Scourgelord Tyrannus


 * A terrible force who will no doubt demonstrate his powers to those brave enough to enter the Pit of Saron. The scourgelord must die if players hope to make their way.

Scourgelord Tyrannus is a human death knight mounted upon his frostbrood wyrm, Rimefang, encountered in the Pit of Saron, the second wing of the Frozen Halls.

His death is the objective of the storyline quest /.

Scourgelord Tyrannus

 * Melees for about 7.5k-8k on plate (heroic).
 * "the caster" is Tyrannus! So any healing done is amplified and used to heal Tyrannus, not the target of the healer, and all damage sent towards Tyrannus is amplified and sent to Tyrannus's primary target, usually the tank.
 * "the caster" is Tyrannus! So any healing done is amplified and used to heal Tyrannus, not the target of the healer, and all damage sent towards Tyrannus is amplified and sent to Tyrannus's primary target, usually the tank.

Strategy
At the start of the fight, Tyrannus will be mounted atop Rimefang, his personal frost wyrm mount. After some dialog, he will hop off of Rimefang, heal to full, and engage the party on the ground. Rimefang will continue to fly overhead during the battle but cannot be targeted. Note that Tyrannus heals to full as soon as he dismounts, so don't bother attacking him at range until he's on the ground.

Tyrannus deals fairly heavy damage and can spike with Forceful Smash, so keeping the tank constantly at full is very important. You will be warned when he does so:


 * bossemote
 * yell

An added complication to this fight is that Rimefang will continually launch bolts of frost at random locations on the ground, which will be indicated beforehand by a blue rune design. When they hit, they will create an Icy Blast, which is a patch of frost on the ground that slows and deals heavy periodic Frost damage to anyone walking across (including Tyrannus). Tyrannus also occasionally marks a player with Mark of Rimefang.

The party will be warned when Rimefang is about to focus on a player:


 * yell
 * bossemote

It is important that the targeted player move away from other players, especially the healer (unless the healer is the target), because when Rimefang shoots an ice bolt at the marked player, it will deal Frost damage to and stun the player and anyone else who is too close for a few seconds.

The ice patches are vital because of Tyrannus' Unholy Power ability, which he casts after a Forceful Smash. He gains a double damage and speed buff, which can possibly overwhelm the tank or the healer because of the damage he deals. To survive this, the tank needs to drag Tyrannus over the frost patches created by Rimefang (while avoiding walking through them), which will slow him and allow you to kite him around until Unholy Power wears off, at which point you can return to tanking him normally. It is suggested tanking Tyrannus with the tank's back to an ice patch, that way just before Tyrannus' Unholy Power ability activates, the tank will get knocked backwards over the ice patch thus forcing Tyrannus to walk all the way through the ice patch to get to the tank again on the other side.

The only other major thing to watch for is Overlord's Brand. Any DPS that receives this needs to immediately stop doing damage, as any damage they deal will also be done to the tank. Additionally, if a healer is marked with the brand, all heals done will be amplified and then mirrored on Tyrannus. It is probably best to just heal through the brand if the healer is marked, but DPS must stop if marked unless the tank and healer heavily outgear this encounter.

Rimefang will fly away once Tyrannus is dead.

Alternative strategy
Instead of kiting Tyrannus when Empower is active, it is possible to continue tanking the boss, using defensive cooldowns such as Shield Block and Divine Protection to stay alive. This reduces the encounter to tank and spank, with only Rimefang and Overlord's Brand to watch out for.

Encounter Timer
This encounter appears to be limited in number of attempts, (not a number of attempts counter). If this timer is exceeded, the falling ice in the access tunnel will close it off entirely, precluding additional attempts. To give a rough idea until better/more exact information is available, is roughly equivalent to seven attempts with everyone having to run and mount back, rebuff, etc.

Adds From Behind
Sometimes the defensive line behind the encounter can be breached, and scourge forces can quickly overwhelm the group (or at least take out players with a quick barrage of shadow-bolts if they step too close to the entrance). It has been suggested, but not officially confirmed, that the strength of the defensive line is determined by how many slaves the group freed earlier in the instance, so groups should not skip freeing the slaves just because nobody has that particular quest. Simply moving the ranged and healers to the far end of the arena area while Tyrannus goes through his startup sequence should help avoid this problem.

Quotes

 * Gauntlet
 * yell


 * Intro
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Mark of Rimefang
 * yell


 * Unholy Power
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * Outro
 * yell
 * yell
 *  flies up from the pit below!
 * yell
 * --or--
 * yell
 * Jaina/Sylvanas teleports the party to her location, just inside the mouth of the tunnel, as Sindragosa drops a Frost Bomb on the open area which kills all of the freed slaves including /, except for the few mages who had time to Ice Block themselves.
 * say
 * say
 * --or--
 * say
 * Jaina/Sylvanas runs to the sealed iron doors to the Halls of Reflection, concluding Deliverance from the Pit and offering / .

Bugs
If any action is taken during the roleplaying before the fight (This bug is not fixed as of july 22nd, 2010) Scourgelord Tyrannus may mount back, Rimefang still flying around attacking the group, while Tyrannus is out of harm's way. The only two ways to fix him is to either wipe, or somehow have everyone alive in your group run out of the instance to have him reset. It might not work at all, even with a wipe and letting the trash respawn.

It seems that this bug is caused by people attacking Rimefang or Tyrannus during the Roleplaying that precedes the fight. Staying out of combat during the event between Tyrannus and Martin Victus and avoiding any actions might reduce the chance of this bug happening, if that is what causes it.

Best way to avoid this bug seems, so far, to keep all the party in the middle of the crowd of slaves, and have one player just run in and start the Roleplaying event, then return to the crowd. Do not cast any spells, heal or do anything. Wait for Tyrannus to run to you, then the tank can pick him up and fight normally. The Deadly Boss Mods timer for combat start is a few seconds early, so you have to wait for him to run to you.

Trivia

 * Tyrannus's quote, "Power... Overwhelming..." is the same as the Protoss Archon train speech, a unit from Starcraft. It is also a cheat code in the same game (power overwhelming).
 * Tyrannus's quote, "Perhaps you should have stayed in the mountains!" may be a reference to the Storm Peaks as Thorim's Intro quote in which he mentions having met the player "In the mountains."
 * Coincidentally, he also shares the name of Count Dooku (Darth Tyrannus) from the Star Wars franchise. They are somewhat similar, though. Both serve an almighty lord (Darth Sidious aka The Emperor and Lich King).
 * Tyrannus's name is Greek for 'tyrant.'
 * Tyrannus's armor looks like Tier 10 Death Knight armor.
 * Tyrannus was the first 5-man boss who had more than 1 millionen health. The only other one is Ley-Guardian Eregos, but he was battled on drakes and not under "normal" circumstances.