Koralon the Flame Watcher is the new boss for Patch 3.2 in the Vault of Archavon.  While Emalon was a huge bump up in difficult compared to Archavon, Koralon isn’t as large a bump.  Many people will claim he’s equal in difficulty or even easier than Emalon.  However, Koralon can still be a very difficult boss to get down, especially as new people learn the fight and get geared up in Patch 3.2.  The 25-man version is much more difficult than the 10-man version.  Koralon doesn’t have any adds and there’s only one thing your DPS need to watch out for, so your entire group will be focused solely on bringing him down.

Gear Requirements

Koralon puts a lot more emphasis on the gear of your tanks and healers as opposed to your DPS.  High DPS will certainly make this fight easier but it isn’t strictly necessary like it is with Emalon.  You should be able to down Koralon if your entire group is in full epics and ideally your tanks and healers will also have some Ulduar-level gear.  Your tanks should probably have close to 35,000 health or more when buffed, especially in 25-man.

Group Make-up

You need two tanks for Koralon on both versions.  Five healers might be enough, but six or seven healers won’t hurt and will make the fight easier.  Like usual, ranged dps will make the fight a little easier compared to melee dps since they will have an easier time staying out of the fire and won’t have to move with Koralon.  You should do fine with any two tank classes but try to take as large a variety of healing classes as you can so you have good AoE and tank healing and a full complement of buffs and abilities.

The Pull

Before the pull, figure out which tank you are assigned to.  If you can, request to be assigned to the main tank since he is taking the most damage and will get the most benefit from your Beacon.  You can put Beacon on one tank and Sacred Shield and the Flash of Light HoT on the other if you prefer, but I usually like to keep all three buffs on my assigned tank in order to ensure he stays up at all times.  Unless there are a ton of paladins or shamans, you should have Fire Resistance Aura up at all times.  This aura will be much more useful than the others (especially compared to Concentration Aura), so having some redundancy on it is fine in case one of the paladins die.

Also before the pull, figure out which direction the tank will be kiting Koralon.  The tank will have to be moving Koralon around so they can stay out of the flaming cinders he drops.  I usually like to stay behind the tank and follow them around the kiting path.  So, as the pull happens, you’ll want to run in to the far side of Koralon (not through him) and start following along behind the tank.  He shouldn’t be constantly moving so you shouldn’t have to move too much either.  Discourage your tanks from tanking Koralon in the center of the room, since its harder to see the fires on the glass floor there and people on the other side of the room tend to get out of range of your heals when he’s in the middle.  Like usual, make sure you’re ready for the burst of damage the tank always gets right off the pull.

Healing the Tanks and the Raid

There are three mechanics of this fight you need to be aware of as a healer that define the fight and you won’t ever go long before one of these happens.  The fight is all about managing all three of these over and over again.  This is a boss where Deadly Boss Mods or another raid alert mod will help you a lot.

Flaming Cinder

The first thing you need to be aware of is Flaming Cinder.  These are spouts of fire that frequently shoot out from Koralon, land on someone in the raid and stay there burning as a large flame on the ground.  The damage isn’t too hard to heal through, especially since its relatively easy to avoid.  If a flaming cinder lands on you, move out of it immediately.  As soon as you hear the alert from DBM or see the flame coming at you, stop casting and move regardless of what else is going on.  Throw a Holy Shock on yourself during the move to heal up the damage you took and ensure you stay alive.  Alternately, you may want to just pop Divine Shield if Burning Breath is happening at the same time so you don’t have to worry about the fire (or dying) at all.  If/when you do bubble, make sure to use Hand of Sacrifice and Divine Sacrifice (if you have it) for some free mitigation.  Flaming Cinders can be very dangerous when people get hit by them at the same time as Burning Breath, especially in 25-man.  Make sure when you move out of a flaming cinder that you don’t move directly into another flaming cinder.  The cinders can be hard to see on the glass floor in the middle, so try to stay on the outside where the floor is solid, or just listen carefully to your DBM alerts.

Burning Breath

The second ability you need to be aware of is Burning Breath.  At regular intervals, Koralon will spin in a circle 3 times dealing fire damage to everyone in the raid, once every second for 3 seconds.  The damage is substantial, especially on 25-man.  Most people can live through it by itself but if anyone receives one or two ticks from a Flaming Cinder at the same time, it can often kill them before a healer can do anything about it.

The best way to deal with this is to make sure everyone in the raid is topped off, especially directly before a Burning Breath.  Anyone at low health will almost immediately die when Burning Breath starts.  You should be able to put in a good deal of raid healing while keeping up your tank with Beacon, so if you see people are low right before a Burning Breath make sure to hit those people hard and quick with your heals right away.  Its possible to keep someone with low health alive during Burning Breath if you’re quick enough with your heals.  Koralon doesn’t require a ton of dps, however having people die frequently and early in the fight can make things much more difficult.  During Burning Breath, watch carefully for those people who are going down much faster than the others due to flaming cinders and make sure to hit them with Holy Shock and Flash of Lights to keep them alive.  After Burning Breath, you can continue to throw out some raid heals, but you’ll probably want to rely more on your priests and druids to top everyone off while you focus your quick direct heals on the high emergency people who are standing in fires for too long.  You’ll also want to be preparing and getting ready for the last of Koralon’s abilities.

Meteor Fists

Meteor Fists is another ability of Koralon’s that will require all your attention.  It will happen shortly after (or before) Burning Breath.  Meteor Fists will increase the damage on both tanks substantially for 15 seconds.  You need to ensure that Beacon of Light, Sacred Shield, the Flash of Light HoT  and Judgement of Light (in that priority) do not fall off during Meteor Fists, because you’re not going to want to waste a GCD reapplying them while that’s happening and you’ll need them all to keep the tanks alive.  Meteor Fists causes Koralon’s damage to be split between both tanks, but only if the two tanks are in the correct position.  If one of them goes out of position, one tank will receive all of the damage, which can be extremely difficult (or impossible) to heal through.

As soon as you hear the alert for Meteor Fists you need to start spamming your heals wildly on the tank without Beacon in order to keep both tanks up.  Whether you use Holy Light or Flash of Light/Holy Shock depends on how many other healers you have on your tanks.  Flash of Light/Holy Shock on the off-tank will be more reliable, especially if you have to move out of a flaming cinder or can’t heal for some reason for a period of time.  When you use Holy Light, there’s the chance your Holy Light will hit when the tanks have full health already, meaning neither tank will be receiving any effective heals from you for 3+ seconds or more, which can kill them.  Ideally your Holy Light will always hit when the tank is at about 50% health but that doesn’t usually happen consistently.  You may also be forced to cancel a nearly complete cast of Holy Light due to a Flaming Cinder.  Flash of Light/Holy Shock will hit more often and keep both tanks health more stable, is less bursty, and less prone to mistakes.  Both tank’s health will stay up the entire time rather than jumping up and down drastically throughout the Meteor Fists, like happens with Holy Light.  However, if you absolutely need the heals-per-second of Holy Light (possibly because there are a shortage of healers), then feel free to spam Holy Light.  Either way, make sure you are spamming your heals non-stop on a tank during the entire duration of Meteor Fists.

Summary

As a quick summary, here is what you do in the fight:

1. Move out of Flaming Cinders on the ground immediately.
2. Ensure everyone is topped off before Burning Breath and heal critical people with low health during Burning Breath.
3. Refresh Beacon, Sacred Shield, the Flash of Light HoT, and Judgement of Light between Burning Breath and Meteor Fist casts (try not to refresh two of them in a row, keep your regular heals flowing too).  Use Divine Plea during that time if you have to as well.
4. Non-stop spam heal the off-tank (the one without Beacon) during Meteor Fists.
5. Rinse and repeat until dead.

Follow these steps and you’ll be a huge help to your group and be that much closer to your T9 and Season 7 loot.  Good luck!