Ah, Deathbringer
The final Boss fight available to us right now in Ice Crown Citadel is Deathbringer Saurfang. We've now fought this guy twice now with similar results.
The first week we went in there with a really good mix. We had a Boomkin, Survival Hunter, Destro Lock, Arcane Mage, Mutilate Rogue and Arms Warrior. The second week we were a bit melee heavy. The only Ranged we had was our Mage and the two Healers.
Deathbringer Saurfang was formerly known as Saurfang the Younger before he was killed by Arthas at the Wrath Gate. When you arrive at this area either via the Orgrims Hammer of the Teleporter, he's actually not there. There is a group of Kor'kron and High Overlord Saurfang. Once you talk to Saurfang the encounter will begin and Deathbringer Saurfang will come running out.
Before you talk to Saurfang have your Raid work out positioning. Have someone 'stand in' for Deathbringer and make sure everyone knows where to stand. Then collapse back on the start and talk to High Overlord Saurfang. I wonder how the Alliance start the encounter as I don't expect that that Saurfang is there for them.
The Father and Son will go through their dialog which is actually pretty cool the first time you see it. For my Alliance friends, Daddy Saurfang lets Deathbringer know that his son died at the Wrath Gate. He goes on to tell him about how he was named and why he was left in Nagrand.
What's not cool is that the entire dialog is repeated if you wipe.
I usually use the time the two Orcs are talking to move into position before Deathbringer at the top of the stairs. As the dialog is ending, I lay down a Consecrate and get ready to Judge. Once Deathbringer is active, I Judge and start my rotation.
The fight isn't too bad from a Tanking standpoint. His melee is not all that threatening. He places a debuff on you that will increase his Blood Points so your co-Tank needs to taunt when that happens.
The fight is all about his Blood Points. It's his resource mechanic and it's sort of like Rage. They stack to 100 and when they do, he puts a debuff on one of your Raid members called Mark of the Fallen Champion. They will take steady damage and heal Saurfang every time he attacks.
The fastest way he gets Blood Points is from his Blood Beasts. Everytime they land a melee attack, Deathbringer gets points. The first night we fought him, we assigned the Ranged DPS in pairs. TWo would kill the right Beast and the other two had the left Beast. One team had the Boomkin for his knockback and the other team had the Hunter for his Frost Trap.
The biggest mistake we made that first night was to call for DPS to ignore the Adds when Deathbringer was at 9% and just burn him. The Blood Beasts ran wild. There was too much healing going into Saurfang and we actually ended up wiping. Regardless of Saurfang's health, kill the Blood Beasts.
The second night, we knew we were going to have to change up our strategy. What we decided to do was have our melee switch to the Adds. The idea was we would kill the Adds so quickly that they wouldn't provide many Blood Points to Deathbringer. That worked out pretty well. He got two Marks off and we ended up losing some DPS, but we managed to get him down without a wipe.
He dropped a pair of Tanking Pants which I outrolled Boston for. Those made the second iLevel 251 item I had gotten that night. After Deathwhisper, our team had hit Friendly and everyone was able to pick up their Rings. There is still no word on my Shield other than that the ticket has been 'escalated.' I'm hoping for the best. They know there were problems with the Gunship event because they just hotfixed it the other day.
I know Hard Mode 25 man raiders have had access to iLevel 258 gear for a while, but that really doesn't matter to me. The stuff that is dropping in an upgrade for me. I couldn't care less what someone in a Hard Mode 25 man guild is wearing.
We knocked the first four Bosses in a little over an hour with narry a wipe. That'll be good for when we have the rest of instance to go, but it leaves the rest of the raid week a little bare right now.
The first week we went in there with a really good mix. We had a Boomkin, Survival Hunter, Destro Lock, Arcane Mage, Mutilate Rogue and Arms Warrior. The second week we were a bit melee heavy. The only Ranged we had was our Mage and the two Healers.
Deathbringer Saurfang was formerly known as Saurfang the Younger before he was killed by Arthas at the Wrath Gate. When you arrive at this area either via the Orgrims Hammer of the Teleporter, he's actually not there. There is a group of Kor'kron and High Overlord Saurfang. Once you talk to Saurfang the encounter will begin and Deathbringer Saurfang will come running out.Before you talk to Saurfang have your Raid work out positioning. Have someone 'stand in' for Deathbringer and make sure everyone knows where to stand. Then collapse back on the start and talk to High Overlord Saurfang. I wonder how the Alliance start the encounter as I don't expect that that Saurfang is there for them.
The Father and Son will go through their dialog which is actually pretty cool the first time you see it. For my Alliance friends, Daddy Saurfang lets Deathbringer know that his son died at the Wrath Gate. He goes on to tell him about how he was named and why he was left in Nagrand.
What's not cool is that the entire dialog is repeated if you wipe.
I usually use the time the two Orcs are talking to move into position before Deathbringer at the top of the stairs. As the dialog is ending, I lay down a Consecrate and get ready to Judge. Once Deathbringer is active, I Judge and start my rotation.
The fight isn't too bad from a Tanking standpoint. His melee is not all that threatening. He places a debuff on you that will increase his Blood Points so your co-Tank needs to taunt when that happens.
The fight is all about his Blood Points. It's his resource mechanic and it's sort of like Rage. They stack to 100 and when they do, he puts a debuff on one of your Raid members called Mark of the Fallen Champion. They will take steady damage and heal Saurfang every time he attacks.
The fastest way he gets Blood Points is from his Blood Beasts. Everytime they land a melee attack, Deathbringer gets points. The first night we fought him, we assigned the Ranged DPS in pairs. TWo would kill the right Beast and the other two had the left Beast. One team had the Boomkin for his knockback and the other team had the Hunter for his Frost Trap.
The biggest mistake we made that first night was to call for DPS to ignore the Adds when Deathbringer was at 9% and just burn him. The Blood Beasts ran wild. There was too much healing going into Saurfang and we actually ended up wiping. Regardless of Saurfang's health, kill the Blood Beasts.
The second night, we knew we were going to have to change up our strategy. What we decided to do was have our melee switch to the Adds. The idea was we would kill the Adds so quickly that they wouldn't provide many Blood Points to Deathbringer. That worked out pretty well. He got two Marks off and we ended up losing some DPS, but we managed to get him down without a wipe.
He dropped a pair of Tanking Pants which I outrolled Boston for. Those made the second iLevel 251 item I had gotten that night. After Deathwhisper, our team had hit Friendly and everyone was able to pick up their Rings. There is still no word on my Shield other than that the ticket has been 'escalated.' I'm hoping for the best. They know there were problems with the Gunship event because they just hotfixed it the other day.
I know Hard Mode 25 man raiders have had access to iLevel 258 gear for a while, but that really doesn't matter to me. The stuff that is dropping in an upgrade for me. I couldn't care less what someone in a Hard Mode 25 man guild is wearing.
We knocked the first four Bosses in a little over an hour with narry a wipe. That'll be good for when we have the rest of instance to go, but it leaves the rest of the raid week a little bare right now.
Comments
As for the beasts, we found that if you normally would have 2 dps switch to them then if you are close enough you can manage to kite them successfully if he is low enough. The main problem we end up having is that the paladin tanks cant consecrate when they are coming out because we pull aggro too quick
Grats with the tanking pants, and I hope that shield comes through for you
Wankster of Magtheridon