Blackwing Lair Survival Guide

[Odenn]

Welcome to Blackwing Lair.

This is a basic survival guide to the instance of BWL, so you can have an idea of what to expect throughout the dungeon. It will not give you a full strategy or the specific tasks for each class, (it would be far too long and no one will read it, Vrugz has probably already stopped.) but it will give you enough knowledge that you are not going in blind to the encounters.

Groups of creatures will be addressed in the order that you will encounter them in the dungeon. Screenshots will be included as well for reference.

The encounters within this dungeon are a dramatic shift from most of what you have previously encountered. In different events, specific tasks will need to be carried out by certain classes with a very small margin for error. Some creatures will even have random abilities that you will not know until after you have engaged them.

Blackwing Lair will heavily test:

1. Individual skills

2. Threat control and management

3. Dynamics and your ability to adapt to situations

4. Teamwork and communication

Before we begin, this is a list of equipment that you MUST have. If you do not have them, your progress in this dungeon will be severely hampered:

1. Onyxia Scale Cloak.

2. Heavy Fire Resistance (Equivalent to what you have used for Ragnaros.)

Good luck in your battle against the Black Dragonflight

Razorgore the Untamed:

The first room that greets your entry into BWL is also the home to the first boss of the instance. (Yes, there is no trash to clear.) You must complete this encounter before you can progress any farther into the instance. You will note a square room with raised platforms to the left and right. On the left platform is the Orb of Command, Grethok the Controller and 2 Blackwing Guardsman while on the right sits Razorgore the Untamed. You will also notice 30 eggs scattered throughout the room.

There are two objectives in this fight.

1. Destroy all the eggs in the hatchery.

2. Defeat Razorgore.

The only thing that can destroy the eggs is Razoregore himself, as such you will need to mind control him throughout the room while contending with a large number of guards that will attempt to stop you. If all members of the raid are killed, obviously you fail. If the guards are able to catch Razorgore and kill him, Razorgore will self-destruct and wipe out everything in the room including all remaining raid members.

The encounter itself will proceed in two separate phases:

Phase 1a.

You will need to kill Grethok and his guards as fast as possible while one member of the raid takes control of the Orb in order to gain control of Razorgore. You will have roughly 30 seconds to accomplish this before you will have to deal with the incoming waves that will try to stop you from destroying the hatchery.

Phase 1b.

This is the most difficult part of the fight as it is all about controlling the chaos of 50+ creatures that are attempting to stop you from destroying the eggs. In each corner of the room, you will have 1-2 spawns about every 5-15 seconds. You will receive up to 40 humanoids and up to 12 dragonkin in total. If creatures are killed, new ones will spawn to fill up to those maximum numbers. There will be 3 types of creatures that will appear. It will be up to your raid as to how they deal with each type but here is an overview.

a. Blackwing Mage. These are the most dangerous to the raid. They have an AoE arcane explosion that will cause high damage and will disrupt the mind control process from the orb if they are close enough. They will generally be killed as quickly as possible and rogues are generally used to keep them stun-locked to reduce the damage they can cause.

b. Blackwing Legionaire. These are basic run of the mill orc warriors. They have a cleave that can hit multiple targets in front of them. High armour and hit points. Some raids will have these kited around the room in a train by the raid’s Warriors or Shamans in order to keep them occupied. Some raids will treat these the same way as the mages and focus all corner DPS on these as well to kill them quickly.

c. Deathtalon Wyrmkin. These are the dragonkin. These will generally always be handled with some form of crowd control as they have a high melee damage. General options will include hibernation by Druids, fear by Warlocks and kiting by Hunters.

While up to 52 creatures are kept occupied by the bulk of the raid, one member will control Razorgore and use him to destroy the eggs throughout the room. His ability to destroy eggs does have a cooldown so it will usually take about 5 minutes to destroy all eggs in the room. Once all the eggs are destroyed, all the humanoids and dragonkin will flee the room and you will be left alone to face Razorgore.

Phase 2b.

Once the final egg is destroyed, Razorgore will turn his attention on the last person that was controlling the orb. This person will become the main tank for the remainder of the fight and should take him to one side of the room while the remainder of the raid goes to the other to attack from range. As Razorgore has a conflagrate, you will also need a 2nd tank to aid in tanking him as he will switch back and forth between the two when he conflagrates one of them. Razorgore is immune to taunts from the tanks, so it is important to be careful with your agro and not to pull him away from the tanks.

Throughout the process of mind control, kiting, crowd control, etc… It is very important to have jobs for people assigned beforehand. There are very few people in the raid that are not assigned a specific role in this fight so it is imperative they carry those tasks out perfectly.

If all goes well, Razorgore will fall and you can continue your journey.

Edited December 10, 2006 by Odenn

[Odenn]

Vaelastrasz the Corrupt

Make sure you wait to enter the next room as a group. You will see Vaelastrasz as soon as you enter the room. Do not panic, he will not attack until you activate the encounter. What you will need to do quickly is eliminate a number of Blackwing Technicians before they are able to flee the room and summon reinforcements, (they are easy).

Put your Fire Resist gear on now. All members of the raid will take AoE fire damage for the duration of the fight, plus special attacks.

You have the ability to set up and walk around the room at your leisure for the first attempt. 4-6 main tanks the far side, rest of the raid on this side usually. You want to stay mostly to the sides due to cleave attacks and flame breath. If you have to return for multiple attempts, he will be hostile and you will have to stick to the outside edge of the room to move into position.

Players will recognize Vael from encounters throughout Blackrock Spire if they have completed the Seal of Ascension quests. No, the Red Dragonflight is not in league with Nefarian; he has been captured and corrupted and will fight you against his will, (he will even apologize when he kills a member of the raid.)

The Vaelastrasz fight involves putting out as much damage as possible in a very short time while keeping tight control on aggro throughout the raid. If this fight lasts too long, the group will wipe as there will simply not be enough people left to continue the fight. In his weakened state, Vaelastrasz will only have 30% of his health to begin the fight; though weakened severely, this is not an easy fight.

There are 2 major things to be concerned with during this fight.

1. When the fight begins, the raid will be afflicted with Essence of the Red. This is a very nice buff that will replenish mana, energy and rage faster than most can even use it. The drawback to this is that you must manage your aggro very carefully with that much power at your disposal.

2. The second major concern is Burning Adrenaline. Your tank with the highest aggro will be afflicted with this every 45 seconds and random mana users will be affected throughout the fight. It doubles attack speed, damage, instant casts spells, etc… It also burns off 5% of health until the target is dead.

2a. When a tank is affected with this, a 2nd one has to step in front and begin building hate to take over when the first one dies. This must be done smoothly to avoid having Vaelastrasz turning to face the rest of the raid.

3b. Mana users with Burning Adrenaline will explode when they reach the end of their timer causing tremendous damage to those around them. Mana users will run towards an empty area to die alone (usually towards the tail.)

This fight is about balance. Damage too fast and the tanks will lose aggro and Vaelastrasz will wipe the raid. Damage too slow and you run out of raid members to Burning Adrenaline.

Provided you survive you can take your FR gear off for now.

Edited December 13, 2006 by Odenn