Madness of Deathwing

The Madness of Deathwing is the last of two confrontations with Deathwing, the final battle of the Dragon Soul raid, and the final major boss encounter of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. After weakening his armor in the air and forcing him down into the Maelstrom, the final battle to determine the fate of Azeroth begins in earnest...

The fight is a long DPS race, also requiring much coordination with the raid, using the assistance of the Dragon Aspects in the manner that best suits the raid build.

World first heroic kill achieved 20.12.2011 by KIN Raiders(즐거운공격대) - KR-Kargath.

Adventure Guide
''A warped mass of molten hatred and unfathomable power, this formless, mindless horror cannot be stopped. Whatever was left of Neltharion the Earth-Warder is long gone, his mind and soul corrupted and devoured by his Old God masters. All this monstrous being desires is destruction, annihilation, and the end of all things.''

Description
Before the final fight, Deathwing will crash into the Maelstrom. The final stage of the raid begins when Deathwing’s deformed body rises out of the Maelstrom to face off against the players in the final showdown with many phases. The first phase is moving around the isles around the Maelstrom. Players will have to fight his claws, wings, tail alone and the tentacles. Traveling around the isles is similar to the fight in the Throne of the Four Winds.

During the second phase, the four dragon aspects will arrive and use their specific abilities to assist players to battle Deathwing. Players need to decide which aspect will help as they will not help at random. For example, Nozdormu can create a time-warp field to slow down Deathwing's molten missile attack. Alexstrasza can annihilate the small tentacles Deathwing calls upon. Ysera and Kalecgos both have their own abilities. And, Thrall will use the artifact, the Dragon Soul, to join the battle. There is a certain amount of strategy to how you use their abilities, too, so they’re not just a backdrop — it’s actually a fairly critical mechanic in the fight.

Abilities
The Madness of Deathwing encounter carries a hard 15-minute enrage timer.

Stage One: The Final Assault
Deathwing assaults his enemies as long as he is attached to the platforms by his twisted limbs.



Stage Two: The Last Stand
At 20% remaining health, Deathwing falls forward onto Ysera's platform.



Aspects
The Dragon Aspects assist in the fight against Deathwing. Each aspect channels Expose Weakness on their respective Limb Tentacles when Deathwing begins to cast Cataclysm. Expose Weakness increases the damage done to the Tentacle by 100%.

Each Aspect also channels Concentration after the players destroy their respective tentacle, preventing the Aspect from assisting the players with their presence and their special powers. The Aspects resume assisting the players when Stage Two begins.


 * Alexstrasza
 * Nozdormu
 * Ysera
 * Kalecgos
 * Thrall
 * Ysera
 * Kalecgos
 * Thrall
 * Kalecgos
 * Thrall
 * Thrall
 * Thrall
 * Thrall


 * Notes

Strategy
''This fight is all about add control, raid DPS check, and planning out which platform you wish to start on, as once you kill the disformed part of Deathwing on any platform, you lose the buffs granted by the Dragon Aspect on that platform until the start of Phase Two. From left to right, the platforms are: Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Ysera, and Kalecgos. The raid encounter is identical no matter which platform you encounter Deathwing on, thus the strategy is split into two parts: The dragon aspect strategy, and the raid strategy. Use a standard raid setup with 2 tanks, DPS, and heals appropriate for 10/25-player variations.''

The Aspects
There are two dragon aspect orders that are the most effective:


 * Order 1: Ysera, Nozdormu, Kalecgos, Alexstrasza – Use with very capable raid DPS that can defeat the Piece of Deathwing before Cataclysm is cast without the need for Kalecgos's DPS buff. This order completely nullifies one of mechanics of the fight, but which requires better focus and situational awareness for the rest of the encounter.
 * Order 2: Ysera, Nozdormu, Alexstrasza, Kalecgos – Use if raid DPS cannot kill a piece of Deathwing in time to prevent the cast of Cataclysm.

Ysera is the platform Thrall is on at the start of the encounter.

To change platforms, reach the edge (just like with Throne of the Four Winds) and you will leap automatically. To avoid any bugs, do not cast any movement skills (such as Blink or Rocket Jump) during a platform leap.

The Raid
Each platform starts identically, with a disfigured limb of Deathwing. You have a short period before the first add spawns, so start DPS right away. Shortly after Deathwing assaults the platform, he spawns a Mutated Corruption, which a tank should pick up right away. All DPS should switch to it (while keeping DoTs on the Limb as well). The Mutated Corruption does an ability called Impale, which does a high amount of damage to the tank. While you have Ysera's Damage Reduction Cooldown, tanks should take turns in taking an Impale while using her Cooldown. Use the while it lasts; after defeating the limb tentacles on her platform, you lose its use until phase 2. The next add that spawns is an Elementium Bolt, which emerges from Deathwing's mouth and travels to an area on the platform that is indicated by a visual effect. All players should instantly move away from the area, as it will do an insane amount of damage should you stand right next to it when it lands.
 * Phase 1

While Nozdormu is active, he slows the travel speed of these bolts, making it easy to destroy once they move into attack range. All DPS should immediately switch to it, saving the raid from unnecessary damage.

Once the Nozdormu platform is done and you have lost the slowing effect for the bolt, it extremely unlikely that the raid will be able to destroy the bolt before it impacts the platform. For this reason, the raid should quickly group up out of the blast radius and use both personal and raid survival cooldowns. The raid takes a substantial amount of damage; healers should be ready for aggressive healing.

When the Elementium Bolt hits, the raid must destroy it as quickly as possible to avoid further damage. Afterwards, proceed in finishing off the Mutated Corruption then go back to DPSing the Limb.

Some time after the Elementium Bolt, Deathwing will spawn several Regenerative Bloods. Their attacks apply a stacking damage debuff to the tank, and they have an energy bar that starts at 0 and quickly fills. If it reaches 90, the Regenerative Blood will heal back to full health.

The Limb Tentacle will spawn Blistering Tentacles at every quarter of the limb's health. Although these adds are immune to all AoE and cleaves, they are not immune to the power of a Dragon Aspect; Alexstrasza will immediately kill these for you while active. Once her platform has been cleared, all DPS must switch to single-targeting them down.

While Kalecgos is up, these adds can all be nuked with AoE and cleaves. If you time it right, simply allow them to refresh their heal once they get close to the refresh, have everyone begin their AoE so that when they refresh, all your AoE is in place and continue to AoE them, and they should go down. If you have left Alexstrasza as the last aspect, DPS can ignore the adds and focus on the last Tentacle. Simply have one tank pick them all up, and have the tanks take turns holding the adds, This may require tank cooldowns and big heals on the tank,

In Heroic Mode ,shortly after the Mutated Corruption spawns and 1 minute after that in each platform during phase 1, Deathwing places in a random Non-tank Player a Corrupting Parasite,which will deal high amount of fire damage(roughly 300000) over 10 sec and once the debuff runs out,the parasite detach from its host.The infected player must move inside Nozdormu's Time Zone as quick as possible and no raid member must be close to him as the parasite deals massive amount of damage to players within 10 yards of the host once it detach.Shortly after that,the parasite will start to cast Unstable corruption,which deals after 10 sec of cast(15 sec if the parasite is inside the Time Zone) 10% of the remaining HP of the parasite as AoE damage to the Whole raid,thus players must DPS the parasite once it spawns and kill him(or bring it low enough in HP so his remaining 10% at the end of the cast isn't deadly, also, if the raid still have Alexstrasza's Buff,she will be able to damage a small amount of the total hp of the Parasite). The Parasite has roughly 3M hp in 10 man raids and 9M in 25 man.

It must be noted than once Nozdormu's Platform is clear,infect players will have to instead move next to the Mutated Corruption(while making sure no one is within 10 yards of them) so melee DPS with Cleaves can damage both the parasite and the Mutated Corruption to bring it low on hp(without Nozdormu's Time Zone,the cast time of Unstable Corruption will be shorter and the raid will have less time to damage him before the cast ends). When Phase 2 begins, Deathwing's head will slump onto Ysera's platform where you can attack it directly. Any remaining adds should be taken there and killed as quickly as possible.
 * Phase 2

Phase 2 has three new adds to deal with — Elementium Fragments, Elementium Terrors and Congealing Bloods — all of which must be killed as soon as possible. Elementium Fragments are tentacles that target random party members with a debuff, then attack them for an absurd amount of damage. Should a fragment target you, use Ysera's Damage Reduction Cooldown. Use a personal cooldown if you become targeted a second time.

Tanks must pick up the Elementium Terrors and tank them in Nozdormu's Time Zone. They apply a stacking DoT to the tanks, so must be killed quickly.

The last add is the Congealing Bloods, which spawn only on Heroic difficulty and will heal Deathwing if they reach him. For this reason, killing these adds should be the raid's highest priority.

If you can manage the adds well, you should burn through the last 20% with raid cooldowns past 10%, as his AoE gets deadlier every 5% he loses.

Solo strategy
Save cooldowns until the last phase. Talk to Thrall to start the encounter, then jump to another platform (either Nozdormu's on the far right, or Alexstrasza's on the far left). Just walking off the edge of the island is enough to get launched toward the next island.

On that platform, the main damage target is the Wing Tentacle until the Mutated Corruption tentacle starts attacking the Aspect. The Mutated Tentacle must die, or it will cause problems for the rest of the encounter. If an Elementium Bolt spawns, focus on it. Don't worry about the Blistering Tentacles - they're immune to AoE, barely do any damage, and will despawn when the wing tentacle dies.

Once the Wing Tentacle is dead, jump to the next platform and repeat. Once all four Wing Tentacles are dead, get to Ysera's platform (second from the right). There, Deathwing himself falls forward onto the platform. Pop cooldowns and focus him down. If any Congealing Bloods spawn, kill them before they reach Deathwing, as he heals each time one gets to him.

Loot
Like many final bosses of raid instances, the item levels of the gear from Deathwing are higher than gear from the rest of the instance - in this case, six item levels higher.

Related Achievements

 * Fall of Deathwing
 * Dragon Soul Guild Run
 * Heroic: Madness of Deathwing
 * Heroic: Deathwing Guild Run
 * Destroyer's End
 * Realm First! Deathwing
 * Chromatic Champion

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell

Deathwing

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Elementium Bolt
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell

Alexstrasza

 * Assaulted
 * yell


 * Cataclysm
 * yell

Kalecgos

 * Assaulted
 * yell


 * Cataclysm
 * yell

Nozdormu

 * Assaulted
 * yell


 * Cataclysm
 * yell

Ysera

 * Assaulted
 * yell


 * Cataclysm
 * yell

Phase Two

 * yell


 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell

Outro

 * The Aspects are channeling their essence into the Dragon Soul held by Thrall.


 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * Thrall uses the Dragon Soul, empowered by the Aspects, to unleash one last massive burst of power. Unable to withstand it, Deathwing's corrupted body is obliterated, his armor shattered; a portion of his jaw lands on the platform, all that remains of the Destroyer.

Unused quotes

 * Deathwing: I shall tear this world apart!
 * Deathwing: I shall show you a true cataclysm!
 * Deathwing: Watch as your world comes to an end!
 * Deathwing: There is no hope, no future, all life is doomed!
 * Deathwing: Like you, all Azeroth shall burn!
 * Deathwing: Know that your world will soon follow!
 * Thrall: Avenge the fallen! Continue the fight!
 * Thrall: Begone...
 * Ysera: Another soul lost... to the Destroyer.

Closing Cinematic

 * The weakened Aspects bring themselves to their feet as Thrall and Aggra stand near the edge, looking down into the Maelstrom.
 * Thrall: bossemote
 * Alexstrasza: bossemote
 * ''As Alexstrasza speaks, the glow in her eyes fades; one by one, the same happens with Ysera and Kalecgos. The sands of time from his broken spaulder pour into Nozdormu's hand.
 * Alexstrasza: bossemote
 * Alexstrasza places a hand on Aggra's abdomen, indicating she is pregnant.
 * Alexstrasza: bossemote
 * The scene cuts to fireworks displays in Orgrimmar, Stormwind, and Dalaran.
 * Alexstrasza: bossemote

Aftermath

 * Alexstrasza
 * Now you must usher in a new age... the Age of Mortals.


 * Kalecgos
 * Together we achieved the impossible.


 * Nozdormu
 * With my powers gone, the Dragon Soul has returned to its place in time.


 * Thrall
 * I can feel the elements awakening...Rejoicing...The Cataclysm...is over.


 * Ysera
 * This cannot be, is it finally over? I must be dreaming again.