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Spine of Deathwing – 10 man heroic

Posted by on April 7, 2012 No comments

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:

Spine of Deathwing – 10 man normal

Posted by on December 19, 2011 1 comment

Introduction: Spine of Deathwing is the first of two battles against Deathwing.  The goal of this encounter is to remove three armor plates from Deathwing, forcing him to crash into the Maelstrom.  In the spine encounter, Deathwing will be too preoccupied chasing Alexstraza’s ass to notice you, but if you tickle him too much he will barrel roll.

Difficulty: 3.2/5: This fight has a lot of adds and represents a real ramp up in difficulty over the previous fights.  This fight is all about burning the tendons very quick and finding your group’s rhythm.

Comp and Stats:

Corruptions: 442k
Corrupted Bloods: 166k
Hideous Amalgamations: 7M
Burning Tendons: 2.9M
Tanks: 1-2 (2 recommended)
Heals: 2-3
DPS: 5-7
Enrage: None

Setup and Positioning:

This fight begins by talking to Swayze on the ship at which point an in-game movie will kick off.  Make sure all your raiders know to hit ESC to skip this or people will zone in at different times and the fight begins immediately once the first person zones in.  You will parachute onto Deathwing’s back and begin.  The raid should do its best to stay on the center of Deathwing’s spine to avoid Deathwing’s barrel rolls.

As the fight progresses, care should be taken to remain in the center until a barrel roll is called for.

Many adds, handle it!

  • Corruption: These are the first adds you will encounter and are giant fire tentacles oozing from Deathwing’s back.  When a Corruption is killed it leaves a hole in Deathwing’s back.  This hole left by the dead Corruption will spawn one Hideous Amalgamation and one Corrupted Blood add.  There will always be at least one Corruption add alive in the encounter, as if you kill all of them another one will immediately spawn.  Abilities are as follows:
    • Searing Plasma: This will be cast on a random raid member and place a debuff on them dealing 10,000 damage every second.  The debuff will also prevent the affected raider from receiving health from heals.  The way to remove it is to allow the debuff to absorb 200,000 health at which point it will fall off.  Healers must pay great attention to this debuff removing it quickly.
    • Fiery Grip: This spell will be channeled on a random raid member keeping them stunned and dealing 60,000 fire damage every 3 seconds until 20% of the Corruption’s health pool is done to it.  When this is active all ranged should quickly switch to the corruption and DPS the 20% required to interrupt then immediately stop DPS on it.
    • These have no real aggro table and should be killed when called for it.
  • Corrupted Blood: These little jelly-like adds will spawn from the holes left by killing the Corruption adds.  Once the raid kills a Corrupted Blood it will leave a residue that is important to the mechanic of lifting up Deathwing’s armor.  If the residue is not picked up by a Hideous Amalgamation add it will eventually return back to the one of the holes and respawn.  Abilities are as follows:
    • When the add dies it will cast Burst dealing a small amount of damage to all players in 200 yards.
    • The adds have an aggro table and will melee for a small amount of damage every couple seconds.
  • Hideous Amalgamation: These adds will spawn every time a Corruption add is killed.  This add will need to be picked up and tanked preferably over by Deathwing’s plate armor.  Abilities are as follows:
    • Absorbed Blood: This spell is a buff that will stack as the Amalgamation runs over the residue left by a killed Corrupted Blood.  Once this reaches 9 stacks the add will go superheated.  This buff increases the damage done by the add by 10% and increased attack speed 20% every stack.
    • Superheated Nucleus: Once 9 stacks of Absorbed Blood have been reached the add will start pulsing AoE fire damage to the entire raid until dead.  The amalgamation should be stacked by Deathwing’s armor plate at this point.
    • Nuclear Blast: Once the add dies it will begin casting Nuclear Blast.  This will deal a truck load of damage unless you are more than 10 yards away.  You have 5 seconds to reach more than 10 yards distance once this cast begins.

Destroying Deathwing’s armor:

You need to use the Nuclear Blast from Hideous Amalgamation to weaken Deathwing’s armor.  The add needs to be positioned right by the armor plate as once it begins casting Nuclear Blast it will be stationary.

Once Nuclear Blast goes off the plate armor will lift up revealing a new add called Burning Tendons.  Once this add becomes targetable all DPS need to blow it up.  I recommend using 3-5 minute DPS CDs on the first Tendon, Heroism/Lust on the second, and 3-5 minute DPS CDs on the third again.  You can mix in the combat pot where you have the most trouble meeting the DPS requirement.

Once the tendon becomes exposed it will begin casting Seal Armor Breach which will complete in 23 seconds.  This means you have 23 seconds to kill the tendon or you will have to repeat the amalgamation process again.  All DPS should make a /tar macro: /tar burning to begin DPS immediately.

Do a barrel roll:

Deathwing will perform barrel rolls if people are standing on either side of him and off his spine.  This barrel roll will throw off everything (including raiders) but Corrupted Bloods when performed.  You can use the barrel rolls to your advantage to get rid of excess amalgamations.

To perform a successful barrel roll the raid needs to stack on a side and stack in the fiery hole left by a killed Corruption tentacle.  Once standing in this hole you will receive Grasping Tendrils which will deal mild fire damage and hold you onto Deathwing during a barrel roll.  Once you see the adds fly off his back it is safe to move out of the fiery hole and back onto the spine.

Strategy:

  • Have all players escape out of the opening cinematic.  You can also cancel the parachute and not take damage.
  • Put a mark up on one Corruption and kill the 3 unmarked Corruptions taking care not to barrel roll.
  • Once three Amalgamation adds are up have the raid stack up in the fiery hole left by one of the Corruptions and initiate a barrel roll.
  • After the barrel roll kill the marked tentacle and begin DPS on the Amalgamation.
  • You can safely start to stack the residue of killed Corrupted Bloods on the Amalgamation.
  • Once you have the amalgamation to 25-30% bring his Absorbed Blood stacks to 9 then kill him quickly after taking care that he is positioned by Deathwing’s armor plate.
  • Once nuclear blast starts run at least 10 yards away from the Amalgamation.
  • Use 3-5 minute DPS CDs and kill the tendon.
  • Repeat 2 times using Heroism on the second tendon and 3-5 minute cooldowns on the third.
  • Feel free to clear up excess bloods between plates to keep damage down on the tank and raid.

Tips:

  • If the tendon is not killed it will not regenerate its health, but there are two tendons per plate.  One tendon is on the left and one on the right.  If you started killing the tendon on the left, make sure on the second pass you position the Amalgamation add to the left side of the plate in order to get the left tendon again.

Fuck I only have 1 minute before pull and I do not know anything like a scrub, save me Furtim:

  • Tanks: Pick up Amalgamation adds.  The amalgamation that will be focused on, run it over the residue left behind from dead Corrupted Bloods.  Once the add reaches 25-30% make sure to stack it up to 9 then move it by the armor plate.
  • DPS: Kill 3 tentacles, barrel roll, DPS amalgamation to 30% then kill it once its stack reaches 9.  Use 3-5m CDs on 1st tendon, Heroism on the 2nd, 3-5m CDs on 3rd.
  • Ranged DPS: Attack corruption tentacles to stop their Fiery Grip, but switch off when they are interrupted.
  • Heals: Heal 200,000 hit points on raiders with the Searing Plasma debuff.  The amalgamation tank will take more damage as the amalgamation’s stacks of Absorbed Blood increase.

Video: