Sartharion Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

Sartharion is the first and only boss in The Obsidian Sanctum Raid instance, but can be done on four different difficulty settings in either 10- or 25-player: three drake in which you leave all 3 of his Drake mini-bosses alive, two drake in which you leave 2 alive, etc. Each of his Drake mini-bosses are located throughout the instance and add a unique ability to the boss encounter in addition to a flat health and damage increase for Sartharion.

• Always keep the Flame Tsunami in mind when you are positioning
• If your raid is planning on doing Sartharion with drakes alive make sure you keep your cooldowns for the Drakes to deal with them quickly.

• Always keep the Flame Tsunami in mind when you are positioning, it can be easily to separate yourself from your healers.
• Be ready to pick up adds during the entirety of the fight.

• Always keep the Flame Tsunami in mind when you are positioning; it can be easy to separate yourself from your tanks.

• Flame Breath — A frontal cone attack that will deal massive fire damage to anyone infront of Sartharion.
• Tail Lash — An attack that will stun and deal considerable damage to anyone behind Sartharion.
• Flame Tsunami — Will summon giant walls of lava with small gaps that can be found in various sections of the waves.
• Fire Cyclone — Spawns small adds that will be present constantly throughout the fight.
• Void Blast — A void zone will spawn randomly beneath players dealing massive shadow damage to anyone inside of them.

• Tenebron will cause a twilight portal to spawn. Inside the portal will be many whelp eggs that will spawn into Twilight Whelps if not killed; this portal should be ignored as the Whelps are typically not too difficult to deal with and you should be focused on killing Tenebron and removing him from the fight.
• Shadron will also spawn a twilight portal that will contain an Acolyte of Shadron. Both Shadron and the Acolyte will cause Sartharion to be immune to damage and increase Sartharion's Fire damage by 50%, but you can largely ignore the Acolyte until Shadron is dead.
• Vesperon causes another twilight portal to spawn, this one containing a Acolyte of Vesperon. Unlike the prior two portals this add cannot be ignored as both it and Vesperon cause the debuff Twilight Torment which causes players to take 75% increased Shadow and Fire damage as well as deal Shadow damage to themselves any time they attack an enemy with the debuff active. The Acolyte needs to be dealt with quickly and then damage should return to Vesperon as soon as possible.

Your strategy for this boss will change drastically depending on the amount of Drakes still alive you choose to fight Sartharion with.

Positioning Sartharion is largely the same between both difficulties. Sartharion should be tanked on the corner of the platform closest to the entrance of the raid; this corner allows the tank to avoid moving for Flame Tsunami so there is virtually no risk of any players getting hit with Flame Breath or Tail Lash due to the tank having to move. A secondary tank should be ready to move around the platform to pick up the various adds spawned in this encounter in both the normal difficulty of this encounter as well as the Drake-added versions.

To defeat Sartharion with no Drakes alive your raid will need to focus on quickly killing adds spawned by Fire Cyclone, avoiding the giant walls of lava spawned by Flame Tsunami, and staying out of the void zones that come from Void Blast. If your raid is able to deal with all of these simple mechanics and keep your tank alive the boss encounter is almost entirely just a healing check. Make sure a tank is assigned to pick up adds and have DPS deal with them as quickly as possible, otherwise just DPS down the boss while avoiding void zones and fire.

The three Drake version of this encounter, however, requires a bit more planning. In addition to all the mechanics mentioned above if you leave all three of Sartharion's drakes alive they will all eventually join in the fight starting with Tenebron. Tenebron will join the fight after 30 seconds and must be picked up by a tank immediately and faced away from the raid. Killing Tenebron should be the main focus of everyone in the raid as it is extremely easy to get behind on damage and having more than one Drake alive at any time can quickly cause chaos or even a wipe. After a short while of becoming active Tenebron will spawn a Twilight Portal which you should ignore. There are eggs inside of this portal that will spawn Twilight Whelps which should be picked up and quickly AoE'd down, but the focus needs to remain on killing Tenebron as quickly as possible.

After 75 seconds Shadron will join the encounter. Similar to Tenebron he must be faced away from the raid, but his portal should be ignored and you should focus on killing Shadron. While we do recommend ignoring his portal, the add that spawns from it — Acolyte of Shadron — should be cleaved down and killed as quickly as possible, because when either Shadron or his Acolyte is active they will cause Sartharion to deal 50% more Fire damage and become immune to damage.

Last but most certainly not least, Vesperon will join the fight and must be picked up and faced away from the raid immediately. Vesperon will spawn a twilight portal just like the other two Drakes, but his portal is much more important as Vesperon and his acolyte will give the raid the Twilight Torment debuff, increasing Shadow and Fire damage taken by 75% and causing players to deal Shadow damage to themselves for any attack they deal. Once all three Drakes are dealt with the focus will return to Sartharion, where after the Drakes are dead the fight returns to its original form; just keep avoiding void zones, giant walls of lava, and dealing with those pesky lava spawns!

Item	Type/Slot
Enamored Cowl	Cloth Helmet
Blade-Scarred Tunic	Leather Chest
Legguards of Composure	Leather Pants
Chestguard of Flagrant Prowess	Mail Chest
Sabatons of Firmament	Mail Boots
Belabored Legplates	Plate Pants
Titan's Outlook	Plate Helmet
Remembrance Girdle	Plate Belt
Gale-Proof Cloak	Cloak
Greatring of Collision	Ring
Signet of the Accord	Ring
Majestic Dragon Figurine	Trinket
Circle of Arcane Streams	Necklace
Volitant Amulet	Necklace
Crimson Steel	Fist Weapon
Reins of the Black Drake	Mount
Satchel of Spoils	Misc
Gloves of the Lost Conqueror	Tier Token
Gloves of the Lost Vanquisher	Tier Token
Gloves of the Lost Protector	Tier Token
Dragon Hide Bag	Misc

Item	Type/Slot
The Sanctum's Flowing Vestments	Cloth Chest
Unsullied Cuffs	Cloth Bracers
Headpiece of Reconciliation	Leather Helmet
Leggings of the Honored	Leather Pants
Concealment Shoulderpads	Leather Shoulders
Mantle of the Eternal Sentinel	Leather Shoulders
Bountiful Gauntlets	Mail Gloves
Upstanding Spaulders	Mail Shoulders
Council Chamber Epaulets	Mail Shoulders
Hyaline Helm of the Sniper	Mail Helmet
Dragonstorm Breastplate	Plate Chest
Obsidian Greathelm	Plate Helmet
Chestplate of the Great Aspects	Plate Chest
Dragon Brood Legguards	Plate Pants
Pennant Cloak	Cloak
Wyrmrest Band	Ring
Fury of the Five Flights	Trinket
Illustration of the Dragon Soul	Trinket
Staff of Restraint	Staff
Reins of the Twilight Drake	Mount
Large Satchel of Spoils	Misc
Gauntlets of the Lost Conqueror	Tier Token
Gauntlets of the Lost Vanquisher	Tier Token
Gauntlets of the Lost Protector	Tier Token
Dragon Hide Bag	Misc

Sartharion and The Obsidian Sanctum are just one of the many Raid instances you can tackle in Phase One of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. If you would like to learn more about the others please see our pages below.