Gruul The Dragonkiller
Killing Gruul no longer grants access to Serpentshrine Cavern. Nevertheless, Gruul drops items that are useful for raiding in Serpentshrine Cavern such as Tier 4 armor set tokens. He is the father of the various Gronn that wander the outlands.
Abilities
Gruul the Dragonkiller has approximately 3,500,000 hit points. At the beginning of the fight, he hits for less than 4,000 points per hit on plate.
Cave In: This AoE spell causes the ground to shake and rocks to fall from the roof. It does 3,000 damage points to players every 3 seconds for as long as they remain in the area. As Gruul grows, Cave Ins do more damage.
Grasp: This debuff is applied to all players right after Gruul does his Ground Slam ability. It reduces player movement speed by 20 percent and stacks until the players become stoned (5 stacks in 5 seconds). Immunity and Clock of Shadows can dispel the Grasp effect.

Ground Slam: This spell is zone wide and tosses players backwards in various directions.
Growth: Gruul’s self-buff that increases his damage. Gruul “grows” every 30 seconds, increasing his damage output by 15 percent. This buff can stack up to 30 times and cannot be dispelled.
Hurtful Strike: Gruul hits the second highest melee target with this ability to do a large amount of damage. An off-tank takes about 12,000 damage points per strike at the beginning of the fight. The damage increases as Gruul grows.
Reverberation: This is a silence that lasts for 4 seconds. It cannot be dispelled and affects all players in the zone.
Shatter: Players shatter after being stoned. Gruul casts a spell to shatter each player that does damage to the player and anyone within range. Damage increases the closer players are to each other. If players are about 10 to 15 yards away from one another, they should take around 2,000 damage points. If they are very close, they can take around 8,000 damage points. Pets are not shattered.
Stoned: Players are stunned, unable to move or cast. It occurs after Grasp stacks 5 times.
The Pull and Position
The main tank and off-tank run in and engage Gruul. The main tank should run in slightly ahead of the off-tank and engage Gruul first. Gruul should be tanked roughly in the center of the room, where he is standing.
The rest of the raid spreads out around the room. Assign positions by group all around the Gruul’s area and give each group an ample amount of space so that players are not grouped up. Melee players stay behind Gruul and spread out around the back of them. They need to be ready to move once the knock back occurs.

Battle
This fight requires two tanks: one main tank and a hurtful strike tank. Both tanks require healers to be assigned to them. The main tank will tank consistent damage and the off-tank will take the Hurtful Strikes. As the fight progresses, a Hurtful Strike can potentially one-shot the off-tank so keep the off-tank to full as quickly as possible. This is also one of the reasons why Gruul has an enrage time of 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, a Hurtful Strike can easily kill an off-tank and regular damage can quickly kill the main tank.
The main tank and off-tank need be aware of Cave Ins and adjust Gruul so that Cave Ins can be avoided. After a Ground Slam and Shatter, Gruul will run to highest damage dealer on his list. The two tanks should both attempt to grab Gruul so that he does not get out of position by using abilities such as Intercept. Once Gruul is back on the tanks, they then move him if possible back to position. If this isn’t possible for the tanks to do, the rest of the raid needs to adjust.
Healers that are assigned to the main tank and the off-tank are going to be chewing through their mana. Keep HoTs on both tanks to mitigate regular damage and the lack of healing during silences. All of the healers are going to be strained so use as many mana regeneration consumables as possible. While feral druids may have an innervate to spare for priests, many restoration druids are healing one or both of the tanks, maintaining three HoTs as well as large Healing Touch heals and may not be able to spare their innervates so other healing classes should not depend on this druid ability.
Bring 8 healers to cover both of the tanks and the raid as needed. If damage output is a problem, decrease the amount of healers by one or two but try to have at least 6 strong healers since this fight is definitely healing intensive. Shadow priests are a healer’s best friend during this fight.
All of the damage dealers and healers need to be aware of Cave Ins. As soon one appears, move quickly out of it. This may be more difficult for melee players since it may be harder to see from their view.

The hardest feature of this fight is Gruul’s Shatter ability. Before Shatter, Gruul sends all raid members flying in different directions with his Ground Slam ability. Each raid member then has 5 seconds after landing to get away from each other before turning to stone and shattering. The first thing that all raid members need to remember during this phase is to stay away from both of the tanks. If too many are grouped up by them, they will take an enormous amount of damage.
Now to handle the Ground Slam, Grasp, and Shatter pop, the first trick that may benefit the raid members is to start looking for a spot to move to while still flying in the air. Raid members should keep the camera zoomed out and start looking around while flying so when they land, they can start moving.
Once raid members start moving into place, everyone needs to be aware of where others are. A tip that can help others is to put bandages on one of the visible casting bars. If a raid member can use a bandage on the player closest to them, they are too close together and will be taking Shatter damage. This may be unavoidable due to unlucky tosses so raid members should choose a spot that is around the least amount of people.
Another strategy that can be included that works is to assign people to stand behind the few rocks that are spread around the room in front of the walls for the Ground Slams. This way certain people are already in spots. These individuals should stay in these spots or as close to them as possible in between Ground Slams.
Raid members should have 10,000 hit points or more for this fight. Mix stamina gear and consumables with regular damage gear to achieve this number. Druids have an extra benefit of being able to shape shift into bear form to help mitigate damage from the Shatter.
Those that have defeated Gruul agree that Shatter is the hardest part of this fight. Guilds with a bugged Gruul, in which he does not do his Ground Slam or Shatter abilities, find that Gruul is an extremely easy fight without these two abilities. Doing damage is a priority but staying alive is the most important part of this fight. Remind damage dealers that they cannot do damage if they are dead. Communicate and be aware of each other and Gruul should be defeated in no time!