Battleguard Sartura – Temple of Ahn’Qiraj Boss Strategy Guide

This is a World of Warcraft classic guide for Battleguard Sartura who is the second non-optional boss in the 40-man raid, The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj (AQ40).

Overview

Sartura is the leader of the Qiraji battleguards which appear to be an elite unit of royal guard that utilize their finesse with long blades and scythes to dispatch their foes.
Sartura is likely the second easiest boss in AQ40 after The Prophet Skeram and will require clearing several packs of trash in order to reach her.
She must be pulled in conjunction with her three guards which also respawn should your raid wipe.

(Source: https://www.deviantart.com/art/Sartura-of-AhnQiraj-254705211)

Abilities

Sartura shares some of these abilities with her three battleguards.

Whirlwind: A Point-blank area of effect attack (PBAOE) that deals anywhere between 1000-3000 damage per spin depending on the armor value of the person being hit (her guards do less at around 300-1000 damage). Sartura is immune to stun while this ability is active. Detect magic can be used to determine when this ability is active. During this time, melee DPS should stay clear of the boss.
While this ability is active Sartura will drop agro every 4-5 seconds and target random people. Warriors can establish a taunt rotation to keep her in place.

Cleave Sunder: Sartura will apply sunder to those hit by her cleave reducing their armor. This can mostly be ignored.

Knockback: Exclusive to Sartura’s guards. Knockback will punt a raid member up into the air also sending them back a fair distance. For this reason it is important that nobody stands near the tunnel full of bugs leading into next room. Be ready to consume a health potion or healthstone in mid-air to avoid dying to fall damage.

Enrage: When Sartura’s HP reaches 20% she will become enraged increasing her attack speed and physical damage output. DPS cooldowns should be saved for this portion of the fight. Melee may need to clear out or use evasion to stay in.

Hard Enrage: After 10 minutes Sartura’s abilities will start hitting for 10k damage and one-shot anyone who gets hit. She will need to be killed very quickly at this point or a wipe is almost guaranteed.

Strategy

This fight is most reliant on individual player skill and your ability to self-preserve.

The most important rule is for players to begin to move directly away from any threat that is heading towards you before it reaches you. This is how the majority of damage can be avoided.

The Pull
Assigning 2 tanks to Sartura with 1-2 tanks being assigned to each add is recommended. Healers will need to be assigned to healing the tanks on Sartura, 3-4 should be enough.
It is also recommended to have hunters assigned to tanks/adds in order to peel their adds towards their assigned tank.
The boss should be pulled when she is on the far side on the room, this allows the largest opening for the raid to enter and spread out in a semi-circle in front of the adds.
Sartura will need to initially be tanked towards the back of the room while the adds can be spread out from left to right. These positions should be pre-determined.
In order to make healing easier, it is recommended to assign groups to certain sections of the room. An easy configuration is “odd groups left, even groups right”.

The Fight
After the raid has moved into position DPS should start killing the adds one by one immediately.
Do not worry about pulling aggro as adds will move around randomly regardless.
It is imperative that stuns are used on rotation to keep each target in place so that DPS is maximised.

Sartura needs to be kept away from the raid towards the back of the room while the adds are being killed. Two tanks and a few healers will be needed for this task and will have to move through towards the back of the chamber.
When adds die more tanks will become available to help control the rest of the fight. It might be handy to have a tank stand between the raid and Sartura.

After the adds are dead Sartura should be brought towards the centre of the room to be killed. Melee DPS need to move out when she starts whirl-winding.
After Sartura finishes casting whirlwind, there is a random timeframe of 5-10 seconds before she casts it again. This is the window of opportunity for melee to chain stun the boss in order to delay the next whirlwind as much as possible. Warrior/Paladin stun should be used first followed by rogue kidney shots.

At 20% the boss will enrage and do increased damage, tanks/melee should be prepared to use cooldowns to stay alive.

I feel this needs to be repeated; “The most important rule is for players to begin to move directly away from any threat that is heading towards you before it reaches you. This is how the majority of damage can be avoided.”

Notes:

• Limited invulnerability potions can be used as a clutch to temporarily make you immune to physical damage (all the damage in this encounter is physical).
• Cloth users are the most vulnerable during this fight. Pre-emptive movement is mandatory.
• This fight will most likely expose those in the raid which have the least game-awareness and skill since they will be frequently dying.
• Do as much DPS as you can without worrying about threat.
• Prioritize staying alive, how much damage can you do when you are dead?

GLHF!

~Sanctus