Originally Posted by Lore (10-man)
Welcome back to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide. I'm Lore and I'll be showing you the 10-Man Normal version of the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter.
Deathbringer Saurfang has a unique energy system called Blood Power, which is visible on his unit frame in place of a mana bar. He gains 1% damage dealt for every 1 Blood Power he gains, and once he reaches 100, he uses a very powerful debuff called Mark of the Fallen Champion which I'll describe in more detail later. He gains 1 Blood Power every time one of his various abilities or one of his summoned Blood Beast pets deals damage. Thus, the key to the fight lies in controlling the amount of Blood Power he gains as much as possible.
Notice how we have our raid spread out here. Our two healers are standing on either side of the walkway where the teleporter is located, and our ranged DPS is spread out in about 10 yard increments to the sides from there. This accomplishes two things. First, Saurfang has a targetted ability called Blood Nova which causes an AOE splash around a random raid member. By staying spread out, we can avoid having anyone be hit by the damage from this ability, thereby keeping Saurfang from gaining Blood Power from it.
Secondly, with the healers positioned in a central location, the Blood Beasts should be drawn down the middle of the room when they spawn. From there, the ranged DPS will burn them down, while our melee stays on the boss. Blood Beasts are vulnerable to just about all slows, stuns, roots, and knockbacks, so we have a Hunter dropping a Frost Trap to slow them down and an Elemental Shaman using Thunderstorm if they happen to get too close. Of course, there are many other ways to deal with this depending on your group composition. Keep in mind however that if the Blood Beasts successfully reach anyone and hit them, Saurfang gains Blood Power, so it's best to avoid having melee DPS on them and they should absolutely not be tanked. Furthermore, tanks and melee DPS will need to be careful to avoid using multi-target abilities when the Blood Beasts first spawn to avoid catching initial aggro.
Another ability you'll need to be aware of is Boiling Blood. This is a damage over time effect placed on a random raid member that deals a significant but perfectly healable amount of physical damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds. More important than the damage it deals is the amount of Blood Power it gives. Each tick will give Saurfang 1 Blood Power, for a total of 8 Blood Power per use. This can and should be removed with immunity effects like Divine Shield or Ice Block, though he casts it frequently enough that he will be gaining Blood Power from it fairly consistently. If the rest of his abilities are being dealt with properly, however, this should be the vast majority of the Blood Power he gains over the course of the fight.
The last ability you'll need to watch out for to limit his Blood Power gain is a debuff he places on the tank called Rune of Blood. This causes his melee attacks to proc an extra 6000 or so damage on that tank, and heal him for 5 times that amount. This counts as an ability dealing damage, so he gains 1 Blood Power per melee swing while he's hitting a tank with Rune of Blood active. There are two ways to deal with this ability. It's possible to use one tank, offsetting the healing by having another DPS in the party, and simply dealing with the extra Blood Power he gains. However, this can be risky, and isn't likely to work later on when the encounter's Heroic Mode becomes available. It's much safer to have two tanks taunting off of each other when Saurfang applies the debuff.
By this point in the fight, Saurfang will most likely have collected a large amount of Blood Power and will be hitting fairly hard because of it. Remember that he deals 1% more damage for every Blood Power, so your tank healer will need to be aware of this increased damage.
As I mentioned earlier, once Saurfang reaches 100 Blood Power, he casts a debuff called Mark of the Fallen Champion. This consumes all of his Blood Power, setting him back to 0 and causing him to lose the damage buff, but also makes every one of his melee attacks also deal around 5000 damage to the marked raid member. Not only does this count as dealing damage with an ability, thereby rewarding him with additional Blood Power, it also lasts for the rest of the fight, and cannot be removed by immunity effects. Even if the marked player dies and is resurrected, they will still be marked for the duration of the encounter. Furthermore, if the player does die, Saurfang immediately heals for 5% of his total health. It will simply have to be healed through. In the 10 man version, it's usually possible to limit him to only casting this once or twice even with relatively low DPS, but keep in mind that for each active mark, he will be gaining Blood Power much more rapidly, and thus be able to cast another one sooner. This is why it's so important to limit the amount of Blood Power he gains, as the extra damage will quickly overwhelm your healers if he is allowed to cast it too many times.
Ultimately, with a good understanding of the fight's mechanics and strategy, Deathbringer Saurfang is simply a matter of execution. If everyone's doing what they're supposed to, he can be defeated somewhat easily. If not, well, things can go sour pretty quickly. If you'd like more information on this or any other encounter, including the 25-man version, just check the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, just follow the link in the movie details. Thanks for watching, and good luck!
