 Sartharion | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||
| Title | <The Onyx Guardian> | ||||||
| Gender | Male | ||||||
| Race | Black dragon (Dragonkin) | ||||||
| Level | ?? Boss | ||||||
| Reaction | Alliance Horde | ||||||
| Location | Obsidian Sanctum | ||||||
| Status | Killable | ||||||
| |||||||
Sartharion is a black dragon boss located in the Obsidian Sanctum of the Chamber of Aspects. He is charged to watch over the twilight eggs in the sanctum.
This part of the Obsidian Sanctum contains 4 mobs of interest. These mobs are Sartharion (the raid boss himself) and 3 drakes, Vesperon, Shadron, and Tenebron. Each has their own form of adds depending on how you engage them. The drake mobs are known as "Disciple of..." respectively.
Twilight Drakes
- Tenebron
- Has aura: Power of Tenebron: Shadow damage taken increased by 100%
- Lands 30 seconds into the encounter, if left alive.
- Shadron
- Has aura: Power of Shadron: Fire damage taken increased by 100%.
- Lands 75 seconds into the encounter, if left alive.
- Vesperon
- Has aura: Power of Vesperon: Maximum health decreased by 25%.
- Lands 120 seconds into the encounter, if left alive.
Each drake can be taken down without engaging Sartharion. The achievements require leaving one, two, or all three of them up. If you do down them, they each drop a Emblem of Heroism/Emblem of Valor, but no other loot.
- Shadow Breath: 10-man, 25-man Fairly substantial frontal shadow damage. Should only ever hit the drake's tank. Not a major issue if the drakes are alone, but Power of Tenebron and Gift of Twilight (see Shadron's section) can make it hit considerably harder. Cast every 20 or so seconds.
- Shadow Fissure: 10-man, 25-man Identical to Kel'thuzad's although less damaging. Creates a shadowy area on the ground which hits everyone within it for a large amount of shadow damage after five seconds. Not fatal if the drake is alone, but again, Power of Tenebron / Gift of Twilight will make it one-shot non tanks.
Vesperon and Shadron
Each drake fight is a typical spank and tank, but after 15-20s the drake will open a portal. One healer, one off tank, and all dps need to take the portal, leaving only the main tank and his healer behind. Much like phased content, you'll be in the same place (totems still exist where you left them), but instead of seeing the drake, you'll fight a disciple of X, depending on which drake it is. They have a shadow aura that reduces damage taken by 25%, but periodically pulses shadow damage to you.
Vesperon's disciple will place Twilight Torment (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=58835) on the raid frequently, which increases fire and shadow damage taken by 75% and causes you to deal damage to yourself on hit. Removed by any damage other than autoattacking, but will be reapplied within a few seconds. This disciple can be ignored if fighting Vesperon alone, but is extremely dangerous in a multi-drake Sartharion fight.
Shadron's disciple will place Gift of Twilight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=58766) on Shadron (if fighting Sartharion with Shadron alive, he will buff Sartharion and not Shadron) which increases all Shadow and Fire damage done by 50% and provides near-immunity to damage. The tooltip indicates only Shadow damage is increased, but this is incorrect: it can and will buff Sartharion's Flame Breath to levels that will one-shot your tank if left unmitigated in combination with Power of Shadron, Twilight Torment, and so on. Shadron alone with this aura is not terribly threatening, although his Shadow Fissures can one-shot low HP targets while Gift of Twilight is active.
Tenebron
Tenebron is similar to the first two drakes, except that in the alternate realm, instead of a disciple, you will encounter several eggs. The portal group will need to kill as many eggs as possible before reaching a time limit, at which point the eggs hatch, and everyone is reverted to the real world. Any unkilled eggs spawn whelps, which must be tanked and killed as quickly as possible, so that the DPS can return to the drake before the next portal appears. Each of the whelps can apply a stacking Fade Armor debuff, reducing armor by about 1200.
Most groups will find it is easier to ignore Tenebron's portals and tank/AOE his whelps down, as the dps loss from taking the portal will typically compensate for the higher health of the whelps as compared to their eggs.
For Sartharion + one drake learning purposes, Sartharion + Tenebron is probably the easiest step up, since you have the option of just burning the drake and off-tanking/AOE'ing the whelps without taking the portal. With the others, you either take the portal and waste a bunch of time, or don't take the portal and eat a nasty debuff for a while.
When attempting 2 drakes and up, make sure after you kill Tenebron before taking on the next drake that you kill all whelp add's, as whelps can cross between realms between the playing field and the void zone, and can cause a wipe if tank goes through the portal before all whelps are dead, as they will rampage and go after healers and DPS that was AOEing them down.
Sartharion
- 7,670,000 HP (25 man), 2,510,100 HP (10 man)
- Cleave, fairly weak (35% melee damage). Not likely to one-shot even clothies.
- Tail Whip, minor damage, stuns for 2 seconds.
- Frontal Fire Breath for 10k (10-man)/12k (25-man)
- Will cast Pyrobuffet at anyone outside the area of his platform, rapidly killing them. Brief dips in the lava will generally not trigger Pyrobuffet.
His immediate area is surrounded by a small moat of lava. The north (right) / south (left) sides of this lava spawn lava waves by Sartharion during his emotes every 30 seconds. See layout/positioning images below for details. Everyone must stay in the layout to prevent the Pyrobuffet.
Strategy
Obsidian Sanctum layout
- Layout:
- GREEN is the instance portal
- PURPLE are the 3 drakes up in the hills (Tenebron on the west, Vesperon on the south, Shadron on the north)
- Light RED is the lava border immediately surrounding Sartharion
- YELLOW is Sartharion's position before the pull
Sartharion's initial positioning.
Positioning for wave originating from the left.
Alt. left position for melee to keep dpsing. By going through Sartharion, just in front the rear legs.
Positioning for wave originating from the right.
- Positioning:
- YELLOW is Sartharion's position after being rotated to face north
- GREEN is the MT location
- PURPLE is the melee
- BLUE is the ranged/healing camp
- Lava Waves
At certain intervals, a raid warning will appear saying, "The lava surrounding Sartharion churns!" Lava waves will then spawn that originate from the left or right of the encounter area. These waves place a minor DoT on any players caught in them, so players should move to the gaps between them. The location of the gaps is predictable depending on the side that the waves originate from, as shown in the illustrations. They are huge, obvious, and slow-moving, however, so players should have no trouble watching for them and moving out of their way.
When the wave originates from the left, the tank will need to rotate Satharion away from the group to avoid the wave, as shown. When the wave originates from the right, the tank should not have to move. At all times players should avoid Satharion's cleave, breath, and tail swipe.
It is possible to heal the tank through the Lava Strikes and resulting DoT, if your group desires so.
- Sartharion's Fire elemental Adds
- Health: 65165 (25), ~26,000 (10)
These adds are summoned every ?s in groups of 2-4 to be offtanked. If these adds are hit by the lava waves they will enrage to deal 400% more damage, so ~800 becomes 4k, modified by Shadron's aura. Adds should be moved out of the path of the Lava Strikes. DPS will have to drop these as priority after they spawn and are picked up by the OT. The offtank must be careful using area of effect taunts when gathering the adds because Sartharion is not immune to taunt.
The major drake of issue is Shadron since everything in the encounter is fire damage. Vesperon is less an issue as your raid is better geared. First time groups should take down all 3 drakes, making the encounter a tank and spank, minor add control, and minor movement to avoid waves. Subsequent visits may provide the chance to try while leaving Tenebron/Vesperon up.
At 10% he goes into a sort of soft enrage, summoning what looks like 5-10 of the elemental adds.
Lava elemental add's do not cross over into void zones when you go into them, but whelps do.
NOTE: North is to the right of the Illustrations. Original poster excluded a north arrow and referred to north, south, east and west as drawn in the illustrations (with north being up), however this is not how it is displayed in game (where up would be west).
Engaging With Drakes Still Alive
When clearing the instance with the intention of leaving one, two, or all three drakes left alive to add into the encounter all trash must still be cleared before engaging Sartharion. It's possible to clear trash without grabbing aggro of the drakes simply by moving along the wall far behind them. All trash and the drakes are linked with Sartharion.
When engaging Sartharion with drakes left alive, they will join in on the fight as if you were encountering normally: they will melee whoever is tanking them, cast the Kael'thas-like Flamestrike, and create portals for adds. Needless to say, the fight takes a huge jump in difficulty as not only do you have to pay attention to the elemental adds and waves around the area, but now you have to simultaneously deal with drakes and clearing their adds. The drakes upon engaging Sartharion can and should all be killed first without worries of losing a chance at achievements. At the start of the fight, they will hover overhead and apply their respective aura as long as they are still alive and eventually come down one at a time to start attacking and summoning portals.
- Drake Lieutenants
The offtank should remember that the drakes do a frontal cone shadow breath and to keep them faced away from the raid, preferably parallel with how the main tank is turning Sartharion to make avoiding waves easier. If there's a good supply of rogues and hunters, misdirects can be used to bring fire adds over towards the offtank to give ample time for taunts and aggro upkeep. If this is too much trouble, a third offtank should handle the fire adds and pile them near the drake so AoE can be at its most effective.
- Portals
A subgroup of a healer and DPS (the less needed to eliminate a disciple or eggs, the better) should focus on going into the portals and taking care of the adds drakes spawn. At a certain level of gear, almost anyone is able to tank a disciple but will take amplified shadow damage from Tenebron's aura.
- Normal Difficulty Composition
It is highly recommended that every raider is Tier 7 / Heroic geared before trying Sartharion with any drakes up as the urgency of killing adds will require a high DPS output.
- 1 Main Tank
- 1-2 offtanks for drakes / fire adds
- 1-2 AoE healers + 1 Holy Paladin
- 2+ AoE DPS ( Death Knight, Retribution Paladin, Fury/Arms warrior, Mage, Warlock, Hunter, Balance Druid)
- 2-3 DPS/CC (Rogue, Mage, Hunter)
Patches and Hotfixes
Template:Patched Template:Patched
Loot
The loot is modified by the number of drakes taken alive into the Sartharion fight:
- Normal: (10-man)
- 1 Drake up - bonus lvl 200 item
- 2 Drakes up - bonus lvl 200 item and bonus lvl 213 item
- 3 Drakes up - bonus lvl 200 item, bonus lvl 213 item and [Reins of the Black Drake]
- Heroic: (25-man)
- 1 Drake up - bonus lvl 213 item
- 2 Drakes up - bonus lvl 213 item and bonus lvl 226 item
- 3 Drakes up - bonus lvl 213 item, bonus lvl 226 item and [Reins of the Twilight Drake]
|
Quotes
Aggro:
- It is my charge to watch over these eggs. I will see you burn before any harm comes to them!
Berserk:
- This pathetic siege ends NOW!
Breath Attack:
- Burn, you miserable wretches!
Fire Special:
- Such flammable little insects....
- Your charred bones will litter the floor!
- How much heat can you take?
- All will be reduced to ash!
Kill:
- You will make a fine meal for the hatchlings.
- You are at a grave disadvantage!
- This is why we call you lesser beings.
Call Shadron:
- Shadron! Come to me, all is at risk!
Call Tenebron:
- Tenebron! The eggs are yours to protect as well!
Call Vesperon:
- Vesperon! The clutch is in danger! Assist me!
Death:
- Such is the price... of failure...
Videos
Sartharion + 3 Drakes tanking guide
Balance Druid PoV
Sartharion + 3D Balance druid PoV
Obsidian Sanctum Video & Guide
External links
StratFu Sartharion + 3 drakes strategy guide and video (Updated for 3.0.8)
World of Strats 10/25 man strategy guide Legends of Tristram Sartharion Strategy with pictures. Elitist Jerks Sartharion and Company discussion WoW Guide Online Obsidian Sanctum Video and Guide