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.

I'm more curious what your main tanks gear is that gets him 17k armor before inspiration.

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%.

Yeah it looks like Misdirection will help immensely.

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.

Whoops yeah I meant Smoking Blast, I can't keep straight his various ability names so often >_> Especially since smoking blast then applies a dot called Searing Cinders.

OH wait I didn't talk about it in this thread wrong.

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.

Those little blurbs you see on Thott are just, I think, what the original designer stuck in there when first creating the ability, and they never get updated to reflect further tweaks or overhauls that come as a result of balance tuning and bugfixes. So obviously take them with a grain of salt.

Case in point: http://thottbot.com/?sp=28169

that would have been so much more fun :(

I've never tried the fight before but I wonder if Stratholme Holy Water would work on the skellies. Last I heard the stuff was bugged and it scaled with +dmg, but that was way back when my guild was still learning Nef.

Assuming it's still bugged you have 5 people geared with with 1000 spell damage (I'm not a caster kind of person so I have no idea if this is a realistic number), that's ~1500x5 that you don't need to worry about, not to mention it can crit too and only has a 1 minute cooldown.

Just throwing this out there, it might not work but there's no harm in trying if it'll give you a little edge.

I stopped reading at this point.

Edit: I read some more.

Don't post things like this or else I'll have to try and think up a witty ban message and frankly, having to think of something amusing before coffee will lead to a long ban.

Perhaps we are missing something big on the Smoking Blast mechanic.

Some runs we easily dispel cinders and he will move to the next person. Othertimes it seems Nightbane gets a hardon for someone and just chain nukes them to the ground (Worst is when he goes after the cloth).

I haven't been able to find anything consistent about how he is choosing his targets. Does bones/whoever gets hit by bones make his targeting list?

Also for those without a hunter in their group, we were using the bandage on landing technique. Just let your tank pop a heavy netherweave and Nightbane will stick to him like glue. :-)

The problem is that if the person he picks to chain on happens to be wearing cloth you rarely are able to heal them before they are a corpse.

Smoking blast is physical damage mitigated by armor. If he choose a plate wearing class you are gold, as the hits go from 4K+ on cloth to 2K on plate. The question is how can you encourage him to chain on plate as opposed to the rest of your raid.

Yes, I know that and with a little experimentation you should be able to figure out how to force it on who you want.

Is my porridge too hot or too cold?

Does smoking blast define its targets from Rain of Bones?

Does the pally taunt or intervene enable you to "force it on who you want"?

Regardless, it always seems to be targeting healers first (consistently), maybe they need to be moving more?


It seems like we have missed a major component to this mechanic, and I think its not a lack of experimentation but perhaps a lack of direction in what to analyze.

Help me warm up this porridge!

Cold! Icy :/

There are people in your raid who should certainly have figured it out by now if you've had any decent # of attempts on him.

We tried him last night and have we think finally figured out how to control phase 2 which imo is all of the fight, the ground phase is simply tank and spank and 1 time last night we got through all of the first flying phase with everyone alive and got to the second phase, he will go down this weekend

After killing him last night, all 3 of our groups had the same problem in an attempt or two:

- When he lands after his flight time, he will NOT fully reset his aggro, and then chase down and one hit someone (normally a healer).
- If the tank ISNT against the railing, he will be unable to land and that forces him to fly up and land again.
- The best "feature" of when he lands is he likes to breath right as he lands, and before he has aggro on anyone.

Oh, The fight isnt that bad without fear ward. Gave me something to do during that fight instead of standing there.