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WoW.com's Guide to Sindragosa

Michael Gray
Updated ·7 min read

The second you kill the two ice dragons after Dreamwalker, Sindragosa will immediately fly down into the pit to start the encounter. You don't have real long to set up your raid, so have your buffs, pots and order of operations all well laid out as soon as you approach these dragons.

Sindragosa shares a similar feel to fighting Sapphiron back in Naxxramas, which is appropriate since they're both ice skeleton dragon wyrm things.

Table of contents

Composition


Two tanks should serve you for this fight. Everyone else should be DPS or healing. Raid damage is very high for this fight.

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General strategy


Sindragosa is essentially a three-phase fight, with two of the phases repeated until she reaches the third phase. Let's go step by step.

In the first phase, Sindragosa will remain on the ground. Her Frost Aura will do continuous damage to the entire raid, so it's important to have some kind of frost resist aura available if you have the option. Normal dragon positioning applies (no one but tanks in front, no one directly behind), since she does both Cleave and Tail Smash. She uses Frost Breath in front of her, slowing the tank's attacks by 50% and reducing movement speed by 15%. This ability will stack. Casters will get hit with Unchained Magic, which makes them take damage each time they try and cast spells. Casters should stop casting once Instability (the debuff) has stacked to three or four, so as not to overtax the healers. Physical attackers (melee and hunters) have a similar mechanic in Permeating Chill, although they could let Chilled to the Bone stack a little higher. That being said, Chilled to the Bone is an ongoing DoT, instead of a per-cast mechanic. After every other Frost Breath or so, Sindragosa will pull everyone in the raid on top of her so that she can cast Blistering Cold. Everyone should run away from her immediately, except the tank. The tank has to eat the damage, since Frost Breath will make it impossible for him to run away anyway.

When Sindragosa reaches 85% health (and about every two minutes after that), she will fly into the air. While in air, she will put random players in Ice Tombs. She does this to two players in 10-man and five players in 25-man. The best way to prepare for this dynamic is to have everyone stack on a single player, while the people who are targeted with Frost Beacon stand a little away from the group. (Frost Beacon tells you who's going to get tombed.) Beaconed players must stay away from one another, or the radiating, stacking damage will quickly kill overlapping tombed players. Now that you have the Ice Tomb situation sorted out, Sindragosa will pull a Sapphiron by dropping an Frost Bomb. When she does that, use the Ice Tombs to break line of sight and avoid damage. Of course, while you're doing so, you'll take the AoE damage from Ice Tombs, but it's still better than Frost Bomb. There will be four of these bombs. Once the fourth bomb has dropped, finish breaking the tombed players out so they don't die from Asphyxiation.

Sindragosa will cycle between these two phases until she reaches 35% of her health, at which point she'll enter phase three. During phase 3, Sindragosa will lay down Mystic Buffet on the raid, which changes the dynamic of the fight. Now, it's about executing dance steps with precision. Split up the raid into two groups.

When a player gets hit by Ice Tomb, that person's group runs away from them so the ability doesn't chain to additional players. Then, have a healer focus on keeping the entombed player alive while the rest of the group works to free him out of line of sight. Being out of LOS of Sindragosa will also allow Mystic Buffet to drop, letting that group go back to DPS without being so badly hampered. Phase 3 is when your off tank comes into play, allowing a switch between tanks whenever Mystic Buffet gets too high for the tank to live through Frost Breath. Permeating Chill and Unchained Magic make a return in this phase, just to keep things interesting.

In the heroic version of this fight, Instability becomes AoE damage, and Sindragosa imprisons an additional person in the air phase.

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Abilities

  • Frost Aura In 10-man, Frost Aura inflicts 3,000 frost damage to the raid every three seconds. It inflicts 4.5k in 25-man.

  • Frost Breath Inflicts around 30,000 frost damage to enemies in front of Sindragosa and reduces their attack speed by 50% and movement speed by 15%. This effect can stack.

  • Permeating Chill Those who physically attack Sindragosa will become Chilled to the Bone, suffering 1,000 frost damage every two seconds.

  • Unchained Magic This is the caster version of Permeating Chill, but it affects every spell cast. Each spell causes a stack of Instability. Instead of a DoT, though, Instability caused 2,000 arcane damage for each stack every time you cast an additional spell.

  • Blistering Cold Sindragosa deals damage in a point-blank area effect reaching up to around 30 yards. She will Icy Grip the entire raid to her first. This deals 30,000 frost damage in 10-man and 35,000 frost damage in 25-man.

  • Ice Tomb Traps a player character, dealing 15,000 frost damage to the player and anyone within 10 yards. A Frost Beacon will appear on the player seven seconds before the Tomb happens.

  • Frost Bomb A Frost Bomb drops to the marked area on the ground. When it touches, the bomb will deal around 25,000 frost damage to anyone within line of sight of the bomb. You can hide behind an Ice Tomb to avoid damage.

  • Mystic Buffet Increases magic damage taken by the target by 15% per stack. A new stack is applied to players within line of sight of Sindragosa every five seconds. You can hide behind Icy Tomb to let this debuff fall off.


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Tank strategy


Stand there and tank during phase 1. During phase 2, split up and be ready to avoid Ice Tombs, and kill Ice Tombs virtually as if you were DPS. During phase 3, swap taunts between two tanks to give Mystic Buffet a chance to drop off. It usually helps to have Sindragosa's long side facing where your raid will gather, but be careful -- she moves like a bus and can be tough to position.

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DPS strategy


Pay attention to your debuffs -- let Unchained Magic and Permeating Chill drop off at the agreed-upon number of stacks. Don't try and be a DPS hero. Since there's a lot of raid damage to go around in this fight, your healers are already going to be busy as hell. Letting those debuffs stack too high for the sake of a little extra DPS is going to do no one any favors and could make you responsible for your raid's failure.

Additionally, be careful to let all four Frost Bombs drop before blowing up the Ice Tombs. The timing's a pain in the neck, though, so be ready to free your compatriots.

It seems like more than anything else, this encounter is testing your restraint.

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Healer strategy


Raid damage. You will have your ability to respond to raid damage tested like never before, especially considering Unchained Magic. Be sure to check out Raid Rx's guide to healing this encounter, as its insight is going to be incredibly meaningful.

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Other resources


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