Dragon Soul Tactics: Siege of Wyrmrest Temple

by Tachyon on Fri. 18. November 2011, 20:43

Filed under: cataclysm, guide, strategy, deathwing, dragon soul, raiding

The Public Test Realm offers a good occasion to get a sneek preview of the upcoming raid dungeons. In patch 4.3, we get three new 5men dungones, and a new raid dungeon called Dragon Soul, where we finally face Deathwing himself.

Patch 4.3 also offers a new PUG-feature for raid instances, with slightly downgraded difficulty and loot: Looking for Raid. Players can participate in LFR multiple times a week, but only roll for loot the first time a boss is beaten. Nevertheless, the LFR invite pops up really fast (only 2 tanks needed per 25men raid, so it's way faster than LFG) and it's a hell of a lot of fun to do for casual raiders and twinks.

Now that I've done Dragon Soul (normal and LFR) almost daily over the last two weeks, I decided to sum up the strategies and tactics we have established and tested successfully, in the hope to help you get through the instance without worries.

The Dragon Soul entrance lies the Caverns of Time in Tanasris (as do the 5men instances, by the way). Once you enter you stand in front of Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight, ready to face the first boss after about three trash packs.

Morchock
http://www.wowpedia.org/Morchock

Morchock is the first and one of the easiest encounters, to the point where you could consider him 'freeloot'.

Positioning: huddle up behind Boss (so the Stomp damage splits between all Players)
Crystal Orb: Morchock summons a red crystal that explodes after 12 seconds. The 3/8 Players standing nearest to the crystal get connected to it with a yellow line, and need to run quickly to the crystal to soak up the damage (damage is larger the further you stand away from the crystal, the line turns blue if you stand close enought)
Spikes: when the spikes arrive, take cover behind them from Black Ooze that follows shortly after (black stuff that floats on the ground). Casters should position themselves between two spikes so they can continue casting during Black Ooze.
Another stomp will follow after the ooze goes away, don't return too early or you might get killed by the stomp (unless you're in LFR difficulty)

Warlord Zon'ozz
http://www.wowpedia.org/Warlord_Zon'ozz

Tank turns boss away from the raid (Psychic Drain cone AoE, 30° angle).
Make two camps: one ranged, one meele, and mark them with symbols.

Focused Anger stacks on tank as boss attacks, reduces healing received
Void of the Unmaking: The Void Orb travels outside, and can be reflected by players. When the void touches the boss, it gets consumed and resets the Focused Anger stacks, but the boss will do a Black Blood AoE for a short time, dealing heavy damage to all players (so huddle up in your camp to make it easier for the healers). During that phase, players also deal more damage, depending on how many times the void was reflected.
Obviously you want to reflect the void a few times to benefit from the damage buff, but not too often because you need to reset the Focused Anger debuff on the tank. The void travels outside, so the first reflection has to be done by a member of the ranged camp. The next reflect is then done by the meele camp, and so on.
5 reflections is a good number to start with: Ranged(1) -> Meele(2) -> Ranged(3) -> Meele(4) -> Ranged(5) -> Meele step aside and tank turns the boss in the way of the void orb so it gets consumed.

Most problems arise when the meeles don't step aside to let the boss consume the void orb, or the tank doesn't manage to pull the boss in the path of the void after the last reflection. If you mess up after 5 reflects, you can try again after 7, 9 and so on, and hope your tank doesn't die (one tank is enough here if you don't fail).

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping
http://www.wowpedia.org/Yor'sahj_the_Unsleeping

You need only one tank, as the Void Bolt debuff (reduced healing on the tank, stacks) resets when you kill a globule.

Boss summons 3 out of 6 possible globues (randomly).Kill one globule, the one that's most threatening (you can't kill more than one, after you killed the first, the other two will fuse, rendering them immune to all damage, which means the boss will gain two effects).
Kill order: Purple > Green > Yellow/Blue

You first encounter the globules as trash mobs surrounding the boss in groups of 3, which is a good occasion to learn their effects. They get the same effects when being consumed by the boss:

Cobalt ( Blue): Spawns a void sphere, which drains your mana, and returns it to all targets within 18y if you kill it. Not very threatening, but annoying for your healers and casters
Crimson ( Red): Huddle up, massive AoE dmg that has to be healed through, use heal cooldowns
Glowing ( Yellow): Boss attacks faster (60%), abilities used twice as often
Dark ( Black): Summons adds that fixate players, AoE kill them quickly
Acidic ( Green): Acid splash damage to single players, spread out (at least 4y away from other players)
Shadowed ( Purple): Every 5th heal or absorbtion effect causes a heavy explosion in the raid (so stop healing during deep corruption). This is the most dangerous effect here, so killing this globule has top priority. Healers should be aware that the same effect occurs when you fight them as trash.

Hagara the Stormbinder
http://www.wowpedia.org/Hagara_the_Stormbinder

Hagara has alternating phases (normal, frost, normal, lightning, normal, and so on).

NORMAL PHASE:

Ice Lance: deals damage to a player (Beam), has to be healed through (mild damage). Other players have to stay away from the beams (especially where they intersect). Players with beams on them walk away from the other players a bit, towards the source of the beam.
Ice Tombs: Trap players, have to be killed
Focused Assault: channeled, deals heavy damage, but tank can just walk out of it.

FROST PHASE:

Boss is immune during this phase
Ice Wave: 4 ice waves, spread apart in an 90° angle, rotate around the boss (clockwise), and must be avoided. They grow from the center to the perimeter before they start rotating, make sure you position yourself between two of them before it's to late.
Run clockwise around the boss, stay away from the impact locations where ice meteors will rain down (blue area on ground)
4 Binding crystals (~totems, on N/E/S/W) that have to be killed to remove the boss' shield, so she can be interrupted to end this phase
Frost Flake needs to be dispelled (leaves behind a frost trap that must be avoided)

LIGHTNING PHASE:

Crystal Conductors which have to be energized to end this phase
1 (LFR difficulty)/2 adds spawn, kill them on crystal conductors (on opposite ends of the platform) to energize 2 crystal conductors. Players standing nearby will get hit by an ongoing chain lightning, players have to reposition in a way the chain lightning passes through them into passive crystal conductors to activate them and end the lightning phase.

Hagara requires a lot of movement, and the lightning phase is a bit tricky, as it requires some coordination on where players have to form chains.

As this is my favourite boss in the first part of Dragon Soul, I made a video I'd like to share with you, hope you like it (watch it on Youtube for FullHD)