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Comment by Bobtheelf

This is the last boss in Blackwing Lair.

Comment by Finkle

When will you (Wowhead) start adding screenshots of bosses, nps's, items etc. (if you ever will:))

Finkle

Comment by keller999

This is the final boss of Blackwing Lair.

Information available at http://www.wowwiki.com/Nefarian

Stage 1 is probably the most difficult part of the fight to learn. Once your raid has mastered it, the rest of the fight is not so bad. Only thing that might trip you up is the Contstruct zerg at 20%.

Comment by riotangel

Observe the following videos for the ideal situation on how to handle the Draknoid rush

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9z2XBCIVaHg
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QnXZ36b_pto

Your tanking team must be able to hold them closely together for casters to rain AOE on them like a downpour.

Comment by Darkelf

Chances are really weak for drop

Comment by Bloodrav3n

As of patch 1.13 you can no longer use the battle shout method to kill him.

Comment by kreghx

P H A S E - I
After talking to Nefarian, Drakonids spawn from two entrances in the room. For each instance id two brood afflictions are randomly chosen for them. Each entrance spawns one type. The Drakonids will continue to spawn until 42 of them have been killed. Then Nefarian lands --> Phase II.

Nefarius himself runs around the room during this phase, casts shadowbolts and sheeps players.

P H A S E - I I
Nefarian (bid dragon) lands.

Nefarian Shouts

Nefarian tries to **** each class to maximum effect, this is what will happen:

Priests - Must not heal, otherwise the target will get a stacking debuff with each heal that lands (lasts 20-30 seconds)
Druids - Stuck in catform
Rogues - Will be ported to Nefarian and cannot move
Mages - Random polymorph of other raidmembers into giraffs/cows/etc.
Warrior - Stuck in Berserker Stance
Warlocks - Spawning infernals
Hunters - Ranged weapon in use will break (unequip before each class call)
Paladins - Nefarian becomes immune to melee damage
Shaman - Hostile totems

Apparently these happen one at a time... remotely similar to Bloodlord Mandokir's "I'm watching you"

Bellowing Roar
Simple AoE fear. Can be countered by Fear Ward and Berserker Rage. LoS check.

Tail Whip
Stuns briefly. (damage? duration?)

Cleave
Frontal physical AoE (not yet exactly sure about its AoE angle, seems to be somewhere between 90 and 120�)

-75% healing curse
Dispellable -75% healing curse on the current aggro-holder. Has to be dispelled

Comment by kreghx

P H A S E - I I I
At 20% Nefarian resurrects the previously killed drakonids as undead.

--- Our current tactic -------------------------------------------------

PHASE I

We split raid into two independent teams. They are camping one spawn point each. Rogues and Warriors of each team stand right in the gate to the cave where the Drakonids spawn. Via /assist they focus all damage on one after another and kill them as fast as they spawn. The warriors in the teams will mainly use cleave/retaliation/sweeping strike/whirlwind whenever available to get as much aggro on them as possible. Mages/Warlocks keep the are under constandt blizzard/fire rain. No more than 4 drakonids should be alive at one time. Those who get shadowbolted by Nefarian during this phase have to be healed quickly. Usually Nefarius pesters the team at the spawn point near the room entrance.

(we usually have 3 warriors on each side)

(in case of red drakonids warlock AoE has no effect on them, so we have mages in one team, warlocks in the other)

PHASE II

3 Priests and 3 Druids together with MT1 (fearwarded) go grab Nefarian and position him correctly while the rest of the raid kills the remaining Drakonids (spawns stop when Nefarian lands)

From here on its a straight forward fight. Every now and then a AoE fear and a class shout.

Warlock: as soon as the infernals spawn they have to be killed ASAP to prevent them from going rogue on casters.

Priests: the moment the shout goes off, all priests have to immediately cancel their channeled heal, sit there and do nothing until the debuff wears out. If a heal lands, the targetted player gets a stacking DoT DoT each time a heal lands. Renew and shield can still be cast.

Druid: the druid shout doest do anything bad to druids, they are just stuck in cat. However this naturally takes away a lot of healing.

At all times, especially just before a fear, the MT should have a full set of HoTs on him to bridge the heal-less time.

Last but not least the rogue shout: This one just ports the rogues in front of Nefarian in a stun lock. If they get hit by Nefarian's Shadowflame or a couple of cleaves they die. To counter this, Nefarian is always positioned at an angle (see illustration) and in case of a rogue call immediately turned to the alternate position.

Last but not least nefarian casts a -70% healing curse on the MT. Has to be dispelled immediately (druids job).

Mages: Since the mage class call can mess up the tanking and healing quite severely if not dispelled asap, we keep mages in a position without LoS to the MT and Healers (see illustration)

PHASE III

The Drakonids we killed before rise back to life in the exact spot they were killed before. At 22% all mages and warlocks get in position near the spawn points to kill off the bone constructs immediately with AoE. A hunter sets up a frost trap in the middle of the bone pile on each side to slow the initial movement of the spawns.

Mages keep the spawns in nova-lock (using a limited invulnerability potions to get away). Ideally the mobs are all locked down until they are dead. As soon as the first mobs are immobilized Fire Rains and Blizzards are used to kill.

Once the main packs are dead, the spawns that managed to escape are killed and the fight resusmes as normal for the last 20%!

Comment by Defiler

Nefarian, son of Deathwing, is the leader of the Black Dragonflight. In his human guise, he is known as Victor Nefarius, Lord of Blackrock. Holding the Blackrock Clan and various clans of ogres under his dominion, Nefarian rules from his lair at the top of Blackrock Spire.

Comment by supermage

i want judgment armor but im not sure if people do blackwing anymore?

Comment by yeahemu

Nefarian's human form is Lord Victor Nefarius

Comment by Nedorian70

My guild just killed him today with help from another guild.Very easy fight since TBC cameout,used to hate to fight him on my warrior, before TBc

Comment by Zamfix

What happens during the class call if a raid of only Deathknights engages Nefarian?

Comment by Bubblebath

A better question: Why would someone with a Deathknight even want to attempt killing him?

Comment by Lunarain

In case you guys didn't know, Nefarian and Onyxia are brother and sister.

Comment by wogwog

I don't think they are brother and sister, but i do think they are mates... just a guess though. I say this because Onyxia is the Broodmother of the BDF, and if Nefarian is the king, that is incest ><.

Comment by Aestu

Upon entering Nefarian's room, he sits upon his throne in human form, flagged as friendly and unattackable. You may enter into dialogue with him, the end of which begins the encounter (similar to Ragnaros, Shade of Akama and the NPCs in Mount Hyjal).

Dialogue is as follows:

Nefarian: "Do you expect me to cower before the mighty legion of <player>? You are nothing to me. Less than nothing. Had I desired your head, it would have been presented to me on a pike.

"You have made the mistake that all mortals make.
"*Victor Nefarius sighs.*

"Time does strange things to those that use it as a form of currency."

Player: "I’ve made no mistakes. "

Nefarian: "In your rush to glory, you assumed that the pace of this game revolved around your actions. Can you even fathom how preposterous that sounds to a being like me? A being that if so inclined could cause your own insignificant thoughts to crush the peanut sized mass of grey matter floating within your skull?"

Player: "You have lost your mind. You speak in riddles."

Nefarian: "It's simple really! Allow me to summarize…"

Player: "Please do. "

Nefarian: "In this world where time is your enemy, it is my greatest ally. This grand game of life that you think you play in fact plays you. To that I say… "

(at this point dialogue ends and Nefarian becomes hostile; the final line is a verbal emote)
Nefarian: "Let the games begin!"

Comment by Skcuz

Saurfang's mount.

Comment by DestinoX

Doing this fight at level 70:

-Your main tank MUST have the Onyxia Scale Cloak equipped, since does a perodic cone-shaped shadow flame.

-When phase 2 starts and he is about to land, anyone who is NOT wearing an Onyxia Scale Cloak will receive ~50k damage and die unless they prevent it in some way - meaning Divine Shield, Iceblock, Shield Wall, Cloak of Shadows etc. LOS abuse doesn't seem to prevent this from hitting you, altough we had a few people magically not dying from it.

Combat ress if any druids managed to survive, and bring him down to 20%. (Might take a while.)
The huge amount of Bone Constructs are easily dealt with, have a protection paladin pick them up or cast Blessing of Protection on a warlock/mage and have them do it.

We did this with one player (the tank) actually having the cloak, and about 15 survivors of the Shadow Flame.

Comment by Lanceler

A hint for you proboys wanting to do BWL at 70.

You only need 1 guy wearing the Onyxia scale cloak and thats your MT, the rest of the people can go behind Neffy's throne and await his landing, once the adds are down etc.

<3

Comment by noobi666

hmm....he casts debuff depending your class.....what if full raid of DKs tries to kill him? and btw, chaos bolt can penerate his paladin bubble

Comment by Skaferret

It says this in the second like of the description for him...

Comment by Fruitcase

if DK's tryed to kill him , i think the class call we wipe the raid , telling them get out here , its not your place lol

Comment by noobi666

DK´s not overpowered my ass

Comment by Fruitcase

Any1 happen to have the Sound files of Nefarian ?

Comment by Wtcher

It appears his room-wide, AoE shadowflame has been disabled with 3.0. While the dragons prior to him also cast shadowflame, it is in a frontal cone and is healable. Nefarian's ~20k shadowflame would likely kill anybody at 70, with the exception of T5+ geared tanks.

Edit: To clarify, to leave him untouched would make it quite difficult for the majority of people returning to BWL to complete the achievement, especially on realms which were opened during the 2.x period where Onyxia and the like were no longer a priority.

Comment by Triden

No, he still uses the AoE shadowflame at the start of phase 2

Confirmed. He definitely uses it at the start of phase 2.

Comment by Mithan

Shadowflame killed everybody today in our group (who didn't have the Ony Cloak).

Comment by Psychoshamoo

This is doable with only 1 onyxia cloak, which will be on the tank. If you stand DIRECTLY IN THE CENTER BEHIND THE THRONE, the raid will not be affected by shadow flame. Positioning should be set as soon as the /yell during phase 1. I have done this every BWL clear since 3.0 and it works every time.

Comment by WoWitsAice

this isn't much helpful in any way seeing as i haven't had the opportunity to defeat him yet.

but this is probably the coolest dragon in the game that i've seen.

Comment by ahunter

Did they add a class debuff for Death Knights?

Comment by Agereautmore

Spice, Death Knights DO NOT have healing for other people.

Comment by Discolando

Someone should put together a raid of 10+ DKs and see what happens during the fight. Does he do nothing, or did they add a DK class call? Perhaps it crashes the server. :)

Comment by Fruitcase

can any1 post nefarian sound files ? i've been trying to find them for ages

Comment by Linithia

They may have fixed this with 3.0.3, as everone who hid behind the throne earlier today died from the the deadly DoT.

Comment by LadyAyne

* Death Knights:
- Quote: "Death Knights, get over here!"
- Effect: Casts Death Grip on the entire raid, pulling everyone inside his hitbox.
- Solution: Simply run back to your positions - unlike the Rogue call, this one does not immobilize teleported players for the duration.

Comment by xtrem

How big raid would you need now when the level cap is 80 ?

Comment by Pierson

Probably about ten guys.

Comment by Vlad

Now that Cataclysm is out the fight has changed, a lot. You no longer need the Onyxia Scale Cloak at all -so you don't have to hide behind the throne any longer. The debuff will not kill you on the last tick, hurray for that! I kept the old post for historical purposes, in spoiler tags.

If you do not have the Onyxia Scale Cloak you can manage this event with a minimum of 1 tank and 2 healers (+some dps, the more the faster/easier for healers). The shadow flame ticks around 1k dmg -no problem what so ever but at the end at the debuff it deals 16k damage! This means the tank needs to be on full health (at least over 16k hp) before debuff runs out! (And the only one standing in-front getting the shadowflames) Just have the tank capped off and its easy to survive. The more dps you bring along, the less healing you have to do as well!

To survive the transaction phase 1 -> phase 2, simply have everyone behind the throne. When you see Nefarious yell, wait 10 sec and rush out to pick him up, face him away from the raid asap! The last phase when all mobs you killed in phase 1 spawn is easy to kill, they hit for nothing really. Did this with 10 people, no problems at all (only had 1 warlock as AoE class -didn't see him AoE either :P). Worst call is hunters, no one has a macro or addon to remove ranged item in this fight, ends up getting their damage reduced to almost nothing...

Unfortunately no addons are kept update from the old era so they do not work with WotLK client. Thus you must manage the old way where you read emotes in the chat frame. It's a fun fight, nothing hard compared to doing Razorgore 6 man (haha), doable too but hard. 2nd boss is also a bit tricky as you die from the debuff he casts (bomb), simply nuke and use Soulstone and Ankhs if you have shamans and warlocks!

Comment by lewro13

Saurfang just has to cleave the ground and he can fly.

Comment by Hurono

Another way to not become useless here, hunters, is to have a backup or second copy of your weapon with you.

Edits for typos. Keyboard hates me.

Also, this is a 'just in case' idea. Saved me once when I got hit (Being afk on a raid boss: Never, EVER a good idea).

Comment by fodmunkio

in other words if your not a deathknight, run for it!

Comment by Paladinin

Does anyone know a Guild on any realm who actually rides BWL?

Comment by Paladinin

anyone knows of a Guild who actually farm BWL ? (cuz from my pov this is the best instance ever)

Comment by Cattleship

anyone knows of a Guild who actually farm BWL ? (cuz from my pov this is the best instance ever)

Of course we are! It's the most epic moment of the week so hell yeah!

Comment by Sokolas

Now he has a debuff for death knights, too. He uses some version of Death Grip

Comment by Necromoner97

Just tamed wait..what?

Comment by Alorael

I ran BWL with ~25 people last week on my retribution paladin. I was the only one wearing an Onyxia Scale Cloak. Most everyone died within the first 30 seconds except an 80 or two. They died within a minute after everyone else died. I was able to solo him until ~300k health, but then he summoned all of his skeletons. I used holy wrath, consecrate, and bubbled right before I died. I was able to full heal before the bubble wore off. I died soon after, but all of the skeletons were at ~5-10% health. My lay on hands was on cooldown, otherwise I might have been able to finish him off.

Comment by Furydeath

Is there a linkable spell for the AOE Death Grip? Would be a ton of fun to link it in trade chat and see all the DK"s go ZOMG i want that.

Comment by Pithrandil

Kill the one in the dress!

Comment by Pallydwarf

Soloed as an 80 Holy pally in Full Naxx 10/25 gear... well, mostly.
Ran it with a group of 7, and I was the only one with the onyxia scale cloak, when we began the transition to phase two, they were all killed by the Shadowflame, leaving me to fight him alone.
The fight took extremely long, so long that most of the raid left or went afk before the end.
Some tips on soloing as a Holy Paladin, some of this may apply for Prot Paladins too:

1. It was a very tight fight, I hardly managed to do it myself, so I am not sure if anyone of a lower level would be able to do this.

2. Keep up sacred shield, Seal of Light, Judgement of Light (On Nefarian) and Blessing of Wisdom. Change this if you have any mana problems.

3. You will not take that much damage in this phase, due to the Seal/judgement of light and sacred shield, so you should be able to unleash full damage, with only a limited amount of healing needed. You will also be taking a bit of damage from his flame breath thing, which does not do much. When he calls out paladins, you will cast blessing of protection, no big deal, just a pointer.

4. This will go for a long time, but eventually he will resurrect all of the fallen draconids, except as skeletons. They will deal a LOT of damage to you, and there may be need to bubble, what I did, was turned on retribution aura, put down consecration, sacred shield, and spammed healing abilities on myself. I eventually had to bubble, heal to full and regenerate mana with divine plea and divine illumination. The skeletons do not have much health, and they should go down quickly.

5. Congratulations, you just beat the hardest phase, now sit back and burn off the rest of his hp, and enjoy your loot / achievement etc.

PS. I am unsure whether the first phase is soloable, but I am content that it is probably possible, since it is possible to defeat the dead skeleton versions of them.

Comment by richardmontes714

everyone says Dk's are op but i thought they are kinda stupid but when i came here an he said "Death knights GET OVER HERE" i knew they were op.

Comment by bearforce

4 manned tonight with the following

Feral Druid
Rogue
Ret Paly
Disc Priest

Comment by Velanoras

We took nefarian last night with 3 man. it was easy like hell just took long enough.
the setup was*

Death Knight Tank Frost specc
Rogue Sword Specc
Shaman able to switch between Elemental and Resto

we all had onyxia scale cloak so healer wasent needed so much on the other bosses but Nefarian still did some heavy dmg

Comment by pikepike08

Nefarian and onyxia looks like they had a history together lol

Comment by othohirna

Can level 80 ret pallies solo this guy?

Comment by piequals3

Soloed as 80 Protection paladin in tier 7ish gear a few months ago, and he dropped my tier2 chestpiece.

Gonna go back in this week and see how much I can do with my new tier 8.5 :D

Comment by cryptoengineer

My guild ran BWL for the achievement last night. About a dozen, mostly 80s with a couple low-mid 70s. Only half of us had cloaks. None of the earlier bosses were serious challenges.

This boss was different. The dragonkin were no problem, but once the boss showed up, all the non-cloaked died very quickly, even those who claimed they were hiding behind the throne. We were left with 2 priests, a holy pally, 2 DKs and a warrior, all with cloaks. We were able, without too much trouble, to slowly 6-man him down, and AOE the adds at 20%. After that, it was cake.

The cloaks (which we bought on the AH) were clearly the deciding factor.

Comment by nyctric

First defeated by Drama of Shattered Hand on the 26th of September, 2005.

Comment by Hayda

I should've got a video but 40 DK's (all Blood spec, glyph of rune tap, imp. rune tap) when to get him. They still surprisingly had problems and wiped... very... very... quickly.

Comment by Darkicec

i hope Hogger can solo him :D

Comment by Randsome

Don't look so smug. I know what you're thinking, but Blackwing Lair was merely a setback!

Comment by Kharzy

Is it Soloable with a 80 Warrior and 80 Rogue?

Comment by najshu

All Tier-2 helmets now drop off Nefarian after the revamp of Onyxia with Patch 3.2.2

Comment by Gnoktish

the tier 2 helms is now been obtainable from Nefarion in Blackwing Lair, he will drop the chest peices for tier 2

Comment by Chrig

Now drops the original level 60 t2 helms.

Comment by Tairne

I'd like to confirm that Nefarian now drops 1 or maybe 2 Tier 2 head pieces after the Onyxia revamp.
I ran it just a minute ago and Nemesis Skullcap dropped, the one that recieved that item also got an achievement: .
If this is a bug is still unsure, but we can all be happy for one thing, the tier 2 item set is not completely lost!

Comment by Gjee

Me and 2 friends killed Nefarian today, he also drops T2 headpieces now.

Comment by Gnotlob

So, did they change how Nef's Shadowflame works in 3.2.2?

Comment by Supahtoons

I believe pikepike was trying to suggest some hot steamy black dragon incest.

Comment by Solmaster

Nefarian now drops T2 heads! Killed him today (9/27/09) and got a netherwind crown to drop. This should be a relief to people who were worried about not being able to collect their full T2 after the revamping of Onyxia.

Comment by BillyBurgers

Could anyone confirm if he now drops the T2 headgears, in addition to the chestpieces?

Comment by Zorgone

now in patch 3.2.2 onyxias upgrade removed the level 60 t2 helmets from her loot table, but now nefarian drops them, so you can still get the full set bonus :D

Comment by Zorgone

If you dont have and you get one of the t2 heads you will get the achievement, that is because the heads are the criteria for the achievement, so go out there and get the feat of strenght while you can!

Comment by Poisonedheart

WHAT THE $%^&!
He has less health than the 2nd boss or am i blind?

Comment by Exac

Just downed him and he dropped a Bloodfang Hood which when looted triggered Feat of Strength. Have anyone else experienced this?

Comment by Talimar

Nefarian now drops T2 helms that previously dropped from Onyxia:
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/957/nefaloot.jpg

Comment by Option

You no longer need an Onyxia Scaled Cloak. Shadow Flame will not fully engulf you, regardless of whether you have it on or not.

Nefarian now drops your T2 helm as well as T2 chest pieces and some of the loot that was on Onyxia's table at Lv 60, plus his regular non-tier loot.

(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##

Comment by llDemonll

As of Patch 3.2, Nefarian now drops T2 Head pieces as well.

Comment by Valdo2345

Ok. Ok we get it, he drops t2 helps. Keep reposting information =D

Comment by Esre

My guild just killed him again last night, and it appears that he drops T2 head pieces now. Everybody in vent was shocked when the person that got the helm, also go the Classic Onyxia acheivement as well.

Comment by Darkren

Because Blizzard is still trying to retroactively award achievements to people that haven't logged on since before 3.0.2 (including the level 60 Onyxia achievement), owning any item that used to drop from Onyxia (here, for example, the T2 head-pieces) will earn you the achievement for killing her. It also means looting a T2 helmet from Nefarian will earn you Onyxia's Lair (Level 60). (If you take a look at the criteria for that achievement, you'll see the T2 headpieces; the exact ones that Nefarian now drops.)

EDIT: Why am I being downrated? It's true. It's been confirmed by Blizzard, and will be fixed in 3.3.

Source:

Tier 2 Helmets: Looting these items from Nefarion in Blackwing Lair will no longer trigger the Onyxia's Lair (level 60) Feat of Strength achievement.

Comment by Thundrfang

Nefarian will come back in a level 85 raid called Blackwing Descent, coming in Cataclysm.

Comment by PotatoKing

He will be moved to another raid right? Will he be on both BWL and Blackwing Descent, or will BWL be removed, or will he be the only one removed from BWL?

Comment by Anklesapper

Ran it with our guild last night, we got really bored, downed him about 10 seconds, nothing hard about the fight now, of course our guild raids icc weekly, so it's not as if we aren't geared.

Comment by Amkasa

i did full BWL yesterday (Jan 30th) as a tank without the cloak. it would appear as if they have removed shadow flame's dangerous dot and final effect and it is now just straight up damage of about 4-5k. either they removed it or i just got really lucky :P

Comment by velja92

Can he be soloed at lvl80? :)

Comment by Divvy

Kombat imo!

Comment by malcore1nathan

Onyxia's brother, and deathwings son.
It would be REALLY awesome if they made blackwing lair a raid for lv 85, without attunments, for next patch, becuese when lv 60 was out, he was sopposed to be bigger, harder, stronger, and a LOT harder to reach becuese u had to go thru 7 bosses to get to him,and only 5 adds to get to onyxia.

Comment by zomg5

so nefarian in cataclysm is gonna be like onyxia in WotLK where they drop the gears with classic model with new stats?

Comment by Cavadon

Nefarion gives epic head!
uhh wait...
im not raiding him anymore......
(feels violated)

Comment by DrCheis

I didn't do BWL in the old days, but recently when I started running it on my Druid, I found the druid class call seemed... deficient.

I was placed into cat form, but still able to cancel the form manually and shift into moonkin. Maybe it's a bug from starting in moonkin? Also, odly when hit with the "cat form lock" I was still able to cast my regular spells even though my model appeared as a cat. It seems to be only a cosmetic debuff now, I'm guessing a bug.

I felt guilty though and meleed in cat form anyway until it wore off.

Comment by nobleknight

There's a Death Knight Call now, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it did. He yelled, "Death Knights...get over here!", but I didn't see the effect it had on the DK in my party (Nefarian's huge foot was kind of in my way) - what does he do?

Comment by TheKenny

I am beginning to wonder if he is bugged ever since the 4.0.1 patch.

Granted the block changes really took a toll on my soloing ability, it seems to me that his add spawning is borked. Pre-patch I used to simply tank them all with no issues, but now there are so many adds on my screen that it begins to freeze the game (where as before this didn't happen).

Has anyone been regularly killing him as well and could weigh in on this?

Comment by Jaeza

The text is FINALLY a reference to Scorpion's move from Mortal Kombat. When he Death Grips the DKs he says...

Death Knights, get over here!

Comment by Vaugn

The priests' call is definitely borked as of 4.0.1. Consider this line from my combat log:

Vaugn suffers 8543 Shadow damage from Vaugn's Corrupted Healing. (2707 Resisted) (2158 Overkill). That's a whopping 13,000+ damage in one tick. I had glanced at my screen a few moments before I died and I had just 1 stack on me.

The mage I am with has noticed ridiculous corrupted healing amounts for him as well. Egads!

Further testing has found that smite + atonement as well as glyphed power word: shield will not cause corrupted healing. (Not sure about prayer of mending, so I've been avoiding it).

I am duo'ing Nef with a mage. It's actually a major pain, since I'm either being semi-chain polymorphed, or I can't cast direct heals. And Nef does a lot of damage during that half a minute or so that I'm polymorphed. Once the mage died though I find that I can handle him quite nicely on my own so long as I avoid the corrupted healing debuff (since even a single stack = death within moments).

Edit: Learned a bit more info so I added it above.

Comment by Leppy

Just downed this guy with a dk specced dps, a mage, and 2 resto druids. (level 80 and none of us too well geared.)

Our group wiped aside from one druid when nef summoned all of his minions at around 300k hp. That druid b-rezzed a healing druid in full resto gear, then died. Leaving the resto to fight this guy from 260k hp to zero.

Nef kept the druid feared and in cat form most of the fight, but they were able to heal via rejuv and such when the buff wore off. A 3-7 second window of healing after it wears off, so you're probably better off NOT having druid healers unless your tanks are great or well geared.

We got the fight done though <3 and I know who to call for a pug.

Comment by LeminaAusa

To stop the adds from respawning, you can simply just run up the stairs to the 2nd floor in vael's room and kill all that follow.

Comment by Cithiel

Just a nice tip for warlocks, when he summons all the adds back at 20% use soulburn + seed of corruption. Placing corruption on all the adds (completely avoiding the AoE damage restrictions) and if you're affliction specced, giving you insane healing.

We two manned him as affliction warlock and feral druid, we had some trouble in phase 1 where the MC nearly got the druid killed. We also had some initial trouble at 20%, but SoC + soulburn made it into a cakewalk. 100+ gold from loot, yes please!

Comment by valarua

Spawn speed of the drakonids in phase 1 was significantly increased in 4.0.1

Comment by Alozare

He's coming back in Cata as the last boss in Blackwing Descent with his sister, Onyxia. You know what that means...
Blackwing Lair was merely a setback!

Comment by KiVAv8

did it 2 lvl 80 tanks dk and warr and 1 druid moonkin dps 17 min fight

Comment by Marco0311

So this guy is not removed or will he in Cataclysm?

Edit: Just asked a simple !@#$ing question. No need to downrate me... but now its too late I already saw an answer. -.-

Comment by rcingnoob

Wonder if he does any weird things to DK's lol...

Comment by Moodknight

ok, assuming that now we got nefarian back.....next wow will be KJ and then LK as first tier bosses ^^

Comment by dangrim

Nefarian is a fun but challenging fight when you raid with all 60's, he does have a few bugs that makes him a much harder boss which is good can't always have easy raid bosses like now a days, well the bugs are in the beginning of the fight, the drakonids spawn quickly so it is an issue for our warrior tanks to grab all of the mobs and when they get ressurected it causes major lag and even disconnection problems, and hopefully blizzard gets the chance to fix this problem if they don't its no problem it is still a do able fight.

Comment by Molekh

Haven't read anything about that.. but does the priest call take in consideration Vampiric Embrace healing too?
Maybe in vanilla shadow priests weren't so common, that's why there isn't anything about it :)

Comment by Ingrith

I just attempted to kill this guy today, about at 11:30pm, when we got him to 80% he just simply despawned and never showed back up, or respawned, anyone have any idea why?

Comment by yoaka

We had most difficulty in mastering phase 3. We found out it is best to use the outer circle in kiting the adds. Make sure to have two tanks kiting the adds in 25man. This ensures that one tank can pick up the loose adds, while the other tank kites the adds around.

Whatever you do make sure that no add gets hit by the shadowflame that Nefarian casts (the purple fire on the ground). If the adds get hit by the shadowflame it is game over. The reason for this is simple: The adds die after a while whenever they do not get hit by the shadowflame.

Personally I find it very usefull to have attleast a druid and a shaman walk with the adds that are kited at the outer circle. The shaman can put down an earthbind totem and the druid can entangle. We also found it very usefull to have a warrior tank the adds (warrior can use shockwave to stun the adds). There is also a good guide about this at: 25man.com/nefarian <= type that in your browser. It is the most detailed guide I have found on the internet and it helped us master the encounter.

Comment by Nobbel

How to Solo in Cataclysm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2uYjoJIWGc

Comment by yoaka

Mastering Phase 3
We had most difficulty in mastering phase 3. We found out it is best to use the outer circle in kiting the adds. Make sure to have two tanks kiting the adds in 25man. This ensures that one tank can pick up the loose adds, while the other tank kites the adds around.

Whatever you do make sure that no add gets hit by the shadowflame that Nefarian casts (the purple fire on the ground). If the adds get hit by the shadowflame it is game over. The reason for this is simple: The adds die after a while whenever they do not get hit by the shadowflame.

Personally I find it very usefull to have attleast a druid and a shaman walk with the adds that are kited at the outer circle. The shaman can put down an earthbind totem and the druid can entangle. We also found it very usefull to have a warrior tank the adds (warrior can use shockwave to stun the adds). There is also a good guide about this at: 25man.com/nefarian (<= Easy to remember shortcut). It is the most detailed guide I have found on the internet and it helped us master the encounter.

Comment by Xhosant

42 dragonoids, hu? Not 41, not 43 nor 40 nor 45, but 42

Edits: Figuring out linking.

Comment by Bknobbie

Dealing with crackling (electrocute) is kinda tricky as people noted previously. You need to not only top people off just before it happens, you also need to use available cooldowns.

We noticed it helps a lot to have a discipline priest with Power-barrier to help with electrocute in phase 2. It works wonders to have a lightwell ready and let people use it just before electrocute happen (let people use bandage and healtstones here). If they die it is mainly their fault. Nobody should instantly die of it.

For people having difficulties with phase 2 and 3 I advise them to also take a look at 25man.com/nefarian (<= nice shortcut, easy to remember) which is a pretty nice guide for this fight. Hope it works out

Mastering Phase 3
We had most difficulty in mastering phase 3. We found out it is best to use the outer circle in kiting the adds. Make sure to have two tanks kiting the adds in 25man. This ensures that one tank can pick up the loose adds, while the other tank kites the adds around.

Whatever you do make sure that no add gets hit by the shadowflame that Nefarian casts (the purple fire on the ground). If the adds get hit by the shadowflame it is game over. The reason for this is simple: The adds die after a while whenever they do not get hit by the shadowflame.

Personally I find it very usefull to have attleast a druid and a shaman walk with the adds that are kited at the outer circle. The shaman can put down an earthbind totem and the druid can entangle. We also found it very usefull to have a warrior tank the adds (warrior can use shockwave to stun the adds). There is also a good guide about this at: 25man.com/nefarian (<= Easy to remember shortcut). It is the most detailed guide I have found on the internet and it helped us master the encounter.

Comment by madmaverick

If you're talking about the Blackwing Descent Nefarian fight, then this is posted on the wrong page. If not, then I'm even more confused.

Comment by TheHeroOfTheDawn

He's probably not easily soloed by Hunters.
If you're going to try, bring a lot of bullets. And by that, I mean a lot of Guns.
Bows are good too.
And Crossbows.
You know what, bring EVERYTHING.

Edit: Or if you're an Engineer, Bring Jeeves.

Comment by CharliiTheTurtle

Im a hunter and i soloed this guy without any problems:) (Im an engineer so i had jeeves ready to run to when he broke my bow:P)

Comment by Wingman1313

My favorite raid boss in the game just because of his witty quotes.

Comment by instanbull

So i was hunter Solo'ing this guys when i had a fatal error...yes i died... but then he didn't despawn.. and the gate to his room was locked?

Comment by peterados

@Xaonovewolf
WHY THE HELL DO YOU CALL IT ROUGE? WHY? ITS ROGUE

Comment by Rederoin

I solo'd this as a MM hunter, for those wanting to do the same :

Spam misdirect in phase 1 & 3. Never use a multi shot without misdirect.(unless you're sure your not getting aggro). Getting aggro is not the end of the world, it does however take you more time to solo him. Also, don't use FD. Its bugged for some reason(Nefarian despawns if you use it in Phase 1.)

Comment by gocaxxx

Soloed as frost dps DK with pvp gear, never went below 80% hp... he is really easy... on the other side CHromagus was hard, but managed as blood with dps gear and that Venom sac to cleanse green debuff.

Comment by Lillycat

When druids are forced into cat form, they can, in fact, click it off (you'll still be shown as in cat form), and cast spells on their normal action bars. Cat wrath ftw! :P :D

Comment by Vinland

Just faced him on my Hunter having soloed the whole place, used FD to drop aggro after he went into dragon form and he despawned completely. Didn't come back either. Massive waste of time.

Comment by MiltiadesBooga

Still holds the 'Biggest Troll in WoW*' title, for me. Nef = funny as hell.

*I mean /b/-type troll; the biggest literal troll in WoW may be Gan'zulah. HE'S a big troll.

Comment by Nobbel

A video guide on how to solo BWL as a hunter (or a goblin) without killing Ebonroc/Chromagus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkrUOVxe9Oo&hd=1

Hope it helps!
Nobbel - Terokkar EU

Comment by Jonse

Priest class call is still incredibly deadly, figured I'd see how much it would tick for at 50 stacks, the guy I healed was dead after about 5 seconds.

Comment by Hazuki11

Is it just me, or is there something unlucky about druids? Now I understand I never shall have restoration/Balance/bear tank druids with me in there, every 25-35 sec they'll be turned into a cat form for 30 sec, which means they wont have more than almost only 1-5 sec to cast a healing or damaging spell before they are turned into cat form again... Stupid!

Comment by KeleturShask

Does anyone have any word on if Nefarian calls out Monks?

Comment by gubbybringer

I heard that Onyxia gives epic head

Comment by krizkazu

Just killed nefarian as a 90 hunter BM with a healer priest 90.

Resting after killing Nefarian

Nefarian dead

Comment by schnookems

I just wanted to confirm Vinland's comment replies about his respawn timer, after patch 5.1. I ended up with all of Chromaggus' debuffs and was forced into cat form so I could not heal/survive through the fight.

After waiting 10-15minutes, Nefarian respawned on his throne to begin the encounter again from the start.

Comment by Snorbuckle

Nefarian now has a Monk class call. He yells "Monks, doesn't all that rolling make you dizzy?" and forces players into a roll for a number of seconds.

Comment by realmsmashr

can I solo this?

Comment by IhaveNoLife

Wowheads compilation of his quotes made me laugh... "Worthless Venomous Snake!" "Worthless Mirror Image!"

Comment by Kiingy

Nefarian no longer breaks Hunters weapons with his class calls.

Comment by Morbius

Soloed this with my 85 DK in blood spec wearing Jade Forest greens and auction house blues. My equipped item level is 417.

I had never done this fight before so when I got swarmed with all the drakonids I didn't know what was going on. I finally figured out that you have to fight them until Nefarian transforms into a dragon and lands on the balcony. After that I ignored the adds and let my DOTs kill them after spreading them with Boil Blood with Roiling Blood talent. The death knight call is kind of silly, all he does is death grip you which forces him to back up.

Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtifU4PAHkc

Comment by Catweazle

I don't know if this is a bug or intended but ever since 5.3 the skeletons that come out during the end portion of the fight now spawn in ridiculously massive numbers. There must have been hundreds of them, my game was lagging and they actually almost killed me at level 90. Probably not an issue for classes with good AOE abilities but for others it could be an issue. There was a massive pile of them when I finally did get them killed.

Comment by alvraen

Monks now roll continuously forward.

Comment by Aenonar

Be very careful when doing this boss other than solo. In the first stage Nefarian loves to silence casters and the summoned mobs loves to mind control one of you unless you tag them asap in melee range!

I've dualboxed him several times by now but last run with my warrior + druid I planned to let the druid do all the AoE. But I happened to be silenced at the start and had a 1-2 second overlap on the first mobs at which the warrior got mindcontrolled and instakilled the druid. Fight reset and I had to wait 15 minutes for Nefarian to return.

Second try i happened to leave 1 second gap between the thunderstorms and the same thing happened, warrior got MC'd and instakilled the druid. Another 15 minutes to reset..

Third try I made sure the warrior was also in combat but the druid got silenced and then mind controlled and 2 shot the warrior instead! Easy res but another 15 minutes to reset...

Fourth try I made sure the druid was constantly casting thunderstorm and warrior casually hitting stuff, success...

Never happened that extreme before, sometimes one was MC'd but the never instakilled the other... But it could easily happen, especially with the silence from Nefairan.

So make sure everyone are actively fighting as that seem to avoid the mind control! If you do get silenced, at least hit something with melee etc.

Comment by Buckmoney

"Monks, doesn't all that rolling make you dizzy?"
I'm gonna guess it makes rolling stun you

Comment by ybyellow

If you have an extra 15-20 minutes I highly suggest killing Nef every week. The old recipes/patterns/schematics/etc and transmog items he drops are worth a pretty penny. Thousands of gold for a few minutes of your time.

Comment by Theblkbltmstr

I love waiting around for the max amount of mobs before killing a boss.. I was very surprised by Nefarian. Unless you kill the mobs, adds never stop spawning. I waited around 10 minutes here, by Skada I killed 1172 mobs. 3FPS on a very good gaming computer. That was fun.

http://i.imgur.com/Ht8lYRu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xETrr5N.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9izVQRz.jpg

Comment by Mystterious

Man! it seems everyone knows how to kill him but nobody tells you how to solo him now in the latest patch, when we are IL 670 or something near that IL. I'm frost mage IL 670. To me all the comments here are like hey: "I KNOW HOW TO KILL HIM, and NOT YOU HAHAHAHAHAHAHA". Anyone could explain how to kill him? I woul like to know it from someone who can solo it ALONE!

I tell you whazzup atm: I'm in front of Onyxia, Onyxia is in the bottom of the square on the lowest floor, I'm on the second floor,Onyxia is too far, I cant cast something at her. And Nefarian fly in circle over me.

Last time I jumped down to go kill Onyxia, I killed Onyxia fairly rapidly, yes! But 1 sec after, lava tides appeared! I managed to reach one of the three trays, to be out of the lava, but the lava has reduced my life to 5%.

When I was on one of the three trays, outside the lava, Nefarian and a really big bunch of mobs killed me because my life was at 5%)

Facultative note: I used a potion, I was on the effect of a flask, Now I will add a Focus Augment Rune to theses items.

I'll retry now, I'm in the second floor and I'll jump down again :)
It's cool, I can try to learn the strats by myself BUT
YOU CAN HELP ME! Who me? YES YOU!

If you read this you see a man in trouble, I've search here and I have not found an answer!
I've watched the comments section of nefarian and the comments section of onyxia.

No matter the reason why you click downvote, it's going to hurt me if you downvote.

If you want to help me, Vote up for this comment, this comment is helpful, and type a message that explain how to kill that boss, anything that might be helpful. If you don't know how to kill that boss, just up vote this comment, it will help me too because this comment will stay if people vote for it, and maybe one day, we will have a comment that explain how to kill it right here with a lot of votes!

I go die, I mean try, again!

Thank you very much
Good game, good luck, have fun!
Mystterious

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK I KILLED IT ON THE SECOND ATTEMP! It was easy finally!

Follow theses steps:

1. Go kill Onyxia ASAP. For that, use all your cooldowns, your flasks your runes, your buffs, your feast, EVERYTHING.
2. After Onyxia is dead, reach 1 of the 3 trays, because when the lava tides will appear, you will have to swim in the lava to jump on the trays of your choice.
3. Kill the npc on the trays
4. Cast everything at Nefarian. You can jumpdown when the lava tides dissapear. For the melee, I suppose ou will have to wait til the lava tides dissapear and Nefarian lands on the ground. Then you will be able to KUNG-FU him!

Hope this help a lot

Feel free to add some useful comments, for melee people or for anything else.

Good game, good luck, have fun!
Mystterious

Comment by blabblez

Just a quick note if you are trying to grind a lowbie an item. I was trying to run my twink through here and he would die every time. Dancing around the pillars wasn't working. So I put him in one of the spawning caves. Tucked him in the corner of the door and he was always getting hit, then I took my 100 in there as well and aoe'd everything until nefarian went into dragon form. was able to go out of the cave and kill after that. Every other attempt my lowbie died and the thing was reset. but this way I avoided the mc using los and worked flawlessly.

Comment by jppgibbs

If you're on a demon hunter Nefarian will say "Demon Hunters? How odd, covering your eyes like that. Doesn't it make it hard to see the world like that?"
Then their screen turns black for ~7 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDQkQ0-sJFQ

Comment by Almachai

Running Blackwing Lair has become a routine for me because it is one of the vanilla dungeons/raids left untouched by Cataclysm level scaling and subsequent item removal.

Blackwing Lair is the only way to get most dragonscales anymore, especially Black Dragonscale, which some choose to make some nice transmog items with. This scarcity of scales is because Upper Blackrock Spire's black dragons were removed, and most remaining dragons in Azeroth have had their levels altered so that they no can longer drop scales adequately.

The pets in this raid are also good for collecting, pet battles, and selling.

Lastly, Nefarian drops some incredible recipes, and not too uncommonly either. I have had a huge variety of these loot-list items drop, and they are even more difficult to come by in the world anymore because of aforementioned level scaling. He can also drop Orb of Deception, which have upped in value since they became a toy.

Here is a list of recipes he has personally dropped at least once for me:

Plans: Stronghold Gauntlets
Pattern: Bottomless Bag
Pattern: Mooncloth Leggings
Pattern: Mooncloth Shoulders
Pattern: Mooncloth Vest
Plans: Helm of the Great Chief*** from mobs in BWL
Plans: Mithril Shield Spike*** This is arguably the least valuable, most common plan Nefarian drops
Plans: Runed Mithril Hammer
Formula: Enchant Gloves - Riding Skill
Plans: Thorium Shield Spike
Recipe: Potion of Petrification*** A guildie friend found this from him
Recipe: Transmute Life to Earth
Recipe: Transmute Water to Undeath
Schematic: Arcane Bomb
Schematic: Lifelike Mechanical Toad
Pattern: Warbear Harness

The biggest issue I've seen people have is getting past the first boss. It definitely is a strategy one needs to get accustomed to. Here are my tips for soloing:

1.) Grab the orb to start, take out all the eggs and make your way slowly to your character
2.) When you get a dragonkin on you, lull it to sleep with spell "5"
3.) Let go of the boss with escape or the red arrow and AoE the mobs around you. And depending on your character, throw a HoT on yourself. That will help aggro stay on you
4.) Don't let go of Razorgore near the end. The aggro shift won't do much after you've gotten to a certain point
5.) DO NOT attack him until he heals himself. If you do, he will reset and kill everybody.

EDIT: Razorgore has been made pretty much wipe proof. His egg destroy spell no longer has a cooldown. Just wait about 2 seconds before killing him after all the eggs are destroyed.

I hope this helps. Good luck farming!

Comment by TevishSzat

I won't lie, this guy is a big part of the reason why I'd like to see Timewalking LFR (the other biggest part is Kara). He keeps getting new class calls every time one gets added to the game, but will never really face a Demon Hunter in a 'fair' fight, for instance. He's one of the coolest fights that most people will never get a chance to experience as a challenge... unless of course folks get scaled down to his level. I suppose the phase transition that once was an instant kill without the right gear would have to be nerfed, but other than that his fight would be as interesting and hectic as it ought to be.

Comment by spartin1217

In case you were wondering his ability on demon hunters is that he blinds them so they cant see unless they use spectral sight.

Comment by wolf69britt

As a demon hunter, he can make you blind, the entire screen turns black.

Comment by robertalexstorm

Has a class call for demon hunters. Applies aura called Blindfold and literally you can't see anything except your UI. He says, "Demon hunters? How odd, covering your eyes like that. Doesn't it make it hard to see the world around you?" If you mouse over Blindfold, it says you are re-thinking your choice of headwear. :P

Comment by Blackbrew

Nefarian has a huge heart, he won't even ignore Demon Hunters:

Blindfold will turn your screen black for a few seconds. Note that this does not seem to affect your chance to hit, but it's nice that Nef acknowledges and considers our newest classes, to this day.

Comment by MiltiadesBooga

Nefarian yells: You won? How... disappointing. I could have easily watched you all continue to stand in the fire.

...I have never seen him say this before (admittedly, I've not been in BWL in a while), but it makes me so damn happy that he DOES say something like this.

Comment by Zulfar32

Nefarian has a class call for Demon hunters now. He yells "Demon hunters? How odd, covering your eyes like that. Doesn't it make it hard to see the world around you?" As well as give the Demon hunters the debuff Blindfold: You are reconsidering your choice of headwear.

The Blindfold debuff lasts ~15 seconds and makes your screen completely black. The UI is still visible.

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Nefarian

This NPC can be found in Blackwing Lair.

Blackwing LairRazorgore the UntamedVaelastrasz the CorruptBroodlord LashlayerFiremawEbonrocFlamegorChromaggusNefarianNefarianBlackwing Lair

Druids are forced into Cat Form for 30 seconds by Involuntary Transformation.

Death Knights will Death Grip players into him.

Hunters have their equipped ranged weapons instantly broken.

Mages are transformed into a giraffe, cow, or worm by Wild Polymorph.

Priests are afflicted with Corrupted Healing, causing the targets of any direct heals they cast to be debuffed by Corrupted Healing, dealing 44 to 56 damage every 1 sec, stacking up to 50 times.

Paladins receive Siphon Blessing, forcing them to continuously cast Blessing of Protection on Nefarian.

Rogues are teleported in front of Nefarian and immobilized, leaving them open to his Cleave and breath attacks.

Shamans will be under the effect of Corrupted Totems, summoning powerful versions of the Shaman's various totems that will buff Nefarian and damage the raid.

Warriors will Berserk, forcing them into a modified , increasing damage taken.

Warlocks will be forced to Summon Infernals, summoning two Corrupted Infernals per warlock to start attacking the raid.

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Nefarian

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