Killin' a God of Death: Alone in the Darkness

Yogg-Saron's hardest version still stands as arguably the hardest fight in the game. A tier later, despite significant nerfs and a significant improvement in gear, only 312 guilds in the world have completed the encounter since the world first in July, compared to 566 heroic Anub'arak kills in barely two months.

So, as a warlock, what can you expect on the fight?

Despite being a very challenging fight for a raid as a whole, it's actually fairly straightforward for warlocks, and no real change compared to what you've done since your first four watcher kill. This is the fight that drives downloads of DXE over BigWigs or  DBM, I'll explain why in phase 2.

First, let's talk spec. Destruction's the king of tier 8 content, but Yogg Saron throws a curveball in this, though. The standard spec is affliction, and in fact if you're still working on this encounter post-3.3, I'd suggest sticking to this flavor of affliction (with Glyph of Quick Decay over Curse of Agony), since an imp is considerably easier to manage than a felhunter or succubus, and you still have some talent support for an imp in this spec. Melee pets can't attack crushers, and there's always a risk that a felhunter or succubus will be killed out of your sight on corrupter totems.

Affliction's performance on this fight stems from phase 3, the only phase where DPS outside of the brain team is very urgent. Yogg comes into phase 3 almost in execute range, affliction is one of the specs that carries the bulk of single target DPS on Yogg, not just because of drain soul execute, but because you don't need to be facing yogg all the time to do it, so you don't need to full stop during Lunatic Gaze.


Meta/ruin also has a place in the fight. Phase 3 calls for heavy AOE, and while warlocks aren't the go-to source of it over shadow priests or unholy DKs, we're not slouches, either. Demonology also has a powerful execute, but does have to come to a full stop during lunatic gaze. This little extra AOE comes at the cost of a good chunk of Yogg damage, I personally don't think it's worth it but it's still something to consider.

So, we're specced, let's fight.

Phase 1
You know this fight, it hasn't changed from four down to zero watchers, but there's one consideration for a zero light kill: You're likely going to have a lot more DOT heavy classes than you did for a one light kill. Unholy DKs, shadow priests, and affliction warlocks all play key parts in phase 3 that they didn't for one light where you could still kill adds and single target and burst ruled the day. In phase 1 this means you basically can't stop DPS on an add. If it drops under 50%, it's going to die regardless, so tanks need to be aggressive about getting them to the middle.

Phase 2
More familiarity for a warlock. The burden of phase 2 lies entirely with the brain team, which is generally a job reserved for melee and hunters.

Your primary concern above all other things is to preserve sanity. There's a lot of random, unavoidable sanity loss, but it will stop if you drop below 30. It is possible to go into phase 3 with some people as high as 50-80 sanity yet, so take every step to avoid unnecessary sanity loss.

The raid should be moving as a group as much as possible, which keeps brain links in control -  remember to watch and listen when you do get brain linked, you may have to follow the person so they can reach a portal. The biggest thing, and the reason DXE sells itself on this encounter, is Malady of the Mind.

Malady is something you just ignore on 4, 3, or 2 watcher kills. Sanity isn't a limited commodity. It's possible you don't even know exactly what it does if you haven't begun preparation for a 1 or 0 watcher kill. It's basically a deathcoil that does sanity damage, but at the end of the horror effect it will attempt to jump to a nearby target. It's possible for a single malady to absolutely destroy the raid's sanity if it gets a few jumps. DXE will give you an arrow and a range counter pointing away from whoever has malady. The minimum safe range is 15 yards, the arrow will be yellow at that distance. Run in the direction the arrow points, make sure you're at least at 15 yards and the victim isn't running towards (the range counter will be getting smaller) you and controlling chains is easy.

Phase 3
This is the fight. Phases one and two are just like one light, except with 10% less DPS and a lower margin of error. Phase 3, however, is entirely different. Where all other modes, the Immortal Guardians die when they reach 0 health, in 0 light, without Thorim present, they will never die. They need to be burned to low health to reduce the damage they're doing, tanked, and then the marks need to be controlled. This job can be handled a number of ways, hunters being the most popular, but regardless of how it's done, it's not YOUR job.

Your job is twofold: Beat on Yogg-Saron himself until loot comes out, and don't go insane.

The trick to doing this is to stand with the healers. This will be out of the action and the huge pile of immortals, you'll be able to see what your doing, but you want to stand with the healers because they're more important than you, and their camp will be the best protected place in the room.

"Look upon the true face of death, and know that your end comes soon." This is your queue: When Yogg says this, start putting dots up while working your way into position. He's not in execute range yet, just get as much damage into him as you can right away. As soon as he drops below 11 million health, switch to your execute rotation.

Your job from here on out is to keep dumping damage into yogg and not eating Lunatic Gaze. Be aware of the cooldown timer on gaze, and try to time haunt refreshes just at the end of the cooldown. Haunt refreshes and starting drain soul channels are the only time you should be facing yogg, and try to only turn just enough to get him in front of you to get spells off and then turn away. Drain soul keeps channeling while you're turned away. Continue to drain soul through gaze if your DOTs are falling - you can start refreshing near the end of gaze, but you won't be able to pick up drain soul immediately if you break off, so be careful not to lose DPS time.


If you're successful, you'll have a chance to roll against 24 other people for the most prestigious flying mount so far this expansion. Hope you like the sounds Mimiron makes during combat, because with that thing you'll be hearing them a LOT. The rest of the loot isn't of any special note, a TOC 25 normal clear can net you upgrades to all of it.

There's still a lot of servers with Realm First! Death's Demise up for grabs, as well, leaving you the chance to pick up a prestigious (and pretty bad ass) title.