Sindragosa

Author: Passion
Date: October 14, 2023
Updated: October 14, 2023
Expansion: WotLK Classic

Once a powerful blue dragon and consort to Malygos, Sindragosa was personally chosen by The Lich King as leader of the frost wyrms.

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with Sindragosa and her blistering cold.

Be mindful of your stacks of anything that stacks.
Avoid Ice Tomb AoE.
Follow standard Dragon-fight protocol, avoiding the tail and face.

Move away from the group with Unchained Magic.

Move away from the group with Unchained Magic.
- Avoid any unnecessary healing for the duration.
Try to cast long-duration spells on players with Frost Beacon.
Coordinate defensives for Mystic Buffet + Frost Breath.

Turn off auto-attack when hiding behind an Ice Tomb to make sure you count as out of line of sight.

Coordinate defensives for Mystic Buffet + Frost Breath.
Communicate tank swaps during Phase 2.
Try to keep Sindragosa positioned as close to the center ring as possible, as this gives players a visual cue for distance.

Call Phase transitions.

Abilities

Sindragosa is a Dragon, and as such will Cleave in front of her, and Tail Smash behind her. Avoid these by standing to her side.

Sindragosa will constantly deal Frost damage to the entire raid every 3 seconds.

Every 20 seconds, Sindragosa will cast Frost Breath, dealing heavy Frost damage in a frontal cone. This also places a stacking debuff on targets hit, reducing their attack speed by 50% and movement speed by 15% for 90 seconds.

This debuff can be cured using anything that removes slows or roots, such as Hand of Freedom.

30 seconds into the fight, as well as 30 seconds after each Air Phase, Sindragosa will cast Icy Grip, pulling the entire raid underneath her. She will follow this with Blistering Cold, a 5-second cast, dealing massive Frost damage to everyone within 25 yards of the boss.

Any player that attacks Sindragosa with a Physical attack (Including Wands) has a chance to receive a stack of Chilled to the Bone. Chilled to the Bone lasts for 8 seconds, and deals moderate Frost damage every 2 seconds, increasing with each stack. This makes it necessary for DPS players to occasionally stop DPSing the boss, allowing Chilled to the Bone to fall off.

Every 30 seconds, Sindragosa will pick 3 random casters (including healers) to debuff with Unchained Magic. This causes them to gain a stack of Instability every time they cast a spell, dealing Arcane damage after 5 seconds, refreshed with each new stack.

On Heroic, Instability will deal its damage to everyone within 20 yards of the target, making it necessary for debuffed players to move out of the raid.

This will generally target 1-2 healers and 1-2 caster DPS, evenly spread. If your group has a large amount of healers, it may instead target 2-3 healers.

Roughly every minute, Sindragosa will enter her Air Phase, marked by casting Frost Beacon. This will target 3 players, and after a 7-second delay, they will be frozen in Ice Tombs. Frozen players will deal heavy Frost damage to everyone within 10 yards of them upon transformation.

Players within Ice Tombs are out of line-of-sight, and cannot be healed. After 20 seconds, they will begin Asphyxiate, taking 8% of their maximum health as damage every second.

Ice Tombs can, and should be destroyed by damage. You will need to balance kill speed, as Ice Tombs break line-of-sight, and are necessary for surviving the next mechanic, Frost Bomb.

During each Air Phase, Sindragosa will launch 4 Frost Bombs at the raid. These are almost certain to one-shot anyone hit but can be avoided by standing behind Ice Tombs to break line-of-sight.

At 35% Health, Sindragosa will gain the ability Mystic Buffet. This places a stacking debuff on players every 6 seconds that increases their Magic damage taken by 20%. This lasts for 8 seconds and stacks infinitely. Players can hide behind Ice Tombs to break line-of-sight, allowing their stacks to fall off.

Raid Composition & Preparation

This fight has no specific class or spec requirements.

You will want 2-3 healers for this fight. This fight can be very healing intensive, and Unchained Magic can effectively remove a few of your healers from play.

There are no strict requirements for DPS classes or specs here, you simply want a combination of good raid buffs and debuffs, as well as the best players you can muster.

You will need 1-2 tanks for this fight, depending on your strategy.

Heroic vs Normal

On Normal difficulty, only 2 players will be hit by Frost Beacon instead of 3. Additionally, Instability will not deal its damage in an AoE.

The Fight

Ground Phase

As is tradition for dragons, Sindragosa will Cleave targets in front of her, and Tail Smash targets behind her. Stand to her side to avoid unnecessary damage. Sindragosa hits hard, and your tanks will need to be well-geared and make effective use of their personal cooldowns to mitigate her damage.

For the entire fight, Frost Aura will deal Frost damage every 3 seconds, hitting everyone. This can and should be mitigated with Frost Resistance Aura. In addition, every time a player hits Sindragosa with a Physical attack, they have a chance to receive a stack of Chilled to the Bone from Permeating Chill. This deals constant Frost damage every 2 seconds and lasts for 8 seconds. This forces Physical DPS to stop DPSing regularly, allowing their stacks to fall off. This is usually done somewhere between 5 to 8 stacks, but your mileage may vary.

Casters don’t get a free ride! Once early in the fight, and again every 30 seconds, Sindragosa will cast Unchained Magic on 3 random casters and 3 healers. Whenever a debuffed player casts a spell, they will gain a stack of Instability, dealing a bit of Arcane damage to everyone within 20 yards upon expiration. High stacks of this can easily kill a player, and poor positioning alongside that can easily wipe a raid. For most raids, you should avoid going above 2-3 stacks at a time. Unchained Magic lasts for 30 seconds, and is typically recast almost immediately after it falls off.

Roughly every 20 seconds, Sindragosa will cast Frost Breath, a frontal cone dealing heavy Frost damage to the tank. This may require defensive cooldowns or even Frost resistance gear. Each hit of Frost Breath will also slow the attack and movement speed of anyone hit for 90 seconds. This effect can stack on the tank but will fall off by itself in the next Phase.

Roughly 30 seconds into the fight, and 30 seconds after each Air Phase, Sindragosa will pull the raid into her with Icy Grip. This is followed by a 5-second cast of Blistering Cold, dealing massive Frost damage to everyone within 25 yards of the boss. This requires everyone in the raid to quickly get away from the boss, staying away until the cast finishes.

Air Phase

After spending a minute on the ground, Sindragosa will enter her Air Phase for 45 seconds. This is marked by 3 players being marked with Frost Beacon, and after 7 seconds, these players will be frozen solid in an Ice Tomb, dealing Frost damage to everyone within 10 yards, as well as freezing anyone else hit. Frozen players can and should be broken out, however, similar to Sapphiron, frozen players will be used as shields. This makes it important to not destroy them too quickly. After being frozen for 20 seconds, players will receive Asphyxiation, losing 8% health every second. You cannot target frozen players, but some longer-lasting spells like Power Word: Fortitude can last long enough to have some use.

Sindragosa will launch a total of 4 Frost Bombs, with one coming every ~7 seconds. These bombs will almost certainly one-shot anyone not hiding behind an Ice Tomb. Because you won’t be DPSing Sindragosa during this Phase, it is usually a good idea to create a perimeter using Ice Tombs, creating a safe zone with plenty of protection from every direction. This is usually done by positioning each Ice Tomb 10 feet away from each other, in a triangle.

Phase 2

At 35% Health, Sindragosa will enter Phase 2. This removes her ability to fly, replacing it with Mystic Buffet. All other Ground Phase mechanics remain in place. Every 6 seconds, Sindragosa will apply a stack of Mystic Buffet to everyone within line-of-sight. This increases their Magic damage taken by 20% for 8 seconds and stacks infinitely. This will massively boost the damage raid damage taken for the entire raid, making this a scramble to quickly kill her before you are overwhelmed.

During this Phase, Sindragosa will cast Frost Beacon on a single player every 15 seconds. This will create more Ice Tombs that will need to be killed to free the players within, but players will also need to hide behind the Ice Tombs to avoid further stacks of Mystic Buffet. Players will want to avoid going above 3 stacks of Mystic Buffet, meaning they will need to regularly reset their stacks. Similar to the issue players had on Sapphiron, you will need to manually deactivate your auto attack for the game to register you as out of line of sight.

This of course creates a problem for tanks, as they are unable to reset their stacks as easily. For most groups the easiest way to handle this will be to rotate 2 tanks, switching in a Mystic Buffet-free tank before every cast of Frost Breath. Tanks with very high Frost Resistance may also be able to last significantly longer, but you may still find yourself having issues surviving more than 4-5 Frost Breaths.

Here are some of the main things that can typically go wrong in this fight:

Failed to follow basic Dragon-fight etiquette.
Didn’t run fast enough after Icy Grip.
Asphyxiation.
Getting greedy on any of the various stacking mechanics.
Hit by Ice Tomes.
Failing to disable auto attack to break line-of-sight.

Congratulations on defeating Sindragosa! There is a teleporter up the stairs, allowing you to return to the Upper Spire.

About the Author

Passion

I love MMOs of all shades, especially the nitty gritty numbers parts of them. You might recognize me from the Shadow Priest discord, otherwise I play a little bit of everything, especially games with support roles available.