Wind Lord Mel'jarak Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Positioning is crucial here, spread out and use the backs of the room (against the wall) to keep as much space open as possible.
• Use personal defensive cooldowns whenever Rain of Blades is coming out once Recklessness stacks are up on Wind Lord Mel'jarak.
• Be mindful of your AoE spells and do not break the crowd control; this will easily cause a wipe.
• Melee DPS can stack behind Wind Lord Mel'jarak to avoid all Whirling Blades, as it only targets Ranged players.

• Topping the raid up as quickly as possible after Rain of Blades is your top priority; coordinate a cooldown or two for each one.
• Tanks will get very hard once Recklessness stacks are up, be prepared for them to take half or more of their health on each melee swing.
• AoE healing is difficult on this fight as Ranged can not stack; make sure healers don't "snipe" each others heals here to remain efficient.

• Position Wind Lord Mel'jarak facing towards the Ranged, so they can see the Whirling Blade direction and avoid it.
• Grab your assigned targets and quickly move them away from the crowd-controlled adds to prevent them from being broken.
• Be ready with defensive cooldowns when Wind Lord Mel'jarak gets Recklessness, as his Melee damage will increase significantly.

Wind Lord Mel'jarak is the 4th encounter in the Heart of Fear, and is a 1 Phase fight where players will fight an army of Mantid adds. This encounter revolves around managing the 9 adds at the same time as the Wind Lord himself, balancing the many deadly abilities at once. The 9 adds are made up of 3 unique mobs, each with their own abilities: 3× Sra'thik Amber-Trappers, 3× Zar'thik Battle-Menders, and 3× Kor'thik Elite Blademasters.

• Sra'thik Amber-Trapper
  • Amber Prison ‒ Targets a random player and stuns them in a block of amber. The amber can be interacted with (clicked) to free the player, but the clicker will be debuffed by Residue, preventing them from clicking for 2-minutes.
  • Corrosive Resin ‒ Debuffs random target with 5 stacks, dealing increased damage for each stack. Moving with the debuff will remove 1 stack and create a Corrosive Resin Pool, damaging players in the area.
• Zar'thik Battle-Mender
  • Mending ‒ Long cast, attempts to heal the target for 35% max health; can and should always be interrupted.
  • Quickening ‒ Periodically buffs all nearby Mantid allies, increasing their damage and attack speed by 35%; this buff can stack for each Zar'thik Battle-Mender and can be dispelled ( Mass Dispel ideally).
• Kor'thik Elite Blademaster
  • Kor'thik Strike ‒ Charges a random target, dealing 160,000 Physical damage; all 3 Kor'thik Elite Blademasters will target the same player, without any indication of who they are targeting.

Understanding and properly managing these adds is a major part of the encounter. All adds share a health pool for their "group", meaning damaging 1 Sra'thik Amber-Trapper will damage all 3 Sra'thik Amber-Trappers evenly. All adds can also be crowd-controlled, made easier by the 4 weapon racks at the edge of the room, which can be clicked to gain the Impaling Spear extra-action-button. This button can be used to stun an add for 50-seconds, allowing groups without natural crowd-control to control the adds, as needed. Any direct damage dealt to adds that are crowd-controlled will break the CC, but damage dealt via the health pool linked will not break crowd-control. There are, however, limitations to how many adds you can have crowd-controlled at once:

• When 9 adds are alive, you can crowd-control 4 (3 on Heroic) adds;
• When 6 adds are alive, you can crowd-control 2 adds;
• When 3 adds are alive, you can crowd-control 0 adds.

If you attempt to crowd-control adds beyond these limitations, Wind Lord Mel'jarak will dispel all adds, freeing them from any applied crowd-control. It is important to note that this only applies when the crowd-control is applied; if you have 3 mobs crowd controlled, killing 3 adds (bringing you from 9 adds alive down to 6 adds alive) will not break a mob out of its current crowd-control. When all 3 adds from a group die (all 3 Sra'thik Amber-Trappers die, for example), Wind Lord Mel'jarak will gain a stack of Recklessness, increasing his damage dealt by 50% and damage taken by 33% per stack. The Recklessness buff/debuff is the main way you will kill the boss, making it pointless to focus Wind Lord Mel'jarak before the adds have started to die.

Wind Lord Mel'jarak himself has a few major abilities that can easily wipe the raid if not handled properly. Every 60-seconds He will use Rain of Blades, dealing high Physical damage to all players every 0.5 seconds for 6 seconds total. While we would like to group for this, his other abilities prevent us from doing that, so we must simply heal through the damage to survive; note that when Wind Lord Mel'jarak has Recklessness that Rain of Blades will start to hit very hard, making it an ideal time to use major defensive cooldowns.

Every 60-seconds Wind Lord Mel'jarak will also use Whirling Blade, targeting a random Ranged player and throwing his blade at them. This blade will deal high Physical damage to all players in the blades path, then the blade returns to Wind Lord Mel'jarak, dealing damage a second time to any player in its path again. Stay spread out for this and keep Wind Lord Mel'jarak faced towards Ranged players so they can see which direction he is facing, and avoid the blade accordingly. Lastly He will use Wind Bomb every 10-15 seconds, targeting a random player and throwing a bomb projectile at them; this projectile will travel to the players location for a few seconds, dealing very high Nature damage to all players remaining in the area. Then the bomb will arm for 3-seconds, and if touched after arming it will explode for raid-wide Nature damage, wiping the raid immediately. This is the second ability you will stay spread for, be on the lookout for whoever is targeted by these and move away from the indicated area quickly. The Wind Bombs will remain active throughout the entire fight, removing more and more of the space available as the fight goes on.

For Normal difficulty you will want to crowd-control 1 of each add, and have your tanks grab the remaining adds and the boss. The goal on the pull is to get the crowd-control off as soon as possible and quickly pull the active adds and boss away from them, preventing any CC from breaking due to AoE damage. Remember that the adds have a shared health pool (which won't cause any crowd-control to break), so killing any 1 add will kill all 3 of the same type. It's important to crowd-control 1 of each add type so that all 3 groups die evenly, allowing AoE to hit 2 mobs from each group and kill them all at the same time. Have the raid quickly spread out, with players as close to the walls as possible, freeing the center of the room for the future. Melee DPS should stand behind the boss (as shown) to avoid taking damage from Whirling Blade.

An interrupter needs to be assigned to each of the Zar'thik Battle-Mender to kick every Mending cast; in addition, a Priest needs to be ready to Mass Dispel the Quickening whenever it goes out, as it applies to the boss and all adds. Kor'thik Elite Blademaster only have the Kor'thik Strike ability, which will target a random player and deal moderate Physical to them; note that all of the Kor'thik Elite Blademasters will target the same player, which can lead to deaths if players are not topped quickly after Rain of Blades. With 1 of the Kor'thik Elite Blademasters crowd-controlled however, this should never occur, allowing you to basically forget about these guys on Normal mode.

Sra'thik Amber-Trappers are the most dangerous (and annoying) add to handle. They will target a random player with Amber Prison, and after a few seconds stun that player and anyone else within 2-yards of the targeted player. This spell comes with a short warning, allowing anyone near the targeted player to move away quickly. The stunned player will be trapped in amber, which can be interacted with by simply clicking the amber to free the stunned player. Clicking on Amber to free a player will debuff you with Residue, preventing you from freeing another player for 2-minutes. Corrosive Resin will also target a random player, debuffing them with 5 stacks, dealing increased damage per stack. Moving will remove 1 stack of the debuff, but create a Corrosive Resin Pool at the location of the player. Move away from others with this debuff and try to drop the pools off in the back of the room; these pools will eventually despawn.

The raid will need to spread, with Melee DPS also spreading at least 2-yards away from each other for Amber Prison. Ranged players should watch which direction Wind Lord Mel'jarak is facing, as he will turn towards the direction he is throwing his blade for each Whirling Blade cast. Focus on killing the adds first-and-foremost, as Wind Lord Mel'jarak will take 99% increased damage once all adds are dead. Once Wind Lord Mel'jarak reaches 75% health He will start using Wind Bomb; the raid should already be spread out for this. Avoid the targeted areas before the bomb lands, and be sure that no one touches the bomb after it has landed and armed itself, as this will cause a wipe. The Wind Bombs act as a soft-enrage as they do not despawn ever, meaning you will continually lose more and more space to fight in.

With this strategy, all 3 groups of adds will die around the same time, which means Wind Lord Mel'jarak will rapidly gain all 3 stacks of Recklessness; have your tanks ready with a defensive cooldown when this happens, as the burst damage can easily kill tanks if healers are not on their toes. Rain of Blades will also start hitting very hard now and should have defensive cooldowns being used here to help the healers keep the raid up. Once the adds have all died, use all major DPS cooldowns such as Bloodlust and quickly finish off the boss!

The strategy for Heroic difficulty is nearly the same as Normal, with the main difference being that when a group of 3 adds are killed, they will respawn after 55-seconds. Recklessness is also changed to Recklessness, now increasing Wind Lord Mel'jaraks damage taken by 600%, but only lasting 30 seconds now (his damage dealt is still only increased by 33%). This changes our strategy, as we will need to constantly kill adds to get the Recklessness buff up, which is the only way to realistically beat the very tight enrage timer on Heroic mode.

With the adds respawning every 55-seconds, this means we will need to deal with adds alive while Wind Bombs are going off, a new challenge that was not an issue on Normal mode. This is especially dangerous when combined with players being randomly stunned with Amber Prison, and thus we will alter the strategy to prevent this. Rather than crowd-controlling 1 of each add, we will instead choose to CC all 3 Sra'thik Amber-Trappers, entirely removing them from the fight. This will require 3 interrupters for the 3 Zar'thik Battle-Menders, kicking each Mending cast; as long as interrupters are paying attention, this shouldn't be difficult as the cast is long.

The main danger will come from the 3 Kor'thik Elite Blademasters that will use Kor'thik Strike on the same player, dealing 160,000 Physical damage each. Just make sure that players are topped up after each Rain of Blades, and everyone should make sure they avoid the Whirling Blades and Wind Bombs, as taking damage from any of these at the same time will surely cause a death.

Group the adds together with the boss and AoE them down, with any single-target damage being focused on the Zar'thik Battle-Menders, ensuring that they die first. Once the Zar'thik Battle-Mender die and Wind Lord Mel'jarak gains Recklessness, use all major DPS cooldowns such as Bloodlust and single-target focus the boss; do not greed extra AoE damage here and accidentally kill the next group of adds early. Once Recklessness fades away, return to AoEing the remaining adds and DPS Wind Lord Mel'jarak further during the Recklessness window. 55-seconds after dying, a group of adds will respawn at their original location and rejoin the fight; the tank should simply pick these back up, and DPS repeat the cycle of AoEing adds until they die, then burning the boss during the Recklessness window.

The fight is rather straightforward once you understand the adds, but that does not make it any easier as Wind Lord Mel'jarak has a hard enrage timer of 8-minutes. Spread properly, control the adds, top the raid up quickly after each Rain of Blades, save all cooldowns for when Recklessness is up, and you can secure yourself an early kill on this add-fest encounter!

3.

Wind Lord Mel'jarak 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
Robes of Torn Nightmares
Clutches of Dying Hope
Wingslasher Pauldrons
Impaling Treads
Korven's Amber-Sealed Beetle
Cloak of Raining Blades
Painful Thorned Ring
Gauntlets of the Shadowy Conqueror
Gauntlets of the Shadowy Protector
Gauntlets 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 all difficulties.

3.2.

Normal Difficulty Loot

Item
Robes of Torn Nightmares
Clutches of Dying Hope
Wingslasher Pauldrons
Impaling Treads
Korven's Amber-Sealed Beetle
Cloak of Raining Blades
Painful Thorned Ring
Gauntlets of the Shadowy Conqueror
Gauntlets of the Shadowy Protector
Gauntlets 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 all difficulties.

3.3.

Heroic Difficulty Loot

Item
Robes of Torn Nightmares
Clutches of Dying Hope
Wingslasher Pauldrons
Impaling Treads
Korven's Amber-Sealed Beetle
Cloak of Raining Blades
Painful Thorned Ring
Gauntlets of the Shadowy Conqueror
Gauntlets of the Shadowy Protector
Gauntlets of the Shadowy Vanquisher

Achievement	Description
Heroic: Wind Lord Mel'jarak	Defeat Wind Lord Mel'jarak in Heart of Fear on Heroic difficulty.
Less Than Three	Defeat Wind Lord Mel'jarak without crowd-controlling more than 2 of his swarm at once on Normal or Heroic difficulty in Heart of Fear.

Wind Lord Mel'jarak 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.