Hagara the Stormbinder is a powerful Shaman of the Twilight’s Hammer who serves as the fourth boss in the Dragon Soul raid. She must be defeated in order to progress to the second half of the raid.
Hagara is located inside a special instanced version of the Eye of Eternity. After defeating the first three bosses, you’ll be able to ride Nethestrasz, a red dragon at the base of Wyrmrest Temple, to the top of the structure. There you’ll witness some roleplay and a portal will open nearby, allowing you to reach this boss.
Ultraxion
Warmaster Blackhorn
Spine of Deathwing
Madness of Deathwing
“You cross the Stormbinder! I’ll slaughter you all.”
– Hagara the Stormbinder
Raid Composition
These are our recommendations for your raid composition for this fight. You will only need one tank regardless of raid size or difficulty. You should decide how many healers you need and then fill the other spots with DPS.
Role | 10 Normal | 10 Heroic | 25 Normal | 25 Heroic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tanks | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
 Healers | 2-3 | 2-3 | 6-7 | 6-7 |
 DPS | 6-7 | 6-7 | 17-18 | 17-18 |
Role Summaries
Everyone
- During the main phase, melee and healers should stack on the boss while assigned ranged players position themselves to soak Ice Lance missiles.
- Run to the center if you get an arrow above you for Ice Tomb so that your team can quickly break you out.
- During the Ice Phase, avoid standing inside the Watery Entrenchment in the middle unless you are ranged and your strategy requires it.
- Move continuously clockwise during the Ice Phase to stay ahead of Ice Waves.
- Avoid stepping in any circles on the ground during the Ice Phase.
- On Heroic difficulty, if you get Frostflake during the Ice Phase, run to the designated area to get dispelled and drop off Frostflake Snare.
- Know where you’re supposed to go during the Lightning Phase and start getting into position ASAP, maybe even before the Bound Lightning Elemental dies.
Raid Leader
- Assign 6 ranged players to positions for soaking Ice Lance missiles during the main phase. You may want to assign some backups as well.
- Establish a tank cooldown rotation for dealing with Focused Assault.
- Use Bloodlust at the end of an elemental phase when the boss has the Feedback debuff.
- Assign players to specific locations for the Lightning Phase to quickly chain Lightning Conduit.
Tanks
- Be prepared to use defensives when Hagara casts Focused Assault. You may need to coordinate a rotation with your healers.
- Be sure to tank the Bound Lightning Elemental close to a Crystal Conductor during the Lightning Phase.
Healers
- During the main phase, focus heals on the tank during Focused Assault and ranged soakers during Ice Lance.
- Be aware that Ice Tombs will block your line of sight, which can interfere with healing the tank if you’re not careful.
- Use raid healing cooldowns during the Ice Phase, especially if your ranged players are stacking in the middle. You may need to have a cooldown rotation set up for this.
- On Heroic difficulty, don’t mindlessly dispel Frostflake during the Ice Phase. Be sure that your target is healed up first and that they are not going to drop a Frostflake Snare in a bad spot.
- During the Lightning Phase, the damage from Lightning Storm will gradually escalate, so be prepared to do more healing as the phase goes on.
DPS
- During the main phase, be ready to quickly swap to Ice Tombs so you can free your teammates.
- During the Ice Phase, do as much damage as you can to Frozen Binding Crystals while avoiding ice waves.
- During the Lightning Phase, burn down the Bound Lightning Elemental as soon as it’s close to a Crystal Conductor, but be ready to move quickly into your position to help create the conduit chain.
- Use DPS cooldowns when Hagara has Feedback at the end of each Ice Phase and Lightning Phase.
Mechanics & Strategy
There are three phases to the Hagara the Stormbinder encounter. She’ll start out in her main phase, and then switch to one of her two elemental phases – either the Ice Phase or the Lightning Phase.
The visual effect on her weapon before the fight starts will tell you which phase you’ll get first. A frosty effect means you’ll get an Ice Phase first while an electrified effect means Lightning Phase. You can even choose which phase you want to start with by pulling and resetting the boss.
Depending on which phase you get first, she’ll cycle through the phases in this order:
- Main Phase -> Ice Phase -> Main Phase -> Lightning Phase -> (repeat)
- Main Phase -> Lightning Phase -> Main Phase -> Ice Phase -> (repeat)
Main Phase
Every Main Phase lasts for 50 seconds.
Ice Lance
The boss will cast this ability twice in every Main Phase, summoning 3 crystals that channel missiles at a random player once every second for 15 seconds. The missiles head toward their target from their positions on the edge of the platform, but will hit the first player they come in contact with on the way. When a missile hits a player, it deals frost damage in a 3-yard radius and reduces the attack speed of anyone it damages by 25% (this does not include casting speed). On Heroic, it also applies a stacking debuff that increases the player’s Frost damage taken by 25% per stack. The debuff lasts for 3 seconds.
The missiles from this ability should not be allowed to reach melee if possible, as the attack speed reduction is worse for melee and they will also be stacked more closely together, causing it to deal more splash damage. A ranged DPS or even a healer should try to step into the path to prevent this. On Heroic, stacking the debuff can be very dangerous, so it’s best to have two players alternate soaking the missiles, with the first soaker stepping out of the way after 4-5 stacks and then stepping back in after their stacks have fallen off.
Ice Tomb
About 10 seconds after each Main Phase begins, this ability will encase random players other than the tank in Ice Tombs. This ability will target 2 players in a 10-player raid and 5 in a 25. Targets will be marked with a blue arrow when the ability is cast and then they’ll be frozen after 7 seconds. They will take damage every second while frozen and will not be able to do anything until they are broken out of the Ice Tomb.
When the tomb goes off, it will not harm any other players nearby, so players who are targeted should run into the center stack so they can be freed quickly and to allow melee to cleave. Healers should note, however, that the tombs do block line of sight.
Shattered Ice
This ability deals damage to a random player and slows their movement speed for 4 seconds. It’s always cast right before or after Focused Assault, about every 15 seconds.
Focused Assault
Every 15 seconds Hagara will channel this ability for 5 seconds, doing damage every half-second that is equal to half of her normal melee damage (which is normally only dealt every 5-6 seconds). On Normal difficulty, the tank can move away to avoid taking damage from it, but that is not possible on Heroic. Shattered Ice is always cast right before or after this.
Healers should be aware of when this ability is being cast and ready to keep up with its damage. On Heroic especially it may be necessary to establish a cooldown rotation to deal with this ability.
Ice Phase
Hagara will enter this phase either 2nd or 4th in the cycle, and every 4th phase thereafter.
Water Shield
At the beginning of each Ice Phase, Hagara will hunker down with this buff on her that makes her immune to all damage. It will be removed when all 4 Frozen Binding Crystals have been destroyed. Your goal is to do this quickly to limit the amount of time she spends immune so that you can beat the enrage timer.
Watery Entrenchment
Attempting to run inside Hagara’s bubble in the center of the platform will cause the player to start drowning, losing 15% of their health every second and reducing their movement speed by 50%. You’ll have a few seconds to move away from her at the start of the phase before this ability kicks in.
One strategy for dealing with the Ice Phase quickly involves stacking the ranged DPS and healers inside the Watery Entrenchment where they can avoid most of the other mechanics and focus on healing and dealing damage. This requires intensive raid healing, however, and your tank and melee damage dealers will still need to be outside the bubble to attack the crystals.
Ice Wave
Hagara will summon four waves of ice that extend out from her to the edge of the platform, dividing it into quadrants. They rotate clockwise around the platform and deal massive damage to anyone they touch. Just in case that doesn’t kill you, it also increases your Frost damage taken by 50% for 2.5 seconds. They move a little more slowly than a player’s base movement speed, but you’ll also be dealing with some slowing effects in this phase that can complicate matters.
Icicle
Every 15-20 seconds you will see several icy blue circles marked around the edge of the platform. 5 seconds later, an icicle will hit the ground in each of these locations, dealing heavy damage to anyone standing in the marked area (about a 7-yard radius).
Frostflake (Heroic)
On Heroic difficulty, random players will periodically be afflicted with this stacking debuff that reduces movement speed by 10% for each stack. When this debuff is dispelled it will damage the player for 25% of their maximum health and a Frostflake Snare will appear on the ground where the player was standing.
Dispelling this where many players are gathered together is a bad idea. You should decide where it makes the most sense to “drop off” this debuff for your raid. Although entering the Watery Entrenchment is not something you normally want to do, players who are dispelled inside its radius will not leave a snare on the ground, so as long as you are confident that the player can survive the drowning damage this can be a good strategy. Otherwise you may opt to have players deposit the snares along the outer edge of the platform where they will be the least obtrusive.
Frostflake Snare (Heroic)
Every Time a Frostflake debuff is dispelled it will leave one of these on the ground. Players who walk into it will have their movement speed reduced by 50% until they exit the area.
Frozen Binding Crystal
At the beginning of the Ice Phase, 4 of these crystals will appear along the outer edge of the platform. They need to be destroyed in order to end the phase and progress the fight.
Feedback
When the 4 Frozen Binding Crystals have been destroyed, Hagara will gain this debuff which stuns her for 15 seconds and causes her to take double damage during that time. When this 15-second period ends, the encounter reverts back to the Main Phase.
Lightning Phase
Hagara will enter this phase either 2nd or 4th in the cycle, and every 4th phase thereafter.
Water Shield
Like in the Ice Phase, Hagara will gain this buff at the beginning of the Lightning Phase that makes her immune to all damage. It will be removed when all 4 Crystal Conductors have been destroyed. You’ll want to deal with them quickly so you can start dealing damage to her again and beat the enrage timer.
Lightning Storm
The boss will cast this ability every 2-3 seconds, dealing damage to random players and giving them a stack of a debuff that increases their Nature damage taken by 5% per stack. The ability targets 3-4 players in a 10-player raid and 7-8 players in a 25.
Bound Lightning Elemental
At the start of every Lightning Phase, a mob named Bound Lightning Elemental will spawn near the entrance portal that must be picked up by the tank and brought close to one of the Crystal Conductors. This add doesn’t have any abilities other than its melee attack, which doesn’t hit very hard. Killing this add will overload the nearest Crystal Conductor, which will provide the means to overload the others.
Crystal Conductor
During each Lightning Phase, 4 of these conductors will appear along the outer edge of the platform (8 conductors in 10-player Heroic). They need to be destroyed in order to progress the phase. Unlike the Frozen Binding Crystals in the Ice Phase, the conductors can’t be destroyed with direct damage. They must be overloaded by directing electricity to them.
Lightning Conduit
The first conductor will be overloaded when you defeat the Bound Lightning Elemental. From there, players can create a chain to one of the other conductors by lining up between them. The players on either end of the chain need to be standing within 10 yards of the conductors while the players in between need to have less than 10 yards separating them. This will cause the lightning from the overloaded conductor to flow across the chain and overload the conductor on the other end.
One option for dealing with the conductors quickly is to split your raid into groups and send each team to chain the lightning to a different conductor. You may even want to assign players to specific positions that they should run to as the mob dies. You may find it easier to create a plus sign to connect the conductors rather than trying to create a ring around the outer part of the platform. This should require 4 rows of 5 players with Hagara as the nexus.
In 10-player Heroic, you’ll need to connect twice as many conductors, which complicates things a bit. On the bright side, it should only take 2 players to connect each of the conductors.
Storm Pillars (Heroic)
On Heroic difficulty, Hagara will periodically target a random player’s location, marking the floor beneath them with a circle. 3 seconds later, a pillar of lightning will erupt from that location, dealing damage to any players within the marked area, about a 5-yard radius.
You’ll need to work around these pillars as you chain lightning between conductors, unless you’re able to just heal through the damage they cause.
Feedback
When the 4 Crystal Conductors have been destroyed, Hagara will gain this debuff which stuns her for 15 seconds and causes her to take double damage during that time. When this 15-second period ends, the encounter reverts back to the Main Phase.
Enrage
Hagara the Stormbinder enrages after 8 minutes of combat, so you will need to defeat her within that window to avoid a wipe.
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