The first of the two bosses that you reach in Gruul's Lair is the High King Maulgar. Maulgar is the king of the ogres that you find in the Blade's Edge Mountains. When you encounter him you will also have to fight his council, which is made up of Blindeye the Seer, Kiggler the Crazed, Krosh Firehand and Olm the Summoner.

Blindeye the Seer is the Priest of the council and has all the abilities that you would expect him to. They include:

Power Word: Shield - A very powerful version of the player spell
Prayer of Mending - A powerful healing spell that takes 10 seconds to cast and will completely heal him. Casts immediately after he casts shield. While the shield is up the only way to interrupt his heals are Silence, Kidney Shot, Improved Kick, Silencing Shot, Intimidation, Improved Shield Bash, Intercept and Improved Counter spell.
Heal - A very fast heal that heals him for roughly 5% of his health. If interrupts are an issue, ensure you interrupt the prayer of mending, you can skip a few of these.

Kiggler the Crazed is a Shaman that focuses on the elemental tree. His abilities include:

Hex - This is his version of a polymorph ability.
Lightning Bolt - Ranged attack that hits for up to 2500 damage.
Arcane Blast - This attack does a 10 yard AoE for roughly 2500 damage. In addition it lowers everyone's threat that is hit, and knocks them back. It is on a long cooldown timer though so melee does not need to be overly worried.
Arcane Shock - This attack hits the person that is on top of his aggro list for up to 800 damage plus a DoT component for the next 12 seconds.

Krosh Firehand is generally referred to as the Mage. He has several abilities and needs to be tanked by another Mage.

Spell Shield - This shield reduces all spell damage suffered for the next 30 seconds by 75%. It can and must be stolen, and is on a 30 second cooldown.
Greater Fireball - This is a long cast fireball that does up to 9500 damage! Worse, it is immune to all player resistance's.
Blast Wave - This is an AoE fire blast that hits everyone within 10 yards with up to 6000 fire damage.

Olm the Summoner is a Warlock caster and will be referred to as the Warlock in the tactics section. His attacks and abilities include:

Shadow DOT - He casts a very nasty shadow DOT that does big damage and is not removable. He targets the highest person on his agro list which should be a fel hound.
Summon Felhounds - Summons Felhounds that must be enslaved to tank him with. They have a taunt ability to assist in tanking him.
Death Coil - This is the same as a Warlocks spell, but does more damage.

Kigh King Maulgar is a melee fighter that does huge damage even against a plate wearer. Prepare to be hit hard. His attacks are as follows:

Arcing Smash - This blow hits for up to 6,000
Mighty Blow -This hits for up to 7000
Whirlwind - Hits everyone around him for up to 5000 damage per hit. This attack is on a 30 second cooldown.
Fear - Only used in the second phase of the fight, AoE fears melee (including the main tank). Does this roughly every 15 seconds
Charge - Only used in the second phase of the fight, he charges a random raid member/ Does this after a fear.

The strategy and tactics of this fight start by having everyone know Maulgar and his Councils abilities and the order that you are going to kill them in. Once everyone knows what they do and the order to kill them in you must setup the pull. Getting players into the correct position and spread out to minimize the AoE effects on the pull it critical.

The normal kill order is Priest, Warlock, Mage, Shaman and then Maulgar. Another typical kill order is mixing the Mage or Shaman in between the Priest and Warlock to allow time to heal the melee while ranged is killing the next one. Due to the Mage and Shaman's AOE effects they are generally killed by only the ranged DPS, meaning they take a longer time, and allow time to heal melee or have melee bandage.

The mage is pulled as far right and ahead as is safe. He is pulled by a mage so that he his shield can be stolen and he can be tanked by the mage. The Shaman should be pulled by two warlocks that siphon and drain him constantly, while enslaving the felhounds and using them to tank him, while banishing and fearing the others. He is normally pulled back into the entrance hallway and kited back and forth between the two players.

The Warlock and Priest can both be tanked to the back of the room on the left. Since the normal drop order is Priest and then Warlock, having them together saves time on the switch.

High King Maulgar is usually dragged by the main tank all the way to the gate leading to Gruul at the back of the room.

The priest will go down quickly and easily to focused damage and constant interruption of his heals. While his shield is up damage will not delay his casting so you will have to rely on other interrupts to slow him down. He should go down fairly quickly though, as at this point you will have everyone in the raid still alive.

Next up is the Warlock, which can also be dropped quickly by both ranged and melee DPS. After Olm comes the Mage who needs to to be downed by ranged DPS so that you can avoid the Blast Wave. Last up is the Shaman, which should allow some time to regen mana and health and get ready for the high king.

Once the four council members are dead it is on the the two phase fight with Maulgar. The first phase covers exactly the first half of his health. Once you have him down to 50% health he enters the second phase of the fight. Your goal is to get to phase one of Maulgar having lost 5 or less players, and phase two having lost no more than an additional 2 or 3. If you can do that, you stand a chance at getting Maulgar down.

In phase 1 it is important to ensure that the tank stays toped off for health as he hits insanely hard, up to 10k on plate with a crushing blow. However it is also important to ensure you do not rush and try to do to much to quickly and run out of mana. Before engaging him everyone should try to ensure they are recovered as much as possible. Once engaged, ensure that melee gets out before he starts his whirlwind attack. After the first one you can time it to run out about 35 seconds after the previous one ended.

Once he is reduced to 50% he will enrage (turn red and grow) and drop his hammer to the ground. This is when he starts using his fear and charge abilities. When he fears the main tank the off tank should pick him up. As soon as the fear is done the OT can stay engaged for a few seconds and then needs to back out so that they will not be effected by the next fear.

The main thing to remember in this phase is his whirlwind timer. His whirlwinds can be especially dangerous right after a fear or a charge, so everyone needs to keep spread out and aware of the time between whirlwinds. Some days the timing works out well and you can avoid all the bad situations and other days every charge is followed up with a whirlwind.

Keep up the damage while being aware of everything that is going on and he will go down.

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