The Prophet Skeram Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

In the Season of Mastery, the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj has gained a new affix system that allows for new challenges and additional loot to be gained for defeating bosses inside of the raid instance. Check out our in-depth guide for this new feature in the AQ40 raid guide hub.

The Prophet Skeram also features changes to the encounter itself, as this affix system is not available until after he is defeated.

• You will want at least 3 tanks, to tank Skeram and his two clones.
• Mind Controls on tanks may force other Warriors or Druids to taunt in order to keep Skeram under control.
• Positioning is key. You should have your main tank engage Skeram where he starts and off-tanks at the top of the left and right staircases adjacent to the boss. This will ensure that a tank can immediately pick him up once he teleports and also that all clones are tanked separately, avoiding excess Arcane Explosion damage.

• Make sure to keep all tanks topped up, as even a single tank dying can lead to a quick wipe due to lacking tanks for the boss clones.
• Area of effect healing will be needed when Arcane Explosion is cast near groups of players.
• Damage-buffed Mind Controlled players will need to be crowd controlled quickly, and are likely to target healers. Getting hit with even a few attacks from these players can quickly kill you, so make sure to keep your distance.
• If you stand on the top platform, you will be able to heal most players while staying outside Arcane Explosion and Mind Controlled melee player range.

• Help interrupt Arcane Explosion as much as possible, to reduce damage taken.
• Crowd control Mind Controlled players quickly, as they can be very disruptive and deadly to the raid if left alone.
• Remember that he spawns clones at 75%, 50% and 25% life and this resets threat. Whenever he or a clone teleports, threat is also reset. Make sure to give your tanks enough time to regain aggro before resuming DPS, as otherwise you will likely die to his melee attacks or Earth Shock spam.
• Warlocks should try to keep Curse of Tongues on the boss, in order to make his Arcane Explosion casts longer, and thus easier to interrupt.
• Ranged can stand on the top platform to DPS while staying outside Arcane Explosion and Mind Controlled melee player range. Melee should spread evenly among the active bosses, in order to minimize Arcane Explosion damage and maximize interrupts.

• Because you are likely to be Mind Controlled during the fight, make sure to quickly use your powerful crowd control or support abilities, such as Intimidating Shout and Blessing of Protection, to avoid having them be used against your group.
• You can use Greater Nature Protection Potion on ranged players, to protect against Earth Shock damage, and Greater Arcane Protection Potion on melee players, to protect against Arcane Explosion damage.
• Clones of Skeram have very low health but use the same abilities and deal full damage with them. Kill them as soon as possible, and ensure you do so before pushing the boss to a new Clone phase, or a wipe is likely due to having 3+ clones plus the boss attacking your group at the same time.

The Season of Mastery version of this encounter is slightly different than the original classic version. with the major change to this encounter being the importance of killing the correct image of Prophet Skeram when he splits into his mirror images. If a mirror image is killed instead of the Prophet the entire raid will take massive damage and likely wipe. During the intermission phase where the mirror images spawn a random player in the raid will be targeted with the debuff Visions of Madness. This ability will allow the player to see which of the mirror images is the true Prophet Skeram and the raid needs to kill it as quickly as possible. While mirror images are active the entire raid will be gaining a stacking debuff Illusionary Rot which increases damage taken by 1% every three seconds until the mirror image phase is solved.

As displayed in the image, have your main-tank engage and keep Prophet Skeram where he starts. Have your off-tanks run to the top of the left and right staircases and your ranged damage dealers and healers run to the uppermost platform.

Interrupt Arcane Explosion, crowd control Mind Controlled players, have a tank grab him if he teleports and DPS him down to 75%, at which point he will vanish and reappear in his starting position, alongside two clones who will spawn on top of the staircases where your off-tanks should be ready to pick them up.

Take a moment to apply Curse of Tongues to all Skerams and figure out which is the real one. Something you can try is to drain Skeram's Mana a little in the first phase, as copies should spawn with full Mana while the real boss does not. Alternatively, because the copies have much lower health points, you can simply split your damage among the three Skerams and it will immediately be obvious which one of the three is losing health at a slower pace: make sure to kill the copies before pushing the original into another clone phase.

If you do not lose players or have healers go out of Mana, the 75% split is the hardest to deal with, as the clones will spawn with a lot of health. Make sure to keep things under control and remember it is not a DPS race, but a control fight. Once you manage to kill the two clones, simply rinse and repeat until the boss is dead, with simply burning down the real boss at 25% also being a viable strategy, as that will cause the fight to end immediately.

Item	Slot
Pendant of the Qiraji Guardian	Neck
Amulet of Foul Warding	Neck
Beetle Scaled Wristguards	Wrist
Ring of Swarming Thought	Ring
Barrage Shoulders	Shoulders
Breastplate of Annihilation	Chest
Cloak of Concentrated Hatred	Back
Leggings of Immersion	Legs
Boots of the Unwavering Will	Boots
Boots of the Redeemed Prophecy	Boots
Boots of the Fallen Prophet	Boots
Staff of the Qiraji Prophets	Two-Hand
Hammer of Ji'zhi	Two-Hand