Talon King Ikiss | |||||||
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Race | Arakkoa (Humanoid) | ||||||
Level | 69-72 Elite | ||||||
Location | Sethekk Halls, Auchindoun | ||||||
Status | Killable | ||||||
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Talon King Ikiss (pronounced Eye-kiss), the level 69 boss of Sethekk Halls in Auchindoun, is one of the leaders of the Sethekk, along with Darkweaver Syth.
Together, they led the exodus of the Sethekk from Skettis to the ruins of Auchindoun. Although a charismatic leader at the beginning, Ikiss has since descended into madness.
He now openly proclaims that he is Terokk reborn and expects the Arakkoa to bow down to him as their ruler.
Attacks and abilities
- Melee: ~2k on cloth, 800–1000 on plate. Heroic: 1.5-1.9k on plate.
- Arcane Volley - hits surrounding targets for around 1500 arcane. This effect has a very long range and ignores LoS.
- Arcane Explosion - Massive and huge AoE (approx 40 yard range) 4.5 to 5k damage. Damage is only dealt to targets that are within line of sight.
- Blink - often to someone (even if they are out of LoS) — right before he casts Arcane Explosion
- Polymorph - turns someone into a sheep — lasts for 10 seconds, regenerates health but (! Important for paladins who will try to break sheep with Blessing of Sacrifice) does not break on damage. Warriors can reflect this to prevent getting sheeped. Warlocks can also use the Felhunter to manually devour this, as it counts as a Magic Spell. This also works in Heroics.
-Heroic Mode Only:
- Slow - Movement speed reduced by 60%. Time between melee and ranged attacks increased by 60%. Casting time increased by 60% for 8 seconds. Magic debuff; Can be dispelled.
Strategy
Ikiss has low armor and his melee attacks are fairly weak and can generally be healed through without any difficulty. He has three abilities that make the fight more than a typical Tank and Spank:
- First, he casts a [Polymorph] with a short duration of about 5 seconds. As a result, a secondary healer is helpful in the fight, as if the only healer is polymorphed, the fight becomes much more difficult, and an unlucky chain following a polymorph can lead to a wipe. The polymorph is dispellable and has a cast time, but cannot be interrupted. He seems to cast it on the second person on his threat list, and as such anything your party can do to help your healer reduce their threat generation will help with preventing a wipe.
- Second are his periodic Arcane Bolt volleys. It hits all characters and has infinite range, but can be resisted. A healer that is on top of the situation can usually make this ability trivial, particularly a priest that casts [Prayer of Healing] immediately after the volley, if possible. Ikiss casts the first volley soon after being aggroed; it is recommended that this initial damage is not healed (except on the tank) until the tank has sufficiently established aggro; even if you have a good tank, it's still helpful to stick with no more than HoTs on DPS characters until aggro is well-established.
- Last, and most deadly, is his blink-and-AoE combo. At various times throughout the fight, Ikiss will [Blink] to a random character and begin casting a powerful, uninterruptible AoE blast (generally 4000–5000 damage), accompanied by an emote, that has a range of approximately 30 yards. The damage of this attack can be completely avoided by breaking line of sight, usually done by running around one of the four pillars in the room, and can also be resisted. The AoE has an animation and a fairly long casting time, which is crucial to watch for in order to avoid the damage from the attack — Ikiss's blink can be to a melee class character, and therefore very difficult to notice. Ikiss never casts his AoE without blinking immediately before it. The blink seems to have an threat reduction associated with it and it apparently possible that he may blink multiple times before settling into the AoE cast animation.
In a typical battle, your tank will run in and aggro Ikiss, pulling him next to a pillar. Ranged DPS and healers should position themselves near other pillars. Ikiss will soon cast his initial Arcane Bolt volley. Once sufficient threat has been established by the tank, DPS can begin. If possible, dispel polymorphs quickly. Watch for his blink and the AoE animation; as soon as this is seen, all characters must quickly run around a pillar near them, to a location where line of sight on Ikiss is broken. After the very noticeable blast, the tank should immediately move to re-establish aggro if another character has gained it. Another volley and polymorph will soon follow. Repeat until Ikiss is dead.
Melee classes seem to be most prone to dying in this strategy, as they usually have the farthest to run when Ikiss begins his AoE; if your party includes several (or is otherwise unable to survive long enough to kill Ikiss using the above strategy) Arcane Resistance gear or Arcane Protection consumables may help.
Generally, the most difficult part of the Ikiss fight is learning to notice his AoE animation. Once everyone knows what to look for and is able to quickly move to avoid it, the fight becomes trivial. The only difficulty then comes from DPS not waiting until aggro is re-established after the blast, and pulling Ikiss off the tank and dying.
Other effective strategies include using the stairs to the entrance/exit of the instance to break line of sight, having rogues use [Cloak of Shadows] to avoid the AoE blast entirely, and having healers equip PvP trinkets to dispel polymorph or using a [Grounding Totem] to avoid it. The volley may only be cast when there is at least one person out of melee range of Ikiss; moving everyone close to him may stop him from casting it, but can also make detecting his blink much more difficult. On the other hand, if entire groups knows well how blink/AoE animation sequence looks like or watches his emotes closely, staying together may actually help people to react on his preparations faster, as they won't have to check where exactly Ikiss blinked this time to decide where to run, because when everyone stay together Ikiss would practically blink to same place he was standing before casting his AOE.
Picking one pillar in advance for the whole party to hide behind can be very helpful to the healer. Additionally, using a ping-pong strategy each time Ikiss uses his AOE, will make it easier for the tank to re-establish aggro. After running behind a pillar, simply wait for Ikiss to come to you after his AOE (as opposed to running back out into the middle). This strategy works especially well in Heroic mode, since Ikiss will also cast [Slow] on the party.
Very specific note: If your tank is an Alliance Paladin Tank, using seal of vengeance after getting initial aggro can help getting aggro after the blinks as it does DoT Holy damage.
At all times it is possible to reset this encounter by having your party members run out of his room. Arcane Volley can still hit you, but as long as the primary aggro target is out of his room, he will reset.
Heroic mode
Talon King Ikiss is not terribly difficult on Heroic Difficulty. His damage output is about doubled on plate (1600–2000 a hit on a decently geared warrior) and all of his abilities have had their damage significantly upped. His arcane volley now hits for between 2000 and 4000 and he uses it fairly often, so it is advisable to bring arcane protection potions and/or two or three pieces of arcane resist gear to counter that. His blink/arcane explosion mechanics are the same — easily avoidable by line of sight — but he does seem to drop aggro a fair bit more, so he may end up sheeping the tank. He is still very squishy so concentrated damage can burn him down fairly quickly — typical tank, healer and 3 damagers group can get 25% off him between each blink without much problems.
The biggest problem in the fight is his arcane volley, so the healer has to be prepared to keep everyone close to topped off or they may end up dying from one of those. Healthstones/potions are invaluable in this fight at keeping people topped off, yet the arcane resist makes it very simple.
The only other (minor) difficulty is a sheeped tank after an arcane explosion. Also his arcane explosion must avoided by breaking line of sight with pillars because it almost covers the whole room.
Also as of 2.1.0 he randomly casts [Slow] on the party, which lasts for around 10 seconds; this can be a real pain before the arcane explosion some times.
Quests
- [69D] Terokk's Legacy
Loot
Trivia
- When Ikiss kills someone he will say "Mmmm..." with an audio clip. This is the same sound that SkekSil makes in the movie, The Dark Crystal, periodically.
- As of Patch 2.3 Ikiss no longer drops the key to Shadow Labyrinth, the key is now in a chest located directly behind the boss.
- Some of his sound files are similar to those spoken by Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films — the vocalisation is similar and upon killing a player, he yells "You die! Ka... Stay away from trinkets!" — Could trinkets be his preciouses?
- Until 2.3, Ikiss was one of very few bosses (possibly the only one) to drop loot requiring a higher level than his own to equip.