HOW TO: Dragon Soul 10 - The First Half

Dragon Soul has been a fun raid to tackle, the early fights are a bit easy, but they do scale up in difficulty as you go on, and while the encounters might not feel particularly original, they let you revisit old content with new skins and the old encounter models feel updated.

It's almost as if the Encounter Team was doing a best-of retrospective release, and instead of just picking old songs, they decided to remaster the sound, fix the levels issue on certain early tracks, and add in demos, alternate versions and extended takes.

I buy a lot of music.

Anyway - for the first four bosses, tanking is super straightforward in the Normal-10 mode. Quick and dirty tips follow.

Morchok (safe and easy with 2 tanks, can be done with 1)
Swap as 3 stacks, and then each time the Armor debuff drops off. When you're not tanking, you can go help soak a crystal so one of the DPS doesn't have to. You can easily solo tank the fight as long as you save CDs for when stacks get high before he goes into phase 2, and they should reset while you're running in and out. But two tanking it isn't a problem, unless you're doing some kind of speed-run. Use Divine Guardian if people are low on health and there's a stomp coming with a crystal up. You can cast Judgement and throw Hammers of Wrath while you're running away from the blood, but don't Exorcism spam or you'll OOM yourself.


Yor'sahj the Unsleeping (2 tanks)
Two tank this to avoid accidental death to Void Bolt. Remember that the adds aren't tankable, they focus random people. You can help with the slime when necessary, but they don't have a lot of health, and the DPS can kill them easily while the tanks just sit and swing on the boss. Use  Divine Guardian as per usual in a set rotation with the healers to mitigate the AoE and voila. This is slightly more difficult for the DPS and healers, what with chasing the Mana Void and getting the adds down in time. We're just literal meat-shields on this one. Yawn.


Warlord Zon'ozz (1 tank)
The trash before this can be solo-tanked, as only the Claw really melees someone specifically. Burn down the eye, then the ranged on tentacles while melee swap to claw. The Claw might fling you away, you can just rush back with a ranged taunt if the Claw is trying to mutilate one of the melee while you're flying.

You also want to solo the boss so that you don't have to worry about the enrage timer as he does have a chunk of health. You want to line up 3 raid markers in a row. You'll be facing the boss away from the raid except for when he's about to cast the Orb. Keep a healer in melee with you, and try to split in a 5/4/1 formation, even if some ranged have to move into the melee clump just to keep the splash damage at a minimum.

Pull the boss facing the raid, let the orb come out, then flip him 180 degrees so his back is to the melee clump and the ranged clump. Try not to use any personal cool-downs until his stacks start to get high. We bounce the orb 5 times, sometimes 7 if melee doesn't get out of the way and the orb gets bounced back to ranged. I wind up WoGing a bit here, just to keep things stable right after a bounce.

When he goes into phase 2, group up, use  Divine Guardian on a set rotation with the healers, and then back to Phase 1. Make sure you're not facing him towards the raid when you clump up.

After the transition, I like to keep him turned away until he casts his life drain, and then very quickly turn him around, but you don't really need to do it if you don't want to. The amount of health is regains can be a lot if he gets the entire raid, but with the amount of extra damage he takes as the fight goes on, it shouldn't be an issue.

If you do try to do this and mess up the timing so he winds up casting the orb behind you in no-man's land, you can run as soon as the cast starts, tell the healers you're moving, and you can catch the orb and bounce it back towards the raid. It's pretty fun to do this! :-) But the healers don't think so. :-(

Hagara (1 tank)
Remind your second tank to swap specs for the trash. You can solo the boss, but it's easiest to duo the trash. The gauntlet in front of her is annoying, just keep in mind that after the first set of adds, you'll get a few waves and these will have two clumps each, one from either side of Hagara's platform. Pick a side, and stick with it, while the other tank sticks to their side. Kill the casters first. Bring them together for an AoEfest, interrupt their casts, Avenger's Shield to silence them, Death Grip, whatever, but just be careful of the Tornadoes and Lightning Storms and Blizzards.

It's probably not your druids, shaman or mages casting those - if they are, ask them to stop and focus down the casters first. At the end of the gauntlet, there's a mini-boss who doesn't really do anything except put up some kind of Deathgripping snowflake thingie. The boss will move in when the mini-boss dies and float to the middle of the platform so pull the dude off to a side so you can prep before pulling.

Another boss to solo - doesn't really matter how you tank her as long as you're the only person in front of her. Watch the timer for Barrage and strafe away at a second or two left and you'll take minimal damage from it. Keep Hand of Freedom handy as she will slow you when you're out of range. When Tombs come out, have the raid clump up right before and that way you can help cleave them with Hammer of the Righteous.

During the Ice phase I don't do much except chase the walls, swing at whatever comes close, throw some Judgments and Hammers, and dodge falling snow. Yawn. The Lightning phase there is slightly more to do - kill the elemental on a node to make it explode, and then just stand there while the rest of the raid chains ahead of you while you twitch spasmatically as electricity courses through your veins.

Good luck!