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Razorgore the Untamed
This boss is actually the first encounter in BWL, a sorts of gatekeeper. There is no trash mobs prior to facing him. The fight consists of 2 phases and is fought in a rectangular room with two platforms and ramps leading up to them in each end.
Phase 1
We start at one corner of the room. On the platform near to us is a named elite orc, Grethok the Controller and two bodyguards, and a usable object named Orb of Controlling On the other platform is Razorgore. Scattered thoughout the room is a bunch of dragon eggs (30 or so of them). A mage polymorph pulls the orcs and they are swiftly killed while our chosen kiter warrior runs as fast as he can to the Orb and uses it. This starts the phase one.
The person using the orb gains control over the boss, Razorgore, as if it was his pet (he can use his abilites and move him around). His object is to break all the dragon eggs in the room.
Razorgore has some abilities
-Break Egg -- this ability has both a cooldown and a casting time so it will take some time before Razorgore gets all eggs broken.
-Soothe Dragon -- ability similar to druid's hibenate, will put dragons to sleep, however Razorgore can have more than one dragon sleeped simultaneously
-Cleave -- strong melee attack for multiple targets.
- Fireball Volley -- an aoe attack for massive damage and threat to all enemies at range
Using the orb alarms the other orcs nearby and they start pouring into the room. At each corner, there is two spawn points for adds, who will spawn into the room in waves. The other 39 people must deal with these adds until controller breaks all the eggs. When all eggs are broken, the adds flee the room and second phase begins.
There are three kinds of adds
Blackwing Legionaire -- strong melee fighter orc
Blackwing Mage -- caster, has fireball and arcane explosion for quite a bit of damage
Death Talon Dragonspawn -- dragon, extremely strong melee and tons of hp
Both orcs can be sheeped, dragons can be sleeped and all of them can be feared, orcs can be slowed with snare spells, dragons can not.
This is an encounter that is open to use a variety of tactics. We use the single kiter tactic
After the named orc and his bodyguards are dead, 2 groups move to each spawnpoint (there will be only 9 people in two corners because one warrior controls Razorgore and MT must be ready to use the orb). The adds try to attack the orb controller or razorgore, so it is vital to keep them off them. As the adds spawn, the groups crowd control as many as possible, tank the rest and kill all orc mages as fast as possible. Legionaires are crowd controlled, tanked and kited by warriors and mages. Each warrior starting from a corner picks up the first spawning legionaire with a sunder armor or other aggro move, then starts running around the room in circles, picking up more legionaries to chase him any time he sees one that is not kited by someone else. The dragons are not killed. Instead, hunters kite as many dragons as they can around the room with the same principle as warriors and druids and Razorgore chain sleep any free dragons. Both hunters and warriors should use the platforms to gain advantage to the adds they are kiting. DPS groups' main target are the mages, because they do lots of damage.
A few words about each classes role in this phase
Warriors: your duty is to deal with the legionaires by kiting them. they do quite a bit of damage so try to stay ahead.
Rogues: You have to stunlock and kill the orc mages as fast as possible.
Mana using dps: Nuke the mages and crowd control legionaires. Aim for high burst damage, since mages don't have much hp. Warlocks chain fear any loose dragons/orcs. Mages will chain sheep legionaires if there is nobody to kite them, or they are pestering healers.
Druids: Sleep the spawning dragons while you wait for hunters to pull them into a kite, heal people who take damage
Paladins: you are primary healers during this phase because of your low aggro heals.
Priests: avoid getting aggroed by the adds, heal as little as possible.
Hunters: The only job of hunters in this fight is to keep dragons busy until eggs are broken. You kite them around the room utilizing the platforms to gain distance. You should be able to kite 2-4 dragons at once.
It is extremely important that people do not interfere with each other. That is, don't break crowd controlled mobs (unless you intend to kite it), don't aggro mobs that are kited and so on. Also, everyone's first priority is to stay alive. Healers should especially focus to heal the hunters and warriors, so that they have a bit of room for error.
At the point when the controller has used about 1-1,5 channelings he will use Fireball Volley twice and then breaks control. This causes all the enemies in the room to switch aggro on that warrior and it's almost impossible to take it away from him. MT takes control of Razor and breaks the last eggs asap. Meanwhile the other kiter runs around the room kiting the adds. Everyone must now assist the warrior by keeping him healed/shielded etc. All the additional spawning mobs are killed (mages) crowd controlled or kited by the rest of the raid.
When the last egg is broken, all the adds flee the room and Razorgore turns hostile, phase 2 begins now .
Phase 2
After all the eggs are broken. Razorgore has a huge amount of aggro on the person who controlled him last, in this case the MT (how convenient!) He will position Razor into one corner so that Razorgore is facing the corner diagonally and starts building aggro on him. Meanwhile MT2 charges Razor and starts building aggro on him as well, at full power. MT 2 must be positioned at the back of Razorgore, because he has a nasty frontal aoe. Rest of the raid regenerate mana and hp while keeping the MT:s up. After raidlead decides that tanks have enough aggro, the raid just nukes Razorgore down, minding the aggro since if MT1 and MT2 lose his aggro, it's a very probable wipe. Melee is mostly useless in this fight so rogues and warriors should use ranged weapons.
Razorgore's abilities:
Fireball volley:
the same ability that controller can use on orcs in phase one, deals about 1000-1500 fire damage to all players in range. It is not hard to heal through this, it has fairly long cooldown
Conflagate:
the ability that makes phase 2 tricky. This is a frontal aoe breath attack that does damage and confuses anyone in front of Razorgore, ie Main Tank. While confused, MT's aggro on Razor is wiped (he gets it back when the confusion ends), therefore 2 tanks are needed. If raid controls their hate correctly, MT2 has second most aggro on Razorgore and he turns 180 degrees to face MT2 and starts pounding on him. Now MT2 is treated as MT1 and the fight goes on normally. After a while, unless MT1 got aggro back when the confusion ended, Razorgore uses Conflagate on MT2 and switches aggro back on MT1. This way the 2 tanks bounce aggro around while one of them is confused. Note: the dps team must control their aggro very very carefully, if someone goes over either of tanks in aggro, Razorgore breaks and goes on a killing spree to the raid when he conflagates the current MT. And that is not nice.
360 degree Cleave
Since there should only be 2 targets in melee, this is not so bad ability.
Razorgore drops 3 epic items per kill, his loottable consists of all classes Tier 2 epic set bracers and some nice random epics. There will always be 2 set bracers and a non-bracer epic.
Vaelastrasz the Corrupted
Vaelastrasz the Corrupted (Vael from now on, his name is annoying to type) is the second boss in Blackwing Lair. He lies in the second room, just behind the gate after Razorgore's room.
Positioning and setup:
There is a ramp leading to a rise with a throne in one end of the room, MT will at all times keep him positioned facing the ramp. MT himself naturally stands in front of the ramp. All the other warriors in raid are positioned on the left side of Vael, behind his front foot. all the other melee is positioned on his right side, behind the front foot. MT/warrior healers are standing to his left and back, nicely far away from the warrior group, but still in healing range. Ranged dps and their healers are on the right and back.
The Plan
Vael starts from 30% hp, but don't be fooled, he has a ton of hp. MT charges up to him and slaps him around a bit. Then the raid nukes him down. There are some twists though.
Notes: healers are not allowed to start healing until there is one sunder armor on Vael. All warriors start generating aggro at full power when there are 2 sunder armors. All dps starts nuking at 3 sunder armors. The possibility of pulling aggro at the first seconds of the fight is very real and potentially extremely dangerous.
Abilities:
-Essence of the Red
At the beginning of the fight, Vael buffs you all up with a debuff, Essence of the Red. This debuff lasts 3 minutes and gives you 20 rage per second, 50 energy/second and 500 mana/second. The consequenses are clear: healers have infinite mana and warriors/rogues deal immense amounts of DPS.
-Fire Nova
Vael has a fire nova attack with very big range, ignoring LoS that deals ~600 damage to all people in raid every 2 seconds. To counter this, priests will use aoe heal and healers HoT all raid members when they have time. Remember you have infinite mana. Everyone must have a lot of Fire Resistance for this fight, 150 unbuffed is the minimum, 200 recommended if you can get it without gimping yourself severely.
-Cleave
just your average frontal cleave melee for multiple targets, this is why all melee except MT stays behind his front legs. He also uses normal melee on MT of course.
Fire Breath:
The standard draconic frontal cone shaped fire breath, binary resistable.
Burning Adrenaline
This is the skill that makes this fight quite challenging.
Every 15 seconds, he will cast this spell on a random mana user. It causes a 20 second debuff that reduces your max hp by 5% every second, while making all your spells instant and doubly effective. When you die, you explode in a similar way to Baron Geddon's Living Bomb. When you get this spell, you run to a corner away from the raid and die there while spamming your instant spells.
Also, every 45 seconds, Vael will cast this spell on the target with highest aggro, that is the MT, spelling doom upon the tank. The MT does not move from his position. When he dies, Vael will turn to the next target on his aggro list, that is hopefully a warrior. That warrior will move to the MT spot and will be the MT for the next minute or so, until Vael casts Burning Adrenaline on him too. The warriors will be expended, one by one this way as the fight goes on.
A lot of explanation and warnings will follow
All the warriors MUST be on the top of the aggro list, because if Vael turns to someone else than a warrior when MT dies to Burning Adrenaline, it's a probable wipe. The warriors must be really quick on their reactions when they become the MT, since Vael will toast all the warriors and their healers if the MT does not move immediately to MT spot when he gets aggro. Naturally, the current MT should always be the number one on Vael's aggro list. These tank transitions are the key to beating this fight..
There is quite a strict time frame on this fight, because when Essence of Red runs out, healers can't keep anyone up anymore. Furthermore, since Vael "death touches" someone from the raidgroup every 15 seconds+MT every 45 seconds, our capability goes down as the fight goes on. Vael does a combined dps of more than 10 000, so if the fight takes too much over 3 minutes, it is not possible to beat him when healers are not able to compensate his huge dps.
This means that we are dancing on a thin rope over a dreadful canyon. On one side, we have overaggroing. If someone else than a warrior gets aggro, we will wipe. On the other side, there is insufficient dps that causes us not being able to finish him off in under 3-3,5 minutes and causes us to wipe too.
Then some individual advice for classes
Warriors:
You will make or break this battle, the aggro generation must be top-notch and reflexes lightning fast. As you get the MT status, move immediately to MT spot and keep aggro. When you get Burning Adrenaline, use cooldown skills like last stand and shield wall if needed. You will have infinite rage during this fight, use it well. Also, since Vael starts at 30%, he gets really soon to 19%, Execute range. This combined with the rage generation allows you to Execute from 100 rage every few seconds. Thus, as soon as Vael hits 19%, all warriors, including current MT should use execute, (keep sunder armor on him too). Execute tanking generates so much aggro that is should not be possible for anyone to steal aggro once the first couple executes are in.
Warlocks:
Well, nothing much to say, do as much dps as you can without pulling aggro. Be especially careful during the first 10% of vael's life, you might accidentaly pull aggro, thus wiping the raid. If you get Burning Adrenaline, run asap to a corner and die there. Because of Vael's fire Nova, you will get a lot of spell interrupts, just live with it. Soulstones are pretty useless because resurrected people wont get Essence of Red.
Rogues:
You will have immense energy regeneration so frontload your damage like mad. Remember not to pull aggro. Once he hits 15-16%, there should be no way you can pull aggro from executing warriors so go ahead and just dps Vael Down. I you get aggro, run to MT spot asap. You are main source of dps along with warriors in this fight. Use Feint every single time it is up and use Vanish when the first tank gets Burning Adrenaline.
Priests:
Aoe heal is your friend. Your main job is to compensate for the fire nova while keeping the MT up when time allows. You have infinte mana so spam heals freely. During the first few seconds of the fight there is a danger that you will pull aggro with a couple of aoe heal crits, be careful. If you get Burning Adrenaline, remember to run to your corner and die.
Paladins:
You will be patch healing and keeping the tanks up. Use either Fire Resistance Aura or Concentration Aura (if you are in a group full of casters who have nice FR already) If you get Burning Adrenaline, remember to run to your corner and die.
Mages
Dps. You will get a lot of spell interruptions because of the Fire Nova, so use either Arcane Missiles (if you have the talent that makes them uninterruptable) or Arcane Explosion or just live with the interruptions. If you get Burning Adrenaline, remember to run to your corner and die.
Hunters:
DPS like mad. Use Feign Death every time it is up. If you get Burning Adrenaline, remember to run to your corner and die.
Druids:
You will be the main healers for the tanks, because priests are busy with aoe healing. spam HoTs on every raid member if you have time. Regrowth is the best spell, because you cant run out of mana. If you get Burning Adrenaline, remember to run to your corner and die.
If strategy is correctly executed, the only who die are the ones who get Burning Adrenaline. Every additional member dying reduces our capability to kill Vael before Essence of the Red runs out. At optimal case, we will need 2 to 4 tank transitions
1st MT: 30% -> 19%
2nd MT: 19% -> 10%
3rd MT: 10% -> 4%
4th MT: 4% -> dead
These figures are mostly pulled out of my arse, but they give you some guidance of the goal. If our DPS and tanking are really great, it is possible to kill him with just 2-4 tanks. Notice that our maimum time to kill Vael is (number of warriors+1)*45seconds. Also note that the 4th warrior dies to Burning Adrenaline about the same time that Essence of Red runs out.
As you may have noticed, this fight is partially based on luck. If all the Burning Adrenalines go to healers, they die and then all the rest will die too because of the lack of healers. This can't be helped at all.
Loot
Vael drops 3 epics with every kill, his loottable consists of all the tier 2 class set belts and a few additional nice items. He drops 2 belts and a nonbelt epic with every kill.
Broodlord Lashlayer
Broodlord Lashlayer (just Broodlord from now on) is the third boss encounter in Blackwing Lair. Prior to facing him, we will fight the first trash mobs in the instance. These trash mobs are much like the imp packs in MC, big pulls of low hp, highish damage enemies that we aoe to death. They have a short respawn timer so we have to be advancing quickly. Also after a wipe to Broodlord we have to clear all the trash mobs again before next try. After Broodlord is dead, respawns stop.
Positioning and setup:
Broodlord is guarding a gate at the end of a large room filled with dragon whelp trash mobs who respawn fast. There are some niches alongside the walls. We will clear the right side of the room and stop a bit before Broodlord. He has a huge aggro range and can see through stealth so everyone must know where to stop to regen and buff before the fight. There are some whelps that can't be pulled without pulling Broodlord so during the first moments of the battle, the raid must clear all the whelps around the fighting area. When the command is given, all warriors will charge Broodlord and move him to the right side corner of the room. All healers, rogues and ranged move to Broodlord's starting position and clear the whelps.
Fight
Broodlord has some abilities:
-Knockback
A knockback attack to the target with highest aggro, that is the MT. This skill has a significant deaggro componen, reducing the MT's aggro by about 50%. MT will probably lose aggro after Broodlord uses the knockback on him
-Blast Wave
Somewhat similar to the mage's spell, aoe fire damage spell with a knockback. Will also cause 6 second dazed debuff on all affected.
-Cleave
Very strong melee attack for multiple targets, this will hurt.
-Mortal Strike
Extremely strong melee attack to current MT, will put a mortal strike debuff on tank (-50% healing effects) for 6 seconds. It is imperative that melee, especially the MT has 100% hp at all times possible. Priests must learn to identify the Mortal Strike debuff icon and immediately use Power Word: Shield on tank when Broodlord uses Mortal Strike
After MT1 gets a couple of sunder armors in, all the warriors must start generating aggro at full speed, be it by damage or aggroskills.All the warriors should try to position themselves back against the wall to counter Broodlord's knockback skills. When Broodlord uses knockback on tank, his aggro will be reduced. Eventually someone else gets aggro from him due to MT receiving too many knockbacks. This had better to be a warrior also. Now that warrior is the MT and MT healers should switch healing on him. All warriors will have a druid or priest concentrating on him while the rest of the healers heal the current MT.
When ranged/rogues have cleared the whelps, they can join the fight. Rogues will be receiving some aoe damage but ranged and healers should be unharmed for the whole fight.
If the fight drags on, all the warriors will get the deaggro knockback too many times and aggro will start to stick to healers or ranged. If anyone else than a warrior gets aggroed, he will immediately run to Broodlord and suicide. Rogues and hunters should use their deaggro skills constantly, casters should avoid overaggroing. The worst that can happen is that Broodlord goes on a killing spree to the caster camp or all the warriors die. Note that when a warrior dies, after a combat ress his aggro is 0, so it's hard to get back to the aggrolist. Healers should concentrate on keeping all the tanks up.
Class advice:
Druids:
You will be on standard healing duty, nothing you haven't seen before. You wil either be assigned a tank to concentrate on or healing the current MT
Hunters:
Dps like mad, you have complete aggro clear every 30 seconds, use Feign Death every time it is up. Nuke him like mad, since you can go all out damage.
Mages:
You will be aoe:ing the whelps at start and then nuking Broodlord. Even with the deaggro talents, watch out for overaggroing.
Paladins:
You will be MT spam healers, making sure warriors are close to max hp at all times. Also keep the rogues topped so that they wont die to unlucky cleave+blastwave combos.
Priests:
You will be on standard healing duty, nothing you haven't seen before. You will either be assigned a tank to concentrate on or healing the current MT. If you are in a rogue group, use aoe heal after Blast Wave or Cleave. Dont shield warriors unless they are Mortal Striked
Rogues:
You are a fine source of dps in this fight. Spam feint when it's up and use Vanish when Broodlord is in about 45-50% hp. You will be receiving lots of aoe damage so back up and bandage when you can or bandage after Blast Waves.
Warlocks
Avoid overaggroing since you have no deaggro skill. Consider using lower rank nuke.
Warriors
Generate aggro at full power. Positions yourself back against the wall to counter the knockbacks. If you can generate aggro and dps at the same time, do so. Keep on full defense gear, the fire damage is pitiful compared to Broodlord's physical melee damage.
This fight is somewhat like Vael: healers must be ready to switch healing targets when Broodlord changes target and all the warriors must generate a ton of aggro to keep on top of the aggrolist.
We should aim to nuking Broodlord down before the tanks completely lose aggro due to multiple knockback-deaggros on all tanks. Avoid overaggroing, aggro control is the key here. He doesnt have too much hp, but a considerable amount anyway.
Loot
Tier 2 set boots here, along with some other nice epics. Broodlord gives 3 epics per kill.
Firemaw
Firemaw is the fourth boss in Blackwing Lair. He is the first of a series of three bosses ("the drakes") who look like each other and have very similar abilities. He is pathing around the laboratory area behind the gate Broodlord Lashlayer is guarding.
Positioning and setup:
This fight is a lot about the correct positioning. Main tank will be positioned against the left side wall right after the gate and his healers will be just around the corner on the right side of the gate. MT should be back against the wall. Offtanks will be positioned perpendicularly to the MT, on the left side of the gate. Rogues and their healers, ranged dps groups, their healers and ooc ressers will be on broodlord's side of the gate, on the right side. The positioning of MT healers and MT is critical: Firemaw should be positioned so that MT healers are in LoS on MT but out of LoS on Firemaw and the same for offtank healers.
All players except healers need fire resistance. MT should go for 315 fr and the rest on defense stuff, rogues and offtanks can go for 150-200 and ranged can have 100-150 fr, preferably more. The more you have, the easier it will be.
Fight
A hunter or a paladin pulls the patrolling Firemaw to MT and feigns. Unlike the previous bosses, Firemaw is tauntable (this is important) so MT taunts it and starts generating aggro. At this point, MT and healers should check if the drake is correctly positioned and fix it if he's not.
Firemaw has some abilities:
-Flame Buffet
A periodical fire aoe damage with huge range. Does not do much damage at first, but Firemaw casts it every 2-3 seconds and it gives a nondispellable, stacking debuff that increases fire damage taken by 150 per debuff. This ability defines this encounter, since rogues, offtanks and ranged have to go in and out of line of sight when the debuff stacks 3-4 times on them. When a player has 3 or 4 debuffs, he goes out of sight around a corner and waits for the debuff timer to expire, then goes back to nuke. Flame Buffet does huge damage if people don't get rid of the debuff and it causes healers to lose their mana and dps die. MT obviously can't go out of the line of sight so we must hope that he resists the aoe enough times so that the debuff timer resets. The spell is lvl 63 so 315 fr is maximum needed for this fight.
-Wing Buffet
Every now and then, Firemaw casts this spell. It is a frontal cone shaped aoe knockback and deaggro with small damage component (about 1000). The offtanks handle this one. When Firemaw is about to cast Wing Buffet, offtanks taunt him (CTraid warns about the wing buffet) and bite the ability instead of MT. 2 offtanks should taunt at each Wing Buffet because Firemaw can resist taunts. When an offtank taunts Firemaw, he needs some healing because the drake is beating on him. Offtanks should mind their positioning so that they are back against the wall to counter the knockback and away from MT so that he won't get the Wing Buffet. Offtanks should create a rotation so that there will always be two tanks on taunting duty and 2 waiting for the debuff timer to expire. Since you will be healed a lot, you can wait until 6-7 debuff stacks until running away if needed.
-Shadow Flame
A shadow based, frontal cone shaped aoe nuke for about 4000-5000 damage, also puts a DoT on recipients that does 2500 damage per second. Luckily, if you are wearing the Onyxia Scale Cloak, you won't be affected by the DoT which otherwise would surely kill anyone. When Firemaw is about to cast Shadow Flame, priests should put Power Word: Shield on MT and prepare to give him a ton of healing right after Shadow Flame hits. It's possible to time Greater Heals/high rank Healing Touches so that they hit a fraction of second after Shadow Flame. Only MT or offtanks should ever be hit with this ability. Rogues should constanly be repositioning themselves to be behind Firemaw.
-Melee
Firemaw has respectable melee dps and he has Trash (a chance to get extra melee attacks, procs from a melee attack) so he might get some huge burst dps. Healers be on your toes.
After MT has gained enough aggro, dps can start beating on Firemaw. The fight is pretty much defined by Firemaw's abilities. DPS jumps in and out of LoS, offtanks taunt Wing Buffet off Main Tank and healers keep MT up at all costs. It should not be possible to steal aggro from MT except if he gets hit by Wing Buffets. Firemaw has a ton of hp so healers should conserve mana or be on a rotation beacause it will take some time to kill him, especially because dps has to take breaks to get the Flame Buffet timer expire.
Ebonroc
Ebonroc is the fifth boss of Blackwing Lair, the second of the drake bosses. He is mostly just a variation of the Firemaw fight because of his abilities that are quite similar to Firemaw's.
Positioning and setup:
Ebonroc will be fought in an alcove below his starting positioning, on the right side. MT will be on the back wall, back against the wall. On both sides there will be 2-3 offtanks. Ebonroc should be at all times positioned facing the alcove/wall. The rogues will of course be behind him as well as the rest of the raid. Main tank (maybe also other warriors) will benefit from about 200-250 shadow resistance buffed for this fight, but everyone else is fine with their normal gear + Onyxia Scale Cloak.
Fight:
A hunter or a rogue has to pull Ebonroc for MT who positions the drake in the alcove. The pull is quite long and the positioning pretty difficult so everyone should be on guard.
Ebonroc has abilities
-Wing Buffet
This is the same spell that Firemaw has. It is a frontal cone shaped aoe knockback and deaggro with small damage component (about 1000). Just like in Firemaw fight, the offtanks handle it. When Ebonroc is about to cast Wing Buffet, offtanks of one side taunt him to get hit by the spell instead of MT. Both offtanks of either left or right side should taunt at each Wing Buffet because Ebonroc can resist taunts, but only tanks of one side should taunt, because we need tanks with taunt up for Ebonroc's other ability. When an offtank taunts Ebonroc, he needs to be healed and shielded.
-Shadow Flame
A shadow based, frontal cone shaped nuke for about 4000-5000 damage, also puts a DoT on recipients that does 2500 damage per second. Luckily, if you are wearing the Onyxia Scale Cloak, you won't be affected by the DoT which otherwise would surely kill anyone. When Ebonroc is about to cast Shadow Flame, priests should put Power Word: Shield on MT and prepare to give him a ton of healing right after Shadow Flame hits. It's possible to time Greater Heals/high rank Healing Touches so that they hit a fraction of second after Shadow Flame, but this requires experience. Only MT should ever be hit with this ability.
-Shadow of Ebonroc
This is a undispellable debuff on the target with most aggro (the MT usually), lasts for 8 seconds. When Ebonroc hits someone with this debuff, he heals himself for 25 000 hitpoints. Right after MT gets the Shadow of Ebonroc, offtanks of the non-wing buffet taunting side should hit Taunt to keep Ebonroc from healing himself.
If Ebonroc is not taunted off MT who has Shadow of Ebonroc, he will heal himself for a ton and the fight drags on until healers are oom and we wipe. Even in best case, he will get some hits on a target with Shadow, so we must accept that the fight may take some time. Warriors should keep Mortal Strike on Ebonroc at all times to minimize the healing he gets.
When MT has positioned Ebonroc the offtanks go to their sides and dps starts. Ebonroc will be taunted a lot so all warriors need lots of healing. All healers should practice their reflexes to change healing target. Power Word: Shield is again an amazing spell. Nobody else but the warriors should be receiving damage. If MT gets hit by Wing Buffet, dps should be careful because of the deaggro. MT healer should be on a rotation so we have a chance to kill Ebonroc even if he heals himself for considerable amount. It is possible on a bad fight to do 2-3 times his total hp of damage to him because of failed taunts and Ebonroc healing himself for hundreds of thousands of hp as a result.
Flamegor Flamegor is third and last of the series of Drake bosses in Blackwing Lair. He looks a lot like his friends Firemaw and Ebonroc and some of his abilities are quite similar
Positioning and setup
We fight Flamegor in the same place than Ebonroc, with exactly same positions.
The fight
A rogue or hunter pulls Flamegor down to MT who starts generating aggro. Puller vanishes/Feign Deaths and goes to raid. Flamegors burst damage is nasty so healers must be on their toes.
Flamegor has a couple of abilities
-Wing Buffet
This is the same spell that Firemaw and Ebonroc have. It is a frontal cone shaped aoe knockback and deaggro with small damage component (about 1000). Just like in earlier Drake fights, the offtanks handle it by taunting Flamegor off MT when he's about to cast Wing Buffet. When he is casting it, all offtanks taunt because of the possible resists and then offtank healers keep the warrior who got aggro alive for the duration of taunt.
-Shadow Flame
A shadow based, frontal cone shaped nuke for about 4000-5000 damage, also puts a DoT on recipients that does 2500 damage per second. Luckily, if you are wearing the Onyxia Scale Cloak, you won't be affected by the DoT which otherwise would surely kill anyone. When Flamegor is about to cast Shadow Flame, priests should put Power Word: Shield on MT and prepare to give him a ton of healing right after Shadow Flame hits. It's possible to time Greater Heals/high rank Healing Touches so that they hit a fraction of second after Shadow Flame, but this requires experience. Only MT should ever be hit with this ability, sometimes unlucky Wing Buffet + Shadow Flame combo makes offtanks eat a Shadow Flame when they are taunting Flamegor
-Frenzy
About every 10-12 seconds Flamegor goes into a Frenzy. His attack speed is increased by 150% and he starts casting periodical fire aoe with huge range. Just like in Magmadar fight, hunters will keep the Frenzy under control with a Tranqulizing Shot cycle. The shots must come quickly because whole raid will take damage when Flamegor is in Frenzy.
This fight is not very complicated because of its similarity to the two previous fight and Flamegor's special ability being simpler than Firemaw's or Ebonroc's. The biggest problem is the amount of damage the raid takes during this fight because of the Frenzy aoe. running out of line of sight to bandage is a good idea every once in a while.
Chromaggus is a humongous Ancient Core Hound-Chromatic Dragon hybrid that is caged in penultimate room of Blackwing Lair. He has an array of abilities that make the fight extremely complex and on top of that, some of his abilities are decided on random.
Positioning and setup
Due to the number of abilities concerning Line of Sight, we position the raid so that we have Main tank standing in the doorway leading to Chromaggus' room with his back to Ebonroc/Flamegor room. His healers are bunched so that they have line of sight to MT but Chromaggus does not have LoS to the healers. The raid will be in Chromaggus' room with dps groups on one side of the door and offtanks on the other side with a couple of healers.
The fight
Everyone will start from Ebonroc/Flamegor's room with MT and his healers already in fight positions and everyone else on one side of the door. A rogue opens Chromaggus' cage and sprints to MT who grabs the dog. Meanwhile everyone else runs to Chromaggus' room and goes out of line of sight. MT2 will go to Chromaggus' back and give him a few sunder armors or other aggro stuff, then runs out of line of sight too. At this point Chromaggus is going to use his first breath attack.
Chromaggus' breath attacks
Chromaggus has an array of 5 different breath attacks. Every time our BWL raidID is created at Razorgore's death, the instance will choose two of those breaths randomly. Those 2 will be the ones Chromaggus will use until the instance resets. All the breath attacks have 60 second cooldown and Chromaggus will use one breath every 30 seconds. When we start the fight on Chromaggus, the first priority is to find out which two breaths he has. When Chromaggus uses his first breath, 30 seconds later he will use his other breath, 30 seconds later the first one again and so on. All the breath attacks are 360 degrees around chromaggus, they have huge (about 100") range and can be avoided by going out of line of sight.
Some breath combinations are harder and some are easier.
The different Breaths
Incinerate
This is a fire based breath that plainly causes massive fire damage (3675-4725) on everyone in line of sight. When Chromaggus is going to use this, a priest shields the MT and everyone runs out of line of sight. That much damage is going to be almost instant death for most classes if not resisted.
Ignite Flesh
A breath giving an undispellable debuff to everyone in line of sight. The debuff lasts for 60 seconds and will deal 657-843 fire damage every 3 seconds. The MT is going to have this debuff on him at all times, but it can't be helped. When Chromaggus is going to use this, everyone goes out of line of sight.
Frost Burn
This breath deals 1750-2250 frost damage, burns 1750-2250 mana and gives and 80% attack speed slowing debuff on everyone in line of sight for 15 seconds. When Chromaggus is going to use this, a priest shields the MT and everyone runs out of line of sight.
Corrosive Acid
This breath gives an undispellable debuff causing 875-1125 nature damage every 3 seconds and reducing armor by 3938 to 5062 on everyone in line of sight. The debuff lasts for 15 seconds. When Chromaggus is going to use this, a priest shields the MT and everyone runs out of line of sight. The MT is going to take massive damage for the 15 seconds so healers must really concentrate when this breath is used.
Time Lapse
This breath stuns for 6 seconds and wipes the aggro of everyone in line of sight. When the stun ends everyone affected by it gets the same amount of aggro back. This means that MT will lose aggro for a while. When Chromaggus is going to use this breath all offtanks and healers will run out of line of sight and everyone else will run into line of sight. When everyone is stunned, an offtank will get aggro and chromaggus will move to him. Healers keep him up until MT goes out of stun and chromaggus returns to MT. MT should not move when he loses the stun but wait for Chromaggus to come to him. If chromaggus has time lapse, offtanks must concentrate on being over healers in aggrolist, but below MT. Also, every 5 or 6 Time Lapses, the aggro of MT is wiped away and one of the offtanks will become the MT.
Frenzy
Chromaggus has a frenzy similar to Magmadar's Frenzy. He casts it every once in a while increasing his attack speed. Hunters keep an Tranqulizing Shot rotation on him to avoid unnecessary damage on MT.
Enrage
At 20% hp Chromaggus Enrages, increasing his damage output by quite a bit. Healers need to be able to counter streaks like Corrosive Acid+Enrage+Frenzy, which is really hard.
When we have found out the breaths Chromaggus has we will act accordingly. If he has Time Lapse, there will be short tank transitions every 60 seconds. All other breaths are handled by everyone except MT going out of line of sight.
Chromaggus' other abilities
Brood Afflictions
Chromaggus has aoe debuffs that he will cast every now and then. All of them must be cleared away from all raid members immediately
Brood Affliction: Black
This is a curse increasing fire damage taken by 100%. Mages and druids must clear this asap. Note that this is potentially deadly if Chromaggus has either of his fire breaths, even worse if he has both.
Brood Affliction: Green
This is a disease dealing 250 damage every 5 seconds and reducing healing done by 50%. This must be cleared from the warriors right away when it's cast.
Brood Affliction: Blue
This is a mana-draining magic debuff burning 50 mana per second. It also increases casting time by 50% and reduces movement speed by 70%. Paladins and priests must take this off casters, and especially healers really fast
Brood Affliction: Red
This is a disease dealing 50 damage every 3 seconds. When the person with this debuff dies, he heals Chromaggus for a considerable amount. This debuff is not bad unless someone with it dies.
Brood Affliction: Bronze
This is a debuff that randomly stuns for 4 seconds. It is only curable by the Hourglass Sand. There is not enough Hourglass Sand for everyone to be clear of this debuff at all times so some people will suffer from it. The tanks, hunters and MT healers are the ones who will get most of the sand and they should be clear of this debuff at all times.
Broodling
If any member of the raid has all five Brood Afflictions on him at the same time, he will turn into a Broodling lvl 60 elite monster and start attacking raid members. He must be killed then.
All the people with debuff cleaning abilities must be constantly clearing raid members of all Brood Afflictions. Now we start doing dps. All dps people go into line of sight and nuke Chromaggus. When he is going to use a damage breath, everyone goes out of line of sight. If he is going to use a Time Lapse, stay and nuke. Chromaggus has lots of hp so the fight will take some time. MT healers should be on a rotation. Hunters should at all times Tranq Shot the Frenzy away.
Every now and then Chromaggus will do an emote that his "skin shimmers". Chomaggus has a similar elemental shield that the previous Death Talons had that will make him extremely vulnerable to one element while also making him almost invulnerable to the other 4. Every time his skin shimmers this vulnerabitily will change at random. We will appoint 5 people to find out what element he is vulnerable to after every skin shimmering. Those people will spam raidchat with a message announcing the vulnerability. Casters should watch their aggro when they are doing massive nukes, especially mages since they have spells of 3 different elements, therefore they are doing triple damage 60% of time.
The amount of different abilities Chromaggus has is astounding and the fight does have many moving parts. This is why everyone must concentrate as much as they can. There are multiple objects that must be completed at the same time, such as keeping Frenzy away, keeping raid clear of Brood Afflictions, going in and out of Line of sight when he is using breath attacks, finding out the current elemental vulnerability after his skin shimmers, keeping the Main Tank up and doing dps on him. When all these objects are completed at the same time, this fight can be won.
Class advice
Druid
You will be healing and clearing raid of Brood Afflictions. Conserve mana if possible, if you are low on mana stand back and regenerate some
Hunter
Tranqulizing Shot rotation is the most important job here. Chromaggus does a lot of damage even when not in frenzy and it's hard to keep MT up when he is frenzied. Your dps is valuable also, since it's not affected by the elemental shield changes and you can feign death to lose aggro.
Mage
Clearing raid of Brood Afflictions is the most important job here, especially if Chromaggus has a fire breath. 3 mages will be appointed to find out vulnerabilities for the elements, use spells according to the current vulnerability
Paladin
Your main job is to be cleansebots and support healers. You have the biggest amount of debuff clearing spells, use them
Priest
Healing and assiting paladins to clear Brood Afflictions is your main job. Create a healing rotation on Main tank so that you can regenerate mana when running out of it.
Rogue
Since your dps is not affected by the elemental shield, your dps is very valuable here. go all out and remember to run out of line of sight when a damage breath is coming.
Warlock
You will be dps as usual, one warlock will be appointed to check shadow vulnerability.
Warrior
If Chromaggus has Time Lapse, two or three offtanks will be ready to tank when MT is stunned and generating as much aggro as possible meanwhile. If Chromaggus has only damagebreaths, warriors will be dps with 2handed or dualwield weapons, except one oftank who will try to take over tanking if MT dies.
Nefarian
Nefarian is the final encounter in Blackwing Lair. He is the brother of Onyxia and the lord of the black dragonflight.
Overview:
This fight is a long one. It consists of 2 phases with the second phase having 3 subphases. On first phase the raid will not fight Nefarian himself but a horde of Drakonids he summons. The goal of phase one is to kill about 40 drakonids. Phase 2 is the fight against Nefarian himself. Either of the phases 1 or 2 would be a boss fight in itself, but we have to do both of them in a row. Everyone in the raid will need Onyxia Scale Cloak for this fight.
PHASE 1
Positioning and setup.
Everyone must carry with them a considerable amount of consumables. Farm Major mana and health potions, bandages, Whipper Root Tuber and Night Dragons Breath. Boost potions such as Elixir of Mongoose, Arcane Elixirs, Mana and Wizard oils, Sharpening Stones, Winterfall Firewaters etc are also excellent.
In Nefarian's room there are 2 gates where the drakonids will spawn. The raid splits into 2 groups of 20 and both groups go to their respective gates.On both sides there will be a warrior set up as a MT who will tank all Chromatic Drakonids and a hunter or a mage set up as a Main Assist.
Fight
When the fight starts, Drakonids will start to spawn from both sides. Both gate groups object is to kill the drakonids as fast as they can using focused fire on Main Assists target. This means that everyone who can do dps will do dps on his side's Main Assist's target. When it's dead, MA will pick a new target and that one will be killed then. It's imperative that everyone will focus on MA's target in order to get the drakonids down asap. There are 6 different kinds of drakonids, Chromatic ones and colored ones of 5 different colors. When we get our RaidID, the game will randomly pick two colors and drakonids of those colors will spawn from the gates along with the Chromatic Drakonids. Drakonids of one color will only spawn from one gate. Nefarian himself will be annyoing us in human form, casting shadowbolts and mindcontrols on people.
The colored Drakonids
Red Drakonid
This drakonid has a shortrange firebased aoe dot. Therefore melee is not very good against them. Solution: if we get red drakonids from one of the gates and it seems to be problematic for healers, all rogues and dpswarriors will switch to the other gate and some mages and warlocks will come to their gate.
Black Drakonid
This drakonid has no other special ability but that it hits a lot harder than the other colors (his melee has a chance to proc additional 1000-1500 fire damage). Therefore we need some additional healing on the side where black drakonids come.
Blue Drakonid
This drakonid has an attack that slows movement and attack speed and also does a manaburn for significant amount. We might switch some mages and warlocks away from Blue drakonids and move some rogues in.
Bronze Drakonid
This drakonid has an attack that deals about 800-1000 arcane damage and slows your attack and casting speed for 6 seconds.
Green Drakonid
Green drakonids cast sleep on random raid members close to them.
Chromatic Drakonids
Chromatic Drakonids are bigger and nastier than their colored counterparts. They will not be killed until we get all the colored drakonids down. Instead, warriors from each side will tank them until colored drakonids are killed.
Depending on the colors we get, there might be some changes on gate groups at the beginning. The most important job in phase one is to keep the drakonids under control. We do this by slowing their movement and having rogues/warriors/bear druids/hunter pets/mechanical yetis/jublings tank as many as possible of them. Also, on both sides there will be a warlock constantly spamming Hellfire to try to catch all the drakonids. Note that every drakonid leaves a skeleton when killed, this will be important later. When about 40 colored drakonids have died, additional drakonids will stop spawning and Nefarian will transform into his dragon form flying from the sky to the balcony. At that point, the MT and his healers will go to phase 2 positions and the raid will clean up the rest of the drakonids, including the Chromatic Drakonids. The raid can start moving to phase 2 positions while fighting the last couple of drakonids. Phase 2 starts when Nefarian lands onto the balcony.
Class Advice for Phase 1
Druid
Some of you might be in bear form (but in healer gear) and tank some colored drakonids. Consider having a bear rotation to regen mana. Other than that, keep the tanks alive and anyone else. Most people in the raid will be taking damage in this phase so you will have to throw heals around a lot.
Hunter
If possible constantly lay Frost Traps in front of your gate to slow the movement of drakonids. Do as much dps as you can on Main Assist's target. Wing clip random drakonids if you have time. or they are coming for casters. If drakonids try to run away, pull them back to the gate.
Mage
Use frost spells to slow the movement of drakonids. Do as much dps as possible on Main Assists target to ensure it's quick death. Polymorph mindcontrolled people
Paladin
Support heal the people who take damage. Tank the colored drakonids and stun them if they seem to be going for healers or casters.
Priest
Try not to get on the aggrolist of the drakonids. Throw small heals around, especially on the tanks. Remember to dispel the mindcontrol nefarian casts
Rogue
Frontload your dps. Consider using crippling poison in a weapon to keep drakonids from moving. Switch targets on Main assist as soon as your target dies.
Warlock
Nuke at full power at Main Assists target. Easy. If you are Hellfire tanking, stand in one spot very close to the gate and spam Hellfire, Lifetapping for more mana if needed.
Warrior
If you are the MT, try not to tank too many of the colored drakonids, at least at the end of phase one. The Chromatic Drakonids tanks pull your targets aside and tank them. Dps warriors pseudotank (you will probably not keep aggro on multiple targets when the frenzied raidgroup nukes them at full power) colored drakonids and any chromatic ones who are not on the assigned chromatic tank.
PHASE 2
When Nefarian lands, the MT grabs him and turns him facing the outside with MT's back against the balcony wall. MT2 will be positioned on Nefarians left side and everyone else will be positioned on his right side. MT will generate aggro for about 60 seconds while the raid regenerates mana.
Nefarian has some abilities:
Melee:
Nefarian's normal melee does considerable damage so the MT needs a lot of healing
Cleave
Nefarian has the usual dragon chain cleave. To prevent it, melee should stay between his front and back legs and casters should stay quite far from nefarian.
Tail Whip
If someone is behind Nefarian, he will slap with his tail, sending the poor person flying and doing quite a lot of damage. Nobody should ever be behind Nefarian
Veil of Shadow
Nefarian casts this curse every now and then on the target with most aggro. It reduces healing done by 75% so it must be removed asap.
Shadow Flame
Nefarian has the same Shadow Flame attack that the drake bosses have. When he is casting it, a priest shields the MT and Mt healers prepare to heal a lot in a split second.
Bellowing Roar
He has an aoe fear similar to Onyxias, he just doesn't cast it that often. When a person becomes feared, he loses all aggro for the duration of the fear. For this reason the MT must use the berserker rage (unless we have a dwarf priest) every time Nefarian is going to do a Bellowing Roar. Nefarians fear has a cooldown of less than 30 seconds so it's possible that at some point MT doesn't have Berserker Rage up when a Bellowing Roar is coming. At that point MT2 uses his berserker rage and we hope that he is second on aggrolist and Nefarian will turn to him. MT2 moves to MT position and when MT1 loses fear, he returns tanking, repositions Nefarian if he is not in correct position and MT2 returns to Nefarian's side.
Insulting Yell
Nefarian has a yell attack on 30 second cooldown. He chooses one class at random and yells an insult at them. The yell also causes a negative effect on the raid, depending on the class that got yelled at
Druid yell:
All druids in raid are shapeshifted in cat form for 30 seconds. They can't shapeshift out of it until the duration runs out. When the druid yell comes, all other healers must give a bit more effort on healing until druids are back in caster form
Hunter yell:
All hunters in raid break their currently equipped ranged weapon. Hunters just have to have at least 3 or 4 ranged weapons to switch on when their weapon breaks or switch their ranged weapon off every time a CTra warning for an incoming yell comes.
Mage yell:
All the mages in raid start casting polymorphs on random raid members. All paladins and priests must dispel the polymorph IMMEDIATELY and mages should run to the left side drakonid spawning gate for the duration of debuff.
Paladin yell:
Paladins will cast improved Blessing of Protection on Nefarian, making him invulnerable to physical damage for a while. Everyone in melee just stops doing dps while Nefarian has the blessing and backs away. Magical dps should stop dps too if it's early in the fight.
Priest yell
Priests' healing spells will give a strong, stacking DoT spell on whoever is healed. To counter this, all priests stop healing for the duration of the yell and everyone else focus heals on the MT. The spells that wont cause the DoT effect (Renew and Power Word: Shield) can be cast.
Rogue yell
Nefarian will teleport all rogues close to him and root them there. This will possibly cause the rogues to eat some cleaves and/or Shadow flames. If needed the MT moves Nefarian a bit to his right or left so the rogues wont bite the dust, then returns to normal place after rogues can move again
Warlock yell
All warlocks will summon Infernals for Nefarian. When warlock yell comes, everyone concentrates on getting them down and then return to Nefarian. They have aoe damage aura and stun so keep them away from casters and healers. Warlocks should stand away from the rest of the raid so the infernal stun wont hit the healers.
Warrior yell:
All warriors will switch to improved (+damage taken increased) berserker stance, unable to switch off. When warrior yell comes, the MT will need a lot more healing so all healers concentrate on keeping him up and shield the MT when Shadow Flame is incoming
PHASE 2 - SUBPHASE 1
Nefarian's hp 100% -> 21%
When MT has gathered enough aggro, the raid starts dps on him. All the class insulting yells must get the correct reaction from raid as Nefarian casts them. Nefarian has a lot of hp so everyone go for longterm survivability and mana conservation. MT healers set up a rotation on him. When Nefarian is at about 30% hp mages and warlocks start regenerating mana. All of you must have full mana when subphase 1 ends.
PHASE 2 - SUBPHASE 2
Nefarian's hp 21% -> 19%
When Nefarian's hp reaches 21% everyone stops dps. When his hp reaches 20% he will summon lots of undead drakonids from the skeletons left from phase 1. To prepare for this, we wait for an insulting yell that is not so bad (hunter, paladin, druid, rogue) and when one of those comes, EVERYONE FOCUS FIRE NEFARIAN UNDER 20% HP ASAP to summon the undead.
Positioning, setup and the zerg
When nefarians hp starts to come close to 20%, raid must start preparing for the undead drakonids. Mages and warlocks move closer to the drakonid skeletons and warriors except MT move on top of the skeletons. When the skeletons spawn on the two gates, everyone must nuke them down at once. Warlocks and mages aoe, warriors take a aoe taunt rotation with shield wall and all others handle the lone undeads who get past the caster aoe storm. Mages especially use frost aoe to slow the drakonids. All casters should consider getting a Limited Invulnerability Potion to use when the undead zerg starts beating on casters. It will give you a couple more seconds to aoe. Note that this phase should not take more than approximately 20 seconds to prevent getting an insult yell while fighting the undeads. A group of five will be sent to slow the other side drakonids while the raid kills the left side drakonids.
PHASE 2 - SUBPHASE 3
Nefarian's hp 19% -> 0%
After the undead drakonids are dead, everyone moves to their normal positions and continue beating Nefarian. His abilities will not change. Healing should be concentrated on MT because of the dps Nefarian does
Class advice for phase 2
Druid
Concentrate on healing. When you run out of mana, regenerate some in rotations. Save your battle resurrection for healers. When your class yell comes, run around in circles instead of going to claw Nefarian. It's better not to risk you getting cleaved or shadowflamed. When Priest class yell comes, all druids heal the Main Tank. When the undead zerg comes, heal the tanks, casters or the MT.
Hunter
Dps like mad, remember to use Feign Death. When your class yell comes, switch a new ranged weapon on you. Optionally unequip your main weapon each time a yell is coming. When the undead zerg is coming, put some Frost traps around the skeletons.
Mage
Concentrate on dps with as little aggro as possible. At 30% hp, start regenerating mana to ensure you have full mana against the undead. Use improved Bliizzard, cone of cold and frost nova.
Paladin
Heal anyone who gets damage as a support healer. When mage class yell comes, cleanse like mad. When warlock class yell comes, try to tank/stun the infernals. When priest or druid yell comes, all paladins concentrate healing on Main Tank.
Priest
Heal either the raid or the MT, depending on your group. Use a healing rotation to regenerate mana. When your class yell comes, stop healing immediately. When mage yell comes, dispel the polymorphs asap. When druid yell comes, concentrate on healing, especially to MT
Rogue
DPS, minding your aggro. Use feint a lot. When warlock yell comes, go and kill the infernals. When your class yell comes, cross your fingers and hope Nefarian won't do a Shadow Flame. Onyxia cloak should be on.
Warlock
Dps, but watch the aggro, especially since you have no deaggro skill. When Nefarian is at 30% hp start regenerating mana for the undeads. Aoe the undead zerg as fast as you can.
Warrior
MT2 tries to be number two on Nefarian's aggrolist. Other warriors can be dps. When the undead zerg is coming, go to the skeletons and prepare for aoe taunt. Use shield wall to prevent death. When warlock yell comes, go and gank the infernals
Loot. Nefarian will drop 5 epics per kill, including his head and two class tier 2 chestpieces.
Nefarian is the final encounter in Blackwing Lair. He is the brother of Onyxia and the lord of the black dragonflight.
Overview:
This fight is a long one. It consists of 2 phases with the second phase having 3 subphases. On first phase the raid will not fight Nefarian himself but a horde of Drakonids he summons. The goal of phase one is to kill about 40 drakonids. Phase 2 is the fight against Nefarian himself. Either of the phases 1 or 2 would be a boss fight in itself, but we have to do both of them in a row. Everyone in the raid will need Onyxia Scale Cloak for this fight.
PHASE 1
Positioning and setup.
Everyone must carry with them a considerable amount of consumables. Farm Major mana and health potions, bandages, Whipper Root Tuber and Night Dragons Breath. Boost potions such as Elixir of Mongoose, Arcane Elixirs, Mana and Wizard oils, Sharpening Stones, Winterfall Firewaters etc are also excellent.
In Nefarian's room there are 2 gates where the drakonids will spawn. The raid splits into 2 groups of 20 and both groups go to their respective gates.On both sides there will be a warrior set up as a MT who will tank all Chromatic Drakonids and a hunter or a mage set up as a Main Assist.
Fight
When the fight starts, Drakonids will start to spawn from both sides. Both gate groups object is to kill the drakonids as fast as they can using focused fire on Main Assists target. This means that everyone who can do dps will do dps on his side's Main Assist's target. When it's dead, MA will pick a new target and that one will be killed then. It's imperative that everyone will focus on MA's target in order to get the drakonids down asap. There are 6 different kinds of drakonids, Chromatic ones and colored ones of 5 different colors. When we get our RaidID, the game will randomly pick two colors and drakonids of those colors will spawn from the gates along with the Chromatic Drakonids. Drakonids of one color will only spawn from one gate. Nefarian himself will be annyoing us in human form, casting shadowbolts and mindcontrols on people.
The colored Drakonids
Red Drakonid
This drakonid has a shortrange firebased aoe dot. Therefore melee is not very good against them. Solution: if we get red drakonids from one of the gates and it seems to be problematic for healers, all rogues and dpswarriors will switch to the other gate and some mages and warlocks will come to their gate.
Black Drakonid
This drakonid has no other special ability but that it hits a lot harder than the other colors (his melee has a chance to proc additional 1000-1500 fire damage). Therefore we need some additional healing on the side where black drakonids come.
Blue Drakonid
This drakonid has an attack that slows movement and attack speed and also does a manaburn for significant amount. We might switch some mages and warlocks away from Blue drakonids and move some rogues in.
Bronze Drakonid
This drakonid has an attack that deals about 800-1000 arcane damage and slows your attack and casting speed for 6 seconds.
Green Drakonid
Green drakonids cast sleep on random raid members close to them.
Chromatic Drakonids
Chromatic Drakonids are bigger and nastier than their colored counterparts. They will not be killed until we get all the colored drakonids down. Instead, warriors from each side will tank them until colored drakonids are killed.
Depending on the colors we get, there might be some changes on gate groups at the beginning. The most important job in phase one is to keep the drakonids under control. We do this by slowing their movement and having rogues/warriors/bear druids/hunter pets/mechanical yetis/jublings tank as many as possible of them. Also, on both sides there will be a warlock constantly spamming Hellfire to try to catch all the drakonids. Note that every drakonid leaves a skeleton when killed, this will be important later. When about 40 colored drakonids have died, additional drakonids will stop spawning and Nefarian will transform into his dragon form flying from the sky to the balcony. At that point, the MT and his healers will go to phase 2 positions and the raid will clean up the rest of the drakonids, including the Chromatic Drakonids. The raid can start moving to phase 2 positions while fighting the last couple of drakonids. Phase 2 starts when Nefarian lands onto the balcony.
Class Advice for Phase 1
Druid
Some of you might be in bear form (but in healer gear) and tank some colored drakonids. Consider having a bear rotation to regen mana. Other than that, keep the tanks alive and anyone else. Most people in the raid will be taking damage in this phase so you will have to throw heals around a lot.
Hunter
If possible constantly lay Frost Traps in front of your gate to slow the movement of drakonids. Do as much dps as you can on Main Assist's target. Wing clip random drakonids if you have time. or they are coming for casters. If drakonids try to run away, pull them back to the gate.
Mage
Use frost spells to slow the movement of drakonids. Do as much dps as possible on Main Assists target to ensure it's quick death. Polymorph mindcontrolled people
Paladin
Support heal the people who take damage. Tank the colored drakonids and stun them if they seem to be going for healers or casters.
Priest
Try not to get on the aggrolist of the drakonids. Throw small heals around, especially on the tanks. Remember to dispel the mindcontrol nefarian casts
Rogue
Frontload your dps. Consider using crippling poison in a weapon to keep drakonids from moving. Switch targets on Main assist as soon as your target dies.
Warlock
Nuke at full power at Main Assists target. Easy. If you are Hellfire tanking, stand in one spot very close to the gate and spam Hellfire, Lifetapping for more mana if needed.
Warrior
If you are the MT, try not to tank too many of the colored drakonids, at least at the end of phase one. The Chromatic Drakonids tanks pull your targets aside and tank them. Dps warriors pseudotank (you will probably not keep aggro on multiple targets when the frenzied raidgroup nukes them at full power) colored drakonids and any chromatic ones who are not on the assigned chromatic tank.
PHASE 2
When Nefarian lands, the MT grabs him and turns him facing the outside with MT's back against the balcony wall. MT2 will be positioned on Nefarians left side and everyone else will be positioned on his right side. MT will generate aggro for about 60 seconds while the raid regenerates mana.
Nefarian has some abilities:
Melee:
Nefarian's normal melee does considerable damage so the MT needs a lot of healing
Cleave
Nefarian has the usual dragon chain cleave. To prevent it, melee should stay between his front and back legs and casters should stay quite far from nefarian.
Tail Whip
If someone is behind Nefarian, he will slap with his tail, sending the poor person flying and doing quite a lot of damage. Nobody should ever be behind Nefarian
Veil of Shadow
Nefarian casts this curse every now and then on the target with most aggro. It reduces healing done by 75% so it must be removed asap.
Shadow Flame
Nefarian has the same Shadow Flame attack that the drake bosses have. When he is casting it, a priest shields the MT and Mt healers prepare to heal a lot in a split second.
Bellowing Roar
He has an aoe fear similar to Onyxias, he just doesn't cast it that often. When a person becomes feared, he loses all aggro for the duration of the fear. For this reason the MT must use the berserker rage (unless we have a dwarf priest) every time Nefarian is going to do a Bellowing Roar. Nefarians fear has a coold
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