Strategy Naxxramas Four Horsemen

**Ciderhelm** · #1 12-04-2008, 06:06 AM

Click here to watch the Four Horsemen movie guide!

Source: Dismund of Auchindoun
Just a side note: for 25 man we had two people run with the tank who was tanking (feral druid/priest to help heal) Thane because his meteor could potentially kill somebody during the switch.

Source: Parahs of Arthas
Our preferred method on both 10 and 25 man is we simply stack up the DPS on Thane, blow a bloodlust, and kill him before the stacks get to heavy. The thane tank then taunts baron. When the baron stacks get heavy, the baron tank (who sits away and lets them wear off) taunts him and holds him till the thane group loses their stacks. Thane group takes him back, rinse and repeat.

**Ciderhelm** · #2 12-04-2008, 06:49 AM

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**Ciderhelm** · #3 12-04-2008, 07:37 AM

Should be working! Enjoy!

Tavia · #4 12-04-2008, 08:17 AM

And again, cheers for a wonderful video.

One quick question, tho. In the video, when you do the first tank switch, and start tanking Baron Rivendare, are you then taken all the DPS with you?
Wouldn't that leave the tank and the healer, which are now on Thane Kor'Thazz quite vulnerable to the Meteor AOE damage, since they are only two to share it? It might be a minor issue, but if it is no problem at all, then we might as well switch to your tactic

What we did when we were there, was to divide the DPS between Kor'Thazz and Rivendare, and then letting these DPS groups follow their tank all the time (when the switch occurs, Kor'Thazz tank and DPS all switch to Rivendare, and the group from Rivendare switches to Kor'Thazz). They wen't down more or less at the same time - the drawback is that I can imagine it takes a bit longer time, than your tactic.

Any feedback to this is much appreciated

Best regards

/Tavia

**Ciderhelm** · #5 12-04-2008, 08:19 AM

Source: Tavia
And again, cheers for a wonderful video.

One quick question, tho. In the video, when you do the first tank switch, and start tanking Baron Rivendare, are you then taken all the DPS with you?
Wouldn't that leave the tank and the healer, which are now on Thane Kor'Thazz quite vulnerable to the Meteor AOE damage, since they are only two to share it? It might be a minor issue, but if it is no problem at all, then we might as well switch to your tactic

What we did when we were there, was to divide the DPS between Kor'Thazz and Rivendare, and then letting these DPS groups follow their tank all the time (when the switch occurs, Kor'Thazz tank and DPS all switch to Rivendare, and the group from Rivendare switches to Kor'Thazz). They wen't down more or less at the same time - the drawback is that I can imagine it takes a bit longer time, than your tactic.

Any feedback to this is much appreciated

Best regards

/Tavia

Dividing is actually how the 40-man encounter was handled, and it works fine.

In this case, I wanted to show the raid the rotations so I had them with me, and it turned out the damage on the meteor is only ~15k damage (divided between a healer and a tank it's not bad).

Four Horsemen is really pretty flexible as long as your raiders all understand the marks.

Zelgius · #6 12-04-2008, 08:22 AM

Or you could just switch right after meteor goes off and as long as you don't muck up the switch you will be back in place well before the next meteor.

Parah · #7 12-04-2008, 09:20 AM

Our preferred method on both 10 and 25 man is we simply stack up the DPS on Thane, blow a bloodlust, and kill him before the stacks get to heavy. The thane tank then taunts baron. When the baron stacks get heavy, the baron tank (who sits away and lets them wear off) taunts him and holds him till the thane group loses their stacks. Thane group takes him back, rinse and repeat.

akira5284 · #8 12-04-2008, 01:27 PM

Source: Parah
Our preferred method on both 10 and 25 man is we simply stack up the DPS on Thane, blow a bloodlust, and kill him before the stacks get to heavy. The thane tank then taunts baron. When the baron stacks get heavy, the baron tank (who sits away and lets them wear off) taunts him and holds him till the thane group loses their stacks. Thane group takes him back, rinse and repeat.

I'll second this.

Did our first downing of the horsemen last night. We had three healers so the setup we used was:

1 Healer (pally) and 1 ranged for back two horsemen
1 Healer and 1 Tank for Baron
1 Healer, 1 Tank, and 4 DPS on Thane.

We were able to down Thane right after a 4th mark was applied and at that point the thane and baron tanks switched. I believe the Horsemen sit at about 790k HP in 10-man so the DPS group + tank should average about 13k DPS to make this easy (rough numbers). Once thane is down the rest is cake.

DPS stacking would also be useful in a 2-healer situation as it would alleviate healing a ton to get thane down quick. In that situation:

One healer in back with ranged horsemen, one in front taking care of both tanks. All DPS on Thane, if healer mark stacks get too high switch them out and have tanks pop shield wall to facilitate living.

Art · #9 12-05-2008, 02:11 AM

Source: akira5284
DPS stacking would also be useful in a 2-healer situation as it would alleviate healing a ton to get thane down quick. In that situation:

One healer in back with ranged horsemen, one in front taking care of both tanks. All DPS on Thane, if healer mark stacks get too high switch them out and have tanks pop shield wall to facilitate living.

This is exactly what my guild did last week with our 2 healer group. In this situation, we waited until Baron Riv to use blood lust, because Thane seemed to die faster. The healer in the front needs to be careful, though. Ours was taking marks from both Thane and Baron, but she was thankfully able to heal through it.

It's important to note that one of the healers in the back needs to tank a horseman. We used a warlock to tank the other, and we brought in Baron's tank to relieve our healer in the back after Thane died.

This strategy results in a very, very fast kill. Just make sure your healers are coordinated enough to handle all the tasks, and you're golden.

Balaad · #10 12-05-2008, 07:21 AM

My raid has a druid healer and a priest healer.
i put the two elemental shamans one being myself tanking/ healing themselves on the back two guys..

will this work

**Horacio** · #11 12-05-2008, 10:15 AM

Great insight as I have only seen this fight as a 40 man/lvl 70 zerg.

Initially I was curious if we could get away with a boomkin and an enhancement shammy in the back, healing themselves and doing mild DPS on the horsemen in the back. Might/might not work but not the most efficient way. I'll stick one of the 3 healers and the boomkin in the back, and put the OT on Rivendare with a healer and try to beat the piss out of Thane. Don't think we have the firepower to do it though, so I'll call a switch and handoff as shown in Cider's video while the healer/boomkin swap on the same call. When we get back to Thane after another swap (~3 marks, right after a meteor) we should finish him off quickly, beat down the Baron and go to the back.

This is assuming we can clear Spider Quarter, Raz, and Gothik. Big assumption but not unthinkable.

**Ciderhelm** · #12 12-05-2008, 10:16 AM

Source: Balaad
My raid has a druid healer and a priest healer.
i put the two elemental shamans one being myself tanking/ healing themselves on the back two guys..

will this work

Yep. We only had two healers as well, which is precisely why we have a Moonkin and a Retribution Paladin in the back.

**Horacio** · #13 12-05-2008, 10:17 AM

Source: Balaad
My raid has a druid healer and a priest healer.
i put the two elemental shamans one being myself tanking/ healing themselves on the back two guys..

will this work

According to how Cider's group did it, it should work, I think. i bet grounding totems and healing stream will be your friends.

Balaad · #14 12-05-2008, 06:47 PM

thx for your help

Barfolomew · #15 12-06-2008, 05:41 AM

Great video, as are all of the Project Marmot video guides.

My question is UI based. Underneath your raid frames you have a multi-target health window with all 4 bosses showing up there. Which add-on are you using to do this?

Rikimaru · #16 12-06-2008, 06:26 AM

Great vid Cider and i have a question too. I understand all switching about tanking horsemans. But i don´t know what the rest of raid members will do with marks...Thx for advice.

Nuke · #17 12-06-2008, 07:48 AM

Source: Barfolomew
Great video, as are all of the Project Marmot video guides.

My question is UI based. Underneath your raid frames you have a multi-target health window with all 4 bosses showing up there. Which add-on are you using to do this?

DBM shows that.

**Rak** · #18 12-06-2008, 07:57 AM

Source: Rikimaru
Great vid Cider and i have a question too. I understand all switching about tanking horsemans. But i don´t know what the rest of raid members will do with marks...Thx for advice.

The same thing. In my raid we have melee dps just stick with their tank the whole time, so they are only getting the same marks that one tank is getting. In 25 man, our ranged do the same thing but stick near the middle so they don't have to run as far.

Taowlie · #19 12-06-2008, 09:51 PM

Just a note on this encounter, our Enhance shammy tanked 1 mob in the back by himself, and according to him the mobs would target his totems. Since the boss targets whatever is closest, he would just lay totems and run farther away and the boss would just cast on his totems. This was 10 man, not sure about 25 man, but both the caster mobs are reflectable in 10 and 25 man.

Dispell · #20 12-07-2008, 01:06 AM

I found the fight very easy , as well as the rest of the encounters in naxx.
I guess i still compare everything to the old 60 ways.
4h , saph & kellthuzad were the only one's i didnt see in vanilla wow , so i hade kind high expectations in difficulity about this encounter.
However it was just a disapointment , avoid 3 marks on your raid kill one and from there on , its just a walk in the park.

We were unlucky with two taunt resist tho :P