Madness of Deathwing DPS Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included)

Table of Contents

• +1. Overview of the Fight
  • 1.1. Aspects and Their Buffs
• +2. Phase One
  • 2.1. First Platform
  • 2.2. Second Platform
  • 2.3. Third Platform
  • 2.4. Fourth Platform
• 3. Phase Two
• +4. Heroic Mode
  • 4.1. Differences from Normal Mode
  • 4.2. Strategy
    • 4.2.1. Corrupting Parasite
    • 4.2.2. Congealing Bloods

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Madness of Deathwing in Dragon Soul. It is mostly targeted to DPS 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 Madness of Deathwing encounter contains a large variety of adds, spells, and mechanics, but it is, ultimately, not difficult to understand or execute. All three roles will, at certain times, have a lot of pressure placed on them to perform well.

The five Aspects aid your raid during this encounter, although, as the fight progresses, they become effectively disabled, making it increasingly difficult for your raid. Though, they do come back to help you kill Deathwing, at the very end.

As a DPS player, you will spend most of the fight switching from one target to another, although you will have to place great emphasis on survival.

The Madness of Deathwing encounter is a two phase fight.

During Phase One, you will have to defeat 4 of Deathwing's limbs (two wings and two arms). This part takes place on 4 different platforms, surrounded by water. Each of Deathwing's limbs rests on one platform, and your raid will have to travel to every platform and kill all the limbs in order to make it to Phase Two.

During Phase Two, your raid will have to burn Deathwing's head, who will have crashed next to one of the platforms (where the entire phase is spent). At the same time, your raid will have to regularly kill two types of adds. Deathwing's health will initially be at 20% and he will deal increasing raid damage as he nears death.

Throughout the fight, your raid will have assistance from the four dragon Aspects. Each Aspect is flying over one of the four platforms, resulting in the following naming conventions for the platforms in this guide:

• Leftmost platform: Alexstrasza's Platform;
• Middle-left platform: Nozdormu's Platform;
• Midle-right platform: Ysera's Platform;
• Rightmost platform: Kalecgos' Platform.

Each of the Aspects offers the raid a specific buff (such as increased health) and uses a specific ability.

• In Phase One, once an Aspect's platform has been cleared of Deathwing's limb, that Aspect will cease to assist the raid and focus solely on attacking Deathwing. This means that Phase One becomes increasingly difficult as you progress, and your raid will have to choose the order in which to clear the platform carefully.
• In Phase Two, the Aspects are once again fighting alongside your raid and they resume their assistance.

The Aspects provide the following buffs and abilities:

• Ysera provides the raid with:
  • Ysera's Presence: 20% increased healing done;
  • Dream: an ability that Ysera grants to all raid members. Players receive an extra action button, with a 30 second cooldown. Using this ability grants the player 50% damage reduction for 5 seconds.
    
• Alexstrasza provides the raid with:
  • Alexstrasza's Presence: 20% increased maximum health;
  • Cauterize (Phase One): an ability that Alexstrasza uses to destroy all Blistering Tentacles (adds that spawn at certain times during Phase One);
  • Cauterize (Phase Two): an ability that Alexstrasza uses to lower the damage done by Corrupted Blood (Deathwing's unique ability during Phase Two).
• Nozdormu provides the raid with:
  • Nozdormu's Presence: 20% increased haste;
  • Time Zone: an ability that places a type of protective bubble on the platform where the raid is currently fighting. This causes the Elementium Bolt (a type of projectile NPC that flies towards the raid) to be greatly slowed down, giving your raid more time to kill it. It also reduces the attack speed of any enemies within the zone by 50%.
• Kalecgos provides the raid with:
  • Kalecgos' Presence: 20% increased damage dealt;
  • Spellweaver: causes all attacks to deal 23,000 Arcane damage to all enemies within 6 yards of the main target (but not to the main target itself).

Phase One consists of clearing all 4 platforms of Deathwing's limbs. You will do this one platform at a time, and a platform is considered cleared when the respective Arm or Wing Tentacle has been killed. For each platform, you will have to defeat a series of adds in a specific order. Fortunately, this is the same for all 4 platforms (with a minor variation), so the strategy remains simple.

Your raid leader will almost certainly clear the platforms in the following order: Ysera > Nozdormu > Alexstrasza > Kalecgos or Ysera > Alexstrasza > Nozdormu > Kalecgos. As such, we will provide you with the strategy only for these sequences.

Here, you will have to perform the following tasks:

• DPS the Wing or Arm Tentacle until the Mutated Corruption spawns.
• DPS the Mutated Corruption while making sure that you are spread out so that as few players as possible are in a line from the Mutated Corruption.
• When Deathwing casts Elementium Bolt, go as far as possible from its landing location (marked by a golden void zone) and DPS the Elementium Bolt add as fast as possible (we recommend using a /target macro to make targeting it easier).
• Switch back to the Mutated Corruption and finish it off.
• DPS the Wing or Arm Tentacle until Regenerative Bloods spawn.
• AoE down the Regenerative Bloods.
• Switch back to the Wing or Arm Tentacle and finish it off.

Once the Wing or Arm Tentacle has been killed, you will have to jump over to the next platform.

By now, you will have lost Ysera's buffs, although this is of little importance to you.

The second platform will require a strategy identical to that of the first platform.

By now you will have lost either Alexstrasza's buffs or Nozdormu's buffs.

If you have lost Alexstrasza's buffs, then, in addition to the tasks required on previous platforms, you will have to kill a new type of add, Blistering Tentacles, that spawns from the Wing or Arm Tentacle when it reaches 70% and 40% health respectively. These adds have very little health and are immune to AoE attacks, so you will have to single target them down. It is extremely important to kill all of them quickly, as they stack a very damaging DoT on the raid.

If you have lost Nozdormu's buffs, then your raid will likely take extremely high damage from the Elementium Bolt. It is imperative to kill the bolt as quickly as possible, and to be as far as possible from its landing location. You may need to use personal survival cooldowns and healthstones to survive the crucial seconds after the bolt has landed and until it is killed.

For the final platform, you will have lost the other of Alexstrasza or Nozdormu's buffs. This platform will be by far the most challenging, and you will have to use any cooldowns or abilities you have to survive and kill the Elementium Bolt and Blistering Tentacles in time.

Otherwise, however, the strategy remains the same.

During Phase Two, you will have to perform a few rather simple tasks:

• Stack with the rest of the raid.
• DPS Deathwing.
• Kill the Elementium Fragments when they spawn (they are small tentacles that you can AoE). If you are targeted by their Shrapnel ability, you will receive a debuff. Use your Dream ability (the Aspects are back and are all helping your raid again) just as the debuff is about to run out or you will die.
• Kill the Elementium Terrors (large adds).
• Repeat the whole process for each new set of adds.

After Deathwing's health has reached 10%, the raid damage becomes increasingly hard to heal. For this reason, when you get Deathwing to 11% health, your raid leader will probably ask you to stop attacking him until the next wave of adds spawns. As soon as the wave is dead, you will be ordered to burn Deathwing using all your cooldowns, in an attempt to bring it down before the next wave of adds spawns.

The Heroic mode of Madness of Deathwing is a difficult and challenging encounter, although it will not put too much pressure on you as a DPS player.

In addition to increases in the health of all enemies and in the damage of most abilities, the following two new mechanics exist:

• Corrupting Parasite is a rather complex mechanic that will occur twice on every platform during Phase One, once at around the same time that the Mutated Corruption spawns and once again 60 seconds later. It begins with Corrupting Parasite, a 10-second debuff cast by Deathwing on a random raid member. This debuff deals increasing Shadow damage, for a total of roughly 300,000 over the course of its duration. When the debuff wears off, an NPC with the same name will spawn at the location of the afflicted raid member.
  • Corrupting Parasite is the enemy NPC that spawns when Corrupting Parasite wears off. The Corrupting Parasite has 3M health in 10-man difficulty and 9M in 25-man difficulty. It has no aggro table, it does not melee, it can be killed, and Alexstrasza's Cauterize (Phase One) will damage it for a small amount of its life. When it spawns, it deals 250,000 Fire damage to all raid members within 10 yards of its location (excluding the raid member who was affected by the debuff). After this, the Corrupting Parasite will begin channeling Unstable Corruption.
    • Unstable Corruption is a 10 second cast, at the end of which the Corrupting Parasite will deal 10% of its remaining health as damage to the entire raid. If the Parasite is inside the Time-Zone provided by Nozdormu, its cast time is increased by 50%. After casting Unstable Corruption, the Corrupting Parasite will despawn.
• Congealing Bloods are adds that spawn during Phase Two. They spawn when Deathwing reaches 15%, 10%, and 5% health, but if Deathwing's health does not reach 15% within a minute of entering the phase, or 10% or 5% within a minute of reaching 15% and 10% respectively, the bloods will spawn regardless of his health. Each spawn is comprised of 9 Congealing Bloods. They have 950,000 health each in 10-man difficulty and 3.2M in 25-man difficulty. They perform no action other than slowly moving towards Deathwing. They have no aggro table and they are killable. Deathwing regains 1% of his total health every time a Congealing Blood reaches him.

The main changes that you will be faced with, as a DPS player, are the need to DPS two additional adds: the Corrupting Parasite during Phase One and the Congealing Bloods during Phase Two.

Additionally, you will have to react properly to the Corrupting Parasite, as we explain below.

If you are targeted by the Corrupting Parasite, you should move into the Time Zone from Nozdormu before the 10 second duration of the debuff expires. If someone else is targeted by this debuff, make sure you are not within 10 yards of them after they move into the Time Zone. On the final platform (Kalecgos'), there is no Time Zone, and for this and other reasons, the Corrupting Parasite should be placed near to the Mutated Corruption.

When the first Parasite of each platform spawns, you should DPS it and attempt to kill it or bring it to very low health before it finishes its cast. For the second Parasite, you can AoE, as the Regenerative Bloods will be tanked on top of the Parasite. If the Parasite is still alive after the bloods are dead, simply single target it down.

During Phase Two, whenever the Congealing Bloods spawn (at 15%, 10% and 5% of Deathwing's health), simply AoE them down. Most likely, your raid leader will ask you to ignore the Elementium Terrors until the bloods spawn, and then AoE them all together. If this is the case, note that you will probably have to single target down the Terrors after the bloods are dead.