After Action Report — Serpentshrine Cavern & Tempest Keep (2026-07-21)

Summary

• SSC cleared in 1h56m, TK in 1h36m.
• Five real wipes on the night (Vashj x1, Karathress x2, Leotheras x1, Kael'thas x1).
• Threat control on transitions cost two pulls: a Vashj opener and the Kael'thas phase-4 start both blew up on early threat.

Boss-by-Boss

Hydross the Unstable

Killed in 1:36 with no transition, on a lean setup: three healers and one tank. We stayed in frost the entire fight and sent it — the group's total DPS (~35,000) was enough to kill it before a transition.

Some execution misses:

• Noshifty popped his scarab trinket too early by mistake.
• Stoneshok dropped his fire elemental too late.
• Zzss used his second Icy Veins outside of Arcane Power timing.
• Daddyskitty's Pain Suppression wasn't used when it was meant to be.
• A few extra people still ate Frost Tomb despite spreading as well as they could.
• Ara's Shadow Weaving stacks took a while to ramp compared to normal, just a low roll on the 80% chance. For short fights like this, a second (less mana-efficient) spec may be the better pick.
• Shambango isn't weaving Chain Lightning into his single-target rotation.

The Lurker Below

Killed in 3:01. We nearly burned him down before the add transition. Shambango died to a Spout. Let's try killing before add transition next week.

Morogrim Tidewalker

Killed in 3:38. Good kill. Somatose did die to murlocs (let's try our best on threat, both tanks and healers). Stoneshok died to a back-to-back Earthquake into Watery Grave, but that stuff happens - nothing to hyperfocus on.

Fathom-Lord Karathress

Killed in 3:26, after two wipes. We ran a new strat — leave Caribdis up, kill the other three, and heal through the enrage. It worked well and both wipes were just new-strat jitters, nothing fundamental. We nearly had the first attempt: the boss lived with only 300k health while Caribdis healed for ~100k 3 times, so the kill was right there. The group also ate a number of Spitfire Totem hits that we should be killing faster. We'll try the same enrage strat again next time.

Leotheras the Blind

Killed in 4:34, one wipe. Lots of people died to Whirlwind on the first attempt. The second attempt went much better, but we were still losing people to it. Leo was supposed to be an A-fight and we barely cleared it. Whirlwind awareness has to be cleaner.

Lady Vashj

Killed in 7:27, after one reset/wipe - our first ever wipe on Vashj. DPS took threat at the start, and we lost five to it, so we reset. Hold on the opener until the tank has a clear lead, then ramp. The second runback went clean.

Al'ar

Killed in 5:24, one-shot. Fantastic kill.

Void Reaver

Killed in 3:35, one-shot. Fantastic too.

High Astromancer Solarian

Killed in 2:14, one-shot. Good kill, but we can go faster. If we can push hard enough to skip the add phase entirely, this becomes a super parse.

Kael'thas Sunstrider

Killed in 9:20 to close the night, after one wipe. The wipe was a threat problem at the start of phase 4: Resurgance didn't have enough mana coming into the phase and couldn't pump threat during Lust, so DPS took aggro and it fell apart from there. Make sure the phase-4 tank comes in with mana to hold through the Lust burst.

Consumables — A-fights (Hydross, Leotheras, Solarian)

These are our try-hard fights; the expectation is full gold spent for max damage. Some gaps this week:

• Idkdatroll and Lincolln mistimed their haste potion outside of lust.
• Duckydad, Hurtzz, and Kwiverz used no potion at all.
• Kwiverz used a dark rune, which is fine, but a mana potion would have been the better call since he wasn't running a haste potion anyway.
• Shambango used no elixirs. Banoodles skipped Draenic Wisdom.
• Lincolln could run Relentless Assault; Hurtzz could run Relentless Assault instead of an elixir.
• More strength/agility scrolls across the board.