Welcome to the 3 minute guide to Shadok's Heroic. This encounter will for most guilds be either the first or the second encounter of the raid and is, in my opinion, the easiest boss of the tier. The boss is spawned by killing trash around the raid.
He will spawn from the gates of Bailrock and will then patrol around the path with his two dogs, Riplim and Rageface. The boss is immune to taunt, so be careful on pull. During progression, you'll want to have two tanks on both 10 and 25 men, 2-3 healers on 10 men, and 5-6 healers on 25 men. This fight is ultimately a control fight, and how you control the interaction between the boss and his dogs will determine how successful you are in killing the boss.
Unheroic damage done to the dogs are irrelevant, so do not touch them unless you are assigned to deal with a mechanic we'll talk about later, or if you multi-dotting will increase your single target damage on Shanhoks. Shanhoks will need to be picked up by the main tank, and Rip Limb will need to be picked up by the off tank and dragged up to 80 yards away from the boss. the boss and his dog will gain the buff separation anxiety, which makes the tank damage unhealable.
Wraithface does not have a threat table, and will swap targets periodically. Shoddark's going to be faced away from the Wraith as he does a nasty frontal cleave. This frontal cleave applies a stacking debuff, and he will keep refreshing this debuff as long as he has a weapon. Since he's immune to taunt, you will have to find other ways to reset the debuff.
Every 40 seconds or so, the boss will cast Hurl Spear, throwing his weapon at a location close to Riplem. Riplem is a good boy, so he'll fetch the spear and bring it back to Shanox. Assuming you don't deal with this mechanic appropriately, the stacks from the frontal cleave will not have time to fall off.
As such, it's important that once the off tank sees the animation on the ground, he moves Riplem far away from the animation while making sure he doesn't enrage the boss. Use life grip, heroic leap, or subpoenaing roar to gain as much distance as possible. Once the dog goes to actually pick up the spear, apply slows to the target. This will usually be enough to reset the debuff, but if not, A Death Knight can use Chains of Ice on Ripley once it gets close.
Shamax will spawn two traps around the room. Immolation Trap, which leaves a nasty dot and increases your damage taken. And Crystal Trap, which leaves you stunned in a tomb until it's broken by damage. His dog can also be affected by the traps.
Immolation Trap can easily be cleared by AMS, but move the boss if you get too many in melee. Crystal Trap can be used to clear Feeding Frenzy, a stacking buff that makes the dog steal more damage. Ripley and his stack will naturally be cleared due to the Herald Spear mechanic, but Rageface will need to be encased in a Crystal Trap in order to have his stacks reset. As he switches targets, try to position in front of a crystal trap, gain some distance and kite to allow the stacks to drop. The buff has a 20 second timer and the crystal trap breaks naturally after 10 seconds and thus it's not enough to drop the stacks on its own.
Ragefaves only have one other mechanic called Face Rage, where he pounces on a target, mauling the target for big damage. This effect is only cancelled by taking 30k damage on 10 man and 45k damage on 25 man in a single hit. Assign 1 person to deal with this mechanic, preferably a mage. Your chance to crit him is increased by 50% during the channel. Once the effect is broken, Rage Rage will target whoever broke the effect.
So if he is close to dropping his Feeding Francis stack since he does not gain the buff while he is casting Face Rage, blink away, kite for a bit and potentially lure him to a crystal trap. It's also worth keeping in mind that the dogs cannot be trapped more than once every 25 seconds. Control the dogs, reset tank stacks, rinse and repeat, collect loot. And that's how you kill Shanox on Heroic.
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