Blackwing Descent: Nefarian & Onyxia - Defeated May 3rd 2011

[TeaLeaf]

Hello and welcome to the Blackwing Descent Raid Guide! My name is Aliena, and in this video I'll show you all you have to know about Nefarian, the last encounter in this new raid instance. We completed this fight with 3 tanks, 6 healers and 16 DPS - or 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS in the 10 man version - but similar raid configurations may work just as well.

Nef is a 3-phase encounter and probably the most challenging fight you'll find in this tier. In the first phase, you fight both Onyxia (yep, again!) and Nefarian at the same time while skeletons try to eat you, in the second phase, you're up against three Chromatic Prototypes while Nef annoys you from the air with his fireballs, and in the third phase you only fight Nef, but he kept his Bone Warriors from phase 1 around.

The goal in phase 1 and 2 is to do as much damage to Nef as you possibly can while keeping your raid stable and without jeopardizing a wipe, while phase 3 is all about add control. You want to aim to have Nef at about 75% health when phase 2 starts, at about 65-55% health when phase 3 starts. Let's go over the different phases and abilities you'll have to deal with.

When you first jump down into the arena, you'll only encounter Onyxia, who's been turned into a bit of a living bomb. As soon as you pull her, a little electro-meter will pop up on your UI, illustrating her electric charge level. If this bar ever fills up, it's an instant wipe for your raid. The bar will fill up quicker if no one is DPSing Onyxia, so make sure not to neglect the poor girl. Your Onyxia tank should pull her to a far side of the room and have her face and tail away from the raid as she has a cleave, a breath and a tail lash. Your ranged raid members and healers should be positioned in the middle of the room.

When Onyxia's sides start sparkling, your tank must adjust her position so her tail faces the raid. This is because Onyxia is about to use Electric Discharge, which deals a ton of damage per second to anyone located to either side of her. Your raid might get tail lashed during this, but it's a lot better than standing in Electric Discharge.

Once pulled, a bunch of Animated Bone Warriors will spawn around the room. These come with a twist - they each have 100 energy and will lose 2 energy per second. WHen their energy bar is completely drained, the skeletons will enter an inanimate state and will only revive if touched by any of Nef's Shadowflame abilities. In the 25-man version, you want to designate a tank to gather up all skeletons and kite them, but the kiter needs to avoid Nef's and Onyxia's breath abilities.

Make sure to assist him by using abilities such as frost trap, frost nova and other AoE slow and stun abilities. This is incredibly important! Whenever a skeleton lands a hit on a raid member, they gain a buff called Empower, which increases their damage and movement speed by 10% a stack. This buff can grow infinitely, so it's crucial that the skeletons land as little hits as possible on your raid. It's very easy to see when skeletons stack this buff up high, as they grow enormously large.

If you're doing this in the 10-man version, it'll be 6 skeletons and you can set up a crowd control chain for them in phase 1. Fear, Shackle, Repentance and most other crowd control effects work just fine. Try to have all skeletons "die" in about the same area, this is important for phase 3.

Approximately 30 seconds after engaging Onyxia, Nefarian will land and your second tank must pick him up and pull him to the opposite side of the room, away from Onyxia. If Nef and Onyxia are within 60 yards of each other, they gain a 100% attack speed buff - obviously, you want to avoid that. Nef too has a Cleave, a Breath and a Tail Lash but no Electric Discharge, so there's no need to move him. Just make sure neither his face or tail is facing your raid.

Once Nef is stabilized, you want to designate a DPS team to switch from Onyxia to Nef. Figuring the DPS split out is trial and error - you want to leave enough DPS on Onyxia so that she's close to death when Nef is at about 75% health, give or take a few. However, don't forget about Ony's Lightning Charge level - kill her before this fills up, even if Nef's not quite as far down as you'd like.

Nef's trademark ability throughout the whole fight is Crackle. When he reaches 90% and every 10% of his health thereafter until he dies, Nef will emote "The air crackles with Electricity!" and shortly afterwards, every single raid member will take about 100k nature damage. Since it happens every 10%, Crackle is predictable, and your raid needs to be completely stable before you push Nef's health past a threshhold. Ideally, you want two Crackles to happen in phase 1, another 2 in phase 2, and the rest of his health can be burned down in phase 3.

Crackles can be mitigated by Divine Guardian, Feint and other abilities. If you have a Divine Guardian available, you can use it to mitigate up to 3 crackles throughout the fight.

Again, aim to have Nef around 75% health before killing Onyxia. As soon as she dies, phase 2 starts and the entire area will fill up with lava. This is where the three pillars around the room come into play. Split your raid up into three groups - tanks are not necessary for this phase, the Prototypes do not melee. We assign 2 healers to each platform in the 25-man, 1 healer each in the 10-man. Furthermore, each platform needs reliable interrupters. In the 25-man, you want to aim for at least 2, but preferably even more interrupters per platform, in the 10-man 1 interrupter is the bare minimum. Obviously, the DPS spread should be even.

As soon as Onyxia dies, everyone needs to run to their assigned pillar and wait for the lava to come up.

A chromatic prototype will spawn on each pillar, and as soon as the lava reaches its maximum fill level, each raid member needs to hop onto their assigned pillar. Be quick with this, the lava deals increasing damage the longer you're in it. Also, as soon as the lava reaches its max level, each Prototype will start casting Blast Nova, which is a relatively quick cast. Blast Nova needs to be interrupted at all costs, every single time it is cast. Letting even just one tick of it go off will easily cause a raid wipe. In the 10-man, Prototypes will cast this roughly every 12 seconds, in the 25-man it's roughly every 6. All interrupts will work, even the blood elf racial Arcane Torrent.

While you're fighting the Prototypes, Nef will fly around above you and spam your raid with Shadowflame Barrage. This deals a LOT of single target damage. Phase 2 is easily the most healing intense phase of the whole fight, and healers need to closely monitor their mana. Lightwells proved to be a big help for us. You should designate ranged DPS to concentrate on Nef in this phase, to bring his health down another 10-20%. It's tough, but you want at least one, better yet two Crackles to happen to make phase 3 easier. In the 10-man, DPSing Nef in phase 2 is not absolutely required, but it does help.

Co-ordinate cooldowns for phase 2 crackles, and make sure each platform is stable before pushing Nef past a threshhold. Phase 2 lasts for 3 minutes or until every Prototype is dead, whichever happens first. Remember, keeping the raid stable is of utmost priority. If you cannot afford another Crackle to go off without having people die, just push Phase 3.

Once it starts, Nef will land and your tank has to pick him up once more. Drag him to the very edge of the room, and have your raid stack up to the side of him. Again, tail swipe breath cleave, you know the drill. Hopefully all the adds from phase 1 went inanimate in roughly the same spot, as Nef will shoot a Shadowblaze missile at them right after phase 3 starts, and adds touched by this will revive with full energy and need to be picked up and kited by your tank.

Shadowblaze will also spawn pink fire that'll follow the nearest person, and if the adds are touched by this, they'll also reset their energy bar. The best way to deal with this is to have your add-tank watch Nefarian while kiting, and everytime he shoots a Shadowblaze missile at the skeletons, have him move them out of the way so they don't get hit by the initial missile or the fire that'll start following your tank once the missile hits.

The kiting should happen well away from Nefarian himself, and your add-tank should have 2-3 healers accompanying him. Ideally, the adds will not get hit by any shadowblaze and go inanimate after 50 seconds. Going inanimate will reset their buff, so they'll be a lot more managable when Nef re-animates them. As the phase goes on, more and more fire will cover the room and it will get tougher to keep the adds out of it. If they do touch it, their energy bar is reset to 100 and you have to deal with another 50 seconds of very angry large adds beating you up.

This is why it's preferable to get Nef low before phase 3. If your add-tank dies, it's basically game over, and the shorter the phase, the less chance of that happening. Of course, Crackle still happens during phase 3, and it's important to call out impending Crackles so cooldowns can be applied to your add-tank. As mentioned, it is imperative to keep your add tank up. If add control is executed correctly, phase 3 is a tank and spank with predictable damage spikes.

That covers the Nefarian encounter. Good luck and have fun, as always! Ive attached footage of the whole encounter in case you would like to see how we dealt with the various mechanics in detail.

[TeaLeaf]

Bump as we're about to go there.  Read up and get familiar with this please!

[TeaLeaf]

If it helps:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]688[/ATTACH]

[Deminion]

Prot warrior specced for http://www.wowhead.com/spell=12323#comments should be nice for P3 adds. i've been told

[Tirkad]

Ok, a few thoughts about tonight raid from your lovely living lure...
I think me and sheep are getting used to kites, but there are lots of improvement that could be make. I thought about the priests leap of faith only before our last attempt, and i think it can be an awesome weapon for sheep to kite the adds on the sides of a trap: e.g. if tl is on the left side dps'ing ony, sheep can run on the right side kiting the adds through tan's trap; once the adds are over the trap and getting closer, he can call for the leap and get on the other side of the trap without using cooldowns while waiting for them to refresh.
I think it helped having my beacon on twisted, it gave amber a bit more time to adjust his movements, even if it makes my control over sheep's hp pool a bit tighter.
Can't tell much about the next phase, only that it seems we'll have to be faster on interrupts, and as already told during the raid we'll need to time the transition well, or it will be a wipe for sure.
Over all i think we learnt a lot from tonight, and it will be all good experience for the next time, hoping it will be sooner than later, just to avoid having all these wipe wasted while forgetting them (i'd even suggest to avoid resetting the instance, but i think some people can still use some gear upgrade on the previous bosses).

[Ranualf]

was a nice fight

i had a few healing issues

range + tank + healer- was a bit of a nightmare from my point of view- as me and twisted were miles away from the centre cluster of ppl, cant be helped tbh- the tank need to drag the phat loot bag away from mrs loot bag, to break the debuff- so that just how its gotta be.
A few sec of intense dps on the tank, and i`m playing catch up(read tank+ move out of range), if i get too close i get happy slapped by the tail- thinking of getting closer to take a cleave- we`ll have to see next week.

looking at the healing meters- i`m pretty low- but my duty need to be on the tank, so i`ll just suck it up, disc seems a bit slow for the heals- i`ve been switcheng between holy. disc to see if theres a big differance(other than holy burning mana)
nothing to write on this- yet.

Phase 2 jump up- well we got there- then got sat down due to the mob not being interupted- new fight- new tactics- hard work- simples

End game content is proving slow for us(as a guild) but we are at no.12/ 12 so we are there- just need to knock him over, and grab the purples


gear wise- i`m still wanting the damn hat off magamaw(v low drop rate) and some new shoulders, and the neck from halfus

stat wise i`m fairly happy- but think i`ll chage a bit of stats for haste- and see how it goes...

[Twyst]

Now that Amber is clear on the route I take with Nef, I am happier - however, there were quite a few times even on the last go where my HP dipped dangerously low and I was blowing some CD's.
The better add control from Sheep and Tan is excellent as I can wang out bigger hits on Nef.

One of the things I found interesting is that when I drop down to the platform I rune tap right away for a quick heal.
Seconds pass and some adds then wander past. When they reach the middle, I dunno what happens but I see "High Threat" warnings when I've done nothing but RuneTap *before* the adds appear.
After speaking with Keebas, in his new guild running 25s, they stop him not only using HS, but DS as well until the adds are controlled as DS provides passive healing threat on the adds.
Now that is being fixed (well, nerfed really but heh) in 4.1 but equally if I don't use it I'm not sure Amber can keep me up as it stands right now

Anyway, the two times I managed to get onto the platform I managed to interrupt the add successfully.
It struck me that the times we did get into P2, it was just bad timing with the crackles.

[TeaLeaf]

The big P1-->P2 timing issues I think are now resolved.  
1. DPS Ony to about 35%
2. All burn on Nef - 1 DPS (me) remain on Ony to monitor Electro Meter
3. Push through 90% and 80% Crackles
4. Kill Ony as Nef approaches 75%

That gives us a clean transition into P2 and then starts the next batch of questions about interrupts.  We *have* to interrupt Blast Novas, simple as that.  Let's research and check which abilities interrupt it and be prepared for next time.

[Slush]

I actually missed a interrupt because I jumped on to the platform and ran through the Chromatic Prototype, meaning I had my back to him when I was supposed to interrupt.
But this is a task Im very able to do as a shaman with Wind Shear.

Think I (and others) need practice in getting onto platform and look cool while doing so. No panic jumping, no omfg moments.
1. Wait until lava is at the edge of platform.
2. Jump.

[Twyst]

Think I (and others) need practice in getting onto platform and look cool while doing so. No panic jumping, no omfg moments.

Dude, you  and Jesung also need to practice in getting onto the lift and look cool while doing so. No panic jumping, no omfg moments.

[Slush]

Dude, you  and Jesung also need to practice in getting onto the lift and look cool while doing so. No panic jumping, no omfg moments.

Wrong thread this is.

http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?32785-Blackwing-Descent-The-Elevator-Boss!

[TeaLeaf]

Been thinking some more about this as whilst our P1's have got us into P2 they are neither clean nor reliable entries.  One major problem we have yet to face is the effect of our loose add placement which will come back to bite us with a vengeance in P3.

The alternative is to ease the worries by going with a full CC group.   Pala can fear one, two shackles, root and what's left is then easier to kite. It does put an emphasis on teamwork and responsibility to each player to CC them ultimately in the right place but as DPS is not an issue it might be more reliable than our current RNG approach.

I think we need P1 better than we have now or P3 will be killing us for weeks.

Thoughts?

Sent from my HTC Hero using Tapatalk

[Twyst]

I think we need P1 better than we have now or P3 will be killing us for weeks.

I agree. I think we're going to need a third "tank" to round them up as CC placement is too RNG.
Basically a DPS or healer with Taunt abilities and a high agro stance. Grim would logically be the best choice given our usual group makeup.
A frost DK is ideal here as HoB slows a little as well.
Lastly, that solves the issue of tank cleave abilities aggroing the adds which means i don't have to dick around with my bars just for this fight.

The other variant on this is to have a plate DPS tank ony whilst a real tank handles the adds who then takes over ony once adds are down.
However as we have no plate DPS in RGT this probably wont be a viable strat for us - no group seems to have tried a kitty in bear form yet.

[Tirkad]

I admit i had some serious issues healing Hal in our last nefarian attempts, however i seemed to get the hang of it and in the end i was able to save some mana for the p2 (at the cost of some major cooldowns), which seems pretty doable if every single nova gets interrupted. For the tanks, i already posted something about spiky damage and its effect on healers mana on amber's disc priest topic, but i will never stress out enough how important is for the healers a smooth damage taken curve in terms of mana.
This is our best attempt at nefarian so far (our last attempt of the night, when we break through p1 and experienced a bit the p2), i'm sure that all the healers will be grateful if you will be able to smoothen those curves if possible (if you're already doing your best in terms of mitigation, then kudos to you: you're doing it right from an healer POV).

[Whitey]

I admit i had some serious issues healing Hal in our last nefarian attempts, however i seemed to get the hang of it and in the end i was able to save some mana for the p2 (at the cost of some major cooldowns), which seems pretty doable if every single nova gets interrupted. For the tanks, i already posted something about spiky damage and its effect on healers mana on amber's disc priest topic, but i will never stress out enough how important is for the healers a smooth damage taken curve in terms of mana.
This is our best attempt at nefarian so far (our last attempt of the night, when we break through p1 and experienced a bit the p2), i'm sure that all the healers will be grateful if you will be able to smoothen those curves if possible (if you're already doing your best in terms of mitigation, then kudos to you: you're doing it right from an healer POV).

Avoidance v's threat is a tricky one to get balanced.  We have some fights that need huge dps from the start and so the tanks need to generate and hold threat quickly.  Until 4.1 we also had to ensure our hit was high enough for interrupt duty on certain bosses.  I've been gradually decreasing my hit/expertise and can probably go a bit further to help on the avoidance but I don't want to go so far that it sacrificies the threat I generate in the initial stages of the fights or we start losing dps.