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Comment by Iroared

This is apparently the boss for Spine of Deathwing encounter in Dragon Soul.
Loot for this encounter can be found in .

Here is the strategy for normal version (10 man):

This fight consists of three repeating phases. In each phase the goal is to remove an armor plate from Deathwing's back. Once three plates are successfully removed, you will see a short cutscene and get teleported to the Maelstrom.

Deathwing himself has only one ability - if all players are on the same side of the platform, Deathwing will perform a Barrel Roll in that direction, throwing off all players and Amalgamations not attached to its back.

Throughout the fight, you will encounter several types of adds.
When you start the encounter, you will be dropped onto a small platform with four Corruption. These chain cast Searing Plasma at random raid members, which needs to be healed through. Sometimes they will start channeling Fiery Grip, which stuns the target and inflicts large amounts of damage, and needs to be quickly interrupted by damaging or killing the corruption (around 100k damage is enough). When a Corruption is killed, a Hideous Amalgamation is spawned, which should be quickly picked up by a tank, and Corrupted Blood will start spawning from the hole left behind by the Corruption. Also, players that get close to the hole will be affected by Grasping Tendrils, which inflicts a small amount of damage and prevents them from being thrown off the back. If no Corruptions are left, a new one will spawn, so there's always at least one up.
When Corrupted Blood is killed, it deals some a little bit of damage to the raid and leaves behind an untargetable residue, which crawls back to the hole, and reconstitutes into a new Corrupted Blood. If Amalgamation is dragged over a residue, it will consume it, and gain a stack of Absorbed Blood, increasing its damage and attack speed. When Absorbed Blood reaches 9 stacks, it starts dealing intense damage to the raid, so the Amalgamation should be finished off quickly. When it dies with 9 stacks, it casts a Nuclear Blast, which pries off nearby armor plate and likely kills all players in range. After a plate is pried off, a Burning Tendons appears underneath it, casting Seal Armor Breach. If the cast is completed, the armor plate is re-sealed.
After the plate is successfully removed, the platform becomes larger and two more Corruptions appear. The whole process repeats, until three armor plates are removed.

The general strategy is to start off by killing all Corruptions except one or two, then stacking at one of them to throw off all Amalgamations. Kill the one more corruption and have the main tank pick up the Amalgamation. When blood comes out, main tank should taunt it and hold aggro on it, to make sure it dies near the Amalgamation. DPS should attack Amalgamation, until it gets to about 10% health. The remaining Corruption will spam Plasma, so you should assign a healer to spam heals on debuffed players. Every 5 plasma casts or so (can't figure out the exact number), it will grip someone, so you need a couple ranged DPS to quickly switch to it. You should avoid killing it for as long as possible, since it spawns more Amalgamations which the off-tank will need to pick up and drag away from the raid and the blood. Main tank should taunt blood away from the offtank, so his adds do not get stacks.
Once the main Amalgamation gets 9 stacks, it should be moved to the very front of the platform and quickly finished off. Everyone should move away from the nuclear blast, and get ready to burst the tendon. After the platform is successfully removed, repeat - kill all but one Corruption and do a barrel roll.
- It should be noted that the tendon has relatively tight dps requirements, depending on your set up. If a dps gets Fiery Gripped, it can easily mean not killing the tendon in time, so its suggested you assign a ranged dps to bring the last corruption to low health, and then finish it off as the Amalgamation is exploding.

Comment by ZelosRaine

This fight, like many add control fights, is very simple once your raid understands what their individual jobs are. The fight, on 10 man, is as follows but 25 man should differ little:

1 tank, 3 heals, 6 dps (balanced ranged and melee is nice)

The fight will start (and each subsequent phase will as well) with killing tentacles. Your raid will parachute in (everyone should hit esc ASAP). The raid leader, while he is drifting down, should mark a tentacle for everyone NOT to kill. Dps and tanks should quickly kill the other three (the other two on subsequent phases as only 3 will be up for each plate after the initial parachuting in). As soon as all but one tentacle is dead, the raid should stack NEXT to a predetermined burning puddle of blood, then, when Deathwing emotes his barrel roll, should immediately move into the puddle and use ONE raid cooldown (PW:B, Spirit Link, etc). This minimizes the damage from the puddle and helps healer mana (the fight can be very healing intensive). This will cause the three hideous amalgamation that spawn from the dead tentacles to fly off of Deathwing's back (the corrupted bloods cannot be knocked off and will respawn unless handled properly). This process will be performed a total of 3 times: once when landing on Deathwing's back and twice more, once after each of the three plates is destroyed (the third plate ends the encounter, hence no need to perform a barrel roll as you will be happily watching a cut scene).

Once you have only one tentacle left, have all dps kill it quickly. The tentacles can channel a stun on raiders which is especially dangerous if individuals are stuck in the fire when it happens. Assign one NON DOT CLASS ranged (hunter, shammy, spriest using mind spike, etc) to keep an eye on the tentacle (there will always be at least one up) in order to break the stun quickly. The stun breaks once 20% of the tentacles health has been done as damage. DO NOT KILL THE tentacle as it will spawn another amalgamation and likely wipe the raid. Also HEALERS SHOULD NOTE that the tentacles will put a healing debuff on randon raiders that absorbs a large amount of healing and does damage. Healers should focus on spam healing these people ASAP as it is a very dangerous debuff considering all the other spikey raid damage that can happen.

At this point, the tank should have the hideous amalgamation in the middle of Deathwing's back, immediately next to the armor plate to be destroyed. All dps should burn the amalgamation while the tank focuses on taunting bloods and cleaving them down. Once the amalgamation is sub 20-30%, dps can SINGLE TARGET the bloods. The bloods do an aoe when killed and, if too many are killed at once, can stack the debuff on the amalgamation far too quickly for your raid to react properly. The tank should be sure to move the amalgamation around a bit as it has to physically pass through the puddles of blood left by the dead corruption to gain the debuff. Once the debuff has reached 9 stacks, the amalgamation will begin doing VERY high raid wide damage. The raid needs to closely manage their dps going into this point. Ideally, the amalgamation will be sub 5% when the last stack is applied and the dps can kill it nearly instantly. However, it is better to take slightly more raid damage than risk not getting 9 stacks as killing the add without 9 stacks will mean a repetition of the entire process and a likely wipe (the number of bloods increases exponentially as the fight goes on, creating a soft enrage).

Once the amalgamation is killed with 9 stacks, everyone should run away from it immediately as it will, after a few seconds, blow up in a massive explosion which will instantly kill anyone near it. As soon as this happens, the only real dps check of the fight will occur. The add's explosion will cause the plate to, after a few moment, lift up and reveal a "burning tendon." All raiders (including tank and healers) should make a "/tar burning" macro and should use all dps possible to kill it. The tendon casts for 23 seconds but is unattackable for 5 of those seconds, leaving your raid with 17 seconds to kill it. If you fail to kill it, it means repeating the entire process again and will likely lead to a wipe.

Strategies for maximizing dps in this phase include the following. All dps should save all cooldowns for the tendon. EVERYONE SHOULD STACK ON THE TENDON when it appears (be careful NOT to stack in the pool of burning blood next to it). Everyone, including healers, should maximize dps on the tendon. Obviously, if people need heals, healers should heal. However, if no one is below 50%, healers should focus on doing any damage they reasonably can. Obviously, this means that the dps and tank should be doing outstanding dps during this phase as it is their only time to let loose. The strategy that worked for my raid group was: For the 1st tendon, use all dps cooldowns that had a cooldown of less than 5 minutes; for the 2nd tendon, use hero/lust and any one minute cooldowns; for the 3rd tendon, use any and everything we could (5min and ten minute cds). If a stun goes out during this phase, ignore it and continue dps. However, it is very important that any stuns BEFORE this phase be broken immediately as every bit of dps is needed.

Good luck!

Comment by Kathucka

Here are short instructions on how to defeat this encounter on LFR difficulty:

Mark and kill ONE Corruption (tentacle). It will spawn an Amalgamation. Tank the Amalgamation next to the armor plate closest to the head.

DPS the Amalgamation down to 20%.

Secondary tank, pick up bloods and move them to the Amalgamation. Kill them there. This increases the stacks on the Amalgamation.

When the Amalgamation reaches nine stacks, kill it and run away. This spawns a Tendon in front of you.

Blow all DPS cooldowns and nuke the Tendon.

Repeat the above two times, then watch Thrall PewPewLazor Deathwing, and collect your ilvl 390 loot.

The fight is extremely easy in LFR if you do this. Low DPS requirements. Very little healing. Very little tanking.

Comment by 445685

As I posted over on the Burning Tendons page:

3006k HP on 10-man normal mode. Seal Armor Breach's cast is 23 seconds, however the tendons are non-targettable until 7 seconds thereafter, leaving 16 seconds to kill them. Thus, you need 28.52k DPS per raider, assuming a 0.5 second delay due to latency and targeting, 1/3/6 raid comp, and that the tank and all the healers add up to 0.8 damage dealers. This is slightly higher than Ultraxion, but has the advantage of being burst DPS required, and thus trinkets and cooldowns can and should be timed for this burn phase.

3006k HP on 10-man normal mode.
16 seconds to kill.
28.52k burst DPS per raider to kill in a single phase.
Save trinkets and cooldowns for this phase.

Comment by 609114

Currently is rather buggy for pets; pets will frequently fall through Deathwing whilst trying to attack the tendon.

Comment by Euphemia

Instructional video of a kill, including the Maybe he'll get dizzy achievement. This is on 10m normal.

Comment by tadelle

We are 3 man healing this fight. 2 man assigned for Searing Plasma. When 3 or more people have it , it's time to start using CDs. But not a hard encounter on normal difficulty.

Comment by 126504

Grasping tendrils seem to come and go willy nilly within the last few weeks. Has anyone else noticed having the debuff and the suddenly losing it and getting flung off his back?

Comment by JASP01

Can't help but notice he isn't classified as Dragonkin....

Comment by Kathucka

Although it doesn't look like it, this turns out to be primarily a healing fight on normal mode. Healers will have to blow cooldowns at certain points to keep everyone alive.

First, right when you roll, lots of people will have Searing Plasma, as there were just three or four Corruptions applying it. At the same time, everyone will be jumping into the holes, which means the whole raid will be taking damage. There will also be two or three Amalgamations up, so the tanks (or other raid members!) will be taking extra damage. Note that this happens right at the beginning of the fight, so watch out! Blow cooldowns before the roll so that you can clear all the Searing Plasma before the AoE damage starts.

Second, and obviously, when the Amalgamation gets nine stacks of Absorb Blood, heavy raid damage and even heavier tank damage go out. Look for raid-wide damage-reducers (aura mastery, bubbles, Divine Guardian, "Raid Wall", etc.), and hope your tank is blowing his cooldowns. Better yet, get the Amalgamation to very low health before stacking up the Absorb Blood, so you don't have to put up with it for long.

When someone gets Fiery Grip, they take heavy single-target damage. Watch out for the debuff and be ready to heal them hard, especially if it's a fellow healer or they have Plasma.

Also, for the whole fight, you have to keep Searing Plasma clear while not running out of mana. A single tentacle casting the 10-man normal version requires 25,000 HPS to keep clear, and it has to be clear when you hit the AoE damage parts of the fight.

Tanks and damage-dealers need to be aware that healers are burning up mana dealing with Searing Plasma, and do what they can to reduce incoming damage. This includes using personal cooldowns as appropriate, breaking the Grip quickly, and keeping all the adds on the tank or tanks.

Comment by Galindruhek

I would just like to point out for Warlocks who might be new to raids in general and this fight in particular...should the Raid Leader tell you to "Stop DPSing Corruption" s/he doesn't mean your dot Corruption...they mean the tentacles. Failure to follow through as they intended could result in your being called all kinds of names, accused of intentionally trying to wipe the raid, and of course being booted...things that are good to know...

Comment by DBlightJordail

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, it should be noted that the Hideous Amalgamations do not have a front or back, therefore they can parry in any direction. As a melee dps, staying out of things is more important than than your position on the mob itself.

Comment by Mazorlion

From my experience healing this fight (many wipes) on heroic, I have never yet seen Blood Corruption: Earth change into Blood Corruption: Death. We even started dispelling the Blood Corruption: Earth to move it to the tanks before anyone else and still I have never seen it mutate back into death. Has anyone else had this experience?

Comment by rilgania

Yet another 10m heroic guide... :)

This is a quick cover of how my raid did the first kill and thought to give a few inputs for those looking for advice. It is by no means supposed to be the "best" way to do it, it merely was the best solution for OUR raid!

Setup
- 2 Tanks (druid, paladin)
- 3 Healers (priest, shaman, druid)
- 5 DDs (hunter, mage, rogue, warlock, priest)

Fight breakdown
Pull -
kill 3 corruptions - 1st roll - kill last corruption, amalgamation - tendon 1a - kill corruption, amalgamation - tendon 1b -
kill 3 corruptions - 2nd roll - kill corrupion, amalgamation - tendon 2a - kill corruption, amalgamation - tendon 2b -
kill 3 corruptions - 3rd roll - kill corruption, amalgamation - tendon 3a - kill corruption, amalgamation - tendon 3b

Details
The fight mechanics are simple and straight-forward. The hard part is to not get overwhelmed by the blood adds and general incoming damage. They were tanked by the paladin and constantly nuked by the hunter. The healers can call for time-off when things got tight but this shouldn't happen too often. The whole raid should bomb them during the second roll, but not during the last. Instead, they are bombed after the roll, because the Amalgamations are likely fully soaked before the roll and deal a lot of damage. Towards the end of the fight, after Tendon 3a (during which the hunter keeps bombing the blood if possible), you'll get to a point where's too much blood. Proceed to kite them, using paladin and warlock stuns for every change of direction.
Raid cooldowns are used during rolls 2 and 3 and Amalgamation explosions, assign them beforehand. Ours were: SL totem + hymn during rolls, tranquility for the explosion. The non healer cooldowns were called by our main healer whenever necessary. Also assign someone to backup the dispeller when they are casting their cooldown.
The Almagamation is tanked near the plate and nuked fast. Mind to kill it right when Fiery Grip comes off cool down, else it would disrupt the Tendon phase. Be ready to call for a nuke stop if you're too fast. Just to mention the obvious, save DPS cooldowns for the tendon.

Enjoy! :)

Comment by 324060

This is freaking Hard in Heroic with amalgation's Degradation and the burning Tendon Huge Hp pool,and even with the Aspect Nerf,the Dps requierements are very high to kill a single tendon,and with 2 tendons per plate,you will find impossible to kill both(at least till MoP) in a single exposed phase and you will have to repeat the Amalgation strategy twice per plate,and missing even a single tendon only makes things even worst with Degradation debuff stacking,and its pretty much a wipe in that case.Not even a sigle Dps must die,since it will be impossible to keep up the fight.

Comment by Voidly

Highlights of Lore Behind Deathwing;

Deathwing the Destroyer, formerly known as Neltharion the Earth-Warder. Thousands years ago he was empowered with power of the earth by Titans. Later, he has been corrupted by the Old God.

The Old Gods:

The Old Gods are powerful dark creatures. They are imprisoned beneath to earth by Titans. There is THREE known Old Gods.

C'Thun, he can be found at Temple of Ahn'Qiraj as the Last Boss. He is Defeated.

Yogg-Saron, he can be found at Ulduar as the Last Boss. He is Defeated.

And the last one is N'Zoth. Who is the responsible for the corruption of Deathwing.
He sent his Faceless one's to aid Deathwing.

Warlord Zon'ozz

"Victory for Deathwing. For the glory of N'Zoth!"
"The will of N'Zoth corrupts you."
"Your skulls shall adorn N'Zoth's writhing throne."
"Your deaths shall sing of N'Zoth's unending glory."

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping

"Our numbers are endless, our power beyond reckoning! All who oppose the Destroyer will DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS!"
"You will drown in the blood of the Old Gods! ALL OF YOU!"
"All praise Deathwing, THE DESTROYER!"
"From its BLEAKEST DEPTHS, we RECLAIM this world!"

Haethen Kaul

"It is true that we serve Deathwing, but we also serve a higher power. Never forget that!"

Also, He is source of Emerald Nightmare, which is twisted Emerald Dream.

His current place is unknown.

First Defeat of the Deathwing:

After he driven mad, he turned aganist other aspects during the War of the Ancients. He also showed himself as Lord Daval Prestor at Second War. After a series of setbacks, he retreated to the elemental plane of Deepholm to recuperate. And many believed he is dead.

After, he returned and his wrath resulted in the Shattering, which reshaped the map of Azeroth.

Dragon Soul:

Dragon Soul is an artifact created before the War of the Ancients by Deathwing to use aganist the Burning Legion. Howewer Deathwing corrupted and he wished to use it to control the other Dragonflights, and make himself a god to be worshipped by the mortal races.

Later Malfurion Stormrage succeeded to steal Dragon Soul but he was captured by Queen Azshara's soldiers, led by his own brother, Illidan Stormrage. Dragon Soul wanted to use open a portal that allows Sargeras entry into Azeroth at Well of Eternity. But they failed and Burning Legion banished back, then Malfurion and the four remaining Aspects placed a spell on the Dragon Soul that would prevent Deathwing from ever using it again.

Also it caused his defeat. Thrall channeled Dragon Soul's Power (Empowered with power of the other aspects, (Again) ) to Deathwing Three times, finally he is destroyed.

Deathwing's Followers and Relatives:

- Twilight's Hammer (The cult worshipping and serving Old God's, led by Twilight Council) Twilight Council : Cho'gall , Twilight Lord Everun and High Priestess Azil. After Defeat of Twilight Council, Twilight's Hammer led by Twilight Father-Prophet (Archbishop Benedictus)

- Ragnaros and Fire Elementals.
- Al'Akir and Air Elementals.
- Neferset Tol'vir
- Few Earth Elementals (His power over the earth) (Morchok)
- Few Water Elementals
- Faceless One's (Forces of N'zoth)

- Lady Sinestra (Prime consort)
- Onyxia, Nefarian and Wrathion (children)

Main sources : Wowpedia and Wowwiki.

Note: I will add more later. Thanks for reading. Sorry for grammar and typing mistakes.

Comment by Wolvigar

As I've pointed out for Ultraxion and Warmaster, Unholy Death Knights can take advantage of having Anti-Magic Shell during this fight. The Hideous Amalgamation's Nuclear Blast can be absorbed with Anti-Magic Shell, and turned into a high amount of Runic Power.

Comment by Eillesthis

FYI if you've done any previous bosses on normal mode (for achievements), you can't do Spine of Deathwing (or Madness of Deathwing) on heroic this week.

Comment by Sentro

As this hasn't been mentioned until now: This encounter has a fifteen minute enrage timer. After these fifteen minutes Deathwing will roll over and kick everybody from his back. You can't avoid this and even standing in the remains of the tentacles won't prevent you from this fate.

Found this out the hard way in the raidfinder...

Comment by Qoko

Want to see some confirmation or rejection of this detail on Spine heroic. Last I noted, it seems that Hideous Amalgamations actually Absorbed Blood way more than the 9 residues required for the Superheated Nucleus. A major tactic used on heroic to subdue the enormous increase of Bloods is by cleaning them as you roll, yet this invokes much more overall. If the above is true you can use the first two plates up simply clear all Bloods as you progress to the Tendon, making the third much easier. It shouldn't take the tank too long to pick up all residues though, due to the nucleus blowing your face off, but if they're at least partly placed alright, this ought to ease up a bit. So, anyone else noticed this as well?

View in 3D Links

Deathwing <The Destroyer>

This NPC can be found in Dragon Soul .

Dragon SoulThe Siege of Wyrmrest TempleMorchokWarlord Zon'ozzYor'sahj the UnsleepingHagara the StormbinderFall of DeathwingUltraxionWarmaster BlackhornSpine of DeathwingMadness of Deathwing

Encounter Journal

Heroic		Mythic
Deadly		Important
Tank		DPS
Healer		Interruptible
Magic		Curse
Poison		Disease
Enrage

Roll – Throughout the encounter, Deathwing tries to throw players from his back when he senses that they are all standing on the same side of his spine. During a roll, Deathwing throws off all players and other creatures not attached to his back.

Elementium Reinforced Plates

The glancing strike from the Dragon Soul destroyed one of the large armor plates on Deathwing's back and loosened another three. Players must remove all of these plates to give Thrall a chance to get a clear shot.

Burning Tendons
Players expose Burning Tendons when they pry up one of Deathwing's armor plates. Destroying these fibrous strands is the key to removing an armor plate.
- Seal Armor Breach – After the players pry up an armor plate, the Burning Tendons rapidly pull the plate closed, protecting the tendons from further damage and preventing the plate from flying off.

Deathwing's Immune System

The creatures that comprise Deathwing's Immune System emerge from the holes left by torn off armor plates. Deathwing defends himself with increasing intensity as more plates are torn off.

Grasping Tendrils – These tendrils sprout from holes in Deathwing's back that aren't currently occupied by Corruption tentacles. The Tendrils grasp any player that wander too close, reducing their movement speed by 35% and inflicting 5250 to 6750 Fire damage every 5 sec. until they move away. This effect prevents players from being thrown off Deathwing's back.
Corruption – These tentacles are dramatic physical manifestations of the Old God Corruption that runs rampant through Deathwing's body. They emerge first from the holes in his back left by armor plates, and they seal the wound completely, preventing any other creatures from emerging from it.
Hideous Amalgamation – These unstable creatures are a patchwork of Elementium Armor fragments and pieces of the former Dragon's body held together by his molten blood.
- Absorb Blood – The Amalgamation absorbs nearby Corrupted Blood residue. The Amalgamation grows more unstable with each Residue absorbed, increasing its damage by 10% and attack speed by 20%. At 9 stacks it becomes superheated.
- Superheated Nucleus – The core of the Amalgamation becomes critically unstable, causing it to inflict 30450 to 39550 Fire damage to all enemies every 3 sec. If the players destroy the Amalgamation in this state, then it will trigger a Nuclear Blast.
- Nuclear Blast – The superheated nucleus of the Amalgamation triggers a massive explosion, inflicting 350625 to 399375 Fire damage to targets within 8 yds. This powerful blast pries up one of Deathwing's Elementium plates if it is within range.
Corrupted Blood – These living globs of Deathwing's blood appear fragile, but leave behind an indestructible residue when killed.
- Burst – Corrupted Blood explodes when destroyed, inflicting 26718 to 29531 Physical damage to nearby enemies within 200 yards.
- Residue – Destroying a Corrupted Blood leaves behind an indestructible residue. It slowly creeps toward the nearest hole in Deathwing's Back where it reconstitutes into a new Corrupted Blood.

Deathwing <The Destroyer>

Encounter Journal

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