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Gara'jal the Spiritbinder
Gara'jal the Spiritbinder is the third boss in the Mogu'shan Vaults raid instance. The encounter is a single-phase fight, which will test your raid's ability to work together in a coordinated fashion.
More than anything else, the fight will strain your DPS players, who must kill the boss before the rather short enrage timer.
Overview of the Fight
The fight against Gara'jal the Spiritbinder is a single phase fight that takes place in two different "realms". The boss, as well as your raid, is located in what we now call the Normal World. Several adds are located within the Spirit World, from where they continuously damage your raid.
Throughout the fight, several raid members will choose (and in some cases, be forced) to temporarily go into the Spirit World, in order to kill adds, and keep raid damage under control.
When the boss reaches 20% health, he goes into a frenzy, dealing increased damage. More importantly, the raid damage will increase as well. Indeed, at this stage, players will no longer be able to enter the Spirit World to kill the adds. This constitutes a soft enrage mechanics that will eventually wipe the raid.
In addition to the various tasks your raid must perform, a rather high amount of raid DPS is required to beat the enrage timer.
The fight bears many similarities to the heroic version of the Valiona and Theralion encounter in The Bastion of Twilight (and, to a lesser extent, to the normal mode of that fight). Those who have not experienced this encounter need not concern themselves.
The Normal World
The Normal World is where the boss is located for the entire duration of the fight. This is also where your raid is located by default. Occasionally, some raid members will be able to take incursions into the Spirit World, for no more than 30 seconds at a time.
In this section, we will discuss everything that pertains to the Normal World.
Abilities
In the Normal World, Gara'jal makes use of a series of abilities.
- Gara'jal will
Summon Spirit Totems, roughly every 30-40 seconds (every 20 seconds in LFR). These totems are the only means for your raid members to enter the Spirit World, with the exception of your tanks, who have an additional means available, namely 
Banishment. The totems work differently in the different game modes
- In LFR, the totems are not attackable. In order to enter the Spirit World, players must simply right-click a totem. Three totems spawn each time, and there is no limit to the number of players who can enter the Spirit World.
- In 10 and 25-man, the totems are attackable and killable. When a totem is killed, the nearest 3 players will be sent to the Spirit World. Only one totem is spawned each time. Players who enter the Spirit World in this way are brought down to 30% of their maximum health.
- Gara'jal turns the current tank and 2 other random raid members (3 raid members in 25-man and LFR) into
Voodoo Dolls. 70% (50% in LFR) of the damage taken by each Voodoo Doll is also dealt to the other Voodoo Dolls. The effect lasts for 1 minute. Voodoo Dolls cannot enter the Spirit World (such as through the use of Spirit Totems). - Banishment is cast by Gara'jal on the Voodoo Doll tank, as soon as the Voodoo Doll effect expires. This sends the tank into the Spirit World.
- Every 8 seconds or so, Gara'jal will use a Shadowy Attack against the tank. This is simply an attack that deals Shadow damage and ignores absorption effects.
Frenzy increases Gara'jal's attack speed by 50% and his damage by 25%, when he reaches 20% health. Once in the Frenzy state, Gara'jal stops summoning Spirit Totems. On the Beta, in LFR, the boss continued to summon these totems. We have yet to determine if this is intentional.
Normal World Strategy
The strategy for the Normal World is rather simple. Not counting the specifics of sending designated players into the Spirit World (covered in a dedicated section), your raid has the following concerns:
- DPS Gara'jal and heal the raid and tank damage.
- Account for the increased damage taken by Gara'jal's tank.
- The off-tank must prepared to taunt the boss whenever the current tank is Banished to the Spirit World.
- Contend with the very intense damage your tank and raid will sustain after Gara'jal goes below 20% health.
Voodoo Doll Tank Damage
The Voodoo Doll tank will be taking high damage, due to the combination of boss melee hits and mirrored damage from the other Voodoo Dolls. These other Voodoo Doll raid members will be taking damage from adds located in the Spirit World, which also damage players in the Normal World (we discuss them in detail in a further section).
Healers must be aware of this increased damage, and always make sure that there is ample healing on the tank.
Taunting Gara'jal
The off-tank must be prepared to taunt Gara'jal as soon as the main tank is Banished to the Spirit World. This will happen immediately after Voodoo Dolls expires from the main tank, and it should be easy to track.
While Vodoo Dolls is active on a tank, Gara'jal will only attack that tank, and it is not possible for the other tank to take over. However, taunting Gara'jal during this time does appear to have a limited effect: the boss will attack the off-tank for the duration of taunt, after which he will return to the main tank. This is useful in two respects.
- It allows the off-tank to gain some Vengeance, greatly buffing their (and the raid's) DPS.
- It allows the off-tank to "save" the main tank, should they be in danger of dying.
After the Voodoo Dolls tank is phased into the Spirit World, the off-tank must be quick to taunt Gara'jal. In other words, the off-tank should make sure that their taunt is not on cooldown when the main tank is banished.
Shadowy Attacks
Every 8 seconds, Gara'jal will hit the tank with a Shadowy Attack. This is only relevant in the sense that Shadowy Attacks deal slightly more damage than normal attacks, and bypass absorption effects. Tanks and healers must be prepared for this.
Frenzy
When the Gara'jal goes below 20% health, he goes into a Frenzy. This causes the boss to do increased damage to the tank, but, more importantly, it prevents the raid from entering the Spirit World and killing the adds located there. This means that the raid damage will continue to escalate as more and more adds spawn. As a result of this, the tank damage will also escalate because of the increased damage on the Voodoo Doll raid members.
Healers must be prepared for this period and have all their defensive cooldowns available. This is also the ideal time for 
Bloodlust/
Heroism/
Time Warp.
Spirit World
The Spirit World is different, depending on whether the player entered it as a result of interacting with a Spirit Totem or, if they are tanks, as a result of Banishment. Since Spirit Totems are the primary means of entering the Spirit World, this will be the main focus of this section. Tanks entering the Spirit World through Banishment should refer to this section.
The Spirit World is populated by adds called Shadowy Minions. These adds spawn regularly throughout the course of the encounter. They have two spells, one which deals damage to players in the Normal World and one which deals damage to players in the Spirit World.
Spiritual Grasp deals Shadow damage to a random player in the Normal World.- Shadow Bolt deals Shadow damage to a random player in the Spirit World. This spell is not cast in LFR.
Entering the Spirit World
The only means of entering the Spirit World, for everyone except tanks, is through Spirit Totems. Interacting with these totems is different, depending on whether you are raiding in LFR or in 10/25-man mode.
LFR
In LFR, players can enter the Spirit World by right clicking the Spirit Totems that Gara'jal summons every 20 seconds. There is no limit to the number of players who can enter for each totem.
10/25-man
In 10 and 25-man, entering the Spirit World is slightly more difficult. Here, the Spirit Totems summoned by Gara'jal are attackable and killable (their health is very low). When a Spirit Totem is killed, the closest 3 players (within 6 yards) to it are transported into the Spirit World.
As opposed to LFR, here there is a clear limit of 3 players in the Spirit World at one given time.
Moreover, and very importantly, players who enter the Spirit World in 10 and 25-man are brought to 30% of their maximum health.
Exiting the Spirit World
Players may remain in the Spirit World for, at most, 30 seconds. At the end of this period of time, depending on whether you are in LFR or 10/25, your journey will come to an end in a specific way.
- In LFR, players who are still in the Spirit World when 30 seconds expire are instantly send back out into the Normal World.
- In 10/25-man, players who are still in the Spirit World when 30 seconds expire are instantly killed.
Keeping track of how long you have left in the Spirit World is made easy by a 30-second debuff.
There is only one way to voluntarily exit the Spirit World, namely by using 
Return Soul, a special action button that will appear on your screen.
In LFR, this button is always present, from the moment when you enter the Spirit World. Therefore, exiting the Spirit World is a simple matter of clicking the button.
In 10/25-man, things are, again, a bit more difficult. As we noted in the section above, players who enter the Spirit World in 10/25-man are brought down to 30% health. The only way for the Return Soul button to appear is for the player to be healed up to 100% health.
Moreover, whenever a player is healed inside the Spirit World, they gain a buff, called Spiritual Innervation. We discuss this below.
Spiritual Innervation
While inside the Spirit World, any healing done to raid members stacks a buff on them, called Spiritual Innervation. This buff offers players an increase in haste, as well as an increase in regeneration rate of their main resource. In some cases, it also offers an increase in the proc rate of certain specialisation-specific mechanics. We will not go into a list of all the buffs offered by Spiritual Innvervation, by class, since they are mostly homogeneous. The important thing to note is the end result of Spiritual Innervation.
- DPS players will be able to do increased DPS.
- Healers will regenerate their mana very quickly.
It is important to note that the Spiritual Innervation buff lasts for 30 seconds, so it will last for well after the players leave the Spirit World.
Spirit World Strategy
Within the Spirit World, the strategy is simple. The players inside the Spirit World must each perform their own tasks, depending on their role.
- DPS players must interrupt and kill the Shadowy Minions with all urgency.
- Healers must quickly top off all players in the Spirit World (to enable the Return Soul ability), and then continue healing them.
For healers, the Spirit World is a mana regeneration haven, which will, in most cases, result in filling up the healer's mana pool before they return to the Normal World.
Spirit World for Tanks
At the end of Voodoo Dolls, the current tank (who had been made into a Vodoo Doll) will be banished into the Spirit World. This is a special kind of Spirit World, where they will only have to contend with a single mob, a Severer of Souls.
The tank has 30 seconds to kill this mob. It has low health, so this should really not be a problem at all. Once the mob is dead, the tank will be sent back out into the Normal World.
Keep in mind that failing to kill the mob in the alloted time will instantly kill the tank.
Other raid members who are inside the Spirit World cannot see the Severer of Souls or attack it in any way.
Designating Spirit World Players
The most crucial aspect of planning your success is deciding who will go into the Spirit World. In LFR, this is hardly a concern because any number of people can go through without difficulty, and because the damage done by most abilities is low enough that an inefficient strategy will not necessarily cause a wipe.
In 10 and 25-man, however, you will have to send in one healer and two DPS players with each Spirit Totem. To do this, these players will have to be the closest raid members to that totem when it is killed (they will stack on it, most likely).
We present you with a few summarised guidelines.
- Always designate a team of 1 healer and 2 DPS players to enter the Spirit World with each totem.
- Rotate all the raid's healers, so that they each get to enter the Spirit World one or more times. This is because the mana regeneration within the Spirit World is immense.
- Take into account that Voodoo Dolls is cast on random raid members, and it prevents them from entering the Spirit World. This means you must assign back-ups for every player who is designated to enter the Spirit World.
You should choose the DPS players who benefit the most from the increases that Spiritual Innervation grants them. This generally means that you should choose the players with the highest DPS, and who are not global cooldown capped. It is best to use the same DPS players for every trip into the Spirit World, so that they can maintain 100% uptime on Spirit Innervation, which will help them contribute greatly to your raid's overall DPS.
In any case, it is important that you do designate players for the task and that they know exactly what they need to do.
DPS Race
In entry-level raid gear, the Gara'jal encounter can prove to be a rather strict DPS race. Your raid will probably opt to use as few healers as possible (2 in 10-man, and 5 in 25-man) in order to maximise raid DPS and beat the enrage timer.
Through maximising the uptime of Spiritual Innervation, as well as not making mistakes, the enrage timer should not pose problem.
When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
The most difficult time for your raid will be the end of the fight, when both tank damage (from Frenzy and Voodoo Dolls) and raid damage (from overwhelming numbers of Shadowy Minions) will be intense.
Therefore, you should use Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp when the boss is below 20% health.
Learning the Fight
As we have mentioned above, the most important element of executing this fight is assigning players to enter (and exit) the Spirit World properly.
Aside from this, the rest of the encounter should not pose many problems to your raid.
Achievement: Sorry, Were You Looking for This?
The 
Sorry, Were You Looking for This? achievement is part of the 
Glory of the Pandaria Raider meta achievement. The achievement is both simple and easy to complete.
In order to complete the achievement, a raid member must right click and channel an Ancient Mogu Artifact, located the center of the Spirit World.
Even though channeling this will reduce that player's performance, this does not matter because you do not need to also defeat Gara'jal in the same attempt. Therefore, this can easily be completed while on a learning attempt or when a wipe has been decided.
(information from Icy Veins)