Warmaster Blackhorn

Warmaster Blackhorn is the sixth boss to appear in the Dragon Soul raid.

World first heroic kill on 25-man achieved 8.12.2011 by Vodka - US-Alterac Mountains.

Adventure Guide
''Though once vast in number, only a few dozen twilight dragons now remain. Astride these hardened survivors are the last vestiges of the Twilight's Hammer's army: the elite drake riders of Deathwing's personal escort. Led by the insidious Warmaster Blackhorn, they move with unholy purpose, driven to protect their dark master.''

Stage One: Dragonriders, Attack!
Flying alongside the Skyfire and surveying the scene while his massive twilight drake lobs balls of destruction at the gunship, Warmaster Blackhorn gives the order for his elite dragonriders to swoop into battle.


 * Twilight Elite Dreadblade
 * Twilight Elite Slayer
 * Twilight Sappers do not appear on Raid Finder difficulty.
 * Twilight Elite Dreadblade
 * Twilight Elite Slayer
 * Twilight Sappers do not appear on Raid Finder difficulty.
 * Twilight Elite Dreadblade
 * Twilight Elite Slayer
 * Twilight Sappers do not appear on Raid Finder difficulty.
 * Twilight Elite Slayer
 * Twilight Sappers do not appear on Raid Finder difficulty.
 * Twilight Elite Slayer
 * Twilight Sappers do not appear on Raid Finder difficulty.
 * Twilight Sappers do not appear on Raid Finder difficulty.
 * Twilight Sappers do not appear on Raid Finder difficulty.

Stage Two: Looks Like I'm Doing This Myself
Once the Skyfire's defenders defeat three waves of dragonriders, Warmaster Blackhorn leaps down onto the deck of the gunship.
 * Warmaster Blackhorn
 * (He never enrages on raid finder difficult)
 * (He never enrages on raid finder difficult)
 * (He never enrages on raid finder difficult)
 * (He never enrages on raid finder difficult)
 * (He never enrages on raid finder difficult)
 * (He never enrages on raid finder difficult)


 * Notes

Strategy
Warmaster Blackhorn is a two phase encounter, the first phase has the raid deal with three different types of adds, while the second phase has the raid deal with the Warmaster himself. This raid encounter is very similar to the Gunship Encounter in Icecrown Citadel (Which earned both of them the nickname, Lootship).

Phase 1
The first phase of the encounter is about controlling adds and managing raid damage.

The first type of adds are the Twilight Elites (the and ); these adds need to be picked up by the tanks. Melee will primarily focus on bringing these adds down, while classes with DoT capabilities should apply them. There are three waves of elites that spawn on a set timer, and the raid should aim to have both elites dead before the next two spawn.

The elites apply stacking debuffs on their tanks; to clear these, tanks should alternate which elites they take each wave (i.e. one tank will do Dreadblade-Slayer-Dreadblade, with the second tank doing Slayer-Dreadblade-Slayer). The Dreadblade cleaves while applying its debuff, so the tank on the Dreadblade should take care that the Dreadblade is faced away from the raid. For this reason, the Dreadblade should be killed before the Slayer.

Periodically, the elites will perform Blade Rush, charging towards a random player and performing 100,000 physical damage to anyone within the path. The path is clearly marked with a visual effect, so players should move out of it as soon as they see it.

The second type of adds are the s -- each wave, two will spawn, drop the aforementioned Twilight Elites on the deck, then circle the boat. The drakes will periodically fire Twilight Barrage at the ship, causing a non-negligible amount of shadow damage to it. If any players are standing within the Twilight Barrage zone, the shadow damage will be split amongst those players instead. For this reason, at least two players should soak each Twilight Barrage, although a single player with high enough health can solo-soak it. A common strategy is to demarcate the boat into four quadrants and assign players to soak all Twilight Barrages within their quadrant.

The NPCs on the boat will periodically harpoon a drake and reel it in. When this happens, ranged must immediately switch to the drake and kill it before it breaks free and returns to circling the boat. Killing a drake reduces the frequency of Twilight Barrage, and all drakes need to be killed to push the fight into Phase 2. Note that the drakes are unable to break free in LFR difficulty.

The final type of add, not present in LFR difficulty, is the. These are dropped on to the deck on a set timer. When they are dropped off, they will turn invisible, then reappear a few seconds later while making a line straight for the ship's bridge. The sapper must be killed before it reaches the bridge, otherwise it will kamikaze-style detonate its explosives and take off 20% of the ship's health (and potentially taking out any players in the immediate vicinity). The Sappers can be stunned, slowed, and Death Gripped by death knights to prevent them from reaching the bridge.

While all of this is happening, will fly above the boat and periodically cast Twilight Onslaught, which is effectively a larger and harder-hitting variant of Twilight Barrage. The vast majority (if not all) of the raid members will need to stack in the Twilight Onslaught zone when it is cast, to split the massive damage amongst as many players as possible (thus making it healable) and to protect the ship from taking too much damage. Unless the raid is going for, Twilight Onslaught must be prioritised over Twilight Barrage if both occur at the same time.

On heroic difficulty, Twilight Barrage will place a 15 second debuff on soakers increasing shadow damage taken by 50%; soakers should co-ordinate amongst themselves so that they do not soak a Twilight Barrage while they have the debuff on them. Additionally, parts of the deck will be periodically covered with fire which will, after a while, be extinguished by NPCs; this mechanic serves as a rather severe positioning constraint.

Phase 2
The second phase of the encounter starts when all the Twilight Assault Drakes have been killed, and is essentially tank and spank. Any surviving Elites from Phase 1 should be killed immediately when Phase 2 begins.

will swoop down, drop Blackhorn on to the ship, then continue to harass the raid from above. One tank should immediately pick Blackhorn up and face him away from the raid. Melee will work on Blackhorn, while ranged will deal with Goriona.

Goriona will cast Twilight Flames on the deck and, like all fire, this should not be stood in. Once Goriona's health reaches 20%, she will abandon Blackhorn and leave the encounter, freeing up ranged to assist on Blackhorn (and stopping the Twilight Flames casts).

Blackhorn has two main abilities. The first, Disrupting Roar, will do AoE damage to the entire raid, and also interrupt and silence for 8 seconds any casters within 10 yards; ranged should always stand at least 10 years away from Blackhorn. The second ability, Shockwave, will be cast in the direction of a random player, and will do around 100,000 damage to players within his 80 yard AoE cone and stun them for 4 seconds. Shockwave is entirely avoidable, so the raid must be alert for Shockwave casts and be prepared to move out of his AoE cone.

Additionally, Blackhorn applies a Sunder Armor debuff to his current tank. The off-tank should taunt the boss when the main tank receives two stacks; thereafter, the tanks should switch whenever the non-active tank's stacks fall off.

Finally, Blackhorn has the Vengeance ability, which causes him to deal 1% increased damage for each 1% health taken off him, and effectively acts as a soft enrage (in addition to the 4 minute hard enrage on Phase 2). The raid should co-ordinate defensive cooldowns as Phase 2 progresses, and also pay close attention to Shockwave casts, as Vengeance can cause Shockwave to one-shot raid members towards the end of the encounter.

On heroic difficulty, Goriona will land on the deck when she reaches 80% health, and will need to be picked up by the non-active tank. All DPS must immediately switch to Goriona, as Blackhorn's Siphon Vitality ability places a severe penalty on damaging Blackhorn while Goriona is still active. Goriona's tank must face her away from all other raid members due to her breath attack, while the rest of the raid should stack up and simply AoE heal through the Corrupting Shroud debuff. As on normal, Goriona will leave the encounter when taken to under 20% health.

It should also be noted on heroic difficulty that Blackhorn will continue to apply his Sunder Armor debuff to his tank, so the tanks will need to co-ordinate switching Blackhorn and Goriona between themselves.

Related Achievements

 * Fall of Deathwing
 * Dragon Soul Guild Run
 * Heroic: Warmaster Blackhorn
 * Deck Defender

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Twilight Onslaught
 * yell


 * Skyfire at low health
 * yell


 * Phase 2
 * yell
 * yell


 * Disrupting Roar
 * emote


 * Shockwave
 * yell


 * Berserk
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * emote
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * Unused quotes
 * Sky Captain Swayze: An Enemy Sapper has breached the Engine Room!
 * Sky Captain Swayze: Were going down, abandon the ship!
 * Sky Captain Swayze: The engines are back online! Full speed ahead! We can't let Deathwing escape!
 * Sky Captain Swayze: Little hand says it's time to rock and roll! Everyone into the hole, we've got a dragon to kill!
 * Warmaster Blackhorn: Come on!

Trivia

 * Warmaster Blackhorn is voiced by Isaac C. Singleton Jr..
 * He seems to have personally used Ataraxis, Cudgel of the Warmaster, even though the color of the weapon is different during his fight.