Saturday night, my Mage, Walkere, got an invite to SSC. I really wanted to bring my Paladin, Sythrick, but they didn’t need another tank. They needed DPS.

This was my first time in SSC, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. They had already downed Lurker in the past, but they hadn’t had much luck with Hydross. They planned on things going differently this week, and went to Hydross first in anticipation of beating him to a watery pulp.

The Hydross Fight – Briefly

If you’re unfamiliar with the Hydross fight, here’s the brief version of the strat.

Hydross is an elemental. He alternates between Water (i.e. Frost Immune) and Poison (i.e. Nature Immune) forms. The longer he stays in a given form, the more damage he does. Each time he switches forms, he drops aggro completely and spawns four adds of the same form. Ten minutes in, he enrages and you go splat.

At some point – about four “ticks” of damage increase – Hydross does enough damage to kill the tank. At that point, the tanks need to switch off. Everybody stops DPS, the one tank moves him across a magical line, and the next tank picks up aggro. An off tank gathers up the four new adds, and the ranged DPS starts to open up with AoE to wipe them out as quickly as possible.

If all goes well – i.e. the tanks switch off smoothlessly, the adds get rounded up, and the raid does enough DPS – Hydross dies.

Frost Mage’s Role

As a Frost Mage, you’re ranged DPS. You’re definitely going to be needed to DPS the adds down, and when they’re dead you can go back to DPS’ing Hydross.

However, half of the time the adds (which will spawn as Water Elementals when Hydross enters Water form) will be immune to Frost Damage. Eugh. Stupid Fire Mages. When the Poison Elemental adds spawn, you can simply Blizzard. When the Water Elementals spawn, you need to switch to fire damage – and I chose Scorch.

When all of the adds die, you switch to Hydross, pop trinkets and what not, and do as much damage as you can. The tank should have sufficient aggro – since you’ve been spending the whole time killing adds – that you don’t need to worry about pulling.

Some Tips to Maximize Efficiency

We wiped twice. By the third time, I had worked into a nice rhythm that I think helped maximize my efficiency and effectiveness for the fight.

First, throw up Mage Armor. It’s a long fight. The mana regeneration will help. I tried the first attempt with Molten Armor, and I ended up OOM a lot. With Mage Armor, I had no problems maintaining a mana pool with my mana gems and one evocation.

Second, pop your Water Elemental any time the cooldown is up and Hydross is in Poison form. I find it helps to pop the Elemental the first time, then pop Cold Snap, then pop the Elemental the second time. You’ll probably miss the third poison phase, and then have the Elemental up for the last poison phase. Remember – he’s useless in the Water phase, so get him out ASAP in the poison phase to maximize his effectiveness.

Icy Veins + Blizzard = The Shiznit. I always forget about Icy Veins. I wasn’t playing when they implemented it, and I’m just starting to play the Mage again. The first two attempts, I didn’t pop it once. The third attempt, I realized it is awesome in conjunction with Blizzard. Once the tank rounds up the adds, pop Icy Veins and start blizzarding. You’ll effectively do 20% more DPS (since Blizzard takes 20% less time to channel). Spread that over five mobs (since Hydross should also be effected by the Blizzard), and you’re getting some great bang for your buck. If you use Cold Snap after the first phase, you should have it available for the first, second, and fourth poison phases (just like the Water Elemental).

Pop your trinket every time Hydross is in Poison phase. I waited until I was done Blizzarding, so I could get an extra boost on Hydross. Your trinket should have a 2 minute cooldown, and Hydross should be in Poison form about every two minutes – so the timing works out perfectly.

Finally, spam Scorch during the water phases. I was nominated as the Main Assist for killing the Water Elemental adds. I started with one, spammed scorch until he died, then moved on. Afterwards, I spammed Scorch on Hydross. This isn’t optimal DPS, but you’re conserving mana. Since you don’t have any Fire Talents, you might as well use this phase to conserve mana for Blizzarding and dumping on the Frost DPS. If you’re mana bar is full, throw in Fire Blast when it’s not on cooldown, too.

The fight hinges on three things. Tanks need to transition Hydross between phases without dying or losing aggro. The adds need to be killed ASAP. There needs to be enough DPS to down Hydross before he enrages.

Do your job well, find a rhythm for maximum efficiency, and you should be fine. Just hope that the rest of the raid picks up their end.