We took down Thaddius last night, and moved on to Sapphirons lair. We heard this fight was going to be tough, so we done our studying before hand. Everyone watched videos and got familiarized with the traditional tactics, which are:
Group 1 on left side of body, group 2 on the right.
SRD positions (Standard raid dragon positions) – Don’t go near the head or the tail.
Watch out for the blizzard.
Gather around the green ring when he enters the flight phase, stay spaced out and wait for the frost bolts to freeze two players.
Break LOS with the ice block and wait for him to land.
Repeat until either the dragon, or the raid is dead.
This boss looked like one of the simpler encounters, we planned for a quick few wipes to refine the groups coordination then the big buff up and takedown, then move on to try to take Kel down to finish off the weeks raiding schedule.
It was not so easy though…
For 3 hours we battered our head off of his bony backside. The tactics changed a few times until we got a strategy down that worked, but the DOT that ticks throughout the fight resulted in everyone eventually dying, and it being the first boss to best us on a raid night. (Every other one has gone down before ending the raid, or we had a quick shot or two at to see the tactics then came back and quickly killed it next night.)
So what must we do now?
Frost Resistance.
After analyzing causes of player death, it was almost exlclusively down to the Dot. We had 3 healers, all doing free-for all healing, but every time we had to reposition for a blizzard or the Deep Breath, people were not getting healed and the result? People start to drop.
After speaking with a more experienced raider that has this boss on farm – it is highly recommended that each player gets themselves the 3-item crafted frost resistance set, and it makes the fight a joke.
So, our mission?
Get gear! The only person who shouldn’t have to worry about this is the tank (who will need to be def capped, and will have a dedicated healer anyway once the raid is taking reduced damage) – although anything they can get would be useful.
The tactics evolved into staying in one group (I think two is possibly more orientated to heroic tactics.), and sticking close together, except when the blizzard starts chasing someone – and when Sapphiron goes into the flight phase, where we need to be spaced out. After the first try the pull is tricky as the boss aggroes upon entering the room, and cannot be positioned correctly until after the air phase due to the tail swipe. Here the tank just turned the boss 90 degrees, and we pounded his side. This had several benefits:
The group was all within range of healers.
The Ice-Blocks were always fairly close (on the first attempt group 1 got both ice-blocks and we ended up wiping trying to cross through the dragon – which cant be done.)
DPS could be started early on, and people could get into the flow of things.
Our best attempt was 76% - 3 or 4 flight phases. This proves we have the tactics down to survive the phases and abilities, As mentioned before the problem was the frost dot taking people out after being hit by blizzard, or when healers had to move, and were unable to cope with the raid wide health drops.
For anyone reading this you probably got here by googling, so heres some basic tips to take away:
Pack in the frost resistance gear. (117? on me from mage armour and frost resistance totem was not enough by a long shot.) (After officer meet last night i think 287 was the min level, this will allow 40% without a shammy totem or pally aura, and with them on you get 60% resistance, and dont have to sacrifice your chest piece.
Do not pass through the dragon unless it is an emergency, and even then, go by the back legs – you are still likely to get tail swiped, but it should still leave you standing. A cleave is a good 150k damage OVERKILL – and is generally not a smart idea…
Stand as far back as possible if melee DPS. The angles the abilities work at fan out from the centre of the dragons base, so the closer you are, the smaller the area you have to work in before either a small movement by you or the dragon puts you into a bad position and you get cleaved or swiped.
Don’t worry about positioning for the pull. Just don’t get hit by his abilities
DECURSE! The curse dished out is a hard hitting DOT that the dragon applies that also heals him by draining the life from afflicted players.
Stay as a group. As mentioned, I suspect the split group tactics are more applicable for heroics when there are going to be more people running about with more blizzards on tow. (they track a player it seems.)
Remember the distance rule. The diagram below shows the very basic fanning out of attack zones. Unless you manage to get through the crossover point, when passing through, you will get hit. (It does appear to be a timed attack rather than instantly hitting, so the quicker you cross the danger zones the less chance of a smacking.) but more importantly, when meleeing or casting be aware of the safe zone from the sides. Cross into the danger zones and you may cause a wipe by dying. This is especially true of the cleave which has a huge attack range and hits everyone except for the main tank in this section when it triggers, guaranteeing an insta-gib. Point to note though- I’m sure the cleave radius is higher. I’ve been in a position I thought was safe and gotten squished.
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