Last night was a good night to die!!!  Well for Saurfang it was.  We had spent Wednesday working on clearing the first three bosses, but as we thought we’d only have 5 attempts at Saurfang, we figured we’d hold off after a long night of raiding to do Saurfang on a fresh day.  Thursday I knew would be a very busy day for me.  My daughter had a music program at school, so I really didn’t anticipate having time to raid, but about 8:30 I jumped online and there the group was.. waiting for me to show up.

So we headed on in to Icecrown Citadel.  I suspect there was a bug as we were granted 8 attempts at Saurfang, but I’m not going to complain… we downed him.  Lets crank it up and see what we learned about Deathbringer Saurfang.

The Basics…..

Deathbringer Saurfang is at its core level… a denial and burn fight.  Deathbringer Saurfang builds one key power called Blood Power.  He gains it when:

  • He casts Rune of Blood on someone and then he damages them
  • He casts Blood Boil on someone and every time that DoT ticks.
  • He casts Blood Nova and anyone hit by the blood nova
  • He summons blood beasts and anyone hit by a blood beasts gives him one blood point.
  • He casts Mark of the Fallen Champion on someone and they take a tick from the damage.

So the theory is… the more blood power he gains, the more damage he does… the more ugly the fight becomes.  So.. you have to deny him blood power and burn him as hard as you can.  The longer the fight lasts, the more blood power, the more Marks of the Fallen Champion… the more Blood power… you get the idea.

Denial Strategy

For our group, we used two bear tanks and ONLY two healers.  Our third healer went DPS.  Realistically if you do the fight correctly there isn’t that much damage going on the tanks.  Its completely healable and a third healer is probably going to be a waste and drag this fight out too long.

To deny him blood power everyone is going to have a job.  If your a tank, you need to be on your toes watching for Rune of Blood being put on the other tank.  You need to taunt him as quickly as you can to limit two things… One he heals for 10 times the damage he does to the tanks when the rune is active.  Two… he gets blood power during that time if he hits the other tank.  So you have to be quick on the taunt.

The healers have kind of a unique job… for anyone with Blood Boil, if you have a way to cleanse it (say Hand Of Protection), you’ll prevent a lot of blood gain this way.  The second thing you have to do is…. well…. let someone die.  If someone gets Mark of th Fallen Champion… you need to let them die… do not battle rez… do not collect $200.  Yes you heard me… go against your better judgment and just let them keel over dead.  If you keep them healed, you’re going to generate blood power for as long as they are alive. 

Now… how on earth can you deal with Mark of the Fallen Champion?  Well we stumbled upon a method that may be a bug and unintended, but it worked… so I’m not bitching…

First and foremost… this is completely subjective and random and well… no guarantees.  If he casts it on a rogue, they should vanish before he finishes casting.  However you need to vanish at almost the end of the cast.  If they do, they WON”T have the Mark.  Based on that, I think theoretically it will work for Feign Death.  My next theory is also that you MIGHT be able to DI (divine intervention) someone as he’s casting it.  If you’re prepped with battle rez’s, it might be worth it.  We have three in our raid.

Of course… if that doesn’t work.. you can always just let the person die… which I recommend (unless its one of your two healers… which it might be.)

Blood Beast… wherefor art though..

Blood Beasts deserve their own special attention.  If your DPS isn’t up to the task, the fight will drag on entirely too long and you’ll have a nightmare time dealing with the blood beasts.

Tanks have a special role in dealing with these guys.  First and foremost, you have to time the use of AOE abilities to avoid agroing the Blood Beasts.  Saurfang generates blood power when the blood beasts do damage.  So nobody should get hit.  The theory we went with was to use all the tricks we had to keep them slowed… rooted etc.  Anything you can do to kill them fast, slow them down and get back on the boss is helpful.

For us, we used hunter frost traps, druid roots and a DK pulling mobs back and using Chains of Ice to avoid mobs getting to the ranged.  Our melee (except for the DK) kept primarily on the boss.  Other good abilities to use include:

  • Thunderstorm with the knockback from an elemental shaman
  • Typhoon with the knockback from a boomkin

Maximizing DPS via Tanks

For our fight, we decided we wanted to shorten the fight as much as possible.  So what we did was have the tanks go kitty form after every taunt.  As the off tank really isn’t doing anything (I mean seriously… you’re just standing there…) you might as well dish out some damage.  For feral druids we went full bore kitty DPS.  I would save my Berserk cool downs for when I was DPSing.  You have to watch carefully to shift back to bear and taunt, but overall, you can cut a TON of time off of your fight if the tank goes into a DPS mode.

For warriors it might be worth having a macro to swap weapons and stances.  For DK’s I’d imagine you could swap prescence and gain a little bit of DPS.  Pally’s… well you might be able to swap weapons around as well to gain a little extra DPS. 

Depending on the firepower of your ranged, you might need the extra boost from your tanks to keep the fight sufficiently short.

Planning for Marks and 30%

There are two really dangerous times for tanks.  When a Mark of the Fallen Champion is coming up, your tanks will take more and more damage.  Saurfang gains 1% damage for every blood power he has.  So at near 100 blood power, Saufang is doing 200% damage to the tank.  So you want to save your trinkets for that time to maximize your survival.

The second thing you need to watch for is when he hits 30%.  At 30%, he soft enrages and starts dishing out considerably more damage.  The tanks need to save long cooldowns for this time.  I recommend burning your bloodlust/heroism after the 30% mark.  This will really help you speed that last 30% down. 

Overall, the fight is straight forward and pretty much the same from start to finish.  You need to just execute on slowing down his blood gain and saving cool downs for the right time of the fight.

One Response to “Deconstructing a Deathbringer… 10 Man Saurfang Unleashed”

  1. 10:35 am, 18 December, 2009 р.
    Kasdingo says:

    I think the rogue thing worked because the is a brief period of immunity that the spell runs into. I do not think feign death would work. DI might, but if you mistime it, you kill a pally for no good reason.
    .-= Kasdingo´s last blog ..Trial of the Crusader cleared! =-.