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Comment by gelean

The Shade of Medivh's dead father, Nielas Aran.

Comment by 17503

Strat can be found here
http://www.wowwiki.com/Shade_of_Aran

Comment by 22924

A warlock is the main thing you'll want for this boss. 2 and its complete easy mode (Since they can banish and fear the adds).

Comment by 24285

This fight is fairly simple as long as you don't have dumb luck. Aran has 3 spells he cast consistantly: Fireball, Ice bolt, and Arcane missle. Your best bet is to interuppt as many fireballs and ice bolts thay you can, because he, sometiems due to dumb luck, will double target someone and 2 shot them. The fireball hits for around 5k and the icebolt around tht or a little less. So healers make sure everyone in the raid is topped off as much as you can. The arcane missiles arn't that big of a deal, they hit for around 1500-1700 each bolt, this should be easy to heal through.

Anyways, the point of this fight is to DPS him til he is at about 45%, then let him spend his mana, but MAKE sure you are healing through the spells and if he targets someone low to interupt him. Because when he gets low on mana he will do a AOE poly and then drink, after that he will AOE pyroblast everyone for about 6-8k. So have a health pot and a healthstone on cool down if you can. After that DPS him down until the 4 frost elementals spawn. These elementals are up for 90sec, just make sure everyone stays alive. After they despawn, it is a total DPS fest.

Now for the hard elements of this fight.
He casts 2 big spells: Flame wreath, and a Blizzard.
The Blizzard is just like a mage's, yet it starts at one side of the room and moves around counter-clockwise until it is back where it started. A single shard where fall where it is going to start, move fast cause it hits for about 1500 each tick.

The Flame wreath is a pain, but just the opposite of the blizzard. When you hear him yell, EVERYONE STOP MOVING. This spell targets people in the raid and casts a circle around them. The area in the cicle has a debuff that if someone losses or gains this debuff it will kill your raid or bring all health very very low. So, Paladins, your Divine Sheild will make you immune to the debuff. so if you see him start to cast it and your sheild is up, CLICK IT OFF, and if your in the circle do not pop your bubble.

Comment by 5326

Word of advice.. don't Divine Shield, Ice Block, Blink, Cloak of Shadows out of the Flame Wreath. It just makes it blow up.

Comment by Tetris

The only spell that has given us trouble in the past is Blizzard, it is very hard to get out of that spell since it slows your movement speed. If you get 2 people or more in it, your healers will burn through their mana. If you have a paladin have them Blessing of Freedom any healers stuck in a Blizzard, that will help them move out much faster. Flame Wreath and Blizzard at the same time will require alot of healing. I would suggest that keep a good amount of distance between you and the Blizzard just in case you do get a Flame Wreath combo. We used a shaman, rogue and mage and had a specific school of magic assigned to them for interrupting.

Aran will also do a short range AoE counterspell and a dragons breath. There have been several times when he would dragons breath the melee and then run into a few casters and counterspell. The counterspell puts that school of magic on a very long cooldown, I believe it was 10 seconds. If your main source of damage is spells stay away from him.

Every once in a while he will do a mass summon to him and slow everyone then start casting a 10second Arcane Explosion that will kill anyone that gets hit by it. Have your priest and paladin dispelling anyone that looks like they won't make it out. Also use that time while he is casting Arcane Explosion to bandage up once you are out of its range, that saves healer mana quite a bit.

Comment by greengoo

Directly beneath Aran's door is a secret platform that contains several books you can pick up. Each one of these books grants a special power for 1 hour:

Torment of the Worgen
- Grants chance to do additional shadow damage on ranged or melee attacks.

Wrath of the Titans
- Grants your harmful spells a chance to deal additional damage.

Redemption of the Fallen
- Grants your healing spells the chacne to summon a ghostly ally. (does aoe heals for 1:15)

Legacy of the Mountain King
- Increases your armor and resistance to magic when struck in combat.

These books each help someone in your party, and more are scattered all across the library. However, this secret Cache of books is exceptionally helpful. Happy easy mode!

Comment by greengoo

Also, as of 3/6/07, using Cloak of Shadows, Ice Block and Divine shield will no longer trigger the circle of flame aoe damage. Nor will pets crossing the flames.

-greengoo

Comment by 12770

Since flame wrath no longer triggers pets either, having a hunter using Snake Trap is extremely useful for soaking hits.

Comment by 32074

I just want to confirm... does silencing shot work on Aran? If so, does it stop him from casting ANYTHING for the duration or what?

Comment by mikem

silencing shot DOESNT work on aran!
i know it suckes and quite wheird...

are more guilds stopping DPS at 50% ? or just go on and he mass poly's you at about 20% ??

Comment by 35231

I dunno fight seems pretty easy to me. Prot warrior tanked until this fight and I tanked this fight as a druid. Prot warrior 2 rogues and ele shaman were the interrupt team. Every chance the mage had he counterspelled and this forced him to go to his hate table and he'd start wacking on me. Prot warrior had problems building rage to actually build threat to keep him but myself the druid didn't.

Sad thing is that was my first time and I didn't know you were suppose to back out when he summoned you. Took two 9k arcane blast.

Pretty easy fight to me just run around stay out of the blizzard don't move during flame wreath and keep all interrupts going. We did it with 3 spells getting through and without him aoe polymorphing or doing that big thing everyone says he does after he sheeps.

Comment by 32420

Anyone know whether mind-numbing poison works on aran?

Comment by SilverKnight

Shade of Aran is one of the more complex and varied fights in Karazhan. He has multiple abilities, all of them magical, that he switches through, aggroing random targets. He's pretty dangerous, and the raid needs to be alert so they react correctly at all times. A single wrong move can literally wipe the raid on this one.

All abilities and how to counter them explained in http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?action=view_guide&guide_id=30

Comment by 13098

I was one of two Warlocks during this encounter. It's possible to do without us, but not recommended unless you have some serious DPS (3-5 Mages, 3-5 Shammy's, Awesome Healers).

'Locks want to keep spamming DoT's and burn him down as quickly as possible. At 40% he summons 4 Elite Water elementals that MUST be chain feared and banished. Once they spawn, any Warlock in the raid will stop DPS on Aran and focus on the elementals till they despawn (Roughly 1.5 min if I remember correctly).

This is the only "hard" part of this encounter, and will take a green raid group several pulls to get it right. Just remember, 40%, Banish, Fear, Banish, Fear etc... and you'll do alright.

Comment by Tempo

Remember,

http://shadeofaranchant.ytmnd.com/

Comment by 24719

Note to people on Interrupting: Only Interrupt Fireballs and Frostbolts, it's a waste on Arcane Missiles because he's already spent his mana to cast it, since it has no 'casting time.'

Comment by 17810

Just to note, if it has not been allready, dont interrupt his drinking, because you can use that time to regen up health/mana/etc.

Also, you can dodge the Pyroblast with LoS.

Having a tree Druid helps a lot, because they can top everyone's hp up before the Pyroblast hits.

GFPPs help on your first tries :)

If you're having trouble with DPS: Get everyone to mana drain Aran if they can or just dps. At 50% or so you should have the pyroblast. Then, take the summons at 30% and deal with them through fears/etc and just try to stay alive. When they despawn after 90 seconds, you can just dps Aran as normal (he never enrages a second time - he just drinks mana pots.)

Shamans can use Earth Shock Rank 1 to conserve Mana in spell interrupting. (2 Shamans are great here, we've had Aran melee'ing people before due to timer CDs. Although, er, he does hit harder in melee it seems :/ )

Hunters should place Snake Traps on Aran so that he targets the Snakes, not players (2 Hunters are amazing here).

Comment by Invis

BLIZZARD HOTFIXED SHADE.

CLOAK OF SHADOWS
ICEBLOCK
BUBBLE

ALL BLOW UP FLAME WREATH.

Comment by Mapex

In our attempts of Shade, we've noticed something funky with interrupts. When we try to use a interrupt rotation, we do not account for Kick/Pummel/Earth Shock locking out a school for various different durations. As such, it can be possible to lock out all 3 magic schools by using a raid-wide interrupt rotation and having someone interrupt a bit late and catch his Arcane Missiles instead.

The end result is whoever is #1 on aggro (most likely a Rogue, Enhancement Shaman, or DPS warrior) will be taking a melee attack once every few casts. While the melee attacks are weaker than his Frostbolt/Fireball, it does provide extra burst damage if he decides to target you with one of his spells. This has been a problem for my guild as of late.

Suggestion for those who are having issues is to assign various classes to different schools of magic.

If you have 2 Rogues and 2 Warriors, have the Warriors go on Frost and the Rogues on Fire, or vice-versa. The two Rogues can be on their own rotation and the two Warriors on their own as well.

If you have 2 Shamans, a Warrior, and a Rogue, have one Shaman and one Warrior rotate interrupts on one school and the other Shaman and the Rogue rotate on the other school.

Etc etc.

Try to balance it out so Frost/Fire get locked out the most without allowing for anyone to accidentally interrupt Arcane Missiles. Should be good to go then.

Comment by 35472

Easy mode for boss:

2 Warlocks - each banish and chain fear elementals summoned at Medivh 40%, + CoR on boss all the time(he hardly melees)
1 warrior ( for sunder + BS )
3 healers ( preferably different class for buffs )
and loads of melees

ie: Enhancement Shaman for Agi/WF totems, Feral Druid for +crit chance

Comment by defektunge

A couple of pointers and bits of general advice:

The Interrupts
Despite what's repeatedly posted on WoWWiki, a shaman is the best class for interrupts here. Saying otherwise indicates a lack of understanding of the fight. Locking out all of his schools is a bad thing, since he can hit clothies pretty hard, and when he starts running around you lose control of the fight. Completely locking out frost and fire for long periods of time is not something you want either, since this just means he'll be spamming Arcane Missiles. The best thing that could happen to you is that he casts Frostbolt, gets shocked right at the end, begins to cast Fireball, gets shocked right at the end, then switches back to Frostbolt and starts the cycle over. The shorter the 'lockdown' on an interrupt is, the better it is for this fight.

Note that there are two completely different strategies here: the low dps version and the high dps version. The low dps version, where you allow him to enrage before his elementals spawn, will put a much greater strain on your healer mana and I'd really only recommend it if your dps is undergeared or you have too many healers for this fight (two healers can easily keep everyone up without mana problems if you use the high dps strategy). The high dps version requires good interrupts to keep his mana high, but if you can postpone his enrage until after the elementals have despawned, the fight will be over much sooner and your healer mana will never become a problem even with only two healers.

With the high dps strategy, the main purpose of the interrupts will be to prevent him from finishing the casting of Frostbolt and Fireball, while letting him channel Arcane Missiles for the full duration (since the mana cost of that is paid up front), thus conserving his mana and preventing him from 'enraging' too soon. With the low dps strategy, your main objective is to prevent as much damage as possible to keep your healers from running out of mana. The tactics are similar in execution, but you should be aware of the difference. Kicking Arcane Missiles when using the high dps strategy is a bad thing, and will cause an enrage during the elementals (thus wiping the raid) if done too often. Kicking Arcane Missiles when using the low dps strategy is harmless aside from Aran running rampant with his staff.

Comment by defektunge

Flame Wreath
The tactic is simple: don't move. Once you're more familiar with it you can use the first seconds of the casting time to position yourself a bit better, and once it's cast you can move around as long as you're not in (or moving into) one of the rings of fire. But until you're familiar enough with the fight to know what you're doing... just don't move.

Unless you have exceptionally stupid (or unlucky) raid members, Flame Wreath is only a real problem during Blizzard. If people made sure to stay behind the Blizzard as it moved, this won't really be a problem either. Getting Flame Wreath while the elementals are up is annoying, but fairly harmless.

Note that you will explode instantly if you reincarnate, soulstone, or get combat resurrected into a Flame Wreath. Don't use or accept any of these while Flame Wreath is still up.

Comment by defektunge

The 'Enrage'
The dreaded enrage happens when is down to ~20% mana and consists of Aran casting Mass Polymorph, sitting down to drink, then casting Pyroblast for ~7,5k on everyone in the raid. If you interrupt him while he's drinking he will stop drinking and immediately cast Pyroblast, but he will cast it eventually even if you let him drink. At this point everyone needs to have about 8k hp left. Anyone who doesn't is dead. People will heal up while polymorphed, so make sure you do not attack Aran while he's drinking unless everyone is at full health, or you will get anyone who hasn't been healed up to 8k yet killed.

As long as everyone in the raid has enough health, and you make sure to time it before (the low dps strategy) or after (the high dps strategy) the elementals, you should be fine. Getting the enrage while the elementals are up, however, is an almost guaranteed wipe. Don't rely on luck for this - pick either strategy and stick to it. Because of the risk of someone vital dying during the enrage, I'd recommend the high dps approach, meaning that you don't risk having a CCer or healer die before the elementals spawn.

Comment by 13166

if mage didn't assign to one of the interrupt rotation, you can counterspell his arcane missile (5 missiles, about 7.5k dmg) to save someone and even yourself. it is possible he target and nuke you twice in a role which result a certain dead.

Comment by freakish87

If a caster in your raid has the legendary staff Atiesh equipped, Aran makes a point of it in an emote and gets freaked out
/chicken.
:D

Comment by 49705

anyone knows if it's a good idea to kill the elementals after the patch? their hp is "significantly" lowered...

Comment by 53893

Patch was released yesterday and we downed him last night. He seemed signifcantly easier. Honestly as a group we did a lack-luster job, but still got him down. Points to note:

Blizzard moves a bit faster now and does less damage. We had a few more people than usual get caught in it due to it's speed, but they didn't take much damage so the healer stress isn't as great.

We simply CC'd the elementals until they despawned, but one of our mages hit one with a Fireball and took it to 85% health - to give a rough estimate of how easy they would be to kill.

I'm going to say hit normal abilities also hit for less, those I don't have the exact numbers. I say this because as a guild we have always had a rough time with Shade, usually opting to skip simply due to the headaches. But last night we 1-shotted him, and we missed a lot of kicks, even got Polly'd when he was at 8% and still took him down. Much easier after the patch imo.

Comment by 14566

Any mage tested if the talent Frost Warding (... gives your Frost Ward a 20% chance to reflect Frost spells and effects while active) works on his frostbolts ?

Comment by 54335

A lock is nice for this fight but not necessary. Our lock was offline for when we started raiding so we took two warriors, two rogues, elemental shammy and resto shammy. The key to this fight is to make sure the shade's mana is very high at all times so he doesn't finish you off. We had warriors, rogues and elemental shammy pummeling, kicking, and frostshocking spells that were cast. We popped heroism at 95% and 55%. By the time he entered the phase with the elementals he had a massive load of mana.

We had all but the warriors peel off the shade and dpsed down the elementals. These elementals have little health but have tones of damage dealing. You will want heavy melee dps if you are going to try it without a warlock.

It took us five attempts before we got this strategy to work. We made sure that the shaman was always in the meleers group for when heroism was popped.

Comment by 57379

It should be added in that the water elementals now only have around 10,000 health, not 30,000. Which means they can now be reasonably killed in the fight, instead of just locking them down until they despawn.

Comment by Darkicon

Our setup for Moroes:

1 Priest (Shadow)
2 Warriors (Both Prot)
1 Druid (Resto)
1 Paladin (Holy)
1 Warlock (Affliction)
2 Mages (Ice/Fire)
1 Rogue (Combat)
1 Hunter (BM)

In the beginning just unload full DPS on Shade of Aran, his aggro is random so do not worry about pulling aggro. Keep his health lower than his mana at all times. Once he brings out the Water Elementals, have your warlock banish and fear 1, and kill the other 2. Just burn Shade down.

Our interrupt rotation is a rogue and mage interrupts fire spells, while a warrior and mage interrupt frost spells, and have the other warrior interrupt spells in case someone gets counterspelled.

Every once in awhile our DPS is bit short, and he runs out of mana. He will do a Mass Polymorph and drink, when he gets full mana he will do a Pyroblast that will nearly kill everyone at 100% health and his spells will do more damage. If Shade of Aran is above 20% at this point we interrupt EVERYTHING, including Arcane Missiles because they will hurt even more. At this point it's a big DPS race.

At random times he will pull everyone near him, everyone should immediately run towards the nearest wall, because he will cast an Arcane Explosion that will kill most people, after he pulls people in he will use a Mass Slow that slows everyone's movement speed, this is dispellable. Also he will cast Flame Wreath, these are circles of flame that surround random people, do not cross it or you will blow up the raid, and probably wipe. He also does a Blizzard that covers half of the room and moves in a clockwise rotation, stay behind it. He also does a Shackle Undead like spell sometime to melee, this is dispellable.

It is possible to kill Shade of Aran even if someone blows up the raid and he runs out of mana.

Don't think that a druid can escape Polymorph and hit Moroes to make him stop drinking, all this will do is make him use a mana potion and still cast Pyroblast.

Comment by 79637

You can stand behind the desks and he won't pull you to him, also the arcane explosion won't hit you there when you stand at the wall behind a desk.

Comment by 448

The elementals can be found here: http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=17167
They have 15,000 health.

Note that the elementals linked in the description above are incorrect. Those are from the Chess Event. This needs to be fixed.

Comment by 87368

Was just wondering but will a felhunter's spell lock help that much against all the casting that Aran does? The group needs as many interrupts as possible, and I was guessing between an improved buff imp or the interrupt felhunter which one would be more beneficial to this fight in particular.

Comment by 89657

Does a shadow priests silence work as an interrupt?

Comment by Kathucka

Only interrupt and counterspell abilities work against the Shade of Aran's three basic spells. Silence and stun abilities don't, unless they have an interrupt component. These are the abilities:

Kick (immune to the silence component of Improved Kick)
Earth Shock
Shield Bash (immune to daze component and immune to silence component of Improved Shield Bash)
Pummel
Feral Charge (immune to immobilizing component)
Spell Lock (immune to silence component)
Counterspell (immune to silence component of Improved Counterspell)

Nothing else works. Hunters, priests, and paladins have no way to interrupt the casts.

Warriors, rogues, and shamans have the shortest cooldowns on their interrupt abilities, and are therefore better at interrupting casts in this fight.

Comment by 75527

try to silence/spelllock him his attacks are extremmelly week and you must have his mana close to his hp because when he polymorph to drink he casts mass pyroblast after that might cause a wipe if his next target isn't healled very fast NEVER drain mana him :P also at dps u should have 2 locks 2 elementals banished and the other feared. U can also use the books you find on your way there to make the fight even easier. He might be complettaly untankable but he is rather easy with some frost ress 2 he is easy as butter :)) GL

Comment by solinvictus

Locks and other cc'ers should remember the silence aura around Aran when the elementals spawn. I ran straight through him to get into banish range and all my schools were locked for 10 seconds :( So just banish the closest one and deathcoil (because of it's longer range)/fear the second one. It might be useful to have a warrior cast intimidating shout (which isn't affected by the aura afaik) if fear/banish elementals are not cc'ed after 6-7 seconds of spawn.

Comment by 100984

Mass Dispel alleviates Massive Magnetic Pull so everyone can run away quickly and safely.

Comment by 90372

He does indeed resort to physical violence if interrupts happen to be exceptionally good.

Aditionally if you happen to be a motivationally challenged - read: lazy - warrior you can just stay put on arcane explosions and intervene someone that did run at the very last moment. After it's been cast feel free to intercept and be the big hero by interrupting the first spell he casts.

Comment by 110541

Had him on 1% then he casted Shadows of Aran, I was abit pissed of that :/ But killed him at second try :D

Comment by 115537

Interesting tidbit: At the start of the encounter, if any of the raid members have Atiesh equipped, Aran will exclaim: "Where did you get that? Did he send you?"

Comment by Zugrim

Anyone knows if Scatter Shot will interrupt him?

Comment by 82529

This happened the first time i killed Aran:
When he polymorphed the whole raid and started drinking i accidently stod in the blizzard, that breaked polymorph and i did a arcane shot on Aran to stop him from drinking, then he didn't pot =) the only thing that happened was that everyone in the raid for out of polymorph and no pyro came. =)

wierd...? i know, though it's a good wierd thing =)

Comment by DSitC

A note to the healers:

Since Aran targets his victim to cast a fireball, frost bolt or arcane missiles, it's possible to create some healing macros for your healing spells.

/cast Flash Heal

for example.

This will cast Flash Heal on your target if it is friendly. If your target is not friendly, it will try to cast Flash Heal on your target's current target. If there is no target still, you will Flash Heal yourself.

That way, you can have Aran as you target and start healing the target proactively if they will receive some damage soon.
Of course you need to see Aran's casting bar. ;-)

Comment by 97082

A little tip for Aran's Blizzard spell...Pull all DPS-ers into the middle so that only the healers are left to run from blizzard, it saves the hassle for mages especially.

Also, when Aran does a Mass Pyroblast, druid healers are very helpful. They can use Tranquility which heals alot until the other healers can even out the health.

Hope this helps in any way :)

Comment by 80687

im not sure if its really rare or sumthing but he uses a mana pot for 27k wen he gets low on mana after he drinks, me and my guild got a pretty good kick out of it

Comment by 139095

DPS fight!!! NO tanking gear should b involed. All DPS wat happens is he has frostbolt, fireball, and arcane missiles. heals just watch the those ppl who get that. Blizzard is common on this guy ( At least for my guild) just pretty much watch out for it it will go clockwise around the room. U hav 2 options go close to Shade or just stay ahead of it. ( u will b unlucky if flame Wreath and blizzard strike at once.) =( Flame Wreath NO ONE MOVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! does about 4k evry 2 sec if some one is moving. Last attck he has is he pulls u in and slows u and 10 sec arcane explosion which the time of those 10 sec get close to the wall. If u dont go to the wall u Will die (unless u hav 14k health) the explosion does aroung 10k-12k..OUCH!.. The trick is to drain his health before his mana goes if he loses all his mana he will sheep. ( heals dont wry the other chars will revive health) Once he drink and rdy he will throw a pyroblast at evry1. Roughly 10-11k hit. The main thing is DPS his butt before he loses his mana. if goes right 3-4 min battle. Gl. Hav Fun.

Comment by 62635

Odd question, but i figure it's worth asking, does fireing a piggy cannon at him inturupt his casts? After reading that feral charge does i figure it would make it a tad easier on groups that happened to be one interupt short and had a hunter with a pig pet instead...

(By piggy cannon I mean a pet boar's Charge ;)

Comment by 114158

a quite funny thing i found out is if you have an http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22631 or any other of the atiesh staffs, he will yell: "Where did you get that, did he send you!?"

Comment by Soroush

Here is his Quotes :

Aggro

* "Please, no more! My son... he's gone mad!"
* "Who are you? What do you want? Stay away from me!"
* "I will not be tortured again!"

Flame Wreath

* "Burn you hellish fiends!"
* "I'll show you this beaten dog still has some teeth!"

Blizzard

* "Back to the cold dark with you!"
* "I'll freeze you all!"

Arcane Explosion

* "Yes, yes, my son is quite powerful... but I have powers of my own!"
* "I am not some simple jester! I am Nielas Aran!"

Low Mana / AoE Pyroblast

* "Surely you would not deny an old man a replenishing drink? No, no I thought not."

Summon Water Elementals

* "I'm not finished yet! No, I have a few more tricks up me sleeve."

Player Death

* "Torment me no more!"
* "I want this nightmare to be over!"

Aran's berserk

* "You've wasted enough of my time... let these games be finished!"

Aran's death

* "At last the nightmare is over..."

also if any type of http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22589 is carried by a raid member

* "Where did you get that?! Did HE send you??"

Comment by Lukrid

Hunters' snake traps work wonders on this fight, like many bosses in Karazhan, because Aran's random target abilities can and will target the snakes, which gives the raid free time to damage him while he is casting at the snakes. As a side note, this tactic works well on other bosses who do random target attacks such as Illhoof's demon chains.

Comment by 117561

Counter to what the description says for this boss, if you wipe after he enrages, that doesn't stop him from enraging again on your next attempt.

Comment by 34089

Apparently Aran is a melee mage, as we discovered last night.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t261/leetatlvlone/WoWScrnShot_053108_195254.jpg

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t261/leetatlvlone/WoWScrnShot_053108_195827.jpg

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t261/leetatlvlone/WoWScrnShot_053108_195217.jpg

The legendary loot: Rockbiter Cutter of the Bandit

Comment by 70240

hunter trick: use snake trap as much as possible, aran will target the snakes and hit them with an icebolt or firebolt instead of a healer ^.^

Comment by Vorph

He doesn't have an aggro table, and very low armor, so this fight is a carnage for melee.

And he also has a 10 minute enrage timer, which shouldn't be any problem for majority of raids. If you can't kill him by that time, he'll kill you before enraging anyway.

Comment by Therulnig

The fight is fairly straightforward . The first 60% is just DPSing him down while dealing with his abilities:
Arcane Explosion - The "freebie" spell, hopefully he uses this often (though he can't use any of his specials twice in a row). Doesn't insta-kill most higher Stamina classes (tanks, Warlocks, etc), but its so easy to avoid. takes like 6 secs to get to the wall if slowwed, Druids (and other snare removers) can remove it and have almost the full 10 secs to keep DPS up and such before they have to run to the wall.

Blizzard - This one is in second place. melee-heavy groups are almost unaffected by it. ranged just have to either come in close staying atleast 10yrds away from him, or just run around in front of the blizzards.

Flame Wreath - The Raid Wiper. This is the main spell that kills raids, because it spells DOOM if the wrong person moves. Only thing you can do is try to teach the raid. One thing: Pets/etc don't trigger it, but ANY movement from players through it will trigger it (We recently found out that even accepting a Battle Rez will trigger it)

The Poly/Pyroblast is by itself not a big deal. The recent patch notes say mob polys don't heal people anymore, but in our latest kill of Shade his Mass Polymorph still healed us to heal before Pyro. Everyone just pop a pot or healthstone after they come up and continue as normal...

The main "Wrench thrown in the works" in this fight are the elementals spawned at 40% health. Almost any combination of other events happening at the same time as the elemental spawns spells trouble for the raid, except maybe Arcane Explosion. This is why an early strategy is to stop DPS at like 43-45%, wait for his Poly/Pyro, wait for possible Flame Wreaths, then DPS him down past 40%.

Comment by 145457

Done this guy quite a lot, usually one shotting, but tonight was just terrible, at one point I got shackled in Blizzard (unlucky I guess), one of our healers was silenced for the majority of the fight somehow, and, to add insult to injury, we had a few instances where Blizzard and Arcane explosion overlapped. I know it's not 'suppose' to happen but it did, and was a real pain in the backside. Needless to say it really ruined a good night, especially when we were powering through at a really nice pace.

Comment by 129135

When he runs out of Mana, he sheep everyone in the room and starts to drink.

Comment by zarathorn

He will indeed kill anyone in the instance, ignoring los and combat rules. He won't even bother running through the door, he'll just melt your face with a spell. If you see him locked on to you and are anywhere in the instance, zoning out is the only way to get him off you.

Comment by 138910

If you bring in one of the Atiesh Staves(one of those quest rewards), upon entering, shade will yell "Where did you get that? Did he send you?"

Gotta love blizzards hidden easter eggs :)

Comment by kreda

Not warry hard boos,just follow the tactic and it will get realy easy, it is not recomended that he casts Pyroblast

Comment by 88079

if u look at one of my pictures of aran u will se many of him:D
in fact thers 9 of him.
he got bugged when we came there.

Comment by 208425

If someone with long range (~35+ yards?) can hit the shade while the door is open, and then back out as it's closing, the raid group can remain on the top of the ramp outside and complete the fight there. It takes quite a long time, but the only real danger is the flame wreath, which still hits people who are outside. The elementals still spawn at 40%, and the polymorph/pyro can still happen, but these don't pose much of a threat when 90% of Aran's spells never hit anyone. The shadows still spawn, but their attacks don't go through the door, so if nobody opens it after the Shade dies then there's no problem.

I realize this is an exploit and probably against the rules, so I don't recommend anyone try this. I'm posting here in the hopes that it will get fixed. Too easy & too boring.

Comment by Jenrama

If your DPS is good, the stopping at 45% shouldn't be needed, hell, get the recommended group setup for Shade, in nothing but level 70 blues and epics off of bosses before Shade and Heroic 5 man epics and everyone knows the fight, that group could easily take him down without the need of stopping to prevent Elementals spawning when the AoE Pyro comes.

Comment by 231676

this dude is hard not as hard as the prince but hard

Comment by RogueA

Yes, you can LOS both the Polymorph and the Pyroblast. His bookcases that sit around the room stick out a bit at an angle. If you tuck yourself into one of their corners and you break LOS, Poly and Pyro will miss you.

So, yes, you can interrupt him while drinking, though it isn't recommended. He'll just drink a potion and insta-Pyro the raid.

Comment by Bloodanger

Please...No more..My son! He's gone mad!

Comment by 222376

Whatever you do, it is ESSENTIAL to MOVE as much as you can in flame wreath.
It gives your party a raid wide buff in the middle of the screen.
It also drops all their aggro

Comment by 436033

These are Aran's voice Sound Files. My main is a mage, I do thngs like...

/cast Frost Nova
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFrost01.wav")

this makes me cast Frost Nova, then in the backround as I cast it i here Aran's voice say, "I'll freeze you all!" which works well for frost nova. Here are a bunch other of Aran's voice files. Below each one I have what it makes him say.

***PLEASE NOTE ONLY YOU HEAR ARAN'S VOICE, OTHER PLAYERS HEAR NOTHING***

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro01.wav")
"Please! No more! My son... he' gone mad!"
This is one of three possible aggro phraises.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro02.wav")
"I'll not be tortured again!"
This is one of three possible aggro phraises.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro03.wav")
"Who are you? What do yo want? Get away from me!"
This is one of three possible aggro phraises.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranArcane01.wav")
"Yes, yes, my son (Medivh) is quite powerful. But I have powers of my own!"
This is one of two possible phrases that Aran will say when casting Arcane Explosion.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranArcane02.wav")
"I am not some simple gester! I, am Nielas Aran!"
This is one of two possible phrases that Aran will say when casting Arcane Explosion.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranDies01.wav")
"At last... the nightmare is over"
This is what Aran says when he is killed.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFire01.wav")
"I'll show you, this beaten dog still has some teeth!"
Aran says this when casting some fire attacks.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFire02.wav")
"Burn! You hellish fiend!"
Aran says this when casting some fire attacks.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFrost01.wav")
"I'll freeze you all!"
Aran says this when casting some frost attacks.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFrost02.wav")
"Back to the cold dark with you!"
Aran says this when casting some frost attacks.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranGameOver01.wav")
"You've wasted enough of my time! Let these games be finished!"
I am not completley sure what triggers this phraise, but I beleive it is when Aran causes the raid to wipe.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranOutOfMana01.wav")
"Surely you wouldn't deny an old man, a repleneshing drink? No, no I thought not"
Aran says this when he is out of mana

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSeeStaff01.wav")
"Where did you get that! Did he send you!"
Aran says this when he targets a player that has Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian equip. This staff formerly belonged to his son, Medivh.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSlay01.wav")
"I want this nightmare to be over!"
Aran says this when he kills a player"

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSlay02.wav")
"Torment me no more!"
Aran says this when he kills a player"

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSummonElem01.wav")
"I'm not finished yet! No, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve."
Aran says this when he summons 4 elite elementals.

Thats all I got, enjoy :)

I will be putting voice sound files on other major NPCs as well

Comment by 421626

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro01.wav") - Please, no more! My son.. He's gone mad!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro02.wav") - I'll not be tortured again!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranAggro03.wav") - Who are you? What do you want? Stay away from me!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranArcane01.wav") - Yes, yes, my son is quite powerful; but I have powers of my own!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranArcane02.wav") - I am not some simple jester! I, am Nielas Aran

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranDies01.wav") - At last, the nightmare.. is over.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFire01.wav") - I'll show you, this beaten dog still has some teeth!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFire02.wav") - Burn, you hellish fiends!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFrost01.wav") - I'll freeze you all!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranFrost02.wav") - Back to the cold dark with you!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranGameOver01.wav") - You've wasted enough of my time.. Let these games be finished!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranOutOfMana01.wav") - Surely, you wouldn't deny an old man a, Replenishing Drink! No *s!@#$%^s* no, I thought not.

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSeeStaff01.wav") - Where did you get that? Did he send you?

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSlay01.wav") - I want this nightmare to be over!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSlay02.wav") - Torment me no more!

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\ShadeOfAran\\AranSummonElem01.wav") - I'm not finished yet!... No.. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.

Enjoy, one of my favourite bosses, an amazing fight, with some very memorable quotes!

Comment by 279763

Soloed him as a protection paladin (lv200-226 gear). In my opinion, the hardest boss to solo in Karazhan.

Some tips for prot paladins who want to try it:
-Frost resist aura
-Tank him in the center, when he starts casting the push, back up to a pillar
-When he polymorphs you, you can take a breath :) The hardest part is about to come!
-When he spawns the 4 elementals, use HoF, and go to kill one after another asap. Another tactic you can try is to bubble, so all 4 will come near you, then aoe them down.

Best of luck!
Agathoklis, protection paladin, Scarshield legion

Comment by 88794

Soloable as a level 80 ret paladin. Mix of gear ranging from ilvl 200-245 (average ilvl 224), with Aesir's Edge as my weapon.

Used:
- Frost Resistance aura
- Blessing of Kings
- Seal of Light
- Judgment of Light
- Lesser Flask of Resistance (+50 resist to all)
- +40 strength/stamina food

Fight him in the center. I was conservative about health, so I used Art of War procs for healing any time I was below ~70% (guaranteed crit Exorcism otherwise, since Shade is undead). As usual, Sacred Shield is wonderful for mitigating all that spell damage. He does his 'big' specials (Blizzard, Flame Wreath, Arcane Explosion) every 30 seconds, so this is the perfect reminder to refresh SS.

Slow/Arcane Explosion is your 'breather' period: cleanse the Slow (or Hand of Freedom), refresh SS as you run to the edge of the room, heal yourself to full, pop Divine Plea if your mana is low, and then get back to it. DO NOT try to use a casted heal (or Exorcism) while in melee range of him, or he may Conterspell and lock you out of everything; use instant FoLs only when in melee range (Holy Light only when you're far away from him).

Bahamut0's suggestion above to use Divine Shield to gather the Water Elementals is a very good one. I got badly RNGed one time when he cast Flame Wreath while I was running around killing the Elementals (you're a sitting duck at that point). Once they're gathered, a couple of Divine Storms will almost certainly get you topped off again.

Still an awesomely fun fight.

Comment by 467494

One of the tougher (yet funnest) fights of Karazhan for a Feral Druid. I wiped on him a few times learning him, but after 3 times, he's still my favorite. And his quotes make you feel like you're fighting an awesome boss :p

HOW TO: SOLO SHADE OF ARAN AS A FERAL DRUID

I actually found this fight considerably easier in cat form. Bear form works too, but you don't benefit from your abnormally high armor in this fight, just PotP. Lesser flask of resistance also helps, in addition to a Ring of Binding if you have. Other than that, dodge/defence doesn't really matter, you can swap that tanking jewelery out now.

As you're DPSing, remember to use Predator's Swiftness procs on regrowth, cast a rejuv, and return to cat. Other than that, try to keep yourself above 80%, and maintain regrowth/rejuv on yourself when you can.

You SHOULD be able to get the water elementals out before he casts mass-poly. This is likely the hardest part of the fight, especially if combined with one of Aran's specials. If he casts blizzard, dash to each elemental, mangle>rake>rip, pray for crits and Predator's Swiftness, and move on to the next, abandoning your elemental if the blizzard gets too close. If he decides to Arcane Explosion, shapeshift out, mangle the nearest elemental, feral charge the next closest, and see if you can't get most of two down in the 10 second cast. If he casts flame wreath, well then out of luck you are, just start tossing HoTs. Toss all the instant healing you can, go into bear, SI/Frenzied, and hope you live. You may be able to toss a regrowth between silences, but I don't recommend trying unless you're desperate.

Once the elementals down, or at least two, return to Aran and finish him.

Comment by 492357

Do Archmages simply have similar names? I found this guy while looking up Warcraft 3 Archmage names, i was looking up Aran Spellweaver and found this guy, Shade of Aran. Now i know that this guy is Nielas Aran. I just found it strange how similar a lot of the names are ( i.e. Nilas Arcanister, Aran Spellweaver)

Comment by 608793

"Stop! Please! My son! He's gone mad!" hmmmmm... i didn't know medivh was mad... plus, you dont sound so mentally healthy either.

Comment by mouseno4

I used the age old 'trick' to this boss.

Was a tough fight.

80 Prot paladin in mostly 232 gear. The biggest problem for me, was mana. No heals coming in, means no mana from spiritual attunement - a talent that grants mana based on being healed.

Avengers shield him and run behind the door before it closes again. Sit there for the next 20-30 mins using every defensive ability in the book. Bubble, lay on hands etc etc. Constantly changing seals from light to wisdom, judgements from light to wisdom. Interrupting what you can with torrent and hammer. During flame wreath and arcane explosion, which have no effect on you, use that time to heal up with what mana you have. When you get low, bubble, plea and torrent. Near the end of plea cast holy light to get you as high as you can before he comes back. When you get low with bubble on cd, use lay on hands. Curator was difficult for a prot paladin, unless you bring lots and lots of arcane resistances. This is a constant battle.

Comment by 49034

Soloed as a disc priest (over 264 average ilevel pve gear) at my 2nd try.

I wanted the ench formula that drops from him and cleared all the way till this boss with my prot pally.

Atonement, shield, renew and POM was enough to keep me up most of the time, I used penance when my health dropped a bit.

When the water elemental are summoned , at my first try I ignored them but 4 of them and the boss were doing more damage that I could handle. At the 2nd try, I used pain sup and killed 2 of them quite quickly and went back on him.

Comment by dazm

Solod as demo-lock in full T10(277) euip

hp boss > 40% - tank&spank with your Felguard
hp boss < 40% - banish one elemental, fear second, third axe toss, kill fourth, then kill third after that metamorph+immolation aura+felstorm+infernal and nuke tham :)

Comment by 593826

I soloed him as a level 85 warrior, but then -- in the aftermath of the fight, after I had looted him and whatnot -- the door leading back to the rest of the instance, I found, was locked and could not be opened, even with the Master's Key. I attempted re-logging multiple times with no success. It must be bugged.

Comment by Nobbel

500gold, rare mount, fun fights, done in about 1 or 2 hours depending on how long the chess event takes. 2 guides explaining how to solo Karazhan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTAZe7TAv2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4q6BRvdFlE

Comment by 712875

It's weired to think that Jamieson Price does the voice of him. Jamieson Price also does the voice of Lu Bu in the Dynasty Warrior series.

Comment by 533861

Shade of Aran: One of the few things in WoW where the 'Don't Stand in the Fire!' rule does NOT apply. Stand all you want to - just don't run!

Comment by Tim200

I will not move when flame reaches cast or the raid blows up...

http://images.wikia.com/wowwiki/images/8/8d/ShadeOfAranChant.ogg

Comment by 38876

Marksmanship (7/31/3) Hunter.
Ballinhunts, of Kargath-US.
409 iLvl

Using a turtle as the "Go-To" tenacity pet, I find it easy to solo (duo really) all of the old content as an appropriately-spec'ed Marksmanship Hunter.

I advise the use of Glyph of Mending and Glyph of Misdirection as two critical Major Glyphs, the other choices are yours to make.

As has been previously mentioned, Shade of Aran is a pushover.

Simply Misdirect your (tenacity) pet and DPS him down fast. If flame wreath is casted, either don't move (at all, seriousy - Stand In The Fire!) or enjoy the air time!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me in-game!

Comment by Mortenz

If you kill Shade of Aran too fast, you'll be locked inside the room. Just a heads up to any level 90 that goes in here.

Comment by Furydeath

If you hit the enrage then kill him the shadows do not despawn xD

Comment by geekygirlish

Went as 90 hunter clearing out old q, thanks for the heads up, I put away my gun, popped a tome from the floor, and just punched him for awhile, pet on passive. After he had his fun throwing his hissy fit,(and I did too turning into a worg a few time!) I turned my pet back on and that was enough to do it without getting locked in.

Glad I couldn't find him and checked first, or I would have been locked in that room with a one shot!

Comment by Tovrin

For those that remember the '80s ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ehHOwmQRxU

"By a tree there's a river with a hole in the ground,
Where the old man of Aran goes around and around,
And his mind is a beacon in the veil of the night,
Where a strange kind of fashion there's a wrong and a right,
And he'll never, never fight over you."

Ever wondered why the Shade of Aran's room is round?

Comment by kcesar68

Holy smokes, how many bosses can Blizzard get Jameson Pierce to voice?

Comment by YamiCodenamed

For anyone trying to, for whatever reason, see his soft enrage (summoning of the Shades in the room): This is not currently possible while going solo
When the boss reaches low mana he will cast Mass Polymorph (spellID 29963) which will reset the boss. This can also cause other issues like the boss not resetting properly

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Shade of Aran

This NPC can be found in Karazhan .

KarazhanServant QuartersAttumen the HuntsmanMoroesMaiden of VirtueOpera EventThe CuratorChess EventTerestian IllhoofShade of AranNetherspiteNightbanePrince MalchezaarShade of AranKarazhanMedivhShade of Medivh

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