Heroic Council of Elders is regarded as a medium/moderate difficulty for the Heroic modes.

Each of the elders has one new abilitiy OR modification to their current abilities that changes how the fight is handled.

Gara'jals spirit also has a new ability that requires coordination with the raid to switch off a stacking debuff that increases damage taken.

Spirit of Gara'jal

1. Soul Fragment - In 10-man Heroic, Every other time the Spirit of Gara'jal is forced out of the councillor, he leaves behind a soul fragment on a random player (in 25-man heroic this occurs EVERY time).  Soul Fragments possess a random player dealing 35k shadow damage every 5 seconds, in addition, each time the Soul Fragment ticks/deals damage, you will get a stacking buff called "Shadowed Soul"
   • Shadowed Soul - All damage taken increased by 2% per stack for the remainder of the encounter.
   • You pass this debuff by targetting another player and using an extra action button to pass it to them.

Frost King Malakk

1. Body Heat - Only happens when he is possessed.  When a player is hit by another player's frostbite (ie people who stack on the afflicted player), they will "lose" Body Heat over 8 seconds.  Once their Body Heat expires after that 8 seconds, they will no longer be able to contribute to reducing the number of Frostbite stacks the afflicted player has.  Requires player with Frostbite to run between 2-3 groups of "soakers".

Kazra'jin

1. Discharge - Only happens when he is possessed. REPLACES Overload ability.  When he is possessed, instead of dealing back a % of players damage back at the individual player, he will now reflect 10% (10-man, 5% 25-man) of all damage dealt to ALL players.  So if you are a mage and you get a nice 500k hit, he will reflect 50k dmg on the entire raid, not just you.  Plan of attack is still the same, but more important that for him its a slow burn so you dont kill the raid.

Sul the Sandcrawler

1. Treacherous Ground - Happens through all phases of the fight until he is dead.  This is not a cast, or a spell, but an automatic occurance.  If Quicksand pools are close enough together, and slightly overlap, they will merge into a slightly larger pool and take up more of the room.  Increases in size for each pool of quicksand absorbed.  In addition, if he gets empowered, the Living Sand add that rises from the larger pool will have 125% increased health and damage for each pool that was combined.  Plan of attack is the same, nuke the crap out of Sul to get him dead before he is empowered.

High Priestess Mar'li

1. Twisted Fate - Only uses when she is possessed.  She will "rip" the souls from 2 random players (supposedly 1 melee and 1 ranged) and links the souls together, dealing 250k shadow dmg to all players every 3 sec.  The damage dealt by TF is reduced the farter apart the spirits are.  HOWEVER, once they spawn, they start moving closer.  Advised for range to spread out to max range when she is possessed. 
   • In addition, after 1 soul is killed, remaining soul deals 100k shadow damage every 3 seconds until it is killed.  Best to split dmg between the 2 to kill at the same time if possible.

This fight a lot of people have difficulties with.  Its especially more difficult in 10-man than 25 as Kazra'jin only deals back 5% in 25-man compared to 10% in 10-man, as well as Twisted Fate still only affecting 2 people in both difficulties.

Tips

For dealing with Soul Fragment, advised for the first person affected to let it stack to 10, then pass it to another player who does not have any stacks.  Keep rotating the soul fragment buff through players, passing it onto players who have low/no stacks of the debuff.  The goal is to not allow players to exceed 20 stacks each.  Just remember that this debuff goes out every other time that Gara'jals spirit moves between the bosses.  So near the end there will be quite a few of these debuffs going out.  But the recommended method used will hopefully help with overall damage on the bosses so there are as few of possesions as possible.

For Body Heat, it is recommended that there are 2-3 groups of soakers set to split damage of the person with frostbite.  Since the Frostbite lasts 16 seconds, and body heat lasts 8 seconds, you SHOULD only need 2 groups to split the damage, BUT, if you do only use 2 groups you have to be PERFECT with the transition between groups.  Once a group loses their Body Heat, the next tick HAS to be absorbed by the next group or that affect player takes a 300k hit, as well as any players who lost their body heat.  Since it "has" to be so perfect, its recommended to use 3 groups of 2 people as soakers, best way I saw, which coincidentally was in the VOX guide, is to have 3 groups of 2 players form a triangle around the bosses, and DO NOT MOVE.  Even for Kazra'jins Charge ability, DO NOT MOVE.  It is more important to soak the damage from his charge (which isnt that bad) than to try to move out of the charge when the Frostbite player is on top of you causing them to take full ticks of it.  The player affected by Frostbite needs to move between the 3 groups every 6-7 ticks so players do not run out of body heat and the Frostbite player never takes a full hit of the debuff.

• **MAJOR NOTE** For Frostbite.  Once this is applied, you CANNOT remove it.. all you can do is mitigate the damage via Ice Block, BoP etc.  HOWEVER!!!!!!!  If you use one of these abilities PRIOR to being hit by Frostbite, you CAN prevent the debuff from being applied!  This is tricky though, Frost King does not target who is going to be hit by Frostbite in the normal sense, it just randomly applies on a player, BUT just before it is applied, there should be a BLUE arrow that appears about 1.5 secs above the players head.  So if a palidan, mage, or whoever can "bubble" themselves can get their immunity off before the Frostbite is applied to them, you can prevent having to deal with Frostbite ALTOGETHER!

For Discharge, just be very careful and dont kill each other since the reflected damage hits ALL players and not just yourself.

Treacherous Ground, for players that are not stacking in the traingle formation, you SHOULD be the only people being targetted with Quicksand for this to matter.  Its not said in the dungeon journal or by blizz that this focuses only people at range, but VOX and others have noticed that during their kills that Quicksand has only been targettign people who are AT range, and has NOT been targetting ranged who stack in the melee groups.  Ranged personnel should just ensure they spread out enough from quicksand pools to prevent them from combining as much as possible.

Twisted Fate, When she is possessed, stay spread as much as possible so the linked souls are as far apart as possible, when they spawn, dps turn and split dmg to them to kill simultaneously.

The pull should go exactly the same, keep Mar'li away from the raid so her healing spirit cant get to the other bosses.  Form a triangle around Sul and Frost King at normal location (3 groups of 2).  Player affected by Frostbite move between the 3 "triangle" groups so damage is minimal.  If possible, players use their immunities to prevent Frostbite from being a factor, especially in the beginning when all 4 bosses are up.  Ignore Kazra'jin's charge as the damage is minimal and is easier to deal with than higher stacks of Frostbite.  NUKE the shit out of Sul, and since the raid is fairly stacked, Kazra'jin should be in melee a fair bit, so splash damage on him.  When Mar'li gets affected, have a RANGED player interrupt her so she runs TO the melee group, this will prevent having to move both bosses to her and messing with group positioning.  Focus/kill linked souls, when she is no longer possessed, tank interrupt and drag her back accross the room and re-group.  Rinse and repeat for the rest.

For the most part, it is handled similarly to normal, just modified for the ability changes and requires more strategic positioning.