Now that you've completed the
easy fight. Muradin Bronzebeard brings you to the top of Lower Spire. Once you start the fight by talking to Muradin you find yourself face to face with an old acquaintance .
Have you ever wondered what happened to Dranosh Saurfang's body at The Wrathgate? We presumed it was turned to ash by the dragon's torching the place. Along with Bolvar Fordragon. As you will find out, that was not the case....
After falling to Frostmourne at the Battle of Angrathar the Wrathgate, Dranosh Saurfang was raised in undeath by the Lich King and brought to Icecrown Citadel. Imbued with the power of the Scourge, the Deathbringer bars the way of any attackers trying to enter the Upper Spire.
Deathbringer Saurfang is the fourth boss in the Icecrown Citadel raid. He is described as being the Lich King's most powerful death knight. It's mainly a DPS race with an interesting twist (Blood Power).
For your set up, you'll need all ranged to make a half moon around the room. They need to be 10yards away from each other, so make sure they have their range finders on. The reason they need to stay apart is because of
Blood Nova which blood explodes outward from a random enemy target, inflicting 10,000 Physical damage to nearby enemies. And of course melee is up on the platform where Deathbringer will be tanked.
After a rather long dialogue between Saurfang and Muradin. Muradin charges Saurfang, "A lone Orc? Against the might of the Alliance? CHARGE!". Saurfang grabs all the NPC's up and lifts them into the air, now the fight begins!
If you have a shaman in your group, its good for them to pop their Heroism at the beginning of the fight. So as DPS can focus completely on Saurfang and get him down a good ways before having to worry about all the fun surprises in this fight that ranged need to concentrate on. Melee, you have a simple roll- Just keep hitting the boss. You have nothing else to worry about.
After the fight begins, every 40 seconds Saurfang will cast
Call Blood Beast. Using this he will summon 2
Blood Beats(he summons 5 in 25man mode). These look like the Priests
Shadow Fiend, but these guys aren't very helpful to you. It is up to the ranged to target these 2 Beasts and kill them as quickly as possible. It is
CRITICAL that these Beasts do
NOT hit you. Just like a Priests Shadow Fiend, they help regeneration when they hit people. But they generate
Blood Power for Saurfang. Which is bad, cause if his Blood Power reaches 100% he unleashes
Mark of the Fallen Champion which causes Deathbringer Saurfang's melee attacks to splash to this target, inflicting 5,700 to 6,300 additional Physical damage. If the target dies while under this effect Saurfang is healed for 5% of his total health. Cannot be dispelled or removed by any means, including death. So, the more the Blood Beasts hit people, the more Blood Power he gains. Melee, when you see Saurfang start to cast Call Blood Beast make sure you
STOP all AoE's. We don't want the Blood beasts to get aggro on a melee that are an easy target that can't move. Ranged, if you have any kind of slowing effect such as: Affliction Warlock's
Curse of Exhaustion, Deathknight's
Chains of Ice, Druid's
Entangling Roots, ect; use them on the Blood Beasts to slow them down so it gives you more time to DPS them down before you have to run if their coming for you.
Now that you know about the Blood Beasts....
Through out the fight(all the while with the Blood Beasts) Saurfang will cast
Boiling Blood which boils the blood of an enemy, inflicting 9,500 Physical damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds. This is cast on random raid members. This can be simply healed through, although every tick grants Blood Power.
For Tanks, Saurfang should be tanked right where he spawns. His melee damage is not high. Tanks must pay attention though that Saurfang doesn't gain Blood Power from
Rune of Blood. If a tank gets it, another tank must quickly taunt and take over. The debuff lasts 20 seconds.
Most groups will usually only get 1 Mark of the Fallen Champion. Just rinse and repeat til Saurfang is dead....again.
At the end of the fight you can witness the dialogue between Muradin(since he's now free) and The Highlord Saurfang. Then enters King Wrynn and Jaina Proudmoore. It's a heart wrenching scene, which the King allows The Overlord to take the body of his son for a proper burial.... You can either sit and watch all this, or you can go through the door that is now open and enter into Upper Spire and play "Frogger" with smoke bursts from the walls(kinda like the slimes in Naxx after Patchwerk) or if you have a rogue, the rogue can disable the smoke
or wait til someone makes it through and activates the portal that teleports you into Upper Spire.
