Sindragosa (tactics)

Sindragosa is the second boss of the Frostwing Halls wing of the Icecrown Citadel raid. The encounter with the undead frost wyrm queen is similar to Sapphiron. She spawns after the defeat of the frost wyrms Rimefang (who escaped the Pit of Saron after Tyrannus' death) and Spinestalker. It is a battle for survival, where players have to manage various debuff stacks.

This boss is available since February 2, 2010 on US servers and February 3 on EU servers.

Abilities
Sindragosa has a 10-minute enrage timer.

Phase Two (Air Phase)
Although Sindragosa takes to the air on a recurrent timer, her abilities are distinctively different from phase 1 and therefore is considered its own phase.



Phase Three
All Phase One abilities, plus:



Phase Two (Air Phase)
Although Sindragosa takes to the air on a recurrent timer, her abilities are distinctively different from phase 1 and therefore is considered its own phase.



Phase Three
All Phase One abilities, plus:



Preparation
Sindragosa immediately aggros when both Rimefang and Spinestalker are dead. While learning the encounter, it's a good idea to initially reset her, which can (sometimes) accomplished by running back to the teleporter pad or the last room right after the second frost wyrm dies.

This encounter requires one tank, a second one is a good idea (for Phase 3). Tanks should have a decent amount of frost resistance, the paladin aura or shaman totem should also be used. Low stamina raid members can also consider wearing a few pieces of FR gear.

Like most dragons Sindragosa deals a rear tail swipe and a frontal cleave, thus only the tank stands in front of her. The raid should stand at her side, between tail swipe and cleave. Melee should set up at the outer edge of her (rather large) hitbox, ranged a little further out, but not at maximum range. Players who stand too close may miss an Icy Grip (because they don't fly through the air), those too far out loose too much time airborne and thus may not be fast enough in running away. In preparation of Phase 3, it's a good idea if the raid generally keeps close together, either near her front or hind legs.

Phase One
During the whole fight she deals stacking debuffs to the whole raid. When melee attacks her, there's a 20% chance per hit on the boss to gain the Permeating Chill stacking debuff which inflicts 1,000 Frost damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds, per stack. For casters, she periodically debuffs mana users with Unchained Magic, which for 15 seconds causes its victims to gain a stack of Instability every time they cast a spell (including things like Healthstones or Trinkets). Instability expires after 5 sec (unless refreshed by casting another spell). Expiration is unavoidable after Unchained Magic fades. Upon expiration, Instability deals 2k damage per stack.

During Phase 1 these debuff stacks don't hurt a lot (it's safe to take up to 8 stacks), but in Phase 2 they become dangerous (players should try to stay below 4 stacks). For this reason it's a good idea to practise keeping them low even in Phase 1. Managing these debuffs (and the additional one in Phase 2) is the heart of the fight. Players may get used to stopping their attacks/casts when their stacks get high.

In regular intervals, she pulls the whole raid on top of herself (Icy Grip) and then starts a 5 sec cast of Blistering Cold, which deals 35k Frost damage to everyone within 25 yards of her (with enough HP or resistance this is survivable). This means that the raid has 5 seconds to get 25 yards away from her. Players should mouse-turn while flying through the air and immediately run away on touchdown. Hunters can use Aspect of the Pack, the frost aura does not cause the daze effect. After everyone is out of range, it must be switched off immediately. It is possible to slow her cast time with (Curse of Tongues or maybe Numbing Poison), but this may decrease Melee's DPS output because they have to wait longer before running back.

Phase Two (Air Phase)
Every 1:50 minutes, Sindragosa takes off, freezes 2/5 (10/25 player) raid members with Ice Tomb and drops four Frost Bombs (one after the other, on random spots). Players who are in line of sight of one of the bomb explosions take ~24k damage, therefore the raid should hide behind the Ice Tombs. After the fourth Bomb she lands and continues with another Phase 1.

Sindragosa puts a Frost Beacon on the Ice Tomb targets about 5 seconds before they get entombed. Since Ice Tombs not only damage their targets, but also everyone else in a 10 yard radius, it's important for the ice tomb targets to move away from all non-targets and from each other. After 20 seconds, she's dropped all her bombs, lands and resumes Phase 1. At this point, the entombed players start to take damage from asphyxiation. Players are freed from the Ice Tombs by destroying them (~450k HP). They should be damaged to about 10% while she drops the bombs, and quickly destroyed after the fourth bomb has exploded.

10 player
In 10 player, the raid can stay on the stairs at all times, tanking her right in front of the stairs. The raid initially groups on her hind legs. The players with Frost Beacon run to where her front legs were (one higher up the other lower down the stairs). When she Frost Beacons the next set of players, they again run to the other side (where her hind legs were), after the Tombs have materialized the raid follows. This movement pattern closely resembles the one used in Phase 2.

25 player
The 10 player technique cannot be used with 25, because it requires very high precision in positioning with 5 frost tombs (6 on heroic) plus the raid on the stairs. It's simpler to tank her some distance (about 20") away from the stairs. All players should be prepared for Frost Beacons, and run up to the top of the stairs. As players get beaconed, they can then step down towards the bottom of the steps, in two rows (three in the front, on the main floor, and two behind, up three or four steps), with the untargeted players running to the beaconed players as soon as they are tombed. By first walking to the top of the stairs then walking down toward the tombs, all players should be able to easily see the location of the first Frost Bomb and position themselves to block line of sight. In 25 player, the rear tombs (furthest up the stairs) can be destroyed even before she lands (but be careful not to destroy a tomb just before a bomb lands). On 25-player heroic, avoid destroying any tombs until after the fourth Frost Bomb, so that those who are freed (and may be disoriented) are not instantly killed by a Frost Bomb. DPS should avoid DoTs, and use direct damage so as to leave the tombs with enough health to keep everyone alive, but low enough that they can be quickly destroyed after the fourth Frost Bomb.

Phase Three
Phase 3 starts when Sindragosa is at 35% health. She becomes permanently grounded, and continues all of her abilities from phase 1. Although she stops casting Frost Bombs, Sindragosa continues to cast Frost Beacons and Ice Tombs, which players must use to control her new ability, Mystic Buffet. One stack of this debuff is gained by all players in her line of sight every 4 seconds. Each stack increases magical damage taken by 10%/15% (10/25 player).

Her time between Ice Tomb casts in phase 3 seems to be 20 seconds.

Phase 3 is not a DPS race, but focuses on the players' ability to manage Mystic Buffet and the other debuffs. Mystic Buffet expires after 8 seconds, she refreshes it after 6 (that is with 4 seconds left on the debuff). In effect it's enough to hide behind the Ice Block for just the crucial few seconds when she refreshes it.

The 10 player Ice Block routine can be used for both raid sizes in this phase - Frost Beaconed players run to the other side, raid follows, hides and destroys the Ice Blocks after they have materialized. With two tanks, it's a good idea to switch tanks at this moment too.

Heroic Difficulty
The most important change is that Instability (Unchained Magic's backlash) not only hits the affected player, but also everyone else within 20 yards.

Phase 2 (air phase) Frost Bomb damage is increased to 200,000 and is no longer survivable, and in 25m (10m stays at 2 players) six players are Frost Beaconed instead of five.

Tips and Tricks

 * In normal mode, up to 8 stacks of Mystic Buffet can be tolerated. Therefore, it's safe to ignore every other Ice Block. It's still important to nuke the Ice Blocks to free the entombed players. Don't try this on heroic difficulty where even a few stacks are already dangerous.
 * Wearing some frost resist gear increases survivability and may be very useful for learning the fight.
 * During Phase 3, Healers can try to find a place behind an Ice Tomb where they have no LOS to the boss, but can see and heal the tank.
 * It is important to note that when she pulls all raid members into her, she begins casting Blistering Cold as soon as the pull begins, not when you land at the foot of the boss. For this reason, the closer you are to the boss, the more time you will have to turn around in mid air and get out of range before the AoE takes effect. This is VERY important in heroic mode, as any damage taken from Blistering Cold is essentially un-survivable.

Quotes

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Unchained Magic
 * yell


 * Blistering Cold
 * yell


 * Respite for a Tormented Soul
 * yell


 * Air Phase
 * yell


 * Phase 2
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Berserk
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell

Known Bugs
It has been reported (and subsequently confirmed multiple times) on the World of Warcraft US and EU forums that many raids are experiencing unusual behavior when a Death Knight applies Mark of Blood to Sindragosa. The reports suggest that when Sindragosa has the Mark of Blood debuff, she will randomly turn away from the tank that is keeping aggro on her and face the rest of the raid for between 0.5 to 1 seconds. While not significantly detrimental in itself, some of the reports suggest that these turns coincided with casts of Frost Breath, subsequently wiping the raid. It is currently not known whether Blizzard have begun work to correct this.