Nightbane Strategy Guide

Required Preparations
For the tank, a Flask of the Titans or greater is required, along with Stoneshield Potions. The majority of damage put out by Nightbane is physical, so any way to mitigate it is important. As you most definitely want to burn down Nightbane as quickly as possible, bring any pots to increase DPS (such as agility for rogues), and mana pots for your healers. They WILL need it.

Raid Composition
Ideally, you'll want one tank with exceptional defense and hitpoints. Nightbane will focus on this tank while on the ground. A secondary warrior with Improved Thunderclap and Improved Demoralizing Shout is also handy for providing DPS, but not required, especially if your tank owns a Thunderfury. A hunter is also required for correctly aggroing Nightbane when he lands.

At least 5 healers. Constant small healing is ideal, which does provide an edge in taking priests and paladins over druids, as those classes both posses Flash Heal type spells. If you are alliance, a dwarf or draenai priest will also make this fight considerably easier through use of Fear Ward.

Paladins are best off using Fire Resistance Aura on healers or DPS, while the paladin in the tanking group should use Devotion Aura for the added armor.

Shamans are best off dropping totems to aid DPS or Mana Spring totems, depending on who they are grouped with.


Abilities

Phase 1
AoE Fear - The ground will shake shortly before the fear. Easily avoidable on the tank using Fear Ward (for Alliance) or Will of the Forsaken (for undead tanks). If neither of these two options are available, the tank will need to stance dance once the ground shaking animation begins.

Cleave - Does around 7k melee damage on a well geared tank.

Smoldering Breath - Inflicts 3700 to 4300 fire damage to enemies in a cone in front of the caster. While this flame cone should only hit the tank, it will also ignite a random area of earth around Nightbane, which deals 2188 to 2812 fire damage every 3 seconds to those standing on it. If you see the ground change, simply move off it. This Charred Earth will not appear under the tank, so there is no need to move Nightbane.

Distracting Ash - Nightbane randomly casts a debuff on a single person, lowering the range of their spells and abilities by 50%. Not a potential threat until phase 2.

Phase 2
Searing Cinders - 465 every 3 seconds for 18 seconds, stacks up to 4 times. Nightbane will put this on many people. It can be removed with Dispel Magic, but that is not advisable, as he just uses it too often.

Smoking Blast - Nightbane's most powerful ability. Deals 4255 to 4945 physical damage to the target and additional fire damage over time. Once Nightbane targets you with this attack, he will cast it on your repeatedly until you are dead. He can target multiple people with it.

Bone Rain - Nightbane will only use this ability during the beginning of phase 2. Targets a random member of the raid, and spawns up to 6 skeletons adds. These skeletons melee attack for about 600 - 700 on plate.

Fireball Barrage - Throws fireballs at any enemies farther than 40 yards away. 2550-3450 fire damage, rapid chain cast fireballs. Seems to be more an exploit blocker than an active ability. Basically, don't get too far away from Nightbane.


Strategy

Before starting, locate the small lone skull on the ground, this is where Nightbane will always land. Your tank should face the skull, with their back against the edge of the balcony. Healers and DPS should split up equally to either side of the tank, though some distance away.


Phase 1
Once Nightbane is summoned, he will touch down in front of the tank. Allow the tank a few Sunders to build hate, then begin DPS-ing Nightbane down. Healers need to chain heal the tank, as he will be taking a considerably large amount of damage. Use of Stoneshield Potions by the tank is extremely advisable.

Melee DPS should position themselves near Nightbane's back legs to avoid cleaves. Going further back will put them in danger of being hit by Nightbane's tail.

Avoid the Smoldering Earth when it appears. As a healer or ranged DPS, you can easily avoid fears by moving out of healing range of the tank, then quickly back in to continue healing.

Once Nightbane has lost 25% of his life, he will fly into the air, and phase 2 will begin.


Phase 2
Phase 2 occurs at 25%, 50%, and 75% health. While Nightbane remains attackable during this phase, it is not suggested. Survival is the main priority. Position isn't as important as it was in phase 1, mainly try to keep within range of your healers. Phase 2 lasts 45 to 60 seconds.

Early in this phase, Nightbane will use Bone Rain to spawn 6 skeleton adds near a player. Crowd control these adds using Frost Nova and Shackle, and kill them off quickly. Don't allow DPS classes to do anything but kill skeletons during Phase 2, as attacking Nightbane may draw aggro when he lands (see below).

Receiving Blessing of Protection after a Smoking Blast (or even before if you're lucky enough) will prevent Nightbane from using additional Smoking Blasts on that target, thereby keeping them alive. The dot attached to Smoking Blast should be removed with Dispel Magic.

One of the biggest challenges of the Nightbane encounter is getting Nightbane to aggro onto your main tank after phase 2. Nightbane wipes aggro in the air, and can land and immediately aggro on to a healer from healing aggro. To combat this, get a hunter to use Misdirection on your main tank and generate as much aggro as possible just before Nightbane lands. Also make sure you have all healers buffed with Blessing of Salvation, and if possible stop healing before the phase transition. It also can help to have your highest aggro healer move near to the main tank.

After roughly a minute, Nightbane will return to the ground, and phase 1 will begin again and the entire process will repeat. During each phase 1, if your DPS is high enough and healers are able to keep the tank healed while not expending all their mana, you will win


Coolfighter
Thnx BossKillers

Nightbane is a summonable boss in Karazhan.



He is a fiery skeletal dragon, transformed by Medivh from Arcanagos and formerly of the Blue Dragonflight. While not the ruler of Karazhan, a position apparently held by Prince Malchezaar, many consider Nightbane to be the true final boss of the tower, due to his superior difficulty in the early days of the dungeon's release. Their comparative difficulty is now in dispute.

One member of your raid needs to complete the [70] Medivh's Journal questline to summon the boss. This means Heroic Shattered Halls and Sethekk Halls must be partially completed in order to obtain the [Blackened Urn], which is used to summon Nightbane.





Attacks and abilities
Nightbane has two phases that he transitions between several times during the course of the fight. In Phase One, the boss is tanked on the ground in a style reminiscent of Onyxia. At 75%, 50%, and 25% health, he enters Phase Two and takes to the sky, during which time the raid's attention is focused elsewhere. After Nightbane finishes casting Rain of Bones and then Smoking Blast he will begin a slow descent back down to the platform (to roughly the same location as the original landing) and phase one begins anew.

Abilities on the ground:

Bellowing Roar - Typical dragon fear with a 2.5-second cast time, short duration, and 30-second cooldown. Resistible with Berserker Rage, Fear Ward, Will of the Forsaken, or Death Wish. He casts this once every 45 seconds to 1 minute.
Charred Earth - Chars the ground in a 10-yard radius, dealing 21,880 to 28,120 damage to players in the inflamed area over 30 seconds. Similar to a fire-based Void Zone.
Cleave - Typical dragon cleave, frontal arc. Hits for approximately 6,000 on plate, 11,000 on cloth.
Distracting Ash - Reduces the range of spells and abilities by 50%. Can be dispelled.
Smoldering Breath - Inflicts 3,700 to 4,300 fire damage to enemies in a frontal cone. Deals 1,688 to 1,912 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
Tail Sweep - Inflicts 450 fire damage on enemies in a cone behind the boss, knocking them back. Deals 450 fire damage every 3 seconds for 25 seconds.
Abilities in the Air:

Casts Rain of Bones on one random player/pet:
Bombards the area the targeted person is standing with bone fragments, which deal 352-408 physical damage in a 6-yard radius, and summons five Restless Skeletons. [Note: As of Patch 2.1, Bombardment no longer follows the player as the player moves.]
Summons Restless Skeletons. Each has the following attributes:
Hits for approximately 1,300 on cloth, 450 on plate
Has roughly 13,500 health
Shoots powerful Smoking Blast every second for approximately 15 seconds. Deals 1,850 to 2,150 physical damage (can be mitigated by armor, approximately 750 on plate) to the target and 3,000 fire damage over 18 seconds. The fire damage-over-time debuff can be dispelled. Targeting for this ability is determined by the individual with the highest healing threat after he goes into the air.
Fireball Barrage: If any member of the raid is too far away from Nightbane while he is flying he will start pelting members of the raid with fireballs, each doing about 3,000-3,500 damage, casting 1 per second until all members are within range. This is just an ability that exists to prevent exploiting and is not something you will notice if you do things correctly.

Positioning



Nightbane Positioning Diagram The battlefield consists of a long, narrow terrace, bordered by a dome on one side and row of battlements on the other.
Nightbane will initially land near a skull close to the dome, two-thirds of the way on the south side of the terrace. After phase two (flight), he will land much closer to the center of the terrace.
The tank will generally have his back to the outside wall, to direct the cleave and breath attack away from the rest of the raid.
Melee DPS will stand in typical dragon-meleeing position, at the hind legs on either side. Staying between the legs is important because both the tail and the head do cleaves/swipes.
Ranged people need to be far enough from Nightbane to avoid his Fear ability. Also, the Charred Earth ability lends itself to people staying close to walls and split into two groups. It centers itself on a player, so a player close to a wall will create half as much affected area.
Splitting up the ranged raid members and sending group 1 to the north side and group 2 to the south side is a viable strategy. However, many raids see superior results keeping both groups on the same side, with group 1 clustered next the dome and group 2 clustered next to the battlements.
Make sure no one is standing on the domed roof. This WILL evade-bug Nightbane.
[edit] Phase One (on ground)
Phase one lasts from when Nightbane lands until his health hits 75%, 50%, or 25%. He will then take to the air for phase two.

[edit] Tanking Nightbane
Tanking Nightbane is a fairly straightforward affair, with the exception of fear. Handling fear is paramount to success. One or two uncontrolled fears will guarantee a wipe. Warrior tanks have it easy, as all they have to do is stance dance. For the Druid or the Paladin tank, things are not so easy unless Fear Ward is present. Fear Ward has the same cooldown as Nightbane's fear, so it can always be up with only one priest of the proper race.

If you're without Fear Ward or a Warrior, everyone MUST stand in for the fears, but outside cleave distance. This means that when the fear hits everyone is feared, and nightbane will continue to attack the tank as he is highest on agro out of the feared targets. Sometimes he will go for a totem instead, but that doesn't really matter. Since the idea is to make sure everyone gets feared, remove all fear resistance buffs from everyone bar the tank, shadow resistance buff, Mark of the Wild etc. A Tremor Totem in the tank's group is a huge help for this strategy.

For Paladins, if due to some unlucky charred earths people have to stand outside of the fear range, then you should use Blessing of Protection on yourself when nightbane starts casting his fear, it will prevent it from affecting you. Make a macro so hitting the key again removes it and be sure to remove it as soon as the fear casting finishes to keep nightbane on you. Save your PvP trinket and Bubble for breaking fears when someone resists if you can.

[edit] Everyone Else
Healing in this phase isn't particularly difficult, and the fight resembles a simple tank and spank. However, Nightbane has a lot of burst potential when his melee is combined with his cleave and smoldering breath, so healers need to be somewhat awake, even though they can get outside the 5 second rule quite often.

Another ability which might prove problematic during Phase 1 is the Charred Earth. Assuming it appears underneath group 1, group 1 should briefly shift over to group 2's position until the area is safe again, and vice-versa. Occasionally, both groups may fall victim to Charred Earth at the same time, and if this happens all healers and ranged must temporarily shift forward to remain in range of the tank and the boss. Consequently, both groups will be closer to the boss and vulnerable to the fear. The tank must be ready to take preventative measures as required should the raid's healers suddenly find themselves incapacitated. When melee DPS are avoiding Charred Earth, they must be careful to not move into the area vulnerable to Cleave (ahead of his front legs) or Tail Swipe (behind his back legs). Any melee-type wandering into his head area are prone to being one-shot.

This is a long, healing intensive fight that can last upwards of 10 minutes. Many cooldowns (Innervate, Shadowfiend, etc.) may be used twice during this fight if timed correctly.

[edit] Phase Two (in air)
Nightbane will fly into the air, signaling the start of phase two. Phase two lasts until Nightbane has finished using his two abilities, Rain of Bones and Smoking Blast.

[edit] Preparing for Smoking Blast
When Nighbane tanks to the sky, he will target whichever healer has registered the highest healing threat and use the Smoking Blast ability on them repeatedly. He does this immediately after he summons skeleton adds. Before we get into how to handle the skeletons, it's important to understand how to deal with smoking blast.

Smoking blast deals physical damage, so the more armor the healer who is affected has, the better. Paladins would be ideal however, due to their mechanics, it is very difficult for them to have the highest threat. Even if a paladin has improved righteous fury, his healing threat generation is only 0.5*1.9=0.95 vs the 0.7*0.8=0.56 threat (Priest or Druid with blessing of salvation, 0.595 for a Shaman) that the other healers will have. In general, it is fairly difficult for the paladin to compete with healing aggro for smoking blast against priests and shaman who have AoE heals.

Be prepared to spam heals on whomever the other primary healer is. This will likely occupy a majority of your healer's time, which complicates dealing with the skeletons. When formulating a strategy for killing the skeletons, one must keep in mind that your healers are otherwise occupied.

[edit] Dealing with skeletons
All healers and ranged collapse to where the main tank is standing in order to avoid the Fireball Barrage. Once Rain of Bones starts, all players must immediately move away to avoid taking too much AoE damage. Five skeletons will spawn during the Rain of Bones, which hit fairly hard. To mitigate this damage:

Warriors and feral (bear) druids should use taunt and cleave/swipe liberally to keep aggro off of the healers. Warriors can use Challenging Shout during one of the phases.
Pets with taunt abilities (especially hunter pets) can hold aggro temporarily
Paladins are uniquely suited to this phase. A Paladin should activate his DPS cooldowns from trinkets and avenging wrath and tank the 5 skeletons. The primary advantages of this strategy are that all skeletons are controlled in phase 2 and will not run about killing the healers, skeletons die much faster due to the AoE and all healers will be able to get the Blessing of Wisdom buff to help mana issues instead of the Blessing of Salvation buff. Warlocks and mages can then begin AoE and down the skeletons much sooner than single target DPS allows.
Shaman can drop Stoneclaw Totem or Earth Elemental Totem to buy healers an extra second or two
Without a good Paladin tank, it's been found to be more effective to kill the spawns one at a time rather than AoEing them. Due to the Smoking Blast occupying the healers, there isn't much chance for survival if a mage or warlock draws aggro from AoE.

[edit] Transition to phase one
Ten seconds before Nightbane lands, all members of the raid should fall back to the previous positions, dragging whatever skeletons are still alive with them. Ideally, all adds will be dead at this point, but having one or two still up before Nightbane descends is fine. The tank must remember to keep an eye on the casting bar and stance dance to avoid an early fear.

The most dangerous parts of this fight are the transitions between flying and ground phases, when the main tank must reestablish aggro. Hunters' Misdirection is especially useful here, to make sure the boss goes directly for the tank.

Phase one begins again when Nightbane lands, rinse and repeat at 50% and 25% until victory