Kalecgos Strategy Guide (Sunwell Plateau)

Author: Pride
Date: May 23, 2022
Updated: May 23, 2022
Expansion: TBC Classic

Sunwell Plateau Raid Guide

Kalecgos, the Blue Dragon, is the first boss that players will encounter in the Sunwell Plateau raid. He has been corrupted by a dreadlord called Sathrovarr the Corruptor, who is forcing Kalecgos to do his bidding. Players will have to defeat Sathrovarr in order to restore Kalecgos to normal and advance further into the Sunwell Plateau.

Kalecgos’ encounter is considered to be the easiest in the Sunwell Plateau raid, along with Felmyst. However, that is not to say that it’s easy in general, as it is surprisingly difficult for a first boss of the raid, specially compared to previous raid tiers. Many guilds will need some Arcane Resistance in order to defeat him, while underprepared guilds may find themselves unable to advance further into the Plateau.

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to overcome Sathrovarr’s corruption and restore Kalecgos to his former self.

Stay more than 10 yards away from other players at all times while “upstairs”, fighting Kalecgos
Don’t ever be in front or behind Kalecgos, always be to his sides
Enter the portal if one of your portal group players gets teleported, or if the raid leader calls for it
Renew your debuffs on Kalecgos before you enter the portal
Once “downstairs”, DPS players and healers stack up behind Sathrovarr, while the current tank stands in front of him
Druids, Mages: Decurse Sathrovarr’s Curse of Boundless Agony when it has 10-15 seconds left
Renew your debuffs on Sathrovarr before your Spectral Realm debuff ends
After all 4 groups have entered a portal, the order to enter portals in is established. For example, if your group entered after group 3, you will always enter after group 3. If you entered the 2nd portal, then you will enter the 6th, 10th, 14th, etc.
Make sure you have some Arcane Resistance if your healers are struggling with healing Arcane Buffet‘s damage
Priests: Buff your raid with Prayer of Shadow Protection, it will help tremendously

Be very careful with your threat if you get Wild Magic (White) or Wild Magic (Black) at the start of the fight
Stack up with other melee when fighting Kalecgos if you can’t be more than 10 yards away from each other
Once “downstairs”, be careful with your threat if Kalec is tanking Sathrovarr
Use your personal DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust against Sathrovarr

Be very careful with your threat if you get Wild Magic (White) or Wild Magic (Black) at the start of the fight
Once “downstairs”, be careful with your threat if Kalec is tanking Sathrovarr
Stack up with other ranged players & healers behind Sathrovarr
Use your personal DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust against Sathrovarr
Shadow Priests, Warlocks: Be careful with your self-damage if Spectral Blast is coming up

Be very careful with your threat if you get Wild Magic (Green) or Wild Magic (Black) at the start of the fight
The first portal will be very difficult to heal as there are only 2 healers to deal with Sathrovarr’s high damage
Sathrovarr’s Corrupting Strike will deal 10k shadow damage to the tank instantly and stun them; keep them topped off at all times
Throw some heal-over-time spells on the tank before you enter a portal & are ejected from the spectral realm
Wait a few moments before entering the portal if there are no other healers around, don’t leave the tank healer-less
Holy Paladins: You can reset your Arcane Buffet stacks with Divine Shield to keep healing if necessary

All Tanks

After the 3rd portal, all tanks immediately enter the next portal after they are relieved and taunt the next boss right away
Make sure there are healers nearby before taunting Sathrovarr off Kalec

Tank A – Initial Tank

Quickly move Kalecgos to the correct position and make sure his front & back aren’t facing the raid
You will have fewer and fewer healers on you over time, consider using defensive cooldowns when there’s only a couple
You will enter the 4th or 5th portal, the first portal after an offtank relieves you
Protection Paladin: Use Divine Shield to reset your Arcane Buffet stacks when they’re getting high (8+)

Tank B – First Offtank

Enter the 1st portal, UNLESS tank C gets teleported. In that case, enter the 3rd portal

Tank C – Second Offtank

Enter the 3rd portal — you are skipping the 2nd portal
If you get ported earlier (portals 1 or 2), you will need to announce it on voice so the raid adjusts accordingly

Abilities

Kalecgos

You initiate the fight by attacking Kalecgos in his blue dragon form, who is being controlled by Sathrovarr and forced to attack your group. You must reduce both Kalecgos’ and Sathrovarr’s HP to 1% in order to clear the encounter. Reducing Kalecgos to 1% HP causes him to be banished, becoming invulnerable to damage and unable to take any actions until your raid either reduces Sathrovarr to 1% HP as well, or wipes.

This is the main ability that Kalecgos will use throughout the encounter, casting it every 8 seconds on the dot. Deals 463 to 537 Arcane damage to every player in the raid, and applies an undispellable debuff to them, which increases their Arcane damage taken by 500 for 40 seconds. Stacks up to 50 times, increasing Arcane damage taken by 25,000, which is absolutely overkill, as the damage will already be unhealable when players have more than ~10 stacks, and players will largely get 1-shot at 20 stacks.

Countering this ability will be one of the most important parts of this fight, which your raid will do in 2 ways: using Arcane Resistance (read the Arcane Resistance section below) and entering the portals created by Spectral Blast to enter Sathrovarr’s dimension, the spectral realm.

Divine Shield, Ice Block and Cloak of Shadows will remove all of your Arcane Buffet stacks. This makes Holy Paladins and Protection Paladins a great duo to have “upstairs” dealing with Kalecgos, as they can reset their stacks at any time and stay on Kalecgos for a longer time if your raid needs it.

Kalecgos targets a random player in the raid who is not the main tank. That player and all other players within 10 yards of them will take 5700 to 6300 Arcane damage. Furthermore, that player will be transported to the spectral realm, while all other players within 10 yards get knocked back a moderate distance. Finally, a Spectral Rift will appear at the targeted player’s original location, looking identical to a Warlock’s summoning portal and lasting 15 seconds. Players who right click the rift will be transported to the spectral realm.

Players can only stay in the spectral realm for up to 1 minute, indicated by the Spectral Realm debuff. While in the spectral realm, you can only see Sathrovarr, Kalec (not Kalecgos) and other players in the spectral realm — you can no longer attack or be attacked by Kalecgos, or be supported by players outside the spectral realm. After your 60 seconds are over, you are ejected from the spectral realm and become afflicted with Spectral Exhaustion, preventing you from re-entering the spectral realm for 1 minute. Thus you must be very careful with how and when you enter the spectral realm; your guild will typically have pre-determined rotation of players going in at certain times.

This ability is the key to clearing this encounter, as it allows you to 1. Survive Kalecgos’ Arcane Buffet, as you cannot get hit by it while in the spectral realm, causing your stacks to reset, and 2. Defeat Sathrovarr, which is a requirement for winning, along with defeating Kalecgos himself.

Note that this ability cannot be resisted, so it is important that players remain spread out, because ~6000 average damage is a lot when you’re already rotten down by Arcane Buffet and have many stacks of its debuff. You’ll want to make sure only the person being teleported gets hit by it.

One additional thing to remember about this ability is that Kalecgos will no longer use it, and thus there will be no more portals, after he is reduced to 1% HP, as he becomes “banished” and is unable to take any actions. Thus you need to ensure that you have enough players inside Sathrovarr’s spectral realm to be able to take him down, before reducing Kalecgos to 1% HP.

Kalecgos can cast this every 10 to 50 seconds, though he’ll typically cast it every 20 to 30 on average. Don’t be surprised if your DBM timer is off.

Every 6.5 seconds, Kalecgos will target a random player in the raid and afflict them with an undispellable debuff for 20 seconds. That debuff is randomly selected from a pool of 6 options, 3 of which are beneficial, and 3 of which are detrimental.

Helpful Effects

Wild Magic (White) – Increases critical strike damage dealt by 100%. A massive damage boost, but be careful of your threat.
Wild Magic (Blue) – Spell and ability costs are reduced by 50%. Huge buff for many classes, particularly Rogues, Warriors and Arcane Mages.
Wild Magic (Green) – Healing done increased by 100%. A massive buff for your healers, though mostly useless if it targets a non-healer.

Harmful Effects

Wild Magic (Red) – Reduces chance to hit with melee & ranged attacks by 50%. A massive nerf for physical DPS, so pray it targets casters.
Wild Magic (Purple) – Increases spell casting time by 100%, aka doubling every spell’s cast time. Use instant cast spells if you get this.
Wild Magic (Black) – Increases threat generated by 100%. This debuff will be a massive issue for both DPS and healers; be careful with threat.

Kalecgos breathes, dealing 2550 to 3450 Frost damage to all players in a 30 yard range cone in front of him. Additionally applies an undispellable debuff to them, which reduces their attack speed by 75% for 12 seconds. Your tanks must ensure that Kalecgos never faces the raid, because raid damage is already high without people getting breathed on.

Kalecgos will use this ability very erratically, sometimes not using it for up to 1 minute at a time, but usually about every 30 seconds.

Kalecgos swipes his tail, dealing 1969 to 2531 Physical damage (reduced by armor) to all players in a 30 yard range cone behind him. Additionally stuns every player hit for 2 seconds. The damage isn’t too high, but there’s already a lot of AoE damage during this fight, so your tanks will need to make sure that Kalecgos never has his back facing your raid, and melee DPS players will need to DPS Kalecgos from the side, similar to tail swipe type mechanics of other dragon bosses, such as Nightbane, Onyxia, Vaelastrasz, etc.

Kalecgos & Sathrovarr

Kalecgos and Sathrovarr share one spell: Crazed Rage.

When either Kalecgos or Sathrovarr’s HP is reduced to 10%, they will both enrage. Their physical damage done and attack speed are increased by 10%, which stacks up to 50 times, for a total of 500% increased physical damage and attack speed. Every 5 seconds, they gain 1 extra stack of this buff.

It is highly recommended that you try to time it such that Kalecgos and Sathrovarr reach 10% health at roughly the same time, otherwise you will have one of them gaining a very large amount of stacks and potentially wiping your raid. Furthermore, your tanks will likely want to use their defensive cooldowns when either mob starts having too many stacks, typically more than 5 can start being scary, though with cooldowns you could even tank 10 stacks for a while.

Sathrovarr the Corruptor

Players can attack Sathrovarr after being teleported to his spectral realm by Kalecgos’ Spectral Blast. There, they will find him locked in combat with Kalec, who is Kalecgos’ real self. You must reduce both Kalecgos’ and Sathrovarr’s HP to 1% in order to clear the encounter. Reducing Sathrovarr to 1% HP causes him to be banished, becoming invulnerable to damage and unable to take any actions until your raid either reduces Kalecgos to 1% HP as well, or wipes.

Deals 4250 to 5750 Shadow damage to 3 random players inside Sathrovarr’s spectral realm. Cast every 3-5 seconds, so expect to take a lot of Shadow damage down there. The damage is resistible, so having a Priest buff your raid with Prayer of Shadow Protection will help a lot.

Sathrovarr strikes his current target, instantly dealing 9500 to 10,500 Shadow damage to them and applying a debuff to them for 3 seconds, stunning them and causing them to take 1000 Shadow damage every second, for a total of 3000 Shadow damage-over-time or a combined 13,000 damage. This ability cannot be resisted, so your healers in the spectral realm need to make sure your Sathrovarr tank is always topped off.

Cast every 15 to 20 seconds.

Sathrovarr curses a random player in the raid for 30 seconds, causing them to take 100 Shadow damage per second. However, every 5 seconds, this ability’s damage is doubled, dealing 31,500 damage over the spell’s duration, which looks like this when broken down:

Time left	Damage per second
29 to 25 seconds left	100
24 to 20 seconds left	200
19 to 15 seconds left	400
14 to 10 seconds left	800
9 to 5 seconds left	1600
4 to 0 seconds left	3200

As you can see, the damage becomes unmanageable when there’s less than 10 seconds left, and at even at less than 15 seconds left it will be pretty painful. To make things worse, when the curse is over or dispelled, it will jump to a different player at random, beginning its 30 second cycle at 100 damage per second once again. You can never truly get rid of the curse without wiping; it will tick forever, with the only difference being who it is on and how much damage per second it is currently doing. It is recommended that you decurse it when it has 10 to 15 seconds left.

Sathrovarr will curse a new player every 40 seconds, so eventually your decursers will have to deal with this ability very often. Thankfully, the damage can be resisted, so having a Priest buff your raid with Prayer of Shadow Protection will help a lot.

Kalec (Kalecgos Human Form)

Thankfully, you are not alone in this fight. When you enter Sathrovarr’s spectral realm, you will see Kalec, Kalecgos’ real self, locked in combat with Sathrovarr. Kalec isn’t as strong as his physical, dragon form, but he will assist you a modest bit, tanking Sathrovarr to the best of his ability, dealing a decent amount of damage, and buffing players inside the spectral realm. If Kalec dies, your raid will wipe.

Deals weapon damage to Sathrovarr, and a high amount of threat. Coupled with his regular melee attacks, this causes Kalec to deal a modest ~1500 threat per second to Sathrovarr, which is enough to hold threat for a little bit until a tank enters the spectral realm.

Grants a buff to 2-5 random players inside the spectral realm for 9 seconds. Every 3 seconds, those players are healed for 450 and regenerate 450 mana, for a total of 1300 healing & mana regenerated. Cast every 10 to 20 seconds.

Arcane Resistance

Kalecgos’ Arcane Buffet will deal a high amount of Arcane damage to your raid over the course of this fight. Thankfully, it can be mitigated by Arcane Resistance, so similar to other raid fights, it can be beneficial to bring some here. Having said that, you don’t really want to go for very high amounts of Arcane Resistance here — typically only using 2-3 pieces of AR gear. Furthermore, when your guild gets better at this fight, you can stop using AR, as it’s not really necessary, it just helps make your healers’ lives easier while you’re progressing.

Item	Source	Enchant	Arcane Resistance	Comment
Cloak of Arcane Evasion	Tailoring – Lower City Honored	Enchant Cloak – Greater Arcane Resistance	32 + 15 = 47	Incredibly efficient
Pendant of the Null Rune	Jewelcrafting – Consortium Revered	–	30	Very efficient, useful use effect
Violet Badge	Quest: The New Directive (Karazhan)	–	45	A lot of resistance, but losing a trinket hurts
Ring of Arcane Shielding	Jewelcrafting – Sha’tar Honored	–	30	Good if you don’t need both rings
Arcanoweave Boots	Tailoring – Rare Drop	Arcane Armor Kit	35 + 8 = 43	Highly efficient if you don’t rely on boots for Tier 6 set bonus

Having Cloak of Arcane Evasion & Pendant of the Null Rune gives you 77 Arcane Resistance unbuffed, or 110 when buffed with Mark of the Wild, which is a very good starting point. It is recommended that you bring an extra piece (with Ring of Arcane Shielding being the best option for many classes that need their trinket & boots) in case your healers are struggling to keep your raid alive. On the flip-side, if it looks like your healers are doing okay with keeping everyone alive, you can remove Arcane Resistance items over time.

Raid Composition & Preparation

Having at least 1 player with an ability that removes curses (Druids & Mages) is practically mandatory, as otherwise you are very likely to start losing players to Curse of Boundless Agony. Having 3 decursers in total is highly recommended.

There is so much AoE damage in this fight that it is a must for everyone to have a Master Healthstone when the fight starts. Furthermore, it will help to have some Major Arcane Protection Potions & Major Shadow Protection Potions, ready to use if necessary.

Having Priest buff your raid with Prayer of Shadow Protection will reduce the amount of damage Sathrovarr deals to you with his Shadow Bolt Volley & Curse of Boundless Agony abilities by a very significant amount. It is not strictly necessary, but it makes the fight noticeably easier.

A lot of guilds will benefit from having some Arcane Resistance equipment, as detailed in the Arcane Resistance section. It will make your first 2-3 weeks on Kalecgos a lot easier, though eventually you will probably no longer need it.

Sunwell fights are a noticeable step up in difficulty for healers, and while Kalecgos is among the easiest bosses in the raid, he’s still pretty difficult compared to previous tiers. Where your guild previously did fine with 4-5 healers, you may need 6-7 for this fight. Specifically, it is recommended that you have at least 3-4 AoE healers (Restoration Shamans & Holy Priests) as the vast majority of the damage taken here is dealt to the raid.

Holy Paladins and Restoration Druids are both very strong in this fight, which is refreshing. Holy Paladins make for a great candidate for the dedicated main tank healer spot (read the Portal Groups section for more information) thanks to their ability to remove Arcane Buffet off themselves with Divine Shield. Restoration Druids meanwhile will do great healing here, as the raid damage is highly predictable, making their healing-over-time spells extremely reliable, on top of having the ability to remove Curse of Boundless Agony with Remove Curse.

It is difficult to have rigid healing assignments for this fight, as Spectral Blast will randomly teleport your healers into the spectral realm. In general, you should aim to have 1-2 healers on the Kalecgos tank, 1-2 healers on the Sathrovarr tank, and the rest of your healers raid healing. With healers being juggled around by portals and portal groups, this will mean that your healers will need to pay attention to how many healers are around at any given time and change their priorities accordingly. The only healing assignment you can have is for the “downstairs” part against Sathrovarr, where each portal group (see the Portal Groups section) that has 2 healers should have 1 healer focus on the raid while the other focuses on the tank. Portal groups with just 1 healer (ideally a Restoration Shaman, coupled with a DPS player decursing) will necessarily have their healer do both tank and raid healing.

There’s constant, high raid damage in this fight, so it’s recommended that your healers use +healing consumables, such as Elixir of Healing Power and Golden Fish Sticks. It is a decently long fight by Sunwell Plateau standards, so you could also consider +mana regen consumables (such as Blackened Sporefish and Elixir of Major Mageblood) and always come prepared with Super Mana Potions and Dark Runes for emergencies.

There are no particular DPS requirements for this fight. It is also a rare instance of a fight where it’s highly beneficial to have a balanced composition, with a roughly even number of physical damage players and caster DPS.

The longer this fight drags on for, the more painful mechanics you have to deal with, such as having more and more Curse of Boundless Agony on your raid. Thus it is almost a must for your DPS players to come prepared with appropriate DPS consumables for this fight, to end it as quickly as possible. Note that Kalecgos is classified as Dragonkin while Sathrovarr is a Demon, so physical DPS players could alternative between using Elixir of Demonslaying and regular DPS consumables if they feel like going the extra mile.

This fight necessitates having at least 2 tanks, with 3 being highly recommended. The reason for that is having to reset Arcane Buffet stacks by going into the Spectral Rifts as necessary; having 3 tanks allows you to set up a comfortable tank rotation, wherein a tank comes out of the spectral realm just as the tank currently tanking Kalecgos needs to relieved in order to reset stacks.

The actual classes of your 3 tanks doesn’t really matter, all 3 of them are fine. However, it can be very beneficial if one of your tanks is a Protection Paladin. Their ability to remove Arcane Buffet off themselves with Divine Shield at will is very useful, as it allows them to instantly pick up Kalecgos if needed in case of an accidental tank death or some other mistake. Furthermore, they are not affected by Kalecgos’ Wild Magic (Red) and Frost Breath as badly as the other tank classes, making them a great option for the initial Kalecgos tank.

Both Kalecgos and Sathrovarr hit modestly hard, but not really as hard as multiple other bosses in the Sunwell Plateau, at least outside of their Crazed Rage. Thus your tanks could choose to use DPS / threat consumables here, to help make the fight a little bit shorter — though it may also be a good idea for them to use +stamina and armor consumables for the first few weeks, until your guild gets used to the fight.

Portal Groups

The most important aspect of this fight will be managing who goes into the Spectral Rifts portals opened by Spectral Blast, and when. If you don’t manage portals correctly, players will die to Arcane Buffet & Curse of Boundless Agony, and you won’t be able to make progress, as both Kalecgos and Sathrovarr need to be defeated for this encounter to end.

General

In general, you will want to split your raid into 4 groups, 3 of which will have 5 players, while the last group has 6. Each group will need 1-2 healers and at least one player capable of removing Sathrovarr’s Curse of Boundless Agony, aka a Druid or Mage. Ideally you will want these groups to contain classes that synergize with each other, and to make things easier, have them be similar to your raid groups. For example, if your raid’s group 1 is a Fury Warrior, a Retribution Paladin, a Beast Mastery Hunter, an Enhancement Shaman and a Rogue, give them a Restoration Druid for the decurse and another healer and you have the first group right there.

Name these groups group A, group B, group C and group D, and make sure everyone remembers what portal group they are in. Spectral Blast targets a random person and transporters them to the spectral realm. That person will need to call their group number in chat and other people in that group will need to follow in. That will change after the 4th portal however, as order is established at that point. For example, if your groups went into the first 4 portals in the order of (D -> B -> A -> C), then group D will go into the the 5th portal, followed by group B, then group A, then group C, and then repeating, starting with group A again.

Tanks

Tanks will also need to deal with portals, as Sathrovarr needs to be tanked and no tank can tank Kalecgos forever — they will eventually die to Arcane Buffet. The tank portal rotation looks a good bit different to the general rotation at first, though it will also eventually start repeating.

Let’s say you have 3 tanks, called Tank A, Tank B and Tank C — then your tank rotation should look as follows:

Timestamp	Event	Tank A Duty	Tank B Duty	Tank C Duty
0:00	Fight starts	Tank Kalecgos	DPS Kalecgos Prepare to enter portal	DPS Kalecgos
0:20	1st portal opens	Tank Kalecgos	Enter portal Taunt Sathrovarr	DPS Kalecgos
0:40	2nd portal opens	Tank Kalecgos	Tank Sathrovarr Wait for taunt	DPS Kalecgos Prepare to enter portal
1:00	3rd portal opens	Tank Kalecgos Wait for taunt	DPS Sathrovarr Prepare to exit	Enter portal Taunt Sathrovarr
1:20	1st group ejected 4th portal opens	After taunt, enter portal Taunt Sathrovarr	Exit Taunt Kalecgos	Tank Sathrovarr Wait for taunt
1:40	2nd group ejected 4th portal opens	Tank Sathrovarr	Tank Kalecgos Wait for taunt	DPS Sathrovarr Prepare to exit
2:00	3rd group ejected 5th portal opens	Tank Sathrovarr Wait for taunt	DPS Kalecgos Prepare to enter portal	Exit Taunt Kalecgos
2:20	4th group ejected 6th portal opens	DPS Sathrovarr Prepare to exit	Enter portal Taunt Sathrovarr	Tank Kalecgos

Note that these timestamps are simply indicative, the portals do not open exactly every 20 seconds. The table however shows the general idea. In general, your tanks will enter the spectral realm when they can and immediately taunt Sathrovarr / Kalecgos the moment they enter / exit. The only exception to this rule is that Tank C has to skip the 2nd portal, as entering would cause Sathrovarr to not have a tank for a while and start killing DPS players. Every other tank waits until the next tank exits the spectral realm and taunts the boss, and then they themselves enter the next available portal.

Some important things to remember:

The first tank to go into the spectral realm should not taunt Sathrovarr right away. Make sure there are healers inside the spectral realm or you will die.
Always wait for the next tank to taunt before you move on to your next assignment.
Move to the DPS spot when you’re not tanking.
Important: While Spectral Blast cannot target the main tank, it can target off-tanks. This means that the first Spectral Blast may target tank C, in which case they need to let the raid know, so tank B does not enter right away. In fact it’s a good idea for tank B to wait a few seconds before entering just in case this happens.
Similarly, tank C might get hit by the 2nd Spectral Blast, essentially being forced to go in early. If that happens, tank A will need to go into the next portal immediately after tank B taunts Kalecgos (at ~1:20) or Sathrovarr won’t have a tank for a while.
If you have a Protection Paladin, they should be tank A — they may have to stay “upstairs” for up to ~1:40 which is a whole lot of Arcane Buffet stacks. Having Divine Shield to reset healers’ stacks will make things a lot easier.

Tank Healer

Observant readers may have noticed that 3 groups of 5 players equals 15, plus 1 group of 6 players equals 21, plus 3 tanks equals 24 — that leaves 1 player unaccounted for, which is intentional. The last player will be a healer (ideally a Holy Paladin, otherwise someone with 200+ Arcane Resistance) who is primarily responsible for healing the first tank (tank A from the Tanks section above) pretty much throughout the entire fight, though they can be a bit more flexible if your raid requires it.

They stay “upstairs” and heal tank A, using Divine Shield to reset their stacks when necessary. Then, when tank A enters a portal, they enter as well — the tank healer essentially just follows tank A around. If any group’s healer dies, they could substitute for them temporarily, but this will be their primary job.

It is crucial that if the player assigned to this task happens to get teleported by one of the first 3 portals, they immediately call it out, as someone else will need to substitute for them, otherwise the primary tank can be potentially healer-less for a long time depending on portal timing RNG, and likely die.

The Pull

There is a Sunblade Protector robot enemy patrolling the path up to Kalecgos. After defeating it, your raid can resurrect the dead, buff up and regenerate mana, in preparation for your first battle in the Sunwell Plateau. Don’t forget to equip your Arcane Resistance gear!

When you’re all ready, have your tank initiate the fight by running in, supported by your Hunters using Misdirection on them. Kalecgos should be tanked on the opposite side of the entrance to his platform, so your tank will need to really go in there, and your healers will need to follow, using instant cast healing spells as necessary.

The Fight

Your raid should position as shown in the picture above. Kalecgos is tanked close to his original position, facing the side (north or south works, this picture shows north) so as to avoid having Kalecgos hit the raid with Frost Breath, his frontal attack, and Tail Lash, his backwards attack. The raid spreads out, with at least 11 yards between players so as to avoid having Spectral Blast hit multiple players; melee DPS cannot spread out so they just stack up and get healed ASAP. Portal groups stay close to each other, ready to enter a portal that spawns on top of any member of their group.

Kalecgos unfortunately has no chill and won’t wait for your group to be positioned; he will use his abilities right away: Wild Magic 6 seconds in, followed by Arcane Buffet 8 seconds in. There is not much to say about the first Arcane Buffet — it will deal 500 Arcane damage to everyone and start stacking up. Wild Magic can be problematic this early on however; your tanks have not had time to build a lot of threat yet, so an overzealous DPS player (or even a healer!) can over-aggro and possibly wipe your raid if they get the Wild Magic (White), Wild Magic (Black) or Wild Magic (Green) debuffs, so be careful.

Roughly 15 to 30 seconds in the fight, Kalecgos will likely cast Spectral Blast for the first time. If your raid has spread out correctly, it will only hit 1 player and there will be no splash damage for healers to deal with, unless it happens to hit melee. That is the least of your concerns though, as the portal mechanic begins now. The player who gets teleported needs to yell on voice (or use a macro for raid chat) for their portal group to follow them. The portals last 15 seconds, so other players have a few moments to get in, but don’t cut it too close. There are 2 things that can go wrong at this point:

Tank C gets teleported. In this case, portal group A goes in, but tank B doesn’t go in yet, and also skips the next portal.
The MT healer gets teleported. In this case, portal group A and tank B go in as normal, but one of the healers of group A should stay out.

Once inside, the tank should confirm that there healers inside with them and taunt Sathrovarr. DPS can start attacking right away, as Kalec will have some threat on Sathrovarr already, but be very careful not to overtake Kalec and die. After the tank has taken over, group A should use Heroism / Bloodlust and start nuking Sathrovarr. Everyone who is not currently tanking Sathrovarr should always be stacked behind him, as shown in the picture above.

The “downstairs” is roughest on healers, as Sathrovarr does modest damage to both the raid and the tank. Your decurser dispels Curse of Boundless Agony when there are 10-15 seconds left, while 1 healer tops off the raid after Shadow Bolt Volley. The other healer, if there are 2, must focus on the tank at all times, as Corrupting Strike can deal 13,000 damage to them out of nowhere, which may just kill them when coupled with a random crit. For that reason, if you have groups with just 1 healer, it is recommended that they’re a Restoration Shaman, as they can heal both the tank and raid at the same time with Chain Heal.

Meanwhile, Kalecgos is increasing his Arcane Buffet stack count upstairs. Ironically, this doesn’t increase his overall raid damage by all that much, as there are fewer players around. Then, likely 20 to 40 seconds in, Kalecgos will cast Spectral Blast once more. Just like before, the teleported player calls out that they were teleported for their group to follow. The difference being that the remaining offtank, tank B, doesn’t go in yet. Once again, two things can go wrong here:

Tank C (or tank B if Tank C was teleported earlier) gets teleported. In this case, portal group B goes in.
The MT healer gets teleported in. In this case, portal group B goes in, but one of the healers of group B should stay out and heal the main tank.

Back downstairs, group B should use Heroism / Bloodlust once everyone is down and nuke Sathrovarr along with group A. Things will be a lot easier this time around, as you now have 2-4 healers around instead of just 1-2, so healing and decursing will be a lot easier. The only complication is that Sathrovarr will curse a new player with Curse of Boundless Agony every 40 seconds, increasing raid damage every time you go down, essentially. That won’t be too bad if your ranged DPS players stack up however, allowing your healers to top everyone off with AoE healing spells.

20 to 40 seconds later, Kalecgos will cast Spectral Blast for the 3rd time and this time there aren’t too many targets for him to choose. Same as with previous portals, the targeted player calls out on voice for their group to follow, and everyone stacks up behind the boss. This time, the last offtank (tank C) also follows in, and immediately taunts Sathrovarr off tank B, who moves behind Sathrovarr. Use Heroism / Bloodlust and nuke Sathrovarr. Once again, only 2 things can go wrong here:

Tank C (or tank B if Tank C was teleported earlier) gets teleported. In this case, portal group C goes in.
The MT healer gets teleported in. In this case, portal group C goes in, but one of the healers of group C should stay out and heal the main tank.

At this point point, the initial Kalecgos tank and the main tank healer probably have a very high Arcane Buffet stack count and they may want to use Divine Shield to reset their stacks — don’t go above 10-12 stacks if possible. The first group to enter a portal will likely be coming out soon at this point, too. When that happens, tank B should immediately taunt Kalecgos, while tank and the main tank healer get prepared to enter the next available portal. Decurse Curse of Boundless Agony from tank A and the MT healer as they prepare to go in, as they may not have a decurser for a good while.

20 to 40 seconds later, Kalecgos will cast Spectral Blast one more time. The last group should now go in, along with tank A and the MT healer, if the first group has been ejected and the tank swap was carried out successfully. Just like all previous groups, they stack up behind Sathrovarr and use Heroism / Bloodlust to nuke Sathrovarr. If tank A made it in, they should immediately taunt Sathrovarr, UNLESS the MT healer couldn’t make it into the portal in time — in which case they should not taunt, and just let Kalec tank for a while, until a healer can come in.

As these are the last players to go in, the portal mechanic will simply start repeating at this point, with your portal rotations being the same until the fight ends. For example, if your groups went into the first 4 portals in the order of (D -> B -> A -> C), then group D will go into the the 5th portal, followed by group B, then group A, then group C, and then repeating, starting with group A again. The only things that can go wrong are tanks leaving before the next tank taunts their mob, healers entering a portal before the group before them gets ejected and thus leaving the tank without a healer, tank A and the MT healer weren’t decursed before going into a portal, and people miss portals thus dying to Arcane Buffet.

But of course you know better after reading this guide. The last thing to watch out for is Crazed Rage, this fight’s soft-but-kinda-hard enrage mechanic. When either Kalecgos or Sathrovarr are reduced to 10% HP, they will both enrage, gaining a 5% physical damage and attack speed buff which stacks every 5 seconds. This will eventually cause them to “delete” tanks, so your raid needs to get them down to 10% HP at roughly the same time, then finish them off ASAP. If your DPS is a bit on the weaker side, it’s okay to save Heroism / Bloodlust for the enrage, to ensure you get them down.

After getting either boss to 1% HP, they will be banished and stop taking actions. If you got Sathrovarr down to 1% you have practically won, as Kalecgos won’t pose much of a challenge with all 25 of your players blasting him down from 10% HP. If Kalecgos is approaching 1% HP first however, there is a possibility that you won’t have enough DPS to finish off Sathrovarr with no more portals taking into the spectral realm, which will cause a wipe, so make sure you can finish off Sathrovarr with the players currently inside before getting Kalecgos down to 1%. You win by getting both bosses down to 1%.

Congratulations on defeating Sathrovarr the Corruptor and restoring Kalecgos to his former self! With this, you have taken a bold step into the Sunwell Plateau raid and are one step closer to the final boss of The Burning Crusade, Kil’jaeden! The amazing Sunwell Plateau Loot can’t hurt, either.

About the Author

Pride

Classic WoW is my jam, with a passion for PvP. Most know me as Baranor, the ret paladin guy, but I'm secretly a druid main, don't tell anyone. In my free time I play Switch games, particularly JRPGs. Some day I'll be making my own games and I humbly hope you play those too!