Highlord Kruul is Dead

I finally did it.

With BFA coming in only about a month, time to complete the mage tower challenges and get the fanciest of artifact appearances (which will be unobtainable once BFA launches) is ticking down.

I also just flew back from Greece, and this ten-hour time difference is driving me insane.

So I decided to log on and drain Sargeras' sword (Gorshalach? I believe?) of its energy.

Doing so maxes out all of your artifact weapons, automatically giving you 88 levels of Concordance of the Legionfall. This gave me a huge edge in beating Kruul, because tank artifacts give you both increased health and increased damage as you gain new artifact levels. Getting about 55 more in a single go raised my max health by about two million.

So at this point, if you're still struggling with Kruul, here's a basic (very basic) guide for Prot Paladins:

In the Kruul fight you have two phases - the first is a sort of combination dance/race where you need to kill Variss, the inquisitor demon who locks down Kor'vas. He'll chain-cast spells, but if interrupted will briefly move toward his target before casting again.

The biggest things to worry about with him are his drain life ability, which heals him up, and the aura he puts on the ground around him (it moves with him) that lowers your max HP as you stand in it. I recommend a "step in, step out" approach where you let the HP debuff fall off before going at him again. Depending on where you are health-wise, you can gauge how long you want to stay in each time.

The thing that makes this phase tricky is adds.

The simplest to deal with are the little eyes that pop up. They'll channel a beam at you that knocks you back if you don't face it. You'll still want to take these out, but if you're busy, simply facing the beam will give you a little time. The annoying thing about these is that they don't move, so you'll need to chase them down (if you get a lucky crit with AS or Judgment, you can kill them from range.)

The next are these little shadow demons - I don't know if there's a category name like succubus or felguard. Anyway, these will generally come four at a time and swarm Velen, but they will attack you instead if you get threat on them. They put a stacking debuff on you as they attack, so you'll want to make sure that they eat your Consecration and Blessed Hammer (which you'll probably want to be running.) I have the legendary that buffs Eye of Tyr, which puts them down a good chunk.

The trickiest to deal with are the Infernals. These will slowly chase you around and wind up for big hits that can knock you off the platform (meaning an instant death.) Once you get them to 10%, they'll burn out for the rest of their health, but they won't permanently die, and eventually reform. That's one of the soft enrage timers on this fight.

So basically what you want to do is dps down Variss while dealing with any adds that pop up, stepping out to focus on adds when your debuff gets too high. Make sure to interrupt Drain Life, which heals Variss a lot (save a Rebuke or a Grand Crusader proc for it.)

Once Variss is dead, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that Kor'vas comes to help dps. The bad news is that Kruul shows up.

Kruul starts with 30% health, and this becomes a kind of mad race. At the levels of gear one can have now, you probably won't need to worry as much about timing your defensive cooldowns (but I'd recommend being liberal with them.)

The biggest thing to worry about here is Twisted Reflection, which is a debuff that heals him for a lot of health. So always make sure you can interrupt this cast.

Infernals and Shadow demon will continue to spawn, though the eyes won't. Kruul also gets these shadowy beams that will shuffle you along the platform (and damage you,) but don't insta-kill you. He'll also place patches of nasty stuff on the ground that you'll not want to stand in.

Burn Kruul quickly, and interrupt that Twisted Reflection, and you'll be able to do it.

One important note: Velen provides a fantastic service in addition to periodic heals: he creates these light balls that show up on the platform. Running into one will heal you to full health and stun every demon on the platform for a couple seconds. If you're getting overwhelmed, these are a lifesaver, and they're also great if you can't get an interrupt off.

If you burn Variss quickly enough, you can use these balls to quasi-stunlock Kruul, which will give you much more time to burn him down.