Anub'arak (Trial of the Crusader tactics)

Anub'arak is the fifth and final boss of the Trial of the Crusader, an instance in the Crusaders' Coliseum. Anub'arak has returned from his freedom of undeath by the Lich Kings power of reanimation. He is now bigger, stronger, deadlier and faster along with being imbuded with frost power to slay the champions that defeat the invading Twin Val'kyr sisters. He has an enrage timer of 10 minutes.

Permafrost
6 Frost Spheres spawn floating over room when the pull is initiated. Permafrost is created by killing an orb. These will respawn infinitely on normal mode. In 10-man regular, the orbs have exactly 3,000 hp, and 9,000 hp in 25-man regular.

25-player
Phase One - Anub'arak on the ground.
 * Melee - Anub'arak melees for 25,000 - 30,000 on a tank
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower - Summons two (hard mode four) Nerubian Burrowers. Will not be cast in phase 3.
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower - Summons two (hard mode four) Nerubian Burrowers. Will not be cast in phase 3.
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower - Summons two (hard mode four) Nerubian Burrowers. Will not be cast in phase 3.
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower - Summons two (hard mode four) Nerubian Burrowers. Will not be cast in phase 3.

Phase Two - Anub'arak burrows.

Phase Three - The leeching swarm.

Nerubian Burrower - 750,000 HP, melees for about 3,500
 * Submerge - Attempts to burrow underground and heal to full. Uninterruptable. Can be stunned. Will fail if on-top of an ice patch.
 * Expose Weakness - Often applied on melee swing. Increases physical damage taken by target by 25%. Stacks up to 9 (225%)
 * Short range aura - Increases melee haste casting speed and movement speed for other nearby Burrowers (not self). Similar to Sanctum Sentries for Auriaya.
 * Shadow Strike (hard mode only) - 8 second cast, attempts to step through the shadows and strike target for 40,000 shadow damage. Interruptable. Cast on a set timer. Appears to prioritize ranged targets. Will not be cast in phase 2.

Swarm Scarab - Aprox 100,000 HP, weak melee attack. Pursues a random raid target (20k initial threat)
 * Acid Drenched Mandibles - Applied on every melee attack regardless of avoidance. Deals nature damage every 3 seconds for 1 minute. Stacks to 99. Deals significantly more damage on hardmode.
 * Determination - Random chance to enrage healing scarab to full, increasing movement and attack speed and causing the scarab to become immune to stuns and slows.

Hard Mode Changes
 * - Four Nerubian Burrowers are summoned at a time instead of two.
 * - Permafrost orbs will not respawn. Limited to 6 orbs for the duration of the encounter.
 * - Nerubian Burrowers gain Shadow Strike.
 * - Anub'arak will continue summoning Nerubian Burrowers in phase three.

10-player
Phase One - Anub'arak on the ground. . Phase Two - Anub'arak burrows.
 * Melee - Anub'arak melees for 17,500 - 20,000 on a tank
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower: Summons one (hard mode two) Nerubian Burrower. Will not be cast in phase 3.
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower: Summons one (hard mode two) Nerubian Burrower. Will not be cast in phase 3.
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower: Summons one (hard mode two) Nerubian Burrower. Will not be cast in phase 3.
 * Summon Nerubian Burrower: Summons one (hard mode two) Nerubian Burrower. Will not be cast in phase 3.

Phase Three - The leeching swarm.

Nerubian Burrower - 200,000 HP, melees for about 2,700
 * Submerge - Attempts to burrow underground and heal to full. Uninterruptable. Can be stunned. Will fail if on-top of an ice patch.
 * Expose Weakness - Often applied on melee swing. Increases physical damage taken by target by 25%. Stacks up to 9 (225%)
 * Short range aura - Increases melee haste casting speed and movement speed for other nearby Burrowers (not self). Similar to Sanctum Sentries for Auriaya.
 * Shadow Strike (hard mode only) - 8 second cast, attempts to step through the shadows and strike target for 40,000 shadow damage. Interruptable. Cast on a set timer. Appears to prioritize ranged targets. Will not be cast in phase 2.

Swarm Scarab - Aprox 25,000 HP, weak melee attack. Pursues a random raid target (20k initial threat)
 * Acid Drenched Mandibles - Applied on every melee attack regardless of avoidance. Deals nature damage every 3 seconds for 1 minute. Stacks to 99. Deals significantly more damage on hardmode.
 * Determination - Random chance to enrage healing scarab to full, increasing movement and attack speed and causing the scarab to become immune to stuns and slows.

Hard Mode Changes
 * - Two Nerubian Burrowers are summoned at a time instead of one.
 * - Permafrost orbs will not respawn. Limited to 6 orbs for the duration of the encounter.
 * - Nerubian Burrowers gain Shadow Strike.
 * - Anub'arak will continue summoning Nerubian Burrowers in phase three.

Normal
Phase One: Gather up, have one designated ranged DPS shoot down the frost orbs above to form permafrost on the ground.

Nerubian Burrower adds will spawn in phase one and they stack an Expose Armor debuff on their tanks, up to 9 stacks which increases physical damage taken. These need to be tanked on the permafrost or else they will burrow and heal back to full. The raid should have 2 off tanks (on 25 man) to pick these up. By the time Anub'arak burrows, there should only be 4 of them up; 2 on each tank. They should be killed during phase 2, when the raid has nothing else to do. For groups with only one tank for the burrowers it is advisable to just kill them as they spawn to reduce offtank damage taken.

Phase Two: Anub'arak will burrow approximately every 90 seconds, starting phase 2. He will pursue a random target with spikes throughout the phase and when he reaches them he will cast Impale. The spikes will gradually speed up until they hit the target, or hit a patch of permafrost. Standing on the permafrost (or being on the other side of permafrost from the spikes) will enable you to avoid the impale, but the permafrost will despawn. After a few seconds, he will select another target. Aggro dropping abilities (Feign Death, Vanish, Divine Shield, Iceblock) will cause the spikes to change target, but their speed will not be reduced.

Swarm Scarabs will spawn rapidly, scarabs have little hp, start with 20k threat on a random raid member. They all stack the same nature damage debuff on their targets and should be range kited and killed, or killed by melee not being chased by them. They can be slowed by permafrost to gain more distance. After about one minute Anub'arak will surface and begin phase one again. He keeps threat from phase one.

Phase Three: It is advisable to kill off any adds currently active before pushing Anub'arak under 30%. He will not submerge or summon any more adds at this point (on normal mode). Anub'arak needs to die very quickly after hitting 30% as you will not last long under the effects of leeching swarm. It is not ideal to top off raid members as they will then be taking full damage from the leeching swarm, healing Anub'arak and prolonging the phase. Instead you will want to keep people as low as your healers feel comfortable with (recommended under 50% hp) in order to minimize the healing Anub'arak receives (Anub'arak will be healed for ~60,000 HP a second if the entire raid is at full HP on 25-man mode). Beware of people getting gibbed by penetrating cold. The main tank (and offtank if adds are still alive) will need to be topped off and people with penetrating cold will need some healing. Anub'arak does not have any other tricks and will die upon reaching 0% HP. NOTE: Anub'arak can be healed above 30% by the leeching swarm. The swarm will not turn off once activated. It is recommended to save Bloodlust/Heroism for phase 3.

10-player Heroic
Phase One: Designate one ranged DPS to bring down permafrost. Placement of permafrost is essential to this fight. Try to get one to the left and one to the right of Anub so that his spikes can easily travel past them in pursuit of a person while in phase two. Death Grip helps with positioning orbs. Also shoot down a third one in the back of the room. The main tank should position him so that his rear is near enough to the permafrost that melee can hit adds that will be tanked there. The off tank's job is usually very difficult during this phase as he must get aggro on both adds and position them before dps can start. The adds must be dragged onto the permafrost near the back side of the boss. Have people designated to interrupt each target. While tanking these adds the off tank preferably needs to position themselves off the permafrost so that movement is not slowed when phase two starts. Hand of Freedom can be used to negate the slowing effect of the permafrost on the tank and allow easier positioning. It is best to single target dps these down one at a time as quickly as possible while still doing as much damage to Anub as one can. Both adds need to die before the 2nd set spawns.

Phase Two: During this phase Anub will burrow. Everyone except for Anub'arak's pursuit target will need to kill the scarab adds before they have a chance to enrage themselves. The objective of phase two is to let the Pursuing Spikes follow someone as long as possible while making sure that person stays alive. The spikes will continue to gain speed until they eventually hit a permafrost. Just before Anub burrows everyone will need to be in LoS of the spikes in between the front two permafrost as to not use (waste) one of them early. Once someone is targeted everyone will need to get away from the space in between the spikes and the pursued person. Rogues can vanish from the spikes, hunters feign death, and mages go invisible from the spikes, however, doing so will not reset their speed, and thus doing so must be done very carefully. Hand of Protection makes the player immune to the spike damage but will not force a target change, thus can extend the time that the spikes follow a target. A good strategy is to have whoever is getting chased run directly back towards the permafrost in the back of the room. Then simply stand in front of it and get bubbled by a paladin. When 2 or 3 seconds are left on the bubble that person must then run into the permafrost and Anub will begin chasing another victim. (Note: although he seems to favor changing targets it has occurred where Anub will chase the same target for a second time and it is recommended to run as far away after Anub hits permafrost.) Communication is key here as using too much permafrost too quickly is a definite wipe. Rogues and hunters are great at evading the spikes and at the last possible second losing aggro. If you can drag this out long enough you should have at least 1 or maybe even 2 permafrost still up. Once Anub surfaces the rest of the adds must be killed quickly and permafrost must be set back up as was in phase 1. The two Burrowers will spawn within 3 to 8 seconds so the off tank must be ready again. Since there is no aggro drop the main tank can get into position before Anub'arak comes back up without worrying about picking him up.

Phase Three: Anub casts Leeching Swarm. The raid will be taking a lot of damage from this ability and it is not uncommon to see wipes during this phase. The Burrowers do NOT stop spawning and therefor must continue being tanked like normal even while taking 20% damage every 1 second and must be killed as usual. Alternatively, the adds can be allowed to burrow instead of being tanked and killed, this allows more damage on the boss but virtually guarantees a wipe after they resurface. It is advisable for the off tank to use cooldowns and armor pots in order to stay alive. Max damage during this part of the fight is necessary or it WILL be a wipe. Bloodlust/Heroism and trinkets should be popped just as the boss casts this ability and all AOE healing abilities and cooldowns should be used and spread out during the duration of the 3rd phase.

25-player Heroic
Kiting Flowchart:

http://coldbear.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/heroic-anub-kiting-flowchart.png

StratFU:

http://www.stratfu.com/strats/anubarak/anubarak-25-hardmode

TankSpot:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/55360-coliseum-anubarak-hard-mode.html

Loot
As with the other bosses in the instances, there are separate versions of each item for Alliance raids and for Horde raids.

Related achievements

 * Call of the Crusade (10 player)/Call of the Crusade (25 player)
 * Call of the Grand Crusade (10 player)/Call of the Grand Crusade (25 player)
 * The Traitor King (10 player)/The Traitor King (25 player)
 * Call of the Crusade - Guild Edition

Quotes

 * Barrett Ramsey
 * Splendid, you've proven yourselves as great champions here today. With you fighting alongside the Argent Crusade, victory against the Scourge is inevitable!




 * The praise is well deserved. Tirion will want to praise you himself, shortly.  Hey, have you noticed it getting a bit cold all of a sudden?




 * Intro
 * yell
 * yell
 * The Lich King appears in front of the gate and walks near the center.
 * yell
 * The Lich King laughs.
 * yell
 * The Lich King destroys the floor of the arena, causing the players to fall down into the Icy Depths.
 * yell


 * Intro
 * yell


 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Submerge
 * yell


 * Leeching Swarm
 * yell
 * bossemote


 * Killing a player
 * yell
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * Outro
 * yell

The quantity and quality of rewards inside the tribute chest is based upon how many unsuccessful attempts you had during the Trial of the Grand Crusader. The fewer unsuccessful attempts, the better the rewards.
 * Tirion

Congratulations, please take the portal to Dalaran when you're ready!
 * Argent Mage