Icecrown Deathbringer Saurfang

Source: TheGreatMe (25-man)
Welcome back to the Icecrown raid guide, My name is Thegreatme and in this video I will be discussing our strategy for Deathbringer Saurfang, the fourth boss in the Ice crown citadel raid instance.

the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter is a burndown fight that gets progressively harder as the fight goes on. This encounter relies of good execution, and being able to focus your healing and DPS as needed.

One of the most important mechanics of the fight is a buff Saurfang has which is called "blood link. When ever Saurfang, or one of his summoned creatures damages a player it will cause him to gain blood power. For every point of blood power Saurfang has he will grow 1% larger, and do 1% more damage.

Your raid needs to have ranged spread out so they are all at least 12 yards away from each other. This is because of blood nova, which will hit a random player, as well as anyone with in 12 yards of them for 9500 to 10500 damage. for every player hit by Blood nova Deathbringer saurfang will gain two blood power. It is advised that your ranged have a boss mod installed with a proximity detector and that they use it in order to make sure they are always far enough away from each other

Saurfang will also use an ability called Boiling blood, which is a damage over time debuff that does 5000 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. this debuff is usually placed on 4 raid members at a time, but some times it may be applied to more people . Deathbringer Saurfang will gain 1 blood power for each tick of boiling blood.

Deathbringer saurfang also puts a debuff on the tank called rune of blood. this causes Saurfang's melee attacks to also leach 5100 to 6900 health from the target, and heal Saurfang for 5 times the amount leached and lasts 20 seconds. On normal mode the healing it does to saurfang is not large enough to warrant bringing in a second tank over a DPS. in this video my guild did use two tanks but this is because at the time we were unsure of the mechanic, and wanted to have a back up just in case.

When ever deathbringer saurfang hits 100 blood power he will place a debuff on a random raid member called Mark of the fallen champion. this debuff causes all of deathbringers saurfang's melee attacks to hit this target, plus an additonal 5700 to 6300 damage per hit. every time this player is hit deathbringer saurfang will gain 1 blood power. if the player with Mark of the fallen champion dies while under the effect of this debuff it will cause Saurfang to be healed for 5% of hit total health.
Mark has an infinite duration and can not be removed by any abilities , and will persist thru death.

Because mark gives Saurfang blood power it means that the speed at which he gains blood power throughout the fight increases exponentially as time goes on.

One way to help negate some of the damage that saurfang does is to disarm or dismantle him whenever he has around 80 blood power. doing this will reduce tank damage but more importantly it will also reduce the damage anyone with mark will take.

Also because all of the damage in this encounter is physical it is not a bad idea to have your mages buff the raid with amplify magic

approximately every 30 seconds saurfang will spawn 5 blood beasts in a circle around him. each blood beast has approximately 91 thousand health. all blood beasts have a buff that reduces their AoE damage taken by 95% and disease damage taken by 70%. when ever a blood beast successfully lands a melee attack it will cause Saurfang to gain 1 blood power. for this reason the blood beasts are to be kited rather than tanked.

Blood beasts are susceptible to all snares and stuns so ideally you want to have hunters make a path of frost traps so the they can be snared the whole time while being kited. moonkin druids are one one of the best classes to do the kiting because they have typhoon which can be used to push the blood beasts back and essentially reset the kite.

when each pack of blood beasts spawns your moonkin should be channeling hurricane as they spawn so they can get initial agro. hunters should also use misdirect on the moonkin and use multi shot to help get agro on all of the adds. once all of the adds have cleared the melee ranged DPS should all focus down one add at a time. Melee who use an AoE ability in their normal rotation such as fury warriors and paladins need to be aware of the timers for when the next pack of blood beasts are going to spawn and make sure that their AoE doesn't hit the blood beasts when it spawns because it may cause you to get initial agro on them.

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Source: Lore (10-man)
Welcome back to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide. I'm Lore and I'll be showing you the 10-Man Normal version of the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter.

Deathbringer Saurfang has a unique energy system called Blood Power, which is visible on his unit frame in place of a mana bar. He gains 1% damage dealt for every 1 Blood Power he gains, and once he reaches 100, he uses a very powerful debuff called Mark of the Fallen Champion which I'll describe in more detail later. He gains 1 Blood Power every time one of his various abilities or one of his summoned Blood Beast pets deals damage. Thus, the key to the fight lies in controlling the amount of Blood Power he gains as much as possible.

Notice how we have our raid spread out here. Our two healers are standing on either side of the walkway where the teleporter is located, and our ranged DPS is spread out in about 10 yard increments to the sides from there. This accomplishes two things. First, Saurfang has a targetted ability called Blood Nova which causes an AOE splash around a random raid member. By staying spread out, we can avoid having anyone be hit by the damage from this ability, thereby keeping Saurfang from gaining Blood Power from it.

Secondly, with the healers positioned in a central location, the Blood Beasts should be drawn down the middle of the room when they spawn. From there, the ranged DPS will burn them down, while our melee stays on the boss. Blood Beasts are vulnerable to just about all slows, stuns, roots, and knockbacks, so we have a Hunter dropping a Frost Trap to slow them down and an Elemental Shaman using Thunderstorm if they happen to get too close. Of course, there are many other ways to deal with this depending on your group composition. Keep in mind however that if the Blood Beasts successfully reach anyone and hit them, Saurfang gains Blood Power, so it's best to avoid having melee DPS on them and they should absolutely not be tanked. Furthermore, tanks and melee DPS will need to be careful to avoid using multi-target abilities when the Blood Beasts first spawn to avoid catching initial aggro.

Another ability you'll need to be aware of is Boiling Blood. This is a damage over time effect placed on a random raid member that deals a significant but perfectly healable amount of physical damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds. More important than the damage it deals is the amount of Blood Power it gives. Each tick will give Saurfang 1 Blood Power, for a total of 8 Blood Power per use. This can and should be removed with immunity effects like Divine Shield or Ice Block, though he casts it frequently enough that he will be gaining Blood Power from it fairly consistently. If the rest of his abilities are being dealt with properly, however, this should be the vast majority of the Blood Power he gains over the course of the fight.

The last ability you'll need to watch out for to limit his Blood Power gain is a debuff he places on the tank called Rune of Blood. This causes his melee attacks to proc an extra 6000 or so damage on that tank, and heal him for 5 times that amount. This counts as an ability dealing damage, so he gains 1 Blood Power per melee swing while he's hitting a tank with Rune of Blood active. There are two ways to deal with this ability. It's possible to use one tank, offsetting the healing by having another DPS in the party, and simply dealing with the extra Blood Power he gains. However, this can be risky, and isn't likely to work later on when the encounter's Heroic Mode becomes available. It's much safer to have two tanks taunting off of each other when Saurfang applies the debuff.

By this point in the fight, Saurfang will most likely have collected a large amount of Blood Power and will be hitting fairly hard because of it. Remember that he deals 1% more damage for every Blood Power, so your tank healer will need to be aware of this increased damage.

As I mentioned earlier, once Saurfang reaches 100 Blood Power, he casts a debuff called Mark of the Fallen Champion. This consumes all of his Blood Power, setting him back to 0 and causing him to lose the damage buff, but also makes every one of his melee attacks also deal around 5000 damage to the marked raid member. Not only does this count as dealing damage with an ability, thereby rewarding him with additional Blood Power, it also lasts for the rest of the fight, and cannot be removed by immunity effects. Even if the marked player dies and is resurrected, they will still be marked for the duration of the encounter. Furthermore, if the player does die, Saurfang immediately heals for 5% of his total health. It will simply have to be healed through. In the 10 man version, it's usually possible to limit him to only casting this once or twice even with relatively low DPS, but keep in mind that for each active mark, he will be gaining Blood Power much more rapidly, and thus be able to cast another one sooner. This is why it's so important to limit the amount of Blood Power he gains, as the extra damage will quickly overwhelm your healers if he is allowed to cast it too many times.

Ultimately, with a good understanding of the fight's mechanics and strategy, Deathbringer Saurfang is simply a matter of execution. If everyone's doing what they're supposed to, he can be defeated somewhat easily. If not, well, things can go sour pretty quickly. If you'd like more information on this or any other encounter, including the 25-man version, just check the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, just follow the link in the movie details. Thanks for watching, and good luck!

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