WOW Zone:Onyxia's Lair  

From the Official Blizzard site:

...She has lurked in her lair and done battle with the many brave adventurers who travelled to that familiar location over the years. Now, in honor of the World of Warcraft 5-year anniversary, the dreaded brood mother Onyxia is being revamped to make a return to the forefront of Azeroth, as part of our big plans for the upcoming 3.2.2 content patch.

This permanent update to Onyxia will convert the dungeon into 10- and 25-player modes. We will be adding new items to Onyxia's loot table that have the same model as some of the classic loot from this dungeon, like Tier 2 helms, with stats updated to match the current level of content. There will be a special new item too: a normal drake-sized 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself called Brood of Onyxia. We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding, but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.

Then for a limited time, after the 5-year anniversary event officially begins in November, anybody who logs in will receive an Onyxia Brood Whelpling pet.

We're very excited to bring this classic encounter back to provide a fun new experience for both new and veteran players...

Onyxia's Lair is a level 80 raid instance located in the Wyrmbog, Dustwallow Marsh. It is the home of the Brood Mother of the Black Dragonflight, Onyxia.

Strategy and Fight Changes

Onyxia is the broodmother of the black dragonflight and one of the most well known raid bosses in World of Warcraft.

Onyxia was one of the first raid bosses in the game in the original (or Vanilla) version of World of Warcraft. With Patch 3.2.2, Blizzard brought back Onyxia to the forefront of raiding, making her a level 80 encounter with Tier 9 equivalent drops.

Abilities

Phase 1

	Tail Sweep - A cone shaped attack behind Onyxia that deals damage to anyone it hit and also send them back flying, with potentially devastating results.
	Wing Buffet - A cone shaped attack in front of Onyxia which deals massive damage and send the target flying back.
	Flame Breath - A cone shaped attack in front of Onyxia which deals massive fire damage.
	Cleave - Onyxia's melee attack cleave anybody standing in front of her and she'll usually one shot kill any non-tank with her attacks.

Phase 2

	Breath - Onyxia's infamous deep breath. This has a 6 second cast time, after which she will fly in a straight line across the room and cover the ground in her path with flame. Being hit by the flame is pretty much an automatic kill.
	Fireball - Randomly target a raid member with a fireball which deals minor fire damage. Cannot be avoided and must be healed throught.

Phase 3

During phase 3, Onyxia will use all the abilities she used in phase 1, but will also add the two following abilities.

	Bellowing Roar - A large AE fear effect that Onyxia will cast frequently. It has a 2.5 second cast but cannot be interrupted. The fear itself is fairly short, only lasting 3 seconds.
	Heated Ground - The crack in the floor will start to spurt out fire, dealing fire damage to anybody to close to them. The fire bursts are intermitant, lasting for 4 seconds at a time.

Adds

There's two types of adds during this fight, both become active during phase 2 no matter what you do, however one kind of adds can be triggered during phase 1 and phase 3 if people makes mistake.

Onyxian Whelp can be triggered by anybody getting to close to the whelp cave. This often the result of someone getting hit by tail sweep and being sent flying in the cave. This can happen during phase 1 and phase 3 and need to be avoided at all cost. During phase 2, Onyxia will spawn a bunch of those at lift off and every 90 seconds thereafter. They do not have much hp and can be AE'd down fairly easily. They do not do much damage (around 500 on plate) on their own, but it can really rack up if they all gang up on the same target.

Onyxian Lair Guard are summoned in phase 2, about every 60 by Onyxia. They do not have that much hp and needs to be killed as soon as possible, since what they lack in hp, they make up in damage dealing. They need to be killed before they become a problem. They use Blast Nova and Ignite Weapon in order to ramp up their AE damage.

The Breakdown

Onyxia is a relatively simple fight, with 3 very distinct phase. The original Onyxia encounter introduced the concept of 'phase' in boss fights and the new level 80 Onyxia isn't all that different from her original version.

You will need one tank for this fight, although it is much easier to do it with 2 or 3 when you first start doing the encounter.

Phase 1

The fight starts in this phase. The tank needs to run in and grab aggro on her and tank her so his back is against the northern wall. This will prevent her wing buffet from sending the tank outside of healing range. Because her Wing Buffet, Cleave and Flame Breath are all frontal attack, nobody but the main tank should be in front of her and the main tank will be taking serious damage. On the plus side, if everybody else s standing at the right spot, the tank is the only one who will take damage at all.

The rest of the raid need to stand to the sides of Onyxia, in order to avoid her Tail Sweep. Onyxia has a tendancy to punt people she hits in the 'whelp rooms' causing some to spawn. The whelp room are two cave on the sides of the room, anybody who gets to close to these will spawns whelp. While this isn't an automatic wipe in this phase, it does make thing harder than they need to be. Dps needs to stand behind the tank and wait until he is in position to go in and start doing damage, as getting hit by tail sweep while she is being move will usually results in a lot of whelps spawning.

Upon reaching 65%, she will walk to the back of the room and take off, beginning phase 2. You can (and should) do as much dps to her while she walks to her lift up spot and refresh every DoTs available.

Phase 2

Once she takes off, Onyxia will spawns about 40 Onyxian Whelps which need to be killed as soon as possible. The whelps will come from each caves but not necessarily evenly from each side. While your MT can grab those, anybody wearing plate armor and with AE tanking ability can do a great job here. If you have several death knights, you can have them switch to Frost Presence and drop Death & Decay. Once the whelps are gathered, they can easily be AE'd down. Onyxia will spawns more whelp every 90 seconds.

Meanwhile, she will fly about, shooting fireball at random raid members. Those cannot be avoided and must be healed throught. From time to time, Onyxia will use her Deep Breath ability. She will emote and start a 6 second cast - you must get away from in front of her as she will bath the ground in front of her in flame, killing anybody standing in its way. The frequency of Onyxia's deep breath is directly related to the damage she is taking - more damage mean less deep breath, so you want to keep the pressure on her. Having her fully dotted and keeping dedicated range class on keeping pressure up on her is a good idea.

Every 60 seconds Onyxia will also summon an Onyxian Lair Guard. The guardian will walk in from the same entrance the player used and he need to be picked up by a tank as soon as possible and they need to be killed with great haste. They are essentially the top priority as soon as they appear.

AT 40% health Onyxia will land once more and enter phase 3.

Phase 3

Onyxia will land and enter phase 3. Any adds still up still needs to be dealt with, but she will not summon anymore (barring someone getting to close to the whelp roonms). Depending on how many tanks you've opted to use, you will either need to make sure all the whelps are dead before she lands so your only tank can grab her or you can just have an OT grab her as your dps finish off the add your MT is holding. Which option you're using, you need get Onyxia back in the exact same position as she was during phase 1.

The raid should do their best to not stand on top of the now glowing red cracks on the floor, as they will randomly spit out fire. Unless feared, you should never take any damage from the Heated Ground effect if you do not stand over the cracks.

Bellowing Roar is the main concern here. If you have a Warrior tanking her, the 2.5 seconds cast time give him plenty of time to use Berseker Rage and become immune to fear. If you have priests, you may want to set up a fear ward rotation. Odds are that raid members will run throught fires from the Heated Ground while feared and this damage will need to be healed. If the tanks get feared, he will not lose aggro, but his uncontrollable movements may cause Onyxia to switch around and cause her to use her Tail Sweep or any of her frontal attack on other people than the tank with devastating result.

If you can handle this, Onyxia doesn't have any other tricks and dies at 0%.

Achievements

	Onyxia's Lair - Defeat Onyxia.
	More Dots! - Defeat Onyxia in less than 5 minutes.
	She Deep Breaths More - Defeat Onyxia without anyone taking damage from a Deep Breath.
	Many Whelps! Handle It! - Cause 50 Onyxia Whelplings to hatch within 10 seconds of Onyxia's liftoff, and then defeat her.

Subzones of Dustwallow Marsh

Notes

World of Warcraft Wikibase™