ToC - Anub'arak

Source: Lore
Hi, this is Lore from TankSpot and welcome back to the Trial of the Crusader raid guide. This video will be discussing our strategy for Anub'arak, the final boss of the Crusader's Coliseum raid instance.

The Anub'arak encounter is split into three phases. Phase one begins at the pull with Anub'arak on the surface. A few seconds in, he'll spawn two crypt fiend adds, which should each have their own designated tank. These don't do too much damage on their own, but when in close proximity to another crypt fiend they gain a buff that significantly increases their damage output. However, they don't have a terribly large health pool, so we simply had ranged DPS split off temporarily to burn them down while melee stayed on the boss. He'll spawn two waves of these for every surface phase, so they do need to be killed fairly quickly or you risk your tanks getting overwhelmed.

Notice the blue patches appearing on the ground. This is Permafrost, one of the most important mechanics for phase 1 and 2. It's created by killing the blue orbs floating above. In phase 1, the crypt fiend adds will occasionally try to burrow underground. If they're successful, they'll resurface shortly afterward, usually in line with either the next wave of adds or the beginning of phase 2. However, if a crypt fiend attempting to burrow is standing on a patch of permafrost, the ability will fail, so they need to be kept on top of Permafrost as much as possible. The blue orbs only have 9000 health, so they can and should be brought down quickly and regularly. Note that the Permafrost also slows your movement speed by 80%, but we didn't find that to be particularly troublesome.

About a minute and a half into the fight, Anub'arak will burrow underground and begin phase 2. He'll start chasing random raid members around underground and shooting spikes up through the floor as he moves. These deal about 3000 damage and knock anyone hit up into the air a short distance. On top of that, if he reaches his target, he'll impale them for around 20,000 damage and knock them very high in the air -- enough to take a good chunk of fall damage. However, if he attempts to launch his spikes through Permafrost, he'll be stunned momentarily and pick a new target. This also destroys the patch of Permafrost, so it's important to keep killing those somewhat regularly during Phase 2.

As he's chasing people around, several nonelite scarabs will spawn around the room. These have a little over 100,000 health and, although they don't do very much melee damage, they can apply a fairly potent damage over time effect. This effect stacks, so it's best to just have your DPS burn them down as they spawn and not worry too much about tanking them.

After about a minute, he'll resurface and begin phase 1 again. He doesn't reset aggro, so he should go right back to the main tank at this point. However, both the tank and the raid will need to be mindful of how the boss is positioned, as Anub'arak has a powerful frontal cone AOE attack that deals a heavy amount of damage to anyone caught in front of him. Not only does the tank need to point him away from the raid quickly, but the rest of the raid needs to be sure to move out from in front of him as well.

The majority of the fight is spent alternating between the surface and burrow phases. Making the most of the time he spends on the surface is crucial, as you'll only be able to go through 3 or 4 rotations before you risk running into his 10 minute enrage timer. To help maximize the amount of time spent DPS'ing Anub'arak, you can offtank one or both crypt fiends from the second wave and wait to finish them off until the boss submerges. If you do need to have melee DPS help out on the first wave of adds, at the very least you'll want to let classes with long ramp-up times on their DPS rotations (such as Feral Druids or Retribution Paladins) stay on the boss full time.

It's important to note that Anub'arak hits very hard -- around 20 to 25 thousand damage on a decently-geared main tank. On top of that, while he's on the surface he can hit up to three random raid members with an 18-second damage over time effect called Penetrating Cold. On the 25-man normal mode, this does 3,500 Frost damage every 3 seconds for the duration. This is, of course, in addition to the damage that the two offtanks will be taking from the crypt fiends, so healers will need to stay on their toes during the surface phases. Fortunately, healing is much lighter once Anub'arak is underground, so you can and should use that time to regen as much as possible; you'll need your mana for phase 3.

Also note that some early guides have mentioned that you could avoid the burrow phase entirely by keeping Anub'arak on top of large patches of Permafrost. Although this was possible on the public test realms, Anub'arak can burrow through it on live servers. However, the burrow phases are much more relaxed than they were during public testing, so going through phase 2 isn't as big of a deal and, as I mentioned, provides some valuable regen time.

You may have also noticed that I'm spending a large amount of time on top of the permafrost during the burrow phases in this video. This is because we were unsure of the mechanics of his Impale ability and were acting under the impression that it could be used randomly at any time on anyone who wasn't standing on Permafrost. Since he'll only try to use that ability if he reaches the player he's chasing, this is unnecessary and just means I'm running around a lot slower than I need to be.

Once Anub'arak reaches 30% health, he'll begin phase 3 by activating an ability called Leeching Swarm. This is a zone-wide aura that causes each player to take damage equal to 10% of their current health every second. You'll need very strong AOE healing to keep everyone alive here, but it's important to recognize that the amount of damage taken depends on how much health a player currently has and NOT the size of their health pool -- the less health you have, the less health you take. You may be able to tell from my raid frames in the upper left corner that the healers aren't topping everyone off; they're just keeping everyone but the main tank at about 50%. By doing so, they actually reduce the amount of damage the raid is taking and keep themselves from being overwhelmed.

Once phase 3 has begun, Anub'arak will no longer burrow underground and no more adds will spawn. The fight becomes a DPS and survival race at this point; you need to kill him before your healers run out of mana. Like with the phase 2 transitions, you can temporarily ignore crypt fiends to push him into phase 3, but they should be killed off immediately afterward to lighten the load on the healers. Once everyone's attention is on the boss, use any available cooldowns including Bloodlust or Heroism to bring him down quickly.

Although the fight is relatively simple, Anub'arak is a fair step up in difficulty from the previous bosses in the instance and makes a pretty good lead-in to the much harder Heroic mode bosses. As always, you can find more information on Anub'arak or any other encounter by visiting the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on youtube, just follow the link in the movie details. Thanks for watching, and good luck!

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