Madness of Deathwing is the final encounter in the Dragon Soul raid instance. Here’s what a hunter needs to know:
Phase One
Phase One takes place on four islands, each occupied by one of the four great Dragon Aspects (Alexstraza, Kalecgos, Nozdormu, and Ysera) who will assist you. As you complete each platform the Aspect associated with that island will no longer be able to grant you the aid of their special ability. Therefore, the strategy used on each island will depend on which Great Aspects are still active.
- Deathwing’s Arms and Wings - As you start the fight on each island, you’ll be dpsing one of Deathwing’s limbs, either an arm or a wing depending on the platform.
- You can pre-pot before the fight, but the beginning of this fight is not the most effective time to burn your major cooldowns.
- As you jump to the different islands, you can get a few shots on Deathwing’s limbs from the air.
- Mutated Corruptions – Ten seconds after Deathwing begins assaulting the Aspect on your current island, a large tentacle called a Mutated Corruption will spawn at the opposite side of the platform from the limb.
- Begin dpsing the Mutated Corruption as soon as it spawns.
- It is important to kill the Corruption quickly so that it doesn’t Impale your tank more than once.
- Most groups will use Heroism to get the first Corruption down, as this will allow enough time for Heroism to be used twice during the fight.
- If your group uses Heroism on the first island, use your 5 minute cooldowns e.g. Rapid Fire and Call of the Wild for the Mutated Corruptions on the second and fourth islands.
- Elementium Bolts – Just as you are finishing off the Mutated Corruption, Deathwing will launch an Elementium Bolt at a designated spot on the island.
- If Nozdormu is still active (there will be a large golden swirl on the island) the Elementium Bolt will be slowed and your raid should be able to kill it before it hits the ground.
- If Nozdormu is not active to slow the bolt, you won’t be able to kill it before it hits and will need to get far away from the impact site (small golden swirl) to reduce damage from Elementium Blast.
- You’ll need to kill the Bolt within 5.2 seconds after it hits so that your raid doesn’t take additional ticks of damage.
- Deterrence will mitigate damage from the Elementium Blast.
- Regenerative Blood – After 90 seconds, Regenerative Blood oozes will spawn.
- Use Explosive Trap and Multi-Shot to AoE them down quickly.
- If your raid isn’t able to AoE them down within ten seconds, the remaining Bloods will regain their health. If this happens, single-target any remaining Bloods.
- Blistering Tentacles – At 75, 50, and 25% health, small Blistering Tentacles will spawn on Deathwing’s limbs.
- If Alexstraza is active, she’ll breathe fire on them and kill them.
- If Alexstraza is not active, you’ll need to kill them quickly.
- They are immune to AoE and must be killed using single-target abilities.
Phase Two
Phase two takes place on Ysera’s island where you’ll be attacking Deathwing and several types of adds. The order of priority for dps is:
- Elementium Fragments – small tentacles that spawn on the island.
- Elementium Fragments will cast Shrapnel on random players.
- If you get the Shrapnel debuff, use Ysera’s Dream ability to reduce the damage that will occur when the Shrapnel cast completes.
- Deterrence does not mitigate Shrapnel damage.
- Elementium Terrors – two elementals will spawn that need to be killed before they kill your tank.
- Deathwing – When there are no adds up you can dps Deathwing. When Deathwing is at 10%, ignore adds and just burn him down.
Here’s a hunter PoV video from Myrtus of Litmus on EU – Tarren Mill, Marksmanship hunter:
Screenshot by ~byorrsingyr
For more hunter strategy guides see Dragon Soul: Boss Strategies and Videos for Hunters
Hi, I went through the strategy you posted, and it seems more or less right, though it would have been helpful to be more hunter-specific.
I have just cleared this last week, and I a few thoughts to share.
1. The fight is about controlled DPS, and saving CDs for burn phases. Honestly, the first 3 platforms are quite bland and things start getting interesting on the 4th platform and finally back to Deathwing’s head.
2. Work out when best to blow your CDs, keeping in mind that you will need all your CDs up at the 4th platform to beat the timer for the casting of Cataclysm (unless you decide to blow bloodlust/ heroism there). If you cast Rapid Fire/ Call of the Wild right off the bat and right when it comes of CD the first time, you will likely be able to time them for a 3rd time on the 4th platform. However, this will mean you have less flexibility when you actually can use it.
3. Save focus to AOE bloods just as DW begins to haemorrhage. If you can, save up your immolation trap for these adds as well (i.e. don’t use black arrow just before).
Thanks for the feedback Perdissa.
In reply to your first and second points, please note that I suggested using your cooldowns on the second and fourth islands to burn down the Corruptions before they can impale your tank a second time. This is especially important if you’re using a one-tank strategy as many guilds do.
In reply to your third point, you’d want to be using Explosive trap and Multi-shot on the bloods as suggested in the article, not Immolation Trap. Immo trap does single-target damage, not AoE.
Pooling focus and using the fire trap/BA cd for Explosive Trap in anticipation of AoE are good basic suggestions. This brings up a question I have for you guys. While writing the strats, I read several general guides including L2R and Icy Veins, then tossed out information that would only be of interest to “the support classes” and added tips gained from my own raiding experiences as a hunter. I tried to give just as much information as you would need to understand and perform the encounters as a hunter, noting where special hunter abilities e.g. Deterrence would or would not be effective, the best times to use cds, and mechanics that are especially problematic for hunters such as Warmaster Blackhorn’s Shockwave. However, I didn’t include basic hunter information such as pooling focus before AoE. The strats were meant to be a one stop shop for busy people who know how to play a hunter and enjoy raiding but have limited time to research fights. If I write more guides in the future, do you guys feel this is the correct level of detail? Would you like to see less basic fight info, more basic hunter info, or did I strike the right balance?
I have been reading your guides all morning. They are JUST what I was looking for. A quick overview (because we have all been through LFR and have at least seen one or two of the mechanics that may show in 10man reg). I loved the hunter ability points, because yes we should already know HOW to play, we just need to know when to use certain abilities or CD’s. There were even a few points made where I said “huh! that works? sweet!”. I found your site via Frostheim over at WHU and currently am the 2nd raid leader/assist for our guild. I am always looking for quick easy reference sites to help me lead my group to success! Excellent stuff! :D
Hey wat addons do u use. for the ability cooldown and the ui change. i like it alot