Heroic Wrathion Boss Guide

BY Andrew Miesner / January 17, 2020

Wrathion is a 2 phase fight. Phase 1 is the primary phase where you fight Wrathion himself, Phase 2 he melts away, and you need to deal with some gripping pillars.

Phase 1

  • Searing Breath
    • Frontal cone ability, deals 285k Fire damage to anyone in front of the boss.
    • Applies Searing Armor
      • DoT, deals 21k Fire damage per second for 20 seconds. Also increases damage taken by Searing Breath by 80%. This effect stacks.
  • Incineration
    • Occurs at 0:33, 1:33, 2:22 in each Phase 1, give or take 2 seconds in either direction
    • DoT placed on a small number of random players
    • Deals 53k Fire damage every 2s for 8s
    • After 8s, explodes for 322k Fire damage to everyone in the raid. This amount is decreased the further away you are from the explosion point

  • Gale Blast
    • AoE ability, deals 322k Fire damage to everyone within 30 yards and knocks them back
    • Deals 160k damage to all players further than 30 yards away
    • After the initial AoE, shoots fire balls at random target locations. Fire balls deal 267k Fire damage to anyone within 5 yards of impact point
    • Occurs at 1:00, 2:30, 5:00, 6:30

  • Burning Cataclysm
    • Wrathion teleports to a random location, and spits fire. Deals 35k Fire damage per second for 8s to the entire raid
    • Also spits out Scorching Blisters
      • Location of these is indicated by orange swirlies on the ground
      • After a couple seconds, the swirlies become pools of fire which expand outward over 10 seconds
      • Standing in the fire pool deals 120k Fire damage per second
      • After 10 seconds, the fire pools explode, dealing 430k Fire damage to anyone standing in a pool at that time
      • These cover most of the available encounter area
  • Occurs at 1:10, 2:42, 5:12, 6:42
    • This always follows a Gale Blast, roughly 10s after the explosion

  • Molten Eruption
    • Occurs right after a Burning Cataclysm
    • Throws a hail of fireballs around the area. Being hit deals 120k Fire damage and knocks you back. 3 yard range from impact.
    • Leaves Molten Pools wherever these Eruptions landed
  • Tail Swipe
    • Conal attack from the tail. Deals 285k Physical damage and knocks back anyone hit.

Phase 2

  • Wrathion casts Smoke and Mirrors, starting P2
  • Crackling Shard
    • All Molten Pools become Crackling Shards, basically pillars. When a Shard is destroyed, deals 53k Fire damage to anyone within 10 yards
    • Any Shards not destroyed turn into Lava Pools at the end of Phase 2
      • Lava Pools deal 120k Fire damage per second to anyone standing in them, and Lava Pools persist the remainder of the encounter
      • Additionally, each Lava Pool causes a raid-wide DoT of 1400 Fire damage per second for the remainder of the encounter, which stacks
    • Crackling Shards have a health pool and can be attacked and destroyed.

  • Scales of Wrathion
    • 3 Scales fall from the sky, denoted by a red soak circle
    • Each must be soaked by 1 player
    • Any not soaked deal 250k Fire to everyone in the raid
      • The player who soaks is affected by Burning Madness, a 10 second debuff with 10 stacks.
      • While you have this debuff, running through a Crackling Shard pillar destroys it. Each pillar you destroy uses up 1 stack, and adds 1 second of duration
      • PLEASE NOTE – this is how the Journal is written. On PTR Testing, in heroic you DID NOT get additional duration for running over a pillar. Unknown for sure if this is a bug or intentional.
    • On testing, there were 32 Crackling Shards to destroy per Phase 2

  • Ashwalker Assassin
    • 3 adds spawn stealthed. While stealthed, they apply a 10 second stun called Noxious Choke to their target, and also attack with Dark Ambush, dealing 285k Shadow damage
    • When the Assassins have their stealth broken by any means, they become attackable and tankable, and stop casting Noxious Choke and Dark Ambush
  • Phase 2 lasts 1 minute.

 

Strategy

  • Phase 1 – Fight times 0:00-3:05, 4:05-7:07
    • Lust on pull
    • Tank the boss near where he starts, facing sideways. Either side is fine, your choice. Raid should stand in the safe area where they will not be hit by either the Searing Breath or the Tail Swipe. See positioning graphic in the last section.
      • Tanks should swap either every stack, or every 2 stacks. Whatever you’re comfortable with and won’t die to. It makes no difference either way, so don’t risk trying to be a hero with too many stacks and killing yourself.
    • Players with Incineration need to move away from the raid, spread out from each other. Rest of the raid should be stacked in tight for healing/CDs
      • You will probably want to use a raid healing CD for the explosion here every time, as it’s a large burst of damage.
      • Because of the way timings for this are spaced out, as long as your comp has at least 3 healers you can use a healing CD each time
    • For Gale Blast, your raid (except your active tank and any melee DPS who can immune the damage) should stack 35 yards from the boss to take the reduced damage. This would put you near the center of the encounter area.
      • The added benefit here is that it makes every spot easily reachable for the upcoming Burning Cataclysm
    • Each Phase 1 will have Burning Cataclysm occur twice
    • As Burning Cataclysm starts, your raid leader/officers need to identify where a safe spot will be based on where the orange swirlies are located. You can almost always find safe spots on the exact opposite end of the platform from where Wrathion is, or just off to the side of that opposite end.
      • Finding the safe spot may take a pull or two to get used to, but you got this.
      • You do not need to use raid healing CDs during this. Just get to a safe spot and you’ll be okay
    • After Burning Cataclysm ends, during your run back to the boss, Molten Eruption will occur. Try to avoid being hit by the explosions denoted by the targeting circles.
      • After the first Burning Cataclysm of a Phase 1 cycle, by the time you reach the boss you’ll have an Incineration go out. Use a raid healing CD for that.
    • After you’ve completed a second Burning Cataclysm during a Phase 1 cycle, you enter Phase 2
  • Phase 2 – Fight times 3:05-4:05, 7:07-8:07
    • Have three players assigned to soak Scales of Wrathion. These should be players with Sprint, and preferably people who also can use an immunity to keep themselves alive while breaking the Crackling Shards
      • As soon as these players receive the debuff, they should hit their sprint and get going to break as many of the Shards as possible.
      • Any Crackling Shards not destroyed need to be DPS’d down and killed
    • Hunters should turn on Track Hidden for this phase, and use Flare to help find the Assassins
      • Players being attacked by the Assassins while they’re stealthed need heavy spot healing
      • Use AoE near the targeted players to break the Assassins out of stealth
      • Once they’re out of stealth, tanks should pick up Assassins, and the raid nukes them down
    • Players should try to stay 10 yards away from shards as they’re about to be broken if possible. Don’t stress too terribly hard about being near 1-2 Shards as they break, but any more than that can become overwhelming damage
    • After 1 minute, the phase ends. Any Shards not destroyed by this point become Lava Pools, which is bad. Try to not let this happen.

Positioning

Normal Positioning for Phase 1

Move when you have Incineration. Here’s showing how the 3 affected people can all move.

Gale Blast, stack away from the boss, on Blue.

Run to the far edge for Burning Cataclysm. Mostly everyone will be on Blue, run from Blue to the far edge.

Video Guide