Getting your super-cloak: How to complete Celestial Blessings as a tank or melee DPS
With the recent buff to Titan Runestone drop rates, many players are finally getting over that hump in the legendary quest chain and moving on to the next hurdle, Celestial Blessings. This quest requires you to visit the four Celestials and receive their blessing. However, each celestial also offers a different single-player challenge that corresponds to an in-game role, which must be completed in order to finish the quest. The challenges:
Healer: Offered by Chi-Ji, the Red Crane, at his temple in Krasarang Wilds.
Ranged DPS: Offered by Yu'lon, the Jade Serpent, at her temple in Jade Forest.
Melee DPS: Offered by Xuen, the White Tiger, at his temple in Kun-Lai Summit.
Tank: Offered by Niuzao, the Black Ox, at his temple in Townlong Steppes.
You can do any challenge you want, as long as you are in the matching spec, but you only need to complete one to move on. Your reward is also independent of the challenge you choose to do, so don't feel locked into doing the a certain challenge if you want that cloak. I can't comment on the healer/ranged challenges, but I did both the melee and tank challenges. In my opinion, the tank challenge was MUCH easier to complete, so I'd recommend that route if you can. For both fights, remember that your target is stunnable (which gives you a periodic breather) and the Celestial Offering from August Celestials rep will give you a 10% buff. Like any difficult encounter, buffs, flasks, and food are recommended. Thankfully, you don't have to worry about running back, as the Spirit will auto-rez you if you die.
Xuen's melee DPS challenge
For this fight, you'll be fighting a blindfolded Wrathion. He has 31M HP, which seems like a lot, but you get a buff when attacking from behind that increases your damage by 250%. Wrathion will not melee you; instead, he'll constantly use special abilities, which are detailed below.
Crumbling Arc. Wrathion will leap in front of you and cast this as his default attack. It's a three-second uninterruptable cast, and when it goes off, he does a 180-degree arc damage swing, just like Will of the Emperor. Theoretically easy to dodge, but the hit detection is a bit off, so don't sit just outside the arc. Hits for ~200k, so a single mistake won't finish you, but you'll definitely feel it.
Reign of Fire. Every 20 seconds or so, Wrathion will channel this AoE, which is a... dodgeable rain of fire. Similar to Al'tabim on the Isle of Thunder, actually. It doesn't hit hard, but try to keep moving during it; you can see where each bolt will land. Note that he'll frequently interrupt this early and go back to spamming Crumbling Arc.
Blood of the Deathborn. This is a 2 second cast that drops a void zone at your feet, which ticks for 50k damage/sec. It's interruptable, so there's no reason to let one of these go off, but just run out of it does.
Neltharion's Tears. Every minute or so, Wrathion will summon (or resurrect) these 5 adds. They are inactive for a few seconds after being summoned, then will chase you and do a very damaging melee attack. You can kite them briefly, but they stack a buff that increases their speed and damage, so it's best to pool resources before they spawn, then charge them, pop damage/survivability CD's, and nuke them down when they show. Even doing this, I still frequently took 50%+ damage, but it's better than the alternatives. If this isn't working for you, try something else; some classes with decent ranged ability can take them down while kiting, for example.
Inferno. About 2 minutes in, you'll get a voice emote from Xuen, and then Wrathion will run to the middle. He will phase out and spawn about 15-20 clones around the arena, all channeling a single spell, Inferno. To stop this, you have to hit the "real" Wrathion; a single AoE attack will kill all the adds it hits, so just charge the biggest group of them you can, AoE them, and continue. Hopefully, you hit him before Inferno goes off. If not, it's survivable if you've killed enough of the adds. He repeats this 3 times in sequence; don't try to DPS him during this, focus on self-healing and survivability.
None of these abilities are particularly difficult; it's when they combine that things can be troublesome. Dodging Arcs while DPS'ing Tears is difficult; doing it during Inferno is nearly-impossible. My winning combo ended up being:
Start out by slowly DPS'ing Wrathion, dodging Arcs/Reign of Fire, and interrupting Blood. Save all your CD's.
When Tears spawn, pop a short CD and take them down. Heal up when they're dead. Repeat twice.
During Inferno, pop everything you can to stay alive, heal up between the clone waves, and get the add groups down in time.
Pop any remaining CD's (potion, etc) and burn Wrathion the rest of the way down. Wrathion is sub-20%, just kite away from Tears and finish him; too much time off-Wrathion and you'll end up with another set of Infernos.
Easy in theory, but be prepared to die to laggy Arcs, frequently. I think it took me about 15 pulls. This strategy also may not work for you if you have poor gear and can't take the Tears head-on; if this is the case, you'll want to kite the Tears and whittle them down, DPS'ing Wrathion when you can. Good luck!
Niuzao's tanking challenge
For this fight, you'll be tanking a Vision of Deathwing (human variety), while Wrathion has about 1.5M HP and serves as the typical melee DPS who stands in fire. To win, you have to kill DW without you or Wrathion dying. DW has about 10m HP, melees for about 30k a swing, and has the following abilities:
Molten Arc. Like Wrathion's Arc, an attack with a 3 sec cast time in a 180-degree arc that hits for about 200k. Also like Wrathion's Arc, easily dodgeable in theory, in practice, you get hit by it frequently. Luckily, he uses it much less often then Wrathion does in the DPS challenge.
Molten Fury. I'm not certain of the exact mechanics of this, but this is a 6-second DoT that Deathwing applies to you which does 20k damage every 2 seconds. Not too bad, until you get up to 3/4 stacks, then it starts to hurt. Depending on your avoidance, it may never get that bad, but you can always stun him to force a drop, or simply run away.
Blood of the Deathborn. This is an interruptable 2 second cast that drops a void zone where you're standing If he does get one off, make sure to kite Deathwing away so Wrathion doesn't stand in it and take damage.
Eyes of the Destroyer. Deathwing fixates on Wrathion and starts attacking him; a simple taunt will snap him back to you. Be quick, as each DW swing hits Wrathion for upwards of 100k.
Neltharion's Tears. 5 adds periodically spawn and head for Wrathion. Unlike the melee DPS challenge where they're a major threat, here they're mostly a nuisance. Just pick them up and AoE them down.
Reign of Fire. As above, a mostly trivial AoE, dodge it if you can.
Missile Command. (Okay, I made this name up.) After ~2 minutes, Wrathion will run to the center, and Deathwing will disappear and summon four elementals, who will shoot missiles at him. You just run around and intercept these with your body, mainly; they hit you for about 10k, but Wrathion for 100k+. You've got a few seconds before they start to get a few heals/casts in if you need. Do this for about 30 seconds, then things go back to a "normal" tanking situation.
My strategy:
Start out tanking DW where he stands. Focus on your active mitigation to keep your defenses up, while dodging Arcs, taunting back on Eyes of the Destroyer, and stunning/kiting to drop stacks of Molten Fury. Interrupt Blood of the Deathborn and dodge Reign of Fire as you can. Chain CD's as necessary here; you'll have some time to let them regenerate during the missile phase.
When Missile Command starts, run around and intercept missiles. If you're a tank with off-heals, feel free to toss Wrathion a few during this.
When the phase ends, Deathwing comes back; just repeat.
This worked well; I killed him in about 5 pulls, once I understood all the mechanics. I actually almost downed him on the first pull, due to a lucky Bad Juju proc; those gnomes make excellent missile soakers. :) Good luck!
Claim your reward
If you can successfully complete a challenge, then it's all over but the talking. Go back to the normal spot on the Veiled Stair, talk to Wrathion, and receive your new Precious; an item level 600 cloak! Go drool a bit, then upgrade it to 608, and drool some more. Sadly, the cloaks are Unique, so you can only get one; You CAN trash it and get a replacement, but it costs several thousand gold, so think long and hard before doing so. Happily, Ghostcrawler has hinted that they may lift that restriction in 5.4. Either way, we already know that the next step of the questline will upgrade the cloak further; hopefully, it's not just another socket.
Got any tips from your own celestial conquest, or do you need some help yourself? Post in the comments and let us know!
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