The Violet Hold may be the most unique 5-man instance for in Northrend. It has three things which set it apart from all the others. First off, the location of the Violet Hold is right in the main Northrend city of Dalaran. For this reason, many people are willing to run it simply for convenience. Next, it’s a non-stop run once you start it. This means once you start the event that is Violet Hold, you cannot stop it (unless you die). The third feature that makes this instance so different would be the countdown you can watch at the top of your screen. It will count 1-18/18, at which point the final boss will be summoned. This instance only has 3 bosses at a time; however they are a random mix out of six available, and the one final boss.
The random bosses are Erekem, Moragg, Ichoron, Xevozz, Lavanthor and Zuramat. Erekem is a fairly basic tank and spank boss that has two adds with him. You just kill all these at once, and that’s the extent of the fight. Moragg is a giant, squid-like boss with seven eyes. Again for most players this is going to be a fairly simple fight. He has an ability called Optic Link that takes more life the farther away you are from him, but it’s only up to 3,000 so it shouldn’t be a big deal. The other simple boss would be Lavanthor, a giant core hound. The tank will want to face him away from the party because of his fire breath, but again this is usually considered a fairly easy boss. Just attack, heal, and tank and all should go well.
The other 3 random bosses are a little more complicated. Ichoron, a water elemental, is a bit of an odd fight. He is highly resistant to damage for a while. He’ll go into a separation phase where he’ll pop into multiple small water elementals all around the room. You can either attack these or simply hit the small switches on the instance walls. After a few rounds, he’ll become vulnerable to normal damage, but by then he’s about dead anyway. Xevozz is debatably the hardest boss, requiring constant kiting by the tank to avoid the AoE damage orbs that follow him. Keep the party away from the orbs and all is well. Xevozz’s difficulty is only rivaled by Zuramat, who spawns invisible adds that can add up and wipe a party. The key is, one person can see the adds at a time and is supposed to kill them. The biggest problem is that people rarely do this.
Cyanigosa will come down in the eighteenth phase in the middle of the room and turn into a big ol’ dragon. She has AoEs like Blizzard, and will hit the tank with fire breath. After a bit she’ll do an Arcane Grip that places everyone in the middle of the room and resets the agro table. This means that she no longer cares who the tank is; she will go after anyone in the group. The tank has to be prepared for this and taunt her back into beating on him. Other than this it’s, one of the easier boss fights in Wrath of the Lich King.
