Add fight
| Encounter by type | |
|---|---|
 |
Add fight |
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Battle for survival |
 |
Council encounter |
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DPS race |
 |
Gear check |
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Stay out of the fire |
  |
Tank and spank |
An add fight is a type of encounter in which the the control and killing of a large number of adds is paramount. Compared to its opposite, the tank and spank, add fights tend to involve more mobility and oftentimes call for crowd control to mitigate damage and minimize chaos. There have been many variations of add fights over the years, but the key element of all of these encounters is that adds always have a higher priority than DPSing the main boss. Ignoring adds on an add fight to focus DPS on the boss usually leads to a wipe if the raid is being overrun or if the off-tank is taking too much damage for the healers to keep up. However, it is a judgment call whether it is worth ignoring adds at a certain point of an encounter to speed it along or end it before enrage.
Though councils also involve multiple targets, add fights differ in an important way. Mobs summoned as "adds" tend to possess few abilities, usually featuring only one or two abilities that are relevant to the mechanics of the encounter (Tsulong's Unstable Sha) or merely being hard-hitting. In contrast, the various members of a council fight are bosses by themselves with multiple mechanics that a raid must remember. An add fight will usually have a single main boss, and depending on the encounter design, the raid may steadily damage the boss over the course of the fight or it may switch to him/her full-time after the "add phase" is complete. Lady Deathwhisper involves a combination of both of these mechanics, and Will of the Emperor is an add fight with two main targets instead of one. Conversely, Spoils of Pandaria is a pure add fight that does not even have a central boss.
While some players find add fights annoying due to constant switching of targets, certain classes and specs perform exceptionally well on multi-target encounters, especially multi-dotters and anyone with strong AoE or 
[Cleave]. While gear checks tend to be simpler in design, add fights can test the DPS output of a raid if it is struggling to kill adds in a timely manner.
List of add fights
Classic
Blackwing Lair
Wrath of the Lich King
Vault of Archavon
Cataclysm
Firelands
Mists of Pandaria
Mogu'shan Vaults
- Will of the Emperor (during first phase on Normal; entire encounter on Heroic)
Heart of Fear
- Wind Lord Mel'jarak (during first phase on Normal; entire encounter on Heroic)
Throne of Thunder
- Horridon (during the first through fourth phases of the encounter)
- Tortos
- Ji-Kun
- Primordius
- Dark Animus (during the first phase of the encounter)
Siege of Orgrimmar
- Galakras (during the first phase of the encounter)
- General Nazgrim
- Spoils of Pandaria
- Siegecrafter Blackfuse
- Garrosh Hellscream