Ready Check: Anub'arak
by Michael Gray 
Oct 23rd 2009 at 9:00AM
Here he is. The big cheese. The final countdown. The last boss (currently) available in raiding progression. Anub'arak is the final encounter in the Trial of the Crusader. If you feel a sense of deja-vu while getting ready to throw down with the big bug, don't worry -- you're not insane. (At least, you're not insane because you think you recognize the boss.)
Anub'arak was the final boss in Azjol'Nerub. And while the Trial of the Crusader version is certainly much higher octane, this raid version does share some basic similarities with the previous fight. They both have adds, some kind of burrowing action, and bugs. Lots of bugs.
Let's jump behind the cut and see how to get this done.
We're going to dive straight into how the fight works, and explain the pertinent abilities as we talk about each phase. This is because many of Anub'arak's abilities are background effects and extra mobs. It could be somewhat confusing to start talking about powers and spells without context for how they operate.
The Setup
When you've defeated the Twin Val'kyrs, there's going to be a short scripted event. (I'll try not to spoil the story, but it ends with you fighting Anub'arak.) After a bit of yelling back and forth, some argument, and a little taunting, the entire floor of the Coliseum drops out from beneath you. You and your raid will fall down to a subterannean lake. As your wet and bedraggled selves look up from the water, there's your new adversary: Anub'arak. Azjol'Nerub was just a setback.
Phase One
The first thing you'll notice are these blue, floating orbs up at the ceiling. These are called Frost Spheres. When your ranged DPS shoots them down, they'll place an area of Permafrost on the ground. The permafrost slows down your enemies, when your tank kites the enemies across the patches of frozen ground. But, additionally, Permafrost will keep things from burrowing up front under you -- or from burrowing down into the ground from above. That gets important here in a second.
You have two varieties of bugs rolling around the cave during phase one. One is basically called a Scarab, while the other is called a Burrower. The scarabs will start out neutral, and only get kvetchy if you stab them. The scarabs disappear as soon as you engage Anub'arak. Burrowers, however, will want a piece of you.
The OT will want to drag the burrowers on top of the permafrosted ground. This is so that you don't let him burrow under the ground.
Your main tank will keep Anub'arak parked in the front. Anub'arak doesn't do anything spectacular during phase one, so just keep ample heals flowing.
Phase Two
This is where Anub'arak starts doing stuff. About every minute and a half, Anub'arak will burrow beneath the ground. He will then pursue and chase down a random player (who is marked with a debuff called Pursued by Anub'arak.) Anub'arak is attempting to hit them with Impale, as well as having his Pursuing Spikes hit everyone for damage along the way. The chase will stop when Anub'arak's target kites the spikes through the permafrost.
But wait, that's not all.
Swarm Scarabs will start spawning. These guys don't individually hit for any noticeable amount, nor are they particularly difficult to kill. However, they also hit with Acid-Drenched Mandibles, which will keep stacking. If the recipient of the debuff gets too many stacks, they'll be virtually unhealable. The scarabs occasionally get stubborn and gain Determination, which makes them run faster. Kite them, and burn them down as soon as they appear.
But wait, there's one more thing!
The Burrowers will still be coming back this phase if you didn't kill them, and will still need to be controlled by your off-tanks. They're not nearly as much the focus during phase two, however. Make sure your ranged are keeping the Swarm Scarabs under control.
Phase Three
You enter phase three when Anub'arak's health hits 30%. This is when things get intense, so it's probably best to have all the other adds down from phase two first.
Anub'arak will continue to do the same kind of general attacks he has the whole time. He'll pound the main tank with Freezing Slash and Penetrating Cold. The real trick of the fight, however, is Leeching Swarm.
Leeching Swarm will take 10% of each person's health, and use it to heal Anub'arak. So, you want to keep everyone in your raid at a minimum health. Don't heal them to full, or Anub'arak will simply get that much bigger a heal. This is probably one of the most difficult fights for healers, because it asks them to go against their natural tendencies. Healers tend to heal, and now this fight is asking them to not heal at full bore. Still, once you get a hang of it, it's not so bad.
Once you've got this fight down, you've done it. You've mastered Trial of the Crusader. Now, we just have to look forward to Icecrown. Or Trial of the Grand Crusader, if you're into that sort of thing.
Ready Check is here to provide you all the information and discussion you need to bring your raiding to the next level. Check us out weekly to learn the strategies, bosses, and encounters that make end-game raiding so much fun.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Como Oct 23rd 2009 9:14AM
"The permafrost slows down your enemies, when your tank kites the enemies across the patches of frozen ground." You may want to edit that to include the fact that it slows you down too, quite a bit I might add 80% so you don't want to be anywhere near a patch when he is about to burrow otherwise you can very easily burn one of your patches early.
Also normally I like to throw down some tips for people attempting hard mode, all I can say is good luck in 25 man, your going to need it ;)
Como Oct 23rd 2009 9:36AM
Also I'm not sure if its just heroic but don't the burrowers shadow strike on normal? If so it's worth a mention.
For anyone wondering what I'm talking about all 4 burrower adds will basically shadow step after a small cast time,and at the same time I might add(interruptable) and 1 basically one shot your tank. Again this may only be on heroic?
visitingl337n00b Oct 23rd 2009 9:45AM
Permafrost only slows 30% on normal difficulty, it's 80% on heroic. Burrowers do not cast shadow strike on normal difficulty, so there is no need to worry about the interrupts.
Jimbo Oct 23rd 2009 2:20PM
This article missed several HUGE aspects of the fight.
First, the Burrowers stack a debuff which increases damage taken. This means it's essentially impossible at current gear levels to have the MT also tanking burrowers. An OT is pretty much required.
Second, the Burrowers can be stunned. This is a big help for controlling the stacking debuff on the tanks.
Third, during phase 3 (and I believe throughout the encounter) there's a periodic dot affect on random raid members that does about 3.5k damage per tick. If you keep everyone too low, then they'll die from the dot before they can get a heal. If they're too high in health then the healing from leeching swarm will slow dps down so much that you'll hit the enrage timer.
Fourth, the burrowers gain a STACKING buff on speed & damage when they are beside each other. If you end up in the situation where one tank is trying to tank 4 at once, he's going to die as soon as his cooldowns expire (and maybe before).
These are key elements of the fight that affect what people do and should be mentioned in any article about the fight.
Roland Oct 23rd 2009 3:05PM
Going to grab this spot for an important message from Anub'arak.
>8< spider power!
WaterRouge Oct 23rd 2009 9:14AM
Hunh....I don't know if I was stupid or just not paying attention but I didn't realize that the leeching swarm...leeched. As a druid I generally don't have a problem (due to innervate) so I didn't have a problem trying to keep everyone as capped as possible. Now I see the error of my ways!! Forgive me raids for I have healed the enemy!!!
WaterRouge Oct 23rd 2009 9:15AM
*don't have an issue with mana (due to innervate) so I -----
Karilyn Oct 23rd 2009 9:23AM
"so I didn't have a problem trying to keep everyone as capped as possible"
Yeah that's very bad. You want to keep everyone's HP as low as possible without dying.
Teferi Oct 23rd 2009 9:32AM
2 Mistakes in Phase Two:
"The Burrowers will still be spawning during this phase". No new Burrowers will spawn during this phase, only those that submerged earlier will reappear if you were not careful during phase 1
"with Acid-Drenched Mandibles, which stacks up to 10 times" I had more then 10 stacks on this fight(13), no idea if there is a limit at all..
Boz Oct 23rd 2009 10:17AM
I'm confused about Phase 1:
What's the priority on the adds? I see that they need to be controlled, but it also seems like they need to be burned down before Phase 2 when more spawn. Should they be killed as soon as possible, then turn to focus on Anub'arak? Or should DPS just go all-out tank n' spank on Anub'arak and ignore the OTsa nd the Burrowers?
But I'm REALLY confused about Phase 2:
Who should be doing what? I see a lot of writing here about who should be "controlling" what, but not what is the point of the Phase? What triggers Anub'arak to pop back up? Also, as ranged DPS, I'm supposed to be focusing on Scarabs; alright, what about the Burrowers? They need to be burned down before Anub'arak resurfaces and more Burrowers spawn, right? But if ranged DPS is focusing on Scarabs, how is that supposed to happen, particularly if we're ranged-DPS heavy? And are there a limited number of Scarabs spawning, because it seemed pretty unlimited during the last few attempts?
Phase 2 is pretty confusing and it would be nice to know who should be doing what:
Tanks (Main and Off) - Burrowers, right?
Healers - Healing as assigned (and running, I assume)
Melee DPS - ??
Ranged DPS - Scarabs (AoE or focus fire?)
Wouldn't it be more effective to burn down the Burrowers by focus-firing first? Also, I read that Anub'arak's underground spikes damage the Scarabs if the target runs through them; is that true?
Thank you in advance
bushkanaka86 Oct 23rd 2009 10:34AM
Some answers to your questions (the best I can remember because I can't seem them while replying):
In Phase 1 here is what my raid does:
Melee DPS - Stays on Anub.
Ranged DPS - Burn down the Burrowers as soon as they spawn then back on the boss
So when phase 2 starts, we don't have any Burrowers up. Normally our ranged are good enough at taking them down fast and having them melee on them makes the fight last too long so we just let them burn into him.
Phase 2:
He goes underground and the scarabs start spawning. Assuming you killed all the Burrowers, there shouldn't be any in this phase. Basically we just have all dps burn down the scarabs. We tell people to kite them and not get hit if possible. So the ranged try to get aggro on all the scarabs and the melee follow them around and kill them.
Whoever is tanking Anub should definitely avoid getting any of the debuffs because we don't need him taking bonus damage.
So to answer that question, all dps are killing adds, healers are healing the raid, and tanks are helping dps (not tanking). If you get targetted, you kite the spikes through the ice.
Something that is not mentioned in this article is that phase 1 and 2 rotate back and forth. He burrows for a certain amount of time, and then he pops back up on his own until you get him to 30%.
Yes, the spikes will kill the Scarabs, but we usually just let that happen naturally as they die quickly anyway and we don't want our people getting spiked.
Also, in phase 3, my raid keeps the MT at full health, because it is too easy for him to go down. Everyone else is below 50%.
Tom Oct 23rd 2009 11:20AM
Bushkanaka's way is pretty solid, but I've also had success doing things slightly differently in ToC 10.
In Phase 1, our OT brings the burrower to Anub, so that the melee's incidental damage (Whirlwind, Divine Storm) helps the ranged kill it. When the second burrower pops it's also grabbed by the OT and brought to Anub, but DPS continues to focus on Anub. When the big guy burrows we burn down the add during the few seconds of free time in the transition.
In Phase 2, our MT will play it safe with the Scarabs, but our OT will run around taunting and stunning as best he can. It's better to have three Scarabs on him than one each on our clothies. :P When we go back to Phase 1 our OT bubbles and clears the debuff before the next Burrower comes out.
TERU Oct 23rd 2009 12:07PM
My guild uses the same strat as tom, also when killing the first set of burrowers we have allranged switch to the next one when the first gets to 10%, the combined lasts casts and dots will be more then enough to finish it off. So any extra time spent on it is wasted time that could be spent on anub.
If unlike my guild your raid is a little low on dps you can also assign one or two ranged to full time burrower dps.
Boz Oct 23rd 2009 1:45PM
Is there a summary of the differences between the four versions of the fight somewhere? I'm referring to 25-man regular, where I believe two burrowers spawn at the beginning of Phase two.
Thanks for a lot of the feedback though, everyone, quite helpful.
0756 Oct 23rd 2009 9:26AM
Are you sure that the Acid Drenched Mandibles only stacks to 10? I recall instances in 25man normal Anub where the OTs were being healed through 20+ stacks when the dps wasn't getting the little bugs down fast enough.
neil Oct 23rd 2009 9:29AM
You are incorrect about the Burrowers. They do not spawn while Anub is submerged, even in heroic difficulty. On normal difficulty, the spawn while he is surfaced but stop when Leeching Swarm arrives. On heroic, they keep spawning during Leeching Swarm (and also use a nasty ability called Shadow Strike that must be interrupted).
neil Oct 23rd 2009 9:32AM
Also, you're incorrect about Penetrating Cold. It's not just on the tank. It is a DoT that is applied to random raid members. While most raid members need to be healed for a minimum (to reduce Leeching Swarm healing), those with Penetrating Cold will take a very damaging DoT that must be healed through.
TERU Oct 23rd 2009 12:11PM
applied to 2 raid members on 10man and 4 on 25man, during leeching swarm these people are usually kept at 50-60% health to avoid and easy death. with the tanks being capped and the general raid we keep at 10-20%.
breaklance Oct 23rd 2009 11:30AM
"Azjol'Nerub was just a setback."
el oh el
Other things to note, during phase 2 the smaller adds start with 30k threat on their initial target, but are susceptible to taunt. But as a raid leader it is dire to kill all adds all the time before really laying into anub. You will have time for 3 burrow phases, I beleive, if he burrows a 4rth time he will enrage.
Drob10 Oct 23rd 2009 9:49AM
lol, people are so eager to point out how much more they know something after they read it.