Anub'Rekhan (Classic)

This article is about the original 40-man version of Anub'Rekhan in Classic. For the 10 and 25-man versions of the raid boss introduced in Wrath of the Lich King, see Anub'Rekhan.

Anub'Rekhan
Race	Crypt Lord (Undead)
Level	?? Boss
Reaction	Alliance Horde
Location	Arachnid Quarter, Naxxramas
Naxxramas (Classic) Spider Wing Anub'Rekhan Grand Widow Faerlina Maexxna (lore) (lore) (lore) Abomination Wing Patchwerk Grobbulus Gluth Thaddius (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) Plague Wing Noth the Plaguebringer Heigan the Unclean Loatheb (lore) (lore) (lore) Deathknight Wing Instructor Razuvious Gothik the Harvester The Four Horsemen (lore) (lore) (lore) The Four Horsemen Lady Blaumeux Thane Korth'azz Highlord Mograine Sir Zeliek (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) Frostwyrm Lair Sapphiron Kel'Thuzad (lore) (lore) Other NPCs Tarsis Kir-Moldir Master Craftsman Omarion Mr. Bigglesworth (lore) (lore) (lore) Loot

Anub'Rekhan is a Crypt lord boss and the first encounter of the Spider wing in Naxxramas.

Abilities

• Anub'Rekhan has 1,665,500 health and engages with two Level 61 Crypt Guards, each with 204,380 health. An additional Crypt Guard joins the fight each time Locust Swarm is cast.

Anub'Rekhan

•  Impale — Spikes pierce the floor and then rise up, dealing up to 3938 Physical damage and knocking up enemy targets in a line away from the caster. Cast on a random player and hits anyone nearby in its path. The knockup causes moderate falling damage.
•  Locust Swarm — Anub'Rekhan releases a locust swarm, slowing his movement by 40% and damaging all nearby enemies. Afflicted enemies are unable to attack or cast spells. Lasts 20 sec. 30 yard range.
  •  Locust Swarm — Applied every 2 sec. while Locust Swarm is active. Deals 875 to 1125 nature damage every 2 sec for 6 sec. Pacified. Stacks indefinitely.
•  Summon Corpse Scarabs — Summon corpse scarabs upon the corpse of a Crypt Guard or a player. 10 scarabs are summoned per Crypt Guard, 5 per player. It takes several seconds for them to be summoned.

Crypt Guard

•  Acid Spit — Inflicts 250 Nature damage to an enemy every 2 sec for 10 sec. Stacks indefinitely. Cannot be dispelled.
•  Cleave — Inflicts normal damage plus 40 to an enemy and its nearest allies, affecting up to 3 targets.
•  Enrage — Increases the caster's attack speed by 60% and the Physical damage it deals by 50 for 2 min. Cast when brought below 50% health.
•  Web — Casts a web over all nearby enemies, rooting them for 10 sec.

Strategies

The Pull and Initial Positioning

Tanking Setup

• 1 Warrior, 1 Hunter, and 3-4 healers for Anub'Rekhan
• 1+ Warrior and 2-3 healers for left Crypt Guard
• 2 Warriors and 2-3 healers for right Crypt Guard
• The rest of the healers will be designated for recently Impaled players.

There are two spots to tank Anub'Rekhan; where he stands when you engage him, or pulled back by a hunter to the entry-way of the room. After he is pulled into position, the MT should face Anub'Rekhan towards the East, the reasoning for this is explained in the next section.

The two Crypt Guards need to be tanked as close as possible to their initial positions, with them facing away from the DPS to avoid cleaves. Since they are very susceptible to stuns, rogues and warriors should be trying to keep him stun-locked in place while DPS takes them down first.

The two Crypt Guards need to be tanked orthogonally from Anub'Rekhan, facing away from the DPS. That is to say, if you have plane in three dimensional space, a vector is orthogonal to the plane if it is perpendicular to every vector contained in the plane.

The left Guard should be taken out first, and his tank should not be getting more than 3-4 applications of the poison DoT. If he is, then the stuns need to better timed, or a second warrior needs to be taunting. Meanwhile, the two tanks for the right Guard should be bouncing aggro back and forth with taunts to avoid the DoT stacking too high. DPS finishes off the left Guard before coming over to kill the right the same way.

At this point the first corpse may have exploded into scarabs. If so, have Mages frost nova them into place before Warlocks/Mages AoE them down.

After the right Guard dies, you should be 60–75 seconds into the fight. Only ranged DPS can go onto Anub'Rekhan before the first kite. Melee should stand on the corpse, picking up scarabs if it explodes, they would only have about 10 seconds to do damage before they would need to back out for the Locust Swarm.

The kiting route

The Kite and Spawn

The most important part of the fight is the kiting that needs to occur every 70–120 seconds. Keep a timer going after each Locust Swarm cast.

As soon as Anub'Rekhan bows at the MT, signaling the beginning of Locust Swarm, the MT must immediately start running around the east side ring of the room, just beyond the poison slime ring. The MT should stop running when he reaches 12/6 O'Clock, depending on where you initially tanked him. Everyone else needs to back out of the 30 yard range of the Swarm, including MT healers.

As soon as the MT starts running, the Hunter in his group must also turn on Aspect of the Pack and run ahead of him around the same outer ring and turning off Aspect when the MT is in the 12/6 O'Clock position. If done properly, only 1-2 applications of Locust Swarm should be on the MT, just enough to be healed through.

Reaction time to the tail lift is crucial to surviving each kite, a 2 second delay will spell a wipe for the raid. It is also just as important that the tank avoid stepping into the slime ring, as it will put a debuff reducing all stats to 10% of normal, effectively dropping his max health by 5-6000 points.

At the same time the Locust Swarm is cast, a new Crypt Guard will spawn at Anub'Rekhan's initial engage point. This add should be pulled towards the western part of the room, to stay out of range of the Locust Swarm, and is killed identically to how the first two were brought down. After the newly spawned Guard is killed, all DPS can go back onto Anub'Rekhan, again, having 2 mages keep an eye out for scarabs. If done quickly and efficiently, this leaves 45 seconds of straight DPS on Anub'Rekhan before melee must back out and the next kite and spawn occurs.

70–80 seconds after each Locust Swarm cast, all melee DPS needs to back out of range and prepare for the next Crypt Guard spawn. If you are on a relatively lag-free server, you can leave Melee in there a little longer, and have them react similarly to the MT.

Rinse and repeat to bring Anub'Rekhan down and collect your first (probably) Tier 3 quest pieces. As you gain more and more practice on it, you can kill him in as little as one kite phase.

Tips

• Have 1 Priest and Druid cast PW:Shield, Renew, Regrowth, and Rejuvenation on the MT as soon as they see the tail go up in the air, this should provide enough healing for 1-2 Locust Swarms.
• 1-2 healers can be at the other end of the room, during the kite, to cast their fastest heal when the MT gets in range.
• If you are the MT, save your shield wall in case you miss the tail lift or are slow to react.
• Swiftness potions can be used on alternative kites for safety. Alternate kites because they are on a 2 minute cooldown, you cannot use them for every single swarm.
• AVOID the slime when kiting, but do not come into contact with the outer wall either, as there are points that will kick you off the wall a bit, slowing you down.
• Hunters can feign death + frost trap to slow the spread of bugs
• MT Healers keep max healing distance from MT and keep MT between them self and Anub'Rekhan. This will maximize distance from Anub and keep you from getting impaled. Very similar strategy to staying out of fear range on Magmadar in Molten Core. However, you will need move to the center and back into place during the kite.

Loot

Tier 3 Set Tokens

Item	Class
[Desecrated Bindings]	Priest, Mage, Warlock
[Desecrated Bracers]	Warrior, Rogue
[Desecrated Wristguards]	Paladin, Hunter, Shaman, Druid

Non-set Loot

Item	Type
[Band of Unanswered Prayers]	Healing ring
[Cryptfiend Silk Cloak]	Tank cloak
[Gem of Nerubis]	Caster off-hand
[Touch of Frost]	Frost resist necklace
[Wristguards of Vengeance]	Plate bracers
[Splinter of Atiesh]	Quest Item

You receive 100 reputation with the Argent Dawn at all reputation levels.

Quotes

Intro

• Ahh... welcome to my parlor.
• I hear little hearts beating. Yesss... beating faster now. Soon the beating will stop.
• Where to go? What to do? So many choices that all end in pain, end in death.
• Which one shall I eat first? So difficult to choose. They all smell so delicious...
• Closer now... tasty morsels. I've been too long without food. Without blood to drink.

Aggro

• Just a little taste...
• There is no way out.
• Yes, run! It makes the blood pump faster!

Killing a player

Shhh... it will all be over soon.

Trivia

• Anub'Rekhan was the first Crypt Lord introduced in World of Warcraft, and remained the only crypt lord in game until the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Anub'rekhan accurately replicates the abilities of the crypt lords from Warcraft III.
• "Welcome to my parlor" may be a reference to "The Spider and the Fly," a famous poem by English poet Mary Howitt, in which a spider invites a fly into his "parlour."

Patch changes

• Patch 3.0.2 (2008-10-14): Removed.
  
• Patch 1.12.1 (2006-09-26): Fixed an issue where players could crash while fighting Anub'Rekhan.
  
• Patch 1.11.0 (2006-06-19): Added.
  

External links

• Wowhead
• WoWDB