Blade Lord Ta'yak Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Spreading and stacking appropriately is the main challenge of this fight; don't be greedy for extra damage!
• Give priority positions to healers, allowing them to be able to reach as many players as possible with heals.

• Coordinate raid-wide defensive cooldowns for every Unseen Strike to reduce the damage taken and prevent deaths.
• Tanks will get hit harder the longer you remain in combat as Intensify continually stacks up.
• During Phase 2 the raid will be taking extremely high damage while moving; coordinate any remaining healer cooldowns or defensive cooldowns here, as this is where you will likely have deaths.

• Positioning the boss in safe areas, and moving whenever there are too many tornadoes, is your main priority on this encounter. Always be aware of your environment and be ready to move the boss when needed.
• Be ready to tank swap after every 2 stacks of Overwhelming Assault, and use a personal defensive cooldown when you have 1 stack.
• Avoid positioning near walls, as this will severely limit the amount of space available to Ranged players.

Blade Lord Ta'yak is the 2nd encounter in the Heart of Fear, a terrifying Mantid Blademaster who strikes with deadly precision. Before facing Blade Lord Ta'yak himself, players will need to deal with the Blademasters students, all of whom use one of Blade Lord Ta'yaks spells, allowing you to have glimpse into the upcoming encounter. Once all of the students have been handled, Blade Lord Ta'yak himself can be engaged in a 2 Phase battle, with players racing against the clock to defeat the Blademaster before he overwhelms the raid with deadly winds.

We recommend using all major DPS cooldowns such as Bloodlust right away on the pull, as you will have about 40 seconds before the first major boss ability occurs. Have everyone spread out around the boss, keeping Blade Lord Ta'yak on the platform area he spawns at; allow healers to take centralized positions, allowing them to reach as many players as possible. Every 60 seconds Blade Lord Ta'yak will gain a stack of Intensify, increasing his damage and haste by 5% per stack; this acts as a soft-enrage timer, increasing the damage the raid takes the longer that the fight goes on. Tanks will need to deal with Overwhelming Assault, a 20-second cooldown attack that applies a stacking debuff on the target. This debuff lasts 45 seconds and increases the damage taken from future Overwhelming Assaults, requiring a tank swap every 2 stacks to prevent tank deaths.

Every 15-seconds or so, Blade Lord Ta'yak will use Tempest Slash, creating a tornado that targets a random player. This tornado will quickly travel to their current location and move around in circles in that area; players hit by the tornado take moderate damage and are knocked back. These tornadoes last for the rest of Phase 1, meaning you have a limited amount of time to complete this phase before the entire room is covered in tornadoes. Use an area for as long as possible, moving Blade Lord Ta'yak roughly every minute or so to a new part of the room, where there are no tornadoes; try to keep the predetermined path clear of tornadoes (for example, do not drop tornadoes in a clockwise position if you will drag the boss clockwise around the room) by telling players to not stand here. Once Phase 2 begins all tornadoes will despawn.

The second major ability that we are spreading out for is Wind Step, where Blade Lord Ta'yak will blink on-top of a random Ranged player, applying a deadly bleed damage-over-time to all players within 10-yards of the selected target. Staying at least 10-yards apart for this ability is crucial, as the applied bleed can easily overwhelm healers if multiple players are hit. Preventing the raid from remaining entire spread for the whole fight is Unseen Strike every 1-minute, where Blade Lord Ta'yak will vanish and mark a random target with a giant red arrow. After 6 seconds Blade Lord Ta'yak will reappear, dealing a devastating blow to the target; this attack must be soaked by by having the entire raid stack on the player marked with the red arrow, causing the damage to be divided between all players hit. Have the marked player stand still and the rest of the raid stack on top of them, being mindful that there is no tornado behind them as Unseen Strike will knock back all targets hit. Coordinate raid-wide defensive cooldowns for these to help reduce damage taken, as there is very little raid damage outside of this ability.

On Heroic difficulty only, Blade Lord Ta'yak will also use Blade Tempest every 60-seconds. This will pull the entire raid on-top of himself as he begins a deadly spin, dragging the raid towards himself and dealing fatal damage to any players near him after 2 seconds. When the raid gets pulled in by Blade Tempest they must immediately move away and continue to move away as Blade Lord Ta'yak will attempt to drag them back into his deadly spinning blades; you'll have about 2-seconds to get away from the boss before this ability kills you.

Once Blade Lord Ta'yak reaches 20% all tornadoes will despawn and Phase 2 will begin. During this second phase he will gain a stack of Intensify every 10-seconds, and deals raid-wide damage every 1.5-seconds with Storm Unleashed; these two abilities combined make for a deadly soft-enrage timer in Phase 2, requiring the raid to finish the boss off quickly before being overwhelmed.

Blade Lord Ta'yak will start off by teleporting to one side of the room and sending all players to the opposite side of the room, covering the areas outside of the middle of the room with deadly winds that will push players away from the boss if they are touched. To complicate this further, new tornadoes (which also damage and knock back any players they touch) will spawn and move across the open area, forcing players to dodge tornadoes like a maze. The goal here is to run from one side of the room to the other while avoiding these tornadoes, until you can reach Blade Lord Ta'yak and stand on top of him, where no tornadoes can spawn.

You will want to use any movement speed abilities available, such as Stampeding Roar to quickly get across the room as quickly and safely as possible to beat the soft-enrage timer. At 10% health Blade Lord Ta'yak will fly to the opposite side of the room and turn the winds around, forcing the raid to run from one side of the room to the other again, repeating the same tactics of avoiding the tornadoes. We advise utilizing the winds on the side of the room, which will push you away from Blade Lord Ta'yak depending on which side of the room he is on. Once Blade Lord Ta'yak is close to 10% health, fully DoT him up and start moving towards the opposite side of the room, where he is going to fly when he reaches 10%. The timing on this is important, as the winds outside of the center of the room will always push you away from Blade Lord Ta'yak, so you have to start moving before he does, or the winds will simply push you back.

With the frequent stacks of Intensify every 10-seconds, the raid-wide damage from Storm Unleashed will start to absolutely truck players towards the end of the fight. Everyone should be ready with personal defensive cooldowns while the raid is moving at 10% health, as this is when healers will have the most trouble keeping the raid up. Utilize healthstones, movement speed abilities, and any available defensive cooldowns to get through this part and quickly finish off the Blademaster before he overwhelms your raid.

3.

Blade Lord Ta'yak Loot

Celestial Normal Heroic

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between all difficulties.

3.1.

Celestial Dungeon Loot

Item
Twisting Wind Bracers
Boots of the Blowing Wind
Hood of Stilled Winds
Bracers of Unseen Strikes
Bracers of Tempestuous Fury
Kaz'tik's Stormseizer Gauntlets
Sword Dancer's Leggings
Pauldrons of the Broken Blade
Windblade Talons
Waistplate of Overwhelming Assault
Choker of the Unleashed Storm
Drape of Gathering Clouds
Ring of the Bladed Tempest
Tornado-Summoning Censer

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between all difficulties.

3.2.

Normal Difficulty Loot

Item
Twisting Wind Bracers
Boots of the Blowing Wind
Hood of Stilled Winds
Bracers of Unseen Strikes
Bracers of Tempestuous Fury
Kaz'tik's Stormseizer Gauntlets
Sword Dancer's Leggings
Pauldrons of the Broken Blade
Windblade Talons
Waistplate of Overwhelming Assault
Choker of the Unleashed Storm
Drape of Gathering Clouds
Ring of the Bladed Tempest
Tornado-Summoning Censer

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between all difficulties.

3.3.

Heroic Difficulty Loot

Item
Twisting Wind Bracers
Boots of the Blowing Wind
Hood of Stilled Winds
Bracers of Unseen Strikes
Bracers of Tempestuous Fury
Kaz'tik's Stormseizer Gauntlets
Sword Dancer's Leggings
Pauldrons of the Broken Blade
Windblade Talons
Waistplate of Overwhelming Assault
Choker of the Unleashed Storm
Drape of Gathering Clouds
Ring of the Bladed Tempest
Tornado-Summoning Censer

Achievement	Description
Heroic: Blade Lord Ta'yak	Defeat Blade Lord Ta'yak in Heart of Fear on Heroic difficulty.
Candle in the Wind	Defeat Blade Lord Ta'yak while all four braziers are lit in Heart of Fear on Normal or Heroic difficulty.

Blade Lord Ta'yak is just one of the six encounters present in the Heart of Fear raid of Mists of Pandaria. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.