Four Horsemen (Classic)


 * This article concerns the original Four Horsemen encounter introduced in Patch 1.11.0. For the 10 and 25-man versions introduced with Wrath of the Lich King, see Four Horsemen.

The Four Horsemen, ,, , and , are four powerful death knights in the service of. Together they comprise the third and final encounter of the Deathknight wing of Naxxramas.

Generally regarded as one of the most difficult encounters of the original World of Warcraft, the coordination, timing, and relatively unforgiving nature makes them one of the hardest bosses in the instance.

Strategies


The Four Horsemen are a single-phase council encounter that depend entirely on proper positioning for each Horseman, as well as predetermined positioning, rotation, and responsibility for each raid member in order to properly manage the Horsemen's Marks and their unique abilities.

From the mechanics of the Mark, each Horseman must be taken to a separate assigned corner, and tanked there. Whilst having one Mark stack up will do too much damage and kill you, it is possible to have all 4 marks stack to a lesser extent and survive. 4 stacks of Mark of Mograine (3000 damage) hurt a lot more than one stack of a Mark from each Horseman (no damage at all). The range of these marks is 70 yards, and with a 75 second duration, proper rotation timing is key.

Marks
Marks are the signature ability of the Four Horsemen that shape the entire encounter. Each Horseman has its own mark, but these marks function identically to one another.

The mechanics are as follows:
 * 75 second duration, refreshed every time a stack is applied.
 * 65 yard range, pierces line of sight.
 * First mark cast at 20 seconds.
 * Cast every 12 seconds following first mark.
 * Deals unresistable Shadow damage. Damage depends on stacks:
 * The first stack deals no damage. The second stack deals 250, third deals 1000, fourth deals 3000, fifth deals 5000.
 * Each stack after five deals 1000 additional damage.
 * Each time a player is struck by a mark their total threat is reduced by 50% against the Horseman who the mark belongs to.
 * Cannot be resisted or removed by immunities.

Tanking
Eight tanks are required for this encounter, two per Horseman. On pull, each Horseman should be picked up by its first tank and dragged to their assigned corner, where they will be tanked for the entire encounter. Tanks must rotate in and out from their assigned Horseman, otherwise they will die from the Mark stacking too high. A second tank must be ready to taunt off the first tank as soon as the Mark reaches a fatal number of stacks.

As Taunt (warrior ability) is considered a spell, tanks may want to consider some form of spell hit to counter taunt's resist chance (16% vs. bosses). Warrior tanks should prioritize Tier 3 for its 4-set bonus (+5% hit on taunt). Both tanks and healers should otherwise be prepared for taunt resists, especially if it resists twice in a row. Following proper strategy otherwise, taunt resists are generally the cause of wipes on this encounter.

Loot
While some had speculated that the Four Horsemen's loot tables were generated in similar fashion to the Silithid Royalty of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, with the kill order determining the loot awarded, repeated kills have now indicated that the kill order does not affect the loot. In addition to their non-set drops, the Four Horsemen also drop two Tier 3 chest tokens.

Conversation
When players pass beyond Gothik the Harvester, the Four Horsemen have a sort of conversation during which they are all introduced.
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell

Thane Korth'azz

 * Taunt
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * say


 * Killing a player
 * say


 * Special
 * say


 * Death
 * say

Sir Zeliek

 * Taunt
 * yell
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * say


 * Killing a player
 * say


 * Death
 * say

Lady Blaumeux

 * Taunt
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * say


 * Killing a player
 * say


 * Special
 * say


 * Death
 * say

Highlord Mograine

 * Taunt
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * say
 * say
 * say


 * Killing a player
 * say
 * say


 * Special
 * say


 * Death
 * say

Outro

 * Killed first
 * yell


 * Killed second
 * yell


 * Killed third
 * yell


 * Killed last
 * yell

Trivia

 * They appear to be based on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation, said to bring the end of the world — Zeliek as the White Rider of Conquest, Mograine as the Red Rider of War, Blaumeux as the Black Rider of Famine, and Korth'azz as the Pale Rider of Death.
 * The Four Horsemen encounter stands to this day as the most amount of time a single encounter laid undefeated while also not requiring any re-tuning (nerfing) or bug fixing, at approximately 7 weeks from first engagement (time determined from Death and Taxes, who achieved the first world kill of the Horsemen on 25 August 2006, seven weeks after first engaging them). This was primarily due to the encounter requiring an excessive number of tanks, meaning that even once guilds had figured out what to do, it took a lot of time to gear and prepare all eight warrior tanks.
 * Though some encounters had gone undefeated for a longer duration, this figure excludes encounters who have received tuning adjustments (nerfs) or bug fixes prior to being defeated, as well as bosses in Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair (due to those raids being available upon release of World of Warcraft). The Four Horsemen did not receive any adjustments or bug fixes prior to their first defeat.