Icecrown Sindragosa

[Ciderhelm]

You can find a guide to the heroic version of this encounter here!

Welcome back to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide! I am Splug, and in this video I'll be going over our strategy for the twenty-five player Sindragosa encounter.
If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.

Similar to Putricide and Lana'thiel, Sindragosa is a limited-attempt encounter who shares attempts with the other end-wing bosses. Sindragosa is a three-phase encounter. The first two phases alternate periodically, until Phase III begins at 35% health. She will land and engauge the raid as soon as the second frostwyrm trash boss is killed.

Sindragosa's Phase I abilities are fairly straightforward. She has all the staple dragon abilities: a cleave, a tail smash, and a breath attack. The front and the back of the dragon are, as a result, ill advised gathering locations for those pursuing a career in healing or damage output. Similar to Sapphiron, Sindragosa also generates an aura of minor frost damage, which cannot be avoided in any way during Phase I.

Sindragosa uses two debuffs which must be managed on a player-by-player level. The first is "Chilled to the Bone," which has a 20% chance to be applied by physical attacks against the dragon. The debuff deals 1000 frost damage every two seconds, lasts eight seconds, and can stack with itself. Melee, hunters, and tanks will have to throttle their attacks to prevent the debuff from stacking over about five.
The second debuff used is Unchained Magic, which stacks up an Arcane Instability effect every time the afflicted player completes a cast. Eight seconds after the last spell is finished, the Instability will deal 2,000 damage per spell cast. Healers and casting damage will need to allow the backlash damage to occur around seven or eight stacks, though damage reductions such as dispersion can be used to inflate the survivable damage. Longer spell casts such as Arcane Missiles can also be used to fill space with a lower loss in total damage.

The only other skills used in Phase I are Icy Grip and Blistering Cold. These are used together to summon the raid to her, then begin a five second cast which will deal heavy damage to all players within 25 yards. This is easily handled by simply running toward the stairs after being pulled into Sindragosa. Shortly after Blistering Cold completes its cast, Sindragosa will fly into the air and begin Phase II. Due to the Ice Tomb mechanic there, any players who have Unchained Magic should avoid casting at all after the Blistering Cold; the backlash damage combined with an Ice Tomb can lead to a death which will be difficult to prevent.

The Sindragosa Air Phase is very reminiscent of Sapphiron's Air Phase. Five players will be marked to be imprisoned in Ice Tombs. They have roughly eight seconds to find a position clear of the raid and each other; if they are too close to a non-marked raid member, then the non-marked player will be frozen as well. If they are too close to each other, then splash damage from being frozen will kill the ice tombed players outright.

After the Ice Tombs have been cast, Sindragosa will cast four Frost Bombs at a random location on the platform. The destinations for the bombs are marked with a white swirling graphic. Any player standing in line of sight of a frost bomb when it detonates will take roughly 25k frost damage - which while survivable, can be easily avoided by staying behind an Ice Tomb.

Unlike the Sapphiron encounter, Ice Tombs will not fade on their own. Each tomb has 454k health, which the raid will need to burn through to free the victim. When the fourth Frost Bomb lands, players still within Ice Tombs will begin to suffocate, losing a percentage of their health each second. They will need to be freed quickly after Sindragosa lands.

Before the encounter, we used flares to arrange the specific points Tombed players will stand on during Phase II. The formation of three tombs in front and two in back was chosen to simplify the damage priority of killing Ice Tombs, and the location near the stairs was chosen as Sindragosa does not cast frost bombs on the staircase. In this way, we are able to focus burn down the back two ice tombs while still using the front three to block line of sight on Frost Bombs. Splash damage while killing the back two Tombs also left the front three at a reasonably low health, to allow us to free the last three players quickly.

The ground and air phases alternate until Sindragosa's health drops to 35%. At this point, Phase III will begin. From here on, she will no longer fly into the air, and all the mechanics from Phase I will persist. Additionally, Sindragosa will begin to emit an Arcane Buffet every six seconds. This debuff increases magic damage taken by 10%, lasts eight seconds, and stacks with itself. It is applied to everyone within line of sight of Sindragosa.

Sindragosa will also summon an Ice Tomb on a single player about every 15 seconds. The effect is exactly the same as in Phase II - providing a block of ice which can be used to block Line of Sight to Sindragosa, and can be destroyed by sufficient damage. Remember that players within 10 yards of the marked player will also be frozen.

This phase is an endurance check - while it may eventually be possible to damage zerg Sindragosa and simply ignore the mechanics, it is better handled first as a sustained encounter. Be sure everyone is watching their debuffs, both for backlash and for arcane buffet. A second tank is needed during this phase to allow arcane buffet resets - otherwise you will have to use cooldown rotations to mitigate increasingly large Frost Breath hits.

We placed the Ice Tomb players in two locations - one generally in front of the ranged group, and one a safe distance away in case the previous Ice Tomb wasn't broken in time. Ranged damage, as well as any melee who needed to reset their Arcane Buffet, are responsible for breaking down the Ice Tombs as quickly as possible. As long as the Tomb lasts long enough to block one pulse of Arcane Buffet, it will allow the debuff to reset. Everyone is responsible for keeping their own debuff in check - resetting at least every other Ice Tomb was ideal.

Overall, the encounter is very similar to Sapphiron until Phase III. From that point, just dig in and work toward a slow, steady finish. Take your time and make the most of your attempts, and you'll be moving on to the Lich King soon enough. If you'd like more information or clarifications, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. And remember, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more.

Welcome back to the icecrown raid guide. My name is darksend and in this video I will cover our strategy for the 25 man version of the sindragosa encounter.

If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right to be automatically notified as we release new movies. Finally, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more about this service!

Sindragosa has 3 phases. Phase one which is her ground phase and phase 2 which is her air phase alternate until 35% which begins phase 3, during which she remains grounded until you kill her. She also has a 10 minute enrage timer, this was almost an issue for us as we used 3 tanks and 7 healers, as well as being down a DPS who was trying to complete the quest for shadowmourn, which essentially removed him from the fight. Normally this should not be an issue with good dps or 6 healers, which would allow you to push phase 3 earlier gaining almost 2 minutes by skipping that air phase.

Make sure to keep her faced away from the raid as Phase one is your typical dragon encounter. Cleave, check, Frontal cone breath, check, tail swipe, check. also make sure to have some form of frost resist active as she has a frost aura which ticks for 4500 every 3 seconds and the frost breath hits for about 40K before resists. She actually casts the Tail Smash though, which does about 15K damage on average and will hit people not just behind her but also beside her. All melee must stay max melee range to avoid this. The frost breath leaves a stacking debuff on anyone it hits lowering attack speed my 50% a stack and movement speed by 15% per stack. As a druid shifting would remove both aspects of the debuff, not just the move speed. So while there is a high chance this can be removed by freedom I do not know if it will remove the attack speed portion as well.

She also has an AOE death grip called Icy Grip. It will pull everyone in line of sight, a point which plays a large roll in phase 3, into melee range. As soon as this happens she will immediately being to cast Blistering cold. After 5 seconds she will deal a large aoe nuke that will kill any non-tank within 25 yards of her. As soon as you see yourself flying through the air make sure to turn your camera away from her, as she can turn you around if you were previously facing away before the Icy grip, and begin running away as soon as you land. Should the tank stay in, as you can see happen several times in this video, she will begin to walk through you so be careful with positioning.

The final two abilities are role specific. All casters can randomly get a debuff called Unchained magic. Unchanged magic will give you a second debuff every time you cast called instability. After 8 seconds instability will backlash the caster inflicting damage based on the number of stacks. Oddly, this ability can crit so our casters stop at a 5 or 6 stack and let it explode to ensure they survive it before resuming dps. If it is on a healer, especially a tank healer, they need to let the other healers know or tanks will die.

The melee version is called Chilled to the Bone. Every physical attack has a chance to place chilled to the bone on you which causes damage every 2 seconds and can stack. The chance is very low so you can never stop attacking and never get more than 2 or 3 but then all of a sudden have a 10 stack without realizing it later in the fight. Simply stop attacking to let it fall off.

Phase two is her air phase. She will fly away and Frost beacon 5 people in 25 man. Those people need to run to the middle and spread out because after seven seconds they will get tombed, aoeing everyone around them. If they are not spread out enough they will kill each other making you lose ice blocks. We had a mod that marked the five people and our strategy was for whoever got skull to be the middle block and the others spread out around that person. Should a person not beaconed be to close, it will entomb that person as well, costing you dps as you now have an extra person to break out, so stay out of the middle till it goes off.

Almost immediately after the tombs go out the first of 4 frost bombs goes out. Similar to sapphiron if you are behind a tomb you will not be hit by it. You can safely survive one if the first one is between the raid and the tombs and there is not enough time to make it behind or if one is killed and you again do not have time to get behind a new one, but a second one without being topped will kill you. It is possible to kill all 5 before the fourth bomb so be careful. Aoe them down so they can be killed just after the fourth bomb goes off. Should you fail to brake anyone out they will be asphyxiated and begin taking damage equal to 8% of your total health every second.

This repeats until 35%, when she enters phase 3 and stays grounded for the rest of the fight. She retains all her phase 1 abilities, will now tomb 1 person every couple seconds, and gains a new ability called Mystic buffet. The mystic buffet increases magic damage taken by 15% per stack and is applied every 5 seconds. This ability can be reset by staying behind a tombed player, which will also line of sight the pull. This amplifies the backlash from instability so you really need to not get more than 2 or 3 stacks of it, which greatly stresses healing. Paladins work great for this because they can beacon the tank and permanently los the buffet.

The people with beacon need to juggle not being so far away that people are constantly running and never getting to dps the boss, with not being so close they tomb the ranged dps. to counter this we had everyone stack just outside max melee range. The first beacon would always run behind the raid to the right while the second would run behind the raid to the left, alternating left right every beacon, as such we split the raid into a right reset group and a left reset group.

The tank rotation at this point gets really crazy. It was not uncommon to have two stacks already by the time you got back to a position you could safely taunt without cleaving or breathing the raid. This is why we decided to use 3 tanks.

This fight is above all a "make sure you survive" encounter. If 25 people are alive you should have no problem with the enrage timer, but very rarely will you actually have 25 people alive. Make sure to stress to your raid that execution and staying alive will win this fight far more than personal dps ever could. Make sure to run away with blocks, stop attacking and casting when you get the debuffs, coordinate tank cooldowns and taunts in phase 3, and keep yourself alive and you will have yourselves a kill.

Thanks for watching this movie, as always feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either here on youtube or in the strategy thread at tankspot, good luck.

Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Icecrown Citadel Raid Guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll cover everything you need to know about the normal mode 10-man version of the Sindragosa encounter.

Sindragosa is a three-phase fight that inherited many elements from the Sapphiron encounter in Naxx and also Garfrost in Pit of Saron. If you've killed those, you at least have a basic idea of what this fight is going to be like.

Sindragosa has a ground phase, an airphase and a third phase that starts at 35% health. Ground phases last a minute, airphases 50 seconds. The first airphase will occur at 85% health, after that they alternate until Sindragosa's health reaches 35%.

Where you tank her is not crucially important, but you want to make sure to have plenty of space available on one of her flanks. Being a dragon, Sindragosa has the typical tail smash and frontal cone cleave abilities that dragons tend to possess, so your raid needs to assemble at her flank.

We used a setup of two tanks, three healers and 5 dps for this, although it is probably even doable with 1 tank and 2 healers, but you're introducing a lot of potential RNG deaths that way.

Only during ground phase, your raid will take a permanent 3k damage every 3 seconds from Sindragosa's Frost Aura. This isn't bad by itself, but can pose a problem combined with some other abilities she has.

To inhibit incoming melee damage, attacking Sindragosa physically has a 20% chance of inflicting Permeating Chill, which makes you take an additional 1000 damage for every active stack. If this ends up being too much damage, melee classes need to stop attacking until their stacks reset.

A similar mechanic is in effect for casters and healers, this one's called Unchained Magic. This is a 30-second debuff that Sindragosa will use on a random caster or healer every couple seconds, and everytime a spell is cast during that duration the caster gains a stacking debuff called "Instability". After 8 seconds of not casting, you take 2000 damage for each stack of Instability you have on you. In short, you probably don't want to let this stack past 5 stacks to avoid huge damage spikes.

Shadow priests can get past this mechanic by casting like normal and using dispersion to soften the backlash once Unchained Magic ticks off. Other classes may have similar workarounds.

High tank damage is ensured through the cleave and Frost Breath, which unmitigated hits the tank for about 30k damage, slows his attack speed by 50% and his movement speed by 15% for 10 seconds so make sure to have at least one dedicated tank healer.

Once during every ground phase, Sindragosa will use Icy Grip, which draws every raid member towards her, and will then cast Blistering Cold, a 5 second cast spell that will hit everyone within 25 yards of her for 30k damage. Too long didn't listen version - once she sucks you in, you move away.

That covers her ground phase abilities, now onto the air phase. After she lifts up, two randomly selected targets will get wobbly blue arrows over their heads, which means they're a couple seconds away from getting encased in an ice tomb. Everyone needs to be away from players with blue arrows, 'cause if they're within 10 yards, they too will take the tomb spike damage and should they survive, they will alsos get turned into an iceblock.

What makes this phase different from Sapphiron is that the ice tombs don't serve to line of sight Sindragosa, but instead you hide behind them to line of sight the ice spears she throws onto random spots on the ground. The impending impact point will appear as circle on the ground with ice swirling around it - get on the other side of the ice block from it. If you fail to, you take 16k damage.

She shoots 4 ice spears per air phase. Also note that the ice tombs are attackable and should be damaged but not killed until all four ice spears have been shot. You get a short amount of time afterwards until Sindragosa lands, by which point the ice tombs should be so low on health that they can easily be destroyed and your raid members will be released.

At 35%, Sindragosa will get very mad at you, so you should make her more furious and use bloodlust or heroism.

In this phase she gains a new ability called Mystic Buffet, which is a stacking debuff that she will cast every 5 seconds and will increase your magical damage taken by 15% per application. This is bad for every raid member because of the frost aura, but it's even worse for your tank because of the Frost Breath.

Fortunately, Buffet can be reset by being out of Sindragosa's line of sight, and she's even nice enough to provide the mechanic to LoS her with - you guessed it - more Frost Tombs. This is also why you brought 2 tanks. Designate an "iceblock spot" ahead of time that is easy for everyone to run to. When Sindragosa puts a mark on someone to get entombed, that person needs to run to said spot while everyone else makes sure to stay away from it until the tomb has been placed.

It's advised for everyone to reset their stacks at least on every second tomb, healers should alternate. Tanks need good communication and ideally a cooldown rotation, you don't want to have them switch more than absolutely neccessary to reset their stacks. Frost tombs NEED to be DPSed down, she casts this frequently and you never want more than one up at any given time.

She also still uses Blistering Cold in this phase, so be ready for it. Once you have a rotation worked out to deal with the tombs, this fight starts getting a lot easier. While still a bit of a gear check, the most important aspects of this fight are positioning and timing - and, naturally, communication. Good luck and have fun!

Thank you for watching this movie. As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- so if you'd like to learn more about that, just click the second link in the movie information box!

[Tibbs]

I presume the HD version is coming up soon.
Good and reliable work as usual, keep it up please

[Ciderhelm]

The donor download is up. Check the premium page.

Not sure why YouTube isn't encoding the video yet. Going to give it a little longer and re-upload to try to fix.

[jokeaccount]

This is gonna be a hard-a** boss to PuG
I can already see tank failing and dps failing at the debuff reset

[Ervanna]

Perfect quality as always. Aliena's voice is much clearer and more present in this one; she has a lovely soft voice that I sometimes have a hard time hearing.

[Aliena]

Think my old PC messed with the sound somehow. This is the same headset and settings that I always use but it seems to make a difference somehow so... woot!

[Shenron]

What is a standard number of Magic Buffet stacks that tanks should switch off on?
My group has 10 attempts left, we got her to 7% our last attempt.

[Torturer]

thanks for the great video
doing 10man tonight, hope we gonna kill it

[Bertus]

What is a standard number of Magic Buffet stacks that tanks should switch off on?
My group has 10 attempts left, we got her to 7% our last attempt.

Yeah i'm also interested in knowing the number of stacks that is ideally for tank swap.

[igmodorf]

i smiled long ago when my raid leader warned me about a serving of flame i would be receiving from a dragon in BWL, and smiled again hearing this. when you hit something, its pronounced buff-it. :P thanks for the clear description and camerawork.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/buffet

[Ciderhelm]

We have two 25-man videos up now!

[Blaubaer]

Did you use frost resistance gear for this encounter (10 and 25)?

[Splug]

We did not, but the primary source of tank damage is frost. I had considered switching to a resistance flask, but the pull I thought of it she died. I would not recommend putting anyone other than possibly the tanks in resistance gear.

-Splug

[Darksend]

After you kill her, tanking her with her own trinket would be very nice. Also using both the 10 and 25 ony rings would not be a terrible idea either (considering I use the 25 one in my normal tank setup anyway because it really is not that bad of a ring)

[Darksend]

Source

[Blizzard] We hotfixed Backlash today so it won't land a critical hit anymore.
[/Blizzard]

[Pavidus]

Is Icy Grip avoidable through line of sight?

[Darksend]

She also has an AOE death grip called Icy Grip. It will pull everyone in line of sight, a point which plays a large roll in phase 3, into melee range.

[lastchance187]

Good morning all, we got up to sindragosa last night and we managed to do pretty well getting to phase 3 with out a problem... so we thought we would try the achievmen, which is not to get more then 4 stacks of the mystic buffet.

This stacks up pretty fast soo ofc the whole raid will have to hide behind each ice block and the tanks will need to use cooldowns whilst healers are LoS, but one thing we noticed is that the tanks will never be able to do this achievement. As the boss was taken in phase 3 i had my staks and hte offtnak took the boss whilst i went ot get rid of my debuffs, but as i got back to the offtank to taunt, he had already got 5th stack.

Is there any way to beat this? or is this something tanks will have to do over two weeks? any one advise?

[Tibbs]

How far behind the Ice Block can you stand and stil LoS the Mystic Buffet. Last night we had a hunter that couldn't LoS the buffet far behind the Ice Block. It could be as simple as we just didn't know the origin of the spell, is mystic buffet casted from the center of the hit box, or from her head?
Have anyone else tried and succeeded doing a LoS far behind(15-20 yards or so) the Ice Block? Cause if you could do that, healers can LoS the Mystic Buffet and still got LoS on tanks. And ranged wouldn't have to move, if ice blocks always were in front of them.

[Tibbs]

It's not a personal achivement. No one in the raid can get more than 4 stacks, including tanks. You might need to keep an extra ice block up near tanks for the whole fight, just to get this achievement done. You run to a designated spot near tanks, then ice blocks. Once that is done, the tanks move the boss so the tank can stand right next to the ice block, less than 2-3 yards away from it. Behind the ice block stands the OT. When you get stack number 2, OT comes forward, taunts and you get behind the ice block. Rince and repeat.