Hello and welcome to the Auriaya guide from learn2playwow.com.
Summary: Hard initial pull, stay grouped on sonic screech, move away when feral defender dies.
The initial pull is a matter concerning mostly the tanks. I will get to it in more detail towards the end of this video. For now, the raid only needs to know that in the begging of the fight they should stay grouped behind the tank and out of line of sight of boss. Players should leave enough time for the tanks to gain aggro control over the adds before they start dpsing. Also healers need to use any cooldowns that they have just before the fight starts.
The fight itself is not really complicated. Once the initial adds die dps can switch to Auriaya. The raid must be kept grouped up on the tank for the duration of the battle in order to split the damage coming from Sonic Screech. Melee dps can choose to stay behind the boss if they are quick enough to move in front of him when they see Sonic Screech being cast.
Another reason for staying grouped up are the pounces coming from the Feral Defender. He will pounce and thus deal extra damage if a raid member is at distance from him. The Feral Defender is … well… a cat with 9 lives. Each time you kill him you take down one of his lives and you also reduces his damage by 50%. Thus, after killing him 3-4 times the Feral Defender becomes less of a problem and you can choose to ignore him from then on.
Each time he dies the Feral Defender leaves a void zone behind him and so it is best for melee dps to move away just before ranged finishes him of. Additionally Auriaya should be moved to a new platform in order to avoid feared members running into the void zones.
Members will be feared for 5 seconds by Auriaya’s Terrifying Screech. If you still have the Feral Defender alive this is where he will start pouncing and thus it is best to regroup as soon as the fear ends. Tremor Totem, Fear Ward , and Mass Dispel are useful here.
Immediately after casting Fear Auriaya will start casting Sentinel Blast. This spell increases shadow damage taken by 100% and stacks up to 5 times. Warriors can break fear with Berserker Rage and use Pummel or Shield Bash to interrupt the cast. It is important to have someone interrupting Sentinel Blast as it deals a significant amount of damage.
The initial Auriaya pull is perhaps one of the hardest pulls in Ulduar. But, once the tanks understand how it all works, the encounter shouldn’t pose any problems. The pull is hard because Auriaya’s cats will pounce the moment they get aggro if their target is not within melee range.
When they pounce they do serious amounts of damage and if the pounce is not avoided or if the damage is not managed properly then the tank or whoever gets pounced will die. Tanks and healers alike should use any cooldowns that they have on the initial pull.
Here it is again: the initial pull in slow motion on the 10 man version. This was perhaps a perfect pull by our tanks because the add tank didn’t get pounced. The paladin add tank went up and dropped a consecrate on Auriaya’s patrol path and then went out of line of sight.
What’s really important here, and what makes her avoid the pounce is the positioning. The second the cats get line of sight they are also in melee range and thus they do not pounce. She activates Divine Protection just before los and then uses Avenger’s Shield. The main tank taunts Auriaya , nobody dies, and from here on the fight starts.
The loss/pounce issue is what’s really hard to avoid here, as the tank positioning will not always work as intended and the adds will pounce. You can also try to avoid the pouncing by having a paladin run to the boss with Divine shield instead of Divine protection. The paladin would then bring Auriaya and her cats in melee range of the the raid where the tanks will be able so safely divide aggro while not being pounced.
Also, it is possible yet more risky to just heal through the pounces on the tanks. The tanks and healers must use their cooldowns properly in order to survive this. Here it is again, the pull, on heroic this time, where we had 3 tanks dealing with Auriaya and her 4 cats.
On this pull the tanks stay a bit in front of the group. They do get pounced but aggro is immediately divided, each off tank taking care of 2 cats. At this point one of the add tanks also pulls his 2 cats at distance from the other 2 so that they wouldn’t benefit from the extra 30% damage bonus given by “Strength of the pack”.
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