Author: Kyth

Overview

Other than Sartharion with Drakes alive, Malygos is the hardest fight of the original content released with Wrath. He has a 10-minute enrage timer that is fairly unforgiving in early gear and three separate phases with a vehicle-control phase as the last phase that requires your raid to master different skills.

The strat below covers not just the fight, but also tips for overcoming deaths in particular phases.

Looking instead for Five-Minute Malygos?

For the strategy for the "You Don't Have An Eternity" achievement, visit our page: MalygosFiveMinute and the 3.0.8 version: MalygosSixMinute

Malygos Movie

The narrated strategy guide: http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=98155

Errata:

  • The sparks *will* move after being touched during vortex. Someone swore to me that they wouldn't, and I forgot to check personally before releasing the video.

Or watch the embedded low-quality YouTube version (I strongly recommend getting the WCM download instead however):

Addon for Malygos Combo Points

This is a useful little addon: technically it's for rogues, but it tracks P3 combo points as well (and is invisible at other times for non-rogues.)

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info10665-MutilatePoints.html

Regardless of your strat, I highly recommend using this addon for Malygos, especially if there's any question about phase 3, since being able to see your combo points makes it a lot less abstract and easier to track for many people.

Achievement: Denyin the Scion

Worried about how you'll get this achievement for your whole guild? It's easy: DenyinTheScion

Comments? Questions? Something unclear or specific to your raid?

You can comment on this strat at: http://www.stratfu.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=4


Contents


Strategy Overview

Malygos done normally (i.e. not in 5 minutes) isn't a DPS race.

Phase 1 is about keeping the tank alive through some pretty hard-hitting damage, and managing the sparks: killing them or rooting them before they reach Malygos.

Phase 2 involves heavy raid heals, while your DPS need to consistently change targets to kill the mobs as quickly as possible.

Phase 3 is a vehicle fight on the back of dragons. Healing, with an AE-healing strategy, is fairly simple, but DPS has a few more buttons to press and it's important that they consistently DPS, since the bulk of the damage comes from a stacking DoT.


Summary

The Fight

The entire encounter has a 10 minute enrage timer. You can go a bit past the enrage, but not much.

Phase 1

The first phase requires a single tank on Malygos. Malygos hits fairly hard, around 11k on plate (7.5k-15k), and also has a breath attack that will hit anyone in front of him for around 30k before mitigation. Furthermore, those damaged by the breath will pulse an additional 20k to anyone within 10 yards. However, unlike most dragons, he does not have a tail swipe or cleave.

There are two parts to phase 1: ground and air (vortex). You begin the pull on the ground.

During the ground portion of phase 1, power sparks will spawn beyond the perimeter of the platform every 30 seconds in any of the four following directions: north-west, north-east, south-east, south-west. These sparks move very slowly towards Malygos (and they stop moving during vortex). These must be killed; sparks that reach Malygos will increase all his damage by 50%. The power sparks are stunnable, trappable, and death-grippable, so a paladin, death knight, and 2-3 DPS can take care of power sparks for you.

When they die, they create a pool on the ground. Standing in a pool gives you a +50% dps debuff and will stack multiplicatively if you happen to be in additional pools. These pools should be close enough to Malygos so the melee can stand in them as well, but far enough back so the hunters don't have range issues. This can take a little practice, so it is better to err on the side of caution and ensure sparks do not come in contact with Malygos.

Periodically he casts Arcane Storm on your raid, which hits for 11k-13k. It will hit ten people at once, potentially including your tank, pets (which includes the mage mirror images), but never totems.

In the air phase, you cannot use anything but instant-cast spells, and there is constant AE damage on the raid called "Vortex" for 1400-2000 every 1 seconds.

It's vitally important that your DPS not go over 100% of the tank's threat: it's easy to build up a lot of threat due to the spark damage buff, and every time you come out of vortex you are within melee range so should not be over 100% threat.

At the end of Phase 1, you can (and should) continue damaging Malygos with ranged attacks as he transitions to Phase 2. Threat doesn't matter at this point.

Optionally you can treat Phase 1 closer to a 5-minute Malygos kill, trying to stack the sparks. The advantage of this strategy is that your risk in P1 is actually lower for DPS pulling aggro: the reason aggro is such an issue in P1 is the dps getting +50% damage for a long period with the tank getting zero. If you save up the sparks, you can push him below 50% quickly, and then the DPS is free to do as much threat as they want.

The disadvantage of that strat is that it requires more coordination -- but it's good practice if your eventual goal is Glory of the Raider.

Phase 2

Malygos will fly up in the air. He creates 4 Nexus Lords, and 8 Scions of Eternity. When they are killed the phase will end.

Throughout the phase, Malygos drops bubbles on the ground, which reduces the damage taken by 50%. The bubbles will shrink in size incrementally, eventually disappearing. The raid should maximize their time under these bubbles as much as possible to mitigate the Scion's Arcane Barrages. Note that you do not need to move to a new bubble every time it spawns, there is some overlap in the early bubbles so you can be a little picky about minimizing travel time from bubble to bubble. The more time you spend traveling to a new bubble, the higher your chances are of being gibbed during your unshielded travel. However, you must always be under a bubble when surge of power is coming.

If you are using a strategy more similar to the 5-minute strat, where you stay outside of the bubbles to just burn down scions, be aware that your raid will take heavier damage: lots of group heals as well as the DK's Anti-Magic Zone and group spell reflect will help.

Nexus Lords have hoverboards, but are down on the ground and must be tanked. They melee for 6-7k on plate. When they die, they drop their hoverboard, which acts as a flying mount. Anyone can use these boards to gain range on any airborne Scions. Healers can also heal from up here, although it is not suggested.

Scions of Eternity fly slowly around the raid on hoverboards. As each is killed, he drops his board which can be picked up and used in the same fashion as the Lord's hoverboard. Each Scion will cast Arcane Barrage upon those still on the platform, every 4-5 seconds, hitting for ~15k unshielded. If multiple Scions target the same person, they stand a strong chance of being gibbed if not protected by a bubble or other absorption effects.

Approximately every 60 seconds Malygos casts Surge of Power, which will hit the raid for 5k every second for five seconds (25k total.) If you're under a bubble, you will only take half damage (2k-2.5k). Note that the bubble you are in will eventually shrink to its smallest size while withstanding a surge of power, so ensure you stack appropriately in the center of the bubble. If you are on a hoverboard, you will avoid the damage unless you are flying close to the platform.

When all the mobs are killed, Phase 3 begins.

Phase 3

Malygos destroys the platform everyone is standing on. As you fall, you mount a drake and can fly up to continue to engage Malygos.

As a drake you have 100,000 HP and six abilities:

(1) Flame Spike - 10 energy (adds one combo point, costs )

(2) Engulf in Flames - 50 energy (consumes combo points)

(3) Revivify - 10 energy (builds combo points)

(4) Life Burst - 50 energy (consumes combo points)

(5) Sprint (30 second cooldown)

(6) Flame shield - 25 energy (requires combo points on your target; consumes them)

Like the phase 1 ability, Arcane Storm hits 10 random targets for about 10k each. It's unavoidable.

Arcane Pulse is a point blank AE, hitting everyone within 30 yards of him for about 30k damage. This is avoidable, and a frequent cause of P3 deaths.

Finally, he has a targeted nuke: 72k total damage over three seconds, given out in six half-second bursts of 12k each. If you pop your shield when this happens, however, you can reduce that to 1200 each hit, or 14,400.

He also creates Static Fields, which hit everyone within 30 yards of them for 10k each. Constantly moving the raid can avoid this damage.

The best strategy we've found for P3 is to just have the raid in a big clump, slowly circling the dragon. 4-5 healers stack revivify on themselves and AE heal, and the DPS just burn (and revivify themselves.)

The strategy doesn't assume you shield: shielding is very optional, since all the AE healing flying around and your own revivify should keep you topped off effectively.

Raid Composition

Paladins (HoJ), Death Knights (Grip), and Druids (roots) all can make spark handling in P1 far easier.

Tanks

Two tanks (one for phase 1, two for phase 2.)

Healers

Seven total healers -- AE heals are very important, as are instant-cast heals.

DPS

If you bring too many melee, you will go more slowly through P2 because there are only four hover disks available at the start. More become available as you kill the flying mobs.

You can reduce the impact of this by having your ranged exclusively target the air mobs (Scion of Eternity) while your melee kill the ground mobs. Some Scions will have died and dropped their hover disks by the time your melee are done with the Nexus Lords on the ground.

Group Composition Notes

If you have a shadow priest, put them in a group with your lowest-HP players.

Your healers will need mana spring and mana tide from your shaman. DPS will be fine, there is plenty of regen time for them.

Tips and Tricks

P1: People keep dying!

Make sure that people are topped off going into Vortex: given some WotLK gear, your raid will have the HP to survive, but not if they go into it at low health or come out and get hit immediately. (while getting heals out immediately after you land from Vortex is important, don't be so eager that you die from the breath: move a bit away.)

It's vitally important that your DPS stay below 100% of the tank's threat: when you come down out of vortex, you're within melee range of him, and you *will* pull aggro, probably wiping the raid.

Somehow the sparks keep reaching Malygos

First off: no the sparks should never reach Malygos, your healers aren't expected to heal through that, and your DPS need the spark's damage boost in order to kill Malygos comfortably within the 10-minute enrage timer.

They can be rooted, stunned, and snared -- so have some of your better raiders helping to crowd control them.

Hunter frost traps. DK chains of ice. Druid roots. Paladin Hammer of Justice. Rogue Stuns.

Furthermore, even just 2-3 good DPS can kill them as long as they start early, so if you need to, assign specific people to do them.

It's unfortunately a common problem that people assume someone else will kill the annoying add, and that (their class) is too important to be attacking it, let the (other class) do it, they lose less dps when changing targets.

Escaping Vortex

Warlocks can use their teleport circles.

Rogues can use Killing Spree or Shadowstep.

How Spark Stacking Works

Sparks stack multiplicatively so it's very valuable to stack multiple sparks and kill them at once.

1 spark = 150% damage 2 sparks = 225% damage 3 sparks = 337% damage 4 sparks = 506% damage 5 sparks = 759% damage 6 sparks = 1139% damage

Malygos tank: Be careful during the P1/P2 transition

Arcane Breath leaves a debuff on you that explodes after 5 seconds, dealing ~19k damage to everyone around you. Make sure it's off you before you move into the raid.

P2: Who Kills What?

Many guilds have the rogues kill the ground mobs, but unless you are having healing issues and need to get the damage off the tanks ASAP, I would strongly recommend the ranged simply start out killing the air mobs while the melee start out on the ground mobs, rather than everyone killing the ground mobs first.

The ground mobs only give 4 hoverboards, which means some of your melee will be sitting around waiting for air mobs to die, unless some die before the melee are free.

The air mobs are the biggest threat to your raid, as they are casting Arcane Barrage on your raid, and while one missle won't kill anyone, bad luck where they get caught by two or three is a fast death between bubbles.

Don't try to assign an assist for the air mobs: just have people target the nearest and kill them as quickly as possible.

P2: People keep dying!

Spend as little time between bubbles as you can. Bubbles shrink, but they shrink slowly, so it's not always worth running across the entire area: you can wait and see if the next bubble is better.

Rogues can split up and stun the air mobs, reducing their Arcane Barrage damage.

The faster the air mobs die, the fewer nukes they cast, so make sure all your casters are killing the air mobs: this isn't the time to try to increase your own DPS by AE'ing the ground mobs.

Seeing Combo Points in P3

A friend of mine wrote this mod for mutilate rogues, but it also allows anyone to see combo points on Malygos phase 3. Don't worry, unless you're a rogue you won't see anything at any time *other* than Malygos P3 (and the Aces High! daily):

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info10665-MutilatePoints.html

I can't recommend it enough, especially while learning. To get to the GUI config, hit Escape, click on Interface, and click on the Addons tab.

How to Heal in P3

The most foolproof, simplest method is to group up the raid and AE heal:

Target your pet and cast at least two Revivifies on yourself ('3' if you haven't rebound the default keybindings.)

If your raid group is asking people to shield themselves, wait until 75 energy before you Life Burst. Otherwise, Life Burst ('4') as soon as you have the energy.

It can be useful to have your healers doing different numbers of revivifies to help stagger the heals on the raid.

How to DPS in P3

Turn on "Enable Self Casting" so you don't have to change your target repeatedly.

Always be sure to detarget and retarget Malygos as you are flying through the air during the start of P3. Otherwise you will not be able to use your shield if you want to.

With Malygos targeted, cast two Flame Spikes ('1' if you haven't rebound your default keybindings.)

If your raid group is asking people to shield themselves, wait until 75 energy before you Engulf in Flames. Otherwise, use Engulf in Flames('2') as soon as you have the energy.

Once either Shield or Engulf is done, cast a single Revivify ('3') on yourself to supplement the AE healing.

Remember: Engulf in Flames isn't good unless it's stacking. It's vitally important that you keep your DPS consistent so your stack never falls.

My shield doesn't work in P3!

Always be sure to detarget and retarget Malygos as you are flying through the air during the start of P3. Otherwise you will not be able to use your shield.

P3: People keep dying!

Make sure they are at least 30' from Malygos: he does 30k damage/second to anyone close to him.

Make sure they are moving around Malygos when Static Fields are generated. They do 10k damage/second to anyone within 30'.

Make sure they are keeping Revivify up on themselves, and keeping close enough to the rest of the raid that they are picking up AE heals from Life Burst.

Shields are *not* necessary to survive P3 on Malygos, AE healing plus your own Revivify should be enough. You can use them, however, if you want extra security.

Our DPS is terrible in P3

The only way DPS is good is if the dot, Engulf in Flames, stacks. If your raid is consistently letting their stacks drop (they're spending time shielding, extra renews, not DPS'ing, etc.) then their DPS will be too low.

You may have success having some of your worse DPS heal (since there is no stack to maintain) and asking some of your more skilled healers to DPS.

So we were doing P3 right, and then he just started killing everyone

That's the enrage timer. You need to be better at some or all of:

  • using your sparks at the beginning, possibly stacking a couple
  • targeting the air scions quickly in P2 and killing them
  • stacking the dot in P3

Videos

Patch History

No changes to Malygos so far.

Malygos Drops

Malygos's loots are in Alexstrasza's Gift:

Normal Mode

Heroic Mode

Comments

If you are asking a detailed question, please use the StratFu Forums instead.

  • lainwired Says:
    Feb 09 2009 12:16 pm

    Thanks a lot. my guild is doing its first 10 man malygos tonight. I feel very well prepared thanks you your guide.

  • Ghengiskan Says:
    Feb 14 2009 3:48 pm

    Very nice video Whats the song that is playing in the background? I really like it

  • ceppie Says:
    Feb 23 2009 10:05 am

    very detailed....tnx alot.

  • KillerCaitie Says:
    Mar 08 2009 3:07 pm

    The video helped a LOT, today was my first time in EoE & we got it done so thank you for posting it! ^-^

  • Algathar Says:
    Mar 11 2009 2:16 am

    I think there may be an error in this strategy...we attempted Malygos last night, and during the transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3, we could NOT DPS the boss, nor could I cast CoE, which would have greatly helped our DPS in the final phase. Anyone able to double check if this is actually doable or not (I couldn't even target him, so I assume it's not possible). Thanks

  • Vykromond Says:
    Mar 11 2009 6:39 am

    Good eye. I believe this was fixed during one of the minor patches after 3.0. The timed Malygos articles are correct, but the main article was not (fixed now). To apply CoE, a warlock has to sacrifice themselves by jumping off their drake once the phase actually "begins" and Malygos becomes targetable.

  • Ironpyrite Says:
    Mar 24 2009 12:31 pm

    Having problems healing in P3, specifically selecting the dragon instead of the player. Sometimes, I was able to select the main picture and other times I could only pick the pet picture (selecting the main picture would give me the player and not the dragon). I also had very big problems selecting myself. F1 wouldn't work, nor would selecting my picture or my pet. Therefore, I died, repeatedly.

  • Algathar Says:
    Apr 01 2009 1:12 pm

    Hey, me again. I was just wondering, do you know if the Power Sparks can be banished by a Warlock, as they are elementals, and so theoretically should be able to, but I'm not sure.

  • Valis Says:
    Apr 06 2009 10:20 am

    Ironpyrite, the way targeting works in thsi fight is pretty lame. In order to use the dragon's HoT (button 3) you can't select yoursef (F1) or raid members using raid frames. The dragons are kinda-sorta pets. In XPerl, at least, you need to target the dragons using the pet group. Heads-up clicking the dragon on screen works too, but its sloppy and fairly random giving the seething mass of dragons you should have if everyone is clumped right. Its fairly stupid of Blizz to break standard targeting conventions for the sake of this one gimmick fight. Just make the spell pass through to the player's pet. I mean, seriously.

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