Obsidian Sanctum

Welcome to this guide of Obsidian Sanctum (no Drakes).

This guide will cover the basic Obsidian Sanctum instance where we will kill Vesperon, Tenebron, Shadron and ultimately Sartharion. But before we get this far we will wade through the trash mobs and their most important and dangerous abilities.

Because this is my first guide ever on wow-pro I welcome all positive criticism that can help me improve this and upcoming guides. So feel free to comment!

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Table of Contents

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1. Raid Setup
2. Trash Mobs
3. Drakes
   • Vesperon
   • Tenebron
   • Shadron
4. Sartharion
   • 1 Drake
   • 2 Drake
   • 3 Drake
5. Loot
6. Bonus Loot
   • 1 Drake
   • 2 Drake
   • 3 Drake
7. Achievements
8. External Links

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1. Raid Setup

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The standard setup works perfectly for this raid.
• 2 Tanks
• 2 or 3 Healers
• fill up on DPS
While it doesn't matter what dps-classes you bring keep in mind that a rogue or hunter can be a big help as I will explain later.

Note 1: Three healers are preferred but it is doable with only two.
Note 2: 1 tank can be replaced by a good plate dps. They will need extra healing on the Acolytes and DPS must kill Lava Blazes even faster.



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2. Trash Mobs

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While clearing this instance you will encounter two different types of packs. I will only list their abilities that I find important. For a full list you can always check wowhead, wowwiki and other sites available (External Links).



Pack 1:

The most difficult and most hectic is a pack of 4 linked red dragons. These packs setup is random but always has the following mobs:


Onyx Blaze Mistress

	The smallest of the dragons and as the name suggest (probably) female making her very distinguishable by her more slender looks. The mistresses should be killed first because they are responsible for all of the AoE damage while clearing trash.
	Rain of Fire: Calls down a molten rain, burning all enemies in a selected area. Flame Orb: Conjures an orb of pure fire that floats through the air toward the target while firing searing beams.

Onyx Brood General

	The biggest dragons in the group, very easy distinguishable by the flag they carry around. They will buff their group increasing their damage. Many raids kill them first and the Mistresses only second. Healers should be aware of his Mortal Strikes as this will make it harder to heal the tank.
	Avenging Fury.: Whips nearby friendly units into a fury, granting immunity to crowd control effects. Mortal Strike: Inflicts 130% weapon damage and leaves the target wounded, reducing the healing.

Onyx Flight Captain

The Flight Captains can be safely killed as last. They will sometimes decrease your size which reduces the damage you do by 5% and interrupt your casting. But other then that they are the easiest thing to handle in this instance.

Pack 2:

This pack will have two Onyx Sanctum Guardians. They have a rather long patrolling path and can even patrol right next to a drake. So before starting on a drake make sure they don't surprise you in the middle of the fight.

Onyx Sanctum Guardian

Basically this is tank and spank with a little annoyance. Curse of Mending: He will randomly curse raid members. A cursed raider must stop attacking the mob until the curse is dispelled. Put a mage on dispell duty!

On Heroic these mobs have more health and more damage. Their abilities are the same, thus the killing order should stay the same. Even on heroic you should have no problem killing them.

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3. Drakes

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The drakes are the purple dragons who are overseeing Sartharion's island. You can reach them by clearing trash mobs and following the path that tours over the ledges around the island. Vesperon is located on the left, Tenebron in the back and Shadron on the right. The big black dragon in the middle is Sartharion himself. Fighting the drakes is basically a tank and spank fight with your offtank (or the plate dps) taking the Acolytes or Whelps, just watch out for the following abilities:

• Shadow Breath: As all dragons, the drakes also have a frontal bad breath. Tank them head away from the raid.
  
• Shadow Fissure:Shown as a blue ring around a player. Failing to move out of the ring will likely result in you being one-shotted.

Every drake has one special ability unique to him.



Vesperon


• Summon Acolyte: An Acolyte of Vesperon will spawn in the Twilight Realm. At the same time a portal will open allowing you to enter the realm and kill the Acolyte. While you are inside the realm you get a debuff (Twilight Shift) dealing ~1000 shadow damage every second and decreasing your damage done by 25%.
• Twilight Torment: While the Acolyte is alive the drake shields himself making him immune to all damage, even reflecting damage done to him back to the raid. Therefor it is impossible to ignore this Acolyte and just burn down the drake quick.


To defeat Vesperon the entire raid, except the main tank and a healer, should enter the portal and kill the Acolyte.


Tenebron


• Hatch Eggs: Instead of an Acolyte Tenebron will spawn 6 Twilight Eggs inside the Twilight Realm. After 20 seconds all remaining eggs will hatch a Twilight Whelp.
  • Twilight Eggs: no abilities, no attacks, ~27k health
  • Twilight Whelp: ~65k health. Melee attacks. Fade Armor debuff decreasing your armor by 1500, stacking 10 times.



Key to the fight is entering the portal very quick and start killing as many eggs as possible. A good raid should be able to AoE all the eggs down and have not a single whelp hatching. If you have whelps spawning anyway you have to kill them first before going for Tenebron again.


Shadron


Exactly the same fight as Vesperon but a Acolyte of Shadron is spawned inside the portal and Shadron doesn't shield himself.


Alternative Strategy:


Shadron and Tenebron can be killed without entering the portals and dealing with the add(s), Acolyte or Whelps, when they emerge from the portal. Just burn down the drake fast and the acolyte/whelps will despawn when the drake dies. This tactic requires a little more healing because of the Acolyte's debuff or whelps running loose. Only use this tactic if you got great DPS that can burn down the drake fast. If you are still learning the drakes I recommend you take the portals until you are familiar with the encounter.

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4. Sartharion

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Health: 2.510.100 (7.669.750)

Abilities and Annoyances

• Tail Lash: Dealing 3-4k damage (4k-5k) to all standing behind him, stunning them for 2 seconds
  
  
• Flame Breath: Frontal attack dealing 9k-11k fire damage (10k-15k) to all in front of him.
  
  
• Cleave: Inflicts 35% weapon damage to his target and all nearby players.
  
  
• Lava Blaze: The whirlwinds you see in the lava around his platform will fire lava bolts in a big arc towards the raid. On impact, independent if it hits a player, there is a chance on spawning a Lava Blaze. It is the offtank (or plate dps) his job to gather up all the blazes so they don't go killing your healers.
  
  
• Lava Wall: a wall of fire moving over the island from left-to-right or from right-to-left. There are gaps in this wall so you can avoid being hit.

The Fight

The Sartharion fight is a fight with a lot of movement and a couple of things happening at the same time. It is not a race in anyway, so focus on doing it right instead of doing it fast. For beginners it is a pretty though fight but once you know what is going on and how to handle it, this fight is one of the easiest encounters in the game.

==Note:== I only draw the tank (green) and Sartharion (yellow) in the pictures. I suppose DPS and healers are smart enough NOT to stand in the waves.

1. Handling the Tail Lash, Flame Breath and Cleave
   
   
   Have Sartharion tanked with his side to the raid. Where you tank him is less important but there are two generally accepted spots. Your tank must make sure that the Lava Wall coming from behind him doesn't require him to move.
   

   	The first one is used in most PuGs and is perfectly suited if you have killed all drakes.
   	The second one requires the tank to put a bit more effort in positioning him right. This should be the tanking spot if you keep one or more drakes alive. It is probably a good idea to tank him here if you are preparing for drakes up.

2. Handling the Lava Blazes
   
   Assign your offtank (which can be a wellgeared plate dps) to pick up all the adds. DPS should focus on killing this Blazes first and only attack the boss if no more adds are alive. If you have experience with the fight and a really good tank, have the offtank bring all adds close to the boss. Killing them with AoE-spells will also damage the boss, making the fight last a bit shorter, but as I said already this fight isn't a DPS-race.

   To have a maximum dps uptime on Sartharion himself it is very important to have all your dps kill the blazes. The faster the blazes die, the faster all dps can go nuking the boss before new adds spawns. This is mainly a sore point in pugs where 'meter-hunters' (People who want to be first on the DPS-meters) simple ignore the adds and get their DPS as high as possible on the boss.
   

3. Handling the Lava Wall
   
   
   This wall is without any doubt the most annoying and hardest thing that happens during the fight because it has some side-effects you have to deal with. At fixed intervals a wall of fire will move over the flatform. Which side it starts is completely random and depending on the side the gaps are at different places.
   
   
   
   • Avoid the wall, get in the gaps!
     
     

     Following pictures show both waves and the gaps. Note the markings on the ground to identify where you can stand safely. If you get hit by a wall you will get knocked back, take heavy fire damage and a big fire DoT that will kill you rather fast.

   • Tank position
     
     If you compare the pictures with the tanking position and the pictures with the Lava Wall you will notice that the tank is always standing in a gap when the wall starts behind him. This allows the tank to stay put on this wave. The wave coming from the other side he will have to step out of sideways, he should be able to see it coming through the legs of Sartharion well ahead of time and thus never have a problem avoiding it. Right after the wall passed the tank moves back into his original position.

   1 --> Normal tanking position	2 --> Move out of the wave	3 --> Return to your position

   • Lava Blazes
     
     When hit by a Lava Wall the Blazes will gain a buff/enrage Molten Fury. Enraged they deal 200% more damage and have 100% more health. The buff can be dispelled by hunters with Tranquilizing Shot or rogues with Anesthetic Poison + Shiv for instant dispel. Dual wielding Anesthetic Poison and doing Fan of Knives is great for dispelling multiple enraged mobs at once.
     Have to offtank kite the blazes through a gap to avoid as many enraged blazes as possible.
   
   Bonus Loot can be obtained by engaging Sartharion while one or more drakes are still alive. The living drakes will come to aid Sartharion during his battle and you will have to fight them simultaneously.

4. Heroic?
   
   Since all his abilities are the same, they just hit harder, you don't have to alter tactics to beat him on heroic-mode. Just stick to the plan and all will be fine

Extra Drakes

1 Drake alive.
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2 Drakes alive. <placeholder>

3 Drakes alive. <placeholder>

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5. Loot

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Normal	Heroic
Signet of the Accord Crimson Steel Majestic Dragon Figurine Circle of Arcane Streams Titan's Outlook Gloves of the Lost Vanquisher Gloves of the Lost Protector Gloves of the Lost Conqueror Satchel of Spoils Dragon Hide Bag	Staff of Restraint Illustration of the Dragon Soul Council Chamber Epaulets Mantle of the Eternal Sentinel Fury of the Five Flights Dragon Brood Legguards Chestplate of the Great Aspects Concealment Shoulderpads Hyaline Helm of the Sniper Wyrmrest Band Gauntlets of the Lost Vanquisher Gauntlets of the Lost Protector Gauntlets of the Lost Conqueror Large Satchel of Spoils Dragon Hide Bag

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6. Bonus Loot

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Extra loot will be dropped, on top of the normal list one of the following will also be found on Sartharion. 1 Drake alive.
One extra ilvl200 item.

Normal	Heroic
Blade-Scarred Tunic Gale-Proof Cloak Legguards of Composure Remembrance Girdle Volitant Amulet	Bountiful Gauntlets Dragonstorm Breastplate The Sanctum's Flowing Vestments Upstanding Spaulders

2 Drakes alive.
One extra ilvl200 item(see above) + one extra ilvl213 item.

Normal	Heroic
Belabored Legplates Chestguard of Flagrant Prowess Enamored Cowl Greatring of Collision Sabatons of Firmament	Headpiece of Reconciliation Leggings of the Honored Obsidian Greathelm Pennant Cloak Unsullied Cuffs

3 Drakes alive.
One extra ilvl200 item(see above) + one extra ilvl213 item(see above) + a mount.

Normal	Heroic
Reins of the Black Drake	Reins of the Twilight Drake

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7. Achievements

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Normal	Heroic
Besting the Black Dragonflight Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows Less Is More Twilight Assist Twilight Duo The Twilight Zone	Heroic: Besting the Black Dragonflight Heroic: Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows Heroic: Less Is More Heroic: Twilight Assist Heroic: Twilight Duo Heroic: The Twilight Zone

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8. External Links

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Here are a couple of links where you can find more info.
• Wowwiki
• Wowhead
• Tankspot
• Bosskillers

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