Headless Horseman vs The Five Wrathful Mothers (Monk x5)
After many wipes, I finally downed the Headless Horseman this morning with my 5x Monk team, the Five Wrathful Mothers (Buddhuheruka, Vajraheruka, Ratnaheruka, Padmeheruka and Karmaheruka). The fight taught me a lot about the importance of using all of the tools in the Monk's box. Here's how I did it for anyone who is interested.
SETUP: I positioned the team bunched up at the foot of the stairs near the crypt, buffed up and dropped my statues. This was important for Phase 1. Buddhuheruka, the Brewmaster, clicked the pumpkin and pulled the horseman back to the group and Invoked her Xuen. The fight was on.
PHASE 1: During this phase, the horseman periodically summons pumpkin heads to nuke the team. That's why it's important to position the team properly at the beginning of the fight so they can roll out of the way as a group. Xuen is also important, because it tanks the horseman for a moment at the foot of the stairs while Buddhuheruka gathers the team back up and returns to the fight in an orderly fashion, ready for the next roll. The horseman would usually summon pumpkins twice before tossing his head for the first time.
THE HEAD: For the longest time, I made this hard on myself, trying to chase the bloody head all over the place. Then I realized the answer: Crackling Jade Lighting and a target head macro. As long as the group was still together (nobody rolled off in a crazy direction and got stuck behind a post during phase 1) spamming Crackling Jade Lightning brought the head down fast. The horseman does a whirlwind attack during this time, but it didn't seem to hurt my team too badly if they happened to get caught in it.
PHASE 2: During this phase, the Horseman uses Conflagration, which damages and disorients toons. This phase wasn't too bad. As long as I kept everybody out of the fire and made sure to get any disoriented toons back on DPS duty quickly, the team had enough healing to survive this phase.
THE HEAD PART 2: If everything went well up to this point, the team was still be grouped in the open area in front of the crypt. Crackling Jade Lightning has a pretty good range, which made bringing the head down a lot easier.
PHASE 3: During this phase, the Horseman summons pumpkin adds to harass the team. Xuen was awesome during this phase. Xuen x4 was even better. As long as I waited until after the Horseman summoned the adds, the Xuens would cleave them and the Horseman down quickly. Buddhuheruka's Xuen would come off cooldown toward the end of this phase, adding a fifth tiger to the fray just as the other Xuen's were about to disappear and the Horseman was preparing to toss his head for the final time. This was helpful, because it could tank any remaining pumpkin adds while the team spammed Crackling Jade Lightning to kill the head once and for all. I'm looking forward to seeing what other content the Five Wrathful Mothers can tackle.
