BWL Bosses

[Shadowwolf]

Vaelastrasz:


Vaelastrasz is an intense, time-critical encounter. It must be completed while Essence of the Red is active. Essence of the Red gives casters 500 mana per second, rogues 50 energy per second, and warriors 20 rage per second. While it is active, mana, energy and rage conservation are non-issues, but it will wear off three minutes after the fight begins, and then healers will no longer be able to keep up with the damage being constantly dished out to the raid. Encounters with Vael are often described as "won at 2:45" or "wiped at 3:15".

Given the short time window, Vaelestrasz is most easily killed when the raid has tremendous DPS and adequate healing power. The encounter is a balancing act between threat control and DPS. It will test the raid's abilities on both counts.

For the first attempt, Vael will be lying on the floor, flagged as friendly. The encounter will begin when the puller (the first main tank) talks to Vael. Should the raid wipe, Vael will be positioned in the middle of the room and the raid must stick to the walls when getting repositioned. In this case, the main tank should approach Vaelastrasz head-on to begin the encounter safely.

Positioning for Vael is critical because he has powerful raid-wiping attacks in both the front (cleave) and the rear (tail swipe). These are some suggestions:

1) Casters (warlocks, mages, and their healers) should be positioned on one side of Vaelastrasz, against the wall, clumped together. Hunters and the tanking line up should be positioned opposite the casters. Rogues will be meleeing Vael broadside, staying between front and hind legs to avoid the rear tail swipe knockback and the front cleave attack. Offtanks should be hacking away closer to Vael's front, around his shoulders, ready to move to the main tank's spot. To reduce healing strain, only the next warrior should move toward this position at a time, due to chaining cleaves. The rest should be in a similar position as the rogues.

2) Ranged DPS and healers should stand against the wall to Vael's right. Melee DPS should be positioned at or just behind Vael's right shoulder (don't get too close to his front). Tanks should stand on the opposite side (Vael's left) near the rear leg. The off-tank should be positioned somewhere near Vael's left foreleg. The purpose of this positioning is to limit the damage that chain cleaves can do. The inevitable spreading-out that melee classes will do if they aren't careful can leave a lot of players vulnerable to chain cleaves, which will propagate from the main tank through the off-tank through the rogues. Every such chain cleave can kill several melee DPS players, and you simply can't afford those losses. If DPS players stay by the right foreleg, they will not be hit by a tail swipe when Vael rotates to his left to attack the OT.


Burning Adrenaline and MT Transitions

Every 15 seconds, Vaelastrasz inflicts a member of the raid with Burning Adrenaline. This debuff effectively turns its target into ticking AoE time bomb, who must move away from their group to avoid a wipe. Every third Burning Adrenaline will be targetted toward whoever is at the top of Vael's hate list (the main tank). All other BA's will be targeted toward random mana users in the raid. Rogues and Druids in feral cat form should not be affected by BA unless they gain aggro, in which case it is generally a guaranteed wipe.

When the main tank is afflicted with BA, the next tank on his hate list must move into his position and take over as the main tank with healing shifting over to the new tank after about 10 seconds, giving the BA-afflicted MT time to deal out some high-damage moves before dropping dead. If the next tank does not pick up aggro after the main tank dies, Vael will likely turn toward the side groups and wipe them out with his flame breath. When mana users are afflicted, they must move away from the raid. A good spot for casters is in the very back of the room, behind Vael's tail where they can unload a series of instant cast nukes before they die, helping to mitigate the loss of DPS.

Tips

During tank transitions, it is important for rogues to Vanish and for hunters to Feign Death. This helps ensure that they aren't above the tanking lineup on Vael's threat list. Mages, Warlocks and Priests generally do not have to worry about their DPS out-threatening the tanks; DPS warriors who gain too much threat can more readily move in to main tank, as can feral druids in bear form. When BA hits the main tank, the next tank in line should move to the tanking spot, spamming threat-generating moves to ensure that Vael focuses on him when the MT drops dead.

Throughout the fight, mages (hopefully with Arcane Subtlety) should chain-cast Arcane Missiles, rogues should continously Backstab and Feint, and other classes should keep as many DoT's on Vael as possible (Serpent Sting, Corruption, Shadow Word:Pain, etc.). Warlocks should have Curse of Shadows, Curse of Elements, and Curse of Recklessness on Vael at all times to bolster DPS. Priests must make sure to renew their Shadow Word: Pain between heals.

The main challenges in mastering Vael are having smooth tank transitions, having enough well-geared warriors to constitute the tanking lineup (4-5 is good), careful threat management from the rogues and hunters, having sufficient healing and having sufficient fire resistance on everyone. Mages and Warlocks aren't generally challenged in this fight since their mana is constantly replenished by Essence of the Red. Priests are likewise under no pressure to conserve mana, though they have to watch their timing as usual.

Rogues can do tremendous damage in this fight, especially those that are dagger-specced. Rogues are essentially set free by Essence of the Red. They can repeatedly backstab with little or no thought to their energy level. It is critical to use Feint as much as possible throughout the battle, however, and to use Vanish on the first transition or when the first MT gets BA. This will keep the rogue's threat relatively low so the second Warrior can hold aggro.

One technique that can prove useful is having a suitably geared druid in bear form as the first tank. As long as they are specced and equipped appropriately, they will have no aggro problems, and this keeps one more warrior alive to Execute when Vael's health drops below twenty percent.

Keys to the Fight

   1. Keeping the MT up until Burning Adrenaline hits.
   2. Keeping the OT topped off so they can survive the sudden burst of damage that will occur when Vael switches after the MT dies.
   3. Keeping the tank order clear. It is critical that the healers know who is next so they can prepare heals, and the tanks need to know who is next so they can move into position.
   4. Watch positioning, avoid chaining cleaves into the dps.

[Shadowwolf]

Broodlord Lashslayer:


The encounter with Broodlord, like all encounters in the instance, seems to have several ways it can be accomplished. Positioning is key, as is how fast your groups elects to dish out the punishment. Broodlord has four main attacks that you are going to need to deal with. Where your party decides to tank him and where your "camp" is positioned is very important due to his abilities and due to the rigors of the environment (unavoidable suppression traps and repopping dragonlings.)

• He does a Blastwave / AoE Knockback similar to the Scholomance Handlers (in the undead dragonkin room). It is fire based and does quite a hefty amount of damage.
• Like most nasty bosses, he has a cleave that your cloth wearers are going to want to avoid. While not as nasty as Vael's, it's still pretty nasty.
• Possibly the most problematic attack that Broodlord has is an ungodly Mortal Strike that he will do frequently on your Main Tank. This can crit for up to 8000 damage on plate and 15000+ on cloth. It also leaves the MS debuff that reduces healing, which is Not Good. It is recommended that priests power word shield the tank when he applies the MS debuff.
• The trickiest part of Broodlord is a single target knockback that he will do on whomever is highest on his threat list. After he knocks a target back, that target's aggro is reduced by 50%. Over the course of this fight, he will do this repeatedly on all of your tanks. The challenge of this fight is then killing him before your cloth's aggro crests over your tank's aggro and he cannot be brought back under control but not doing so much damage that he loses tank aggro early. There are several different strats dealing with this including the "Wand Method" which is doing as little damage as possible over time but before he aggros on healers, the "DPS Method" in which he is Nuked into oblivion before aggro ever becomes a problem and the "Wave Method" where DPS is modulated every time he switches aggro to a new tank. Since 1.9.3 it is no longer possible to have an ooc resser so suiciding dps and healers is no longer an option.

Notes

• In this fight, aggro management and DPS modulation is everything. Aggro reducing talents for Mages, Priests and Warlocks (down the demonology tree) make a huge difference and should be considered if the raid is having problems. Ruin and other crit talents for classes like Warlocks who have poor aggo management should be considered carefully as spiked burst damage is detrimental in this encounter. Warlocks who refuse to drop Ruin can be made to DoT or Wand for this encounter to help normalize their damage. Rogues and Hunters should be using their aggro reducing talents and using Vanish or Feign Death at every available opportunity.
• This fight almost requires tanking warriors (of which you should have several) to have plenty of defense and AC. Though the raid may not be big on consumables, Flasks of the Titans and potions that increase AC and Health are a huge help in this fight as Broodlord's Mortal Strike can and will one-shot a tank with less than 8,000 health if it crits (it is rumored that a mob's special abilities can't crit as of Patch 1.. An unfortunate MS and Blastwave in quick succession spells almost certain doom for tanks with low AC, Defense and Health.
• All healing should be eyes-forward and focused on the tanks. Rogues should be prepared, if needed, to step back and bandage. Timing it so the Main Tank gets a Power Word: Shield immediately after being hit with Mortal Strike is also a huge help in mitigating the amount of burst damage and the subsequent debuff.
• Curse of Recklessness on the Broodlord is dangerous, since some data below indicates that mobs do not use the same attack power formula. Similarly, effects that reduce the Broodlord's attack power can be very beneficial (Demoralizing Shout and Screech).

[Shadowwolf]

Firemaw:


Firemaw should be tanked in the entrance to the room he guards, where the Broodlord Lashlayer was stationed. He should not however be pulled without clearing the first few packs of Mobs in the room, the amount needing to be cleared depending on the skill of the raid, but most likely three.

He should be aggroed so that he is attacking the main tank inside the doorway and can be put out of sight by the raid if they hug the walls either side of him. This is necessary to negate the stack of Flame Buffet that quickly accumulates. One tank should stand in front of him to take aggro for most of the fight being healed from the right side of the room, however during his knockbacks the tank behind him will have to take over, healed by the left side. The main tank will keep getting hit with debuffs, so there should be a second tank prepared to switch in for the Main Tank until the MT's debuffs fall off.

DPS should stand, with the majority of the healers, on the right hand side of the room and get out of LoS when stacks reach about 5-10, depending on your health. Bandaging should be used on non tanks as much as possible, as mana will be needed to heal tanks taking more damage from their lessened fire resistance. Dampen Magic is very useful here since it applies its damage reduction against each stack of the debuff, rather than just once overall.

As with all the other drakes, Firemaw's most deadly weapon is his shadowflame. In order to reduce the impact that this has it is considered wise to have priests cast a Power Word Shield on the MT just prior to this. Other tactics include having one or two healers using big heals and attempting to time them so they land the second after the shadowflame hits.

As with all BWL fights, it is important to manage aggro heavily here as wing buffet reduces the aggro on the tank who is hit by it. In a perfect kill the MT will never take a buffet and will be able to keep ahead of aggro, however if he does get hit by one aggro can get finicky later in the fight.

His knockbacks are about 30-35 seconds apart, and his shadowflames about 15-18 seconds apart.

Keys to the Fight

   1. Constantly watch your health. Everyone besides the healers is taking constantly increasing damage this fight; not watching your health will allow the debuffs to stack up and eventually kill you.

   1. Positioning for this fight is everything. You've heard it before, but it's really true here. All efforts should be taken to ensure that Firemaw does not change location while the fight goes on. The buffet-eater should get right on Firemaw to taunt, as being at the edge of his hit box forces him to move to the OT. The replacement tank should stand on the spot the MT is at before taunting Firemaw off. However your guild does positioning, be wary of the possibility of Firemaw shadowflaming while the buffet tank has aggro; if the raid is behind the eater, it can lose 10-20 people in one breath. As bosses go, Firemaw does not hit hard. If you can get your positioning down, you've won the fight.

[Shadowwolf]

Ebonroc:


The strategy is quite straightforward. Position Ebonroc so that your tanks are in a corner, to avoid erratic knockback. A good example of placement is at the angle between the staircase he patrols on and the wall. Have your tanks be very focused on shadow of ebonroc, use the CT_RaidAssist mod to see who gets it. Big Wigs also is incredibly useful for detecting this.

As soon a tank is affected by Shadow of Ebonroc, other tanks must immediately taunt Ebonroc off him. Keep Mortal Strike up on him all the time and the heals will be hard to notice. Like Firemaw, he does a wing buffet every now and then. Use an offtank to taunt him away from the MT so that he does not get the buffet (50% threat reduction). Note that Shadow of Ebonroc is a low level spell, and a little amount of shadow resist on your tanks (around 100) will reduce your chance of getting hit by it to 25%.

A workable way to position is to assign 3 tanks for Ebonroc. Try and locate the side tanks at 3 and 9 o'clock where the MT is 12. The dps should stay at 6 o'clock. One is to be the MT, one is to be the buffet eater, and one is just there for shadows of ebonroc. Basically, if the MT gets the debuff, both tanks should try and taunt Ebonroc off (he resists a decent bit of the time, two taunts helps to ensure that he's not healing.) Come 15 seconds from the next wing buffet, the eater should stop taunting, to keep his taunt primed for just before the buffet. Be warned, the buffets can occur off as long as five seconds after the 30 second timer has expired, so the eater may have to tank for a bit. As nasty as the debuff is, it is critical that each tank have both challenging shout and mocking blow prepared in case their first taunt is resisted.

He does a shadowflame, but no other AoE attacks, everyone can remain in his LoS safely. The only danger is a caster pulling aggro right when he does shadowflame, which shouldn't happen if your tanks are taunting correctly. But wear your capes nonetheless. Have priests assigned to shield the main tank after each shadow flame, it is not necessary, but provdes you with extra safety.

DPS him quite fast as the tanks tend to get tired, its a very straining fight for them. Healers are not quite as stressed, since his only serious damage comes from shadowflame. If you pull aggro, vanish, feign death, or run to the corner. If your guilds has a shadow spec'd priest, you may consider allowing him or her to DPS for this fight.

[Shadowwolf]

Flamegor:


The fight is in many ways more simple than Firemaw as the debuff does not stack and therefore tanks do not need to hide to lose debuff stacks. As of patch 1.11, it is no longer possible to avoid the Fire Nova by utilizing line of sight, so it will damage all members of the raid when it is active. He only does the Fire Nova when enraged, which can be dispelled by Tranquilizing Shot (looted from Lucifron). Flamegor will enrage every 10 to 15 seconds, so it is critical that multiple hunters have a well-coordinated Tranquilizing Shot rotation. Otherwise he does no more damage than Ebonroc. Tank him like Firemaw, the enrage debuff can get 1k + dmg on your raid if not dealt with fast enough. Have a dedicated healer for the off tanks and hunters, they will be taking the most fire and wont have time to care for themselves.

Avoid shadow flames. [wowitem]Onyxia Scale Cloak[/wowitem] will help.

[Shadowwolf]

Chromaggus:


The Chromaggus fight is all about line of sight.

There are several possible positions where he can be tanked effectively:

• The top of the circular ramp up to where Ebonroc and Flamegor patrol
• On the circular ramp itself facing down
• The door to his own room
• Between the cubbies on the right hand side before the circular ramp

Find somewhere that suits your raid and that you are happy with.

As described above, Chromaggus has different breaths. This fight is a long one, and the trick to it is to move OOS when CTRA gives a breath warning. All other than the MT should move OOS. Healing should intensify on the MT during this period as he will be taking heavy damage from whichever breath Chromaggus uses. The breaths are cast alternately so once you know which breaths he is using you can prepare appropriately.

During the fight Chromaggus will shimmer. This means his resistances have changed. He will become extremely vulnerable to one type of magic and extremely resistant to others allowing for a boost in dps (or allowing dps to slow for a time to allow tanks to keep ahead on aggro)

The one difference to this tactic is the Time Lapse breath. Commonly called 'hard mode' Chromaggus, Time Lapse is a breath attack that stuns. The stun is a binary spell which can be resisted with arcane resistance. Much like Onyxia when she does her fear attack, Chromaggus will target the person highest on his aggro list who is not stunned.

In order to deal with Time Lapse the tactic in theory is simple, but in practice is harder.

• Main Tank - Affected by every time lapse. After he recovers from the stun, Chromaggus returns to him.
• Off Tanks - Should build as high a level of hate as they can and then in turn run out of LoS on the Time Lapse warning. The offtank runs out of line of sight of Chromaggus (there should be a small contingent of healers who also avoid Time Lapse who can heal the offtank during these brief intervals) at every timelapse and are healed where they stand. When the MT's stun wears off, Chromaggus will loyally return and the fight continues as normal.
• Others - Should let themselves get hit by Time Lapse if they have more hate than the off-tank. Otherwise, they should avoid it.

A warlock can leave an imp on the ideal tank spot so that it is easy for the off tank and MT to get the positioning perfect.

For all who can decurse, it is important to be on the ball due to the Brood Affliction debuffs as described above. Especially on the main tank.

It is vital that hunters keep tranquilizing shot up on this boss as he causes three times as much damage when frenzied. The blue and bronze afflictions can prevent hunters from tranquilizing. That's a recipe for a dead tank and a wipe, so priests and paladins must place the highest priority on removing the blue affliction from hunters, and the hunters should each carry two Restorative Potions and five Hourglass Sands per attempt.

As this is a very long fight, it's not a good idea risk death to stay in the line of fire of a breath attack until the last moment. Get into a safe spot early. The breath attack is instant. Once you see the breath animation start, it's over. So, it's safe to move back into line-of-sight as soon as that appears.

[Shadowwolf]

Lab Packs:

Death Talon Packs:

[JohnnieRat]

WTB more mages for the suppression rooms

[Soronus]

Vael is so much fun.