Grand Widow Faerlina



Grand Widow Faerlina is the second boss of the Arachnid Quarter in Naxxramas.

History
Once one of the high-ranking members of the Cult of the Damned under Kel'Thuzad, in death she breeds and takes care of the seemingly endless amount of arachnids that swarm from the depths of the citadel. A master of poisons, she has a keen understanding of what makes mortals suffer. The poisons she concocts comes from the spiderlings produced by Maexxna.

Grand Widow Faerlina
She has 6,760,000 hit points.


 * Spell Nature CorrosiveBreath.png Poison Bolt Volley:
 * This will hit the ten closest players to Grand Widow Faerlina, used every 15 seconds. Deals 3375 to 4125 Nature damage and applies a dot that does 1900 to 2100 Nature damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. Dispellable. Widow's Embrace prevents the use of this ability for 30 seconds.


 * Spell Shadow RainOfFire.png Rain of Fire:
 * Random Rains of Fire will be cast on players throughout the fight very often. 3700 to 4300 Fire damage every two seconds. Rain of Fire lasts six seconds. 8 yard radius.


 * Spell Shadow UnholyFrenzy.png Frenzy:
 * This will be used approximately every 60-80 seconds. It will increase Grand Widow Faerlina's physical damage by 150%, her melee haste by 50% and her size by 50%. During it she will hit the tank for upwards of 20,000 damage. Widow's Embrace dispels and prevents the use of this ability for 60 seconds.


 * NOTE: Faerlina's Frenzy cannot be removed by hunters' Tranquilizing Shot.


 * NOTE: You must use Widow's Embrace AFTER she enrages if you want to stop her for the full 60 seconds. If you sacrifice the Worshipper before the enrage, it will merely delay the enrage for 30 seconds.

Worshippers and followers
There are 6 NPCs at the start of the fight, 4 Worshippers and 2 Followers.

Worshippers
The Naxxramas Worshippers will be off-tanked for most of the fight, and eventually sacrificed to Faerlina. When mind controlled, they have a Widow's Embrace ability which when cast NEAR Faerlina can prevent Frenzy as well as silence Faerlina's nature school for 30 seconds. Using Widow's Embrace AFTER Faerlina Frenzies locks her nature school for 60 seconds. Using this ability actually kills the Worshipper.

Followers
There are two ways of dealing with the Followers: off-tank them the entire fight or kill them first. If they are to be killed first, then they need to die quickly (around 30 seconds to bring both down). They do not hit particularly hard but will sometimes charge random people. In addition to that, they have an AoE silence, so try to have them tanked away from your caster classes. They are IMMUNE to silence.

Grand Widow Faerlina
She has approximately 2,230,000 hit points.


 * Spell Nature CorrosiveBreath.png Poison Bolt Volley:
 * This will hit the three closest players to Grand Widow Faerlina, used on average every 12 to 15 seconds, but sometimes with as little as seven or eight seconds between casts. Deals 2625 to 3375 Nature damage and applies a dot that does 1480 to 1720 Nature damage every 2 seconds for eight seconds. Dispellable. Widow's Embrace prevents the use of this ability for 30 seconds.


 * Spell Shadow RainOfFire.png Rain of Fire:
 * Random Rains of Fire will be cast on players throughout the fight, at intervals of anywhere from six to eighteen seconds. 1750 to 2750 Fire damage every two seconds. Rain of Fire lasts six seconds. 8 yard radius.


 * Spell Shadow UnholyFrenzy.png Frenzy:
 * This will be used approximately every 60–80 seconds. It will increase Grand Widow Faerlina's physical damage by 150%, her melee haste by 50% and her size by 50%. During it she will hit the tank for upwards of 15,000 damage. Widow's Embrace dispels and prevents the use of this ability for 60 seconds.


 * NOTE: Faerlina's Frenzy cannot be removed by hunters' Tranquilizing Shot.


 * NOTE: You must kill the worshipper AFTER she enrages if you want to stop her for the full 60 seconds. If you sacrifice the Worshipper before the enrage, it will merely delay the enrage for 30 seconds.

Worshippers
There are 4 "Naxxramas Worshipper" NPCs at the start of the fight.

Worshippers
They will be off-tanked for most of the fight, and eventually sacrificed to Faerlina. When killed near Faerlina, they will remove and prevent Frenzy as well as silence Faerlina's nature school for 30 seconds. This fight cannot last more than 4:45 or so because there will be no way to prevent the Frenzy if all the adds are dead. It should be noted that in 10-man, the Worshippers are immune to Mind Control, and must be DPSed down. This can be tricky if your off-tank is overzealous and brings one in particular down too fast. Predetermine a kill order for the worshippers (raid marks work well), and bring one down to ~5%, then kill it once Faerlina enrages.

25-man
Three tanks are ideal. One tank will pick up the Worshippers and offtank them near the priests in the raid. One will pick up the followers which will be focused down by the DPS classes. The Followers CANNOT be sheeped (a difference from the 10-man). The main tank will pick up Faerlina and drag her to the middle of the room where everyone will spread out around her. When the frenzy is about to come off cooldown a priest will mind control one of the Worshippers and move it near Faerlina then use Widow's Embrace when frenzy is cast. Aside from healing her AoE damage this is the entire fight from 100% to 0%. The priest will need to be quick as she hits extremely hard while frenzied and may kill the tank if there is any delay.

10-man
Easier than 25man. You will need two tanks. One tank will pick up the worshippers and offtank them right under the stairs on the left side. Any tank class is good at tanking them, as they don't deal high loads of damage. The main tank will pick up Faerlina after the OT pulls the rest and drag her to the middle of the room where everyone will spread out around her. Every DPS should focus ONLY in Faerlina, ignoring the four adds till the enrage phase is near.

The off-tank will pick all four adds, and start DPSing one of them: the one who must be killed in order to stop Faerlina's enrage.

When the frenzy is about to come off cooldown (10 secs or so) every DPS should stop all DPS and switch target to the worshipper marked to kill. Do not start attacking it, just target it and be in range for attacks. The main tank should go where the OT is, the closer the better, taking Faerlina with him. The Offtank should have lowered the worshipper's health to 15% or less.

When the enrage is up, all DPS should burst their CD to insta-kill the worshipper. If done properly Faerlina's enrage should fade, and MT can move Faerlina back to the center of the room, where DPS can resume on her.

Rinse & Repeat every time the enrage timer is close.

NOTE: Off-Tank should stop DPS worshippers at some time, because he/she will kill them all otherwise.

NOTE: It is also possible to do the same start strategy but instead killing one Worshipper at a time to stop her enrage. (If gear is well suited) Downing all Worshippers and then focusing on Faerlina, even through her enrages can be done. (Good healer(s)and someone to dispel is needed for this way in this fight.)

Achievements
The raid can earn the achievement by killing Faerlina without dispelling any of the Frenzy phases.

(Note: To complete this achievement Faerlina must not be affected by Widow's Embrace at ANY point during the fight, even when she is not Frenzied. If you kill any adds close to her, at any time during the fight, you will not get the achievement)

Strategy
If your guild is lacking a shadow priest or you fancy getting your achievement, the following strategy will work for both 10 and 25 man raids. First of all the raid setup needs to have the usual 2 tanks, two shamans and 5-6 healers in the raid. Have both Shamans place cleansing totem down at the beginning of the fight, have 3-4 healers on your main tank. one healer on the raid *preferably a Druid* and one healer on the offtank.

Engage the boss fight by having your offtank *preferably an aoe tank such as Paladin/DK* charge onto the pedestal and collect all the Worshippers and Faerlina. Have your main tank pick up Faerlina and tank her in one set position until rain of fire is cast on the main tank. Whilst the main tank gains aggro on Faerlina dps all the adds down using aoe. Once the adds are down, blow heroism pop your trinkets and full nuke Faerlina with 4-5 of your healers all concentrating on the main tank. This amount of healing can easily heal through the enrage and with the poison totems and a druid on raid healing. The achievement is yours!

If you have problems with your main tank dying due to the occasional slip up, the easy way around this is to reverse tank roles, have your main tank charge in and take all the adds whilst your offtank builds up aggro on the boss. Once the adds are down the main tank can then taunt Faerlina off the offtank. giving the offtank substantial threat in case the main tank dies.

Solo Strategy
At level 90, this achievement can be soloed by simply killing Faerlina without killing any of the adds. Before engaging Faerlina, unequip any cleave trinkets or legendary cloaks as these can easily one-shot the adds.

Related achievements

 * The Arachnid Quarter (10 player)
 * The Arachnid Quarter (25 player)
 * Momma Said Knock You Out (10 player)
 * Momma Said Knock You Out (25 player)

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Enrage
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell

Trivia

 * She was armed with Widow's Remorse, which can be looted on her body.
 * Faerlina is voiced by Kath Soucie.