You probably thought I was done in bashing Oculus. Oh how wrong you were. MWAHAHAHA. If you are not interested in psychology of gameplay, you may just want to skip this post, or at least just scroll on down to the very last section. You’ve been forewarned. Please don’t stop subscribing to Miss Medicina just because I find psychology of gameplay a worthy wall of text topic. This is what happens when instead of writing my thesis, I wax poetic on World of Warcraft.

In response to my own post yesterday, I can answer my title question quite easily. “Why Occulus is a Failure?” Because even some of us grammar Nazis just can’t spell it. Sigh. Thank you Shintar for pointing out my egregious error. Even Larisa gave me some light teasing, and informed us all who Occulus really is. If I had not misspelled Oculus in the title of the post itself, I would go back and correct my spelling, but now it’s out there, and everyone whose spelling I have criticized can redirect me to it.

Earlier I touched upon the problems with Oculus in regards to the Vehicle Mechanic. I stand by my hypothesis that this is one of the major issues influencing the overall failure of Oculus as an instance, but I wanted to post separately about something that was brought up in the comments that has also contributed to its failure.

Many people mentioned that their biggest struggle with this instance has nothing at all to do with learning the abilities of a new vehicle, and more related to flying. Oculus and Eye of Eternity phase 3 are both three dimensional fights. That is to say, they not only require you to properly move left, right, forward and back, but also up and down. For some of us this is a more serious problem than for others.

Traditionally our game fights are horizontal. Adding that extra vertical element can either be perceived as a welcome challenge that adds a lot to the fight for some, or a vertigo inspiring nightmare for others. I fall into the latter category. I won’t even talk about PvP fighting in Aion. Regardless, I don’t blame Blizzard. No, I blame my hippocampus.

The Hippocampus

First I will draw you a pretty picture that shows where your hippocampus is. By the way, I’m totally accepting commissions for my now famous MSPaint diagrams.

So what does your Hippocampus do? Well, to be honest, there is still some debate on this, but here’s what scientists currently think the Hippocampus does (simplistically of course). I originally wrote a lot more about the first two duties of the Hippocampus, but if you are interested in that, go to that wiki – I will try to cut this post down only to the relevant material.

· Helps you form new episodic memories.

· Another theory that is apparently not very popular currently is the inhibition function. The idea is that if you have hippocampal damage, you may seem more hyperactive, or have difficulty learning to inhibit your responses to things based on how you first learned to respond. You may seem a little… well, tweaky.

· The most relevant function of the Hippocampus to this post, however, is its role in spatial memory and navigation. This is related to the discovery of what is called “place cells” in the Hippocampus. These are spatial firing fields in the neurons in the Hippocampus, and they are triggered by recognizing your location, the direction you are faced, if you’ve been there before, where you suspect you are heading, etc etc etc.

The discovery of place cells led to the idea that the hippocampus might act as a cognitive map — a neural representation of the layout of the environment… Studies with animals have shown that an intact hippocampus is required for simple spatial memory tasks (for instance, finding the way back to a hidden goal)… the hippocampus plays a particularly important role in finding shortcuts and new routes between familiar places. Some people exhibit more skill at this sort of navigation than do others, and brain imaging shows that these individuals have more active hippocampi when navigating.

Why am I bringing this potentially boring topic into a discussion about flying fantasy drakes? Because I suck at flying in a 3d environment, and I wanted to know why. I get disoriented. I don’t know what direction I’m facing, or where I’m heading. Even though I stated yesterday that the overwhelming problem with Vehicle Mechanic fights is learning the new abilities at the drop of a hat, that’s not actually the biggest issue for me and many others. Sure, I don’t particularly LIKE it, but that’s not enough to make me rudely drop group after landing in Oculus. However, my complete inability to navigate within a 3D environment is. And apparently I’m not the only one.

Do you find yourself getting lost in Oculus? Are you useless flying on your own near Malygos? In spite of all that, are you still pretty good at Flame Leviathon and jousting? If you do not have a problem with vehicle mounts on a flat surface, but struggle in a vertical one this may be your issue. If you have tried to PvP in Aion by flying around, and struggle with it, this may also be your issue. Hippocampal damage can have severe debilitating effects on your spatial navigation system. And it is not uncommon to have some minor degree of Hippocampal damage. It’s not just for people with Parkinson’s or Alzheimers Syndrome.

The Role of Depression in Hippocampal Damage

I’m going to throw some statistics at you, folks. Take them as you see fit – 326% of statistics are bogus, right?

· 15% of the population of most developed countries suffers severe depression.

· 30% of women are depressed. Men's figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher.

· 80% of depressed people are not currently having any treatment.

· 80% of people who see physicians are depressed.

Basically, all that means is that a lot of people are depressed, a lot of people don’t take it very seriously, and I deliberately did not include the stats on suicide. It’s just too… well, depressing. I will save my soapbox rant about people misunderstanding exactly what depression is for another time, another place. That having been said, I know it’s a controversial topic here in the states, but please do not comment here to tell me all about how people are whiney, and depression is a silly pill-popping conundrum. Link me a peer-reviewed journal article on the topic and I will take you a lot more seriously.

And it probably comes as no surprise to you that a lot of depressed people play MMOs.

I can’t find the actual article Dr. Noshir Contractor wrote, or a copy of the presentation, but it was a pretty hot topic amongst MMO players for while. Here’s the skinny:

· 7,000 players of EverQuest II were surveyed.

· 21% of the players who didn’t play the game that often were depressed.

· 30% of the players who DID play the game often were depressed.

· "This could mean that highly active players get more depressed or that depressed people are more likely to be active role players," said the author of the study, Noshir Contractor, a professor of behavioral science.

One of the reasons Dr. Contractor won my respect is due to that very quote – showing a correlation between two things does not show causality. What that means in layman’s terms is that just because a bunch of depressed people play an MMO does not mean that the MMO makes them depressed. Maybe they play the MMO BECAUSE they are depressed.

Without reading the actual study, I cannot tell you how “playing the game often” was quantified, or how researchers determined who was depressed. I also can’t tell you if folks who play EQ2 are inherently different than those who play World of Warcraft. To someone who doesn’t play these games, we all may be the same. But to those of us who do, there could be vast differences. According to tables shown at mmodata.net, WoW has just over 11.5 million players. Aion is fairly new in North America, and has just south of 3 million players. EQII is listed as having around 200,000 players.

This leaves me wondering… if you surveyed Aion players (a game which is developed around a concept of three dimensional PvP via flying) and compared them to WoW players (which is not), would you see a lot fewer people sticking around to play in the Abyss in Aion if they are depressed? I know, I know, what a logical leap. But this is MY kind of theorycrafting, mmk?

Get to the Point, J-Bizzle

Alright, alright. TLDR like whoa, I know. I find this stuff fascinating. My point in this argument is actually very simple. A lot of people have a problem with Oculus and Eye of Eternity, not because they struggle to learn new vehicle mechanics, but because they struggle with the 3 dimensional, vertical aspect.

I am merely suggesting that since deficiencies in spatial navigation are often connected to problems in the Hippocampus, which is also linked to depression, and that since depression is allegedly more common amongst MMO players than the average population, maybe this isn’t really that big of a surprise. I’m not saying that if you suck at Oculus, you are Hippocampally challenged either. There is truth in the argument that a lot of people hate Oculus simply because they can’t zerg it, and therefore, in an attempt to maximize their badge-grinding time, drop out of it.

The hippocampus is often directly linked to depression.

The hippocampus is also linked to spatial memory and navigation.

Lots of depressed folks play MMOs.

So let’s just go out on a limb here, and say that IF 25% of WoW players suffer from some degree of depression, and IF depression does have a solid link to hippocampal damage, maybe, just maybe, 25% of players struggle with the Oculus because three-dimensional fights are particularly challenging for them.

The other 75% just hate those whelps in the first pull, yo.

The largest response to “Most Charming Blizzard Employee”? Ghostcrawler.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I rather like Greg Street. I personally think he does a pretty good job, and I’m a fan. I have nothing against the guy. But I strongly suspect that the main reason so many people voted for Ghostcrawler is not actually because he is so charming, but rather because he is just so well known. I think a lot of people voted for him because they didn’t really know of anyone else to vote for. I would venture to say that a lot of us bloggers actually spend most of our time reading blogs and NOT the forums. This isn’t a criticism, mind you. We can’t all be as supah-fly as Megan, yo.

But most of us immerse ourselves in the blogging community because we simply love the concept of community. Ahmahgah we’re infested with socials.

So really, if you say you A) Love WoW and B) Love the concept of community, then I personally think it’s important you be informed who our Community Managers are.

Here’s your public service. I’m beginning a new series called Know Your Blues to introduce you to the best of the blue, and tell you why. I mean, maybe you already know that I follow Bornakk around like a little lost puppy dog drooling in Orc-stasy, but truly, there are other awesome Blues.

This post is a bit of a placeholder. I intend to keep a little table of contents here with links to my future Know Your Blues posts, and to provide something I can link to that will give a bit of background info regarding the series.

• Jan 6th: Nethaera
• Feb 4th: Vaneras
  

My first reaction to this was sheer horror. Really? Are they so desperate that they have to go beyond the limits of traditional bribery in order to get people to run this instance? And then it occurred to me… yes they do. And I don't know if there is any better way to handle it without completely removing the vehicle mechanic fight from Occulus and redeveloping the instance – which is not realistic at all at this point in time.

The problem was there before the LFG tool. People hated Occulus. Of course there were people who loved it, but overall, it was easily the most dreaded and detested instance. Back when we had daily heroics, the groans were heard 'round the trade chat if that was the choice of the day. Most people would simply skip it. Before the LFG change, it was not an overbearing negative consequence to the average player if most people didn't like Occulus.

But now, with the LFG tool, it's an even bigger mess. I have only had Occulus once as my random heroic, but my fiancé, who has been running heroics much more than myself, has been so unlucky as to get it multitudes of times. And 95% of the time, as soon as all five strangers land on the first walk in Occulus, at least one person drops group, and the remaining members are forced to re-queue in an effort to find a replacement and not walk away with a debuff that will prohibit them from queuing for their random heroic for another 15 minutes. If the person who drops is a tank, or perhaps even a healer, you may just spend the entirety of that 15 minute debuff searching for a replacement.

In Blizzard's defense, they are a lot more aware of problems in the game than we often them credit for. They knew Occulus had been, for all intents and purposes, abandoned before they released 3.3. They nerfed it in what I can only imagine was preparation for what they perceived as an inevitable Occulus/LFG debacle. Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough. Some players get it into their head that they hate an instance, and no amount of nerfing or free gifts will change their minds. First impressions and overall attitude towards a game mechanic are very influential.

The one time I did get Occulus as my random heroic, I really did try. I did. I died 6 times trying (most of those in an attempt to get back to where my party stood impatiently waiting for my return), but I gave it my all. I looked like a complete fool. I made an ass out of myself in front of, not only strangers, but several guildmates. I felt pretty humiliated, to be honest, and vowed that the 15 minutes of LFG debuff were completely worth the 2 hours of agonizing mortification I had just endured. The pugged members of my group dropped out as soon as the boss went down and they got their badges. That's right, they were so eager to escape my fail aura that they left without even waiting to see how the loot rolls came out.

What, doesn't everyone fall off the side of the entry walkway twice when running back in? Am I really the only person left in Azeroth who gets lost flying around a giant pillar, and dismounts 1 foot from the edge of a platform, only to fall into oblivion and death? I could do an entire series on humiliating ways to die in Occulus. Those of us who are incapable of doing Occulus well are too embarrassed to stick around in a group with those of you who have no problem. You should be thanking us. BUT AT LEAST I KNEW MY DRAKE ABILITIES.

Keep the Vehicle a Vehicle

Despite all the vehicle mechanic complaints, let's talk about one of its uses that has actually been successful. The vehicle mount… mount.

My flying carpet brings all the boys to the yard. When I first crafted it, actually, it was very glitchy, and there were a lot of serious problems. However, it only took one patch for Blizzard to correct the most egregious of these issues, so I had no further complaints. I was too busy soaring through Northrend in my magicy magicness. I refused to even close my eyes.

The three-person mount is even more successful. Aside from just being blatantly fun and allowing players to interact with one another in ways previously unavailable (no matter how I tried, I just was not capable of inducing Fuubaar vomit pre-Mammoth), it also had lots of practical uses. Go back to the old world and drive your low level guild-mates through the Wetlands!

And how about that Chopper? Aside from being a very effective gold sink, it also revitalized Engineering. Gold sinks are necessary, and fun crafted items are also necessary. Choppers are NOT necessary, but they sure are a fun addition to the game.

So I can't call the vehicle mechanic a complete and utter failure. It has certainly been an interesting device, and has added a certain… something to the game. But, by far, its most successful and loved manifestation has been when it was simply for fun – when it isn't a game-breaker. When it isn't necessary for further progression in a raid or any other instance, it is adored by players.

The bag of "thanks for not dropping group and screwing over the other Puggers" goodies is nothing more than a last ditch, desperate effort on behalf of Blizzard in an attempt to salvage a miserable failure of an instance. There, I said it. I feel bad saying it, and therefore tried to justify it with 3 pages of explanation.

I salute Blizzard for their undying effort in trying so hard to make this much anticipated mechanic work. You can't say they didn't try. I can't even imagine the amount of development manpower they invested in this integrally flawed mechanic. Hey, I tried to major in Latin for 4 years guys. I know all about pursuing lost causes. To soften the blow, look at it this way. The reason so many of us dislike the vehicle?

We love our characters a hell of a lot more.

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier for emphasis.

NONE OF THIS IS MY WRITING. Every speck of this came from the lovely folks at WoWHead, via ArgentSun explanations, or comments from generous readers - all from WoWHead. The ONLY thing I have done is compile it in one spot, for those of us who are lazy and need one place, and also for those of you who cannot access wowhead from work and are desperate for new patch stuff today.

Lord Marrowgar

Icecrown Citadel

The Lower Spire
Lord Marrowgar
Lady Deathwhisper
Gunship Battle
Deathbringer Saurfang

Overview

Being the first boss of a new raid, Marrowgar is not an overly complicated fight. You will need at least one soaking offtank, because of the Saber Lash cleaves (think Nalorakk). He will also shoot a line of Coldflame at a random target. The projectile moves like a spear until it hits a wall, but inflicts large amount of damage per second to anyone caught in it - simply making a few steps aside is enough to avoid it. The tanks are immune to Coldflame. Bone Spike Graveyard is another thing to watch out for - Marrowgar will choose 2 (25-player: 3) people and impale them on ice spikes. The people will take some physical damage, become incapacitated, and continue losing 10% health for every second they remain impaled. The DPS should kill the spikes as soon as possible.

The last thing to watch out for is the Bone Storm. A few seconds before it's cast, Marrowgar will emote a raid-wide warning "Lord Marrowgar falls apart and his bones begin to spin!". The spell works very much like Stormcaller Brundir's Lightning Tendrils - Marrowgar chooses a random target and pursues them for a number of seconds, moving in a whirlwind of bones, switching his targets periodically. Anyone caught by the whirlwind will take physical damage and have a physical damage DoT applied to them every 2 seconds. Must be avoided.

Normal 10-Man Abilities

• Saber Lash - Inflicts 200% weapon damage split evenly between the target and its 2 nearest allies.
• Coldflame - Inflicts 6,000 Frost damage every 1 second for 3 seconds to anyone caught by the moving line of frost.
• Bone Spike Graveyard - Hurls a spike at a random player, impaling all players between the boss and the target on Bone Spikes, inflicting 9,000 direct Physical damage, and additional 10% health as damage every 1 second until the spike is destroyed.
• Bone Storm - Inflicts 6,000 Physical damage every 2 seconds to players caught in the Bone Storm. The entire storm lasts ~20 seconds.

Lady Deathwhisper

Icecrown Citadel

The Lower Spire
Lord Marrowgar
Lady Deathwhisper
Gunship Battle
Deathbringer Saurfang

Overview

The key element of the fight is management of DPS, that will need to be split between the adds in phase 1, and Deathwhisper's mana shield.

During phase 1 Lady Deathwhisper will have a mana shield that will absorb all the damage done to her. She will attack the raid with Death and Decay, Shadow Bolts, and occasional Mind Controls, none of which should be too dangerous. The second component of the phase, the adds that come, could cause troubles.

Adds will come in waves from the sides of the room - 3 Adherents and 3 Fanatics total per wave. Adherents can only be DPSed through physical damage, and Fanatics - only by spells. The important things to watch out for with the Adherents is the Shroud of the Occult + Deathchill Blast combination used right after Lady Deathwhisper casts Dark Empowerment on them. Curse of Torpor should be removed as quickly as possible, and Dark Martyrdom should be avoided. For the Fanatics, a paladin tank is recommended. They are nothing special overall. Burn them when they have Vampiric Might, and run away from Dark Martyrdom.

Phase 2 begins when Lady Deathwhisper's mana barrier has been drained - which means that either some of your DPS should stay on the boss, or you should have everybody clear the adds quickly and use the time until the next wave to burn the boss' mana. Either way, in phase 2 she becomes active and a tank needs to pick her up quickly, as there is no threat reset. A second tank will need to be ready to pick up the boss, since she will periodically debuff her current tank with threat generation reduction debuff. The two will switch every 2-3 stacks. Everybody else should be mindful of the Vengeful Shades that will be spawned and will chase people - get away from them, let ranged DPS kill them from afar. Melee DPS might want to set up an interrupt rotation, since the Frostbolt can hurt a lot - or you can have a tank with 1-2 pieces of Frost resistance gear, Deathwhisper is not a very tank-heavy fight.

Normal 10-Man Abilities

Lady Deathwhisper

Phase 1

• Mana Barrier - Absorbs all damage done to Lady Deathwhisper, draining her mana instead.
• Shadow Bolt - Inflicts 7,438 to 9,562 Shadow damage to the current target.
• Death and Decay - Inflicts 4,500 Shadow damage every 1 second to enemies within the area of the spell. The entire spell lasts 10 seconds.
• Dominate Mind - Mind Controls 2 players, increasing their damage by 200% and healing by 500%. Lasts 12 seconds.
• Dark Empowerment - Empowers a random Adherent or Fanatic, causing them to deal area damage with spells. Also makes the target immune to interrupts.
• Summon Reanimated Adherent - Transforms a dead Cult Adherent into a Reanimated Adherent.
• Summon Reanimated Fanatic - Transforms a dead Cult Fanatic into a Reanimated Fanatic.

Phase 2

• Frostbolt - Inflicts 40,950 to 43,050 Frost damage to the current target. Can be interrupted.
• Death and Decay - Inflicts 4,500 Shadow damage every 1 second to enemies within the area of the spell. The entire spell lasts 10 seconds.
• Dominate Mind - Mind Controls 2 players, increasing their damage by 200% and healing by 500%. Lasts 12 seconds.
• Touch of Insignificance - Reduces the target's threat generation by 20% per application. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Summon Vengeful Shade - Summons a Vengeful Shade from the body of a dead Adherent or Fanatic.
• Vengeful Shade - Pursues a random target and casts Vengeful Blast when in melee range of that target.

Cult Adherents & Reanimated Adherents

• Adherent's Determination - Makes the Adherent nearly immune to magic damage. Passive.
• Frost Fever - Inflicts 2,375 to 2,625 Frost damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds, and reduces attack speed by 14%. Disease.
• Shroud of the Occult - Deflects all harmful spells back to their caster. Also prevents cast interrupting. Absorbs 50,000 damage before breaking. Cast when Empowered.
• Deathchill Bolt - Inflicts 6,938 to 8,062 Shadowfrost damage.
• Deathchill Blast - Inflicts 9,250 to 10,750 Shadowfrost damage to all enemies within 10 yards. Cast when Shrouded.
• Curse of Torpor - Increases a player's spell cooldowns by 15 seconds. Curse.
• Dark Martyrdom - Inflicts 12,000 Shadowstorm damage to players within 15 yards. Cast near death.

Cult Fanatics & Reanimated Fanatics

• Fanatic's Determination - Makes the Fanatic nearly immune to physical damage. Passive.
• Necrotic Strike - Inflicts 70% weapon damage and applies a debuff Necrotic Strike that absorbs the next 9,000 healing done to the target.
• Vampiric Might - Increases all damage by 25% and heals the Fanatic for 300% of the damage he inflicts. Cast when Empowered.
• Shadow Cleave - Inflicts 14,250 to 15,750 Shadow damage to enemies in front of the Fanatic.
• Dark Martyrdom - Inflicts 12,000 Shadowstorm damage to players within 15 yards. Cast near death.

Gunship Armory

Icecrown Citadel

The Lower Spire
Lord Marrowgar
Lady Deathwhisper
Icecrown Gunship Battle
Deathbringer Saurfang

The Icecrown Gunship Battle is a unique event that serves as the third boss encounter in the Icecrown Citadel. During the event the Skybreaker and Orgrim's Hammer race to the second level of the Citadel. All players can talk to a goblin/gnome on their gunship and obtain a jetpack that allows them the jump between the two ships.

Overview

Winning the battle between the two gunships will require your raid to be carefully split between people defending your own ship, and people assaulting the enemy one.

Players staying on your faction's ship have two things to take care of. First, 3 people will need to man the cannons and attack the enemy ship. Rcoketeers will mark areas on the board and shoot (slow) rockets at them - it's easy to move away, do so. Axe Throwers/Riflemen will also shoot at people from across. Every 25% of the enemy gunship a mage will appear and freeze all of your cannons. The assaulting players will need to deal with him (see below), while the defenders deal with the squad of Reavers/Marines and a Sergeant that is being teleported. Both types gain damage and attack speed over time - so the longer they live, the more dangerous they will become. It is probably a good idea to have your ranged DPS defending, as they can avoid the Sergeant's whirlwind, and can also help the attackers (without using the jetpacks) when given an opportunity. As soon as the mage is dead and your board is secure, 3 of the defenders can re-enter the now-working cannons and continue shooting at the enemy's gunship, restarting the cycle.

The attackers have a couple of things to worry about as well. Saurfang/Muradin will try to annihilate your raid - have a tank on him, and be mindful of the stacking Battle Fury buff, which increases the commander's damage. If the buff starts getting to high, you will need to leave the ship for about 20 seconds and let it fall off. DPSing the leader is useless - have your DPS quickly burn the mages whenever they appear, and killing Axe Throwers/Riflemen and Rocketeers/Mortar Soldiers when no mages are present.

Normal 10-Man Abilities

Gunship Cannon

• Heat - Gunship Cannons use Heat as a resource. Cannon Blast generates heat, Incinerating Blast consumes it. When a cannon's heat level reaches 100, the cannon becomes inactive for some time.
• Cannon Blast - Inflicts 1,000 Siege damage and generates 6-10 Heat.
• Incinerating Blast - Inflicts 1,000 Fire damage and additional Fire damage per point of Heat. Consumes all of the cannon's heat.

High Overlord Saurfang & Muradin Bronzebeard

• Battle Fury - Increases all damage by 10%, stacking. Lasts 20 seconds, refreshed with each stack. Applied every time Saurfang or Muradin strike a target.
• Cleave - Inflicts 110% weapon damage to up to 3 targets in front of Saurfang of Muradin.

All Troops

• Experienced - Increases damage by 30%, and attack and casting speed by 20%. Applied if a soldier has been alive for more than ~20 seconds.
• Veteran - Increases damage by 60%, and attack and casting speed by 40%. Applied if a soldier has been alive for more than ~40 seconds.
• Elite - Increases damage by 120%, and attack and casting speed by 80%. Applied if a soldier has been alive for more than 60 seconds.
• Desperate Resolve - Increases armor and attack speed by 60%. Applied when a soldier's health gets below 20%.

Kor'kron Sergeant & Skybreaker Sergeant

• Bladestorm - Inflicts weapon damage to up to 4 nearby targets every 1 second for 6 seconds.
• Wounding Strike - Inflicts 200% weapon damage and reduces all healing done to the target by 25% for 10 seconds.

Kor'kron Reaver & Skybreaker Marine

• No unique abilities.

Kor'kron Axethrower & Skybreaker Rifleman

• Hurl Axe - Inflicts 3,800 to 4,200 Physical damage.
• Shoot - Inflicts 3,800 to 4,200 Physical damage.

Kor'kron Rocketeer & Skybreaker Mortar Soldier

• Rocket Artillery - Targets an area on the players' ship and launches a rocket there. The rocket travels for a few seconds, causing an Explosion when it lands, inflicting 6,300 to 7,700 Fire damage to players and Siege damage to the gunship.

Kor'kron Battle-mage & Skybreaker Sorcerer

• Below Zero - Freezes the enemy gunship's cannons, rendering them inactive. Channeled spell. Cannot be interrupted.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Icecrown Citadel

The Lower Spire
Lord Marrowgar
Lady Deathwhisper
Gunship Battle
Deathbringer Saurfang

Deathbringer Saurfang, formerly known as Dranosh Saurfang, son of the most prominent orcish general, is the final boss in the entrance to the Icecrown Citadel. He is also the last boss players can fight in the first week(s) of the new patch. After him the raid instance splits into 3 wings (Crimson Halls, Frostwing Halls, Plagueworks), and progression between the wings becomes non-linear.

Overview

Saurfang is a tough fight. He does a lot of damage, he heals a lot.

There is only one phase to the fight, but that phase will really strain your DPS and Healers. Two tanks are required for this fight. The OT will be helping to kite the Blood Beasts and taunting Saurfang off the MT when they get Rune of Blood.

All players need to be spread out, so Blood Nova doesn't hit multiple people. Several hits mean Saurfang will gain more damage and energy through Blood Power. Boiling Blood is just a DoT healers will need to take care of - the fact that it does physical damage suggests that it might be removable by Hand of Protection and Iceblock. Use those abilities if you can, they will keep the Blood Power stack lower.

When Rune of Blood happens on the MT, the OT should taunt the boss at least for the duration of the Rune - or the MT can pick the boss back up when the OT gets Rune.

Mark of the Fallen Champion will happen several times during the fight. Players marked with it will likely need massive heals and survival cooldowns. Hand of Protection and Iceblock help here too, you might want to save them for Marks instead of Boiling Blood. The damage is transferred after armor reduction, so a tank with high physical damage reduction is especially helpful. With all the healing going on in this fight, it is very important not to lose people - especially when they heal the boss even more. The mark is permanent, so it is possible that you will have somebody die.

And finally, the Blood Beasts. Saurfang will summon them around him, and he will summon them frequently. You can either assign certain DPS to peel off the boss and kill the adds whenever they spawn, or you can have everyone moving off the boss. The balance between boss and adds seems similar to the last phase of Yogg-Saron's encounter. I would recommend having just enough DPS to kill a set of adds before the next one spawns, and everybody else staying on the boss at all times.

Normal 10-Man Abilities

• Blood Link - Triggers Blood Power every time Saurfang or his Blood Beasts inflict damage with an ability. Also increases Saurfang's energy by 1.
• Blood Power - Increases damage and size by 1%. Applied through Blood Link.
• Mark of the Fallen Champion - Causes Saurfang's melee attacks to hit the marked target as well as the tank. The marked player takes 4,275 to 4,725 additional Physical damage from each attack. If a marked player dies while the Mark is up, Saurfang heals for 5% of his maximum health. Cast when Saurfang reaches 100 energy through his Blood Link energizing.
• Frenzy - Increases Saurfang's attack speed by 30% and size by 20%.
• Boiling Blood - Inflicts 5,000 Physical damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds. Used on a random target.
• Blood Nova - Inflicts 7,600 to 8,400 Physical damage to a random target and all players within 12 yards.
• Rune of Blood - Marks a target with Rune of Blood, causing Saurfang's melee attacks against that target to leech 5,100 to 6,900 health from them, and heal the Deathbringer for 5 times that amount. Lasts 30 seconds.
• Call Blood Beast - Summons 2 Blood Beasts.
• Scent of Blood - Saurfang buffs the Blood Beasts, causing them to reduce the movement speed of all nearby players by 80%, while increasing the Beasts' damage by 300%. Lasts 10 seconds.
• Resistant Skin - Decreases damage taken from AoE effects by 95%, from diseases by 70%, and from Shadow spells by 100%.