Sartharion With 3 Drakes

Sartharion can be a very easy or very challenging encounter depending on how many drakes you kill before you engage. If this is your first foray into The Obsidium Sanctum you should at the very least attempt Sartharion with 2 drakes left up. This will introduce your raid force to the mechanics of the fight so you can start preparing for 3 drake attempts. The requirements for 3 drake Sartharion do ramp up quite a bit from 2 drakes so you shouldn't get frustrated if you have to spend quite a few attempts adapting to killing 3 drakes. If you plan to only do 2 drakes you should kill Shadron and leave Vesperon and Tenebron up.

Regardless of the number of drakes you decide to kill beforehand all trash must be cleared as it will add when you engage Sartharion. Simply go around any drakes you plan to leave up to clear the trash.

The biggest requirement to attempt 3 drakes is an appropriately geared tank. To tank Sartharion a Death knight can simply use a solid set of tank gear but a Feral Druid has to stack stamina gear to reach about 50,000 hit points. It's possible for a Warrior or Protection Paladin to tank Sartharion through the use of cool downs or stacking fire resist and stamina gear. However this is not recommended unless you don't have a Death Knight or Feral Druid available. A final less conventional tanking option is to have a Warlock stack stamina and use their Void Walker to tank Sartharion. Using a Void Walker is much easier than using a prot Paladin or Warrior.

About 6-7 healers are needed when first learning 3 drake Sartharion. As you get more efficient with the encounter it can be done with less. Ideally you want a few healing classes that can apply damage reduction cooldowns to the Sartharion tank.

Now lets take a look at a typical tank and healing setup for 3 drake Sartharion:

Sartharion has the basic abilities most dragons have with the addition of Flame Breath.

Flame Breath - Inflicts Fire damage to enemies in a cone in front of Sartharion. Extremely deadly to the Sartharion tank later in the fight. It hits for about 27-33k when Shadron spawns it's acolyte and about 47-52k when Vesperon's acolyte spawns.

Cleave - Hits for minimal damage, a clothie can get hit and survive.

Tail Swipe - Hits all enemies behind Sartharion doing minimal damage and stuns them for 2 seconds.

Will of Sartharion - If any Drake is left up upon engagement Sartharion and all drakes hitpoints are increased by 25%.

Twilight Revenge - Anytime a drake is killed Sartharions physical damage and attack speed is increased by 25%. This buff stacks up to 3 times. This is only a minor issue unless you use a single healer. A single healer may have trouble after 2 drakes are killed so a second healer may need to help on the Sartharion tank at that time.

There are also abilities related to the drakes.

Shadow Breath - Inflicts shadow damage to enemies in a cone in front of a drake. Normally hits for about 10k.

For every drake alive when you engage Sartharion their corresponding de-buffs will be applied to everyone in the raid. It's important to note that all elements of the encounter are multiplied by these. So flame breaths, lava strikes, lava waves, and lava blazes will all do much more damage. When a drake is killed their corresponding power de-buff is removed.

Power of Tenebron (First Drake) - As long as Tenebron is alive all shadow damage taken is increased by 100%.

Power of Shadron (Second Drake) - As long as Shadron is alive all fire damage taken is increased by 100%.

Power of Vesperon (Third Drake) - As long as Vesperon is alive the health of everyone in the raid is reduced by 25%.

Unlike the above these abilities only come into play when each drake lands and begins to open a portal to the twilight realm. These abilities actually come up when the acolyte spawns in the twilight realm NOT when the drake lands. These can only be removed by going through the portal that spawns in the middle of the island and killing the corresponding acolyte in the twilight realm.

Gift of Twilight (Shadron Acolyte) - Increases Sartharions Fire damage by 50% and reduces damage taken by 100%.

Twilight Torment (Vesperon Acolyte) - This is applied to everyone in the raid. It increases all fire damage taken by 75%. It also causes everyone to take 2-3k damage anytime they attack or cast an offensive spell.

Finally we have some environmental abilities that the entire raid must deal with throughout the fight.

Lava Strike - Think of this as a random fire based lightning that does damage in a 4 yard radius when it hits. Strikes often hit multiple times in the same area. It normally does about 6k damage but it can hit for 10-11k when twilight torment is up. Fire elementals called Lava Blazes have a random and unpredictable chance to spawn from a Lava Strike impact regardless of whether a player was hit. Lava blazes must be picked up and tanked by an add tank.

Shadow Fissure - As long as at least one of the 3 Drakes is active these will spawn below random peoples feet. It's shadow damage so it's extremely deadly when Tenebron is up (10k normally, 20k with increased shadow damage).

You should designate someone to call "feet" when a shadow fissure spawns. We also call "melee" when a fissure spawns on them since it can be hard to see in a group of people. This also serves as an auditory reminder for people and can often prevent or bring people out of tunnel vision during the encounter since if you stop paying attention for even a few seconds a Shadow Fissure can kill you.

Lava Waves - These are not a complex element and you will understand how to avoid them after seeing them once. You should designate one person to call on vent when a wave is coming along with a direction. It can be a simple call of "left" or "right". It really doesn't matter what you say as long as it's always the same for each direction the wave comes from.

Notice how waves from each side line up. No matter what your job is on this encounter you should try to position yourself as close to a wave edge as possible so that you only have to travel a minimal distance to avoid a wave. After moving you don't need to go back to your original spot. Simply stay where you are unless you're forced to move again. Minimizing how often and how far you move is a key element of this encounter. Also don't be afraid to jump in the lava to avoid a wave. The surrounding lava does very little damage while getting hit by a wave is deadly.

Finally any lava blaze that gets hit by a wave will become enraged. This increases their damage and hitpoints substantially. Anyone that has aggro on a lava blaze should do their best to not let it run through a lava wave. Hitting blazes with tranquilizing shot or anesthetic poison will return them to normal.

Before getting into the specifics of the encounter lets take a look at a rough timeline of what will be happening:

• Engage Sartharion
• 30 Seconds into the fight Tenebron lands. The first lava wave coincides with Tenebron landing. All DPS engages Tenebron.
• 60 seconds into the fight (roughly) Tenebron hatches eggs. The Lava Blaze/Whelp tank should be waiting by the portal to pick up the whelps that come through the portal.
• 1 Minute 20 seconds into the fight Shadron lands. Misdirect Shadron to your Drake Tank.
• Once Tenebron dies AE Lava Blazes and Whelps. Melee and single target DPS switch immediately to Shadron when Tenebron dies.
• When the first lava wave passes after Tenebron dies pop Bloodlust/Heroism.
• When all the whelps and the majority of lava blazes have been killed your AE DPS should now switch to Shadron.
• 2 minutes into the fight Vesperon lands. Misdirect Vesperon to your drake tank. Drake tank uses cooldowns at this time.
• When Vesperon Portal opens up start using planned cooldowns on the Sartharion tank to mitigate Flame Breaths. Have a plan for 4 cooldowns.
• When Twilight Torment is up Druids use Tranquility and Paladins use Divine Guardian. Everyone else should use healthstones and health potions.
• When Shadron dies ranged AE lava blazes and melee and 1 spread healer go into the twilight realm to only kill the Vesperon Disciple. Once the disciple is dead come out if a lava wave isn't due.
• All damage focus on Vesperon.
• When Vesperon dies AE the lava blazes and then go into the twilight realm to kill the remaining acolytes.
• Kill Sartharion

The first thing that must be setup is tanking assignments. Keeping the Sartharion tank alive is usually what gives people the most trouble on this encounter. The ideal classes to tank this are Feral Druids and Death Knights. Feral Druids can stack an enormous amount of stamina gear to reach 50,000+ hitpoints. Death knights have a plethora of cooldowns they can use to reduce the damage of breaths. Protection Paladins and Warriors can tank Sartharion but it becomes a little bit more complex due to the amount of cooldowns they may need.

As far as Lava Blaze and Whelp tanking when learning the encounter we tried numerous combinations including 3 tanks on the adds. It become apparent that no matter how many add tanks there were there is always a lava blaze or two running around loose. We found it was much better to simply have a single tank on Lava Blazes and Whelps and bring more DPS.

Finally we use 1 tank for all the drakes. The class doesn't matter but it's usually a warrior because other classes excel at the other tanking assignments.

Sartharion Tanking
Regardless of the tank class used Sartharion will need to be positioned so that the tank can dodge any lava wave that comes. The pull puts the tank in a position to easily dodge those by simply moving a few steps to their left or right.

Breaths usually hit in the 28-33k range when Shadron lands and spawns his acolyte. This is usually manageable for a druid or DK even with the 25% reduction in hitpoints. It's much harder for a prot paladin or warrior to mitigate enough damage during this period without outside cooldowns. When Vesperon lands and his acolyte puts up Twilight Torment lava breaths can hit for upwards of 50k. This is when the use of cooldowns for each breath is vital for the tanks survival. There should be a planned rotation of 4 cooldowns. We've had kills where we only needed 1 cooldown but plan for 4 because DPS deaths can mean a few more breaths will have to be dealt with.

Here are some cooldowns that can be used beyond whatever class specific skills the tank has.

• Guardian Spirit
• Pain Suppression
• Hand of Sacrifice (don't forget ret paladins)
• Roar of Sacrifice
• Fire Protection Potion (with Survival Instincts/Last Stand)

Don't underestimate the use of fire resistance to help mitigate the damage from breaths. Even using a totem or aura without any resistance gear can knock 2-3k off a breath. When we put a FR totem by our feral druid on Sartharion there was a noticeable difference in the damage taken from breaths.

Sartharion Tanking With A Void Walker
So what happens if there is no druid or DK tank? Well when our druid tank had something come up we ended up doing 3 drake Sartharion with a Void Walker tank. The makeup was 24 people with 5 healers, 1 drake tank, 1 lava blaze/whelp tank, and a warlock with a Void Walker to tank Sartharion. A single healer was able to keep the Void Walker, which had a little over 65,000 hitpoints, up. We also didn't use any cooldowns for breaths when Twilight Torment went up.

Misdirect Sartharion to the Void Walker. In this location the Void Walker will never get hit by a lava wave so it will never change positions. This picture also shows the warlock and disc priest standing on top of each other.

The warlock should stack as much stamina (not health) as possible since the Void Walker gets a percentage of its master's stamina. Gemming and enchanting crafted frost resistance gear and pvp items works great for this. Our warlock had about 30k hitpoints unbuffed and used a 0/17/54 spec. During the fight the warlock refreshes Curse of Weakness when moving and casts health funnel at all other times so the Void Walker takes 30% less damage. If the warlock needs a heal they can use their cooldowns (Demonic Empowerment or Metamorphosis) to let the healer on the Void Walker switch for a second to heal the them.

The one catch is that the Void Walker generates very little threat. This means no one can do any damage to Sartharion while it's being tanked by the pet. When the 3rd drake dies the drake tank should go over and taunt Sartharion back onto the main island. A player can't tank it in the same spot as the Void Walker because a stacking debuff will be applied that increases fire damage taken. So have a tank taunt it back over to the main island, get it positioned, and then everyone can start to DPS Sartharion. As long as everyone stays back and there is a clear plan of what will happen when transitioning from the Void Walker to a real tank this isn't a hard maneuver. Make sure to walk through this before the pull so everyone knows what will happen. No matter what don't face Sartharion towards the raid (tip: all the drakes are dead at this point so it's ok for the tank to get hit by a lava wave).

Lava Blaze And Whelp Tanking
Due to the random nature in which lava blazes spawn add tanking can be difficult. The rate and amount of lava blazes can vary from attempt to attempt and there appears to be no way to control this. Paladins & Death Knights are the ideal classes to tank the adds due to the AE’s they can lay down. A raid icon should be placed above the add tank so people know where to run to if they have aggro from an add. It's possible for a Warrior or Druid to tank the adds but they're better suited for other roles. If you do use a Warrior have them put their vigilance on the Sartharion tank. We also found that using more tanks didn't necessarily reduce the number of adds that would aggro people. We found it was best to simply use 1 add tank and bring more DPS to get through the danger periods of the encounter faster.

The add tank needs to make it clear to people that if an add aggros them they need to immediately call it out and move towards the add tank. We also found it was better for the melee to simply kill any adds that got on them rather than have a tank run over to pull it off. The melee are usually the furthest away from the add tank and it's not worth it to run that far. The add tanks first priority must be trying to save healers from adds that aggro onto them.

The add tank should be the coordinator. This person should make the call of when to AE the adds once aggro is established. Also the add tank should call out when there are enraged adds up and if help is needed to deal with them. Enraged adds become extremely deadly to the tank when twilight torment is up.

Drake Tanking
We use a single tank for all the drakes. This means that all the drakes are killed in the same general area. All drakes are misdirected (or tricks of the trade) to the drake tank. There are times when that won't be enough and a drake may aggro the add tank because of an AE that's down. Don't panic simply bring it over to the drake tank. This is an easy situation to handle as long as no one panics.

Keeping the drake facing away from the raid is of the utmost importance. Turning the drake at the wrong time can get people killed because their breath goes out in a cone in front of them. It takes a little bit of practice when moving a drake to ensure it never turns towards the raid. The drake tank needs to use a consistent movement every time they move. The rest of the raid will get into a pattern once they understand how the drake is being repositioned during lave waves.

Healing in this fight can be a challenge because of the amount of things that healers have to watch out for while keeping everyone alive. But large amounts of healers don't need to be stacked to beat this encounter. In fact it's often counter productive to bring more healers because the reduction in overall raid DPS means it takes longer to get through the danger periods that happen during the encounter. The ideal setup is about 6-7 healers but it can be done with less as healers gain familiarity with the encounter and efficiency goes up. It's very doable with 4-5 healers.

Here's a typical healing setup for 3 drake Sartharion:

• Sartharion Tank - 2 Healers (Holy/Disc Priests & Holy Paladins are ideal)
• Drake Tank - 1 Healer (If a Paladin have them put Beacon of Light on the Lava Blaze/Whelp tank)
• Lava Blaze/Whelp Tank - 1 Healer (If a Paladin have them Beacon the Drake Tank)
• 2-3 Spread Healers - 1 of these healers is assigned to heal the add tank during high damage periods. Another is assigned to heal the drake tank during high damage periods. Also assign one healer to go into the twilight realm when you kill acolytes.

Sartharion Healing
When learning the fight 2 healers should be assigned to the Sartharion tank. It's possible for a single healer to handle this assignment but a second healer gives a bigger margin of error. A gap in healing isn't uncommon until the healers get more comfortable with the fight. Disc priests and resto Druids excel in the role of the lone Sartharion tank healer. For a standard 2 healer setup Holy/Disc Priests and Paladins are ideal as they have cooldowns they can use to help save a tank from a high damage flame breath.

The first thing healers on the Sartharion tank have to worry about is timing their heals with flame breaths. The general rule is that if the tank is at 100% a heal should land just after the breath. If the tank is below 100% a heal should land just before the breath. This is especially important as the damage from breaths increases. Flame Breath is a 2 second cast so all healers should have time to land a quick heal before it damages the tank.

Spell Alerter - Save yourself the hassle of staring at a cast bar or having to watch Sartharions head. Use this mod to add a giant warning when a breath begins to cast. Simply add "Flame Breath" to the spell list.

Although it's important for everyone to minimize the movements they make during lava waves it's especially important as a tank healer. The catch is that there's a big dragon standing right in front of the healers.

Healers simply move under Sartharion to avoid lava waves.

Healers aren't used to standing so close to a boss. Healers on the Sartharion tank you should be within melee range of Sartharion. There is a path under Sartharion that's perfectly safe to run under. A second or two delay at a key moment can be the difference between the tank living or dying. Healers should establish a pattern of movement that is exactly the same every time they have to move. Healers should be able to move from lava waves as a reaction without having to think about it at all. Any sort of instant or quick casting abilities that are on a cooldown should be used when moving.

Remember the cleave doesn't hit for much at all and can even be used to bounce Prayer of Mending back to the tank.

Simply run under Sartharion to avoid lava waves. Unless a breath is being cast it's better to cheat more towards the front as getting hit by the tail will cause a 2 second stun.

Lava Blaze & Whelp Healing
Healing the Lava Blaze/Whelp tank is pretty straight forward. There are a couple of wrinkles though. There will be a big increase in damage at certain points during the encounter. The first spike in damage will come before the first set of lava blazes and whelps are AE'd. During this period a second healer should heal the add tank. The other period is if a large amount of lava blazes get hit with a lava wave. This causes them to become enraged which increases their damage output substantially. If this happens the add tank healer should use any cooldowns they have and ask for help healing until the enraged blazes can be dealt with. Remember enraged lava blazes can be hit with tranquilizing shot or anesthetic poison to turn them back to normal.

Drake Healing
Relatively speaking this is the easiest healing assignment. We use 1 healer for the drake tank. But because we only use 1 drake tank a second healer should be assigned to heal whenever 2 drakes are being tanked at once. Drakes have a shadow based breath that can hit for upwards of 10k and 2 breaths at once while multiple drakes are being tanked can be deadly if the tank isn't being topped off. Cooldowns should be saved for when Vesperon lands as Shadron will usually be at about 50-70% so there is a prolonged period where a single tank has 2 drakes. The use of cooldowns should be coordinated to get you through this time.

Spread Healing
Spread healing is the most challenging aspect of this encounter. This isn't because there's a ton of spread damage. It's because healers have to be able to heal while constantly watching for shadow fissures, dealing with aggro from adds, and dodging lava waves. Spread healers should get in the habit of constantly checking their feet and looking at their surroundings.

A spread healer should repeat the following steps:

• Scan health bars for person to heal
• Cast heal on target
• While the spell is casting quickly scan the battle field (make sure no lava wave is coming) then look at your feet
• As soon as the heal lands repeat again

Most spread damage occurs when Vesperon lands and Twilight Torment is applied to the raid. It's helpful to put a resto Druid with your melee to pop tranquility during this time. A feral Druid who is doing DPS can also fill this role. Paladins can also spec into Divine Guardian which will reduce all damage taken by 30% for 12 seconds for anyone near the paladin. We usually have 2 paladins that coordinate back to back divine guardians when Twilight Torment is applied which gives us 24 seconds of 30% damage reduction on most of the raid. This is a huge damage reduction that can really cut down on spike deaths. When spread healers start to feel like the raid is taking too much damage they must call it out so people know to use potions/healthstones or to stop attacking.

When first learning this encounter it may be tempting to emphasize that people focus on improving their damage. Often times though this is counterproductive. What generally causes the biggest DPS loss is people getting killed by Shadow Fissures and Lava Waves. Deaths early in the fight have a huge impact on raid DPS. The best way to improve the raids overall damage is to tell people to focus on staying alive. Spike deaths can happen once Twilight Torment goes up but prior to that random deaths should be a rare occurrence.

Melee
Even with the Shadow Fissures being blue melee still have it rough in this encounter. With a giant clump all together and having to move when the drake moves it's easy to lose focus and be killed by a fissure. Melee should try to save their health potion and healthstone for later in the fight when Twilight Torment is up. Melee should ignore the lava blazes and whelps unless a lava blaze is on one of the them. If that happens call it out and all the melee should get on it to kill it.

Melee should also go take the portal to the twilight realm when Shadron dies and kill the Vesperon acolyte to remove twilight torment. Acolytes won’t aggro unless attacked, so attack the right one. Any DPS class can tank the acolytes.

Ranged
It can't be emphasized enough that deaths due to shadow fissures or lava waves are huge mistakes and as a DPS class all focus should be spent on avoiding these rather than trying to eek out a few hundred more dps. When dodging something move as little as possible. Also once in a safe spot there is no need to move back to the original location, only move once.

Ranged are also in charge of AE'ing down the lava blazes and whelps. Don't get DPS happy and pull aggro on the adds. Ranged can alternate doing damage to a drake and doing damage to the adds during AE periods if they are anywhere close to pulling aggro. If someone does get aggro call it out and move towards the add tank so it can be picked up.

Videos here may use a different tactic or setup than this guide. These are presented to see how other people approach this encounter.