Coliseum Anub'arak (Hard Mode)

Our guild is currently making attempts on Anub Heroic. Out of curiosity, do healing reductions from aimed shot or MS work during this encounter, or am i just showing how little i know? Our strat is very similar to yours, dropping one frost orb at the start and tanking anub beside it, with his back close enough for splash dmg from DnD and other dmg from melee hitting him. Ranged DPS are focusing on adds as they pop, and melee on boss. Just before P2, we have the mage down two ice orbs near the back of the room, and everyone in the raid except the add tank run towards the rear. As Anub picks a target, only the target continues to the rear, while everyone else focuses on killing swarms (and big adds if theyre still up). Still working on cleaning up the kiting here, but we feel confident that saving Blust for P3 we will have the dps to burn it fairly quickly.
Group composition:
Feral Druid MT
Warrior OT
Pally/Shaman heals
2 arcane mages, 2 dk (1 blood 1 unholy), 1 rogue, 1 ret pally

Yes, healing debuffs do work on anub. And are very very important, honestly basically required for hard mode.

Your rogue should be ensuring that wound poison is up on anub before leeching swarm starts ticking, otherwise those first couple of ticks of leeching swarm will put anub to back around 35% hp. And it never comes off, make sure your ms warrior continues to use ms in his rotation sub 20%. etc.

Rough fight, seems that it will get easier and easier as your dps goes higher and higher.

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Originally Posted by Brummer

Yes, healing debuffs do work on anub. And are very very important, honestly basically required for hard mode.

Your rogue should be ensuring that wound poison is up on anub before leeching swarm starts ticking, otherwise those first couple of ticks of leeching swarm will put anub to back around 35% hp. And it never comes off, make sure your ms warrior continues to use ms in his rotation sub 20%. etc.

Rough fight, seems that it will get easier and easier as your dps goes higher and higher.

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thanks for the heads up

Wait you guys do all these raid videos not in guild? are you guys just all friends?

my question is, with the need for a healing debuff on anub'arak, this question comes in i believe now, do one of your tanks(assuming both are warriors, like our tanks) go into the UA build, we have downed heroic anub'arak twice now, but after 3.2.2 we couldn't and decided to try this UA build out to see if mortal strike will make or break the game for us.

so cider, if your reading this, could you please give me your insight to the UA tank build on this particular fight? if you think the tank would get hit too hard, etc. etc.

were trying this for ourselves right now, if i see a significant improvement on the fight i'll report back here.


edit: ok ok, we jsut downed him after goign the UA build, no difficulty really, to all guilds using a warrior maintank, i STRONGLY reccomend using the UA tank build if you have an extremely geared tank for this fight. the mortal strike debuff is absoleutly amazing

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Originally Posted by Edinek

my question is, with the need for a healing debuff on anub'arak, this question comes in i believe now, do one of your tanks(assuming both are warriors, like our tanks) go into the UA build, we have downed heroic anub'arak twice now, but after 3.2.2 we couldn't and decided to try this UA build out to see if mortal strike will make or break the game for us.

so cider, if your reading this, could you please give me your insight to the UA tank build on this particular fight? if you think the tank would get hit too hard, etc. etc.

were trying this for ourselves right now, if i see a significant improvement on the fight i'll report back here.


ok ok, we jsut downed him after goign the UA build, no difficulty really, to all guilds using a warrior maintank, i STRONGLY reccomend using the UA tank build if you have an extremely geared tank for this fight. the mortal strike debuff is absoleutly amazing

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Unless you are running a 10man full of casters idk how you would be doing a raid without atleast one person either having MS or being able to spec into MS.

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Originally Posted by Joacimcans

Unless you are running a 10man full of casters idk how you would be doing a raid without atleast one person either having MS or being able to spec into MS.

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our raid comp is:

2 warrior tanks
1 ret paladin
1 holy paladin
1 resto(elemental for anub'arak) shaman
1 feral druid
1 holy priest
2 mages
1 death knight


the only classes we had available to us for MS were really the tanks.

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Originally Posted by Edinek

our raid comp is:

2 warrior tanks
1 ret paladin
1 holy paladin
1 resto(elemental for anub'arak) shaman
1 feral druid
1 holy priest
2 mages
1 death knight


the only classes we had available to us for MS were really the tanks.

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Well Frost mages have a 20% MS effect, but really just swap 1 mage out for a Hunter with Aimed Shot, that also gives you an MD and Nature resist Aspect up.

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Originally Posted by Sinister Knight

Well Frost mages have a 20% MS effect, but really just swap 1 mage out for a Hunter with Aimed Shot, that also gives you an MD and Nature resist Aspect up.

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being a mage myself, i wouldn't be caught dead going frost for this fight, the DPS loss between the two specs is too great to compensate for the 20% MS effect and we have hunters, we just didn't bring one, and thats besides the point, the point being that the UA spec for warrior tanks is a spec that i personally think fits naturally in this fight for a maintank, becuase you gain a lot more single target threat and such, since the maintank is on anub'arak only really

We tried this boss hard mode for the first time last night and I have to thank you. This video was amazingly helpful. That said, we didn't win which was unfortunate since we got there with 46 attempts left :). Reading the thread I have a few clarification questions if that's ok?

Only two healers is the norm? We used three and DPS was slow. From posts in this thread it seems people are running two. We had a priest (either healing spec), pal (val'ynir), resto sham. If we have the same folks tonight I suspect I should keep the priest as holy, the pal, and have the restosham go ele?

Everything seemed to be easily managable...tank damage was fine, adds were dying...kiting was great...except the little guys in P2, they were destroying us. What is the best way to deal with these? We seem to be missing something I guess...but every attempt, P1 was great, boss damage was decent, adds going down, healing was good....P2...kiting great, used 3 ices, sometimes only 2...but we would end up with piles of the nature dot from the little ones and everyone would die.

we went with 3 as well khanthal last night and we had to use 2 phase 2s and had no ice for phase 3, which I'll tell ya, gets frustrating as the add tank.

in p2, it's very important that once the new target is picked by anub's spikes, everyone else must burn down adds, the only exceptions to this are probably the tanks because they can't go into phase 1 again or phase 3 with the poison stacks. not so much the OT but the MT definitely can't help much. Help by controlling them with stuns, slows, etc. we have a hunter and although it causes some confusion (zomg that's not a permafrost!?) having him use a frost trap on the grown helps the range kill the adds a lot.

Try to designate the range to killing the adds moreso than the melee unless the melee ONLY kill the adds that aren't chasing them. In fact, do that, everyone kills adds that aren't chasing them, and hope that the ones that are chasing them are killed by someone else.

You have even the healers helping out killing adds then? Or don't go that far? :)

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Originally Posted by khanthal

Everything seemed to be easily managable...tank damage was fine, adds were dying...kiting was great...except the little guys in P2, they were destroying us. What is the best way to deal with these? We seem to be missing something I guess...but every attempt, P1 was great, boss damage was decent, adds going down, healing was good....P2...kiting great, used 3 ices, sometimes only 2...but we would end up with piles of the nature dot from the little ones and everyone would die.

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the little adds during phase 2, how i would explain it is like this:

non-enraged add(normal size, not big and red): they need to die after the burrowers, but one thing takes priority over them

enraged adds(big and red): they need to die ASAP, there is no point in running from it, it will out run you, and is immune to most slows and such, so the enraged ones need to die extremely fast. within 2-3 seconds of them enraging. if there is enraged one, you need to call it out on vent, and all dps needs to move to it if they can

with that being said, healers should probably just heal and call when they have some adds on them, and let DPS handle it.

in terms of DPS on this fight, we tried running with 3 healers and had about 32K raid DPS, the thing is our resto shaman has a very decent ele set, decent enough to pull about 5K, so with him we were brought up to 38K raid DPS, and even then, we still kill him with 4-5 people dead

After spending a decent amount of time on the fight we found a one burrow strat alot easier for us. We were able to get one burrow with 3 healers or 2 but decided that the 3rd healer in phase 3 wasn't really that great of a benefit since the coordination to not cross eachothers heals and all that would just result in unessecary healing done.

We didn't have a tank on the adds that could stun the burrowers so we tanked Anub so he was right next to a frost patch so a ret pally could stay on the boss and holy wrath to stun the adds.

You've probably fine tuned your strat, but it seems like a waste to make that melee in your group run to the adds when they could be tanked right on the boss. It is easy enough to start moving away a little bit before Anub burrows when the second set is up so you don't waste a close frost patch.

The way our dps was lining up we were getting Anub to about 35% just after killing the first set of adds when he came back up. We continue to burn down Anub and have the OT let the 2nd set submerge. They will probably cast shadow strike before submerge so they need to be tanked where they can be stunned/interrupted. This allowed for less healing on the OT and let him DPS the boss as well.

Edit: The biggest thing for us and I assume everyone is fine tuning phase 3. Healers really need to be on the ball with penetrating cold and the dps need to pay close attention as well if there is anything they can do to help with it to give healers that breathing for the first 3 seconds where the 6k tick would kill you. Health stones need to be saved if available, frost ward and ice block for mages, divine shield (should be available on the 2nd time if Wings was used at start of 30%).

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Originally Posted by Dothlogar

Aliena, As an alternative to the way you deal with adds, we did this:

Tank Anub on the permafrost, and have the offtank pull the adds under him. We had a rogue with imp FoK interupting the adds, and for the first set we dps'd down Anub and let incidental AoE kill the adds. As a hunter all I did was swap out Aimed shot for Multishot to do my part.

After the first set is down, the next set comes in, and since the adds are on top of where anub will burrow, we switch targets with 10 sec left in the first phase 1 and dps down the adds. Anub burrows and the adds are down.

We have exceptional dps, and so we shoot for one burrow phase, as you suggested as an alternative. We kite Anub, but make sure one permafrost survives. The tank stands on it so when Anub resurfaces he will run right to the ice.

We dps down Anub, again relying on incidental aoe for the adds. When we get to phase 3, we dps down the adds, so the offtank doesnt take the big damage in addition to the 20% leech. After they are down, we return to Anub. When the next set of adds spawn we let the offtank get aggro and then once again focus them. After they die we go straight to Anub, and the Main tank pulls Anub off the ice, because at this point we are at about 15-20% remaining. The next adds are again tanked under Anub, but since they are not on permafrost they burrow after the incidental AoE damages them enough. This gives us time to burn Anub down before more adds or the burrowed adds return.

Just thought I'd offer an alternative strategy for people who want to use a heavier burn rather than being surgical and precise with their permafrost.

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This is exactly what we do, it works very well, if you have the raid DPS requirement, we use 2 healers to reach the required DPS. Bloodlust and roll raid Shieldwalls in Ph. 3. (we have 2 pally's :D)

Can we get a solid strat/video with details on (how to) Anub 25 HM? Anyone have links to decent info would much appreciated!

So far I can only find videos of guilds first kills and there is only so much info that can be gathered from watching a video with horrible music lol.

Currently we are using a Druid MT and Warrior with insane defense stacking OT for the adds. We have solid dps but we aren't burning them down before they get a couple shadow strikes out and 1 shot some of our raid members. The adds come out so quickly it's difficult to get them all marked up and ensure each one has an interupt ready to go. If that's what needs to happen then we will do it until we get it down to perfection. That is the furthest we can get because after a couple shadow strikes go out the raid is hampered and ultimately wipes.


thanks in advance for any helpful information that can be provided

~whisper

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Originally Posted by Whîsper

Can we get a solid strat/video with details on (how to) Anub 25 HM? Anyone have links to decent info would much appreciated!

So far I can only find videos of guilds first kills and there is only so much info that can be gathered from watching a video with horrible music lol.

Currently we are using a Druid MT and Warrior with insane defense stacking OT for the adds. We have solid dps but we aren't burning them down before they get a couple shadow strikes out and 1 shot some of our raid members. The adds come out so quickly it's difficult to get them all marked up and ensure each one has an interupt ready to go. If that's what needs to happen then we will do it until we get it down to perfection. That is the furthest we can get because after a couple shadow strikes go out the raid is hampered and ultimately wipes.


thanks in advance for any helpful information that can be provided

~whisper

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the strat for 25 man anub'arak is virtually the same i assume, either A) you aim to bring him down to 30% after only 1 burrow phase, B) you bring him to 30% after 2-3 phases.

obviously choice A is for guilds with superb DPS, if your DPS potential is much lower, then go for plan B.

as for handling the adds when they come out, i personally haven't tried 25 man heroic, my guild has yet to get northrend beasts down on heroic 25 due to some DPS dieing on worms becuase of bad luck / mistakes made. but i can speculate that on 25 man, 4 adds come out instead of the 2 on 10 man. in a 25 man group you should probably have 3 tanks, not for all fights, but for anub'arak in general, so each tank holds 2 adds each on the permafrost, as far as interrupting goes, this is why your warrior / paladin(if you have them) should tank the adds. they both have an ability they can use to interrupt both adds at once, Shockwave and holy wrath will stun both adds(yes they are stunnable, this is how we manage interrupts on 10 man, warrior tank saves shockwave) and should be used for a more reliable stun, another method is assign a few mages to focus specific adds and use counterspell whenever it's up, i myself play a mage and it is very easy to do that assuming you have good focus frames. please tell me if i'm wrong on the 4 adds thing, i don't want be to giving false information out, but i want to try and help.


edit: i forgot to state incase this wasn't obvious, the shadow strikes MUST be interrupted, there is no question, it MUST be.

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Originally Posted by Whîsper

Can we get a solid strat/video with details on (how to) Anub 25 HM? Anyone have links to decent info would much appreciated!

So far I can only find videos of guilds first kills and there is only so much info that can be gathered from watching a video with horrible music lol.

Currently we are using a Druid MT and Warrior with insane defense stacking OT for the adds. We have solid dps but we aren't burning them down before they get a couple shadow strikes out and 1 shot some of our raid members. The adds come out so quickly it's difficult to get them all marked up and ensure each one has an interupt ready to go. If that's what needs to happen then we will do it until we get it down to perfection. That is the furthest we can get because after a couple shadow strikes go out the raid is hampered and ultimately wipes.


thanks in advance for any helpful information that can be provided

~whisper

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I should have this submitted to Ciderhelm fairly soon. The voice clips are already recorded, but we ran into some delays with passing video clips around between myself and our restoration druid. The video should have a combination of offtank and healer PoV's.

EDIT: Or the sound files all got corrupted and I have to re-do the recording... well, I should have it for next week.

-Splug

While my guild downed him on 10-man for the first time last week, it was not a pretty kill. It seemed like while everything was clicking on all cylinders, it seemed like every attempt the healers started getting overwhelmed when he has about 10% left in P3. Really, P3 was a total crapshoot and coordinating heals seemed to be the key to our difficulty there.

How have other people balanced their heals in a 3-healer situation (we do 1 burrow phase with 3 healers)? Our lineup is disc/holy priest, resto shaman and tree - unfortunately, we don't have a holy paladin available. Can we assign the priest and shaman to the tanks and just have the druid keeping the raid up by rolling HoTs and WG? How do you guys deal with PC, then?

In any case, I'm just curious how other people have been coordinating their heals for P3 in 10-man, similar to the discussion that has been going on in this thread about the 25-man version of the encounter. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Anub'arak 25-man is up! Expect a transcript and some preparation notes very soon. :)