Hello and welcome to the Anub’ Arak guide from learn2playwow.com
Compared to the Twin Val’kyr or to the Faction Champions the Anub’Arak encounter is a lot less complicated. Anub’arak has 3 major phases. In phase 1 the boss sits on top of the ground, and can be dpsed. He should be faced away from the group for he does a frontal cone attack. Also he uses an ability called Penetrating Cold. This ability does frost dot damage but should not pose many problems untill phase 3.
Anub’arak will spawn some interesting adds called Nerubian Burrowers. What’s special about these adds is that if they manage to go underground then, when they will resurface, they will resurface with full hp.
In order to avoid the full hp issue the adds need to be tanked on the patches of frost that you see around me. Adds on the patches of frost cannot borrow. These patches are made when a frost orb gets killed. So, have a ranged dps shoot down the orbs. Brining down many patches of frost doesn’t hurt as, since they down despawn now, they will be useful for phase 2.
The patches of frost can make moving around a bit time consuming, especially for melees, so it’s best, at least for normal mode, to let ranged take care of the adds. The adds gain in strength if they are too close to each other. In the 10 man version this isn’t much of a problem for, either way, you will only have one offtank and one add. And that add will probably be brought down before the next one spawns.
On the 25 man version you will have to deal with more adds. You will also have 2 or 3 offtanks. Each offtank should take care of an equal amount of adds so as to divide their buff as much as possible. Also, if dealing with a low dps raid or if you are attempting this on hard mode, then you have a risk of either reaching the enrage timer or being overwhelmed with adds.
If there are patches of frost close to the boss, a good idea is to bring each group of adds on each side of the boss. This means that the adds will still not be in range of each other to gain the buff, but natural used aoe abilities like divine storm and whirlwind will be able to do some extra damage. Also you can have a couple of dedicated melees to stay on the adds.
Phase two is a more relaxed phase. Anub’arak borrows underground and starts pursuing random ppl. You will notice the spikes moving around. You are basically safe at this point if you are standing spread out and on the patches of frost.
When Anub’arak will hit a patch of frost he will stop pursuing that target . After a couple of seconds he will select and pursue another target. He will also destroy the patch of frost that he hit. Having a lot of frost patches laying around before the start of this phase and bringing more down during the phase is helpful.
Also you will notice some smaller non elite adds. These adds don’t do a lot of damage and they can be brought down quickly. However they do put a stacking dot debuff on whoever has aggro on them. So, in order to avoid the debuff stacking too much, splitting the aggro among dps and tanks is recommended. Basically just don’t worry too much about these adds, just kill them while running from Anub’arak.
Phase 3 begins when Anub’arak reaches 30% hp. He will start casting a spell called Leeching Swarm, this spell does damage equal to 10% of each players current health every second and then that damage is used to heal the boss. This means that the more health you have the more you heal anub’arak and the more damage you take.
The tank needs to be toped of . Everyone else should be below 50% hp. However, the less hp you have the more you are vulnerable to death from spiked damage coming from Penetrating Cold. Healers should give a special attention to players with Penetrating Cold. Basicaly you need to reach a balance: don’t heal anub’arak for too much and yet don’t have members at risk of dying from penetrating cold.
In this phase heals over time are extremely useful as you will reach points at which the multiple hots from different healers on a player will simply even out the damage coming from leaching swarm. That player should then stay at a relative constant hp, needing extra heals only when he gets Penetrating Cold.
On the heroic and hard modes of this encounter you will simply deal with an improved version of the boss and also with improved adds. You will need to bring more dps to the adds by positioning them closer to the boss. On the hard modes the adds will gain a shadowstep like ability and target random members. However this ability can be interrupted. The burrowers will also be present in phase three.
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