Yogg-Saron (tactics)

Yogg-Saron is the final boss encounter of the Ulduar raid dungeon. It is mainly a DPS race, but also requires high situational awareness.

The fight is lighter on healing than Mimiron, one healer per five raid members is enough. Extra DPS reduces raid damage taken.

Entering Yogg-Saron's room immediately starts the encounter. The fight has three phases, engaging Sara and her guardians first, then defeating the Brain of Yogg-Saron and finally its body. 15 minutes after the first raid member enters Sara's room, Yogg-Saron casts Extinguish All Life, which one-shots the raid.

''Long ago the titans imprisoned Yogg-Saron deep within Ulduar to save Azeroth from the Old God's destructive power. But after years of plotting, Yogg-Saron has succeeded in corrupting its guards, and now the monstrous creature is finally breaking free.''

''The lucid dream. The monster in your nightmares. The fiend of a thousand faces.''

''All must bend to the master's will. Your petty quarrels only make him stronger.''

Sara must be damaged by Guardians of Yogg-Saron's Shadow Nova, once damaged significantly, Yogg-Saron will reveal himself and begin to attack the sanity of his enemies, which is depleted will turn his enemies against one another. Periodically portals will appear which grant players access to the Brain of Yogg-Saron, while inside they must dispel illusions in order to escape, before they are afflicted with Induce Madness. When the Brain of Yogg-Saron reaches 30% health remaining, Yogg Saron's Shadowy Barrier will fall and he can be assaulted directly.

• During Stage One defeat the Guardians of Yogg-Saron nearby Sara in order to damage her.
• Enter the Descent into Madness and defeat the illusions to gain access to the Brain of Yogg-Saron.
• Avoid losing all of your Sanity.
• Stand close to your allies when connected by Brain Link.

• Avoid losing all of your Sanity.
• Enter the Descent into Madness and defeat the illusions to gain access to the Brain of Yogg-Saron.
• Stand close to your allies when connected by Brain Link.

• Position Guardians of Yogg-Saron near Sara to damage her with Shadow Nova.
• Avoid losing all of your Sanity.
• Be quick to grab the attention of Crusher Tentacles and Immortal Guardians as they spawn.
• Prevent Immortal Guardians from healing by moving ones with Empowering Shadows away.

Speak to the Keepers of Ulduar and they will join the battle and provide additional buffs and benefits while engaged with Yogg-Saron.

• Freya
• Hodir
• Mimiron
• Thorim

As Sara assaults her enemies Guardians of Yogg-Saron will periodically join the battle.

• Sara

Yogg-Saron reveals himself and begins his assault on his enemies mind.

• Sara
• Crusher Tentacle
• Corruptor Tentacle
• Constrictor Tentacle
• Laughing Skull
• Brain of Yogg-Saron

When the Brain of Yogg-Saron reaches 30% health remaining, Yogg Saron's Shadowy Barrier will fall and he can be assaulted directly.

• Yogg-Saron

Battling Yogg-Saron without the aid of some or all of the Keepers of Ulduar for assistance is possible, but extremely dangerous.

• Stage Three: True Face of Death

Sara cannot be attacked directly, and casts the following spells randomly on the raid and the Guardians:

Sara is stationary in the center of the room. The only way to damage her is the AoE damage from dying Guardians (see below). Green-yellow clouds move in a circular pattern through the room (always the same path at the same speed), but they are faster than it seems. When players (not pets or totems) touch a cloud, a Guardian of Yogg-Saron spawns. This must be avoided at all cost. The golden rule of this phase is to immediately stop everything if a cloud comes close, and move away to a safe spot. 5 seconds DPS / Healing lost doesn't matter at all, while an extra Guardian means a substantial increase in difficulty. As with many such rules, it sounds simple, but actually doing it requires high situational awareness from everybody, and leads to many failures.

Guardians also spawn automatically at an increasing rate, starting at about one per 40 seconds, increasing up to one per 10 seconds. Since 8 Guardians have to be killed close to Sara in order to end the phase, it may be practical to cause one (or even two) voluntary extra spawns early in the phase - this reduces the number of Guardians left over at the start of phase 2. It is ok to have 2 Guardians up after the transition, 3 is still possible, 4 is a likely wipe.

Abilities:

• 950,000/220,000 HP.

Shadow Nova is the only way to damage Sara. Eight Guardians have to be killed close to her to start the next phase.

Dark Volley should be interrupted.

The safest method is to have one tank in the center of the room, a small ranged group (3-4 damage dealers plus one healer) within range of that tank and the majority of the raid at the outer edge, near the door, where it's safe from clouds. The offtanks bring Guardians to the raid where they are nuked down to about 25% (don't use DOTs). Then, the offtanks bring the Guardians to the tank near Sara, who taunts them. When the Guardian is close enough to Sara, the small ranged group kills it. It's possible to have the tanks trade places (and not taunt the Guardians). Taunt can be resisted, but it reduces the distance which the tanks have to move through the clouds.

This method is fairly safe because only the tanks and the dedicated ranged group must dodge clouds. Unfortunately, DPS output is low. For this reason, it's hardly ever used in 10 player or hard modes, but it's normally used by 25 player groups learning the encounter.

The normally used method is to put tanks and melee on top of Sara (tanking and killing Guardians there), while ranged and healers move around the outside. This method increases effective DPS on the Guardians but requires everyone in the raid to dodge clouds.

Quickly kill any remaining Guardians from phase 1.

There are two areas, outside and inside the Mind's Eye (Yogg-Saron's brain). During this phase, Yogg-Saron regularly opens portals to the Mind's Eye. After four portal phases, the spawn rate of the tentacles outside increases substantially. Phase two ends when the Brain of Yogg-Saron's health inside the Mind's Eye hits 30%. Throughout the phase, all raid members not inside should concentrate close together while killing Crusher Tentacles.

Abilities: Crusher Tentacle:

• 2 million/ 400,000 hit points

Corruptor Tentacle:

• 600,000/100,000 hit points

Constrictor Tentacles:

• 100,000/8,000 hit points

The tentacles should all be killed as quickly as possible.

• Ranged focus on the Crusher Tentacles
• Melee focus on the Corruptor Tentacles
• Constrictor Tentacles can be ignored until they grab someone, then they can be nuked quickly by a few damage dealers

Everybody capable of doing so must dispel the debuffs from the Corruptor Tentacles. They do not deal melee damage and should be interrupted and stunned while being killed by melee.

Melee damage dealers should generally stay away from Crushers. One melee damage dealer should carefully hit the Crushers regularly, to disrupt their damage reduction cast (but not too frequently, so they don't gain the damage increase buff).

Constrictor Tentacles randomly pick up players from the raid. Victims may continue to cast and are freed by killing the tentacle. They do not cancel or prevent Druid ShapeShifting anymore. ( 3.2.2 )

Sara hovers above Yogg-Saron's main body and casts various spells:

She spams Psychosis without pause on random raid members unless she casts something else. The other three abilities each have a 30-second cooldown and are used randomly when available.

Brain Linked players get a linking beam between them which is red when they are too far apart and yellow when they are safe. Entering a portal ends Brain Link.

60 seconds into phase 2, and then regularly after 80 seconds (= 20 seconds after the preceding portal phase), Yogg-Saron emotes: "MADNESS WILL CONSUME YOU!" and opens portals into the Mind's Eye (4 for 10 players, 10 for 25). They spawn in equal distances around Yogg-Saron's body. Each portal can be used by only one player, and they despawn after a rather short time. Using all the portals quickly and efficiently is the key to this phase.

Since ranged are more effective outside, mostly melee DPS should enter. In 25 player, one healer should also join. The assigned players should make sure their sanity is high enough. It's a good idea to pre-assign portals so that players can move to the portal spawn points before they actually appear.

Abilities: Laughing Skull:

Influence Tentacle:

• 40,000 hit points.

Brain of Yogg-Saron

• 6.85/1.3 million HP.

After the portals are open, Yogg-Saron's brain starts a 60-second cast of Induce Madness, which turns everybody in the Mind's Eye insane upon completion.

After passing through the portals, players enter one of three possible illusions. Each of them is a circular room with a door to the brain room right at the spot where players enter. The door is blocked, in order to open it, the Influence Tentacles in the first room need all to be killed. Additionally, laughing skulls float around. Characters looking at one of the skulls are affected by Lunatic Gaze (a purple beam) and lose sanity. To avoid this, players should look towards the outside wall of the room, and strafe. Use the camera controls to look around; don't physically turn your character.

Influence tentacles are disguised as neutral mobs and always stand along the outer wall around the room. All attackable mobs in the room are tentacles. Depending on the vision, the tentacles are disguised as Deathsworn Zealots; Suits of Armor; or Azure, Emerald, Obsidian, and Ruby Consorts. Damage dealers should take one quick tour around the room (along the wall), and hit each Influence tentacle once or twice. After moving a full circle, all tentacles should be dead, and players are back at the door.

Killing all influence tentacles has several positive effects. Inside, the door to the brain room opens. Outside, all tentacles are stunned, Sara stops casting and no additional tentacles spawn until the Induce Madness cast is finished. It's essential to kill the influence tentacles very quickly.

After entering the brain room, players should look for the portal back outside near the rear wall. It's a good idea to stand next to that portal before nuking the brain. When about 5 seconds are left on the Induce Madness cast timer, quickly use it.

Abilities:

• Yogg-Saron starts this phase at 30% of its original HP (= 16.5/3.3 million).

Heroic 3 Keepers or Less Only:

Note: the epic music and voicework that begin when the phase is initiated are worth turning on game sounds at least once.

When phase 3 starts all tentacles left over from phase 2 remain active. Therefore, no Crushers must be up - some communication is needed, don't kill the brain until all Crushers are dead. A few Corruptor Tentacles can be ignored as long as the debuffs are dispelled.

Phase 3 ends when Yogg-Saron dies. Yogg-Saron has no aggro list and is unable to move.

Players should stand near the green pillars if Freya is helping to be able to restore sanity. All healers should face away from Yogg-Saron at all times. The caster camp is best located about 20 yards away from the melee camp. Melee DPS can get knocked back by Yogg-Saron if they run into his body.

Lunatic Gaze is used every 12 seconds, it creates purple beams between Yogg-Saron and the players facing it. Healers should turn away the whole time, while tanks and DPS should get into the habit of regularly turning away.

Yogg-Saron spawns (and heals) increasing numbers of Immortal Guardians, which eventually kills the raid. Ranged DPS should focus on Yogg-Saron through the whole phase, while melee and tanks deal with the Guardians, although melee may require help from ranged on the Guardians.

If the raid is using three or fewer Keepers in 25 player mode Yogg-Saron emotes, "Yogg-Saron opens his mouth wide!" while casting Deafening Roar (about once per minute). This is the cue to throw the into Yogg-Saron's maw to recover the upon his defeat. Deafening Roar is best dealt with by Holy Paladins rotating Aura Mastery with Concentration Aura up.

Abilities:

• 500,000/100,000 HP.
• Melee for ~20-25k on plate at start with a full Empowered stack
• Immortal - Immortal Guardians cannot be slain except by Titanic Storm while at 1% HP.

Yogg-Saron spawns Immortal Guardians every 10–15 seconds. These have to be picked up by the tanks and DPSed down quickly. At full health, they hit a well-geared tank for 25k. When their health deceases, so does their damage output.

Immortal Guardians can only be killed if Thorim is helping. Without him, they need to be tanked through the whole phase. Every 45 seconds, Yogg-Saron marks one or more Guardians with Shadow Beacons. 10 seconds later, it launches shadow missiles at the marked Guardians. Upon impact, the missiles explode and give the Empowering Shadows buff to all Guardians and Yogg-Saron within 20 yards. This means that at the moment when the missiles are launched, all marked Guardians must be 20 yards away from Yogg-Saron, else it gets healed. The healing Guardians receive can be reduced by a rogue with Wound Poison and Fan of Knives.

To keep the Guardians at low health (and thus at low damage output), they should be tanked in a tight group near Yogg-Saron, so that one or two ranged DPS can AoE the Guardians and Yogg-Saron. When the Guardians get beacons, they must be quickly dragged away until the missiles explode, then they can be brought back.

In order to be able to solo this encounter, players must have an ability that does not have a facing requirement (like a paladin's Judgment), or an area-of-effect spell to handle the Constrictor Tentacles in phase two. If that requirement is met, the encounter is a race to do enough damage before the character's sanity is lost.

The first time soloing the encounter, consider having at least Freya active, as her Sanity Well will help make the encounter go much smoother while learning it. However, to have a chance at getting Mimiron's Head, players must run the encounter in Alone in the Darkness (25 player) mode. To deactivate a keeper after activating it, exit Ulduar and reset the instance.

In the Sara phase, run around through gas clouds to force-spawn Guardians of Yogg-Saron in addition to the guardians that spawn naturally. Gather eight, then stand underneath Sara and AoE all the adds to get their Shadow Nova ability to kill her.

In phase two, start killing tentacles, as Yogg-Saron's body is immune to damage until phase three starts. When a Constrictor Tentacle inevitably grabs the character, target the tentacle, and use any ability that does not have a facing requirement on it or target the ground under it with an AoE. Druids may wish to keep a Starfall up and stand in it.

As soon as a portal to the Mind's Eye opens up (after 60 seconds and every 80 seconds after that), enter it. Face away from the Laughing Skull's Lunatic Gaze and kill all of the Influence Tentacles in the main room with quick attacks. Once they're all dead, enter the second room (the door of which is right where the player spawns) and start attacking the Brain of Yogg-Saron. As soon as the outside portals to enter mind's eye open, the brain begins a 60-second Induce Madness cast, which will instantly cause all players still in the mind's eye to lose what's left of their sanity. Do as much damage to the brain as possible and exit the room using the portals to the surface with a few seconds before the cast completes. Getting the brain to 30% will start phase three.

In phase three, focus on Yogg-Saron and kill it as quickly as possible. Every 12 seconds the body will cast Lunatic Gaze, so be sure to physically phase away from the body while the cast is in progress to retain what little sanity the character has left.

• The Descent into Madness (10 player)
• The Descent into Madness (25 player)
• Kiss and Make Up (10 player)
• Kiss and Make Up (25 player)
• Drive Me Crazy (10 player)
• Drive Me Crazy (25 player)
• He's Not Getting Any Older (10 player)
• He's Not Getting Any Older (25 player)
• They're Coming Out of the Walls (10 player)
• They're Coming Out of the Walls (25 player)
• In His House He Waits Dreaming (10 player)
• In His House He Waits Dreaming (25 player)
• Three Lights in the Darkness (10 player)
• Three Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• Two Lights in the Darkness (10 player)
• Two Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• One Light in the Darkness (10 player)
• One Light in the Darkness (25 player)
• Alone in the Darkness (10 player)
• Alone in the Darkness (25 player)
• Realm First! Death's Demise

• Aggro
• yell

• Sara's Fervor
• yell

• Sara's Anger
• yell

• Killing a player
• yell
• yell

• Corpse Release in Phase One
• whisper

• Coming in Phase Two
• yell
• yell
• yell
• yell
• yell

• Taunt
• yell
• yell

• Insanity reaches to zero
• whisper
• whisper

• Creating a vision
• yell
• The Tortured Champion vision:
• say
• yell
• say
• The Turned Champion walks up to the Lich King and salutes him.
• say
• say
• say
• The Forging of the Demon Soul vision:
• say
• say
• say
• say
• say
• The Assassination of King Llane vision:
• say
• say
• say
• say
• say
• say
• As she speaks, Garona suddenly thrusts both her daggers forward, impaling Llane through the chest and he falls at her feet immediately.
• say

• Phase Three
• yell

• Deafening Roar
• yell

• Death
• yell ("The shadow of my corpse will choke this land for all eternity.")

See Sound Files of Ulduar: Yogg-Saron

• Alone in the Darkness (25 player) is considered by many to be the most complicated and difficult encounter currently in the instance, more difficult even than Firefighter (25 player) and Algalon the Observer, though the one hour timer on Algalon means that raids will have much more time to work on Alone in the Darkness.

• 2009-04-16: The Descent into Madness (25 player) was first completed by Ensidia.
• 2009-04-28: One Light in the Darkness (25 player) was first completed by Irae AoD using Thorim as the only Keeper up.
• 2009-05-18: Alone in the Darkness (10 player) was first completed by Ensidia.
• 2009-07-07: Alone in the Darkness (25 player) was first earned by the guild Stars.