Anub'Rekhan (original)

Anub'Rekhan is a Crypt lord boss in Naxxramas who replicates extremely well the abilities of the Warcraft III Crypt Lords.

Anub'Rekhan
If a person outside of 35 yards is targeted, the impale will not harm this person, but it will still affect anyone else in the path of the attack. This will be what will cause most non-tanks to die, and can be easily healed through with alert healers and/or self-healing, and minimized if the raid group spreads out. The fall damage may also be mitigated by class abilities such as Slow Fall, Feline Grace, Safe Fall, Levitate, and so on.
 * Impale - This impale attack will target anyone on Anub's aggro list, not limited to and including the MT. The range on the impale appears to be about 35 yards to its target, and the impale travels in a 5-10 yard wide wave that strikes any player between Anub'Rekhan and his target. It deals up to 4000 physical damage, which can be mitigated by armor, and fall damage based on the maximum health of the player.


 * Locust Swarm - Every 70–120 seconds, Anub'rekhan casts a spell that causes AoE damage in a wide radius (30 yards) around him (the AoE remains centered on Anub'Rekhan as he moves), he will also slow to 40% of normal run speed. Remaining in the radius of effect will cause a DoT debuff to stack repeatedly, dealing a large amount of damage, around 1200 damage/2sec per stack and silencing those afflicted. When he casts this spell, another Crypt Guard will also spawn at his initial engage point. As of Patch 1.12, Anub'Rekhan is immune to Curse of Tongues.

''Note: The Locust Swarm attack has an approximately 90 second cooldown, however the first cast is not at a set time, between 80 seconds and 2 minutes. As well, the Locust Swarm is not a normal silence. Unlike a normal silence, it prevents the use of all abilities (even auto-attack). This means that the MT cannot use Shield Wall or Last Stand to save himself if he gets stacked too high. Items, however, are still able to be used (this includes Lifegiving Gem).''

The key to avoiding the Locust Swarm is to have the MT visually spot that attack occurring. The only cue to this attack is to watch Anub'rekhan lift his tail into the air, almost bowing at the MT. After the tail lift, the MT has about 2 seconds to get out of range before the DoT begins to be applied. There is no emote associated with this attack, but it can be detected by SpellAlert type addons. Specifically, the CHAT_MSG_SPELL_CREATURE_VS_CREATURE_BUFF event fires when he begins to cast, but the client can only pick it up from melee range.

Crypt Guards
There will be two adds that start the fight with Anub'Rekhan, they each have around 200,000 health. They will need to be killed first before DPS engages the boss. With a balanced raid, they should each take 30 seconds to kill.


 * Attacks
 * Cleave for ~1000 damage to melee.
 * Stacking Poison DoT which stacks almost every attack, counter this by having a second tank taunting fairly often.
 * AoE Netting attack, which stops all movement for all those affected, it is important that melee get into position before the add does this attack.


 * Weakness
 * Very easily stunable, rogues and warriors should be making sure it is stunned as much as possible. (Do not stun them until you have them positioned on the outside rim facing away from the raid)


 * Other
 * 10–15 seconds after they are killed, Anub'Rekhan can use an attack to explode either Crypt Guard corpse, causing ~10 Corpse Scarabs to spawn.
 * Distance to Anub'Rekhan seems to be a factor to whether or not he will explode the corpse.
 * Killing the Crypt Guards at the same spot will make it easier for the raid to control the Corpse Scarabs when they spawn. (Be careful about tanking them on top of the dead Guards, otherwise mages can't stand in close to Frost Nova with out being cleaved)

Corpse Scarabs

 * 6,000 health, hit for 400 physical damage.
 * If coming from a Crypt Guard, ~10 will spawn. A player death will cause 5 to spawn.
 * Susceptible to all forms of crowd control, Frost Nova is most effective at controlling them.

''Note: Aggro seems to work differently than normal mobs. Once the add is on a target, dps alone will most likely kill it before aggro is transferred to the DPSer. This can lead to a wipe if several loose bugs aggro the hunter or tank shortly before locust swarm.''

The Pull and Initial Positioning

 * Tanking Setup
 * 1 Warrior, 1 Hunter, and 3-4 healers for Anub'Rekhan
 * 1+ Warrior and 2-3 healers for left Crypt Guard
 * 2 Warriors and 2-3 healers for right Crypt Guard
 * The rest of the healers will be designated for recently Impaled players.

There are two spots to tank Anub'Rekhan; where he stands when you engage him, or pulled back by a hunter to the entry-way of the room. After he is pulled into position, the MT should face Anub'Rekhan towards the East, the reasoning for this is explained in the next section.

The two Crypt Guards need to be tanked as close as possible to their initial positions, with them facing away from the DPS to avoid cleaves. Since they are very susceptible to stuns, rogues and warriors should be trying to keep him stun-locked in place while DPS takes them down first.

The two Crypt Guards need to be tanked orthogonally from Anub'Rekhan, facing away from the DPS. That is to say, if you have plane in three dimensional space, a vector is orthogonal to the plane if it is perpendicular to every vector contained in the plane.

The left Guard should be taken out first, and his tank should not be getting more than 3-4 applications of the poison DoT. If he is, then the stuns need to better timed, or a second warrior needs to be taunting. Meanwhile, the two tanks for the right Guard should be bouncing aggro back and forth with taunts to avoid the DoT stacking too high. DPS finishes off the left Guard before coming over to kill the right the same way.

At this point the first corpse may have exploded into scarabs. If so, have Mages frost nova them into place before Warlocks/Mages AoE them down.

After the right Guard dies, you should be 60–75 seconds into the fight. Only ranged DPS can go onto Anub'Rekhan before the first kite. Melee should stand on the corpse, picking up scarabs if it explodes, they would only have about 10 seconds to do damage before they would need to back out for the Locust Swarm.



The Kite and Spawn
The most important part of the fight is the kiting that needs to occur every 70–120 seconds. Keep a timer going after each Locust Swarm cast.

As soon as Anub'Rekhan bows at the MT, signaling the beginning of Locust Swarm, the MT must immediately start running around the east side ring of the room, just beyond the poison slime ring. The MT should stop running when he reaches 12/6 O'Clock, depending on where you initially tanked him. Everyone else needs to back out of the 30 yard range of the Swarm, including MT healers.

As soon as the MT starts running, the Hunter in his group must also turn on Aspect of the Pack and run ahead of him around the same outer ring and turning off Aspect when the MT is in the 12/6 O'Clock position. If done properly, only 1-2 applications of Locust Swarm should be on the MT, just enough to be healed through.

Reaction time to the tail lift is crucial to surviving each kite, a 2 second delay will spell a wipe for the raid. It is also just as important that the tank avoid stepping into the slime ring, as it will put a debuff reducing all stats to 10% of normal, effectively dropping his max health by 5-6000 points.

At the same time the Locust Swarm is cast, a brand new Crypt Guard will spawn at Anub'Rekhan's initial engage point. This add should be pulled towards the western part of the room, to stay out of range of the Locust Swarm, and is killed identically to how the first two were brought down. After the newly spawned Guard is killed, all DPS can go back onto Anub'Rekhan, again, having 2 mages keep an eye out for scarabs. If done quickly and efficiently, this leaves 45 seconds of straight DPS on Anub'Rekhan before melee must back out and the next kite and spawn occurs.

70–80 seconds after each Locust Swarm cast, all melee DPS needs to back out of range and prepare for the next Crypt Guard spawn. If you are on a relatively lag-free server, you can leave Melee in there a little longer, and have them react similarly to the MT.

Rinse and repeat 7-10 times to bring Anub'Rekhan down and collect your first (probably) Tier 3 quest pieces. As you gain more and more practice on it, you can kill him in as little as 5-6 kites.

Tips

 * Have 1 Priest and Druid cast PW:Shield, Renew, Regrowth, and Rejuvenation on the MT as soon as they see the tail go up in the air, this should provide enough healing for 1-2 Locust Swarms.
 * 1-2 healers can be at the other end of the room, during the kite, to cast their fastest heal when the MT gets in range.
 * If you are the MT, save your shield wall in case you miss the tail lift or are slow to react.
 * If the MT is getting 4 or more Swarms even after many attempts, consider one with better reaction time.
 * It has been verified that casting Curse of Tongues on Anub'Rekhan does NOT slow down the casting speed of Locust Swarm, in fact he is now immune to it.
 * Swiftness potions can be used on alternative kites for safety. Alternate kites because they are on a 2 minute cooldown, you cannot use them for every single swarm.
 * AVOID the slime when kiting, but do not come into contact with the outer wall either, as there are points that will kick you off the wall a bit, slowing you down.
 * Hunters can feign death + frost trap to slow the spread of bugs
 * MT Healers keep max healing distance from MT and keep MT between them self and Anub'Rekhan. This will maximize distance from Anub' and keep you from getting impaled. Very similar strategy to staying out of fear range on Magmadar in Molten Core. However, you will need move to the center and back into place during the kite.
 * An optional strategy to avoid deaths from impale: melee DPS not go to dps on Anub'Rekan, and most casters dps Anub'Rekhan the whole time (Except during insect swarm). The casters stay at max range and do not get impaled. When melee would go into dps on anubrekan oftentimes we could get impaled, which because of the AOE would sometimes affect healers/casters/MT.

As of the first week on the live servers, an evade bug exists when the MT gets impaled. t is currently unknown what causes Anub'Rekhan to evade, but several theories have been formed.
 * Current Bug (6/26/06)
 * Tanking him too far into the doorway, causing a visual clipping between Anub'Rekhan and the MT, may be causing him to Evade.
 * Tanking him with the MT tight against a wall, causing Anub'Rekhan to attempt to walk into the wall to get under the MT, may be causing him to Evade.
 * When tanking on the North end, an Impale into the giant spider background art can cause an evade.
 * If Anub'Rekhan impales the MT, the MT is in the air, the MT still has aggro, and Anub'Rekhan attempts to melee the MT, Anub'Rekhan may believe that the MT is in an unattackable position, which would cause the boss to Evade.

From experience where he impaled the MT, if the MT is too close to any wall or the slime edge, unknown why, but this dramatically increases the chance to impale-evade, tanking him in the dead middle of the tankable ends of the room appears to eliminate the problem. (I for one had the evade happen to me twice in 1 attempt, changed the position the following attempts and been impaled without issue.)

Quotes

 * Opening Anub'Rekhan's door
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell