Kologarn Strategy Guide - Ulduar (25) - WotLK Classic

Author: Passion
Date: December 8, 2022
Updated: December 8, 2022
Expansion: WotLK Classic

Kologarn, created by Ignis the Forgemaster, guards the Shattered Walkway. He stands between your raid and reaching Yogg-Saron. Unfortunately, he isn’t simply guarding the bridge, Kologarn is the bridge. Destroying him is the only way to cross into the center of Ulduar.

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with Kologarn and his titanic arms.

Stay out of melee range with Rubble
Move out of the way for focused-eyebeam

Focus on Rubble when possible

Keep on top of shockwave damage. Falling behind can easily lead to a raid wipe
The window of time between a tank having 2 stacks of crush-armor and the taunt swap happening can be very high damage, so make sure to keep an extra eye on the tanks

Taunt swap at 2 stacks of crush-armor
- Make sure you are in melee range of the torso when swapping!
Pick up Rubble ASAP whenever it spawns

Call out focused-eyebeam targets
If a Healer or Tank is grabbed with stone-grip, call out to make sure everyone adjusts accordingly
Call tank swaps at 2 stacks of crush-armor if the tanks are not doing this themselves
Call to swap back to the arm whenever it respawns

Abilities

Kologarn is separated into three chunks, his torso, and each of his arms. Each chunk has its own abilities, and killing an individual piece will disable their abilities temporarily. The fight is over once Kologarns torso is dead.

Kologarn

Kologarn will focus his gaze on a raid member, causing two beams to follow them, dealing damage to everyone around the beams. The focused player will need to avoid these beams by running away from them.

The player should try to move towards a designated spot, and anyone occupying the path there will need to quickly move out of the way to avoid being hit by the beams.

Kologarn smashes his fists down, dealing Physical damage and applying a stack of crunch-armor to the target. Each stack of crunch-armor reduces the armor of the target by 25% for 45 seconds.

This is the main tank mechanic for this fight, requiring consistent tank swaps to avoid tanks taking too much damage. crunch-armor can be avoided with dodges and parries, making avoidance gear highly valuable for this fight.

Just like with overhead-smash, this ability deals less Physical damage but still applies as a stack of crunch-armor. Kologarn will only cast this if he is missing an arm.

Kologarn will shout as a last-ditch effort. This deals a small amount of Physical damage to the raid every second as long as Kologarn has no arms.

This is just passive damage if you happen to kill both arms at the same time. Most groups will not opt to do this, instead killing one arm and then focusing the torso while it respawns.

If there is no one in melee range of Kologarn, he will deal massive Nature damage to the raid every second and apply brittle-skin, increasing the damage they take by 20% for 8 seconds. This mechanic is in place to ensure a tank is always engaged with Kologarn, not just with his arms.

Kologarn is tauntable, so grabbing Rubble using AoE taunts such as challenging shout can very easily lead to accidental wipes!

right-arm

When an arm dies, it deals damage to Kologarn.

Kologarn’s Right Arm grabs 3 random players, incapacitating them and dealing moderate Physical damage every second until the arm lets go. The arm will let go after taking enough damage from the raid, or when it dies. After 15 seconds the arm will squeeze the life out of the players in its hand, killing them instantly.

left-arm

The Left Arm smashes the ground, dealing heavy Nature damage to the raid.

This is a constant source of damage for the fight and something that healers will need to remain on top of in order to avoid unnecessary deaths. Spells like Aspect of the Wild can be worth using here, as any damage mitigation helps!

rubble

Whenever an arm is destroyed, 5 Rubble will spawn.

Rubble periodically deal moderate Physical damage to everyone within 10 yards of them. This also increases their damage taken by 5% for 10 seconds. Because of this Rubble is typically dealt with either by ranged DPS or entirely by the off-tank.

Raid Composition & Preparation

This fight has no specific class or spec requirements, and as long as your group can outheal the damage you should be able to pull through.

You will want 3-6 Healers for this fight, with no particular style of healing being more or less valuable.

There are no strict requirements for DPS classes or specs here, you simply want a combination of good raid buffs and debuffs, as well as the best players you can muster.

You will want two tanks for this fight, one for Kologarn and one for Rubble. The Kologarn tank will need to swap occasionally to drop stacks of crunch-armor.

The Pull

There is nothing special to consider when pulling Kologarn. Simply have your main-tank run into melee range with the boss’s body.

The Fight

Kologarn’s body must be tanked at all times to make sure he doesn’t petrify the raid. Your tanks will need to rotate who is currently tanking the torso, taunting after 2 stacks of crunch-armor. Crunch-armor can be dodged and parried, making avoidance sets worth considering, leading to fewer tank swaps and less general risk.

The DPS should focus on Kologarn’s right arm to minimize how many stone-grips go out during the fight. Once the arm dies, Rubble will spawn from it. The current off-tank will want to pick these up as fast as possible and keep them out of melee range for the raid while your ranged DPS focuses them down. The right arm will respawn after 60 seconds, and your group will most likely want to swap back to it each time it comes back.

As soon as the right arm is dead, your group will want to focus on Kologarn’s body, burning it down until the right arm respawns, then rinse and repeat. The left arm will likely die to cleave damage every so often, but it will generally not be worth focusing.

Occasionally Kologarn will cast focused-eyebeam at a random player, firing lasers that follow the target and deal AoE damage around their impact. The player targeted will need to run away from the point of impact, and they should completely ignore everyone in their way. Everyone not targeted will need to take their own responsibility for avoiding focused-eyebeam, while the target simply makes sure they get out of there.

Running towards the entrance can be a good direction, as long as your raid is aware of this and keeps the entrance clear for focused-eyebeam targets.

Here are some of the main things that can typically go wrong in this fight:

Tanks fail to taunt swap and get too many stacks of crunch-armor
The off-tank fails to pick up Rubble, leading them to target healers
Someone other than the main-tank uses an AoE taunt to aggro Rubble, taunting Kologarn and causing petrifying-breath to hit the raid
focused-eyebeam is pulled through the raid
stone-grip grabs an unlucky combination of players, for example, 3 healers
Healers fall behind on shockwave‘s constant damage

Achievements

disarmed-25
- Kill Kologarn and both of his arms within 12 seconds. Killing an arm deals damage to Kologarn, so this is done by killing both arms while the boss is at low health and then quickly killing what is left of the boss.
if-looks-could-kill-25
- Kill Kologarn without any raid member being hit by focused-eyebeams. This requires everyone to pay constant attention to their surroundings and the focused player to not accidentally bring the beams onto any raid members.
rubble-and-roll-25
- Kill Kologarn after spawning at least 25 Rubble. This requires your raid to kill a total of at least 5 arms. Each arm respawns after a short time, but to get this your raid will have to avoid dealing too much damage to the boss directly, as each arm killed deals significant damage to the boss.
with-open-arms-25
- Kill Kologarn without destroying any arms. This requires a fairly high performance group, effectively ignoring the main premise of the fight and instead focusing directly on the boss. Anyone grabbed by an arm will be stuck there until the boss dies!

Congratulations on defeating Kologarn! Assert dominance by using his corpse as a bridge and make your way into the Observation Ring.

About the Author

Passion

I love MMOs of all shades, especially the nitty gritty numbers parts of them. You might recognize me from the Shadow Priest discord, otherwise I play a little bit of everything, especially games with support roles available.