Gothik the Harvester Boss Strategy

Encounter Spawning Mechanics

First and foremost let’s discuss exactly how this encounter works. Unlike traditional encounters you don’t get even attack Gothik until you’ve killed all the mob spawning waves. Mobs spawn on the live side (the side which gothik’s balcony is over) and once they are killed they spawn on the undead side as ghosts. Mobs will continue to spawn for the first 3 minutes and 44 seconds of the encounter and Gothik will come down at the 4 minute 34 second mark.

Note: the sides will be physically prevented from crossing over when the encounter begins, a gate will close in the center and will remain closed until Gothik comes down.

Setting up the Raid

Since the door splits the raid we’ll need to assign specific players to each individual side. My guild and I split the raid as follows:

• Live Side: 4 players
  • Put your DPS casters on this side
• Undead Side: 6 players
  • Put your melee DPS on this side

Completing the Spawning Wave

This phase of the encounter is not difficult, simply kill the mobs as they spawn and avoid taking damage when possible. The only mobs that you really need to be worried about are the riders. These do a lot of damage and can quickly 2-3 shot a DPS or healer if they are not picked up quickly by your tank.

• Purple Circles - spawning locations
• Blue Box (in middle) - center gate
• Red Line - center dividing wall

Killing Gothik

At the 4 minute 34 second mark Gothik will come down off of his balcony and to the living side. At this point the central gate is still closed, and generally the undead side will just be killing their final spawns. At this point harvest soul will start being applied to the entire raid. After a few seconds on the live side Gothik will teleport to the undead side. This rotation will continue two more times and then the gate will finally open.

After Gothik completes 4 teleports the gate will open and the entire raid can DPS him down. At this point the only thing that can really wipe you will be the harvest soul stacking up too high. For this reason you’ll want try and save all your biggest damage cooldowns for when Gothik comes down. Just keep your DPS high and burn him down as fast as possible.