Hagara the Stormbinder Tank Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included)

Table of Contents

• 1. Overview of the Fight
• 2. Main Phase
• 3. Ice Phase
• 4. Lightning Phase
• +5. Heroic Mode
  • 5.1. Main Phase
  • 5.2. Ice Phase
  • 5.3. Lightning Phase

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Hagara the Stormbinder in Dragon Soul. It is mostly targeted to tanks who desire to have a short but detailed overview of what is expected of them during that fight.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

The Hagara encounter is composed of three phases, which alternate in a predictable fashion throughout the fight. The boss has a large number of abilities, as well as adds, that may make the encounter look complex and difficult to understand, but we assure you that it is quite simple.

As a tank you will tank the boss (without many complications), have to perform a movement challenge, and sometimes tank an add for a brief period of time.

The fight against Hagara is made up of 3 phases: Main Phase, Ice Phase, Lightning Phase. The Main Phase lasts 50 seconds and is followed by either the Ice Phase or the Lightning Phase. The fight goes back to the Main Phase as soon as your raid has finished dealing with the Ice Phase or the Lightning Phase.

The Ice Phase and the Lightning Phase alternate, such that you will always have a Main Phase - Lightning Phase - Main Phase - Ice Phase sequence. The fight randomly starts with a Main Phase followed by a Lightning Phase or a Main Phase followed by an Ice Phase.

Hagara the Stormbinder requires a single tank.

Main Phase	Ice Phase	Lightning Phase

During the Main Phase, your tasks as a tank are extremely simple:

• Tank Hagara the Stormbinder in the center of the arena.
• Whenever she casts Focused Assault, move out of her immediate frontal cone area; either by moving backwards or sideways. In the event that you cannot do this in time, be prepared to use a defensive cooldown.
• Be mindful that the Ice Tombs, which will sometimes entrap some of your raid members, cause line of sight issues that may separate you from your healers.

Death Knights can ward Shattered Ice (an ability of Hagara that is otherwise of no concern to tanks) using Dark Simulacrum. In addition to preventing the targeted player from taking damage from it, it gives a nice DPS boost to the Death Knight who casts Dark Simulacrum.

During the Ice Phase, Hagara does not need to be (and cannot be) tanked. You will have to stick together with your raid. There are no adds for you to tank here, and your main goal is survival. Your tasks during this phase can be summarised as follows:

• Stay outside of the large bubble that covers the center of the platform.
• Move around the other edges of the platform, in a clockwise manner, while avoiding:
  • the falling Icicles, the impact location of which is clearly marked with void zones (this mechanic is absent in LFR difficulty);
  • the Ice Waves that travel in a clockwise manner around the platform (they are slightly slower than your normal run speed and they are very deadly);
• Do some damage to the 4 Crystals that can be found around the edges of the platform (only when you do not have anything to avoid).

The Ice Phase ends when all 4 Crystals have been destroyed.

During the Lightnight Phase, Hagara does not need to be (and cannot be) tanked. You will have to do the following things:

• Pick up and tank the only add, a Bound Lightning Elemental, next to one of the 4 Crystal Conductors located around the platform. It always spawns at the same spot (near the entrance portal).
• Once the Elemental is killed, you will have to assist your raid in forming a chain of players from the conductor (which is now overloaded) to the next one (which will become overloaded as a result), and so on until all 4 conductors have been overloaded. Your raid leader will direct your movement here.

Once all 4 conductors have been overloaded, the phase will end.

In addition to almost all abilities dealing more damage and every unit having more health, each phase of the fight has a unique difference between Normal and Heroic mode.

Also, Focused Assault can no longer be entirely avoided. Tanks still have to move out of the attack, but Hagara will catch up much faster. To survive, defensive cooldowns and healing cooldowns will be needed.

Optionally, your raid leader may ask you to make the boss face away the rest of the raid so that you are the only player in front of her. This will cause Shattered Ice to always target you.

In the Ice Phase, Hagara will target a random player with Frostflake. This debuff does no damage but it slows down the targeted player and stacks every seconds, meaning that the player will eventually come to an almost complete stop. When dispelled, the debuff leaves a Frostflake Snare on the ground. Every player standing in this 10-yard radius frost area is slowed down by 50%. Exiting the frost area removes the movement speed reduction.

The raid leader should communicate a location where people should go when targeted by Frostflake, usually inside the Watery Entrenchment or on the edge of the platform. The idea is that other players do not get stuck in the Frostflake Snare that will appear after Frostflake is dispelled.

In addition, you will probably be asked to use Stampeding Roar if you are a Guardian Druid, in order to reduce the traveling time from one Crystal to the other.

Finally, in order to maximise DPS on the Crystals, you should keep attacking them even if an Icicle is going to fall on you (provided that you have enough health to survive the 100,000 Frost damage).

During the Lightning Phase, you will still need to bring the add close to a Crystal Conductor. When it reaches low health, most of the raid will start positioning themselves around the platform. The idea is that as soon as the first Crystal Conductor is overloaded, the raid should already be properly positioned to spread the lightning to all (almost all, in 10-man difficulty) the other Crystal Conductors. The position assigned to you will most likely be very close to the first Crystal Conductor.

Also, Storm Pillars will randomly appear on the platform. They explode after 3 seconds, dealing 35,000 Nature damage to players close to them. Normally, your raid will ignore them and heal through the damage, as otherwise this will interfere with the raid positioning for spreading the lightning.