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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsReady 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 2 of 3)
Wilyumwallus Oct 23rd 2009 10:03AM
It's an article that's explaining how to beat a boss, if something isn't right, it needs to be corrected so players aren't learning the wrong way to do a fight.
curtisrutland Oct 23rd 2009 10:04AM
It's more like they're trying to help, because inaccurate information can make for an unnecessarily difficult boss fight.
erikjwassell Oct 23rd 2009 10:56AM
I'd guess Drob10 is referring to people like Neil and 0756 who are just repeating information that was already addressed by previous posters.
visitingl337n00b Oct 23rd 2009 9:49AM
On normal difficulty the swarm only steals 10% of max health per second, so your dps can overcome this level of healing even if everyone is kept at full. You'll win a little slower if you heal everyone a lot, but if you like a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach, there is nothing wrong with it. On heroic difficulty this strategy is completely unviable and people must be left at low health, but you don't have to make normal difficulty complicated for yourself, it's just a tank and spank once phase 3 hits.
gRasole Oct 23rd 2009 10:59AM
No, it leeches 10% of your current health on normal, 20% on heroic, which is why it make the fight a hell of a lot easier if everyone's health is kept at around 50% even on normal.
And for those that are confused our strategy for 25-man is as follows:
P1: MT grabs Anub and holds him in the front of the room. 2 ranged dps bring down 4 shperes each to give the 2 OTs (one for each Burrower) some options for where to take the burrowers so that the permafrost will interrupt their burrow ability and keep them above ground. All ranged burn one burrower to 40% and allowing DOTs to kill it. They then turn to the second and do the same, all the while melee stays on Anub. Once the second Burrower reaches 40% everyone nukes the boss until he himself burrows. Feel free to use your 3 minute CDs here as the will be up again by the time P3 rolls around. While DPS is nuking the second set of Burrowers will spawn and can just be held over some permafrost by the OTs.
P2: After Anub burrows melee focuses on one of the Burrowers while ranged focuses on the other until both are dead. Once both are dead have 2-4 ranged shoot down some more permafrost just to slow the little scarabs and to make sure that nobody gets hit by an impale (you want the permafrost between you and the spikes, don't just stand on it). Ranged must start burning the little scarabs and kiting them around to keep the DOT on as few people as possible (rogues can beat the crap out of them too and use Cloak of Shadows to clear the debuff once Anub resurfaces). If a few of them latrched onto a tank and his stack is too high BoP him when Anub resurfaces and move on to a repeat of P1. You can to the P1>P2 cycle 3 times before the enrage timer becomes an issue.
P3: When Anub hits 30% health, which ideally will be just after he surfaces and the new set of Burrowers spawn he casts his leech life which is only really an issue for the healers as, like I said, they want too keep everyone's health around 50% to mitigate the leeching. Right about here is when you want to cast Bloodlust/Heroism. Ranged will again burn the Burrowers just as they always did and then everyone nukes the boss and collect loots.
There also is no Shadow Strike on normal so you don't have to worry about it and there are only 2 Burrowers spawning at a time. The strategy is the same for 10-man except you only need 1 OT as only 1 Burrow will spawn. I hope this helps clear any confusion.
Omicron Oct 23rd 2009 9:52AM
In phase 3: The leeching swarm damage, does it get stopped by priest shields?
For example, on Loatheb in Naxx, just about all damage the guy dishes out simply ignores PW:S, since otherwise that ability would trivialize the fight.
Assuming people are on low health, and only 250 hp/sec is drained, a shield worth 6k to 8k Can prevent a lot of damage without letting Anub'Arak gain any significant health back. It would be like the picture book fight for a Disc priest.
bushkanaka86 Oct 23rd 2009 10:42AM
Yeah, priest shield is your friend.
I am duel specced holy/disc and I can't tell which one is better. The shield is great, but circle of healing is perfect for that fight: a small AOE heal.
Basically, no matter which spec I am in, I cast shields on everyone, throw lots and lots of renews out, hit people with flash heal whenever they get pretty low, and then once I am low, I substitute a binding heal.
I also use Prayer of Mending some times but it is unpredictable so it sometimes accidently heals someone too high. Basically, Greater Heals, Prayer of Healing, and Penance are a no no for this fight. (Unless you are healing the MT.) Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression, and Circle of Healing are awesome if you are specced for any of those.
Brittmari Oct 23rd 2009 11:00AM
Even better than shields or Circle of Healing is Holy Nova. It does just the right amount of healing if you can get your group to stack on the bosses butt while giving you enough time to pop a Prayer of Mending or shield on anyone in your group who gets Penetrating Cold. Plus, it does damage to the boss!
bushkanaka86 Oct 23rd 2009 11:28AM
Oh, interesting...Holy Nova huh? With that spell, I could probably solo heal that fight, lol. It doesn't have a limit on how many people it can hit, so I can heal the entire raid. Might have trouble keeping the MT up with taht though. Unless, I spam some other spells on him between Novas.
gurgle Oct 23rd 2009 11:47AM
Ideally the ONLY raid healing in p3 should be from Judgement of LIght, Vamp Embrace, Healing Stream Totem, and Leader of the Pack. This will keep the raid around 1k health. This means your healers need to have a plan for healing pen cold victims, since each victim will need a 6k heal before the first tick of pen cold after it's applied. There's an addon called penetrator that will assign marks, and there's an addon for grid that will show raid icons on grid. Assign your healers to a mark, and hope they are fast enough at finding their mark on grid and getting that heal off before the first tick of pen cold :)
AKSubaru Oct 23rd 2009 12:11PM
gurgle, if you've got a parse that shows passive raid heals only keeping up the raid through phase 3 (excepting extra heals on Penetrating Cold victims) I'd love to see it. That's one hell of an ideal.
Bushkanaka86--solo healing through the leech is a nice thought, but Holy Nova is party-wide not raid-wide, so good luck with that :)
gurgle Oct 23rd 2009 12:34PM
AKSubaru:
Here's a WoL parse of Wraith's p3 for Anub: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/K7cGl2UdMRApzJtb/sum/healingDone/?s=7884&e=8033
There is incidental raid healing from talents/glyphs -- ancestral awakening from the shaman, glyph of holy light from the paladins -- but there is no CoH, no Wild Growth, no Chain Heal. Wrate's Rejuvs are only on pen cold victims and tanks, not being spammed across the raid. You can parse the logs for anyone and see the same - for example, Helix. The only healing he's getting from 22:19:02 to 22:20:39 is from HST, JoL, and holy light glyph. At 22:20:39 he gets penetrating cold and is healed through it by Kunst, until it fades at 22:20:57 where he returns to only getting HST/JoL heals.
Or, check out their video and look at the grid -- scary stuff! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I657yBBj46c
AKSubaru Oct 23rd 2009 1:48PM
OK fine. If you are in one of the top 100 guilds in the world with 10 raiders doing over 10k dps and you're killing Anub'arak in 2:28 this strategy will work fine. But I don't think it's realistic for guilds who are just reading strategies for a boss who has been out for 2 months. For example, no Shammy is going to have a Healing Stream Totem which ticks for anywhere near 600 the first time he meets Anub'arak. Essentially what you are saying is "Once you outgear the encounter, it becomes much easier."
gurgle Oct 23rd 2009 2:09PM
AKSubaru:
1) They didn't kill Anub in 2:28, I merely linked the third phase.
2) It was a heroic kill, so they did not significantly outgear the encounter. Nor is it an "easy" way to kill him; the first time a guild meets Anub on normal, it is easiest to rely on your dps to compensate for overhealing. This does not mean, however, that you shouldn't or can't expect more from your healers, mainly tight coordination on healing pen cold.
3) You don't need HST ticking for 600 to be able to keep the group up. 400 is sufficient, which is easily accomplished with a glyph.
I don't feel that showing a different method -- in this case, relying on some awesome healer coordination to heal everyone's pen cold before the first tick, which allows you to keep your raid at a minimum of health -- is detrimental to people approaching Anub on Normal. In fact, it's that kind of coordination that will allow your raiders to succeed on Heroic content. This method actually alleviates pressure on DPS because you're healing Anub for an absolute minimum.
That kind of coordination and planning is exactly what allows guilds to beat content BEFORE they outgear it. If you're killing Anub while keeping the raid at half health, you already outgear the encounter because you're relying on your dps to brute force your way through a lack of coordination from your healers.
AKSubaru Oct 23rd 2009 2:52PM
I concede all your points, and of course, it is always a good idea to propose alternative strategies that work.
However, I still feel that any guild who is reading an Anub'arak strategy at this late in the game is not the kind of guild that is going to have 25 top level raiders capable of executing your ideal. Keeping your raid at 25-50% health through phase 3 is, in my opinion, the only way of avoiding the growing frustration of wipe after wipe while you wait for the perfection that everyone should strive for.
Mordockk Oct 23rd 2009 10:30AM
Maybe there was some typos or you haven't done th fight enough to know some of the specifics.
Acid Drenched Mandibles stacks indefinitely. Scarabs can be taunted and kited over ice patches where it is best for ranged to burn them down. slow them down, chains of ice them...
(if you're a heal or caster don't just stand there and heal urself through their melee hits, run, kite, fear, do something, don't let it stack too high because you'll die during leeching swarm.)
Movement speed is lowered by 30% through ice patches. 80% on heroic.
Burrowers can be stunned/interrupted, but only cast Shadowstrike during heroic encounters. If allowed to burrow the heal to 100%.
Reasons why you don't want them to burrow:
1. two sets of burrowers come out in phase 1. If burrowers are near eachother they gain a haste buff, increasing their melee and cast speed. They ALSO leave a sunder on their target. In heroic this will make shadowstrike ridiculous hard to interrupt, and it one shots people.
Thanks for the readycheck but I hate to say you fell short on a lot of the mechanics.
Not trying to be a jerk but I think you need to give this article a big edit for our readers trying to attempt anub for the first time and being unprepared.
Traazu Oct 23rd 2009 10:30AM
I have heard that a Mortal Strike effect will affect the amount of incoming heals he gets from Swarm in P3. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
jimmy Oct 23rd 2009 4:25PM
yes on normal, no on heroic.
bushkanaka86 Oct 23rd 2009 10:39AM
Yeah, priest shield is your friend.
I am duel specced holy/disc and I can't tell which one is better. The shield is great, but circle of healing is perfect for that fight: a small AOE heal.
Basically, no matter which spec I am in, I cast shields on everyone, throw lots and lots of renews out, hit people with flash heal whenever they get pretty low, and then once I am low, I substitute a binding heal.
I also use Prayer of Mending some times but it is unpredictable so it sometimes accidently heals someone too high. Basically, Greater Heals, Prayer of Healing, and Penance are a no no for this fight. (Unless you are healing the MT.) Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression, and Circle of Healing are awesome if you are specced for any of those.
bushkanaka86 Oct 23rd 2009 10:40AM
Dang it, that was supposed to be a reply to someone else. Ignore me reposting this as a reply to an earlier one...