Other Madness of Deathwing guides on Tauri Veins: 
This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of theencounter with Madness of Deathwing in Dragon Soul. It is mostly targeted to DPSwho desire to have a short but detailed overview of what is expected ofthem during that fight.
This guide applies to patch 4.3 of World of Warcraft.
The Madness of Deathwing encounter contains a large variety of adds,spells, and mechanics, but it is, ultimately, not difficult to understand orexecute. All three roles will, at certain times, have a lot ofpressure placed on them to perform well.
The five Aspects aid your raid during this encounter, although, as thefight progresses, they become effectively disabled, making it increasinglydifficult for your raid. Though, they do come back to help you killDeathwing, at the very end.
As a DPS player, you will spend most of the fight switching from one targetto another, although you will have to place great emphasis on survival.
1. Overview of the Fight↑top
The Madness of Deathwing encounter is a two phase fight.
During Phase One,you will have to defeat 4 of Deathwing's limbs (two wings and two arms).This part takes place on 4 different platforms, surrounded by water. Each ofDeathwing's limbs rests on one platform, and your raid will have to travelto every platform and kill all the limbs in order to make it to Phase Two.
During Phase Two, your raid will have to burn Deathwing's head, who will have crashednext to one of the platforms (where the entire phase is spent). At the sametime, your raid will have to regularly kill two types of adds. Deathwing'shealth will initially be at 20% and he will deal increasing raid damage as henears death.
1.1. Aspects and Their Buffs
Throughout the fight, your raid will have assistance from the four dragonAspects. Each Aspect is flying over one of the four platforms, resulting inthe following naming conventions for the platforms in this guide:
- Leftmost platform: Alexstrasza's Platform;
- Middle-left platform: Nozdormu's Platform;
- Midle-right platform: Ysera's Platform;
- Rightmost platform: Kalecgos' Platform.
Each of the Aspects offers the raid a specific buff (such as increasedhealth) and uses a specific ability.
- In Phase One, once an Aspect'splatform has been cleared of Deathwing's limb, that Aspect will cease toassist the raid and focus solely on attacking Deathwing. This means thatPhase One becomes increasingly difficultas you progress, and your raid will have to choose the order in which toclear the platform carefully.
- In Phase Two, the Aspects are once again fighting alongside your raidand they resume their assistance.
The Aspects provide the following buffs and abilities:
- Ysera provides the raid with:
Ysera's Presence: 20% increased healing done;
Dream: an ability that Ysera grants to all raid members. Playersreceive an extra action button, with a 30 second cooldown. Using this abilitygrants the player 50% damage reduction for 5 seconds.
- Alexstrasza provides the raid with:
- Nozdormu provides the raid with:
Nozdormu's Presence: 20% increased haste;-
Time Zone: an ability that places a type of protective bubble on theplatform where the raid is currently fighting. This causes theElementium Bolt (a type of projectile NPC that flies towards the raid) tobe greatly slowed down, giving your raid more time to kill it. It also reducesthe attack speed of any enemies within the zone by 50%.
- Kalecgos provides the raid with:
Kalecgos' Presence: 20% increased damage dealt;
Spellweaver: causes all attacks to deal 23,000 Arcanedamage to all enemies within 6 yards of the main target (but not to the maintarget itself).
2. Phase One↑top
Phase One consists of clearing all 4 platforms of Deathwing's limbs. Youwill do this one platform at a time, and a platform is considered cleared whenthe respective Arm or Wing Tentacle has been killed. For each platform, youwill have to defeat a series of adds in a specific order. Fortunately, thisis the same for all 4 platforms (with a minor variation), so the strategyremains simple.
Your raid leader will almost certainly clear the platforms in the followingorder: Ysera > Nozdormu > Alexstrasza > Kalecgos or Ysera > Alexstrasza >Nozdormu > Kalecgos. As such, we will provide you with the strategy only forthese sequences.
2.1. First Platform
Here, you will have to perform the following tasks:
-
DPS the Wing or Arm Tentacle until the Mutated Corruption spawns. - DPS the Mutated Corruption while making sure that you are spread out so thatas few players as possible are in a line from the Mutated Corruption.
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When Deathwing casts Elementium Bolt, go as far as possiblefrom its landing location (marked by a golden void zone) and DPSthe Elementium Bolt add as fast as possible (we recommend using a /targetmacro to make targeting it easier). - Switch back to the Mutated Corruption and finish it off.
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DPS the Wing or Arm Tentacle until Regenerative Bloods spawn. - AoE down the Regenerative Bloods.
- Switch back to the Wing or Arm Tentacle and finish it off.
Once the Wing or Arm Tentacle has been killed, you will have to jump overto the next platform.
2.2. Second Platform
By now, you will have lost Ysera's buffs, although this is of littleimportance to you.
The second platform will require a strategy identical to that of the firstplatform.
2.3. Third Platform
By now you will have lost either Alexstrasza's buffs or Nozdormu'sbuffs.
If you have lost Alexstrasza's buffs, then, in addition to thetasks required on previous platforms, you will have to kill a new type of add,Blistering Tentacles, that spawns from the Wing or Arm Tentacle when itreaches 70% and 40% health respectively. These adds have very littlehealth and are immune to AoE attacks, so you will have to single target themdown. It is extremely important to kill all of them quickly, as they stacka very damaging DoT on the raid.
If you have lost Nozdormu's buffs, then your raid will likely takeextremely high damage from the Elementium Bolt. It is imperative to killthe bolt as quickly as possible, and to be as far as possible from itslanding location. You may need to use personal survival cooldowns andhealthstones to survive the crucial seconds after the bolt has landed and untilit is killed.
2.4. Fourth Platform
For the final platform, you will have lost the other of Alexstrasza orNozdormu's buffs. This platform will be by far the most challenging, andyou will have to use any cooldowns or abilities you have to survive and killthe Elementium Bolt and Blistering Tentacles in time.
Otherwise, however, the strategy remains the same.
3. Phase Two↑top
During Phase Two, you will have to perform a few rather simple tasks:
- Stack with the rest of the raid.
- DPS Deathwing.
- Kill the Elementium Fragments when they spawn (they are smalltentacles that you can AoE). If you are targeted by their
Shrapnel ability,you will receive a debuff. Use your Dreamability (the Aspects are back and are all helping your raid again) just as thedebuff is about to run out or you will die. - Kill the Elementium Terrors (large adds).
- Repeat the whole process for each new set of adds.
After Deathwing's health has reached 10%, the raid damage becomes increasinglyhard to heal. For this reason, when you get Deathwing to 11% health, your raid leaderwill probably ask you to stop attacking him until the next wave of adds spawns. Assoon as the wave is dead, you will be ordered to burn Deathwing using all yourcooldowns, in an attempt to bring it down before the next wave of adds spawns.
4. Heroic Mode↑top
The Heroic mode of Madness of Deathwing is a difficult and challengingencounter, although it will not put too much pressure on you as a DPSplayer.
4.1. Differences from Normal Mode
In addition to increases in the health of all enemies and in the damageof most abilities, the following two new mechanics exist:
Corrupting Parasite is a rather complex mechanic that will occurtwice on every platform during Phase One, once at around the same time thatthe Mutated Corruption spawns and once again 60 seconds later.It begins with Corrupting Parasite, a 10-second debuff cast byDeathwing on a random raid member. This debuff deals increasing Shadowdamage, for a total of roughly 300,000 over the course of its duration. Whenthe debuff wears off, an NPC with the same name will spawn at the location ofthe afflicted raid member.- Corrupting Parasite is the enemy NPC that spawns when Corrupting Parasitewears off. The Corrupting Parasite has 3M health in 10-man difficulty and 9Min 25-man difficulty. It has no aggro table, it does not melee, it can bekilled, and Alexstrasza's
Cauterize (Phase One) will damage itfor a small amount of its life. When it spawns, it deals 250,000 Fire damage to all raid memberswithin 10 yards of its location (excluding the raid member who was affectedby the debuff). After this, the Corrupting Parasite will begin channeling
Unstable Corruption.- Unstable Corruption is a 10 second cast, at the end of which theCorrupting Parasite will deal 10% of its remaining health as damage to theentire raid. If the Parasite is inside the Time-Zone provided by Nozdormu, itscast time is increased by 50%. After casting Unstable Corruption, theCorrupting Parasite will despawn.
- Congealing Bloods are adds that spawn during Phase Two. They spawn whenDeathwing reaches 15%, 10%, and 5% health, but if Deathwing's health does notreach 15% within a minute of entering the phase, or 10% or 5% within a minuteof reaching 15% and 10% respectively, the bloods will spawn regardless ofhis health. Each spawn is comprised of 9 Congealing Bloods. They have950,000 health each in 10-man difficulty and 3.2M in 25-man difficulty.They perform no action other than slowly moving towards Deathwing. They haveno aggro table and they are killable. Deathwing regains 1% of his total healthevery time a Congealing Blood reaches him.
4.2. Strategy
The main changes that you will be faced with, as a DPS player, are theneed to DPS two additional adds: the Corrupting Parasite during PhaseOne and the Congealing Bloods during Phase Two.
Additionally, you will have to react properly to the Corrupting Parasite,as we explain below.
4.2.1. Corrupting Parasite
If you are targeted by the Corrupting Parasite, you should move intothe Time Zone from Nozdormu before the 10 second duration of thedebuff expires. If someone else is targeted by this debuff, make sure you arenot within 10 yards of them after they move into the Time Zone. On thefinal platform (Kalecgos'), there is no Time Zone, and for this andother reasons, the Corrupting Parasite should be placed near to theMutated Corruption.
When the first Parasite of each platform spawns, you should DPS it andattempt to kill it or bring it to very low health before it finishes itscast. For the second Parasite, you can AoE, as the Regenerative Bloodswill be tanked on top of the Parasite. If the Parasite is still alive afterthe bloods are dead, simply single target it down.
4.2.2. Congealing Bloods
During Phase Two, whenever the Congealing Bloods spawn (at 15%, 10%and 5% of Deathwing's health), simply AoE them down. Most likely, your raidleader will ask you to ignore the Elementium Terrors until the bloodsspawn, and then AoE them all together. If this is the case, note that you willprobably have to single target down the Terrors after the bloods are dead.
