Well, boys and girls, here we are: the last wing of the last raid of Mists of Pandaria (barring some sort of Halion-style prologue to the next expansion.)
I had a surprisingly easy time of the wing for the first two bosses, one-shotting each of them, but then we wound up having to fight Garrosh eight times, though what we figured out in the process should hopefully make future attempts far easier.
Trash before Siegemaster Blackfuse:
First of all, when you initially come into the instance, you may think you somehow wound up in an in-progress version of the Underhold right after Malkorok. Never fear, though. The thing is that SoO isn't actually as linear as the other Mists raids. Essentially, after Malkorok, it looks like people on Normal or Heroic can choose to go to Spoils of Pandaria or Siegemaster Blackfuse. Anyway, let Mekkatorque or his Horde equivalent CC all the trash in this room and then head to the big door to the left. (EDIT: Actually, Horde players will have to fight through this trash, which they also did in Underhold. Instead, Horde raids will be able to skip the trash between Blackfuse and the Paragons, as Saurfang proves his badass-ness again by clearing that entire corridor for you.)
Opening it will start a cutscene where Moira (or some Horde equivalent) shows up and you get to witness the power of the new Ironstar weapons as they wipe out her soldiers.
You will then get three waves of trash that Blackfuse sends at you, each with a named miniboss among them. This is sort of one of those "showing boss abilities beforehand" segments, but basically what I recommend is running away from lasers and pulling the trash out of the big orange patches, as they buff the damage they do.
Siegemaster Blackfuse:
Despite the insanity of this fight, it's pretty simple for tanks. There is a kind of long-duration tank swap debuff that you will want to keep an eye on called Electrostatic Charge. The tank who is on Blackfuse should keep him in the Northwest corner of the room. The Electrostatic Charge will increase the damage it does per stack, but it also helps you kill adds called Automated Shredder.
Blackfuse will heal any add within 35 yards of him, so you want to tank the shredders far away from him. The good news is that the Shredders have something called Reactive Armor. For each Electrostatic Charge you have, you deal significantly more damage to these guys. Likewise, the Sawblades that Blackfuse tosses out there will also damage the Shredders, so be sure to drag them to them.
When the shredder does "Death from Above," you'll want to get out of the way so as not to be hit by the ability, but then make sure you attack the add immediately afterward, as they take a lot more damage after using this ability.
When any of his adds die, Blackfuse gets a damage buff, which is a good time to blow a cooldown if you're tanking him.
There's lots of stuff on the ground to avoid, and if your shredder is down but you still have the debuff, help kill Crawler Mines. Otherwise, I imagine most of the complexity in this fight is for the DPS.
Trash before Paragons of the Klaxxi:
The trash before the Klaxxi first involves a series of minibosses with abilities that might possibly have to do with the bosses, but in all honesty I couldn't keep track of it all. Once you make it past the minibosses, there will be three groups of fairly standard enemies, and finally the Kunchong Kovok. I believe you're supposed to stack on Kovok to share his cone attack damage.
Paragons of the Klaxxi:
First, let's shed a tear for these guys, even though they're unrepentantly evil. They called me Wakener. /sad.
This is one of those fights that's probably fairly complex and involved, but here's how we did it: pretty much a zerg.
There are nine Paragons that you will be fighting (they should all be familiar to you if you've done the rep grind.) It's all a bit of a blur, but I'll see what I can remember:
First off, when a Paragon goes down, the others heal to full and the next in line joins. So there's really no value to AoE, cleave, or multidotting except to inflate your DPS on the meters. When all nine are down, you'll have beaten the encounter.
Ok, specifics:
Korven the Prime will encase any low-health Paragon in Amber, allowing them to heal up to full. Killing this Amber is your top priority.
Some of the Paragons have attacks that interact with each other. The best thing I can recommend is making sure you split up any melee Paragons between the tanks.
...and there's a lot more to it, but we kind of just muscled through it.
Ahem.
Trash before Garrosh Hellscream:
After 1-shotting the first two bosses, we wiped two or three times on this trash, though once we figured things out, it got easier.
First off, try to pull the Orcs on their own, without the little Sha-goo adds. Focus down the Harbingers of Y'shaarj, as they summon adds that are invulnerable until they die.
Little puddles of goo will summon oozes as well. You need to have a ranged DPS stand in the goo to soak it up, increasing damage done and taken. When the puddle is soaked, the adds will stop coming.
After watching a brief scene where Thrall gets his ass kicked by Garrosh, you'll be ready to pull the Warchief.
Garrosh Hellscream:
This fight can be intimidating and frustrating if the raid isn't cooperating, but it's actually not that bad.
There are three phases to the fight, but the main theme, as it has been in this whole raid (this whole expansion?) is that you CANNOT get tunnel-visioned.
Phase 1:
During this phase, Garrosh summons members of the "True Horde." One tank will simply be on Garrosh, while the other has the unenviable job of picking up tons of adds coming from multiple, distant locations.
Most of these will be Warbringers, who come out six at a time from the two gates on either side of his throne. However, less frequently, you'll get FARSEERS, who ride around on Wolves. THIS IS YOUR TOP PRIORITY FOR PHASE ONE. The Farseers cast a chain heal that, if not dealt with, will keep the adds up and make the fight practically impossible. Interrupt and kill the Farseers, though, and the Warbringers will die to cleave effects and the rest of the fight will be, well, not easy, but far easier.
Also during this phase, two Kor'kron engineers will prepare the Ironstars to use in the fight. While on harder difficulties you might want to let them unleash these things and then pull the adds into them, on LFR, I recommend simply having two ranged players dedicated to taking the engineers out when they pop up. If the Ironstars are unleashed, they'll roll along the floor, squashing to death anyone in their path (save Garrosh, sadly) and then explode, dealing 1.5 million damage to everyone, but dealing less the farther you are from them. Anyway, if you kill the engineers, you won't have to worry about them.
Also during this phase, Garrosh will do Desecrate, hurling a desecrated weapon at a random raid member, creating a very large void zone and a stationary weapon that can be dps'd and killed. It's probably recommended that you kill these weapons to keep the stage clear.
When you get him down to 1 health, phase two will begin.
Phase 2:
Garrosh gets some power from the Heart of Y'shaarj and he begins to gain energy. Every 25 energy, one of his abilities becomes empowered. First off: when he's getting his Old-God-juice fix, this is a perfect opportunity to nuke down the rest of the "True Horde" Kor'kron adds. Make sure that they're all dead, and the rest of the fight will get a lot easier.
After a few seconds, Garrosh will pull you into a vision within the Heart of Y'shaarj. This will be one of three random locations: the Terrace of Endless Spring, the Temple of the Jade Serpent, or the Temple of the Red Crane. There will be varying numbers of adds (only two in Red Crane, but tons in the Terrace) who will grant a damage-reduction buff after they die to anyone who walks through the glowing light spheres. Kill all the adds and then attack Garrosh. He will do only one attack here, which is Annihilate: a massive-damage frontal cone attack. Just stay behind him and you'll be ok. I believe that it's in these visions that Garrosh gains energy, and that damaging him enough will get you out of it, so do that quickly.
Now, once you're out of the vision, the most dangerous part of the fight begins. First off, did you kill all the Kor'kron? No? Dammit, people. Ok, you'll want to do that, but not quite yet. Your first priority is to DAMAGE ANYONE WHO IS MIND-CONTROLLED. The "Touch of Y'shaarj" is a MC-effect that is far worse than any you've dealt with. Why? Because it's infectious. MC'd people will start casting this on other raid members. If not dealt with IMMEDIATELY, the raid will be totally overrun.
Now that the adds are down, the tanks will want to swap frequently, as Garrosh gains a fast-building debuff.
Additionally, after a certain energy threshold, Garrosh's whirlwind will create Sha adds, so you should try to take those down when you have a chance.
The visions will continue through this phase, but if you're quick, you can keep him from getting too much energy. Bringing his health down to 1 again will begin phase three.
Phase 3:
Garrosh will finally absorb the rest of the power of the Heart, fully empowering all of his abilities, but restoring him to only 25% of his health. This is your burn phase. You'll still want to interrupt and damage anyone who's mind controlled, but hopefully you've hit Hero/Bloodlust/Time Warp.
My main advice here is to not lose focus. You'll still need to deal with his abilities, so try not to get over-excited with the prospect of taking him down.
Once you've got his health all the way down, the essence of Y'shaarj will dissipate and, well... I guess I won't spoil things for you. I do recommend sticking around, as there's a quest you can get, and you can also talk to all the present leaders (sadly, Velen and Genn Greymane are not there for some reason.) Granted, if your Alliance, the Horde leaders all simply say "I have nothing to say to you, *race,*" and I assume the reverse is true for Horde, but it's still kind of fun to see everyone there.
Conclusion:
Well, that's the Siege of Orgrimmar, and raiding in Mists of Pandaria as a whole. I guess the main moral of the story for this raid is to always kill adds. I suspect that Garrosh will give people trouble for a while, but once you get good about taking down the right kinds of adds, it should be easy. Paragons of the Klaxxi might be harder than it seemed, if your group is not that well geared (we must have been one of the first LFR groups to run the place, and I think most of us were pretty well-geared mains with lots of Legendary cloaks.)
Probably next week I'll take my Death Knight in here to get a DPS perspective on it. I imagine I'll particularly have more to say about Paragons then.
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