Disclaimer: This is the heroic version of the fight, and I will only be going into changes and the strategy specific to heroic mode.  For a full list of abilities and general strategies, please check out the normal mode guide.

Introduction: Swagger all you like in your new heroic duds Hagara, but we can run laps around your frosty wave pool and perform the electric slide like a pro.

Difficulty (Heroic): 2/5: There is not a whole lot changed from normal to heroic here other than MOAR.  This fight will require individual responsibility from all raiders, so adjust the difficulty accordingly .  The fight itself does have some tense moments of healing, but nowhere near like Zon’ozz.  DPS is not a huge issue here as well as long as they are not asleep at the wheel.

Comp and Stats:

Tanks: 1
Healers: 2-3 (We prefer 2)
DPS: 6-7
Hagara: 52M
Ice Tomb: 697k
Binding Crystal (Frost phase): 2.5M
Bound Lightning Elemental (Lightning Phase): 1.5M
Enrage: 10 minutes

Heroic Changes:

• Normal Phase
• Ice Lance: Now also applies a stacking debuff that increases the amount of damage a player takes from Frost Damage by 25%.
• Shattered Ice becomes very important in relation to Ice Lance.  The tank can position Hagara in such a way to make sure this does not cause major issues.
• Focused Assault: Can no longer be avoided and will do substantially more damage.  The tank will need a cooldown every one.
• TIP: While we did not really use this, you can have a non-tank class taunt Hagara from far away causing her to run to that new target wasting the Focused Assault.  The tank simply then taunts back before Hagara reaches the other player.
• Frost Phase
• Frostflake (Magic; Dispel): Hagara places a Frostflake on a random player, reducing their movement speed by 10% and an additional 10% every 1 sec for 15 sec.
• Frostflake Snare: When the Frostflake effect expires, a 10 yard radius area of frost forms underneath that player. The frost reduces any player’s movement speed standing within the area by 50%.
• The Binding Crystals have substantially more HP.
• The falling ice is pretty much a death sentence if you get hit by it.  Call out for a lifegrip if you derp and get hit by one.
• Lightning Phase
• Storm Pillars: Hagara targets the location of a random player, then after 3 seconds a pillar of lightning erupts. The lightning inflicts 35000 Nature damage to all players within 5 yards.
• These show up as void zone like circles on the ground.  This is just the usual, don’t stand in or near the bad shit.  However, do not let this break a lightning chain.  It is better to take the damage then break a chain.
• Lightning Conductors: There are now 8 conductors up from 4.
• Everything deals a lot more damage (gasp!).

Normal Phase:

Positioning:

Quickly have the tank move Hagara to the Skull position.  This should be fairly close to the edge of the room, with only the tank being in front of the boss.  Ranged and heals need to position themselves as indicated to quickly take and swap out of Ice Lances.  Melee need to make sure they are 3 yards apart from each other.  After each alternate phase you will re-position the raid in this manner.

Focused Assault: The tank will need defensive cooldowns in order to survive this.  Make sure rotations are planned accordingly.  Healers and tanks should have their bossmod track the CD on this.

Ice Lance and Shattered Ice: The reason for this positioning is it makes it fairly simple to deal with Ice Lance and Shattered Ice.  Shattered Ice in this position will always hit the tank, making dealing with the stacking debuff from Ice Lance much less of an issue.  With Ice Lance just make sure to not be a hero, do not try and soak the entire cast, even if it means melee getting hit by a couple.  The debuff only lasts 3 seconds so swapping is quick.

Some additional tips: Aura Mastery is a great CD to use here if you have issues, but should not really be needed.  Grounding totem can also eat Shattered Ice.

Frost Phase:

Positioning:

Your raid will want to quickly group and and blow up crystal 1 before the ice walls are fully out.  Once this is done, scoot and shoot is the name of the game.  Always be closer to the ice wall in front of you as Frostflake will be slowing everyone down.  Always stay on the inner parts of the circle by the watery entrenchment as the distance to run will be less.  While everyone should stay together if you get really screwed, you can hop into the Watery Entrenchment (“Bad” on the map) to avoid getting instantly killed by the ice waves.  Keep moving and play it safe.

Dealing with Frostflake: Frostflake should be dispelled immediately when it is placed on someone.  Ideally if they can hop into Watery Entrenchment before dispel this is good, but not really needed.  The snare Frostflake will leave behind will not be bad if you kept my positioning tips in mind.  Here are spells that will greatly help out in Frost phase:

• Aspect of the Pack: Yes that’s right.  If you have a hunter they need to have this on during frost phase.  Nothing that can hit you will trigger the daze.  Having AotP makes this phase so much easier.
• Stampeding Roar: Can help if your entire raid is falling behind.  Call out for use.
• Hand of Freedom: 6 seconds of snare immunity on a 25s CD.  Abuse this.
• Drums of Speed: Not huge, but another option.
• Individual CDs should be used wisely as well such as racials like Darkflight, and class abilities like Sprint and Blink.

Alternate Strat – Stack in Entrenchment: This did not work well for us, and we found just running together to be very simple and manageable.  However there have been a few kill videos I watched where ranged and healers will stack on Hagara, in Watery Entrenchment.  This allows for max DPS for ranged on the crystals, but means there will be a lot of raid damage.  This pretty much requires 3 strong AoE healers.  Melee will still be on the outside kiting anyway.  We tried this about 6 or so times and just did not find it to our liking.

Lightning Phase:

Positioning:

First off, this image was snipped from the Fatboss video, so thanks to them for making this.  In Lightning phase, positioning is everything.  It will take a little bit of practice, but when done right you can end the phase in around 10s.  You will need four teams of two, with your two healers in the middle by the green ring.  The groups will move like this:

Portal/Mob –> East

Portal/Mob –> West

East –> Opposite of Portal

West –> Opposite of Portal

Each teal line represents a lane that a group of two will be assigned.  Make sure one person in each group is the leader (out in front) and the other is behind.  Once a group finishes their chain they should immediately move to the middle with the healers.  When the mob dies the people who are assigned to the conductors far away need to already be over there.

The pairs assigned to the farther conductors can stage themselves initially so that the front man stands like this

The star represents the front man in the far group and the diamond represents the caboose of the far pair. Once that conductor on far east or far west lights up, diamond must be moving to where star is and star should be scooting towards the north end of this map.

Concluding Thoughts:

• DPS CDs should always be saved for when she is stunned.  Heroism should also be timed here.
• Melee should move into Watery Entrenchment once the last Binding Crystal is about to die to maximize uptime during her stun phase.

Videos: