Hey everybody, and welcome to our guide on Atal'Dazar in Mythic Plus.

Before we get started, a few thing sot note about this video:
1. This is a guide on the actual dungeon, its mechanics and their relation to
the mythic dungeon affixes, and the best strategies that we can recommend
you use in dealing with them.
2. This is NOT a guide on the specifics of any particular class or spec in
this dungeon, all though we may discuss specific classes/specs in the
strategies mentioned in this video.
3. This guide is meant as a template for you to use with your groups as
different comps will lead to different strategies being better or worse. Use
what works for you!

So, the best place to start with Atal'Dazar is at the beginning. There are two main
ways of approaching this dungeon and they are each defined by your usage of the
spell Heroism/Bloodlust. This buff has several names and several diferent forms,
the most common of which are Heroism, Bloodlust, Timewarp, and Exhileration. All of
these will give a 30% increase to your group's haste for 40 seconds. It is worth
noting that there are lesser forms of this buff in the game, the most common of
these being provided by the leatherworking item "Drums" (This has a different name
from expac to expac, but drums is almost always understood). Whatever form of hero
you use, it will come with a 10 minute debuff preventing you from recieving the
same or similar buff again (meaning you cant just have a shaman buff you once and
then a mage buff you again since they count as two different spells). This means
that it is always best to plan the route of your keystone around this buff.

Now that we understand hero, we can discuss routes. We will also be discussing the
bosses along with the first route explanation as it is the most recommended, and
then the other route will be summarized by its diferences.

Option 1:
The first choice is to go for the optimal hero route. This is a route in which you
are not using hero on cooldown and are specifically saving it for the bosses it is
most optimal on. In the case of Atal'Dazar, these bosses are Priestess Alun'za and
Yazma. These two bosses have dangerous mechanics that make the fights worth saving
hero for if you are not comfortable with them, and it is the safest usage of hero
in this specific case. Also, it is very important to note that while you can get
three uses of heroism in this dungeon, but it is much more efficient to plan around
only two uses. Attempting a route with three uses in mind is likely going to
require downtime where you are specifically waiting for hero to be off colldown,
and it is always better to continue doing trash and moving to new areas while hero
is on cooldown.

First Obelisk:
So, what order is best to kill bosses for the hero efficiency route? First is
Priestess. Kill the pack by the obelisk at the beginning and bring the pack up to
the top of the stairs in her boss room. Now, depending on the obelisk boss you can
actually "snap" the boss to the lanterns on the side of the stairs to quicken their
pace (insert footage of a snap like this). BE VERY CAREFUL, as snapping is not
effective on the Slime miniboss, and it always carries some risk of resetting the
miniboss when it snaps to the new location.

Priestess Alun'za:
After the obelisk, pull the center trash with the two priestess adds on the sides
of the boss. On teeming weeks, use hero on this pack when the priestesses are in
range. Otherwise, hero is used on pull with the boss. Have a CC rotation in place
for the add that spawns on this boss (it is vulnerable to almost any CC), and be in
position to soak a blood pool before transfusion is cast, as this cast on a player
that hasn't soaked will heal the boss significantly. Also, dodge the golden orbs as
they will do a significant chunk of damage (nearly a one shot on keys as low as an
18 on tyrannical weeks), and reduce the damage you deal from all sources by 30% for
a time.

Bridge Trash:
Now that the boss is dead, you have plenty of time to clear trash while hero is on
cooldown. First, head down the fire trap stairs to the four enemies at the bottom.
These enemies need to be interrupted wand CC'd to avoid wildfire and fiery enchant.
Open the gate, and enter the bridge. At this point comes our first class specific
strategy. If you have a hunter or a rogue in your group, you can snap the trash on
the bridge to the top of the side platforms next to the gate (show in video). This
prevents the saurids from jumping on allies, which is a massive damage prevention.
It does require another player to come up with the tank or a ranged to have LOS on
the skyscreamer for the second kick, though. If you do not have a hunter or a
rogue, a similar but slightly riskier strategy can be done on the outlets on the
sides of the bridge (show in video). Use this strategy as often as you can while
being mindful of your DPS's LOS. On the other side ofthe bridge, make sure to pull
the witch doctor pack out onto the bridge to avoid the rogues being pulled along
with it. kick the hex cast on the WDs, and stun the shieldbearers when they hard
cast.

Dino Pack:
On tyrannical weeks, it is best to have a class with some form of a feign death or
vanish pull this trash to the side, survive until the group enters the obelisk, and
then use their ability to drop aggro. They would then go to the nearest obelisk
portal and join the group. However, on fortified weeks it is best to avoid this
trash as it is quite dangerous and can be very time consuming. If you must fight
it, make sure to stun the saurids as much as possible until they die, interrupt the
Dinomancer's casts, and dodge the attacks by her large pets. Also be sure to avoid
pulling extra enemies while in this pull with Twilight Devestation or other
abilities.

Rezan:
Before we explain this boss, be aware that this boss is NOT worth the use of hero,
unless you are certain you will have 10 minutes until you start Yazma. The fear it
casts makes for regular damage breaks, and the pursuit can result in a dps being
denied the full duration of the buff. After clearing all of the necesary trash from
the bridge, you should drop from the bridge to Rezan. This fall isn't painful, but
you should land in a spot that allows the healer to safely heal the group and the
tank to position the boss agains the sides of the room. The alcoves are necessary
to avoid the fear that the boss casts, but be careful to avoid running into them
when the boss casts pursuit. This ability is buggy, both to the benefit and
detriment of players. If a player in the group gets targeted with pursuit ANY
player themselves included can use Shadowmeld, feign death or vanish and the boss
will immediately stop pursuing and the fight will continue as normal. However, if
the player must run the pursuit, they CANNOT run too far. If the player runs out of
the boss's aggro range, the player will be reverse snapped to Rezan immediately
catching them in the devour ability. This ability is survivable on lower keys, but
it is a death sentence in any case without strong healing or an outright immunity.
The boss also has a strong DoT that is placed on the tank after ever pursuit that
can be removed with abilities like Stoneform and Fireblood. The final note for this
boss is that the purple patches on the floor that will spawn bone raptors if walked
over by players or the boss. These do not insignificant damage and should be
avoided if possible.

Second Obelisk:
After rezan, ascend the stairs with the two sky screamers at the top, and continue
into the saurid pack up the next set of stairs. At this point head to the other
obelisk near the beginning of the dungeon. make sure to use AoE damage to find the
stealthed enemy and pull them up to the honor guard at the top of the stairs. Try
to get the rogue low before breaking hte totem for the honor guard, and make sure
to pull the shield bearer of xul pack when it pats closest to you. After this, move
to the obelisk trash pack. Focus down the witch-doctor and interrupt the hex, and
then swap to the totem. focus the honor guard and cleae the others. Take the
obelisk mini boss to Vol'kaal's boss room.

Vol'kaal:
Yet again, you do not want to hero this boss, as you want to save it for Yazma.
Only use it if you are certain you will have time for it to be up again by Yazma,
but if you are using this route you will not. Assign a DPS to each totem and
conside their effective damage as these totems must die with seconds of each other.
If they don't they return to full helath individually, and will take much longer to
kill at the same time. The tank must follow the boss and kick Noxious Stench ASAP,
and the healer must heal the group through the DoT this applies. Dispelling this is
going to run your mana dry before the boss fight proper even starts. Once the
totems are dead Vol'kaal begins to target the tank and will repeatedly spawn poison
pools just like hte honor guard trash. dodge this as best you can and move with the
tank. The tank and/or melee dps should focus on the Noxious Stench kick as it is
cast repeatedly throughout the fight. The tank should move the boss in an arc
around the room to make the most use of the space as possible. It is crucial that
the tank position the boss such that it does not die near the gate at the front of
the room. If this happens or if a TD or similar ability touches the trash in front
of the room, it will be pulled leading to a nearly inevitable wipe. After this bos
is dead comes the last real decision of this route.

Third obelisk:
Now, it is faster to have a feign death or vanish type ability class pull the trash
at the entrance tot he boss room to the side so everyone can pass, but you can
return to the front of the dungeon through the portal at the cost of time. Either
way you must now decide what the third obelisk pull will be. If you leave the last
obelisk alone and head to the center of the bridge, the last obelisk boss will
spawn on pulling Yazma. This can be beneficial, as the miniboss never spawns with
any adds, regardless of which it is. It still casts/fears/AoEs, but this can work
as the Yazma's room is decently large. The probelem is that the Spider miniboss
must be interupted, and with Yazma herself needing interrupts, this can lead to a
mess. This miniboss also stops frequently, and Yazma must be moved around the room
almost constantly to avoid spiders, making her a poor fit for fighting at the end.
It is recommended to do the obelisk to the side of Vol'kaal's entrance only if it
is the Voidweaver miniboss for these reasons. If you are leaving this to be fought
with the final boss, then head to the center and pull the obelisk up to Yazma's
room.

Yazma:
Yazma is likely the singular most incorrectly approached dungeon boss in the BfA.
This is mostly because of habits that people are introduced to very early on in
their mythic dungeon experience and are never really taught how to properly handle.
So lets address the proper way to do this fight. Whether you ar doing this boss by
herself or with an obelisk minibos, you start her where she stands. Make sure the
tank grabs aggro on the miniboss, and positions them at the starting position. From
here, you will begin to move the boss around the room in a large roation, following
the wall as closely as possible. The reason for this is the spiders that spawn
thoughout the fight. These spiders do an insane amount of damage, even through
defensive cooldowns. They also leave massive pools of AoE damage on the floor
impeding any movement through the area they were stepped on. A major
misunderstanding that people fall into in lower keys is that they use immunities
and personals to clear these spiders. This is grossly unnecessary and a terrible
use of resources. Notice that the spiders always follow a player, and that they
only follow for a short period of time before randomly meandering. This is the
reason for the rotation. If all players stick to the melee (except for the
Soulrend), then the spiders are always right behind the group. They are never in
front (unless the tank is moving far too quickly) and the movement prevents them
from spawning under a player. This does require ranged and healers to stand in
melee as well, so get comfortable if you aren't used to it. The next big problem a
lot of players run into is the soulrend ability. This is a very dangerous ability
een when done properly and is lethal when done poorly. A common strategy in lower
keys is to stun the copies and burn them down before returning to the boss. This is
short sighted for two reasons. One, the tank will begin moving after kicking the
Wracking Pain casts that happens after soulrend, so players will be left behind if
they stun the clones. And two, spiders are still spawning in this phase, and as we
mentioned before movement is the number one counter to these adds. The proper
method for this mechanic is to stand in the center of the room, not directly ahead
of the boss in the rotational direction the tank is moving, and to move witht eh
clones as they approach the boss. If damage is not high enough to kill them before
thy reach the boss, try to use slows rather than stuns or knockbacks. When the
clones are dead, the rest of the group rejoins the tanks, and the fight continues.
This is the proper method for completing this boss. It prevents the room filling
with purple pools, and it allows the spiders to remain corralled into one large
group.

Option 2:
So, what is the other route option for AD? Well, assuming you are less used to
obelisks, less familiar with the dungeon or keys in general, or you have spec with
a long damage cooldown they'd like to use at the start like a havoc DH or an unholy
DK, you can go straight to Rezan. This is not optimal as you still do not want to
use hero here, and as such it will spend several minutes without being on cooldown.
This will also lead to needing more trash time before being able to pull the next
boss.

After Rezan the route returns to normal: Priestess, then Vol'kaal, then Yazma. You
still have the choice of doing the obelisk at Vol'kaal, or leaving it for Yazma,
but if you are using this route, you may wish to do all of the obelisks seperately
from the last boss to make things easier. This is a route intended for learning,
not for timing. We genuinely encourage learning the recommended route rather than
taking the time to learn this way and then learnign the efficient route later.