A minimum of 3 tanks are required, 4 is heavily recommended. Feral druids can take the role of protection warriors extremely well here, but at least 2 well geared protection warriors are required.

You want about 6-8 healers in the fight as well depending on how confident you are in them, but the fewer the better.


Phases
There are 5 phases to the Kael'thas Sunstrider fight. For simplicity, the phases will be briefly explained here and then explained in-depth later on.

Phase 1
The raid fights Kael'thas' 4 advisors one by one. Each of them have special unique abilities. Phase 1 begins from the pull and ends when the last advisor is killed.

Phase 2
The weapons of the advisors are summoned in front of Kael'thas and set loose on the raid. There are 7 weapons total which all use unique abilities. Phase 2 ends approximately 2 minutes and 5 seconds after it begins, regardless of whether or not all the weapons have been killed.

Phase 3
The 4 advisors previously killed are all resurrected by Kael'thas and set loose on the raid. During this phase the raid must deal with all 4 advisors at once and whatever weapons are left alive from the previous phase. Phase 3 ends approximately 3 minutes after it begins, regardless of what is alive or dead.

Phase 4
Kael'thas himself comes out and the raid must deal with him and his unique abilities while also having whatever hasn't been killed from the previous phase up.

Phase 5
At 50%, Kael'thas will play a small in-game cinematic, destroy the walls of his room and start using different abilities. Phase 5 continues until his death.



Phase 1 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas has 4 advisors, all of which will be fought 1 by 1 during this phase. Exact raid positioning is not important at all, as long as when you are fighting them 1 by 1 they die near the spots they MUST be tanked in for Phase 3. Check the Phase 3 diagram to see where you should kill them.

Thaladred the Darkener
This is the add wearing the tier 5 warrior set and using the 2 handed axe. He has about 600k HP. Thaladred is much like Buru the Gorger from AQ20, he emotes that he sets his eyes on a certain player and then follows them around for a period of approximately 8-12 seconds, before switching his gaze again. He has no aggro table, the person who he currently has his gaze set on will have full aggro for the duration. He also has 2 unique abilities. The exact emote is...

Psychic Blow - a 30 yard range physical knockback attack that does his weapon damage.

He melees on plate for about 3-4k damage, and leaves a rend dot that ticks for 2500 damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds.

Grand Astromancer Capernian
Caperinian is the female caster add and she has about 420k HP.

Arcane Explosion - much like the Twin Emperors Arcane Explosion, when any player is in melee range she uses this and does approximately 4-5k arcane damage to anyone in range and knocks them back, leaving a debuff that slows movement speed.

Fireball - her primary ability. She chain casts this on her highest aggro target, just like Twin Emperors. It does approximately 5-7k fire damage.

Conflagration - a random secondary ability. She picks a target within 30 yards and puts a Conflagration debuff on them, dealing 900 damage every second for 10 seconds, chaining to anyone within 8 yards. This also disorients the players affected for the duration. Conflagrated players also deal 300 fire damage a second to anyone that comes near them

Awarlock of any talent build can tank Capernian with zero fire resistance. This warlock tank and two healers should be on one side of Capernian with the rest of the raid greater than 30 yards behind her. All classes who must be less than 30 yards to attack must either stand back and sit this advisor out entirely or avoid using attacks with a range below 30 yards. Remember this phase is not a race so lowering your DPS on Capernian a little bit is manageable.


If executed correctly, the warlock should never be affected by Conflagration and should take all Fireballs. The two warlock tank healers should have no problem keeping this warlock alive and other than the warlock tank and the FR Tank, no one else should take any damage at all.

Master Engineer Telonicu
The final add for phase 1. He is the mob wearing the T4 hunter set and has about 600k HP.

Throw Bomb - Telonicus will use this as his main ability, throwing bombs for approximately 6-7k damage on his highest aggro target. The bomb explosion is an AoE effect so no one should be near the tank.

Remote Toy - approximately every 15 seconds Telonicus will debuff a random player with Remote Toy for 60 seconds. When under the effect of the debuff, the player is randomly stunned for 4 seconds every once in a while, much like the Bronze Affliction from Chromaggus.

This fight is for the most part also a tank and spank, a warrior should pick him up as he comes out and then the raid should burn him down asap. Melee DPS should watch to not be near the tank so they don't take AoE bomb damage. Besides that, all healers should just watch the tank. The only thing to watch out for is to make sure that you do not kill him when any tank is debuffed by Remote Toy. If they are, simply stop DPS and wait for the debuff to wear off then burn him down, because holding aggro on weapons in the next phase with the Remote Toy on you is a near impossibility as it keeps you stunned for approximately 50% of the duration of the debuff.

Once he dies, Phase 1 ends and Phase 2 begins.

Phase 2 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas will summon 7 weapons during this phase and give you 95 seconds to kill as many as you can. The weapons all spawn at the top of his room, where he stands for the whole fight. Once they die, they must be looted and equipped, as they are critical to the fight. All weapons can be looted by any number of people in the raid and they despawn approximately 1 minute after death (so they must be looted quickly). All these adds are rootable, snarable and stunnable.

The 7 weapons spawned are as follows.

Devastation - 2h Axe, swings on plate for 3-4k and does a channelled Whirlwind ability every 25-30 seconds that lasts for 2 hits, each one doing about 5k on plate.

Cosmic Infuser - 1h Mace, swings on plate for about 1-2k. It instant casts a Holy Nova every 10-20 seconds that heals all the other weapons for about 1500 and deals equivelant holy damage to any enemies nearby. It also attempts to cast pretty significant 3 second heals on anything in range low on HP so it is wise to have a melee on it always to control the casted heals.

Warp Slicer - 1h Sword, swings on plate for about 2-3k, leaves a stacking rend dot that ticks for 500 every 3 seconds per application and stacks up to 10 times.

Phaseshift Bulwark - Shield, swings on plate for about 2k and has a shield spike that does about 800 damage per swing to anyone that swings at it. It also uses Shield Bash on a random nearby target.

Netherstrand Longbow - Bow, shoots plate for about 2k, also single target Arcane Shots its main target for 4-5k arcane damage. The bow will also randomly teleport around out of melee range of its primary target and will shoot a Multishot, hitting a random number of targets in range for 2-3k each ocassionally.

Infinity Daggers - Daggers, they don't do anything special but swing fast and hard on the person tanking them. They each hit for about 2-3k damage and swing fairly quick so watching the tank on them is important.


Tank 1 - Axe

Tank 2 - Sword + Shield

Tank 3 - Mace

Tank 4 - Daggers + Staff

Hunter Tank - Bow

Once the adds spawn, hunters should Misdirect whatever the raid feels necessary to whichever tank needs it, and then all the weapons (besides the axe and bow) should be clumped up because they will all be AoEd. The diagram shows them in the middle of the room, but you can group them wherever you want, including where they spawn. The bow will obviously be out of the raid since it randomly teleports around the room and should be tanked by a hunter. The axe can also be included in the AoE, but requires precise positioning by Warriors so that its Whirlwind does not hit anyone besides the tank.


Phaseshift Bulwark

Phase 3 - In-Depth Look

After the 2 minutes and 5 seconds pass from the beginning of Phase 2, Phase 3 will start. Phase 3 lasts 3 minutes until Kael'thas comes out. If you still have 1 or 2 weapons up at low HP it should be ok, just get rid of them quickly. Any more and the fight will be very difficult.

During phase 3, all the adds will respawn in the spots they died and you will have 3 minutes to kill as many as you can. Their abilities, damage output and HP stay exactly the same, so all that the raid has to do is pick a proper kill order and take care of them. Refer to the diagram and note the tanking positions.


Lord Sanguinar should be quickly picked up and positioned in the far south by a warrior and a healer (preferably one with Fear Ward). Because of his fear, a warrior is required. He should be tanked in a predetermined spot far away from the raid as he will die later on.

Caperinian should also be quickly picked up by the warlock tank and a healer and moved to the south. Because of the disorient immunity gained from the staff and the 50% fire damage taken reduction gained from the mace, it is very easy for a single healer and warlock to tank her for as long as they want off in a corner. She will be killed last as she is the smallest risk.

The engineer also does very little damage due to the mace buff, and the silence immunity gained from the staff makes solo healing a tank on him very easy. He should be tanked anywhere against a wall, so long as the bombs don't affect people. The staff also grants immunity to the stuns from his Remote Toys.

Finally, Thaladred continues to wander the room and use his Gaze ability. Because the raid only has 3 minutes to kill as much as they can before Phase 4 begins, it is smart to kill him first because he poses the biggest threat to the raid.

Because melee cannot effectively DPS Thaladred, the smartest course of action would be to have all melee DPS + the hunters get on the engineer while all casters burn down Thaladred. Since you want the 25% magic damage debuff gained from the daggers on for the casters, one tank should constantly follow Thaladred around keeping the debuffs up.

With an average balanced raid makeup, Thaladred should die before the engineer, so when he dies all the casters should quickly move to the engineer Telonicus and help the rogues finish him off.

Once Telonicus dies, everyone should move on to Lord Sanguinar. With all the DPS burning him down with the dagger and bow debuffs he should drop very quickly.

With an ideal raid where everything goes as planned, the 3 minute marker of Phase 4 should come soon after killiing Sanguinar. If you are a little bit behind it isn't very important: so long as 2 adds are dead you are doing fine.



Phase 4 - In-Depth Look
Kael'thas will now come out right where he sat from the beginning of the fight. He hits for about 3-4k on a tank, is Taunt immune and has about 4 million HP. He has several abilities.

Fireball - a 2.5 second cast, he uses it very often on his main aggro target. It hits for about 25k base, but is reduced by the mace buff. Fireball is interruptible.

Shock Barrier - every minute he will put up his Shock Barrier. When active, the barrier absorbs 100,000 damage and gives him immunity to interruption effects. It lasts 10 seconds, but it is required to burn the shield down quicker in order to be able to interrupt his spells.

Pyroblast - used every minute in conjunction with Shock Barrier. Pyroblast does 45-55k base damage and is a 4 second cast. He single target chain casts 3 pyroblasts on his main target right after he puts his shield up. The strategy to deal with this is discussed later.

Mind Control - every 30 seconds he will Mind Control 2 people in the raid for 30 seconds. Mind control is dispellable by the dagger's special proc effect. Unlike most NPC Mind Controls, Kael's does not buff the player to do more damage, but simply takes them out of the fight for 30 seconds. Due to the importance of DPS on phoenixes and through Kael's shield it is important to bring people out of Mind Control with daggers asap.

Arcane Disruption - every minute or so he will cast this, dealing approximately 2000 arcane damage to everyone in the raid and disorienting them for 10 seconds. The staff aura makes you immune to the disorient effect. For the most part this is a non-issue, as long as all people tanking get the buff since the disorient is a complete aggro wipe while under the effect. So for example, if the Kael'thas MT gets hit with the disruption while he does not have a staff buff, he would get disoriented and Kael'thas would run around the room for the next 10 seconds killing people until it wore off.

Flamestrike Shortly before Kael'thas summons a Phoenix he will cast a Flamestrike. A large graphic will appear, marking where the Flamestrike is strike to hit about 3 seconds before it hits. If you still are within the initial radius of the Flamestrike after this time, it will deal 50,000 to 100,000 damage. For a few seconds after the Flamestrike there will be an aura with a graphic similar to Paladin Consecration which will deal 2,000 damage per second if you stand in it. Absolutely no one should ever die to a Flamestrike. A few seconds later Kael'thas will summon a Phoenix. There is no direct connection between where the Flamestrike animation occurs and where the Phoenix spawns. Flamestrike is targeted on a seemingly random player, the Phoenix spawns are not.

Pheonix Rebirth - Every minute Kael'thas will do a Flamestrike and then spawn a pheonix add. The add has approximately 100k HP, and flies around chasing the highest aggro target and constantly using a Hellfire type ability that ticks for 4-5k damage. The hellfire ability also causes the pheonix to lose 5% of it's own HP per second. A phoenix melees for about 2k damage on plate.

Phoenix Egg - When a phoenix is killed, an egg spawns on its corpse. The egg has 70,000 HP and hatches after 15 seconds. It is imperative to kill the egg before it hatches a new phoenix, since there is no limit to the number of phoenixes Kael'thas himself spawns and they can easily overrun the raid.

The fight is fairly straightforward and easy for this phase. The tank and 2-3 healers along with all the melee should be on Kael'thas, picking him up right where he spawns as he comes out and rotating interrupts for the first minute of this phase. A player with the staff is also essential to have up there, so the tank does not get disoriented. During this time, the rest of the raid should be finishing off adds as quickly as they can. You should have all of the advisor adds dead by the time Kael'thas uses his first phoenix or Shock Barrier.

Once the advisors all die, the raid all moves in on Kael'thas. Everyone should go all out on him and be sure to have the full debuff stacks of the bow and dagger on him at all times.

About a minute after phase 4 begins, Kael'thas will do his Flamestrike and summon a phoenix. The former Conflagration tank with his 150-200 unbuffed fire resistance should intercept the phoenix and move it out of the raid. Everyone else must be aware of where the Phoenix will be tanked and move away. This phoenix should be tanked about 20 yards away from Kael'thas so that melee will have an easy time moving from Kael'thas to the egg. Ranged DPS should locate themselves so they can quickly change target between Kael'thas and the Eggs. Assign 1 healer to the phoenix tank and otherwise ignore it while focusing DPS on Kael'thas.