Warcraft: Dragon Soul Encounter Recap

As a raider returning to WoW since my hiatus, I thought it would be useful to write a post that simply lists each encounter along with the normal and heroic strategies associated with each. However, rather than writing a long-winded post specifically detailing encounters that have been current for some good time now – let’s just do quick recaps of each and leave it at that.

Morchok

  • Stay within 25m of the boss for the duration of the encounter.
  • Two phases alternate the duration of the encounter:
    • Crystal Phase (~1 minute)
    • Black Blood Phase (30 seconds)
      • Everyone should immediately run out behind one of the rocks that will have fallen to avoid Black Blood of the Earth.
      • Ranged can position themselves so they can continue DPS’ing during this phase.
  • Heroic
    • Crystal Phase
      • Boss splits into two at 90%
        • Tank bosses apart from each other
        • Crush Armor no longer occurs – no tank swap necessary.
      • Split into two groups – ensure you’re always within 25m of your boss.
        • Tank should move their boss to accomodate for Resonating Crystal location.
        • A designated melee should soak Stomp with the tank.

Yor’sahj

  • Every 75 seconds or so, the boss will spawn 3x oozes at areas around the perimeter of the room.
    • Kill Priority = Purple > Yellow > Green
    • Based off which two are allowed to reach the boss, a different strategy will apply.
      • Instead of listing out every combination, simply visit Icy Veins for a good recap of each.
  • Heroic
    • 4x oozes will spawn instead of 3x.

Zon’ozz

  • Two phases alternate the duration of the encounter:
    • Ping Pong Phase
      • Bounce the ball between the ranged and melee group.
      • After about 7 bounces, let the ball hit the boss. This will trigger the Black Phase.
      • Disrupting Shadows must be dispelled – make sure the person is topped off first.
    • Black Phase (30 seconds)
      • Stationary burn phase – stack on boss and blow cooldowns.
  • Heroic
    • Adds spawn during the Black Phase:
      • Kill priority = Flail > Eye
      • After the Flail and Eye are dead, continue attacking the boss.
        • The boss should be tanking on top of the claw, as to let it die from cleave damage (minimal damage output from the claw)

Hagara

  • Alternates between main phase and one of two phases.
    • Main Phase
      • Tank should back out when boss casts Focused Assault to avoid taking damage.
      • DPS should break Ice Tombs immediately.
      • If targeted by Ice Lance, be sure you’re not next to anyone.
        • If a melee is targeted, a ranged or healer should intercept and soak it.
    • Lightning Phase
      • Kill the elemental.
      • Chain the lightning to each of the 4x Crystal Conductors around the perimeter of the platform.
    • Ice Phase
      • Everyone should run to the perimeter of the platform.
      • Avoid Ice Waves – move with them as the 4x waves rotate around the room.
      • Avoid Icicles – these are blue circles on the ground. Don’t stand in them.
      • DPS Frozen Binding Crystals.
  • Heroic
      Main Phase

      • Added debuff, Frostflake, that reduces movement speed every second.
        • Affected player should immediately move to the edge of the platform to be dispelled.
        • Once dispelled, it drops a pool on the ground that slows any players in it – just avoid walking through it.
    • Lightning Phase
      • Storm Pillars will spawn and explodes 3 seconds later.
        • These should be avoided or healed through if necessary.
    • Ice Phase
      • Added debuff, Frostflake, that reduces movement speed every second.
        • Affected player should immediately move to the edge of the platform to be dispelled.
        • Once dispelled, it drops a pool on the ground that slows any players in it – just avoid walking through it.

Ultraxion

  • Stack up and DPS your little hearts away.
  • When the boss casts Hour of Twilight, everyone except one designated soaker should use Heroic Will just before he finishes casting.
  • Heroic
    • Fading Light now affects the tank and two other players, rather than one.
    • Must have 2x soakers for Hour of Twilight, rather than one.
    • When a player soaks Hour of Twilight, they cannot soak another for 2 minutes.
      • Create a rotation for swapping soakers, along with cooldowns.

Blackhorn

  • Phase One
    • When Twilight Onslaught occurs – large purple void zone – everyone should immediately stack in it.
    • Players should also stack in the smaller void zones, Twilight Barrage.
      • 2-3 players per small void zone will suffice – preferably ranged and healers.
    • Burn down Twilight Sappers immediately.
      • These should be snared to increase burn time.
    • Ranged DPS should kill Drakes.
    • Melee DPS should kill Dreadblades and Slayers.
      • Tank should face these away from the raid.
      • Dreadblades perform Blade Rush, targeting a player and damaging anyone in their path to that player.
        • Players should just strafe out of the way when this occurs.
  • Phase Two
    • Phase two begins when all Drakes are killed.
    • Ranged should finish burning the boss’s drake, Goriana – she leaves at 25%.
      • Goriana will continue to cast Twilight Flames until she departs.
        • These are large flame circles – don’t stand in them.
    • Melee should DPS the boss.
    • The boss stacks Devastate on the tank, a debuff that requires a tank swap at 2x stacks.
    • Casters should remain over 10 yards from the boss at all times, as to avoid getting silenced by his Disrupting Roar.
    • He also casts Shockwave, a frontal cone that deals damage and stuns for 4 seconds.
      • He may randomly face the raid before doing this – so just spread around the boss and strafe out of the way accordingly.
  • Heroic
    • Fire patches will randomly spawn on the ship – don’t stand in them.
    • Phase One
      • Soaking Twilight Barrage places a 15-second debuff increasing damage taken by 50% – this can stack.
        • Just make sure the debuff falls off before you soak another.
    • Phase Two
      • Goriana will land on the ship at 80% and must be tanked.
        • Keep in mind – tanks will still have to swap to handle the boss’s Devastate debuff.
        • Once on the ground, all DPS should focus on Goriana.
        • She will cast Twilight Breath, a frontal cone AoE – so face away from the raid.
        • She will also cast Consuming Shroud on a player, causing all healing received to damage the raid.
          • Stacking and AOE healing is the best way to handle this.

Spine of Deathwing

  • Kill 3 of the 4 Corruptions.
  • Then everyone stack in an empty hole where a Corruption used to be.
    • This will force a barrel roll and cause all spawned adds to fall off.
    • Standing in the empty hole will grip all players so they don’t fall off during the barrel roll.
  • The idea is to get the Hideous Amalgamation add to 9x stacks of Absorbed Blood.
    • Absorbed Blood is stacked on it by killing Corrupted Blood adds, then dragging the Hideous Amalgamation through the pool they drop after death. Using cleave damage helps.
    • Be sure to only kill 9x Corrupted Bloods, as killing more is just wasted DPS
      • The tank should just eat their damage and call out for a barrel roll when it becomes too much.
    • Once the Hideous Amalgamation reaches 9x stacks of Absorbed Blood, it should be positioned close to one side of the plate and quickly killed.
      • It will then begin casting Nuclear Blast – everyone should be 10 yards away to avoid damage.
    • After Nuclear Blast, the plate will lift and Burning Tendons will be exposed.
      • Everyone should immediately blow all cooldowns and burn it.
      • Once it dies, the plate will fly off and you will rinse/repeat.
    • After the plate flies off, two more Corruptions will be exposed.
      • You’ll want to burn one and DPS the other until 80%, then leave it – to stop the Fiery Grip mechanic.
  • Heroic

Madness of Deathwing

  • Phase One
    • Everyone should begin on Ysera’s platform.
      • Ysera > Alexstrasza > Nozdormu > Kalecgos
    • The same strategy is used to clear each platform:
      • Begin DPS’ing the tentacle.
      • After 10 seconds, a Mutated Corruption will spawn.
        • These should be burned down immediately.
        • They will cast Impale, which requires a defensive cooldown.
      • While killing the Mutated Corruption, an Elementium Bolt will begin moving towards the platform.
        • Its landing zone is displayed by a golden void zone – move away from it.
        • Burn the Elementium Bolt as quickly as possible – defensive cooldowns help mitigate heavy damage.
      • Once the Elementium Bolt is destroyed, finish DPS’ing the Mutated Corruption, then continue DPS’ing the tentacle.
      • If the platform you are on has an Arm Tentacle, it will shortly after spawn 6x Regenerative Bloods.
        • AoE these down.
    • After you clear each platform, you lose the buffs that the dragon on each platform provided – making the encounter more difficult as you progress.
      • On Ysera’s platform, you have all buffs – use these to your benefit.
      • On Alexstrasza’s platform, you lose the healing and damage reduction action spell, Dream.
      • On Nozdormu’s platform, you lose the health buff and are forced to manually kill the Blistering Tentacles that spawn – these must be single target burned as quickly as possible.
      • On Kalecgos’ platform, you lose the haste buff and the Elementium Bolt will reach the platform much quicker.
  • Phase Two
    • Deathwing will plop his head on Ysera’s platform – burn him.
    • Two types of adds will be spawned and should be burned immediately in the following priority:
    • After the adds are dead, continue DPS’ing Deathwing.
    • A second set of adds will spawn shortly after.
      • Make sure the second set of adds are dead before pushing Deathwing to 10% health.
    • Once the second set of adds are dead, blow all cooldowns and full burn on Deathwing – ignore any additional adds from 10% on.
  • Heroic

Accomp

Accomp is a Software Engineer by day, MMO enthusiast by night, full-time dad, and part-time content creator. He's been writing guides for MMOs for years and has a strong passion for user experience and helping other gamers improve. You can follow him on Twitter to keep up or join his Discord to hang out with his community.

2 Responses

  1. mrandmrswow says:

    This is brilliant – I need these as a small pop-up screen on my interface (my pc can’t handle alt/tabbing with WoW open!) so I can have them at-a-glance. All current MoP raids too please 😀

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