Warcraft Experience

This is the Firemaw strategy that we are currently using in BWL, (shamelessly pulled from the Inner Sanctum website) let’s hope we can take him down soon. We made great progress in there last nite.

Firemaw

Wing Buffet: Frontal cone knockback (Aggro reducer).

Flame Buffet: Inflicts 139 - 161 Fire damage to an enemy and increases the Fire damage it takes by 150 for 60 seconds.

Shadow Flame: Inflicts 3938 - 5062 Shadow damage to enemies in a cone in front of the caster (If the target doesn’t have Onyxia Scale cloak, will receive a DoT that ticks for 2500, it’s a certain death.

The Pull

Firemaw patrols through the entire room after Broodlord. The first thing you face after killing Broodlord is some of BWL’s few “trashmobs”, how to kill those are explained in the BWL trashmob guide. Cleat the pack in the doorway, since you are going to tank Firemaw there.

When that is done clear the pack on the right-hand side as well before pulling the boss.

Once that is done buff up get ready for Firemaw. Once the room is clear he should be an easy pull.

The fight

Once the pull is made the warrior needs to get Firemaw into position.

Firemaw should be facing the iron fence to the left of the Broodlord doorway. This position is chosen due to the knock back

We’ll be talking about this knockback for a while since it’s a potential raid wiper due to our placement. As shown in the picture the offtanks placement is strategically placed. Once Firemaw is about to do the Wing Buffet the offtank slaps him a taunt, if it gets resisted be papered for your secondary taunt, challenging shout, if successful the offtank should be knocked into Broodlords room and out of harms way. Now you can’t always rely on this since they will both get resisted from time to time and the main tank will receive an occasional knockback that will displace Fremaw and put the entire raid in danger.

The rest of the raid should be standing diagonally in alignment with the main tank through the doorway as shown in the picture, this will make it so that the healers can line-of-sight the Flame Buffet and still be able to reach the tank, now as mentioned before the main tank will receive an occasional knockback from time to time changing Firemaws postion, at that time the healers will be hit by the Flame Buffet, there is nothing to do about it other than either moving out of sight or wait until the MT has him in position again.

The ranged DPS will stand with the healers, until firemaw is around 40%; there is no way for them to legitimately LoS (Line of Sight) the Flame Buffet so they have to run out in the Flame Buffet, hit him as much as they can and LoS it again and wait for its timer to run out, and go out again.

Once Firemaw is at 40% move into the next room way back to the right, there you can hide behind a little wall and still reach Firemaw. This is done due to MT getting knockbacks putting him lower on the hate list, this ensures that if he loses agro the healers won’t get the Shadowflame, no one else except for the main tank, and occasionally the offtank and rogues, should be hit by Shadowflame. We can’t underline this enough it’s VERY important for everyone to have their Onyxia Cloak equipped, especially for the close combat classes. It isn’t a vital part in the raid but we STRONGLY recommend that everyone uses it for the first few tries.

For the close combat classes, there isn’t anything else to do other than to have a very nice fire resistance gear. With that still, the close combat classes will occasionally have to run out to get healed//get rid of the flame buffet, and jump into the fight again.

Key item in this fight is fire resistance, all the tanks should have 315 or higher fire resistance it will otherwise be impossible to keep up your tank since the dot can stack up to 50 times, and then dealing 7500 dmg each tick.

Thanks Wardawg for finding this for me to post! Our little AQ 20 group is moving fast and furious and its now time for this:

Ossirian the Unscarred is a boss in the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj.

Strategy

The Pull

Rogues are pretty much useless in this fight, therefore use a rogue to pull the boss to the middle of the room. The rogue should be mounted, bodypull the boss, then head back to the middle and look for a crystal that will spawn. Two crystals will be spawned at all times throughout the room. After about 2 seconds, the boss will buff himself; with the buff he can hit you for 13K damage, also when buffed, Ossirian moves pretty fast, faster than walking speed. When Ossirian is about 20 yards to the crystal, have a designated person click on the crystal to activate it. Note, the Main Tank should not aggro Ossirian until after the crystal puts the debuff on him, otherwise the MT will be one-shotted to death.

Activating the Crystals

Activating the crystal will put a 30 45 second debuff on Ossirian that makes him hit for only 1K or so, less than than the normal 13K, and puts a vulnerability on him for specific spell damages (he can have more than one on at a time). Make sure you are paying attention to the debuff slots so you can see what he is vulnerable to. You will then have about 30 seconds to pull Ossirian to the next crystal before his debuff runs out and one-shots the Main Tank. The crystal has a slight casting time, so don’t wait until the last second.

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I will share the exact tactics we used to kill Onyxia. Once you know what to do, the fight is surprisingly easy.

Where is Onyxia’s Lair?
A surprising amount of people do not know where it is located, and it is easy to understand why. Believe it or not, this high level dragon is located in Dustwallow Marsh. She is located in the Wyrmbog, in the south-west region of the map. There is a cave that looks like the mouth of a dragon, this is the place!

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Items You Will Need
First of all, if you haven’t already, you will need your [item]Drakefire Amulet[/item]. You get this by doing the long string of quests that start in the Burning Steppes. The Drakefire Amulet is not only a decent stats neckpiece, it is also the key to Onyxia’s lair. It is not necessary to wear the neckpiece to get in the lair, you can get in just by carrying it with you. Everyone in the raid must have one!

Fire Resist Potions
While not necessary, it is a good idea to keep a few Greater Fire Resist pots with you, since they will come in handy to absorb the fire damage she will be dealing.

Fire Resist Gear
Be sure to have some decent fire resist. No need to go insane, because stats are better, but have at least 60 fire resist as a caster/ranged and 100 or more for melee. The Drakefire amulet conveniently adds +15 Fire Resistance, so if you don’t have a better neck-piece, you might consider wearing this for the encounter.

Some Set Pieces
It is a good idea to have some set pieces; at least the ones from UBRS. Stats are important if you want to last through the fight, and if you are wearing crappy green gear, you are most likely not going to last, or you’re going to absorb too much healing/mana from your priests.

Group Arrangement
Group 1 - Pally with FR aura, 2 Priests or 1 Priest/1 Druid, Main Tank Warrior, Warlock for Imp Buff. Be sure to use a warlock who has the improved imp ability. It adds 54.6 Stam.

All other groups can have a combination of 1 healer and 1 pally if possible with FR aura. Keep the ranged people in one group and the melee in another to ensure all get healing from their respective range.

Warders
After zoning into the lair, you’ll see 3 - 5 warders. Kill them at range, with minimal melee. They have a fierce AOE fire attack that can do lots of damage to many people. If only the tank is holding them, the attack isn’t too bad. Just try not to get more than one warder at a time, or you can have a wipe on your hands, or at least a slow-down.

Buff!
Ok, you’re through the warders. Wait in the little doorway to her lair, but be sure no one goes in yet. Buff up, soul stone the MT and healers. Drink whatever buff potions now.

Begin!
Send your MT in, and have the rest of the raid follow very closely in tow. Have even groups go to the north west side of the cave, and odd groups go to the north east side. Be sure everyone goes all the way to the north, and avoids the two whelp egg areas on both sides of the cave. If you go in there, many whelps will spawn, which is a mess.

Phase 1
With everyone in position, no one should be attacking Onyxia except the main tank. Let him get his aggro while the raid waits. Have the MT pull onyxia north middle side of the cave, so that the raid is on either side of her. The MT is pinned between her and the north wall. After about 30 seconds, the raid can begin LIGHT dps. If you try to be a dps hero here, you will pull aggro, and you will wipe the raid. DON’T do high dps here, just the lightest attacks you have. Casters use non-fire wands, rogues/hunters be sure to feign/vanish often to wipe aggro.

Phase 2
Once the Phase 2 signal comes, around 65%, Onyxia will become airborne. At this point it is crucial that the raid spread from each other. No one in the entire raid should be closer than 3 yards from the next person. If Ony sees you are close to someone else, she will do a deep breath, which will wipe most of the raid. If you see the deep breath warning, run to the walls of the cave as fast as you can, you might live, but probably not. During Phase 2, everyone does MAX DPS. No aggro to worry about here. Go balls out dps, and have her dotted constantly. Dots will also keep her from deep breaths.

Phase 2 also brings about the occasional whelp pack. When this happens, have a mage frost nova them, then have warriors/pallies hold them, while aoe’rs finish them off. Be clean, and still maintain the 3 yard rule.

At 42%, all dots should stop except from one chosen high dps hunter. Choose this hunter at the beginning of the raid. That hunter needs to sustain dots and high dps, while the rest of the raid needs to go back to wands and light dps. That hunter has a crucial role for Phase 3.

Phase 3
The toughest and sloppiest phase of all. Onyxia will start to land anywhere from 23% to 35% health. When she does, ALL DPS completely stops except for that chosen hunter. The MT needs to go back to the north side of the cave from phase 1. The raid should go to their phase 1 positions. The hunter will have aggro and should bring Ony to the MT. At that point the Hunter needs to feign death or die.

DPS remains off until the MT reacquires aggro. Once aggro is nailed down, everyone will go max dps but remain in their phase 1 positions. Now you must kill Ony as fast as possible, because everything is against you. The lava splashes will do lots of dmg, whelps will continue to come out, and Ony’s tail and breath will do loads of damage to anyone in its path. Stay parallel to her eye or chest and give it all you got.

Conclusion
With practice of phase transitions, you will effectively take down Onyxia. She is a quick instance boss with great loot, and her head can be turned into Stormwind for a great epic quest reward. One head per raid. She can be skinned and her scales can be used to make [item]Onyxia Scale Cloak[/item] for Blackwing Lair and Fire Resist.

View a movie of an Alliance Onyxia Kill here.

A guildie pointed out this site on our forums and I thought I would pass the wealth. I copied it and pasted it exactly as it appears on their forum. Thanks for the awesome write-up guys!

Instance
Blackwing Lair

Location
There are two entrances to Blackwing Lair, but due to the way instance player caps work, when raiding with the Leftovers you will always be entering Blackwing Lair from one and not the other. The first entrance you will encounter is located within the (Upper) Blackrock Spire instance, just beyond the Stadium where you fight Warlord Rend Blackhand and first meet Victor Nefarius. As you leave the Stadium and turn right on your way to the Spire Throne where General Drakkisath can be found, the green raid instance portal will be visible to your left.

The second entrance, and the one you will be using while raiding with the Leftovers, is special. It is only available once you have completed the appropriate quest, and only while you are already in a raid group. This entrance is located within Blackrock Mountain, near the balcony entrance to Blackrock Spire but opposite it down the curving corridor leading to the Scarshield Quartermaster. In the small room where the Quartermaster may be found at the southern end of this corridor, you will find an orb on a pedastal. If you have completed the necessary quest, and are currently in a raid group, then you may place your hand on (use) this orb to portal directly into Blackwing Lair. If you ever zone out of Blackwing Lair, you will reappear on the balcony in front of the entrance to Blackrock Spire, at the northern end of this corridor.

Because a maximum of 15 people from a single raid group can zone into the Blackrock Spire instance at any one time, the first entrance to Blackwing Lair will not be a reasonable way to enter when you are raiding with the Leftovers. Not to mention the additional time and effort wasted by clearing the intervening portions of Blackrock Spire to get to the portal. Instead, the alternate, “attuned” portal will be used exclusively.

How to Gain Entry
To be able to raid with the Leftovers in Blackwing Lair, you need to have finished the quest Blackhand’s Command, which when completed will allow you to use the alternate “attuned” portal mentioned above.

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