Hydross the Unstable

Hydross starts off in his water phase, without any adds. At this point once the tank gets a decent amount of threat you can start laying waste to him. During this time you will need to stay spread out to avoid having healers/tanks and multiple dps getting water bombed. Other than that just keep an eye on your threat count. If you get close to pulling aggro you need to back off or stop dps completely to let it reset. On this fight it is very very important that you keep your threat in check at all times. Keeping adds and Hydross on the correct tanks is a must unless you want to wipe countless times. This along with many other fights in SSC are all about dps/healers controlling their threat.

As you will come to find out Hydross gives you a debuff as soon as he is engaged. He has two debuffs one for his frost phase and one for his nature phase. These debuffs increase the amount of damage taken from each element and get increased every 15 seconds. They serve as a marker for when to move Hydross between his two forms.

There is an imaginary invisible line when moving Hydross that will cause him to switch forms. The line is around flag A and B in the picture below. But can happen anywhere in the red area, because its not always instant.



When moving Hydross you will have to stop all dps before hand and be very careful about who's healing whom. Because when he switches forms he drops all his aggro on the tank that had him in the previous phase. Healers should try and not have heals going off as he is going into his new form. Hydross can easily 1shot a healer if a heal lands at the wrong time.

When Hydross is in his nature forum, he is pretty simple. Let your offtanks pick up the 4 adds, your previous frost phase tank can help out at the beginning just to get them in on the offtanks. It is important that if any dps pulls aggro on these adds, that they run to the offtanks so it can be pulled off. Having the offtanks chase the mob on you down is a huge waste of time. Once all the adds have been picked up make sure the offtanks stack them up on Hydross. Then have your AOE classes kill the adds, it should only take a few seconds it they all focus on the adds. The good thing about stacking the adds on the boss is that the aoe dmg will hit the boss also so you aren't loosing all your dps by dpsing the adds.

Once the adds are down. Range dps can go back to focusing on Hydross for the remainder of the phase. Before the debuff from Hydross reaches 100% start moving your casters and healers to the other side of the line. It will help I swear. Then start having your tank move while everyone is getting into their new spots where they are spread out again.

This time it will be just like the beginning except you will have 4 adds just like the phase before. You will need to make sure the adds are picked up first if you get aggro on run into the tanks not away. You will also need to make sure your healers/dps are spread out, along with your melee away from the tank. If your melee gets your tank/offtanks water bombed it's very risky and heal intensive. After you get the adds down its basically a rinse and repeat thing. The transitions are the most important part of this fight.

If its your first time, working on your transition phase is often the best place to start. Often if you are reaching the enrage timer its because your transitions have gone badly. A couple rotten dps'ers can ruin this for the whole group. So make sure you don't take anyone who can't controll their own dps.

If we do this fight, we usually try to use the following group make up:

2 Prot Warriors - 1 in nature resist gear / 1 in frost
1 Feral Druid - for picking up rogue adds
1 Prot Pally - Easy mode tanking, Single target healing for healers.
1-2 Rogues - because we use them in other fights :P
5-6 Mages - Frost nova helps keep the adds in place. 1-2 fire 1-2 frost 1-2 arcane.
2-3 Locks - Seed is such a pretty spell
1-3 Hunters - Misdirect can help you during the transitions, but isn't really needed.
2-3 Holy Pallys - Salv is a must.
1-2 Holy Priests
1-2 Resto Shamans - Chain heal is OP.
1 Resto Druid - Why not.
1 Oomkin Druid - Ok.
1 Elemental Shaman - Ok.

From a healer's perspective, the most difficult part of this encounter is keeping the tanks alive without gaining healing agro. Correct talents and subtlety cloak enchant, on top of salv, minimize the risk of pulling agro after an "agro reset" which occurs every time hydross is transitioned.

What this means is that no big heals should land on anyone right after a transition. The frost and nature resist tanks will be taking spikes of damage from hydross when they are transitioning, it is important to spam your fastest heal and keep them topped off. As the tank approaches the imaginary line between the two banners, cease all heals on the tank. Earthshield, prayer of mending, and lifebloom are safe to cast on the tank. There will be a pause where nothing happens, it is important that you do nothing too--a large heal crit at this point can pull hydross and the adds onto you.

Once hydross and the adds start attacking, heals will need to be somewhat agressive on the adds tanks--they take the majority of the damage in this fight. Remember as the mark of hydross debuff stacks, everyone in the raid will be taking more dmg, so the adds tanks will be taking spikes if the adds are still up after 2 or 3 stacks--remember that they have no special frost/nature resistance. Resto shaman should spam chain heal on the adds tanks, it will jump to the hydross tank and other damaged raid members efficiently.

Compared to other ssc bosses, hydross is one of the more mana-intensive fights for a healer, I would suggest potting early and often. If your gear is below par, stack mp5 over +healing.