Dragon Soul Guide
The Dragon Soul raid is here and picks up from where the new Heroic 5 man instance left off. Below is a Guide to each of the 8 encounter.
Morchok – Dragon Soul Guide Raid Boss
The first boss located at Wyrmrest Temple is Morchok, an earth elemental made out of gems, found at the base of the temple. He is attempting to destroy the foundation of Wyrmrest Temple in order to collapse it.
Morchock Abilities – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss Abilities
Morchock the elementalMorchok has several abilities but three main abilities that you need to worry about the most
Stomp – Does huge damage and is split to all players near by (roughly 30 yards). Players need to group up to split the damage and so that healers can AOE heal through it.
Resonating Crystals – Summons crystals that explode after 12 seconds. Does damage split to 3 nearby players (7 in 25 player raids). It does increased damage the further away from it you are when it explodes. Beams show up to show that you are one of the closest and change colour to show damage, orange = high, red = medium, blue = low. Pretty much everyone will die from an orange hit.
Black Blood of the Earth – This is made up of a few different abilities and things going on all at once. First he will summon all players to him, and then shards will erupt from the ground around him inflicting damage to anyone nearby and remaining in play as obstacles. He also starts releasing the black blood of the earth which shows up as a cloud effect that seeps out from him causing damage to everyone in it.
The object of this phase is to get away from him, get behind the spires that are left in play as obstacles, as the blood flows out around the spires and directly behind them will be safe.
Morchock Strategy – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss Strategy
The fight is fairly simple as it is the first boss in a new raid. It is essentially a two phase fight. In the first phase players need to group up around Morchok to share the stomp damage. In addition have a set crystal team and healer for them that goes out to split the damage from them. They should get close enough to each crystal to turn the beam blue to take low damage that is easily healed through.
Phase two is the Black blood phase. Here you need to avoid the Black Blood of the Earth as quickly as possible. Stay behind cover until he resets to phase one.
Rinse and repeat these steps and you should get through him fairly easily.
It should be noted that Morchok does have a crush armour ability that stacks up to 10 and each stack reduces armour by 10%. However because of everything going on in the fight it generally does not force a tank swap as it should fade during the Blood phases.
He also enrages at 20% upping his attack speed by 30% and damage by 20%.
Warlord Zon’ozz – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss
The second boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is the faceless general called Warlord Zon’Ozz and is fought in the maw of unmaking.
Warlord Zon’ozz Abilities – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss Abilities
The Warlord Zon’ozz is a powerful faceless oneFocused Anger– This is a stacking buff that increases his physical damage and attack speed by 10% and stacks over time.
Psychic Drain – Deals a cone of shadow damage to all targets in front of Zon’ozz and healing him for 10x the damage dealt.
Disrupting Shadows – A random target dot that deals high shadow damage every 2 seconds, and knocks the target back when dispelled.
Void Orb – An orb that is summoned that moves towards a player, hits them causing shadow damage split among everyone nearby and bounces back away. Each time it bounces off a player is stacks a buff increasing the damage it does by 20%. If it hits Zon’ozz it removes his stacks of Focused Anger, places a debuff making Zon’ozz take 5% more damage per stack on the orb, and triggers phase 2.
Black Blood of Go’rath – Fills the room with AOE damage causing heavy shadow damage for 30 seconds to everyone in the room.
Warlord Zon’ozz Strategy – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss Strategy
The fight is two repeating phases that very greatly in requirements. In the first phase it is all about co-ordination and managing the damage and the void orb. The second phase is all about DPS burn and mass healing.
In phase one the raid should split into two groups, the tank, melee, and a few healers should be by the boss, while ranges and the rest of the healers stay behind the boss as far back as possible. Healers need to manage dispelling the disrupting shadows during this phase so that players have enough time to return to position by the time the orb gets to their group. The rest of the players need to stay together to that the orb hits as many people as possible each time it comes to either the ranged or melee group. Done right, the orb will move back and forth between the two groups and be fairly easy to heal at first.
Once the orbs damage or Zon’ozz’s damage become to much to heal through melee needs to move through the boss while the tank turns him sideways. This way the orb will hit the boss and start phase two clearing all the buffs and putting the DPS debuff on Zon’ozz.
In phase two the room fills with Black Blood and the healers will have their hands full keeping everyone alive for 30 seconds. DPS meanwhile should burn the boss as hard as they can while the debuff is active. At the end of 30 seconds the fight goes back to phase one.
There is a lot of AOE damage in this fight, so be prepared by planning cooldowns and healing assignments carefully. Phase two is much more difficult than phase 1 so all big buffs and cooldowns should be used in it.
Yor’sahj the Unsleeping – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss
The third boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is another faceless one, this Yor’sahj the Unsleeping and fought in the Maw of Ruin.
Yor’sahj the Unsleeping Abilities – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss Abilities
Void Bolt – Deals heavy shadow damage and applies a 10% stacking healing debuff.
Summon Globules – Yor’sahj can call forth ooze globules from the edge of the room that if they reach him grant additional abilities. He summons 3 at a time in normal mode. Once one ooze is killed the other become immune to damage. Listed in descending order of danger the possible globules of ooze, and the abilities they grant Yor’sahj are:
Glowing Globule (Yellow) – Grants Void Bolt splash damage, double use of all abilities, and increased attack speed.
Shadowed Globule (Purple) – Causes every fifth heal or absorption effect on a player to cause heavy shadow damage to all players.
Crimson Globule (Red) – Grants the ability to sear random players for damage based on distance from Yor’sahj, the further away the more damage caused.
Acidic Globule (Green) – Causes AOE damage around targeted players, forcing you to spread out.
Dark Globule (Black) – Grants the ability to summon forgotten ones. These adds have no aggro and instead target and attack a random player.
Cobalt Globule (Blue) – Grants the ability to summon mana voids that leach mana and only return it upon destruction.
Yor’sahj the Unsleeping Strategy – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss Strategy
The fight is all about managing which globules of ooze are allowed to get to Yor’sahj and therefore which abilities he has. When he summons them the raid leader needs to make a call quickly and DPS has to burn the chosen ooze down before it reaches the boss.
You will then need to deal with the boss for a while with the two abilities that he is granted for a while, before he loses the abilities and summons a new batch of ooze globules.
All of the abilities are dangerous but especially those granted from glowing, shadowed and crimson. Glowing increases damage by at least double and must be killed if summoned. Shadow lowers healing significantly because the more you heal the more damage caused and therefore the more you have to heal, in and endless downward spiral. Crimson causes serious issues when ranged or healers are targeted as the damage can be very significant.
The rest of the abilities are more manageable and can be played with to determine your own preference on dealing with them.
Hagara the Stormbinder – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss
The fourth boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is the Orc shaman Hagara the Stormbinder and takes place in the Eye of Eternity.
Hagara the Stormbinder Abilities – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Abilities
Ice Lance – Targets a random player dealing light frost damage to them and one other nearby player.
Ice Tomb – Traps 2 players (5 in 25 player raids) in ice tombs that must be destroyed quickly to free them.
Shattered Ice – Hits a random player for heavy frost damage and slowing them for 4 seconds.
Focused Assault – A damaging attack that hits in rapid succession against the tank every 0.5 seconds for 5 seconds. She does stay in place when doing this attack though, so you can get away.
Hagara the Stormbinder Strategy – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Strategy
The Shaman Hagara
The Hagara fight is made up of three different phases. In the main phase you must deal with her abilities as listed above. This means staying spread out, freeing players trapped in ice tombs, and getting away from her when she does focused assault if you are the tank.
Her other two phases alternate between the initial phase and are a frost phase and a lightning phase. Which comes first seems to be random, but will then alternate. Therefore the fight will look like this: Phase 1 – Frost – Phase 1 – Lightning – Repeat phase sequence.
In the frost phase Hagara will summon 4 crystals onto the platform, one at each of the North, East, South, and West points. These will form a protective bubble around her in the center of the platform, forcing players to the outer edge. Also summoned are 4 moving walls of ice that circle around the platform forcing players to move around or be killed if caught. Lastly icicles fall to the ground inflicting heavy frost damage to anyone still in the frost rune when they land. This phase ends when players kill all 4 crystals that keep up the shield. When the shield goes down, Hagara is stunned briefly and subject to 100% extra damage. She then returns to phase 1.
In the Lightning phase, 8 lightning rods and two lighting elementals are summoned. While the any rod is active a shield protects Hagara from damage. The elementals must be tanked, and when killed near a lightning rod will cause it to overload sparking all over the place. The goal is to kill each near a different lighting rod.
Once overloaded a rod will hit the nearest player for nature damage every second and arc to the next nearest player or rod within 10 yards. The goal is to move around and create a link to each and every rod to overload them all and shutdown her shield. Damage gets very heavy in this phase and healing is difficult.
Once overloaded and the shield fails, Hagara will again be stunned and subject to 100% extra damage for a short while, then return to phase 1.
This phase rotation continues until you defeat her or wipe.
Ultraxion – Dragon Soul Raid Boss
The fifth boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is Ultraxion, a very powerful dragon that uses nether energy to attack. This fight returns the players to Wyrmrest Temple, where Ultraxion will pull you into the twilight realm. In addition, this fight occurs with you on the ground and Ultraxion in the air.
Ultraxion Abilities – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Abilities
Ultraxion is one mean dragon so watch out.Unstable Monstrosity –This deals shadow damage split between everyone in the twilight realm every 5 seconds, and prevents Ultraxion from dodging or parrying attacks. The damage caused is 300,000 is 10 player and 700,000 in 25 player. The cast time between this attack is reduced by 1 second for every full minute spent in the fight.
Twilight Shift – This ability pulls all players into the Twilight realm. In addition when pulled into the realm you are granted the Twilight Will ability that will appear as a button above your ability bars.
Twilight Will – This ability allows players to exit the twilight realm for up to 5 seconds, while out of the twilight realm you may not move, cast or attack.
Faded Light – This is a debuff placed on random targets, 1 player in 10 player raids and 3 players in 25 player raids. The debuff lasts between 5 and 10 seconds and when it expires will instantly kill a player if they are in the Twilight Realm. If a player is in the regular realm when it expires they will be drawn back into the Twilight Realm and receive the Faded into Twilight debuff.
Faded into Twilight – Players affected by this have their threat cleared and generate no threat for 10 seconds. Hour of Twilight – This attack hits all players in the Twilight realm for 300,000 shadow damage that is not resistable. Once cast anyone in the normal realm is pulled back inot the twilight realm. At least 1 player in 10 man raids, and 3 in 25 player raids, must take the hit or Ultraxions attack hits the NPC’s in the encounter and kills them ending the fight.
Twilight Burst – If no one is in range of Ultraxion’s melee attacks he hits all players with this attack which deals 75,000 shadow damage and increases magic damage by 50% for 6 seconds. The damage debuff can stack and he will do this burst every second until someone is in range.
Ultraxion NPC’s – Dragon Soul Raid Boss NPC’s and Buffs
In the Ultraxion fight there are five NPC’s at the top of the tower that help you through the fight with various buffs.
Thrall – Reduces the cool down timer for all tanks major defensive abilities and increases their duration by 100%.
Alextrasza – Grants a healer 100% increased healing.
Ysera – Grants a healer the ability to duplicate all heals done and distributes the healing to all targets within 50 yards.
Kalecgos – Grants a healer 100% spell haste and 75% reduced spell cost.
Noxdormu – Binds all players in a timeloop. If killed while in it you are instead healed to full health and removed from the timeloop.
Ultraxion Strategy – Dragon Soul Raid Boss
Ultraxion has a lot of health and a 6 minute hard enrage timer. Due to the shifting in and out of combat that players must do to avoid instant death, this is a serious DPS check for most groups and as a result will be a difficult fight to beat.
The fight in theory is simple, in execution exacting, and punishing if anyone has a laggy internet connection. Essentially, players enter the fight and have at least 2 tanks hold Ultraxion’s attention. Players then DPS like mad until an ability is used. Meanwhile everyone is grouped up and healers are AOE healing like crazy to keep ahead of the damage caused by Unstably Monstrosity which gets more intense the longer the fight goes on.
When Faded light is cast, the player affected must use Heroic Will before it expires to escape back to the normal realm and avoid instant death. If the player affected is the main tank, the off-tank must taunt before the main tank leaves. When Hour of Twilight is cast all players other than at least 1 tank must use their Heroic Will to escape to the normal realm and avoid instant death. The tank that remains behind must use a tanking cooldown to avoid dying and to ensure someone remains in melee to the fight does not end.
The abilities that really help you get through this fight are the healing buffs provided by three of the NPC’s and the increased usability of tanking cooldowns due to Thralls buff to tanks. The healing buffs are available to healers, but there are only 3 and they are each single use and any healer can only have one of them. Healers should decide which buff goes to which healer. The ideal seems to bee Kalecgos’s buff to a Druid or Shaman, Ysera’s buff to a Paladin or Holy Priest, and Alextrasza’s to any healer.
Again, simple in theory, but as damage starts ramping up, and the 6 minute mark is looming, it gets tough.
Warmaster Blackhorn – Dragon Soul Raid Boss
The sixth boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is Warmaster Blackhorn and takes place on a powerful skyship as you try to chase down Deathwing. Blackhorn and his minions try to stop you, first by trying to destroy the air ship, and later in close combat.
Add Abilities – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Add Abilities
Goriona (Blackhorn’s Drake) – Drops huge energy blasts on the deck of the ship. These blasts deal 800,000 shadow damage (2,000,000 in 25 player raids) to the ship if not blocked by players. If players are in the blast area when the hit lands, the damage is instead split between the players in range and the ship evenly.
Twilight Assault Drake – Drops smaller energy blasts that function similarity to Goriona’s. These only cause 200,000 damage though.
Twilight Sappers – These adds rush towards the captains cabin trying to detonate their explosives. If they reach the cabin they deal significant damage to anyone nearby and cause 20% damage to the ship as they explode.
Twilight Dreadblade – This add charges around the deck dealing damage to anyone in his path as he moves between random targets. They also have frontal cone attack that deals shadow damage and applies a stacking shadow DOT.
Twilight Slayer – This add charges around in the same way as the dreadblade. His main attack however deals physical damage and applies a stacking physical damage DOT.
Warmaster Blackhorn Abilities – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Abilities
Devastate – A stacking debuff that reduces the tanks armor by 20% for 30 seconds.
Disruption Roar – Causes damage to all players within 10 yards and silences them for 8 seconds.
Shockwave – Hits everyone in his front arc for huge damage and stuns them for 4 seconds.
Vengeance – A stacking buff that increases the damage Warmaster Blackhorn causes by 1% for every 1% health he loses.
Warmaster Blackhorn Strategy – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Strategy
The Blackhorn fight is a fun encounter on everyone’s favourite skyshipThis is a two phase fight where in the first phase, players need to prioritize the adds and down them as quickly as possible, while at the same time helping to mitigate damage to the ship.
Add priority needs to be the Sappers first, the drakes (when they are pulled near by the harpoon gunners), and then either melee add. The sappers are such high priority since they can inflict 20% damage to the ship, and will do so instantly if they reach the captains area, therefore they need to be slowed and killed quickly. After them comes the drakes to help reduce incoming ship damage and lastly the melee adds to reduce healer stress on the tanks and have time for the DOTs to clear before more appear.
During the first phase while dealing with the adds, players need to watch for the two different kind of blasts coming into the ship. The small blasts from the drakes can be survived if at least 2 players are in them, but it is even better if more get in range of the explosion as it further reduces ship damage and doesn’t drop the players health as low. The larger blasts dropped by Goriona need almost all players in the explosion to make it survivable (8/10 and 20/25 respectively).
Once you have dealt with three waves of adds landing on the ship you will move to phase two, which is essentially a tank and spank. Both the boss and his drake land and must be tanked facing away from the group. Goriona spews fire around and should be DPS’ed first until she flies away, once she does everyone focuses on Warmaster Blankhorn.
Simply make sure he is not facing the group, that tanks trade threat once they have two stacks of Devastate on them, and that casters are at least 10 yards away to avoid silences. Do those three things once you get to the Warmaster and his loot is yours.
Spine of Deathwing – Dragon Soul Raid Boss
The seventh boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is Deathwing himself. This is the first of two separate encounters with Deathwing. It occurs immediately after the gunship battle as you drop onto Deathwing’s back. You are on his back to attempt to pry off the armor plates on his back so that Thrall has a chance at a clean strike at Seathwing with the Dragon Soul.
Spine of Deathwing – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Abilities
You finally get to face off against the mighty Deathwing.Corruption Tendrils – These are the tendrils that first appear out of the holes in Deathwings back. They have two special attacks, the first is grabbing a random player and squeezing them, the only way to make them let go is to DPS the tendril. The second attack is to debuff the player with Searing Plasma which absorbs 300,000 heals to remove it, while dealing damage to the player affected.
Corrupted Blood – These are globules of Deathwings Blood that need to be destroyed. When killed they leave behind a residue that makes it’s way back to one of the holes on Deathwings back to respawn as a new corrupted blood.
Grasping Tendrils – These tendrils deal light damage to anyone nearby and hold them in place preventing you from being thrown off of Deathwing when he does a barrel roll.
Barrel Roll – When Deathwing does a barrel roll any player or creature not attached to his back is thrown off.
Hideous Amalgamation – This is the key add during this fight. It can absorb the residue left behind by corrupted blood and gains a 10% stacking buff. When it gets to 10 buffs it becomes superheated and gains a very strong AOE fire aura. When destroyed with at least 10 buffs on it, it will cause an explosion big enough to pry up one of Deathwings armor plates as long as it is within range.
Burning Tendons – These adds only appear after you force a hideous Amalgamation to explode near an armor plate and pry it up. The tendons will attempt to pull it back down and need to be destroyed quickly.
Spine of Deathwing – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Strategy
The Strategy for this fight relies on a lot of coordination and perfect attention by all players. When the fight starts, there will be 4 Corruption Tendrils, two on each side of Deathwings back. Three of these must be destroyed so that you get Grasping Tendrils and Corrupted Blood to spawn.
A tank must hold agro on the Hideous Amalgamation while another tanks the tendrils and blood. Whenever a blood dies, the Amalgamation tank needs to drag it over the blood residue to gain a stack of the blood. DPS should focus on killing blood adds and getting the amalgamation down to low health, all while switching quickly to free any player grabbed by the remaining Corruption Tendril.
Ideally you want the Amalgamation to have below 15% health when it gets the 10th stack of blood. This allows the tank just enough time to move it into position before calling for the kill. Depending on your raids coordination and listening skills this may need to be higher or may be able to be very low. You just don’t want it to die before in position next to the armor plate.
Once an armor plate is pried up, DPS must switch to the tendons very quickly to kill them before they get a chance to pull the plate back down.
While all this is going on, players need to watch for Deathwing performing barrel rolls. Any time he does you must get to a grasping Tendril so that you are stuck in place until he completes his roll.
The fight repeats in sequence until you have pried up and destroyed all 4 armor plates on Deathwings back.
Madness of Deathwing – Dragon Soul Raid Boss – Part 2
The eight encounter in the Dragon Soul raid is a second encounter with the seventh boss, Deathwing. This is the second of two separate encounters with Deathwing and takes place once you have pried up his armor plates in the Spine of Deathwing encounter. This is a two phase encounter with the Dragon Aspects helping in both phases.
Madness of Deathwing – Dragon Soul Raid Boss Abilities – Part 2
Cataclysm – This is a long cast time ability that must be interrupted through damage, or when it finishes being cast it will wipe the raid.
Mutated Corruption Tentacle – This tentacle will be at the back of each platform, and it has two abilities to worry about. Crush hits everyone in front of it for a significant amount of damage, so only the tanks can be in front. It also has Impale which does 400,000 damage split between all targets within 6 yards.
Limb – Each platform has a limb holding onto it. These limbs must be destroyed to beat each platform. The limb deals damage to all players nearby as it gushes blood on players. It also spawns blistering tentacles when the limb gets to 75%, 50%, and 25% health, that need to be burned down. When each limb is destroyed Deathwing looses 20% of his health.
Elementium Bolt – Deathwing launches elementium bolts at the platforms, a spot will be marked and anyone near by will be killed when the bolt lands. Damage is reduced the farther you are away from the landing point.
Elementium Fragment – This is a type of add that spawns in phase two. Its main attack is firing shrapnel at random players that foes huge damage.
Elementium Terror – This is a second type of add that spawns in phase two, and hits for big physical damage and applies a stacking DOT with each hit.
Madness of Deathwing NPC’s – Dragon Soul Raid Boss NPC’s and Buffs – Part 2
In the Madness of Deathwing fight there are five NPC’s that help you through the fight with various buffs. In phase one each npc is active until the limb at thier island is defeated, they all reactivate for phase 2.
Thrall – Thrall creates the winds that allow players to move between the islands.
Alextrasza – Increases all players health by 30% and can kill Blistering Tentacles over 10 seconds.
Ysera – Increases all healing done by 30%, and allows players to enter the emerald dream reducing damage by 50% for 2.5 seconds.
Kalecgos – Increases all players damage dealt by 30% and grants spellweaving which is essentially a cleave to all attacks that hits another target for arcane damage if within 6 yards.
Noxdormu – Increases all players haste by 50%, and can slow the elementium bolt so that players have more time to react.
Madness of Deathwing – Dragon Soul Raid Guide Boss – Part 2
This fight is made up of two phases. In the first phase players much move between 4 different islands around the edge of the Maelstrom and defeat each of Deathwings four limbs as he holds onto them crawling out of the Maelstrom.
On each platform you must defeat the Mutated Corruption Tentacle that will spawn from the backside of the island before defeating Deathwings limb. The tentacle is tricky to defeat as its attacks conflict greatly. To avoid wipes from AOE damage players need to not be in front of it when it crushes, yet they have to group up on the tank when if does impale or the tank will die. Manage these moves well, and it shouldn’t be an issue.
Once the Corrupted Tentacle has been defeated it is time to beat down Deathwings limb. The limb must be burned down in a controlled fashion so that players can move in and out of range to avoid some of the AOE damage caused by the blood and blistering tentacles.
Once all four limbs have been defeated the fight enters phase two. In phase two you must control the adds and beat down Deathwings last 20% health. This has been considered a burn burn phase on the PTR, but may also have been under tuned on normal. We will have to wait for the real raid to be released to see if there is much more to it.
