This page covers a healer-focused strategy for Guardian of the First Ones in Sanctum of Domination in Shadowlands. While it's tailored for healers, other roles may also find the information useful. If you have any suggestions or feedback, you can leave a comment below or tweet @PrestonDvorak.

This guide has been updated and maintained based on my own experiences with the encounter, combat log information, and Dungeon Journal information. I'll continue to update it as-needed.

General Mechanics and Abilities

Normal and Heroic

• Players must assist the tanks in dealing with Elimination Pattern.
  • During Sunder, stay more than 6-yards away from the tank to avoid the critical damage dealt. Players hit take greatly increased damage from subsequent Sunders while the debuff persists.
  • On Heroic, during Obliterate, stand within 6-yards of the tank to split the damage dealt. Players hit take greatly increased damage from subsequent Obliterates while the debuff presists.
• Don't stand in front when it turns to cast Disintegration. Players hit are stunned and take light damage over time.
• When targeted by Threat Neutralization, move more than 10-yards away from other players and avoid the subsequent impact location.
• Summons Sentries throughout the encounter, which orbit the Guardian.
  • Sentry
    • Avoid their Suppression Fields.
    • Deals light damage to random players with Sentry Fire.
• At 0% energy, deals increasing heavy damage over time to all players with Purging Protocol.
  • To prevent this, the Guardian must be brought to an Energy Core, detailed below, to have its energy recharged.
• Energy Cores are present from the beginning of the encounter.
  • Energy Core
    • Emits an Radiant Energy field.
      • If the Guardian is in the field, it gains energy over time from Energizing Link while dealing heavy damage over time to all players with Unstable Energy.
      • If players are in the field, they take greatly reduced damage from Unstable Energy.
      • All players should stand in the field any time the Guardian is about to be moved to the field.
    • At 0% energy, stay more than 15-yards away to avoid the critical damage from Meltdown.
      • Additionally, this deals moderate damage to all players.

Mythic Differences

• At least four players must be hit by Obliterate to prevent the Guardian from losing additional energy.
• Energy Cores now begin the encounter at 0% energy and must be recharged with Energy Absorption by being hit with Threat Neutralization.

Healing Notes

Quick Notes, All Difficulties

The notes below mostly pertain to progression difficulty, meaning if you out-gear the difficulty you're on or use extra healers they may not apply.

• Use Major Cooldowns on
  
  • Purging Protocol / Unstable Energy [occurs about every 75-seconds]
• Use Minor Cooldowns on
  
  • Meltdown [generally occurs immediately after Purging Protocol]
• Pre-heal Before (mainly for heal over time classes)
  • Obliterate
  • Meltdown
  • Purging Protocol / Unstable Energy
• Potion of Spiritual Clarity use
  • likely after a Meltdown, once players are back near full health
• Other things to watch for
  • I'll update this section once I've seen more of the encounter.

Debuffs to Track

Major

• Disintegration causes players to be incapacitated and need additional healing over time.
• Several debuffs can cause players and tanks to take additional damage, however, this is rare unless a mistake is made, so the debuffs may just clutter raid frames.
  • (Optional) Sunder
  • (Optional) Obliterate

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Useful Addons

DBM Settings

Below are the DBM settings I'll be using for Guardian of the First Ones in Sanctum of Domination. You can set them up however you'd like, but these ones should work well as a starting point. Some settings may be Mythic only.

Healer DBM Settings for Guardian of the First Ones

Boss Mechanic Practice

While not technically an addon, the browser-based minigame Sanctum of Pineapples is a great way to practice Sanctum of Domination boss mechanics in a low-stress environment.

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