Let me tell you about Cata raids.
They are hard as balls and take people who are actually intelligent. So far, I've only really done Blackwing Descent, but I've watched my group wipe there so many times because people aren't intelligent...anyways I'll give you a debriefing on the bosses I'm familiar with.
Magmaw - giant worm fire thing. He's in a square shaped hole in the floor with walls cutting off two corners; tank stands on one side and everyone else stands on the other. There are grublike adds that must be killed before they touch anyone because if they do, they kill that person and make more of them. At some point, Magmaw will eat the current tank and the dps need to jump on its head and throw two or three chains down (as many as possible, really) onto the spikes and then he spits up the tank and becomes really vulnerable. Healers use this time to mana up (aoe healing on the raid stack is necessary for whenever Magmaw is not chained and its a huge mana drain). Then either you switch tanks or you let your tank eat the 50% armor reduction and hope your heals are good, and do it all over again. Generally not a terrible boss to do as long as dps can 1. kill adds from range and 2. hit the spikes with the chains.
Omnitron - There are actually four of them, one of them will be pacing about and the others will activate later in the fight. Basically, when the first one gets to half energy (the mana bar), a second one activates and has to be picked up by the other tank and taken to the other side. Then the first one puts up a shield that kills things if you keep hitting it, so everyone has to switch to the new one. When it gets to 0 energy it shuts down, which should correspond to 50 energy on the second one, which activates the third one and has the second put up its shield, etc. The four of them in order of easiest to hardest are Arcanotron, Electron, Magmatron, and Toxitron. Arcanotron needs to be interrupted a lot and drops whirly blue puddles on the floor that make people who stand in them gain a lot of mana regen and dps - healers and casters should be absolutely standing in these puddles unless another mechanic intervenes. Arcanotron should NOT be standing in these puddles. The only important thing about Electron is to range 9 to prevent chain lightning and some annoying thing he does that makes a raid member shoot out electricity at everyone within 8 feet. Magmatron does two terrible things - a raidwide aoe that calls for big aoe heals on the raid and a red lazor. You might get targeted by the red lazor. If you do, you make sure you run to a place where there is no one in front of you and no one behind you, and then you get hit by the lazor. You cannot dodge the lazor. Even if there are two healers dedicated to healing you through the lazor, you may not survive the lazor. Use your healthstones and damage-reducing cooldowns and anything else you can to survive the lazor. Toxitron puts clouds on the floor that increase damage taken. The good news is, they increase the damage he takes too! That's why you use bloodlust on Toxitron. Toxitron also spawns adds. If you have done Professor Putricide, these adds are roughly equivalent to orange oozes in that fight. If you havent...well, there will be three adds, each targeting a different raid member. If you don't kill the adds before they touch the raid member, the raid member and anyone near them dies. That is why everyone who can do ranged is on the opposite side of the room from Toxitron, and when the adds spawn, the melee runs like fuck. The adds will not target the person who is tanking Toxitron. If you are in a blue puddle and you are picked by an add, the red lazor, or Electron has you spouting off electricity, that is a good time to get out of the puddle.
Causes of death from most inevitable to least inevitable: red lazor, adds, fire aoe, healers going oom. Loot is dependent on which two trons are up when the shared health pool reaches 0.
Atramedes - blind dragon! fucking awesome imo. The important thing here is your sound meter. This is a little gong-shaped thing in the middle of your screen that appears at the start of the fight and fills up with blue. If it fills up all the way, you die. There are 10 gongs in a circle around the room that reset your sound bar and stun him. Each can be used precisely once. He does an aoe every 30 seconds or so that does more damage the more sound you have (and does about half a health bar at 0 sound too) and gives you sound. He shoots out little whirly discs that increase your sound - THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. You can dodge them easily and if you get more than a tick of sound from them you are likely to die from the aoe. Sometimes he picks a raid member (DBM will mark them with a skull) and breathe fire at them, rotating slowly. That player runs towards the dragon and around in a predetermined direction. The direction is so that other people (since all of ranged will be in a stack for aoe healing) can run the other way and resume dps instead of running with the target and losing a lot of dps. Occasionally, he will cast something called Searing Flames. Do not wait to start taking damage from it, when you see him start to cast it, hit a gong. Immediately. It will two-shot your raid. Yes, the entire raid. Hitting the gong interrupts it. After he does this, he will fly into the air for an air phase. When you see him flying up, start running. If you have a cat form or anything similar, drop into it. There will be targets appearing on the floor: avoid these. There will be flames on the floor: avoid these as well. The dragon will also pick someone and start breathing fire at them. If you are picked, RUN LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. You have dash? blink? lock teleporter? any kind of speed boost whatsoever? USE IT. Kite it for as long as possible, but someone needs to be next to a gong because it will catch you eventually and they need to ring it as soon as that happens. If you were the person ringing this gong, run like a motherfucker cause you're next!
But if you run fast enough the dragon will give up and land before he catches you, and then you start all over again. In my experience, having a glyphed ghost wolf is enough to escape the flames as long as you run correctly. That's I believe 30% speed boost, although I could be wrong. Our mage had no trouble blinking away and our lock was fine once he put down a portal. This is not a dps race, this is a pure mechanical fight. Once you master the mechanics, you will beat the dragon. Oh btw, any kind of damage you take during this fight increases your sound bar. So make sure you watch it or you might become a roasted marshmallow
Happy raiding!
