Yogg-Saron

Yogg-Saron's encounter is a complete madness. With three phases and everything happening at the same time, this fight can easily take weeks to master.

Anytime prior the engaging the Old God, you can choose 0-4 Keepers to assist you by talking to their images around the Observation Ring. Each Keeper will buff the raid with an aura specific to him or her, and will also have an additional special ability. Harder modes are when you have 3, 2, 1, or no keepers.

During Phase 1, you will face Sara, Yogg-Saron's vrykul avatar, and Faceless adds. Sara will be friendly to the raid and will cast a few spells, which both help and harm you in some way.

The adds explode when they die, so the DPS must stop all damage on the add at 60-30% (depending on how fast the DPS is going), and let the tank run the add to Sara.

The only way to kill her and enter Phase 2 is by killing the Guardians of Yogg-Saron close to her, so their explosion can hit her. Ranged DPS and a healer will need to be near Sara to assist the tank in exploding the adds on top of her. Remaining people should stand by the door and DPS the adds before the tank runs them away.

The adds spawn by themselves from any of the 4-5 moving clouds on the ground, and an additional Guardian spawns every time a player touches one of the clouds. Stay away from the clouds. Make sure to turn up Projected Textures in video options so you can see their complete shape.

A total of 8 adds need to be killed next to Sara in order to start the next phase.

Phase 2 is by far the hardest to execute properly.

The debuff Sanity starts to play a vital role in the fight - it starts at 100 stacks and is reduced by the various spells Sara casts. You can and should replenish it at the Sanity Wells around the room (if you have Freya helping you), which look like green beams of light, because if your Sanity reaches 0, you are permanently mind-controlled by Yogg-Saron and buffed quite a bit. A mind-controlled character needs to be killed, and they cannot be battle-rezed as they will come back up mind-controlled again.

Sara's abilities to watch out for:

Brain Link will connect two people via red/yellow beam. The players will take damage and lose sanity if they are far away from each other (red beam), so make sure you run straight to your partner (yellow beam indicating safe distance). With DBM, one person will get a cross and the other will get a skull. Make sure to go near the other symbol until the symbols go away. Brain Link can be broken by entering a portal, so if you are assigned to the portal, do still zone in. Your link buddy should follow you to the portal and then run back to their spot once you've left.

Malady of the Mind is a fear effect that does damage and lowers Sanity, and also jumps to nearby targets after its 4-seconds effect. Get away from anyone with it.

Psychosis is a simple damage-and-Sanity hitter, you can't avoid it.

Death Rays will target random locations close to Yogg-Saron's body, marking them with green light. Soon after the Beams will shoot at those locations and move a little, inflicting a lot of damage to anyone standing in them. They are small, somewhat slow and generally easy to avoid.

As well as those abilities, Yogg-Saron will periodically summon different kinds of tentacles.

Constrictors will grab a random raid member, inflict damage over time to them and not release them until either one is dead. Healers in a constrictor, can still heal and decurse and should try to heal themselves.

Crushers debuff the entire raid with a -20% damage debuff, which can be interrupted by hitting them with a melee attack. Be mindful, all attacks apply a 1-second stacking debuff that increases the Crushers' damage and haste by 3% - you will need to allow the debuff to fall off, if you are having a tank constantly interrupting the spell.

Corruptors die quickly and debuff the raid with poisons, diseases, magic debuffs and curses, all of which must be removed by players.

On top of all this, portals to Yogg-Saron's brain will open every 90 seconds or so. Only 4 players can enter, as the portals close after somebody uses them. Those players will enter one of Yogg's illusions, where they will have to kill several easy-to-kill tentacles (masked as various objects or NPCs), all the while avoiding to face the skulls around the room.

As soon as all the tentacles inside are dead, Yogg-Saron's brain will be exposed in a nearby chamber - the players will need to DPS him as much as possible, before leaving the room through portals in the brain chamber. Be careful, you will have exactly one minute to clear the illusions and attack the brain - even a second delay in the room above that minute will cause you to be permanently mind-controlled.

If you manage to bring Yogg-Saron's brain to 30%, Phase 3 will begin. This is mostly a burn phase, with a few tricks.

All healers should stand facing away from the boss at all times. Anyone who is going low on Sanity, should face away and replenish in the green pool of sanity, then run back to DPS (step backwards until you're in range to save some sanity).

Occasionally Yogg will cast Lunatic Gaze, which is a spell similar to the one the skulls in the portals use - face him away as quickly as possible to avoid damage and Sanity loss.

Immortal Guardians will also spawn during this phase - they are similar to the ones in Phase 1, except that they don't die normally. You can't DPS them below 1%, and the only way to kill them is to wait for Thorim to finish them off, if you have him available helping you.

If you don't have Thorim, you will need to have a tank keep them at least 20 yards away from the boss, as the Beacon marked for Empowering Shadows will heal the boss, if nearby.