Source: Lore
Hi, this is Lore from Tankspot and this video will be discussing the 10-man version of the updated Level 80 Onyxia encounter.
When the fight begins, the tank should turn her around and bring her to the far wall, while the rest of the raid spreads out around her. As the original dragon encounter, Onyxia has a frontal breath attack, a cleave, and a tail swipe, so everyone needs to stay at her sides to avoid being hit by any of these. The cleave and tail swipe in particular need to be avoided at all costs, as the cleave can instantly kill even plate DPS, and the tail swipe can easily knock a careless player into the whelp pits and spawn many whelps. Having a second tank ready to pick these up can make the fight go a lot smoother, especially in the later phases.
Phase 1 is very straightforward, and a simple matter of staying alive while bringing her down to 65% health, at which point Phase 2 begins. She'll walk to the other end of the room and take flight, moving out of range of melee DPS. Once she's in the air, a very large wave of whelps will spawn along with an elite Onyxian Lair Guard. It will largely be the responsibility of the tanks and melee DPS to handle these, as ranged should be continuing DPS on Onyxia as much as possible. That said, it's not a bad idea to have one or two AOE classes help burn the large whelp waves down.
The Lair Guards hit fairly hard and have a very high damage AOE that should be interrupted whenever possible. The whelps don't do too much damage by themselves but are very dangerous in large numbers. On top of that, Onyxia will be pelting the raid with fireballs from above, so there's a fair bit of healing to keep an eye out for.
All that being said, by far the most dangerous part of Phase 2 is the infamous Deep Breath. When Onyxia chooses to use this ability, she will fly corner to corner across the room, leaving a wide path of fire on the ground below her. This will make short work of any non-tanks, and isn't particularly healthy for them either, so avoiding this is top priority. Everyone will need to be mindful of where in the room Onyxia is at all times, and when the Deep Breath warning goes out, you must immediately get to the sides of her path to avoid it. For example, here you can see that Onyxia is hovering at the north point of the room. Once she begins her Deep Breath, everyone will need to get to the east or west edges of the room to avoid it.
Once ranged DPS has brought Onyxia down to 40% health, she'll land again and begin Phase 3. This is very similar to Phase 1, and the same positioning should be used. However, there's one very dangerous addition: Bellowing Roar. This is a raid-wide fear that last for three seconds, and is followed closely by an eruption of lava from the cracks in the floor, causing a fair amount of Fire damge. Worse than the Eruption, however, is the fear's tendency to cause players to wander into dangerous areas. It's very easy, especially for melee DPS, to get feared in front of her and cleaved, or behind her and knocked into the whelp pits. It's also very common for the tank to turn Onyxia toward the raid while feared just in time for a breath attack. Anything that can be used to break or resist this fear is very helpful, such as Tremor Totems, Fear Wards, and any racial or class abilities like Will of the Forsaken or Berserker Rage.
Aside from simply breaking the fear, there's a couple tricks you can use to reduce the chances of something going wrong as much as possible. Never be within 3 seconds running distance of the whelp pits -- it's far too easy to wander in there and spawn a bunch of extras. Likewise, try to stay as far away from the front of her as possible. Given the choice, it's usually better to risk getting feared into her tail and knocked into the whelp pits than it is to risk getting feared into a cleave and dying. Ranged can almost completely avoid either possibility, but it's a bit trickier for melee. Fortunately, her hitbox is fairly large, so you can still hit her from a good distance away.
Some whelps will inevitably spawn on even the cleanest of kills, so your second tank should be keeping an eye out for them and rounding them up so that the DPS can handle it. Aside from that, it's simply a matter of keeping your positioning safe and bringing the dragon down.
Thanks for watching this video. As always, for more information on this or any other encounter, check the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on youtube, just follow the link in the movie details. Good luck!
There are lots of Pug's out there that think the OT is supposed to hold all the whelps and the guards while they stand and watch and so goes the raid. If there are people like this that can't figure out why the tank is dying when the healer is dead and tank is too i would sugest they read up on the fight before pugging. Suggest that they watch or read up on these encounters, it will save alot of gold and flasks believe me. In particular melee dps and both tanks should be helping on whelps so don't jump down your OT's throat cause you guys wipe, think about what you could do to finish the raid. It seems there is so many people playing that they forget what to do and use the tanks as a whipping post, so next time you guys wipe use your minds for problem solving not pointing fingers and cracking wise it gets you no where. Even Pug's should work together and learn what you can before hand not during. Mordrene of Exodar
I just wanted to add in Phase 2 that if your DPS and tank Misses the Ignite Weapon cast time, the buff can be easily removed with a Disarm or Dismantle. The spawn times are such that a rogue and warrior can alternate this every spawn, at least thats what happens when I tank her.
Source: Gluteas
Did Lore reroll a Warlock? AMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
I was on an alt.
Part of the reason it took so long to get this video up is that I am terrible at following my own advice and have managed to get feared into a cleave on every kill so far on my pally >.>
Why must he be better than me at everything. *cry*
But seriously, love the video. The fight is easy, but if you're never done it before, or you are having trouble, having a video out there of the current fight is a great resource.
I would leave any raid that thinks they can ignore the adds and leave the tank to die. (provided they didn't realize their mistake and continue to insist..)
The fight is relatively easy and I've done it several times on my tank with no issues, but last night, I was pugging it on an alt, and we just couldn't seem to get it done for like 2 hours. Finally, I relogged to my priest so we had 3 healers instead of 2, and it went down on the first shot. Normally I do it with 2, but if you're in a PuG or a group that's having trouble, don't hesitate to bring in a 3rd healer if necessary. The fight isn't a dps race and having a 3rd healer makes a big difference.
The way we've been trying (with various undergeared pugs) is on phase two the healers stand on the tank in the middle of the circle for the first set of whelps and have orders up to not damage whelps until they get to the central tank and he gets a little threat. We are using a paladin as the whelp tank so that helps. I'm not saying a druid, warrior or death knight can't do it but I think paladins are built for it. The other tank is used in phase two to pick up the melee add and pull it back a little so he can still be healed by the central healers at that point the melee dps only will switch to the lair guardian. This works better in my opinion with a more balanced group which is not always possible. If anyone sees holes in this phase two strategy other than an incoming deep breath/whelps combo I'd like to hear it.
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Healers are a tank's best friend.
I have tried to OT (doing whelps on my own + helping dps on the big adds) this on 10 man a few times now but we always seem to lose a healer (or two). Running with only 2 healers this obviously causes a wipe.
My question is fairly simple, do you guys usually have both tanks help pick up the whelps or only one? The first spawn is usually never a problem when I manage to convince most of the ranged to come to the center but the second or third wave is usually where things go wrong (for example it happening at the time as a deep breath) and whelps get spread over the entire room resulting in a dead clothie or two.
P.S. Am a Frost DK so if I can get anywhere near the whelps in time its usually not an issue convincing them to follow me. Also I have done it on 25 man with success but then we have used more tanks D.S.
Thank you for this guide, as I know there have been many strategies that people have come up with and just needed to hear from one of the primary sources.
In my runs through Onyxia (10 and 25), I served as the OT for most of the raids. The keys to success in my opinion is coordinating on grabbing the whelps in the second phase. As the OT, my responsbility was gathering as much whelps as possible and had about two DPS AoE the whelps down. The MT was to gather whelps also, but mainly take on the Elites. What we decided on many pugs was that the MT and OT take one side of the whelps' nest and then join up close to the entrance where the elites would come in. I saw that this was the most effective method.
In the 25, the same strategy was implemented, but we had a total of 3 tanks to help out with controlling the adds/elites.
For reference, I am a pally tank, which many groups chose me automatically as the OT.
The warlock seems a little unskilled as a caster dps. His cast bar isnt continuous. There's like a 0.3 second stoppage time of casting after each spell cast. And don't say it's cuz of latency cuz I know of people with 800 latency maintaining a continual cast bar.
In 10 man, both tanks gathered the whelps in the initial spawn since so many come out at once. After that, one tank would pick up the Guardians, and the other tank would pick up whelps when they spawned. I've found that whelps don't generally spawn from both sides from that point on and are fairly manageable. I bring them to the center before dps opens up and tell anyone with whelps on them to come to the center so that I can pull them off.
When onyxia goes into phase two. We have everyone stack up in the center of the room and let the two tanks fight for aggro. After the last welp is in, we call for dps. The welps are down with plenty of time to spare before the first elite add spawns. Also in 10 man, if your weak on melee dps (meaning You only have one and there under say 2.5k dps.) Keep a weak ranged on the elite add as well to help out. Last thing you want is two adds you have to watch for an aoe blast on.
Last edited by bonekrusher; 10-13-2009 at 07:47 PM..
Anyone else have a problem where, at the start of phase three she eats the DPSers on her through Phase 2? Ive tried both taunts and had to HoP the second target before she would stick on me.
