Vault of Archavon - Normal Mode.

Welcome

Welcome to this little guide for the raid Vault of Archavon, in which you will fight Archavon the Stone Watcher. He is fairly easy, and can be done with without very good gear. The only require is being level 80. Don't forget this is the 10-Man version of the raid.

Group set-up

• 1 Main Tank.
• 1 Off Tank.
• 2 Healer, one for the Main Tank, the other for the Off Tank and the rest of the raid.
• 6 DPS classes.

The Trash

Before you can fight with Archavon, you'll have to clear four Archavon Warders, they have about 135k life and will sometimes use Shield Crush. Don't tank them against the wall because when your Main Tank is being thrown away, s/he will become very vurnable to physical damage (and wants to get away, using this knockback). Let the Off Tank taunt immidiately.

Archavon: The Fight

First of all, Archavon is a DPS race. He will Enrage after five minutes. Now, let's review his ability's:

Rock Shards - Every 15 seconds, Archavon will throw a rock shower on a random player. This ability inflicts 472 to 528 physical damage in an area of 5 yard around the target 9 times a second for 3 seconds.

Like described, he will do this every 15 seconds, on a random raid member. The raid member can't avoid the damage by walking away, other raid members near him/her will have to move away. It doesn't do alot of damage, so the healers won't have alot of problems with this one.

Choking Cloud - Every 30 seconds, Archavon will perform a Crushing Leap on a random target, inflicting 5,000 physical damage to the target and other players in a 10 yard radius. The leap also leaves a Choking cloud on the ground for 30 seconds, dealing 2,000 damage per second and reducing chance to hit by 50% to everyone standing in it.

Archavon leaps to a random raid member and leaves an AoE attack. He will automaticly walk back to the tank (assuming he has the aggro). Other raid members need to walk out of the AoE.

Stomp - Every 45 seconds, Archavon will stomp the ground, dealing approximately 4,000 unmitigable damage to everyone and stunning them for 2 seconds. At the same time, he'll Impale his highest aggro target, removing it from the fight for 8 seconds.

When this happens, the Main Tank will be unable to do his job. That's why you need an Off Tank. Let the Off Tank pick up Archavon as soon as possible.

Berserk - After 5 minutes of fighting, he will enter in a frenzy, increasing his attack speed by 150% and damage done by 900%, wiping the raid almost instantly.

This is the Enrage we talked about earlier, if this happens, you will most likely wipe.

Additional info

• You can only fight him if you have Wintergrasp in control.
• He has a chance to drop Reins of the Grand Black War Mammoth.
• Click here for a list of all his loot.
• You can go to Wintergrasp Fortress, using the portal of Wintergrasp in Dalaran.

I hope this little guide is useful, and that you will farm him weekly!

~Trollvink.