Azjol-Nerub

The first group you’ll run into is a Anub’ar Webspinner and a Anub’ar Warrior, the Webspinners will cast Web Wrap on a random party member, DPS can attack the web once it’s formed to break it, but the member is rooted until that happens. The next pull will have a Anub’ar Skirmisher, they have a Fixate attack which causes them to lock onto a member of your party, increases their attack speed by 50%, and makes them immune to taunt for 8 seconds, which, unsurprisingly, will insta-gib a clothie. If you have a rogue or hunter ask them to use Tranquilizing Shot or Anesthetic Poison. If you don’t, stun, stun, and lots of stun, most DPS know to kill them first, but throw up a skull anyway.

The first boss can be very difficult depending on your groups make up, there are three groups of enemies, when you pull one, you’ll have about a minute thirty seconds to kill them, before the next group will automatically rush you, when you kill a group, the next group will come within 10 seconds, giving you a very fleeting period to eat up, I try to pop cooldowns to give the healer a lead time for drinking after the first group, depending on how their mana is holding up.

As for the actual mobs, left to right we have a Skirmisher, a Shadowcaster (as the name suggests, they cast shadow spells), and Watcher Silthik, who has an AoE Poison ability. The middle group consists of a Skirmisher, a Warrior, and Watcher Gashra, who has a soft-enrage effect. The final group is made up of a Shadowcaster, a Warrior, and Watcher Narjil, who has the worst ability, Blinding Webs, which is a AoE disorient. All Watchers have two common abilities, Web Wrap, same as the Webspinners from before, and Infected Bite, which increases physical damage taken by 20% and is a poison effect.

Krik’thir the Gatewatcher himself isn’t a very interesting fight, but he has two abilities you care about, his Mind Flay can be reflected, and he casts it about once ever 5-10 seconds, so it’s not too hard to time correctly. Every 30 seconds he’ll call forth his minions, which means about 30 tiny insects will rush out and instantly be thunderclapped to death… I mean… lots of bugs will come and your group has to AoE them down, among the 30 tiny insects though, there will be three slightly larger insects with slightly more health, who will do a poison splash upon death, poisoning party members standing within 5 yards of them, though the poison doesn’t actually do much of anything, 500 damage a second, up to a possible 1,500 damage a second.

Once Krik’thir is down, the gate will open (if you missed it, there are webs behind him, not sure what his death has to do with the web collapsing, but… this is WoW) Run across the platform and circle down and pull the Anub’ar Crusher, when you pull him pull him back a little bit, he’ll launch you up in the air every now and then, it’s tons of fun! Other mobs that’ll be running around are Anub’ar Necromancers, Anub’ar Champions, and Anub’ar Crypt Fiends who pretty much aren’t important, just be sure they don’t stay on your healer. After you kill the first set, two more groups will run upstairs, and Hadronox will move towards the entrance of the tunnel leading to your group. Pull the one closer to the tunnel first, then the other group, then sit back and wait for the mobs to be dead, do NOT pull until the stream of mobs stops.

Hadronox will drop poisons everywhere, be sure to not stand in poison clouds, he has a leeching poison which drains 500 health from you and gives him health in return, if a target of the poison dies, it restores 10% of his health, which is why you want to wait for him to kill off the other mobs, as they’ll all most likely have the poison. He also has a Pierce Armor spell, which reduces armor by 50% for 8 seconds. Other than that, this is a very basic Tank and Spank.

When you’ve dispatched the great spider, head down the tunnel, across the web, through the gap, and kill off the small creatures that aggro, then drop down the hole, land in the water below. All the yellow mobs around here are worth 2 rep each in Heroic, if you’re not exalted with a faction, its a nice place to get about 30 rep while you wait on slower party members.

The Anub’ar Prime-Guards ahead have two very interesting abilities, the first is Drain Power, which drains 3% of your damage (makes you do 3% less damage) and gives them 6% more damage, so the longer the fight goes, the stronger they get. The second ability is Mark of Darkness which causes any heals to do 3-4k damage to nearby party members, it lasts 10 seconds and is a magic debuff, which can be dispelled, but make sure your healer knows what’s up, I’ve had groups that have wiped before because the healer freaked out about the damage being done and popped his haste trinkets and started healing even faster, obliterating the group.

Finally, we come to Anub’arak, first and foremost, AVOID THE POUND… When he starts to cast pound, either walk through him (if you’re too close to a wall) or run the other way, this will deal massive damage, and stun you for 6 seconds. Beyond that, he’ll spawn several adds that you can either chose to pick up, or let the DPS handle, I generally do a bit of a combination, taunting and thunderclapping when I’m around them, but otherwise only messing with them when they’re on the healer. At 75, 50, and 25% he will burrow underground, and you’ll be attacked by Anub’ar Guardians and Anub’ar Venomancers. The 75% phase will only have two Guardians, the 50/25% phases will have Guardians followed by Venomancers. The Guardians are just melee mobs, but the Venomancers have a Poison Bolt and Poison Bolt Volley that you should try to prevent them from casting, as the massive poison damage can kill your DPS or healer. Other things that’ll be happening during these phases is every now and then Anub’arak will try to spike you with his… spike… thing… You’ll see the ground rumble then anyone standing there will be launched in the air taking 8k damage and then fall damage, multiple people can be hit at once, and finally there will be lots of small creatures spawning that you can chose to pick up, or ignore for the DPS to handle.

Once you’ve downed the former Nerubian Lord, you can loot him! Yay! If you’ve managed to read this far, I’m sure you’re wondering what the loot you COULD have gotten, but didn’t get, because the RNG Gods hate you, guess you’ll have to do it tomorrow. *ahem* Sorry. Off of Krik’thir the Gatewatcher, we have… nothing. Hadronox drops the Fabled Essence of Gossamer, I’m not convinced the thing exists, even if I do have better at this point. And Anub’arak drops the Ancient Aligned Girdle. As a minor note for anyone who may not be up to date on the WoW news: Anub’arak reappears in the new Trail of the Crusader raid instance, so conversations about him may be referring to that particular encounter.