[10] Deathbringer Saurfang [Heroic]

[Repartee]

There are some good posts in this thread concerning this encounter. A separate thread might be better for people searching for strategy.

My question is when is the best time to use heroism? We've been using it early to get max dps on DBS before the 1st set of blood beasts.

For guilds that have killed him before, when did you use it? I'm thinking it might be best to time heroism at the soft enrage of 30% just after killing a set of beasts. Your thoughts...

[pfunkmort]

On 25, our guild hasn't gotten him down, but we spent about 3 hours working on it...we did 10 after, and the fight isn't easy. At all. I was in a group that got him after an hour or so, and our other 10 man group, which was just as stacked, wiped on him for a while and had to just kill him and move on. We save hero for 30% - the main reason - is the increased damage he does. Your healers, on a kill, are going to be near oom, with many marks up. On our kill, we only had two up, I think, but we really cheesed it from all the time we spent learning execution in 25 man attempts. Still, at 30%, you're probably going to have 2-3 marks up, and saurfang enrages, increasing his attack speed by 30%. This means, that not only is there incredibly more tank damage (while the healers are simultaneously attempting to keep up mark targets), but also that when a run of blood goes out, he's GOING to get a hit off before there's a tank switch. In heroic, what that means is that he gains an ungodly amount of BP. SO - more damage, AND marks start going out a lot faster. I'd probably start blowing heroism at the start to learn the fight and get everyone really clean on their add target on the spawns, and to fine tune - seeing as much of the fight as possible - and then for a kill, switch to a frenzy hero. Side note - we didn't have hero and two healed it...but, our healers are a little crazy, and I wonder if we could replicate the kill.

[Brutalus]

We used Bloodlust after we killed our first set of beasts during the soft enrage. We were able to consistenly get him to 30% with 2 marks up and a third mark would come ~10 seconds before the end of the fight. We were struggling mainly with Boiling Bloods during the soft enrage, our druid simply didn't have time to stop spam-healing his mark.

From what I can see, using Bloodlust early would save your healers' mana through getting the first mark later and would (maybe) avoid a mark at the end of the fight, but if you're simply having trouble keeping the raid alive without excessive marks during the soft enrage, I'd advise saving it for then.

[fafhrd]

We didn't have a shaman, but would definitely have used hero sub-30% if we did - there is just too much pain going out during that part of the fight to let it run any longer than it has to. We killed him around 20s after his 3rd mark went out, much longer and he'd probably have killed a mark and healed.

[Araiken]

What caused us alot of trouble was when someone had the mark and blood boil below 30%. So what we did was to BoP the person with it ASAP because it removes the blood boil.

[pfunkmort]

this ^. we found that having the mark and boiling blood was too much - but we had two paladins - so, that was easy to take care of

[Serv]

The tankdamage isn't really a concern. I've put on some 'avoidance' gear to get an even lower intake. An by avoidance i just meant the dodge libram, Quel Serrar and two avoidance trinkets. With a clever rotation of trinket-on use effects, armor-potions, shieldwall and external cooldowns, tank damage almost becomes a no-brainer and with Hand of Protection and raidwall you can heavily support your healers, while not tanking.

[hoho]

We had a few tries on it last night in 25-man geared group. Tank damage wasn't anything special, roughly around 5.5-7k dps on average. Marks on the other hand peaked at 7.5k before and 9k after 30%. Our druid needed 3 innervates to last to 30%, best we got was 15% before marks started dying.

[Belloc]

There is a trick to this fight that everyone using this forum should be able to pull off: Divine Intervention.

I'm the MT on this fight, but it could work with almost any member of the raid (except healers, since they can't afford to stop healing for the duration of a soul stone/battle rez). When the 2nd mark is imminent, I DI'd the first mark (who happened to be a melee DPS, fortunately) and then we comfortably healed our 2nd mark. Previously we had been wiping between 7% and 30% with two marks up. First time trying DI, we had an extremely easy kill.

Consider it.

Also, we used all of our BoPs, Bubbles, and Iceblocks as soon as possible (me and my OT would bubble/cancel if we got bloodboil, mage would ice block, and we'd BoP anyone else that got it). It's pretty cool seeing the boss at 60-70% and still only having 8% blood power. Of course, it does go up quite fast from there

[Roots]

DI. Huh. Going to try that this week now.

[Synesis]

Also do note that both Blood Boil and Mark are physical damage so they do get affected by armor, you'll have a considerably easier time healing plate wearers than anything else.

My guild generally just ignores any plate that has the marks and just heal them normally, where is anyone with like leather or cloth we take extra care to ensure they're topped off.

[Kihra]

Also do note that both Blood Boil and Mark are physical damage so they do get affected by armor, you'll have a considerably easier time healing plate wearers than anything else.

My guild generally just ignores any plate that has the marks and just heal them normally, where is anyone with like leather or cloth we take extra care to ensure they're topped off.

This is not true. Boiling Blood and Mark are physical damage, but they are unaffected by armor. Think of them as bleeds that bypass armor completely.

[Kihra]

There is a trick to this fight that everyone using this forum should be able to pull off: Divine Intervention.

I'm the MT on this fight, but it could work with almost any member of the raid (except healers, since they can't afford to stop healing for the duration of a soul stone/battle rez). When the 2nd mark is imminent, I DI'd the first mark (who happened to be a melee DPS, fortunately) and then we comfortably healed our 2nd mark. Previously we had been wiping between 7% and 30% with two marks up. First time trying DI, we had an extremely easy kill.

Consider it.

Also, we used all of our BoPs, Bubbles, and Iceblocks as soon as possible (me and my OT would bubble/cancel if we got bloodboil, mage would ice block, and we'd BoP anyone else that got it). It's pretty cool seeing the boss at 60-70% and still only having 8% blood power. Of course, it does go up quite fast from there

I don't think Divine Intervention works now. Have you tried it recently? If this actually worked, I'd expect everyone to use it in 25 hard modes, but looking at logs that's clearly not the case.

[Belloc]

I used it on Friday.

I know where you're coming from, btw. I had been telling my group, "I really don't think it will work. It's too obvious for them not to have fixed" (since they did fix the cannons). But, hey, it worked. And, honestly, I'm not at all surprised. I consider it a legitimate tactic, especially considering how overtuned the fight is.

[Joanadark]

I consider it a legitimate tactic, especially considering how overtuned the fight is.

There's no possible way that's intended.
And I don't know how anyone could call it "overtuned". It's a gatekeeper boss that drops 277 tier tokens in the last instance of the game.