Sinestra Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Ranged DPS should save all major cooldowns for the Pulsing Twilight Eggs as killing these in one round is ideal.
• Do not stun or interrupt the Twilight Spitecaller, only use disorients, knockbacks, or incapacitates to stop the cast, such as Death Grip, Gouge, and Repentance.
• Use any personal defensive cooldowns in phase three for each of the Flame Breaths to help your healers.

• You will need a healer assigned to each tank, and at least two healers assigned to healing Wracks.
• Keep Calen topped during phase two as you will wipe if he gets too low on health.
• Coordinate healing and raid-defensive cooldowns for the end of phase three to keep up with the damage.

• Be ready to tank swap if someone needs to reset their stacks of Twilight Spit.
• Keep the Twilight Drake faced away from the raid at all times.
• When killing the Twilight Whelps in phase three, quickly mark the one you want killed and move away from the pool it leaves behind after dying.

• Phase One
• Drained
• Flame Breath
• Twilight Slicer
• Wrack
• Twilight Blast
• Twilight Whelps
• Twilight Spit
• Twilight Essence
• Phase Two
• Pyrrhic Focus
• Mana Barrier
• Pulsing Twilight Egg
• Twilight Carapace
• Twilight Spitecaller
• Indomitable
• Unleash Essence
• Twilight Drake
• Absorb Essence
• Twilight Breath
• Phase Three
• Essence of the Red
• Flame Breath
• Twilight Slicer
• Wrack
• Twilight Blast
• Twilight Whelps
• Twilight Spit
• Twilight Essence

Start off by having a Hunter reset the boss with Feign Death, allowing your raid to get into positions before entering combat. Have the raid stand close to Sinestra, spreading out in a wide line. In phase one, Sinestra will be Drained, dealing 40% reduced damage; she will also start at 60% health. Sinestra will debuff a random target with Wrack, dealing ramping Shadow damage every two seconds. When dispelled, Wrack will bounce to two nearby allies, resetting the ramping damage, but keeping the same duration. The only way players can survive Wracks ramping damage is by dispelling it, but as that causes the buff to jump to two allies this debuff can quickly run through the raid, doubling every time it is dispelled. The most ideal way to deal with Wrack is to have the first player use all personal defensive cooldowns to survive as long as possible with Wrack on them before dispelling them. This will make the future Wracks a much shorter duration, meaning you will need to dispel much less and heal the raid overall less. After the first player you will want to dispel every 10-15 seconds to reduce the number of additional debuffs you get.

Sinestra will blast the raid with Flame Breath every 20 seconds, but this is not much of a threat while she is Drained. Two players will be targeted by Twilight Slicer, which fixate on them and chase them around the room. These Shadowy orbs are connected together by a Twilight beam, dealing very high Shadow damage to anyone caught in the beam; the orbs also deal very high damage to anyone near them. These two players must run out of the raid towards the back of the room, ideally doing a u-turn around the outside of the room before returning to the raid group. Anyone near the orbs when they first spawn should also move away from them.

The last mechanic of this phase is the five Twilight Whelps that are periodically spawned throughout the fight. Have your second tank grab these and bring them close to Sinestra, letting them get damaged by passive AoE cleave. Do not kill them in this phase, you will AoE them at a later time. When a Twilight Whelp dies, it spawns a pool of Twilight Essence, dealing Shadow damage to all enemies in the area. The Twilight Essence pools will slowly grow for the rest of the fight, eventually covering the entire room. These pools will also revive any other Twilight Whelps that they touch. These revived Twilight Whelps will not drop a new pool of Twilight Essence when they die.

The goal in phase one is to burn Sinestra down to 30% before the third set of Twilight Whelps and before a second Wrack debuff goes out. This is a good benchmark to practice hitting that will make this fight much more achievable for your raid. At 30% health, phase two begins.

At the start of phase two, Calen will come to the players aid, placing a protective shield down at the back of the room. The entire raid must quickly get inside this shield to survive the Twilight Extinction that Sinestra will cast here. The tank that is tanking all of the Twilight Whelps should move these to the back of the shield and call for the raid to quickly AoE them down in one spot. This will spawn all of the Twilight Essence in the same spot, which will also instantly revive all of the whelps. Drag them out of the pools of Twilight Essence and AoE them a down a second time; this time they won't drop any pool and will despawn instead.

After casting Twilight Extinction, Sinestra and Calen will begin a magical duel, with whoever has the most mana gaining the upper hand. Sinestra will shield herself with Mana Barrier, burning her mana instead of health when she is damaged. Calen will use Pyrrhic Focus on himself, rapidly burning his own health to restore his mana. Most of your healers will need to focus on healing Calen during this phase as he will constantly be damaging himself.

After dealing with the Twilight Whelps you will need to split the raid up into several groups. The melee DPS and one tank should stay at the back of the room to deal with the Twilight Spitecallers that will frequently spawn in. These must be killed quickly before the next one spawns in, possibly needing a few ranged DPS to help kill them. The Twilight Spitecallers will sometimes cast Unleash Essence, dealing 10% of the raids maximum health every second. You can not use normal interrupts or stuns to stop this cast however, or that will cause the Twilight Spitecaller to gain Indomitable, quickly leading to a wipe. You must use short form disorients, knockbacks, or incapacitates to stop the cast, such as Death Grip, Gouge, and Repentance. The second tank will need to pick up the Twilight Drake that flies down into the middle of the room. Keep these faced away from the raid as they use Twilight Breath, a frontal cone attack.

While Sinestra is protected by her Mana Barrier, your ranged DPS will need to attack her to burn her mana pool down. When she gets low on mana, she will siphon power from the Pulsing Twilight Eggs, removing their Twilight Carapace shield for 30 seconds. You will need to evenly split your ranged DPS to attack both of the Pulsing Twilight Eggs when the Twilight Carapace shield drops; ideally you will split your ranged DPS up evenly enough that you can kill both of the eggs in one go as this will allow you to quickly enter phase three and save you plenty of time and damage on the boss. If you are unable to kill both eggs the first time, you will need to drain Sinestras Mana Barrier again to remove the Twilight Carapace from the Pulsing Twilight Eggs again. When both of the Pulsing Twilight Eggs are destroyed phase three will begin.

In phase three, Sinestra will have full health and will no longer be Drained, no longer dealing reduced damage. Sinestra starts this phase off by killing Calen, but with his last breath he buffs the raid with Essence of the Red, aiding you in defeating Sinestra. Phase three plans almost exactly like phase one with Wrack, Flame Breath, Twilight Slicer, and Twilight Whelps all returning. The main difference here is that she is no longer Drained, so these abilities will hit for full damage now. Finish off any remaining Twilight Drakes or Twilight Spitecallers that are alive and return to your previous phase one positions. After finishing any adds off you will want to use all major DPS cooldowns while you have Essence of the Red to burn the boss down as quickly as possible.

This phase is a race against the clock as the Twilight Whelps will eventually overwhelm your raid, especially with the Twilight Essence slowly covering more and more of the room. You will need to AoE the the groups of Twilight Whelp to get them low, but not kill them. Then have your tank drag them to the back of the room, where you will have DPS kill one whelp at a time, allowing the tank to quickly move away and kill another whelp outside of the Twilight Essence. This buys you more time in this last phase as it prevents the whelps from reviving each other for a longer period of time. After every other wave of Twilight Whelps, the two tanks should swap assignments so the stacks of Twilight Spit that is being applied by the Twilight Whelps can reset; this can also be done by Paladins with Divine Protection. Lastly, you will want to coordinate healer and raid-wide defensive cooldowns for as many Flame Breaths as possible as they will hit everyone for very high damage. Single target defensive cooldowns should be used frequently on whichever tank is assigned to the Twilight Whelps. Repeat this until the boss dies or your raid is overwhelmed.

Sinestra can only be fought on heroic difficulty, meaning she only has one loot table.

Item	Type/Slot
Crown of the Twilight Queen	Cloth Head
Bracers of the Dark Mother	Cloth Wrist
Belt of the Fallen Brood	Leather Waist
Nightmare Rider's Boots	Leather Feet
Twilight Scale Leggings	Mail Legs
Boots of Az'galada	Mail Feet
Bindings of Bleak Betrayal	Plate Wrist
Bracers of the Mat'redor	Plate Wrist
War-Torn Crushers	Plate Feet
Shroud of Endless Grief	Back
Caelestrasz's Will	Neck
Dargonax's Signet	Finger
Shard of Woe	Trinket

Achievement	Description
I Can't Hear You Over the Sound of How Awesome I Am	Defeat Sinestra in the Bastion of Twilight on Heroic Difficulty on the first attempt without letting any raid members die.
Heroic: Sinestra	Defeat Sinestra in the Bastion of Twilight on Heroic Difficulty.
Heroic: Sinestra Guild Run	Defeat Sinestra in the Bastion of Twilight on Heroic difficulty while in a guild group.

Sinestra is just one of the five encounters present in the The Bastion of Twilight raid of Cataclysm. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.