Protectors of the Endless Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Cleansing Waters should always be instantly purged from the boss; be on the lookout for this and remove it immediately.
• Prioritize interrupting both Water Bolt and Lightning Bolt if you have one.
• Remember that all bosses will heal to full health when another one dies; padding the meters with cleave damage does not help here!
• This fight, especially on Heroic, is all about movement and positioning. Do not greed here to finish a cast or get 1 more attack in.
• If Protector Kaolan is the final boss alive, Melee DPS will need to constantly watch their feet for the multiple damaging ground effects he will place.
• Save personal defensive cooldowns for the end of the encounter, where you will start to take very high damage.
• Prioritize interrupting both Water Bolt and Lightning Bolt if you have one.

• This fight has minimal healing early on, with the raids damage taken drastically increasing at the end of the encounter.
• Dispelling is crucial to this encounter, make sure all debuffs are removed from allies as soon as possible, and always have someone assigned to instantly purge Cleansing Waters.
• Save defensive cooldowns for the end of the fight, as the raids damage taken will drastically increase towards the end of the encounter.

• Prioritize interrupting both Water Bolt and Lightning Bolt whenever possible.
• Protector Kaolan must be moved frequently during Phases 2 and 3, if leaving him alive; watch your feet for damaging ground effects.
• Use defensive cooldowns as needed, ideally saving them for later into the fight when the raids damage taken will drastically increase.
• Positioning is crucial on Heroic difficulty; be sure you are close enough to the Minion of Fear to gain your stacks of Corrupted Essence when it's your turn to soak.

The Protectors of the Endless is the first encounter players will face in the Terrace of Endless Spring. This fight is a council fight, where players will face off against three Jinyu Protectors: Protector Kaolan, Elder Regail, and Elder Asani. These Protectors have separate health bars, meaning they do not share health; whenever one of them dies the rest will be healed to full and gain a stack of Sha Corruption. Sha Corruption grants the remaining Protector(s) a new spell, increasing the difficulty of the encounter each time a boss dies; this also means that certain kill orders are easier than others, with the most challenging kill order granting the raid additional loot.

The increased difficulty will reward higher item level loot that is flagged as Elite on Normal difficulty, and Heroic Elite on Heroic difficulty; this gear is rewarded whenever Protector Kaolan is the last boss killed. Keeping this in mind, there are 3 kill orders that we recommend, depending on whether you are aiming for maximum gear, achievements, or simply trying to clear the boss as easily as possible:

Easiest	For Power Overwhelming	Best Loot (Hardest)
Protector Kaolan; Elder Regail; Elder Asani.	Protector Kaolan; Elder Asani; Elder Regail.	Elder Regail; Elder Asani; Protector Kaolan.

While this boss is technically a 1 Phase encounter, for the sake of this guild we will designate each time a boss dies as a new phase to break down the tactics for each boss combination.

Phase 1 of the fight will always play out the same, as all 3 bosses will be alive; the only difference will be which boss you decide to kill, depending on which order you are going for. The following abilities are used by their respective bosses starting in this Phase, and will be used for the rest of the encounter as long as that boss remains alive:

Boss	Ability	Description
Elder Regail	Lightning Bolt	Elder Regail casts on his current damage for moderate Nature damage; can be interrupted.
Elder Regail	Lightning Prison	Debuffs a random player (2 on 10-man, 5 on 25-man), dealing Nature damage every 1-second for 8-seconds and stunning them, and all allies within 7-yards; can be dispelled.
Elder Asani	Water Bolt	Regularly cast on a random player, dealing moderate Nature damage to the target and all allies within 3-yards; can be interrupted.
Elder Asani	Cleansing Waters	Creates a water globe above one of the 3 Protectors, which buffs the nearby bosses after a short delay, healing them for 5% of their health every second; can be dispelled.
Protector Kaolan	Touch of Sha	Every 20-seconds Protector Kaolan applies a damage-over-time debuff to a random player without the debuff.

Have the raid spread out to avoid Lightning Prison from stunning and damaging multiple players, as it will likely tick once or twice before it is dispelled. Spreading also helps reduce the damage of Water Bolt, if it is ever not interrupted. One tank will grab Protector Kaolan as he melees fairly hard, while the other tank grabs both Elder Regail and Elder Asani. Stack the mobs together, allowing you to have interrupts in range to kick as many Water Bolts as possible, ideally letting non go off ever. Lightning Bolt can also be interrupted, and should be if you have extra kicks available.

Every 20-seconds Protector Kaolan will apply Touch of Sha to a random target; this simply deals damage-over-time and must be healed through. Eventually this will be applied to everyone in your raid if Protector Kaolan is not your first kill target, adding a ton of pressure to your healers as the fight progresses. Lastly Cleansing Waters will apply a dispel the bosses, which should be immediately dispelled from your kill target; you can leave this buff up on the bosses that you are not currently killing, as they will heal to full anyways when the first boss dies.

Phase 1 will last until one of the three bosses dies, depending on the order you are going for. The 2 remaining bosses will be healed to full and gain a stack of Sha Corruption, increasing the remaining bosses damage by 25% and granting them a new ability.

Phase 2 will add the following abilities to each boss (if they are alive):

Boss	Ability	Description
Elder Regail	Lightning Storm	Elder Regail creates 5 waves of lightning, starting directly around himself and expanding outward with each additional wave cast.
Elder Asani	Corrupted Waters	Summons a Corrupted Waters in the center of the room, which buffs all Protectors, increasing their attack and cast speeds by 75%, when killed, buffs nearby players with Purified.
Protector Kaolan	Defiled Ground	Protector Kaolan creates a void-zone underneath his current target, dealing high damage and applies a stacking debuff that increase the damage taken by Defiled Ground by 10% per stack; these void-zones last for the rest of the encounter.

If you are killing Protector Kaolan first in Phase 1, have the second tank taunt one of the 2 remaining bosses to split the damage; both Elder Asani and Elder Regail should be tanked in the center of the room to make their abilities easier to handle.

Elder Regail gains Lightning Storm, where he sends out 5 waves of lightning around him, dealing damage in expanding rings. These rings of lightning start directly around him, then expand to further areas in a predictable pattern, allowing players to avoid this fatal damage easily. When the first wave of lightning goes out, all players must move away from Elder Regail, afterwards they can return to stacking on top of him to avoid the 4 following waves. Players outside of the middle of the room, such as the Protector Kaolan tank, will need to be aware of upcoming waves and avoid them as they expand outwards.

Protector Kaolan will now also begin using Defiled Ground, creating a void-zone at the feet of his tank. This deals high damage to players in the area and applies a debuff that increases damage taken from Defiled Ground by 10% per stack; these void-zones will last for the entire encounter. Have the tank on Protector Kaolan bring him to the outside of the room, making sure to not out-range healers, and kite him in a circular pattern. Watch for the Defiled Ground timer and pre-emptively move away as it goes off, reducing your damage taken; you may need to perform a tank swap eventually if Defiled Ground debuffs stack too high on the current tank.

Elder Asani now uses Corrupted Waters, creating a Corrupted Waters add in the middle of the room; this add buffs all bosses, increasing their attack and cast speeds by 75% as long as the Corrupted Waters remains alive. Luckily it has very little health and can be quickly killed off. Upon death the Corrupted Waters will grant all players within 15-yards Purified, increasing their melee, ranged and spell haste by 25%; this range is indicated in the picture above with the red circle (wave #1). Simply be sure to be inside the 15-yard range around the Corrupted Waters before it dies to gain the buff.

Focus down whichever boss you are aiming to kill, handling these new abilities properly. Once the second Protector has died, the last remaining boss will gain another stack of Sha Corruption, increasing their damage by an additional 25% and granting them a new ability.

At the start of Phase 3 is the recommended time to use major DPS cooldowns such as Bloodlust, as you will want to end the fight now as quickly as possible. Phase 3 adds the following ability to the specified boss:

Boss	Ability	Description
Elder Regail & Elder Asani	Overwhelming Corruption	Both Elders gain this ability; deals Shadow damage to the entire raid every 3-seconds and applies a stacking debuff that increases the damage of Overwhelming Corruption by 10%.
Protector Kaolan	Expel Corruption	Protector Kaolan will create a pulsating globule on the ground near his feet, dealing damage to all nearby players; this damage is increased the closer you are to the globe.

Both Elder Asani and Elder Regail gain the same ability, Overwhelming Corruption, giving them a soft-enrage mechanic as the entire raid will quickly gain stacks of Overwhelming Corruption. With each stack increasing their damage taken, the entire raid will being taking very high damage shortly into Phase 3. Utilize defensive cooldowns as needed towards the end of the fight, when stacks are highest.

If Elder Asani is left alive, the raid can stack together behind him to help with healing and defensive cooldowns, as long as each cast of Water Bolt is interrupted. For Elder Regail we recommend staying spread for Lightning Prison; this makes it difficult to survive once Overwhelming Corruption stacks are high as you can not utilize defensive cooldowns all that well.

With Protector Kaolan alive Touch of Sha will be dealing extremely high damage to the debuffed players, which will be most of the raid by now, as Protector Kaolan has 2 stacks of Sha Corruption. He will now also create Expel Corruption globes every 40-seconds, dealing damage to everyone near the orb; the closer to the orb players are, the higher the damage they will take. These orbs, much like the void-zones created by Defiled Ground, will last for the rest of the encounter; the combination of these 2 spells will eventually cut off the space available for players to safely fight in. The tank kiting here should try to space out how often they are moving Protector Kaolan, trying to place the first couple of Expel Corruption orbs on the same side of the room; this will allow the raid much more space as the fight progresses.

The main difficulty in this Phase 3 is the high raid damage players will take while being unable to stack for 2 out of the 3 bosses. Players will need to use personal defensive cooldowns when they start taking high enough damage that the healers are unable to keep up. Help the healers out, stay alive, and finish off your the last remaining Protector to secure your first boss kill inside the Terrace of Endless Spring.

Heroic mode adds 1 new mechanic in an add, Minion of Fear, that spawns every 15-seconds for the entire encounter; this add always spawns on the North side of the room and attempts to run to one of the remaining bosses. If the Minion of Fear reaches their intended target, that boss will gain a stack of Greater Corrupted Essence, increasing their damage dealt by 10% per stack; at 5 stacks of Greater Corrupted Essence the boss will explode, wiping the raid.

To prevent the bosses from gaining these stacks of Greater Corrupted Essence, the Minion of Fear must be killed before it can reach them. When the Minion of Fear is killed the nearest 5 players (2 players on 10-man) will gain a stack of Corrupted Essence, increasing their damage dealt by 10% per stack for 2-minutes. Similar to the Greater Corrupted Essence buff that the bosses gain, if any player gains 10-stacks of Corrupted Essence they will explode for 250,000 damage to all players within 30-yards.

The goal on Heroic difficulty is to never allow the bosses to gain these stacks, and instead insure that all of your DPS players maintain this buff for most of the encounter. To do this while preventing players from exploding, you will need to organize a soaking rotation by dividing stacks evenly between the raid, assigning "groups" of players to soak Corrupted Essence. To do this, assign all DPS and tanks to "groups", ensuring each group is the nearest 5 players (or 2 on 10-man) to the Minion of Fear before it dies. Have each of these groups soak 2-stacks each before rotating out, following our example below:

1. Group 1 – Soaks 3 stacks (3× Corrupted Essence)
2. Group 2 – Soaks 3 stacks (3× Corrupted Essence)
3. Group 3 – Soaks 2 stacks (2× Corrupted Essence)
4. Group 4 – Soaks 2 stacks (2× Corrupted Essence)
5. Group 1 – Soaks 2 stacks (5× Corrupted Essence)
6. Group 2 – Soaks 2 stacks (5× Corrupted Essence)
7. Group 3 – Soaks 3 stacks (5× Corrupted Essence)
8. Group 4 – Soaks 3 stacks (5× Corrupted Essence)
9. From here, rotate between Groups 1-4, soaking 2 stacks each; this will give each group 9 stacks of Corrupted Essence. From here, have a 5th group (healers), soak 8 stacks of Corrupted Essence. This will reset the stacks from Group 1, allowing the rotation to restart if the boss has not died yet.

Each of these 4 "Groups" should be all of your DPS and tanks, not the default groups on your raid frames. We do not recommend having a single group soak 9 stacks before rotating to the next group, as this will simply cause the stacks of Corrupted Essence to fall off of Group 1 before Group 2 can reach 9 stacks themselves; this results in far less uptime of the Corrupted Essence buff on your DPS, making the fight much more difficult. Instead, by soaking only 2-3 stacks at a time, all DPS players will have time Corrupted Essence for the majority of the fight.

The main challenge of this added Heroic mechanic is that the players nearest to the Minion of Fear will gain the buff. This requires proper positioning from your entire raid, with players frequently needing to move to either soak stacks, or move away from the stack soaking area. This is extra difficult for melee, tanks in particular, as you will want to keep the bosses in the center of the room. Be sure to not greed out here and move far enough away from the designated Minion of Fear kill spot to ensure you do not incorrectly soak a stack of Corrupted Essence at the wrong time.

3.

Protectors of the Endless Loot

Celestial Normal Normal-Hardmode Heroic Heroic-Hardmode

This encounter features a hardmode, allowing players to take on an increased difficulty for further improved loot. Use the buttons to navigate between the difficulties, with hardmode loot being labelled as Normal-Hardmode or Heroic-Hardmode.

3.1.

Celestial Dungeon Loot

Item
Cuffs of the Corrupted Waters
Legguards of Failing Purification
Asani's Uncleansed Sandals
Waterborne Shoulderguards
Lightning Prisoner's Boots
Casque of Expelled Corruption
Bracers of Defiled Earth
Deepwater Greatboots
Kaolan's Withering Necklace
Shackle of Eversparks
Cloak of Overwhelming Corruption
Regail's Band of the Endless
Watersoul Signet
Regail's Crackling Dagger

This encounter features a hardmode, allowing players to take on an increased difficulty for further improved loot. Use the buttons to navigate between the difficulties, with hardmode loot being labelled as Normal-Hardmode or Heroic-Hardmode.

3.2.

Normal Difficulty Loot

Item
Cuffs of the Corrupted Waters
Legguards of Failing Purification
Asani's Uncleansed Sandals
Waterborne Shoulderguards
Lightning Prisoner's Boots
Casque of Expelled Corruption
Bracers of Defiled Earth
Deepwater Greatboots
Kaolan's Withering Necklace
Shackle of Eversparks
Cloak of Overwhelming Corruption
Regail's Band of the Endless
Watersoul Signet
Regail's Crackling Dagger

This encounter features a hardmode, allowing players to take on an increased difficulty for further improved loot. Use the buttons to navigate between the difficulties, with hardmode loot being labelled as Normal-Hardmode or Heroic-Hardmode.

3.3.

Normal-Hardmode Difficulty Loot

Item
Cuffs of the Corrupted Waters
Legguards of Failing Purification
Asani's Uncleansed Sandals
Waterborne Shoulderguards
Lightning Prisoner's Boots
Casque of Expelled Corruption
Bracers of Defiled Earth
Deepwater Greatboots
Kaolan's Withering Necklace
Shackle of Eversparks
Cloak of Overwhelming Corruption
Regail's Band of the Endless
Watersoul Signet
Regail's Crackling Dagger

This encounter features a hardmode, allowing players to take on an increased difficulty for further improved loot. Use the buttons to navigate between the difficulties, with hardmode loot being labelled as Normal-Hardmode or Heroic-Hardmode.

3.4.

Heroic Difficulty Loot

Item
Cuffs of the Corrupted Waters
Legguards of Failing Purification
Asani's Uncleansed Sandals
Waterborne Shoulderguards
Lightning Prisoner's Boots
Casque of Expelled Corruption
Bracers of Defiled Earth
Deepwater Greatboots
Kaolan's Withering Necklace
Shackle of Eversparks
Cloak of Overwhelming Corruption
Regail's Band of the Endless
Watersoul Signet
Regail's Crackling Dagger

This encounter features a hardmode, allowing players to take on an increased difficulty for further improved loot. Use the buttons to navigate between the difficulties, with hardmode loot being labelled as Normal-Hardmode or Heroic-Hardmode.

3.5.

Heroic-Hardmode Difficulty Loot

Item
Cuffs of the Corrupted Waters
Legguards of Failing Purification
Asani's Uncleansed Sandals
Waterborne Shoulderguards
Lightning Prisoner's Boots
Casque of Expelled Corruption
Bracers of Defiled Earth
Deepwater Greatboots
Kaolan's Withering Necklace
Shackle of Eversparks
Cloak of Overwhelming Corruption
Regail's Band of the Endless
Watersoul Signet
Regail's Crackling Dagger

Achievement	Description
Power Overwhelming	Defeat the Protectors of the Endless with each protector as the last member alive on Normal or Heroic difficulty in Terrace of Endless Spring.
Heroic: Protectors of the Endless	Defeat the Protectors of the Endless in Terrace of Endless Spring on Heroic difficulty.

Protectors of the Endless is just one of the four encounters present in the Terrace of Endless Spring raid of Mists of Pandaria. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.