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Kill Strategy: Ahune
If you hadn’t already heard, from June 21st until July 5th is the Midsummer Fire Festival. During this time there will be a seasonal boss awaiting you in the Slave Pens of Coilfang Resevoir. He is know as Ahune <The Frost Lord>.
I have noticed a lot of people complaining on the forums and in the chat channels in-game that this boss is simply too hard. So I’d like to share the strategy I’ve used for downing him numerous times now.
It’s a short run to Ahune. Two packs of Bogstroks and two single Naga Slavehandlers in the first room. A two-naga patrol in the hallway. Then the infamous four-pull right after the hallway (the one that usually lets you know if your PUG is going to make it or not). A three-naga patrol, one Slavehandler and a last group of Bogstroks on the right and you’re ready to fight Ahune.
Here’s what it boils down to.
Throughout the fight there will be ice spikes forming under random players. You will see a trailing white swirl around yourself, circling towards the ground. When the swirl reaches the ground an ice spike will shoot up and throw you into the air if you are still standing on it. Aside from that, Ahune has two phases.
Phase One
Ahune is immobile and his only damaging ability is melee so he doesn’t need to be tanked. Just don’t get near him. During this phase Ahune will have a shield which reduces all damage taken by 75%.
He will immediately summon an elite elemental - Ahunite Hailstone - which casts Chilling Aura on everyone nearby. Chilling Aura causes a stacking DoT which does 300 damage per tick per application. It stacks up to 10 times which results in 3,000 damage per tick.
Throughout phase one Ahune will be summoning two Ahunite Coldwaves. He will sometimes summon a single Ahunite Frostwind with them. These elementals have about 2,000 hit points. He summons them every 5 seconds or so at first, and progressively faster with each phase switch.
I’m not sure what the exact time is, but after what seems to be about 60 seconds, phase two begins.
Phase Two
During phase two Ahune retreats, exposing his Frozen Core. This is the time to blow all of your damage cooldowns. Any remaining elementals will not despawn and must be killed. This phase seems to last about 15-20 seconds, after which Ahune returns to phase one.
My first attempt at Ahune was on heroic for a guildie who wanted the Deathfrost enchant. It was day one of the festival and not much was known about Ahune’s loot tables and whether or not there was a better chance of the enchant dropping on heroic or not. Rather than risk it by taking the easy route, we simply did it on heroic mode with the hopes that we’d have a better chance of seeing it. Plus I had Wanted: The Heart of Quagmirran in my quest log from a few days prior.
Our group consisted of a Warlock, Rogue, Boomkin, Holy Priest (who wanted the enchant) and your’s truly.
I tanked the elite elemental between the boss and the plateau in the middle. The Warlock and the Boomkin helped me kill the elite from a distance. This meant that I was the only one with the stacking DoT.
The Rogue killed the weaker adds to keep them off of the healer since that is almost invariable who they will end up targeting due to heal aggro. When the elite was down all DPS goes to the small adds until phase two begins.
I threw out a swipe whenever I could to grab the small add that spawns near my tanking spot.
Ahune will let you know when he is about to retreat and expose his core. All of the DPS needs to ignore any adds that might remain and let the tank pick them all up. It’s vital that you do as much damage as you can during phase two.
The more phase swaps you have to endure the harder things get. The adds come faster with each phase swap and people start running out of mana. On normal mode you should be getting him down on the second Frozen Core phase. On heroic it may take three. Chances are you won’t survive longer than that.
Remember to not stand still at all if you can help it. The ice spikes not only damage you directly, but you take falling damage and it leaves you out of commission for 4 seconds or so while you sail through the air. Healers getting hit with the spikes are especially troublesome.
After two wipes while we tuned our strategy, we got him down and our Priest got his Deathfrost enchant!
It appears that the only distinct difference between regular mode and heroic mode is that Ahune has more hit points on heroic.
This seasonal boss is certainly not easy. In fact, he doesn’t seem to fit with the relative ease of the rest of Slave Pens. It’s not impossible though and it makes for a very interesting challenge.
On heroic mode you get as many chances as you need to kill him. But when you have killed him, that is your only shot for the day. On regular mode, you accept a quest to summon Ahune. You can only accept this quest once whether you win or lose, but everyone in your party can do it separately.
Since that first kill I’ve gone back with several guildies on regular mode, including a level 65 Mage and a level 62 Hunter. In one single instance I was involved in 7 separate kills. We just kept swapping people out as they used their quest to summon him. I’ve still only seen Deathfrost that one time on heroic, but I’ve seen Frostscythe of Lord Ahune four times now.