General Nazgrim Heroic Guide

[Zabuzan]

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General Nazgrim Heroic Guide
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If you'd like to motivate me to make more guides in the future, please check out www.vengeanceking.com, follow me on Twitter @Zabuzan and like my Vengeance King page on Facebook.

Introduction
Hi all,

I created a guide for my guild as reference for General Nazgrim Heroic, describing our original kill strategy and have decided to share it with the community.

I'm a big fan of text guides in conjunction with video guides and I feel that each has their own merits when preparing for a new encounter during progression. I'd also recommend the Fatboss, Evrelia and Gabestah video guides as a great resource ahead of any progression. Links to these video guides can be found below the text guide I've created.

Hopefully this guide can be of use to other people as well.

I've also included a TL;DR summary, for those only interested in the key points, despite the fairly succinct strategy for each phase.

Disclaimer: This guide is aimed at the 10-man Heroic version of the General Nazgrim and not all of the information presented may be applicable to 25-man Heroic. This is not a definitive strategy and also assumes a basic knowledge of the normal encounter and the changes to mechanics on Heroic. Other strategies are entirely plausible, but this is what we will be using for our first kill and I can vouch that it works for us!

For links to my other Heroic boss guides, check out the Index Thread.

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Raid Composition
Standard Compositions: 2 Tanks, 5-6 DPS, 2-3 Healers
Recommended Composition: 2 Tanks, 6 DPS, 2 Healers

3 healing is entirely viable for this encounter, but by 2 healing to make room for an extra DPS, all the adds, the Healing Tide Totems and the Kor'kron Banners all die far quicker, so it lowers the healing requirement by default and also makes the final burn very easy, hence my recommendation.


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Overview
General Nazgrim is one of the easier Heroic bosses this tier, but that doesn't mean he's a push over. The mechanics are all very simple and easy to manage, but small mistakes can be very costly and if any players die it's likely that the adds, Totems and Banners will all drop slower and things can quickly spiral out of control leading to a wipe.

As long as everyone in the raid is switched on and a good add priority is followed, as well as using up some serious patience towards the end of the fight, this shouldn't be a complicated boss for any Heroic raiding guild if they've already managed to kill a few of the earlier bosses.

There are a couple of new mechanics present on Heroic difficulty to make it a little more challenging than Normal. One is an Execute ability on the active tank, which will one shot them without either active mitigation or a damage reduction ability up when the Execute goes off. The other is the addition of a Sniper add to the pool of adds and this time, 3 of the 5 adds spawn per wave rather than 2 of the 4 on Normal. When the boss hits 10%, he still calls for reinforcements and this wave is all 5 types of add at once.

The encounter has a 10 minute enrage timer and waves of adds stop spawning after the ~7.5-8 minute mark (10 waves of adds, ~45 seconds between each wave) leaving around 2 minutes where you can push the boss below 10% and guarantee only 5 adds will spawn rather than the 5 reinforcement adds with additional adds from one of the 10 waves.

Lok'tar Ogar!

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Types of Adds

• Kor'kron Warshaman - These are the most problematic of all the adds, as they were on Normal difficulty, due to the Earth Shield they apply to other adds or even more annoyingly, General Nazgrim himself. The Healing Tide Totem they place is also problematic if left to pulse and if their Empowered Chain heal isn't interrupted then trying to burn down the adds and boss is absolutely futile. These adds should be kept away from the boss and ideally stun locked whilst burning them down as a priority.
• Kor'kron Arcweaver - The Arcweavers are pesky casters and upon each succesfull cast, their next cast becomes more and more lethal to the point where they will be able to one shot people. Whilst they are fairly dangerous if left to free cast, they are both interruptible and susceptible to stuns, as well as dealing manageable damage until they've gained several stacks of their self buff from successful casts, so they fall in the middle of the priority list.
• Kor'kron Assassin - The Assassins are highly damaging if allowed to attack a player from behind and go into stealth shortly after spawning, also fixating on a random non-tank player. Their stealth can be broken by AoE, as well as abilities designed to break stealth such as Hunter's flare. If they spawn directly next to a player, the player should quickly tab onto them and use an instant cast or AoE to avoid them stealthing. The Assassins move fairly quickly but are susceptible to stuns, but also more importantly slows and knockbacks, so get a slow up on them quickly and the player they are fixating on can easily kite them to avoid damage. Never let them attack you from behind! They fall pretty low on the priority list if controlled correctly, but if your raiders aren't very good at kiting, they are significantly more dangerous..
• Kor'kron Ironblade - The Ironblades are a bit of a non-event, as they were on Normal difficulty. They channel a Bladestorm, moving towards the highest aggro target fairly slowly. They can be stunned, slowed and rooted. If they try to recast their Bladestorm, they cannot be interrupted. As long as you don't stand next to them and move away if they are heading in your direction, they pose pretty much no threat.
• Kor'kron Sniper - The Snipers are a new addition to the Heroic difficulty General Nazgrim encounter. Upon spawning, they Fixate a random non-tank raid member, running in range of them if required and then casting a conal multishot, dealing high damage to all raiders stood within the cone. To combat this, the targeted player (who gains a clearly visible Hunter's Mark above their character), should quickly run between the Sniper and the nearest wall, so that the Multishot only hits the targeted player and not the rest of the raid. For this reason, it's important that shortly before a wave of adds, the raid are all standing close to the spawning area (as shown on the positioning diagram for the "Main Phase", preventing the Sniper from running out into the open and keeping the Multishot contained right next to the wall. The Multishot damage even on a single player is fairly high, so these adds are of a high priority. Snipers prefer to focus healers over other raid members.
• Add Priority: Warshaman > Sniper > Arcweaver > Assassin > Ironblade

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Strategy
Main Phase: 100% -> ~15%

Unhappy Red Circle = General Nazgrim
Yellow Circle = Active boss tank
Purple Striped Area = Raid group prior to each wave of adds spawning
Orange Line = Add spawn locations

The General Nazgrim fight is very simple in execution and is just a case of dealing with the various stances and abilities correctly. The DPS check for the fight in terms of boss HP is exceedingly low, especially bringing 6 DPS; by following this strategy you will most likely have to stop damaging the boss for 1-2 minutes to wait for the perfect time to burn the final 10% HP off him for the kill. On with the details!

On the first pull of a raid on Nazgrim, he's surrounded by some Orgrimmar Faithful adds, these don't really do much and should just be passively cleaved down. Alternatively, a player could pull the boss and kite him out of the room, sacrifice themselves or use an ability such as Feign Death, to cause combat to start and the adds to despawn when Nazgrim resets.

Nazgrim has all the same abilities from Normal, with the addition of an Execute he uses periodically on his active target. Execute usage is not tied into Nazgrims Rage level in any way. Tanks should save up sufficient resource to use an active mitigation ability each time the boss uses Execute to avoid getting 1 shot. Without an active mitigation ability in place when Execute goes off, the tank will get 1 shotted, so if you can't get Shield of the Righteous, Blood Shield or whatever else your active mitigation ability is up in time, be prepared to pop a personal cooldown to survive the hit.

The Sundering Blow, which is also unrelated to Nazgrim's Rage level, still applies a 10% armor reduction per stack and as a result also increases the damage Execute does on the tank as well as the standard melee hits. Tanks should swap between the boss and adds every 3 stacks, as each time Sundering Blow is used, Nazgrim gains 5 Rage plus an additional 5 Rage for each stack of Sundering Blow on their target.

The third and final ability Nazgrim uses irrespective of his Rage level, is Bonecracker, which is applied periodically to a random raid member and debuffs them with -10% health and a moderately damaging Physical DoT effect. The Bonecracker DoT is not dispellable, but can be removed with abilities such as Hand of Protection from a Paladin.

Every 15 seconds, Nazgrim will continue to use an ability related to his current Rage level, he always uses the most expensive ability his Rage level can afford. The abilities are identical to Normal difficulty, just tuned to be more damaging:

• Heroic Shockwave (30 Rage) - Nazgrim leaps to a random raid members location, dealing unavoidable damage. Following this, a ground AoE (Aftershock) spawns outwards from the landing location in 2 overlapping lines which detonate shortly thereafter. If a player is stood within the Aftershock AoE, they will take very high damage and it is likely fatal to most players without an adequate mitigation cooldown up. Aftershock also grants Nazgrim an additional 3 rage per player hit. There is really no excuse for getting hit by the AoE as it's clearly visible and gives plenty of time prior to the detonation. This is the ability Nazgrim will use the most if the fight is executed properly.
• Kor'kron Banner (50 Rage) - Nazgrim summons a Kor'kron Banner nearby, which causes the attacks of any adds up to generate Nazgrim an additional 3 Rage per attack. When many adds are active, this ability can quickly cause Nazgrim to generate huge amounts of Rage, meaning the Warbanner is a high priority target. It is likely that you will have to deal with several Kor'kron Banners over the course of the fight.
• War Song (70 Rage) - Nazgrim deals a very highly damaging raid wide physical AoE. In combination with damage from other sources, this can prove lethal without good raid cooldowns. This ability should never be used if the fight is executed properly, but is manageable so if it does occur, the raid should still be able to cope.
• Ravager (100 Rage) - Nazgrim summons a spinning Ravager axe, which moves around the room and deals huge damage to anyone struck by it. This ability should never be used if the fight is executed properly and should it come into play it probably marks an incoming wipe.

Overall DPS Priority Suggestion: Healing Tide Totem > Kor'kron Banner > Warshaman > Sniper > Arcweaver > Assassin > Ironblade

I would add that the Sniper, Arcweaver and Assassin are all fairly interchangeable in the above priority, so adjust to meet the strengths, weaknesses and available CC in your own raid team. Some groups have also reported success with the Ironblade much higher up the list and the Sniper or Arcweaver at the bottom, but what I've suggested is what worked very well for my own raid team - feel free to try something different if required!

I would also comment that it's also possible to just CC Ironblades or offtank them, to allow the DPS to switch back to the boss faster once the other adds are dead and kill the Ironblades during Defensive Stance when only the tanks can attack Nazgrim. However, as the safest way to kill Nazgrim is to hold off pushing him below 10% until past the 8 minute mark, the DPS are going to have nothing to do later on anyway so may as well delay that by burning down the Ironblades straight away as well. A wave of adds spawns approximately every 45 seconds and there are only 10 waves of adds spawned in total until the large wave spawns when Nazgrim is pushed below 10%. This means that by the 7.5-8 minute mark, all periodic waves of adds will be defeated.

Before moving onto the strategy itself, I'll quickly touch on the stances Nazgrim adopts in rotation through the fight.

• Battle Stance (1 minute) causes Nazgrim to generate 1 Rage every second in addition to the effects of his other abilities.
• Berserker Stance (1 minute) increases Nazgrim's damage done and damage taken by 25%. While in Berserker Stance, Nazgrim does not generate Rage every second, however, the Rage his abilities generate is doubled.
• Defensive Stance (1 minute) reduces Nazgrim's damage taken by 10%, and causes him to gain 3 Rage every time he is attacked (though this gain is capped at one Defensive Stance Rage gain per second). Attacks made on the boss by the tanks do not cause him to generate Rage, so they can safely build up resource for active mitigation to deal with Execute through the duration of this Stance.

I'll run through the general outline of the fight, assuming that the adds are dealt with as suggested in the "Types of Adds" section further up the guide:

The fight basically boils down to add control and keeping Nazgrim's between the 0-60 mark (60 should be absolute top end and should rarely ever occur); there is some overlap between those two aims as well.

Heroism and second pots should be saved for the final burn and ensure that everyone's DPS cooldown will be available by the time the 3rd and final Defensive Stance ends and the final nuke begins. The DPS requirement for the fight is so low, that providing you don't allow the boss to heal up due to Earth Shield, you will probably have to have your DPS stop attacking him even earlier than suggested in the timing diagram above.

Key things to watch out for:

• Warshaman - must be kept away from the boss, have their Empowered Chain Heal interrupted and their Healing Tide Totem destroyed as a matetr of utmost priority. The also instant cast Earth Shield on random adds or the boss. It must be quickly dispelled, purged or similar and all players attacking the affected targeted must immediately stop until Earth Shield is removed. Players able to remove Earth Shield should always be in range of General Nazgrim himself as the tank must be able to keep attacking to ensure they have active mitigation to survive Execute, so ensure you have at least one or more preferably multiple "dispellers" keeping an eye on it.
• Kor'kron Banner - the raid should ensure that when dealing with the adds they do not drift too far away from the boss to switch onto any Banners that spawn. The Banners are the second highest priority target, even above Warshaman, but below Healing Tide Totem. If the Banners are left up too long and there are adds alive as well, Nazgrim will rapidly generate large amounts of Rage which could result in a War Song or even worse a Ravager.
• Sniper - each time a wave of adds spawn, ensure that the raid are fairly close to the walls where the adds spawn, to avoid the Sniper running out in the open to get in range of its Fixate target and Multishotting multiple raid members.
• Aftershock - ensure that everyone has their graphics turned up sufficiently to see the full extent of the Aftershock AoE clearly. Particle Density set to High should do the trick if anyone has a crappy PC that won't tolerate a full tune up of the graphics!
• Tanks must be careful to swap on 3 stacks of Sunder, even when it's midway through an add wave, as a 4th stack of Sunder not only deals a fairly hefty amount of damage but more dangerously, Nazgrim would gain 20 Rage in a single hit from the application.
• Tanks should pool resources for the Execute, to ensure they can save their large defensive cooldowns for emergencies and have the Execute covered purely by active mitigation.
• Healers should ensure they are tracking the Hunter's Mark Sniper target, the players fixated by the Assassin and the Bonecracker DoT, so they can predict the incoming damage ahead of time. If a player gets multiple of these at once, get on top of it quickly!
• The boss must not be pushed below 10% health until both the 10th wave of adds have been cleared and the 3rd (and final) Defensive Stance has ended. This means that the DPS may have to stop on Nazgrim fairly early, to allow the tanks to continue attacking for active mitigation to survive the Execute. If the boss is healed at all, it will mean that the DPS can stop alter or potentially even just keep nuking outside of Defensive Stance time, but I would strongly council against purposefully trying to heal the boss, better to just chill out and focus on adds and healing once the boss is low enough.

Final Burn: ~15% -> 0%

Unhappy Red Circle = General Nazgrim
Yellow Circle = Boss tank
Purple Striped Area = Raid group
Orange Line = Add spawn locations
Dark Green Circle = Add tank
Dark Grey Circle = Player targeted by the Sniper add (approximate)
Light Green Circle With Face = Kor'kron Sniper add (approximate)
Beige Circle With Face = Kor'kron Assassin add (approximate)
Light Blue Circle With Face = Kor'kron Arcweaver
Dark Blue Circle With Face = Kor'kron Warshaman add
Brown Circle With Face = Kor'kron Ironblade add

Once the 3rd Defensive Stance has ended, wait until the tanks can swap and the tank with no stacks then drags Nazgrim back to the area near where he started. Pop Heroism, second potions and then nuke the boss as hard as you can. The boss should be at sub 15% prior to the end of the 3rd Defensive stance, but you can cut it as close as you feel comfortable really.

Once Nazgrim reaches 10%, he will spawn a wave of Reinforcements, which consist of 1 of each of the 5 add types. The inactive tank should quickly pick up the Warshaman and Ironblade, tanking them on the opposite side of the room. The player targeted by the Sniper should move into a position where the Sniper will not Multishot the raid and the player targeted by the Assassin should begin kiting it and ensure it is slowed. An example of this is shown on the positioning diagram above, but in reality you will have to amend this accordingly to meet with the spawn locations of each add.

The Warshaman must not be allowed to cast Empowered Chain Heal at all, so the tank should save interrupts and stuns to prevent this, as well as keeping a ranged interrupt at the ready if possible. If an Earth Shield cast goes off, it must be instantly dispelled if it targets the boss but can be left on any of the adds.

All the DPS should just be nuking Nazgrim (aside from any CC or slows required on any of the adds) and with Heroism and all cooldowns up, he should drop the last 10% in seconds! At this point in the fight, the Arcweaver will probably end up free casting without good stuns and deaths are likely, but that shouldn't prevent a kill.

The Nazgrim tank should be aware that they may start to take a few additional Sunder stacks so mitigation cooldowns are ideally saved for this point in the fight. The raid as a whole will also need to be reacting to all of Nazgrim's standard abilities as well, though if a Banner spawns you can ignore it depending on how low the boss is and how quickly he's dropping as if he can be killed in under 15 seconds from the placement of the Banner there is no risk of a Warsong anyway. That particular aspect really comes down to how ballsy you are feeling! I should also make a point of saying that if you execute the run up to the final burn properly, Nazgrim should only ever Heroic Shockwave during the "Final Burn"

Alternative to Final Burn
If you don't feel comfortable controlling the large wave of adds for the "Final Burn" strategy, another option is to use Heroism to quickly dispatch all the adds, before switching to the boss.

There is also a half way house option between the 2 end of fight strategies, where you can kill just the most dangerous adds, such as the Shaman to avoid heals and the Arcweaver to avoid players getting one shotted once it's powered up a bit (or whatever your higher priority adds of choice are), before leaving a few adds up and finishing the boss off.

Both of these methods are probably a little safer, providing you can control all 5 adds whilst killing some or all of them before resuming on the boss. However, personally I would recommend just burning the boss outright as he drops so fast with the "Final Burn" strategy that you should have very few issues executing it, simply due to how short a time is required to finish the boss off with everyone's cooldowns up and running. My own guild killed Nazgrim on our first "Final Burn" attempt with only one player dying to the Arcweaver; he just melted!


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Summary
Main Phase: 100% -> ~15%

• Don't use Heroism!
• Kill Healing Tide Totems from Warshaman ASAP.
• Kill Kor'kron Banners from Nazgrim ASAP
• Kill any Warshaman that spawn first, behind Totems and Banners, ensuring they are dragged away from the boss before any stuns go off on them.
• Other than Healing Tide Totem > Banner > Warshaman at the top end of priority, customise the rest of the DPS priority to fit your own raid group.
• Ensure Snipers are shooting at the wall and not the raid by running between them and the nearest wall.
• Kite and slow Assassins, AoE, quick tag or Hunter Flare when the spawn to try and avoid them going into Stealth.
• Ironblades are still a nonevent, just don't stand next to them when they are Bladestorming. Can be rooted.
• Arcweavers should be interrupted and CC'd as much as possible to prevent them gaining too much additional damage done.
• Note: my recommended DPS priority is Totem > Banner > Warshaman > Sniper > Arcweaver > Assassin > Ironblade, take it or leave it!
• Never attack Nazgrim during Defensive Stance, unless you are a tank.
• Tank swap on 3 stacks of Sunder, even mid way through an add wave.
• Tanks should have active mitigation up for each Execute from Nazgrim and a mitigation cooldown as backup if they haven't pooled sufficient resource to get their active mitigation up in time.
• Do not take the boss below ~15% health until the 10th add wave is dead and the 3rd Defensive Stance has ended.

Final Burn: ~15% -> 0%

• Wait until the first tank swap after the 3rd Defensive Stance occurs.
• The tank that just taunted runs to where Nazgrim started the fight.
• Heroism is popped, alongside all 2nd pots and DPS cooldowns.
• Once the boss hits 10% health, one of each add type spawns was Nazgrim calls for Reinforcements.
• The free tank picks up the Warshaman and Ironblade at the opposite side of the room to Nazgrim and tanks them, interrupting and stunning the Warshaman to avoid any heals going off on the boss.
• Dispel Earth Shield from Nazgrim instantly if it is applied. Ignore it on the adds though.
• No DPS on the adds, all DPS keep nuking the boss.
• Healing Tide Totem does not need to be killed as should be too far from Nazgrim to pose any risk of healing him.
• Ranged interrupts at the ready to interrupt the Warshaman if the tank on it runs out of interrupts, which shouldn't happen anyway.
• Player targeted by the Sniper quickly move between the Sniper and nearest wall, so it doesn't Multishot the raid.
• Player fixated by the Assassin should kite it, and get it slowed as well.
• Pop raid mitigation CDs towards the end of the burn to avoid players getting one shotted by the Arcweaver that will be growing more and more powerful.
• Shouldn't get any Banners, but if you do and the boss is going to die in under 15 seconds you don't need to switch to it. If you're feeling courageous you could just ignore it either way and risk having to survive a Warsong or Ravaager for a few more seconds before the boss dies.
• Nazgrim takn should start chaining cooldowns once they hit 3+ stacks of Sunder until the boss dies.
• Nazgrim will melt so quickly you will barely believe it!

Alternative to Final Burn

• Once all 10 waves of adds are over and the 3rd Defensive Stance has ended as well, resume attacking the boss.
• When the boss hits 10% and calls his Reinforcements, pop Heroism and all DPS cooldowns to blow up the adds as quickly as possible.
• Once all the adds, or alternatively just the more dangerous adds of your choice are dead, resume nuking the boss and finish him off.

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General Tips

• Hand of Protection can be used to clear the Bonecracker DoT, as can Divine Shield and certain other immunities.
• Bring as many classes with good CC as you can! This fight definitely bears a loose resemblance to the Factions Champions boss from back in Trial of the Crusader!

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Video Guides
Below are some video guides for further reference, bear in mind that not all aspects of the strategies or tips described in the videos may be shared with my own information, but can be used in conjunction with the guide for a better overall idea ahead of progressing on this encounter.

Fatboss Video Guide:
LINK

Evrelia Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Long Video Guide:
LINK To be added.

Gabestah Short Video Guide:
LINK To be added.

Gabestah Tank Video Guide:
LINK To be added.

Gabestah DPS Video Guide:
LINK To be added.

Gabestah Healer Video Guide:
LINK To be added.


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Reference Links
For a full list of Gabestah Video Guides, please check out his thread HERE

Icy Veins General Nazgrim Guide: LINK

Healiocentric General Nazgrim Guide: LINK

MMO-Champion Discussion Thread: LINK


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Change Log

1. Added positioning diagrams.
2. Fixed Title and subtitle size.
3. Fixed bullet point lists.
4. Fixed incorrect colours.
5. Fixed link to the website.

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[Spiralphoenix]

Didn't read the whole thing, so I apologize if I repeat anything you've already said, but I'll comment a few things that came up for us:

Warshamans can actually hit very, very hard. We've had players crit for upwards of 500k by their melee attacks. Most of the time it's manageable but it adds some randomness where it isn't necessarily needed if you're not on point with stun-locking. We have them tanked with the boss - everything they do can be prevented, and if they're killed fast enough they won't use totem or earth shield at all.

Also helps to have most/all of the adds in general tanked with the boss, allowing for efficient AoE/cleave. I'd often see people just standing with their assassins bursting them down when they had no slow/root/cc options - they die much faster in proximity to the boss with cleaves, and it's not really dangerous to be in melee. Especially when you have melee capable of AoE stuns that would work on your assassin if it were only in range (dks, monks). Even if you are kiting it, kite it through/in a circle around the boss. We tanked pretty much everything on the boss except Arcweavers, as they were what typically got the focused stun-locking.

Also, Snipers will always prioritize focusing a healer, so pretty much only healers should worry about having to position them so they aren't multi-shotting the raid.

Also, it's not a wipe whatsoever if heals go off on the boss. We've had at least two large heals hit the boss and still killed him. There's fairly large room for error there, not that that means you should slack on making it not happen.

[Zabuzan]

Guide is now also up on vengeanceking.com! Check it out and if it helps you at all, please share it with your friends or give it a like to let me know

http://vengeanceking.com/2013/10/23/...-heroic-guide/

[Geodew]

Thanks for the guide. Still confused how tanks easily survive a 3 million hit with -30% armor debuffs, but I guess I'll see for myself soon. :P

[Elios]

Wrong topic! lol ...

[Zabuzan]

Thanks for the guide. Still confused how tanks easily survive a 3 million hit with -30% armor debuffs, but I guess I'll see for myself soon. :P

No worries Hope you got it down! The mitigation behind surviving a 3 million hit is described in the guide by the way; the tank soaking Blood Rage also shouldn't have any stacks at all, though a few doesn't matter too much.