Akshully, our pitiful magic iz doin it rite!
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Sindragosa. The penultimate boss encounter in WotLK. Raised from the ice fields of Icecrown. Arthas' pet. Sindragosa was all that was standing between TDC and the Lich King, and she was putting up quite a fight. As of last night, Sindragosa is no more, returned to the icy depths of Northrend where she belongs.
The Sindragosa fight is a challenging fight, reminiscent in some ways of the Sapphiron fight in Naxx. In P1, Sindra is tanked in the middle of the room, with the raid gathering on one side. Sindra periodically throws a debuff on a portion of the raid, which requires affected raiders to reduce their output, whether that be healing or damage, in order to avoid increasing periodic damage. Interspersed with this debuff, Sindra periodically pulls the entire raid group to her, then casts an AoE effect that will one-shot any raid member if it is not outranged. This is a fairly straightforward phase that requires raid members be aware of their surroundings and react quickly to changes.
After a period of time, Sindra takes to the air for P2. Once in flight, Sindra targets 5 raiders with an ice tomb; raiders must move to designated locations before they're tombed in order to ensure that the effect is not chained to the remaining members of the raid. Once the tombs are dropped, unaffected raiders must dps down the tombs while keeping the tombs between themselves and 4 bombs Sindra drops (which do significant damage to raiders not protected by a tomb, a la Sapph); if this is done effectively, the tombs are broken right after the 4th bomb and the affected members are freed.
P1 and P2 alternate until Sindra reaches 35% health, at which time she transitions to P3. At this point, Sindra periodically targets a raid member for an ice tomb. The affected raider moves to a designated location before the tomb takes affect, after which time the raid members dps down the tomb while keeping dps on Sindra as well. We decided to let our melee handle the tombs while ranged worked on Sindra. We alternated tombs between two specific locations, making movement easier. Complicating this process is a debuff from Sindra that stacks over time with increasing periodic damage if the debuff is not managed, which can be accomplished by affected raiders moving out of LOS of Sindra (by jumping behind existing ice tombs). This phase is heavily dependent on all raiders managing their debuff status, and tanks alternating effectively in order to manage their debuff. It was critical for TDC to change our methodology from "all dps, all the time" to "survival first" in order to keep stress off the healers and finish the inevitable path of doom for Sindra.
We're so close we can taste it. We are on the Lich King, and we won't rest until he's dead. Excellent work folks, and let's Git'r Dun!