Friday, May 7, 2010

ICC10 heroic Guide - Deathbringer Saurfang

Deathbringer Saurfang is the last boss of the first wing, and also the gate to all the other wings. This is also the hardest boss of the first wing, and the first boss in the instance who will drop tokens on heroic mode. Tokens that will allow you to upgrade your tier gear to the 264 version.

We one-shot the first 3 bosses, and then wiped 5 times in a row on this one...good times.
Group Composition:
- 2 tanks
- 2 heals
- 6 dps (having at least 2 ranged makes it easier)

Differences between heroic and normal:
- Blood Power generates faster
- Adds do a slowing AoE
- Adds AoE increases their damage by 300% (Kiting is back!)
- More damage, more health

Phases
Some people consider the two phases separately, our 10man doesn't. The only thing that changes is that as the fight goes on the incoming damage goes up, and when he gets pissy the damage on the tanks and marks goes up a little more.

What most people don't understand about this fight, and what you do need to understand is that the more marks, the more damage each marked person takes and the faster he generates blood power (he gets blood power from marked people), so the faster he will put out the next mark. In 25s one of the succesful tactics can be to sacrifice the first marked person to keep blood power generation low.

Positions
You need to have at least 3 people at range if you want the blood nova to go out to the ranged people. He will preferentially pick someone at range if you have 3 people at range. These people have to be at least 10 yards apart from each other.

Normally you just want the healers and the ranged at range. Face him to the boat, have the melee on the stage  behind him.

Blood Beasts
In the normal version we simply tank the blood beasts and kill them as fast as possible. In the heroic version you want to kite one of them, and kill the other. We have the ranged pick the one that appears on his left side, and the melee kills the one that appears on his right hand.

Stun the beasts as much as possible, keep them slowed, whatever is needed to not have them reach the ranged. If they do reach the ranged, that dps will die. The damage output of the Blood Beasts on heroic is pretty huge, and with the slowing aoe you cannot run away from them.

Our 10man has two pallie tanks, who stun the Blood Beasts as they come out. Our DK uses chains of ice, and the hunter traps. Shadowpriest mindflay is really pretty as well, but just use whatever you have availeble in your group.

The melee dps working on the other Blood Beast has to be really careful not to pull off the tank, since they too will die if they get hit.

We kite only one blood beasts, because we're a melee heavy group. If you're a ranged heavy group you could kite both of them, and split the range into two groups each killing one of the adds.

Healing
The healing on this fight is pretty brutal. I said in the group composition that we do this with 2 healers, well, that's not always entirely true. We do have our Balance druid jump in if she absolutely has to, but you need to have pretty high dps if you want to be able to 3-heal this the entire fight.

The healers in our 10man are a shaman and a disc priest. The shaman usually grabs the tanks and the melee, while I pick up the ranged. If all the marks go out at the ranged the shaman does switch to helping on the marks of course.

I know that most healers nowadays are boasting that they cannot possibly run oom, but I do all the time on this fight, so make your heals count. Wear mana regen trinkets if needed, and flask for regen too.

Good Luck!

1 comment:

  1. Tanks will also want to be tighter on their taunts for Rune of Blood, since Saurfang will be getting more Blood Power from that ability as well.

    I've been finding that watching the timer, waiting a second after it expires on the other tank and taunting means I pick up Saurfang right as the other tank gets Rune of Blood. If I taunted right when Rune of Blood falls off the other tank, he'll switch, then cast Rune of Blood on me instead of on the other tank.

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