Patch 3.3 PTR: Sindragosa impressions
by Matt Low 
Oct 30th 2009 at 4:00AM
Of the two encounters I've seen so far, Sindragosa has proven to be the most fun to heal in Icecrown. I'll tell you what you can expect when your raid faces her behind the cut below. Also, our Icecrown gallery has been updated with more Sindragosa screenshots.
Today, the gates to the instance promptly opened up. They were on time which was great! Unlike the night before, we didn't have to wait around for half an hour before being able to go in. Our crew of 10 waltzed in and took the teleporter up to Sindragosa's lair. Some fancy camera work revealed that there would be several trash packs to clear out before the blue dragon herself would face us.
The trash
We gathered at the top of the stairs and opted to pull conservatively. Ended up having 2 paladins tanking many whelps (left side). Nothing special as they're just whelps who happen to shoot bolts of frost at range. Both groups also had handlers looking after them. They didn't last long either.
Once we cleared out a set of trash, one of the frost wyrms would land on the platform as if though to taunt us. It's best to proceed with engaging whelp trash first and then the corresponding frost wyrm. One of the big wyrms has a fear ability. Start the pull by clearing out the whelp group on the right.
Spinestalker and Rimefang
If you followed my advice, Rimefang should be the first frost wyrm your group will deal with. Rimefang starts off on the ground doing standard dragon things like breathing before taking off and hovering in the air. The big ability that Rimefang will do is target players and drop patches of ice on top of them while she is in the air. Don't worry, Rimefang will mark the locations with a giant blue rune. You can't miss it. Not only do these patches slow down movement speed, but players will take damage while standing in them until they are clear of it.
Spinestalker will touch down after the left whelp pack gets cleared out. I'd say he's a little easier to deal with compared to Rimefang. All he does is an AoE fear which can be mitigated with Fear Ward or Tremor totem. I don't remember them being Dispellable or anything like that. It's reminiscent of Onyxia except without the many whelps nor the air phase.
Once that part of the trash is done with, it's time for everyone to get back up the stairs. Make sure you're actually not on the stairs when Sindragosa lands. She has a massive aggro radius and will go after players who are even on the 4th step from the top. One of our tanks picked an unfortunate time to go AFK and he found that out the hard way.
Before moving on, I hope your raid has some type of Frost Resistance Aura. I'm not sure if frost resist gear is needed as the damage is healable from what I've seen.
Sindragosa's ground phase
The first thing I noticed was she had 9.76 million health.
Toggle on that Frost Resist aura as Sindragosa herself radiates her own Frost Aura debuff which deals a solid 4000+ damage to the entire raid every few seconds. I happened to be sneaking a peek at several livestreams that were going on at the time to gain some idea of what to expect. The tank was directed to pick up Sindragosa and have her facing the stairs (entrance). The rest of the raid stacked on the left side of the room.
Why?
As all dragons do, Sindragosa has a Tail Smash which will knock players back. She also has a conical Frost Breath which will knock out any players who are stupid enough to stand in front. Now tanks aren't stupid but they can at least survive one of these. So don't stand in front of her.
Oh and she Cleaves.
Every once in a while, she's going to Icy Grip the entire raid directly on to her position. Stop what you're doing and run outwards. Violet Hold's Cyanigosa was part of the blue dragon flight. She must have learned that icy grip and explode ability from Sindragosa. 5 seconds after Sindragosa death grips you in, she'll cast Blistering Cold which will blast anyone too close for 35000+ damage. It might be possible for the tank to stay in. We had ours run out but it might be easier for the sake of positioning to simply eat the Blistering Cold and rapidly heal him up after the fact. Otherwise Sindragosa will end up chasing after your tank.
For casters, there's another specific ability to watch out for and this one is a real pain in the butt. It nuked me the first time before I realized what had happened.
2 players on 10 man will get a debuff applied called Unchained Magic. Healers, this is an ability you will specifically wish to add to your debuff window. This debuff stays for about 20 seconds. When it is active, you must be careful of how many spells you cast. Every time I healed, I gained 1 stack of a debuff called Instability. After 8 seconds of not casting any spells, Instability will go off resulting in 2000 damage multiplied by the amount of spell casts before it.
In other words, if I have Unchained Magic and I cast 8 Flash Heals followed by a Circle of Healing and a Power Word: Shield, after 8 seconds I'll take 22000 damage. It seems to happen also when the Unchained Magic debuff itself wears off. Whatever Instability stacks are on the player when Unchained Magic wears off will immediately detonate.
If you have Unchained Magic, take it easy for the next several seconds. Slow down on the spell casts. Use your spells in quick bursts and let Instability go off before opening up again.
Mages and paladins, it appears to be possible to render yourself immune and wipe the ability. Ice Block and Divine Shield will remove Unchained Magic.
I do believe her phases are tied to time elapsed on the fight. I didn't notice a specific percentage that would trigger Sindragosa's air phase as we were DPSing all over the place.
This is where we separate the pretenders from the contenders. This is one of Icecrown's biggest situational awareness check fights and I'll tell you why. This part strongly reminds me of Sapphiron.
She's going to mark several players in the room with a Frost Beacon. A few seconds after that, they will be completely encased in a block of ice. The ice serves an important purpose. You see, Sindragosa is going to fire Frost Bombs in the area. The bombs have a large radius and will damage anyone who is within line of sight. The ground will have a slight swirly effect which signifies where the Frost Bombs will land. When I did this, I called out the direction of where the raid should be running to on vent (North, south-west, and so forth). Stay close to the Ice Tomb to reduce the amount of movement you need when strafing around.
Unlike Sapphiron, the Ice Tombs do not simply wear off. On 10 man, they had around 270k health. It's up to your raid to DPS them down at the same time during this phase. Another benefit of having marked players together is so that the rest of the raid can deal incidental AoE damage to them as they are focusing on breaking down the blocks. Players inside the Ice Tomb will die of Asphyxiation if they aren't broken out of.
After she fires 4-5 Frost Bombs, Sindragosa will land again. Pray that your main tank is free and is able to pick her up. Feel free to place her on top of any Ice Tombs still up so AoE damage will still damage them.
Low health phase
Once she gets to about 30% (I didn't catch the actual percentage), Sindragosa will no longer take to the air. At this point, the raid is in a full burn phase. You have a soft enrage timer to compete with.
All in all, I'd give this a 9 out of 10 for encounter fun-ness as a healer. The encounter mechanics are simple in theory but can be difficult to execute. There's a ton of damage going around and if a player is even a sliver out of position, they will die. It's certainly a tense fight that will keep any healer on the edge of their seats and zeroed in on their raid frames.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Raiding, Patches
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
revan Oct 30th 2009 4:10AM
cant wait to face Sindragosa, those annoying roars of hers have haunted me since Wrath came out
Smurk Oct 30th 2009 8:20AM
Even worse now, as I always try to log in before she lands and roars. But now that I have to type my email address instead of account name it's tougher to do it in time...
mihai_thats_me Oct 30th 2009 8:40AM
[ ] Remember Account Name ==> [X] Remember Account Name
Saves you from some headache.
Finnicks Oct 30th 2009 4:13AM
I was dreading this encounter as a healer... my first time healing Saph on 10-man was a nightmare (No FR aura, only 2 healers) because I had no idea what to expect. Still a 1-shot, but also a nightmare 1-shot.
So I was having serious misgivings about this fight. Up until now my favorite fight to heal has been Loatheb (I'm sorry, but timing my HoTs so that 3 lifeblooms, a Nourish and a Swiftmend all hit during the 3-second window is FUN!)... but this one might take it's place...
...except for that constant damage aura... >.>
quagmire23 Oct 30th 2009 4:17AM
This fight sounds fun. One question is the frost aura that damages you up at all times? if so will that damage help break the ice tombs?
Nathanyel Oct 30th 2009 7:11AM
The Ice Tombs are technically hostile NPCs, which aren't affected by that aura.
Norrolis Oct 30th 2009 9:58AM
In a way this almost feels like Sapphiron 2.0 to me, but with a lot of other things mixed in to feel different and fun.
The debuff for DPS's will be interesting, espcially coupled with the Phase 3 burn down element. And as always, a nice PTR report to read from Mr Matticus on a Friday morning.
underground_slacker Oct 30th 2009 4:31AM
Eh, to be honest when youve soloe'd 3 or 4 forstwyrms in regular questing it kind of lessens the impact of syndragosa a little. Personally i would have liked blizzard to save the frostwyrms for icecrown exclusively. As one of the things arthas kept back in case the horde and the alliance ever did break in, so just when you thought youd seen everything the game had to throw at you a massive bone dragon lands in front of you, initiating the usual "wtf is that?!?" moment.
Nathanyel Oct 30th 2009 7:12AM
It's just like with other dragons, named ones are harder, but generic ones are usually soloable.
bleuchz Oct 30th 2009 5:27AM
9 out of 10... which begs the question what fights do you give a 10 to matty? =)
bleuchz Oct 30th 2009 5:36AM
figure if I'm gonna challenge you, I'll throw mine out. Assuming only the WotLK fights, (I'm a 10-man raider so can't speak for 25s) Mimiron hard mode is without a doubt my favorite healing fight so far. I only wish my druid was as geared as my shaman, was very jealous of our druids mobility in that one.
Matticus Oct 30th 2009 2:48PM
Illidan, Kael'thas, Kil'jaden are fights that I'd consider 10 both in terms of complexity and "epicness" and fun factor.
Nazgûl Oct 30th 2009 3:46PM
Matticus likes his lore-significance.
Hell, don't we all?
Coldbear Oct 30th 2009 5:40AM
Yeay. Another skeletal dragon with blue fire stuff glowy thingies.
Bloody hell - is this what passes for new content?
Eamara Oct 30th 2009 6:07AM
It could be a blank square for all I care. The boss mechanics sound like a lot of fun, and I can't wait to fight her.
bleuchz Oct 30th 2009 7:12AM
I actually like the way Sind takes alot of sapphiron's abilities, but uses them in more interesting ways. It makes sense from both a lore perspective and a gameplay one.
lawters Oct 30th 2009 7:14AM
Yeay. Another piece of un-constructive criticism.
Bloody hell - is this what passes for a comment?!
Matt Oct 30th 2009 8:46AM
i tend to agree with Coldbear, There really isn't anything in this fight i would call new. At the very least I was hoping for a bit more Malygos and less Sapphiron. The consort of Malygos must have had great arcane powers in life and to see her in undeath she is less that impressive. The other thing I would say is 30% phase kinda bugs me. Its more a way to gate progression than a feature of the the raid. I would much rather see her do the same thing until she's dead rather than. "Ok now we are going to start randomly taking members out of the raid better hope its not the healers first. Oh it was well there is 15 minutes of your life your not getting back on a random gimmick."
On the Flip side fighting dragons is always cool. But the I wanted more from the demon of the log in screen.
Condor Oct 30th 2009 12:27PM
First off, the boss sounds like fun and that's what's important. The basic "dont stand in that", "run away from that", etc has to be difficult to keep fresh and this fight sounds like a winner.
That said, I'm so often impressed with the artistry in WoW that I've come to expect *some* everywhere. The furnaces in UK are awesome and they don't even do anything. The concentric rings in Occulus are way cool and the only good thing about it :P.
Can Sindragosa get just like a hat?... I'm not even asking for skeletons to crawl out of her eyes as adds or for her to break off pieces of the environment and throw them at me... just somethin' visually surprising. The frostwyrm design is ridiculously cool but we *have* been looking at her for a year now... just my 2c.
Kajira Oct 30th 2009 12:37PM
Storywise, Sapphiron, Sindragosa, Cynagosa - these are all dragons from the same flight. It stands to reason that they would all have familiar abilities, being that they are, in fact, family. Nearly all black dragons have some sort of telepathic ability, like a mind control or a fear. From a green dragon you can always expect poisons and sleeps.
World of Warcraft is just as much a story as it is a game, and in stories clans of folks all have iconic abilities, habits, or looks that help you recognize who they are, and expect something from them.
I LIKE that I can encounter one or two gnolls and know what to expect from the third. It makes me feel like "Experience" is more than just a number on the screen.