Phase One
During Phase One, Malygos is tanked in the center of the room by one tank.
Malygos's physical attacks are slow, but deal a lot of damage. He will periodically use Arcane Breath, which deals roughly 20,000 damage in front of him.
Throughout the fight, Power Sparks will come out of portals placed far away from the platform, in the empty space. These portals will always appear between two of the four pillars located at the north, east, south, and west ends of the platform. The Power Sparks will slowly move to Malygos, giving him a buff which will greatly increase the damage caused by his next Arcane Breath. It's important that they are killed before they hit him. When a Power Spark is killed, it will drop a small aura on the ground that increases all damage done by 50%. This aura will stack, so it is possible to get massive damage bonuses by placing as many sparks as possible on top of each other.
Trick: The sparks can be "pulled" to your DPS with Death Grip, so it advisable to have a pre-assigned stack location for your raid, and have a Death Knight pull the sparks to that spot. Once pulled they are rootable to keep them in place while you kill them.
Malygos will occasionally fly into the air and cast Vortex, which will throw your raid around in the air, dealing 2000 resistible arcane damage every second for 10 seconds, for a total of 20,000 damage if fully unresisted. If Malygos has the buff from a Power Spark reaching him, it will be removed. During this time, only instant spells may be cast. When Vortex is finished, the raid will be scattered around the center of the room and drop to the ground, causing up to 10% maximum health in falling damage. As soon as Malygos takes off from the ground, any Power Sparks will stop moving; however, as soon as you begin to fall, they will start moving again.
Note: Once Malygos reaches 50%, he will slowly take off, however he remains targetable until he reaches his max height, so burn him as best you can while he is taking off.
Phase Two
Phase Two begins at 50%.
Malygos himself is not targetable during this phase, it will end when the adds he spawns are all killed. However, he does continue to play a part in the encounter.
During this phase he drops anti-magic zones onto the ground the raid MUST stand inside of, it reduces magical damage taken by 50%. They shrink over time, so it's important that your raid moves to each new one he drops.
Throughout the phase, he will deep breath doing ~4k damage per second, unless you are standing inside of the anti-magic zone.
The way the fight works during this phase is there are NPCs riding around on disks in the room. There are two types of mobs, Lords and Scions. The Lords will move down onto the group, and need to be tanked (They will one-shot a non-tank). After they die, they drop a disk that a raid member can mount onto, which allows them to fly, to attack the Scions that do not come down to the ground. It is recommended to let melee take the first disks, then ranged. As those mobs die, they also drop disks, which allows the rest of your dps to get onto them. The Scions will continually cast Arcane Blast on random targets on the floor, which is mitigated by the anti-magic zones. While mounted on a disk, you will not take damage.
After all of the NPCs riding on the disks die, the players on the disks need to dismount as Phase 3 is about to begin.
Note: After all the Scions are dead, you will get a short burn period on Malygos before he breaks the floor. Use any DPS increase cooldowns that are available at this time, as you will not be able to use them once you mount your dragon. If executed well you can take an extra 5%-10% off his HP before you enter phase 3.
Phase Three
Malygos destroys the floor of the room, and the raid falls onto dragon mounts.
The dragons use combo points and energy sort of like a rogue. The combo points are used for special finishing moves. Many unit frame addons do not show these combo points, however simple counting in your head can suffice as the abilities are quite basic.
During this phase Malygos has 3 main abilities.
* Arcane Pulse - A very dangerous AoE that will quickly kill anyone within 30 yards of the center of his hitbox. Due to the large size of the dragons and the 3-dimensional aspect of the encounter, this is smaller than you may think.
* Static Field - A randomly targeted AoE ability. He casts it in the area of a random drake, and it spans 30 yards in all directions. It does moderate damage over time, and will take a drake from 100% to dead in around 10 seconds if you do not move out of it. "Move out of the fire".
* Surge of Power - 3 random(?) drakes are targeted. The players who control these drakes will have a large boss emote appear on their screen. Malygos begins casting a 3 second cast. Once this cast is complete, he deals a large amount of damage every 0.5 seconds for 5 seconds. This will just about kill anyone who does not successfully use the Flame Shield ability for at least part of those 5 seconds. (Note: the 10-man version of this ability is far less potent)
The dragons have 6 abilities:
* Flame Spike:
Damaging fire attack causing 943-1057 fire damage and awarding 1 combo point at the cost of 10 energy.
* Engulf in Flames:
Finishing move which launches a blast of flame igniting target for 1500 fire damage every 3 seconds. The effect can stack and will last longer per combo point up to 22 seconds. Costs 50 energy.
* Revivify:
A HoT that lasts for 10 seconds healing 500 per second and awarding 1 combo point at the cost of 10 energy. This can stack up to 5 times. Each drake has it's own stack, so if two drakes are stacking this ability on a single drake, that drake will have two separate stacks.
* Life Burst:
Huge AoE healing finishing move which increases the casters healing done by 50% and lasts longer per combo point. Max combo points award a 15k heal to all friendly targets within 60 yards over 25 seconds. Costs 50 energy.
* Flame Shield:
Finishing move to protect your drake. Shield surrounds you reducing all damage taken by 80% and lasting up to 6 seconds for max combo points. Costs 25 energy with a 30 second cooldown.
* Blazing Speed:
Increases your drake's flight speed by 500% for 8 seconds. Costs 0 energy with a 30 second cooldown.
A common misconception is that there are "offensive" combo points and "defensive" combo points, and that each of the finishers requires a different type. This is not true. The combo points are linked to your current target when you use an ability that generates points. For example, if you target Malygos and shoot 5 Flame Spikes, you will have 5 combo points on Malygos. This means you can use your Flame Shield ability while you have him targeted. If you change target to yourself, you will have no combo points on yourself and the shield will not fire. Similarly, if you target yourself (or another drake) and cast the heal on it, you can then Flame Shield so long as you have that target targeted.
Confusing? Go do the "Aces High" daily quest in Coldarra. It's the same drake you control in Malygos. It's designed as a practice tool specifically for the fight. Even the enemy drakes in that quest have an ability that is similar to Malygos' Surge of Power ability.
A basic strategy that has worked to kill Malygos on live realms goes as follows:
- All drakes group up on one spot, roughly level with Malygos. Must be at least 30 yards away from him, and close enough to use Flame Spike.
- 3 drakes should be designated healers. They cast 5 HoTs on themselves and then cast Life Burst. This heals all drakes within 60 yards for roughly 25% of their HP. If a particular drake gets low on HP (they were slow to move from Static Field, or failed at Flame Shield usage) you can cast the 5 HoTs on them instead, then Life Burst with that drake targeted. Remember: The HoT stacks are not your combo points. You may have 5 HoTs still on yourself, but you just used a Life Burst, so you need to cast another 5 HoTs to get 5 combo points again. You can cast a 5 combo point Life Burst roughly every 7-8 seconds. With 3 healers, this means every drake gets healed for ~25% of their HP every 3 or so seconds. (Only 2 healers are needed in the 10-man version, possibly only 1)
- The other drakes must build their Engulf Flame stack. Cast Flame Spikes for combo points, then Engulf Flame to add another charge to your stack. It can grow indefinitely, and this is the only way Malygos will die within the enrage timer.
- When Static Field is cast on the pack of drakes, everyone needs to strafe to one side until you are out of the field. You will slowly rotate around Malygos with this method. Do not move more than you need to, as you may rotate all the way around to a previous Static Field if you are too fast.
- Any drake can be the target for Surge of Power. When you get a boss emote, use the 3 second Malygos cast-time to ensure you have enough combo points/energy, and then cast Flame Shield once it begins channelling.
Due to the above method of Shielding, DPS drakes should ensure they are using 5 combo point Engulf Flames on the target. This means their Engulf stack will stay up for a long time, so they can use any current combo points they have to Shield themselves instantly when targeted, then quickly refresh their Englulf before it times off.
All drakes should also "pretend" that the bottom limit for their energy is 25. If you have self control and never go below 25 energy, you will always have enough energy to cast a Flame Shield on yourself. It will also help DPS drakes refresh their Engulf Flames stack should they need to use Flame Shield at an unfortunate time in their DPS cycle.
The End
Then you just burn him until the end of the fight, where Alexstrasza enters and finishes the battle. The loot for the fight comes from Alexstrasza's Gift, the fight rewards two badges.
The exit portal respawns, and you can fly over to it. The floor of the instance does not respawn.
