Kalecgos Strategy Guide (Sunwell Plateau)

Sunwell Plateau Raid Guide

Sunwell Plateau Loot

Kalecgos

Brutallus

Felmyst

Eredar Twins

M’uru

Kil’jaeden

Kalecgos, the Blue Dragon, is the first boss that players will encounter in the Sunwell Plateau raid. He has been corrupted by a dreadlord called Sathrovarr the Corruptor, who is forcing Kalecgos to do his bidding. Players will have to defeat Sathrovarr in order to restore Kalecgos to normal and advance further into the Sunwell Plateau.

Kalecgos’ encounter is considered to be the easiest in the Sunwell Plateau raid, along with Felmyst. However, that is not to say that it’s easy in general, as it is surprisingly difficult for a first boss of the raid, specially compared to previous raid tiers. Many guilds will need some Arcane Resistance in order to defeat him, while underprepared guilds may find themselves unable to advance further into the Plateau.

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to overcome Sathrovarr’s corruption and restore Kalecgos to his former self.

Role Summaries

Abilities

Kalecgos

You initiate the fight by attacking Kalecgos in his blue dragon form, who is being controlled by Sathrovarr and forced to attack your group. You must reduce both Kalecgos’ and Sathrovarr’s HP to 1% in order to clear the encounter. Reducing Kalecgos to 1% HP causes him to be banished, becoming invulnerable to damage and unable to take any actions until your raid either reduces Sathrovarr to 1% HP as well, or wipes.

Kalecgos & Sathrovarr

Kalecgos and Sathrovarr share one spell: Crazed Rage.

Sathrovarr the Corruptor

Players can attack Sathrovarr after being teleported to his spectral realm by Kalecgos’ Spectral Blast. There, they will find him locked in combat with Kalec, who is Kalecgos’ real self. You must reduce both Kalecgos’ and Sathrovarr’s HP to 1% in order to clear the encounter. Reducing Sathrovarr to 1% HP causes him to be banished, becoming invulnerable to damage and unable to take any actions until your raid either reduces Kalecgos to 1% HP as well, or wipes.

Kalec (Kalecgos Human Form)

Thankfully, you are not alone in this fight. When you enter Sathrovarr’s spectral realm, you will see Kalec, Kalecgos’ real self, locked in combat with Sathrovarr. Kalec isn’t as strong as his physical, dragon form, but he will assist you a modest bit, tanking Sathrovarr to the best of his ability, dealing a decent amount of damage, and buffing players inside the spectral realm. If Kalec dies, your raid will wipe.

Arcane Resistance

Kalecgos’ Arcane Buffet will deal a high amount of Arcane damage to your raid over the course of this fight. Thankfully, it can be mitigated by Arcane Resistance, so similar to other raid fights, it can be beneficial to bring some here. Having said that, you don’t really want to go for very high amounts of Arcane Resistance here — typically only using 2-3 pieces of AR gear. Furthermore, when your guild gets better at this fight, you can stop using AR, as it’s not really necessary, it just helps make your healers’ lives easier while you’re progressing.

Having Cloak of Arcane Evasion & Pendant of the Null Rune gives you 77 Arcane Resistance unbuffed, or 110 when buffed with Mark of the Wild, which is a very good starting point. It is recommended that you bring an extra piece (with Ring of Arcane Shielding being the best option for many classes that need their trinket & boots) in case your healers are struggling to keep your raid alive. On the flip-side, if it looks like your healers are doing okay with keeping everyone alive, you can remove Arcane Resistance items over time.

Raid Composition & Preparation

Portal Groups

The most important aspect of this fight will be managing who goes into the Spectral Rifts portals opened by Spectral Blast, and when. If you don’t manage portals correctly, players will die to Arcane Buffet & Curse of Boundless Agony, and you won’t be able to make progress, as both Kalecgos and Sathrovarr need to be defeated for this encounter to end.

General

In general, you will want to split your raid into 4 groups, 3 of which will have 5 players, while the last group has 6. Each group will need 1-2 healers and at least one player capable of removing Sathrovarr’s Curse of Boundless Agony, aka a Druid or Mage. Ideally you will want these groups to contain classes that synergize with each other, and to make things easier, have them be similar to your raid groups. For example, if your raid’s group 1 is a Fury Warrior, a Retribution Paladin, a Beast Mastery Hunter, an Enhancement Shaman and a Rogue, give them a Restoration Druid for the decurse and another healer and you have the first group right there.

Name these groups group A, group B, group C and group D, and make sure everyone remembers what portal group they are in. Spectral Blast targets a random person and transporters them to the spectral realm. That person will need to call their group number in chat and other people in that group will need to follow in. That will change after the 4th portal however, as order is established at that point. For example, if your groups went into the first 4 portals in the order of (D -> B -> A -> C), then group D will go into the the 5th portal, followed by group B, then group A, then group C, and then repeating, starting with group A again.

Tanks

Tanks will also need to deal with portals, as Sathrovarr needs to be tanked and no tank can tank Kalecgos forever — they will eventually die to Arcane Buffet. The tank portal rotation looks a good bit different to the general rotation at first, though it will also eventually start repeating.

Let’s say you have 3 tanks, called Tank A, Tank B and Tank C — then your tank rotation should look as follows:

Note that these timestamps are simply indicative, the portals do not open exactly every 20 seconds. The table however shows the general idea. In general, your tanks will enter the spectral realm when they can and immediately taunt Sathrovarr / Kalecgos the moment they enter / exit. The only exception to this rule is that Tank C has to skip the 2nd portal, as entering would cause Sathrovarr to not have a tank for a while and start killing DPS players. Every other tank waits until the next tank exits the spectral realm and taunts the boss, and then they themselves enter the next available portal.

Some important things to remember:

• The first tank to go into the spectral realm should not taunt Sathrovarr right away. Make sure there are healers inside the spectral realm or you will die.
• Always wait for the next tank to taunt before you move on to your next assignment.
• Move to the DPS spot when you’re not tanking.
• Important: While Spectral Blast cannot target the main tank, it can target off-tanks. This means that the first Spectral Blast may target tank C, in which case they need to let the raid know, so tank B does not enter right away. In fact it’s a good idea for tank B to wait a few seconds before entering just in case this happens.
• Similarly, tank C might get hit by the 2nd Spectral Blast, essentially being forced to go in early. If that happens, tank A will need to go into the next portal immediately after tank B taunts Kalecgos (at ~1:20) or Sathrovarr won’t have a tank for a while.
• If you have a Protection Paladin, they should be tank A — they may have to stay “upstairs” for up to ~1:40 which is a whole lot of Arcane Buffet stacks. Having Divine Shield to reset healers’ stacks will make things a lot easier.

Tank Healer

Observant readers may have noticed that 3 groups of 5 players equals 15, plus 1 group of 6 players equals 21, plus 3 tanks equals 24 — that leaves 1 player unaccounted for, which is intentional. The last player will be a healer (ideally a Holy Paladin, otherwise someone with 200+ Arcane Resistance) who is primarily responsible for healing the first tank (tank A from the Tanks section above) pretty much throughout the entire fight, though they can be a bit more flexible if your raid requires it.

They stay “upstairs” and heal tank A, using Divine Shield to reset their stacks when necessary. Then, when tank A enters a portal, they enter as well — the tank healer essentially just follows tank A around. If any group’s healer dies, they could substitute for them temporarily, but this will be their primary job.

It is crucial that if the player assigned to this task happens to get teleported by one of the first 3 portals, they immediately call it out, as someone else will need to substitute for them, otherwise the primary tank can be potentially healer-less for a long time depending on portal timing RNG, and likely die.

The Pull

There is a Sunblade Protector robot enemy patrolling the path up to Kalecgos. After defeating it, your raid can resurrect the dead, buff up and regenerate mana, in preparation for your first battle in the Sunwell Plateau. Don’t forget to equip your Arcane Resistance gear!

When you’re all ready, have your tank initiate the fight by running in, supported by your Hunters using Misdirection on them. Kalecgos should be tanked on the opposite side of the entrance to his platform, so your tank will need to really go in there, and your healers will need to follow, using instant cast healing spells as necessary.

The Fight

Your raid should position as shown in the picture above. Kalecgos is tanked close to his original position, facing the side (north or south works, this picture shows north) so as to avoid having Kalecgos hit the raid with Frost Breath, his frontal attack, and Tail Lash, his backwards attack. The raid spreads out, with at least 11 yards between players so as to avoid having Spectral Blast hit multiple players; melee DPS cannot spread out so they just stack up and get healed ASAP. Portal groups stay close to each other, ready to enter a portal that spawns on top of any member of their group.

Kalecgos unfortunately has no chill and won’t wait for your group to be positioned; he will use his abilities right away: Wild Magic 6 seconds in, followed by Arcane Buffet 8 seconds in. There is not much to say about the first Arcane Buffet — it will deal 500 Arcane damage to everyone and start stacking up. Wild Magic can be problematic this early on however; your tanks have not had time to build a lot of threat yet, so an overzealous DPS player (or even a healer!) can over-aggro and possibly wipe your raid if they get the Wild Magic (White), Wild Magic (Black) or Wild Magic (Green) debuffs, so be careful.

Roughly 15 to 30 seconds in the fight, Kalecgos will likely cast Spectral Blast for the first time. If your raid has spread out correctly, it will only hit 1 player and there will be no splash damage for healers to deal with, unless it happens to hit melee. That is the least of your concerns though, as the portal mechanic begins now. The player who gets teleported needs to yell on voice (or use a macro for raid chat) for their portal group to follow them. The portals last 15 seconds, so other players have a few moments to get in, but don’t cut it too close. There are 2 things that can go wrong at this point:

• Tank C gets teleported. In this case, portal group A goes in, but tank B doesn’t go in yet, and also skips the next portal.
• The MT healer gets teleported. In this case, portal group A and tank B go in as normal, but one of the healers of group A should stay out.

Once inside, the tank should confirm that there healers inside with them and taunt Sathrovarr. DPS can start attacking right away, as Kalec will have some threat on Sathrovarr already, but be very careful not to overtake Kalec and die. After the tank has taken over, group A should use Heroism / Bloodlust and start nuking Sathrovarr. Everyone who is not currently tanking Sathrovarr should always be stacked behind him, as shown in the picture above.

The “downstairs” is roughest on healers, as Sathrovarr does modest damage to both the raid and the tank. Your decurser dispels Curse of Boundless Agony when there are 10-15 seconds left, while 1 healer tops off the raid after Shadow Bolt Volley. The other healer, if there are 2, must focus on the tank at all times, as Corrupting Strike can deal 13,000 damage to them out of nowhere, which may just kill them when coupled with a random crit. For that reason, if you have groups with just 1 healer, it is recommended that they’re a Restoration Shaman, as they can heal both the tank and raid at the same time with Chain Heal.

Meanwhile, Kalecgos is increasing his Arcane Buffet stack count upstairs. Ironically, this doesn’t increase his overall raid damage by all that much, as there are fewer players around. Then, likely 20 to 40 seconds in, Kalecgos will cast Spectral Blast once more. Just like before, the teleported player calls out that they were teleported for their group to follow. The difference being that the remaining offtank, tank B, doesn’t go in yet. Once again, two things can go wrong here:

• Tank C (or tank B if Tank C was teleported earlier) gets teleported. In this case, portal group B goes in.
• The MT healer gets teleported in. In this case, portal group B goes in, but one of the healers of group B should stay out and heal the main tank.

Back downstairs, group B should use Heroism / Bloodlust once everyone is down and nuke Sathrovarr along with group A. Things will be a lot easier this time around, as you now have 2-4 healers around instead of just 1-2, so healing and decursing will be a lot easier. The only complication is that Sathrovarr will curse a new player with Curse of Boundless Agony every 40 seconds, increasing raid damage every time you go down, essentially. That won’t be too bad if your ranged DPS players stack up however, allowing your healers to top everyone off with AoE healing spells.

20 to 40 seconds later, Kalecgos will cast Spectral Blast for the 3rd time and this time there aren’t too many targets for him to choose. Same as with previous portals, the targeted player calls out on voice for their group to follow, and everyone stacks up behind the boss. This time, the last offtank (tank C) also follows in, and immediately taunts Sathrovarr off tank B, who moves behind Sathrovarr. Use Heroism / Bloodlust and nuke Sathrovarr. Once again, only 2 things can go wrong here:

• Tank C (or tank B if Tank C was teleported earlier) gets teleported. In this case, portal group C goes in.
• The MT healer gets teleported in. In this case, portal group C goes in, but one of the healers of group C should stay out and heal the main tank.

At this point point, the initial Kalecgos tank and the main tank healer probably have a very high Arcane Buffet stack count and they may want to use Divine Shield to reset their stacks — don’t go above 10-12 stacks if possible. The first group to enter a portal will likely be coming out soon at this point, too. When that happens, tank B should immediately taunt Kalecgos, while tank and the main tank healer get prepared to enter the next available portal. Decurse Curse of Boundless Agony from tank A and the MT healer as they prepare to go in, as they may not have a decurser for a good while.

20 to 40 seconds later, Kalecgos will cast Spectral Blast one more time. The last group should now go in, along with tank A and the MT healer, if the first group has been ejected and the tank swap was carried out successfully. Just like all previous groups, they stack up behind Sathrovarr and use Heroism / Bloodlust to nuke Sathrovarr. If tank A made it in, they should immediately taunt Sathrovarr, UNLESS the MT healer couldn’t make it into the portal in time — in which case they should not taunt, and just let Kalec tank for a while, until a healer can come in.

As these are the last players to go in, the portal mechanic will simply start repeating at this point, with your portal rotations being the same until the fight ends. For example, if your groups went into the first 4 portals in the order of (D -> B -> A -> C), then group D will go into the the 5th portal, followed by group B, then group A, then group C, and then repeating, starting with group A again. The only things that can go wrong are tanks leaving before the next tank taunts their mob, healers entering a portal before the group before them gets ejected and thus leaving the tank without a healer, tank A and the MT healer weren’t decursed before going into a portal, and people miss portals thus dying to Arcane Buffet.

But of course you know better after reading this guide. The last thing to watch out for is Crazed Rage, this fight’s soft-but-kinda-hard enrage mechanic. When either Kalecgos or Sathrovarr are reduced to 10% HP, they will both enrage, gaining a 5% physical damage and attack speed buff which stacks every 5 seconds. This will eventually cause them to “delete” tanks, so your raid needs to get them down to 10% HP at roughly the same time, then finish them off ASAP. If your DPS is a bit on the weaker side, it’s okay to save Heroism / Bloodlust for the enrage, to ensure you get them down.

After getting either boss to 1% HP, they will be banished and stop taking actions. If you got Sathrovarr down to 1% you have practically won, as Kalecgos won’t pose much of a challenge with all 25 of your players blasting him down from 10% HP. If Kalecgos is approaching 1% HP first however, there is a possibility that you won’t have enough DPS to finish off Sathrovarr with no more portals taking into the spectral realm, which will cause a wipe, so make sure you can finish off Sathrovarr with the players currently inside before getting Kalecgos down to 1%. You win by getting both bosses down to 1%.

Congratulations on defeating Sathrovarr the Corruptor and restoring Kalecgos to his former self! With this, you have taken a bold step into the Sunwell Plateau raid and are one step closer to the final boss of The Burning Crusade, Kil’jaeden! The amazing Sunwell Plateau Loot can’t hurt, either.