This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Yor'sahj the Unsleeping in Dragon Soul. It is targeted to anyonewho desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide applies to patch 4.3 of World of Warcraft.

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping is one of the two bosses that are unlocked afterdefeating Morchok, in the Dragon Soul raid. He is a Faceless One that yourraid will fight in one of two very similar Old God themed rooms, outside ofWyrmrest Temple.

The encounter mechanics present a great deal of originality. The raid leaderwill be doing most of the job by giving the raid the right instructions.Then, the fight will be most taxing for DPS players and healers.

1. General Information↑top

2. Loot↑top

3. Overview of the Fight↑top

The Yor'sahj encounter is essentially a single phase fight. The encounteris unique, in the sense that Yor'sahj has only one ability, which he casts withregularity.

In addition, approximately every 75 seconds, Yor'sahj will summon 3 randomoozes of a different type (out of 6 possible types). Upon reaching the boss, each ooze buffs the boss, granting him aspecific ability that is temporary and lasts 60 seconds. When there are15 seconds left on his buffs, the boss begins summoning the next set of3 oozes.

Your raid can only kill one of the three oozes each time (as soon as onedies, the other two become immune), so the challenge comes from choosing whichooze to kill so that your raid is faced with the least damaging combination ofabilities.

3.1. Raid Leader's Role

In this fight, the raid leader plays a preponderant role. Ordering theraid to kill the right ooze and then giving the proper strategy for theremaining two oozes is what the fight is really all about.

There is a lot of room for error, and killing the wrong ooze canbe easily recovered from if the right strategy is subsequently applied forthe remaining oozes.

4. Yor'sahj↑top

4.1. Abilities

Void Bolt is Yor'sahj's only ability. This does a large amount ofShadow damage to the tank, in addition to leaving a stacking Shadow damageDoT. Yor'sahj uses this ability with a rather unpredictable frequency (onaverage, every 5 seconds). The DoT deals damage (5,000 in 10-man difficultyand 30,000 in 25-man difficulty) every 2 seconds, requiring two tanksto swap the boss among themselves in 25-man difficulty. In 10-man, the damageis easily healable.

Every 2.5 seconds, Yor'sahj also deals a moderate amount of damage with hismelee attack.

4.2. Summoning Oozes

Roughly every 75 seconds, Yor'sahj will summon 3 oozes of a different type(out of 6 possible types) that slowly move towards him, doing nothing else. Theycannot be stunned or slowed. Upon reaching Yor'sahj, each one grants him adifferent ability.

While the oozes are being summoned and while they are moving towards him,Yor'sahj is immobile in the center of the room and does nothing, although he canstill be attacked.

Each ooze (also called globule) has a specific name. We will list thesenames once (in the titles of the sections below), but we will refer to them bytheir colour, as this is how the in-game emotes refer to them.

Your raid needs to kill one of the 3 oozes (doing so renders the other 2immune to damage). This means that your raid will have to properly dealwith the buffs granted to Yor'sahj by the remaining 2 oozes. Failure to killone of the oozes will, most likely, result in a wipe.

5. Oozes: Abilities and How to Deal With Them↑top

We will now present the oozes, ranking them according to the buff that theygive to Yor'sahj, from the most deadly to the least deadly.

5.1. Purple (Shadowed Globule)

This buff is not deadly on its own, but it creates a lot of confusion andcomplicates the fight. Most raids will prefer the simpler strategy (even at thecost of more raid-wide damage) that killing the purple ooze leads to.

The purple ooze grants Yor'sahj Deep Corruption. This ability doesa large amount of raid-wide Shadow damage (50,000 in 10-man, 55,000 in 25-man,and 35,750 in LFR) for each fifth heal or absorb effectthat a player receives.

In case you encounter a combination with purple, the best way to dealwith Deep Corruption is to assign specific healers to heal thedamage. One healer (a Holy Paladin, preferably) should be assigned tohealing the tank (casting only Divine Light in an attempt to keep thetank alive with as few heals as possible), and other specific healers shouldbe assigned to healing damaged raid members (in the event that the other oozeis red or green).

The aim is to keep the raid alive while casting as few heals as possible,thus not triggering any damage from Deep Corruption.

It is interesting to note that certain heals do not trigger this effect.We cannot provide a comprehensive list, but we will list those that we areaware of:

• Lay on Hands, Word of Glory and any healing transfered through Beacon of Light;
• Prayer of Mending;
• Death Strike and the absorb from Blood Shield (Blood Death KnightMastery);
• on-proc effects (Maw of the Dragonlord, trinkets procs, etc).

We do not want to reinvent the wheel or take credit for a list we did notcompile ourselves. For more complete listings, we refer you tothe Official WoW Forumsand to the Deep Corruption page at Wowhead.

5.2. Green (Acidic Globule)

In LFR, the buff given by the green ooze is considerably lessened, makingit one of the least dangerous. In 10-man and 25-man difficulties, however,this ooze becomes much more problematic.

The green ooze grants Yor'sahj Digestive Acid. This causes Yor'sahj tooccasionally damage a random raid member and all allies within 4 yards of themfor a moderate amount of Nature damage (60,000 in 10-man and 25-man, and39,000 in LFR). In LFR difficulty, the ability does not have an AoEcomponent.

Just like with the purple ooze, the buff given by the green ooze is notdeadly on its own, but it requires the raid to spread out when almost all theother buffs require that the raid stacks.

The easiest way to deal with Digestive Acid is to have the raidspread out at least 4 yards apart. This is generally not difficult, but maybe somewhat problematic when green is combined with another ooze that requiresthe raid to stack, in which case youwill need to carefully spread out around the stacking location (the boss, mostof the time).

In LFR, spreading out is not necessary, and you can simply stack up andheal any players damaged by Digestive Acid.

5.3. Yellow (Glowing Globule)

The yellow ooze grants Yor'sahj Glowing Blood of Shu'ma. This buffsYor'sahj, causing him to attack 50% faster and to use Void Bolt twiceas often. Additionally, it causes Void Bolt to have an AoE effect that hitseveryone in the raid (the DoT, however, is still only applied to thetank).

In case your entire raid needs to stack together while theGlowing Blood of Shu'ma is active (if you have red or black as the otherooze), you should simply AoE heal the entire raid, and use damage reductioncooldowns to facilitate this.

5.4. Black (Dark Globule)

The black ooze causes Yor'sahj to spawn a large number of adds, calledForgotten Ones. These adds fixate on random raid members and regularlycast Psychic Slice on them, which deals Shadow damage (35,000 in 10-manand 25-man, 22,750 in LFR).

The best way to deal with the Forgotten Ones is to simply stack upand AoE down the adds while healers use AoE heals to keep the raid alive.

5.5. Red (Crimson Globule)

The red ooze grants Yor'sahj the Searing Blood ability. This causesYor'sahj to damage a number of random players (3 in LFR and 10-man difficultyand 8 in 25-man difficulty) for an amount of damage that is larger the fartheraway from the boss these players are.

Note that Searing Blood appears to exclusivelytarget those players who are farthest away from Yor'sahj (and thus who takethe highest damage).

The best way to deal with Searing Blood is to have everyone as close aspossible to the boss (practically stacking on top of the boss). In case redis paired with green (except in LFR), you will need to spread out 4 yardsapart around the boss.

5.6. Blue (Cobalt Globule)

The blue ooze creates a Mana Void. When this hostile unit spawns, it drainsthe entire mana pool from all the casters in the raid. As it only drains mana once,casters will start regenerating mana as normal and will still be able to castsome spells. When the Mana Void is killed, it releases all the mana that it haddrained, distributing it evenly between all mana users within 30 yards (100yards in LFR) of its location.

Dealing with the Mana Void is quite easy. Simply have all of your DPSplayers switch to the Mana Void as soon as it is alive, killing it quickly.This will restore mana back to all the casters, and from then on you cancontinue the fight normally.

Note that Death Knights can Death Grip the Mana Void.

6. Strategy↑top

In this section, we will provide you with all the relevant information forsucceeding in defeating Yor'sahj: which ooze to killand how to deal with the combinations of remaining oozes.

6.1. Start of the Fight

When Yor'sahj is not empowered by the abilities of any oozes, the encounteris basically tank and spank. Healers must only be prepared to heal tank damage(from melee swings and Void Bolt). This initial phase only lasts for 20seconds.

The rest of the time, Yor'sahj will either be summoning the oozesand doing nothing or be empowered with two additional abilities (or three, ifyou failed to kill any of the oozes).

6.2. 6 Possible Ooze Combinations

While there are a total of 20 possible combinations, so far, only 6 have everbeen witnessed. So it is safe to assume that these are the only 6combinations that the game will face your raid with:

• black — blue — yellow;
• black — green — red;
• black — purple — red;
• blue — green — purple;
• blue — purple — yellow;
• green — red — yellow;

6.3. Ooze Priority

Given that there are only 6 ooze combinations, the kill orders areslightly different than what they would be if all 20 possible combinationswere present:

• 10-man/25-man: green > yellow > purple;
• LFR: yellow > purple > black.

The kill priority specific to LFR difficulty comes from the fact thatthe green ooze is almost harmless in LFR difficulty (due to Digestive Acid not splashing to nearby allies).

6.3.1. Ooze Priority Addon

One of our readers had the great idea to write an addon calledYor'sahj Automatic RaidWarnings.This addon will give automatic raid warnings indicating which add should be killed,using the kill order we gave in this guide. Note that the addon is currentlygiving the LFR kill order by default, but this can be changed very easily bymodifying the Yorsahj Automatic Raidwarnings.luafile (simply open it, the author left a lot of indications to help you modify the addon to fit your needs).

6.4. How to Deal With Ooze Combinations?

This section is not meant to be learnt by heart. By respecting thekill priority, the strategy for handling the remaining two oozescan easily be guessed from the buffs that they grant to Yor'sahj.This section should mainly serve you when you are unsure about howto handle a specific combination.

Combinations that cannot occur with our kill priorities are notdetailed. The firstsection details combinations with the same strategies in alldifficulties. The second section details how to deal withcombinations specific to 10-man/25-man difficulties. Thethird section details how to deal with combinations specificto LFR difficulties.

6.4.1. Combinations With Common Strategies for All Difficulties

Black — Red	Blue — Purple	Black — Blue

6.4.2. Red/Yellow in 10-man/25-man Difficulties

Red — Yellow

6.4.3. Green/Red and Blue/Green in LFR Difficulty

Green — Red	Blue — Green

6.5. Tips

6.5.1. Tank Swap

Due to the high damage of the DoT left by Void Bolt in 25-mandifficulty (30,000 every 2 seconds, which, at high stacks can amount to asmuch as 270,000 Shadow damage every 2 seconds), it is highly recommended thatyou use two tanks. They should swap the boss among themselves whenever thecurrent tank has roughly 4 stacks of the DoT.

In 10-man and LFR difficulty, the damage of the DoT is much lower, so using1 tank is entirely feasible (although it may be safer still to use 2 inLFR).

Keep in mind that the DoT will stack fast when the boss has consumed theYellow ooze, when tank damage can sky-rocket.

6.5.2. Ooze Spawn Locations

The ooze spawn locations are fixed. They look like slightly elevated mounds,found around the room, close to the wall. To have the highest uptime possibleon the ooze (thus ensuring that the designated ooze will die before reachingthe boss), players should run to the ooze spawn location as soon as the bossbegins channeling the new oozes.

Each ooze spawns from a mound that is (relatively) of the same color asthe ooze itself, making it easy to tell where to go. Note that the in-gamemap of the room is misleading in this regard, and should not be used todetermine where each ooze spawns.

In order to make it easiest for DPS (especially melee) to run to thecorrect ooze spawn point, the raid leader should set appropriately coloredraid markers, close to the center of the room, marking the directions of thethree oozes most likely to be killed by the raid (based on the abovepriorities).

6.5.3. Using Heroism/Bloodlust

Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp should be used when the raidcan freely DPS the boss for a long time (such as after the Mana Void hasbeen killed in combinations that do not contain black).

6.5.4. Damage Resistance

The main schools of damage in this encounter are Shadow, Nature and Fire.Your raid should be buffed with the appropriate resistances, in order tominimise the damage:

• Shadow resistance: Resistance Aura or Shadow Protection;
• Nature resistance: Aspect of the Wild or Elemental Resistance Totem;
• Fire resistance: Resistance Aura or Elemental Resistance Totem.

7. Learning the Fight↑top

The Yor'sahj encounter can be mastered rather easily, as long as the raidleader is able to reliably call the correct ooze to be killed. The mostimportant piece of advice we can offer your raid is, thus, that you familiariseyourself with the proper tactics.

Once the kill order is properly determined, your raid will only need toexecute some rather simple tasks (spread out, stack or DPS adds), that shouldnot pose any problems.

8. Heroic Mode↑top

The only significant difference between the Heroic mode and the Normal modeis that Yor'sahj will spawn 4 oozes instead of 3. Since you can only kill one,it means that you will always have to deal with Yor'sahj being empowered withthe abilities of 3 oozes, instead of 2.

Other than this, all abilities deal more damage and all units (Yor'sahj, oozes,adds, and Mana Void) have more health.

8.1. 6 Possible Ooze Combinations (Again!)

There is a total of 15 possible combinations. However, just like in Normalmode, Blizzard made it so that we would only see 6 combinations:

• black — blue — green — purple;
• black — blue — green — red;
• black — blue — purple — yellow;
• black — green — red — yellow;
• black — purple — red — yellow;
• blue — green — purple — yellow.

8.2. Ooze Priority

The general ooze priority is yellow > green.

We believe that there should be two exceptions to it:

• black — purple — red — yellow: kill purple instead of yellow, this will enable you to heal through the extreme damage — though, with a healing setup comprising several paladins (many of their spells do nottrigger Deep Corruption), it might be better to kill yellow and dealwith purple;
• black — green — red — yellow; kill green instead of yellow, this will enable you to stack up on the boss and efficiently heal the extreme damage.

Additionally, for the black — blue — green — purplecombination, you can kill black instead of green. This will make your raid gainprecious DPS by not having to take down the adds, but your raid will have tobe properly positioned (otherwise, the healers might panic trying to heal Digestive Acid, causing them to trigger Deep Corruption explosions).

8.3. Strategy

If you are attempting the Heroic version of this fight, then you should befamiliar with what the oozes do and how to deal with them. The fact that theboss is buffed by 3 oozes does not add complexity to the fight. It looks as ifthe possible combinations were carefully chosen so that you would have toperform exactly the same variety of tasks as in normal mode: stack on the boss,spread out, handle Deep Corruption, DPS the Mana Void, and DPS theForgotten Ones. What the third ooze invariably adds is more raid damage.

In any case, we will not delve further into the strategy part, as it is reallythe same as in normal mode. The key to winning the fight is to properly handleseveral things:

• heal the extreme damage caused by having black,red, and yellowat the same time;
• have the healers not blow the raid up when purpleis up;
• strike a balance between attacking the boss and killing the various adds (oozes,Forgotten Ones, and Mana Void), as we explain below.

8.3.1. Black, Red, and Yellow

This combination of oozes will be the hardest to heal. Fortunately, since theraid will be stacked up on the boss, AoE healing cooldowns should be kept andused for this combination: Power Word: Barrier, Spirit Link Totem, Aura Mastery, etc.

Note that this combination can come twice or thrice in a row, meaning thatyour raid should try to use AoE healing cooldowns sparingly, only whennecessary. This will enable you to survive the bad odds that come withgetting this combination several times in the fight.

8.3.2. Deep Corruption

Your raid will have to deal with purplein half of the possible combinations (using our kill priority). This means that,unlike in Normal mode, properly handling Deep Corruption is no longeroptional.

This debuff will stack on players every time they get a heal or receive anabsorb effect. At 5 stacks, the player will explode and deal a massive amountof raid-wide damage.

To properly handle this debuff, healers must have it show in their raidframe addons (the spell ID is 105171 and its name is Deep Corruption).

Also, purple is always up in combinationwith blue, which deals no damage, and either ofblack or green,which deal very moderate damage. As you can see, purple is never combined witha highly damaging ooze that would cause the healers to panic, so they shouldbe able to easily keep every player in the raid alive, without having to healthem more than 4 times.

8.3.3. Beating the Enrage Timer

Most guilds progressing on Yor'sahj Heroic will find the 10-minute enragetimer to be very tight. As we will explain in this section, precious secondscan be saved in the way you will handle the oozes, theForgotten Ones, and the Mana Void.

Killing the oozes might not require the entire contingent of DPS. Theidea is to kill the ooze close to the boss, and not half-way through (whichwould mean that some DPS that were sent to kill it would have been betteremployed on the boss).

It takes the oozes approximately 23 seconds to reach the boss, from the momentthat they spawn. This means that you need about 110k DPS on the ooze in 10-mandifficulty and 360k DPS in 25-man difficulty. These values should be used todetermine exactly how many DPS should be sent to kill the ooze (some classescan do high burst damage, take it into account).

When the Forgotten Ones spawn (something that happens in all combinations,save one), DPS players should not specifically AoE them down. Rather, onlyclasses that can spread their damage on the boss to the adds (for example, Combat Rogueswith Blade Flurry, Fire Mages with Impact and Combustion)or that can spread their damage on the adds to the boss (for example, Warlocks with Bane of Havoc, Enhancement Shamans with Lava Lash, Improved Lava Lash, Flame Shock, and Fire Nova) should bother with the Forgotten Ones.

Dealing with the Forgotten Ones in this way means that they willremain alive longer, which increases raid damage (or tank damage, if thetank managed to taunt them before they fixated on someone).

Finally, you can ignore the first Mana Void (try getting it to 20-30%by the time the next set of oozes spawn) and use cooldowns such as Hymn of Hope or Mana Tide Totem after it has depleted all casters of theirmana.

The idea is to survive with rather low mana for one phase or two, until youget a second Mana Void (something that should happen quickly enough as 4 of the 6combinations have blue). Then, as soon as thesecond Mana Void has depleted all casters of their mana, the first Mana Voidshould be killed. Hopefully it will be on low health, after taking a bit ofdamage now and then.

After that, you should keep the second Mana Void as a means of re-fillingyour raid's mana after the third Mana Void spawns and so on. All in all,this will save you the trouble of killing one Mana Void. Since theyhave a significant health pool, this will prevent you from wiping tothe enrage timer at 2% health.

9. Achievement: Taste the Rainbow↑top

The Taste the Rainbow! achievement is part of the Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider meta-achievement. It requires your raid todefeat Yor'sahj after he has been empowered by the following combinations ofoozes:

• Black and Blue;
• Red and Green;
• Black and Yellow;
• Purple and Yellow.

Keep in mind that your raid can complete this achievement over the courseof several kills, as you do not need to experience all 4 combinations in asingle attempt.

From a strategy point of view, there is nothing complicated. Clearly,whenever combinations arise where 2 of the 3 colors are a requirement forthe achievement, you will have to kill the 3rd color and survive the needed2. In the case of Black and Blue, this is not problematic and you should usethe strategy listed above, in the relevant section.

For the other 3 combinations, we will provide summarised strategies.

9.1. Red and Green

For this combination, you must simply have the raid as close to the bossas possible in order to take as little damage as possible from Searing Blood, but at the same time be spread out at least 4 yardsapart.

This is not always easy, especially in 25-man difficulty. If faced witha conflict, always prioritise spreading out over being slightly closer tothe boss.

9.2. Black and Yellow

This combination simply requires a lot of healing. Your raid should stackup and AoE down the adds while healing through all the damage.

9.3. Purple and Yellow

This combination is arguably the most difficult. It requires your raid tosurvive the rather massive amount of damage from Yellow, while healing aslittle as possible, due to Purple.

You should stack up next to the boss, and make use of as many damagereduction cooldowns as possible (such as Power Word: Barrier, Divine Guardian and Aura Mastery).

You should also make sure that healing is kept to an absolute minimum, inorder to trigger as few explosions from Deep Corruption as possible. Playersshould use any personal damage reduction cooldowns that they have.

10. Concluding Remarks↑top

This concludes the encounter guide for Yor'sahj the Unsleeping. We hope youwill have fun performing this creative encounter. As long as you follow theraid leader's instructions, the boss should not be too difficult toovercome.