Madness of Deathwing Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Kill priority for adds in Phase One:
  1. Elementium Bolt
  2. Corrupting Parasite
  3. Mutated Corruption
  4. Regenerative Blood
  5. Limb Tentacle (P1)
• Kill priority for adds in Phase Two:
  1. Elementium Fragment
  2. Elementium Terror
  3. Deathwing
• DPS uptime, positioning, and mimimalizing movement needed are the top three things to work on to improve how well you perform on this encounter.
• Cleave everything. DPS the Limb Tentacles as you move between the platforms; every bit of damage counts here.
• Use Dream during Phase Two when targeted by Shrapnel, but be sure to wait until right before the debuff expires.

• Coordinate cooldowns on the tank for every Impale.
• Aim to have at least 2 raid-wide defensive cooldowns going on the 4th platform when Time Zone is gone and Elementium Bolt will damage the raid heavily.
• The raid will take heavy damage during the Blistering Tentacle spawns after losing Alexstrasza's Presence.
• Tanks can easily die in Phase Two due to the rapidly stacking debuff Tetanus.

• AoE is king; stack mobs together as much as possible to take advantage of Spellweave as often as you can.
• Utilize Dream as frequently as possible while it is available.
• Tanking adds inside the Time Zone will reduce their attack and casting speeds by 50%.
• Always have at least 2 defensive cooldowns for every Impale; be ready to tank swap after the debuff is applied.
• You will likely only be killing the first set of Elementium Terrors that spawn and will need to try to kite the last while your raid nukes Deathwing.

• Phase One
  • Assault Aspects
  • Arm Tentacle or Wing Tentacle
    • Burning Blood
  • Mutated Corruption
  • Impale
  • Crush
  • Elementium Bolt
  • Elementium Blast
  • Blistering Tentacle
    • Blistering Heat
  • Regenerative Blood
    • Degenerative Bite
  • Cataclysm
  • Corrupting Parasite (Heroic)
    • Unstable Corruption
• Phase Two
  • Corrupted Blood
  • Elementium Fragment
    • Shrapnel
  • Elementium Terror
    • Tetanus
  • Congealing Blood (Heroic)

This fight is a two phase encounter where players will attack Deathwings weakened body and aim to destroy him once and for all. Phase one takes place on the four platforms shown above; players must fight Deathwings limbs on all four platforms, defeating one on each platform individually. Players will always be buffed with Carrying Winds, allowing them to jump between the platforms rather than falling to their deaths. The goal of phase one is to clear Deathwings limbs off of all four of the platforms, forcing his head to the ground and allowing you to finish him off in phase two.

Flying above each of the four platforms is a Dragon Aspect, which will assist the raid with both a buff and a special ability for as long as that Dragon Aspect is active in the fight. A Dragon Aspect will remain in the fight as long as there is a limb alive on its platform, providing the raid with buffs as long as the limb remains. Once a limb has been killed on any platform, the Dragon Aspect above that specific platform will no longer buff the raid, and instead will focus entirely on keeping the limb from healing.

Alexstraszas platform is on the far left. While active, Alexstrasza provides Alexstrasza's Presence to the raid, and she will Cauterize the Blistering Tentacles whenever they spawn in, killing them. On heroic difficulty she will also Cauterize the Corrupting Parasite that only spawns on heroic, dealing around 25% of its health.

Nozdormu's platform is the middle-left, to the right of Alexstrazas platform. While active, Nozdormu provides Nozdormu's Presence, and will create a Time Zone on each platform. This Time Zone slows the attack and cast speed of all enemies inside, making it an ideal spot to drag enemies into to reduce their damage dealt. The Time Zone also has the unique ability to slowdown the travel speed of Elementium Bolt, allowing the raid more time to kill it before it impacts into the ground.

Ysera's platform is the middle-right, and she will provide the raid with Ysera's Presence while active. Every raid member will also gain the ability Dream, allowing you temporarily reduce all damage taken by 50%. This is mostly only needed by the tanks, making this one of the weaker buffs available. Dream can be key-bound under the Keybindings Menu > Action Bars > "ExtraActionButton1", can be used through a macro /click ExtraActionButton1, or the button can simply be clicked.

Kalecgos is on the far-right platform and will provide Kalecgos' Presence to the entire raid while active. In addition to this 20% damage increase, players will frequently proc a Spellweave, dealing AoE Arcane damage around their original target. Overall this damage buff is one of the strongest as it greatly enhances your raids AoE capabilities with Spellweave, while also providing a 20% damage increase for even more AoE and single target focus.

Rather than attacking Deathwings himself in phase one, the raid will focus on killing either Arm Tentacles or Wing Tentacles, depending on which platform you are on. These mobs have the exact same abilities and health pools, and only differ in appearance and name; from now on we will refer to these as "Limb Tentacle(s)". The Limb Tentacles do not melee attack and therefore do not need to be tanked, but will deal AoE damage to the raid with Burning Blood, which deals increasing damage the lower that Limb Tentacles health is.

90 seconds after entering combat the Limb Tentacle will spawn six Regenerative Blood adds, which apply Degenerative Bite to their target frequently; they will also use heal themselves to full every 10 seconds, requiring the raid to quickly AoE them down. While Nozdormu's Presences is still active, make sure to tank these inside of the Time Zone to reduce their attack speed.

At both 70% and 40% health, the Limb Tentacle will spawn in a large wave of Blistering Tentacles, which are immune to AoE damage. These must be single-targeted down quickly as they deal increasing higher raid damage as they increase the raids stacks of Blistering Heat. If you still have Alexstrasza's Presence active, Alexstrasza will Cauterize them, killing them herself.

45 seconds into each platform, Deathwings will create an Elementium Bolt, a quick traveling projectile that lands in an indicated area, exploding for raid-wide damage depending on distance away from the impact area. It will then pulse for massive raid-wide damage with Elementium Blast every 5 seconds. If Nozdormu's Presence is still active, the Elementium Bolt will have its travel speed reduced while inside of the Time Zone, allowing it to be killed before it lands. Killing the Elementium Bolt before it can do too much AoE damage is crucial, and the use of multiple raid-wide defensive cooldowns will be needed for every Elementium Bolt after Nozdormu's Presence is removed.

Deathwing will use Cataclysm on each platform, causing a wipe if players take longer than 3-minutes on each platform. Killing the current Limb Tentacle will stop this cast and force Deathwing to move to another platform.

Ten seconds into Deathwing selecting a platform to attack, a giant Mutated Corruption will spawn on the back-side of the platform. The Mutated Corruption can not move, must be tanked, and has two abilities: Impale and Crush. Crush will target a random player and deal Physical damage to all players in a line between the targeted player and the Mutated Corruption. This can and should be avoided by watching for the "attack indicator" line that shows for Crush after a target is selected. Impale is an extreme tank-buster skill, and will require multiple defensive cooldowns in order to survive. Cheat deaths such as Guardian Spirit are a great way to bypass Impale without requiring multiple defensive cooldowns. Impale also applies a debuff that increases the damage taken by the next Impale by 100%, making it ideal to perform a tank swap after each Impale.

On heroic difficulty a new mechanic is introduced to phase one, Corrupting Parasite. This places a damage-over-time debuff on a random player, dealing increasingly higher Shadow damage to the target. After 10 seconds the player will explode, dealing 250,000 Fire damage to nearby allies and creating a Corrupting Parasite where the afflicted player was standing. Once active, the Corrupting Parasite will begin to cast a 10 second spell Unstable Corruption, dealing 10% of its remaining health as Fire damage to the entire raid. These should be quickly killed to prevent them from dealing too much AoE damage, and will be assisted by Alexstrasz's Cauterize (if she is still active).

With all four of the Dragon Aspect buffs available at the start of the encounter, raids will need to decide which platform they wish to begin the encounter on. Remember, defeating a Limb Tentacle on one of the Dragon Aspects platforms causes you to lose that Dragons buff for the remainder of phase one. This allows raids to pick and choose the order in which they remove their buffs, allowing a large variety of ways to complete this encounter. For this strategy guide, we will focus on what we believe to be the best strategy, which will clear the platforms in the following order:

1. Ysera's Platform;
2. Alexstrasza's Platform;
3. Nozdormu's Platform;
4. Kalecgos' Platform.

Starting the encounter off, be sure your raid is standing on Ysera's platform, as Deathwing will assault the platform where the majority of the raid is; when ready, speak with Thrall to begin the encounter, he can be found on Ysera's platform. There are three main threats that the raid will face on each platform, the Elementium Bolt, the Mutated Corruption, and the Blistering Tentacles that spawn whenever the Limb Tentacle reaches 70% and 40% health. Start off by getting a bit of damage on the Limb Tentacle before swapping to the Mutated Corruption after it spawns; tanks will need to quickly pick this up and DPS should spread out around the room to avoid the Crush. Mutated Corruptions will also periodically Impale the tank, dealing up to 1,200,000 damage; rotate multiple defensive cooldowns in order to survive, or a cheat death such as Guardian Spirit. After Impale ends and the tank is free, they will be debuffed to take double damage from the next impale, requiring a tank swap.

If fighting Deathwing on heroic difficulty, the raid will now need to deal with Corrupting Parasite. We have marked the most ideal positions where the Corrupting Parasite add should be dropped; the 1st should be near the Mutated Corruption (the #1 position as shown on the image above) to enable cleave on the two targets. The 2nd Corrupting Parasite spawn, 50 seconds later, should be dropped at either the #1 if the Mutated Corruption has at least 10% health remaining; if it is already dead or nearly dead, you want ideally want to drop it at #2 to cleave the Limb Tentacle together.

While the tanks are engaged with the Mutated Corruption, the DPS need to be on their toes and ready for the Elementium Bolt that spawns shortly after the Mutated Corruption. If Nozdormu's Presence is still active, the bolt will be slowed shortly, giving the raid a few more seconds to DPS it down before it impacts. The impact deals more damage to players the closer they are to the crater, so be sure to run away if you are close to the marked location. All DPS should swap the instant that Elementium Bolt enter their attack range, with the goal of killing it before it impacts while Nozdormu's Presence is active, and before Elementium Blast ticks twice if he is not.

Shortly after dealing with the Elementium Bolt, a wave of 6 Regenerative Bloods will spawn. Have a tank pick these up move them on top of one of two priority kill targets (the 2nd Corrupting Parasite on heroic mode, Mutated Corruption on normal) to benefit from Spellweave. Finally, you can finish off any other remaining adds before returning focus to the Limb Tentacle.

While Alexstrasza's Presence is active for the first two platforms, you can ignore these adds entirely. Be mindful of the Limb Tentacles health as you will need to deal with the wave of Blistering Tentacles that spawn at both 70% and 40%. The last thing you want to do is accidentally push the Limb Tentacle below 70% health and spawn a wave of Blistering Tentacles at an inopportune time. Once all the other adds are dead, push the Limb Tentacle below 70% health and spawn the Blistering Tentacles; reminder that these are immune to AoE damage and must be single-targeted.

Once a platform has been completed by killing the Limb Tentacle, players will move to the next platform and start the same process again, clearing all the same adds on all four platforms. Successfully clearing all four platforms will cause Deathwings head to fall forward onto the ground, on Ysera's platform. Quickly head back over to the starting platform and group back up to begin phase two of this final encounter.

Phase two is short and sweet when compared to phase one, and also takes place entirely on Ysera's platform; you will also have all 4 Dragon Aspect buffs for the entirety of the phase. Deathwings head will fall forward and become attackable, starts the phase at 20% health, and is constantly pulsing Fire damage to the entire raid with Corrupted Blood. Corrupted Bloods damage increases greatly for every 5% health Deathwing loses, making this a real burn phase.

Periodically throughout this phase two different add types will spawn, the first of which well talk about are Elementium Fragments. Elementium Fragments will spawn every 90 seconds in waves of 3 on 10-man difficulty, while 8 spawn in 25-man; if left alive they use Shrapnel on random raid members, killing low health players almost certainly. Quickly AoE these down whenever they spawn (unless pushing for a kill on Deathwing). Players targeted by Shrapnel should use Dream to help mitigate the damage right before the debuff expires.

The second pair of adds are 2 Elementium Terrors. These Terrors need to be tanked, and will quickly apply stacks of their Tetanus debuff to the tank, dealing very high damage-over-time. Drag the Elementium Terrors onto either the Elementium Fragment or Congealing Blood and AoE them down, taking as much advantage of Spellweave as possible here to finish the fight.

On heroic difficulty there is one new mechanic in phase 2, the Congealing Blood spawns. These Ooze will spawn in waves of 8 when Deathwing reaches 15%, 10%, and 5% respectively; they will spawn at a distance away from Deathwing, but quickly move towards him. If allowed to reach him, each Ooze will heal Deathwing for 1% of his maximum life; if this causes Deathwing to go above a 5% health break point (say going from 14% health up to 16%), you will need to fight another wave of Ooze again upon reaching 15%. AoE these down quickly and use any available slows to buy a few additional seconds.

This phase is really an all-out burn fiesta once you push Deathwing under 10% as the damage from Corrupted Blood will quickly overhelm your raid. Aim to keep Deathwing at 11% before finishing off any adds alive, and pushing for a kill quickly after. You will likely need to deal with one more wave of Elementium Fragments, especially on during early kills, and ignore the last set of Elementium Terrors while you focus on finishing the fight.

Bloodlust can be used in multiple different spots here; Early on you can use on the first platform to get a little deeper into the fight and see more adds, as well as mechanics. Once you have learned the fight well enough, the most ideal time for Bloodlust is on the 4th platform, shortly before the Elementium Bolt arrives. This allows your healers and DPS the much needed coverage for the now missing Time Zone, helping clean up the adds as soon as possible on the most difficult part of the encounter. While Bloodlust can be nice to use during phase 2 for a super fast execute, it really is not needed as phase 2 is very simply compared to phase 1, and the phase only gets easier as the raid continuously gears up.

4.

Madness of Deathwing Loot

Normal Heroic

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.

4.1.

Normal Difficulty Loot

Item
Blade of the Unmaker
No'Kaled, the Elements of Death
Souldrinker
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind
Maw of the Dragonlord
Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps
Kiril, Fury of Beasts
Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time
Vishanka, Jaws of the Earth
Reins of the Blazing Drake

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.

4.2.

Heroic Difficulty Loot

Item
Blade of the Unmaker
No'Kaled, the Elements of Death
Souldrinker
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind
Maw of the Dragonlord
Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps
Kiril, Fury of Beasts
Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time
Vishanka, Jaws of the Earth
Life-Binder's Handmaiden

Achievement	Description
Fall of Deathwing	Defeat the encounters leading up to the Fall of Deathwing in the Dragon Soul raid.
Dragon Soul Guild Run	Defeat the bosses in Dragon Soul while in a guild group.
Heroic: Madness of Deathwing	Destroy Deathwing in Dragon Soul on Heroic Difficulty.
Heroic: Deathwing Guild Run	Defeat Deathwing in Dragon Soul on Heroic difficulty while in a guild group.
Destroyer's End	Defeat Deathwing on Normal or Heroic Difficulty in the Dragon Soul raid.
Realm First! Deathwing	First guild on the realm to defeat Deathwing in Dragon Soul on Heroic difficulty while in a guild group.
Chromatic Champion	Destroy Deathwing in Dragon Soul on Normal or Heroic Difficulty after beginning the encounter on each Aspect's platform:

Madness of Deathwing is just one of the eight encounters present in the Dragon Soul raid of Cataclysm. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.