After the Chess event, at the very top of Karazhan, your raid will encounter Prince Malchezaar. Very little is known about him except that he is a Man’ari Eredar and a member of the Burning Legion. It is unknown what his purpose is and how, or when he arrived. Due to this location, he is considered by many to be the tower’s final boss. However, some used to consider the creature Nightbane to be the true final boss of Karazhan, due to his superior difficulty in the early days of the dungeon’s release. Their comparative difficulty is now disputed.
Prince Malchezaar’s Abilities
- Has about 1.1 million health.
- Summon Infernal - Every 45 seconds, Malchezaar will summon an Infernal which, about 3 seconds after landing, casts a Hellfire AoE roughly the size of the one Baron Geddon uses. Each Infernal lives for 180 secs, and there is no limit in how many of them can be up at the same time. Typically you will have 3-5 Infernals up at a time until the end of Phase 2 , after which they will start increasing rapidly. These Infernals are stationary, and can be avoided by the raid. They cannot be targeted or attacked. Malchezaar exclaims one of two emotes to announce an Infernal: “You face not Malchezaar alone, but the legions I command!” or “All realities, all dimensions are open to me!“.
- Enfeeble - Periodically casts Enfeeble on 5 people chosen at random (excluding his primary target), which reduces their max hit points to 1, and healing effects and health regen to 0% for about 7 seconds. Do not try to heal these people as it will do nothing. Enfeebled people must stay 30+ yards away from Malchezaar to avoid getting hit by Shadow Nova, and watch out for Infernals. After the Enfeeble has faded, players return to their previous health. Vampiric effects such as Siphon Life ignore Enfeeble.
- Shadow Nova - Prince Malchezaar will cast Shadow Nova (3-second-cast) 3-5 seconds after Enfeeble. It has a range of 25-28 yards, deals about 3000 shadow damage, and includes a knock-back. This attack can be outranged by healers and ranged DPS, so even if they are enfeebled it does not cause much concern. Melee must get out of range, however as long as they start running right away they will have plenty of time to avoid the Shadow Nova. This attack can be resisted.
- Shadow Word: Pain - Cast periodically on his primary target. Can be dispelled. Cannot be reflected. 1500 damage per tick. During phase 3 he will start casting it on random targets.
- Thrash - Gains 2 additional attacks against current target. Malchezaar uses this ability somewhat randomly, with a few seconds to up to a few dozen seconds between each use.
- Flying Axes - During Phase 3, he unleashes his axes as a separate attacking entity. They deal physical damage and appear to have Demonic Frenzy as they start out hitting each new target for only about 400 on cloth, while ramping up to 2000 a hit.
Defeating Prince Malchezaar
Prince Malchezaar has 3 phases:
Phase 1
- Tank Prince Malchezaar in a corner somewhere with the tank’s back to the wall to avoid knockback.
- DPS him steadily down to 60%, being mindful of Enfeeble, Shadow Nova, and the Infernal AoE.
- One strategy is to use white damage only for the first phase, except for hunters and classes with aggro wipes. This allows the tank to gain plenty of aggro to counter the high raid DPS of phase 2 and 3, meaning the tank will never get enfeebled.
- If you start to get cornered by Infernals, have your tank move to another part of the platform. Try to do this before Phase 2.
Note: Trolls can use berserking when hit by enfeeble to get a free haste bonus. Priests avoid using Shadow Word: Death while enfeebled. Also, for Retribution Paladins (currently Horde only), avoid using Seal of Blood while fighting Malchezaar. Seal/Judgement of Blood’s self-damage aspect will kill you if you are enfeebled, and can even kill you as you are running away (supposing you use a Judgement).
Phase 2
- At 60% health, Prince Malchezaar will warp in axes, which substantially increases his melee damage.
- Depending on your tank, a badly timed Thrash can take out more than 12k hp within a second. Healers need to keep the tank topped off, and at least one healer should constantly have a large heal ready to keep your tank above 12k at all times. As he has weapons, he also gains the ability to parry incoming attacks from the front. A Thrash followed by a parry can lead to over 20,000 damage done in under 2 seconds.
- If you have trouble with tank deaths during this phase, overhealing is advisable.
- Applies Sunder Armor (stackable) to the main aggro target.
- Melee Cleave.
- Stops casting Shadow Word: Pain.
- Continues to Enfeeble and Shadow Nova.
- DPS him as quickly as possible down to 30%, being mindful of Enfeeble, Shadow Nova, and the Infernal AoE.
- You can watch the Infernals fall from the sky and have a good idea of where they are going to land. This will allow you to move to a safe spot before they hit the ground in the middle of your raid.
Phase 3
- Phase 3 begins when Prince Malchezaar reaches 30% health.
- Melee damage on the tank returns to normal.
- Prince Malchezaar throws away his axes and they fly around attacking a raid member.
- Stops using Enfeeble however he continues to Shadow Nova without warning other than his 3 second cast-time.
- Resumes casting Shadow Word: Pain.
- No longer sunders, parries, or cleaves.
- Make sure the person being attacked by the axes communicates to the raid chat or on Ventrilo or Teamspeak so they can be healed. The damage they do is easy to heal through, but if ignored may cause the death of your healers or DPS. The axes do physical damage and as such can be mitigated with armor. A Paladin’s devotion aura is advised at this part.
- The Infernals will start to spawn much more frequently and Malchezaar must be killed as soon as possible. Raid movement and communication is paramount during this phase to avoid taking damage from the Infernals. Each infernal will land on a 20 second timer — you literally have less than 2 minutes before there will likely be too many Infernals up, and you wipe. Burn him down fast.
- Prince Malchezaar will randomly cast amplify magic on raid members, this will greatly increase damage they take. It is a short duration debuff which is non dispellable.
- A badly placed infernal during this phase can easily wipe the raid. If this happens, don’t be discouraged, since you managed to get him through the most difficult part of the fight (phase 2).
Prince Malchezaar’s Infernals
Malchezaar emotes either “You face not Malchezaar alone, but the legions I command!” or “All realities, all dimensions are open to me!” immediately before summoning an infernal. If you look to the sky beyond the balcony, you’ll see a bright yellow meteor headed toward the raid. Its trajectory is a little tricky but somewhat predictable.
One responsible non-melee raider should act as a spotter. He receives a raid marker and has three jobs:
- Watch for falling infernals and move to a safe spot.
- If an infernal will fall on the melee group, announce it in clear terms and suggest a new location (e.g. “infernal on far side of door from melee group, move along the wall from the door”, or maybe a minimap ping). It is adviced to use wind-directions (North, East, South, West) and not left/right etc as not everyone has the same facing.
- Stay within range of the melee group so the healers can do their jobs.
The other ranged raiders stick close to the spotter. It’s possible to skip the raid marker and announce safe spots, but using the marker requires a lot less communication.
As for the infernals themselves: before landing, they fly in a straight line toward a point in the arena, but shift direction suddenly at the last second, usually down.
Naturally, your spotter should be smart about choosing a safe spot. A wide open place is better than sandwiched between two infernals’ AoE, and the area of the Prince’s Shadow Nova is right out.
During Phase 3, Malchezaar summons infernals at an increased rate. It is vital that your raid speeds up their DPS as you can easily become trapped between the infernals and thus whipe.
Key Notes
- If you dispel Shadow Word: Pain fast enough, a Mage can cast Amplify Magic on the MT to make healing easier.
- Healers can stand at max range for heals on the MT and be out of range of the Shadow Nova, thus able to continue healing during Enfeeble.
- Prince Malchezaar cannot use Enfeeble on the highest target on his aggro list. However, since aggro is not pulled until 110% of the MTs aggro for melee and 130% for ranged, it is possible for someone to be higher than the MT without pulling aggro, and thus cause the MT to be a target of Enfeeble. Avoid this!
- The range of the Hellfires from the Infernals is not nearly as big as it seems graphically, which means that there is some leeway to where you can move and avoid damage.
- If you have a ranged person that is very familiar with this fight and the safe places to stand, mark him/her with a raid icon and instruct the ranged raid members to stay on top of the raid icon during the fight. This saves a lot of time explaining positioning and is very effective if the person marked is good.
- Having your tank using an [Elixir of Detect Demon] makes it a lot easier for them to keep track of where the infernals have landed, and not get trapped. Also, it’s useful for Hunters and Warlocks to be tracking demons.
- Melee DPS try to keep an eye on infernal position and have an escape route for when you get hit by Enfeeble.
- Another option is to have a well-geared feral druid tank Prince Malchezaar, starting in the center of the platform. A druid in dire bear form can feral charge out of each Shadow Nova that isn’t resisted, allowing complete freedom of tanking position in order to better avoid the Infernals. If you use this method, the tank may need additional healing during phase 2 to mitigate crushing blows.
Prince Malchezaar’s Loot Table
[Adornment of Stolen Souls]
[Farstrider Wildercloak]
[Gorehowl]
[Helm of the Fallen Champion]
[Helm of the Fallen Defender]
[Helm of the Fallen Hero]
[Jade Ring of the Everliving]
[Light's Justice]
[Malchazeen]
[Nathrezim Mindblade]
[Ring of a Thousand Marks]
[Ruby Drape of the Mysticant]
[Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted]
[Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix]
[The Decapitator]