I don't cheat at DDR, by the way, just Heigan

So it seems that the guide I posted yesterday for Heigan may be obsolete now (and even when I published it.) According to WoWWiki, the safe spot is no longer functional. However, due to the nature of wikis (and the fact that I've seen this warning before,) I hesitate to change any information until I can confirm personally that the information is out of date. If it is, I will update the post to reflect that. Unfortunately I won't know until Friday at the earliest.

Heigan the Unclean isn't the only four-area dance game I'm good at.

As of Patch 3.0.8 (yes the day I posted this,) this strategy is invalid. I'm keeping it up here for reference. If you would like to find a working strategy for Heigan, try Rochelle's post at Tank Hard!

Heigan the Unclean is a simple fight. Incredibly simple. So much so that I have trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that people die in it. Sure, lag could be to blame, but I think if people had just a little more awareness, they'd be able to get through it just fine. Savant had this problem the first time we fought Heigan. Our warrior tank, a priest, a hunter, and myself were living through the splash and showing off our dance moves while the rest of the raid lay dead on the floor. Fortunately, it was enough. Before our next encounter, a forum turned me on to different strategy. That strategy has since given us several clears of Heigan with no deaths in the raid. Here are the results from our last raid.

Entering the Room

Above is a picture of when you enter Heigan's room (click to enlarge.) You can see a spot on the left labeled "Safe Spot." Let's take a look at this spot from the front.

Here, you can see that the safe spot is a 135º corner on the right side of Heigan's platform. This is a spot where no splashes hit. So long as you are tightly in the corner, you will not take any damage from the splash. Let me say that once more. So long as you are in the corner, you will take no damage.

The Pull and Phase One


When everyone is ready, the main tank initiates the fight and moves Heigan to the spot where I am in the above picture (click to enlarge.) The ranged DPS and healers run past the tank to the safe spot, and ensure that they are as far in the corner as they can be. The ranged DPS then rotates to attack Heigan. Healers of course don't need to rotate at all. The positioning of the tank can be tricky to ensure that the healers have line of sight, and if there is a problem, the tank must move, rather than the healers. The same is for DPS, though they won't be taking direct damage, Heigan does have a disease that must be removed. Hunter pets remain on the platform with the other melee DPS.

Phase Two


When Heigan tires of uselessly beating on the tank, he will teleport about an inch away from where he was being tanked, put up an aura that does a 7.5k damage tick, and make the splash show go faster. Immediately when Heigan teleports (or a little before,) the melee and tanks retreat to the corner as shown above. Hunter pets stay in and fight. Why? Because pets with avoidance (should be all raid pets) will only take 1875 damage a tick. This is easily healed by the combined power of Mend Pet and one of your raid healers. The healers are going to be bored for this fight and full of mana, so you may as well give them something to do.

Note that it may be possible to keep some melee in during phase 2. I know last time, I was doing this fight, I was running in and out trying to squeeze out a little more damage. Check with your healers before doing so, though as they may be looking for a break before Loatheb.

When phase 2 is over, go back to phase 1 positions and restart the strategy. Good luck!

A guide where I show you how to REALLY own Anzu.

*Updated 8/27/2009: With the advent of Savage Defense, you probably don't even have to be 80 to do this. In fact, I don't even bother to shift out and heal any more. Still don't have my mount drop. /cry

The rest of the guide is unedited from its original form, due to laziness, mostly.*

This is a guide for Feral Druids to stealth to Anzu and kill him solo. This guide does assume a few things.

• You must be Level 80. Mostly because the gear you need to do this requires it.
• You must be reasonably well-geared. When I say that, I don't mean you need to be fully raid geared. See the picture above? That is me in my (slightly old at this point) bear gear. I have 32597 health, unbuffed. You could probably do it on 28k health and 22k armor.
• You must have done the Epic Flight Form Quest. None of that silly, "I waited until 71 and just bought it from the trainer" stuff, you have to be one of the druids who EARNED epic flight form.
• Bring a potion or a healthstone. Or both. You probably won't need him, but there is a chance that you can be stunned at the beginning of a banish phase, in which case, you'll want the extra healing.
  

With that out of the way, head to Sethekk Halls! In case you've forgotten, it's in Auchindoun. It's the east instance. When you enter the instance, hit cat form and stealth.

Getting There



In the picture above, the orange line is the instance portal. The yellow line is the path you will be taking. For the most part it's a linear walk to Anzu. The thing to keep in mind is that though Darkweaver Syth can see stealth, at level 80 you can walk by him without so much as a fuss, as long as you stick to the outside of the wall. If you're a Night Elf and you happen to aggro him, you can run outside the far door, break line of sight, and Shadowmeld.


In the picture above you can see about how close you can get to Darkweaver Syth. Just follow along the wall and you should have no problems with him noticing you. After you go up the stairs, and into the next room, you should encounter the Avian Rippers. Staying along the right wall will get you past them, but beware the one ripper in the middle that likes to brush right up against the wall.


When you get past this room, you are now in the room where the battle takes place. Now all you have to do is clear the trash in the room and summon Anzu.

Clearing the Trash

When you clear the trash, for each pull, it is important to note what mobs are in what pull. As the illustration below suggests, there is a specific order in which you want to do things.

Prophets die first, because they fear, and if you end up getting feared into another pack, it's probably game over, try again. Next on the kill list is the Shamans, as they heal, and that's never a good thing. Next should be Talon Lords as they have a rather annoying stun. From there, just kill whatever has the lowest health.

At the beginning of each trash pull pop Berserk and Barkskin. Berserk will keep you from being feared, and Barkskin should just be used every cooldown anyway (general tanking advice here.) Targetting a Prophet, spam Mangle and Maul until it dies. If there's another Prophet, do the same. You should basically kill in the order outlined in the paragraph above.

As to the order of the pulls, refer back to the map of the path. I have six grey circles marked and one green one. The grey circles are the 4-pulls that are a random assortment of bird people. The green circle is the drake that pats in a circle around Anzu's summoning claw. The first thing you want to do is buff Thorns and Mark of the Wild. Then pull the group on the southeast corner. Then, heal up using Regrowth followed by Nourish spam. Pull the drake circling the middle when he's closest to you. Then pull the remaining groups in any order, waiting for your Berserk in between each pull. No, it's not necessary to do so, but Berserk makes these pulls a lot easier, both by increasing DPS substatially, and removing the possibility for fear.

Fighting Anzu


Look at the picture above (click to enlarge.) This is where you will be tanking Anzu. This coffer is in the southwest corner of the room. Now, look at the following picture (again, click to enlarge:)


After Anzu banishes himself, this is where you should go to heal.

There is one macro you should have for this fight:

/target Eagle Spirit
/cast Rejuvenation
/targetlasttarget

This will cast Rejuvenation on the Eagle Spirit, which will cause 500 DPS to all mobs in the room.

Make sure your buffs are still up, and all your cooldowns are available (The important ones for this fight are Barkskin, Berserk, Enrage, Frenzied Regeneration, and Survival Instincts.)

Summon Anzu.

If you wait near the coffer, he won't pull right away. When you're ready pull him. This is how I do the fight:

Start off by using the Eagle Spirit macro. This will not pull Anzu, so hit Bear Form, Enrage, and pull him over to the tanking spot, making sure to position him in a way that is outside of line of sight to the healing spot. When he is positioned, pop Berserk and spam Mangle+Maul. When that expires, start using Lacerate+Mangle+Maul, refreshing Demoralizing Roar and Faerie Fire when needed. Keep 5 stacks of Lacerate up. Anzu will occasionally stun you, but this should not be a problem at this point.

Eventually, he will Banish himself, at which point you should run to the healing spot. Cast Regrowth on yourself, then spam Nourish until you are either at full health or half mana. Use your Eagle Spirit macro and go back into bear, Demoralizing Shout the birds, and use Swipe+Maul to get the birds down. With nameplates up, you can easily target the lowest health bird to make sure it dies first, then move to the next lowest, and so on.

When Anzu comes back in the fight, you may still have one or two birds up. Get them down quickly, reposition Anzu, and get back to fighting him the way you were before, using Lacerate+Mangle+Maul and refreshing Demoralizing Roar and Faerie Fire when needed. If Berserk gets off cooldown, save it. You may find yourself getting pretty low during this phase. If that happens, use Survival Instincts+Frenzied Regeneration. Don't use Maul while regenerating. Continue through this phase until he banishes himself again.

When he does, it's back to the healing spot. Again, cast Regrowth on yourself, then spam Nourish until you are either at full health or half mana. Half mana is much more likely at this point, unless you just did a regen. If he stuns you at the beginning of this phase, you probably only have time for a Regrowth+Nourish, Eagle Spirit macro, and then back to Bear Form. You may have to use a potion or a healthstone. Use Berserk on the birds to clear them quickly, then Anzu should come back out. At this point, there is no Banish phase (since he does it at 66% and 33%) so you can tank him anywhere. Just keep up your rotation of Lacerate+Mangle+Maul, keep Demoralizing Roar and Faerie Fire up, and you should be done! When he falls, pray to the loot gods for your mount!

Now, the most important thing about this fight is keeping Anzu out of Line of Sight while you're healing. If he sees you cast a spell, he'll put Spell Bomb on you, which drains 2000 mana and does 1000 damage whenever you cast a spell. Since that's likely a third of your mana pool, you can't afford to get hit by it even once.

Good luck!