Spine of Deathwing is a single phase encounter that takes place onDeathwing's back, as he is flying through the air. Your raid will need toproperly deal with several types of adds in order to pry up and remove3 armor plates from Deathwing's back. The idea is to open a big enoughhole in Deathwing's armor, so as to give Thrall a clear shot with the DragonSoul.

The armor plates can only be removed sequentially, as removing one enablesthe raid to reach the next one. This causes the fight to become increasinglyharder, as the number of adds you need to deal with increases after an armorplate has been removed.

During the fight, you will be faced with 4 types of adds: Corruptions,Hideous Amalgamations, Corrupted Bloods,and Burning Tendons. In order to pry up and remove the armor plates, youwill need to properly combine the abilities of these adds.

You can also control Deathwing to some extent, forcing him to get rid ofall the adds when you are starting to feel overwhelmed.

   Corruptions are the first adds that you will see. They are stationarytentacle adds that do not melee and cannot be tanked. At the start of theencounter, there will be 4 Corruptions alive. As you can see in the screenshot,they come out of holes in Deathwing's back. Each time one ofDeathwing's armor plates is removed, 2 new Corruptions will appear in thenewly revealed holes.

4.1.1. Killing Corruptions to Spawn Other Adds

   When a Corruption is killed, it leaves an empty hole in Deathwing's back,from where 1 Hideous Amalgamation and 1 Corrupted Blood spawn.Killing all the Corruptions will cause a new Corruption (and only one)to spawn in one of the empty holes. The rule is that there will always be atleast one Corruption up, no matter what you do.

As we will explain in the strategy section, an important aspect of the fightis choosing how many Corruptions to kill and striking a balance between thedamage done by the Corruptions and the damage done by the adds that spawnfrom the empty holes. This balance differs whether you play in 10-man,25-man, or LFR difficulty.

4.1.2. Abilities

In LFR difficulty, the Corruptions are harmless and cast no abilities.

In 10-man and 25-man difficulty, the Corruptions have the followingabilities:

• Searing Plasma (10-man/25-man) is regularly cast by Corruptions. It places a debuffon a random player (3 in 25-man difficulty). This debuff wears off after 5 minutes or after a certainamount of healing has been absorbed (200,000 in 10-man difficulty and 300,000 in25-man difficulty). While the debuff is active, it deals 10,000 Physicaldamage to the target every 10 seconds.
• Fiery Grip is a stun that the Corruption channels on a random playerfor 30 seconds. During this time, the player also takes 60,000Fire damage every 3 seconds. Damaging the Corruption for 20% of its healthbreaks the channel.

Corrupted Blood are small adds that spawn from the holes in Deathwing'sback after a Corruption dies. These adds always respawn when the raid killsthem: the residue of a dead Corrupted Blood (not targetable or attackable) willslowly make its way back to the nearest empty hole in Deathwing's back, whereit will form into a new Corrupted Blood.

Sometimes, extra Corrupted Bloods spawn from the empty holes for reasonsthat we have yet to understand. In any case, the raid eventually becomesoverwhelmed by the number of Corrupted Bloods.

The only purpose of these adds is that,when they die, they leave a fire puddle. When a Hideous Amalgamation walksin this puddle, the puddle disappears and the Amalgamation receives a stack ofa buff. This buff eventually enables the raid to pry upan armor plate (see the next section for more details).

When they die, in addition to this stacking buff, Corrupted Bloods deal asmall amount of Physical damage (13,000 in LFR difficulty,10,000 in 10-man difficulty and 20,000 in 25-man difficulty) to all playerswithin 200 yards through Burst (10-man/25-man/LFR).

Finally, Corrupted Blood have a normal aggro table and they deal weakmelee attacks (about 5k every 2 seconds).

   Hideous Amalgamations spawn each time a Corruption is killed.This is a large add that has a normal aggro table and needs to be picked upby the tanks, as it performs moderately strong melee attacks (15-20k every2 seconds). These adds have three abilities,all of which have a strong synergy with Corrupted Bloods, one of theother types of adds.

• Absorbed Blood is a stacking buff that the Amalgamation gainseach time it walks in the fire puddle left behind by the death of aCorrupted Blood.This buff increases the damage of the Amalgamation by 10% and its attackspeed by 20% per stack, and stacks up to 9 times.
• Superheated Nucleus (10-man/25-man/LFR) is a buff that is applied on the Amalgamation whenit reaches 9 stacks of Absorbed Blood. It begins to pulse AoE Fire damage in anarea around it. This lasts until the Amalgamation is killed.
• Nuclear Blast is the explosion that follows the death of a HideousAmalgamation that has 9 stacks of Absorbed Blood.
  • The explosion deals a massive amount of Fire damage (243,750 in LFR and350,000 in 10 and 25-man difficulty) to all players within 10 yards. Thisexplosion has a 5 second cast time, during which the add does not move,allowing the tank and other players to get away from it.
  • If the Amalgamation dies close to one of Deathwing's armor plates,it will weaken it, giving your raid a chance to remove it (see nextsection).

   The goal of the encounter is to remove the 3 armor plates marked as 1, 2, and 3,in the screenshot on the left.You need to remove them sequentially by repeating the same actions three timesin a row.

When a Nuclear Blast from a Hideous Amalgamation occurs close to anarmor plate, it weakens it, exposing an add called Burning Tendons, which represents the remaining link between the armor plate and Deathwing. Assoon as it is exposed, this tendon starts casting  Seal Armor Breach inan attempt to reattach the armor plate to Deathwing.

Seal Armor Breach has a 23 second cast time in 10-man and 25-mandifficulties and a 34 second cast time in LFR difficulty. If the raid kills theadd before the cast is over, then the armor plate will fly off, leaving theraid to deal with the next one. Note that, by the time the Burning Tendonbecomes attackable, it will already have channeled its spell for 5 seconds.

If the cast completes before the add is killed, Deathwing's armor willbe reattached and players must start over. Note that the health of theBurning Tendon is not reset, so you can just finish it off at thesecond attempt.

Targeting the tendon will become increasingly difficult as there will bemany nameplates on the screen by the end of the encounter. To prevent thisproblem from happening, DPS players should make a /tar burning macro that they can use in the 5 seconds that they havebetween the moment the tendon appears and the moment it becomes attackable.

Despite the fact that you spend the entire duration of the fight on hisback, Deathwing does not exist as an actual enemy unit that you can targetand attack. However, there is one way that you can interact with him. If all theplayers in the raid stack on the same side of his back, this will causeDeathwing to perform a Barrel Roll (he will roll on himself), getting rid ofall the Hideous Amalgamations (Corrupted Bloods remain attached), aswell as all the raid members who are not glued to his back at the time. Thisis very useful if you start to get overwhelmed.

The easiest way to handle a Barrel Roll is to have the entire raid stack inthe same empty hole on Deathwing's back. In addition to triggering a BarrelRoll, this will also grant players the Grasping Tendrils (10-man/25-man/LFR) debuff. Thisdebuff slows player movement speed anddeals a very small amount of damage (6,000 in 10-man difficulty and 6,500 in25-man and LFR difficulty) every 5.2 seconds and is removed by moving out ofthe hole (something that raid members must only do after the Barrel Roll isover).

Players under the effect of Fiery Grip (the stun that Corruptionssometimes cast in 10 and 25-man difficulty) should not be freed, as beingaffected by this ability makes them stay on Deathwing's back during theBarrel Roll. Freeing them is indeed risky, as freed players then need torun to an empty hole, something that they might not be able to do in time.

Removing any of the three armor plates requires the exact same actions fromyour raid. As you progress through the encounter, you will have to deal withmore and more adds, thus increasing the damage to your raid. Indeed, sinceeach armor plate removed exposes two new holes, your raid will slowly becomeoverwhelmed by Hideous Amalgamations and Corrupted Bloods(or Corruptions if you choose not to kill them).

To remove an armor plate, your raid will need to do the following:

1. Kill at least 1 Corruption in order to spawn at least 1Hideous Amalgamation and 1 Corrupted Blood;
2. Have the raid (tanks included) stack next to the armor plate.
3. Bring a designated Hideous Amalgamation to low health (between 10% and 20%);
4. Kill the Corrupted Blood(s) close to the designated Hideous Amalgamationuntil reaching 9 stacks of Absorbed Blood;
5. Finish off the designated Hideous Amalgamation next to the nearest armor plateand have everyone move out (10 yards) to avoid being hit by Nuclear Blast;
6. Kill the Burning Tendons add before it finishes casting Seal Armor Breachand reattaches the armor plate.

If, for some reason, your raid kills the Hideous Amalgamation before itreaches 9 stacks of Absorbed Blood, makes the Hideous Amalgamation detonatetoo far from the armor plate, or fails to kill the Burning Tendons intime, the fight is not over.

Indeed, you can try to recover by killing the last remaining Corruptionand starting over with the Hideous Amalgamation that will subsequently spawn.

5.1.1. Note on the Burning Tendons

If your raid fails to kill the Burning Tendons, the health of this addwill not be reset when you pry the armor plate up again. Be aware of the factthat there are two Burning Tendons associated to each armor plate, one on theright and one on the left. Whichever you get depends on where the HideousAmalgamation blew up. Therefore, you need to make sure that when going tofinish the Burning Tendon, the Hideous Amalgamation blows up on the sameside as previously.

In LFR, the fight is made considerably easier by the fact thatCorruptions do not have any abilities. Therefore, the raid onlyneeds to initially kill 1 Corruption. This significantly decreasesraid damage and healers only need to worry about the damage that theCorrupted Bloods deal when they die.

For the first armor plate, simply kill 1 Corruption. Then use the singleCorrupted Blood (remember that it will keep respawning) to stack Absorbed Blood 9 times on the Hideous Amalgamation.

For the second armor plate, kill a second Corruption. This time, you willhave 2 Corrupted Bloods so you will stack Absorbed Blood even fasteron the new Hideous Amalgamation.

For the third armor plate, kill a third Corruption. This time, you willhave 3 Corrupted Bloods so you will stack Absorbed Blood even fasterthan before on the new Hideous Amalgamation.

Keep in mind that a second Corrupted Blood sometimes spawns fromempty holes after a varying amount of time. This means that you willprobably finish the fight with more than 3 Corrupted Bloods up.

The main problem in LFR difficulty is players who accidentally killextra Corruptions. Though, this is usually fixed after a few attempts.

In 10-man and 25-man difficulties, the Corruptions use Searing Plasma (10-man/25-man) and Fiery Grip, which will quickly overwhelmthe raid.

This complicates the encounter, so we decided to give you the simplestpossible strategy for the fight before discussing ideas on how to customiseit (mainly for preparing the Heroic mode version of the fight).

Initially, your raid needs to kill 3 of the 4 Corruptions.We do not advise keeping all 3 resulting Hideous Amalgamations up, so forceDeathwing to perform a Barrel Roll in order to get rid of them. Afterthe Barrel Roll, spawn a new Amalgamation by killing the lastCorruption.

With only one Hideous Amalgamation to deal with, simplyapply the steps that we described above, in the Strategy Summarysection. Also, you should keep in mind the following:

• DPS concerns
  • In addition to dealing damage to the Hideous Amalgamation and killing  the Corrupted Bloods with AoE damage, a few designated DPS players  also need to sometimes deal damage to the remaining Corruption (for 20%  of its health) in order to stop Fiery Grip. Note that this should not  normally end up killing the Corruption.
• Tank concerns
  • The first tank should take the Hideous Amalgamation and one or two Corrupted Bloods. The  Amalgamation should be brought next to the armor plate, where it will eventually  detonate.
  • The second tank should take the rest of the Corrupted Bloods. If the DPS  players fail to keep the Corruption alive (when attacking it to stop Fiery Grip), then the second tank needs to tank the resulting Hideous  Amalgamation away from the raid and leave all the Corrupted Bloods to the  first tank. The idea is to prevent Absorbed Blood from being applied by  mistake on the wrong Hideous Amalgamation.
  • The raid can stack on the tank (or next to the tank). This is safe as  Hideous Amalgamations do not cleave or perform any other abilities that may  be hazardous to the raid. This also enables DPS players to damage them while  AoE-ing down the Corrupted Bloods.
• Healer concerns
  • Healers need to heal people affected by Searing Plasma (10-man/25-man) in order to  remove the debuff.
  • Healers should expect most of the damage to come from Burst (10-man/25-man/LFR), which  is dealt as a result of a Corrupted Blood dying.
  • Tank damage will increase progressively, as the Hideous Amalgamation  gains more stacks of  Absorbed Blood.
  • Superheated Nucleus (10-man/25-man/LFR) will deal a lot of damage.  Hideous Amalgamations cast this from the moment they reach 9 stacks of  Absorbed Blood to the moment they die.

Once the Hideous Amalgamation has reached 9 stacks of Absorbed Blood,it will begin pulsing AoE damage to your raid. It should be quickly finishedoff. While it channels Nuclear Blast, all players should get at least 10yards away from it.

Provided that the Hideous Amalgamation was properly positioned, the nearestarmor plate will be pried up and Burning Tendons will be exposed.

If the add is successfully killed, the armor plate will fly off, exposing2 more holes on Deathwing's back, each containing one Corruption.

Removing the other two armor plates is a repetition of what you did forthe first armor plate (including making Deathwing perform a Barrel Rollto get rid of the Hideous Amalgamations).

The only difference comes from the Corrupted Bloods. Their numberskeep increasing throughout the fight. This increases the overall damage thatthey deal both through their melee attacks and the Burst (10-man/25-man/LFR) damage that theydeal to the entire raid upon dying.

To mitigate this, DPS players should make sure to only kill 9 Corrupted Bloodsfor each armor plate. The rest of the Corrupted Blood should be left to attacktheir tank as their weak melee attacks are more manageable than Burst (10-man/25-man/LFR).Also, DPS players should not kill Corrupted Bloods too rapidly, as dealingwith Burst damage from all the Corrupted Bloods at the same time is verydangerous.

During the fight, DPS players should keep their cooldowns for killingthe Burning Tendons (remember, there are 3 of them, one per armor plate) asthey should not be allowed to finish their cast of Seal Armor Breach andreattach the armor plate. Since you need to properly balance DPS on the3 tendons that you will have to kill, your raid can do the following:

• use personal cooldowns on the first tendon;
• use  Bloodlust / Heroism / Time Warp on the second tendon;
• use personal cooldowns again on the third tendon.

Potions should be used on the first or the third tendon. Ideally, you willwant half the DPS use their potion on the first tendon and the other halfon the third tendon.

This encounter can be done in many ways and the reason why we gave a single,specific strategy is that it is easier to devise a new strategy from an existingone rather than making it from scratch following general guidelines.

The strategy presented here can be tuned by simplyusing a different timing for the Barrel Roll(s) or by leaving more than one Corruption alive, depending on how easily your raid can handle thedamage done by the adds.

7.6.1. Using 1 Tank in 10-man Mode

The Corrupted Bloods deal rather low melee damage to their currenttarget and for this reason, you can choose to have a single tank take them all,in addition to also tanking the Hideous Amalgamations. Towards theend of the fight, when the number of Corrupted Bloods greatly increases,you can have Plate DPS (Death Knights, Warriors, and Paladins) or Feral Druidsin Bear form taunt andtank them. This is not risky since the Corrupted Bloods deal rather low meleedamage. Using only 1 tank will give your raid a better chance to kill theBurning Tendons in one pass.

7.6.2. Heroic Mode Training

One main reason for tuning the strategy is to make the fight harderand practice for the Heroic version of the fight, where the raid needsto kill as few Hideous Amalgamations as possible (for each HideousAmalgamation killed, the maximum health of raid members decreases by6%) and subsequentlyhas to deal with much more raid damage.

The damage increases as the encounter progresses. Therefore, it mightbe a good idea to spend as little time as possible removing the secondand third armor plates. To this end, you can start the fight by bringing 3Hideous Amalgamations to low health with 7 or 8 stacks of Absorbed Blood.Separate one from the others, get it to 9 stacks, pry up the first armor plateand remove it. Then, repeat this for the second and third armor plates withthe remaining Hideous Amalgamations, while surviving the damage from theadditional Corruptions or the newly spawned Hideous Amalgamations.

After removing an armor plate, you get two new Corruptions.You can opt to kill only one of them so that you practice dealing withmore Corruptions up, something that will most likely be required inHeroic mode to prevent the raid from having to kill Hideous Amalgamations.

The fight requires the raid to perform the same task three times in a row.Even if a tight enrage timer is introduced when patch 4.3 goes live, this willstill leave plenty of time to practice on removing the first armor plate.

Once the raid is comfortable with the strategy for removing the first armorplate, the rest of the fight is very similar, just that the damage taken bythe raid keeps increasing.

Zdroj: www.tauri-veins.tk/spine-of-deathwing-detailed-strategy