Valithria Dreamwalker

This is the second fight that I'm most excited about but it's certainly unique in the sense that the only way to beat it is to heal your way through to victory. Healers get the spotlight in this one and it's up to them to see if their healing is up to snuff.

As you enter the room, you'll see that Valithria is laying there idle. She is too weak to escape on her own. Since she starts with 50% health, its up to the healers to get her up to 100%. As your raid is busy trying to heal her up, there will be a stream of enemies that will do their best to prevent you from helping her escape. You might want to consider stacking more than 6 healers for this initially.

Nightmare Portals

You'll see a few portals spawn near Valithria. Stick to assigning mainly healers to go inside them. You'll enter a phased part of the room. Like the Kael'thas encounter, you'll be able to move and "swim" through the air. Look for Dream Clouds in the air and cut through them. It'll give a stacking healing percentage and MP5 increase buff. After several seconds, you'll exit the Nightmare Portal and land back in the room with the rest of your raid (remember to not fly too high).

Let's go over the mobs you need to deal with.

Gluttonous Abomination

It's not a scourge encounter without a few abominations tossed in the mix, right? The main thing you need to know is that when your tank picks these bad boys up, they need to be faced away from the raid. Gut Spray is a conical ability which dishes out 3000 damage a second and increases any physical damage taken by 25%. It lasts about 12 seconds. If someone manages to get hit by Gut Spray, it can be cleansed.

Oh and when you kill them, watch out for the Rot Worms that spawn from the corpse. They will melee swing for 10000 damage (yeah, ten thousand from a worm).

Blazing Skeleton

This guy will light up an area with a big fiery AoE spell. Anyone in within it will get roasted. Make sure you stand out of the fires when you see them. The Fireballs he casts are no big deal though and can be healed through easily.

Risen Archmage

Yes, there is still more stuff that your raid needs to avoid. Watch out for the void zones. Instead of sapping away at your health, these things will drain your mana at a rate of 1000 per second. When you see them spawn beneath you, strafe out and avoid it.

Suppressers

These fellahs are relatively harmless. They don't do any direct damage on their own. What they will do is charge and target Valithria and cast Suppression. All it does is reduces the healing received by the target by 10%. Expect to see several of these per wave.

Blistering Zombie

The last enemies that need to be worried about are these zombies. When they hit a player with a melee swing, that player is hit with a stacking DoT effect where they take damage and their armor is reduced. I mentioned that it stacks right?

Oh, and to make the experience even more enjoyable, the zombie can explode and shell out 14000+ damage along with a nature damage DoT to anyone within 15 yards. Make sure you kill these fast. Don't give them a chance to explode as that is what they'll do when their health gets low enough.

Handle it!

The mobs will come from the left and right sides of the room as you enter. You may wish to set up two groups on either side to deal with them. You're allowed to cross through Valithria if one side needs a bit of extra muscle to finish mobs off.

Holy priests may wish to consider glyphing for Guardian Spirit and using that at various intervals to keep that increased healing buff on Valithria.

While there is no set enrage timer, the rate at which mobs spawn will increase progressively faster.

Lastly, there is a set priority in dealing with the mobs. Blazing Skeletons should be first, followed by any Suppressors, then Gluttonous Abominations, Risen Archmages, and Blistering Zombies.

Note: Currently inaccessible

Additional information

• WoW.com impressions
• Stratfu: Videos and detailed strategy
• WoWWiki
• MMO Champion: Known 25 man and 10 man loot

Sindragosa

The last dragon you'll ever fight in Wrath of the Lich King is Sindragosa. This is the final encounter before Arthas. There had to be at least one giant dragon battle in there, right? It promises to be a situational-awareness demanding type of encounter. Its a three phase encounter with a ground phase, an air phase, and a 30% burn phase.

Ground phase

As with many dragon bosses that you have fought up to this point, avoid the front and the back. She has a Frost Breath, a Cleave and Tail Smash ability which will make quick work of any players caught in those areas. Healers need to remain vigilant for the Frost Aura debuff as it constantly deals damage to the raid during the ground phase. The raid should be engaging her from the side. Sindragosa possesses a few abilities that will require players to stop what they're doing (at least for a moment). For melee players, watch out for a debuff called Chilled to the Bone (Permeating Chill). It gradually reduces your movement speed and increases the amount of damage you take from the aura.

Likewise for casters, watch out for the Unchained Magic debuff. Every spell you cast under the effect of Unchained Magic will add another stack called Instability. Instability only lasts for 8 seconds but it will explode for varying degrees of damage based on the amount of Instability stacks you have. I'd suggest casting one or two spells, wait for Instability to wear off, then repeat it until Unchained Magic falls off.

As the ground phase comes to an end, Sindragosa is going to AoE Death Grip everyone right on top of her (its actually called Icy Grip). She'll start casting a five second spell called Blistering Cold that will destroy anyone nearby for 25 yards. Run to the same side where your raid is attacking her from normally. Get ready as she will now take off.

Air phase

This phase of the fight is reminiscent of Sapphiron from Naxxramas. Now that Sindragosa is in the air, several members of the raid will be marked with a Frost Beacon. Its an arrow that is placed on the head. A few seconds after that, marked players and anyone else around them will turn into a giant block of ice (Ice Tomb). The blocks need to be destroyed in order to break the trapped players out of them.

There is a catch. Sindragosa will fire Frost Bombs onto the platform. The location where the bombs will drop are marked on the ground. Anyone exposed to the blast will come real close to dying. In order to survive it, your raid needs to protect itself by using those ice blocks as shields. The bombs could land anywhere and the raid needs to strafe around the ice blocks as necessary.

When I did this on the PTR, all beaconed players would run to the middle of the room while the rest of the unbeaconed players waited just outside in one direction. Then I'd run in and start calling the directions that the raid had to run to in order to avoid the bombs.

As your raid is strafing around the blocks of ice, remember to unload some AoE DPS on the blocks. Once the air phase is over, if players inside the ice haven't been freed yet, they'll start taking damage and die from Asphyxiation. There's a limited supply of air inside.

After that, its back to the ground phase.

30% burn phase

Once Sindragosa has been tipped over to 30%, she'll be grounded the rest of the time. This is the burn phase of the encounter. She'll cast a debuff on players which will increase their magic damage taken by 15% (Mystic Buffet). In addition, she'll target a player and mark them with a beacon. That player has a few seconds to run out of the raid before they get hit with a Frost Bomb. Remember to stay away from them. Give beaconed players a set place to run to. lastly, she is going to keep casting Unchained Magic and Ice Grip on players.

Congratulations! Your reward for taking down Sindragosa is the chance to take on Arthas.

Additional information

• WoW.com impressions
• Stratfu: Videos and detailed strategy
• WoWWiki
• MMO Champion : Known Sindragosa loot