Naxxramas Gothik the Harvester

Gothik the Harvester is a boss which many people first meet in the Death Knights starting area as a quest giver. When you reach the new Naxxramas in Wrath of the Liche King however you will eventually find yourself and your raid group ready to take this epic WoW boss on first hand.

Gothik the Harvester only has 2,510,100 HP in 25 min and 836,700 in 10 man raid modes.  This might not seem like much, but trust me, this boss is no easy take down.

For the first four minutes and thirty four seconds of this fight, Gothik the Harvester will be invulnerable to attacks.  

During this time your raid group must concentrate on keeping down the additional mobs which will spawn for the first 3 minutes and 44 seconds.

When Gothik the Harvester comes down after the 4:34 of trash clearance Gothik has only a few minor abilities which you must contend with. Gothik will teleport, fortunately agro is kept through teleports, making life much easier for the tanks.

• Shadowbolt - Gothik the Harvester will cast a shadow bolt every single second causing 4500 to 5500 shadow damage (2880 to 3500 shadow damage in 10 man) on his primary (tank) target.
• Harvest Soul - Gothik casts Harvest Soul once every 15 seconds, this reduces the stats of the whole raid group by exactly 10%, and stacks 10 times.

 The real trick to beating Gothik the Harvester is in controlling the adds. Beating the adds requires careful co-ordination between two sides of the room., the living side and the dead side. Everytime a living mob is killed it is reborn on the undead side,

Since crowd control on undead mobs is harder however, the DPS on teh living side must control the flow in which they release undead mobs.  Some groups may find it easier to place more DPS on the undead side, to help reduce the adds as quickly as possible.

You will need to have at least one tank for the mobs on each side, you should also make sure you have the tanks ready to taunt Gothik when he becomes vulnerable (Who will first spawn on the living side, then teleport to the dead side) When Gothik the Harvester reaches 30% health the room will become undivided, allowing you to quickly take down the remaining health of this add-adorned boss.

For the full list of adds and their abilities check out this WoW Wiki article.

I will however summarize how you should kill these adds.

First your living side team should kill the Unrelenting Rider, then the Unrelenting Death Knight, then the Unrelenting Trainee in that order. However, your living team must keep a close eye on the undead team, especially in the beginning since the Unrelenting Rider will spawn both a Rider and a Horse when it respawns on the undead side. You can CC a lot of the living mobs, which can help keep the rate which you kill the living mobs manageable for the undead team.

On the undead side, you will be able to take down the mobs as they appear, be warned though, the spectral rider and the spectral horse cannot be CC'ed!


Be careful not to overwhelm the undead side, and keep up a fast pace of DPS, it should not take you long to reach Gothik the Harvester who is a simple tank and spank job, with the slight twist that he will teleport between the two teams. This means that both your tanks will need to keep on top of him as he switches between the rooms. When he reaches 30% health you will be able to get your entire DPS on him 100% of the time, as the middle gate will lift!

Emalon the Storm Watcher Raid Guide

Emalon the Storm Watcher was at one point one of the hardest bosses in the Vault of Archavon.  However after a big patch nerf, many guilds will now find Emalon the Storm Watcher a much easier prospect.  Don't get me wrong however, while Emalon has been nerfed, he should still provide you and your friends with a fairly decent challenge!

First, lets get down to basics.  In 10 man mode Emalon the Storm Watcher has around 2.7 million HP.  This is increased to 11 million HP in 25 man mode.  The first thing you will most likely notice about Emalon is that he hits for a good 20k un-mitigated on plate every three seconds. Unfortunately Emalon's strength doesn't stop there, with some devastating lightning based (Nature damage) abilities in his arsenal. Emalon, like Archavon the Stone Watcher, has a short enrage timer of 6 minutes, so you need to keep up a high DPS on this WoW Raid boss!

Around Emalon the Storm Watcher there are four minions, when one is killed another respawns, unfortunately you need to keep on top of these guys, as I will explain shortly.  First however, let's cover these hardcore lightning abilities of Emalon teh Storm Watcher!

• Chain Lightning - Hits one person for between 4.5k and 5.5k damage a time, this jumps around your raid if people are too close, and each jump will increase it's damage by 50%, this occurs every 15 seconds.
• Lightning Nova - A large 20 yard nature damage AOE which hits for up to 20k to 25k damage. Closer proximity = greater damage.
• Overcharge - Gives a minion overcharge, I will explain this next!

 The Tempest Minions which surround Emalon the Stone Watcher are the bane of many a raid group when they first attempt this rather difficult raid boss. Each one spawns with around 141k HP, and when Emalon hits a random minion with overcharge, that minion will become fully healed.

Overcharge grants a random minion 20% extra damage, and this is stacked every 2 seconds.  When ten stacks are reached the minion becomes a living bomb, which deals 30k damage to the entire raid.

For this reason it is imperative that as seen as Emalon the Stone Watcher empowers one of his minions with overcharge, your DPS must take the affected minion down immediately!

Basic Emalon the Storm Watcher Strategy Guide

While the Emalon boss fight is by no means easy, once your raid group has mastered this raid boss you should find it becomes a pretty smooth fight.  There are some simple strategies that you should however bring in to play.

Use two tanks, one on Emalon, the other on the Tempest Minions. The tanks should stand at least 30 yards away from each other to avoid the off-tank getting hit with the full force of the Lightning Nova. Melee DPS should also be prepared to run from Lightning Nova.

Ranged DPS should be the ones to switch to the overcharged minions, the rest of the time they should focus on Emalon the Storm Watcher.

Avoiding the chain lightning is easy in 10 man (Just keep spread out) but harder in 25 man.  Because of the limited space some 25 man raid groups prefer to stack players in twos. This way the chain lightning only hits 2 people.  Allowing the chain lightning to jump too far is a recipe for a raid wipe, since it can cause a large amount of raid wide damage!

As long as you manage to keep these simple things under control you should be able to kill Emalon the Storm watcher in no time at all, and enjoy the Tier 8 goodies this lightning imbued boss drops!


Avoiding Chain Lightning is different in 10 and 25 man variations of the raid.

Vault of Archavon - Archavon the Stone Watcher 10 and 25 man WoW Raid Guide

Archavon the Stone Watcher is the first boss in the vault of Archavon, and is my first update to my world of warcraft raid guide in a lonnggg time. I apologise for not updating the WoW raid guide more, I have however been incredibly busy with both my wedding and my US immigration!
But lets get back on point! Archavon the Stone Watcher is very similar in both 10 and 25 man raid modes, he is a pretty tough boss, but his real lack of imaginative abilities make him a pretty easy take down for any WoW raid group that is decently equipped.

Archavon the Stone Watcher will drop Tier 7 pieces and their PvP equivalent, for a variety of classes. The Tier 7 will definitely help with some of the later bosses in this raid. You can also look forward to twe emblems of triumph.

In this WoW raid Archavon the Stone Watcher has 2,300,900 hp in the ten man instance, and just under 10,000,000 hp in the 25 man version of Archavon. 
Archavon the Stone Watcher deals a pretty high amount of damage, and you will more than likely need two tanks, you should also keep up a high rate of DPS on this boss, you will want to take him out as quickly as possible due to his five minute enrage timer.

Archavon the Stone Watcher has some pretty basic abilities, but nevertheless you will need to keep a close eye on things to prevent your raid group from wiping.

• Rock Shards - The Rock Shards ability is an unavoidable attack that deals around 10,000 damage on 10 man and 20,000 damage on 25 man against a single (random) raid member over three seconds.  This ability is cast every 15 seconds or so, and one healer  can easily keep on top of this with a well timed large heal. The damage is also mitigated by armor. The tricky part of this ability is that the same damage will be applied to any raid member within five yards of the affected player.
• Impale - Every 45 seconds Archavon the Stone Watcher will cast impale, this is probably the biggest raid breaker of the entire fight, and your healers will need to be on the ball every time this is cast. It deals a raid wide 4000 damage on 10 man and 8000 damage on 25 man, while giving a 2 second stun to the entire raid.  At the same time the main tank will be impaled in to the air and incapacitated for 8 seconds. During this time it is highly important that you have a second tank, or well geared DPS, take up the threat until the main tank recovers.  Since this only lasts 8 seconds Taunt is a viable way to keep the boss busy if played right, so a good DPS player can keep things going.
• Choking Cloud - This move has a 30 second cooldown, and you will see the Stone Watcher jump towards a random raid member. When Archavon the Stone Watcher lands he will deal 4,000 damage in ten man and 8,00 damage in 25 man raids to the player, and anyone stood within 10 yards of him, as well as knocking the players back by around 30 yards.. A white cloud will appear where Archavon the Stone Watcher lands, standing in this will result in 2,000 damage in 10 man and 3,000 damage in 25 man per tick, as well as causing a 50% reduction in your hit chance, so never stand in these clouds!

Archavon the Stone Watcher Strategy Guide

To defeat Archavon the Stone Watcher you really just have to remember a few simple rules

1) Keep everyone WELL spread out to reduce the AoE damage.
2) Tank him against the back of the room
3) DPS fast, if your healers have spare mana it really can't hurt for them to throw on a DoT or two just to help keep the damage up. The boss is on a five minute enrage timer, so he needs to be taken down FAST.
4) Watch out for both the cloud (Which hurts both health and group DPS) and Rock Shards, if you are hit by rock shards, get out of the way of the rest of the group. If your neighbor has rock shard, get away fast!

Healing on Archavon the Stone Watcher fight is pretty simplistic, you will need one well geared healer in ten man fights and 2 to 3 healers in the 25 man version. At least one more healer, maybe two depending on group make up (10 man) and three, maybe four, healers (25 man) will be required to deal with the rest of the damage. The amount of healers you will need is really based on your raid groups ability to avoid the AoE damage, so keep an eye on how your group progresses. If you do not kill Archavon the Stone watcher before he enrages you may have no choice but to drop a healer for increased DPS.

DPS has to be fast on this boss, and since the fight must take less than 5 minutes, DPS really do need to go all out.

As your DPS will be going all out, your tanks must be ready to hold agro, so make sure your tanks are specced properly, and well geared.

The first tank inparticular should keep threat high to deal with impale, the second tank should keep threat at a level which is always higher than DPS, but lower than the main tank.

Follow these simple steps and you should kill the boss Archavon the Stone Watcher in no time, and soon enough you will tire of waiting for the 7 day cooldown timer on this loot heavy WoW Boss!