Hagara the Stormbinder Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot
Hagara the Stormbinder is the fourth boss that players will fight inside Dragon Soul, found defending the top of Wyrmrest Temple. Players will be assaulted by the very elements here and must survive an onslaught of fire, lightning, and ice.
Role-Specific Tips for Hagara the Stormbinder
DPS Tips
- Use personal defensive cooldowns as needed, there are very few risks on this fight.
- Prioritize positioning quickly on this fight no matter the phase, there is minimal movement needed once you are in the correct spot.
- Remember that Hagara the Stormbinder takes double damage during
Feedback.
Healer Tips
- Use major healing cooldowns during the Ice Phase to heal the Ranged group
standing inside the
Watery Entrenchment.
- Use the listed AoE spells to heal targets entrapped by
Ice Tomb.
Tank Tips
- Surviving
Focused Assault is your biggest concern; be ready with your own cooldowns, or an external.
- You can position Hagara the Stormbinder near the first Frozen Binding Crystal that you will kill whenever an Ice Phase is about to occur.
Hagara the Stormbinder Abilities

- "Main Phase"
Focused Assault
Ice Lance
Ice Tomb
Shattered Ice
Feedback
- "Ice Phase"
- Frozen Binding Crystal × 4
Frozen Tempest
Watery Entrenchment
Ice Wave
Icicle
Frostflake (Heroic)
Frostflake Snare
- "Lightning Phase"
- Crystal Conductor × 4
- Bound Lightning Elemental
Lightning Conduit
Water Shield
Lightning Storm
Storm Pillar (Heroic)
Strategy for Hagara the Stormbinder
The fight against Hagara the Stormbinder can be broken down into 3 phases: a Phase 1 (referred to as the "Main Phase") that is the same every time, and a Phase 2 that will alternate between either an "Ice Phase", or a "Lightning Phase". Phase 2 can never be the same element twice in a row (no 2 × "Ice Phase" in a row) and will always alternate between the two elements, choosing whichever was not selected previously. You can determine which elemental phase you will have first by checking the visual effect present on Hagara the Stormbinders weapons before engaging her in combat. The Main Phase will last 50 seconds, while the Ice and Lightning phases will last as long as it takes the raid to complete their unique phase mechanics (more on that to come below).
The Main Phase of Hagara the Stormbinder only has four abilities to
worry about:
Focused Assault,
Ice Lance,
Ice Tomb, and
Shattered Ice.
Focused Assault
is a 5-yard channel Hagara the Stormbinder uses to rapidly attack the
tank, causing devastating damage over the 5 second duration. On normal difficulty,
your tank can simply back-pedal until they are 5-yards away from the boss, breaking
the channel. On heroic difficulty however, Hagara the Stormbinder will
follow the tank, preventing the
Focused Assault channel from breaking.
An alternative method for heroic mode involves having a non-tank run away from
Hagara the Stormbinder and taunt her, followed by your main-tank
taunting back. This will "ping-pong" Hagara back and forth during the
Focused Assault, buying you a few seconds of relief from the tank
damage.
Ice Lance is cast twice every Main Phase and summons 3
unattackable Ice Lance that will choose a player near
Hagara the Stormbinder and "fixate" on them, drawing a blue beam of
light between themselves and the Player. After a short time the Ice Lance
will begin to shoot an
Ice Lance every second, for a total for 15
seconds, (15
Ice Lance in total) at the player targeted by the blue
beam. Upon reaching the target,
Ice Lance explodes and deals Frost
damage in an area around the target, while also slowing the attack speed of
everyone hit by 25%. The idea with this is to have a Ranged DPS "break"
the beam by walking into it and getting hit by the
Ice Lance,
rather than the Melee DPS who will be clumped together. On heroic mode two
Ranged DPS will be needed to soak the
Ice Lance, as each missle
taken increases all Frost damage taken by 10% per stack. This can quickly
add up and cause your death, so prevent this by having 2 players alternate soaking
after every 3
Ice Lance, allowing enough time for the debuff to
fall off entirely.
Ice Tomb will freeze 5 players (2 in 10-man) raiders in a
Ice Tomb, stunning them and slowly suffocating them. These
Ice Tombs must be quickly killed to free the player, which should
be easily and effectively should be stacked;
Ice Tomb always
freezes a set number of players and it does not splash to nearby allies.
While you not be able to target the players inside of the
Ice Tombs
directly with healing spells, they can be targeted by some spells, found
below:
Restoration –
Tranquility and
Efflorescence;
Priest –
Prayer of Mending,
Prayer of Healing and
Divine Hymn;
Holy –
Atonement;
Holy –
Light of Dawn.
Restoration –
Healing Rain,
Healing Stream Totem and
Spirit Link Totem;
Shattered Ice simply targets a randomly player and deals very
high Frost damage; this can easily cause deaths if players are not topped up
frequently, this is especially true for the players soaking
Ice Lance or frozen in
Ice Tomb.
Hagara the Stormbinder will begin the phase by surrounding herself
in
Frozen Tempest, becoming immune to damage as long as the 4
nearby Frozen Binding Crystals remain alive. In order to remove the
Water Shield, making Hagara the Stormbinder vulnerable
to damage and ending the Ice Phase, you must kill all 4 Frozen Binding Crystals
around the room. To hamper you from doing this, Hagara the Stormbinder
will summon 4
Ice Waves, shooting them out in 4 directions as
shown in the image above. These
Ice Waves will move around the
room in a clockwise manner, dealing lethal damage to any player that they touch.
This will force the raid to also continuously move in a clockwise manner to avoid
the Ice Wall from catching up. This will limit the amount of DPS up-time you can
achieve on the Frozen Binding Crystals as you pass them by. Please note
that if you are standing on top of Hagara the Stormbinder as the
Ice Waves come out, or are standing in their path of travel, you
will take damage and die.
If you know an Ice Phase is coming up, we recommend you drag Hagara the Stormbinder
to a Frozen Binding Crystal spawn, as shown on the image above, while having
the Ranged DPS and Healers stack just outside of the Watery Entrenchment
ranged (visible by the large bubble surrounding Hagara the Stormbinder).
For as long as the Ice Phase lasts, Hagara the Stormbinder will channel
Watery Entrenchment, dealing 12% max health per second to
all players inside of her protective bubble. Rather than having our Ranged DPS
run around the entire Ice Phase, we will choose to have them stand in the middle
and maintain 100% DPS up-time on the 4 Frozen Binding Crystals,
allowing you to end this phase much faster.

Players running around the room will need to avoid the Icicles
falling, as indicated by the smaller blue circles; you should have plenty of
time to change course if these are about to fall on the way in front of you,
avoid this damage. Assign at least one or two of your Healers to run around the
room clockwise with the Melee DPS as needed for heals.
Remember, wait until the Ice Waves have gone out before moving
into the center or you will die. The damage from
Watery Entrenchment
is health percentage based, and therefore can not be reduced by damage reduction
abilities. Instead, aim to use abilities that increase healing throughput such as
Tree of Life, or help stabilize the raids health, like
Spirit Link Totem. The goal of the Ranged DPS is to cause all 4
Frozen Binding Crystals to die at around the same time, keeping in mind
where the Melee DPS are and aiming to kill the ones furthest away from them.
You don't want to entirely kill the next Frozen Binding Crystal in front
of the melee group, leaving them nothing to DPS. Try to spread your damage out
evenly and swap to the higher health crystals, or the ones that the melee won't
be able to reach for awhile.
On heroic difficulty, players will need to deal with the new debuff
Frostflake, which applies a 10% stacking slow, up to 80%
total. When dispelled,
Frostflake will create a
Frostflake Snare
at the targeted players location; this is a large field of ice that slows the
movement speed of any players in the area by 50%. Anyone in the center of
the room on top of Hagara the Stormbinder can completely ignore the
debuff (do not dispel it at all even, allow it to time out), as it deals no
damage and only slows movement speed. Players moving around the room should
quickly move away from the stack of melee players and get dispelled, placing the
Frostflake Snare away from the group.
Once all 4 Frozen Binding Crystals have been destroyed
Hagara the Stormbinder will become overloaded by
Feedback, becoming stunned for 15 seconds and take 100%
increased damage from all sources. While the double damage taken is nice, we
suggest saving major DPS cooldowns such as
Bloodlust to get through the
2nd Ice Phase, once the Ranged DPS and Healers are stacked up in the center.
This allows you to quickly end the phase and get back to the easier phases as
there is no real difficult DPS check on this encounter.
Similar to the Ice Phase, at the start of a Lightning Phase
Hagara the Stormbinder will run to the center of the room and become
immune to damage, this time via
Water Shield. She will also summon
4 Crystal Conductors around the room, which must be "overloaded" to break
the
Water Shield and end the Lightning Phase.
Hagara the Stormbinder will also create a
Lightning Storm,
dealing damage to random raid members and increasing their Nature damage taken by
5%; this debuff stacks, acting as a soft-enrage for the Lightning Phase.
To facilitate the overloading of these Crystal Conductors,
Hagara the Stormbinder will spawn in a Bound Lightning Elemental
at the start of this phase. The Bound Lightning Elemental should be grabbed
by a tank and dragged to an position as shown in the image above before being
killed. Upon death the Bound Lightning Elemental will release a
Lightning Conduit at the nearest target, which deals some damage
before bouncing to the next nearest target within 10-yards. This
Lightning Conduit must be forced to bounce between player in a
line to each of the 4 Crystal Conductors to overload them and end the
phase.
Following the image shown above, you can immediately end a Lightning Phase as
soon as the Bound Lightning Elemental dies. Be sure that there are enough
players in line for each Crystal Conductor (four is enough with proper
spacing), and have a couple people acting as "bouncers" around the middle. With
properly assigned positions and a clean execution, the Lightning Phase should
end within 5 seconds of the Bound Lightning Elemental dying as the
Lightning Conduit rapidly bounces through the lines and reaches
all 4 of the Crystal Conductors at the same time.

On heroic mode, Hagara the Stormbinder will frequently create
Storm Pillars around the room, which explode after 3 seconds for
35,000 damage. Move out of these if you are not in an assigned
Lightning Conduit
position, and if you are, use a personal defensive cooldown to help survive.
Once all 4 Crystal Conductors have been destroyed
Hagara the Stormbinder will become overloaded by
Feedback, becoming stunned for 15 seconds and take 100%
increased damage from all sources. Afterwards, the Main Phase will repeat, followed by
an Ice Phase. This pattern will repeat, cycling between Main Phase and either Ice
or Lightning phases until the boss is defeated.
Hagara the Stormbinder Loot
Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Normal Difficulty Loot
Item |
---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Heroic Difficulty Loot
Item |
---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Hagara the Stormbinder Achievements
Achievement | Description |
---|---|
![]() |
Defeat the bosses laying siege to Wyrmrest Temple in the Dragon Soul raid. |
![]() |
Defeat the bosses in Dragon Soul while in a guild group. |
![]() |
Defeat Hagara the Stormbinder in Dragon Soul on Heroic Difficulty. |
![]() |
Destroy the final Crystal Conductor during Hagara's lightning phase on Normal or Heroic Difficulty, while all raid members are part of the final Lightning Conduit. |
Further Reading
Hagara the Stormbinder is just one of the eight encounters present in the Dragon Soul raid of Cataclysm. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.
Changelog
- 15 Feb. 2025: Page added.
This guide has been written by Abide, TBC veteran for nearly a decade. Abide is a Warrior tank and multi-class expert currently playing on Faerlina as Horde. You can find him in the the Icy Veins Discord. You can also see him live on Twitch.
- New Cataclysm Classic Valor Cap Set to Week 2 Due to Bug
- Season of Discovery Naxxramas Soft Reset Issue Fix and Warning
- Cataclysm Classic: Hour of Twilight Is Now Live!
- Currency Conversions, New Caps and Ways of Acquiring Them Coming With Hour of Twilight Patch
- Season of Discovery Hotfixes: February 14th
- Auction House Update and Countdown Phase in Cataclysm Classic: February 17th
- Classic Hardcore, Era, and Anniversary Realm Black Lotus Respawn Rate Increase
- Massive Nerf Coming to Firelands With Release of Hour of Twilight