Icecrown Citadel 4 - Deathbringer Saurfang.

[Greylock]

Abilities

Blood Link
Saurfang gains Blood Power from damage he inflicts with abilities and summoned creatures. Also increases his Energy by 1 each time Blood Link triggers.

Blood Power
Saurfang grows 1% larger and deals 1% more damage for each point of Blood Power he has.

Blood Nova
Blood explodes outward from a random enemy target, inflicting 10,000 Physical damage to nearby enemies.

Boiling Blood
Boils the blood of an enemy, inflicting 9,500 Physical damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds.

Call Blood Beast
Saurfang calls forth 5 blood beasts every 30 seconds.

Frenzy
Saurfang goes into a frenzy, increasing his attack speed by 30%.

Mark of the Fallen Champion
Causes Deathbringer Saurfang's melee attacks to splash to this target, inflicting 5,700 to 6,300 additional Physical damage. If the target dies while under this effect Saurfang is healed for 5% of his total health.

Rune of Blood
Saurfang leeches health when he performs melee attacks on targets marked with Rune of Blood. Leeches 5,100 to 6,900 health from an enemy target and heals Saurfang for 5 times that amount.

Scent of Blood
Saurfang's Blood Beasts catch the scent of blood, reducing all nearby enemies movement speed by 80% and increasing their damage by 300% for 10 seconds.

Blood Beast

Thick Skin The thick skin of this creature reduces damage from area effect attacks by 75%.


The key to this fight is limiting how much Blood power Saurfang generates.

Tank Saurfang where he spawns. His melee damage is not high compared to Trial of the Crusader bosses, though it will become harder as he gains blood power. Even with 100 blood power his damage is not high enough to cause serious problems for a Tier 9 geared tank. After his blood power reaches 100 he will cast Mark of the Fallen Champion on a random raid member and it will drop to zero, so he will never have more than a 100% damage buff.

Tanks taunt off whenever he casts rune of blood to prevent it from healing him.

Saurfang will cast Boiling Blood on random raid members. This can simply be healed through, though every tick grants blood power, so removing it with immunity abilities may be useful.

Saurfang will cast Blood Nova on random targets. This will cause them to take damage and damage everyone around them. The damage itself is not serious, but every additional target it hits will generate extra blood power, so ranged should spread out with 12 yards between them to avoid splash damage.

Every 40 seconds blood beasts will spawn, and this is a key aspect of the fight. Before they do melee and tanks should stop aoe-ing, which will cause the blood beasts to go after ranged targets instead. Keep frost traps down and have all ranged switch and burn down the blood beasts right away. If you have aggro, run away, because blood beasts melee-ing you will generate blood power for Saurfang. Do not attempt to tank the blood beasts, instead slow and kite them. Blood beasts are resistant to AOE so should be killed with single target spells.

Inevitably he will gain 100 blood power and cast Mark of the Fallen Champion on a raid member. This does very heavy damage and the victim will likely need a dedicated healer to keep them alive to avoid healing Saurfang for 5% of his HP. Mark of the Fallen Champion damage can be prevented temporarily by Divine Shield, Ice Block and Hand of Protection, but it is not removed by these abilities. In addition Mark of the Fallen Champion persists through death, so do not resurrect a player that dies from it. Ignoring Mark of the Fallen Champion and allowing its victims to die is a possibility, but it is better to heal through it if possible. Mark of the Fallen Champion damage is based on Saurfang's melee swings, so it will increase as he gains blood power and when he frenzies at low HP.

Saurfang will Frenzy at 30% HP, and Bloodlust/Heroism should be used at this time to burn him down quickly and to help healing players with Mark.

[Gladion]

http://www.stratfu.com/strats/deathbrin ... r-saurfang

[Giruy]

A frost mage would do wonders in this fight if the adds arent immune to Chill (70% speed reduction) and Frostbite (Freeze for 5 sec).

Spamming Blizzard just as theyre about to spawn should work, would be even better if at least 2 mages had frost spec so one can be placed on each side.

[Luxaflex]

Ok, for tonight -

1 or 2 frost mages would be great to have. In addition, I think we need 6 healers instead of the 5 we had yesterday. The Mark of the Fallen Champion requires a dedicated healer, especially when he drops below 30% (see below). We can have up to 5 or 6 up at the end of the fight. Ppl dying with a mark on them heal the boss for 5%, and they cannot be battleressed (Mark persists through death).

We should have 2 ppl healing tanks, and the other 4 (raid healers) should each pickup a player with the Mark. Healer 1 > 1st Mark, Healer 2 > 2nd Mark etc. I'll set this up. It will be very hard, I could barely keep myself up when I had the mark, even when full healing on myself only.

Additionally, we can choose to let the FIRST person who gets the mark, just die. This will lessen the healing load at the end, when multiple marks are up.

He casts the mark when he gains 100 Blood Power: staying at range and not getting hit by adds prevents him stacking up to 100 too fast. He will stack from hitting the tanks anyways, so it's not avoidable, but it can be slowed by executing perfectly.

He frenzies at 30% - that's when he starts hitting faster, gains blood power faster and will cast Mark faster because he's stacking faster. As soon as he casts a Mark on someone during this frenzy, thats when we need heroism to burn through the remaining health and boost the healing on ppl with the Mark on. Healers see the Mark on their Grid, one of us can call out for heroism.

[Xiluva]

Ppl dying with a mark on them heal the boss for 5%, and they cannot be battleressed (Mark persists through death).

Unless they release and then get battle rezzed. The debuff wears off that way (or so I read in a forum somewhere...).

[Lithasola]

He casts the mark when he gains 100 Blood Power: staying at range and not getting hit by adds prevents him stacking up to 100 too fast. He will stack from hitting the tanks anyways, so it's not avoidable, but it can be slowed by executing perfectly.

Just a little suggestion/question...do all the tanks have avoidance gear ? being a druid tank I rely mostly on dodge and high HP + Armor. Does a blocked or parried hit add to his blood power ? The last attempt was me copper and mirari tanking, it would be interesting to know how much/how fast the blood power would build up if we all geared for (assuming we werent but I didnt check copper and mir) avoidance during this fight. If we could avoid being hit as often the blood power would generate slower...wether it would be enough to make a significant difference during the fight remains to be seen.

Every little helps

[Greylock]

As I understand it the three key things for this fight is to spread out so blood nova doesnt stack blood power too much, quick changign of the tanks and control of the blood beasts so we dont loose raid members and they dont hit too many ranged and therefor stack blood power quicker than avoidable.

[Korchinks]

You understood it just right Grey - in reality, its really hard to keep a safe distance from your bretheren, even before the fight starts.

We had few options when it came to slowing the beasts down also (one trap and then single target abilities only), this made the fight more hectic than it should be, created more spacing issues than there should be - ultimately ranged with slowing abilites are desireable there at out current DPS level.

Summary of above - Hunters and frost specc'd mages are very desireable to help slow those beasts down with traps and frost abilities - their health pool is not massive so it is indeed doable and I think we managed to get the boss down to a healthy start as we learned the mechanics of the fight.

Perhaps with one more healer on that fight we may of even got the kill last night?

Also a DBM that has the correct timer engaged for beast respawns is desireable to help time the AoE that will pull them away for the melee.

[Giruy]

Also a DBM that has the correct timer engaged for beast respawns is desireable to help time the AoE that will pull them away for the melee.

Thankfully he emotes just before they appear.

[Korchinks]

Also a DBM that has the correct timer engaged for beast respawns is desireable to help time the AoE that will pull them away for the melee.

Thankfully he emotes just before they appear.

Probably would of been good to share that nugget last night then - not that I could see him very well anyway

Also can you explain what you mean when he says emotes so I know where to look for it.