Icecrown Deathbringer Saurfang

nethervoid - I'm with a 10-man-only guild as well, and we just got him down last night. Our winning strategy (which worked MUCH better than anything else we tried) was a little different than what the tankspot video suggested:

When the blood beasts spawned, the tanks picked them up and tanked them. All dps (melee and ranged) switched to burn them down quickly, then got back on the boss.

I suspect that the reason this worked for us is that the ranged dps didn't have to worry about moving around, placing traps, etc, so they were able to put out a lot more dps. Also, with the melee helping on the blood beasts, they don't stick around long enough to give Saurfang much of a boost in terms of blood power.

I'm not saying it's an optimal strategy for everyone, but it worked out really nicely for us. Might be worth a try, anyway.

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Originally Posted by bludwork

letting people die is probably not a good strat either, frankly I think tankspot should be promoting strats that will work on heroic mode too rather than advocating "let marked person die" and "use 1 tank" type strats

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I disagree that "letting people die" is a bad strat. We killed him for the first time on 25's (10s is too easy) last night and also got the "I've Gone and Made a Mess" achievement. We had 2 Tanks, 5 Heals, and the rest DPS. We basically treated it like the old school Vael fight where it was expected that people would die. His BP generation would remain low and basically negate the soft enrage. Also, without marks up, the healing was relatively easy so we could lose healers and not really worry. We used BL in the beginning, but thinking back it probably would have been better towards the end where we would have less dps/heals depending on who got the marks.

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Originally Posted by Cross

I disagree that "letting people die" is a bad strat.

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if you plan on doing the hardmode version of saurfang it is a bad practice because on hardmode a marked player death heals him for 15% of his health. also it gives your healers no practice keeping people with it up and rotating cooldowns on them

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Originally Posted by Mr.Winkle

A quick look at your logs confirms you're keeping the marked person alive, don't do it.

Saurfang gained nearly 300 BP from marked people on your final attempt, that's 3 additional marks and a ton of extra healing required.

I'd suggest using 2 tanks, 5 healers, rest DPS and just letting the marked person die.

You only generated 24 BP via Blood Nova so your ranged were clearly spread out appropriately.

Boiling Blood generates around 300 BP too, but the only way to prevent this is to either have a Disc priest shielding the individual or to have people iceblock/bubble etc (or both if available)

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The sad thing is we were employing this stradegy. Though I know in one attempt the mark went on the tank and a healer so we couldn't do much about that. Not sure if it was that attempt or no.

Being GM of a strictly 10-men guild I can not say much about 25ppl version of this encounter, but we downed 10ppl version yesterday with one pull (here is the link).

We used 2 tanks strategy (pally and war) and had 2 healers (myself as a tree and disc priest). Dps group had 1 melee (rogue) and 5 ranged (surv hunter, boomkin, shadow priest, destro warlock and elem shaman). Hunter was putting traps as much like tankspot's video guide suggested. With 5 ranged damage dealers blood beasts were rarely doing it through the trap zone and died very quickly. Tanks were changing each other after every rune. Disc was putting shields on everyone who got hurt and I was mostly HoTting the tanks and raid, rarely casting direct heals. It felt almost like healing 5men heroic to me - simple and boring.

After boss hit soft enrage we used bloodlust and nuked him down to 13-15%. Then we just continued our routine and finished him at something like 95-99 blood energies, right before he was ready to put the first mark on raid.

I think with some effort this event could be solo healed with disc priest. Well timed shields, strict positioning of the raid and synergism of tanks make this fight a joke.

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Originally Posted by Chaedi

The sad thing is we were employing this stradegy. Though I know in one attempt the mark went on the tank and a healer so we couldn't do much about that. Not sure if it was that attempt or no.

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How you you possibly be employing the strat where you let people die with so much BP generated from the mark?

If a healer gets marked, you let them die. TBH i ddin't realise tanks could be marked but i guess thats the one time where you keep them alive.

I stand corrected. The fight was easy to heal for our healers 10-man.

Disc and Holy pally kept the raid up. :D

Thanks for this guide.

As a Paladin in the game. I found that its possible to avoid getting both the Mark of the Fallen Champion, and quick removal of Boiling Blood.


Mark of the Fallen Champion -

Mages and Paladins can avoid getting this altogether by casting Divine Shield or Iceblock just before he casts it. Having targets target enabled, and paying attention, you can see Saurfang switch targets just before he casts it.

Also casting Divine Shield when you have this debuff, will also stop the victim from taking damage until the duration of Divine Shield has finished (12 seconds) - Lightens the load on the healers, and stops Saurfang from gaining any Blood Power.

Combat Ressing - I found it wasn't the best idea to use this. lawl

Boiling Blood -

As mentioned in the guides, it can and should be dispelled immediately.
I was healing this encounter tonight with my guild, although it didn't go smoothly with me healing, and switched to tanking.

I found that using Hand of Protection on a person who cannot dispell this on his/her own to remove it for them. This was experimental and turns out it removed it.

So many people running with too many people at range and I simply don't understand this. We got our first kill today in 25 man, we only had 10 people stand a ranged and spread out far enough that blood nova gives the boss significantly less stacks. Healers and ranged DPS can actually stand in melee. Our raid only did 101k dps but still got the kill just fine.

After banging our heads against a wall last week and some of this week, trying normal approaches to Saurfang without letting anyone die, we decided that's just not the way to go. Minimal gains from Blood Boil, Blood Nova, and Blood Beasts, and he was still getting a 6th or 7th mark off by 15% or so, and this hurts when frenzied. That's too many people to toss cooldowns on to reduce the damage (since putting damage reduction cooldowns on the tank doesn't affect the damage the marks get).

So we decided to try what was suggested earlier in this thread but not responded to: Divine Intervention. We had 2 Paladins in our raid, myself (Holy w/ Righteous Fury for adds) and a Ret.

The first mark would die, just because 5% of his HP is minimal and I believe this strategy can be carried over to Heroic mode (15% of an increased health pool should still put you ahead of the game with 1 down). The second mark, which came around 35-38%, would be DI'd by myself. If it occured when adds were about to spawn or just spawned, ranged would need to be extra careful. I'd then get Rebirthed or use Soulstone. The third mark would come out around 12-15% I believe, and our Ret would use Divine Intervention as well. Depending on whether we needed him up, he might get Rebirthed too. Saurfang would die well before getting another mark out. This leaves you dealing with 0 mark damage throughout the fight, minimal mark BP gains, and only letting him heal a single time.

There are risks and a sense of lottery to this strategy, unfortunately. If the mark is cast on either Paladin and you don't have backups, things get hairy. The first one can be prevented by Bubbling just before the mark is cast. The person set to die will never be one of the Paladins if this is used. By the second mark, it's likely that Forbearance isn't off yet, so Hand of Protection on oneself may not be viable. This strategy is best used if you have 3-4 Paladins, in case one of them gets marked.

DI lasts 3 minutes, so if you're taking a bit longer to kill Saurfang, the second mark (first DI) will need to be calling out when their DI is almost over. It should only come off near the end in the worst case, not in enough time for it to feed him another one.

The most important thing about a DI strategy, though, is that those with DI will have to be watching the pace of the battle very very carefully. If Deathbringer Saurfang dies when DI is up, the DI'd players will not get credit for the kill. That means no achievement, no emblems, and no loot. This can be combated easily enough though: when Saurfang is about 4-5 seconds from death, have anyone with DI cancel it. About a second or two before doing so, have a priest (or two if you want to be safe) start channeling Divine Hymn to ensure they don't die (healer reaction may not be ready for the cancelled DI's, and there's nothing worse than having a boss at 50k HP and it healing for 1.5mil).

We went in with 5 healers plus myself (it's difficult to do strategic healing when you're responsible for getting aggro on the adds), and ended up losing 2 to the first 2 marks. 3 effective healers was plenty to finish out the encounter this way.

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Originally Posted by Quinafoi

So many people running with too many people at range and I simply don't understand this. We got our first kill today in 25 man, we only had 10 people stand a ranged and spread out far enough that blood nova gives the boss significantly less stacks. Healers and ranged DPS can actually stand in melee. Our raid only did 101k dps but still got the kill just fine.

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This is only ok for low aggro ranged DPS and conscious Shaman/Priest/sometimes Paladin healers. If you ask a Druid to remain at melee range, they will get eaten alive very quickly from healing aggro, which generates a lot more than a hurricane or blizzard will.

We had 7 ranged DPS and 5.5 healers stand at range for a grand total of 13. Our 3 shadow priests stayed at melee and never switched to adds, because 7 DPS was overkill. Boomkin in the middle with Holy Paladin, 3 ranged DPS on each side, with the Boomkin ready to focus on one side if one of the ranged had to get DI'd. Our ranged also paired up and stood on top of each other, since the difference between Saurfang gaining 0 BP from Blood Nova and 2 BP from it was negligible (since he only seems to gain BP from non-initial targets of Blood Nova).

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Originally Posted by Trexokor

This is only ok for low aggro ranged DPS and conscious Shaman/Priest/sometimes Paladin healers. If you ask a Druid to remain at melee range, they will get eaten alive very quickly from healing aggro, which generates a lot more than a hurricane or blizzard will.

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That is true to an extent, however honestly, if your tanks can't hold agro off a player in melee range when all the DPS switches targets for 10-30% of the fight that's likely the tanks problem. DPS kills the adds. That alone greatly reduces the threat they generate on the boss. Just because ranged DPS stands in melee does not mean they do not switch to adds. If you have a problem with your druid healer's threat, they should be one of the healers you have stand out of the group. I said about 10 people need to stand out of the melee group.

In any case, here is how the strategy works.

Tank the boss where he stands and facing straight forward, in order to control where the adds will spawn. A warlock should use Shadowfury whenever adds spawn. This is the single most important part to the encounter because that 3 seconds of stun time gives all your kiters time to get off a full cast which is pretty much gaurenteed to give them agro. Kiters and ranged DPS are assigned very specific targets.

Position 2 of your healers by the two braziers on the sides of the boss.

Between the boss and the gunship, you have two ranged DPS spots, one of the two will be kiting the add that spawns behind the tank. These two spots are the only two you should need to double stack.

Further out from them in a semi circle you have your paladin healers with Righteous Fury on both sides. This positions them between all of your kiters which will get adds generally heading towards them at the start.

Far out to the left and right by where the wall angles out you have two hunters who kite the two adds that spawn on the bosses sides. You have caster DPS that are in the melee helping to kill those adds as they are kited away split them evenly so they all die before they get to the hunter or to minimize the amount of actual kiting the hunter has to do. Also the reason why the DPS spots closest to the gunship were double stacked is because they would be able to help with the ones being kited out to the right or left after killing theirs if need be.

The two adds that spawn behind the boss are stuned and burned by melee quickly, they will typically be able to kill both before any of the kited three are killed simply because there is more DPS being put onto them. Your last two healers, good place for a discipline priest in particular, and remaining ranged dps would be piled in with the melee. The ranged DPS in there would have assigned targets and be helping to kill the ones being kited away. Assign them to help the hunters kiting out to the sides in particular since hunters can use distracting shot if need be.

Two adds kited out to the sides were slowed by a slowing trap. We had myself, a Moonkin, in one of the groups closest to the gunship to Typhoon the middle one if it needed it. The traps should be placed around the bottom step where the stairs angle. Enhancement shaman drops earthbind in the melee so snare the adds immediately as well while they make their way out to the traps to maximize the slowing effect.

By reducing the blood power he gains in this fashion by reducing the number of targets he hits with blood nova to a very controled number we were able to kill him in 6:40 with only two deaths averaging 101k raid dps.

If you're more curious about how the positioning and everything in this strategy was done I do have a video of our first kill and you can send me a PM and I'll get you a link.

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Originally Posted by brawl

Our average total DPS for the fight was around 26k.

Anyone have any tips for what we could try? It seems we're executing well, I think we may just be a little undergeared in terms of DPS or need to concentrate more people on him and burning him down.

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We ran with
1 prot pally
1 prot war
1 dps dk
1 rogue
1 resto shaman
1 resto druid
1 mage
1 boomkin
1 dps war
1 holy pally

7 attempts, down on the last attempt. The avg dps was around 25k for the wipes and the succesful was 30k. The big change was that I (arcane mage) went to an arcane+slow spec. Boomkin and me on the adds everyone on the boss. Wipes were due to ineffective dps on the adds and eventual buildup of blood. It's basically a dps+healing check with a blood production management built in. We aimed to have the first mark at below 45%. Hero at the start when everyone is one the boss.

Great Guides Guys!
Can't wait for my guild to reach this boss!

This is a question for Lore:
What is that boss debuff-monitor at the top-center of your screen called and where did you find it?

Thanks in advance!

I was wondering a few things, one has anyone thought about tanking him near the portal? to give more room to move around and kite? plus you dont have to worry about line of sight issues?

and 2, how do i see how much BP he is getting in world of logs? weve tried this guy 6 times now and were just not getting it down, although we were healing the people with mark....this time were going to let the first 1-2 die, and we might try the DI trick or for the 3rd and 4th...

And about the "ice block/divine shield" before he casts it, do you just have all your mages and paladins bubble when he gets to 99 BP or do you try to see who he is targeting first?

10 man we've killed him multiple times even with random pulltogether extra groups after the badges got it done with the gone and made a mess achievement.
25 man however has been banging head against the wall time..........completely differerent fight. A couple of strategies read here will be brought on bored and hopefully we get a run at it without our major problems before.
We caught it and end of run last time and then had a major stack of vital raiders unable to turn up for the other raid nights.
Tonight we should do it hopefully

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Originally Posted by mav1234

Can we get any confirmation about disarm being hotfixed? One of our rogues tried it last night and for some reason we weren't sure if it worked.

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tried it this second, dosent work still. 2128 gmt 20/12/2009

Well my guild has been stuck at Saurfang for a while now. We've easily wiped 20+ times so far (heh heh, Hunter = cheap wipes XD). We're starting to get our strategy refined now, though, but are using one tank.

Composition has changed a bit each day (3 days at Saurfang for me, last week I wasn't in the group), but we always have:

Paladin Tank
DK DPS (our raid leader)
2 Melee DPS (classes varying)
2 Healers (Druid always, other varied)
4 Ranged (Hunter, 2 Warlocks or 2 Mages, 1 of whichever wasn't doubled)

Our main problem is that we aren't getting the adds down fast enough, and, personally, I get behind with using traps and misdirect for the beasts so much that I have hardly any time to DPS the boss after the initial burn of about 15%. I did, however, use a macro to keep Aimed Shot up at least 90% of the time on Saurfang, which helped by a TON, especially with one tank.

The lowest we ever got him was about 5.9M or so, the adds being the major problem.

Aimed Shot made things go far more smoothly, and gave us 900K more progression. We tried having me use Freezing Arrow so I could stay mostly on the boss, but that still didn't work.

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Originally Posted by Darthruneis

Well my guild has been stuck at Saurfang for a while now. We've easily wiped 20+ times so far (heh heh, Hunter = cheap wipes XD). We're starting to get our strategy refined now, though, but are using one tank.

Composition has changed a bit each day (3 days at Saurfang for me, last week I wasn't in the group), but we always have:

Paladin Tank
DK DPS (our raid leader)
2 Melee DPS (classes varying)
2 Healers (Druid always, other varied)
4 Ranged (Hunter, 2 Warlocks or 2 Mages, 1 of whichever wasn't doubled)

Our main problem is that we aren't getting the adds down fast enough, and, personally, I get behind with using traps and misdirect for the beasts so much that I have hardly any time to DPS the boss after the initial burn of about 15%. I did, however, use a macro to keep Aimed Shot up at least 90% of the time on Saurfang, which helped by a TON, especially with one tank.

The lowest we ever got him was about 5.9M or so, the adds being the major problem.

Aimed Shot made things go far more smoothly, and gave us 900K more progression. We tried having me use Freezing Arrow so I could stay mostly on the boss, but that still didn't work.

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Short notes that might not be what you want to hear, but you need to:

1) they changed it so you literally can't one tank it, get another tank. At least it's insanely much more difficult to tank and you're "not doing it right" if you try to.
Here's your proof: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/2197...ng-hotfix.html
Basically, every time he hits your tank, during the time the debuff is up on him, Deathbringer will heal for 10X that amount. So you're looking at him healing probably 5 million+ during the course of the fight.
2) Ranged usually don't get time to dps the boss on this guy when you're going for your first kill.

Your job is to control the adds via MD and traps in this fight, screw your dps.

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Originally Posted by Wars

Short notes that might not be what you want to hear, but you need to:

1) they changed it so you literally can't one tank it, get another tank. At least it's insanely much more difficult to tank and you're "not doing it right" if you try to.
Here's your proof: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Deathbringer Saurfang Hotfix
Basically, every time he hits your tank, during the time the debuff is up on him, Deathbringer will heal for 10X that amount. So you're looking at him healing probably 5 million+ during the course of the fight.
2) Ranged usually don't get time to dps the boss on this guy when you're going for your first kill.

Your job is to control the adds via MD and traps in this fight, screw your dps.

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Well, the tanking situation is up to the raid leader, I'll suggest it next time, though. But I meant that ALL of our ranged DPS is on the adds for far too long (or they're not on them soon enough). And that means little to no dps on the boss due to the healing he's getting that the melee DPS basically keeps stable until ranged can get back on him.

We might just be undergeared, idk.

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Originally Posted by Darthruneis

Well, the tanking situation is up to the raid leader, I'll suggest it next time, though. But I meant that ALL of our ranged DPS is on the adds for far too long (or they're not on them soon enough). And that means little to no dps on the boss due to the healing he's getting that the melee DPS basically keeps stable until ranged can get back on him.

We might just be undergeared, idk.

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If over half your DPS is ranged, and they can't kill the adds fast enough that likely means you are undergeared. I can solo an add and still spend half my time on the boss, you only need 5,000 dps to kill one solo in under 20 seconds. They spawn every 40 seconds. Here's a little general observation though. If you want to use a single tank strategy, the DPS you are bringing in instead of the tank better be doing around 20,000 DPS sustained on the boss in 10 man, probably about 30,000 DPS in 25 man. When you find that person, let me know cause I'd like to recruit them. This is what they mean when they say it isn't feasible anymore to have one tank. You can't find an individual DPS that high that could cause enough damage to justify taking them over a second tank.