Madness of Deathwing

[Mystryka]

http://www.learntoraid.com/2011/11/28/madness-of-deathwing-video-strategy-guide/

[Stevonivich]

Madness of Deathwing Tips & Tricks:

For most groups, the easiest order is Green>Red>Yellow>Blue. Make sure big raid cooldowns ( Power Word: Barrier, Tranquility, Spirit Link Totem) are up for the Blue platform, so you can survive the Bolt. You will also need a cooldown or two for the Tentacles when the limb hits 40% on Yellow and Blue platforms, as the raid damage gets very high here.

The corruptions have a huge hitbox. Our melee were initially running much further than necessary from the tentacle to the corruption, costing them dps.

Tanks should consider the tol barad trinket against tetanus stacks, a stamina trinket or the trinket from firelands with mastery + on use strength 1277 for 15sec to increase dps.

On the first and second platforms, dps are free to dps DW's limb until the corruption pops up. They kill the corruption, then kill the bolt. When the bolt is down, they are free to dps the limb until the bloods pop up. Aoe the bloods, then back on the limb.

On the third and fourth platforms they're not allowed to drop the limb under 90% until the corruption and the bolt are dead. They can start dpsing the tentacle when there are 10 seconds remaining before the bloods spawn (although with dps having gone up, they could probably start after the bloods are dead). On the third and fourth platforms it's a LOT of just waiting around waiting for stuff to pop up. (And on the fourth platform, we need to deal with the extra tentacles from the limb as well.)

The reason for all the waiting around is so that healers aren't taxed too much as we were two healing it.

Holding off on the limb should not be much of an impact to the corrupted tentacle and impale, dps should be switching to the tentacle right away to burn it down. the argument to holding off on the limb is that it cuts down on AOE fire damage emmitted by the limb as its health gets lower, to say nothing of blistering tentacles on the 4th platform.

A couple side benefits to holding off on the limb until after the Hemorage adds are down:

1: Healer mana recovery - I generally can get back to full mana to start platforms 2-4, for ph2 I generally need an external Mana CD even beyond DivPlea - yay SPriest.

2: Tank CDs become available for the next platform - Aura Mastery up for Every Elementium Bolt, and Tanks always have at least 1 CD for impale.

3: less confusion about switching to Hemorage adds, so they go down quicker - They regen to full if not killed.

If people are dying from the bolt hitting, either they are standing too close or you are taking too much damage before the bolt gets there and not getting people topped off. Are they standing too near each other and getting crushed en mass?

Paladin tanks are great for Madness of Deathwing because they can solo-tank all two impales per platform (survive the first with 50% reduction or healer CDs, then use Ardent Defender, Hand of Protection or Divine Shield for the second one). Otherwise, you either need two tanks, or one tank and enough DPS to kill the tentacle before second impale, which one-shots the tank. Pop damage cooldowns for the tentacle, since enrage shouldn't be an issue if you're using 1 tank.

On phase 2, you have to kill the Terrors very quickly, because one tank will take massive damage from them. It is possible to have a plate DPS tank one Terror for a bit to reduce the stacks on the tank (warriors are best for this).
Rogues can also tank one with Evasion, using Cloak of Shadows to remove the stacks, but they can't taunt so don't rely on it.

If the tank does die, you can still kill the boss before the second set of Terrors comes out and kills the raid (ignore the Fragments, use Dream for Shrapnel).

The hardest part of the fight, by far, is surviving the Elementium Bolt on platform 4. It does a lot of damage, and the Mutated Corruption will probably still be alive, hitting the tank and slamming the raid. To beat this, have a holy paladin use Divine Protection (bubble) on himself and Hand of Sacrifice on the tank. He can heal the tank while the bolt arrives. Everyone else should run under the wing tentacle and pile up with all damage-reduction cooldowns, such as Divine Guardian, Aura Mastery, Rallying Cry, Feint, Raptor Strike (glyphed), etc. After the Bolt lands, kill it ASAP while scattering to reduce Slam damage.

On phase 2, the tank will be taking double stacks ot Tetanus from the Elementium Terrors, which will quickly become unhealable. However, the melee hits from the Elementium Terrors don't do much damage. You can clear the Tetanus with Hand of Protection and have the tank click it off. You can have a damage-dealer serve as a temporary tank. Or, you can just let the tank die.

The second wave of Elementium Terrors is lethal. Two healers won't be able to keep up the tank and the rest of the raid, and everyone will be out of cooldowns. You must finish off Deathwing before they kill the tank.

A prot paladin can soak 2 impales on each platform using the following cooldowns:

1. Dream + DP
2. AD then LoH
3. DG + DP
4. DS + taunt
5. AD then healer cooldown or well-timed heals
6. HoP + taunt
7. DG + DP
8. AD then LoH

When Phase 2 starts, get on Deathwing.
Tentacles spawn, kill them. Terrors spawn pretty much right after, all DPS on them too.
Burn deathwing down to 11 or 12% (Don't hit 10%!!!). We do this because he starts doing more raid damage at 15, 10, and 5%.
New wave of tentacles spawn, kill them. New terrors spawn. *heroism* Kill them.

[Medlin]

I agree with the idea of holding off dps till after corruption comes out on platform 3 and most definitely platform 4. As far as the Pally tank solo tanking... honestly almost any tank can make use of the immunity cooldowns if we have a paladin in raid. Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Protection can be cast on any tank by either a holy or ret paladin.

I say we give the holding off dps a shot and see if it makes a difference, along with melee trying to be farther out so they lose less dps

[Mystryka]

i have tried the holdi9ng off on dpsing the arm it works to a certain extant you need to keep an eye on the enrage timer when doing this or you end up holding off dps too long and getting hit by the berserk or cataclysm