Void Reaver Strategy Guide (Tempest Keep: The Eye)

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Void Reaver used to be known as “Loot Reaver” back in the day due to being exceptionally easy compared to the rest of the bosses in Tempest Keep or Serpentshrine Cavern. Many guilds that otherwise were not able to progress in those raids would pay Void Reaver a weekly visit for the tier 5 shoulder token.

That has largely remained the case in Classic TBC, as Void Reaver is the most killed boss of all in the tier by a landslide. To put the numbers in context, there are more Void Reaver logs than Kael’thas and Lady Vashj combined at the time of writing this article.

That doesn’t mean however that you can just fight him without a strategy and expect to win, and players have discovered some strategies that make this fight significantly easier.

This guide will offer your guild a step-by-step analysis of how to turn Void Reaver into scrap metal.

Role Summaries

  • Use your DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust for maximum DPS
  • Be careful of your threat! Make sure you’re 3rd or below, else Knock Away will get you killed

  • Use your DPS cooldowns during Heroism / Bloodlust for maximum DPS
  • Be careful of your threat! Make sure you’re 3rd or below, else Knock Away will get you killed
  • Warlocks: This fight will be very rough for you, threat-wise, so use your Soulshatter carefully
  • Hunters: Use Misdirection on your assigned tank right at the start, then again on cooldown

  • Main Tank healers: Take care to quickly heal the new tank after Knock Away
  • AoE healers: Make sure everyone is at 100% HP after Pounding, save mana afterwards
  • If a kiter comes close to the raid needing healing, heal them quickly so they can go back to their assigned spot
  • Use DPS consumables for the highest threat output possible
  • If you’re currently main tanking, move through the boss to get him to face away from the raid quickly
  • Use a small defensive ability like Shield Block to help out your healers just as Pounding ends
  • If you get hit by Knock Away and lose threat, quickly move behind the boss for maximum threat output
  • Quickly go to your assigned spot before the pull
  • If you get targeted by Arcane Orb, move 20 yards to the left or right to avoid it
  • Move back to your previous spot the next time you get targeted, and repeat this dance throughout
  • Use Healthstones and Heavy Netherweave Bandages if you get hit by an orb
  • If you need to move towards the raid to get healed, make sure you don’t go within 20 yards of them

Abilities

Deals a hefty amount of physical damage (3-4k on tanks) to Void Reaver’s current target and knocks them back, reducing their threat by 25%.

This ability is the reason why you will need 3 tanks for this fight, as Void Reaver cannot be taunted. It can be dodged and parried, so mitigation gear will be good too, though your tanks still need to do a whole lot of threat.

Cast every ~20 seconds, though he can’t use it while channeling Pounding so sometimes it’ll be delayed.

A channeled ability that deals 1350 to 2250 arcane damage to everyone within 20 yards of Void Reaver every second for 3 seconds, for a total of 4-7k damage.

You can resist this damage by having arcane resistance, but you really don’t need to use arcane resistance gear, it is pretty easy to heal through with decent healers, particularly Restoration Shamans and Holy Priests.

Cast every 12-15 seconds. Void Reaver cannot use any of his other abilities while channeling Pounding, making it a great time for your kiters to pump some damage – more explained in the The Fight section.

Sends a slow moving orb towards a random member in the raid. Upon reaching its destination, the orb explodes, dealing 4.6k to 6.3k arcane damage and silencing all targets within 20 yards of its impact point for 6 seconds.

It is important to note that Void Reaver actually targets the ground under a player, not the player himself. Therefore, whoever was targeted can just move 20 yards away from his original spot to avoid this ability.

Another very important note is that Void Reaver will always target a player at least 20 yards away from him. So by having specific players stand further away while everyone else stacks within melee range of Void Reaver, you can essentially guarantee that only those people will be targeted. If there are no players further than 20 yards away from him, he ignores this rule, picking anyone — which you will certainly want to avoid.

You can see who Void Reaver targets with this ability as he targets them very briefly, but it will be vital that everyone in your raid uses Deadly Boss Mods or a similar addon that helps them know they’ve been targeted.

This ability used to be the main mechanic of the fight that players had to deal with in the past, but players have since found strategies that make dealing with it a lot easier, explained in the The Pull section.

This ability can be resisted, but it falls under binary resists, meaning you will either resist 100% of it or you won’t resist it at all. For that reason, arcane resistance just isn’t that great for this fight and nobody needs it.

Cast every 4-5 seconds, though again, Void Reaver cannot use this ability while channeling Pounding.

Raid Composition & Preparation

Everyone should have a Healthstone — there will be tons of raid damage going out, you never know when you’ll need it.

There are no special requirements on the DPS side for this fight, but Beast Mastery Hunters are exceptional here. Not only do they provide Misdirection, which will help deal with the threat drop of Knock Away but crucially they are exceptionally good at dealing damage while moving, making them very good kiters – explained in the The Pull section.

Conversely, while their single target damage is exceptional, your Warlocks will suffer here. They have no threat reduction talents, meaning they will struggle with threat with only Soulshatter to help them out, on a 5 minute cooldown. Additionally, they are extremely immobile so they make bad kiters and suffer from spell pushback during Pounding – a lose-lose situation for them.

Making this fight as short as possible so as to minimize the amount of Knock Away casts you have to deal with is crucial here, so your DPS players will definitely want to use flasks, elixirs and other DPS consumables.

This very rough for AoE healing on account of Pounding, particularly if you’re using the stacking strategy proposed in this guide. Therefore you will need at least 3 AoE healers like Holy Priests and Restoration Shamans, 4 making managing the AoE damage easier.

Besides that, tank damage is not particularly high, so you could get away with as few as 4-5 healers total, though 6 is recommended.

All healers should come prepared with mana potions, +healing elixirs and buff food. This fight can be taxing on their mana, but it is typically fairly short, so +healing to keep the raid and tanks alive will generally be more useful.

2-3 single target healers, meaning Holy Paladins and Discipline Priests, should be assigned to exclusively heal the current main tank. They will have to pay attention to heal the new main tank after a Knock Away.

The rest of your healers – which will be every healer with an AoE healing ability – should AoE heal during Pounding, though they can help heal the MT when they’re done topping the raid off.

This fight can be done with 2 tanks, but having 3 will help dealing with Knock Away so it is highly recommended. The classes of your tanks doesn’t matter much, but Feral Druids have the best threat output generally so they’ll be pretty good here.

Your tanks will want to use as much threat-focused gear as they can get away with here, which will depend on how strong your healers are. However, as Knock Away can be dodged and parried, mitigation gear that offers those stats is not bad — you’ll generally want to cut gear that has raw stamina / armor / block stats.

Void Reaver’s damage output isn’t particularly high, so tanks may also want to use DPS consumables for this fight.

The Pull

Void Reaver’s aggro range is relatively small so you can buff and prepare for the fight anywhere in his room, though it is recommended you do so at the entrance to his room.

The pull will be the most important part of this fight as long as you execute it correctly, so it is vital that all of your players are on the same page and you move in together.

To begin with, you will want to assign 3-4 players to be “kiters”. These players will stand outside of Void Reaver’s melee range, in designated spots shown in the picture below, and run around to avoid Arcane Orb.

Beast Mastery and Survival Hunters make the best candidate for this spot, so it’s best that you assign them to this task, though in a pinch any player will do, but specs that use lots of instant casts like Restoration Druids will suffer the least from having to run around all the time.

It is possible to do this with just 1 or 2 kiters, but it is heavily recommended that you use more, else these 1-2 players will have to run around constantly and be virtually unable to do anything else. If you do run 1-2, make sure they are Soulstoned, else your raid will most definitely wipe in the event that they die.

Your warlocks should Soulstone the kiters as mentioned previously, because it will not be possible to have your druids Rebirth them if they die. If you trust your kiters to not die, the warlocks can instead Soulstone themselves, as it is fairly likely that they will rip threat and die on this fight.

Once your kiters are in position and you are ready to go in, the entire raid should stack in the middle of the room and run in together. It is imperative that nobody falls behind as you’re going in, as that person could get targeted by Arcane Orb and have it hit the raid, very likely causing a wipe.

Have your hunters use Misdirection on each of your tanks. If you have 4 or more hunters, you can use the extra Misdirections on your main tank, as he will really need the threat here.

The main tank turns the boss to face him away, towards where he was initially standing, while the rest of the raid minus the kiters stacks up right behind the boss. You will ultimately want your raid to be positioned like in the following picture.

void reaver in depth guide positions

The Fight

You should have one of your paladins use Judgement of Light, as it will greatly help with raid healing. If you don’t have a Retribution Paladin that can keep it up with Crusader Strike, that might be slightly rough, since you still want to use Judgement of Wisdom.

About 10 seconds in, you will get your first Pounding — this is the moment for your AoE healers to shine. They need to make sure that everyone is at 100% health before the next Pounding comes in. If they’re struggling with mana, they can auto attack the boss (if your raid is using Judgement of Wisdom) or just wait until the next Pounding, as that will be the main thing that your raid will have to worry about with this strategy.

Right after the first Pounding ends, you should use Heroism / Bloodlust and your single-target DPS players should use their damage cooldowns, while paying extra attention to their threat and using threat reduction abilities like Soulshatter and Vanish as necessary.

15-20 seconds in, you will get your first Knock Away. At that point the current main tank should move through the boss to have him face away, while the previous main tank joins the raid behind the boss in order to have maximum threat output without parries. Your single target healers will need to be quick with healing the new main tank, so it helps if someone calls out the new main tank’s name on voice.

Your kiters will be getting barraged by Arcane Orb at this point. They will need to repeat a little dance of sorts, wherein they move to one spot to avoid the orb, then go back to their previous spot in order to avoid the next orb.

They should never get hit if they do it correctly, but in the event that they do, they will need to use their Healthstone or Heavy Netherweave Bandage to heal themselves, as it might not be easy for any of your healers to heal them depending on how far they are. If they can’t heal themselves, they will need to move very slightly closer to your raid in order to get healed — if they get too close, they might have an Arcane Orb go off in the raid, likely wiping you.

And that is the entire fight. So long as your healers are on top of their game with keeping the raid alive and your kiters don’t get hit by too many Arcane Orb, you will kill this bad dude and get your raid some tier 5 shoulders to show for it, which will be very handy on your way towards Kael’thas Sunstrider!

 

About the Author

Kurathis

Long-time WoW enthusiast who can't say no to a good-old poutine.
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