Lassirra’s Guide to Raid Strategies in Wrath

I gave serious consideration to an April Fool’s post and even went so far as to come up with a few possible schemes. In the end, I decided against it. Mostly because everything I came up with was going to be more trouble than it was inevitably worth. So, fear not little huntlets, you’ll get no shenanigans from me today! Instead, I’d like to spend some time going over some raid strategies in Wrath to help get you on the path to serious progression.

Naxxramas

As the first raid dungeon you’ll experience at 80, Naxxramas seems to be a good place to start, no? Well, I suppose I could’ve gone about this all ass backwards, but I’m a fan of chronology. So, let’s dive right in!

The Arachnid Quarter

In reality, aside from the Frostwyrm Lair that Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad call home, there is no set order to the wings of Naxxramas. However, most guilds just starting to clear the instance begin with the Arachnid Quarter because comparatively it’s quick and easy (just the way I like it!), so we’ll start there too.

Anub’Rekhan

The first boss you encounter is a big ol’ spider/beetle thing called Anub’Rekhan. He shoots spikes out of his butt that you’re gonna want to avoid. Spread out and don’t stand directly in front or behind any other player. Those hemorrhoids hurt! They toss you in the air, too, so you’ll end up taking fall damage to boot. Try to avoid that, eh?

Guess what? Anoob’Rekhan (c wut I did thur?) has a few drops us Huntery types will actually be interested in!

On Normal:

• Collar of Dissolution

The expertise on that neck is about as useful as tits on a bull, but the other stats are decent enough to consider it.

On Heroic:

• Fool’s Trial (shared with other bosses: Noth, Faerlina, Patchwerk and Razuvious)
• Webbed Death (which you can totally ninja from the Rogues and cackle about it later)
• Arachnoid Gold Band
• Strong-Handed Ring (shared with other bosses: Faerlina, Noth, Patchwerk and Razuvious)

Grand Widow Faerlina

She’s got a nasty AoE you’ll want to avoid. Here’s a good tip: if you appear to be on fire, it’s probably a good idea to move. Additionally, she’s got adds you’ll periodically have to swap to and pwn in the face. Don’t do that until Faerlina gets all big and scary and PMSy.

On Normal:

• Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets

The gloves are BoE, so you can totally snag them and sell them on the Auction House because better gloves are bound to drop sooner or later, right? Right.

On Heroic, in addition to the shared loot, there’s also:

• Widow’s Fury

Which is great if you’re into one-handers, but since every good weapon we’ve had available previously was a two-hander, good luck finding something to pair this with in your bags! (Unless you ganked a Webbed Death from the Rogues, kekeke.)

Maexxna

The final boss of the Arachnid Quarter, as you might imagine, Maexxna is a big honkin’ spider. If you’re arachnophobic, just close your eyes. It’ll be over soon.

Maexxna will periodically spit webs out of her butt and send raid members flying at the walls. Shoot the butt webbing to free your pals. She’ll also occasionally spawn little baby spiders that you can probably just ignore (since you’ve probably got your eyes closed anyway), although a Snake Trap or something wouldn’t hurt. Once she’s ass-up, collect your loots!

On Normal:

• Wraith Spear

On Heroic:

• Aged Winter Cloak
• Torn Web Wrapping (This is a “best in slot” item, so you damn well better roll on it)
• Grim Toll

The Plague Quarter

The next (arbitrarily chosen) win of Naxxramas is the Plague Quarter. There’s like… plagued things there.

Noth the Plaguebringer (See?! Plagued stuff!)

This guy is kind of a pansy. And by that I mean he has to summon minions to do most of the fighting for him. Throughout the fight he’ll summon Plagued Warriors (more plagued stuff!) and adds from the piles of bones around the room. Don’t try to tank any of those. You’re not in plate, right? Don’t do it! When waves of adds spawn, run at your tank screaming like a little girl and then Feign Death. It’ll totally work, I promise.

Loots on Normal:

• Trespasser’s Boots

On Heroic (see shared stuffs above):

• Crippled Treads

Heigan the Unclean

If you’re a total failtard or your frame rate sucks, you might wanna sit this one out, otherwise your friends will hate you. The fight is pretty simple, but people still manage to mess it up, so pay attention. You start on a platform and pew pew the dude while your tank runs around like a fool with the rest of the melee. Then you have to swap places and you get to run around like a fool for a while and watch your DPS take a nose dive. There are four “safe” spots to run to. Everyone else will get to those spots before you, and you’ll eventually die, and everyone will laugh at you. Try to avoid that. Green stuff spewing out of the ground is bad. Don’t get hit by it, k?

Loots on Normal:

• Tunic of the Lost Pack
• Staff of the Plague Beast (Haha, now you can ninja Druid loot, too!)

On Heroic:

• Leggings of Colossal Strides
• Cryptfiend’s Bite
• The Undeath Carrier

Loatheb

You can pretty much dial it in for this fight, folks. You stand there and pew pew, maybe snag an occasional spore for the crit buff, but otherwise you can spend the majority of this fight watching tv and spamming your shot rotation macro. Just watch your aggro, kthx. The good news? Dude’s got tier gear!

On Normal:

• Heroes’ Cryptstalker Spaulders
• Loatheb’s Shadow

On Heroic:

• Valorous Cryptstalker Spaulders
• Grotesque Handgrips

The Military Quarter

Leave your BDUs at home, this isn’t that kind of military.

Instructor Razuvious

He has adds that you don’t actually have to pay any attention to! (Unless you’re assigned to work one of the controls, which seems pretty doubtful. Just stand back and pew pew.) Someone other than you will control the two or four adds (depending on which mode you’re running) and tank Raz while you spam your macro and watch Three’s Company reruns on tv. Once Raz is dead, you can pew pew the adds (yeah, they do eventually need to die) or you can let someone else do it while you space out and pick your nose. Whichever!

On Normal, he drops:

• Accursed Bow of the Elite
• Cloak of Darkening

On Heroic (in addition to shared stuffs):

• Shoulderpads of Secret Arts

Gothik the Harvester

Okay, so on this fight you may actually have to pay attention for a couple minutes. It’ll be painful, but you can do it! You’ll be told to either hang out on the “live” side or the “dead” side. The live side is the side you entered (the left side) and the dead side is the other side of the room (through the gates in the middle) or the right side. Other than that, there isn’t much you need to pay attention to. Mobs will spawn periodically after the fight starts, and—gasp!—you kill them. If you’re lucky enough to be assigned to the dead side, you can spend the first few minutes of the fight staring off into space until mobs start spawning on your side of the room. Then, you kill anything that moves. Gothik will show up eventually and you get to kill him, too!

Normal drops:

• Spectral Rider’s Girdle

Heroic drops:

• Leggings of Failed Escape (Yeah, you want these. Srsly.)

The Four Horsemen

Hey! We’re starting a trend! You’ll have to pay attention again!

Okay, so you’ll be told to start at one of the four corners of the room when these dudes are pulled. If you’re assigned to one of the “first two” (Thane Korth’azz and Baron Rivendare), you pretty much just stand there and pew pew until they’re dead. If you’re assigned to the “last two”, or once the first two are dead and you’re ready to move on to the last two, it’s a little more complicated in that; you have to actually watch for ground poop and debuffs. I know, it’s hard, just bear with me. Blaumeux will summon little dark spots in the ground. Don’t stand in those, they hurt. When you get three “marks” (debuffs) from either Blaumeux or Zeliek, switch sides and putz around with the other one for a while. Rinse and repeat, collect your loot.

On Normal:

• Heroes’ Cryptstalker Tunic
• Pauldrons of Havoc
• Claymore of Ancient Power

On Heroic:

• Valorous Cryptstalker Tunic
• Final Voyage
• Helm of the Grave

The Construct Quarter

Also known as: the home of the Frogger boss.

Patchwerk

There’s a reason this fight is used as a DPS benchmark. You literally just stand there until he falls over. Yay! Collect your loots!

On Normal:

• Hatestrike (If you’re one of those losers stuck using one-handers)

On Heroic (in addition to shared drops):

• Arrowsong (You’re gonna wanna snag this if you didn’t get Final Voyage, since Envoy of Mortality is never going to drop for you. Ever.)
• Gloves of Calculated Risk

Grobbulus

This time around, you might have to pay some attention, unless you have BigWigs or Deadly Boss Mods. Rule #1: Don’t stand in the poop he spews out. As a Hunter, you should damn well be at range anyway, so this isn’t something you should really need to pay any attention to whatsoever. Except you may need to heal your pet occasionally. Anyway, the thing to watch for here is this debuff that will hurt lots. If you get the debuff, run far, far away from the group and sleep it off. Maybe go get a Sprite or something. When the debuff is gone, run back and pew pew some more until it’s time to collect your epix.

Normal loot:

• Bands of Anxiety
• Sealing Ring of Grobbulus

Heroic loot:

• Slime Stream Bands
• Depraved Linked Belt

Gluth

Okay, this is the one fight in the entire instance where you’ll actually have to do any real work, and you may even get lucky if your raid’s got Frost Mages. They may get stuck on kiting duty! PvP Hunters, you’ll like this one. Okay, so, you pretty much ignore the boss for the entire fight and just run around kiting ghouls. If you’re not the only Hunter assigned to kiting duty, you can even dial this one in and just run around for five minutes occasionally dropping a Frost Trap and firing off a Conc Shot or two. Just keep moving, it makes it look like you’re being productive. Before you know it, the boss will be dead and you get more loot!

Normal drops:

• Heroes’ Cryptstalker Spaulders
• Heroes’ Cryptstalker Tunic
• Heroes’ Cryptstalker Legguards

Heroic drops:

• Valorous Cryptstalker Spaulders
• Valorous Cryptstalker Tunic
• Valorous Cryptstalker Legguards
• Arrowsong
• Final Voyage
• Tunic of Masked Suffering
• Grotesque Handgrips
• Gloves of Calculated Risk

Yes, Gluth will drop two tier pieces. So double-down, my lovelies!

Thaddius

Remember Heroic Mechanar? No? That’s okay, doesn’t matter. (Fun fact: the Heroic Mech boss fight was modeled after this fight, not the other way around. Just more people saw the Mech fight first, heh.) Anyway, you’re gonna start by killing one of two dudes standing on a platform. You don’t actually have to pay any real attention to them, they don’t do much besides stand there and die. Anyway, once they’re dead, you’re faced with the Ledge Boss. Don’t fall into the pit of poison sludge, or everyone will laugh at you. Once you beat the Ledge Boss, pew pew Thad. Shortly after he’s engaged, you’ll get a “charge” debuff and stand in a clump with other people of the same charge on one side of the boss. Watch your debuffs for charge changes and swap sides as appropriate so you don’t blow up the raid and get yelled at. Pew pew, then profit!

Normal drops:

• Heroes’ Cryptstalker Legguards
• Arc-Scorched Helmet

Heroic drops:

• Valorous Cryptstalker Legguards
• Pauldrons of the Abandoned

Frostwyrm Lair

Now that you’ve zerged your way through the first four wings, you get to face the last two bosses! Yay!

Sapphiron

You can either bring your Frost Resist set, or not. It depends on how fail your healers are, really. Anyway, despite the fact that this is one of the last two fights in Naxx and is supposedly a big deal, you can pretty much dial it in here, too. Here are the tricks to watch for: Don’t stand in ice poop raining down from the sky, it hurts. Spread out. When the skeledragon goes for a quick flight, look for a big block of ice on the ground and stand behind it. When he comes back down, assume the position (spread out again) and resume the pew pew. Profit!

Normal drops:

• Cloak of Mastery
• Key to the Focusing Iris (Key to Malygos, and gives you a snazzy quest neck)

Heroic drops:

• Icy Blast Amulet
• Murder (Lawl, more Rogue gearz!)
• Boots of the Great Construct
• Bandit’s Insignia
• Heroic Key to the Focusing Iris (Maly key and snazzy quest neck)

Kel’Thuzad

This dirty son of a lich is actually a pretty easy fight. Run in, pew pew banshees and aboms and skeles (mostly banshees), then pew pew the big lich floating at the front of the room. Spread out, don’t beat up your pals (yeah, he MCs), don’t stand in the big purple poop puddles that pop up periodically, pew pew, and collect your purples!

Normal drops:

• Gem of Imprisoned Vassals
• Heroes’ Cryptstalker Headpiece
• Anarchy (kekeke, Rogues will hate you)
• Nerubian Conquerer
• Staff of the Plaguehound (kekeke, Druids will hate you, but screw them, what do they know?)

Heroic drops:

• Valorous Cryptstalker Headpiece
• Drape of the Deadly Foe
• Sinister Revenge (Maybe you should just roll a Rogue and be done with it?)
• Envoy of Mortality
• Journey’s End
• Betrayer of Humanity

Ta da! You beat Naxxramas! Okay, since this failtrain is running a lot longer than I thought it would, I’ll do the Obsidian Sanctum and Eye of Eternity stuff later. Happy April Fool’s Day!