Nefarian (Blackwing Descent tactics)

Nefarian is the last boss of Blackwing Descent, a raid shipped with World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. He can be found in the Vault of the Shadowflame, where he resurrects his sister Onyxia, who makes up the first phase of the fight. Throughout the fight, Nefarian has several other undead adds as well.

Deathwing's son, Nefarian, gained infamy for his horrifying efforts to create chromatic dragons from the essences of Azeroths various dragonflights. After his death in Blackwing Lair, he was reanimated and charged by Deathwing to continue his insidious endeavors.

Abilities
Throughout the entire encounter every 10% of Nefarian's health will cause Nefarian's lightning machine to strike the raid with Electrocute.



Phase One
Onyxia - 5,582,000 million (10-man) / 24,000,000 (25 man) / 34,700,000 million (25 man heroic) HP

Nefarian

Animated Bone Warrior
 * Have an energy bar that slowly depletes over time. It will be reset to full if they are touched by shadowflame effects. While they have far too much HP and are too numerous to be killed, they will 'lie down' and despawn if they run out of energy. Their damage increases steadily while melee-ing, so they should be kited. They can be crowd controlled, excluding fear effects and Polymorph.

Phase Two
Lava

Nefarian

Heroic Mode Only

Chromatic Prototype
 * Will stand in place and constantly try to cast Blast Nova, which can be interrupted. 2.6M/8M/9.7M(25 hc) HP. Does not melee.

Phase Three
Nefarian

Heroic Mode Only





Animated Bone Warrior
 * Same as Phase One.

Phase One
The encounter begins with an introductory event in which Nefarian (as Lord Victor Nefarius) resurrects Onyxia. He then turns into his dragon form and flies into the air, landing 30 seconds into the fight. Before Nefarian lands he will spawn 6/12 (10/25-man) Animated Bone Warriors which can be either kited, CC'd or tanked until they run out of energy and die on their own in this phase. Onyxia and Nefarian should be tanked on opposite sides of the room to remove their 100% haste buff Children of Deathwing. Onyxia should be damaged down to low health but not killed. This will give you some time to burn Nefarian's health down before the last phase. Onyxia will eventually hit full energy and instantly kill the raid, and every 10% of Nefarian's health adds 25% to her energy charge. You will generally have time to burn Nefarian down to sub-80% before killing Onyxia and ending the phase. Do not let either Dragon breathe on the Animated Bone Warriors as this will break CC, snares and roots and reset their energy to full.

Phase Two
The arena will fill with lava and three Chromatic Prototypes will spawn on each raised pillar of the room. They do not melee. They cast Blast Nova which must be interrupted.

Assign players to each of the three platforms for phase two. Each platform needs one reliable interrupt for 10-man and two reliable interrupts for 25-man (you will need interrupt rotations on 25). A ranged interrupter is helpful in the beginning of the phase on each platform while everyone is jumping up. You should try to damage Nefarian below 70% in this phase, survival cooldowns should be used to mitigate the electrocute at 70%. The phase will end after the Chromatic Prototypes die or after three minutes.

Phase Three
The lava will subside and Nefarian will land, stay spread out until Nefarian has stopped casting Shadowflame Barrage.

Phase Three is like phase one except Nefarian will now cast Shadowblaze Spark, it will always be targetted on the location of the Animated Bone Warriors. It will break CC, snares and roots on the Animated Bone Warriors and reset their energy to full just as the dragons' breath does.

Since Shadowblaze Spark is always targetted on the Bone Warriors, CC and roots are ineffective. You should have a tank kite the Bone Warriors away from Nefarian and continually move to avoid the Animated Bone Warriors ever regaining energy. They will die after 50 seconds and reset their empowering strikes stacks, this will allow the Bone Warrior tank to survive. Both tanks will need to use a survival cooldown to survive Electrocute every 10% of Nefarian's health.

The longer Nefarian takes to die the faster he will cast Shadowblaze Spark, until it is impossible to avoid and the raid dies.

Alternate Strategy
An alternate strategy for high DPS, low HPS composition groups, is to push through phase 1 and phase 2 very quickly (essentially nef is full health), then burn in phase 3.

In Phase 1, tank should continue as normal rotating the boss when needed. DPS should kite the bone warriors on top of the onyxia tank. This phase should last no longer than 2 minutes. As soon as onyxia is dead the bone warriors will all drop in a neat pile.

On Phase 2, blow a heroism/bloodlust/time warp and down these 3 casters asap. This phase also should last no longer than 2 minutes.

On Phase 3, it is business as usual. The add tank will stand next to the nice pile of bonewarriors and pick them up to kite ahead of the Nef tank. The Nef tank will slowly circle around in the same direction and the dps follows suit perpendicular to Nef.

Advantages - Less AOE healing in phase 1 and phase 2, reduced RNG factor.

Disadvantages - Phase 3 could take longer than usual causing a wipe as the spark mechanic will out run your add tank.

Quotes

 * Enter Blackwing Descent on normal difficulty
 * yell


 * Enter Blackwing Descent on Heroic difficulty
 * yell


 * Intro
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Phase 1
 * yell


 * Phase 2
 * yell


 * Phase 3
 * yell


 * Shadowblaze Spark
 * yell


 * Dominion
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * emote
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell

Trivia

 * Nefarian was the last boss of the entry tier of Cataclysm to be killed on normal mode, in part due to a respawn bug.
 * The world first kill came on 13 December 2010, almost a week after the expansion's release. It was completed on 10-person mode by the Russian guild Exorsus.
 * The world first heroic kill was on 10 January 2011 by Paragon (25 person).