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Comment by 10593

Hotfix - 09.03.2007 (post 2.0.10 changes):

"Nightbane - Removed magical immunity from skeletons and reduced damage from breath attack in flight." by Tseric @ http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=82238244

Comment by 23045

The quest for summoning Nightbane is a long chain that begins with https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9630.

1) https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9638 & https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9639
The 2 NPCs you have to talk to are in the large room after Curator.

2) https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9640
Medivh's Journal drops from Shade of Aran.

3) https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9645
Enter from the side entrance and you should be able to see a door under the broken stair. Read the book there and watch the event.

4) https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9680
The Charred Bone Fragment is outside North of Karazhan. You can't pick it up while in a raid though.

5) https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9631
Bring it to Area 52.

6) https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9637
Book of Forgotten Names drops from Darkweaver Syth in heroic Sethekk Halls and Tome of Dusk drops from Grand Warlock Nethekurse in heroic Shattered Halls.

7) https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=9644
Use the Blackened Urn where you read Medivh's Journal and it will summon Nightbane. Kill him to get the Faint Arcane Essence for the quest.

The final rewards are...
https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/item=31118
or
https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/item=31117
or
https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/item=31116

Good luck :)

Comment by Kylinee

Once you've completed the quest summon chain, can you summon him any time you go to the instance? If so, do you need to get the urn every time from the lady in Area 52?

Comment by 1171

The skeletons summoned in the flight phase are Restless Skeletons (https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/npc=17261), have between 13-15k hp and hit for roughly 1.2-1.6k on cloth, depending on which buff the clothie has. (Priests have Inner Fire; warlocks have to choose between Fel vs Demon armour, mages from their 3 armours.)

They are susceptible to frost nova and shackle undead, immune to fear/terror effects. (eg. deathcoil) The recommended method of handling is with 2-3 AE classes. If shamans are present, fire elementals help heaps.

Comment by 7809

After you initiate the summon, it takes him 30 seconds to land. He should land sort of in the middle of the ring. You should see a small skull on the ground - that's your landmark for the MT to pick him up. Tank him with your back to the railing - Nightbane should be about a third of the way into the dome.

At the start he's pretty easy to deal with. He has the usual dragon fear, so stance dance, fear ward, etc. to avoid that. Melee has to hit his sides - he has the tail whip. He will also breathe fire - hopefully only on the MT. The biggest thing to deal with are the Charred Earth "void zones". You want to stand on the edges of the walkways so that there's room to run around them. In addition, if you stand at max range, you can avoid the fear. Melee has to watch out, though.

Every 25%, he will fly in the air. This wipes his aggro. A healer, preferably a paladin, should start to heal to generate threat. In addition, Rain of Bones will fall on one specified (debuffed) target. The skeletons will also start spawning in a series (not all at once) on that person. Nightbane will also fire away at the highest threat person, and it can be mitigated by armor. Therefore, keep the Rain of Bones person up, the person eating the fireballs up, and assist train or AOE down the skeletons.

You have about 30 seconds, maybe a minute, to take down the 5 adds. Nightbane will then yell and land. If the MT is facing him into the dome, Nightbane generally lands on the MT's right (where you start walking in from). As such, the raid should be on the MT's left. In addition, you want a hunter doing Misdirection to give the tank some aggro so that Nightbane doesn't breathe fire on the raid.

The most difficult parts of the fights are the transitions. It is a very chaotic time, and everyone has to watch out for themselves. It is also a long fight - 13 minutes or so, and mana users have to act accordingly.

Good luck! It's a tough fight.

Comment by 3316

The Nightbane fight sounds very difficult to explain, but in a few words it's not that hard.
When you use the Urn to summon him, as explained in the quest line, he will land on the skull after 30 seconds.This is announced by "An ancient being echoes in the distance..." . Before he lands, make sure everyone is in position, meaning the tank and the rest of the raid.

* Bellowing Roar : the bellowing roar is announced by a ground shake. It has a 2 second cast timer and usually happens at sharp values of threat gained by the tank. By that I mean 20, 25k, 30k and so and so on. If you use a threat meter such as KTM (http://wow-en.curse-gaming.com/downloads/details/4204/klhthreatmeter/) keep an eye on it and get ready to break the fear. You can stance dance/wotf/fear ward through it. If you don't have fear ward available, you have to take 2 things into account : global cooldown and stance switching triggering a 1s cooldown. This means, if you think he will do a roar and fear, best not to use abilities which trigger the GCD (=keep heroic strike/shield block and sunder/devastate watching out for diminishing returns) and wait for the ground to shake in order to break the fear. Sharp reflexes are needed and a lot of luck if it's among the first times doing this.
* Charred Earth - Aoe spell which will make the ground look like cinder, dealing 20k-28k damage to players in the inflamed area over 30 seconds, 10 yard radius. Melee classes are the most susceptible to it landing on them
* Cleave - Frontal arc so don't run from one side to the other while he's on the ground. Anyone else but the tank might get one-shotted as it hits for 11000 on cloth.
* Distracting Ash - Reduces the range of spells and abilities by 50%. Can be dispelled.
* Smoldering Breath - Frontal cone that does 3000-4000 fire damage to enemies in front of him. Deals ~2000 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
* Tail Sweep - 450 fire damage on enemies in a cone behind the boss, knocking them back. Deals 450 fire damage per second for 25 seconds. Watch out for this when he lands.

At 75%, 50%, and 25% health, he will enter phase two and take off. Gather up around the tank. When he casts
* Rain of Bones on a random player, it will hit the target with bone fragments which deal 352-408 physical damage in a 6 yard radius around the targeted player, and summon 5 Restless Skeletons. If you're not the target of rain of bones, move away from it. Let the tank/others pick up the skeletons and keep the person alive. (Restless Skeletons hit for approximately 400 on plate and have ~14,000 HP)
* Smoking Blast every second for approximately 15 seconds. for ~5000 physical damage (mitigated by armor) and ~3000 fire damage over time. This can be dispelled and stacks up to 4 times.
* Fireball Barrage: Happens if you're too far away from him when he takes off. Be sure you're not, you're only making it harder.

When he lands, he will land on the same place as at first. It will look like he will land waaaay further but don't be tricked and you can get a perfect landing phase. When he yells from above, the aggro resets. If you're casting any heals over time, stop them as the threat generated now might kill you. (e.g. a druid rejuvenation and swiftmend can cause up to 3000 threat, talented or not) and the tank will have trouble picking him up, even with a misdirection. He will land on the right so people will have to position themselves on the tank's left, meaning on the door side.
The transitions are the hardest. To get a perfect landing : he can and will fear as soon as he lands; it can be really hard to break this one because it does not appear on any casting bar and you can't tell if the ground is shaking. After you've experienced him and have enough gear to take the damage, you can stay in berserker stance before landing in order to break the fear asap.

Comment by Drosera

A working strategy for "Tanking" Nightbane during the Air Phase is to have a Shaman respec resto without threat reduction talents, and to spam chain heals. This works quite well due to the high ammount of threat it generates, and it helps a great deal to to keep everyone up because the chains intelligently target the people hurt the most. Since we tried this, we havent gone back to using our Paladin for this.

Comment by 5288

He has a very large collision radius just like Onyxia. Meaning that melee dps can hit him from several yards away, making it a lot harder for you to get feared into a cleave or tail swipe. Another benefit is that if you get charred earth on top of you, you can always just move closer to Nightbane (to where you would be on a normal mob) and continue to dps.

As for ranged dps, you can keep attacking him even through the wall so don't worry about los and just keep your distance. Both of these things help a lot with positioning even in a cramped space like the Master's Terrace.

Comment by 53132

As of the 2.1 patch, Nightbane has had his damage output reduced, primarily on the "charred earth" ability.

During the flight phase of the encounter, "rain of bones" whilst still targetted on a player, will not follow the player if they move.

Fears are also much less frequent.

Comment by Meringue

You don't need to do anything ridiculous like having a Shaman show up with no points in their threat mitigation talent.

Take a Paladin, put Salvation on the Priests, have the Paladin turn on Improved Righteous Fury (99% of Holy Paladins will have this post 2.1).

Improved Righteous Fury adds 90% threat to all Holy spells (yes, including healing) and -6% all damage taken post 2.0.

This will counter act the Paladins natural healing threat reduction, and instead give them a rather large gob of threat above the other healers instead, especially with Salv on.

The Paladin will have the threat every time, complete with -66-67% melee damage. :) If you're trying to take a dig at the raid viability of the Paladin class... don't. That's one area they will always shine in.

Comment by 14566

Since patch 2.1 Rain of Bones doesn't follow the targeted player anymore, it's a static aoe.

Comment by Flangus

Did this with a paladin tank tonight, most certainly can be done. Just make sure to have a tremor totem near the tank (we're horde, so no fear ward =p). Also people should be pve specced in the sense that fear resist can wipe the raid if you have the usual 15% from talents. One thing we did is we put up a shadow protection buff on the MT but not the other raiders, not sure if it helps but afaik all fears are shadow based (except perhaps turn undead).

Comment by 43505

If you have NO fear ward and NO warrior tank you can still do Nightbane we did a Druid MT w/ a Druid OT the OT would run out of fear range and everyone else would run in. He would chew on the 2nd druid until the 1st druid could pick him up again.

We did have a shaman w/ the tremmor totem so the fear was shorted and the few times that everyone got feared he would eat the grace of air totem.

Just so ya'll know :)

Comment by 66849

As I'm MT myself I will tell a bit how to avoid the fear which is very important because not only does he fear and there is chance for others to take aggro, he also walks away from the position you should tank him in if you not react quickly to avoid the fear.
If he fears you it can be a problem for your melee dps that could be hurt very bad by the cleave while he hunts you while you are feared, anyway I will tell how to avoid it.

It is easiest to avoid the fear as alliance because of their priest's Fear Ward. But if you are Horde you can, only as Undead though, use Will of the Forsaken. Always remember to use it just before he fears because it makes you immune for around 4 sec, so you don't get feared at all.
You can also "stancedance" which means you should shift to Berserker Stance quick and make Berserker Rage which make you immune to fear for around 10-15 sec, I don't really remember.
Anyway it could seem hard to time the stancedance right, but it actually isn't. With Deadly Boss Mod it announces "Fear soon", so when it says that go Berserker Stance and make Berserker Rage.
If you not got Boss Mod you can see when the ground starts to shake you should quick go Berserker Stance and make Berserker Rage and then quick back to Defensive Stance because the 20% extra damage you take in Berserker Stance can be very crucial if you get a crushing blow at that time. Anyway with good healers and stuff you should not really worry about that just remember to go back in Defensive Stance ;-)
As druid tank you can use your Insignia/Medallion to break the fear as soon as you are feared. Of course it is easier to be an ally druid tank because they got Fear Ward to but as Horde it is no problem though the fear don't wipe the raid if you don't avoid it - but it can be very evil against the melee dps as mentioned before.
Just remember to move him back quick to the position where you start to tank him (exactly where he lands) and remember to turn his tail into the wall.

Comment by Shada

Just to clarify something: when he lands initially (first landing) he *doesn't* land square center of the parapet, he lands about two thirds of the way south - on top of one or both sections of your raid, depending on how you're handling the encounter. Tanks be aware of this and Shield Bash him immediately (he's taunt immune), hunters should as mentioned Misdirect/Aimed Shot him onto you to solidify initial aggro. First time we attempted him it came as a nasty surprise when he landed on top of our "mana cell". Subsequent landings he touches down fairly square centre of the terrace, though.

Comment by Darkicon

Our strategy for this fight:

Class makeup:

2 Priests (1 Shadow, 1 Holy)
3 Warriors (2 Prot, 1 Fury)
1 Paladin (Holy)
1 Mage (Fire)
2 Hunters (1 BM, 1 MM)
1 Warlock (Affliction)

Normal DPS at beginning, until 75%, once he flies up, we all stack on top of the holy priest, once Rain of Bones starts we all move out of it, towards Nightbane (To not cause Fireball Barrage), while we focus fire down the skeletons. 5 seconds before landing, the MT positions himself to pick him up, while the rest DPS down the last of the skeletons. Rinse and repeat. Simple fight. Save your mana, it can be a long fight.

Comment by 86469

Recently, we've been in encounters where Nightbane randomly go after a dps who is not on top of the aggro list. We had KTM to confirm this on several accounts. Sometimes this happens after the fear wore off of the dps, although the MT was never feared and therefore never lost aggro until Nightbane turn around and one-shot the dps. Does anyone else has this problem, or know why this occur?

Comment by Tamika

I found out that the best way to avoid fear is to get a boss mod and actually wait for Nightbane to begin casting Bellowing roar and not using berserker rage directly when you see a "fear soon" message. The reason to do so is that the message appears when the cooldown of fear ends, but it doesn't mean that Nightbane will cast it right away, and if you pop Berserker Rage too soon it might wear off before fear and you'll be unprotected against fear when it really gets casted.

Once the Bellowing Roar starts to cast, you have 2 seconds to get yourself immune to fear. some tips for beginners (or nor only beginners):
1. As a tank you should maintain your Shield Block through all the combat, but especially when you're going to perform stance dance. If you use it, along with thunderclap that slows attack speed of a boss, you'll maintain the block buff even if you change stances, you will block, and you will not get crushed (unless you are VERY unlucky).
2. A common berserker stance -berserker rage - defensive stance macro might be useful but I'd suggest that people not familiarized with this kind of macros (or laggy / low fps ) to not to use them.. the reason is that if you do something wrong or lag out.. you might get to defensive stance BEFORE berserker rage pops (it's a macro not a player, you cannot blame it afterwards :S ), so it's up to you.
3. I use the next method to pop berserker rage fast and safe way. I have Pummel in button 5 normally. When I face nightbane I move Pummel away and put Bersker stance there, and on berserkser bar, I put Berserker rage in the same button... so when I see fear warning I just mash 5 until I get sure BR popped (30 sec CD started counting on :P ). Then I return back to defensive and use shield block... and so on. This method is not the best but... it's simple and works fine.

P.S. I commented somewhere below that if you get feared in berserker stance (noticed fear too late) and use berserker rage just afterwards, your character probably wont move as it has only been feared for 0.5 seconds or so, but you WILL deaggro most probably, happened to me twice today (was on 800ms ping) so pay attention tu pull. Good luck killing it and enjoy your chest and shield :)

Comment by 52664

Fear shouldn't be an issue in 2.3.

Official Blue Post: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2509265802&sid=1#14
"• Creature AI has been changed to no longer prioritize attacking unfeared targets over feared targets."

Which means Nightbane will still be beating on the feared tank, instead of the rest of the raid.

Comment by Shorty

Successfully tanked this guy tonight as a paladin with no fear ward.

What I did to break the fear was rotate between three things: Using my PVP trinket, casting BoP, and casting DS. For the second two, they were macroed so that double-clicking the icon canceled them immediatley.

It wasn't perfect. I had the 5-minute cooldown PVP trinket instead of the 2-minute cooldown; as such, there were 2 fears that I had to eat with only a tremor totem up and someone died on one of them. It was still a successful kill, however, and I plan on getting the better trinket soon.

The macros are as follows:

BoP:
/tar (your name)
/cast Blessing of Protection(rank 3)
/cancelaura Blessing of Protection(rank 3)
/targetlasttarget

DS:
/cast Divine Shield(rank 2)
/cancelaura Divine Shield(rank 2)

All of these must be doubleclicked for them to work; otherwise you'll still have one of the bubbles on you and nightbane will run off and instagib some hapless clothie.

Comment by 26892

As of 2.3, Nightbane will stick on feared targets due to the AI fear change. However, due to his cleave and breath, it is still important to prevent or minimize the fear on the tank as much as possible. Furthermore, a feared warrior or paladin is incapable of using Shield Block/Holy Shield and would be vulnerable to crushing blows. Having the tank feared is no longer a wipe, but still a risk.

Patch 2.3 also distributes (albeit nerfed) Fear Ward to all priests. A single priest will consume a good deal of his fears, while two priests can have a Fear Ward rotation going that will negate most, if not all, of his fears.

Comment by Oley

Funny little easter egg I discovered while re-summoning someone in room right when you get up stairs before prince...If you look out the windows for a while you will start to see a Nightbane model flying around in the background...for some reason my pics arent saved to WoW screenshots so ill take another soon and post it under nightbane

Comment by GenericNPC

As melee, we always grouped up hugging his back leg. Out of range of both his tail sweep and his cleave, but still positioned right that Rogues/Druids could take advantage of being 'behind' the target.

If you get a Charred Earth below you, you can run straight through Nightbane to his other back leg, while still avoiding both his tail sweep and cleave. It may or may not put you out of range of heals, but it shouldn't matter too much considering you probably haven't taken any damage so far, and you shouldn't have taken more that one tick of damage from the Charred Earth.

Rarely he placed a Charred Earth on both sides of Melee. In which case I just backed up and started Moonfiring, if I was a Rogue I would have tried for Deadly Throw; until either one of the Charred Earth's disappear. Jumping or Sprint/Dashing through it to minimize the damage taken.

Comment by Kathucka

Note that Charred Earth does physical AoE damage, which is mitigated by armor. The tooltip states that it does fire damage, but that is not correct.

A hunter pet specced for Avoidance (50% damage reduction from AoE) and extra armor can survive in the Charred Earth for quite a while.

Also, Charred Earth is a DoT effect. It takes a few seconds before it actually causes any damage. If you move out of it instantly, you won't take damage.

Comment by 27608

If you ever thought of what happens if you take him to 50%, 25%, 1% in the air, here's what happens so you don't have to :D

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/Scynical/WoWScrnShot_031408_205204.jpg

Comment by 47303

Two important things:

First, you need to have your spell detail level up in order to properly see the Charred Earth effect. If it's really low, all you'll see is some grey smoke.

Second, the Rain of Bones does not follow you. As soon as you take damage from in, run out of it.

Comment by 48165

One nice trick I found out by accident: if you are under the effect of a Major Dreamless Sleep Potion, you will not run around while affected by Nightbane's fear. Meaning you won't have to worry about getting feared into his Cleave, Tail Swipe or a Charred Earth area, and restore a nice dose of mana too if you're a caster. As Bellowing Roar is a timed cast you can use it as soon as he starts casting it (obviously you can't use it to break fear after it's already cast).

There's one risk to this: a Charred Earth might appear under you while affected. Fairly low chance though, and even then it's unlikely to be fatal especially seeing the potion effect acts as a small HoT.

Comment by 144071

A Paladin using Devotion Aura can help alot, as Charred Earth does physical dmg (Will be fixed in 2.4.2), and helps mitigate the damage done directly by Nightbane.

Comment by defektunge

Healers beware: this is a very long fight, especially if you lose a couple of dpsers during the fight. It's easily ten minutes long when you're first learning it, and it's fairly intensive healing the whole time.

To compare, I had more healing done on the Nightbane fight during our last Karazhan run (two healer setup, ~9 min fight) than I do during an average clear ofGruul's Lair, trash included. At the end, the two of us had over 600.000 effective healing done between us.

Comment by Manestone

I'm surprised no one mentioned this but when the fight first starts he often likes to kill one person if the tank isn't quick on picking him up. He'll land and instantly turn to the side and crush whoever was unlucky enough to be close enough. Remedies for this can include a hunter misdirect, that paladin aoe can help as well.

Comment by 193992

I have two toons so this is how I know how to handle the fight for these classes specifically:

How to survive Nightbane as a Holy Priest - Fade as he's going into the air, spam Binding Heal the entire time Rain of Bones is coming down, and Fade as he's landing. Unless you have loltanks, you'll be alive.

How to survive Nightbane as a Mage (any spec) - single target at first until your tank has a good bit of aggro, then lay out on them. Only if you have a Pally tank do you stand a good chance of survival if you start to AoE immediately. Ice Block doesn't hurt either. ;-)

From the fact that there are 48 other comments I'm sure the general "How To" has been covered, these are just a few pointers I thought I'd share.

Cheers.

Comment by khoros

we did this with 2 healers in 8 minutes flat the only really dangerous thing (except from boss attacking tank ofc) is the charred earth if you havent seen it you take alot of unnecesary dmg, the fly phase is easy as you can just kill the skeletons and then the healers can heal evryone back to full hp

Comment by 39449

Like we all know: He's a fiery skeletal dragon who is giant, fiery and skeletal

(Thank Alex Albrecht for that one)

Comment by 234691

After 3.0.2 this boss has become very easy :) Just 3-manable now. Done it last night with 1 prot warrior (me), 1 resto shaman, 1 mage. all T5 gear.

Comment by Thae

Combat rogues, I don't suggest you use killing spree when he is in the air. It teleports you to him and you end up in some weird unpopulated area of the kara background and getting back up can be annoying. It seems that when you are down in that area everything red is an "invalid target" for killing spree, so trying to killing spree my way back up didn't work! :(

Comment by 177159

Do not use the rogue talent "Killing Spree" when Nightbane is in the air as you just get thrown off the roof!

:-(

Comment by Skelgril

Just thought I'd drop off a comment here about Nightbane in WotlK..
You no longer need the Blackened Urn to summon him. Instead, you just use the Blackened Urn that's on the ground there. Wether you are required to do the quest or not to use it, I am not sure, if anyone could confirm this that would be awesome. P.S. The Urn is now sellable for 2 gold if I remember correctly. :)

Comment by 323186

Nightbane soloed on February 13th 2009 by Dreadwyn lvl 80 Death Knight on Eonar(US) first attempt using this spec - https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/talent=jcEMqc0IsbRzzhZhxbkIZbg

Major glyphs of Icebound Fortitude, Death Strike and Vampiric Blood. Minor glyphs of pestilience, raise dead and horn of winter. Rune of the stoneskin gargoyle. Frost Presence.

No buffs but my own, no flasks, no food buffs, no scrolls.

Rotation was IT>PS>DS>HS>HS DS>DS>HS>HS replacing heart strike with vampiric blood/rune tap/mark of blood when needed.

No runic power dumps, all runic power stored for higher death strike heals.

Stayed out of the fire, used anti magic shell on breath when possible, add phase was easiest part, human racial/lichborne used to prevent fears when low.

Last week attumen, moroes, maiden downed with ease, oz went down as well. This week along with nightbane aran and illhoof also were soloed by me. Was using all dps gear, armory is showing the gear i used at the time of this post.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eonar&n=Dreadwyn

Edit: Working on prince, got him to ~30% and was about to pop all of my cd's including army, had done a good job of preserving them throughout the majority of the fight and got insta gibbed by a bad string of windfury procs and parry haste.

Comment by 215749

This boss is soloable as a prot paladin. I used seal and judgement of light, and fire resist aura. Keep sacred shield up, move out of charred earth. I used every man on first fear, divine prot on second, and ate the third. Average 3 fears per ground phase for me. Air phase is the time to regen mana, skellies are easy and can give you a full mana bar from sanct before you kill them. Dispel yourself when you get distracting ash, and dispel the dot off yourself once he's coming back down. Rinse and repeat and he's dead. Pretty boring fight, took me about 17 minutes.

Comment by hellrex81

When i was doing this boss it gliched and he was on 10% of his health and he just ran away and disappeared and then another one appeared with full health and we did kill him but we realy had to nuke hard so when you get him to 10% watch out coz this glich might happen to you

PS:what dose the list iteam button do?

Comment by 336526

If you are gonna solo this: use the inner wall to LoS his breath, you got less than a second to react to it and run, but it is possible with some practice.

The rest should be easy if you can handle his melee damage.

Edit: if you run out of Charred Earth immediately you will not suffer a single tick of the damage.

Comment by Ssateneth

I completed the quest to summon nightbane before they made the urn grey quality (I remember vendoring the urn after it turned grey quality) but I cannot summon him still. Is it because I never got the key to kara? I need to do BM for the key still.

Comment by mattroszel

Soloable by a feral druid, hardest part was the smoldering breath debuff which I saved my barksin for.

Comment by nyctric

First defeated by Death & Taxes of Korgath on the 29th of January, 2007.

Comment by 212613

i have the urn still but how do you summon him now that its useless, hes still the coolest looking boss and funnest, well for me cause i pulled him so many times in BC. lock that is 0 21 40 RIP

Comment by 48509

The only boss I can think of from BC onward with dialogue that has no voice-over.

Comment by Keiser

It looks possible to solo him as Retribution using SoL/JoL, I got him to his 2nd ground phase and was at 100% hp/mana when he landed. Problem is if he crits you a couple times in a row it'll be 8k a pop and you'll be stuck at 30% life unless you use a CD. You pretty much have to be willing eat CDs like candy, probably 1 per ground phase.

Edit:
Just downed him as Prot, turns out using each ridge of the center wall you can LOS not only his breath, but his fear as well. You can fight him along a flat area of the inner wall, stand near where the wall juts out slightly, and as soon as you see a cast bar, run around the wall. Since it's a semi-circle you can just keep moving along in one direction each cast of fear, breath, or charred earth, and when you get to the end just turn around and go back the other way, skipping any charred earths that haven't gone away. I was taking little enough damage that I could just use SoV as Prot for increased DPS.

Comment by PilsnerDk

Beware of pulling him to far away from the urn. It might have been fluke, but as I was soloing him and slowly backing away from his Charred Earth while fighting him, I ended up at the southern end of the balcony, and suddenly at around 32%, he just flew away and I was out of combat. Had to start all over again, and that time, I stayed in the area around the urn.

Comment by Thottbot

Why are you all arguing over whether or not he or Prince is the last boss? They are both at the end, that is all that needs to be said. Leave comment space for information about Nightbane please, that is what it is for. (I was reluctant to post this just because it's filling comment space!)

Comment by Thottbot

No, NOT the last boss in Karazhan. That's the prince. He's at the top, while nightbane can be summoned after the opera.
As for the prince being easy, is this the same boss we've been fighting? Drops infernals which box in, and then wipe the raid? kills the tank in seconds during phase 2? yeh... easy. when you get lucky.

Anyway, there's a quest chain to summon this guy, but only 1 person in your raid needs to have done it. (it involves a full clear of the library, killing aran, then sethekk and shattered halls first bosses on heroic)

A 2-phase fight, It's got the usual dragon earth-quake - fear thing, so dwarf / draeni priest's fear ward will trivialise this. It only fears about once every 60 seconds, so it's usually possible to have 2 people fear warded. Also, beware of the "charred earth" which shows up anywhere in the area. It's black/red and hard to miss. if you stay at max range you can just move forward to dodge this, the bosses hit box is HUGE! Phase 2 starts at 75%, 50% and 25%. He flys up, does a fair amount of random damage to the whole raid, and adds spawn. These hit clothies pretty hard, but can be CC'd with shackles, hunter traps, etc, and need to be DPSed down before he lands. He wipes aggro while he's in the air, so the tank REALLY needs to be on the ball or the boss goes straight for a healer. Then you get phase 1 again. On the whole, about as tricky as aran, with less random elements than the prince.

Kind of like 10-manning onyxia, only it flys up and deep breaths every 25% :)

Comment by Thottbot

If you look at the Violet Eye rep gained by killing Prince Machezaar (500), vs the rep gained by killing Nightbane (250); I think it is obvious that Prince Malchezaar IS the final boss of Karazhan.

Comment by Thottbot

We're having a lot of trouble with Nightbane in the air, specifically I think with Rain of Bones. Let me know if I understand this correctly, because I'm finding conflicting information where ever I look:

Rain of Bone is cast on a random target at the beginning of the air phase and summons some skeletons (not a problem for us) and pelts the target with shards of bone in a medium sized AoE. The AoE effect follows the target.

So our problem is: How do you know who is the target of rain of bone? If we all move, the AoE moves with us. I don't see any emote or debuff that signifies who the target is, and thus who to get away from. Any suggestions?

Comment by Thottbot

Nightbane. A very hard fight, and easy, at times.

He hits HARD on the tank. So the tank and healers are going to get ready for a beating. He does also have a ton of health. lots of mana and having at least 3 mana pots is a good idea.

Nightbane has familiar abilities to other dragon fights, and some unique ones. He should be tanked, tail to the dome, head to the edge of the masters terrace. This is for the following reasons:

Tail Swipe - Will swipe everyone attacking him from behind with his tail. Melee DPS cannot attack him from behind

Fire Breath - This prevents melee from attacking him in the front. It does burst damage plus a DOT.

Cleave - Basically a frontal cone attack that is similar to the warrior ability.

This is what the melee have to worry about, however if you have him tanked sideways then you should be fine. Now, the ranged and casters have to worry about other things.

Charred Earth - Nightbane will burn a spot of earth, and everyone who enters that area will slow down and be afflicted by a DOT. Very easy to see. Kind of looks like burning coals on the ground.

Fear - This will fear everyone within (i think) 30 yards of Nightbane. There is a current bug with Paladin tanks and Nightbane where he will NOT follow the tank through the fear. He will attack a random person once or twice and return to the tank. Other than that, no matter on the tank, he will attack you if you dont get feared. That being said, everyone should be aware of the fear and move in if you think you are out of range of his fear.

Those are what you have to worry about with Nightbane. For now. At 75%, 50%, and 25% health, he will fly up in the air and begin his flight phase. It only lasts for a minute or so. During this phase, he will stay up in the air and be unattackable. He will cast:

Rain of Bones - This is an AOE that will follow a single, random target, and does about 300 a tick. Shouldnt be worried about that much and is easy to heal through.

Summon Skeleton - He will also summon adds in his flight phase. Though they are non elite, they do hit for more than 1k damage on cloth. They should not be AOEd by a mage or a warlock if they want to live. Use target of target and always attack the tanks target. You should be able to survive this phase if you use target of target and focus fire.

Fireball - He will target a random person in the raid and blast them with fireballs. Call this out so the healers can heal it through!

Kill the adds a few seconds before he lands? Great! dont waste this time, use it wisely! Druids can cast Tranquility, Mages can Evocate, etc. Now, when he lands, get back on him, and continue. If you can hang in there, keeping in mind of his abilities, he should be a nice, smooth fight :) Enjoy your loot!

Comment by Thottbot

I just laugh at all the people arguing over which is the 'last boss' of Karazhan. What do you think, somewhere in an underground bunker in Blizz HQ there is a safe and inside is a piece of paper saying who is the 'last boss' of Karazhan and if you guess right you win a prize?

Prince drops the best loot. Nightbane is (arguably) the toughest fight. You can fight every other boss in Karazhan before you can fight Prince. Nightbane was needed for the old SSC attunement. Prince is clearly the current master of Karazhan. Most guilds will probably down Nightbane last of all the bosses in Karazhan.

Arguing over which is the 'last boss' is like arguing whether Prince prefers Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies for breakfast.

Comment by Thottbot

8 Manned: Sanctus Incendia: Emerald Dream: Alliance

Funny story, so we are prepared to 9 man Nightbane, we place the Urn on the ground, one of our Rogues types in raid chat "guys im lost". Lulz, forgot to Ready Check, as fight starts he gets blasted for around 12k by the anti-exploit fireball from outside in the hallway, suffice to say i said might as well try it and downed him. Only had to use one SS ress on a priest that got owned during Rain of Bones.

Warrior: tank
Druid: boomkin
2 Warlocks: affliction
Rogue (and one stuck outside)
2 Priest: holy
Paladin: holy

Comment by Thottbot

Beware of his special ability at 0%:
Never drops the Shield of Impenetrable Darkness & Yells "Muhuhahahaha" @ Pally & Warrior Tanks

What an %^&*!@#.

Comment by Thottbot

The main theme of the fight is the casters and healers moving to get out of the Charred Earth and still managing to keep the tank up from the hard hits. If one healer falls then its pretty much over unless nightbane is almost down. Other then that it falls on the tank to take the hits, point him away from the group, stance dance out of fears and pick up as many skellys as possible.

As a melee dps, i'd like to point out to others that standing infront of nightbane is a BIG no-no, he will cleave you and kill you instantly, its better to go around back when avoiding charred earth and suffering from the dot then hoping you survive the cleave. Especially if your a rogue like me and can CoS off the tail swipe dot. But its best to go right through him ASAP.

Comment by Thottbot

If anyone is having trouble with nightbane or any Kara boss go on to youtube and there is a person that posted like 9 or 10 videos on all the kara bosses showing how to defeat all the bosses. examples of his videos are How to: nightbane and he has how to: (all kara bosses hoped this help)

Comment by Thottbot

The guy that posts the videos name is Stego ^^

Comment by Thottbot

After many failed attempts we finally downed him last night, seemed the difference makers for us were to have one healer go to either side so no matter which way the MT got feared he was in healing range, and as soon as rain of bones was cast, a pally put blessing of protection on the healer on top of the healing list, this gave the pally off tank time to round of skeletons before they kiled the healer (which seemed to be our main problem) . using these two add'l strats (with an MD to MT at end of flight phase) it was intense but fairly straightforward. dropped healing leather (our druid was happy to see it) and shaman boots (d/e'ed)

Comment by Thottbot

just downed, happy enha shaman with the mail chest now, got 6+ all stat on it

Comment by Thottbot

hes a tough bastard, deffently harder then prince. Got my tanking sheild though :)

Thraxe 70 Warrior
Mug'thol Alliance

Comment by Thottbot

panzar is tank in german

Comment by Allakhazam

Your mother was lame to not interupt you.

Comment by Allakhazam

Nightbane does nasty amounts of physical damage to the tank, so with the current level of gear, you need several good healers in the group just to keep him up. With the tricky attacks in phase 2, don't expect to kill him without some decent practice.

Details on killing him: Nightbane Strategy Guide

Comment by Allakhazam

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t176/Sinfang123/Nightbane.jpg

Slightly fuzzy (Don't know why, doesn't look like that on Excelcius forums :P lol Anyways, heres the big boy before we took him down.. I was taking a dirt nap (First attempt) O.o Enjoy... Makes a nice Desktop Background, over half our guild has it for that purpose :P

Taking more mob pix asap! National Geographic for WoW coming up!

Edited, May 1st 2007 1:52pm by Kamyigo

Comment by Allakhazam

The fight is pretty straight-forward. Just stay at his sides(his front shoots fire and his tail does a tail sweep), so if you're by the right or left of him its easysauce deflecting those.

Abilities:

Charred Earth - A molten ground that appears under random people, if you're the one it targets, it'll put you right in the midle, so you'll need to run out fast. It is a DOT and does 2000-4 or 5k dmg about every 2 seconds, but if you leave it, you'll lose debuff, so stay out of them.

Fear - Duh, every 40 seconds or so he'll fear, you can out range the fear(about 32 yrds) so it's a good idea for casters to stay at max range.

Rain of Bones - Shoots a volley of bones on a single target, but if the target is near someone, it will affect the others. The RoB looks like he's pooping on a person so if you see that, get back.

Skeletons - When he flies, he summons about 6 skeletons, non-elite. They hit for about 3-5k dmg and have about 16000 health, so the tanks should pick up as many as they can.

Strategy:

Nightbane has rougly 1mil health(from what I've seen, could be less I'm not entirely sure). Avoid the Tail Sweep and Fire Breath by staying at his sides. Stay at a ranged distance to avoid the fear. When you see molten lava/black-ish earth under you, move away, far away. Every 25% he will fly in ther air(at 75%, 50%, 25%). When he does so, he will use an attack called Rain of Bones, which, like I said, looks like flying balls of crap getting thrown poorly at people. If you're targeted by this, try getting away from others. He also summons skeletons, so the tanks need to pick them up fast. When it says he's landing, which is roughly about 1 minute when he flies, the tank needs to get to the spot where he was just before. The second tank(you'll need one) will pick up all the remaining adds when Nightbane lands. Kill adds before attackin Nightbane.

Nightbane's aggro is wiped when he lands, but his aggro wipes as soon as he lands, so you can all-out nuke him while he's in the air(DOT's, bows, guns, etc.) before the adds come. When he lands, though, you'll need the tank to get more aggro.

Nightbane is pretty straight-forward between flights, those 2 phases(land/air) are the only things needed to worry about the fight. Other than that, it's a fun fight.

Comment by Allakhazam

Anyone know the name of the starting quest to summon bane?

Comment by Allakhazam

A fun and very challenging encounter, a fun end to Karazhan.

Comment by Allakhazam

Nightbane's melee damage has been considerably reduced with the latest patch, used to hit MT for 8-9k, now it's down to 5-6k. Phase 2 is still the tricky part though.

Comment by Allakhazam

Cleared on the 1st try with a PuG, some of the guys even 1st time there. If everyone knows what to do, its just the same that with Murmur; a repetitive long easy fight.

Comment by Allakhazam

The Item used to summon nightbane is from a quest reward called Keanna's Log or something of that nature. The entire quest is based Inside Karazan. The quest NPC is in the library part before the Shade. there are 4 quest NPC's in that area with different parts to different quests... Enjoy.

Comment by Allakhazam

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2576270279091239305&q=nightbane grats last resort!

Comment by Allakhazam

woo another lame model

Comment by Allakhazam

downed by impervious guild http://www.impervious-guild.com

Comment by Allakhazam

REALLY rough fight, particularly Stage 2, as things can go oh so very wrong when he lands. Working around the fears without a Dwarf priest can be rough too. Make sure you have an MT that can stance dance well because the Fear cast time is FAST. Like 2-3 sec, tops. Took my guild a good dozen tries, but finally got him down once we learned the stages.

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Nightbane

This NPC can be found in Karazhan .

KarazhanServant QuartersAttumenMidnightMoroesMaiden of VirtueOpera EventThe CuratorChess EventTerestian IllhoofShade of AranNetherspiteNightbanePrince MalchezaarNightbaneKarazhanArcanagosPrince MalchezaarMedivh's JournalNightbaneShattered HallsSethekk HallsBlackened UrnSpecial AbilitiesOnyxiaGround Abilities

Bellowing Roar: Typical dragon fear; it has a 30-second cooldown. He casts this from time to time.

Cleave: Typical dragon cleave, frontal arc. Hits for approximately 6,000 on plate; 11,000 on cloth.

: Creates Charred Earth, similar to a fire-based Void Zone.

Distracting Ash: Reduces the chance to hit with spells and abilities by 30%. Can be dispelled.

Smoldering Breath: 3700 to 4300 direct damage, plus 1688 to 1912 damage every 3 seconds.

Tail Sweep: 450 direct damage, plus 2250 damage over time.

Air AbilitiesRestless SkeletonsRain of BonesSmoking BlastRighteous FuryFireball BarrageThe Ground BattleWill of the ForsakenTo the Sky!Landing

Quotes (5)

Gains

After killing this NPC you will gain:

10 Player
- 250 reputation with The Violet Eye

Normal
- 250 reputation with The Violet Eye

Nightbane

Quotes (5)

Gains

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