Blackwing Descent

**Vrakir** Sat Jan 01, 2011 4:43 pm

Shamelessly copied from the Tankspot Forum.

Omnitron Defense System:

Environment, Positioning, and Pull:

(1)The Omnitron Defense System is located to the right as you enter the Blackwing Descent instance and is one of two gateway encounters needed to progress to the next section of the raid. (2)

(2)This is the obligatory council fight for the raid and consists of four members [Magmatron(fire), Electron(nature-lightning), Arcanotron(arcane), and Toxitron(nature-posion)] that specialize in their respective damage types.

(3) The room is, in practice, a square with all four “Trons” in the back of the room.

(4) Two tanks are needed for both 10man and 25man.

(5) The fight starts with a seemingly random single Tron. After approx 60sec second, again seemingly random, Tron will activate. Approx. 60s later the first Tron will deactivate and a third will activate. This pattern continues again with the second Tron deactivating and the fourth activating. From here on out the pattern will continue until the ecounter ends.

(6) The four council members have a shared health pool (60mil-10man; 100mil-25man). However, mechanics in the fight do force target switching.

(7) Your starting positioning is highly dependent on what Tron is first activated. However, when you pull the fight, a beam will immediately start channeling on the second Tron to activate, therefore pull the first Tron to the opposite side of the room.

Boss Abilities:
All four Trons have three abilities each that require nearly identical responses from the raid. The first is a general raid damage ability, the second requires proper positioning or movement, and the third is a shield that forces a target switch.

Magmatron:
Incineration Security Measure
1.5sec cast. Unlimited Range. 8sec cooldown.
The Defensive Measure inflicts 14625 to 15375 Fire damage every 1 sec for 4 sec. [Unconfirmed] Deals an additional 29250 to 30750 positional Fire damage to those in melee range.
A standard raid wide AoE to keep the healers busy. The additional damage for melee, if confirmed, may be positional to the sides of Magmatron's feet. It seems staying directly behind the boss avoids the extra damage. Therefore, it is important for the tank to keep Magmatron still during the channel.

Acquiring Target
4sec cast/4sec channel. Unlimited Range. Frequency: twice per activation.
Acquiring a target. After 4 sec Magmatron will begin to channel his Flamethrower on the target, inflicting 34125 to 35875 Fire damage every 1 sec to all enemies in front of him for 4 sec.
A very identifiable red beam will shoot from Magmatron's hand to his acquired target. After 4sec, the boss will cast Flamethrower, which will extend the length of the room in an approx 30deg cone. The targeted raider should position him/herself so that they are the only person hit. The degree of difficulty on this is dependent on which other boss is active at the time. It may be advisable to have a designated "targeted zone" that is kept clear for this purpose.

Barrier
1.5sec cast. Frequency: once per activation.
Absorbs 150000 damage and if the barrier is broken it releases a gale of flame, inflicting 73125 to 76875 Fire damage to all enemies.
As with all four shields, Barrier will be cast half way through Magmatron's activation period. This mechanic is in place to force a target switch to the other active Tron.

Electron:
Electrical Discharge
Instant. Unlimited Range. Short Frequency.
Inflicts [Unconfirmed] 29250 to 30750 Nature damage to up to 3 enemies within 8 yards. Damage is increased by 20% between each jump.
You'll call it chain lightning. Another spread out mechanic. It appears to only target ranged. Simply stay spread 8 yards apart to minimize damage.

Lightning Conductor
Instant. 45yd range. Approx 15yd radius on target. Frequency: 3-4 times per activation.
Infects an enemy for 10 sec., causing it to inflict 24375 to 25625 Nature damage to its nearby allies every 2 sec.
Nearly identical to a similar ability used by Freya in Ulduar. Simply avoid standing next to the conducted raider.

Unstable Shield
1.5sec cast. Frequency: once per activation.
Attacks against the Unstable Shield cause a Static Shock at a nearby enemy's location. Static Shock inflicts 58500 to 61500 Nature damage to enemies within 0 yards of the target.
See Barrier. Switch to next Tron when activated.

Arcanotron:
Arcane Annihilator
1.5sec cast. Unlimited Range. Short Frequency. Interruptable.
Inflicts 48750 to 51250 Arcane damage to a random enemy target.
A simple random nuke. May be wise to have a high efficiency single target healer dedicated to covering this when Arcanotron is active. Highly advised to interrupt. For lower gear levels, it might even be advised to interrupt Arcane Annihilator even during his shell.

Power Generator
Instant. Approx 15yd ground AoE centered on either boss. 1min Duration. Frequency: once per activation.
Summons a Power Generator under a random friendly target. This generator increases damage by 50% of all friendly and enemy targets within 5 yards. Also Increases mana regeneration. Lasts 1 min.Nearly identical to a similar ability used by the Iron Council in Ulduar. Simply move the boss out of the ground AoE so melee can make use of the buff. Healers should always be standing in this pool when it is available. Range may also benefit from this, but may be a poor choice to do so depending on the second active Tron.

Power Conversion
1.5sec cast. Frequency: once per activation.
Power Conversion converts damage against the target to be converted into additional 10% Magic damage and cast speed per stack.
Yo dawg, we heard you like converters, so we put a converter in your shield so you can convert while you convert. The stacking buff on the boss activates when you attack the shield. It is spell steal-able, but the benefits of one 10sec super mage just don't stack up against a possible tank death. It is good use, however, to snag in-case some stray bolts hit after it is cast. Again, this forces a target switch to the next Tron.

Toxitron:
Poison Protocol
9sec Channel. Unlimited Range. 10sec cooldown.
The Poison Protocol creates a Poison Bomb every 3 sec that will explode after coming in contact with its target or after being killed.
Spawns three slow moving slimes that explode in a small radius and leave a void zone when it comes in contact with its target. These have low health so they serve more as a distraction than a threat. Hunters make a solid choice to be on bomb duty. Presumably only target ranged.

Chemical Bomb
Instant. Approx 35-40yd ground AoE centered on a random target. 30sec Duration. Frequency: once per activation.
Fires a Chemical Bomb at a random target, causing a Chemical Cloud at the location that increased damage dealt to friendly and hostile targets by 50%.
Those in the cloud, including the bosses, recieve 50% increased damage. Therefore, make sure to position whichever boss is being focus in the cloud if possible.

Poison Soaked Shell
1.5sec cast. Frequency: once per activation.
Applies Soaked in Poison on melee and spell attacks which inflicts 5000 Nature damage every 2 sec and causes spells and abilities to inflict 9750-10250 additional Nature damage per stack for 30sec. Stacks 100.
Again, this is meant to force a target switch. However, if you are running hard against the enrage timer, stacking this debuff could prove useful. However, if you have a large stack of Soaked in Poison while Magmatron is up, don't be surprised if you're watching the fight from the floor.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

(1) The key to this fight is timely target switching and proper raid awareness and movement.

(2) Make sure to be running nature and fire auras of some kind.

(3) There are multiple "good" points for BL. For the average raid, it would be best served when a Tron will be flat footed in Chemical bomb for at least 30sec. Other times include when Power Generator is up or, for those who like to live on the edge of insanity, when the raid is saturated with Soaked in Poison.

(4) When a Tron casts a shield, switch to the next Tron.

(5) Attempt to keep the Trons somewhat separated. You don't want incidental damage hitting shields.

This fight appears to be a nice intro boss for one of the first raid instances in Cataclysm. It includes some good old fashion mechanics with a relatively interesting twist on the council encounter type.

As always, feel free to add info to this guide that will further everyone's understand of the fight!

Good luck on the Omnitron Defense System Encounter and taking your first steps into the Blackwing Descent!

**Vrakir** Mon Jan 03, 2011 4:14 pm

Magmaw

Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Blackwing Descent Raid Guide! My name is Aliena, and in this video I'll show you all you have to know about Magmaw, one of the first bosses you encounter in this instance. We completed this fight with 1 tank, 7 healers and 17 DPS, but similar raid configurations may do just as well.

Magmaw has two different phases and a LOT of abilities. In the first, regular phase, you deal normal damage to him and your goal is to keep the fight controlled by keeping everyone healed and killing adds in a timely manner. In the second phase, when correctly executed, you deal double damage to Magmaw while your healers can replenish their mana.

Let's start going over Magmaw's phase 1 abilities and how to deal with them. First up, positioning. You want to have three basic camps - one for your tank, one for your melee and one for your ranged attackers and healers. Both the ranged and the melee need to have room to change their camps by at least 15 yards or so.

This is because of Magmaw's signature ability, Pillar of Flame.

Pillar of Flame has a short cast time and is usually directed at a random ranged raid members but can occasionally target a melee. When Magmaw casts it, a red swirl shows up on the ground of the targetted raid member and 2 seconds after, a pillar will erupt in its spot and anyone remaining in the area will get lifted into the air and take massive damage.

That's not all however. Along with the damage, lots of Lava Parasites will drop onto the ground from where the Pillar erupted. These little guys are vicious.

If they manage to attack a raid member, that person will get infected with a debuff and after 10 seconds, the debuff will explode, dealing a ton of damage to anyone around and spawning more parasites.

To avoid this, it's really important to make sure that no raid member gets hit by the pillar and moves as soon as they're aware of it. Once the swirl appears, immediately have a hunter apply a frost trap to the area and then have your ranged raid members - and potentially some rogues if you have trouble taking them down in time - take out the parasites.

Pillar of Flame is roughly on a 30 second timer, so that sets the timeframe you have to kill all parasites.

Magmaw will also occasionally attempt to eat your tank with an ability called Mangle. When he places this on your tank, he takes massive damage every 5 seconds and after 30 seconds, he will be unable to take any action while Magmaw does his omnomnom thing. To counter this, either run two tanks or, if you prefer to to it with 1 tank, have him use a strong cooldown right before the timer is up.

All throughout the phase, Magmaw will shoot the raid with Lava Spew - ranged missiles that hit everyone and need to be healed through. His last phase 1 ability is Ignition. Ignition happens every phase 1 and will ignite about half of the room. It's easily visible since the ground starts steaming. To counter this, make sure your raid always keeps somewhat close to the middle of the room and can easily change sides.

Phase two happens when Magmaw slumps forward and the emote "Magmaw slumps forward, exposing his pincers!" appears. When this happens, three melee need to jump onto his head using the spike and spam the ability they then gain - Constricting Chains. If executed correctly, after a short while Magmaw's head will become impaled on the spike and he will take double damage while being unable to do anything.

This is the perfect opportunity for bloodlust, time warp and heroism and also for your healers to regen some mana. After a little while, Magmaw will recover and phase 1 starts over.

It's worth noting that if there's no one in Magmaw's melee range, he'll enrage and basically wipe the raid, so make sure to always have people near him.

That about covers Magmaw's abilities. I'll attach video of the full encounter so you can see in detail how we dealt with his various mechanics. Good luck and have fun!

Blackwing Descent Magmaw12

**Vrakir** Sun Jan 09, 2011 3:55 pm

Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Blackwing Descent Raid Guide! My name is Aliena, and in this video I'll show you all you have to know about Atramedes, the blind dragon you'll encounter in the second tier of this new raid instance. We completed this fight with 1 tank, 6 healers and 18 DPS, but similar raid configurations may work just as well.

Atramedes is a very unique encounter. As mentioned, he's blind, so all abilities he does are centered around sound. When the fight starts, you will have a sound bar pop up in your UI. Getting hit with any of Atramedes' abilities will increase your sound level. When the bar is full - ie you hit 100 sound - Atramedes will know where you are and kill you in about two seconds.

The fight is split into two phases that'll keep repeating. As soon as you engage Atramedes, you start out with the ground phase which always lasts 80 seconds. Let's go over the abilities that he'll use during his ground phase. The first ability you'll see is Sonar Pulse - Atramedes will release 4 sound discs that start at a random point in the room and spread out from there. Touching a disc adds 7 sound to your bar and inflicts some damage.

They move slowly and aren't that hard to avoid. If you get unlucky and they spawn on you, move opposite of the direction they're moving into. You'll stack up some sound, but it shouldn't bring your bar to 100.

His second ability is Modulation- this will look like a gigantic sound disc reverberating through the room. Modulation can not be avoided or dodged and will inflict 40000 shadow damage to your entire raid on top of adding 7 sound to everyone's sound bar. He'll use this occasionally throughout the ground phase.

His third ability is Sonic Breath - this is cast at the target that currently has the highest amount of sound. Atramedes will face his target (boss mods figure out correctly who it is and this should be called out on vent) and start a 2-second cast. At the end of the cast, he'll follow his target with flames, and anyone getting caught in the fire will take massive amounts of damage and stack up sound. The more sound Atramedes' breath target has, the faster the flames will follow him.

Most often, a ranged raid member will have the highest amount of sound. To counter this (and to make healing easier for Modulation), your ranged raid members and healers should be loosely stacked up. When Atramedes picks a target and starts casting his breath, his target should move to the right and 'kite' the breath, wheras everyone else in the ranged pile should move to the left. If his breath target has a movement enhancing effect available like body and soul, no one should get hit by the breath at all. The breath is channeled for 6 seconds, so everyone needs to make sure that they're out of its way while it's being kited.

Atramedes' last phase 1 ability is Searing Flame. He'll cast this once per ground phase and it's his most devastating ability. For 8 seconds, he'll channel a fire AoE that inflicts about 20k damage to every raid member per second and stacks up a fire damage debuff. It is crucial to the fight that you do not let Atramedes cast this. To interrupt Searing Flames, you can hit one of the ten gongs that are aligned around his chamber.

Hitting a gong will cause Vertigo to Atramedes, which stuns him for 5 seconds and makes him take more damage within that time frame. However, after he recovers from vertigo, he'll shatter the gong that was used, so you can only use each gong once. This serves as soft enrage timer - when you run out of gongs, you're probably screwed.

After you survive 80 seconds of the ground phase, you'll trigger his air phase. This one only lasts 40 seconds. As soon as Atramedes hits the air, he'll once again target the player with the highest amount of sound and this time he'll chase him down with flame breath from the air. Everyone should be moving when the air phase hits to increase the chances of getting away from this flame breath.

The fire will move faster the higher the target's sound level is and on top of that will speed up the longer Atramedes is chasing someone. You will eventually want to interrupt this by using a gong, which once more will cause Vertigo to Atramedes. After Vertigo is done, he'll shatter the gong and go on to chase the player that used it. You want someone with a huge movement speed increase to be the person to hit the gong during the airphase, like a rogue for instance.

Obviously, any other movement speed enhancing buffs are are big help in this phase. The flames will leave flame patches on the ground that deal damage and increase sound when touched, so try to not kite them into the most idiotic direction you can think of. He'll also use Roaring Flames during his air phase, which adds more flame patches on the ground in random locations. Obviously, we'll do what every person with a brain does when they see fire on the ground - TOUCH THE BRIGHT SHINY MESMERIZING THI- I mean.. don't stand in it. Ever.

His last air phase ability is Sonar Pulse, which looks like the discs from the ground phase, but these ones will spawn in the location of random raid members, and shortly after they appear, a little missile will hit the center of the disc. Getting hit by the missile will deal damage and add 7 sound, so it's important that every raid member stays moving during the air phase to avoid these.. and the fire.. and the arcane ball.. and the fire breath. So yes, keep moving during the air phase and avoid getting hit by anything.

Once the 40 seconds are up, Atramedes will land again and phase 1 starts over. This cycle repeats until Atramedes' health pool is depleted. Make sure to only have reliable raid members hitting the gongs - getting the interrupts right is the most crucial thing about this encounter. Other than that, this fight is all about dodging stuff and kiting fire. If executed correctly, Atramedes should die rather easily. The soft enrage is very lenient and unless half your raid is dead, you should not get close to it. I've attached footage of the whole fight to show in detail how we dealt with his various mechanics. Good luck and have fun!

**Vrakir** Sun Jan 23, 2011 6:46 pm

Hello, and welcome to Tankspot's Cataclysm Raid Guide. My name is Papapaint, and in this video I will be discussing the strategy for Chimaeron in the Blackwing Descent Raid Instance.

Chimaeron is an extremely healer-intense fight, and requires a great deal of self control on the part of your healing team--you won't be seeing very many satisfyingly full green bars.

It is important to note that you should not begin the fight by simply hitting Chimaeron in the face. Instead, go around him and speak with Finkle Einhorn, locked in a cage next to his trusty Bile-O-Tron. After speaking with him, the Bile-O-Tron comes online, stinks up the room, and wakes up the napping triple-headed monster. As long as the Bile-O-Tron is active, your raid gains Finkle's Mixture, which prevents any members of your raid dying as long as their health is over 10,000. If a raider's health is over 10,000 and they WOULD die, they're instead knocked down to 1 HP.

In simpler terms, this means that during Phase 1, your raiders' health only needs to be over 10,000 HP---healing them past that is essentially overhealing. This is due to Chimaeron's Caustic Slime. This move will target four players, splitting 320,000 damage (two players and 280,000 in 10-man) between those players and all other players within 6 yards of them. In addition, it will apply a debuff to all affected players, reducing their hit for 3 seconds. The easiest way to deal with this is to split up, staying 6 yards apart--any player hit by the green vomit will simply be knocked down to 1 HP. Heal them to over 10k HP, and they're safe once again.

The exception to the 10,000 HP rule is, of course, the tanks. Chimaeron hits hard, and has two extra-nasty abilities to look out for: Break and Double Attack. Double Attack is exactly what it sounds like--on Chimaeron's next melee, he will melee twice in very quick succession. This means that even if your tank is over 10k, they will be hit, reducing them to 1 HP, and then hit immediately afterwards, killing them. There are a few ways to deal with this. Defensive cooldowns work well, but topping off the tank will generally allow them to survive the double hit. Break is designed to make topping off the tank more difficult--it increases the damage taken by the tank by 25% and reducing ihealing taken by 15% for every stack. This is applied every 15-20 seconds, so you'll want to have your tanks trade off every 3 stacks, with your tank popping cooldowns to survive through the 2nd stack.

The last ability of note during phase 1 is Massacre. Massacre instantly deals 900,000 damage to every player and can not be mitigated in any way. This means that every single player in your raid over 10,000 HP will be reduced to 1 HP, and all raiders below 10,000 HP will die instantly. This includes the tank, so make sure you have at least one--preferably more--healers dedicated to healing up the tank as quickly as possible while the rest of your healers rush to get everyone in the raid back over 10,000 HP.

Occasionally after Massacre, the Bile-O-Tron will be knocked offline, removing the buff from your raid and taking you into phase 2. During phase 2, Chimaeron's heads will begin fighting one another, and he will cast fued for 30 seconds. You have 15 seconds to stack up and heal the entire raid before he begins vomiting poison bombs. Without the buff to protect your raid members, it's necessary to clump up in order to split the damage amongst your whole raid. After 15 seconds, he will vomit every 5 seconds, then finish off with another massacre. Use defensive cooldowns, self heals, and help top off all raid members in any way possible. While he casts Massacre, your raid should be spreading out to resume Phase One.

At 20%, Chimaeron will take your raid into Phase 3. During phase 3, your whole raid will be afflicted with a new debuff: Mortality. This reduces ALL healing effects on your raid by 99%... so there's basically no reason to continue healing. In addition, Chimaeron will become untauntable and take an additional 10% damage. To simplify the strategy of phase 3... BURN HIM DOWN. Pop Heroism or Bloodlust, have your healers help out with DPSing, and start kiting him. Watch his aggro table to determine who he's going to attack next, and have that person run across the room. Use Iceblocks, Bubbles, Fades, Feign Deaths, Guardian Spirit, and any other tricks you can think of to keep him running as much as possible. The more he's moving instead of attacking, the more DPS time you get. This is purely a race against his ability to nom nom your entire raid, one at a time. With proper cooldown usage, some hard DPS, and clever use of aggro mechanics, Chimaeron should be an exhilarating kill.

Thanks for watching this guide. I will include the second half of this fight with some minor commentary to give you a better idea of how we handled all three phases. If you enjoyed this guide and would like to stay up-to-date on Cataclysm raid strategy information, subscribe to this video channel. As usual, comments are welcome in both the youtube comment box and on the official thread on Tankspot.

**Vrakir** Sun Jan 23, 2011 6:47 pm

Hello and welcome to the Blackwing Descent Raid Guide! My name is Aliena, and in this video I'll show you all you have to know about Nefarian, the last encounter in this new raid instance. We completed this fight with 3 tanks, 6 healers and 16 DPS - or 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS in the 10 man version - but similar raid configurations may work just as well.

Nef is a 3-phase encounter and probably the most challenging fight you'll find in this tier. In the first phase, you fight both Onyxia (yep, again!) and Nefarian at the same time while skeletons try to eat you, in the second phase, you're up against three Chromatic Prototypes while Nef annoys you from the air with his fireballs, and in the third phase you only fight Nef, but he kept his Bone Warriors from phase 1 around.

The goal in phase 1 and 2 is to do as much damage to Nef as you possibly can while keeping your raid stable and without jeopardizing a wipe, while phase 3 is all about add control. You want to aim to have Nef at about 75% health when phase 2 starts, at about 65-55% health when phase 3 starts. Let's go over the different phases and abilities you'll have to deal with.

When you first jump down into the arena, you'll only encounter Onyxia, who's been turned into a bit of a living bomb. As soon as you pull her, a little electro-meter will pop up on your UI, illustrating her electric charge level. If this bar ever fills up, it's an instant wipe for your raid. The bar will fill up quicker if no one is DPSing Onyxia, so make sure not to neglect the poor girl. Your Onyxia tank should pull her to a far side of the room and have her face and tail away from the raid as she has a cleave, a breath and a tail lash. Your ranged raid members and healers should be positioned in the middle of the room.

When Onyxia's sides start sparkling, your tank must adjust her position so her tail faces the raid. This is because Onyxia is about to use Electric Discharge, which deals a ton of damage per second to anyone located to either side of her. Your raid might get tail lashed during this, but it's a lot better than standing in Electric Discharge.

Once pulled, a bunch of Animated Bone Warriors will spawn around the room. These come with a twist - they each have 100 energy and will lose 2 energy per second. WHen their energy bar is completely drained, the skeletons will enter an inanimate state and will only revive if touched by any of Nef's Shadowflame abilities. In the 25-man version, you want to designate a tank to gather up all skeletons and kite them, but the kiter needs to avoid Nef's and Onyxia's breath abilities.

Make sure to assist him by using abilities such as frost trap, frost nova and other AoE slow and stun abilities. This is incredibly important! Whenever a skeleton lands a hit on a raid member, they gain a buff called Empower, which increases their damage and movement speed by 10% a stack. This buff can grow infinitely, so it's crucial that the skeletons land as little hits as possible on your raid. It's very easy to see when skeletons stack this buff up high, as they grow enormously large.

If you're doing this in the 10-man version, it'll be 6 skeletons and you can set up a crowd control chain for them in phase 1. Fear, Shackle, Repentance and most other crowd control effects work just fine. Try to have all skeletons "die" in about the same area, this is important for phase 3.

Approximately 30 seconds after engaging Onyxia, Nefarian will land and your second tank must pick him up and pull him to the opposite side of the room, away from Onyxia. If Nef and Onyxia are within 60 yards of each other, they gain a 100% attack speed buff - obviously, you want to avoid that. Nef too has a Cleave, a Breath and a Tail Lash but no Electric Discharge, so there's no need to move him. Just make sure neither his face or tail is facing your raid.

Once Nef is stabilized, you want to designate a DPS team to switch from Onyxia to Nef. Figuring the DPS split out is trial and error - you want to leave enough DPS on Onyxia so that she's close to death when Nef is at about 75% health, give or take a few. However, don't forget about Ony's Lightning Charge level - kill her before this fills up, even if Nef's not quite as far down as you'd like.

Nef's trademark ability throughout the whole fight is Crackle. When he reaches 90% and every 10% of his health thereafter until he dies, Nef will emote "The air crackles with Electricity!" and shortly afterwards, every single raid member will take about 100k nature damage. Since it happens every 10%, Crackle is predictable, and your raid needs to be completely stable before you push Nef's health past a threshhold. Ideally, you want two Crackles to happen in phase 1, another 2 in phase 2, and the rest of his health can be burned down in phase 3.

Crackles can be mitigated by Divine Guardian, Feint and other abilities. If you have a Divine Guardian available, you can use it to mitigate up to 3 crackles throughout the fight.

Again, aim to have Nef around 75% health before killing Onyxia. As soon as she dies, phase 2 starts and the entire area will fill up with lava. This is where the three pillars around the room come into play. Split your raid up into three groups - tanks are not necessary for this phase, the Prototypes do not melee. We assign 2 healers to each platform in the 25-man, 1 healer each in the 10-man. Furthermore, each platform needs reliable interrupters. In the 25-man, you want to aim for at least 2, but preferably even more interrupters per platform, in the 10-man 1 interrupter is the bare minimum. Obviously, the DPS spread should be even.

As soon as Onyxia dies, everyone needs to run to their assigned pillar and wait for the lava to come up.

A chromatic prototype will spawn on each pillar, and as soon as the lava reaches its maximum fill level, each raid member needs to hop onto their assigned pillar. Be quick with this, the lava deals increasing damage the longer you're in it. Also, as soon as the lava reaches its max level, each Prototype will start casting Blast Nova, which is a relatively quick cast. Blast Nova needs to be interrupted at all costs, every single time it is cast. Letting even just one tick of it go off will easily cause a raid wipe. In the 10-man, Prototypes will cast this roughly every 12 seconds, in the 25-man it's roughly every 6. All interrupts will work, even the blood elf racial Arcane Torrent.

While you're fighting the Prototypes, Nef will fly around above you and spam your raid with Shadowflame Barrage. This deals a LOT of single target damage. Phase 2 is easily the most healing intense phase of the whole fight, and healers need to closely monitor their mana. Lightwells proved to be a big help for us. You should designate ranged DPS to concentrate on Nef in this phase, to bring his health down another 10-20%. It's tough, but you want at least one, better yet two Crackles to happen to make phase 3 easier. In the 10-man, DPSing Nef in phase 2 is not absolutely required, but it does help.

Co-ordinate cooldowns for phase 2 crackles, and make sure each platform is stable before pushing Nef past a threshhold. Phase 2 lasts for 3 minutes or until every Prototype is dead, whichever happens first. Remember, keeping the raid stable is of utmost priority. If you cannot afford another Crackle to go off without having people die, just push Phase 3.

Once it starts, Nef will land and your tank has to pick him up once more. Drag him to the very edge of the room, and have your raid stack up to the side of him. Again, tail swipe breath cleave, you know the drill. Hopefully all the adds from phase 1 went inanimate in roughly the same spot, as Nef will shoot a Shadowblaze missile at them right after phase 3 starts, and adds touched by this will revive with full energy and need to be picked up and kited by your tank.

Shadowblaze will also spawn pink fire that'll follow the nearest person, and if the adds are touched by this, they'll also reset their energy bar. The best way to deal with this is to have your add-tank watch Nefarian while kiting, and everytime he shoots a Shadowblaze missile at the skeletons, have him move them out of the way so they don't get hit by the initial missile or the fire that'll start following your tank once the missile hits.

The kiting should happen well away from Nefarian himself, and your add-tank should have 2-3 healers accompanying him. Ideally, the adds will not get hit by any shadowblaze and go inanimate after 50 seconds. Going inanimate will reset their buff, so they'll be a lot more managable when Nef re-animates them. As the phase goes on, more and more fire will cover the room and it will get tougher to keep the adds out of it. If they do touch it, their energy bar is reset to 100 and you have to deal with another 50 seconds of very angry large adds beating you up.

This is why it's preferable to get Nef low before phase 3. If your add-tank dies, it's basically game over, and the shorter the phase, the less chance of that happening. Of course, Crackle still happens during phase 3, and it's important to call out impending Crackles so cooldowns can be applied to your add-tank. As mentioned, it is imperative to keep your add tank up. If add control is executed correctly, phase 3 is a tank and spank with predictable damage spikes.

That covers the Nefarian encounter. Good luck and have fun, as always! Ive attached footage of the whole encounter in case you would like to see how we dealt with the various mechanics in detail.

**Reyvl** Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:28 pm

Blackwing Descent

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Maloriak will no longer cast Flash Freeze on anyone who is tanking Aberrations or anyone who has recently been hit by them.

That son of a bitch!, they change that now, NOW!. Sad

**Vrakir** Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:52 pm

Hello, and welcome to Tankspot's Cataclysm Raid Guide. My name is Papapaint, and in this video I will be discussing the strategy for Maloriak in the Blackwing Descent Raid Instance.

Maloriak is a relatively straightforward fight that requires little more than proper coordination of your raid for one simple awareness phase and the final burn phase. In addition, there are adds that must be offtanked for a short while, as well as a couple spells requiring interruption. Don't be too intimidated, though... at its core, this encounter is a tank and spank.

First, it's important to assign players to interrupt Arcane Storm. You can increase the cast time of this ability with Slow or Curse of Tongues (etc.), so be sure to assign someone to toss that on as well. Arcane Storm is a channeled AoE that can quickly wipe the raid if not interrupted. You will also need an offensive dispeller to remove Remedy, a heal over time spell Maloriak will occasionally cast on himself. It heals for increasingly larger amounts the longer it's on him, so get rid of it as quickly as possible.

During Phase 1, Maloriak will occasionally run to his cauldron and toss in one of three vials: red, green, and blue. Each vial causes him to gain new abilities unique to that color, so be aware of what he's selecting and respond appropriately. Whenever Maloriak tosses in a Red Vial, he will gain the abilities Scorching Blast and Consuming Flames. Consuming Flames is a small Damage over Time spell that becomes significantly more dangerous if the affected player takes any other magic damage. Scorching Blast is an AoE frontal cone fire spell that splits its damage amongst all players in range. Have your raid stack up, and the player with scorching blast can simple run out. Face Maloriak to the raid, heal through the fire damage, and the phase is trivial.

When he tosses in a Blue Vial, he gains the abilities Flash Freeze and Biting Chill. Biting chill causes a single player to deal frost damage to all other players within 6 yards, so have the ranged be spread out and assign an area for melee to run when this ability affects them. Flash Freeze will encase a player and all players within 6 yards in a block of ice which must be broken in order to free the player. They have fairly low health, so a few quick hits will do the trick.

Every third vial is sure to be a Green Vial. Maloriak will coat everything in the room with Debilitating Slime, increasing Damage Taken by 100%. This is your solution to dealing with the adds. During the fight, Maloriak will cast "Release Abberations," releasing three adds at a time. These adds take significantly reduced damage unless under the effect of Debilitating Slime, so your best bet is to have a tank round them up and hold them until the Green Vial phase. There are 18 adds total that can be released, and you only want two Green Vials in order to beat the enrage timer. Allow him to release 9 adds before each Green Vial, and then interrupt any additional casts of "Release Abberations" until Green Vial is cast again and your raid can AoE down the mobs.

During the final phase, he releases two adds called Prime Subjects. These need to be picked up quickly, as they will lock on to their target a few seconds after being released and fixate on them until death. Have the tank pick these up, and your raid can comfortably ignore them to focus on burning down Maloriak. Maloriak will cast lines of fire at your tank, so face him towards the wall, slowly kite him around the room, and ensure that no one is standing behind the tank. There are also two AoEs going out in the form of Absolute Zero and Poison Nova. Poison Nova is a small dot that must simply be healed through, while Absolute Zero summons a void zone under a player, producing an orb that will explode if a player touches it.

This fight sounds significantly more complicated than it actually is. I'll provide footage of the entire fight with some commentary, simplifying the strategy discussion along with comments on how we handled each phase.

Thanks for watching this guide. To stay up-to-date on Cataclysm raid information, subscribe to this channel and look for updates on encounter guides, including heroic mode raid guides. As always, feel free to ask questions or leave comments either on youtube or the official strategy thread on tankspot.com.

**Xuthli** Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:48 pm

Magmaw HC Kill Vids

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ODS HC Kill Vids

Halfus 10 HC KillVids

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Atramedes 10 HC Kill Vids

**Xuthli** Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:49 pm

Cockblock = Valiona and Theralion!

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