When the Sha of Fear invaded the Terrace of Endless Spring, three venerated jinyu protectors were corrupted, and they betrayed the other mortal sentinels, slaying them all. The twisted guardians have now turned their attention to any intruders who might interrupt the sha's attack on the area's last defenses.

Make sure, that You have read the Encounter Journal, first!

The Protectors of the Endless encounter is a council-type encounter, during which you will fight three jinyu bosses: Protector Kaolan, Elder Regail and Elder Asani. Theoretically, this is a single phase fight. However, for the purpose of this guide, we will treat it as a three-phase encounter.

Phase 1 starts when the encounter is engaged, at which time your raid will face all three bosses at the same time. While in this state, the bosses use a limited number of abilities. They have individual health pools, and can all be damaged and killed. This phase ends when one of the bosses is killed.

Phase 2 begins when there are only two bosses left alive. This causes the remaining two bosses to be healed to full health. Moreover, they each gain a new ability (which they use in addition to the abilities that they were using up to that point), and their damage is increased by 25% for the remainder of the encounter. This phase ends when one of the remaining two bosses is killed.

Phase 3 begins when there is only one boss left alive. This causes the last remaining boss to once again be healed to full health. He also gains yet another ability, and gains another 25% increase to his damage done.

The order in which you kill the bosses is up to you. This means that there are three different possibilities for Phase 2, and three different possibilities for Phase 3. It will determine the difficulty of the encounter, and possibly the loot that you get when defeating the encounter (killing Protector Kaolan last should yield superior loot).

Phase 1

During this phase, you will have to fight all three bosses at once. The phase ends when one of them is killed.

Touch of Sha - Protector Kaolan - raid-wide damaging DoT that cannot be dispelled and lasts until Kaolan dies.

Lightning Bolt - Elder Regail - interruptible single-target nuke.

Lightning Prison - Elder Regail - dispellable debuff that stuns random targets and damages players within 7 yards of them.

Water Bolt - Elder Asani - interruptible nuke that targets random raid members and deals damage in a 3 yard radius.

Cleansing Waters - Elder Asani - a globe of water that slowly descends at the location of a boss, healing them when it reaches the ground.

The strategy for this phase can be summarised relatively easily.

Have one tank take Protector Kaolan, and the other tank take Elder Regail and Elder Asani.

Attack and kill the desired boss.

Interrupt Water Bolt and Lightning Bolt whenever possible.

Stay spread out to avoid damage splashing from Water Bolt or Lightning Prison.

Dispel players affected by Lightning Prison.

If Elder Asani ever summons a globe of Cleansing Waters at the location of one of the bosses, move that boss away from the orb.

Heal the damage that raid members are taking from Touch of Sha.

Phase 2

When the first boss is killed, the remaining two bosses are healed to full health, and their damage done is permanently increased by 25%. In addition to this, the remaining two bosses gain additional abilities.

Defiled Ground - Protector Kaolan - damaging void zone spawned at the location of a random raid member, which persists until the end of the fight.

Lightning Storm - Elder Regail - ground aoe that affects several areas of the floor in succession, dealing very high damage.

Corrupted Waters - Elder Asani - a globe of that buffs the bosses melee and casting speed by 50% while alive. It can be killed, and doing so buffs raid members within 15 yards with 25% increased melee and casting speed for 20s.

Phase 3

The Phase begins when you have killed one of the two bosses present in Phase 2. The remaining boss will be healed to full health and he will gain another 25% increase to his damage done, until the end of the fight.

Overwhelming Corruption - Elder Asani - Elder Regail - a stacking raid debuff that deals increasing shadow damage, lasting until the end of the fight.

Expel Corruption - Protector Kaolan - orb spawned by Kaolan at his location, which deals aoe damage in a 30 yard radius, and persists until the end of the fight.

Depending on which kill order you are progressing on, your raid will have certain abilities that they do not have to contend with at all.

The most common situation will be getting used to each boss Phase 1 abilities, and with the abilities of Elder Regail and Elder Asani during Phases 2 and 3.

Phase 1 will present you with relatively familiar mechanics, and as long as your raid is spread out and is able to interrupt Lightning Bolt and Water Bolt often, this phase should be easy to comprehend. The exact tuning of the Touch of Sha ability, and your raid's overall healing will determine the difficulty of the phase.

Phase 2 is where things get more complicated, and we believe the main challenge for your raid to overcome will be properly avoiding Lightning Storm. Your raid members will have to become accustomed to where the borders between the affected areas of this ability are, and stand next to them, which makes avoiding the damage quite trivial.

Phase 3 abilities, as well as Kaolan's Touch of Sha (should he be kept alive for longer) are simply throughput-checking mechanics, where there is not much to learn.

Legends speak of a spiraling, golden serpent that can sometimes be seen high in the sky, basking in the sunlight above the clouds. The few who claim to have observed it themselves say the creature is fiercely protective of the terrace.

Make sure, that You have read the Encounter Journal, first!

The encounter against Tsulong is a two-phase fight. The two phases, called the Night Phase and the Day Phase, alternate throughout the encounter, on a fixed timer.

During the Night Phase, Tsulong is hostile, and your raid must dps him, while dealing with several of his abilities.

During the Day Phase, Tsulong is friendly, and your raid must heal him, while protecting him from various types of adds.

In order to defeat Tsulong, you must either bring him to zero health during a Night Phase, or to full health during a Day Phase. Tsulong's health is reversed each time a phase change occurs, so that the amount of health that is missing from Tsulong's health in the Night Phase becomes the amount of health he has during the Day Phase. For example, if you dps Tsulong down to 80% health in the first Night Phase, when he enters the Day Phase, he will have 20% health. If you then heal a further 20% of his health during this phase (bringing him up to 40% health), he will have 60% health when entering the Night Phase.

When first engaged, Tsulong will be in the Night Phase, and every 2m after that he will switch between phases. He has an energy bar that slowly fills up over time, and a phase transition occurs each time the bar is full. However, since the boss always gains energy at the same rate, and does not use his energy for anything, this has no implications for your raid and it is merely a means to tell how close the next transition is.

Night Phase

The Night Phase is the first phase that Tsulong will be in. The phase lasts for exactly 120s, after which time he enters the Day Phase.

Shadow Breath is a frontal cone breath attack that deals a high amount of shadow damage and applies a stacking debuff to the affected targets, which increases shadow damage taken by 100% for 30s, per stack. This ability forces the use of two tanks.

Dread Shadows is a stacking debuff that Tsulong applies to all raid members every 2s. Each application deals a moderate amount of shadow damage, and increases the damage that the players take from Dread Shadows by 10%.

To counter-act the Dread Shadows debuff, Tsulong regularly creates a Sunbeam at a random location within the inner circle marked on the floor. This is a large beam of light that removes the Dread Shadows debuff from any player who moves into it. However, each second that a player stays in the Sunbeam, its radius becomes smaller, until it eventually disappears.

Nightmares is a spell that Tsulong regularly casts at the location of a random player. It deals a large amount of shadow damage to all players within 8 yards of the point of impact, and also fears them for 3s. The fear effect can be dispelled. This ability does not appear to target melee players.

Have Tsulong tanked facing away from the raid, and perform a tank-switch for every one of Tsulong's Shadow Breaths. Make sure that the tank currently not tanking Tsulong is not in front of him.

Have the ranged dps and healers spread out at least 8 yards apart, to minimise the damage and fears caused by Nightmares. Dispel players affected by the fears immediately.

Make sure that everyone regularly resets their stacks of Dread Shadows by walking into the Sunbeams.

Attack Tsulong.

Day Phase

2m after the start of the Night Phase, the Day Phase will begin. This phase lats for exactly 2m, after which time the Night Phase will once again begin.

During the Day Phase, Tsulong is friendly to your raid.

Sun Breath is a frontal cone breath attack that Tsulong regularly casts. It deals a very high amount of damage to any adds it hits. If it hits any raid members, it buffs them with Bathed in Light.

Bathed in Light instantly restores 25% of the player's maximum mana, and increases their healing done by 500% for 6s.

Three types of adds are present during this phase.

Embodied Terrors are large adds spawned by Tsulong. They place a dispellable debuff called Terrorize on random raid members and on Tsulong himself.

When cast on players, Terrorize damages the player for 20% of their current health each second for 10s.

When cast on Tsulong, Terrorize damages him for 2% of his total health every 2s for 10s.

Fright Spawns are small adds that are created when an Embodied Terror is killed. Each Embodied Terror produces 5 Fright Spawns upon death. These small adds often cast Fright in a cone in front of them, dealing a high amount of damage and fearing all affected players.

Untable Shas are adds that spawn around the room, and move towards Tsulong. If they reach him, they deal a very high amount of damage to him through Instability, and they disappear. While traveling towards Tsulong, they also cast Unstable Bolt at a random raid member, dealing a high amount of damage, but losing 15% of their own health in the process.

Keep in mind that if there are any adds alive when the Day Phase ends, they will not despawn when the Night Phase begins. Your raid will have to kill them. Any Unstable Shas that reach the boss during the Night Phase will heal him instead of damaging him.

Have your healers always stand in front of Tsulong, so as to benefit from Bathed in Light as often as possible.

Heal Tsulong.

Make sure that the Embodied Terrors and the Fright Spawns are tanked in front of Tsulong whenever possible, so that he damages them with his breath.

Make sure that the Fright Spawns are always facing away from the raid.

Your tanks and dps players only concern during this phase is to kill the adds. This is extremely important, not only for your raid's survival, but also because it reduces the damage that Tsulong takes.

Whenever an Embodied Terror spawns, the tank should pick it up and move it in front of Tsulong. Your raid should kill it, ideally with a few seconds to spare before Tsulong uses his breath attack. If done correctly, this will cause all the Fight Spawns to be instantly killed by the breath attack. If your raid is too slow in killing the Embodied Terror, Tsulong's breath will miss the adds, and your raid will have to kill them, which is going to be quite disruptive due to their fears. The boss mod timers for Tsulong's breath are accurate, and the timing of the Embodied Terror spawns is fixed, meaning that you can train your raid's dps to kill the Embodied Terrors in time for each wave of Fright Spawns to be killed by the breath.

Untable Sha adds are the top priority, since they must be killed before they reach Tsulong, or else they deal a massive amount of damage to him. These adds cannot be tanked, but you can stun, slow and knock them back. Death Knights can use Death Grip and Gorefiend's Grasp against them as well.

Only one tank is needed for this phase, since there is a long time between Embodied Terror spawns.

For countless years, this friendly water spirit frolicked in the Fountains of Endless Spring with childlike wonder and glee. When fighting suddenly broke out in this peaceful place, Lei Shi saw the crystal-clear water turn cloudy and murky, and terror fell over her mind.

Make sure, that You have read the Encounter Journal, first!

The encounter against Lei Shi is a single-phase fight. The fight requires two tanks, who must alternate tanking the boss. As the fight goes on, Lei Shi's casting speed progressively increases, resulting in more and more tank damage.

When Lei Shi reaches 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% health, she summons several adds, and goes immune until at least one add has been killed.

Additionally, she sometimes disappears and must be damaged through aoe attacks in order to return.

Finally, a few times during the fight, Lei Shi will channel a sort of wind that pushes all players away from her and damages them. Players will have to move against the current and damage Lei Shi in order for the effect to break.

Lei Shi does not perform melee attacks. Instead, she constantly spams Spray at her current target. This deals a large amount of frost damage to that player and all players within 2.5 yards, and adds a stacking debuff to all affected players, which increases frost damage taken by 16% per stack, for 10s.

Afraid is a buff that Lei Shi gains a stack of each time she loses 10% of her maximum health. For each stack, Lei Shi's casting speed is increased by 8% for the remainder of the encounter. This results in much faster (and thus more frequent) casts of Spray.

When Lei Shi reaches 80%, 60, 40% and 20% health, she shields herself (becoming immune to all damage), and spawns several Elemental adds called Animated Protectors. These adds have normal threatles, and have no abilities. Their melee attacks are extremely damaging, but they are susceptible to crowd-control. Lei Shi will remain shielded until one of the Animated Protectors is killed, at which point her shield will vanish, and all remaining Animated Protectors will despawn. For the first two Protect casts (at 80% and 60% health), Lei Shi summons 3 adds, while on the final two Protect casts, she summons 4.

Hide is an ability that Lei Shi sometimes casts. She goes invisible, and cannot be targeted. Lei Shi will continue to cast Spray (at random raid members, this time, rather than at the tank) while in this state. The only way to force Lei Shi to become visible again is to deal a certain amount of damage to her. While she is not visible, if a player is close enough to Lei Shi's location, they can see certain indicators of her whereabouts (clouds, sparks, etc.). Players then have to spam aoe abilities in this location.

Get Away! is an ability that Lei Shi sometimes casts. She teleports to the center of the platform, and begins channeling a spell for 30s. This spell pushes all players away from Lei Shi, dealing a large amount of shadow damage to them every second. Players who run towards Lei Shi (so, against the current) only take half the damage. Lei Shi can be forced to stop this channel prematurely by dealing 4% of her maximum health in damage to her.

The strategy for defeating Lei Shi can be summarised as follows.

Have the two tanks alternate tanking her, in order for the debuff applied by Spray not to stack too high.

When Lei Shi casts Hide, distribute your dps players evenly on the platform, so that you can quickly find Lei Shi and break her out of invisibility.

When Lei Shi casts Get Away!, run in towards her and deal as much damage as you can through instant casts, in order to force her to stop the channel.

When Lei Shi casts Protect, focus down one of the Animated Protectors. When one Protector is killed, the others will simply despawn. The other Protectors should be crowd-controlled or tanked.

Your raid should form a triangle, where one corner is your main tank, one is your off-tank, and the other is the rest of your raid, with Lei Shi located in the center. This will allow the two tanks to taunt Lei Shi off of each other without risking having both of them affected by the same Spray. The raid can stack safely together, since there are no abilities (other than Spray) that deal damage in an area.

One of the more delicate parts of the encounter is when Lei Shi casts Protect. Even while Lei Shi is shielded, she will continue to spam Spray at her main target. Additionally, the Animated Protectors deal very high melee damage.

You will want to have a tank switch right before the protectors reach the raid (you have a few seconds of warning thanks to their spawning animation), in order to allow as much time as possible to kill the Animated Protectors. This is because, once your off-tank picks them up, it will be very difficult to perform a tank-switch between your tanks, and the damage of tanking both Lei Shi and the adds at the same time is too great for a single tank.

Therefore, your aim is to have the Protectors killed before a new tank switch is required.

We remind you that only one Protector needs to be killed for Lei Shi's immunity to break, and that when one Protector dies, the others immediately despawn. Therefore, there is absolutely no benefit in aoeing the Protectors (they do not share health pools), and you should focus on killing one of them.

You have to crowd-control the Animated Protectors (spells like Bind Elemental work well) you are not killing, since this will reduce the damage your tank takes, and it will make this part of the fight easier.

Get Away! is another difficult mechanic to deal with. The damage that the wind current deals to your raid is very high if you are standing still. Therefore, all raid members must be moving forward, towards Lei Shi. However, while moving forward, you cannot cast any abilities with a cast time, which greatly reduces your raid's dps and healing.

Your raid should use cooldowns at this time, both defensive (Devotion Aura and Rallying Cry are excellent) and offensive, in order to survive more easily.

Your goal is to damage Lei Shi for 4% of her maximum health as quickly as possible, in order to break the effect.

The Sha of Fear is the physical manifestation of terror in Pandaria. Imprisoned by the legendary pandaren emperor Shaohao long ago, the entity has been newly strengthened by rising conflict across the island.

Make sure, that You have read the Encounter Journal, first!

The fight against the Sha of Fear is a very long single-phase encounter. The Sha of Fear will use a variety of abilities against your raid, as well as summon adds, throughout the course of the fight.

You will fight the Sha of Fear on a large round platform, where he will remain stationary for the duration of the fight. Adjacent to this main platform, there are three other small platforms.

On the main platform, the raid will need to avoid a number of abilities from the Sha of Fear and often take cover in a safe zone that the tank will create by properly positioning themselves.

At regular intervals throughout the fight, 5 random raid members (always 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 dps players) will be sent to one of the adjacent platforms. A hostile Pandaren NPC will spawn and the group will have to defeat it. This NPC uses a number of abilities. When the NPC dies, the raid members can (and should) return to the main platform.

The difficulty of the fight is constant from start to finish. In addition to the hard enrage timer, the group of players who is sent away to fight the Terrace Guardian will have to make sure that they defeat him before the Sha of Fear sends another group of players away. This is because if both tanks are sent away from the Sha of Fear, the raid will wipe.

On the main platform, in addition to attacking the Sha of Fear, the raid will have to make good use of the Wall of Light, a safe zone activated by the tank being standing in the right place, and deal with adds that the Sha of Fear spawn at random places on the platform.

On the main platform, you will notice a circle of light on the floor. This is where the tank who is currently tanking the Sha of Fear must always stand. Doing so creates a very obvious V-shaped safe zone, called the Wall of Light, behind the tank. Players who stand within the Wall of Light take 10% less damage from all sources, and are immune to Breath of Fear, one of the boss most damaging attacks.

Healers can remain within the safe zone for the entire fight. Ranged dps will sometimes have to exit the safe zone to deal with adds spawning on the platform. Melee dps will spend most of the fight behind the boss (so outside the safe zone) and they will occasionally move to deal with the adds that spawn on the platform or to take cover within the safe for Breath of Fear.

The Sha of Fear makes use of several abilities. In addition to this, the boss has an Energy bar that slowly fills up to maximum capacity over a period of 30s, independently of any factors. When the boss reaches maximum Energy, he uses his Breath of Fear attack, and his Energy resets.

Thrash is a buff that the boss gains after every 3 melee attacks that he makes, which causes him to attack 3 times instead of just once on the fourth attack.

Eerie Skull is a spell that the boss essentially spams at the raid. It deals a high amount of shadow damage to a random raid member, and anyone else within 2 yards of their location.

Breath of Fear is a spell that the boss casts every 30s, whenever his Energy bar fills up. This deals a massive amount of shadow damage to anyone on the platform who is not within the Wall of Light, fearing them for 5s.

Ominous Cackle is the spell that the boss uses to send a group of 5 random raid members to an adjacent platform, where they must defeat a corrupted Terrace Guardian. The Sha of Fear casts this spell roughly every 90s in 10 man, and every 45s in 25 man.

Players who defeat a Terrace Guardian and are returned to the main platform benefit from a buff called Fearless for 30s. This increases their damage, healing, and movement speed, and makes them immune to the boss Breath of Fear ability.

Throughout the fight, the Sha of Fear summons adds called Terror Spawns, in random locations on the main platform (but never within the Wall of Light).

The Terror Spawns constantly spam Penetrating Bolt while they are alive, which deals a large amount of shadow damage in a 3 yard radius at the location of a random raid member, also stacking a debuff on affected players, which increases shadow damage taken by 10% per stack, for 15s. The point of impact of the Penetrating Bolts is clearly indicated by a graphical effect, so avoiding them is entirely possible (it works like most Shadow Crash mechanics).

The Terror Spawns are shielded in such a way that they cannot be damaged if attacked from the front.

Reaching Attack is a spell that the Sha of Fear casts if no targets are within his melee range. It deals a large amount of shadow damage to players, and stacks a debuff on them that increases shadow damage taken by 25% per stack.

The strategy for the main platform is relatively simple.

One of the tanks should always be in the circle of light, in order to form the Wall of Light zone.

Your entire raid should be within the V-shaped safe zone provided by the Wall of Light. The only exception is for melee players who can stand behind the boss and run inside the Wall of Light whenever Breath of Fear is coming up. Your raid members should be spread out to minimise the damage taken from Eerie Skull.

Have dps players venture out of the Wall of Light and kill as many Terror Spawns as possible, by attacking them from behind. These players must always be sure to return to the Wall of Light before the boss casts Breath of Fear.

Everyone will need to move (mostly side-stepping) to avoid taking damage from the Penetrating Bolts cast by Terror Spawns.

Damage the Sha of Fear.

Whenever the boss casts Ominous Cackle (every 90s in 10 man, and every 45s in 25 man), a group of 5 randomly chosen raid members will be sent to a platform adjacent to the main platform, where they will fight a Terrace Guardian. This group of players will always have the composition of 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 dps players. Even though the players are randomly chosen, it seems that the game splits the raid into groups, and always sends the same group configurations to the platforms throughout the fight. The only time we have noticed a change is when a player is dead, in which case a new player will be chosen to fill their place.

All 3 adjacent platforms will present the same challenge to your raid. The Terrace Guardian to defeat has the same abilities on all platforms, although its name will slightly change depending on the platform the group is teleported to. The Terrace Guardian of a platform always respawns after being defeated.

Each platform is round and of relatively small size. Around the edges of the platform, there are many pillars, behind which players can move in order to line of sight the Terrace Guardian (who is stationary, in the center of the platform).

As we have previously mentioned, whenever a group of players defeats a Terrace Guardian, they can return to the main platform by clicking a golden globe that appears near the dead Terrace Guardian. Killing the Terrace Guardian buffs the raid members with the Fearless buff, which increases damage and healing done by 60%, movement speed by 60%, and renders the players immune to Breath of Fear for 30s.

Players who are sent to the platform of a Terrace Guardian have a few simple tasks to perform.

Make sure that all the Sha Globes are picked up promptly by group members.

Dispel players affected by fears from Dread Spray, and heal the damage that Dread Spray does.

Hide behind the pillars of the platform when the Terrace Guardian casts Death Blossom. The tank should remain out, and continue collecting Sha Globes.

Attack the Terrace Guardian.

While the directions in which the Terrace Guardian fires the volleys of Dread Spray will appear random at first, this is not so, and it follows a very specific pattern. This means that it is possible to avoid being hit by any of the volleys, by memorizing the patterns and positioning yourself properly.