Serpentshrine Cavern Guide Sections

Main Page | Hydross | The Lurker Below | Karathress
Morogrim |
Leotheras | Lady Vashj

Fathom-Lord Karathress

Fathom-Lord Karathress is the 3rd boss you will encounter in the Serpentshrine Caverns. He is a Naga lord and reports directly to Lady Vashj. Currently he is responsible for guarding the prisoner, Seer Olum.

When you fight Fathom-Lord Karathress you will also have to deal with the three guards with him: Caridbis the priest, Sharkkis the hunter, and Tidalvess the shaman. Each has their own set of abilities that must be dealt with.

Abilities

Karathress and his guards all have abilities that can cause problems for the raid. Each must be dealt with in their own way. Their abilities are listed below:

Fathom-Lord Karathress

Cataclysm Bolt - This is a shadow bolt that hits for 50% of the targets health. He casts it every 10 seconds, and can be resisted.

Gain Ability - As you defeat Karathress's guards he will gain their abilities. He will gain the abilities in italics from each of his guards listed below.

Enrage - Karathress will enrage after 10 minutes wiping the party.

Whirlwind - This whirlwind wanders the area and lifts players into the air for roughly 5 seconds. While it does not cause any damage, it does interrupt casts, and generally interfere with the fight.

Tidal Surge - This AoE attack locks everyone within about 10 yards of Caridbis in an ice block for 3 seconds. Agro is not reset by this attack, but obviously melee can generate no additional threat while not attacking so range needs to be careful. Caridbis can use this attack every 20 seconds.

Fathom-Guard Caridbis

Water Volley - This is a huge (40+ yards) AoE that deals up to 3,000 damage.

Heal - This is a single target heal that Caridbis can use on any of the guards or Karathress. It does not have a range limit and no line of sight is required. It heals for up to 30% health and needs to be interrupted.

Whirlwind - This whirlwind wanders the area and lifts players into the air for roughly 5 seconds. While it does not cause any damage, it does interrupt casts, and generally interfere with the fight.

Tidal Surge - This AoE attack locks everyone within about 10 yards of Caridbis in an ice block for 3 seconds. Agro is not reset by this attack, but obviously melee can generate no additional threat while not attacking so range needs to be careful. Caridbis can use this attack every 20 seconds.

Fathom-Guard Sharkkis

Pet - Sharkkis will summon an elemental pet that is immune to CC and hits as hard as Sharkkis does.

Leach - This is similar to a hunters viper sting that drains mana. In addition though, it drains health as well. The DoT does roughly 500 damage every 2 seconds. The effect lasts 12 seconds.

The Beast Within - This is the same as the hunter ability. When Sharkkis and his pet turn red they cause 30% more damage for 15 seconds. His tank and the pets tank will need additional heals.

Fathom-Guard Tidalvess

Windfury - The same as the Shaman spell.

Frost Shock - Similar to a shamans frost shock but capable of hitting for up to 6,000 damage.

Totems - Tidalvess can summon several different totems as follows:

Spitfire Totem - Summons a Searing Totem that lasts for one minute. It targets one nearby enemy with hits of roughly 3,000 damage. It has roughly 25,000 health.

Poison Cleansing Totem - This totem only has about 4,000 health and removes a poison effect every 5 seconds.

Earthbind Totem - Summons an Earthbind Totem that lasts for 45 seconds. I reduces movement of everyone nearby by 50%. It has roughly 15,000 health.

Preparation and Basics

Determine the tanks before the fight, ensuring you have one for each guard and the pet, as well as the MT and OT for Karathress. When pulled you want to get as much separate as possible to give room to adapt over the fight. Also ensure that several player capable of interrupting Caridbis's heals are assigned to do so, as well as a Warlock for Curse of Tongues.

Most important is to establish a kill order. This is largely determined by the abilities that Karathress will gain when his guards are defeated. The suggested order is Tidalvess, Sharkkis, Caridbis and then Karathress himself. Because the abilities gained from Sharkkis and Caridbis are both nasty, it is best to have them both drop very quickly after one another so that you are not left tanking Karathress with either ability longer than need be.

Tactics

The fight starts with the pull. Each tank grabbing their target and pulling them away.

The first target will be Tidalvess and everyone need to engage him as quickly as possible as his flame totem can cause serious issues. As soon as a totem appears DPS must switch to it and drop it quickly and then switch back to him. He (along with the other 2 guards) has a bit over 800,000 health and you really need to drop him in less than 2 minutes, so go full out as quickly as possible. Once he drops be prepared for Karathess to start dropping totems.

The next target is Sharkkis and Caridbis. Most DPS is on Sharkkis, however a few more player capable of interrupting should be assigned to Caridbis as well. In this way, both should get low at the same time. This phase should take about 4-5 minutes (bringing us to the 6 or 7 minute mark in the fight). Once each drops, Karathress gains the abilities listed above, and becomes more difficult.

The last target is Karathress himself. He has close to 1.8 million health and at this point many nasty abilities. You should have at least 3-4 minutes to down him. Focus on him, while switching to the spitfire totems as they spawn. If you have him low on health and are running out of time, you can start ignoring the totems to down him faster, but it will stress your healers, so be sure they have mana left.

If the fight goes to the 10 minute mark, Karathress will engage and start one-shotting players. If he is down to 2-3% you still have a chance, but otherwise it is a wipe. The trick with the fight is getting enough DPS players to live to the end to be able to take Karathress down fast enough, which is not easy.


Serpentshrine Cavern Guide Sections

Main Page | Hydross | The Lurker Below | Karathress
Morogrim |
Leotheras | Lady Vashj

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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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