Archavon the Stone Watcher is a quick raid encounter (like Onyxia or Magtheridon) in Lake Wintergrasp, but only available when your faction controls the area.
This encounter with Archavon is a DPS race with only a few mechanics to watch out for:
* Every so often he will start shooting rock spikes at a random raid member. This person cannot avoid the damage (around 7k). However, they can damage other people around that person. Just make sure you aren't unnecessarily damaging others or getting damaged by moving away.
* He will also randomly jump/charge towards a random raid member and leave a white cloud on the floor which will do ~2k nature damage per tick if you are standing in it. After he spawns the cloud he will stand still for a couple seconds then run back towards the main tank.
* The offtank comes into play when Archavon stomps and stuns all raid members followed by the emote "Archavon the Stone Watcher lunges for <name>" Whoever is mentioned in that emote (typically the main tank) will get 'eaten' and the offtank must taunt and tank him for a phase until they are eaten and continue the rotation. Rogues need to cast Tricks of the Trade and Hunters need to cast Misdirection on the tank for the next phase, otherwise Archavon will run loose from the aggro wipe and start knocking out DPS or healers.
It is common for players who have just recently won the Wintergrasp game to go straight down into Archavon's vault for an attempt. Do your research on whomever you PUG and make sure they have a high sustained DPS.
Archavon is on a hard enrage timer (5 minutes) that will boost his damage 8-fold and immediately wipe out the raid if he is not killed quickly enough.
* On Normal Difficulty, with Archavon's health at 2,300,900 HP, the raid as a whole needs to output on average at least 7700+ DPS. (Example: With two tanks and two healers, the tanks must never go below 550 DPS and the remaining members cannot go below 1100 DPS)
* On Heroic Difficulty, with Archavon's health at 9,970,700 HP, the raid as a whole needs to output on average at least 33,300+ DPS. (Example: With two tanks and five healers, the tanks must never go below 800 DPS and the remaining members cannot go below 1600 DPS)