The Violet Hold
Level Range: [75-77] (Req: 70)
As you enter, Kirin Tor prison guards are fending off invaders of the blue dragonflight. Under orders from Malygos, they are using magical portals to enter the hold and try to break through the exit in order to enter the city.
As you talk to Lieutenant Sinclari, the guards leave and your group is on their own to defend the hold. Similarly to the Black Morass instance, there will be 18 portals opening one after another, with either a portal guardian spawning that you need to kill in order to close the portal, while small adds will be continously spawning from the opened portal, or a portal that spews a squad of elite dragonkin without the adds that spawn from the opened portal.
After the 6th and 12th portal, an unattackable dragonkin will spawn to open up one of the magically sealed prison cells, containing a boss each. After you defeated the boss, you will get a small break to catch your breath before the event goes on.
After the 18th portal, you will fight Cyanigosa, the blue dragon in charge of the assault on the prison. (WoWWiki)
Boss Encounters
Erekem
Captured Arakkoa
Abilities
- Heroic
- Erekem + Erekem Guard and Erekem Controller
- Spawns from the left side.
- Quick Learn – Tank all three on the top of the steps (or where ever). All DPS on the mini-boss and burn him down.
- If you kill the adds first, he will apply a debuff called Stormstrike onto the tank. The tank then will take repetitive 6 – 7k melee hits until they die.
This is a very simple fight — just tank and spank and kill the mini-boss first, while keeping aggro on the two adds.
Strategy
Just tank and spank. DO NOT KILL THE ADDS! just dps the boss down while keeping aggro on the two adds. Once boss is down then kill adds!
Moragg
Captured Beholder
Abilities
Heroic
- Ray of Pain – 2000 dmg per sec, for 4 sec.
- Optic link – 700/sec for 12 seconds. Goes up to 3000 the further you are away from him.
Strategy
This is a basic tank and spank boss. The only thing that tanks may need to pay attention to is the occasional spell critical on the tank; these hit for 5k damage at most and should simply be healed through. The party should generally stay as close to the boss as possible to avoid Optic Link deaths.
Ichoron
Captured Water Elemental
Abilities
Normal
-
Protective Bubble – all damage taken reduced by 99%, bursts after 35 attacks or spells -
Water Blast – shoots a blast of water at an enemy, dealing 2775 to 3225 Frost damage and knocking it back -
Water Bolt Volley – hurls a watery bolt at all nearby enemies within 45 yards, inflicting 1850 to 2150 Frost damage
Heroic
- Protective Bubble – all damage taken reduced by 99%, bursts after 35 attacks or spells
- Water Blast – shoots a blast of water at an enemy, dealing 5550 to 6450 Frost damage and knocking it back
- Water Bolt Volley – hurls a watery bolt at all nearby enemies within 45 yards, inflicting 4394 to 5106 Frost damage
Strategy
Ichoron initially comes out with a “Protective Shield” buff with 35 charges that reduces any damage by 99%. Any attack or spell hit made on Ichoron will remove one charge. When all of the charges are gone, her shield will erupt, dealing damage and knocking nearby players back. She will become untargetable and low-health elementals will spawn around the room and move directly toward her. When an elemental reaches her or when there are no elementals left alive, she will become targetable again. This cycle will repeat: 35 Charges, Shield Eruption, Elementals summoned, DPS boss phase.
Each elemental that reaches her once she is up will restore a small percentage of HP. Killing the elementals causes them to erupt, dealing damage and knocking back nearby players. Using the Defense Control Crystals around the room after Ichoron’s bubble pops will kill all elementals and, if timed right, can stop any from reaching her. The crystals are the key to the Heroic achievement 
[Dehydration]. Note, however, that using a Defense Control Crystal will cause all of the elementals to explode and can kill players if coordinated poorly, and will also prevent getting the 
[Defenseless] achievement in Heroic.
At 25%, she enrages and stops summoning adds, but hits hard.
Many groups find it useful to pull Ichoron up the stairs to the back of the platform by the entrance. This bottlenecks incoming elementals, making them much easier to AoE down and giving them farther to run. This strategy can optionally be used in combination with the crystal activators. Once she enrages at 25%, it is a DPS race.
Note that Protective Bubble severely reduces tank and DPS aggro, but does not reduce healer aggro. Tanks will want to use taunt and adjust their abilities to avoid depending on aggro from damage. Frost Resistance should help, and low cast time spells will burn through her shield faster.
Xevozz
Captured Ethereal
Abilities
- Arcane Barrage Volley: Shoots Arcane Blasts at nearby Enemies
- Arcane Buffet: Feasts upon the Energies of the Sphere and increases Damage done
- Summon Ethereal Sphere: Summons an Ethereal Sphere
Early in the fight, Xevozz will summon three spheres. The spheres have about as much health as Xevozz, so do not try to burn them down. Additionally, the spheres have a damage aura. If Xevozz gets close to a sphere, he will feed off its power and enrage – increasing his damage output considerably. Finally, if Xevozz has LOS to a sphere for more than a few seconds he will teleport himself and the party to it – immediately feeding on it and subjecting the party to the damage aura.
After a time the spheres will despawn. Shortly afterward, Xevozz will summon another set. This pattern will continue until the fight ends, one way or another.
Strategy
Heroic mode The key to this encounter are the Ethereal Spheres. On his own, Xevozz does not put out very much damage. If he gets near a Sphere, Xevozz’s damage output will increase significantly. Additionally, if Xevozz has LOS to a sphere for any length of time he will teleport himself and the party on top of it, which will cause a great deal of sadness. In order to prevent this from happening, the tank will need to kite Xevozz across the balcony. The Spheres will attempt to follow, but for the most part they will not be able to catch Xevozz.
The most effective kiting strategy involves picking up Xevozz on the stairwell immediately to the left of his cell. The tank should be on the stairs themselves, with ranged DPS and heals up at the top. When Xevozz summons the orbs, the tank should begin kiting him up onto the balcony and then to stairwell at the far end of the instance. The tank’s focus needs to be on keeping Xevozz moving, maintaining threat is secondary (since the entire party is moving Xevozz should not be taking much damage).
By the time Xevozz reaches the opposite side of the instance the spheres should have despawned. Fight Xevozz on these stairs until he once again summons orbs, and repeat the kiting process.
Healers and DPS should focus on staying ahead of the kiting path, to avoid getting near any orbs that may be following Xevozz. Xevozz will usually go down after 1 or 2 kiting passes.
If a teleport is triggered, everyone needs to focus on getting away from the three orbs as quickly as possible. The tank should declare a spot everyone should move toward. DPS should do nothing but get out of the way. Healers will need to move while keeping the tank topped off, as Xevozz’s damage output is going to increase considerably.
Lavanthor
Captured Core Hound
Abilities
N/A
Strategy
Face him away from the group because of his flame breath attack, tank him on the stairs next to his holding cell. When he begins to cast lava burst back up a few steps to avoid the AOE damage of it. Easy tank N spank just keep stepping backwards during the fight when he lava bursts.
Zuramat
Captured Void Lord
Abilities
Summon Void – Summons a Void Sentry that casts a Shadowbolt Volley every few seconds, and can only be seen with the Void Shifted debuff.
Void Shift – Channelled shadow damage over time spell; targets one random player. Leaves a debuff called Void Shifted that deals shadow damage and allows you to see hidden void creatures.
Shroud of Darkness – Lasts 5 seconds. Hitting him while this is up will place a debuff on you that reduces the healing you receive by 20%; in normal mode this can stack up to 5 times for a 100% reduction while in heroic it is possible to have more than 5 stacks at a time resulting in negative healing. Given the large amount of shadow damage being dealt to the party by the void spheres, this will usually result in a wipe.
Strategy
Zuramat is a large void lord that is caged on the west side of the Violet Hold. Throughout the fight he will summon Void Sentries that will hit the party with a Shadowbolt Volley every few seconds – the only way to kill them is to get the Void Shifted debuff, which is obtained after getting hit by the boss with his Void Shift attack. This gives you a 15 second window to kill the void adds. Another strategy is to burn down the boss as fast as possible and ignore the adds – which will depend on your healer’s effectiveness, as the damage being inflicted to the whole party can become massive towards the end of the fight.
For this boss you should place the tank in the center of the room and the rest of the group should make a half circle around the tank about 15 yards back, facing the broken wall. He will approach through the broken area of the wall and the tank should grab him and bring him to the center.
The Shroud of Darkness buff on the boss can be removed by the following:
- Mage Spellsteal
- Warlock Felhunter Devour Magic (put it on auto cast)
- Shaman Purge
- Priest Dispel Magic
- Hunter Tranquilizing Shot
- Warrior Shield Slam
This should help avoid anyone getting the healing debuff, and allow relatively uninterrupted dps.
He also casts Void Shift on one random player, this is a debuff that allows that player to see the Void Sentries that are holding the void spheres, this player should kill every sentry they can during the 15 seconds that the debuff lasts.
- If the tank gets it, he/she will have to tank and kill the sentries.
- If the healer gets it, a backup healer should take over healing, if no backup healer is available, things might become problematic.
The Void Sentries have very little HP, so light AoE is usually sufficient to kill the Sentries while Void Shifted. If you need to single target the sentries, a targeting macro can be very useful. (/tar Void Sentry)
If you find that your party is unable to deal with the Sentries in a timely fashion, the defense crystals in the room may also be used to deal with them.
Unholy Death Knights can throw up Anti-Magic Zone, if so talented, for a protection effect. AMZ will mitigate 75% of the incoming shadow damage until it absorbs 10000 + (DK’s AP * 2) damage in total, making the healer’s job more bearable.
Cyanigosa
Cyanigosa is a powerful blue dragon located in the Violet Hold. She has been sent there by Malygos to release the prisoners and invade Dalaran itself.
Abilities
Frostbolt:
Cone of Cold: Breath weapon
Blizzard: (Random target)
Arcane Grip: Pulls everyone in to her and wipes aggro. Tank should immediately taunt after this to regain aggro and reposition her back toward the stairs, it helps if dps stops for 1-2 secs while the tank regains aggro.
Melee: 2k-3k on plate
Uncontrollable Energy: Does instant damage to players in front of her and a debuff which inflicts 1000 Arcane damage every 3 seconds.
Tail Sweep Does damage on enemies behind her, interrupting spell casting for 2 sec.
Strategy
Fairly easy tank and spank. Tank should aggro her and tank her facing away from the group to get away from the breath. Periodically she does Uncontrollable energy, which can be dispelled. Also she will randomly summon everyone to the middle and throw them back. The teleport is an aggro wipe. Character Pets do not get their aggro wiped, however, so make sure the main tank taunts Cyanigosa right after the teleportation.
Source: MMO-Champion, Wowwiki, Wowhead
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