| Author: Kyth |
Sartharion 3D Overview
Sartharion with three Drakes up is the "optional difficulty" version of the extremely simple Sartharion fight.
Not only do the drakes add more mobs to the equation (or in some cases, lots of mobs, like Tenebron), they also add in void zones and huge damage multipliers that change Sartharion from a simple "don't stand in the fire" fight into a complex DPS race involving a wide range of abilities and a complex strategy.
Top Ten Tips
Want just a fast set of hints? Check out: Sartharion 3D Top Ten Tips
Sartharion 3-Drake 20-manned
We were bored, we wondered if it was possible. It is. Read about it.
Achievement: Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows?
Read here for the strategy to the other Sartharion achievement: VolcanoBlows
Important 3.0.8 Note
"Dancing" Twilight Torment no longer works (playing with attack on/off to remove the buff right before he breaths.)
The Movie
It's available at Warcraft Movies and is about 8 minutes long. It is narrated and illustrated, as well as including footage from the whole fight:
http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=96831
Or watch the embedded low-quality YouTube version (I strongly recommend getting the WCM download instead however):
Comments? Questions? Something unclear or specific to your raid?
You can comment on this at: http://www.stratfu.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=5
Strategy Overview
Sartharion with three drakes up emphasizes heavy healing and DPS both.
While the fight starts fairly simple for the healers, with just Tenebron up, it quickly heats up in to the heaviest healing load Wrath has seen to date (it's particularly bad on 10-man.) Raid damage is incredibly high once Vesperon, the third drake, lands, and tank healing can only be managed via cooldowns and aggressive tank health top-offs.
The meat of the fight is over if you can get Shadron dead, so DPS must push extremely hard during Tenebron and Shadron. Make sure your raid has all the buffs and debuffs appropriate, and that people are in their highest DPS specs possible.
How We Learned It
One of our raidleaders wrote up a night-by-night recap of the various things we tried, where we succeeded, where we failed. It's a good insight into what happens before the kill:
http://www.tardfactor.com/experiences/the-hard-way
Raid Composition
A DK currently (pre-3.0.8) makes the best Sartharion tank because they have very overpowered cooldowns on a short duration.
For DPS, any combination will do as long as you have some AE classes. You need at least one plate tank to handle the disciples in the twilight realm. While a shaman or moonkin may be able to pinch-hit if you're desperate, it's probably not worth the effort.
For healing, ideally you want to bring 6 healers: the extra DPS is what makes this fight work, and extra healing won't save you if the fight takes too long, because you will be overwhelmed more than an extra healer or two can help with.
10-man
We found it best with three tanks, two healers. Although it has been done with 3/3, and probably 2/3 as well. DK tanks are especially strong in 10-man because of their built-in cooldowns.
A paladin healer certainly makes it easier, no matter who they're paired with, although even the hardest combination (druid/shaman) has been done. Druid/shaman is the hardest because druids aren't either your strongest solo tank healers, nor are they excellent at keeping the raid up through Twilight Torment.
Lust is nice, but not necessary. What's most important is picking caster or melee, and filling your group appropriately (hunters can work in either group type.) Sartharion with three drakes up requires high dps, and you won't be able to buff both types sufficiently in a 10-man.
Positioning
Your Sartharion tank needs to learn where to go for both kinds of lava waves. It's possible to dodge them without getting out of range of your healers but it takes some practice. Figure out what is the smallest distance you need to move -- the edges of the lava wave actually extend a bit beyond the effect range, so you can live dangerously.
Healers need to be in range of the Sartharion tank but also aware of the add/whelp tank, since blazes will head towards the healers.
Your whelp tank needs to be on top of the portal when the whelps will spawn, with AE already in place to pick them up. A DK is especially well-suited to the task, but paladins are good also.
Your drake tank needs to know when and where the three drakes spawn so he is always at the new spawn point before the drake is targetable.
All of your ranged DPS needs to move as little as possible. Unlike melee, you can't DPS while running for the most part, and DPS is very critical until Shadron is dead.
Your drake tank and melee need to know that it's okay for them to briefly step into the magma. Often the best way for them to handle a "middle" wave (the middle is clear) when only Tenebron is down is actually to just strafe into the magma while the wave passes and then go back on land. The health loss is minimal and easily healed, while the DPS gain is substantial.
Drake and Acolytes: Their Effects
This is pretty much the key to understanding the fight: knowing what effects the three drakes have on the fight.
First there are the three auras. These are present from the start and disappear when the drakes die.
- Power of Tenebron: +100% shadow damage taken
- Power of Shadron: +100% fire damage taken
- Power of Vesperon: -25% health
Note that the video is incorrect: the mobs do not gain 25% overall HP from Vesperon, it's an effect from Will of Sartharion.
There are also disciples spawned, one each for Shadron and Vesperon. While they are up, they have specific effects as well:
- Disciple of Shadron: +50% fire damage
- Disciple of Vesperon: Twilight Torment: 2-3k damage taken when you deal damage; +75% damage from Sartharion's breath
As you kill drakes, you reduce the damage the raid, and most importantly your tank, is taking.
Tenebron is the least dangerous, but he's also the one who lands first, so there's no point in not killing him. It's important that you kill him before the second round of whelps, because if you don't, you'll likely get overwhelmed.
The pressure of the fight comes when Shadron and Vesperon are both alive due to how the abilities multiple Sartharion's Flame Breath on your tank, combined with the fact that your tank has 25% less health until Vesperon dies:
- Base damage: 11k-14k
- Power of Shadron: 22k-28k
- Acolyte of Shadron: 33k-42k
- Twilight Torment: 57k-74k
You have two options: cooldowns and the Twilight Torment Dance.
Cooldowns
Your tanks and your healers have multiple cooldowns available to them to help survive those big breaths while Shadron is alive. Don't forget about what your healers bring, even if it means respecing: keeping a tank alive is worth the respecing cost your first few kills of Sartharion 3D.
Cooldowns are the most reliable way to handle those breaths, but you're a bit at the mercy of the RNG (breaths can come very quickly or very slowly) and you need to kill Shadron quickly before you run out of options.
One cooldown I forgot to mention on the movie is a Fire Resist pot. This combined with Warrior/Druid Last Stand is enough to survive a breath.
Another is hunter tenacity pets (e.g. Scorpion) can get Roar of Sacrifice that can be used as a defensive cooldown for your tank.
Twilight Torment: The Dance
Please note: As of the 3.0.8 patch, this tactic no longer works, so it has been removed.
In the Video You Said "Frost Resist Gear", Surely You Mean Fire, Right?
Yes, I do mean frost resist -- it has very high stamina on it and guilds have gotten their kill that way. There is no craftable fire resist gear in Wrath. It's not enough without proper cooldown usage, however, it just provides a bit more of a cushion, particularly if you don't have a DK and have gotten unlucky with Feral drops.
Tips and Tricks
Top Ten Tips
Want just a fast set of hints? Check out: Sartharion 3D Top Ten
Do we need to clear the trash around Sartharion?
Oh yes, it will add. It will very definitely add. You have to clear everything but the drakes and Sartharion himself.
When do we take portals?
Tenebron: Never ever. It's easier to just deal with the whelps up top than try to DPS the eggs.
Shadron: I'd recommend against it. While our first two kills were done that way, it's a *much* longer fight (almost twice as long) with far more chances for tank gibs in the windows that the acolytes are alive. Just grit your teeth and heal through the pain.
Vesperon: While you can skip his portals, we like to take them. The DPS race is over at that point, so you might as well kill Vesperon's acolyte so your raid isn't taking Twilight Torment damage as you kill Vesperon. If you choose not to take the portals during Vesperon, then at least take the one right after Shadron dies, since Shadron's acolyte will still be up and a be danger to your tank.
Important note about the Twilight Realm (3.0.3 patch)
In the current patch, if you pop up from the twilight realm after killing a drake, you can die immediately to a lava wave or a void zone.
While void zone deaths are impossible to avoid, you can, if you are alert, never die to a lava wave when coming up. Do this by communicating on vent and either:
- Not killing the mob down below until the wave has fully cleared ,or
- Moving into position down below so you'll be safe when you pop back up. i.e. moving to the middle if it's a "middle clear" wave, or the side if it's a "sides clear" wave
We can't do 3 Drakes, which two are the easiest?
It's no contest: kill Shadron.
That not only removes the biggest damage multipliers from the fight, it also gives you a long space between Tenebron and Vesperon.
I want us to first kill him with one drake up, then two, then three
Well, there's really no reason for that. Unless you really can't keep the fight under control long enough to learn it, it's best to just start learning the strategy for three drakes and then, at the end of the week, back off to two and kill him that way for loot if you weren't able to kill him earlier.
One drake (Tenebron) teaches you very little about the real strategy to the fight and actually can encourage bad habits like taking portals or not pushing hard enough on DPS.
That said, if you're going to:
- To do one drake, kill Shadron and Vesperon
- To do two drakes (easy): kill Shadron
- To do two drakes (hard): kill any other drake
The raid keeps dying
(assuming this isn't due to lava waves/void zones)
While you don't want your raid to constantly clump/spread/clump/spread, since it lowers dps, if you have a lot of DPS dying due to lava strikes during the Shadron/Vesperon time period, encourage them to use void zone/lava wave time to adjust so they're not standing on each other.
Lava strikes hit for 13k in that period, and a hit on a large clump may not get topped up before the next one hits them.
Also, see if it's due to loose adds: you may either have an issue with your add tank, or with your DPS attacking them too soon. If it is, and you can't solve it, consider having another person help pick them up (and then have them tank the drakes in the portals) if your DPS is good enough.
We just keep falling apart mid-fight
There's several common themes I've heard:
Too many healers?
First off, how many healers are you taking? This is a DPS-race fight and will be a dps challenge until Ulduar gear. And like many DPS challenges, they turn into healing challenges because you need to take as few healers as possible so you have the DPS.
We did 7 healers on our first two Sartharion kills, but on our subsequent kills we've taken 6 and found it easier because the extra DPS gets the fight done more quickly and reduces the risk. Extra healers don't really help you, since the damage is overwhelming if you don't meet the dps requirements
The MT keeps going out of range
Your MT healers and tank need to learn (yes, via potential wipes) how close they can cut those lava waves.
MT healers can stand just on the edge of the wave and start a heal: it will complete even if the tank goes a bit OOR due to the wave. This way you can guarantee heals continuing to land during the wave.
Our raid sucks, people die to void zones/lava waves
Void Zones
If it's void zones, make sure your raiders are turning their spell effects to low: they will be able to see the void zone but won't see DK/Paladin AE and other spell effects that will cover it up.
If it's ranged, just emphasize that they *need* to live. Suggesting they spread out is unfortunately a bad idea: extra movement to spread back out after a wave or when someone moves into their space will just lower your raid dps too much.
If it's melee, the melee and the tanks need to be aware of void zones spawning near them and they may want to call on vent to alert others.
If it's healers, they may need to adjust their UI so they can heal and see the environment at the same time. That will be required for all later content, so now's a good time for them to spend some time thinking about how they need to arrange things so they can function effectively.
Lava Waves
Your MT and healers may need some time to learn how close they can cut corners so they can handle the fight effectively. Outside of that though, neither should ever be eating waves.
We found it useful to have someone up top calling "center" or "sides" depending on which was safe. Is it necessary? Of course not. But it's a small thing to do and saves a few wipes a night, so why not?
Our whelp tank sucks, people keep dying
Are your AE'er just jumping in without regard to life or limb? Then it's their own fault, not the strategy. They need to give the tank time to establish aggro.
Is your tank actually standing by the portal ahead of time? If not, then it's his fault, not the strategy. A DK/Paladin should have their AE down already, and a warrior should be ready to shockwave immediately. (Druids are a poorer choice for whelp tank than the other three options.)
Tips for warriors: have your vigilance on someone getting hit often (e.g. the drake tank), as the refreshed taunts make it far easier. Save shockwave for whelps, freely use combat charge and intervene. Warriors are actually very awesome add tanks.
Our DPS sucks!
First check the "Too many healers?" section above: are you sure you're not carrying too many healers?
To understand what's happening with your DPS, you need to understand the important parts of WWS.
Too many people just look at the "total DPS done" on recount or WWS and assume that shows who's doing well and who isn't, when on Sartharion it's actually very easy to cheese the meters and look good there but actually be causing problems by not putting enough damage on the target.
Personal highest DPS (i.e. casting AE) is not always the best way to reach a raid's goals. There's no point in, for example, killing all the fire elementals and then having the raid wipe because Tenebron didn't die.
Your key metrics in Sartharion are Tenebron damage done and, once you get past that pont, Shadron damage done.
Pull up your WWS report and mouse over where it says "Browse: Charts". Select "Raid and Mobs" by just clicking on it (don't select a specific class.) This will bring up a screen that, at the bottom, has something like:
Click on Tenebron, and then click on the "Breakdowns" tab, and you'll see something like this: [1]
Here's a screenshot too, since I want to use it to illustrate a few important principles:
- Hunters need to be merged with their pets: yes it's a pain, yes you have to do it manually.
- Don't confuse incompetence and strategy: this was our first night, and rogues were told to spend all their time on enraged blazes. Therefore their Tenebron damage is incredibly low. It wasn't bad play!
- In general people of the same class should be together: if you want to compare people within a class, don't look at dps. either look at damage done to a mob (like this), or look at their class details for the night. It's in that 'Raids and Mobs' area I mentioned earlier, just click on the class instead. Look for similar numbers of ability usage.
Also know:
- Mages do excellent DPS if you're blowing lust and they're blowing all their cooldowns (and if they aren't, they should be)
- Pet management matters a lot for your hunters -- they need to do their best to keep pets alive
- Spriests can lose about 2% DPS and AE, but they need to be targeting something *other* than the drake so the drake still gets hit
- If your meters look different than your Patchwerk meters, that's due in part to some people being better at hard, movement-oriented fights than others. Try to help the others learn to focus and do more dps without dying
- You'll notice in my Sartharion 3D tutorial video that at one point the rogues seem to just stand in a wave. They don't actually: they duck into the magma on the side so they can keep DPS'ing. This is good, and the right thing to do rather than lose dps.
The Strategy Movie Narration Script
Comments
If you are asking a detailed question, please use the StratFu Forums instead.
Feb 16 2009 2:25 pm
Hello. I just wanted to know what addon you use on the video that shows with an arrow where to stand to avoid the lava wave? thanks alot
Feb 16 2009 2:27 pm
Well. I don't have an addon that does that, so you're probably confusing it with something else. If you mean the slightly translucent white swordy thing over my head, that's from the addon "PowerAuras" -- I configured it to do that when I have Vigilance on me.
Feb 18 2009 6:45 pm
Huge guide. I didn't know about you and now I'm very very impressed about your web, achievments and after all of that how much kind people you are. Sorry about my poor English. I hope you can understand me :-p Thanks for your job. It's perfect.
Feb 20 2009 3:06 pm
Hey, I am a warrior tank and I put vigilance on the drake tank because I also thought it would keep my taunt up, but it didn't. It made me pretty angry because its alot of running back and forth to get the fire elementals running around hitting everyone, and sometimes I can't get to them due to Lava Waves..
Feb 20 2009 3:28 pm
When our warrior is doing adds, he puts it on the Sarth tank -- because the last thing you want is your drake tank to have lower threat. If you want to post on the forums, I can get our warrior to answer you there (but the comments here are an awkward way to help someone)
Feb 24 2009 9:58 pm
Hi!
Firstly, GREAT site. Sooo much usefull information, I and my crew are HUGELY impressed. Next, I just wanted to point out that my guild has now downed Sarth 3D 25 in 2 consecutive weeks using 8 healers and 4 tanks, and also a few 'average' dps (2-3k dps). Although we usually kill the first drake shortly after the second one lands (about 10-15 seconds), its really only important to have the first one down and adds cleared before the third one lands. We have been able to do this with 13 dps including about 2/3 of our very high raid 1 team and 1/3 of our much lower raid 2 team.
Jumping into portal to clean up 3rd drake's disciple every time it comes up is the key. It makes it a longer fight, but the extra healers add a measure of control which we have found very successful.Feb 24 2009 10:04 pm
That's the same strat we used for our first kill.
I really would suggest you try the strat with more DPS and not taking the portals. We switched for our 3rd kill (i.e. we hadn't added that much extra gear to the raid) and found it far easier. Sometimes more control isn't the answer.
Either way of course, what matters is killing him, so congrats to you on that :).
Feb 26 2009 7:56 am
Great info, but we are having an issue not covered in your strategy. We have our MT tank sarth on the island near the entrance. Occasionally it works but more often then not, sartharion turns towards the raid and hits everyone with fire breath. I was wondering if this is a bug, or is it possibly a range issue with sarth from the drakes?
Feb 26 2009 9:13 am
I'd bet 50 gold that one of your tanks is AE-taunting. Tell them to stop doing that, it has enough range to pull Sarth. Or if they are going to, they need to warn in vent so the Sarth tank can taunt him back asap.
Feb 27 2009 12:57 pm
Great strat. We've used it for our 25 man. Here are lessons I've learned so far:
Feb 27 2009 2:51 pm
I use 1 Unholy DK and 1 SP to deal with all adds in our 25 man as it proved that locks are too squishy and hard to control their agro. The SP have no problems with the treath and the DK just bares the posible dmg from loose adds perfectly. All the rest of the dps is free to focus on the drakes bringing around 250k dmg per drake per person.
Feb 28 2009 8:31 pm
My raid is having issues with the whelp and fire ads? What's the best way of downing them while not taking too much dps off of the Drakes?
Feb 28 2009 8:34 pm
Please post extended questions like this on the forums: StratFu.com Forums
Mar 02 2009 11:34 am
Yeah Aazim, we're hitting between 225 and 250k per drake per person as well. That seems to be the range you want to be at.
Mar 09 2009 4:39 pm
Very nice strat, works perfectly well. Me guild also found that it is doable with only 2 tanks and 2.5 healers (10 man version). The 0.5 healer is a shaman who heals while vesperon's add is up.
Basically our strat is : one druid tank on sartharion, one pally tank on everything else (a rogue's ToT + FoK is awesome for snap agro on the whelps). Lust after the first wave, burn down all 3 drakes before going in the portal. An elemental shaman heals a bit while shadron and vesperon are both hitting the pally.
The hard part of the fight is when both shadron and vesperon are alive. This is when the drake tank has to use a cd. Once shadron is dead, the only danger is twilight torment, but the most difficult part is over.
It is a very hard strat because you are entirely dependant on how good your drake tank is. Tanking everything is hard, but it frees up one space for an additionnal dps, meaning that the raid will not have to deal with a tank with two drakes on him for a long period of time.Mar 13 2009 12:53 am
Ok so our guild we kinda fall apart in the middle either a cd messes up a healer goes down something bad happens but the main cause for healers dieing is adds killing them would haveing a holy paladin stand next to our dk tank with righteous fury as hes healing the drake tank ( im the one doing this so yeah )would that solve all of our problems? or would that just cause more unnecessary damage?
Mar 13 2009 7:55 am
Please post on the forums if you want help with the fight. http://www.stratfu.com/forums
Mar 22 2009 6:44 am
I was wondering if you could configure power aura to activate when lava walls come up, so i could have a hud like thing pulsing around me, if i could it would help out some of our healers who get tunnel vision to remind them to move. Ive tried everything to get it too work but it just doesnt want to. Works fine for surge power on malygos but not on the flame wall. So do you have any idea if that can be done?
Mar 22 2009 2:43 pm
I would suggest killing Vesperon (instead of Shadron) if you are going for a 2 drake mode and using a feral druid as MT on Sartharion. A feral druid with the suggested frost resist gear can easily have 50k+ HP with raid buffs (I have 55k atm) which means he/she can not be one-shotted by flame breaths. The only requirement for this is to have decent enough DPS so that you can kill Tenebron before a 2nd set of whelps spawn. On the other hand, it saves you a LOT of damage on raid and since only tanks are being damaged, (lava strikes will never hit for much if done like this) arranging healing is very easy. A raid can do it this way with as few as 4 healers. Another added benefit is that raid do not take portals until 2 drakes are down so your DPS does not get hindered by portal-taking until all your drakes are dead, essentially making it a much less complex fight.
Mar 30 2009 4:52 pm
I read this : /
Apr 08 2009 11:39 pm
Guys i have a question and i really want an answer as i get really puzzled with this fight, at the point when the 3rd drake lands. Wwhen he lands it seems that EVERYTHING goes wrong and we whipe in matter of seconds.People die like freaking soldiers that dropped behind enemy lines. Our strategy is to nuke with BL on the first drake and we down him almost when shadron lands. Then we take shadron and start nuke him like hell.
AT THE MEANTIME 2 add tanks(warriors)handle the adds (and i mean all of them since we do not pay attention to them until...) the third drakes alive andshadron being at almost 40%. We stop DPS on drakes and aoe the elementals and whelps down.Then we resume on boss.The fact is that when the adds die almost half the raid is wasted.
Any suggestions on what is going wrong?Jul 09 2009 10:07 am
I was just wondering if you could tell me all the add ons your using. I too play a mage, and I would like to know how I can get my screen like yours. I have too much crap filling up the screen.
Jul 09 2009 10:27 am
http://www.stratfu.com/strats/KythRaidingAddons