In the World of Warcraft, Ulduar is the current end game raiding instance, and one of the bosses that must be defeated to progress is Freya, a giant female titan found in the Conservatory of Life. She is surrounded by nature based adds that need to be defeated before you can fight her.  She is also surrounded by three mini-bosses in the form of Ancients.  These can be cleared before engaging Freya (easy mode) or left alive and dealt with at the same time as she is, which engages hard mode. This guide provides all the basic strategies you need to be aware of to defeat this boss in Ulduar.

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Freya is a giant female titan found in the Conservatory of Life in Ulduar. She is surrounded by nature based adds that need to be defeated before you can fight her.  She is also surrounded by three mini-bosses in the form of Ancients.  These can be cleared before engaging Freya (easy mode) or left alive and dealt with at the same time as she is, which engages hard mode.

Health

10 Person Raid: 1,400,000 health
25 Person Raid: 4,200,000 health

Abilities

Attuned to Nature – This is a stacking buff that increases all healing effects done to Freya by 4% per stack.  Freya starts the fight with a 150 stack of this buff.

Bomb – Once in the second phase of the fight Freya starts throughout out bombs at random players in the raid.  They will land by 10 players in the raid and explode 10 seconds later.  They inflict roughly 9,000 damage (6,000 in 10 player raids) to everyone within 10 yards, as well as knocking them back through the air.

Summon Eonar’s Gift – Roughly every 45 seconds Freya will summon a small glowing tree called Eonar’s Gift.  The tree spawns somewhere within about 30 yards of Freya and will grow over the next 10 seconds, at which point it blooms and heals Freya and any other enemy targets that are alive in the room.  It heals them for 60% of their base health (30% in 10 player raids), and therefore it must be killed within the 10 second growing period.  It has roughly 65,000 health (20,000 in 10 player raids).

Sunbeam – This spell affects a target and everyone within 10 yards.  It hits for roughly 8,000 damage in 25 player raids and 5,500 in 10 player raids.

Touch of Eonar – This is a permanent Heal Over Time (HOT) effect that is on Freya that heals her for 24,000 health (6,000 in 10 player raids) every second for the entire fight.

Summoned Waves - Additional Creatures in the Fight (Adds)

Wave Type 1 – Detonating Lashers – The first type of additional creatures you can get are Detonating Lashers which spawn in packs of 10.  These small plant type creatures have no threat table and run randomly from player to player.  Anytime one dies, they explode causing roughly 8,000 damage to everyone within 10 yards around them. 2 stacks of Freya’s Attuned to Nature buff are removed for each lasher that dies.

Wave Type 2 – Ancient Conservator – The second possible type of creature summoned is a giant Ancient.  The ancient has several interesting abilities such as a silence and a debuff that is placed on a player and hurts everyone around them.  In addition, while he is active, mushrooms spawn around the room, which are used to deal with the silence effect.  All players must get under one, which will then remove and prevent the silence.  The mushrooms slowly grow and then disappear, meaning the tank has to continually move the ancient to new mushrooms, while ranged and healers find their way to new mushrooms as well.  His Nature’s Fury ability will target a random player and cause them to inflict damage to everyone around them, therefore that player needs to get away from the raid quickly.  25 stacks of Freya’s Attuned to Nature buff are removed when the Ancient dies.

Wave Type 3 – Storm Lasher, Snap Lasher, and Water Spirit – The last of the three possible groups of summons is a mismatched trio.  Each of the targets have different abilities and levels of health, yet all need to die within 12 seconds of each other or they will be resurrected.  The snap lasher gains a buff that increases damage by 10% each time it is hit as well as reducing its movement speed by 5%.  This buff can stack, so after a while it can hit quite hard.  Ranged players are the best at taking down the snap lasher since after 20 buffs it will be unable to move.  The storm lasher has hurricane and chain lighting spells that it casts that can cause a lot of raid damage.  Lastly the water spirit  charges random players and knocks them back. 10 stacks of Freya’s Attuned to Nature buff are removed for each of these add when they die.

Strategy

The fight with Freya is a very different fight due to the fact that at the beginning players will essentially not be able to harm her.  Her bonus to healing ability will allow her to easily heal through any attacks done to her.  This breaks the fight up into two distinctive phases, the add phase and the boss phase.

To start the fight the main tank engages Freya and the off tank (or tanks in 25 player raids) prepare to grab the adds.

Phase 1 – Add Phase

This phase is generally more difficult and requires more coordination than the second phase, so everyone needs to be on their toes.  In this phase you will get 6 waves of adds summoning, 2 waves of each type listed above, in a random order.  They spawn in two groups of 3, meaning you will see 1 of each type of wave before you see another of that type.

While dealing with the waves, a few players need to be assigned to take out any of the Eonar’s Gifts that spawn.  If any reach maturity at 10 seconds and get a heal off on any of the waves of adds. it will likely lead to a wipe.

This phase is all about controlling the adds as they appear.  The easiest wave for most groups is the Ancient Conservator, since essentially all that needs to happen is everyone find and stay under mushrooms while they fight him. Anyone who receives the Nature’s Fury debuff that he casts, simply needs to get away from the other players.

The second easiest wave to deal with is the Detonating Lashers.  Individually, these are very easy to kill, however since they cannot be tanked, and run all over the place, they can be difficult to AoE down.  Even if you could AoE them down, they would kill everyone nearby with the resulting explosions.  The best way to deal with them is to have the raid group up in one place, and everyone AoE until they are between 20 and 35% and then split up.  Everyone runs away from each other roughly 15 to 20 yards and starts single targeting any lashers that follow them.  Using this method, no player should take multiple hits from the lashers.

[protip] If you can time it right a group CC, like a Mage’s frost nova or a Hunter’s frost trap can keep them all in place long enough to get out and still AOE them all down at once.  Be careful though, it’s easy to kill several players trying to do this.[/protip]

The most difficult wave for most raids to deal with is the wave consisting of the Storm Lasher, Snap Lasher, and Water Spirit.  Due to their differing abilities and health it is a coordination challenge to ensure they all go down at the same time.  It makes it easier if players ensure they can see all three of the adds’ health bars to monitor their status.  Also make sure everyone stays relatively grouped up so that the Water Spirit does not charge out too far.

Since the Water Spirit has the least health, the best strategy is to focus on the lashers first.  Melee DPS generally should focus on the Storm Lasher and ranged DPS on the Snap Lasher.  Once both lashers are at roughly 20% health the raid kills the Water Spirit and then finishes up the lashers, who will be almost dead due to incidental damage.

[protip] The Snap Lasher will actually retain agro against a target out of it’s melee range even when immobile, therefore it is possible to have a fast hitting melee player generate threat and then step away and not get hit.[/protip]

Once you have cycled through the waves of adds twice, Freya will have lost the bonus healing buff stack and can be engaged by the raid.

Phase 2 – Ground Phase

After the tense, hectic first phase, the second phase is relatively simple.  The only real addition to phase three is Freya’s ability to throw bombs.  They land where players stand, and all you need to do is walk away from them before they explode 10 seconds later.  Players are also required to keep watching for the Eonar’s Gift and kill it quickly each time it spawns.

Other than the bombs and killing the trees though, the fight is essentially tank and spank, and any group that reaches phase 2 will likely beat the encounter easily.