Spine of Deathwing: Strategy for Hunters

Spine of Deathwing is the seventh encounter in the Dragon Soul raid instance and the third in the Fall of Deathwing wing.

For dps, this fight is all about controlled damage: taking the Hideous Amalgamations down to a certain point then pulling off to wait for stacks before killing them, taking just enough health off of the Corruptions to interrupt their cast but no more, waiting to kill the Corrupted Bloods until they are near the amalgamations, and bursting down the Burning Tendons as fast as possible. All while riding on Deathwing’s back! Here are the specifics a hunter needs to know:

Kill Corruptions

As you parachute onto Deathwing’s back, begin shooting the four Corruption tentacles from the air. Some groups kill all four tentacles at the start while others only kill two or three. Find out from your raid leader what your group’s plan is.

Stand in the hole and do a barrel roll

As each Corruption is killed, one large Hideous Amalgamation and one small Corrupted Blood ooze will emerge out of the fiery hole where the tentacle was.
Near the beginning of the fight, just after you have killed the Corruptions, you’ll probably be doing a barrel roll to get rid of all these adds.

Deathwing goes into a barrel roll when raid members stack on one side of his back.
The barrel roll will remove all of the Amalgamation and Corrupted Blood adds as well as raid members unless they are secured on his back.

Players are secured by standing in one of the fiery holes where they will receive the Grasping Tendrils debuff.
The usual procedure is that when the raid leader announces a barrel roll, everyone will run to a specified hole, which will both initiate the barrel roll and secure the raid members.

Kill one Corruption

One Corruption will always be up because when the last one dies another will respawn. After the barrel roll, return to the center of Deathwing’s back and kill the Corruption that respawned.

Interrupt Fiery Grip

After you kill the Corruption to spawn the Amalgamation, another will spawn. Corruptions occasionally cast Fiery Grip on a random raid member.
If you are assigned to deal with Fiery Grip, lightly DPS the Corruption; you only need to (and only should) remove 20% of its heath to stop the channel.
It will help with accuracy if you choose to show enemy health as percentages rather than health point values.
Fiery Grip secures players during a barrel roll, so don’t interrupt the channel if you’re about to trigger a roll or in the midst of one.

DPS the Hideous Amalgamation that spawns but don’t kill it yet

The only way to remove a plate from Deathwing’s back is to have an Amalgamation blow up near it, and Amalgamations won’t blow up until they have received nine stacks of a debuff deposited by dead Corrupted Bloods.

Kill Corrupted Bloods

Kill Bloods until the Hideous Amalgamation has nine stacks of Absorbed Blood.
An off-tank or a plate dps will probably be assigned to pick up the Corrupted Bloods and bring them near the Hideous Amalgamation. If you pull aggro on one, bring it near the tank.
Start dpsing them as they’re being moved but don’t kill them until they’re near the Amalgamation.
Don’t kill more than one Corrupted Blood at the same time. When each Blood dies, it damages the entire raid with Burst. If you kill too many in quick succession your healers might not be able to keep up with the raid damage. Deterrence will mitigate Burst damage.

Kill the Hideous Amalgamation

Kindly request that your tank pull the Amalgamation onto the right side rather than the left so that it dies on Deathwing’s right side. This is to prevent a pet bug from occurring (see below).
Make sure you are more than ten yards away from it when it dies so that you are not in the Nuclear Blast. Remember to call your pet back also.

Burn down the Burning Tendon

This is the time to use your DPS cooldowns. If the Tendon is not killed within 23 seconds, it will complete its Seal Armor Breach cast, the plate will reattach, and you’ll have to start over with another Hideous Amalgamation.

If you don’t kill the tendon on the first try, all is not lost. Its health does not reset. Start over with another Amalgamation but make sure it dies on the same side as the first so that you don’t have to start killing a different tendon and can just finish off the first.

The left tendon is currently bugged for pets and if you send your pet to attack it, the pet will die, perhaps because it tries to get in back of the tendon and falls off Deathwing’s back. The right tendon seems to be pet-safe though.