25-man Abilities

• Blood Link — Saurfang gains Blood Power from damage he inflicts with abilities and summoned creatures. Also increases his Energy by 1 each time Blood Link triggers.
  • Blood Power — Saurfang grows 1% larger and deals 1% more damage for each point of Blood Power he has.
• Blood Nova — Blood explodes outward from a random enemy target, inflicting 10,000 Physical damage to nearby enemies.
• Boiling Blood — Boils the blood of an enemy, inflicting 9,500 Physical damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds.
• Call Blood Beast — Saurfang calls forth 5 blood beasts every 40 seconds.
• Frenzy — Saurfang goes into a frenzy, increasing his attack speed by 30%.
• Mark of the Fallen Champion — Causes Deathbringer Saurfang's melee attacks to splash to this target, inflicting 5,700 to 6,300 additional Physical damage. If the target dies while under this effect Saurfang is healed for 5% of his total health. Cannot be dispelled or removed by any means, including death.
• Rune of Blood — Saurfang leeches health when he performs melee attacks on targets marked with Rune of Blood. Leeches 5,100 to 6,900 health from an enemy target and heals Saurfang for 10 times that amount. Lasts for 20 seconds.
• Scent of Blood — Saurfang's Blood Beasts catch the scent of blood, reducing all nearby enemies movement speed by 80% and increasing their damage by 300% for 10 seconds.

Blood Beast

• Thick Skin — The thick skin of this creature reduces damage from area effect attacks by 95%, and from diseases by 70%.

Strategy

Since Saurfang's Blood Power mechanic is very new, much of the detailed strategy for this fight includes some rumor and guesswork. This section focuses on overall strategy: mathematical details and speculation can be found in the Discussion section.

The key to this fight is in limiting how much Blood Power Saurfang generates. Saurfang gains Blood Power when his special abilities hit or tick: when they reach 100, he casts Mark of the Fallen Champion, which increases the rate at which he gains Blood Power, escalating the situation further.

Tanking

Tank Saurfang where he spawns. His melee damage is not high compared to Trial of the Crusader bosses. Tanks must prevent Saurfang from gaining Blood Power from Rune of Blood by taunting off each other whenever one of the tanks has the debuff. The debuff lasts 20 seconds.

Blood Beasts

Blood Beasts spawn every 35 seconds. He summons 5 of them in 25 man, arraigned in a pentagon shape around him, with one in front of him, two at his sides, and two behind him, and he summons 2 in 10 man, one on his left and one on his right. Because Saurfang gains Blood Power each time a Blood Beast physically hits a player, the key to this encounter is to maintain control over the Blood Beasts. Blood Beasts must ignore the melee and tanks, and get ping-ponged and kited by the ranged until they are killed.

In order for the ranged to pick up aggro on the Blood Beasts, melee and tanks must stop their AoE abilities right before they spawn. Do not attempt to tank the Blood Beasts.

Blood Beasts are immune to CC effects such as polymorph and fear, but they can (and should) be rooted, snared, or stunned. Their resistance to AoE effects means they must die from single-target DPS. Root, snare, or stun one of them and focus fire on the other. An Elemental Shaman with 3 points in Storm, Earth and Fire can be very useful once the beasts have been pulled away from the melee by dropping Earthbind Totem and rooting all of them. Rooting them in the melee will only cause them to start hitting the melee, which causes unnecessary gains in Blood Power. A Hunter dropping Frost Trap (WITHOUT Entrapment) or an Unholy specced Death Knight with Desecration can help as ranged will have more time to beat them down.

Shaman's chain lightning does NOT count as an AoE for the damage reduction effects. An Elemental (or even Resto) Shaman with the macro:

/target Blood Beast

/cast Chain Lightning

Can quickly pull 3 (4 if glyphed) beasts right off the bat, although usually it will only pull 2 or 3 if glyphed, as chances are it will hit Saurfang as well. Having Earthbind Totem placed, especially if the shaman is close to the boss, can help prevent getting hit before other ranged dpsers can pull them.

If you have aggro, run away; do not let a Blood Beast hit you.

Knockbacks from an Elemental Shaman's Thunderstorm or a Balance Druid's Typhoon work and should be used to keep them at bay.

If your raid is melee heavy, then it is possible to stunlock one of them and have the melee bring it down.

It is imperative that the Blood Beasts are NEVER rooted while in the melee group (IE: rooted right off the bat), otherwise, they will start attacking the melee.

Other Abilities

Saurfang casts Boiling Blood on random raid members. This can simply be healed through, although every tick grants Blood Power. While you cannot dispel or normally remove this debuff, immunity abilities like Ice Block and Divine Shield stop it ticking while active, as will a Priest's Power Word: Shield. This reduces the amount of Blood Power Saurfang receives.

Saurfang casts Blood Nova on random ranged targets (or melee targets if less than 4 living players are at range), causing them to take damage, as well as damage everyone around them. The damage itself is not serious, but every additional target it hits will generate extra Blood Power, so ranged should spread out with 12 yards between them to avoid splash damage.

Mark of the Fallen Champion

Eventually, Saurfang will gain 100 Blood Power, at which point he will cast Mark of the Fallen Champion on a raid member. This does very heavy damage and (5000-6000 every second or so, on 25-man mode), will grant Blood Power every time it hits, and will heal Saurfang if the player dies. Because Mark of the Fallen Champion persists through death, do not resurrect a player that dies from it.

An active Mark of the Champion will likely require a healer's full attention to deal with. In addition, since an active Mark generates Blood Power, it drastically reduces the time to cast another. Two active Marks in a 10-man raid generally lead to a wipe.

Therefore, it may be easier to simply allow those with Mark of the Fallen Champion to die, so long as the afflicted player is not a tank. The healing Saurfang receives when the player dies is much easier to overcome than increasingly frequent Marks of the Fallen Champion. There are diminishing returns however, as living DPS are required to take down the Blood Beasts.

If your raid has a lot of Paladins and Warlocks, one technique that can be used is to Soulstone your Paladins before the fight, and when Saurfang hits his soft enrage at 30%, the Paladins can DI those with the mark, and, provided they don't have the mark themselves, use the Soulstone to get back up. This will prevent the large buildup in Blood Power that usually follows the soft enrage, and reduce the number of subsequent marks and deaths when his health is under 15%, which is a time raids often wipe because of too many marks up, the healers getting stretched, and players dropping off like flies healing him for massive amounts. This is especially effective on 25 man, which generally has more blood power build up because of more beasts, and more players, leaving less free space to move around.

Frenzy

Saurfang will Frenzy at 30% HP, and Bloodlust/Heroism should be used at this time to burn him down quickly.

Deathbringer Saurfang will enrage after 8 minutes, increasing his damage by 500% and his speed by 150%.

Class-specific tactics

Classes with roots, snares and knockbacks (Hunter Frost Trap, Shaman Earthbind Totem and Thunderstorm, Druid Entangling Roots and Typhoon, Mage Frost Nova, Death Knight Chains of Ice, etc) should use them to control the Blood Beasts. Do not immobilize the Blood Beasts in the melee group because they will hit any melee in range while sitting there.

Mark of the Fallen Champion damage can be prevented temporarily by Divine Shield, Ice Block and Hand of Protection, but it is not removed by these abilities.

Mages can use Amplify Magic during this fight, as all of the damage is Physical.

Paladins can use Divine Intervention on the marked player, which effectively removes the player from the fight but prevents the 5% health return to Saurfang. The DI'ing paladin must then be battle-rezzed or previously soulstoned.

Rogues may be able to avoid Mark of the Fallen Champion being cast on them, with a perfectly timed Vanish. If you get marked anyway or it's on cooldown, rogues can greatly reduce the damage they take by constantly using Feint, as the damage caused counts as AoE.

Priests, especially Discipline, can use Power Word: Shield in order to absorb damage from Saurfang. Absorbed damage does not add to his Blood Power.

Note that a druid should NEVER battle rez a player that was killed by the Mark, as they will still have it and likely instantly die upon getting back up. Similarly, shamans should not reincarnate if they get it, nor should marked targets use soulstones.