Anzu

Anzu is a "raven god" and a boss in the Sethekk Halls of Auchindoun (on heroic difficulty only). A druid used to have to summon and kill Anzu as part of the Epic Flight Form quest chain, but as of Patch 4.0.1, the quest chain was removed and Anzu is now a permanent boss encounter.

Attacks and abilities

 * Anzu whispers the player affected by the debuff, effectively warning of the effect. It is very important that casters take note of when they have this debuff on them. If you continue to cast whilst this debuff is on you, it will very probably result in a party wipe.  If you are unlucky and your druid is repeatedly given this debuff, you will probably find it very difficult to complete this fight. Note: A druid, mage or Restoration shaman with this debuff is able to safely cleanse him/herself to remove it and will not take the damage.
 * Anzu whispers the player affected by the debuff, effectively warning of the effect. It is very important that casters take note of when they have this debuff on them. If you continue to cast whilst this debuff is on you, it will very probably result in a party wipe.  If you are unlucky and your druid is repeatedly given this debuff, you will probably find it very difficult to complete this fight. Note: A druid, mage or Restoration shaman with this debuff is able to safely cleanse him/herself to remove it and will not take the damage.


 * Considered a magic effect, but the debuff also makes you immune for normal dispels. Can be dispelled with Mass Dispel. This ability has a cast bar and can (and should) be interrupted.
 * Considered a magic effect, but the debuff also makes you immune for normal dispels. Can be dispelled with Mass Dispel. This ability has a cast bar and can (and should) be interrupted.


 * It is recommended to place heal over time spells and shields on the tank when you see the cast. Cannot be outranged (100 yard range).
 * It is recommended to place heal over time spells and shields on the tank when you see the cast. Cannot be outranged (100 yard range).



Bird statues
When Anzu is summoned, three friendly NPC birds appear as well. Casting a druid HoT on the birds will awaken them for the HoT's duration, and will provide the following effects to the group:
 * Hawk Spirit (left): All players receive 500 less damage from every attack. Applied before armor.
 * Eagle Spirit (right): Deals 300 damage every second to all enemies in the room.
 * Falcon Spirit (back): Grants 25% movement speed increase, 25% ranged haste and 25% spell casting haste.

Group makeup

 * 1 Tank - Anzu does not hit particularly hard, especially with Hawk Spirit's damage reduction buff.
 * 2/3 DPS - It is strongly recommended that at least one of these has AoE capabilities, but this is not required.
 * 2/1 Healers - Depending on tank's and healers' gear, one to two healers may be enough. A druid healer can keep the bird spirits up during both phases, providing additional damage mitigation — while a druid tank can only keep the spirit buffs up when Anzu is banished. If a healer gets cycloned or spell bombed, it may be desirable to have an offhealer pick up the load temporarily; although, depending on gear, both effects can be safely outlived.

Level 80 druid solo strategy
A well geared level 80 feral druid with over 30,000 health in Bear form can prowl to Anzu without fighting, and solo him. Beware of Darkweaver Syth, he can see through prowl and if you stray within the darker circle that his raised dais sits in, he will aggro. Darkweaver Syth is a trivial fight that any feral druid worth their salt can master. Alternatively, you can drop out of Prowl just after passing the guards at the entrance of the room, and circle around the room near the walls, Prowl will be ready again before you reach the next pair of guards.

The Anzu fight is moderately difficult if you use all abilities available to you. If your gear is subpar you should have as many buffs as possible. Be prepared with scrolls, pots and food to boost your dps and health to the max, you MUST have Improved Leader of the Pack for this to be feasible.

Prepare for the fight by casting your HoTs on yourself and shift to bear form. Pull him and then kite him to one of the corners of the room. DPS him until his health is at 66%.

As soon as he banishes, return to caster form and heal up the damage he's done, don't try to overdo it since you'll use up precious time and you may end up with a lot of birds still up when he unbanishes, one application of Regrowth and Rejuvenation is all you'll have time for. During healing you should keep Anzu targeted and remember he will continue to cast his spells, beware of him casting Paralyzing Screech, you can get caught in caster form and be attacked by the birds. If you have kited him away to a corner of the room, the birds will be out of aggro range and will allow you to heal in peace. Return to Bear Form ASAP and pull the Brood of Anzu, it's a good idea to blow your Berserk at this time to down as many of the Anzu Brood as possible before Anzu unbanishes, swipe away to finish them all off.

Continue your attack on Anzu until he banishes again, repeat your healing, and return to Bear Form as soon as possible to avoid massive punishment.

Don't bother with the birds much.

Kill Anzu and loot your rewards.

Tips:


 * Barkskin is your friend during this fight, use it as soon as your HoTs wear off at the beginning of the fight and thereafter as needed, it will make a big difference in how much your health goes down.
 * You may want to use a health pot at some point, make sure you have some with you. Don't Shadowmeld to use a second pot or Anzu will reset.
 * Tauren druids will find War Stomp to be of use against the Brood to keep some of the damage at bay.
 * If you have a trinket which boosts your dodge rating, wait until just after Anzu casts paralyzing screech in order to avoid wasting it.
 * Frenzied Rejuvenation is best used when low on health and fighting the Brood of Anzu ravens, they hit for relatively little yet give you all the rage you want to complete the heal.

Level 80 Priest solo strategy
With the advent of patch 4.0.1 and the ability to tackle this without a druid, not to mention recent buffs to priest spells such as Shadow Word: Pain and Inner Fire, this is a very easy fight for a shadowpriest to solo. Indeed, the Sethekk Ravenguard mobs that precede it are harder than the boss itself.

Before starting the Anzu guide, a brief note on soloing the rest of the instance. The vast majority can simply be skipped with judicious use of Mind Soothe on those mobs which lie close to your path through the instance. Very few situations will cause an iLevel 245+ geared priest any problems, except the Ravenguard. The best way to approach these particular mobs is to pre-cast Renew, Prayer of Mending and Power Word: Shield then open up with all of your dots on ONE of the Ravenguard. Immediately switch to the second, cast Shadowfiend and then Fade. This means you are only taking on a single Ravenguard who, by now, will be at approximately 50% health. Once the first dies the second enrages so apply all DoTs again then Mind Flay to keep him at range as long as possible. Provided you can keep them at arms length you should be fine. If they do both attack you, your best bet is to drop out of shadowform, Renew and Prayer of Mending again before dropping back into Shadowform and then hitting Dispersion - if your DoTs are still ticking you should be able to weaken them considerably before spamming Holy Nova to finish them off and keeping yourself alive.

In stark contrast, Anzu is a very easy fight to solo. Begin by pre-shielding yourself but waiting until the Weakened Soul debuff has about 5 seconds left to run, then open up with all DoTs, Mind Blast and then Mind Flay - in my experience he does not cast the curse until his first banish phase. Reapply the shield whenever it drops off and any little damage he does cause should be healed naturally by Vampiric Embrace.

When he banishes, keep an eye out for the curse debuff, this WILL kill you if you ignore it. Simply ride it out and reapply your shield. For the Brood of Anzu mobs, the best approach is to simply tab-cycle through them all and apply Shadow Word: Pain while continually moving - with the Shadowy Apparitions added in 4.0.1, provided you keep moving they spawn quite frequently and will usually see the Brood mobs killed rather quickly. Any stragglers can be killed off with Holy Nova. If you do take excess damage from the curse and the brood mobs in this phase, hold off on killing the last one, drop into Holy and heal to full before returning to shadowform and continuing the fight.

Provided you maintain your shield and stop all casting when the curse is applied, this fight takes less than five minutes to complete.

Strategy
The fight is a regular tank-and-spank during phase 1. If a caster is afflicted by Spell Bomb, they should STOP casting immediately; if a healer is afflicted, an offhealer, if present, should heal the party for the duration of the debuff.

As Anzu approaches 66% (and later 33%), he'll self-banish and summon birds that should be AoE'ed. It is very beneficial to keep the Eagle Spirit active during Phase 2, taking advantage of its 300 DPS room-wide AoE. You will probably find that the Eagle Spirit's AoE is more successful than any mage or druid AoE that you use. There is also the advantage that the Eagle Spirit's AoE will not draw aggro to any party member. If you have a Frost Mage in your party, have them freeze the bird flock to help avoid harm to your party members. Anzu will unbanish after 1 minute or when all birds are dead — whichever comes first. If it seems likely that the birds aren't going to die in one minute, the tank needs to pick up Anzu while the rest of the group finishes the birds off.

Generally, you'll want to keep Hawk Spirit up as much as possible, Eagle during phase 2, and Falcon if you have spare time (the haste effect significantly increases the group's DPS, making the fight less time and mana consuming). While Regrowth is longer, Rejuvenation is instant cast — either may be used depending on the situation. The following macros enable you to cast Rejuvenation on a specific spirit without having to target it directly:

Using macros such as the above will make this fight a lot easier than manual targeting. Manual targeting of the spirits becomes very difficult once the bird flock arrives due to the number of mobs on screen.

After the second, and last, wave of birds you may find the best way to finish the fight is to DPS Anzu down quickly.

Prophecy of the Raven God
''From the darkest night shall rise again the raven, shall take flight in the shadows, shall reveal the nature of its kind. Prepare yourself for its coming, for the faithful shall be elevated to take flight with the raven, the rest be forgotten to walk upon the ground, clipped wings and shame.''

''Steel your minds and guard your thoughts. The dark wings will cloud and consume the minds of the weak, a flock of thralls whose feet may never leave the ground.''

''The old blood will flow once again with the coming of the raven, the return of the darkness in the skies. Scarlet night, and the rise of the old.''

''The raven was struck down once for flying too high, unready. The eons have prepared the Dark Watcher for its ascent, to draw the dark cloak across the horizon.''

Source: in Blade's Edge Mountains, where the objective is to listen to this prophecy while buffed to understand Ravenspeech. This was first thought to refer to Terokk until patch 2.1 and the introduction of the druid epic flight form questline and hence Anzu as a boss.

Myth

 * [The], also Zu and Imdugud, is a storm deity from Akkadian mythology.

Trivia

 * In the Warhammer universe, the Chaos god Tzeentch is, to some of the tribes of Chaos, said to be the "Raven God", and those followers are outfitted with gear with blue and black color patterns similar to Anzu´s. This might or might not be a reference.