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Kologarn (25 Man) Strategy Guide |
| by Jackmason |
| This is the main guide for this boss. We will attempt to keep it up to date, so feedback is appreciated. This is copyright material. Please respect the work of the author and ourselves and do not copy it. |
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Kologarn is an animated stone statue presumably made in the image of one of the Titans when they built Ulduar. Kologarn bars the way from the Antechamber of Ulduar into the Halls of the Keepers and the Prison of Yogg-Saron. He appears only from the torso up, and to pass forward players must defeat him and climb over his fallen corpse to reach the rooms beyond.
10 Man Notes
The 10 man version of this fight is extremely similar to the 25 man version. With the exception of the tanking rotation and the lower damage numbers on many of Kologarn's abilities, the strategy for the fight remains the same as for 25 man. Specific notes on changes (and in particular the tanking) are included later.
Raid Composition and Gear Preparation
Kologarn is a fairly simple fight which is mostly a coordination check on the part of the raid. Standard Ulduar raids with Naxxramas level gear and good DPS should have no problem killing Kologarn. However, the easiest strategy for the fight requires four tanks - if you do not have 4 solidly geared tanks in your raid, then coordination among healers and tanks becomes much more important and adds complexity to the fight, as described later.
In particular though, this fight is mostly a test of how well a raid can organize and position itself, react to new DPS targets, have healers react to changing targets, all while avoiding Kologarn's eye beams. None of this is particular hard to do - but doing it all at once, perfectly, is the challenge.
10 Man Notes
The gear requirements are very similar to on 25 man; a standard Naxxramas-equipped raid group should have no difficulty beating Kologarn if they play well and understand the fight. The 10 man version of the fight requires 2 tanks, and 2 or 3 healers are recommended depending on their gear and experience. Kologarn's Berserk timer is quite high and so pressing for a high DPS raid is not important, whereas tank and raid healing most certainly are.
Abilities
Kologarn has 15.3 million hit points (3.6 million in 10 man). In addition, he has a Right Arm and Left Arm which each are separate mobs and have their own 2.3 million hit point pools (543,000 in 10 man). The Right Arm and Left Arm do not themselves do melee damage - they simply add or remove abilities that Kologarn uses. Kologarn is tanked normally by a main tank (MT), who rotates with 1-2 other MTs throughout the fight due to the "Overhead Smash" armor debuff described below. Kologarn's standard melee attack hits a well geared plate tank for ~20,000 damage per hit - a lot of damage, but by no means extreme.
Only A Flesh Wound - When one of Kologarn's arms is destroyed by the raid (as described later) Kologarn will take 2 million damage (82,000 in 10 man) (15% of his life total in each case) and his arm will no longer function. This affects some of his abilities, as described below. The destroyed arm will regenerate in 45 seconds.
 Overhead Smash - Kologarn swings both arms at the tank, dealing 125% of his normal melee damage and reducing the tank's armor by 20% for 25 seconds. This effect stacks, and the three "main tanks" should rotate after they receive 2 stacks of this debuff. Overhead Smash is cast every 15-20 seconds, as is the second version of it listed below.
Overhead Smash Take 2 - 25 man only - If he only has one arm left, Kologarn swings his remaining arm at the tank, dealing 125% of his normal damage and reducing the tank's armor by 25% for 45 seconds. This effect stacks. Because of the longer timer on the one-armed debuff, a rotation of three main tanks is recommended for the fight. Like the previous Overhead Smash, this ability is cast every 15-20 seconds.
Overhead Smash Tremor - Overhead Smash, for both versions, also deals ~6,500 damage (4,500 in 10 man) to players in melee range with the tank when it hits. This simply needs to be healed through - the melee stack cannot avoid it because it is impossible to stand behind Kologarn.
Focused Eye Beam - Kologarn targets a random player not in melee range and focuses his eyes on them, shooting beams out that land on either side of the player. After 2 seconds of focus time (where the player doesn't get hit) the eye beams converge and begin to deal ~4,500 nature damage per second (3,000 in 10 man) to anyone within a 3 yard radius of their convergence point, which follows the focused player. The eye beams follow the focused player, who needs to run backwards and then kite the beams along the back edge of the room, as shown by the purple lines in the positioning diagram. The beam pursues the targeted player for 10 seconds, and is cast again 15-20 seconds after the end of the last beam (meaning one beam every 25-30 seconds).
Arm Sweep - Kologarn sweeps his left arm across the raid, dealing ~10000 damage to the entire raid. This ability has a 10-second cooldown, and is one of the main sources of raid damage in the fight. This ability is no longer used if the Left Arm is destroyed.
Stone Grip - Kologarn reaches out his right arm and grabs a random player, stunning them and dealing 5,500 damage per second (4,000 in 10 man) until the Right Arm sustains 480,000 damage (100,000 iin 10 man) or until 20 seconds have passed. If 20 seconds pass, the Stone Gripped player instantly takes 100,000 damage, killing him instantly. This ability has an 8 second cooldown and is, along with tank damage, one of two key sources of targeted healing in the fight. This ability is no longer used if the Right Arm is destroyed.
Petrifying Breath - Kologarn deals ~20,000 damage per second to the entire raid if no one is in melee range of him. Don't let this happen!
 Rubble - When one of Kologarn's arms is destroyed, it spawns 5 "Rubble" adds. These adds have a nature damage point-blank AoE and put a stacking +5% damage taken debuff on their tank. They should be tanked by the raid's assigned off tank and AoE'd down by ranged DPS casters while being kept away from the melee stack.
Rubble Adds Abilities
Five Rubble adds spawn when an Arm dies. Each add has 200k HP (52k HP in 10 man). Rubble adds swing for 2-3k on a well-geared plate tank. Alone this isn't a big deal, but with 5 Rubble adds per arm, it can add up to quite a bit. Pay attention to your off-tank!
Stone Nova - 25 man only - This deals ~7,000 damage to all targets within 10 yards of the Rubble add. It applies a debuff which increases physical damage taken by 5% per stack for 10 seconds. This ability can stack to one hundred stacks. Each Rubble add can cast this ability every 5-10 seconds, however it counts as a melee attack and can be dodge, parried, and blocked like a normal melee swing. In addition, sometimes Rubble will choose not to cast it - it can be quite random and a tank may end up with 4 stacks or 15 by the time the Rubble is all dead.
Rumble - 10 man only - This deals ~5,000 damage to all targets within 10 yards of the Rubble add. This replaces Stone Nova from the 25 man version. It deals less damage, and also does not apply the +5% damage taken debuff stack to the tank.
Rubble adds appear exactly like standard earth elementals of varying sizes, but they are not immune to nature damage like most earth elementals. Hurricane works fine as an AoE spell, and Moonkin should chain cast Hurricane on them for the attack speed reduction as well as for damage.
Raid Strategy
As the raid walks up the stairwell from the Antechamber, they will see a missing bridge called The Shattered Walkway. Kologarn will rise up into the broken bridge space (out of nowhere, apparently) and face the raid. Everyone should move beyond the doorframe into the platform facing Kologarn. The boss is immobile (this means that ranged DPS can't pull aggro!) and cannot be turned - he always faces the same direction and melee DPS cannot get behind him since the bridge is "missing." To pull, simply have the first MT charge in!
The strategy for killing Kologarn is quite simple and can be described in four easy steps:
1. Kill Kologarn's Right Arm (The arm on the raid's left).
2. Kill the Rubble adds.
3. DPS Kologarn until the Right Arm regenerates.
4. Repeat Steps 1-3 until Kologarn dies!
It typically takes 3-4 cycles to get through all of Kologarn's HP.
The Left Arm deals substantial raid damage but does not truly endanger the lives of your raid members. The Right Arm, on the other hand, needs to continuously take damage to free raid members caught in Stone Grip. Because of this, killing the Right Arm every time it is alive is the best strategy for quick success. Additionally, damage done to the Right Arm is almost 100% replicated onto Kologarn each time the Arm dies, meaning little to no DPS is lost by killing the Arm. Over the course of the fight, probably 30%, 45%, or 60% of your damage to Kologarn will come from Arm deaths, with the rest being made up during the "in between" phases while the Right Arm and its Rubble adds are dead.
 The positioning diagram is the first key to this fight. The diagram is designed to show how the raid can spread out in the available space while giving everyone a path to the back wall. Any player should be able to reach the back wall of the room without running over another player. This way, Eye Beam kiting becomes easy: Simply run straight backwards and then kite sideways along the back wall, where no one is positioned. There is plenty of time to react to the Eye Beams and do this so that no one ever takes damage from Eye Beams. This makes the fight much easier. The diagram also shows the location of the off tank "AoE pit" where Rubble adds are tanked. Everyone needs to stay well away from this spot because the Rubble is absolutely deadly to any non-tank caught in melee range of their Stone Novas.
Once the first MT is in and building threat, the whole raid should simply follow their assignments (notes on healing assignments and the tanking rotation are given below) while avoiding the Eye Beam as described just above. The entire raid should focus DPS on the Right Arm, which will cause players that Kologarn grabs with Stone Grip to be freed within just a few seconds. Once the Arm dies, Rubble will spawn and should be picked up by the off-tank and dragged to the designated AoE pit, where it should be quickly killed by ranged casters. A tank with a high number of cooldowns, such as a Death Knight, is optimal for this job as they can use those cooldowns for every set of Rubble, meaning the damage they take will be much lower. Meanwhile, the melee stack should attack Kologarn and the ranged DPS should switch to Kologarn once the Rubble has died. Immediately after the first pack of Rubble dies is a great time to use Bloodlust / Heroism.
While all of this is going on, Kologarn is still using his various other abilities. Overhead Smash (both versions) makes an MT rotation necessary for tanking Kologarn himself - this is described in detail in the tanking section below. In addition, the Overhead Smash Tremor deals AoE damage to any melee DPS standing on top of the tank and needs to be healed. Meanwhile, the entire raid takes damage (as described in the abilities section) from the Left Arm's Arm Sweep ability every 10-15 seconds. All of this damage needs to be healed through and doesn't go away at any point during the fight.
The Right Arm will respawn 50 seconds after it was destroyed. At this point, simply repeat this sequence until Kologarn is dead, killing the Right Arm, followed by Rubble, all while avoiding the Eye Beams and healing through the raid damage, and you will win!
10 Man Notes
The Kologarn fight strategy remains the same as the 25 man version of the fight. There is more room to maneuver for avoiding Eye Beams, but the fight is otherwise the same.
The detailed tanking rotation required in the 25 man, however, is not necessary on 10 man. Since only the "small" Smash Armor debuff is used, two tanks can rotate between tanking Kologarn at all times, and whichever tank is not tanking Kologarn can pick up Rubble adds when the Right Arm is destroyed. If the "off tank" happens to still have the Smash Armor debuff, he should simply use a tank cooldown (Shield Wall or Icebound Fortitude, for example) until the debuff is gone; it wears off quickly enough that this isn't a concern. In addition, the tanks will often avoid Kologarn's Overhead Smash entirely, meaning that they will clear their own debuffs and the rotation will be either very forgiving or totally unnecessary.
Beyond these changes, simply follow the overall strategy outlined in the rest of the guide.
Notes for DPS
As described above, DPS classes in this fight have an easy job:
1) Kill Right Arm.
2) Kill Rubble adds.
3) DPS Kologarn
4) Go back to step #1.
There are only a few things to add specifically here:
- Kologarn can only be attacked from the front. If you have extra expertise gear lying around, expertise is about twice as valuable on this fight (due to parries) as it normally is.
- Bloodlust is best used to lessen the length of one of the "Arm" phases. It is probably best to save Heroism / Bloodlust until the second Right Arm phase, to help pass this high damage phase quickly for the sake of healers who may be low on mana at this point.
- DPS absolutely must pay attention to Eye Beams if they are at range. It is 100% possible to avoid all Eye Beam damage and not drag the beam over any other raid member. This is the most important job a ranged DPS player has in this fight.
 Healing Assignments
Healers should be split up into 3 teams: two MT healers, two Stone Grip healers, and two raid healers. If your raid has 7 healers, assign the 7th to the MT. If you only have 5, then assign 1 healer to Stone Grip, 1 to raid healing, and 1 to cover both as necessary. Priests in particular should be assigned to MT healing for their available tank saving cooldowns (more on this below).
As described above, there are three main sources of damage in the fight: Stone Grip, Arm Sweep, and normal MT damage (which can be spiky with reduced armor debuffs). Each of these require dedicated healers because of their frequency or intensity. By the time a player is Stone Gripped, it's too late for other healers to react - the raid needs healers ready to land heals on the Stone Gripped player immediately. Set up Grid or your raid frames to recognize the Stone Grip debuff; this helps a ton. Raid healers should be able to heal the entire raid for ~10k damage every 8 seconds, while the MT healers should be good at coordinating with the tanks about their armor debuff rotation. If just two MTs are used in the tank rotation, then the tank healers should be prepared to use tank saving cooldowns like Pain Suppression or Guardian Spirit in case a tank ever receives a 3 stack of the Overhead Smash debuff.
Finally, the healers assigned to Stone Grip should heal the Rubble adds OT once the Right Arm dies, and then help heal the MTs or top off the raid during the interim period before the Right Arm regenerates.
Tanking Rotations
This fight has, at any given time, one MT and one OT (who only comes into play when an arm is destroyed to pick up Rubble adds.) The arms themselves merely grant different abilities to Kologarn, but do not need independent tanks.
However, because of the armor debuff Kologarn uses on the MT (see the Overhead Smash abilities) there need to be 1-2 extra tanks in position to Taunt Kologarn and take over the MT role, allowing the previous MT's stack of Overhead Smash debuffs to clear.
No matter which debuff the tanks are dealing with, tanks should rotate as soon as the current MT has a 2 stack of the armor debuff. Depending on Kologarn's "arm status" this can either be 40% or 50% armor reduction and last 25 or 40 seconds. Because of the "long" timer possibility, using three tanks in the MT rotation is recommended.
Tanks should be clear about which order they are going in and be clear in communicating that to their healer team so that the healers can switch healing targets immediately. In addition, if only two MTs are being used in the rotation, tanks should communicate when they plan to Taunt and let healers know when one of the MTs might have a 3 stack of Overhead Smash, meaning that they need shields, tank saving cooldowns, and very large heals to compensate for the incoming damage. This coordination is essential to survival, as Kologarn can casually kill any tank who has a 3 stack of the Smash debuff and who isn't properly cared for!
Fight Wrap-Up
Kologarn is a fight that is not "by the numbers" challenging. The DPS target of the fight is easy to meet and most raids will not have trouble healing the raid or tanks or Stone Grip targets in terms of the total amount. The challenge of the fight lies in coordinating all the moving pieces of the fight that all need to happen successfully for Kologarn to die. If everyone knows their job exactly, Kologarn will be one of the easiest bosses in Ulduar. Good luck!
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