Introduction: Wrapping up this tier is everyone’s favorite tentacle dragon, Deathwing.  While certainly more interesting than Spine, this fight is still quite repetitive in nature and all comes down to the last few minutes of the encounter.  Deathwing will try his hardest to get that final money shot on your raid, but if you have managed to get this far, you should be able to make fairly quick work of the encounter.

Difficulty: 4.5/5: Personally I found this encounter slightly less taxing than Spine.  The first three platforms are pushovers, but Kale’s platform and the head phase will take some fine tuning to get down for the first time.

Comp and Stats:

Tanks: 1-2 (We used 1)
Healers: 3
DPS: 5-6 (We use 6)
Deathwing (Head): 29M
Arm/Wing Tentacle: 38.1M
Mutated Corruption: 17.1M
Elementium Bolt: 950k
Corrupting Parasite: 3M
Blistering Tentacle: 236k
Regenerative Blood: 1.26M
Elementium Terror: 3.2M
Elementium Fragment: 1.6M
Congealing Blood: 944k
Enrage: 15 minutes

Note: Due to the ever increasing nerfs in Dragon Soul these HP values will decrease.  Please take the value of the aspects buff currently applied to get the latest info.

Heroic Changes:

• Lots more health and damage!
• Impale — Deals slightly more than double the damage from normal mode.
• Shrapnel — Deals double damage from normal mode (use that Dream!).
• Tetanus — Deals about an extra 20% more damage than normal mode.
• Crush — Deals about 30% more damage.
• Elementium Blast — Deals more damage, but still has the same reduction based on range and time until second tick.
• Degenerative Bite — Deals slightly more damage per stack.
• Blistering Heat — Deals slightly more damage per stack.
• Corrupting Parasite
• Who is affected: Random non-tank raider
• Timing: This will occur in Phase One (all four initial platforms), twice per platform. The first will be timed around when the Mutated Corruption spawns.  The second will occur 60 seconds later.
• Debuff Phase: The debuff will place a DoT dealing increasing Shadow Damage for 10 seconds for a total of about 240k damage.
• Add Phase: An add with the same name as the debuff will spawn after 10 seconds and will explode once on spawn killing anyone within 10 yards of it, except the person who was infected by it.  After spawning it will begin channeling a spell for 10 seconds called Unstable Corruption.  This can only be prevented by killing it.  If allowed to go off it will hit all raiders for 10% of the Parasite’s remaining health in fire damage.
• Tips: Place the parasite in the Time Warp provided by Nozdormu to slow its cast.  If Alexstraza is up, she will also burn down some of its life with her Cauterize ability.
• Congealing Bloods
• Who is affected: New DPS target needing immediate snares and DPS.  No tank aggro needed.  Adds do not attack.
• Timing: Phase Two (Deathwing’s Head) occurring when Deathwing’s life reaches 15%, 10%, and 5%.
• What They Do: Charge towards Deathwing, healing him for 1% for each one that reaches him.
• Tips: Nine of these will spawn at once from one of four random points of the platform.  They move quite quickly, but can be snared (not stunned or rooted).  Fan of Knives with Crippling Poison works wonders here since it is 70%.  Regardless of what you choose to use, everyone needs to be aware of when they spawn, snares need to be out immediately, and DPS need to AoE them quickly.

Setup:

Platform Order: Ysera -> Alexstraza -> Nozdormu -> Kalecgos

Initial Pull: Have three DPS with the least ramp up time to start on Kalecgos with the rest of the raid on Ysera.  This will help get an extra 10% or so on Kale’s platform where your Cataclysm timer might be somewhat close.  They should be moving back to Ysera a couple seconds before the Mutated Corruption spawns.

Raid Markers: It helps to put raid markers down on Ysera’s platform to easily call positioning for Bloods in Phase Two (see screenshot).

One vs. Two Tanks: With proper cooldowns and raid makeup it is simple enough to solo tank this.  Currently we are using a Paladin tank who will soak the 1st impales on most all platforms, a shadow priest to dispersion the second impales on all platforms, and a rogue to Vanish the first impale on Nozdormu’s platform.

Ysera’s Platform:

Begin the fight by splitting up the raid as mentioned above.  Once the mutated corruption spawns all raiders should be on Ysera’s platform with the first Corrupting Parasite having gone out.

Once the mutated corruption spawns all DPS should be on it.  This is handled just like in normal mode.  Remember: Spread the fuck out!  If you have 2-3+ people getting hit by Crush, you should be yelling at people.

Corrupting Parasite target should move towards where the Time Zone placed by Nozdormu will spawn, while other raiders moving 10 yards away from the infected player.  The infected player should use their Dream during the DoT phase of the Parasite.

Once the parasite explodes, all ranged DPS should burn it down quickly.  Switch back to the corruption when done.

At this point the 1st impale will have gone off, cooldowns should be applied as needed to survive.  This will vary by tank and raid makeup, so take the time to figure it out before hand.

The Elementium Bolt will begin to cast at which point the second Impale will be coming soon.  When Impale reaches 6 or so seconds left before cast all melee including the tank needs to leave melee range and the Shadow Priest or designated soaker needs to move into melee.  The raid still needs to stay spread for Crush and also kill the Elementium bolt.  NOBODY should run back into melee range until the Impale has been cast on the soaker, at which point it is safe to run back in.

At this point the second Parasite will be out, it should be moved into the Time Zone.  Regenerative Bloods will also be spawning and should be picked up by the tank (or Misdirected).  All DPS should finish off the Mutated Corruption at this point.

The leader should be watching the energy of the Regenerative Bloods as well as the timing of the Parasite explosion.  No one should move into the Time Zone until the parasite explodes.  Once it explodes move the bloods into it and begin AoE’ing them down once they are at 0 energy to make sure you get maximum effectiveness of Kale’s buff.  No one should touch the Bloods until it is called for.

When the bloods die it is likely the parasite will be dead or close to it, finish it off quickly then kill the arm/wing tentacle just like in normal mode.

Alexstraza’s Platform:

The loss of Ysera’s healing buff and Dream will not change any aspect of what you just did on her platform.  Simply repeat the above process again keeping in mind melee should be out on the second impale, people should be spread, and DPS on bloods should begin at 0 or low energy as called.

Nozdormu’s Platform:

Much like in Normal mode the loss of Alexstraza’s buff means DPS will need to watch the initial burn of the arm/wing tentacle to make sure it does not reach 70% before corruption/bloods/parasite die.

Our tank did not have appropriate cooldowns ready for the first impale so we had melee move out on the first and second impale.

We used a rogue to stay in melee range with Evasion up and Vanish the impale.  If you are unfortunate enough to have him infected with the parasite, have the rogue use Cloak of Shadows to remove the debuff when timely, spawning the parasite next to the Corruption.

Repeat the same procedure for everything else, remembering that DPS needs to kill Blistering Tentacles now at 70% and 40% of the Arm/Wing Tentacle’s life.

Kalecgos’s Platform:

Let the fun finally begin!  This platform will begin the same having everyone on the Arm/Wing Tentacle.  Handling the parasite will require some more oomph from the DPS however as the Time Zone will no longer spawn.

We chose to place the Parasite to the left of the Corruption allowing for some melee to switch to it quickly (see screenshot below).  Once the first Parasite spawns we use Heroism to burn it down quickly and push the Corruption down fast as well so we can be prepared for the upcoming push.

Once the Elementium Bolt cast timer gets to about 3 seconds people should be reminded and start moving towards the Arm/Wing tentacle.  Everyone except the Shadow Priest will stack up for the bolt, and the priest will have to perfectly time their Dispersion to mitigate the Impale followed shortly after by the Elementium Bolt Explosion.

Once the bolt lands everyone kills the bolt quickly remembering to stay spread out for Crush.  The second parasite will go out.  DPS should be finishing off the Corruption, and once the Corruption dies all the bloods should be piled over by the parasite add and AoE should commence.  If done right the timing will work out so that the Bloods will be at 0 or low energy.

Once all that is done, it is simply beat the Cataclysm timer, remembering to switch onto the Blistering Tentacles as they spawn.

Phase Two: Give Me Some Head!

Phase Two is all about self-control and awareness.  Your raid leader should be well aware of your time left on Berserk and adjust risk taking as necessary.

Begin by having everyone stack up and killing Deathwing.  The goal is to quickly get Deathwing to about 17% as the first round of adds spawn.

As soon as the Fragments spawn DPS should be on them, prioritizing any that are close together to take advantage of Spellweave.  Shrapnel will hit like a truck even with Dream so make sure folks are topped.

As the Shrapnels die, the Terrors will spawn.  A mark should go on one, and massive heals and CDs placed on the tank in order to survive Tetanus.  You can also have a DPS taunt one away temporarily to have the tank taunt back before they go to the DPS just to lessen their uptime.  These adds need to die fast.

As they die DoT’s should have brought Deathwing down to 15%, so you will have your first round of Congealing Bloods.  Make sure the whole raid is aware of their spawn location and that snares and DPS switching are immediate.

Once Bloods die, resume on Deathwing getting him to 7%, dealing with Bloods again as they spawn at 10%.  The second round of adds will spawn, the same idea goes for the adds, kill them quickly being extra liberal with heals and CDs on the tanks as Terrors come out.  If you get through this wave of adds you are essentially home free.

Once the adds are dead stack back up and kill Deathwing, remembering to still kill Bloods as they spawn at 5%.

Congratulations on completing Dragon Soul on Heroic difficulty!

Videos:

Disclaimer: This is the heroic version of the fight, and I will only be going into changes and the strategy specific to heroic mode.  For a full list of abilities and general strategies, please check out the normal mode guide.

Introduction: The Uldum of Dragon Soul.  All the cinemas in the world cannot save this fight from being the hardest boring fight this tier.

Difficulty: 5/5: While the current iteration of this fight is nowhere near as hard as when it was released in December, this fight still requires a lot of patience, moments of very high burst DPS, timed CDs, large amounts of healing, dispelling, raid coordination, and a pretty high desire to get it dead.  Grind on!

Comp and Stats:

Tanks: 2
Healers: 3
DPS: 5 (burst specs are nice)
Burning Tendon: 10.2M
Hideous Amalgamation: 9.36M
Corruption: 761k
Corrupted Blood: 275k
Enrage: Not really, but you have to kill the Tendons within 2 lifts.

Heroic Changes:

• Lots more health and damage!
• Grasping Tendrils do about twice as much damage.
• Grasping Tendrils now slow movement 50% instead of 35%
• Searing Plasma deals 12,000 damage every 10 seconds and will absorb 280,000 healing.
• Fiery Grip now deals 90,000 damage every 3 seconds.
• Superheated Nucleus now does 30,000 every 3 seconds, double that of normal.
• Burst will now do about 22,500 damage per blood killed.
• Health info is above.
• Degradation – A stacking debuff that applies to the entire raid each time a Hideous Amalgamation is killed.  Each stack reduces the target’s maximum health by 5%.  This cannot be dispelled and lasts throughout the encounter.  This will not apply if they are flung off during a barrel roll, just if they are killed.
• Blood Corruption
• Blood Corruption: Death – Dispellable debuff that will be placed by a Hideous Amalgamation on random raiders.  This needs to be dispelled within 15 seconds or it will immediately wipe the raid.
• Blood Corruption: Earth – Eventually dispelling BC: D enough will lead to it becoming this.  You want to leave this on the player that gets it as they will receive the buff Blood of Neltharion when the duration is up.  Blood of Neltharion will reduce damage by 20% and can stack two times.
• Quick Note: Even though the Dungeon Journal says it can corrupt itself back to Blood Corruption: Death, it will not.  (Thanks for the tip suggestion Gene!)

Setup:

Intro: Just like on normal you will begin by parachuting down onto Deathwing’s back.  Make sure you cancel your parachute so you can begin that much quicker.

Specs: DPS should spec into what will give them the greatest amount of burst DPS if the tendons are giving the raid the most issue.  However, most good DPS should be able to get the tendons down to at least 40%, so sometimes spec’ing into something to deal with the Amalg.  Spec’s such as Arcane and Subtlety still reign supreme on the tendons however.

DPS Trinket: All DPS should get their on-use valor trinket for this fight and use it every plate lift.

Directions: All directions below will be assuming you are facing Deathwing’s head.

Bloods:

Bloods will begin spawning every 8 seconds.  This will decrease for every Amalgamation killed.  At the end, that means a new blood will be spawning every 3 seconds.  This does not count blood residue reaching the Corruption pit.

Plate One:

Parachuting In: Have your melee kill the Corruptions on the right first, ranged kill the left two corruptions with melee joining them on the left.  The tanks should pick up the 4 Hideous Amalgamations and be on the right side of spine, with the rest of the raid on the left.

Stacking the Buff: The reason for getting four amalgs and having the raid away from the tanks is for Blood Corruption.  On dispelling Blood Corruption: Death it will favor bouncing to someone on the other side of the spine.  This allows you to game the targets making it possible to quickly stack the tanks with Blood Corruption: Earth.  You want at least your Blood tank to get two stacks of this, and if possible both tanks at two stacks.  This reduces their damage by 40%, making surviving the late stage of this fight much more manageable.  During this time, no one should be attacking any Bloods or Amalgs, you can DPS the 5th corruption, but do not kill it.

Barrel Roll: Once tanks are stacked with the buff, have your raid collapse on one of the left corruption holes and roll Deathwing.  A raid-wide CD like SLT should be used here.  Proceed then to continue the fight as normal at this point, killing the corruption and picking up the amalgamation.

Positioning: Have your blood tank pull all bloods up to the plate.  A survival hunter, or warlock should be killing bloods full time, but also damaging the Amalg as well.  The Amalg tank should position the Amalg close to the plate as well, but behind the blood tank.  ALL OTHER RAIDERS SHOULD STACK UP ON THE AMALG TANK!  This is paramount in the later plates.

Fiery Grip Timing and the Amalgamation: As you burn down the Amalg you will continue to get Fiery Grip, Bloods, the healing debuff, etc.  After the first Fiery Grip goes off, the Amalg should be getting well below half-health.  You want to start stacking his Absorb Blood when the second Fiery Grip countdown is at about 10-12 seconds left.  The Amalg should be at 10% or lower HP when reaching 9 stacks, and the grip timer should be under 10 seconds at this point.

This allows for the rhythm to be: Stack Amalg to 9->Superheated->Kill Amalg->Nuclear Blast->Fiery Grip->Plate lifts.  The grip should be interrupted before the tendon comes out.  If Fiery Grip is cast during a tendon burn phase, you are doing it wrong.

Nine Stacks: Coordinate raid CDs like AM, SLT, etc. during Superheated.  This should be for every single lift.

Tendon Burning: Everyone needs to be right up on the tendon when it comes up, stacking for easier healing.  Tanks should also be helping out here with the tendon as there should not be much going on (at least until the last plate).  The first plate lift should be done with no Heroism or combat potions.  Use your CDs like VP trinket and those that are up every time.  If they are not up, use the larger CDs on lifts where you will not have heroism or a combat potion.

Make a macro!  DPS and Tanks should all have a keybound macro for the tendon.  Here is one I use if I am Combat:

#showtooltip Kiroptyric Sigil
/tar boss2
/startattack
/cast [@focus] Tricks of the Trade
/use Kiroptyric Sigil
/cast Adrenaline Rush
/cast Sinister Strike

The key takeaways here are /tar boss2 (This will target the tendon as soon as it is tagetable, but will target something else until it becomes available.  /startattack begins my melee swings, and the rest is to spam cast all my buffs.  Everyone should have a similar suitable macro to begin DPS immediately.

Second Lift: Provided you burned through the tendon well enough, you just have to repeat the same process again.

Plate Two:

Transition from Plate One: Kill the Corruptions on the side that has two of them.  At this point you will likely have a chunk of residue where the first place was.  Once the corruptions are dead the leader should take note of where the most blood residue is, and call for the raid to get ready to stack on that side to roll deathwing.  Make sure your Amalgamation tank has enough time to pick up the two amalgs before stacking the raid.

When the call is made, everyone should stack in the corruption hole to get secured except the Amalg tank.  He should wait until there is just a couple seconds left before barrel roll and at that point run the amalgs through residue and get secure himself.

This is important because the amalgs will likely get 9 stacks here and if you time it right, they will absorb all that blood and get tossed off before doing any ticks of their Superheated ticks.

Rinse and Repeat: Begin the grind again, but this time with more bloods spawning and being killed by your hunter/lock/designated DPS.  On the first lift of the second plate Combat Potions should be used.

Plate Three:

Transition: This can easily be one of the hardest parts of the fight because you will have a much larger amount of blood and the degradation debuff.  The same absorb strategy should be used as before, but extra care should be used to only absorb right before the roll.  Pop additional bloods before the roll if you can handle it, but watch raid HP.

First Lift: Same as before, kill the amalg, stack amalg on bloods, and DPS the tendon.

Second Lift: At this point there will be too many bloods to kill.  The blood tank will need to start kiting the bloods around.  This will be a very stressful point for all players, but towards the end of the amalg burn, Heroism should be used to push through it as fast as possible.

Some key things to remember: Make sure you have enough residue to stack the amalg to nine, make sure people do not tunnel vision and kill the amalg before nine, make sure all raiders except the blood tank are stacked on the amalg tank, and make sure Heroism is used around the time the amalg tank is going to stack the amalg to nine.

Once the amalg is at nine stacks, blow your collective defensive and offensive CD load and blow the fuck out of the tendon.  It is unlikely the blood tank will be able to help this time around, so focus and push hard.

Videos:

Disclaimer: This is the heroic version of the fight, and I will only be going into changes and the strategy specific to heroic mode.  For a full list of abilities and general strategies, please check out the normal mode guide.

Introduction: The first of the heroic modes that actually starts to become challenging, this fight will test your raid coordination and trust.  While now we are at a 15% nerf, this fight can still prove to be quite a challenge if you are just starting work on it.

Difficulty: 4/5: Be prepared for a challenge even with the Dragon Soul nerfs.  There will be large tests of your raid’s awareness and ability to work in small groups.  This fight will go from calm to hectic in a heartbeat and there is a lot to mind.  This fight frustrates a lot of people, but it has been my favorite fight this tier given the somewhat random and dynamic nature to it.

Comp and Stats:

Tanks: 2
Healers: 2
DPS: 6 (Ranged preferred)
Warmaster Blackhorn: 37M
Goriona: 26M
Dreadblades: 4M
Slayers: 4M
Assault Drakes: 1.5M
Sappers: 475k
Enrage: 4 minutes from the start of phase two.

Heroic Changes:

• Deck Fire – A throwback to Mimiron, as the ship reaches certain points in its health, Deck Fire will spawn and spread.  Eventually robot gnomes will begin to put it out.  Do not stand in fire!
• Twilight Barrage – Now places a 15 second debuff on players hit by Barrage increasing shadow damage taken by 50%.  This debuff stacks.
• Broadside – Goriona will deal damage to the gunship equaling 20% of the gunship’s remaining health.  This is unavoidable and the soft enrage of P1.
• Goriona lands – During Phase Two, once Goriona reaches 80%, she will land on the ship and need to be tanked.  She has two new abilities during this land phase.
• Twilight Breath – Standard frontal cone dragon breath.  Face dragon away from the raid.  This does 81600 – 88400 shadow damage in a 45 yd cone.
• Consuming Shroud – Placed on a random, non-tank raider that absorbs 100,000 healing.  Any healing done to this target is mirrored to the raid as damage.  The player with this debuff does not get affected by this damage.  A heal of 10,000 on the debuffed player, for example, will damage the entire raid by 10,000.
• Moar! – All enemies and spells hurt more and have more life!  Shocker!
• Less! – The gunship will falter faster than a pair of panties that are needed for a scavenger hunt.

Positioning:

Pre-pull setup: You should have all your ranged go to the high point of the ship as inidicated in the picture below to begin damage before the elites actually land.  Once everything truly “begins” they can hop down. Multi-DoT’ing on this fight is very important.

Soaking Phase: While there are many ways to tackle this beast, after trying more than a few ways, we found splitting into three sections was the simplest to deal with.  Melee DPS and Tanks will take everything North of X.  The other two sections are governed by range and a heal in each section.  It is best to define top, middle, and bottom for Star and Diamond sections so that people know when they should and should not stack.  It is also good to split X into a left and right side, one tank and DPS get left, the other tank and DPS get right.  Keep in mind these are guidelines and good communication is needed throughout the fight to still do soaking effectively.

Phase Two: Once Blackhorn lands everyone should shoot for this position makeup, but this may need to be adjusted on the fly depending on the Deck Fire situation.  Tanks pickup Blackhorn and Goriona on X and face them towards Square.  DPS and Heals can split among Star and Triangle.  The key here is to make sure you can see the graphic for Shockwave.

Phase Two Final Burn: Once Goriona flies off you can move Blackhorn if you want to the center of the ship, but in most cases now we just keep him where he is and people move as needed.

Strategy:

Phase One – Soaking Barrages

This is easily the most important part of the fight and will likely require the most practice.  Using the positioning setup described above we have the raid split into three groups.  Each group has specific assignments in their section.  This means that in a ranged section there will be one person assigned to “top” one assigned to “middle” and one assigned to the “bottom.”  The same methodology should be applied to the melee/tank section for left and right in case there are barrages on far ends of the ship.

The middle person in the ranged groups should be the most mobile and be able to solo / multi-stack / drop debuff stacks if possible.  The top should likely be the healer for range purposes.

Communication is key.  Make sure that the groups are comfortable with each other and that they have some sort of loose rotation for soaking.  Make sure if there are multiple barrages on one side they know which one to soak in, and which ones their neighbors will help out in.  Solo soakers should be vocal in vent and call out when they solo.  The most common example of bad communication is someone running close or into a barrage void zone and moving out.

Debuff stacks are very important in soaking.  In order to properly soak with no CDs, two people need to stand in a barrage.  If a person soaking has one stack of the debuff and is going to take another, three people are needed, or two people and a CD.  If a person has two stacks of the debuff they should not soak anything including the Onslaught.  It is important to balance out soaking so that multiple people do not hit two stacks when Onslaught is coming up as then people will get one-shot in onslaught.

The Role of the Tol-Barad Trinket

Raiders with the Tol-Barad trinket can equip it to greatly reduce damage from Onslaught or Barrages.  While it is not necessary, it is a very useful tool to have in your raid’s arsenal.  We had trinkets worked into every odd numbered Onslaught.

Twilight Onslaughts

There are two primary ways to deal with Onslaughts.  Let a fire mage cauterize or shadow priest dispersion (or both), or have the entire raid stack in like the other difficulty modes.  We tried both ways and ultimately found that having everyone stack with possibly our mage grabbing 1-2 barrages that occur on the odd onslaughts and staying out.  Barrage timers will generally line up with every odd onslaught, so it is important to watch positioning here and to still soak as much as you can without being suicidal.

We use the following rotation: 1 – Trinkets; 2 – CD (4-pc); 3 – Trinkets; 4 – AM; 5 – Trinkets & SLT.  Obviously you can throw in more CDs as needed, but that is what worked best for us.  With the nerfs, you may not see a 5th depending on your drake DPS.

Sappers

Nothing really different here other than they will start lining up with Onslaughts.  A range stun rotation or if you have a DK, grip/stun it every time.  It is easy to tunnel vision and forget about these, make sure the raid is aware when they come out.

Gunship health, Deck Fire, and Broadside

Another thing that needs to be micro-managed on this fight is the health of the ship.  A patch of deck fire will spawn at every 25% of the ship’s health.  Each patch will initially spawn, then spread over time, and will eventually be put out by the robot gnomes floating above.  Deck Fire will spawn in a random location on the primary area of the ship.  Once spawned it will spread in random directions as well.

The best way to deal with fire is not to get it as long as possible.  This is accomplished by soaking as much as possible.  Nothing very revelatory here, but it is very important to control this.  If your DPS and soaking are good you can get into phase two with only two spawns total making the second phase much simpler.  If you let fire get out of control, phase two becomes very hard because of the shadow zones and the need to move for shockwave.

Another key thing about Deck Fire is that barrages will not appear on fire, but if there is a small section clear surrounded by fire, it can appear there, the same goes for onslaught.  It is very important for your raid to adjust their barrage positioning as fire spreads.

Adds

Nothing much to mention about the adds in phase one.  The elites will still charge at random raiders indicated by a line on the ground.  It is important to sidestep not backup here as the range on the line is the whole ship.  The dreadblade will also still do his cleave, so it is vital to have him faced away during onslaught soaking.  Another tip is to have a disarm saved for this add during the soak.

Kill priority should always be: Sapper->Drakes->Dreadblade->Slayer.  Melee can swap to drakes to kill them when they are harpooned down.  Cleave damage is great for the adds, tanks should strive to keep them together.

Phase Two – Transition

Make sure all DPS immediately kill any remaining dreadblade or slayer adds left.  A sapper will likely get dropped as well at the start.  Tanks need to make sure Blackhorn is picked up immediately on his landing as he will start whomping people immediately.  Migrate to positions mentioned earlier with any adjustments for deck fire if needed.  Once the elites are dead, melee should hit Blackhorn (but not below 80%), range should be on Goriona.

Phase Two – Blackhorn & Goriona

Tanks need to swap between Blackhorn and Goriona during this phase as stacks of Blackhorn’s sunder reach 2 stacks, right before Blackhorn is going to devastate again, swap.  With the nerfs you might be able to get away with more, but Blackhorn still hits very hard, especially as vengeance stacks go up.

Once Goriona lands all DPS need to switch and burn Goriona.  Heroism should be used at this point.

Goriona needs to be faced away from the raid, and extra care is needed for dealing with Blackhorn’s Roar and Shockwave.  Make sure folks are topped before the roar, especially tanks.  Shockwave is somewhat difficult to see when Goriona is down, so make sure you zoom out and position yourselves accordingly.

The healing debuff is nothing terrible to deal with, it is just important not to single heal that person for large amounts.  AoE healing is your friend.

Phase Two – Blackhorn burn

Once Goriona flies off it is basically the same as normal mode.  The main exception is the amount of damage Blackhorn does as he gets low.  It is very important to spam the tanks at this point and use CDs when Vengeance is high.  Shockwave can easily one shot a raider, so it is important to not fail the idiot check.  Provided you can beat the enrage this is a very simple phase as long as healers can keep the tanks up.

Video:

and

Disclaimer: This is the heroic version of the fight, and I will only be going into changes and the strategy specific to heroic mode.  For a full list of abilities and general strategies, please check out the normal mode guide.

Introduction: BIG PURPLE DARGON!  This gear check fight is very simple mechanically and is all about pumping out all the DPS you can possibly do, while testing your ability to hit a button.

Difficulty: 2/5: As long as you have the gear this fight is very simple.  Heals will be tested on the last minute or so on the fight, but provided the DPS is up to scratch and no one derps, the kill will come quickly.  This is no Baelroc that is for sure.

Comp and Stats:

Tanks: 2
Healers: 2
DPS: 6
Ultraxion: 85M
Enrage: 6 minutes

Heroic Changes:

• Fading Light: Will affect one additional DPS (i.e. one tank, two DPS).  The debuff has changed from generating no threat to the player taking 100% increased physical damage for five seconds.
• Hour of Twilight: Two people must be damaged now, up from one.
• Looming Darkness: Once a player is hit by Hour of Twilight they will receive this debuff that will cause them to instantly die if they try to take another Hour of Twilight.
• Damage from Ultraxion’s melee swings along with his Unstable Monstrosity have increased.

Strategy:

Hour of Twilight: Due to the Looming Darkness debuff, you will need three groups of two players.  Having a solid Hour rotation known before hand is mandatory along with backups if someone messes up or longer CDs are used.  The following are CDs that can be used for planning your raid’s rotation:

• Rogues: Cloak of Shadows (Feint can be used, but CoS should be saved for this).
• Shadow Priest: Dispersion
• Mage: Ice Block (Fire: Cauterize)
• Hunter: Deterrence
• Holy Priest: Guardian Spirit can be used on anyone without a direct CD.
• Death Knight DPS: AMS(Z)/IBF
• Non-tank Paladin: Divine Shield
• Disc Priest: Pain Suppression can be placed on a tank.
• Non-tank Druid: Survival Instincts and Barkskin
• Healing Priest: Can use PW:S on tanks or DPS that have a harder time surviving.
• DPS Warrior: Shield Wall
• Blood DK: AMS/Vampiric Blood/IBF/BS
• Bear Druid: Survival Instincts, Frenzied Regen, and Barkskin
• Prot Paladin: Ardent Defender, Guardian, or DP.
• Prot Warrior: Shield Wall or Last Stand.

Heroism: Heroism can be used twice on this fight.  As soon as the pull begins healers should use their Heroic Will followed by Heroism being cast.  This will put the Heroism on DPS and Tanks but not on Healers.  This will allow for a second Heroism to be cast 5 minutes later on the Healers when healing starts to get quite challenging.

Positioning: Like in Normal Mode, everyone should be stacked up for easier healing.

Cooldown Rotation: Plan a strict raid cooldown rotation for the last 2 minutes of the fight.  Spells like Hymn of Hope should be used right before the healing starts to get rough (around 4-4:30m), and spells like Divine Hymn and Tranq should be staggered to last the final 2 minutes.

Videos: