Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj is a 20-man raid instance located in Silithius. It ranks in difficultly and quality of rewards below Molten Core The equipment base required for this instance is as of yet undetermined.

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Class Specific Items and Quests

There are a number of quests that can be completed to recieve a class specific rare or epic items. The sets from the Ruins have three pieces for each class.

The structure of the quests is similar to Zul'Gurub requiring a combination of one Qiraji item dropped from a boss, two Idols and two sets of 5 scarabs. Epic quested items required epic Qiraji items while rare quested items require rare Qiraji items.

The boss drop items are as follows:
The Epic items are as follows:

• Qiraji Bindings of Command - Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Priest
• Qiraji Bindings of Dominance - Paladin, Shaman, Mage, Warlock, Druid
• Qiraji Spiked Hilt - Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Shaman
• Qiraji Ornate Hilt - Priest, Mage, Warlock, Druid

The Rare items are as follows:

• Qiraji Ceremonial Ring
• Qiraji Martial Drape
• Qiraji Magisterial Ring - Warrior, Paladin, Shaman, Mage, Druid
• Qiraji Regal Drape - Paladin, Hunter, Shaman, Warlock, Druid

The Rare paired items are as follows:

• Alabaster Idol - Warrior, Mage, Druid
• Jasper Idol -
• Obsidian Idol - Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Mage

Scarabs:

• Bronze
• Ivory

Bosses

Kurinnaxx

A cross between a centipede and a scorpion, this six legged freak will be the first boss you encounter in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj.

Strategy: This boss is primarily melee with a powerful cleave attack and two special abilities.

The first of these is Mortal Wounds. Mortal Wounds is a debuff that reduces by 10% the healing a target will receive. It can stack 10 times for a total of 100% (0 healing receivable). A simple tank switch can alleviate this. As for agro retainment, there were no problems that I saw. This boss seems to like to stick to a tank.

The second ability is based on RSTS (Random Secondary Targeting System) known as Sand Trap. A mound of sand will randomly appear at any player's feet and deal massive damage (roughly 2000 damage) in a 20 yard area of effect in addition to adding a debuff that silences and reduces chance to hit by 75%, which lasts for 20 seconds. Simply keep the raid as spread out as possible and move away from it if you see it at your feet.

Items:

• Vestments of the Shifting Sands - Cloth, Chest
• Qiraji Sacrifical Dagger - Dagger, 48.2 DPS, 1.9 speed, +15 Sta, +20 AP
• Qiraji Martial Drape - Quest item
• Qiraji Regal Drape - Quest item
• Sandreaver wrist guards - Mail, Wrist
• Belt of the Inquisition - Cloth, Waist
• Toughened Silithid Hide Gloves - Leather, hands
• Belt of the Sand Reaver - Plate, Waist
• Qiraji Magisterial Ring - Quest item
• Qiraji Ceremonial Ring - Quest item

General Rajaxx

More an event than an actual boss, General Rajaxx is quite possibly the most difficult of the first three bosses encountered. After Kurinnaxx is killed, 5 NPC's will appear near its spawn point. A Lt. General Andorov (human dual wielding axes) and 4 Kaldorei Elites (night elves wielding 2h swords). In order to activate the General Rajaxx event, one merely needs to speak to Andorov. Waves of bugs must be overcome before the General shows himself. During battle, the Lt. Gen. constantly casts an Aura of Command which heals everyone in his vicinity for 200 hps/sec. and inreases attack and casting speed by 10%. This requires Friendly faction with the Cenarion Circle. Otherwise, you will not receive it. They are healable and druid buffs can be cast upon them. However, doing so will put you in PvP. Therefore, I recommend everyone activate their PvP toggle at this time.

Pre-General encounters and strategy (Pre 1.10): You do not have to activate Andorov to begin the event if you choose this method. You simply have to pull the first wave bugs. There are if I remember correctly, 7 waves of bugs. Each wave contains a "ranked" bug (Captain Drenn, Captain Qeez, Captain Tuubid, Captain Xurrem, Major Pakkon, Major Yeggeth and Colonel Zerran) which are easily recognized due to their white exoskeleton and large size and a swarm of other bugs that deal significant damage to anything they swing at. Each wave is composed of 7 bugs (a "ranked" bug, and an assortment of swarmguards and warriors).

In order to take care of these waves as they arrive, the swarmguards should be taken out first as they have very few hps and tend to drop (pardon the pun) like flies. The MT should take the captain to a wall and tank him while this occurs. The druids should root the warriors which should be handled last.

General Rajaxx Strategy: After the waves end, General Rajaxx will appear. Rajaxx is yet another powerhouse melee damage dealer with two or three special abilities.

The first is a knockback which clears the agro of anyone he does it to. He also does a yell which I am unsure is connected to the knockback or not (hence two or three above). He yells, "You are of no consequence to me, <playername>!" and then immediately attempts to move to a different target. From what I was told, Taunt does work on him and agro can therefore be regained almost immediately.

The second ability (known as Thundercrack according to Psybie), deals half a player's current total hps in damage to all in the area of effect (this means everyone, it's essentially zonewide). It is nature based so Nature Resist will probably help with this. In addition, this ability is used at set intervals starting with the first at the beginning of the fight. Approximate time in between Thundercracks appears to be 30 to 45 seconds.

The fight is long and you will probably lose a few people during your first few attempts. As said above, if you keep the NPC's alive (I'm sure you only need the Lt. General, but it is nice to keep them all up), they will eventually despawn and give all those in the raid 150 points of Cenarion Circle reputation.

Items:

• Boots of the Vanguard - Leather, Feet
• Manslayer of the Qiraji - 2h Sword, 62.5 DPS, 3.6 speed, 20 Sta, 35 Str, 15 Agi
• Qiraji Martial Drape - Quest item
• Qiraji Regal Drape - Quest item
• Southwind's Grasp - Leather, Waist
• Bracers of Qiraji Command - Cloth, Wrist
• Qiraji Magisterial Ring - Quest item
• Legplates of Qiraji Command - Plate, Legs
• Qiraji Ceremonial Ring - Quest item
• Boots of the Qiraji General - Mail, Feet

Moam

Also known as the Obsidian Destroyer boss, Moam is quite possibly the easiest boss if you have the proper raid makeup. I strongly recommend bringing a minimum of two warlocks to this fight (three is ideal). If not, you will still be able to kill Moam, but you will also most likely wipe immediately afterwards.

Strategy: Moam is actually a fairly simple fight. He, like other bosses encountered previously, has two special abilities.

The first is the RSTS AE mana drain. There is no preventing this from happening. Do not let Moam hit full mana! It is imperative that all mana draining classes prevent him from doing so. If he does reach full mana, he will cast a very large radius Arcane Explosion (this is not what it's called, it has a different name I can't remember) that deals not only massive Arcane damage (somewhere in the 4000 to 7000 range for me) but knocks you high into the air to take fall damage as well. This will most likely wipe the raid. Spreading the raid out will help keep this under control.

The second ability is quite obvious as well as quite deadly. This second ability occurs approximately 90 seconds after Moam is attacked. You will see the message, "Moam drains your mana and turns to stone." At this point, Moam turns into a statue and summons three elementals known as Mana Fiends. The Mana Fiends have a powerful arcane damage melee attack along with an approximately 2000 hp Arcane Explosion. This is where the warlocks come in. These must be banished immediately. If they cannot be banished, they must be moved as far away from the rest of the raid as possible. They are immune to most forms of CC including Fear. Moam is still vulnerable in this form! Continue to pound away and mana drain him to prevent him from destoning and using his deadly AE ability. The Mana Fiends do not despawn at his death. They must be taken care of after Moam has been killed, preferably one at a time.

Items:

• Qiraji Spiked Hilt - Quest item
• Qiraji Ornate Hilt - Quest item
• Thick Silithid Chestguard - Leather, Chest
• Dustwind Turban - Cloth, Head
• Gauntlets of the Immovable - Plate, Hands
• Talon of Furious Concentration - Offhand
• Eye of Moam - Trinket
• Obsidian Scaled Leggings - Mail, Legs
• Cloak of the Savior - Healing Cloak
• Qiraji Ceremonial Ring - Quest item
• Legplates of the Destroyer - Plate, Legs
• Chitinous Shoulderguards - Leather, Shoulders
• Qiraji Magisterial Ring - Quest item
• Ring of Fury - Melee Ring
• Southwind Helm - Leather, Head

Buru the Gorger

This slow moving hulk can be encountered at any point after Rajaxx although most raids prefer to take him down after Moam and before Ayamiss. No classes are truly required although three warriors (or more) are a preferred makeup.

Strategy: Buru attacks either when you attack him or when you attack one of the eggs in his area. The preferred way is to attack an egg. He is immune to any taunt abilities and has 5 special abilities himself.

The first is what I call the "eye" ability. As soon as Buru is triggered to attack he will randomly choose a player in the raid to attack. This involves a message that says "Buru the Gorger has his eye on (playername). He will choose a different target approximately every 30 seconds. Due to the RSTS however, he may pick the same player he is currently chasing again. Simply run away from Buru to prevent being hit. The preferred method is a counter-clockwise run around his lair.

If you are playing Horde, get a Shaman to cast waterwalking on the kiter - this will enable them to run on top of the water rather than swimming in it, and thus move faster.

The second is Thorns. Similar to the druid spell but far more powerful. Buru deals 200 damage to any melee attacker whenever he is hit. Ranged players do not receive this damage. Therefore, if you wish to do damage to Buru in Phase 1 (see below) you must either use spells, wands or ranged weaponry.

The third ability is Dismember. If Buru actually manages to catch up to a player he will cause a bleed-like effect that deals 1248 damage every 2 seconds. He is normally very slow and should never catch up. However, this leads to his fourth ability.

The fourth ability triggers when Buru is hit by an egg explosion (see below). He will slowly speed up and may, if the player he has his eye on does not have enough of a head start, catch up and essentially, the player is toast.

His final ability occurs during Phase 2 (see below), when Phase 2 occurs, he casts an area effect DoT known as Creeping Plague. It deals 80 damage/tick and can stack. It is nature based but it is unknown if it is resistable or not. The best way to deal with this is Greater Nature Protection Potions to negate the first few shots thus increasing the chance of the raid's survival during Phase 2. This immediately disappears when Buru dies.

Phase 1: The eggs are vital during this phase in order to end it quickly. Each egg if destroyed when Buru is directly above it, will take out 6% of Buru's health. If he is not directly above the egg, he will take a lesser % hit to his health.

When the encounter begins, the player Buru has eyed begins to kite him around his lair while the rest of the raid focuses on an egg a hunter has marked. The egg is taken down to around 20% or less. At this point Buru is dragged over the egg to have it explode underneath him. It is recommended you do no more than 3 eggs in a row to reduce the stress on healer's mana. It is also recommended that you do this to as many eggs as you can before dragging Buru on top of the egg. When the egg explodes it can also do up to 900 nature damage to any players within the vicinity. Therefore the ranged weapons and spells should take care of the rest of the egg's hps when Buru is on top of it. In addition to the damage the egg may provide, the destruction of it causes a Hive'Zara Hatchling to spawn from it. A tank will take over the hatchling's agro and the rest of the raid then kills it while Buru is chasing down his eyed target. During this phase players may also choose to do damage to Buru if they feel like it. The preferred method would be damage over time spells and abilities. Rinse and repeat until 21%.

Phase 2: Phase 2 begins at 20% which is why I recommend putting him over an egg at 21%. Thus, when the last egg is put underneath him, he will be at 15%. As soon as he drops below or equal to 20% of his health he will lose his outer shell and his Thorns ability thus becoming far more vulnerable. This is where the warriors come in. Due to his being below 20%, warriors can now Execute him at will thus ending the fight quickly. However, also at this point, any eggs still up will spawn their hatchlings and attack. A fear rotation from the warlocks and priests is recommended as Warriors will need their rage for Executing Buru.

Ayamiss the Hunter

Ayamiss is a difficult encounter that requires concentration and focus. The encounter is almost Jin'do the Hexxer in its implementation. Ayamiss has five abilities. 4 of which are to primarily slow down the raid's capability to do damage to her.

Strategy: The first ability is flight. Once engaged, Ayamiss takes flight and therefore is only vulnerable to ranged damage. This means hunters, warlocks and mages are the primary damage sources.

The second ability is an approximately 1000 damage area of effect nature based attack. That being said, Nature Resist equipment and Greater Nature Protection Potions will help mitigate this.

The third ability is a DoT called Poison Stinger. This deals 25 damage per second and stacks as high as 100 (unconfirmed). It cannot be removed. Unless Ayamis decides to turn on someone else, she will stack it up until her target's death.

The fourth ability is the summoned swarm. Approximately every 45 seconds (unconfirmed) starting from first engagement a swarm of green wasps will attack. This is considered an annoyance ability as normally 2 Arcane Explosions will take care of all of them.

The fifth and deadliest ability is the paralyzation of a player that is summoned to the altar where she hovers before engaging her. This deals approximately 1000 damage and spawns a larva that will run at speed to the paralyzed player. If it reaches the paralyzed victim, he or she will immediately die and an elite hornet will take the larva's place. This hornet does massive damage, charges random players to stun and damage them and has a high amount of hit points. Larva are the primary target of all melee as they must die before reaching the top of the altar.

So far, we have taken her down to 60% (Stormrage). The most successful strategy we have devised is to have the rogues stand where the larva will spawn and call out when they do. The ranged damage takes Ayamiss down while the mages will AE swarms whenever they arrive.

(My personal recommendation: Due to the way the Ayamiss encounter is designed, hunters must take the primary agro and switch to each other whenever the DoT stacks too high...20 or so and then feign death. At this point, the other hunter fires a Distracting Shot along with every other damage capability they can dish out so that they are the next target. Rinse and repeat. -- Solitude Dragon)

Ossirian the Unscarred

Ossirian the Unscarred rose above the other Anubisaths during the War of the Shifting Sands. The battle is more about execution and situational awareness than level of equipment. However, before you can face him, you first need to clear eight Anubisath Guardians that patrol his lair.

Anubisath Guardian

The Anubisath Guardians will cause many deaths and/or wipes to an unprepared raid. Each of these mobs spawns with two random abilities from the list below. At the start of the battle, players must watch for signs of these abilities and react accordingly.

Meteor The guardian unleashes a massive meteor on a random person on his aggro list. This meteor does 15,000 damage, which is divided by the number of people in its area of effect. Pity the poor hunter who is pulling and has no one else to divide the damage with. For this reason, battles typically start in two clumps: one for melee (pronounced may-lay) and another for range dps.

Warstomp In this special attack, the guardian does a PBAoE that hits for ~1k. Melee need to watch their own hit points or back out completely.

Plague Someone randomly gets the plague, a powerful DoT that damages you and those around you -- find a lonely corner, because no one wants to be your friend. If the tank gets the plague, melee need to attack from the opposite side as the main tank so as to be in range for their own attacks, but out of range of the plague. CTRA also has a small notify "feature" that defaults to on. Typically, you only want one or two people in the raid to have it set to on or the plagued person gets spammed with 20 tells. Finally, running through the raid while plagued can be a good way to offset your lackluster DPS and is worth a chuckle or two when things are clicking along at a good pace, but can be frustrating if people are dying.

Shadow Bolt Volley The guardians also have a shadow bolt volley that hits for ~2k; however, it has a minimum range. If you see these shooting at you, close to melee range to avoid taking damage.

Enrage Increases damage when the guardian is low on health. (I'm a little unclear on this ability.)

Explosion (?unsure of the name of the real ability?) Some guardians will explode, causing massive damage to nearby raid members. The key is to DPS hard. I believe you have about 10 seconds to kill it once the warning is issued. (Might need some clarification here).

Magic Damage Reflection All Anubisath Guardians regardless of random abilities will reflect two types of magic, either shadow and frost, or arcane and fire. We typically have one person call out the vulnerabilities, though it's faster to just cast a rank 1 spell yourself and go to town.

Adds Every so often, the guardian will summon either swarmguards or warriors to help him. They don't need to be killed, as they disappear a minute or so after the guardian dies; however, they have a nasty habit of chewing up the healers. The best way to deal with them is fear -- psychic scream, howl of terror, fear, deathcoil, etc. Druids can also root them if they're away from the raid.

Strategy The fight starts with the raid in two clumps: melee and ranged. Hunters pull (often using their pet) to the tank, who grabs aggro. Mages/warlocks start damaging using whatever school the guardian is vulnerable to. A few seconds in, the guardian will use its first ability and the raid must react accordingly -- for instance, the ranged dps collapses towards the melee group after being the victim of a shadowbolt volley. The first add also spawns around this time, which is feared by an alert priest or warlock. The battle is going well, and the guardian reveals its second ability -- let's say warstomp. By this time, there are three adds running around feared or rooted and the half the raid has eaten a shadowbolt volley and the entire raid ate a warstomp and is hurting. Now that the second ability has been revealed, the raid knows that the guardian is a shadowbolt volley/warstomp (arguably the toughest combination) and reacts for a second time. Now, everyone but the tank backs out to about 20 yards so that they're out of range of the warstomp, but close enough so to evade the shadowbolt volley.

It's easy to see how quickly deaths can happen in a chaotic situation described above. Most deaths are bad luck (15k meteor landing on a lone hunter) or from poor reactions or situational awareness: adds not getting feared, wandering out of the clump and taking a meteor, staying inside the clump when you've got the plague, critting yourself with a pyroblast, etc. These fights are not about going all out dps, but rather execution. It doesn't matter if the warlock got that 2.5k crit shadowbolt which caused the fight to end one second sooner, if by doing so he or she neglected to fear the add that caused three healers to die, which means they had to get ressed, buffed, or perhaps a repair bot had to be dropped, etc...

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