Naxxramas FAQ!

[Holyssa]

Hiyo.

I figure I'd write up a mini-FAQ for the great Necropolis based on my personal experiences from the L60 days, and to help collect info from various sites so you don't wind up surfing page after page of strats to topple particular bosses. This will primarily focus on the 10-man Naxx, but I'll follow it up with stuff from the Heroic version once more of our raiders feel ready.

Also: for those who are lazy/can't read, I will link Tankspot videos, which are amazing visual guides.

Spider Wing

Anub'Rekhan:

-During Locust Swarm (cast every 70-120 seconds), the tank must kite Anub along the outer rim of the room OUTSIDE the slime or wind up taking excess nature damage. Swiftness pots or a cleverly timed Pack Aspect/Unholy aura work great for helping the MT.

-When a player or Crypt Guard (his must be offtanked) gets killed, they have a chance to spawn Corpse Scarabs which must be AoE'd down before they dash to the tank. Have an AoE class stay within range of the Crypt Guard's corpse.

-Anub can also Impale a player, tossing them into the air for a lot of fall damage. Drink pots/pop a health cookie before you land!

Movie:

Grand Widow Faerlina:

-Mind Control WILL NOT WORK in the 10-man fight. You must AoE-tank and burn down the Worshippers to a low % of life, then bring her close to the add pack, and kill only one to dispel Faerlina's Enrage/silence her. The enrage occurs every 60-80 seconds (she gets big & red).

-The add must die after the Enrage, which will calm her down for an entire minute. If they die before, it will merely delay her enrage by 30 seconds.

-Get away from Rain of Fire.

Maexxna:

-Web Wrap (cast 20 seconds in, then every 40) will only hit one player in the 10-man version, but target macros are a must, or else the nature damage/player tunnel vision will cause pointless deaths.

-Dispel Necrotic Poison asap, which will primarily be used on the tank.

-At 30%, Maexxna will perma-enrage. To avoid having a stunned tank from the Web Spray, burn her down to the 32-35%ish mark, wait for web spray, then burn your most powerful spells.

Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JQSBWL2PAI

Plague Wing

Noth:

-One or two tanks will be needed here. Preferably two for add control.

-Each time Noth Blinks, it's a total aggro wipe.

-Curse of the Plaguebringer now affects 3 people. It must be removed ASAP, but the Wrath of the Plaguebringer (which occurs if you let the Curse tick down) can be partially healable if decursers are low in number.

-Noth summons two skellies (they use Cleave) every 30 seconds. Single target DPS is important, as AoE is a waste of resources on so few targets. After roughly 2 minutes, he teleports, and summons different adds:

Phase 1: Two Plague Champions (Mortal Strike) per wave, two wave sets. Once these die, Noth will come back down from his perch.

Phase 2: One Plague Champion, one Plague Guardian (spams Arcane Explosion).

Phase 3: See P2. After the next skelly phase, Noth will Berserk. You can guess what happens next.

Heigan's Disco:

-The Gauntlet Event is now AFTER Heigan, not before.

-Due to his Aura which increases cast time by 300%, all ranged classes stay on his platform during Phase 1 (Heigan attacks the raid directly).

-After 90 seconds (Heigan teleports to the middle platform), all ranged classes must get off the platform or they will die to the Plague Cloud Heigan emmits. It's DDR time! The speed of the slime will increase as you move from section to section during Phase 2. The slime can hit multiple times if stuck in the middle of a burst, so constant movement is mandatory.

-The order in which "safe spots" cycle during the dance (west to east, facing into Heigan's room) is 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 3, and so on.

Movies (these primarily display the "dance" tactics, as Heigan himself is stupidly easy):

~ A simple Bird's Eye View of Heigan's room while the slime is activated (requires flash, no mobs inside the room): http://www.theorderls.com/belt/wm/wow/heigan.html

~ Another Dance Lesson with combat footage: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=30416

Loatheb:

-Every 20 seconds, Loatheb will reduce all healing by 100% for 17 seconds. This means you have a 3 second window to heal your tank ASAP.

-Casts Deathbloom every 30 seconds. As you might guess: its a reverse Lifebloom - doing periodic damage, then 1200 damage upon finishing.

-Inevitable Doom will be cast after 2 minutes, doing 4000 Shadow Damage after 10 seconds. Pally bubbles, Cloak, and Ice Block can remove it. After 5 minutes, he "enrages" and casts this every 15 seconds.

-Spores will spawn every 30 seconds, which when killed give you a buff which increases crit chances by 50%, but all spells cause no threat for 90 seconds. Only 5 people can get this at a time within 10 yards of the spore, so discuss with your DPS the proper order to get this. It must not hit the MT or Loatheb!

Abomination Wing:

Patchwerk:

-All trash is linked to Patchwerk. Yep. You need to kill EVERYTHING.

-How Hateful Strike Works:

~It's only viable targets are the top two people on his aggro list (in the 25-man, it's the top three).

~Hateful Strike will hit the person with the highest HP among those 2/3 people. It will not hit the MT.

~The Strike will add aggro to EVERYONE it hits, ensuring HS will always hit the #2/#3 person in melee range (using Omen can easily verify this). In the old days, you could easily surpass this by going batsh1t (see

for the infamous 10k+ rolling Ignite crit string which did this), but melee DPS can still pull very easily if they aren't careful.

-At 5% life, he gains a Frenzy effect, boosting speed by 40%, and damage by 25%.

-He will enrage after 6 minutes.

Movie:

Grobbulus:

-He will be kited around the room due to the clouds he leaves behind every 15 seconds. Does 2000 nature damage a tick and slowly "expands".

-His Slime Spray is a frontal cone which summons an add Slime that needs to be offtanked. Never turn him towards the raid!!

-Mutating Injection will poison a player every 20 seconds. If cleansed, or after 10 seconds pass, a player suffers 8k nature damage and spawns a new poison cloud. This happens more often as Grobby grows weaker. Run to a nearby poison cloud that Grobby spawned as the clock ticks down. DO NOT CLEANSE THIS, or you'll possibly spawn a cloud on top of the raid.

Movie:

Gluth:

-Two tanks are mandatory, or else Mortal Wound (reduces healing by 10% for 15 seconds, stacks) will kill your MT. He's tauntable.

-His Frenzy is dispelled by hunters/rogues.

-Every 90 seconds, he uses Decimate, which leaves all players/adds with nothing but 5% life. After doing this about 4 times, he perma-enrages.

-He does not use Fear except in Heroic mode.

-Zombie Chow mobs spawn from the room's grating every 10 seconds with 500,000 life. They can be rooted/snared/stunned. Can't be tanked directly due to their stackable Infected Wound debuff (increases physical damage taken by the target by 100). They need to be kited until Gluth uses Decimate, which brings them to about 25,000 life and makes them dash towards Gluth. If they are not killed in time, Gluth eats the zombie and heals 5% life.

Thaddius:

-The raid is split in 2 to deal with Feugen/Stalagg (two ghoul adds). Every 30 seconds, they use a Magnetic Pull on the opposite tank, and switches their threat. They must not leave the platforms or the raid suffers massive nature damage, and they both need to die within 5 seconds of each other.

-The raid has 15 seconds to recover and jump down to battle Thaddius himself.

-Spread out to avoid chain lightning (every 15 seconds).

-Every 30 seconds, the raid suffers a Polarity Shift, much like the one Capacitus uses in Heroic Mechanar:

~Charges the entire raid either negatively (-) or positively (+). Usually it's 50/50 among the raid. When standing on people with the same charge a 10% damage buff is gained per person. When standing on people with the opposite charge they will deal 3,500 damage a second to each other each. MOVE!

-Use this marvelous work of art (bless you WowWiki) to determine where ranged/melee need to stand for each polarity change:

-Like Patchwerk, he will enrage after 6 minutes.

Death Knight Wing: (because calling it the Military Wing is too damned corny)

Razuvius:

-LoS will no longer make you immune to his Disrupting Shout (which in Vanilla WoW would insta-gib you if you had a mana bar). It now deals 4k damage to the raid.

-He gains a new trick called Jagged Knife, which does bleeding damage. It has a 5 yard minimum range, so pile onto Raz or use LoS to avoid it.

-Watch this movie: it's an instructional tutorial on how to control the Understudies.

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=9cty2dDB4h0

-In a nutshell:

~MT controls one add. Wait 15 seconds. OT controls 2nd add.

~Time your cooldowns on Bone Barrier/taunt, release/re-control the Understudy to refresh the timer, and win.

~If you have trouble dismissing the Understudy so you can manually refresh MC (regaining control has no cooldown dangers in 10-man mode), right-click the Understudy portrait and hit Dismiss, or use this script:

/script PetDismiss()

Gothik:

-For each add killed on the Living Side, an add appears on the Undead side (riders will spawn a Spectral Rider AND a Horse, however). Split the raid into 2 groups with 1 tank and 1 healer apiece.

-Order of adds to be killed: Riders (Kill on sight!) -> Death Knights (offtanked or double-tanked)-> Trainees (very squishy). Don't burn them too fast, or the Undead side will become overwhelmed. Imagine the room as if it were a balance scale, if needed.

-Mobs stop spawning a little after 3:44 minutes. Gothik drops down at 4:34. Nuke and heal through his shadow bolts. Tauntable, and will not wipe aggro between teleports.

Four Horsemen:

-The Horsemen scatter to 4 corners of the room upon engaging: Thane goes to the near-left, Baron goes near-right, Lady Bla..whatever goes to the far left, Sir Zeliek runs to the far right.

-MT tanks either Thane (the dwarf) or Rivendare. Any DPSers attacking Thane MUST stack on the tank. After THREE Marks (these stack endlessly every 25 seconds), "swap" with the other tank.

-IF BOTH MELEE TANKS ARE PALADINS (if not, skip this crap):

1. He taunts off you, or you taunt off him. You'll have both melee bosses focused on you. Timing is key here.

2. A DPS with a taunt (DK, Feral Druid, fury/arms Warrior) taunts one of the mobs.

3. You taunt off that DPS.

EXAMPLE:

~Holyssa is tanking Rivendare. Ascoli is tanking Thane (the dwarf). Holyssa has 3 Marks on her.

~Holyssa taunts Thane. She now has aggro from both mobs.

~Orcala targets Rivendare and taunts. Thane is still attacking Holyssa.

~Ascoli taunts Rivendare off Orcala and resumes tanking. Holyssa resumes tanking Thane till Marks stack up again.

-Any ranged DPS can "tank" the caster adds (Zeliek & the Lady) by standing as close as possible. Obviously, this should not be a healer. Stay at max range.

-Each Horseman generally needs 1 "tank" (read above) and 1-2 healers each depending on group makeup and overall raider Stamina. For positioning: walk along the edge of the walls and you can get to your respective corners without aggroing anything.

Movie:

~Notice how ALL the DPS and heals stack on Thane. 15k damage divided among 3 or 4 people isn't all that bad, especially with a priest or shaman helping. They also run together during the tank transition to avoid potential meteor splatter.

Sapphiron:

-He's not immune to Frost anymore.

-Decurse (yes, it's a Curse) Life Drain asap. Avoid the Blizzard. It's radius is MASSIVE, and not hard to miss.

-Sapphiron will fly up every 45 seconds. The Ice Bolts he uses trap two random players in Ice Blocks. After two Ice Bolts, he will Deep Breath (it's a massive white blast that is a guaranteed death, unlike Onyxia's). You must hide BEHIND the Ice Blocks, as they will block Line of Sight. Once DB is cast, ou have

-Contrary to what people say, Frost Resist gear is NOT needed. Heal, and keep moving. A paladin aura is plenty for this.

Movie:

Kel'Thuzad:

P1:

-Melee can tank only the abominations, but they must die quick so Mortal Wound doesn't stack. Ranged must prevent the banshees & skellies from going too close to the raid at all costs.

P2:

-SPREAD OUT. Otherwise, Mana Detonation ("the bomb") or being Frozen will be the cause of many wipes. It jumps to anyone 10 yards closer. Not very hard if you designate a spot to flee towards.

-Avoid Shadow Fissures (looks like the black spots Netherspite spawns).

-When he hits 40%, he calls for help. Shackle the new adds that appear (Guardians of Icecrown), or have an OT pick them up.

Movie:

Have fun!

[Perthes]

Amazing..

Thanks for the info Holyssa... this is some good bed time reading material.

[Waldonnis]

The debate on Patchwerk's hatefuls continues, which makes me giggle, but I tend to believe that they didn't change the mechanic from the original encounter. With proper positioning and some slime dancing, melee without an aggro dump (mostly warriors or DKs that aren't tanking) can avoid them if it's a problem. 10-man Patchwerk hits reasonably easy and a decently-geared tank can probably take two strikes in a row...but 25-man is nasty (hits for 50k+ before mitigation, so 20-25k on a geared tank), so healers need to be excessively spammy on the offtanks in 25-man, as they cannot take two in a row. The important thing to note is that these strikes hit about every 1-1.5secs, so tanks should be fairly liberal with their use of trinkets and mitigation abilities (they can be dodged/parried, IBF and bone armour for DKs is very helpful as well).

I'll fill in some of my other findings over time, but it's a good general overview.

[Holyssa]

Just chucking in my 2 copper about how the 10-man Naxx felt based on our experiences these past few nights.

Abom:

Patchwerk - First 95%? Zzzzz..... Last 5%? IT BURNS! Overall not a bad encounter, and he went up like a Roman candle within a minute of the enrage timer (I think).

Grobbulus - Great Caesar's ghost! Very overtuned for what was once a loot pinata. With 10 people and a LOT of poison crap to dodge, this was a very worthwhile attention-span test that kept the me on my toes, and teach people that cleansing crap ASAP isn't always a bright idea. His pathing seemed very awkward, however...

Gluth - Very easy from a tank perspective, then again we had awesome Zombie Chow kiting. Devastate can have some scary timing, though.

Thaddius - There's a 3rd part of the encounter some of us failed at, and it's the Platform Jump Monster. Otherwise, not that bad once Polarities stack properly and people know where to go. Very exciting fight when done properly, but one death can severely gimp things.

DK:

Razuvious - With good coordination (and a LOT of practice between Harne and I), this can be surprisingly easy and the Understudies can take a major beating.

Gothik- Nothing special here. It's all about add control. Imagine the room as if it were a balance scale, where things get hairy if one side is overloaded too quickly. Gothik himself was a pushover.

Horsemen - Another coordination fight, but far less of a clusterf*ck that was the L60 version. Pretty much everyone has an important role here at some point, and can be a great test of "tank" teamwork.

Plague:

Noth - A little AoE and a lot of decursing. The fact that he doesn't Blink in the 10-man made him even simpler.

Heigan- Study the Dance, for the love of Harne's mom. There's tutorials Even I nubbed it up somewhat due to a very fuzzy memory and a pinch of lag.

Loatheb - Love teh spores, and time your heals. Total pushover once we got the timing right.

Spider:

Anub - Not much different, but corpse scarabs can get annoying.

Faerlina - Aside from a few close calls with adds & the Enrage, it's a fairly easy fight even without MC. Her adds are soft like pillows, and it's almost too easy to screw up with excess AoE.

Maexxna - OH GOD SPIDERS! Not a bad fight, but the lengthy final 30% will make any tank's spine tingle. I luv our healers.

Sapphiron - Minimal frost resist needed here...just need to stay away from Blizzard, learn to hide behind frozen people, and it's just an endurance fight.

Kel'thuzad - (Will fill in later - Sapphiron died just before our bed time >.<).

EDIT: Found this on the WoW forums, and I'm absolutely baffled at the level of execution. Can't kill 25-man Razuvious with priests? Use hunters, like these guys did.

http://files.filefront.com/Razuviousavi/;1...;/fileinfo.html

Edited December 9, 2008 by Holyssa

[Kailand]

EDIT: Found this on the WoW forums, and I'm absolutely baffled at the level of execution. Can't kill 25-man Razuvious with priests? Use hunters, like these guys did.

http://files.filefront.com/Razuviousavi/;1...;/fileinfo.html

For thadius, those of you who did the first boss on heroic mechanar should know the mechanic. The way we did it last night was not according to the diagram (which is probably why everyone was confused for the first few attempts, I know I was) but we stacked like charges on the tank, and the people of the opposite charge were on the other side of the boss. (i.e. during polarity shift, if the tank is +ve, all +ves stacked ontop of the tank, and -ves ran wide around to the opposite side of the boss).

I can see how they would do Razuvious with hunters - distracting shot is a ranged 'taunt' type ability, i.e. the hunter will have agro for as long as the distracting shot debuff is up. So it's just a matter of 2 hunters bouncing him between them alternating distracting shots. I looks like a fun way of doing that fight... and no, I'm not volunteering, we do have more than one priest.

Edited December 9, 2008 by Kailand

[Holyssa]

Noticeable differences between 25 and 10 man. Many of these fights resemble 40-man Naxx from many moons ago in terms of mechanics and group composition, but some stay the same between difficulties save for big numbers.

Abom:

Patchwerk -

-How Hateful Strike Works in Heroic Mode:

~It's only viable targets are the top three people on his aggro list. Having about 28k-30k HP buffed is a must.

~Hateful Strike will hit the person with the highest HP among those 3 people. It will not hit the MT. Healers need to go batsh1t.

~53625 to 56375 damage before mitigation. The average "soak" will take 23k damage per swing. MT takes roughly 9000+ a hit.

~The Strike will add aggro to EVERYONE it hits, ensuring HS will always hit the #2 & #3 person in melee range (again, using Omen can easily verify this).DPS can still pull very easily if they aren't careful.

~You're still racing the clock. Can you burn 13 million HP in 6 minutes?

Grobbulus - No change. But more people = more risk towards "blowing up" the raid. RUN!

Gluth - Gluth gains an AoE Fear every 20 seconds. Zombie Chow comes in pairs. Tremor totems next to your kiting path are a massive help.

Thaddius - "Now YOU feel pain!!" Exactly the same, but a monster 30 million HP means no one can noob up polarity shifts...especially with a 6-minute scythe dangling over the raid's heads. Study the drawing up there, and most importantly: MOVE!

DK:

Razuvious - Four adds instead of two...just like at L60. No obedience crystals to save you. It's recommended to have two priests MC Understudies and trade taunts like before, but MC DPS is reduced due to no Blood Strike...just Shield Wall & Taunt. Offtank the other Understudies, and use them as reserves for when the initial pair die early.

~The priests doing MC will need 6% Spell Hit rating, because each Death Knight Understudy is level 82. This will eliminate Miss chance and the chances to break early (except channeling interruptions due to loose mobs). 6% spell hit is 157.39 rating at level 80. Stock up on +hit food if needed!

Gothik - Waves spawn at a faster pace. He comes down at the same time. No changes.

Horsemen - Same fight, but considerable damage boost, and very long depending on DPS. Thane can easily cause early wipes via meteor splash damage. Remember: you can run along the outer edge for positioning sakes.

Plague:

Noth - He will Blink (25 second cooldown, will use any time he pleases. DPS must be very careful!!), causing a 100% aggro wipe. Each time he blinks, the spot he comes from debuffs nearby players with Cripple. Curse now affects 10 people and is a primary wipe-causer. Each emote he does ("Rise my soldiers!") now calls three adds instead of two. When he's on the balcony, four skellies per wave will appear instead of two. Plagued Champions (melee skellies) now use a spell called "Shadow Shock", which does 2960 to 3440 Shadow damage to all raid members within 25 yards. Spreading out is more important than ever!

Heigan - Exactly the same. Study the dance, or this fight WILL take forever due to his colossal HP pool. As in 9.2 million HP "colossal". Whoa.

Loatheb - Exactly the same, but a larger raid will place the tank in serious danger due to Inevitable Doom becoming unhealable as the battle drags out. Share those spores!

Spider:

Anub - Two crypt guards join the fight. I hope you have a lot of AoE to handle all those Corpse Scarabs.

Faerlina - Six adds total: Two Followers, four Worshippers. An exact replica of the fight @ L60. Followers must be OT'd far away from healers due to an AoE silence and killed ASAP. Worshippers are handled as follows:

~Faerlina Enrages. Hits about as hard as Patchwerk during these few seconds.

~A priest MC's a Worshipper. Here's hoping you remembered to boost +hit rating.

~Once enraged, the Worshipper gets close to Faerlina and uses Widow's embrace. The Worshipper automatically dies, but Faerlina calms down for 1 minute and is silenced for 30 seconds, just like the 10-man version.

~After 1 minute, she Enrages again. MC, Embrace, repeat. Don't attack the Worshippers. They are squishy like pillow.

~If your DPS is blind and doesn't know what to do in terms of add control: kill the stuff WITHOUT a mana bar (Followers)!

Maexxna - Web Wrap now affects two players, and damage is more dangerous. A badly timed post-Enrage Web Stun WILL kill your tank!

Sapphiron - Ice Block affects three people when he's airborne. Life Drain affects five people instead of two. Nothing new aside.

Kel'thuzad:

P1 - Zerg zombies. Nothing new.

P2 - He gains a trick from the L60 days:

Chains of Kel'thuzad:

Kel'Thuzad can mind control 3 people at once. Size increased by 200%. Charmed. Damage increased by 200%. Healing increased by 500%. They will buff and heal Kel'Thuzad. Can be CC'd by any ability that would normally work on humanoids. This ability will wipe threat. Unlike Kel'Thuzad 40 this will not mind control the main tank. This ability lasts 20 seconds and cannot be removed by any means.

Pally bubble, PvP trinkets, Cloak and Ice Block will not save you.

P3 - Four Guardians appear instead of two. This is pretty much the "hurry up" indicator.

Edited January 6, 2009 by Holyssa