What’s up, it’s Jimfro from Ready, Check, Pull and this is our official boss guide for Normal and Heroic Sun King’s Salvation.
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Sun King’s Salvation is another option you can go to right after Shriekwing, but spoiler alert: it's Kael'thas! And I know we killed this guy two or three times in the past.
But I guess now we have to save him? Anyway, there are two alternating phases in this fight. The first phase is about add wave management and healing friendly Kael’thas, while the second phase is about dealing with the not-so-friendly Shade of Kael’thas.
Now during the first add phase the goal is to heal Kael’thas to 45%, the healers can directly heal Kael'thas, but the fight itself gives you much more efficient ways to heal him.
Add Phase
So on pull, you’ll want to interrupt and focus kill the 4 Vile Occultist adds, you need to kill them fast enough for them to drop their container on the ground that then needs to be healed to full, which triggers a massive heal on Kael’thas.
If you're too slow to kill the Occultist adds, you'll miss out on healing the containers, which could set you back pretty far, the Occultists spawn throughout the whole fight, and these containers are by far the best way to heal Kael’thas, so they’re a pretty big deal.
On pull, you’ll also be dealing with this big guy, and these Assassin adds. One tank needs to pick up the big dude while the other tank rounds up the Assassins. Everyone needs to stay spread out, because they both do splash AoE damage on random players.
Prioritize killing the Assassins over the big guy, because they’ll eventually turn to stone and heal themselves to full if they’re left alive for too long. You only ever have to deal with the big guy once in the fight, but the Assassins spawn in waves later on, so get used to staying spread out.
After this first set of adds, it’s unclear what the exact add wave timings will be, so we’ll go over the general strategy for dealing with each kind of add that spawns.
So here's the kill priority:
- Infusers
- Occultists
- Vanquishers
- Assassins
- Fiends
The Infusers spawn in the back corners of the room and try to get to Kael’thas to damage him directly. To prevent this from happening, you need to slow and stun them and focus kill them as quickly as possible.
They also drop a red orb when they die that the healers can pick up to increase their healing
done by a massive amount for a few seconds.
You already know how the Occultists work with the containers. They’ll spawn in groups at the back of the room.
The Vanquishers spawn one at a time in the middle of the room. They need to be picked up by a tank, and they apply a stacking debuff which requires a taunt swap if they're alive for too long.
They also frequently cast a raid-wide AoE that does more damage the longer they’re alive.
You already know how to deal with the Assassins. Just tank them and stay spread out.
And the Fiends are these little imps that spawn in groups toward the middle of the room, they just do splash damage on random players, so there's yet another reason to stay spread out on this fight.
On heroic, the Fiends also shatter when they die, doing damage to anyone in 7 yards, so try to stay away from these when this is happening.
While you’re dealing with the add waves, there’s one other way to heal Kael’thas: the Soul Pedestals at the front of the room. These can be channeled on by one player at a time, which sacrifices health from that player to heal
Kael’thas.
I think these are mostly here just to give your DPS something to do between add waves,
but they can actually help you to get to 45% at a timing that fits better for your raid.
Shade Phase
You'll want to heal Kael’thas to 45% when there aren’t a ton of adds out, because at 45% the Shade of Kael’thas spawns. While the Shade is out, you can no longer heal Kael’thas,
and the add waves will be delayed for a bit. So quickly finish off any leftover adds and have a tank get aggro on the Shade.
Some phoenixes will also spawn alongside the Shade. They fixate random players and pulse AoE damage to any players within 6 yards. The pulses also leave a permanent pool of fire on the ground, so these phoenixes need to be grouped up in the middle of the room, CC’ed, and cleaved down in order to keep the fire from spreading all over the place.
The phoenixes revive about 20 seconds after dying, so you’ll probably need to repeat this a couple times.
The tanks will need to taunt swap on the Shade of Kael'thas while keeping it faced away from the raid.
You should also keep the Shade toward the middle of the room to make it easier to deal with its other two abilities.
The first is Blazing Surge, that's cast whenever the Shade gets to full energy. It's a huge frontal cone in a random direction that everyone needs to dodge.
The second ability is Ember Blast, which is just a swirly red circle on a random player that needs to be soaked with several other players. It does split damage and also applies a DoT that’s split between those players. The blast also leaves a pretty big fire pool on the ground,
so try to put it close to some of the existing pools in the middle of the room.
Once you do 10% of the Shade’s health, it’ll despawn and you’ll start the second add phase. This add phase works the same as the first, but this time you have to get Kael’thas to 90%
health. Then you do the Shade phase one more time, which heals Kael’thas to full and you win!
We recommend using lust on the second Shade, but it could be used on the first Shade if the phase timing was a bit off and there’s still a bunch of adds up.
Alright, so...quick recap.
In the add phase:
- The kill order is Infusers > Occultists > Vanquishers > Assassins > and then Fiends.
- Stay spread out.
- Heal Kael’thas using the containers and pedestals and get Kael’thas to 45% and 90% between add waves.
In the Shade phase:
- Face the Shade away from the group.
- Stack the phoenixes and kill them.
- Dodge the random frontal.
- Help soak the red circle.
And that’s pretty much it!
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