C'Thun

[Bastet]

C'Thun (pronounced "Ka-thoon" or "Kuh-thoon" according to Blizzard) is the final boss in the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj.  It's a two stage fight; the first being against the Eye of C'Thun, the second being against C'Thun himself.

Phase 1 - Abilities

Eye Beam (Green beam)
2625 - 3375 Nature damage, functionally similar to chain lightning, in that it jumps from target to target if they are in range of it. For each jump it does, it doubles the damage.  He casts this spell every 3 seconds. Spreading out is key - you must use the C'Thun Warner mod to adjust your distance with other raid members (it can be downloaded from these forums in the Addon section).   The initial target is completely random, and the eye will roll around to face its target. This ability can be resisted.  NR pots can absorb nearly all damage, so using them is of great help. NR armor is not necessary.

Dark Glare (Red beam)
43750-56250 Shadow damage on any player hit by the beam.  When cast the beam slowly moves clockwise or counterclockwise 180 degrees. The initial target is random, but there are signs of where the dark glare will begin, as the eye not only turns red, but a shadowy cloud appears in its pupil shortly before the beam is let loose. It is possible to blink through it.  This is what Dark Glare looks like:


Eye Tentacles
Visible in the above picture, they have 45 second spawn timer and spawn at the edge of the dark mist around C’Thun knocking any targets on their spawn point; casts mindfly (channelling spell), 750 shadow damage per second.  These eyes are susceptible to many abilities such as counterspell, gouge or stuns.  These tentacles have around 2300 health.   A team of one melee and one caster are enough to kill them in 4 seconds (don't use attacks with long casting time). Other ranged may help, but no more melee or they risk suffering a high-damage Eye Beam. Targeting them may be tricky, use a macro "/target eye tentacle", or press V and click their health bar. Note that it is possible to target them while their graphic is still fading in (while they are spawning).  Abilities which remove slowing effects (such as escape artist, shapeshifting, and blessing of freedom) still work to counter the flay.

Claw Tentacles
Random spawn over the entire area during phase one (one is visible on the right of the above picture). They have approximately 2000Hp in addition hitting any targets in melee range for 200-300 damage.  They also do a one-time knockback when they are spawned called Ground Rupture doing 1350 - 1650 damage to those adjacent.  Additionally, they can do a hamstring attack, making it more difficult to flee from the dark glare.

Entry to the Room
Because C’Thun’s ability to target players outside the room and even hit them through walls we’ve chosen to have an evenly spread out raid along sides of the entrance, with minimal distance to each other flowing into the room once the encounter has started.

On the other hand there is a flaw with the "safe" way of doing it: if the raid doesn’t flow in to the room fast enough, C’Thun might start casting dark glare at the entrance killing the last people that are trying to get into the room, but the death rate is far less this way and as players get the entry speed correct it will no longer be a problem.

Have two paladins (or if none available) /  two player with high nature resist take the lead of each side of the line, let them drink a greater nature protection potion, priests shield them and have them run in.  We chose paladins due to their survivability, if they get low on health, they can just put on their shield and get into position.

After the initial hits on the people that run into the room, C’Thun will start targeting people outside the room; if everyone has a greater nature protection potion on them that they drank before the start of the encounter, everyone should be able to get into the room, get into position without taking a single point of damage. If people are positioned correctly, the Eye Beam will not do significant amounts of damage and players can whipper / bandage; but when learning the fight drink the pots.

Alternative Entry Strategy:
Some people like to send in 1 player ahead of everyone else due to C’Thun targeting him as initial aggro, which gives the raid approximately 3 seconds to run in and spread out. This works fine, but is also more risky and suits players used to the fight.

Using this strategy we would shield a player with high nature resist and have him enter the room ahead of the rest of the raid. This will cause the first few eye beams (described below) to hit the player with high nature resist, giving the rest of the raid a chance to get into position. A hunter is the ideal candidate for this, with their +60 Nature Resist from their aura and their ability to feign death and then put on normal gear. If the raid enters the room at the same time it is likely that a large portion will die from a chained eye beam.


Strategy - Phase 1
The initial phase of the C'thun encounter is characterized by alternate Eye Beams for 50 seconds followed by 35 seconds of Dark Glare as well as periodic spawning of mind flay eyes and claw tentacles.

Due to the layout of the room and the amount of eye tentacles spawning during this phase, we decided to split up the raid into 8 sections, meaning 5 players in each section of the room. Each group's duty when they are not damaging C’Thun or trying to avoid the dark glare is to interrupt and kill the eye tentacles that spawn in their sector as fast as possible, they don’t have a lot of HP so they go down really fast.

Each group normally consists of two healers, one melee, one ranged, and the fifth member either a healer, melee or ranged. This setup is made so that the use of the space in the room is optimal making sure that the players aren’t close to each other so that they don’t chain the Eye Beam.

In the pictures below each section of the room has the general positions to which each group/section should try to stick to, to make sure they are spread out enough :



The Fight:

The Eye Tentacles will spawn each 45 seconds, at which time all the DPS should stop hitting C’Thun and do anything within their power to bring down those eye tentacles as fast as possible. If they are not killed they will most certainly wipe the raid, and if not killed within 45 seconds an additional round of them will spawn and you will have two of them in the same location. These eyes are priority number one for the entire raid, kill them ASAP. We cannot stress this enough, even if 1.5 sec into a 2.5 sec damage spell cast, interrupt it and kill the Eye Tentacles. Immediately.

While this is happening approximately every 90 seconds C’Thun will start to cast Dark Glare, aimed at one of the eight sectors shown in the positioning picture. Everyone needs to keep their eyes on C’Thun - this cast is initiated by him swirling a dark cloud in front of his pupil, at which the group affected needs to start running away from that sector.

Each group has a primary sector and a secondary one, the primary one is the location where the players should run to once they enter the room; the secondary sector is located 180 degrees around the room, placing it in the opposite side of the room. So, for example, sector 4's alternate position is sector 5, sector 8 alternates with sector 1, and so on.

Once the Dark Glare has been initiated C’Thun will rotate 180 degrees around the room, still casting, and then he will stop casting the spell and go back to casting Eye Beam. At this point everyone in the raid should be at their secondary positions until the time comes for the second Dark Glare, at which you should move back to your primary position.

In addition to all of this the Claw Tentacles will spawn randomly throughout the entire room, taking up precious space; have any class with DoT capabilities put a few on them, it should bring them down quite fast due to their lack of HP. Instant casts from mages and melee hitting them as they run past all help.

Also, keep in mind when you are running to your secondary or primary position, you should keep a good distance from the Dark Glare - it might seem harmless when you are running behind it, but all it takes is one claw tentacle to spawn under you knock you into the Dark Glare and you are dead. Mages can Blink through the beam and this can be used to kill leftover Eye Tentacles with great effectiveness if the player is careful.

Once you have reduced Eye of C’Thun’s HP to 0 his eye will implode and the God himself will appear and Phase 2 will begin.

Phase 2 - Abilities

Eye Tentacles
These continue to spawn the same as in phase one, however they now spawn every 30 seconds instead of 45 like phase one. It is key in the fight to cover all the area around C'Thun each time small eye tentacles spawn. Again, assigning teams to take down Eye Tentacles is helpful.

Giant Claw Tentacles
Once every minute, with a 30-second offset from Giant Eye Tentacle spawns, C'Thun will summon a Giant Claw Tentacle at a random person's feet. Anyone on or near the spawn will take 3000-4000 damage from the Ground Rupture that occurs, as well as being knocked away across the room. They melee for about 1500 on a well-geared tank with tier 2 gear. They also have a Thrash ability (two extra attacks), meaning they will one-shot anyone who is not a tank. If no one is in range for an attack they will burrow and re-emerge at full health, repeating the Ground Rupture attack. They have approximately 90,000 HP and there appears to be no cap on the number of tentacles that can be spawned at one time.

Giant Eye Tentacles
Once every minute, with a 30-second offset from Giant Claw Tentacle spawns, C'Thun will summon a Giant Eye Tentacle. They do the same Ground Rupture when they appear, and also melee just as hard. They repeatedly cast the same Eye Beam ability the Eye of C'thun uses in phase one, but they can be stun-locked and counter-spelled. They have approximately 36,000 HP and, again, there appears to be no cap on the number of tentacles that can be spawned simultaneously. As with their small version, they are susceptible to counterspell, deathcoil, distracting shot, gouge or stuns. During phase 2, the whole raid is packed together to bring down the tentacles fast, so they are vulnerable to Eye Beam. Therefore, killing and stun-locking Giant Eye Tentacles is a priority.

Eating Tentacle
This Tentacle can’t be targeted nor harmed in any way, it will spawn under a random target in the raid eating him and sending him into the belly of C’Thun.

Strategy - Phase 2
C’Thun doesn’t have any abilities except the fact that he is immune more or less to any type of damage, any type of damage caused to him will do 1-20 points of damage, so it’s pointless hammering him.  If no tentacle is alive, players are taken out of combat and are encouraged to drink during the transistion.  In order to bring his shield down and damage him you must engage the stomach from inside (see details below).

The Fight
The first thing that will happen is a Giant Claw Tentacle spawn; at this point the closest tank will charge it and all disposable DPS should go at it and bring it down as fast as possible. Every 10 seconds, a tentacle will emerge and swallow a random person in the raid - this person will end up in the belly of C’Thun.

Outside C'Thun
The priorities for outside C'Thun are:

   1. Eye Tentacles
   2. Giant Eye Tentacle
   3. Giant Claw Tentacle

Everyone must keep this at the forefront of their mind during Phase 2 attempts, and re-assess it constantly. Since C’thun himself isn’t doing any direct damage to the raid, the Tentacles takes priority.  Everyone in the raid should keep the position they are in when the Eye of C’Thun is dead, depending on where you are it should be either your primary or your secondary position.

Due to the Giant Claws and Giant Eye Tentacles not having fixed positions, heres a picture of a random placement of a Giant Claw and Giant Eye Tentacle and because of the priority list the dps is on the Giant Eye Tentacle.



You should have enough time to bring down the first spawn of the Giant Claw Tentacle before anything else spawns; if the Eye Tentacles should spawn before you killed it everyone should switch priority to the Eyes, leaving the tank (and his off-tank) with two healers on the Giant Claw Tentacle. It is imperative to have an off-tank on the giant claw if available, in case the tank should get eaten - an un-tanked Claw Tentacle will despawn and respawn somewhere else in the room causing Ground Ruptures and possibly killing people it hits. The healers should make sure they keep their distance to the Giant Claw Tentacle in order not to get interrupted.

Stomach of C'thun
The stomach of C'Thun is an entirely separate room and the person swallowed will fall from the top of the new room into green water and are given a stacking debuff called Digestive Acid that does about 150 damage every 5 seconds and stacks up to 99 times. The debuff reapplies itself about every 4 seconds, and can stack multiple times.  After 20 seconds of being inside the stomach, you will have about 5 debuffs.

Inside the stomach there are two Flesh Tentacles - these are harmless for ranged DPS since they are immobile and only have a basic melee attack that does 1000-2000 damage. The people that get swallowed into the belly (depending on what class they are) should stay in there as long as possible and do as much damage as they can to those two, they are the key to weakening C’Thun.

Killing the Flesh Tentacles makes the physical C'Thun on the surface vulnerable for 45 seconds. During those 45 seconds you may bring C'Thun down by roughly 1/3 of his hp with all raid alive. If there is a Giant Claw alive, don't stop tanking it. During the weakened phase, C'Thun doesn't spawn any more tentacles. Right after the weakened phase ends, C'Thun spawns a Giant Claw Tentacle.

We might try to synchronize the death of the Flesh Tentacles on the stomach with the death of a Giant Claw on the surface, so we don't have a couple of Giant Claws alive at the end of the weakened phase.

You can swim out of the green water to one of three small landmasses. One of the landmasses has a blackish circle on it which throws you up out of C'Thun and back to the surface; you can use this to exit at any time.

Nature Resistance potions help to increase the time you can be inside the stomach.

Note that if you dont position yourself at the center of the black exit circle in the stomach when you leave, then you will be bounced against a wall and killed.

We will try to have as much ranged DPS as we can in there along with one healer if possible - tanks should instantly run out again. As in all end-game fights communication is of the essence; once you are inside the stomach you will receive a DoT called Digestive Acid that will be automatically removed upon exiting the room. This Dot does around 150 damage every 5 seconds, and will stack on you 99 times. A normal well geared player can handle about 10 stacks of it before running out, which brings us to a key factor in the fight - cycling through and prioritising who should be in or out of the stomach.

For example, if a Druid is already in the belly and another healer (Priest maybe) zones in it is that Priests' duty to tell the Druid before him to get out and the Priest will take over the position of healing the people inside. Everyone (including the ranged DPS) should start heading out when the digestive acid hits around 8-10 stacks, it is essential not to die in there, loss of people in this phase could cause the loss of the fight. Rogues should (if they have the Evasion ability up) activate Evasion and do as much damage as they can before running out. The way out of the belly is on the island inbetween the two Flesh Tentacles; you only need to step on it and you will be shot out taking 1000 damage on your way, once out you’ll find yourself somewhere along the edges of the room.



Some Examples
This fight is all about controlling the spawns of the Tentacles and having a co-ordinated raid that knows the priorities. To explain this a bit better we will explain an extreme scenario:

C’Thun is weakened; a weakened state lasts 45 seconds, at which point the Flesh Tentacles in his stomach will re-spawn and you’ll need to kill them again in order to weaken him again.

You have 8 Eye Tentacles up, along with one Giant Eye Tentacle and one Giant Claw Tentacle.

Everyone needs to keep calm once C’Thun is weakened, because in that state no Tentacles will respawn; everyone should have the three priorities in mind - kill the Eye Tentacles while having a few rogues and mages stunning or counterspelling the Giant Eye Tentacle. Once the Eye Tentacles are dead move on to the Giant Eye Tentacle and kill it, and now you may damage C’Thun for what time is left in the weakened state while the tank, off-tank and the two healers are keeping the Giant Claw Tentacle occupied.

An even more extreme situation that may occur if things get out of hand is the same scenario as above, only you have an additional Giant Claw Tentacle, in which case you should bring down one of them before damaging C’Thun.

While things like this are happening, you need to keep in mind to be spread out as with phase 1 once a Giant Eye Tentacle spawns; also remember your positioning in relation to people running around to get the optimal DPS on the tentacle that spawns - this doesn't happen in phase 1, and your raid needs to adjust. Healers should make good space available for DPS to move around when they have the option to do so. You also need to keep in mind that the Eye Tentacles will spawn soon, which means that you need to have either a class that can keep it occupied in each sector or a DPS class that can make a short story out of it.

Summary: Everything in the room in phase two should be killed as fast as possible, in the priority order above, with the exception of one Giant Claw Tentacle which should be killed if the opportunity presents itself.