We made our first runs at Nightbane last night. After a couple initial wipes getting used to his damage output (which is insane), we managed to get through his first ground phase consistantly with no pots besides a flask on the MT. Fully potted, our MT sits around 18k HP and 17k Armor before Inspiration, so his ground phases aren't an issue.

When he goes into the air, it's a completely different story. It took us awhile til we figured out that the Rain of Bones follows the person who gets the debuff. This alone can be problematic, since it chooses a random player, and if it chooses a healer, the situation becomes more difficult than it already is. The real problem however, is dealing with the skeletons he spawns. They seem to have around 15k HP give or take, and an immolation aura that ticks for around 1k to anyone in melee range. This alone already makes melee classes fairly useless for dealing with them from what we gathered. Coupled with the fact that they seem to spawn in rather random locations (perhaps there's something we're missing, but that seemed to be the case), getting them controlled can be a problem. As if the skeletons themselves weren't bad enough, the fireballs he rains from above add a ton of extra damage to deal with.

We tried some AoE strategies, but between the damage from the immolation aura and the fireballs, too much damage is put out for us to deal with, and people die quickly. We also tried shackling 2 and tanking the rest, then assist training them down, the problem is the air phase is time-based, so if you don't kill the skeletons fast enough Nightbane comes down and it's pretty much a wipe. Getting them controlled and single-targeting seemed to take too long and I'm not sure it's very feasible.

Anyway, I'm curious as to how Guilds that have made any progress on him or even killed him (although if I remember correctly only 5 or so Guilds have done so) are handling the air phases. Any input is appreciated.

The 17k is with full pots (Greater Agility, Major Defense, and Stoneshield), Mark, and Imp. Devotion Aura. We originally had our Feral Druid in the MT group with a Warlock, Shaman, Myself (Rogue), and the MT, but after seeing how hard he hit, we swapped the Paladin and the Druid for Devotion Aura, the difference is quite noticeable.

As for his gear, it's mostly the best you can get without getting a lot of Karazhan loot. He's still wearing DN shoulders (tried replacing them with the Fanblade shoulders but no such luck from Heroic Crypts) and hasn't picked up the Exalted Sha'tar shield yet, but he has BP of Kings, Bracers of the Green Fortress, Felsteel Helm/Gloves, Revered KoT legs, some nice Epic tanking boots out of Karazhan (the name escapes me at the moment but they were a random trash drop), and King's Defender. I believe he sits around 497 Defense with the best enchants and blue gems available.

I advise you read the Bone of Rains debuff he applies on the first player.

The difficulty for us has been the landing. We're gonna try again with a hunter this week, see how it goes. 23% is our best shot, but it involved losing someone every 25%.

Intervene is also very useful.

The debuff itself when highlighted only says "Being bombarded with bone fragments." However, having just looked at the thottbot spell entry: (http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=37098) "Bombards the target and nearby allies with bone fragments, summoning 3 skeletons in the process." That makes sense, as it seemed like some of the skeletons possibly spawned around the targeted player, but that still leaves 2 skeletons left.

Although, the info from the Karazhan thread that the Fireball Barrage is avoidable does change things quite a bit, Smoldering Breath is manageable, the Fireballs aren't. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to deal with the skeletons.

When you say "Smoldering breath", you mean smoking blast ? The physical dd+fire dot while he's in air ? Smoldering breath is his fire frontal breath during ground phases.

We had serious difficulty figuring out who he was gonna attack until it was too late. We wondered in fact if it was a bug, as we wouldn't get his target until he swooped in for the decapitation.

He's got an aggro reset is the issue that occurs sometime when he is flying through the air to land back after his yell that says I'm landing.

Not sure why it mentions 3 skeletons. Goes contrary to everything we've seen.

that would have been so much more fun :(