must return to melee range to prevent it from damaging them further.
The positioning is largely determined by Lightning Strike. In 10-man difficulty, positioning poses fewer problems than it does in 25-man, because of the reduced number of players on the same platform.
As a raid leader, the aim is to position your raid in such a way that as few people as possible are affected by each Lightning Strike. Because it is not feasible to have your raid spread out so much that only one person is ever affected by it, you will need to form groups of players who will then be properly spread out.
Phase 1 of Al'Akir resembles a finely choreographed dance. Your entire raid must be prepared to move in reaction to Squall Line and Wind Burst, while maintaining their assigned positions with great strictness.
Ice Storm is almost entirely avoidable (with one exception) and you should simply aim to move closer or farther away from Al'Akir so as not to be affected by it. Moving sideways is not advised because it will affect your raid's overall positioning for Lightning Strike.
Wind Burst requires that you move close to Al'Akir before the cast is finished to avoid being knocked off the platform. On its own, it poses no real problem, as the cast time is long and boss mods are very accurate in predicting it. Problems arise when Wind Burst is cast shortly before or after a Squall Line reaches your location. This is the cause of most deaths during Phase 1 and one of the main reasons for wiping.
Avoiding the Squall Line provides an additional challenge to the tank, because whenever he is not in melee range of Al'Akir, he will cast Electrocute on him. Ideally, your tank would wait for Wind Burst to begin its cast, so that Al'Akir cannot also cast Electrocute, allowing him to move undamaged, and simply take a few ticks of Electrocute when returning to melee range. Sometimes, this is not possible and your tank will take more damage from Electrocute, and should use defensive cooldowns.
Phase 2
Phase 2 is a rather long phase and is, more than anything else, a DPS and healing check, where proper positioning and reactivity play a much smaller role than before.
Squall Line remains present during this phase and acts exactly as it does during Phase 1, and should indeed be dealt with in the same manner.
Acid Rain is Al'Akir's new ability in this phase. It is a stacking DoT that Al'Akir applies to all raid members every 20s. It deals 500 nature damage per stack, and it constitutes a soft enrage timer for this phase.
In addition to this, Al'Akir will summon adds, called Stormling, which do nature damage in an area around themselves, and on dying apply a stacking debuff to Al'Akir, called Feedback. Feedback increases the damage that Al'Akir takes and is instrumental in bringing him to Phase 3 before the raid becomes unhealable.
The first tasks your raid will have to perform are to DPS down Al'Akir while avoiding Squall Line as before, as well as healing up the raid to counter the damage from Acid Rain. Unfortunately, Al'Akir's health will take too long to reach 25% (unless you severely out-gear the encounter) and your raid will die to excessive stacks of Acid Raid. Because of this, your raid will need to make use of the Feedback debuff.
Stormlings will spawn, roughly once every 20s, all throughout this phase. The location where they are about to spawn is indicated by a pulsing lightning sphere. These adds should be picked up and tanked by your off-tank in 25-man difficulty, or your only tank in 10-man.
Because these adds damage players around them with Stormling, you should aim to have them tanked away from the raid so as to minimize damage. In 10-man, your melee can simply attack Al'Akir from farther away from the tank, while in 25-man, your off-tank should be tanking the adds at a safe distance. Each time a Stormling dies, Al'Akir will gain a stack of Feedback. Feedback increases the damage Al'Akir takes by 10% per stack, and lasts for 30s. Each new stack application resets the duration.
The concept of handling the adds and Feedback is simple. You want to kill a Stormling each time Al'Akir's debuff is about to run out, refreshing its duration and adding another stack, which will result in a very increased DPS to Al'Akir.
Phase 3
Phase 3 is comparable in difficulty to the second phase, but is still arguably easier than the first phase. Al'Akir will destroy the platform on which you had been fighting him up to this point, and all raid members will get the ability to fly thanks to Eye of the Storm.
During this phase, you can fly up and down freely from Al'Akir's head all the way to his feet. In addition to this, you can also move sideways, and back and forward. You can, indeed, move all around Al'Akir's massive body.
There are three limits to the area where you can move:
You cannot move above the level of Al'Akir's head, there is an invisible wall there.
You cannot move below the level of Al'Akir's feet, there is a lightning field which will damage you severely.
You cannot move too far away from Al'Akir as you will be caught in a Relentless Storm which acts much like a Squall Line in that it will incapacitate you and deal damage to you over a short amount of time, dragging you along.
Wind Burst returns in this phase, though it is less problematic than it was during the first phase.
Lightning Clouds is an ability Al'Akir will cast every 15s. It will target a random raid member and place a large cloud covering the entire (horizontal) level where that raid member was located. After 5s, the cloud will begin dealing massive damage to anyone still inside it.
Lightning Rod places a debuff on a random raid member which causes them to deal damage to everyone around them (both vertically and horizontally) until the debuff runs out. Lightning will damage random players and is unavoidable.
The aim of this phase is to place Lightning Clouds correctly so that it does not damage your raid. You should begin the phase by having all of your raid fly up to the highest possible level, at Al'Akir's head. You should have a desginated person marked, to refer to for positioning.
When the first Lightning Clouds is cast, it will inevitably be cast at the level at which everyone is standing. Your entire raid should simply fly down roughly 15 yards to avoid any damage. Proceed like this (ever down) for each new Lightning Clouds.
Whoever is afflicted by Lightning Rod should move horizontally out of the raid and remain there while the debuff persists.
Ocassionally, Al'Akir will knock everyone back through Wind Burst. Because you do not want to stray too far away from Al'Akir and enter the Relentless Storm, you should aim to stay fairly close to his body, and move back in after Wind Burst.
The heroic version of the Al'Akir encounter does not differ much from its normal counterpart. There is a single new ability, and the strategy remains largely the same.
Static Shock is an ability which Al'Akir will use to often interrupt any casters who are in his melee range. He uses this ability during Phases 1 and 2.
In both phases, Static Shock has no effects on melee players, and only concerns casters who are too close to Al'Akir's body. Quite simply, if you are a caster, you should stay at range and this ability will not affect you.
Lightning Strike now persists in the cone area for 30s and deals damage to all units within it, in the same way that the normal mode mechanic does.
Stormling, in addition to dealing damage to all enemies within 10 yards, now also increases their nature damage taken by 25% for 2s. Note that this debuff does not stack, however multiple Stormlings will apply multiple debuffs at the same time.
Feedback duration in heroic mode is only 20s, instead of 30s in normal mode.
Assign one ranged DPS player in 10-man and 2-3 ranged DPS players in 25-man to be responsible for Stormlings and Feedback. It is best to have specific people assigned to this task, rather than having your whole raid contribute, because controlled DPS burns and stops are required, and coordination is much easier this way. If these assigned people are finding that more DPS is needed, they should not hesitate to ask for help.
In order to prevent the debuff wearing off of Al'Akir before it can be refreshed due to lack of Stormlings, you should allow for three Stormlings to spawn before you begin killing them. This way, the approximately 40s you gain will act as a buffer from which you can then use 3-5s for each reapplication of Feedback.
In other words, allow two Stormlings to spawn, and damage one of them down to about 20% health. Once the third Stormling spawns, kill the low hit point Stormling, beginning your Feedback stack applications. From this point on, you will want to kill another Stormling every 15-17s. This way, you are using the time you gave yourself by waiting for two Stormlings to spawn to offset the duration of Feedback in relation to Stormling spawn timers.
Note that, as mentioned, Al'Akir will damage random raid members with Lightning, which will require some additional healing.