Dragon Soul is set to be the final raid in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, in which you ultimately must defeat the expansions main villain Deathwing.

The raid is an outdoor raid that occurs in multiple places as you track down and defeat Deathwing’s forces before facing him in an epic two encounter fight. There are six different bosses that you must face before Deathwing though, and all of them require skill, focus, concentration, and gear. So get ready…

The story line picks up where it left off from the three brand new 5 player instances: End Time, Well of Eternity, and Hour of Twilight. The raid is accessed through the Caverns of Time area and you then have access to different areas as required to complete the raid. The raid starts at Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight where you will have to lift the siege of the Temple to help the assaulted Aspects.

This part of the guide covers the first 4 boss encounters in the Dragon Soul Raid. For the remaining 4 encounters, check out the rest of the bosses in Dragon Soul Raid Guide - Part 2.

Morchok – Dragon Soul Raid Boss #1

The first boss located at Wyrmrest Temple is Morchok, an earth elemental made out of gems, found at the base of the temple. He is attempting to destroy the foundation of Wyrmrest Temple in order to collapse it.

Morchock Abilities - Dragon Soul Raid Boss #1 Abilities

Morchock the elemental

Morchok has several abilities but three main abilities that you need to worry about the most

Stomp – Does huge damage and is split to all players near by (roughly 30 yards). Players need to group up to split the damage and so that healers can AOE heal through it.

Resonating Crystals – Summons crystals that explode after 12 seconds. Does damage split to 3 nearby players (7 in 25 player raids). It does increased damage the further away from it you are when it explodes. Beams show up to show that you are one of the closest and change colour to show damage, orange = high, red = medium, blue = low. Pretty much everyone will die from an orange hit.

Black Blood of the Earth – This is made up of a few different abilities and things going on all at once. First he will summon all players to him, and then shards will erupt from the ground around him inflicting damage to anyone nearby and remaining in play as obstacles. He also starts releasing the black blood of the earth which shows up as a cloud effect that seeps out from him causing damage to everyone in it.

The object of this phase is to get away from him, get behind the spires that are left in play as obstacles, as the blood flows out around the spires and directly behind them will be safe.

Morchock Strategy – Dragon Soul Raid Boss #1 Strategy

The fight is fairly simple as it is the first boss in a new raid. It is essentially a two phase fight. In the first phase players need to group up around Morchok to share the stomp damage. In addition have a set crystal team and healer for them that goes out to split the damage from them. They should get close enough to each crystal to turn the beam blue to take low damage that is easily healed through.

Phase two is the Black blood phase. Here you need to avoid the Black Blood of the Earth as quickly as possible. Stay behind cover until he resets to phase one.

Rinse and repeat these steps and you should get through him fairly easily.

It should be noted that Morchok does have a crush armour ability that stacks up to 10 and each stack reduces armour by 10%. However because of everything going on in the fight it generally does not force a tank swap as it should fade during the Blood phases.

He also enrages at 20% upping his attack speed by 30% and damage by 20%.

Warlord Zon’ozz – Dragon Soul Raid Boss #2

The second boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is the faceless general called Warlord Zon’Ozz and is fought in the maw of unmaking.

Warlord Zon’ozz Abilities - Dragon Soul Raid Boss #2 Abilities

The Warlord Zon'ozz is a powerful faceless one

Focused Anger – This is a stacking buff that increases his physical damage and attack speed by 10% and stacks over time.

Psychic Drain – Deals a cone of shadow damage to all targets in front of Zon’ozz and healing him for 10x the damage dealt.

Disrupting Shadows – A random target dot that deals high shadow damage every 2 seconds, and knocks the target back when dispelled.

Void Orb – An orb that is summoned that moves towards a player, hits them causing shadow damage split among everyone nearby and bounces back away. Each time it bounces off a player is stacks a buff increasing the damage it does by 20%. If it hits Zon’ozz it removes his stacks of Focused Anger, places a debuff making Zon’ozz take 5% more damage per stack on the orb, and triggers phase 2.

Black Blood of Go’rath – Fills the room with AOE damage causing heavy shadow damage for 30 seconds to everyone in the room.

Warlord Zon’ozz Strategy - Dragon Soul Raid Boss #2 Strategy

The fight is two repeating phases that very greatly in requirements. In the first phase it is all about co-ordination and managing the damage and the void orb. The second phase is all about DPS burn and mass healing.

In phase one the raid should split into two groups, the tank, melee, and a few healers should be by the boss, while ranges and the rest of the healers stay behind the boss as far back as possible. Healers need to manage dispelling the disrupting shadows during this phase so that players have enough time to return to position by the time the orb gets to their group. The rest of the players need to stay together to that the orb hits as many people as possible each time it comes to either the ranged or melee group. Done right, the orb will move back and forth between the two groups and be fairly easy to heal at first.

Once the orbs damage or Zon’ozz’s damage become to much to heal through melee needs to move through the boss while the tank turns him sideways. This way the orb will hit the boss and start phase two clearing all the buffs and putting the DPS debuff on Zon’ozz.

In phase two the room fills with Black Blood and the healers will have their hands full keeping everyone alive for 30 seconds. DPS meanwhile should burn the boss as hard as they can while the debuff is active.
At the end of 30 seconds the fight goes back to phase one.

There is a lot of AOE damage in this fight, so be prepared by planning cooldowns and healing assignments carefully. Phase two is much more difficult than phase 1 so all big buffs and cooldowns should be used in it.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping – Dragon Soul Raid Boss #3

The third boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is another faceless one, this Yor’sahj the Unsleeping and fought in the Maw of Ruin.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping Abilities - Dragon Soul Raid Boss #3 Abilities

Void Bolt – Deals heavy shadow damage and applies a 10% stacking healing debuff.

Summon Globules – Yor’sahj can call forth ooze globules from the edge of the room that if they reach him grant additional abilities. He summons 3 at a time in normal mode. Once one ooze is killed the other become immune to damage. Listed in descending order of danger the possible globules of ooze, and the abilities they grant Yor’sahj are:

Glowing Globule (Yellow) – Grants Void Bolt splash damage, double use of all abilities, and increased attack speed.

Shadowed Globule (Purple) – Causes every fifth heal or absorption effect on a player to cause heavy shadow damage to all players.

Crimson Globule (Red) – Grants the ability to sear random players for damage based on distance from Yor’sahj, the further away the more damage caused.

Acidic Globule (Green) – Causes AOE damage around targeted players, forcing you to spread out.

Dark Globule (Black) – Grants the ability to summon forgotten ones. These adds have no aggro and instead target and attack a random player.

Cobalt Globule (Blue) – Grants the ability to summon mana voids that leach mana and only return it upon destruction.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping Strategy - Dragon Soul Raid Boss #3 Strategy

The fight is all about managing which globules of ooze are allowed to get to Yor’sahj and therefore which abilities he has. When he summons them the raid leader needs to make a call quickly and DPS has to burn the chosen ooze down before it reaches the boss.

You will then need to deal with the boss for a while with the two abilities that he is granted for a while, before he loses the abilities and summons a new batch of ooze globules.

All of the abilities are dangerous but especially those granted from glowing, shadowed and crimson. Glowing increases damage by at least double and must be killed if summoned. Shadow lowers healing significantly because the more you heal the more damage caused and therefore the more you have to heal, in and endless downward spiral. Crimson causes serious issues when ranged or healers are targeted as the damage can be very significant.

The rest of the abilities are more manageable and can be played with to determine your own preference on dealing with them.

Hagara the Stormbinder – Dragon Soul Raid Boss #4

The fourth boss of the Dragon Soul Raid is the Orc shaman Hagara the Stormbinder and takes place in the Eye of Eternity.

Hagara the Stormbinder Abilities - Dragon Soul Raid Boss #4 Abilities

Ice Lance – Targets a random player dealing light frost damage to them and one other nearby player.

Ice Tomb – Traps 2 players (5 in 25 player raids) in ice tombs that must be destroyed quickly to free them.

Shattered Ice – Hits a random player for heavy frost damage and slowing them for 4 seconds.

Focused Assault – A damaging attack that hits in rapid succession against the tank every 0.5 seconds for 5 seconds. She does stay in place when doing this attack though, so you can get away.

Hagara the Stormbinder Strategy - Dragon Soul Raid Boss #4 Strategy

The Shaman Hagara

The Hagara fight is made up of three different phases. In the main phase you must deal with her abilities as listed above. This means staying spread out, freeing players trapped in ice tombs, and getting away from her when she does focused assault if you are the tank.

Her other two phases alternate between the initial phase and are a frost phase and a lightning phase. Which comes first seems to be random, but will then alternate. Therefore the fight will look like this: Phase 1 – Frost – Phase 1 – Lightning – Repeat phase sequence.

In the frost phase Hagara will summon 4 crystals onto the platform, one at each of the North, East, South, and West points. These will form a protective bubble around her in the center of the platform, forcing players to the outer edge. Also summoned are 4 moving walls of ice that circle around the platform forcing players to move around or be killed if caught. Lastly icicles fall to the ground inflicting heavy frost damage to anyone still in the frost rune when they land.
This phase ends when players kill all 4 crystals that keep up the shield. When the shield goes down, Hagara is stunned briefly and subject to 100% extra damage. She then returns to phase 1.

In the Lightning phase, 8 lightning rods and two lighting elementals are summoned. While the any rod is active a shield protects Hagara from damage. The elementals must be tanked, and when killed near a lightning rod will cause it to overload sparking all over the place. The goal is to kill each near a different lighting rod.

Once overloaded a rod will hit the nearest player for nature damage every second and arc to the next nearest player or rod within 10 yards. The goal is to move around and create a link to each and every rod to overload them all and shutdown her shield. Damage gets very heavy in this phase and healing is difficult.

Once overloaded and the shield fails, Hagara will again be stunned and subject to 100% extra damage for a short while, then return to phase 1.

This phase rotation continues until you defeat her or wipe.

Check out the rest of the bosses in Dragon Soul Raid Guide - Part 2.