Blackwing Descent
Magmaw
Magmaw is the first boss in Blackwing Descent. He's a big magma worm with a big mouth; Magmaw is more than just a clever name!
You can do Magma with a single tank, if that tank can muscle through getting eaten. If not, you'll need a second tank to help relieve pressure during the "oh my god, I've been eaten" phase. However, you do need at least one melee player near Magmaw at all times; otherwise, he'll go berserk and wipe your raid.
You can do Magma with a single tank, if that tank can muscle through getting eaten. If not, you'll need a second tank to help relieve pressure during the "oh my god, I've been eaten" phase. However, you do need at least one melee player near Magmaw at all times; otherwise, he'll go berserk and wipe your raid.
General strategy
Phase 1
The first phase is mostly about not standing in the Pillar of Flame ability, while also making sure to kill the parasites that spawn without getting letting them hit you. If you get hit by the parasites, they explode and spawn still more parasites.
- Magmaw casts Pillar of Flame, marking a location with 4 seconds' warning to get out of the area. Those remaining nearby get a massive damage knockback.
- Pillar of Flame spawns Lava Parasites. These adds apply a debuff that will explode after 10 seconds and spawn more Lava Parasites. Slow and kite the parasites, and kill them immediately from range. You will have about 30 seconds to kill the parasites before more are spawned.
- Magmaw will Mangle your tank, causing massive damage, every few seconds. After 30 seconds, Magmaw will eat your tank, preventing him from taking any action. The tank will need to use cooldowns to power through being eaten, and you should have a second tank ready to go.
- Magmaw will also periodically cast Ignition, which sets half the room on fire. When you see steam, move to the other side.
Phase 2
- Magmaw will slump forward. When this happens, one to three melee DPSers should use the spikes to jump on his head. This will give them a new ability called Constricting Chains. Spam this ability often to impale Magmaw's head on a spike.
- When Magmaw's head is on a spike, it will take double damage and be unable to do anything during the phase. This is the perfect time for Heroism / Bloodlust / Time Warp.
Abilities
- Berserk increases the caster's attack and movement speed by 150% and all damage it deals by 500% until cancelled. It also grants immunity to taunt effects.
- Lava Spew deals 23,125 to 26,875 fire damage (in heroic, 23,125 to 26,875 fire damage).
- Magma Spit inflicts 30,625 to 39,375 fire damage to the enemy target (in heroic, 30,625 to 39,375 fire damage).
Loot
Omnitron Defence System
The Omnitron Defense System is the second fight in Blackwing Descent. It is effectively the token "council" fight of the raid. Essentially, the key to this fight is to switch to the most recently activated boss. Each boss has a damage type. Overall, you need two tanks for the ODS fight.
The ODS trons all share a joint health pool. They activate in random order and switch during the fight when each tron runs out of energy. Your DPS needs to stay focused on the most recently activated tron. You can tell which tron will activate next by the beam channeling to it, which is a good sign for your tank to pull the current tron to the relative opposite side of the room.
General strategy
Arcanotron (arcane damage)
- Power Generator summons a blue circle under a random target. This increases damage by 50% of all friendly and enemy targets within 5 yards and lasts 1 minute. Drag the constructs off, and have DPS stand in the blue circle for a DPS boost.
- Arcane Annihilator is a simple, huge nuke that can be interrupted.
- Power Conversion converts incoming damage into increased DPS. Purge or steal the spell or stop DPS. This usually forces you to switch to the next tron.
- Lightning Conductor infects an enemy for 10 seconds, causing it to inflict nature damage to its nearby allies every two seconds. It targets one raid member and causes him to damage other nearby raid members. If you are the target, run away from the raid group.
- Electrical Discharge inflicts 29,250 to 30,750 nature damage to up to three enemies within 8 yards. Damage is increased by 20% between each jump. Spread out to avoid turning this into a raid killer.
- Unstable Shield Attacks against the Unstable Shield cause a Static Shock at a nearby enemy's location. Static Shock inflicts 58,500 to 61,500 nature damage to enemies. When this ability is active, stop DPS.
- Incineration Security Measure inflicts 14,625 to 15,375 fire damage every 1 second for 4 seconds. It can't be prevented, so you must heal through it.
- Acquiring Target hits a raid member with a red beam. After 4 seconds, Magmatron will begin to channel his Flamethrower on the target, inflicting 34,125 to 35,875 fire damage every 1 second to all enemies in front of him for 4 seconds. Heal the target, and everyone should get away from the target.
- Barrier absorbs 150,000 damage and if the barrier is broken, it releases a gale of flame inflicting 73,125 to 76,875 fire damage to all enemies.
Toxitron (nature damage)
- Chemical Bomb fires a Chemical Bomb at a random target, causing a Chemical Cloud at the location. The cloud doubles damage taken. This affects the constructs as well as raid members. Get out of the cloud, and drag the boss into it.
- Poison Soaked Shell applies Soaked in Poison on melee and spell attacks, which inflicts nature damage every 2 seconds. Soaked in Poison can stack up to 100 times, so be careful to watch your stacks. This debuff will actually increase your damage too, so you may wish to balance the number of stacks you get against how your healers can keep with it.
- Poison Protocol creates a Poison Bomb every 1.5 seconds that will explode after coming in contact with its target or after being killed. The Bomb fixates on a single raid member and moves toward him or her, then explodes for massive damage on contact. Stun or snare the Poison Bombs. Kill them with ranged attacks.
Loot
Maloriak
Maloriak is the third boss in Blackwing Descent.
This is going to be a confusing fight for most raid groups. It's not that any particular dance step is difficult; however, there are a lot of phases and dance steps to remember. Throughout the fight, Maloriak throws vials at your raid. You must react according to the color of the vial, which can make keeping track of this fight a little difficult.
This is going to be a confusing fight for most raid groups. It's not that any particular dance step is difficult; however, there are a lot of phases and dance steps to remember. Throughout the fight, Maloriak throws vials at your raid. You must react according to the color of the vial, which can make keeping track of this fight a little difficult.
General strategy
This boss has two main phases, and the first phase has three different vials to which you must respond. Throughout the fight, Maloriak spawns adds called Aberrations in the back of the room. There are 18 small adds and two large ones. The large ones release during the final phase. You can interrupt Maloriak's attempt to Release Aberrations, allowing you to control the rate at which they appear. However, in phase 2, the boss will release all remaining adds whether you like it or not, so don't wait too long. In general, you want six adds per "vial phase."
As phase 1 proceeds, Maloriak will toss vials into his cauldron. The color of his vials will determine what you should be doing. The colors are red, blue, and green. A green will always be the final phase; there's no way to know which color will get tossed in first. Maloriak cycles through each color twice.
Phase 1
As phase 1 proceeds, Maloriak will toss vials into his cauldron. The color of his vials will determine what you should be doing. The colors are red, blue, and green. A green will always be the final phase; there's no way to know which color will get tossed in first. Maloriak cycles through each color twice.
Phase 1
- Red vial When Maloriak throws a red vial into the cauldron, everyone needs to stack up. Scorching Blast deals damage to everyone in a frontal cone, spread among everyone stacked. Additionally, he will use Consuming Flames. Move away from the rest of the raid group, and return when Consuming Flames is over.
- Blue vial When Maloriak throws a blue vial into the cauldron, he will use Flash Freeze. This will freeze a player in a block of ice and chain to anyone nearby. You must kill the ice tomb to free the player.
- Green vial When Maloriak throws a green vial into the cauldron, slime sprays out from the cauldron and everyone in the room gets Debilitating Slime. The slime increases all damage taken by 100% and suppresses any Growth Catalysts.
Phase 2
When Maloriak reaches 25% health, he will enter phase 2. During the transition, Maloriak will release all of his remaining minions. The two large adds must be tanked by an off tank.
Once he has transitioned into phase 2, there are three new abilities.
Once he has transitioned into phase 2, there are three new abilities.
- Magma Jets release a stream of small fire towards a random enemy. These fissures deal 38,000 to 42,000 fire damage to all enemies within 0 yards. In addition, the fissures leave behind a persistent burning effect that deals 18,850 to 21,150 fire damage to everyone near the randomly targeted raid member. Maloriak will target the affected player before using the ability, so you have time to get out of the way.
- Biting Chill summons an orb that slowly falls to the ground, exploding on impact. Get out of the way.
- Acid Nova deals damage to the entire raid. You must heal this damage.
Loot
[Leggings of Consuming Flames]
Atramedes
Atramedes is the fourth boss in Blackwing Descent. This is kind of an odd encounter, because Atramedes is blind. As soon as your start the encounter, a Sound bar will pop up on your screen. This is important because many of Atramedes's abilities are targeted according to who has the highest Sound at the time. Additionally, if you get to the maximum amount of Sound, Atramedes can target you directly and will instantly kill you.
You should note the position of the 10 gongs in the room. These interrupt Atramedes's Searing Flame ability, which is a huge key to the fight. Each time you use a gong, Atramedes will then immediately destroy the gong. Once you've interrupted Atramedes, he's be stunned for about 5 seconds and take additional damage from your attacks for that time. Note that you only have 10 gongs, so they serve as your effective "end point" for the fight if you run out.
You should note the position of the 10 gongs in the room. These interrupt Atramedes's Searing Flame ability, which is a huge key to the fight. Each time you use a gong, Atramedes will then immediately destroy the gong. Once you've interrupted Atramedes, he's be stunned for about 5 seconds and take additional damage from your attacks for that time. Note that you only have 10 gongs, so they serve as your effective "end point" for the fight if you run out.
General strategy
There are two phases to this fight, an air phase and a ground phase. The phases are repeated until either your raid or Atramedes is dead. The ground phase lasts 80 seconds. The air phase lasts 40 seconds.
Phase 1
- Sonar Pulse places four glowing discs on the ground, which you must avoid. If you touch the pulse disc, you will stack up Sound. They might spawn on top of you; get away as soon as they appear. Ranged characters tend to have more trouble with this than melee, due to pulse movement.
- Modulation places a huge pulse of sound through the room. You can't avoid it and must simply heal through it. It also puts a little Sound on everyone in the raid.
- Sonic Breath picks a target and gives you 2 seconds of warning. Once that cast time is finish, the breath will follow its target with a swath of flame. For this reason, have your ranged characters clump together. When the Sonic Breath picks a target, that person goes in one direction while everyone else goes in the other.
- Searing Flame will do damage to the entire raid, stacking a debuff that causes you to take additional fire damage. For this reason, it's key to use the gongs to interrupt the flame. Note that you only have 10 gongs, so they serve as your effective "end point" for the fight if you run out.
Phase 2 When Atramedes is in the air, he'll pick a target and use fire breath on it. That target must flee away from the fire's range. The longer the phase continues, the faster the fire will move. (The initial speed is determined by how high the target's Sound level already is.) For that reason, you want interrupt the attack with a gong after a few seconds. The targeted player should try not to kite the fire toward the rest of the raid.
Atramedes will also drop fire at random on the ground. He will also drop new Sonar Pulses, which will explode with little graphic missiles when hit.
Overall, your raid will need stay on the move during this fight, avoiding the fire and Sonar Pulses.
Atramedes will also drop fire at random on the ground. He will also drop new Sonar Pulses, which will explode with little graphic missiles when hit.
Overall, your raid will need stay on the move during this fight, avoiding the fire and Sonar Pulses.
Loot
[Battleplate of Ancient Kings]
Chimaeron
Chimaeron is the fifth and penultimate boss in Blackwing Descent. Chimaeron will be a challenging fight for your healers, as it's a test of their skill. There are many attacks in this encounter that could instantly kill raid members. But don't worry, there's a trick.
You start the fight by talking to Finkle in his cage, starting up the Bile-O-Tron. As long as the Bile-O-Tron is active, no one in the raid whose hit points are above 10,000 will die. Any killing blows on a raid member with at least 10k hit points will merely take them down to 1 hit point. At that point, a healer can quickly get them back above 10k hit points. At no point should healers be struggling to get raid members above 10k, except for tanks. This is a test of reaction speed, not raw healing power.
You start the fight by talking to Finkle in his cage, starting up the Bile-O-Tron. As long as the Bile-O-Tron is active, no one in the raid whose hit points are above 10,000 will die. Any killing blows on a raid member with at least 10k hit points will merely take them down to 1 hit point. At that point, a healer can quickly get them back above 10k hit points. At no point should healers be struggling to get raid members above 10k, except for tanks. This is a test of reaction speed, not raw healing power.
General strategy
Phase 1
Your raid should stay split up and scattered, due to Caustic Slime. This ability hits four players at a time and does damage to anyone within 6 yards of the player; additionally, the player will have a hit debuff for a brief time. Because you're protected by the Bile-O-Tron, you will not die when hit with this. You only want one player to get hit (thus, you spread out) so that the healers only have to heal one person for each slime.
You'll need two boss tanks for this encounter, both to swap the boss after the use of Break in phase 1 and because there is no healing in phase 2. Chimaeron will hit the current tank hard with Double Attack. This is two hits in quick succession. That means even if your tank is over 10k HP -- and thus reduced to 1HP on the first hit -- he will not have that protection on the second attack. Chimaeron also hits the tanks with Break, which stacks a healing debuff. This means you need your tanks to trade off and swap Chimaeron after a few Breaks so that it doesn't become unmanageable. Tanks will want to manage cooldowns carefully to help survive this damage during the second Break.
Massacre instantly deals millions of unmitigated points of damage to the entire raid. Everyone above 10k hit points will instantly drop to 1 HP, and anyone under 10k HP will die. This includes the tanks, so healers should be ready to top them off immediately. When Massacre hits, the Bile-O-Tron will briefly go offline, starting phase 2.
You'll need two boss tanks for this encounter, both to swap the boss after the use of Break in phase 1 and because there is no healing in phase 2. Chimaeron will hit the current tank hard with Double Attack. This is two hits in quick succession. That means even if your tank is over 10k HP -- and thus reduced to 1HP on the first hit -- he will not have that protection on the second attack. Chimaeron also hits the tanks with Break, which stacks a healing debuff. This means you need your tanks to trade off and swap Chimaeron after a few Breaks so that it doesn't become unmanageable. Tanks will want to manage cooldowns carefully to help survive this damage during the second Break.
Massacre instantly deals millions of unmitigated points of damage to the entire raid. Everyone above 10k hit points will instantly drop to 1 HP, and anyone under 10k HP will die. This includes the tanks, so healers should be ready to top them off immediately. When Massacre hits, the Bile-O-Tron will briefly go offline, starting phase 2.
Phase 2
When phase 2 is active, Chimaeron's heads will start fighting each other. At this point, you have a short time to get the entire raid standing on one another before Chimaeron starts spewing Poison Bombs. The damage from these bombs is spread evenly among folks who are stacked. This is a hell of a healing challenge, and your healers will have to put out big numbers here. As a rule, any players who have healing spells should be using them. This is when defensive cooldowns should be blown, even by DPS characters.
Chimaeron will follow up with another Mortality to take you back into phase 1.
Phase 3
At 20%, Chimaeron enters phase 3. Chimaeron hits the entire raid with Mortality, making healing nigh useless. He also becomes untauntable. On the bright side, he takes an additional 10% damage in phase 3.
At this point, burn every offensive cooldown you have and get him down as quickly as possible. Kite him, bubble, trap, and snare with everything you have. This is simply where your DPS must shine.
Loot
[Manacles of the Sleeping Beast]
[Breastplate of Avenging Flame]
Nefarian
Nefarian is the final boss in Blackwing Descent. This is it -- the big cheese, the big kahuna of Blackwing Descent. And what's more, you get to see the return of Onyxia!
There are three phases to this fight. In quick summary, the first phase is a ground phase in which your raid goes up against both Nefarian and the zombie Onyxia. (Also, kite adds.) In the second phase, the room fills with lava, and your raid must stand on three pillars (while killing adds and interrupting stuff). The third phase is another ground phase, during which your tank must kite Nefarian around the room. (You still get to fight adds during this time.)
There are three phases to this fight. In quick summary, the first phase is a ground phase in which your raid goes up against both Nefarian and the zombie Onyxia. (Also, kite adds.) In the second phase, the room fills with lava, and your raid must stand on three pillars (while killing adds and interrupting stuff). The third phase is another ground phase, during which your tank must kite Nefarian around the room. (You still get to fight adds during this time.)
General strategy
Phase 1
Your first opponent in phase 1 is Onyxia. Her sides glow with little dots of lightning, which will explode in an Electrical Discharge. You can mitigate the discharge by being directly behind her, since the discharge explodes to either side of the dragon. Shadowflame Breath will do damage to anyone in front of the zombie dragon, as well as repowering the bone warriors.
The adds are Animated Bone Warriors. They are powered by an energy bar that will deplete as they fight during the encounter. When they run out of energy, the bone warriors "die" and fall asleep. If any of the fire touches the Animated Bone Warriors, they will come back to life and resume their attack. You can crowd control the bone warriors to keep them from being a big deal, but they hit so hard that you'll have to avoid getting hit as you kite them around.
The key to the first phase is to burn Onyxia down before the electric attacks become unmanageable. After 30 seconds, Nefarian will join the fight. If Nefarian and Onyxia are too close to one another, they'll do double damage. Every time Nefarian reaches a 10% mark (90%, 80%, and so on), he will hit the entire raid for around 100k damage. Healers should be prepared for this attack.
Phase 1 ends when Onyxia dies.
Phase 2
The adds are Animated Bone Warriors. They are powered by an energy bar that will deplete as they fight during the encounter. When they run out of energy, the bone warriors "die" and fall asleep. If any of the fire touches the Animated Bone Warriors, they will come back to life and resume their attack. You can crowd control the bone warriors to keep them from being a big deal, but they hit so hard that you'll have to avoid getting hit as you kite them around.
The key to the first phase is to burn Onyxia down before the electric attacks become unmanageable. After 30 seconds, Nefarian will join the fight. If Nefarian and Onyxia are too close to one another, they'll do double damage. Every time Nefarian reaches a 10% mark (90%, 80%, and so on), he will hit the entire raid for around 100k damage. Healers should be prepared for this attack.
Phase 1 ends when Onyxia dies.
Phase 2
As soon as the second phase begins, the room will fill up with lava. You will need to stand on what were previously pillars. It helps to evenly distribute the raid group among these pillars. The lavas steadily increase in damage, so you will need to hop on the pillars as soon as possible.
There are Chromatic Prototypes that spawn on each pillar. Their Blast Nova does significant damage, so be prepared to interrupt it; this attack will lead to a raid wipe if you let it go off. While you're fighting the prototypes, Nef will rain down Shadowflame Barrage for significant raid damage, so healers will need to be on the ball.
Phase 2 ends when all prototypes are dead or 3 minutes have passed.
Phase 3
There are Chromatic Prototypes that spawn on each pillar. Their Blast Nova does significant damage, so be prepared to interrupt it; this attack will lead to a raid wipe if you let it go off. While you're fighting the prototypes, Nef will rain down Shadowflame Barrage for significant raid damage, so healers will need to be on the ball.
Phase 2 ends when all prototypes are dead or 3 minutes have passed.
Phase 3
During phase 3, Nefarian lands on the ground again. Do all the things you're accustomed to from the first phase, plus have your main tank kite Nefarian around the edge of the room while the add tanks do their best to keep the bone warriors out of the pink fire that spawns on the ground. Nefarian will shoot missiles of flame at the adds, so this is a "do the best you can" scenario. Adds will need to continue being off-tanked and controlled away from Nefarian.