Naxxramas Guide

Arachnid Wing:
Naxxramas Strategy: AnubRekhan
9 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. AnubRekhan

The first boss faced in the Arachnid Wing is a massive Scarab Lord, AnubRekhan. as you enter the first room of trash pulls, he may be accessed via the hallway to your immediate left. Do not be too concerned about trash here (or really, in most of the raid). The Skitterer packs are easily managed and constitute no threat at all. For the four-pulls, you may want to get a Poison Cleansing Totem out if it is available to make things easier; the bright yellow & green spiders will occasionally charge to random member of the raid, but they will return to the highest aggro target afterwards. Spiders are also capable of a web-pull, much like the Death Grip skill, though you will only typically see this done to the tank as they close into range for the initial pull. Regardless, they are not difficult pulls and should not pose a problem to your raid. After a few pulls you will arrive at AnubRekhans room. Get your raid just inside the archway so that nobody gets locked out, and take a moment to look over the setting. You will notice that the room is laid out in a circular fashion, with alcove platforms at 12 oclock (AnubRekhans starting position) and 6 oclock, where your raid is standing presently.

These two platforms will play a major role in the fight, and will be discussed in the tanking section. Additionally for tanks, take a look at the perimeter of the room between the two alcoves. You can see that there is a trench of green liquid (like the canals of Undercity) around the edges, and a small lip to the outside of that canal as well. Once again, this terrain is important to tanking successfully, so be sure that you understand the topography. Finally, note the floor textures for the room; youll see a large green circle on the floor in the very middle. This is a very good reference point for ranged players notably casters and healers and you will likely be using it during the movement portions of the fight. Tanking The fight will require two tanks, one of them a defined and well geared Main Tank, and the other one (which will pick up adds) can be outfitted in largely DPS gear, but will still need to maintain some degree of mitigation. For this (and other) reasons, a Feral Druid is an ideal Offtank for this encounter. Death Knights and Warriors are good, while Paladins may struggle somewhat due to one of the mechanics involved. To start the initial pull, the Main Tank will simply run in; AnubRekhan will body pull when the tank reaches approximately the center of the room. Once initial aggro is established, the Main Tank should work to drag AnubRekhan back towards his starting position. Take care not to move him too deeply into the alcove; you ideally want to be located in a position that would place you right in that circlet of green slime around the room, if not for the bridge area that youre standing on. The Offtank will want to engage AnubRekhan as well during this initial phase. Shortly after the fight begins, you will receive a raid warning that says A Crypt Guard joins the fight!. This is the cue for the Offtank to get busy. The Offtank must immediately pick up this add and hold aggro as all DPS should be switching to it. Because they can function in Cat form for DPS phases (and with DPS gear) and switch out to Bear for adds, this is what makes a Druid desirable. You dont lose much DPS in the gearing, and they have the tools to immediately pickup and hold the add. For this first add, though, any tanking class should have no trouble picking it up via Taunt and the usual threat mechanics. Once it is down, the Offtank can return to DPS on AnubRekhan. Not long afterwards, Anubrekhan will initiate the one difficult mechanic of the fight and start his Locust Swarm. This ability will silence casters in a 30-yard radius and place a DoT on anyone in range as well. Around the time that he does the first Locust Swarm, the second Crypt Guard will invariably spawn. Because of the silencing effect, this is why a Paladin Offtank is less favorable as they will have a difficult time establishing initial aggro, and even if they do it may well be pulled off them. Regardless, the Offtank should either maintain the second add in its spawn position, or consider bringing it more towards the center of the room and away from the main action as the fight is about to transition 180 degrees from its present point. As a Main Tank, you will know that Locust Swarm is starting because AnubRekhan will raise his abdomen and make a sort of bowing motion in the direction of the Main Tank. This is your cue to run, as this is the kite phase. The Main Tank will begin running around the perimeter of the room from the 12 oclock position to 6 oclock, back to where the raid stood on first entering the room. You will want to run on the outer lip of the slime trough, right next to the wall so as to

maintain maximum range for Anubrekhan and his Locust Swarm from the raid. Do not run in the slime; it will debuff you to half health if you enter it. Anubrekhan will follow you as you run he is just a bit slower than run speed until you reach the 6 oclock position. once you reach this spot, stop running and pivot around to face him. On arrival, he will cease the Locust Swarm and the fight continues as before, until this cycle repeats. Also, be sure to designate beforehand which side you intend to run to, so that the raid can maintain proper spacing away from you. Most raids will have the tank make their kiting run through the 3 oclock side of the room. When the time comes to move him back to 12 oclock on Locust Swarm #2, retrace your initial path back instead of completing a full revolution so as not to cause any confusion which may result in a wipe. A minor secondary note for the Offtank: Anubrekhan will periodically Corpse Explode the bodies of the fallen. Usually, this is limited to the defeated Crypt Guards, but should a member of the raid die, they will be included as well. These explosions will spawn a number of smaller adds which do not hit terribly hard and have low health, but the potential to be a nuisance. More often than not, these can be AOEd down, but (depending on the situation) may require a brief bit of offtanking. Note that these spawns are a really, really good reason to not let any one member of the raid die. Do your best to help out your healers! DPS - Melee DPS will want to follow the Main Tank in on the initial pull, and set about their business once AnubRekhan is properly positioned. As Crypt Guards spawn, switch over to them immediately and down them so that you can return back to the Boss. During the kiting phase, you will likely be occupied with a spawned add, but once it is down simply make your way via the shortest route possible to the 6 oclock part of the room (or 12 oclock, depending on which way he is being kited) and resume DPS once AnubRekhan arrives. Ranged DPS should ideally setup at maximum range when DPSing AnubRekhan. As Crypt Guards spawn, shift your attention to them until down and resume on the boss. When Corpse Explosions occur, ranged DPS will have the primary responsibility for eliminating the spawned trash adds. If an AOE attack like Blizzard, Hurricane or Volley is available, use it as soon as possible and return to boss DPS once the threat is neutralized. For Shamans, place your caster totems in the green circle as you run in, then go a little bit towards the melee group to drop any totems that may be down for their benefit before you either join the melee or caster group, as spec demands. Adjust the melee totem after the kiting phase so that it remains in beneficial range to the melee and tank group. During the kiting phase, ranged DPS may continue to attack AnubRekhan if no adds are present. Be conscientious of the Locust Swarm debuff; not only do you not want to get DoTted and place additional strain on your healers, but the silence effect will also occur if you get too close and prevent you from doing anything effective for a few seconds until it wears off. This is where that green circle in the middle of the room comes into play. Most ranged DPS can stay in range for damage, but out of range for Locust Swarm, simply by pathing in a small arc around it. Take note of how far to the north of the circle you had to stand for initial DPS, and more or less mirror that distance as you move around it, and you should stay clear of the swarm, but in range to land your attacks.

During the Crypt Guard spawns, Hunters may want to be especially aware with their Misdirects, especially if its during a Locust Swarm as this may make it difficult for an Offtank to acquire aggro. You may want to make a macro before the fight in order to make the process go smoothly, something like this:
y y y y

/target (offtank name) /cast misdirect /target crypt /cast arcane shot (or similar)

Finally, Anubrekhan will periodically send out lines of spikes from his position when Locust Swarm is not active. This ability will cause affected players to be thrown up into the air; you will take damage from the initial hit and from falling (though Rogues, Cat Druids and anyone with the presence of mind to cast Slowfall or Levitate can mitigate this). As melee DPS, you more or less have to grin and bear it; group healing spells will pick up the damage you take soon enough anyhow. For ranged players, try not to clump up too much. Stay close enough that spells like Chain Heal and Wild Growth will jump between you , but far enough that only one or two players are tossed into the air and it should not become overly burdensome to heal through. Healing - As the main Tank is running in, set any HoTs and pre-emptive heals (like Earth Shield or Prayer of Mending) so that nothing bad happens before you get set up. Your initial positioning should be just slightly past the far edge of the green circle in the middle of the floor. Once youve set up in a spot to heal the tank, back up slowly until you reach maximum range. This will help to lessen the chance that you are impacted by Locust Swarm when it is up, thereby depriving the raid of any of your healing. Until the Locust Swarm, you should be able to remain more or less stationary during the fight. Dump whatever group healing you can into the melee group, but dont lose focus on the Main Tank or Offtank AnubRekhan is capable of taking most tanks down in 3-5 hits, so letting your attention wander for a moment too long can prove fatal to the raid. When he starts the Locust Swarm, you will have your most critical role in the raid. One of the more common reasons for a wipe is that the Healers lose that Main Tank during the kite. This happens primarily because the Main Tank outranges the Healers, or they get too close and become silenced. Ideally, the Main Tank Healer should mirror the movement of the tank as he runs around the perimeter of the room, moving is a small arc near the center of the room so as to always be in range of the tank, but outside of the Locust Swarm debuff range. As soon as the Locust Swarm is imminent, renew your proactive healing on the Main Tank new Earth Shield, Prayer of Mending, HoTs and it should serve as a sufficient buffer during the phase. If your tank is skilled enough at the movements, and leaves for his run the moment that the Locust Swarm animation is visible, this may constitute all of the healing necessary to see the Main Tank through to his new position. In this case, the Healer assigned to the tank can simply make a beeline south to a position mirroring his initial position and be ready to resume tank healing as soon as the Main Tank arrives.

The healer(s) not assigned to the Main Tank will be responsible for keeping the Offtank and raid topped off. In general, these Healers should be able to station themselves sightly to the 9 oclock side of center, and far enough north or south (dependant on which side Anubrekhan has been kited to) that they can target the melee DPS. This reserve position will place them well away from any threat of Locust Swarm, and they will be free to focus on their healing duties. Offhealers should be aware during the kite phase of the positioning for the Main Tank and able to move into position for an emergency heal, should the Healer assigned to the tank accidentally come within range of the silencing effect. AnubRekhan has an enrage timer of 10 minutes. With only 2,230,000 health (and assuming that you have to spend 1/3 of your DPS time on adds, or in kiting phases, and that you have 7 players as DPS or Tanks, with Healers as noncontributors to DPS), that only works out to a 796 DPS average between DPS and Tanks to beat the timer. In other words, if you cant get him down before the enrage, you may want to consider getting better gear.

Naxxramas Strategy: Grand Widow Faerlina

9 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Grand Widow Faerlina

Grand Widow Faerlina (GWF, for short) is the second boss of the Arachnid Quarter. After youve downed AnubRekhan, return to the room nearest the Naxxramas hub and proceed to the door directly across from the ramp down from the hub. Trash pulls will be exactly the same as the ones which you encountered on the way to AnubRekhan. Beyond the first room, there is a second antechamber with similar mobs; you may elect to either kill them all in the hope of a random Naxx epic drop, or clear only one side and work around the perimeter of that wall. Beyond that room, youll want to veer to the left as the instance opens into a rocky passageway. Do be aware of the single spider patrol in this region; ideally, they should be engaged and destroyed so as to prevent any mishaps whereby they might come upon your Raid at an inopportune time. At the bottom of the slope, the passage opens into a room full of cultists, with Grand Widow Faerlina standing on a raised dais at the back end of the room, and flanked by 4 of her consorts. Pull each group of cultists and burn them down; they will not cause her to add. When you are done, you should have only Faerlina and the 4 Worshippers left. Tanking- The fight will require 2 tanks. Your Main Tank will occupy Faerlina. She hits fairly hard, and the tank will need to have high health and mitigation to survive the brief periods when she enrages. Your Offtank will also need to have a decent health pool, though it will become progressively less strained as the fight moves on and the Worshippers are killed. Begin by marking the four Worshippers with raid icons to designate a kill order, and clearly communicate this burn order to the Raid I.E., Skull Cross Triangle Diamond, or something. It is absolutely imperative that the raid know which Worshipper will be the target when called upon to burn one, and equally important that the wrong one is not killed. The reason for this is, killing a Worshipper will dispel Faerlinas enrages as long as she is within a short distance, approximately 15 yards or less. By managing these adds, you can control the most dangerous threat that she can present to the Main Tank. On the pull, the Main Tank will grab Faerlina, and likely tank her close by to her starting location. The Offtank will be responsible for picking up all four Worshippers. This is actually the trickiest part of the encounter; if your Offtank can successfully round them up and control aggro on them, then you have the entire fight in hand from the beginning. The Worshippers should be tanked in close proximity to Faerlina, but far enough away that they dont receive any splash damage (via something like Killing Spree, Whirlwind, a glyphed Maul, etc.) From a Main Tank perspective, its a simple tank-and-spank. Save your defensive cooldowns for the enrages; though youll only need them for a few seconds, she can put a hurt on a tank in that window with a 200% damage buff. Dont move her around, unless you happen to be in on of her Rain of Fire spells, as you want to stay close to the adds or you will outrange the dispel effect. The Offtank is crucial in this fight. While you should be deploying your AOE tanking abilities to hold the adds (Swipe, Consecrate, Thunderclap, or whatever it is that Death Knights do), you need to understand that they are very fragile only a bit over 80,000 health. You can likely lay into the Worshipper marked as the first kill target with abandon, as you arent likely to kill him before the raid is instructed to do so. Monitor the health of the others, though, and cease all damaging abilities on them including passive ones like Thorns or Retribution Aura when

they get around 20% health. Once they hit that point, you can assist the melee DPS if you want, or stand off to the side with your Followers and contribute whatever you can shouts for Warriors, renew Faerie Fire and Demoralizing Roar on Farelina for Druids, off-heal or cleanse if youre a Paladin, or do whatever it is that Death Knights do (besides stand around looking cool) if youre a DK. As long as you have threat on the Worshippers, youre good. DPS - Fairly straightforward. Once the Main Tank engages, so do you. All DPS, melee and ranged, should focus on Faerlina. There is no need to relegate any of your damage output to the Worshippers at the outset, as the Offtank will do more than enough damage to them and one of the worst things that you can do is kill one before their time. About every minute or so, Faerlina will enrage. This is the cue for DPS to burn down one of the Worshippers, as designated by your kill order, in order to dispel the effect. Raid Leaders should call this out over vent to avoid confusion. As long as your Raid has 3 or more ranged DPS characters, melee DPS should be fine if they simply stay put on Faerlina the entire time; better to bleed her health than run all over the room. Once the designated Worshipper has been dealt with, all DPS may resume on Faerlina. There should be no reason for DPS classes to use AOE or multiple target abilities; again, killing Worshippers at the wrong time is one of the worst things that you can do. Be especially mindful of the Mages Mirror Image ability. The clones will attack whatever they want, and sometimes will sheep a Follower allowing it to heal to full health, and thus take longer to burn when the time comes. Shaman Earth and Fire Elementals should similarly not be used on this fight unless all of the Worshippers are dead, in which case the Fire Elemental may be permissible. Throughout the encounter, Faerlina will periodically cast a Rain of Fire spell, which will cause AOE damage to anyone standing in the targeted area. The effect is different from the Blizzard cast by The Shade of Aran, in that it is completely stationary. Do your Healer a favor and avoid breaking WoW Raiding Commandment #1 by standing in the fire. Simply strafe to one side or the other and pick up where you left off, or you will suffer a few thousand points of damage per second. Faerlina is something of a DPS race, in that you will eventually run out of Worshippers to kill and thus have no means to quell her enrages. because of this, its imperative that you do your best to use long cooldown abilities and trinkets to their fullest extent and maximize your DPS. Healers- One Healer should be assigned to each tank. At the outset of the pull, the Offtank will be taking some decent damage and require a fair amount of attention. After the adds start to drop, the requirement for healing does too, and the OT Healer will be able to focus more of their efforts on people who break WoW raiding Commandment #1. The Main Tank Healer will have their hands full, and should not be counted on for any raid healing; anything that they can do in that regard is just icing on the cake. Should your Raid have a third Healer, or an off-spec (like an Elemental Shaman, or a Moonkin Druid), that player will probably be able to move to a DPS role around the time that the second Worshipper is killed as Offtank damage inbound will be easily managed at that point. Until that

happens, the third Healer should be functioning in a raid healing role as the other two may not have enough time to divert their attention from their respective charges. Faerlina also will use a Poison Volley ability on the Raid. Should you have a Shaman along regardless of spec this ability can be easily countered with a Poison Cleansing Totem. Also note that the presence of this Totem may alleviate the need for the offspec Healer to be healing, and free them up to DPS, depending on the ability and class of the Offtank Healer. If you do not have this luxury, then it will fall to the third Healer and possibly, eventually, the Offtank if it happens to be a Paladin to cure the poison DoT as soon as possible. Really, this is a very simple fight and the mechanics should not prove difficult for any player to handle. The Raid will need to put out enough DPS to kill Faerlina before a 5th enrage can occur and not stand in fire to succeed and thats about it.

Naxxramas Strategy: Maexxna

13 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Maexxna

The final boss of the Arachnid Quarter is much what youd expect a big, angry spider. After downing Grand Widow Faerlina, turn around and head up the tunnel that you came down. Just past the point where you came into the tunnel initially, it will break to the left and youll encounter a few more trash pulls. Nothing particularly threatening again, simply AOE them down while a tank holds them in place. At the end of the corridor is a closed door (with a tooltip that labels it as doodad). Through this door and to the left, you will work through several more pulls worth of spiders, both semi-substantial elites and the nuisance packs of Skitterers. If you have a Warlock in the party, its wise to place Detect Invisibility on all of the party members or at least the tanks before you clear this run, as the area will sometimes contain Shades, a more dangerous mob that should not be allowed to take the group by surprise. Be aware as well, some of the groups follow patrol routes. They should not pose a problem as long as the tanks remain aware of their surroundings, as handling 1-3 packs worth of pulls is not terribly strenuous. Eventually, you will see a spiderweb ramp on your right which leads up to a hole through the wall. This is Maexxnas chamber. Enter and move slightly off to the left, sticking close to the wall while you rebuff for the fight. Tanks - Maexxna only requires a single tank. Due to the very real possibility that even a wellgeared tank can catch a series of bad breaks during her enrages, its not entirely a bad idea for your second tank to remain in their mitigation gear and DPS as best they can. The Main Tank should engage Maexxna by simply running towards the middle of the room. Throw something at her if you have time and can do it on the run (Avengers Shield, Feral Faerie Fire, etc), but youll have a few seconds to actually establish threat on her while your raid runs into position. Once engaged, move her near the center of the room, with your back towards the opening that you entered her chamber through. Once youre set up, youll pretty much be tanking her in place this whole time. While she has several mechanics to the fight, only two are truly dangerous to the Main Tank Web Wrap and Enrage. During the Web Wrap, she will stun the entire raid for a few seconds. It is not an avoidable attack and you will still be meleed by her while stunned. While not a huge concern for most of the fight so long as your healers can keep you more or less topped off, and hopefully have some HoTs or reactive heals ticking the Web Wrap becomes a major concern when she Enrages at 30% health. Save all of your cooldowns for this time if you can avoidance trinkets and potions, Health Potions, Shield Wall, Barkskin, Last Stand, etc. Having them available should keep you standing through the burn phase, likely 30-45 seconds. Theyll be especially important immediately after the stuns, as your Healers are all stunned too. It is at this burn stage (health < 30%) that the Offtank needs to be on their toes. If youre already in full mitigation gear, be ready to pick up Maexxna should something happen to the MT. You should be entirely geared and ready to go but for one last thing (defensive stance, shift to bear, righteous fury, shift presence) as a backup, unless your group has enough familiarity with the fight to know for certain that they wont need you your DPS is secondary to the vital role of safety valve should your main tank fall, as just a few seconds time can mean the difference between downing her and a 2% wipe.

DPS Fairly straightforward here. When the Main Tank engages, DPS will run in to the rear of Maexxna. Try to minimize the amount of pot-shots you might take at her on the run-in so that the Main Tank can establish solid aggro. Once in position behind her, cut loose. Melee will not be moving much for the entire fight, simply sticking to her backside and going all-out. While she may cocoon a Melee DPS person from time to time, simply run back in to engage her as soon as you are freed. Note that there will be some minor adds that spawn repeatedly throughout the fight. Their damage output is nothing more than a nuisance, but if you have some kind of AOE ability (Consecrate, for instance, or Whirlwind, Fan of Knives, etc) you can help the raid by using it when the Spiderlings appear. Ranged DPS has a bit more of an important role. Your job will be the same as Melee initially, run behind her and DPS. However, Maexxna will frequently cocoon a player and stick them to the back wall (roughly every 45 seconds, though Im not sure of the exact timer). This person will be immobile and have a hefty DoT applied to them that will cause death in about 10 seconds without healing. However, the DoT stops when they are broken free of the cocoon. All Ranged DPS should be on their toes for these cocoons, and immediately shift DPS to the cocoon to free the trapped raider. The window of time before the trapped player dies is very short, and the cocoons do not take much damage to break, so it is absolutely essential that you respond quickly. Though the trapped person will never be the Main Tank, attrition will cause the raid to fail if these get missed. As soon as the Enrage hits 30% health then the Raid will enter a burn phase where the objective is to get her down as fast as possible. Do not ignore cocoons in this stage, but use any available cooldowns notably Bloodlust, if available to get her down fast as she is very dangerous during this time. Also, be aware that Healers will likely all be focused on the tank at this time. If you require healing, use potions and/or healthstones if possible; if your group has only two dedicated Healers, it may be necessary for one member with healing spells to cease DPS and assist on healing the Main Tank. Healers - On the initial pull, follow all of the DPS to position behind Maexxna. You will ideally want to find a spot (if possible) that allows you to heal both the Main Tank and any cocooned players that get thrown to the back wall. Ideally, the Raid has three Healers for this fight, though the third may be an offspec who gets pulled in to heal during the Enrage. It is paramount that the Main Tank remain as close to topped off as possible during the entire fight, as the raid-wide Web Wrap will cause some periods where healing is not available for a few seconds. Try to keep Hots and reactive heals active at all times if possible. Once she enrages, at least 2 Healers should be on the Main Tank to the exclusion of all others, as her damage output is largely unhealable by a single healer. Much like Gruul on later growth stages, this is a time when Healers should not be cancelling casts for fear of overhealing. At several points during the fight, she will cocoon a player and throw a player against the back wall. While cocooned, the player will lose health at a rapid rate and be unable to do anything. Ranged DPS should be breaking them out quickly and preventing the bulk of the damage, but if a healer is in range and can throw out a quick heal on them, it helps to do so. Be aware that theyll

likely need attention on returning to the raid, though AOE healing (Wild Growth, Chain Heal, Circle of Healing) should pick them up fairly quickly. Finally, there is a large volume of poison debuffing going on. While a Poison Cleansing Totem will assist with the majority of it, there will be occasions where the DoT stacks faster than the Totem cleanses, and it may be necessary to supplement it. This is particularly the case with the Main Tank, who will accrue poison debuffs from melee as well. A last side note about the Spiderling adds: while they are not very dangerous and die quickly, I personally noticed (as a Shaman Healer) that actually letting one of them continue attacking me was beneficial. While the damage is minimal and largely mitigated by armor and shield, the constant triggering of my Water Shield orbs was very beneficial for mana regeneration. So, should you find yourself in this rather unique situation, you may want to let the lil guy hang around for a while, unless hes problematic, or brings friends! Maexxna concludes the Arachnid Wing of Naxxramas. Unlike the other final bosses in the Wings, she does not drop any tier tokens. However, be aware that a teleporter will spawn on the wall after her death that will take you back to the center of the instance if you click on it.

Plague Wing:
Naxxramas Strategy: Noth the Plaguebringer
13 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go.

Noth the Plaguebringer

Noth is the first boss of the Plague Wing, and a frequent first target of raids. Trash pulls leading up to him are relatively easy, but must be executed properly or they have the potential to wipe the Raid. They will come in two varieties: mixed packs of Ghouls / Slimes, and Gargoyles (either single or in pairs). The Ghoul / Slime pulls are fairly easy. Tanks should pick up the Ghouls, and nearly all DPS will focus them as the first kill targets. Each Slime needs a Ranged DPS assigned to it for the purpose of keeping it occupied via kiting until the Ghouls are dealt with. Hunters work best for this, though Mages are a good option as well. While the Ghouls dont do anything extraordinary, the Slimes have some abilities that must be reckoned with. Notably, they melee for VERY high damage on non-tanks (and even tanks), and will shift colors frequently, making them immune to either Fire, Frost or Nature damage. For this reason, Mages would be advised to kite them via Frostfire. Fortunately, they move at a ridiculously slow pace reminiscent of a similar mob in Mauradon. Kite them around the entry area circle where you zoned in until the cavalry arrives.

Gargoyles are a different matter. Care should be taken on the pull so that the single patrollers are not aggroed along with the stationary pairs, as three is almost a guaranteed wipe unless your Raid DPS is incredible. The reason for this is twofold: first, they have a stacking debuff that they will apply to the entire Raid. After awhile, the damage reaches the point of unhealability so the mobs must be downed before this happens. The second ability, which works against timely deaths of the mobs, is called Stoneskin. They will begin a slow cast of this ability at 30% health. If not killed before completion, the Gargoyle will become immune to damage and heal itself to full health. For this reason, when facing a pair of them, all DPS (with the exception of the Offtank) *must* concentrate their efforts on the same target. Also note if the Gargoyle is kited past the entrance to the Plague Wing, it will reset (though the aforementioned Slimes and Ghouls do not adhere to this rule). After a few pulls, the Raid will descend the stairway into Noths room. Tanks - The fight will require a Main Tank and an Offtank, and the mitigation requirement will be reasonably high for both. The Offtank will need to be very skilled at picking up adds, in addition to soaking damage. If the two tanks are similar, it may be in the Raids best interests to have a Tank with slightly inferior gear on Noth himself if the other one far supersedes him or her in the ability to gather adds. Noth is generally tanked in the center of the room. To start the fight, make sure that everyone is just inside the doorway to the room and either charge him or body pull. Once engaged, he does not require the Main Tank to do anything special with regards to movement after he has been acquired. The Offtank will be in charge of picking up the summoned skeletal adds. Periodically, Noth will say Rise, my soldiers! Rise and fight once more!. When he does this, two melee skeletons will spawn from the bone piles in the room. These generally seem to come from the right side (front and rear), and will usually aggro onto Healers fairly quickly. The Offtank should gather them and hold them until the time comes to DPS them all down. Noth will summon the adds multiple times in each of his ground phases, and the Offtank will typically have about eight of them by the time that the kill order comes. When tanking them, be sure that they face away from any other Raid members, as they cleave. After being on the ground for a bit, Noth will teleport himself up to the balcony of the room. He cannot be damaged at this point in the encounter. Instead, in addition to the Offtanks collected adds, he will continue to summon in more skeletons. Both tanks should work to pick them up as soon as possible, and concentrate them as tightly as you can for efficient AOE. they are not very difficult to manage at this point in terms of mitigation; the real challenge lies in the actual acquisition of the targets and maintaining aggro. After the Raid has dealt with the adds for awhile, Noth will teleport back down into the field of combat. The Main Tank must then reacquire him (easily done), and the battle resumes as it had upon initial engagement. This cycle will repeat itself several times; by the fourth time that Noth teleports down, he will enrage and wipe the Raid. However, it should not be a problem to down him before that time. DPS- The DPS role is simple for this fight. When Noth is on the ground and targetable, all DPS should focus on him. Use your trinkets and cooldowns on him, as abilities and items with a 2-

minute timer should be ready for use in each ground phase if they are popped at the outset. Due to his enrage timer, it is imperative that the DPS maximize their output on him when they can. When he teleports to the balcony, DPS shifts to taking down the adds that have accumulated and continue to spawn. Especially at the outset, AOE abilities are very useful in getting the situation in hand, and should be used liberally. Note that some of the adds which spawn while he is on the balcony (Guardians, I believe Im doing this from memory and may be wrong) have a strong AOE Arcane Blast and should be a priority kill target for single-target DPS like Melee characters. With a little bit of effort, the DPS should have no problem bringing the number of adds under control so that everything is easy to manage when Noth arrives for his next ground phase. Healers- Each tank will require a Healer for the ground phase. When Noth is on the balcony, healing can shift more towards the Raid. If the Raid has three Healers, one can be designated for each tank, and one on the Raid. Healing should not be too strenuous for the entirety of the encounter, though the Offtank may require some extra attention near the end of the ground phase, and AOE / group healing will need some fast action during the balcony phase when the AOE skeletons are active. The major mechanic for Healers in this fight is decurse. Without a Druid Healer (or a properly specced Shaman Healer), then the Raid must rely on a Mage to perform the role. If no decurser is available, then this encounter is likely not doable. Noth will cast his curse on 3 members of the Raid about every 30-45 seconds (I never ran a timer, but it seems about there, roughly 2x per ground phase). If not cleansed within 10 seconds, it will spread to others and cause extreme (think raid-wiping) amounts of damage. Be aware that he can and will curse Hunter Pets and Warlock Summons, though an alert BM Hunter may get his or her pet decursed on his own if specced correctly. Again, if your Raid is running a 3-Healer setup, consider who may decurse when assigning Healers. If only one decurser is among them, priority should definitely be to make that person the Raid Healer for the fight so as to give them more room (and GCDs) to look for and cure the curses.

Naxxramas Strategy: Heigan the Unclean

13 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights

and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Heigan the Unclean Dancin time! If you dont know what I mean, then you will soon enough (and then, probably while youre dead and watching the members of your raid who know how to do it, do it). Heigan is a very easy boss once you understand and execute the mechanics of the fight; as he has no enrage timer, he can effectively be done by as few as two people (Tank and Healer) if they are able to execute their duties correctly, though it will certainly take a long time at that rate. To begin with, the trash pulls leading up to Heigan are among the most trivial in the entire instance. They are not dangerous in the slightest and easily chain-pulled and AOEd down. Just be sure that you clear the majority of them, if not all of them, as the only danger that they present is a random pack aggroing into the rear of your Raid as you move through. Soon enough, you will reach Heigans room. have the Raid inch just inside the wall to the right (you wont aggro him if you stay to the wall), and get ready to start.

Overhead of the zones for Heigan. Start position is the "X", and exploding segments marked 1-4 Tanks- Heigan requires only one tank. He will melee for decent damage, so mitigation is important. The Offtank would only be needed in the event that the Main Tank dies to some unfortunate circumstance. However, its a safe bet that (should that happen), youll be wiping anyways, so the Offtank can go full DPS for this fight.

The Main Tank will begin the fight by simply running at him and tagging Heigan with a ranged weapon, at which point he will charge into the Raid. Pick him up and establish some high-threat abilities as soon as possible, because this first phase is where the biggest threat to pulling aggro is likely to happen. Youll want to bring him right to the middle area of the segment marked 1 in the diagram above. Shortly after engaging him, youll see segments 2-4 erupt in what looks like an explosion of green lava. As soon as this occurs, drag him to the middle of segment 2 and wait for the eruption again. This time, all of the segments but #2 will be affected. Move on to #3 at this point, your next safe zone, and after the third eruption on to #4. Once the eruption occurs with segment #4 as the safe zone, begin moving back the way you came, to #3, then #2, and then #1, pausing at each step for the eruptions. Eventually, Heigan will leave you and run back to his platform. Do not follow him! This is the start of phase #2, so head back to segment #1 and wait for it to begin, as detailed in Dancing below. Once hes done making you dance, Heigan will run back into the melee group and the fight resumes as before. Just make sure that youre moving him after each eruption, and youll be fine. Finally, make sure that the kiting is done well away from the platform, approximately the middle of the segments. Heigan has a debuff which slows casting speed considerably (300%, I believe, but it may only be 200) and thus allowing him to get within 30 yards of the Ranged DPS and Healers is very bad. The debuff will not be an issue when he is transitioning phases. DPS - when the Main Tank pulls, DPS will immediately split into 2 groups. All Melee DPS will follow the Main Tank and Heigan around the floor, and all Ranged DPS will run up to his starting position on the platform. Melee may want to hesitate for a second to let the Main Tank get a few aggro-generating shots in, as it is imperative that the Main Tank be able to kite Heigan effectively. Ranged DPS should also do their part to wait a few seconds before they really cut loose; though things like auto-shot are certainly fine, dont blow all of your trinkets and your PoM Pyroblast, etc right up front. This is the point when you want to use a Bloodlust, if one is available wait about 10 seconds into the pull and pop it, since youll never have more DPS available than this moment. if there is a Hunter in the Raid, Misdirecting the Main Tank at this point would be advisable in order to help cement aggro. The reason that the Ranged DPS moves to the platform is because of the casting debuff mentioned in the tanking section. Stay towards the center of the platform if possible to be sure that you dont get afflicted with it, or your DPS will plummet. For Melee DPS, you may want to consider standing more on the side than behind Heigan as he is kited. The rationale being, if a tank is in the center of the segment and dragging Heigan, positioning yourself behind him might mean that you are standing right on top of the next eruption and, while you may survive one of these, 2 will kill you almost without exception. By the time your Main Tank has moved Heigan to the second segment, aggro should be firmly established. Blow off everything that youve got for DPS and put as much of a hurt as possible on Heigan now. Hell be kited around for about 90 seconds from the moment of engaging, when he switches to phase 2 and runs back to his starting spot. The moment that you know this is coming, run back to the #1 segment right away. When Heigan arrives on the platform, he will channel an AOE effect which covers the entire platform area and ticks for ~7500 damage

basically, forcing the Raid away from him and to the floor segments. What happens next will be covered in the Dancing section. Healers Realistically, Heigan is not a hugely intensive healing fight. One Healer should be able to keep the Main Tank up, and a second Healer should focus on topping off anyone who gets caught in an eruption and isnt immediately killed by it. If there is a Shaman in the group, you will want to have them lay a Disease Cleansing Totem near the edge of the platform, between segments 2-3 if possible. Though this would preclude the usage of a Mana Spring Totem, there will be ample time to recover mana during the dance phase and thus it isnt an issue. Keep an eye out for anyone that may be diseased and cleanse it when possible, as it reduces maximum health by 1/2 and applies a DoT. In the event that the Raid is running with 2 Healers that are both Resto Druids, you will want to appoint a disease cleanser due to the powerful nature of the debuff. When the first phase ends and the second starts, dont tarry on the platform and run immediately with the Ranged DPS to the segment marked 1 . Dancing- Some people call it The idiot check. Most people call it annoying. Its an unavoidable part of the fight, though and if you can execute it correctly each time, then you can beat him every time. People seeing Heigan for the first time usually die on this phase; it takes a bit of time to get used to the rhythm of it. Once you do, though, it will feel pretty easy. If you perish on the fight, make the most of the view by watching the pattern and seeing where the floor erupts, and where it doesnt. Also note, the floor segments are shaped roughly like pizza slices in that they are narrower at one end. Running a bit closer to Heigans platform (but not too close that you get hit with his AOE) will allow you to move from one segment to the next faster, and thus allows more slack. The disadvantage to running closer, though, is that the safe areas are narrower as well and your margin of error tightens up. Personally, I prefer being about 10 yards off the platform edge. When you are dancing, note that you will not have time to cast anything but instant spells. Dont be tempted to do otherwise, as doing so means that you will fall behind the pattern, and falling behind means certain death. Ranged DPS may be able to cast some instants provided that Heigan is still targeted, but with the exception of Warlock instant-cast DoTs its not very advisable. As a Shaman, I like to leave him a Searing Totem for company as I run off, but DPS is not really necessary during the dance phase. Healers should also resist the temptation to cast even Flash Heals during this phase instants only. One healing item that is strongly advisable is the Disease Cleansing Totem mentioned previously. Ideally, drop this between segments 2 and 3 as you run. This is also a good time to use an Innervate or Divine Plea to restore mana, so that you can end the phase with nearly a full bar. At the start of this phase, you will receive a message that he begins channeling a spell. This means that the entire Raid should report immediately to the segment marked #1, if you havent already started there. The moment you see segments 2-4 erupt, its on and the eruptions will happen at a much faster pace than they did in the first phase. Immediately move to segment #2 as its eruption subsides. #3 will blow up in front of you almost the instant that you get there, as will #1 behind you. Immediately run to #3 at this point, and so on. The eruption order for this phase will *always* start with #1 as the safe segment, and the raid will run 1-2-3-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-3.

Upon reaching #3 at the end of this sequence (your 10th move), you will see the message Heigan the Unclean rushes to join the fight, or something along those lines, at which point the Main Tank picks him up, and the Ranged DPS / Healers report back to the platform, and the fight continues as before. Lastly, note that the end of the dancing phase will typically see Heigan hit most if not all of the Raid with the disease debuff mentioned earlier. If the totem was available and laid down in the right spot (and the Shaman who laid it isnt dead), then it should resolve most of the issues passively. If anyone is still diseased, though, be sure to cleanse it as soon as possible. Off-specs with healing spells should be aware of the debuff and assist with removal if they can. And thats all that there is to it! As long as your Raid can dance, Heigan will drop. Ive personally been in more than one raid where only 4 people lived to the end, and the fight took over 10 minutes in each case but its a doable endurance fight that isnt too taxing outside of the dancing element. The Safe Spot Currently (as of this writing), there *is* a spot that is bugged on this boss, where you can stand in all phases and not die. I expect it to be hotfixed at any time, so Im not making it a part of strategy but its located right off the back edge of the platform, against the wall in a little alcove in the segment marked 4 on the diagram about 4-5 yards from the platform. Use it (or, more accurately, depend on it) at your own risk. (note: I tried this for grins last weekend. I died. May well be hotfixed, or I may be an idiot.)

Naxxramas Strategy: Loatheb

14 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go.

Loatheb

The final boss of the Plague Wing, Loatheb is an enjoyable fight with a mechanic unlike any that youve ever seen. The trash runup to him is brief, but must be taken carefully. If you look into the room immediately past Heigan, you will see that there are several buckets (or whatever) on the floor. Periodically, eye stalks will rise from them, and then despawn after a short time; additional minor trash patrols the area as well. In order to get to Loatheb, you must run this gauntlet and get through to the other side. Ive always run it straight through, with the entire Raid moving as one mass along the near wall until we reach the end. Once at the end, everyone runs in to the back corner where the tanks accumulated trash following is dealt with. Along the way, eyestalks may pop up from the buckets; DPS should hit them with whatever instant casts may be available (Hunters are excellent here) to down the eyestalk without breaking stride. With a little bit of luck and cohesion, your entire Raid should make it from one side to the other in one piece. From there, hang a right and you will move across a short bridge; in a room on the other side is Loatheb. Move carefully to a position just inside the door, and youll be ready to begin! Tanks- Loatheb will only require one tank. While mitigation will be important to an extent, its probably in the best interest of the Raid to have the tank capable of higher DPS perform in that role, while the lower DPS player operates as Loathebs tank. This fight is a pure DPS race, so any little bit that you can milk is important. For the Main Tank, you will want to start the fight by body pulling Loatheb. Simply run right at him and through him, then turn around. You want him to be tanked in more or less his original starting position, but with his back turned to the door. Once established in this position, you will not have to move him at all for the duration of the fight. The Main Tank should try to save their mitigation cooldown for intermittent usage when his Necrotic Aura is up Basically, Loatheb is going to have the Aura up for 16 seconds, and then down for 4. When it is up, all healing (no matter the source) is blocked. Thus, youll want to stagger your mitigation cooldowns and trinkets to use one per aura if possible and smooth out damage. For instance, a Druid might Barkskin on one aura, then use a dodge trinket on the second, and pop Survival Instincts for the third before going back to another Barkskin on 4, and so on. For longer cooldown abilities, its better to save them for later as anything other than Barkskin, Shield Block or Holy Shield is overkill on the first few rounds anyhow as incoming damage is relatively light (Loatheb doesnt hit all that hard) and the Raid is not yet taking much damage from him. By the time that he starts using Impending Doom, youll want to be in a fullmitigation mode to assist your healers as much as possible. Essentially, it boils down to this

limit your damage taken during the time when Necrotic Aura is up through shrewd use of cooldowns at appropriate times. DPS - This fight is your chance to go nuts, and youll have to in order to get him down before the damage outstrips the available healing. To start with, youll want to follow the Main Tank in on the pull. All DPS should position themselves right on Loathebs backside, and stay tightly bunched up. Ranged DPS should be as close to him as possible without entering into a dead zone (in the case of Hunters). The reason for this is the Spores that will spawn. Killing one of them provides an enormous critical strike buff to up to 5 people in the area, and those affected will generate no threat with their attacks. properly done, this will allow the moajority of the Raid and possibly even everyone but the Main Tank to enjoy this buff for almost the entire fight. Due to the threat mechanic, it is very important that the Main Tank not receive the spore buff, though. To achieve this, kill the Spores (they have extremely low HP) when they are near the DPS group. DPS will want to use their best and most efficient damage rotation as possible throughout the fight. Due to the fact that you will not have to move (or really, do much of anything outside of damage) once the fight starts, you should be able to be very precise with your rotations for maximum damage. Make sure that trinkets are used as frequently as possible, and other damageenhancing abilities (like Tigers Fury, Elemental Mastery, Water Elementals, etc) should be used close to the inception of the fight so that cooldowns expire and they can receive multiple uses through the fight. Remember that none of your DPS abilities that may normally generate a health return (like Drain Life, Blood Aura, etc) will be restoring anything to you if the Necrotic Aura is up. Similarly, while you can use Health Potions, Healthstones and bandages at any point in the fight, their healing effect will be reduced to 0% if the aura is up using up the item (or even worse, acquiring the potion-used debuff). While Mana Potions may be used normally, its better to save that one potion for a Health Potion or a Rejuvenation Potion, if available. As the fight goes on, players will find that they are straying farther and farther from full health as the Healers can only restore so much in the short window. To help supplement this, Raid Leaders may want to consider ordering consumption of all Healthstones and potions at a set point in the fight. Let the Raid know a few seconds before the aura drops that you want all members to stop DPS and use both Healthstone and Health Potion in the coming window. The additional healing burst that the coordinated effort can supply will add a lot of longevity to the Raid if executed properly; dont order it done, though, unless you see that health bars are not moving much higher than about 2/3 during the healing windows. If overall Raid health is becoming particularly strained in spite of this, DPS classes with AOE healing spells (particularly Tranquility and Chain Heal) may be called upon to supplement healing; those classes should be prepared to assist if called upon. Finally, if your class has some kind of Shadow Damage mitigator (Im especially thinking of a Warlocks Shadow Ward), try to be alert and pop it to coincide with the Impending Doom curse as it will mitigate damage. Every little bit helps. Healers- This fight is made and broken on the timing of your heals. It will be absolutely critical that you time things as best as possible to generate maximum healing output during the allotted

windows in order to give your DPS time to drop this very durable boss. Position-wise, you should be either slightly to the rear of your DPS group, or even among them. Some Guilds prefer that the Healers leave the critical strike buff to the DPS, but a Chain Heal critical is just as valuable (and maybe more so) on this fight, in my opinion. The major mechanic at play here is Necrotic Aura. While it is active, you may cast healing spells, but all effects from them will be reduced by 100% (kind of like healing someone who has been Enfeebled by Prince Malchezaar). You will be able to see the aura counting down to zero in the debuff window near your minimap. Be ready to get your heals off the moment it casts! Its important to recognize that the debuff actually has ~1 second more than it shows before it drops, as it needs to count to zero. If it reads 2 seconds, for instance, then it really needs to count from 2 to 1, 1 to 0, and then 0 to clear. You can spool a heal up in advance of the debuff dropping so that it casts Immediately; priority should be on AOE heals. While Wild Growth and Circle of Healing are instant casts that can be fired the moment the debuff drops, Shaman and Paladin Healing is trickier. Learn to time it so that your heal lands right after the debuff, and you should be able to get a second cast off as well. For Shamans, this generally means that your Chain Heal should start casting as soon as the debuff goes to 1 , and then immediately cast a second one. Executed properly, this should allow you to get off two heals in the window. For Paladins, wind up a Holy Light cast to drop on the Main Tank as soon as the buff drops, and then Flash of Light whomever else you can. If using a cast like Tranquility, start it right before the debuff drops, so that it is active and ticking through the entire duration where healing is receivable. Note that you may use Power Word: Shield outside of the window as a mitigator. Earth Shield should also be set in advance of the window as the tank will take hits and be healed by them when the aura is down. Healing will be made more and more difficult by a Raid-wide, non-dispellable debuff that he will cast called Impending Doom, which causes several thousand points of shadow damage when it blooms. As the fight wears on, Loatheb will cast this with increasing frequency. In combination with the limited healing window, this is why there is a lot of urgency about DPS once he starts casting these back-to-back, its only a matter of time before the Raid succumbs, or he does. When the Necrotic Aura is up, and you arent winding up a heal, though DPS! Understandably, your damage output wont be very high, and youll probably be missing on a lot of attacks, but anything that you can do helps. If your group contains 3 Healers, you will likely be better served by having the most DPS-worthy of them (usually a Druid or Shaman) serve in that role exclusively through the first 2-3 healing windows, provided that their output is serviceable, as incoming damage is not terribly large for the first minute of the fight. When hes down, one lucky Raider will collect a Tier 7 Shoulder Token, along with one other epic item. A teleporter will also be available behind his spawn point which will return you to the entrance hub of Naxxramas when you click on it.

Construct Wing
Naxxramas Strategy: Patchwerk
14 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Patchwerk

Patchwerk, the first boss of the Construct Wing, is a DPS monster. More than any fight that youve seen in Naxxramas, this is a gear check for all parties. Tanks must have very high health and good mitigation; Healers must be able to pump out high-yield casts, and DPS needs to have the firepower to get him down before either a) he enrages, or b) he OOMs the Healers.

Trash pulls leading up to him are not overly challenging. You will face Slimes and Abominations initially; the Slimes are easily tanked and AOEd, while the Abominations will each require their own tank. All in all, they should present little difficulty to clear. Soon after entering the Construct Wing, you will encounter a stream of green slime. While possible to jump across (with a lot of difficulty, mostly, but easily with Sprint or Blink), running right through it wont kill you. It *will* lower your stats by 90%, though, so that the moment you exit on the other side, youll me needing some food and drink to restore your health and mana back to where they belong. Trash pulls at this point are a little bit more serious. Patrolling mobs may frequently join in if you arent careful, and the Mad Scientists can make life miserable. They should be your priority kill targets if they are present in a pull. Be careful as you pull that Patchwerk is not present in a spot that he could be accidentally aggroed. He will patrol up and down the hallway (to your right, as you cross the stream), so its wise to get the pulls which are at the near end of his patrol route when he is at the far end of the hallway. Clear the entire area to be safe; you cant afford to have anything add during this fight. Tanks - Patchwerk requires two tanks. Due to the mechanics of the fight, it is very important that the Offtank have a significant health pool. Feral Druids are ideal for this role, if available. When assigning his tanks, bear in mind that the Offtank will actually be taking more damage than the Main Tank will. Because of this, the Raid may want to consider moving their typical Main Tank to the Offtank role as damage soaker, dependant of gear and makeup. The Offtank should also do everything that they can to exaggerate their health pool. If the player has gear which causes a slight loss in avoidance, but a significant gain in Stamina, then it would be prudent to consider the swap for this fight. All other available Stamina buffs (food, potions / flasks, etc) should also be activated, and a Scroll of Agility is helpful avoidance as well. If you have a Mage available to place Amplify Magic on the tanks, do so. Youre going to preparing for this fight much the same way that two tanks would prepare for Gruul. The Main Tank will start the fight by waiting for Patchwerk to patrol to the end of his patrol route, nearest to the Raid. When he reaches that spot, simply tag him with a ranged weapon, and he will cross the stream of goo (to bad he doesnt get the debuff!) to engage. Pull him back a little bit if you need to, but you should be ok fighting him where you stand. Both tanks should immediately begin generating aggro on him, as it is essential that the top two people on his threat list are the tanks. If you are the Offtank, take care that you do not surpass the Main Tanks threat, or your roles will reverse in Pathwerks damage mechanics and your Healers will likely not be prepared to deal with the shift for more than a few seconds. The Main Tank should stay alert for this occurrence throughout the fight and Taunt accordingly should the need arise. Once engaged, Patchwerk deals powerful melee damage. While he will hit the Main Tank fairly hard, mitigation counts for a lot here, and the damage should be sustainable by most Naxxramas tanks. The Offtank will be subjected to a Hurtful Strike mechanic that Patchwerk will use every second. Hurtful Strike can be mitigated, dodged, blocked and parried; when it lands, it will hit for about 7000-8000 damage (it cannot crit). The nice thing about it is, every usage of it adds threat to his two highest threat targets, further cementing the lead that the tanks have over the DPS. Still, the amount of damage is considerable. Use any damage mitigating ability at your

disposal, and try to space your cooldowns out as much as possible so that some degree of bonus mitigation is always up. At 5% health, he will have a soft enrage, increasing his damage output even more. However, this is a fairly short timeframe from a health standpoint, so it should be no trouble at all to burn through it. DPS- Much like Loatheb, this is a pure DPS race. Your tanks and healers are going to be under tremendous stress during this fight as they deal with Patchwerks considerable damage output. Additionally, he has a short enrage timer to contend with. Fortunately, this is a fight where DPS gets a chance to shine. On the initial pull, Ranged DPS need not move from their current location. Melee DPS should move quickly to station behind Patchwerk. If a Hunter is available, it is advisable that a Misdirect be used on the Main Tank; if more than one Hunter is present, they should also place their Misdirect(s) on the Main Tank. Two things about this fight make it a comfortable place for DPS: #1, his damage output is confined to the two people who are highest on his threat list, and #2, Patchwerks own attacks add threat to those two people. Thus, it is almost impossible for DPS to pull aggro from the tanks once he is engaged. Simply settle in to your spot and go through your optimal damage rotation. Do your best to keep bleeds, DoTs, player buffs and Patchwerk debuffs up while making maximum usage of cooldowns and trinkets. No need to be panicky and faceroll this one, you can be very methodical about watching your attacks and procs to optimize your DPS, because you arent going to get hit, and dont have to move! Healers- As much as this is a test for the tanks, it will also be a test for you. Unless you are overgearing the instance by a wide margin, your Raid will need three healers. In this case, Place your best single-target healer (optimally, a well-geared Paladin) as the healer for the Offtank as they will have to provide the bulk of the healing for the fight. If you have a Druid or a Shaman available, assign them to assist on the Offtank, and place the third healer on the Main Tank. Ideally, that second healer is a Shaman and can spam Chain Heal on the Offtank through the entire fight, with the dual effect of healing both tanks and providing the 25% armor buff. Druids work similarly well, just HoT up the Offtank and let your Wild Growth casts carry over to the Main Tank. Priests would be advised to use Power Word: Shield on the Offtank as well, and Earth Shields should be directed there too. If it sounds like the Main Tank is getting left out of the mix, its because they are but one Healer plus some splash carryover should be plenty to keep them up. Patchwerk is going to push your mana reserves, as youll likely not be spending any time outside the 5 second rule. If there is a Boomkin or a Kitty Druid in your Melee group, dont be afraid to ask for an Innervate. Resto Shamans will likely be laying Mana Tide Totem at some point during the fight (dont forget to replace it with Mana Spring when it expires) and you may well have to drink a mana potion on top of that. In short, do everything you can to ensure that you dont go OOM on this fight. Once it gets rolling, you should quickly develop a solid feel for

the incoming damage and how to act in order to handle it. Patchwerk is very intense, but also (thankfully) brief.

Naxxramas Strategy: Grobbulus

15 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Grobbulus

Grobbulus is the second boss of the Construct Wing. To begin with, there is a short gauntlet of slimes that move slowly across the hallway in three rows (we have adopted Frogger Boss for this as our unofficial name). If you come into contact with one of the moving Slimes, you will die. They are not targetable and thus not killable, though one will dissipate if it kills someone like a moving landmine. Move through them carefully, and they should not be a problem. I personally try to divide the empty space between them into thirds, and run 2/3 to the right of an advancing slime. Its not a bad idea to have a rezzer wait on the far side to recover anyone who gets hit by one. Mages may blink through the last row if they choose, and Paladins may bubble and run straight through. Once past these slimes, you will again have to cross the debuffing slime canal; once across, recover your health and mana in preparation for clearing the room out. Grobbulus room contains several giants. They pull as pairs, simply place a tank on each one and DPS them down. Care should be exercised on the ones located at the far end of the room that they be pulled (and drawn back nearer the door, if possible) so that Grobbulus himself does not patrol down during combat. Once the adds are cleared, its time to begin preparations for Grobbulus. Tanks- The fight will require two tanks a Main Tank for Grobbulus himself, and one for the Fallout Slimes that spawn. The Fallout Slimes are not overly dangerous; your best-geared tank should be on Grobbulus himself. Begin the fight by waiting for Grobbulus to move to the ramp (coming down, or going up) in the back left corner of the room. The Main Tank should simply tag him with a ranged weapon (or a Hunter Misdirect) to bring him to the base of the ramp. The Main Tank should, at this time, be facing so that you are looking directly up the ramp. Once engaged, begin slowly moving backwards and pulling him with you. Grobbulus will periodically spawn poison clouds on his location. By moving him in a clockwise direction around the perimeter of the room, you will ensure that the cloud always remain behind the tank / melee group. Some Raids will move him quickly enough as to allow small gaps between the clouds, and some will instead keep the edges nearly on top of each other. Which method you prefer is at the discretion of the Raid; the only requirement is that he be kited slowly enough that, by the time a full revolution is made, the clouds previously located in a region where the tank is going have dissipated. As he is being kited, the Offtank should remain positioned to the inside of the kiting path (just off Grobbulus Right (injector) arm, if moving clockwise) and DPS him. Be sure that you stay behind his shoulder though at no time should you move to the front side of him unless the Main Tank falls (and youll likely be wiping then anyhow). Periodically, he will spew slime onto anyone in front of him theoretically, only the Main Tank. For each person in front of him at the time of the discharge, one Fallout Slime will spawn. They have reasonably high health and emit an AOE nature damage aura. When spawned, it is the Offtanks job to immediately taunt the Slime and drag it back behind the melee group, so that its aura does not damage them. Do not move it into the poison clouds, but just to the inner edge, so as not to incur additional damage. Once safely clear of the Melee DPS, hold it there while Ranged DPS burns it down, then return to DPS on Grobbulus until another Fallout Slime spawns. In the event that you are hit with a

Mutating Injection and need to clear the area, bring the Fallout Slime with you (as its Ranged DPS on it, this should not impact the DPS). If you are hit with the Mutating Injection and a Fallout Slime spawns before you can return, pick it up as soon as possible once you get in range to taunt it. Mutating Injection protocols will be detailed later in this text. DPS- Grobbulus is a DPS race. The longer he is alive, the faster the frequency at which he will use his Mutating Injection. Thus, it is incumbent on the DPS that he be downed before the chaos overwhelms everyone. At the outset of the pull, if the Raid has a Hunter available, then a Misdirect should be used to help establish aggro on the Main Tank and facilitate easy kiting. Ranged DPS should be setup well away from the kiting path towards the middle of the room. Some movement will be necessary for the Ranged group during the portion of the fight where he is moved along the long segment of wall (after the first turn). Otherwise, the Ranged DPS may continue to deal damage to Grobbulus unabated throughout the fight, with two exceptions. One will be if you are hit with a Mutating Injection (see later section), and the other will be during the period when a Fallout Slime is spawned. Immediately on spawning the Fallout Slime, all Ranged DPS should *immediately* shift focus to it in order to get it down as quickly as possible and reduce the chances that two of them are active at one time. However, if Grobbulus is significantly low on health (10% or less), remain focused on him and simply allow the Offtank to hold the add as it is more important to get Grobbulus down at that point. Melee DPS will be on Grobbulus himself for most of the fight, unless hit with the Mutating Injection. Positioning is crucial, however. Melee will want to line up near the edge of his hitbox, just off his right arm (the injector arm) and slightly to the rear. Do not stray too far towards his backside, as you do not want to be caught in one of the clouds that he lays down. Similarly, be very careful that you do not move to his front half at any point in the fight. This is because his spraying action, the one that spawns a Fallout Slime, is actually designed to spawn one Fallout Slime for every target in front of him. As the Slimes have both high health and a reasonable damage output, it is essential that the Raid not be forced to handle two or more at a time. By staying off his rear quarter, you will ensure that he only spawns single adds. Continue to strafe along with the Main Tank and Grobbulus as he moves throughout the room, and as long as your positioning is true you should not cause undue strain on either the Healers, Offtank or Ranged DPS. Bloodlust is best used early in this fight, when Mutating Injections are coming at a longer spacing and the Raid is alive in its entirety. It is also safe to begin blowing longer cooldown abilities at this point, as the encounter will become significantly more chaotic as it wears on, and the cooldowns may well come up for a second usage during a more desperate burn phase. Finally, if there are enough Shamans present that a Nature Resistance Totem can be laid, do so. Due to the DPS requirements, it is not advisable for Hunters to use Aspect of the Wild. Healers- Grobbulus will require 3 Healers. Healers will set up with the Ranged DPS in more or less the middle of the room, skewed slightly to one end or the other when the Main Tank is moving Grobbulus along the short walls. If a Druid or Shaman is available, assign them to spam heal the Melee DPS. A dedicated Main Tank Healer should be assigned as well, though that

should not preclude others from assisting. If you have an AOE Melee Healer as well, the splash healing from that person will usually be enough extra to make the Main Tank healing duties comfortable. The remaining Healer should help to pick up damage sustained by the Raid and top off those who are returning from Mutating Injection, and heal the Offtank when they are occupied by a Fallout Slime. Healers should be aware of who has received the Mutating Injection and be prepared to heal them quickly upon its completion, or simply HoT the injectee in advance. Be aware that Mutating Injection will show as a disease; DO NOT CLEANSE IT. If a Shaman is present, under no circumstances should they use a Disease Cleansing Totem in this fight as it will wipe the Raid. This is because Mutating Injection will bloom and disperse its poison cloud if cured, and it must be allowed to do so in a safe spot, not the middle of the Raid. The exception to this is if you, as a player with a Cure Disease ability, are infected by it and have already moved to your safe spot, then cleanse yourself immediately to speed your return to the fight, rather than wait for it to run its course. Because of the large amount of Raid-wide damage sustained during this fight, it is very challenging to heal, especially when the Mutating Injections start coming with rapid frequency. Do your best to make sure that your healing counts for as many people as possible! Mutating Injection- This is the key mechanic to the fight, and every member of the Raid but the Main Tank is a potential target. What it is, is a sort of time bomb that will be applied to a random player. Shortly after receiving it, that player will blow up and leave a cloud of poison similar to the ones that Grobbulus himself is trailing behind him on their position. A player will have about 10 seconds time from when they receive the debuff to move to a safe location and let it bloom, at which point, the player will take several thousand points worth of damage and be cleared of the debuff. The key is where you move to let it bloom. Whether you are a Healer, Offtank, or DPS, you need to be alert for when you receive it. Depending on your position, you may have a few seconds (like, 2-3) to execute some kind of action. If possible, set a DoT or two on Grobbulus before (or as) you move but only if you have ample time to work with. You should *ALWAYS* be moving to a location where the Main Tank has recently kited Grobbulus, and never to a location where Grobbulus is going to be kited to with the next 2 minutes. If you are the very first person injected, the best place is to simply run up the ramp and drop it. The idea is, leave them behind the Raid where they will not be an issue. Once youve dropped off your bloom, return as quickly as possible to your station. As the fight goes on, he will use the ability with increasing frequency, and it will be chaotic trying to find a place to let it go. This is a major reason why he needs to be burned down fast, as its nearly impossible for the Healers to keep up after awhile. Help them out by using a healthstone or a health potion after your injection pops, if youre in a later stage of the fight. Depending on who you ask, this fight is either very, very easy or a major annoyance. If executed properly, with a focused Raid, he should go down easily every time.

Naxxramas Strategy: Gluth

15 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Gluth

Gluth is unique in Naxxramas primary four Wings in that there is no trash at all in between him and the prior boss (Grobbulus). Simply follow the ramp up from Grobbulus, cross over the narrow pipe and you will be at the entrance to a much larger pipe. Entering this pipe will cause the party to take some minor but constant nature damage, so buff up and get ready before you enter and run the length of the pipe to Gluth. Be sure to run to the right side of the pipe as well, as there is an opening where it is broken on the left side that a careless player could easily fall through and necessitate the entire Raid regrouping. Pause briefly at the end of the pipe for a quick heal, and its time to begin!

The layout for Gluth's room. Markings will be explained below.

Tanks- Gluth will require two tanks. They do not have to be equally geared, but the Offtank should at least have some serviceable mitigation stats as each tank will be required to spend some time as the focal point of Gluths anger. To start the fight, the Main Tank should jump down to the floor from the pipe, and the Offtank should follow right after (be sure that the Main Tank is first!). The location that they land on is the bottom right corner of the diagram above. The main Tank should immediately engage Gluth and drag him across the room to the location marked by the red dot. main Tank and Offtank will

take up positions in the spots marked by blue dots on the map. While it doesnt matter who is left or right with both tanks, both of them should be in front and facing Gluth, and back him as far from the entry pipe as possible. The reason is, you want to create as much gap as possible between him and the area where the Zombie adds are going to spawn from. Most of Gluths damage output is standard physical melee damage. He will, however, stack a Mortal Wound debuff that reduces incoming healing effectiveness. Once the debuff reaches 3 or 4 stacks, the Main Tank should have the Offtank taunt Gluth off him until the debuff clears, then taunt him back and resume as before. Tanks will remain in this position for the duration of the fight, though it is conceivable that (with good timing) whichever one that does not currently have Gluths attention could move to engage the Zombie Chow after a Decimate hits and help to down them (especially valuable if the tank in question is a Warrior [Thunder Clap] or Paladin [Holy Shock]). if this course of action is taken, the tank must be conscious of the fact that the other tank (currently being beaten on by Gluth) will require relief very soon, and not stray too far. DPS For the majority of the DPS group, its a simple and standard fight. Melee DPS follows the tanks in and commences damage rotations once Gluth has been moved to the back wall, and Ranged DPS will assume a position not much further behind them (both groups designated with purple dots on the map). Until Gluth drops his first Decimate, all DPS should be on max damage rotations into the boss. Once Gluth uses Decimate, all DPS on Gluth must immediately shift to downing the Zombie Chow adds. Use any AOE abilities available and focus them in the path of the oncoming adds they will all be moving directly towards Gluth by the shortest route possible. If you have a movement restrictor that will buy more time to down them (Earthbind Totems, War Stomp, Thunderstorm, Blizzard, Engineering Grenades, Thunder Clap anything), use it by all means. The Zombie Chow heals Gluth for an immense amount of health if they reach him. Bloodlust is excellent to use at this point in the fight, as it will help ensure that none of the adds reach him, and some of the duration will carry over into the next phase. If he can be denied any Zombie Chow adds, Gluth will not last until a third Decimate. Its possible that some DPS may be assigned to a special duty in this fight; that will be explained in the Kiting section. Healers- Gluths damage output is actually very manageable for a single well geared Healer, though its not a bad idea to have 2 within range of the tanks just in case. You absolutely *will* need to have a second Healer available after each Decimate. When Gluth uses this ability, the health of everyone present (Raid, Zombies) is reduced to 5% of maximum. if the Main Tank does not receive immediate healing afterwards, then Gluth may very well kill him outright. Thus, first priority after Decimate is for the Main Tank to be healed up to a serviceable level; a single quick heal from a secondary healer and maintained focus from the primary Tank Healer should be sufficient. At that point, AOE healing (Tranquility, Wild Growth, Chain Heal) should be used to restore the Raids vitality quickly, before settling back into the original routine. Note that a lot of healing classes can assist with slowing the Zombie Chow adds after a Decimate. Paladins can AOE stun while healing via Holy Shock; Shaman may use Earthbind

Totems, Priests Shackles and Druids Entangle. If you can multi-task and help out your Raid with them, do it! Finally, one Healer (and possibly 2) are going to be asked to assist with the kiting project in the back, as its easier to spare the healing than it is the DPS in this fight. Kiting- In between Decimates, Gluths Zombie Chow adds must be occupied. An ideal tandem to do this would be a Restoration Shaman and a Paladin, though other combinations are certainly usable. In the Shaman / Paladin example, the Shaman should keep an Earthbind Totem active at all times on the location marked with the white dot on the map. The Paladin will run in a continuous circle around the approximate radius of the Totem, dropping a Consecrate at the portion marked with the green circle on each revolution. In theory, inbound Zombie Chow should hit that and aggro to the Paladin, but stay caught up in the Totems debuff long enough that they never catch up. Should any slip through, it is up to the Shaman to aggro them back (Frost Shock is ideal), and also to provide healing to the Paladin. The Paladin could also grab stragglers via Exorcism, and Holy Shock at every opportunity to add more threat and stun the mobs. It is important that they be allowed to strike the runner as little as possible, as they will impart a stacking debuff which increases their damage immensely after a number of applications, making the damage unhealable (or very close). Once Gluth Decimates, the Zombies will also sustain enough damage to reduce their health to 5%. This damage translates directly to aggro Gluth has effectively taken an insurmountable aggro lead on all of them and they will not be able to be pulled away from him. This means that you, the kiter, are no longer being hit, but instead should do all that you can to vanquish the Zombie Chow before it can feed Gluth. If the Raid can effectively contain the Zombie Chow trash, and focus their efforts to down them before they get to Gluth, he will be a quick study. If even a few Zombies are allowed to get through, watching his health bar regain damages can be heartbreaking.

Naxxramas Strategy: Thaddius

16 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting.

Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Thaddius

Thaddius is the final boss in the Construct Wing. Though it requires downing three prior bosses to even get to him (versus the usual two), the reward is substantial as he drops a Tier 7 Leg Token. Thaddius is a fun fight which requires a lot of alertness and mobility, but should not prove to be too taxing on anyone if executed properly. Meter watchers will really enjoy this one, as players will frequently see their damage buffed by as much as 200% for the duration of the fight. Though the amount of trash between Gluth and Thaddius is low in terms of number of mobs, some of them hit very hard and need to be dealt with cautiously. Specifically, the giants are very dangerous. They should be dealt with solo if at all possible, as they can inflict substantial raid damage with their Stomp ability and fatalities are not rare when fighting them. Be aware that one of the invisible Shades may be included in the room immediately behind Gluth as well, and there

is also a roaming (marauding?) pack of Marauding Geists that runs rapidly across the horizontal axis. By themselves, the Geists and the Shade are trivial, but they will destroy a Raid if they add in conjunction with a giant. Pull carefully, and do your best to draw the pull away from anything that might add, and you should advance fine. Tanks- The fight will require two tanks, though Thaddius himself will only require one. This is because there are two mobs, Stalagg and Feugen, who must be engaged and defeated before the battle is joined with Thaddius himself. On entering the room, you will notice that Thaddius is on a platform at the far end of the room. To the left and right of the entry doorway are two ramps; Stalagg is at the top of the left one, and Feugen at the top of the right. Both must be defeated to move on to the Thaddius stage. Prior to the start of combat, the Raid will split into two groups. Each group will require a single Tank and a single Healer. If a third Healer is present, they will be acting in a DPS role. The Raid Leader should try to balance the DPS of the two groups as evenly as possible, as Stalagg and Feugen must die within a few seconds of each other, if not simultaneously. Move the two groupings to the base of their appropriate ramps (nothing will aggro at this point) and you are ready to begin the fight. Tanks will initiate the event by running up their ramps and body pulling the minibosses. Engage immediately and frontload as much aggro onto them as possible, as they will soon begin using their one difficult ability they will, in tandem, toss their tank across the room to the other platform. From a tank perspective, its not such a big deal simply acquire the new target and load some more aggro into it. As long as Healers are aware and switching targets, this phase should go smoothly. Call out the health remaining on each miniboss as they get down to lower levels (one DPS group may need to back off a bit to allow the other to catch up), and when they are both between 80-100k health, both groups should go into a full burn phase. Once the minibosses are down, run immediately to the end of the platform opposite the ramp and jump down. Note that timing must be precise on this, as jumping too soon will cause you to miss the platform and land below, necessitating the need to run back up the ramp and try again. If you have a Druid tank, consider shifting into Cat and using Dash to make clearing the gap a cinch. Assuming that both Tanks make the jump, one will engage Thaddius and the other will switch to DPS gear and melee. If you are the Offtank, do not switch over to DPS gear before you are certain that the Main Tank has successfully jumped down to Thaddius platform as you will be tanking him should the Main Tank miss the jump. Once engaged in melee, both tanks will not need to move too much other than to strafe around the edge of his hitbox, described later in polarity. DPS- Thaddius tends to be somewhat kinder to Ranged DPS than he does to Melee, but should prove eminently doable by any Raid composition. To begin with, your Raid Leader will disperse the entire Raid into two, 5-man groups. Overall DPS output between these groups should be as close to even as possible due to the mechanics of the miniboss event in the fight. It makes no difference whether one side or the other has more

Melee, Ranged or Spellcaster DPS (though shorter-range buffs like Inspiration / Totems should be considered insofar as the effect on groups). Each group will move to the base of either the left (Stalagg) or right (Feugen) ramps with their respective Tanks and Healers and wait for the Tank to initiate combat, which will be done via body pull. Simply run up the ramp a short distance after your Tank. At the top of the ramps is a miniboss; each one has just under 900,000 health in 10-man Naxx. DPS is free to let loose on them and burn them both down. Do not use any long cooldown abilities at this stage better to save them for Thaddius. If you want to burn a shorter cooldown (such as Blade Fury, Icy Veins, or Berserk or Trinkets), do so at the beginning of the fight so that the cooldown will be up shortly after Thaddius is engaged. There is one responsibility that is incumbent on the DPS during the miniboss event they must die as close to simultaneously as possible. Monitor the remaining health on each, and slow DPS on one if it gets too far ahead of the other. When they are both at approximately 80-100,000 health, DPS should be on a full burn of both. Immediately after killing the pair, Thaddius becomes active. DPS should immediately run to the end of the platform furthest from the ramp up, and jump down onto Thaddius platform. If you have some kind of ability that slows falling speed (Slowfall, Levitate, Engineering gimmicks) or an ability like Sprint, activate it before you jump to make sure that you land it, as the timing on the jump must be precise or you will short it and land in the goo below (necessitating that you run all the way back to the ramp and try it again). Once you have successfully made it onto his platform, close in on his position. Ranged DPS should move to within 10-15 yards of him; Melee should advance directly to the near edge of hit hitbox. Be ready to move once he starts assigning polarities (covered later in polarity). Thaddius has a very short enrage timer (5 minutes, I believe though it may be 6). However, it should not be a problem (given his damage buff) for any Raid that makes it this far to pump out enough DPS to get him down comfortably ahead of that, provided attrition does not cut too deeply into the overall output. Long cooldowns should be used as soon as he establishes his initial polarity shift and the Raid has moved to their positions, assuming that everyone made the jump down. In that scenario, wait until anyone who missed the jump is able to engage him before using something like Bloodlust, in order to return the maximum benefit. Healers The fight will require two Healers. If a third healer is present, they should gear for DPS as best as they can; Druids and Shamans are probably the best candidates for the DPS flex spot. If you are assigned as DPS, refer to that section for your game plan. The fight will start off with the miniboss event; during this portion, the Raid will be divided into two equal groups. Each group will be assigned one Tank and one Healer, and the groups will each set up at the base of either the right or left ramps on their respective sides. The minibosses

will be engaged via body pull by the Tanks, and Healers should run up the ramps with the DPS group after the Tank. Once at the top, the fight is a simple tank and spank with one very important mechanic that the Healers must be ready to cope with. Stalagg and Feugen will (repeatedly) exchange who is tanking them by simultaneously tossing their tanks across the room to the other platform. If a Healer stays locked on to one Tank, then that person will most likely be out of range to heal and the inbound tank will not have a Healer. Thus, Healers must be aware of the toss / exchange and switch their healing focus accordingly. If they do so, then this stage should go very smoothly as its a simple tank-and-spank with no other tricks. At the conclusion of this phase, run to the portion of the platform furthest from the ramp and jump down onto Thaddius platform. Take care in executing this jump as it is very possible to short it and miss the platform, landing in the goo and forcing you to run all the way around again. Priests can Levitate to make this a sure thing, and Druids should shift into Cat and Dash in order to minimize the chances of missing the landing. Once on the platform, the Healers should move towards Thaddius and close to a range of about 10-15 yards from him. You will need to be mobile throughout the fight, so do not position yourself too far to the rear. Once in position, one Healers should focus exclusively on Thaddius Tank, unless there is a window of time to heal elsewhere (though that Tank is top priority). Whichever healer is more capable of AOE healing should address the needs of the Raid as a whole, who will be taking some damage from polarity charges during the shift. Overall, though, the amount of healing should not be too burdensome provided everyone executes their polarity shifts correctly. Polarity This is Thaddius major mechanic while you are engaged in combat with him. Initially, nobody in the raid will be assigned a +/- charge. When you jump down, move to Positive or Negative depending on which side you are approaching from.

Raid positioning and movement during Thaddius If you are coming from Stalaggs platform, move to the Negative section. If you are coming from Feugens side, move into the spot that will house Positive eventually. Tanks and Melee should try to stay as far apart from their counterparts on the other side as possible, so dont venture in much further than the edge of his hitbox. Ranged DPS and Healers can stay comfortably further back, about 10-15 yards from Thaddius, but not too far as you will need to be able to quickly clear the area if you have the wrong charge or risk damaging the Raid. A few seconds into the fight, Thaddius will shift polarities on the entire Raid. Initially, this will dub you as either + or -. Look in the debuff area of the screen, by the minimap to find out which one you have received, and move IMMEDIATELY to the appropriate side, should you find yourself on the side with the opposite charge. Note that the movement arrows in the diagram have it setup much like a roundabout, in that they do not run straight from one side to the other, but in a sweeping arc. This is important! If players run straight through Thaddius to change sides, they will cause a lot of damage to each other en route as they will pass to close to opposite charges. By swinging out in a wide arc (about 10 yards off Thaddius or so), they will not damage each other and things will be very orderly. If you are stacked among people with similar polarity, then everyone will receive a buff to damage. If you are among oppositely charged players, then everyone takes damage. Simple enough. Thaddius will shift polarities regularly throughout the fight. Be aware that sometimes he will cause yours to change and necessitate a move, and sometimes your polarity will remain unchanged. Pay attention and move or stay put accordingly. If you can master the polarity choreography, this is a very easy fight. Dont sweat the enrage timer, just be calm and orderly about movement and he should be vanquished easily. Once its over, one lucky Raider will collect their T7 Leg Token, and you may take the teleporter located on his platform to return to the central hub of Naxxramas.

Military Wing
Naxxramas Strategy: Instructor Razuvious
16 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more

for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Instructor Razuvious

Instructor Razuvious is the first boss of the Military Wing; while considered to be the most challenging of the four primary Wings (and certainly containing the most trash), Razuvious himself is not a particularly difficult encounter and should be easily dispatched by any Raid with even remotely competent Tanks and Healers. Trash pulls are thick on the way to him, and all trash should be cleared. Be wary of patrols and their routes, and orchestrate your pulls so that you do not add unnecessary mobs in the middle of combat. The only really dangerous mobs heading into Razuvious are the mounted ones, so they should be the first target. Note that they are predominately Death Knights; as such, they will frequently use Bone Shield to absorb damage. If you can Purge this, try to stay on top of it and help them to an early end. other than that, theres not much to this trash. It hits hard, but not grievously so. Just work your way through it all (including the Stables area), pull-by-pull until you reach Razuvious training area. Tanks - Razuvious hits like a train. His normal melee attacks are strong enough to one-shot nearly any tank, and he will use an attack called Unbalanced Strike which hits even harder. In short, you cant tank him. Well, not in the conventional sense at least. Thats because Razuvious comes with 2 adds adds which you get to control and tank him with! One person will be required to control each add; thus, each person who is regularly assigned tanking duties will control one of the Understudies. In order to take control of one, simply use the orb located on the pedestal on the near side of Razuvious area. Using the orb will start the

fight, so try to get both of the Understudies under player control as quickly as possible. Now, you will take turns trading him off between you for the next few minutes until he drops! Each Understudy has a Bone Shield. This shield is your timer for how long youll be tanking him at a stretch. When its almost gone, its time for the other Understudy to pick him up. Communicate clearly with your tanking partner over vent as to your timetable, and it should be no problem simply bounce him back and forth via Taunt. Once Razuvious succumbs, the Understudies will still need to be dealt with. Take your time, and wait for the Bone Shield to time out on one, then release him for the other to pick him up. After he has been slain, the Tank who is not currently controlling the remaining Understudy should be waiting to pick up tanking duties as the second control is disengaged. The Understudies dont do anything particularly special when faced by the Raid, simply beat them down and collect loot! DPS- There arent too many fights in Naxxramas that require less thought from the DPS group than this one does. As Razuvious is going to be tanked by the Understudies the whole time, he will likewise be beating on them the whole time. Some splash damage will hit the Raid from time to time, but its completely irrelevant to DPS positioning and unavoidable. Basically, just focus on Razuvious and go to town. Save cooldowns and Bloodlust for a few second in (15-30) to give the tanks enough time to generate enough of an aggro lead that he wont accidentally be pulled away from an understudy and start one-shotting DPS, and youll be fine. Healers This fight will require three Healers. Due to the substantial amount of incoming damage on the Understudies, two Healers should be on the one who is occupying Razuvious at all times. The 3rd Healer will be on the rest of the Raid designate a Shaman or Druid for this duty if available. If you are assigned to heal the Understudies, do so with long-cast, big return heals as they have health pools in excess of 450,000. Its ok if they arent completely topped off at all times; if youre losing ground on them, though, then Razuvious had better be losing health at a faster rate. As he dips down below 20%, just be sure that the Understudies have enough health to last the rest of the fight the less health that they have when he drops, the better, though its better to err on the side of caution so that Razuvious doesnt fold one of them and cause a wipe at 2%! The Healer who is assigned to the Raid at large will have 2 things to contend with. Razuvious will inflict Raid-Wide damage with a Shout attack. Unlike Ingvar the Plunderer (from Utgarde keep), though, he will not cause a Counterspell effect when he uses it. The damage is not terribly high and easily offset with spells like Chain Heal or Wild Growth, about 3000-4500 damage per person. His other ability is a high-damage, single target bleed. He will use the ability frequently (I believe its a knife or dagger throw, but dont quote me) on a random target and it will bleed a significant amount of health over a few seconds. The Raid Healer must be aware of who receives

the debuff (easy to spot in Raid Frames) and act accordingly. Whether you choose to wind up a single big heal on that target or a quick band-aid followed by something else is up to you, but the damage is significant enough that people will die from the combination of that + shout if it isnt immediately addressed. Also, note that the bleed effect is a standard bleed, and will not cancel if the targets health is topped off.

Naxxramas Strategy: Gothik the Harvester

17 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Gothik the Harvester

Gothik is the second boss of the Military Wing. Gothik himself has substantially lower heath than any other boss in Naxxramas, and is one of the least difficult bosses in the entire instance. The fight with him is really more about the event than the actual boss fight and as long as the Raid can manage the adds in a timely manner, should not present much of a problem at all. Trash is minimal between Instructor Razuvious and Gothik, though somewhat formidable in nature. Immediately past Razuvious, you will encounter a multitude of enchanted weapons floating through the air. The axes and swords are fairly standard tank-and-spank mobs, but the staves are far more difficult as they do AOE damage. Make them the first kill target whenever they are present. If you are careful with your pulls and dont add patrols, the room should be fairly easy to clear. A few Death Knight patrols linger in the hallway leading up to his room, but they are scarcely any different than the ones of their ilk that you have already faced. At the end of the hallway, an archway will open to the right and the rooms in which the Gothik event takes place. Go ahead and enter, he wont aggro but get ready for a fight! Tanks - Two tanks will be necessary for this fight. Much like the platforms in the Thaddius fight, the Raid will be divided into 2 autonomous groups for the majority of this fight, so build your 5-man groups around the tanks. Note the room in front of you; it is (more or less) an hourglass shape with two areas divided by a narrow gate (currently open). the side that you are standing on is the Live side, and the one through the gateway is the Dead side. One, 5person group will be assigned to each side. Before starting the fight, break your team into two relatively even groups. Each group will need one Tank and one Healer. DPS should be relatively even, with a slight edge favoring the Dead Side group. Once teams are picked, the Dead Side team should assemble in the back right corner (from the entryway, directly through the gate and into the far corner). Dead Side should position themselves in this corner so that the Healer and DPS is located behind their Tank, with the Tank more towards the middle of the room than them (but within about 10 yards) in order to pick up inbound mobs that will be spawning from the bone piles around the room. Live Side unit should set up in approximately the middle of the room. Once all are in position, begin the encounter by having one person from the Live Side target Gothik with a ranged attack. For the first 4 1/2 minutes or so, Gothik will remain on the balcony overlooking the room. Three kinds of mobs will enter at intervals, coming slowly and in weaker forms at the outset and building in strength and numbers as this phase progresses. You will face (in ascending order of danger) Unrelenting Trainees, Unrelenting Death Knights and Unrelenting Riders. As the mobs are dispatched, they will be sent to the other side of the room where they will respawn (simply replace the word Unrelenting with Spectral) and be faced again. The Spectral variants are marginally stronger than their live counterparts, but not by very much. Note that the Live Side is directly responsible for the speed at which mobs are spawning on the Dead Side. Though either team should not have any difficulty keeping up, if the Dead Side is overwhelmed at all then the Dead Side tank should direct Live Side DPS to relax for a moment if possible.

Once the add event has reached a certain timer, Gothik will teleport into the battle on the Live Side. Note that adds will not despawn and will still need to be dealt with, so get them down first. Few, if any should be left on the Live Side at this point, however. Gothik Will teleport over to the Dead Side, near the center of the room after a short time and be fought there, so that Tank should be prepared in advance by moving to the middle of the room. He will then teleport back to the Live Side, and return again to the Dead Side before going to the Live Side for the final time. When he performs this final teleport, the gate will also open allowing the two groups to merge together again. DPS - DPS will be assigned 3 per side (one Healer may be pulled for DPS duties). Damage output of each group should be roughly similar with a slight advantage (if there is one) going to the Dead Side group. For the first 4 1/2 minutes or so, your job is only to DPS the adds as they come in. Trainees will go down easily and are not a threat. Death Knights are stronger, but still relatively insignificant, not much stronger than average trash mobs in heroics. The Riders are the only ones that should be regulated and dealt with methodically; be careful that you dont send too many adds (via AOE death) to the Dead Side along with a Rider. Overall, the event should not prove too difficult for competent DPS to handle. Once the event reaches approximately 4:30, Gothik will teleport into the Live Side and attack. He has very low health under 850,000 and will go down quickly. Be sure to first eliminate all Live Side adds remaining before you engage him; Dead Side should work to clean up their side as expediantly as possible at this point in order to prepare for his entry. He will teleport over to the Dead Side to engage that group after a short bit. Live Side should have nothing to do but top off health meters and let a little bit of mana regenerate while he fights over there. He will return shortly, though so have a big burst of DPS waiting for him. Again he will go back to the Dead Side before one final teleport back into the Live group, at which point the gate will open and the battle will be joined by the full Raid. Gothik should be at least halfway down at this point; the longer he is up, the more he will stack the Harvest Soul debuff (-10% stats per, up to 9 stacks, which is a sort of time limiter to the fight). Continue to assault him until he drops, and the encounter is over. Healers- Gothik will require two Healers. Due to the DPS requirements from splitting the team into 2 units, if a third Healer is present, they will have to function in a DPS role for this fight. Shamans and Druids make the best choices for this role given their innate versatility. Nothing about the add phase should be too difficult for a Healer to handle. There will be some direct attacks, and some Shadow Bolt volleys, but its really not much different than healing a heroic pull. Note that many of the adds are Death Knights, and thus use disease as a means of attack; for this reason, a Disease Cleansing Totem should be deployed if available, ideally one per group if

two Shamans are present. If not, do your best to stay on top of Cleansing when there is available time in the fights. Once Gothik engages, he will DPS purely via Shadowbolts, one per second for a few thousand damage on the primary aggro target. Prepare in advance with Prayer of Shadow Protection or a Paladin Shadow Protection Aura, but its not difficult to heal through either. Use any time that you have while he is teleported away to top off your side of the Raid, and it should prove a quick study.

Naxxramas Strategy: The Four Horsemen

17 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. The Four Horsemen

At first glance (and likely, at first experience as well) this would appear to be the most chaotic encounter in the instance. It is very challenging to master, and will require that everyone in the Raid, without exception, be aware of their placement and positioning at all times. Raiders will be continually rotating spots with each other and the entire fight will be in motion for its duration. Yet, beyond what appears so random at first glance, this fight is actually one requiring a nearperfect choreography from all ten members. If everyone moves into the right places at the right times, then the fight is actually an exceptionally easy one and should be a one-shot every week. Trash pulls leading up to the Horsemen from Gothik are very dangerous. There are many patrols with long routes that will be a threat to add at any time. Take care when pulling to ensure that you face only the intended group of mobs. Be aware that the Death Knight Captains will produce the Hysteria effect on surrounding mobs, making them hit for a very high amount on non-tanks, and a major amount on tanks as well. When facing one of these pulls, it is a near-necessity that the ability be removed. Your best option is a Mass Dispel, though Purge and Spellsteal will suffice if no Priest is present. These particular pulls have a lot of splash damage that tends to catch lighter-armored melee targets like Rogues, Cat Druids and Enhancement Shamans with some pretty heavy bursts. Instead of approaching the combat in one large AOE mass, a more survivable tactic is to have the Main Tank hold the bulk of them while the Offtank peels one mob at a time off and to a safe distance (maybe 10 yards away) where it can be focus fired by Melee and Ranged DPS. Clear any groups that occupy or patrol through the area between Gothik and the Horsemen to be safe; if you have people running back in after a wipe, you certainly dont want them to encounter patrols. You will now face the Four Horsemen, KelThuzads elite Death Knights. Tanks- As there are Four Horsemen, you will need four Tanks. Dont freak out about this only two of them need to be for real Tanks. Two of the Riders will be tanked by some pretty unconventional classes for tanking, but that will be covered in the choreography section. Those assigned to tank will fan out along the edges of the room to their respective positions before the pull. From the vantage point that you are facing the Horsemen at the door, Korthazz Tank will move to the corner immediately to your left, and Rivendares Tank will move to the area immediately to the right. The special Tanks selected for Blaumeux and Zeliek will work their way around the outer wall until they reach the center of the back wall. DPS- All DPS will follow the Korthazz tank and move to the immediate left of the room entry point, with the exception of a single Ranged DPS unit that is designated to tank the Horsemen in the rear. That unit will move to the back wall as noted in the Tank section. Healers- Ideally, you have 2 1/2 Healers, which is to say that there are 2 true Healers and a third player functioning in a DPS spec that has Healing capabilities. Ideal candidates for this job are Elemental Shamans, Balance Druids and Shadow Priests. Paladin off-specs do not work as well due to the fact that Prot Pallies will be occupying one of the Tank roles, and Ret Pallies have both limited Spellpower and mana pools; however, if the only other person in the Raid outside of the two true Healers is a Ret Paladin, youll have to make due. One of the Healers will pull duty as a Tank on the rear mobs. If a Paladin is present, they should be the first choice to go

as they dont have the AOE Healing strength that the other classes do. Absent a Paladin, choose the next best candidate; in this scenario, the stronger of the two Healers should remain in a forward position just inside the doorway and fairly well in the center, from a side-to-side perspective while the lesser of the Healers moves to the rear wall.

Starting positions and pull locations for the Horsemen. Blaumeux is Red, Korthazz Yellow, Rivendare Green and Zeliek Blue. Choreography This is the important part of the fight. Every player must know exactly what their movements will be for the entire fight and respond accordingly. Failure to do so means death. Correct movement will make this encounter run very smoothly. To start with, the reason that so much movement is needed is due to the base ability of the Horsemen. While each one has a certain special attack (some more troublesome than others), they will all cast their Mark on any player in range of them, approximately 35-40 yards by my best estimation, though Im sure that there is actually a hard and fast number. Basically, if you are in their quarter of the room, youll be hit with it. While the mark itself is resistable, damage from it is not and it cannot be Cleansed, Bubbled or Iceblocked. In short, you will acquire them. The Mark causes an exponentially increasing amount of damage to be incurred with each added stack. One, two or three will not cause too much distress. Four and five start to hurt. Six and seven may kill you outright. If you live to eight, you may want to question why you let it get that high. Should they cast 100 marks in total, they will Enrage and wipe the Raid; however, they are not likely to reach this amount unless a large amount of DPS has died early in the fight. The stacks only count if you are receiving marks from the same Horseman. Thus, if you have three from Blaumeux and move away into Zelieks spot, the marks that he applies will count as one, two, etc regardless of how many Blaumeux stacked on you. Additionally, the marks will

fade with time, 15 seconds after application. Thus, if you start reaching dangerous levels from one Rider, you must move out of their range and wait for theirs to dissipate. This is tricky when all four Riders are up, as moving away from one means moving into another. There are other mechanics to consider about the fight as well. Each Rider has a specific attack that they will use on anyone in range. Korthazz will call down a Meteor on his Tank, which hits for a significant amount of base damage. Fortunately, the damage is dispersed evenly among anyone within 8 yards of the Tank and can thus be mitigated. Damage can also be mitigated through Fire Resistance Aura, or a Fire Resistance Totem. Due to the fact that this is causing resistance on several people at once, these mitigators should be used if possible. Rivendare will cast a spell called Unholy Shadow, which has similar mechanics to a Warlocks Immolate or a Shamans Flame Shock. Up-front damage with a DoT tick. The spell will only be cast on his highest aggro target (his tank). Blaumeux will use two abilities on her Tank. As she is a Ranged Combatant, they will be cast at the player closest to her within 45 yards. Her primary ranged attack is Shadowbolt, which does not hit too hard. She will additionally create Void Zones at regular intervals and attempt to place them on a location occupied by a player. If you stand in them, its bad news. They dissipate after 1:15. If you are tanking her, be sure that you do not accidentally create a wall of Void Zones that prevents you from moving in range of her marks and attacks. Zeliek will cast a Holy Bolt attack, which is basically Smite. It does not hit very hard. Finally, if any Horseman attempts to cast an attack but finds no target in range, then the entire Raid will be hit with a substantial AOE attack. Thus, at no time should any one of the Horsemen be unoccupied. Once everyone is in position, begin the fight by having Rivendares Tank move close enough to tag him with a ranged weapon. Upon aggro, each Horseman will immediately ride deep into the corner assigned to them, as shown in the diagram. If you are tanking Korthazz, you will not need go to meet him, he will come to you. The Rivendare Tank should retreat back to the corner as Rivendare advances in order to meet him at his destination point. The players assigned to Tank Blaumeux and Zeliek need only move slightly towards their respective corners, far enough as to be out of range of Marks from the Horseman that they are not immediately tanking, but not too deeply in. This is the desperate part of the encounter, because success or failure hinges completely on one thing: how fast Korthazz can be taken down. There should be one Tank and five DPS players waiting for him to arrive. As soon as he gets there, blow ALL cooldowns to get him down. Bloodlust is very helpful, but any ability that increases damage output for a short time, and all trinkets that can be had, should be used. Korthazz *must* die before six Marks can be applied in order to create a safe buffer zone for the Raid that allows rotation. Korthazz is the first target to die because of his Meteor ability. Every single person who is on the Korthazz assault must stack as close to the Tank as possible to mitigate the damage; do not forget to do so. Assuming that your Raid can muster a significant enough burst to down him, players must immediately be ready to move as the Mark-free area created by his absence now allows rotation. To begin with, Korthazz Tank should immediately move to engage Rivendare. The moment he arrives and picks The Baron up, that Tank should rotate back to Korthazz old position and out of combat until the Marks time out and clear. The Healer located just inside the doorway, who had been healing both the Rivendare Tank and Korthazz entire combat group to this point,

will remain in that position long enough to top off the inbound Rivendare Tank (the old Korthazz Tank) and apply any HoTs and reactive Heals that they can, at which point they too should vacate the area and move towards Korthazz old position in order to let their Marks clear. This will leave the new Rivendare Tank without a Healer for a few seconds, though that should not be a problem. Whichever player from the DPS group that fit the 3rd Healer role will move within range to heal that Tank as soon as the Korthazz marks have dissipated; all in all, this equates to a window of about 5-10 seconds that the Tank must last out before a Heal is inbound. All other DPS from the Korthazz team will move in and engage Rivendare once their Korthazz Marks clear. At this point, the original Rivendare Tank and his Healer are out of range and out of combat. Once they have cleared all Marks, that Tank can then rotate back in to take Rivendare, and the original Korthazz tank moves back to the safe zone where he tanked Korthazz. Similarly, the Healer should communicate to the stand-in once they have cleared their Marks and rotate that person out. All DPS that is on Rivendare at this time needs to be aware of their Marks. If a stack is allowed to build to 4, it is time to disengage and move to the safe area while the Tank and Healer rotation continues. Rivendare does not need to be burned down with the urgency that Korthazz did, so recognize that survival and sustaining DPS over the entire fight is better than standing in to squeeze out a few more hits only to face certain death on the next mark. Eventually, Rivendare will succumb. All this time, the players in the rear will have to occupy Blaumeux and Zeliek. Fortunately, the two of them do not hit very hard, and they cast their Marks at a longer interval than Korthazz and Rivendare do. Each player should be remaining in aggro range of their respective charge (about 30 yards off is fine) until they have reached 3 Marks. At that point, they switch positions and let the stacked Marks clear while acquiring the Marks from their new Horseman. during this whole movement, the Ranged DPS player should be chipping away at whomever they are occupying, and the Healer should be keeping both of them as topped off as possible. The two of them will continue this rotation, back and forth, until the rest of the Raid arrives once Rivendare is down. At this point, it becomes a simple matter of rotating in and out as Marks stack as there is ample free space to back into. Ranged DPS should focus on Blaumeux, as her Void Zones can make it difficult on Melee. Healers will find that they can take up station at the dead center of the room, on the Horsemens platform, and be simultaneously in range to heal the Raid while remaining out of range for any incoming Marks. As long as everyone is patient and disciplined about rotating out after 3-4 Marks and waiting for them to clear, and the Raid makes sure that someone is in range of Blaumeux and Zeliek at all times so that they dont go bananas, then they will drop and you get to collect loots! The Horsemen spawn a chest in the middle of the room on death, which contains a T7 Chestpiece token and another item. After dividing up the loot, use the teleporter in their room to return to the central hub of Naxxramas and congratulate yourself on a job well done! As you can see after reading the choreography, the entire equation hinges on how fast you can get Korthazz out of the picture. if your Raid can generate 30 seconds of sustained burst, youll be sitting pretty.

Fifth Wing
Naxxramas Strategy: Sapphiron
20 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. Sapphiron

Sapphiron is a massive skeletal dragon who serves as The Gatekeeper to both KelThuzad and The Eye of Eternity. Should your Raid manage to down him, both will become accessible.

Downing him is not a difficult fight in terms of mechanics, as everything that is done in here has been seen on bosses before. It can be a punishing fight, though, if the Raid is not geared for it. Sapphiron is a major reason why all of those epic Polar / Glacial pieces are available to be crafted. While you certainly dont need them to survive the encounter, gearing up with some of this equipment will make it significantly easier. The unfortunate fact about the new Frost Resist gear is that it is horribly 2-dimensional for most classes Stamina and Resistance. The upshot is that each piece has several sockets, so you can gem in the direction of your spec needs and make up some ground. Sapphiron has no trash leading up to him. Once you clear your 4th Wing and step in the teleporter, it will transport you back to the central hub of Naxxramas. Being that it was the 4th one, though, the central teleporter will be activated and you will thus make a double jump, teleporting instantly on arrival from the hub into Sapphirons room. Initially, it will appear that there isnt much in the room. There is, and as soon as you cross the snowbank at the base of the ramp, Sapphiron will assemble and initiate combat. Tanks- Sapphiron requires only one Tank. When he is on the ground, he will be tanked like any other dragon. In terms of Frost Resist gear, the Main Tank should stick with their normal tanking set. The Exception would (possibly) be a Druid Tank, where the Armor + Stamina from the set may actually be preferable, assuming that it is gemmed heavily for avoidance. When Sapphiron is in the air, he will not be Tanked (or, be much of anythingd, really), but upon landing he will resume attacking his highest aggro target prior to taking flight. DPS Sapphiron functions with the same mechanics as any other dragon in the game. Dont stand in the 180 degree arc in front of him, as he cleaves. Dont stand near the tail, or youll be tail swiped. Melee should get just inside his back legs and attack the ribcage from the sides. Ranged DPS may move wherever they want during the ground phase, though is is a good idea to stay in (relatively) the same area as the rest of the Raid. This is because much of the healing will be taking place through group / AOE healing methods, and also to make sure that you are in the right place for the air phase. In terms of cooldowns, Bloodlust and such, wait until you are about 2-3 air phases in; if things are going well at this point, use them as its likely that the group will continue to execute properly and you are thus not wasting those cooldowns. Use lesser cooldowns like Berserk, Rapid Fire, Blade Flurry, etc as frequently as you can throughout the fight, ideally close to the start of a given ground phase for maximum return. Healers- Sapphiron will likely require 3 Healers, though its possible to do it with 2 if there are a lot of people in Frost Resist gear. As a Healer, consider strongly acquiring Frost Resist pieces for yourself, as this will allow you a lot more latitude to heal others during the fight, and not spend so much time worrying about keeping yourself alive. One Healer will primarily be healing the Main Tank, but due to the aura in the room, multi-target healing is extremely valuable in this fight. Melee DPS should be easy to heal as they will always be bunched up; pay special attention

to Ranged DPS and other Healers, though, as they may be forced to move to a position where they arent included in Chain Heals and Wild Growths. When Sapphiron iceblocks a member of the Raid, they will also sustain a degree of damage; however, while in the iceblock, they are unhealable until it releases. Be aware of who is in the blocks so that you can respond accordingly as soon as you are able. Fight Mechanics: Initial pull will be done via the Main Tank moving into aggro range. If it is the initial pull, where he first must combine before appearing, then the Main Tank will have a fair amount of time to run into position. If you are trying him for the second time or more, he will already be formed and awaiting combat, in which case he will aggro to the Main Tank quickly and need to be moved to the tanking positi0n. In either case, the Main Tank should endeavour to turn him away from the Raid so that he faces the back wall (though it is not necessary to move him against the wall; the middle of the room is fine). The body of the Raid should sally out after the Main Tank moves, moving as a unit to either the right or left of his body. Spreading out to both sides is not ideal in 10-man due to the need to keep everyone in healing range. Give the Main Tank a few seconds to establish initial aggro before commencing in with DPS. Sapphiron has a 15 minute enrage timer which may cause some initial anxiety; this is definitely an endurance fight, and you should expect 7-10 minutes time will be needed to down him. However, you should not be pushing up against the timer in nearly any case, so dont worry about it too much. During the ground phase, damage will come in several forms. Primarily, it will come from his Frost Aura, which ticks for a fairly sizable degree and is the primary driver towards the need for constant healing. Additionally, there will be two Blizzards active that will move around (like the ones in the Shade of Aran fight). They cause a significant amount of damage and add a movement slowing effect as well. Do your best to avoid them if possible. Finally, the Raid will be periodically hit with a Life Drain ability (curse) which must be immediately removed by anyone available that may remove curses. This ability will not only deal damage to the recipient (he will inflict it on two people simultaneously, with some frequency), but also heals Sapphiron for an incrementally greater amount than is being drained. Again, the debuff absolutely must be removed as expediently as possible. Basically, this phase will come down to the ability of your Healers to counter the damage dealing abilities, and the Raids ability to mitigate the incoming damage so as to place less of a strain on those Healers. So long as you are not standing in a Blizzard, it is therefore best that Ranged / Healing stay bunched somewhat (Melee should be reasonably bunched already) in order to make AOE healing spells as effective as possible. After a short while, Sapphiron will take to the air. The Raid should now congregate loosely together; stay well apart from each other (15 yards or more, if possible), but in the same general vicinity. Shortly after initiating the air phase, he will strike someone with an Ice Bolt that will freeze them in place in an iceblock. If you are the one hit, congratulations. You get a free pass into the next ground phase. Everyone else should take note of the location of that iceblocked player IMMEDIATELY and run closer to it, as it will be your salvation shortly. Do not bunch up

too close, though. Sapphiron will iceblock a second player momentarily, and anyone standing too close will receive collateral damage (same thing applies to the first iceblock), so if the Raid is stacked in one tight spot, they will take a lot of damage. Essentially, you will want to move to a position that allows you to get to that iceblock in under 5 seconds. After the second iceblock is delivered, you will see the emote, Sapphiron takes a deep breath. From the time of this emote, you have five seconds to live, as he is about to bathe the entire room with a breath weapon that will deal enough damage to one-shot anyone, no matter their health or resistance. The two players in the iceblocks will be immune to any of the damage, and need not worry about this. The remainder of the Raid must get into position behind one of the two iceblocks in the 5 seconds before he deploys the breath weapon; as they are solid objects, they will work as a lineof-sight obstacle and protect anyone behind them from all damage. Be aware that they are very narrow, however, and care should be taken when positioning to be sure that you are centered behind them. Once in position, if you have time, this is a good opportunity to bandage, or cast a group heal while waiting for the big boom. As soon as Sapphiron has used the breath weapon, iceblocked players will be released and the Raid will again resume with ground phase tactics. This cycle repeats until either Sapphiron or the Raid is destroyed, or the enrage timer hits. ************************** On a personal note, Ive been in on two successful attempts with Sapphiron as of this writing. The first time we tried him, it took several tries before getting him down, but once we got the hang of things it moved fairly well. The second time was a one-shot, and 2 minutes faster than the first kill. In both situations I was using my Shaman, Manchego, with a Resto spec and Chain Heal spamming the Raid at large. I had a lot of issues the first time around with damage received; it was our first time attempting Sapph, so there was a learning curve for everyone but I know that I struggled a lot and it was frustrating to me (and likely others). In all, we wound up downing him on our 8th attempt. I tried to run the first 6 without proper Resist Gear; I dont think anyone else was using any of the crafted Resist Gear either, though. Particularly, the Blizzards were an issue. For attempt #7, I flipped over to my bank alt and mailed myself mats and gems for the 3 pieces of Polar Mail (Manchego is a Leatherworker). For Red, Blue and Prismatic sockets, I use 9 spellpower / 3 MP5 gems, and yellow sockets got 8 Intellect / 3 MP5. I opted to gem this way as I knew that my Mana regeneration over the course of such a long fight was going to be an area of primary concern for me. Fortunately, between Totems, Potions and Replenishment, I have been able to maintain a comfortable mana pool for the fight despite the inherent weakness possessed by the gear and OOM has not been an issue. Try #7 was unfortunately not very representative as an aggro pull issue right at the inception of the pull meant an immediate wipe; however, the time after that (and the attempt the following week) were easier for me to handle by a large margin. I firmly believe that increasing the

survivability of one or more Healers (esp a Shaman or Druid) is key to this fight, until such time as your Raids gearing is ratcheted up to the point that youre overgearing this fight (and can then try for the achievement). Being able to focus less on my own survival allowed me a lot more latitude to focus on healing others and cleansing the Life Drain debuff. If you have a Healer that has that kind of cushion for this fight (provided they get the iceblock mechanic), I would expect that it flows pretty smoothly each time. Additionally, WWS Raid Reports for both fights in which I was using the Polar Gear (3 piece, plus Paladin Frost Resist aura, for 417 Frost resist in total) showed me as receiving a significantly lower amount of incoming damage than any other member of the Raid; I took only 75% of the damage of the #9 person, and an even lower ratio on everyone else. It also makes a difference with the ability to resist the Blizzard chill effect, as I rarely have to deal with it for more than a brief bit of time, which means less time caught up in it. In short, get your Healer (and anyone else that is willing, but the Main Tank) some crafted Frost Resist gear, and this fight is ridiculously easy if you can nail the air phases.

Naxxramas Strategy: KelThuzad

20 01 2009

editors note: to date, I have not been able to run any of Naxx on 25-man (heroic) difficulty, so the boss mechanics may change slightly in that format. This post is addressed from the 10-man setting. Many, if not all of you are taking your first steps into Naxx by now. On most servers, a large number of guilds have successfully cleared it in its entirety at this point as well. Im writing more for those who are new here, in order for you to better help understand the mechanics of the fights and what to expect so that you can successfully collect your epics! Regardless of what role you have in the fights tank, DPS or healing Id recommend that you read over the roles that each group will be performing in order to have a clear understanding of how the whole fight will go. KelThuzad

The final boss of Naxxramas. KelThuzad is a fairly easy fight in terms of mechanics and understanding, as the abilities and phases are easily recognized and countered. However, the

timeframe allowed to react to these abilities is very short, and will require the entire Raid to react appropriately at the correct time in order to survive them. If everyone can do so, particularly the Healers, then he can be taken down fairly easily with a little bit of luck. Late reactions on just a few occasions, though, will cause Raid deaths and the attrition from these will most likely mean the difference between getting him down and recovering from a wipe to try him again. To get to him, simply follow the corridor from Sapphiron. You can proceed safely inside the door to his room and onto the dais immediately on the other side; do not get too close to the lip of it or you may risk starting the event. KelThuzad is a three-phase encounter, and as such is better explained through each of those phases. You will need 2 Tanks, 3 Healers and 5 DPS. Ranged DPS is preferable to Melee; if you have more than 2 Melee DPS, it may cause issues due to his fight mechanics, as explained later. KelThuzad Phase One The first part of the encounter is the add phase. During this phase, KelThuzad will not be attackable, nor will he attack. The Raid will initiate this phase by running into the middle of the room until you are all standing in the area designated by the large green circle on the floor. It is important that the entire Raid move together to this point, as the area that you are coming from will spawn a multitude of adds by the time that the first member reaches the circle, and any straggler may aggro them and cause a near certain wipe at worst, or their own death at least. Once you have reached the circle, KelThuzads minions will begin to converge on the party. They will come slowly at first, and in greater strength and numbers as the timer wears down (approximately 3:30 until the Second Phase starts). Adds will come in 3 forms: Skeletons, Banshees and Abominations. The Skeletons are easily downed as they have very low health. Should a Skeleton reach the Raid, it will detonate and cause splash damage to everyone. They are weak enough that a single cast for most primary ranged spells (Shadowbolt, Frostbolt, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Wrath, etc) should down them, even if it is a Healer doing the casting. Banshees are stronger and will drift slowly towards the Raid. When one is active, all Ranged DPS should immediately focus fire it down. Abominations will be picked up by the Tanks on their way in and then engaged by the Melee DPS. They stack a Mortal Strike debuff on whomever is tanking them. Of course, those are general rules. In order to stay on top of the adds, everyone should be doing some element of damage dealing at all times. If adds are downed quickly, Raid damage is fairly minimal and easily handled by one Healer. Thus, the other two Healers should focus their efforts on blowing up Skeletons. Paladins lack a good ranged attack for this, but Shamans, Druids and Priests (Lightning Bolt, Wrath / Moonfire, Smite, respectively) should be able to effectively control the Skeletons that Ranged DPS cannot get to. Similarly, any Melee DPS that is not currently occupied with an Abomination should feel free to make use of their Ranged attacks and assist with the Skeletons when possible as they come in large numbers. If everyone helps out with add control, the phase should go fairly smoothly and not overwhelm the Raid. After 3 1/2 minutes, KelThuzad will enter the combat.

KelThuzad Phase Two KelThuzad will now join the battle. He must be immediately picked up by the Main Tank once he is active, and tanked somewhere between his initial spawn point and the current Raid position. Some adds will still be active when he spawns; mop them up as quickly as possible and get in position for the fight. Everyone should now spread out throughout the room. The fight necessitates that all players be at least 10 yard from the next closest player in order to prevent really bad things from happening. This is where a sizable amount of Melee DPS is a hindrance, as (despite a large hitbox) you will not be able to move all players into melee range without endangering the Raid. If you have more than 3 Melee players (and this *is* counting the Main Tank), consider having the balance of them move to a ranged position and contribute whatever they can, no matter how meager. Fortunately, outside of the need to duck in and out of Void Zones, there is almost no movement required by the Raid at this point, so spacing is easy to maintain. If the Offtank engaging in combat would mean 4 people in melee range for KelThuzad, then that person should also stand clear of him as it is far more important that the Offtank survive into Phase 3 than contribute DPS. At this point in the encounter, there is no need for a fast burn. The Raid may remain methodical and slowly work his health down until he reaches Phase 3. It is significantly more important that people survive into the Third Phase than it is to burn through his health right now. KelThuzads primary attack in this phase is a Frostbolt which he will direct at his highest aggro target. It is interruptable and has a long cast time. Whomever is engaged in melee, and possibly Elemental Shamans and Mages as well, must work out an interrupt rotation for this cast as it is a very heavy hitter. Properly interrupted, it is a non factor in the fight. KelThuzad should never be allowed to get this cast off. Periodically, he will launch an AOE Frostbolt at the Raid. It is resistable, and not interruptable. However, it will only hit for about 4-5,000 points and is easily healed through. He casts it infrequently enough that there is no danger of a second one hitting before the targets of the first one have been topped off. Periodically while fighting him, he will spawn a Void Zone on a players location. These are easily avoided so long as the player notices that they are spawning. The Void Zone will take five seconds to manifest, and then disappear five seconds afterwards. If you see one forming on your position, simply strafe slightly to one side, and move back when it is gone. Note that, unlike the Void Zones that you have seen throughout most Raids, these do not play nice and *will* kill you in a single tick should you be caught in one. KelThuzad will also use an ability called Detonate Mana on anyone who has mana. The ability will cause a Mana Burn effect on the player, and anyone within 10 yards will also be hit with a heavy-damage AOE that is centered on the target. The target of Detonate Mana will not take health damage themselves. Since nobody should be closer than 10 yards to each other, nobody

should be taking damage from this. Additionally, the healing needs from this fight are sufficiently manageable that it should not be considered a soft enrage attrition mechanic that must be contended with, like Moroes Garrotes were. Most targets of the ability will be able to sufficiently maintain mana over the duration of the fight, regardless. His most dangerous ability at this point is Frost Tomb. It occurs about every 45 seconds; when it does, KelThuzad will encase a random member of the Raid in ice. Over the course of 5 seconds, this person will sustain damage equal to a percentage of their total health each tick; the sum total of the ticks is greater than 100% (I believe it is 105% or 110%, but Ive heard as high as 130%. Its noticeable). Thus, if this person does not receive healing immediately, THEY WILL DIE. Frost Tombs cannot be bubbled out of or Iceblocked; supposedly, a Warlock may Sacrifice a Voidwalker while inside to save themselves, but that is unconfirmed. Basically, all three Healers *must* be on constant lookout for this debuff in Raid Frames, and react to it the moment you see it. Stop casting your current spell, and get the fastest 2 heals that you can off on the afflicted party or its curtains. If I could point to one single mechanic in the whole fight that makes or breaks it, the reaction time to the Frost Tombs is it. What makes Frost Tomb particularly nasty is that they chain to other players within 10 yards. This is why limited amounts of Melee is better. Assuming you have Main Tank + 2 Melee, they should set up in a triangle at the outer limits of KelThuzads hitbox. If this is done, then only one person at a time will be vulnerable to the Frost Tomb. If Melee is closer together, it may chain to multiple players including the Main tank and that will likely be a Raid wipe. As a Resto Shaman, I basically put together a Kitchen Sink macro that may save a Raid in this occurrence. Essentially, I bundled Tidal Force + Natures Swiftness + Trinket + Chain Heal into one break glass in case of emergency cast. Outside of that ability, though, there isnt much else that will see you through safely if this happens to your Raid. Better to just avoid it by spacing out well. Additionally, it is wise to have your Raid setup in such a manner that any player may be targeted by all three Healers, so as to better contend with the Frost Tombs. Healers should advise through vent if someone is out of range, so that one party or the other may react accordingly. Should you have Melee DPS that is attacking from range at this point in the fight due to having too many Melee, they should be ready to move into a spot if a Melee DPSer falls. In an alert Raid, though, that occurrence should not happen. Simply whittle away at KelThuzad for now, countering his abilities and healing through damage, until he reaches the 40% mark. This will be the burn phase. KelThuzad Phase Three When KelThuzad reaches 40% health, he will spawn 2 adds, Scarab Lords called Guardians of Icecrown. On spawning, the Offtank must immediately pick them up and move to a safe spot near the rear of the Raid, but still in range of all three Healers. These adds have almost as much health as KelThuzad himself and are not meant to be killed. Allow the Offtank to hold them while the Raid burns KelThuzad.

The dangerous mechanic now is that these adds have a stacking buff which increases their damage 15% per stack and stacks up to 99 times. It will not take more than a few minutes before the damage is unhealable, so the raid is now working against the clock before the big bugs get loose. KelThuzads abilities do not otherwise change during this phase; however, if you have been holding any Melee back, this may be the time to throw them more directly into the fray, space out as best you can, and hope that luck is on your side. Now is the time to use Bloodlust and any other long cooldown abilities that you have been saving up because it is absolutely imperative that he be downed expediently. Depending on the mitigation abilities of your Offtank, you have about 2-3 1/2 minutes before the Guardians of Icecrown get to be too much to handle and wipe your Raid. Stay on top of your healing, keep a solid damage rotation and maintain good Raid spacing and you should be able to push through it. Recognize, though, that this fight usually has a little bit of luck to it with regard to who gets Frost Tombed and when; much like Prince Malchezaar and his Infernals, even a well prepared veteran Raid can run into a roadblock from time to time. Be patient and execute solidly and you should down him every time.