by TarciryanNOTE: This guide only covers the first two bosses, and as BWL is rarely attempted since the release of The Burning Crusade, this guide will not be completed.
As my guild has finally cleared BWL, I thought I’d try and share some of my experience with you guys. This will not be a traditional guide, more like an event diary for each of the bosses and some of the trash pulls.
It is a work in progress, and all feedback is welcome. It is the way we do it in my guild and by no means a definate solution or approach to any of the encounters in the instance. Any feedback I find interesteing will be quoted in the guide itself at the appropriate place.
Right, let’s start. There are a few things you need to take care of before heading into Blackwing Lair.
1. Find an endgame guild or try and build one yourself.
2. Get Molten Core on farm.
3. Get attuned to BWL. Check this guide.
4. Not needed from the get go, but start farming FR. You should have plenty if you have killed Ragnaros on a weekly basis.
Obviously these points are a quite obvious if you’re already in BWL. My point is that Blackwing Lair for a while was the ultimate challenge in WoW and it’s still a handfull to progress through. You need a firm and dedicated guild to make fast progress, it’s not something you go LFG’ing for-)
Razorgore the Untamed
The beginning of BWL is virtually trash free. The first room you enter is where you find the first boss, Razorgore. Now don’t be fooled, he may be the first boss, but he is most definately not the easiest in BWL.
What will happen
When you enter, the room is full of eggs. At your right you see Razorge on a raised platform, to your left is another platform with some orcs and an orb. The orb is used by the orcs to mind control Razorgore. After you kill the named orc, someone in the raid needs to take his place, or Razorgore will start attacking you. When the raid is MC’ing Raz, the room will start filling with orcs. They keep spawning until all the eggs are destroyed by Razorgore (through the raid member controlling him). As soon as all the eggs are destroyed, the mobs will run out and the raid can focus on killing Razorgore.
What to do
Once you enter the egg room go left and gather the raid south of the platform with the orb and the orcs. Take out the orcs through simple tanking and dps. Once the orcs are killed and someone is mc’ing Raz (a paladin is ideal as warriors are needed throughout phase 1 and whoever mc’s will have quite some raz aggro once all the eggs are destroyed), the raid splits into four, covering each corner of the room. At this point the room should start filling with orcs, loads of them (there are a maximum of 40 of them at once) and a few dragons.
Now the trick to this fight is kiting. There are 3 types of mobs spawning, handled differently.
Legionares hard hitting melee orcs, kited around the room by warriors and hunters (piercing howl, hamstring, concussion blow, concussion shot etc). They should tag whatever legionare they see and start running. Follow a pattern close to what you see above, where you run up the platform and jump down. The orcs will run back down, thus creating some distance between them and the kiter. These kiters should be continuesly given hot’s and shield by healers, anything else risks giving the healer aggro. My priest has gotten aggro several times simply by using too much renew, so if possible try and stick to shield.
Dragons very hard hitting, these need to be either sleeped or have a warlock on chain-fear duty. They can be tanked but it’s not worth the trouble to be honest. Keep them scared or sleepy.
Mages they do nasty dmg, but are easily killed. They should be dps’d in the corner they spawn.
While all this is going on, whoever is controlling Raz needs to be fast in destroying eggs. Razorgore is as suspectable to attack from orcs as the rest of the raid, and if he is killed he will do an AOE that wipes the raid. Eggs should be destroyed east to west, ie from where Raz stood when you entered, to where the mind controlling orb is. Once there are only a few eggs left, have the orb controller use Razergore’s AOE fireball attack to make every add in the room attack him. Have the raid move to the centre and use every cc there is psycic scream, demo shout, frost nova, to keep the orcs from destroying Raz.
When the last egg is destroyed the adds run out and phase 2 begins.
He has the following abilities
1. Standard melee
2. Melee cleave
3. Conflagurate. This attack is like a scatter shot with a nazty fire dot. For each tick it spreads to nearby raid members who get both the dot and the confusion effect. Razergore wipes aggro on whoever gets conflag’d, but it is restored once the effect wears off.
4. AOE Fireball on a timed interval, around 1k dmg.
Raz becomes where angry at however mc’d him, and he can’t be taunted so MT must be fast in getting those sunders on him (we even used a pally as MT once cuz Raz simply wouldn’t get off him, even with Salvation on him). Conflagurate makes two tanks on him a necessity. The OT must build agro directly behind Raz so he doesn’t get hit with conflag when the MT does and visa verca. Make sure MT got good aggro before you start DPS. We wiped quite a few times cuz Raz ran around going splat on the raid. Due to conflag, rogues should stay away during this fight, they will simply take too much damage and require too much healing.
Once you got Raz controlled by the tanks, and dps is going steady he should be a cakewalk from here on (assuming you didn’t loose too many during phase 1, especially healers). The AOE fireball should be easily controlled by healers if tanks are taking all other damage (conflagurate, frontal fire attack and melee). You can also try and avoid it by staying out of LoS with Razorgore on each time it’s coming up, or move out of it’s range (40 yards). Depending on who is tanking and where, chances are at least healers take a beating though.
Once the chubby is down, the door to the next boss opens, and the real challenge can begin.
Razorgore drops the tier 2 bracers.
Now onwards too the encounter that make or break many a dedicated guild. But before that comes, there are a few other things too take care of.
While the loot from Razorgore is being distributed, the raid must stay put in this room. Once everyone is ready, have the raid move inside the next room. Vael is lying on the floor, but don’t worry, he’s not hostile yet. Inside this room are also loads of goblins, and they start running away as soon as you enter. They drop elementium ore (needed for Thunderfury and AQ quest reward) and hourglass sand (needed for Chormaggus later on), so everyone in the raid must tag as many as possible and kill them. One dot or autoattack will do. They go down easy, you shouldn’t have any problems here. Once that is done, head back to where Vael is lying and prepare the raid for what is about to happen.
Vaelastrasz the Corrupt
What will happen
When you enter the room (and start hunting down goblins) Vael will be lying on the floor, tagged as a friendly. You can see Nefarian on the throne, finishing off the corruption of the red dragon. Nefarian will eventually vanish and can’t be damaged anyway, so don’t bother with him. Once the goblins are dead and you start the fight (simply talk to Vael) he starts a monologue and after the fight begins. From then you have 3 minutes to DPS him down or you will probably wipe (for reasons you will see below).
What you need to do
Abilities
Burning adrenaline Every 15 seconds Vael targets a RANDOM MANA USER with the debuff Burning Adrenaline. It makes all your spells instant cast, and increases dmg by 100% (it does not remove cooldowns though) but also reduces your health by 5% each second until you die. When you do, you explode and everyone around for up to 5k dmg.
However, every 45 second, Vael will target the CURRENT AGGRO HOLDER (MT) with the same debuff. His attack speed is increased by 100% until he dies.
Essence of the Red This buff is given to the entire raid when the encounter begins, and lasts 3 minutes. It gives casters virtually endless mana, warriors endless rage and rogues endless energy. After 3 minutes you only have a few seconds if you haven’t yet killed him, or the healers will OOM faster than you can say “OMG we g0t pawnzzzor by Vael”.
Frontal fire attack that hits everyone infront of him for 2k and upwards depending on FR.
Cleave attack that hits everyone in range for 2-3k dmg.
Tailwipe that hits for 500ish dmg and knockbacks.
Fire aura that hits everyone in the raid for a few hundred fire damage per tick, depending on FR.
As mana is no issue here, every stat you have can be sacrificed to get as high fire resistance as possible. Everyone will need it due to the aura. The less dmg the raid takes, the more time healers can spend on the MT.
Now, what makes this fight hard, apart from the incredible annoying fire aura, the continues loss of casters and tanks due to Burning Adrenaline, the tight timeframe and tremendous ammount of healing needed on the ENTIRE raid…(discouraged yet?) is that this fight requires very good tanking rotation mixed with high DPS and good aggro control.
For your first try you can take your time and set up the raid, as Vael will be friendly. Use imps to show the position of the MT as there will be alot of tank switching when MT gets Burning Adrenaline. Have your MT standing right infront of Vael’s face, as close to the throne as possible, and set up your OT’s (five or six) on the blind spot between his left hind legs (out of reach for both cleave and tailwipe). Make sure the tanks know the order in which they step up as MT, and have them start sundering accordingly.
Give the first MT a few seconds to gain initial aggro, but not too long. If Essence of the Red ends, you’re history. When DPS starts, go full out. Everyone needs to use their aggro reducing abilites as soon as they can. If they are resisted, hold back on DPS or you risk gaining aggro. In that case, Vael will flame breath and cleave the raid to death in seconds. Faint, feign death and even fade should be used everytime cooldown is up. Mages should use whatever they got speccd to reduced threat generation.
If you get the tanking rotation working, this fight will get alot easier. Our main problem when learning the encounter was tanks dying before they get Burning Adrenaline, thus when all tanks are up he goes splat on the first rogue/mage/hunter on his hatelist.
Ideally you should have a priest in each group to keep the fire aura in check with Prayer of Healing. This is rarely the case, so have a druid cast regrowth, rejuv and heal everyone as fast as possible. Remember, mana is no issue here, time is. Every healer should cast a heal on the MT when they can, be sure to have at least 2 or 3 healers on the MT at all times. A good tactic for priests is to have the MT targeted from the getgo, and change between PoH and flash heal rank 7. When the MT dies from BA (hopefully) hit TAB and then the assist key (F as default) to target Vael’s next target, then keep changing between flash heal dn PoH.
That’s it really. High DPS, good tank rotation and GET THE FUCK AWAY when you get Burning Adrenaline, or you blow everyone up, not just yourself. Run directly behind his legs, as close to the wall as possible and start spamming your highest dmg spell that has no cooldown (instant cast remember?). If you’re a healer, try to keep yourself up until your 20 seconds have passed, to inflict as much dmg as possible (heals are instant as well).
And by the way…Vael starts the fight with 30% health (due to being raped by Nefarian beforehand), but don’t let that fool you…it’s still around 800k healthpoints and if the 3 minutes are up and you don’t have him at around 2%, you are in for a wipe. Also, at the time the buff wears off many of your casters will be dead from Burning Adrenaline.
Vael drops the tier 2 belts. He also makes way for a long and boring chain of fast spawning trash mobs, but more about that later. Keep the feedback coming, next up is the more laidback encounter that is Broodlord Lashslayer (renamed Lootlord after he was nerfed).
