Ssssssserpentshrine Cavern

[yaZuo]

Serpentshrine Cavern
the raid wing of Coilfang Reservoir, where Lady Vashj has made her lair. It is a 25-man raid instance with six bosses, culminating with Lady Vashj herself.

When you first enter this area you will see a really big elevator type thing. This is sometimes the area where everyone buffs up so you might want to wait on everyone else here.

When you reach the bottom of the elevator go up the small staircase and into the cavern

the boss order here is...how we say....non exsistant, Lady Vashj is last...thats about it.

Coilfang Frenzy spawn in groups of three or four that swarm a player as soon as he or she falls into the water of Serpentshrine Cavern. These Fish do disappear once The Lurker Below is killed. So most groups go after Lurker asap

[yaZuo]

The Lurker Below
is widely considered to be the easiest fight in SSC, earning it the nicknames "The Loot Below" and "The lolcats Below."

The Lurker requires only one tank; having an off-tank makes it safer. The tank should stand in the inner ring with his back to the pillar to help prevent the knockbacks. Everybody else should spread out to minimize damage from Geyser. Melee damage dealers should stand as close to the inner edge of the platform as possible, so that the 5-yard Whirl knockback doesn't drop them into the water. Healers should stand at the outside limit of the ring to make it easy to step back into the water to avoid Spout. Ranged damage dealers can stand on the outer platforms.

Spout is the main reason for wipes on this boss; the whole raid has to learn how to avoid it. Boss mods usually give a 3-second warning, and it's best to immediately jump in the water when the warning comes up. Ranged DPS and healers can continue to do their job while in the water by swimming a little deeper to gain line of sight. After the beam has passed, it's safe to return to the platforms. The tank and everybody close to him need to pay attention—the beam starts at the tank and rotates for a little more than 360°. Each spout is closely followed by a Whirl.

If the entire melee group is knocked away from the Lurker, he starts to deal severe ranged damage to the raid. Thus a tank needs to avoid the Whirl, and be back in melee range ASAP.

Boss mods normally give a warning before a Whirl is incoming. The best solution is to have the MT jump into the water closer to the Lurker. In this case, the knockback brings him back onto the platform without ever leaving melee range. Alternatively, it's possible to back out of melee range before a Whirl and quickly move back in right after.

To make the fight safer, additional tanks can try to do the same as the MT. Since the Lurker can be taunted, it's rather easy to control him once a tank is in melee range.

Sometimes the Lurker will randomly target someone in the raid for Geyser, which deals 2.5k-3.5k frost damage and knockback (10 yards) to the target and those nearby. Spread out to avoid having too many people hit by Geyser.

Each time the Lurker submerges, he spawns a total of nine adds: two ranged Coilfang Ambushers on each outer platform, and three melee Coilfang Guardians on the inner ring. All these adds can be Crowd Controlled.

Usually, each platform has one group of the raid assigned to clear the Coilfang Ambushers, while the melee group deals with the Coilfang Guardians. Each of the groups should use CC and kill their adds.

Loot from this boss for you will be
Ancestral Ring of Conquest
Boots of Effortless Striking
Choker of Animalistic Fury

[yaZuo]

Hydross the Unstable <Duke of Currents>

He seems to be forced to guard and is being held prisoner by Lady Vashj. He is kept in check by the two beams in his prison. If he leaves them, he becomes poisoned, causing him great pain. Although being the first boss raids meet when entering the instance, the Lurker Below is an easier kill, and it's possible to sneak past Hydross. Therefore new raids usually try Hydross second.

Prior to the pull a small group (one off-tank, a few damage dealers and a healer) need to pull and kill enough of the tainted water elementals on the "assembly line", so that none of them take part in the fight as adds. After the fight has started the tainted water elementals stop spawning.

Hydross starts in his water form. Whenever he leaves the area where he stands initially, he switches to the poison form. When he's moved back into the two beams, he switches back to the water form. Form switching takes place whenever he crosses a "magic boundary" which runs approximately between the two small flags in front of him. Every time he switches form, four adds of the same type as his new form are summoned. If pulled conventionally, Hydross would immediately switch to the poison form and summons adds.

Druid tanks can simply use Feral Charge and start the fight with a full rage bar. If druid is off-tank, main tank taunts aggro from him.

The safest method to avoid this is to use a Lesser Invisibility Potion. The frost tank has to wait until he drops out of combat (because he is in combat due to the assembly line adds being killed), use the potion, walk into melee range and start the fight from there.

Another possibility is to use a combination of Swiftness Potion and Intercept, to reach him fast enough before he crosses the boundary.

As a third safe method, a mage can use Invisibility, walk behind Hydross and Ice Block there. Hydross aggros on the ice blocked mage and the tank has 10 seconds to walk in and pick up Hydross. The drawback is that this uses the cooldowns on both Invisibility and Ice Block.

Due to the stacking debuff, the damage taken by the tank sooner or later reaches levels where he simply gets one-shotted. Usually 100% damage increase is the limit, in water form this means 22k crits are possible. Thus after 60 seconds (= four debuffs), it's time for the current tank to move backward and pull Hydross over the boundary.

This is a most critical moment, because immediately after a form switch Hydross resets his aggro list and summons four adds. There must be no DoTs on him and all DPS and healing must stop for a few seconds to give the tanks time to gain control of Hydross and the adds. If some raid member on the wrong side of the boundary draws aggro so that Hydross moves back over the boundary, he switches form again and summons four more adds (= wipe).

In water form he should be tanked at his initial position. There's a step running in front of his initial position, which forms an angle. Just down the step near that angle is a good tanking position for the poison form.

Whenever Hydross switches form he summons 4 elementals matching his new form

Loot is.
Band of Vile Aggression
Ring of Lethality
Shoulderpads of the Stranger

[yaZuo]

Morogrim Tidewalker

The raid should stay well away from the waterfalls, so that nobody takes collateral damage from watery graves. A good spot is on top of the stairs to the next room. It's possible to sneak past the boss and pull him from there. Morogrim should be tanked upstairs on the platform. Two healers should be designated to take care of the watery grave victims and set up downstairs, the paladin tank, a "heal aggro" warlock and a healer for the paladin can set up at the bottom of the stairs too.

The raid sets up at the edge of the platform on top of the stairs, so that the ranged damage dealers can switch from Morogrim to the murlocs just by rotating in place.

He hits for 3-5k melee damage (8k+ crushing) on tanks, roughly 10k-12k hits on Leather, which will probobly kill a rogue with one hit.

The main problem in this fight is to control the murlocs after the earthquakes. All raid members must be careful not to draw murloc aggro, particularly healers should resist their urge to immediately get the earthquake damage under control. After the tanks have solid aggro, the murlocs are killed by AoE and/or Seed of Corruption.

When Morogrim starts to summon globules, the raid should just reposition out of globule range (inside the doorway to the next room). Globules damage can be entirely avoided.

Loot from him is
Razor-Scale Battlecloak

[yaZuo]

Fathom-Lord Karathress

This boss in Serpentshrine Cavern is usually killed as the fourth one. The fight involves several adds (similar to High King Maulgar), and is a battle for survival which is made much easier by high DPS

During the whole fight, the spitfire totem is a major source of raid damage. While adds are still up, it's absolutely necessary to bring it down ASAP when it spawns. All ranged damage dealers should have a macro to quickly target it i.e. /target Spitfire Totem. When only Karathress remains, it's possible to ignore the totem and simply heal through the damage.

Since Blessing of the Tides is a rather evil buff for the boss, it's reasonable to kill the adds first. The priest is the easiest add to control and should be killed last. Whether the shaman or hunter has to be killed first is a matter of choice. The hunter drains mana, the shaman deals the most damage - if the two main tanks both have good gear, it may be better to kill the hunter first. The following kill order minimizes the damage taken by the raid:

Tidalvess (Shaman add)
Sharkkis (Hunter add)
Caribdis (Priest add)
Karathress (boss)
Every time an add dies, Karathress gains a new ability (similar to the Anubisath Mobs in the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj):

When the shaman's dead, Karathress starts to drop the same "Spitfire Totem" as the Shaman
After Sharkkis the hunter dies, Karathress permanently gains "The Beast Within", greatly increasing his melee damage output
From Caribdis the priest, Karathress gains "Tidal Surge" (10 yard AoE ice block freeze every 15-20 seconds)

One warrior off-tank, a rogue and a shaman healer is the smallest group able to control Caribdis. Adding a warlock, a mage or an additional healer makes the job easier, but also slows down the killing of the other adds and/or makes raid survival more difficult.

The purpose of the priest add group is to interrupt all her heals. The rogue should use Mind-numbing Poison. When the two melee classes are frozen, the shaman healer must pay extra attention to be ready and use rank 1 Earth Shock when she starts a heal.

Adding more melee damage dealers to this group is pointless, it only increases the load on the healer. If heals keep getting through, a warlock may keep Curse of Tongues active on her, and if the warrior or rogue die frequently it helps to have a second healer paying attention to this group. The healer's job is easier if this group can stay 45 yards away

your loot after this intence battle is
Leggings of the Vanquished Champion
Bloodsea Brigand's Vest
World Breaker

[yaZuo]

Leotheras the Blind

Leotheras the Blind is a Boss of Serpentshrine Cavern in Coilfang Reservoir. He is a blood elf demon hunter who is apparently possessed by a demon himself. Kael'thas Sunstrider originally sent Illidan Stormrage 5 Blood Elves to train as Demon hunters. Three of them died in training, Varedis succeeded and now trains more demon hunters at the Black Temple, and the fifth one, Leotheras, went insane.

Leotheras alternates between Humanoid Form (~45 sec) and Demon Form (~60 sec) through most of the fight. He wipes threat upon transition between forms.

At 15% health, the two forms split apart and must be handled separately.

About 25 sec into the Demon Form phase, Leotheras summons Inner Demons for up to five raid members (never for the person with aggro). The inner demons can only be attacked by the person to whom they belong. If Leotheras returns to humanoid form while an Inner Demon is still alive, that person becomes Mind Controlled for 10 minutes (non-removable). Pet classes must make sure their pet does not get the killing blow, the Mind Control is only prevented if the player deals the death blow.

During a Whirlwind, Leotheras targets his victim. If that person runs away fast and far enough, he will deaggro and whirl towards someone else. It is possible to have ALL raid members avoid being hit. If people are hit by Whirlwind, they must be healed. The DoT part can only be removed with Divine Shield, Blessing of Protection, or Ice Block (Stoneform no longer removes it).

The aggro wipe can be overcome with a hunters Misdirection. Other tricks include having a shaman place a Searing Totem on the tanking spot (Leotheras will aggro this, allowing the MT to get aggro back easily). Bleeds or any other tank DoTs also help them gain aggro immediately when they tick after the aggro wipe. Having a Paladin main tank this encounter is also a good idea because he doesn't have to chase down Leotheras, but can simply throw an Avenger's Shield. Like most raid bosses, Leotheras is immune to taunt.

Whenever a player has to deal with an inner demon, he should be healed by the non-affected healers, even if self healing-capable. DPS classes should find this encounter rather easy

Combat Rogues: These have a particularly easy time with inner demons, they can stay on the boss and simply kill the Demon with Blade Flurry.

LOOT!
Gloves of the Vanquished Champion
Tsunami Talisman

[yaZuo]

Lady Vashj <Coilfang Matron>

LORE
Lady Vashj (pronunciation is somewhere between Vash and Vosh) was born more than 10,000 years ago in the city of Zin-Azshari, capital of the night elves. Today, Vashj is the final boss of Serpentshrine Cavern in Coilfang Reservoir.

Vashj leans on her combat abilities more than her magic, but she is still a formidable sorceress. She is peerless with her magic bow (Sylvanas Windrunner is the only archer who's better). Her longbow, Frostfathom, was crafted by the Moonguard and enchanted by Queen Azshara. Lady Vashj favors wind and water elemental powers when casting offensively. A retinue of naga myrmidon bodyguards always accompanies her. Vashj was Highborne (Quel'dorei) and rose through the ranks to become Queen Azshara's chief handmaiden. She was described as "quite beautiful, with exotic, feline eyes" although she was still not as beautiful as Azshara herself. Vashj was fanatically loyal to Azshara and was infuriated when the queen offered to make Tyrande Whisperwind her majordomo. Vashj tried to kill Tyrande on several occasions, even pretending that she would help Tyrande escape from her prison, but was stopped each time by the intervention of Elune.

When Queen Azshara finally decided to make the naga's existence known, she sent Lady Vashj to establish contact with the surface dwellers. Lady Vashj met the demon-cursed Illidan and they struck a pact to aid each other against their night elf enemies.

Vashj and her people were quick to join him, and their first act of loyalty was to facilitate Illidan's escape from Kalimdor, and bring him to the Broken Isles and the Tomb of Sargeras.

But the naga knew that Maiev the Watcher would be quick to follow, and so Vashj rallied her forces and battled the night elf's forces as they made their way to the Tomb, where Illidan and Vashj then stole away into its ancient corridors. When Maiev confronted Vashj, the sea witch told Maiev that her justice had no place there, and when the warden demanded how she would know anything of the night elven way, Vashj replied by telling that the naga were night elves once. Then she slithered off to join Illidan in the Eye Chamber. Illidan used the Eye of Sargeras to collapse the Tomb, and then escaped. Vashj took the majority of the naga to Lordaeron to make preparations for the next phase of their plan while Illidan and some servitors remained behind to deal with Maiev for good.

After careful observation, Vashj saw that Kael'thas, prince of the ruined Quel'Thalas, was the perfect new recruit for the new order Illidan was fashioning. And with the ample forces Maiev had brought to Outland, Vashj knew that they would need reinforcements. Kael had been under the oppressive whip of a racist human general named Garithos, who had sent Kael and his people on missions that any laymen could do while keeping the elves from the front lines. Kael first encountered Vashj when he found his shipyard ruined, and thus his means across the river scuttled. She approached him with an offer of assistance. Kael was hesitant, having fought the naga alongside Maiev at Dalaran—but Vashj insisted, and Kael accepted. Vashj watched Garithos' rage at Kael's dealings with her. But Garithos then sent Kael and his elves against an invading force of undead. Kael was eager to prove himself in battle, but Garithos recalled Kael's support, siege, and cavalry units to the front lines, leaving Kael with a very meager standing force.

Vashj felt that the time was ripe to intervene, and so offered her troops to strengthen his own. Kael was again hesitant, but Vashj insisted that it was better to survive than to obey the word of a rash tyrant. Together they defeated the undead forces and recaptured their bases. When Garithos approached, Kael ushered Vashj away, saying he could not ensure her safety. She did, but watched as Kael and his people were taken away in shackles supposedly for betraying the Alliance by siding with the naga. Vashj infiltrated the dungeons of Dalaran through the sewer system and found Kael, killed his guards, and freed him. Vashj told Kael that escape was possible through the remains of the gate Kel'Thuzad had erected to summon Archimonde. She helped Kael escape the jails and destroy Kassan's forces, robbing valuable items from the magical stores as they went, and freeing his people from their cells. Upon reaching the streets, however, Garithos proceeded to assault the portal with his forces. Vashj, Kael, and some blood elf engineers raced to build defensive structures to stop them before they reached the portal. After a perilous battle, however, they were victorious and fled through the portal to Outland.

When they came through the portal to the shattered landscape of Outland, Vashj explained that it was once the homeworld of the orcs, but the Cataclysm had turned it into the barren, broken waste it now was, and that Illidan was somewhere waiting for them. Vashj and Kael searched fruitlessly for days, until Vashj caught a familiar scent on the wind. Illidan had been captured by Maiev and was being hauled back to her base in a magical prison wagon. Vashj and Kael battled Maiev for dominance, but finally reclaimed the wagon and brought it back to their base, where Illidan was freed. Illidan thanked Vashj for her loyalty, but Vashj gave credit to Kael. Illidan then told them of his plan to rule Outland by overthrowing the current ruler Magtheridon.

And so Vashj and Kael defended Illidan as he closed the dimensional gates that supplied Magtheridon with his reinforcements. After they were all successfully closed, Illidan's armies marched on the Black Temple. Vashj and her naga infiltrated the aqueducts and attacked the Black Temple from a side entrance, as Akama and his Broken destroyed the automated defenses. Vashj was responsible for killing the Mistress of Torment with aid from only a few myrmidons and snap dragons for support. Eventually, they battled their way to Magtheridon, and in a titanic battle, defeated him.

But Kil'jaeden appeared, and mocked their foolhardy attempt to betray him. He then commanded that they find the Frozen Throne and destroy it.

Vashj, Kael, and Illidan went back to Azeroth and advanced upon Northrend, only to be met at every turn by Arthas and Anub'arak, Ner'zhul's prime generals. Finally, they reached the Frozen Throne, and the forces squared off against one another. But, in the end, Arthas opened the doors to the Throne Chamber. Illidan was there to greet him, and the two battled on the face of Icecrown. After a short fight, Arthas defeated Illidan.

To this day, Lady Vashj still serves her master Illidan in the wastes of Outland. Though her heart and loyalties lie with her Queen and her race, Vashj enjoys working with Illidan and sowing discord and terror wherever she can

The fight consists of three phases: Phase 1 and 3 are the same, except for the spore bat adds in phase 3. Phase 2 is the real test of a raid's ability to work together—every single raid member is important, and has ample opportunity to cause a wipe.

Phase 1 a rather simple tank-and-spank, until she's at 70%.
Phase 2 lasts from 70% to 50%. She summons many adds and hides behind a shield, which has to be removed by turning off four shield generators (using tainted cores). Each generator switched off drops her health by 5%.
Phase 3 starts at 50%. It's similar to phase 1, with the addition of Spore Bats.

LOOT
Helm of the Vanquished Champion
Belt of One-Hundred Deaths