Sha of Fear Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Move behind the Terror Spawns to damage them, as they are immune to all attacks made from the front.
• Finish off the Terrace Guardian, if you are transported to a Side Platform, as quickly as possible to rejoin the rest of the raid.
• On Heroic difficulty, save all major cooldowns for the very start of Phase 2; if done properly, your cooldowns will reset and you can use them twice, back-to-back.
• During Phase 2 try to cleave the Dread Spawn adds as much as possible, without losing damage on Sha of Fear.

• Be mindful of Thrash (and Dread Thrash) cooldowns, as tanks will be chunked when these go out; use a cooldown if needed.
• If you are transported to a Side Platform, you are the only healer there; keep the group alive!
• In Phase 2 the raids damage taken will increase the longer the fight lasts; coordinate defensive cooldowns for each of the Huddle in Terrors after the first 2-3 minutes in this Phase.
• Tanks will be frequently swapping during Phase 2 for Naked and Afraid, and to rotate defensive cooldowns; make sure you are aware of who is going to be tanking soon and be prepared to swap healing over to them when needed.

• Whoever is standing inside the Golden Circle in front of Sha of Fear will be tanking due to the fixate; all tanks should stand in the circle and perform a full taunt rotation, allowing all tanks to be in the top threat positions.
• Use a defensive cooldown to survive each Thrash; a major defensive cooldown is needed for Dread Thrash on Heroic mode.
• You will be soaking the majority of the Sha Globes on the Side Platforms when facing a Terrace Guardian.
• Implacable Strike is currently bugged and will follow the tank it initially targeted (the visual will not follow, but the damage cone will); this must be tanked by standing still and using a major defensive.
• Try to position Sha of Fear in a way during Phase 2 that he can be easily cleaved along with the Dread Spawns.

The Sha of Fear is one of the most difficult fights in all of Tier 14, if not the most difficult. On 25-man raids will need to bring 3 tanks (its possible to bring 2 if DPS is high enough on Normal mode), as an additional tank is required for adds. Normal difficulty sees only 1 Phase for the entire encounter, with Heroic difficulty gaining an entirely new Phase 2, completely changing the encounter. We will first discuss Normal difficulty (which is the Phase 1 of Heroic), and go over Heroic modes Phase 2 afterwards.

One tank, who will tank the Sha of Fear himself, will need to stand in the golden highlighted circle on the ground, indicated by a bright visual. This tank will stand in this position for the rest of the encounter, as doing so creates a Wall of Light being that tank. Players inside the Wall of Light take 10% less damage from all sources and are immune to Breath of Fear, the Sha of Fears deadliest attack (more on this shortly).

The Sha of Fear will use Reaching Attack if no player is in melee range, dealing damage to the entire raid every second, quickly causing a wipe. This should not be an issue as a tank should always be standing in position to create the Wall of Light, causing Sha of Fear to fixate on them; if no one is inside the circle, he will chain-cast Reaching Attack and wipe the raid.

We'll start off by quickly getting into position, with the tank creating the Wall of Light and staying in melee range to prevent Reaching Attacks from occurring. After every 3 melee attacks, the Sha of Fear will gain the Thrash buff, making his next melee swing attack 2 additional times (3 attacks total); tanks should be ready with a defensive cooldown for this by watching the Sha of Fears buffs for Thrash.

The Sha of Fear has an energy bar, which starts at 0 Energy and fills up to 30 Energy (approximately every 35-seconds); upon reaching 30 Energy, he will use Breath of Fear, killing anyone not inside the Wall of Light. It is possible to survive Breath of Fear with a major defensive cooldown such as Dispersion, but this should not be relied on as a tactic as the Wall of Light simply prevents all damage taken from Breath of Fear. Anyone hit by Breath of Fear will also be feared for 5-seconds (assuming they survive the initial damage), causing further chaos.

Melee DPS should spread 3-yards apart behind Sha of Fear and move into the Wall of Light whenever Breath of Fear will be cast soon. The Ranged should quickly get inside the Wall of Light and spread out at least 3-yards apart, as the Sha of Fear will target random players with Eerie Skull, dealing damage to them and any other players within 2.5-yards. Sha of Fear will use Eerie Skull very often, dealing high damage to random targets, especially when stacked.

Every 60-seconds Sha of Fear will create 2 Terror Spawn adds, 1 on each side of the Wall of Light. These Terror Spawns will stand in place, casting Penetrating Bolt on random raid members, dealing damage in the area and placing a stacking debuff on players hit that increases Shadow damage taken by 15% per stack. The Penetrating Bolt is a projectile that will travel from the Terror Spawn towards the targeted player, giving players in the area a couple of seconds to move out of the indicated area (a blue hellfire circle). The Terror Spawns are similar to the Emperor's Courage adds in Mogu'shan Vaults, in that they can not be attacked from the front, and can only be damaged by standing behind the shield they place in front of them. These adds will always spawn facing towards the Wall of Light, requiring DPS players to run out of the wall to damage them.

You do not want too many Terror Spawns alive at once, as this will require the raid to be constantly moving to avoid the Penetrating Bolts. Instead, DPS players will need to wait for a Breath of Fear to go out, then move behind the Terror Spawn to finish it off, quickly moving back into the Wall of Light before the next Breath of Fear cast. Damage-over-time classes excel here, as they can quickly move behind the Terror Spawn, apply several DoTs, then move back to the Wall of Light with plenty of time to spare, allowing the DoTs to finish off the Terror Spawn. Split your DPS up between the 2 adds, chipping away at their health between each of the Breath of Fear casts, ideally never having more than 2 adds alive at once.

Every 45-seconds on 25-man (and every 90-seconds on 10-man), Sha of Fear will use his final ability Ominous Cackle, transporting 5 players onto one of the 3 Side Platforms; the transported players will always be: 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS. These 5 players will need to fight one of 3 Terrace Guardians, all of which have the same attacks and abilities, which we will cover in the next section.

As mentioned above, Ominous Cackle will transport 5 players (1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS) to one of the 3 platforms surrounding the main platform, where Sha of Fear is. When landing on the platforms players will face one of three adds: Yang Guoshi, Cheng Kang, or Jinlun Kun depending on which platform they are transferred to; these adds all have the exact same behaviour and abilities, and henceforth will be referred to simply as "Terrace Guardian(s)". These Terrace Guardians will sit on the middle of the platform and refuse to move; they have a normal aggro table and must be tanked. This platform is surrounded by many pillars, which we will need to use as a line-of-sight point in the future.

As the Terrace Guardian is attacked and loses health it will create several Sha Globes around it; these globes will float around for 8-seconds, allowing players to "grab" them (by walking into them), taking a small amount of Shadow damage and restoring primary resource (Rage/Energy/Mana/etc). If the Sha Globes are not picked up within 8-seconds, the Terrace Guardian will absorb the globes, healing it for 8% health for each globe. Make sure to run over the globes as they spawn, being mindful of your health and avoiding them if you are low; the tank here can easily soak most of these globes, once they have threat on the Guardian.

The main threat that these Terrace Guardians have is Dread Spray, which the Guardian will use frequently. The Guardians will shoot a total of 16 shots over an 8-second duration (shooting once every 0.5 seconds) in a "random" direction, dealing high Shadow damage to players hit in the area. Players hit twice by Dread Spray will become feared, which can and should be dispelled. At first the Terrace Guardians firing patterns may seem to be random, but they will always follow the exact same pattern on each platform; this allows us to know the patterns beforehand, allowing us to avoid all 16 shots entirely.

We recommend grabbing an addon or WeakAura for this fight, greatly reducing the learning curve and allowing your raiders to avoid every shot of Dread Spray: Progress T14 WeakAura Pack: Including Dread Shot. This will simplify the mechanic, allowing raiders to focus on dealing damage to the Terrace Guardian rather than trying to remember which part of the room is safe or dangerous.

• Red sections will be hit on the next shot;
• Orangesections will be hit in the next 1-2 shots;
• Yellowsections will be hit in the next 3-4 shots;
• Green sections will not be hit again and are safe.

Using this WeakAura, or a similar one, removes the biggest threat from these side platforms; this is especially true on Heroic difficulty, where being hit 2 or 3 times in a row is almost certain death.

The Terrace Guardians will occasionally use Death Blossom, dealing very high Physical damage to all players in the Guardians line-of-sight. Players on the platforms will need to quickly get behind the pillars around the outsides of the platform, using them to line-of-sight the Death Blossom cast until it completes. The tank may want to stay in the middle of the room to continue soaking the Sha Globes, using a defensive cooldown to stay alive.

Once the Terrace Guardian has been defeated, a golden light will appear next to him that can be clicked (named Return to the Terrace). Clicking this light will transport the player back onto the main platform (where Sha of Fear is), and buff the players with Fearless for 30-seconds. This buff grants: increased damage, healing, and movement speed for the duration, as well as immunity to Breath of Fear (both the damage and fear component). This allows players to get back onto the Main Platform right away, not needing to wait for the next Breath of Fear to go off; players with this buff should utilize the increased movement speed and prioritize killing any Terror Spawns that remain up. Afterwards, return to the Wall of Light before the Fearless buff expires, and you become vulnerable to Breath of Fear once again.

For Normal difficulty, the fight will continue repeating these abilities until either the boss or raid is defeated. With high enough DPS it is possible to run 2 tanks on Normal mode, as long as each Terrace Guardian will die in less than 45-seconds, before the next Ominous Cackle cast. Use all major DPS cooldowns such as Bloodlust at the start of combat, as this fight lasts long enough for a second Bloodlust to be used.

The Heroic difficulty of Sha of Fear is broken down into 2 Phases, with Phase 2 being entirely new to the fight. Phase 1 is almost the exact same as Normal mode (described above), and lasts until Sha of Fear reaches 66% health, where Phase 2 will begin. This encounter requires 3-tanks, not being optional as it is on Normal mode.

Differing from Normal mode, we will not be using Bloodlust and other major DPS cooldowns on the pull, instead saving them for the start of Phase 2 (more on this below). We will also be ignoring the Terror Spawn adds entirely, aiming to push Sha of Fear down to 66% before they overwhelm the raid, as all adds will despawn in this new Phase; this includes any of the Terrace Guardians that are alive, and the players teleported on the Side Platforms will be returned to the raid group. With Phase 1 completed with the few minor changes from Normal mode, we head into Heroic modes Phase 2.

Once Sha of Fear reaches 66% the raid will be granted the Lei's Hope buff; this buff will last for the rest of the raid ID, meaning it will be up for all future pulls during both Phase 1 and Phase 2. The Sha of Fear will teleport to a new area, the Dread Expanse, and teleport the entire raid down with him; a few seconds after teleporting down, all players will be healed to full, gain full mana, and have all cooldowns reset. We are aiming to take advantage of this cooldown reset, using all major DPS cooldowns either right before Phase 2 starts, or immediately after being teleported to the Dread Expanse. The goal here is to get 2 back-to-back uses of your major DPS cooldowns, including Bloodlust as Sated will also be reset, allowing you to burn down Sha of Fears massive health pool during this phase.

The tank who was tanking Sha of Fear in Phase 1 and creating the Wall of Light will become imbued with a "Pure Light", granting them a buff ( Champion of the Light) that gives immunity to Fear and Horror effects, and also reduces all damage taken by 30%; this player will be rooted in place and unable to move. The player with the Pure Light on them will also gain an Extra Action Button Transfer Light that they can use to "throw the light" (also commonly called the ball); this works very similarly to the Tainted Core from the Lady Vashj encounter in Serpentshrine Cavern. Only 1 player can have the Champion of the Light buff at a time, while they are holding the Pure Light.

The Sha himself gains a few new abilities as well, starting with Dread Thrash, an improved version of Thrash from Phase 1; Dread Thrash causes Sha of Fear to attack a total of 6 times at once, making this a very deadly ability that tanks will need to use a major defensive to survive. Tanks will also need to deal with Naked and Afraid every 30-seconds, which completely removes their armor, as well as their dodge and parry chance for 50-seconds. Tanks will need to rotate whenever one of the tanks gets this debuff, taunting off of them; with a 30-second cooldown and a 50-second duration, this is the reason 3 tanks are required for Heroic mode.

Sha of Fear will use Implacable Strike, a frontal-cone attack that deals heavy Frost damage to anyone in front of the boss after a 3.5 second cast; this will always be placed on the position of the current tank. Normally, you would simply move out of this ability before the cast completes, with DPS players never standing in front of the boss; however, currently Implacable Strike is bugged. Instead of it being on a fixed area (where the current tank was standing at the start of the cast), Implacable Strike will instead follow the tank, despite the visuals of the attack animation not moving. This means that if the tank moves out of the Implacable Strike, it will follow them (but the visual will not), dealing damage to anyone around them (killing them). Tanks will need to use a major defensive cooldown here to survive the roughly 900,000 Frost damage; utilize the 3 tanks you have by rotating who is tanking based on defensive cooldown availability.

Waterspout will target several players, spawning a pool of water under their feet that will activate after 1.5 seconds, dealing high Frost damage to all players within 2-yards. Be on the lookout for these spawning under your feet and quickly move away from them, ideally taking no damage at all; these can be difficult to see, as their visual is a similar color to the floor.

Huddle in Terror is cast on random players (5 on 25-man, 3 on 10-man), causing the targets to be feared in place and take high Shadow damage every second for 12-seconds; this fear can not be dispelled through normal means. To remove the fear, players will need to be thrown the Pure Light to gain the Champion of the Light buff, which grants immunity to fear; this will immediately dispel the Huddle in Terror debuff, removing both the fear and the damage-over-time components of the spell.

We will be handling Huddle in Terror by utilizing the Pure Light mechanic, as the Champion of the Light buff grants fear immunity. Quickly throw the Pure Light around to all players debuffed with Huddle in Terror to break them free; that player will then need to throw the Pure Light to another player who is feared by Huddle in Terror, until all fears are cleared.

Implacable Strike, Waterspout, and Huddle in Terror will only be used once in between each Submerge use; they will be used in a random order, making the fight somewhat unpredictable.

Submerge is used every 55-seconds and can be monitored by simply watching Sha of Fears energy bar (similar to Breath of Fear during Phase 1); when his energy is full, he will Submerge. During Submerge Sha of Fear will become untargetable for a few seconds before picking an area to Emerge from; this area will be largely visible due to the splashing water. Players remaining in this indicated area will die to Emerges damage once the Sha of Fear breaks through the ground; move away before you die.

Each time a Submerge occurs a number of Dread Spawn adds will spawn. Every other time that Submerge is used, an additional Dread Spawn add will spawn, aside from the first Submerge. This will look like the following:

1st Submerge	2nd Submerge	3rd Submerge	4th Submerge	5th Submerge	6th Submerge
1× Dread Spawn	2× Dread Spawn	2× Dread Spawn	3× Dread Spawn	3× Dread Spawn	4× Dread Spawn

The Dread Spawn adds do not have a threat table, but instead will fixate on whoever is currently holding the Pure Light (with the Champion of the Light buff). If they reach this player they will try to cast Eternal Darkness, instantly killing the target. To prevent this, players will want to throw the Pure Light around the raid, forcing the Dread Spawn to continually chase the Ball around the room. The goal with this is to get the adds to group up close to each other, allowing them to be AoE'd down, and continue to pass the Pure Light around the room to kite them.

The Dread Spawns will periodically gain stacks of Gathering Speed, doubling their movement speed for each stack; all stacks are dropped each time the Pure Light is passed from one player to another. Their most deadly ability is Sha Spine, which every Dread Spawn will cast each time the Pure Light is passed from one player to another; this adds a ton of raid-wide damage when there are a bunch of adds alive.

Handling the Dread Spawn adds will be the main portion of this Phase, requiring the raid to cleave damage as needed on the boss and adds. With only 1 Dread Spawn up at first, they can be slowly killed off, with only a few players assigned to damage them. As more and more spawn, they will require ever increasing focus from additional DPS players to kill them before the next wave of adds spawn. Their main threat is Sha Spine, which each Dread Spawn will use every time the Pure Light is thrown, causing massive raid-wide damage when many adds are alive.

As mentioned earlier, we will want to break Huddle in Terrors by tossing the Pure Light to all players with the debuff; this will cause a large amount of raid-wide damage to occur thanks to Sha Spine. Early into the fight this will not be an issue, as there will typically only be 1-2 Dread Spawns alive, if any. When there are 3-4 Dread Spawns alive, you will want to use raid-wide defensive cooldowns to keep players alive while tossing the Pure Light around to break the Huddle in Terrors out; with 4-5 Dread Spawns alive you will want to stop using the Pure Light to break the Huddle in Terrors out entirely, as the raid-wide damage will be too high. Try to keep these players alive through traditional cooldowns and healing, focusing on dealing as much damage to Sha of Fear as possible (as this is likely at the very end of the fight).

Towards the end of the fight you will have a ton of Dread Spawns alive, causing massive raid-wide damage each time you use the Pure Light, which you need to use to prevent Eternal Darkness from killing players. At this point you want to go for "long-distance throws", trying to throw the Ball between the 2 furthest players away from each other. This will reduce how often the raid gets bombarded by multiple Sha Spines, as the adds will need to travel further than usual to reach these players. Try to save and use any personal defensive cooldowns towards the end of the fight, as it will typically come down to a race against the clock to burn down Sha of Fear before the adds overwhelm your raid.

3.

Sha of Fear 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 both Normal and Heroic difficulties.

3.1.

Celestial Dungeon Loot

Item
Robes of Pinioned Eyes
Dreadwoven Leggings of Failure
Wrap of Instant Petrification
Shadowgrip Girdle
Essence of Terror
Kilrak, Jaws of Terror
Shin'ka, Execution of Dominion
Helm of the Shadowy Conqueror
Helm of the Shadowy Protector
Helm of the Shadowy Vanquisher

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

3.2.

Normal Difficulty Loot

Item
Robes of Pinioned Eyes
Dreadwoven Leggings of Failure
Wrap of Instant Petrification
Shadowgrip Girdle
Essence of Terror
Kilrak, Jaws of Terror
Shin'ka, Execution of Dominion
Helm of the Shadowy Conqueror
Helm of the Shadowy Protector
Helm of the Shadowy Vanquisher

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

3.3.

Heroic Difficulty Loot

Item
Robes of Pinioned Eyes
Dreadwoven Leggings of Failure
Wrap of Instant Petrification
Shadowgrip Girdle
Essence of Terror
Kilrak, Jaws of Terror
Shin'ka, Execution of Dominion
Helm of the Shadowy Conqueror
Helm of the Shadowy Protector
Helm of the Shadowy Vanquisher

Achievement	Description
The Mind-Killer	Defeat the Sha of Fear in Terrace of Endless Spring on Normal or Heroic difficulty without any raid members being feared by Dread Spray or Breath of Fear.
Heroic: Sha of Fear	Defeat the Sha of Fear in Terrace of Endless Spring on Heroic difficulty.
Heroic: Sha of Fear Guild Run	Defeat the Sha of Fear in Terrace of Endless Spring on Heroic difficulty while in a guild group.
Ahead of the Curve: Sha of Fear	Defeat the Sha of Fear in Terrace of Endless Spring on Normal difficulty, before the discovery of the Throne of Thunder.
Cutting Edge: Sha of Fear	Defeat the Sha of Fear in Terrace of Endless Spring on Heroic difficulty, before the discovery of the Throne of Thunder.
Realm First! Sha of Fear	First guild on the realm to defeat the Sha of Fear in Terrace of Endless Spring on Heroic difficulty while in a guild group.

Sha of Fear 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.