World of Warcraft: Dragons Raid Guide

Phase Two

Once his health reaches 50 per cent, Malygos walks to the centre, takes off and gives a little speech about underestimating you, after which he becomes untargetable - but he will still take damage until he finishes the speech, so give it all you've got for as long as you can as soon as hits 50 per cent, as aggro is no longer a concern while he's in the air. Note: if he's causing a vortex when he goes under 50 per cent, he will finish it first, so there's extra time for DOTs to tick on him.

Once he finally finishes talking and flies away, a group of Mages will appear on hoverdisks and attack the raid. Some will float above the arena firing Arcane Barrages at the raid (the Scions of Eternity); others at ground level will engage the raid directly (the Lords of Eternity). When killed, both Lords and Scions drop their disks onto the ground, at which point players can mount them and fly to engage the remaining Scions. Even better, players riding these hoverdisks take no damage unless all ground targets are dead.

Meanwhile, Malygos will bombard the raid with Arcane Storm blasts, dealing 10k to whoever they hit along with a knockback. Occasionally he will also cast a Deep Breath at the centre of the arena for 5 seconds, dealing 5000 damage every second. Fortunately, this can be mitigated by standing inside the shields created by the Arcane Storm charges, which look like big pink bubbles. A word of caution - when running for cover inside these anti-magic shields, do not jump into them. This causes issues with the server not realising you've actually crossed the shield's threshold, so you end up taking full hits from the deep breaths and anything else that hits you while seemingly safe.

Phase Three

Once all the Lords and Scions are dead, Malygos flies into a rage and returns to face the raid. Pausing only to give yet another speech, he shatters the arena completely, causing the raid to plummet through space to their deaths...

..or not, because the cavalry has finally arrived! Each player is picked up by a Ruby Drake, at which point you have full control over them and their abilities, which are:

• Flame Spike - spits a fireball at the target, gives a combo point.
• Engulf in Flames - consumes your combo points to create a DOT on target causing 1500 per tick, lasts longer depending on however many combo points were on the target (5 max). Can stack unlimitedly
• Revivify - a heal-over-time that heals the friendly target over 10 seconds, gives a combo point. Stackable (5 max)
• Life Burst - consumes your revivify combo points to give a 15k heal to everything within 60 yards.
• Flame Shield - consumes your combo points to generate a shield to reduce damage taken by 80 per cent, lasts up to 6 seconds depending on the number of combo points on the target.
• Blazing Speed - boosts movement speed for a few seconds.

There are various ways to handle this: some surround him in a circle, others group up in one spot with those on healing duty using Life Burst to outheal as much of the incoming damage as they can - but this leaves the entire raid vulnerable to the effects of the Static Fields that Malygos will periodically envelop players in (not really a problem as long as everyone moves quickly). The bulk of Malygos' damage comes from his Surge of Power blast, which is targeted at a single player who must shield him or herself, just as he finishes casting, or else take about 72k damage over the space of 3 seconds.

Essentially, the phase boils down to this: the designated healers heal the raid with Revivifies and Life Bursts while the rest try to get their personal stack of Engulf in Flames on Malygos as high as possible, with all being ready to use their Flame Shield if Malygos targets them with a Surge of Power. One example of this is to use two Flame Spikes, wait for your drake's energy to reach 80 energy, cast Engulf and repeat unless you are targeted for a Surge of Power, in which case activate your shield (hence waiting for your drake's energy to reach 80 again, so you have enough left for a shield if needed). Although confusing and disorientating at first, it really is that simple.

If you find yourself struggling with it and want more practice on riding the drakes, the Aces High! daily quest found on the upper rings of the Nexus is little more than a Phase 3 training mode, should you need it. Really though, just keep building the Engulf stack or healing everyone depending on your role, move away from Static Fields and shield yourself if necessary and you'll be fine.

It won't look like you're making much impact at first, but once the Engulf stacks reach higher and higher amounts, Malygos' health will drop very quickly and he'll soon give up the ghost, whereupon you can pick his corpse clean - that is to say, rest safe in the knowledge that you have saved the world, again. Alas, there's no time to sit back on your laurels as word is something evil is stirring in Ulduar. An adventurer's lot is rarely a peaceful one...