Al’ar Strategy Guide (Tempest Keep: The Eye)

al'ar the eye tbc guide
  • Author: Pride
  • Date: October 6, 2021
  • Updated: October 6, 2021
  • Expansion: TBC Classic

Al’ar is one of those bosses that changed significantly over the course of TBC, and Blizzard themselves seemed uncertain about which version they’d give us in TBC Classic. The version we ended up getting was different to the version players tried on the PTR even, and thus tutorial videos & guides on her can be a bit off.

At face value, Al’ar has many abilities but they’re all extremely simple. In fact, it is pretty likely that if your raid has decent DPS, she will only use 1 ability in phase 1 — Ember Blast, the ability she uses when she “dies”. It doesn’t get any simpler!

But while her abilities are simple, they are also very lethal, with the smallest mistake resulting in death. Coupled with her whopping 6.8 million HP — second only to Kael’thas Sunstrider himself in Tempest Keep — the Phoenix God can prove to be a long, grueling fight, where your members keep dying one by one, resulting in a wipe.

This guide will offer your guild a step-by-step analysis of how to prevent the Phoenix God from rising from the ashes.

Role Summaries

Phase 1

  • Move to spot 1 (see The Pull section) after Al’ar is done using Flame Quills
  • When Al’ar reaches 0 HP, move away from the center of the arena

Phase 2

  • Avoid standing in Flame Patch, use a Healthstone if you do
  • When Al’ar flies up into the air, stack up in the middle, then run away when she lands

Phase 1

  • Use your DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust for maximum DPS
  • Make sure you aren’t the first person to reach Al’ar after she repositions – you will die
  • If she flies to the middle of the room rather than to a platform, jump off the top side or you will die
  • When Al’ar is about to reach 0 HP, jump off the top side or you will die

Phase 1

  • Use your DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust for maximum DPS
  • She cannot attack ranged players during this phase, so you can nuke without worrying about threat

Phase 2

  • You can keep attacking Al’ar while she’s mid-air, but be careful of threat, tanks can’t attack her at this time
  • If the raid leader calls for you to kill the Ember of Al’ar adds, don’t kill them while they’re close to the raid

Phase 1

  • Be quick to follow the boss as she repositions – being late can easily result in a tank death
  • There isn’t a lot to heal during this phase, so it helps if you can spare some mana to DPS the boss

Phase 2

Phase 1

  • Make sure you understand where you need to be – read the Phase 1 section of this guide
  • You need to start moving to your designated spot 10 seconds before the boss repositions — DBM has a timer
  • Taunt the boss as soon as she reaches your tanking spot, as threat is not reset, so she will start killing melee
  • Stand at the edge of your spot, so you are within your healers’ line of sight
  • Jump off the top side ASAP if she flies to the middle rather than to a platform
  • When Al’ar is about to reach 0 HP, jump off the top side or you will die

Phase 2

  • When she reappears after a Dive Bomb, charge & taunt her ASAP or someone will die to Charge
  • Move her away from Flame Patch, as patches close to the raid make dealing with Dive Bomb a lot harder
  • Taunt her off the Main Tank if he gets the Melt Armor debuff

Ember of Al’ar Tank

  • Tank these away from the raid, with your back against the wall, specially if your raid is killing them. They explode when they die, dealing major fire damage and knocking back anyone within 15 yards, likely killing healers.

Abilities – Phase 1

Her first and main ability in phase 1 isn’t even really an ability.

Al’ar will land on one of 6 possible spots, and will stay there for roughly 30 seconds. After that, she will fly to a different spot, with some restrictions. This will be explained in more detail in the Phase 1 section.

Good awareness and positioning from your tanks are crucial for countering this mechanic.

Al’ar will spam this ability as long as there are no melee targets for her to attack.

Deals 1750 to 2200 fire damage to every raid member and applies a debuff for 10 seconds, increasing fire damage taken by 10%. 2 sec cast, infinite range, debuff stacks indefinitely.

Your raid will likely wipe if your tanks are more than 6 seconds late with getting to her, resulting in more than 3 stacks.

Al’ar will fly off from her platform, towards the middle of the room. When she reaches the middle, she will use this ability, dealing 6.5k-7.5k fire damage every second to anyone on the higher part of the arena, likely killing them instantly.

2 Ember of Al’ar spawn on the lower part of the arena. These are the exact same as the ones that spawn in phase 2.

This has a very slightly different animation than her normal flight, as she moves upwards as she flies off and moves slower than normal. After she’s done with this ability, she will fly back to spot 1 – see the Phase 1 section for more.

Al’ar uses this ability when she reaches 0 HP in phase 1, dealing 9-10k fire damage to everyone within ~15 yards and knocking them back. Her Ember of Al’ar adds also use it when they die, though theirs deals less damage.

It is vital that all melee get away from her just before she reaches 0 HP, and that all Ember of Al’ar adds are killed away from the raid, else you’re looking at a wipe.

After using this ability, she will teleport to the middle of the room, heal to full, and deal 4-4.5k fire damage to anyone lurking in the middle, knocking them back. Then, phase 2 begins.

Abilities – Phase 2

Al’ar flies up into the air, to the middle of her room. After ~10 seconds, she will crash into a random player in the raid, dealing ~150k fire damage to him and any allies within 10 yards, divided by the number of targets hit.

2 Ember of Al’ar spawn immediately afterwards, and 5 seconds later, she uses Rebirth..

Note that she’s still attackable while she’s mid-air, so ranged players can keep doing DPS while the raid stacks to counter this ability, explained in the Phase 2 section.

Used roughly every 50 seconds. Most of her other abilities in phase 2 revolve around Dive Bomb, so managing it correctly will make the difference between a kill and a wipe.

Al’ar becomes visible again and deals 4-4.5k fire damage to anyone within ~15 yards of her landing spot, knocking them back. Virtually identical to Ember Blast.

About 1 second after she uses this ability, she will use Charge.

Charges a random player in the raid and has a high chance of auto-attacking them, likely killing anyone except tanks.

If she is Taunted when she charges, the auto-attack will always be on whoever taunted her, so this ability can be countered by having your MT Taunt her the moment she reappears following Rebirth.

Spawn patches of fire on the ground under random players, dealing ~2k fire damage per second to anyone in contact with them, and increasing their fire damage taken by 10% for 20 seconds. Used throughout phase 2.

Applies a debuff to the target, reducing their armor by 80% for 1 minute. This will result in tank deaths, so you need to tank swap to handle it. Used throughout phase 2.

Same as the phase 1 version – will be spammed if there are no targets in melee range. This will usually happen if your MT gets knocked back by Rebirth and is slightly late getting to her.

Raid Composition & Preparation

Your entire raid should have Healthstones to deal with minor accidents like staying in a Flame Patch.

There are no special requirements in regards to DPS players for this fight. You can run any DPS setup you like, though ranged DPS has a massive advantage in both phases.

Your raid is on a timer during both phases, making DPS very important in this fight. Thus your DPS players should be using flasks, elixirs, buff food etc, so as to make each phase as short as possible.

Running 6 healers is recommended, specially if you find your healers dying to small mistakes often. Fewer than 5 makes this fight very difficult, as it can be pretty healing intensive.

Al’ar deals a significant amount of AoE damage, so Restoration Shamans and Holy Priests are highly desirable. You should have at least 3 of those 2 specs, which should be assigned to raid healing for all of phase 2.

One of your healers should be dedicated to healing your Protection Paladin tank in phase 2. Restoration Druids are excellent at this job, as they can heal well while moving.

The rest of your healers, particularly single target focused healers like Holy Paladins and Discipline Priests, should focus on healing the tank currently tanking Al’ar throughout the entire encounter. She doesn’t hit too hard, but you want to have 2 healers assigned to this task if possible.

All healers should come prepared with mana potions and +healing / mana regen elixirs and buff food, as this fight can be very taxing on their mana.

Make sure your healers are Soulstoned, as it is very easy for them to die here.

Many guides will say that you need 4 tanks for this fight, but you really don’t. You can do it with 3 fairly easily, provided they have decent awareness and understand the fight. Those same guides might also say that one of the tanks needs fire resistance, but they do not. Nobody in the raid needs fire resistance.

Protection Paladins make dealing with the Ember of Al’ar adds extremely easy, so having one helps a lot. They lack a charge however, and their taunt (Righteous Defense) does not work very well in phase 1, making them slightly sub-par for that phase.

Protection Warriors with their Intercept / Taunt and Feral Druids with their Feral Charge / Growl make significantly better candidates for the spot of mobile tanks in phase 1, explained in the Phase 1 section.

The Pull

Al’ar will not attack your raid unless you attack her, so you’re safe to buff anywhere in her room. She will keep flying in circles around the room until you engage her, at which point she will land in spot 1, as per the picture below.

alar phase 1 positions

When you’re ready, a hunter waits until Al’ar is directly above spot 1 and pulls with Misdirection on the MT. The raid positions itself as shown below.

alar phase 1 raid position

Essentially, ranged DPS and healers stay on the bottom side of the arena while the tanks and melee stay on the top side. Tanks and melee should be at the very edge so they are inside the healers’ line of sight, and the melee should be behind the boss to avoid parry hasting it.

Note that on the picture above, tanks are marked as A, B and C.

C is your prot paladin ideally, while A and B ideally are prot warriors or feral druids, in any combination.

Tanks B and C can stay with the melee when they aren’t currently tanking, but they should move to their designated platforms when there’s ~10 seconds left until the boss moves, which DBM can point out.

The fight itself is highly scripted, with little RNG, so learning to deal with the mechanics will ensure victory.

Phase 1

The longer phase 1 goes on for, the more dangerous it becomes, so the goal is to end it as fast as possible.

For that reason, the rest of your hunters should use Misdirection on the MT right at the start.

As soon as the MT has a healthy aggro lead on the boss, you should use Heroism / Bloodlust and your single-target DPS players should use their damage cooldowns.

As mentioned before, tanks that aren’t currently tanking can help DPS, but should be prepared to move to their next spots when there’s 10 seconds left until the boss flies off, which will happen roughly 30 seconds into the fight.

While Al’ar is above 30% HP and has repositioned fewer than 3 times, she can only fly to an adjacent spot, as shown in the following picture.

alar phase 1 connections 1

Thus in this situation your tanks should be ready to reposition as follows:

alar phase 1 tank positions

On the other hand, if the boss is at 30% HP or less AND has repositioned at least 3 times, she can now fly to the platform across the room from the current one, on top of to adjacent ones, as shown in the picture below.

alar phase 1 connections 2 1

This naturally complicates things quite a bit. You can’t have tanks run that far to get to Al’ar because she’ll spam Flame Buffet and wipe your raid. So from that point on, your tanks should reposition as follows:

alar phase 1 tank positions 2

Tank C (ideally a prot paladin, as mentioned previously) will be permanently stationed on the platform across Al’ar.

If you get Flame Quills in this situation, with Tank C being positioned across, Tank B should take over Tank C’s assignment, as Tank C needs to tank the 2 Ember of Al’ar that spawned. Tank A will have to take over tanking on both adjacent platforms, so you will want to make sure it is someone with a charge ability.

Other than that, you rinse and repeat. Just keep an eye out for Flame Quills, indicated by her flying upwards. Your tanks and melee need to jump down, and the entire raid moves to spot 1, as that’s where she’ll move to afterwards.

If your raid DPS is high enough, you can kill Al’ar before she repositions for the 4th time, meaning she will only be able to move to adjacent platforms and will have a very low likelihood of casting Flame Quills, making phase 1 incredibly easy.

Some general pointers for phase 1:

  • Tanks need to taunt as soon as they reach Al’ar, she does not reset threat when she flies off.
  • For the same reason, melee should not reach Al’ar before a tank taunts her, as they will get aggro and die. You should never have to worry about this if your tanks have a charge ability and moved earlier, however.
  • She can never attack ranged players, so ranged players can just go to town, no need to worry about threat.
  • Healers need to quickly follow Al’ar when she flies off, specially if she flies across. Being late can result in a tank death.
  • There is generally very little damage coming out in phase 1, so healers can help DPS and get her down a bit faster.

When she’s about to reach 0 HP, melee and tanks need to jump off in order to avoid dying to Ember Blast.

Phase 2

Make sure nobody’s standing in the middle of the room (the pink… glass… thing) because that’s where Al’ar will reappear, dealing massive damage to anyone nearby.

As soon as she reappears, your tanks need to charge in, else she will start casting Flame Buffet, which hurts a lot more in phase 2 as raid damage is high.

Then, you will want to position as follows:

alar phase 2 positions

Ranged DPS and healers will need to spread out slightly so as to avoid having Flame Patch hit too many people. Do not spread out too much, because AoE healing spells will not be as effective.

You have roughly 40 seconds until the first Dive Bomb, at which point it’ll become significantly harder to damage Al’ar as you move around constantly, so this is a pretty good time to use your DPS trinkets and cooldowns.

When the boss flies up into the air, everyone should stack in the very center of the room. Make sure everyone is topped off as the raid’s about to take a lot of damage. Ranged players can keep damaging to her while she’s mid-air, but they need to be careful of threat, as the MT cannot generate threat at this time.

Then, as soon as you take the damage, before the boss re-appears, everyone needs to move towards the ranged spot, making sure to avoid any Flame Patches on the way. If you wait too long, you’re going to get hit by Rebirth, which will likely kill you after the Dive Bomb damage you took a moment ago.

It is important that the raid stays together in avoiding Dive Bomb, so AoE heal can top people off quickly.

Your MT needs to charge and taunt Al’ar right away, else someone will likely die to Charge or Flame Buffet.

Your protection paladin needs to be ready to pick up the 2 Ember of Al’ar that spawn as soon as she dives. Loose adds will kill people, so Misdirection can help if your paladin is struggling to get initial threat on both of them.

If your raid has good DPS, you can just ignore the adds by having your prot paladin tank them for the entire fight. If your raid’s DPS is low, you might want to kill the first set of adds that spawn, else you may end up having too many up at once, possibly killing your prot paladin.

If you decide to kill them, make sure they are nowhere near your raid when they die, as their explosion damage will wipe you.

The rest of the fight entails repeating what you have seen so far. Change tanks when your MT is affected by Melt Armor and avoid Flame Patch. There’s a lot of things that can kill you in this fight so you will likely lose players over time, but as long as you have the Dive Bomb maneuver figured out, the rest of the fight isn’t too bad.

Congratulations on being one step closer to the last and most difficult boss of Tempest KeepKael’thas Sunstrider!

 

About the Author

Pride

Classic WoW is my jam, with a passion for PvP. Most know me as Baranor, the ret paladin guy, but I'm secretly a druid main, don't tell anyone. In my free time I play Switch games, particularly JRPGs. Some day I'll be making my own games and I humbly hope you play those too!
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Bhearhemoth
Bhearhemoth
2 years ago

Has Alar changed how they move between platforms since the nerf?

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