Attumen the Huntsman



Attumen the Huntsman is the proud owner of, the strongest horse in the stables. If his horse is put in danger, he will rush to defend and destroy the attackers. As the first and easiest boss in Karazhan, he is considered a gear check for any adventurers who wish to delve deeper into Karazhan. Attumen is optional; it is not necessary to kill him in order to progress to the later bosses. Moroes and the Maiden of Virtue are both considered to be substantially tougher.

Attacks and abilities
At the start, Midnight is alone. When she's at 95%, her master Attumen spawns, right at Midnight's spot. When either reaches 25% health, Attumen mounts Midnight and gains the Berserker Charge ability.

Attumen
 * Basic Melee: 4,715 - 7,508 damage, mitigated by armor.
 * Immune to taunt effects.
 * Shadow Cleave: Frontal melee-range AoE attack for around 4,000 shadow damage.
 * Intangible Presence: A reflectable AoE curse cast every 30 seconds that reduces chance to hit with melee and ranged attacks and spells by 50%. The area of the curse is centered on Attumen's current target.
 * Vulnerable to Disarm. (reduces damage about 65%)

Midnight
 * Mount Up: When either Attumen or Midnight are at 25% he will mount up, both turning into one boss with the higher health percentage of both.
 * Berserker Charge:  A charge that does 200 damage on cloth and applies a knockdown for a brief stun.  It hits a random target at 8-40 yards.  This charge frequently does only around 200 damage, but it is possible for Attumen to get an attack on the charged target, causing 6,000+ damage. Gained after mounting Midnight.
 * Basic Melee: Around 4,248 - 6,007 damage, mitigated by armor.
 * Immune to taunt effects.

Preparation and Cleanup
The trash undead leading up to Attumen has a 25 minute respawn timer unless Attumen has been defeated. Therefore it is important for the raid to make role assignments before beginning, and to keep moving once the first monster has been killed. Dead players should release and run back in rather than wait for resurrection; tanks should continue pulling as long as they and healers aren't suffering for health and mana, respectively.

Spectral Stable Hands should be killed first due to their heal spell. Shackle Undead and Freezing Trap may be used to control other adds. If trash has respawned or has been skipped, those nearby (up to approximately 25 mobs) will join the fight when Midnight is aggro'd. This is probably undesirable even for high level players, since they are still vulnerable to Spectral Chargers' stun.

Once Attumen is down, clear the several mobs near Koren, in the next area after Midnight. He is required for quests, and characters with at least Honored reputation with the Violet Eye can use him to repair and purchase Blacksmithing recipes.

Strategy
Assign a tank for Midnight and another tank for Attumen. It's best if the Attumen tank is a warrior, to easily disarm Attumen. The Midnight tank is best one that can swap to damage-dealing after Attumen mounts up. Arms warriors or feral druids can typically do this. It's also possible for a well-geared paladin to tank both Attumen and Midnight simultaneously. Assign healers to these two tanks and leave a third for raid healing.

Phase One - Midnight
Phase One starts when Midnight is attacked and lasts until she is reduced to 95% of her health. She is neutral (yellow) and will not attack until she is attacked herself. She calls any respawned undead horse trash to assist her, and initiates a basic heavy melee attack. If Midnight calls any trash, put the Attumen tank on the trash and kill it before initiating Phase Two. Better yet, clear fast enough that there is no such trash.

Phase One is a brief tank-and-spank. The only issue is making sure that the damage-dealers don't pull aggro off of the tank. Simply allow the tank a few moments to build threat, then attack with light damage output. A warrior Attumen tank can build rage by attacking Midnight with white damage.

Phase Two - Midnight and Attumen
Phase Two starts when Midnight is reduced to 95% health. Attumen spawns near Midnight and begins attacking immediately. He uses his Shadow Cleave and his Intangible Presence curse.

The main danger during Phase Two is right at the beginning. A healer can get aggro and die before the Attumen tank establishes any threat. This generally leads to an eventual wipe. If this happens, run out of the Stables area to reset the fight. Quickly run back in, re-buff, and re-start the fight before respawns start.

When Attumen spawns, healers should momentarily stop healing until his tank picks him up, preferably using instant AoE threat generation, such as Thunder Clap, Demoralizing Shout, Consecration, or Death and Decay. Misdirection (and Tricks of the Trade, if a higher level rogue is present) may be used just prior to the phase transition to help the Attumen tank. Once Attumen is securely hitting the tank, he should be led a short distance away from Midnight, and faced away from the rest of the raid to avoid errant Shadow Cleaves.

Warriors and rogues in the raid should keep Attument Disarmed and use Spell Reflection to bounce the curse back onto the boss. Both of these tricks weaken Attumen considerably. The curse should be removed from disarmers and tanks in particular. Healers should conserve mana as much as possible; it's a long fight. Phase 2 lasts until either Midnight or Attumen is reduced to 25% health.

Attumen may also be damaged during this Phase, resulting in lower health upon entering Phase 3. Trading damage on Midnight (which reduces time in Phase 2) for damage on Attumen (which reduces the eventual time in Phase 3) is ultimately a tradeoff between more time spent healing Midnight's melee attacks (Phase 2) and more time spent dealing with Attumen's Berserker Charge (Phase 3). However, the Charge is avoidable, so most raids focus on transitioning quickly, in which case only classes that can efficiently multi-attack (usually via multi-DoT) should damage Attumen.

Phase Three - Mounted Attumen
The final phase begins when either Attumen or Midnight is brought down to 25% health. Attumen mounts Midnight and the two of them fight as a single opponent. If Midnight has more health than Attumen, Attumen's health percentage goes up to Midnight's. Attumen gains the Berserker Charge ability, and continues using his Shadow Cleave and Intangible Presence abilities.

Attumen wipes threat at this transition, so similar tactics as in Phase 2 should be used to reestablish it: briefly stop healing and attacking, use Misdirection, and use instant AoE threat abilities. Attumen should once again face away from the raid, and the same de-cursing and disarming routines should be maintained.

The former Midnight tank should switch to dealing damage with the rest of the raid. Everyone except the tank should stand immediately behind Attumen, so they cannot be hit by Berserker Charge or Shadow Cleave. Berserker Charge has a minimum range of eight yards. Even hunters can attack from less than that range, so nobody needs to get hit with the Charge. If Attumen manages to Charge someone anyway, he returns directly to the tank afterward, so the tank should not move. Attumen does not use Shadow Cleave until he reaches the tank, so it's safe for him to run back through the rest of the raid after the charge.

The main threats associated with Phase Three are pulling aggro away from the tank and the healers running out of mana. Generally, however, this is an easy phase of an easy fight.

Quotes

 * Phase Two Warning
 * emote
 * emote


 * Phase Two
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Disarmed
 * yell


 * Phase Three
 * yell
 * emote


 * Taunting
 * yell
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Midnight kills a player
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell

Listen to these in-game with the scripts here.

Bugs

 * Attumen and Midnight will despawn (instead of mounting up) if they are out of line-of-sight of each other when one of them reaches 25% health. A soft reset of the instance will bring them back (everyone leave for 30 minutes).


 * Non-controllable pets like a Shadowfiend do not attack Midnight. This is due to a bug where these pets do not attack a target that is neutral, or marked yellow, even if they have been attacked. Make sure you target Attumen if you use one of these pets during Phase Two.

Trivia

 * Attumen's Copper Coin can be fished from the Dalaran Fountain.
 * Attumen is voiced by Spike Spencer.
 * Attumen the Huntsman is similar to the Dark Riders in that he resembles a death knight, is mounted on a horse and originates from Karazhan as well.