In the spirit of A Hunter’s Guide to Karazhan Bosses, I now present you with: A Hunter’s Guide to Naxxramas Bosses! A quick reference guide for those of you who are perhaps newer to Naxx. Remember though, you may or may not do the bosses in this order… so a handy-dandy navigation menu for you (articles will be linked to as they go live):

Navigation:
Spider Wing: Anub’rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina, Maexxna
Plague Wing: Noth the Plaguebringer, Heigan the Unclean, Loatheb
Abomination Wing: Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, Thaddius
Military Wing: Instructor Razuvious, Gothik the Harvester, Four Horsemen
Frostwyrm Lair: Sapphiron, Kel’Thuzad

MILITARY WING:

Instructor Razuvious:

“Pay attention. This is Instructor Razuvious, Kel’Thuzad’s appointed trainer of all death knights. It is said that his own technique is so potent, only a disciple of his could possibly withstand his might.”

Primarily a fight for whoever is going to be operating the mind-control-dealybobs, this is a DPS fest pure and simple for hunters. Well, aside from the giggling that you’re allowed to do at the expense of Razuvious’s crew-cut. *cough* Be careful when using Multishot because I’ve seen the Mind Control wear off for a second sometimes. Other than that, be watchful for a knife that is going to be flung around to various raid members and will put a big DoT on you. You may have to call this out over Vent if your healers are newer to the instance and not expecting it.

Gothik the Harvester:

Gothik, the Harvester. A master of necromancy and conjuration, Gothik is said to be able to beckon forth legions of the undead at a moment’s notice. It is with his guidance that even the weakest of Death Knights can raise the dead.

This is another one of those “put your pet on Defensive” fights. So do that!

Fight goes like this: the raid will be split up into two groups, one for “Live Side” and one for “Dead Side”. “Dead Side” is the one with piles of skulls in it, so you know where to go if you’re assigned there.

Stuff is going to show up on Live Side and when they die they’ll show up as ghosts on Dead Side. DPS them down. Starts out slowly but gets more hectic as time goes on, and I’ve seen more wipes here than I care to admit (mostly from Live Side going too fast and overwhelming Dead Side).

Eventually Gothik will show up and teleport back and forth between the sides before the gates open and everyone can just focus on him. He goes down very surprisingly quick and for the most part, when he shows up, you know you’ve won– go directly to epics, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 gold.

Take your pet off of Defensive after this fight. >.>

Four Horsemen:

“The most powerful Death Knights within Naxxramas are the four horsemen. They represent the pinnacle of Kel’Thuzad’s guard.”

I adore this encounter. It may take a little while for you to realize what’s going on, and strategies differ from group to group, but I still <3 it. If you are in the “front”: There are two main strategies here. The first strategy, and the one commonly used if your DPS is still gearing up, is for the two tanks to swap out their bosses. What this means is that you will DPS a boss until you get three “marks”– a stacking debuff– on you, at which point the tanks will run to the middle and switch our their bosses, and this will continue until the two bosses are down. The second strategy, commonly used if your DPS is good and/or you have a shaman for Heroism/Bloodlust, is to burn down the first boss and then run over and burn down the second. Either way, be sure you are standing as close to the boss as you can while still maintaining range– there will be issues if you are standing far away!

Once the two bosses in front are down, head to the back and take turns DPS’ing the two bosses back there. Just keep an eye out for your own marks on you, if you get a stack of three you want to head to the other boss for a while.

If you are in the “back”: Hunter tank! Woot! I love the back. I always volunteer for it. I know it’s silly, but hey. You’ll be back here with someone who can heal and so your main job is, literally, to “tank” a boss back here. They don’t hit very hard and are casters, so basically you’ll just be shooting them and then swapping to the other boss with someone else when necessary – i.e, when you’ve got three marks on you. I would advise against sending your pet in– Ferocity pets die pretty quickly unless you know your healer will be keeping him up. Also, these bosses target whoever is closest, so you can keep your pet by your side, just turn a little so you are the closer to the boss of the two of you.

And that, as they say, is that.

And so our heroes make their way to the dreaded Frostwyrm Lair, home of some of Azeroth’s most vile denizens. Find out why Sapphiron is Mister White Christmas and Mister Snow tomorrow… same time, same place!

In the spirit of A Hunter’s Guide to Karazhan Bosses, I now present you with: A Hunter’s Guide to Naxxramas Bosses! A quick reference guide for those of you who are perhaps newer to Naxx. Remember though, you may or may not do the bosses in this order… so a handy-dandy navigation menu for you (articles will be linked to as they go live):

Navigation:
Spider Wing: Anub’rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina, Maexxna
Plague Wing: Noth the Plaguebringer, Heigan the Unclean, Loatheb
Abomination Wing: Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, Thaddius
Military Wing: Instructor Razuvious, Gothik the Harvester, Four Horsemen
Frostwyrm Lair: Sapphiron, Kel’Thuzad

CONSTRUCT WING:

Patchwerk:

“Behold, Patchwerk. When word of his existence first reached the ears of the Brotherhood, none believed the tales of an abomination with such immense speed and strength. Fewer still believed it when he fell the first time…”

Shoot him in the face until he dies. Optional: screenshot your Recount/record your WWStats results so you can analyze how you perform in DPS race under a raid situation.

Grobbulus:

“Grobbulus, the first of what was to be an army of flesh giants. It carried the plague slime of Naxxramas within its body, injecting the living ooze into the bodies of its foe. The recipient of this foul injection would usually flee to his allies, bringing them down with him. “

Stand in the middle of the room. The tank will kite good ol’ Grobby around and you will spend most of the fight pewpew’ing either him, or a slime add that will show up every so often which your off-tank will probably pick up. Avoid the big green mists of death on the floor that show up behind the boss.

Sometimes you will get a debuff on you; usually someone in the raid and/or Deadly Boss Mods will point it out to you in big letters. Run away from the raid! Find some safe spot behind Grobby and between the aforemtnioned green mists of death and wait for the debuff to go away before resuming your original position. You’ll take some damage from this but it won’t kill you– unless you run through the green mists or are standing to close to people.

Your pet is immune to said debuff so he can spend the fight happily nomming the boss. Beware though: sometimes if you run to the opposite end of the room while you have the debuff, it will be so far away from your pet that he will despawn. So be ready to Call Pet if that happens.

Gluth:

“Gluth, the foul plague-dog of Naxxramas, was said to have an appetitie so voracious that even the living were not enough to satisfy his hunger. Feugen was said to feed him an army of Zombies daily, recycling the remains of undead too weak to use in combat. “

The best way I’ve ever taken this guy out involved everyone hitting macros in a precise sequence and misdirecting to Evasion-tanking rogues in a certain order. It was awesome, but chances are good that you’ll do this a slightly more conventional way, I’m afraid. =P

First thing to be aware of: your pet is going to sit in the tube and refuse to come out and play. The easy method to fixing this is to run as far away from the tube as you can after you’ve jumped down, which will despawn your pet and let you call him again. Just don’t make the mistake I did the first few times I did this fight, and not realize that my pet wasn’t there until the boss was already at 75% health (or lower).

Second thing to be aware of: this is one of those glorious encounters where you will probably get to eschew DPS in favor of utility, and I love it. Basically, there are zombies that will show up and slowly make their way towards Gluth. If they get to him, bad things happen. So they have to be kited around, either by you, or by someone else who can kite them. Either way there’s a good chance you will be asked to keep a Frost Trap up on the grate.

Every so often everybody’s health will plummet and all the zombies will stop what they’re doing and head towards Gluth; this is called “Decimate.” When this happens it’s your job to forget everything and AoE down the zombies as fast as you can. Then, you can return to whatever your previous job was, whether that was kiting the zombies or doing moderate DPS while keeping traps up.

If you are would like tips on actually kiting the zombies, Drotara does a good job explaining it over at his blog.

Thaddius:

“Thaddius, built from the flesh of women and children, it is said that their souls are fused together – eternally bound within that foul prison of flesh.”

Fight starts out with having to DPS down two “minibosses” of sorts. The main thing here is that they have to die within a few seconds of each other– like Romulo and Julianne. The main difference from that fight is because you are split into two different groups your goal is to do DPS to your miniboss at the same rate that the other group is doing DPS to theirs. If your group is pulling ahead and you need to slow down, this can be accomplished by switching to Viper, going pure Auto-shots, or some combination of the above depending on how much you need to slow down.

After these guys are down you will jump off the ledge over to the other side. Yes, this is the infamous “ledgeboss”. Hint: Aspect of the Cheetah.

Once on the other side your pet will start to run down the ramp to you but he will despawn before he can get to you so just get ready to Call Pet once you notice he does.

Alright! Remember Heroic Mech? No? Okay, this guy basically puts a Positive or Negative debuff on everybody. Positives have to stand next to Positives, and Negatives next to Negatives, or Very Bad Things™ will happen. Your raid leader will let you know beforehand where to stand depending on your charge. Usually it is on the left or right side of Thaddius but I’ve seen front/behind done too. So if you see something like: – – – – – – – – – THADDIUS++++++++ spammed in Raid Warning, that’s what they’re referring to.

The charges will change every ten seconds or so and when they do keep in mind that your charge may or may not change. If it doesn’t change and you’re already in position, don’t move. One time I did a whole fight on this guy where I only had to move once, it was beautiful.

Again, your pet is immune to all the fun, so just leave him on the boss and enjoy what is otherwise a Pewpew fest.

Tomorrow our heroes head into Military Wing! Will they be able to face four all-powerful Death Knights and the horses they rode in on? Or will they prove that perhaps DKs aren’t as overpowered as everyone thinks? Find out on the next exciting episode!

In the spirit of A Hunter’s Guide to Karazhan Bosses, I now present you with: A Hunter’s Guide to Naxxramas Bosses! A quick reference guide for those of you who are perhaps newer to Naxx. Remember though, you may or may not do the bosses in this order… so a handy-dandy navigation menu for you (articles will be linked to as they go live):

Navigation:
Spider Wing: Anub’rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina, Maexxna
Plague Wing: Noth the Plaguebringer, Heigan the Unclean, Loatheb
Abomination Wing: Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, Thaddius
Military Wing: Instructor Razuvious, Gothik the Harvester, Four Horsemen
Frostwyrm Lair: Sapphiron, Kel’Thuzad

PLAGUE WING:

Noth the Plaguebringer:

“Behold, Noth, the Plaguebringer. Responsible for the creation of the process that distills the souls of the living and places them within the cold cage of undeath, Noth was observed to be refining this process even now.”

Also a Brewmaker, whatadya know?

Pretty easy fight and one of the few fights where I actually take my pet off of Passive and put him on Defensive. Here’s how it works:

DPS Noth. Skeleton adds will show up. Let the tank(s) pick them up.

Noth teleports away. AoE the skeletons down. (This is why I put my pet on Defensive, he helps to hammer all the skeletons).

Noth comes back. Repeat steps one and two until he is dead.

Arguably the easiest fight in the raid in terms of what everyone has to do.

Oh, and don’t forget to put your pet back on Passive after this.

Heigan the Unclean:

“Observe, Heigan the Unclean. The mastermind behind the plague cauldrons that turned the wilderness of Azeroth into the Plaguelands. It is said that Heigan has rigged the very walls and floors of Naxxramas itself with a vast array of traps, which he can trigger at will. “

The most infamous fight in the instance and home of the good ol’ Safety Dance. It used to be I’d say “If you’ve never done this fight before, you will die, don’t feel bad”, but recently I’ve seen a few talented people nail this on their first try so I rescind that statement.

Basically it goes like this. When the fight begins, stand up on the platform where Heigan was. Depending on your group they will be tanking him either at the edge of the platform or on “the dance floor” itself. Keep a Mend Pet up at all times. This will go a long way towards your pet surviving this fight, especially if you are BM and have Improved Mend Pet.

After a short while Heigan will teleport up onto the platform, at which point you will jump down with the rest of the group and “dance” across the floor while green fire shoots up in front of you and behind you. Really this is all about coordination and moving at the right speed. I’ve found it helps if you basically just keep moving (or stop only for a split second)– if you stop and wait around between the the fire spurting up, you will die. Try and stay close to everyone else if you haven’t done it before, but beware of lag. Oh, and I would be wary about having Aspect of the Cheetah on– I tried it once, got hit by the fire and dazed, and yeah. Kindred Spirits works well enough. If you know what you’re doing you’re allowed to do Serpent Stings and Arcane Shots and the like on Heigan during the dance phase, but I wouldn’t try it if you are new to it… you don’t want to overcomplicate things afterall.

Eventually Heigan will jump back down and you go back up onto the platform, and repeat the previous steps until he goes down.

Mostly the big thing here is the disease that Heigan tosses around that needs to be cleansed. Some healers will cleanse your pet, others won’t. That is why Improved Mend Pet helps a lot.

Overall this fight is one of those “Difficult to learn but easy to master” fights that usually becomes a favorite once you know what you’re doing. It’s probably second to Four Horseman for my favorite encounter in Naxx.

Oh, and I recommend you check out my YouTube video on it if you haven’t already! It will probably explain things better than I can in text. You can download the video for free at https://www.keepvideonline.com/.

Confession: I don’t ever do this fight without The Safety Dance playing in the background. Ever.

Confession Two: I am listening to the Men Without Hats Greatest Hits as I write this.

Confession Three: It’s all I’ve listened to for like the past two weeks.

Loatheb:

“Loatheb. The hideous result of fusing the living plague of the plaguelands with the bog beasts of Azeroth, Loatheb is said to control the power of healing itself.”

An anagram for “healbot”, Loatheb is mostly a healers’ fight. This doesn’t really affect you in any way other than the fact that while you may be tempted to use Lifeblood/potions/healthstones if you see your health getting low, but be aware that a heal is probably incoming shortly if you wait a few more seconds, and if not, wait until healing is allowed to use your emergency health pot because it will go to waste if you don’t.

Mostly you will be spending this fight soaking up the big numbers that you will get. Spores will be floating around the room, you will be directed to go stand next to the spore and possibly kill it in an order that will probably be determined by your raid leader. These spores will up your crit chance to some ridiculous number and is what will be the driving factor behind aforementioned big numbers. That’s about it. It can turn into a long fight so look forward to popping some of your cooldowns more than once (and possibly having to refresh Hunter’s Mark.)

And tomorrow, our brave heroes venture into Construct Wing. Abominations in disguise? Find out on our next exciting episode of A Hunter’s Guide to Naxxramas Bosses!

In the spirit of A Hunter’s Guide to Karazhan Bosses, I now present you with: A Hunter’s Guide to Naxxramas Bosses! A quick reference guide for those of you who are perhaps newer to Naxx. Going to split it up by wings to make it easier to navigate. Remember though, you may or may not do the bosses in this order… so a handy-dandy navigation menu for you (articles will be linked to as they go live):

Navigation:
Spider Wing: Anub’rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina, Maexxna
Plague Wing: Noth the Plaguebringer, Heigan the Unclean, Loatheb
Abomination Wing: Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, Thaddius
Military Wing: Instructor Razuvious, Gothik the Harvester, Four Horsemen
Frostwyrm Lair: Sapphiron, Kel’Thuzad

SPIDER WING:

Anub’rekhan:

“Anub’Rekhan, one of the finest Spider Lords of Azjol’Nerub, was brought under the control of the Scourge when he and his former commander, Anub’arak, were finally defeated by the Lich King many years ago. It is said that he was the most loyal of Anub’arak’s commanders. “

In my own personal experience, most (though not all) groups like to start with Spider Wing first, so there is a good chance that this will be the first boss you meet if you go in here as Naxx-newbie. In a way, it’s kind of a hectic fight compared to some of the others, but in another way, I think it just looks like there’s a lot going on here when really there’s not.

For the most part you’ll just want to stand in the middle (there’s a handy green circle on the ground showing you where to stand) and pewpew. Sometimes adds will show up, AoE down the little ones and wait for an offtank to pick up the big ones and then shoot ’em down. Really the only thing you need to be aware of is a move that happens every so often called “Locust Swarm” which causes a lot of damage to the melee DPS. That includes your pet. Most groups will call out when Locust Swarm happens (or a DeadlyBossMods-style addon will announce it) so pull your pet back to you or have him go chew on the adds until it’s over.

Sometimes you’ll get tossed up in the air if spikes appear under you and you don’t move away fast enough. Not a lot you can do about it, you can keep shooting while you’re up there. Remember the handy dandy hunter trick: Disengage on your way down prevents you from receiving fall damage.

That’s about it, really!

Grand Widow Faerlina

“The Grand Widow Faerlina, a botanist in life, breeder and caretaker of arachnids in death, she oversees the spider wing, developing the most potent of poisons for the Lich King.”

Another hectic-feeling fight, though once again your job as a hunter is pretty straightforward: Shoot Faerlina in the face. The way groups do this varies; geared groups can typically just burn her down after destroying all the adds, but most starter groups will inform you at various points throughout the fight to switch DPS to one of the adds (they’ll usually all be marked up for you.) Because of this I typically ban Multishot from my rotation in this fight unless positioning is good because I don’t want to accidentally do damage to the adds when I’m not supposed to, even if it is just a little damage.

Sometimes there will be a Rain of Fire where you’re standing, move out of it and keep shooting. (Cause it burns burns burns… the rain of fire).

Maexxna:

“Maexxna, born deep within the mountains of Northrend many ages ago, she was captured within the dread citadel Naxxramas, where she gives birth to her brood, feeding them the corpses of all who dare venture too deeply into Naxxramas. “

Hunters, there is a 99.9% chance your job on this fight will be: “Shoot the people on the wall.” Make it your mantra.

See, Maexxna is a giant spider who flings spider webs around and occasionally sticks people to the wall with a web wrap. It’ll be your job to shoot them free. Just have your mini-map all the way zoomed out, look out for pings and listen for people calling out that they are web wrapped. And be sure to announce if you get web wrapped so someone else can come save you!

Other than that, it’s another semi-hectic pewpew fest with adds and stuff. Feign Death will shake the little spiderlings off of you if you accidentally aggro one while Multi-shotting.

And so our brave heroes head off to the vile Plague Wing, home to plaguebringers, spore monsters, and dancing necromancers. Will they triumph? Will they dance, jive, and have the time of their life? Be sure to turn in tomorrow to see!