Chromaggus
A two-headed dragon beast in Nefarian's service, who resides in Blackwing Lair after Flamegor and before Nefarian. He drops the Tier 2 Epic Set shoulders for all classes.
Chromaggus
Chromaggus is a boss in Blackwing Lair, right before Nefarian. One of the most challenging aspects to Chromaggus is the randomness of his abilities. As the name suggests (the word chromatic is derived from "khroma", the Greek word for "color", suggesting Chromaggus takes his powers from dragonflights from all colors), Chromaggus shimmers in a variety of colors, which relate to his current abilities. These abilities are determined upon instance creation, and will only be reset with the instance timer.
Despite his canine appearance, he's actually a dragonkin. It is speculated that he was created by Nefarian experimenting on captured Core Hounds, such as The Beast found in Upper Blackrock Spire, possibly by feeding or injecting dragon blood from various dragons from all dragonflights.
Abilities
Breath Attacks
Chromaggus' breaths are unique in that they do not only affect the front of Chromaggus, but hit everything within LoS of Chromaggus. In each new instance, Chromaggus will use two of five possible breaths. This combination will stay with him for the remainder of the instance timer.
- Incinerate : Red - 3675-4275 Fire damage. (This spell will hit for nearly 9000 Fire damage if you have the Black Affliction)
- Corrosive Acid : Green - Deals 875 to 1125 Nature damage every 3 sec for 15 seconds. Armour reduced by 3938 to 5062.
- Frost Burn : Blue - Attack speed reduced by 80%. Does approximately 1400 Frost damage.
- Ignite Flesh : Black - 657-843 Fire damage every three seconds for 60 seconds. This can stack if he casts it again within the 60 seconds the debuff lasts for.
- Time Lapse : Bronze - Stun for 6 seconds, reduces maximum health points to half. This ability used to permanently reduce threat, but does not do so as of patch 2.0.1. As with all stuns, Chromaggus will attack non-stunned characters first. THIS BREATH WILL EFFECTIVELY HEAL YOU WHEN IT WEARS OFF.
A breath is cast every 30 seconds, and the 2 breaths alternate.
Note: A rumor is circulating that Chromaggus' breaths can be predicted by examining the dragon carcasses in the Ebonroc and Flamegor's room. While believable, several days of attempts will prove this untrue as the carcasses randomly change colors if the instance is empty long enough, much like how the Death Talon Pack and Lab Packs packs despawn if left partially cleared.
Brood Afflictions
In addition to his two breaths, Chromaggus also radiates Brood Afflictions which debuff everyone in the zone, not just those in line of sight. They include:
Brood Affliction: Red (Disease) - 50 Fire damage/3s. Heals Chromaggus on death.- Brood Affliction: Green (Poison) - Healing reduced by 50%, 250 Nature damage every 5 seconds.
- Brood Affliction: Blue (Magic) - Movement slowed by 70%. Casting speed reduced by 50%. 50 mana and 1 health drained per second.
- Brood Affliction: Black (Curse) - Fire Damage increased by 100%.
- Brood Affliction: Bronze - 4 second stun at random intervals for 10 minutes. Can only be removed with
[Hourglass Sand].
It is extremely important that the raid is constantly cured of these debuffs as they not only hinder the players, but can result in a wipe if any player gets all five of the debuffs. For Alliance, this part of the fight is simplified by Paladin Cleanse, however Horde side will have to assign one or two of the various healer classes along with Mages and Warlocks' Felhunters to handle each type of debuff. Bronze affliction can only be removed with [Hourglass Sand], which drops off the trash packs leading up to Chromaggus. (Mages who have the proper Frost talents can also activate 
[Ice Block] to cancel it.) Only healers, tanks, and hunters should need to remove bronze affliction. All other classes can live with it and must adapt to the frequent stuns.
When a player gets all five afflictions, they will turn into an elite Drakonoid. This mutation cannot be dispelled. The only way to deal with this situation is by polymorphing or killing the mutant player. When the player dies, Chromaggus is healed for a significant amount of health, prolonging the encounter. Attempting to chain polymorph the player may become complicated by the immense magical resistance that the player gains from the debuff. As such, it is best to keep these debuffs from ever stacking past 3. It also helps to keep a Restorative Potion handy in case the main dispellers are running low on mana. Mages can use iceblock to remove afflictions, however they cannot ice block out of the mutation.
Enrage and Frenzy
Chromaggus frenzies every ten to fifteen seconds throughout the fight and must be kept tranquilized by hunters. The frequency of these frenzies is much greater than those of Magmadar but not quite as often as Flamegor. Nevertheless, frenzy must be kept off or the tank will die very quickly.
At 20% health, Chromaggus will enter a hard Enrage[1] that lasts the duration of the fight. He can still frenzy, which makes it even more important for hunters to stay on top of their tranquilizing shots. Additionally, healers who were taking time lapse breath should stop at this point and focus solely on keeping the tank up.
Shimmer
Chromaggus' skin can "shimmer", changing his vulnerability to a particular school of magic. If you have CTRA it will help you know when his vulnerability changes and identify it when it is found.
Strategy
The Chromaggus fight is all about line of sight.
There are several possible positions where he can be tanked effectively:
- The top of the circular ramp up to where Ebonroc and Flamegor patrol
- On the circular ramp itself facing down
- The door to his own room
- Between the cubbies on the right hand side before the circular ramp
Find somewhere that suits your raid and that you are happy with.
As described above, Chromaggus has different breaths. This fight is a long one, and the trick to it is to move OOS when CTRA gives a breath warning. All other than the MT should move OOS. Healing should intensify on the MT during this period as he will be taking heavy damage from whichever breath Chromaggus uses. The breaths are cast alternately so once you know which breaths he is using you can prepare appropriately.
During the fight Chromaggus will shimmer. This means his resistances have changed. He will become extremely vulnerable to one type of magic and extremely resistant to others allowing for a boost in DPS (or allowing DPS to slow for a time to allow tanks to keep ahead on aggro)
The one difference to this tactic is the Time Lapse breath. Commonly called 'hard mode' Chromaggus, Time Lapse is a breath attack that stuns. The stun is a binary spell which can be resisted with arcane resistance. Much like Onyxia when she does her fear attack, Chromaggus will target the person highest on his aggro list who is not stunned.
In order to deal with Time Lapse the tactic in theory is simple, but in practice is harder.
- Main Tank - Affected by every time lapse. After he recovers from the stun, Chromaggus returns to him.
- Off Tanks - Should build as high a level of hate as they can and then in turn run out of LoS on the Time Lapse warning. The offtank runs out of line of sight of Chromaggus (there should be a small contingent of healers who also avoid Time Lapse who can heal the offtank during these brief intervals) at every timelapse and are healed where they stand. When the MT's stun wears off, Chromaggus will loyally return and the fight continues as normal.
- Others - Should let themselves get hit by Time Lapse if they have more hate than the off-tank. Otherwise, they should avoid it.
A warlock can leave an imp on the ideal tank spot so that it is easy for the off tank and MT to get the positioning perfect.
For all who can decurse, it is important to be on the ball due to the Brood Affliction debuffs as described above. Especially on the main tank.
It is vital that hunters keep tranquilizing shot up on this boss as he causes three times as much damage when frenzied. The blue and bronze afflictions can prevent hunters from tranquilizing. That's a recipe for a dead tank and a wipe, so priests and paladins must place the highest priority on removing the blue affliction from hunters, and the hunters should each carry two Restorative Potions and five Hourglass Sands per attempt.
As this is a very long fight, it's not a good idea risk death to stay in the line of fire of a breath attack until the last moment. Get into a safe spot early. The breath attack is instant. Once you see the breath animation start, it's over. So, it's safe to move back into line-of-sight as soon as that appears.
Loot
On a kill, Chromaggus drops 2 Shoulders + 2 Random other items.
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Notes
One of the realms in World of Warcraft is named after Chromaggus.
Chromaggus's name may be stemmed from forming together the names of the characters Crono and Magus from the game Chrono Trigger. In addition, Magus as a boss in the game changes his elemental vulnerability multiple times throughout the fight, much like how Chromaggus does.
External Links
- Bosskillers.com Bosskillers
- http://www.wow-tactics.de/20_taktiken/bwl/chromaggus.php - German Tactic Link
- AmpWoW - Map Location
- Chromaggus video
