I have to admit, I love these ‘dragon’ fights. They just have a certain feel to them that seem very RPG. Don’t get me wrong; I love the other fights– but there just is a special place in my heart for the REAL “dragon” bosses.
First thing’s first, once you engage the 2nd trash wyrm… there is no turning back. Once the 2nd wyrm dies, Sindragosa engages. That means you need to be in position and be ready. (You have 5-10 seconds of drinking time before she actually lands, so you should be fine on HP/Mana). Remember, this posting is not intended to be a complete strategy – it is meant to be a reference for the healers.
Buff Awareness:
There are 2 buffs that you need to be very aware of as a healer: Unchained Magic and Instability
Unchained Magic: There is logic on this debuff that puts the buff on 3 healers and 3 ranged casters on 25 and 1 healer and 1 caster on 10′s. You get this debuff for 30 seconds. During those 30 seconds you can stack another debuff called ‘Instability‘. Instability stacks every time you cast a spell and resets it’s timer to 8 seconds every stack. When Instability reaches 0 you take damage. Be vocal on vent to alert your other healers if you are stacking too high, and you need to stop casting.
Because of the stacking damage mechanic caused by Unchained Magic, the spells you cast need to be cast with purpose. I typically do not allow myself to stack higher than 5 x Instability – I don’t want the backlash to kill me. (however if the raid is critical I’ve gone as high as 9, and asked for a Disc bubble) I will cast only my bigger heals, making each stack worthwhile. For example: POM into the melee group, Prayer of Healing, COH into the ranged group, Renew the Tank, or Hymn. I am not suggesting to NOT cast anything: Just cast a few spells, take the backlash hit, and resume casting/stacking. Don’t get tunnel vision and suddenly find yourself at 15 stacks.
I’ve set up two Power Auras just for Sindragosa, one to alert me that I have Unchained Magic, and the second to let me know how many stacks of Instability I have and how much time before I am hit with backlash. Those can be found in Ava’s Power Auras Update Post.
Tank Healing:
Provided your tanks have put on some Frost Resist, Sindragosa really doesn’t hit them very hard in Phase 1. In Phase 1, damage should be fairly manageable and the only consistent damage should be from the Frost Aura, the melee debuff (Chilled to the Bone), and Casters eating Backlash. DPS should be aware of their own debuffs and learn to control themselves should they start stacking their respective debuffs. If you feel your DPS is stacking too high (particularly since you could have 3 healers ‘locked out from Unchained Magic’), bring it up to your raid through proper channels (Guild Forums, Ventrilo, Class Leaders, Officers, etc…) Once my guild controlled the number of stacks DPS was getting healing the debuff was much easier.
Phases:
Phase 1 for the most part is a tank and spank, just heal your MT, watch your debuffs, and monitor DPS’s debuffs who may be stacking too high. Raid damage will be constant, but predictable… nothing a holy priest and a druid or two can’t handle. The only ‘Burst’ damage that exists on the tank is her Frost Breath but your MT healers should be able to manage that easily. Blistering Cold is cast after Icy Grip… if your dps is too slow in running out, you likely can’t save them without burning a GS/PS.
Phase 2 is the easiest of the 3 phases. The only tricks consist of: being sure the Fost Beacon targets place their Tombs smartly, burning the Tombs down, and line of sighting the Frost Bomb. Phase 2 is a great time to wand Tombs and Regen Mana.
Once Sindragosa reaches 30% you’ve entered Phase 3. Phase 3, is exactly like Phase 1 with two additional things to focus on.
Mystic Buffet – This is a LOSable debuff that stacks every 5 seconds, and increases your damage taken. We had assigned groups to reset. You don’t want all of your healers resetting at once so be sure you communicate. Remember, Arcane Buffet increases total damage taken- including backlash. If you have Unchained Magic you may want to reset your Buffet sooner than you normally would. If you are in dire need of resetting and too many healers are LOSing behind a Tomb, use Guardian Spirit/Pain Suppression to provide buffer while resets occur. Be aware of your tank’s stacks, as her Breath will start to hit much harder.
Frost Beacon – The Beacon target will take damage, so be sure to assign 1 healer to top off the Beacon target before they are entombed. When they are hit by the tomb they take non-trivial damage. You don’t want to lose a player, and in turn their Tomb, as that then cascades into preventing tanks and other ranged from resetting their Buffet debuff.
Once your raid controls their damage taken via Unchained Magic or Chilled to the Bone, and you are able to get into a cycle of resetting your Buffet stacks, you should be able to down her comfortably. Protip- Melee don’t get Chilled to the Bone when damaging Frost Tombs in Phase 3, assigning them to breaking players out of Tombs minimizes damage taken from Chilled to the Bone.
I really enjoyed this fight… here’s a video of our kill last week. (Remember, bigger and widescreen versions are available directly at YouTube here)
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