TenTonHammer's Guide to: The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

Welcome to TenTonHammer''s guide to the 20 person raid side of Ahn''Qiraj. It is generally referred to as AQ20.
The Ruins of Ahn''Qiraj are an incredibly fun, fast small group raid instance. It is very easy to complete the entire instance (once you understand the strategies) in an evening. Many of the bosses introduce very interesting fight mechanics and are in general a lot of fun, while not being overly difficult. In addition there is some very nice loot drops. These combine to make what is one of the most fun instances in the game, in my opinion. This is definitely an instance that you want to spend some time in, Blizzard got this one just right.
We would like to thank everyone that has completed Ahn''Qiraj and posted comments and strategies on defeating it. I have used those strategies in several guilds raids and worked through the bosses using them. So while this guide is my writing it is the result of many players work. Many thanks to Visions of Anarchy and Bloodpack, my two main guilds for the effort going through AQ20.

Table of Contents
Section 1 - General
1.1 - Basic Information
1.2 - Reputation Item and Quest Information
1.3 - Trash MOB Information
Section 2 - The Bosses
2.1 - Kurinnaxx
2.2 - General Rajaxx
2.3 - Moam
2.4 - Buru the Gorger
2.5 - Ayamiss the Hunter
2.6 - Ossirian the Unscarred

Section 1 - General
1.1 - Basic Information
Ahn''Qiraj was added to WoW with the 1.9 patch, January 3, 2006. However for players to enter it a massive war effort was required and it was not open to play for roughly a month on most servers.
The Ruins of Ahn''Qiraj are located in southern Silithus.  They are commonly referred to as AQ20 referring to the instance being the 20 man raid in Ahn''Qiraj. It is an outdoor 20 person raid instance, so in most areas you can mount to run through it faster.
Ahn’Qiraj has a few subtle differences to earlier implemented instances.  The three main ones are:
1. No matter where you are in the instance when someone agros a boss the whole party enters combat.
2. When you are in combat with a boss they can teleport you back to them, so running is not always an option
3. When the group enters combat with a boss a door locks off access to most of the instance.  So if you re-enter the instance in the middle of a fight wanting to run back to the group, tough luck.  You will be left waiting for the door to open when they win the fight or wipe.
While Ahn''Qiraj has several difficult encounters it is not as hard as MC or the 40 man raids.  While the whole group does need to be level 60, there is no requirement to have everyone in epic gear.  Tier 0, 0.5 or other blue gear should be just fine with proper tactics.  AQ20 is on par with or slightly easier that Zul''Gurub.
Quests
The quests for Ahn''Qiraj are given out at Cenarion Hold in Silithus.  Several quests are class specific and also reputation specific, meaning you can only complete them once you have earned a set amount of reputation with the Cenarion faction.  The rewards for the class / Reputation based quests are a ring at honoured, a cloak at revered and a weapon at exalted.  The items are also part of a set, so when you complete the set of three you earn an additional bonus.
1.2 - Reputation Item and Quest Information
Ahn''Qiraj Reputation Loot Quick Referance Sheets
Having recently started to run both sides of Ahn''Qiraj with several guilds, I came across the issue that many of us do. Who needs what loot items and at what reputation level to gain items? There are several sites out there that have either partial or full listings, however none of them are in an easy to print or view format that can be left on screen (if you are blessed with two monitors) or printed easily and left beside your computer for easy reference.
1.3 - Trash MOB Information
Like most raids, the bosses are not the only difficult thing to figure out. The trash mobs often present their own challenges and take a while to learn to deal with. Here is a brief outline of what each can do and what to expect.
Scarabs
Scarabs are found in large groups (6-10) throughout Ahn''Qiraj. The groups contain a mix of Shriekers and Spitters.
Shriekers - Charge a random target causing up to 600 damage.
Spitters - Spits nature based acid at players causing about 500 damage.
Both scarabs normal attacks cause 400-500 damage in melee. The are all however fairly easy to deal with with mass AOE. They will swarm an area and then just AOE them down quickly.
Hive''Zara Wasp
The wasps are a basic trash mob in Ahn''Qiraj, generally found in groups with a Stinger mixed in.
Itch - The wasps cast a multi-target poison effect that causes a debuff called itch that appears to do nothing. If not removed however it will turn into a debuff called Hive''Zara Catalyst after 8 seconds.
Catalyst - Catalyst lasts for 30 seconds, unless removed. While affected by catalyst you suffer 146 damage every 2 seconds, your speed is reduced by 50% and all Stings that you suffer cause increased damage.
It is critical to have someone removing the debuff''s from players, but primarily from the tank, as you can not have them hit by huge stings and survive.
Hive''Zara Stinger
The stingers are flying wasp-like creatures that behave much like Surgers in Molten Core. They are generally found among groups of Hive''Zara wasps. Their base attack is a sting which hits for about 500 damage normally, but if you are affected by the Hive''Zara catalyst then you could be hit for up to 2000 damage.
Charge - The Stinger can break off from its current target to charge anyone outside of melee range but within 25 yards. The charge does about 1000 damage and knocks you down. As soon as they hit with the charge they move back to whoever had aggro before.
The way to deal with these is the same as the surgers, get close. Everyone should get within melee range and DPS them down as fast as possible, although it is safe to stay at max distance to heal as well.
Hive''Zara Sand Stalker
These are fairly weak MOBs in Ahn''Qiraj, however they has the nasty ability to ignore aggro and attack a new target with their burrow ability.
Burrow - Roughly every 10 seconds they will clear their aggro table and burrow underground. When they do they disappear from the map and reappear 10 seconds later to attack someone else, usually your poor cloth wearers!
To deal with burrow all you need to do is have a hunter mark them while they are up. When they burrow with a mark you can still see and attack them, which causes them to surface again. This makes them fairly easy to deal with as they only hit for about 400 damage.
Obsidian Destroyer
These appear on your way to Moam and are six-legged winged sphinx-like constructs that appear made out of obsidian.
Mana Drain - They drain mana from players that get to close (roughly 30 yards). If they reach full mana they explode doing a nature based arcane explosion that hits for roughly 6,000 damage in a large area (again roughly 30 yards).
Dealing with the Obsidian Destroyers in not that difficult as they can be tanked as normal. All you need to do differently than any other MOB is have the Warlocks and Priests drain mana on them. If you have at least 2 of each and are reasonably quick with DPS, they should never get near exploding before you have killed them. Think of them as a warm up for fighting Moam.
Flesh Hunter
The flesh hunter is a huge ooze type creature that wanders Ahn''Qiraj. They hit for roughly 1000 damage per hit in melee and have a ranged poison attack. They also have the nasty ability to consume a player.
Consume - The Flesh Hunter attempts to eat the player with the highest aggro. While being consumed the player is pulled to the middle of the Flesh Hunter and can not move or attack. While there they will be damaged over time at about 500 damage per tick. This lasts for roughly 25 seconds, and then the player will be spat out if not dead. If the player dies while inside, the Flesh Hunter will be fully healed.
Because of the consume ability it is important to keep two tanks at the top of the aggro list. When the first one is consumed the second one takes over aggro. While a tank is being consumed it is imperative that the healers keep him alive. If he dies, the fight essentially starts over, and most groups can not afford to lose many tanks in a fight. If you can keep the tanks alive while they are being consumed the fight is fairly easy.
Anubisath Guardian
Probably the hardest trash Mob in Ahn''Qiraj (20) is the Anubisath Guardians. They are found patrolling the area near Ossirian the Unscarred. What makes them so difficult is that they have many different possible abilities and each fight is them get 2 of them at random. You may get an easy combination or a very difficult one, it''s all pure dumb luck. The possible abilities that we have seen so far are:
Enrage - At 10% health the guardian will become enraged, increases damage from all his attacks by 150%.
Self Destruct - A common ability for them it seems. When he gets to about 5% he will stop attacking and blow himself up causing roughly 5000 damage to everyone close. It takes him about 10 seconds before he explodes though so just watch for him to stop attacking and run.
Shadow Bolt Volley - A volley of shadow based magic missiles that hit for about 2000 damage.
Warstomp - An AOE effect that hits everyone in melee range for up to 1500 damage and knocks them back.
Meteor - The guardian summons a meteor that does a huge amount of damage. Luckily the damage is divided among everyone in its AOE. To survive everyone just needs to group together and the damage will be minimal (less than 800 per person) .
In addition to two of the above they will always have:
Reflect Magic - They can reflect shadow/frost or arcane/fire spells back at the raid. It is random which reflect they have so it must be determined quickly.
Summon MOBs - The guardian will also summon additional MOBS to him. The summoned MOBs will be Anubisath swarmguards of warriors and can be chain feared instead of dealing with them.
It is important for a mage to detect magic as soon as possible on the guardians so that you know which abilities and reflects that they have. Beyond that, dealing with them becomes a matter of tanking them, figuring out how to handle the abilities they have, and fearing the adds until the Guardians are dead.

Section 2 - The Bosses
2.1 - Kurinnaxx
Kurinnaxx is the first boss in the Ruins of Ahn''Quiraj (AQ20) and looks like a very large, very angry scorpion.
Abilities
Mortal Wound - This is a stacking debuff that gets placed on whoever is in Kurinnaxx''s front arc when he attacks with his main cleave attack. This means that if you stand next to the main tank (MT) you will be hit as well. The debuff reduces healing on the target by 10% for 15 seconds and stacks to 100%. This debuff can not be removed, it must time out.
Sand trap - While fighting Kurinnaxx he will cause sand traps to erupt under players feet. The person attacked with this seems to be completely random. This attack is generally referred to as "sand bubbles". It takes a few seconds for the "bubble" to fully form and then explode, so you do have some time to escape. If you are still on it when it bursts, you take up to 2000 damage, suffer a reduced chance to hit (-75%) and are silenced for 20 seconds. The explosion range is about 10 yards.
Thrash - Kurinnaxx has a chance on hit to immediately gain 2 additional attacks. It is very important that the tank be kept near full life in case this happens more than once at a time.
Enrage - At 30% health remaining Kurinnaxx becomes enraged and increases his damage significantly.
Summon - As per all bosses in Ahn''Qiraj 20, Kurinnaxx can summon a player into combat in front of him.
Strategies
The fight with Kurinnaxx is a fairly easy fight if aggro is controlled and players watch for sand traps. To setup for the fight you should have 3 tanks engage Kurinnaxx and everyone else surround him in a circular shape, keeping spacing so that sand traps do not catch whole groups of players.
The tanks have 2 main jobs throughout the fight:
1) Trade aggro back and forth and announce who has aggro at any given time. Each tank need to trade off to another tank as soon as they get 3 of the Mortal Wound debuffs on them. During this time they should try to let the debuffs cool down and get healed to be ready to take aggro again. When a tank in main tanking Kurinnaxx they will be in front, if not they need to move to the sides so that they are not hit with the Mortal Wound debuff.
2) Move Kurinnaxx around the room so that when sand traps are spawned under someone fighting him (or you!) that others are not caught fighting in them and so that you can see them.
Everyone else in this fight needs to attempt to space out and do either ranged or close combat DPS, or heal the group. As long as you watch for sand traps and keep moving you should be ok. All players should be cautious with their damage though as the tanks will not have as solid a lock on Kurinnaxx as they do on most MOBs due to constantly trading off aggro with other tanks. I have generally heard that DPS should run at about 50 - 70% of your max for most of the fight.
Due to the healing debuff on the tanks, healing will take a lot more mana than normal fights to keep the tanks up. Therefore players should ensure that they heal and bandage themselves whenever they can. While healing it is important to know that Kurinnaxx seems to hit a tank for roughly 900 points a hit, and can stack up multiple hits very quickly if he gets multiple trashes back-to-back. It can be easy for a tank to loose 4000-5000 damage in a few seconds, more if he gets a few criticals!
When Kurinnaxx gets to 30% health remaining he becomes enraged and attacks for more damage (have seen up to 2000 on a normal hit). At this point everyone should max DPS and attempt to get him down as fast as possible.
2.2 - General Rajaxx
General Rajaxx is the second boss in the Ruins of Ahn''Qiraj (AQ20) and is a huge armored humanoid scorpion. You do not just fight the General in this fight though. When you get to his room he is guarded by seven waves of MOBs, each made up of Swarmguard Needlers, Qiraji Warriors and a named MOB. All groups are made up of 7 MOBs, although the numbers of each type vary.
For this fight you also gain help from 5 NPC''s that spawn after you have defeated Kurinnaxx. They are Lieutenant General Andorov and four Kaldorei Elites. You talk to Andorov to start the fight sequence. He starts with an inspiring (ok, not really) speech to his guards and your group and then leads the way to Rajaxx.
This is a very well scripted fight and can be a lot of fun to do once you have it down.
Abilities
Each Wave has a different ability that makes dealing with them slightly different than the others.
Wave 1 - Intimidating shout
Wave 2 - Attack Order - One player is marked and draws aggro from the MOBs in that group.
Wave 3 - AOE spell that hits everyone in roughly 20 yards with high lightning damage (usually about 500-700 per hit)
Wave 4 - Shockwave - An AOE spell that knocks players back with a rough range of 10 - 15 yards
Wave 5 - Blessing of Protection (10 sec immunity to all damage)
Wave 6 - AOE Slam to all those in the front arc.
Wave 7 - A magic buff that enlarges group and causes more damage. It is dispellable.
General Rajaxx - The General has an AOE ability that reduces everyone''s health in half, but causes at least 200 damage as a minimum. It also wipes aggro when he does this attack. It has a range of roughly 20 yards, so healers should be at their maximum healing range.
Strategies
Being 8 big pulls means that this fight takes a while to complete. The first thing to know or plan for in this fight is to keep Lieutenant General Andorov and his guard alive. This is for two reasons:
1. They do a large amount of damage and help this fight progress at a faster speed
2. Andorov can sell some nice gear to you at the end of the fight.
3. Most important of all, as long as you have a reputation of friendly or higher with Cenarion Hold he will place an amazing buff on you. The buff heals you for 200 health every 3 seconds, increases your attack power by 10%, and lowers your casting time by 10%.
In most of my fights, the healers have made macros to target the general before the fight and use it frequently to check on his health and heal him as needed.
While each wave has a slightly different makeup, they can all be handled in roughly the same way. The process groups I have been in with is as follows:
1. Have Main Tank (MT) pull the group far into the room and grab aggro on the named MOB.
2. Perform crowd control for the entire fight to limit the number of MOBs you must deal with at a time. Crowd control here is made up of Druids rooting, Mage''s using frost nova, and Warlocks and Priest fearing.
3. The NPC''s will grab a MOB of their choice, let them kill it while having healers use the macro discussed earlier to keep them alive.
4. Once the named MOB is dead a designated hunter should mark a Needler to be killed. Everyone targets this MOB and kills it asap, then select the next Needler until they are all dead.
5. Move on to killing all but one Warrior in the same method.
6. Slowly kill the last Warrior, while as many players as possible regen mana, health and cool down items. This can be done using totems, judgments, pots, etc.
7. Kill the last Warrior and get ready for the next wave.
The third wave''s named MOB is a little different as his AOE lighting spell with generally catch Andorov and cause him to aggro him. However due to the AOE lightning it is important to not have him retain aggro as he will sit in one spot and continuously get hit by the lightning cloud. The MT must pull aggro and move the named MOB around the room to prevent having anyone stuck in the AOE for any length of time. You must kill this named MOB faster than the others as he is the most difficult other than Rajaxx.
For the fight with Rajaxx we generally have Andorov tank him as he is immune to his knock back ability. As soon as Andorov has aggro you can start DPS against Rajaxx. Healers should focus on Rajaxx and your MT (in case he draws aggro from Andorov), and only heal the rest of the group as absolutely needed. Because of the way damage is done in this fight though, I have found not much healing is needed as players need to run out of range to drop aggro anyway after each knock back, and can bandage or drink a potion.
Rajaxx''s knock back ability does 1/2 your health in damage, unless you have less than 200 health, in which case he hits for 200 and kills you. Anytime he does this attack, everyone should stop doing DPS until Andorov has regained aggro. As soon as he is held in place you may resume DPS.
If you manage to keep Andorov and his guards alive the fight is fairly easy as they all do very good DPS.
2.3 - Moam
Moam is the third boss in the Ruins of Ahn''Qiraj (AQ20) and is a large Sphinx, very similar to the Obsidian Destroyer trash mobs. Moam is also a tremendously fun and easy fight if done correctly. The biggest trick with Moam is having enough mana drain. You must have at least 3 Warlocks, 3 Priests and any Hunters you have continuously mana draining Moam
As with many of the AQ20 boss fights it is not that difficult once you know how.
Abilities
Moam has many different abilities that must be dealt with, none are that difficult to deal with though.
Drain Mana - This is the ability that causes the most issues in the fight. Moam Drains mana from 5 players at a time, draining 500 mana and restoring 1000 mana to Moam. While not directly that damaging, is causes a severe issue when teamed with the next ability!
Arcane Explosion - If Moam ever reaches full mana he will scream out that "Moam Bristles with energy" and unleashes a huge arcane explosion. I have seen the explosion hit players for over 3000 damage and through them through the air, causing another 1000+ fall damage. Basically if Moam ever reaches 100% mana and does an arcane explosion the raid wipes.
Trample - This is an AOE spell that hits the main tank and everyone else in the front arc in HTH with roughly 1000 damage to a plate wearer. Cloth and Leather players do not want to be in the front arc!
Turn to Stone - When Moam turns to stone, his armor and regeneration rate increase. He can not attack, has no aggro table and does not drain mana while in this form.
Strategies
The Moam fight is two to three phases long, depending how long you take. Your goal should be to complete the fight in two phases so that you do not have to deal with Moam again while banishing and in weakened group state.
The phases of the fight should be fought like this:
Phase 1
The tank engages Moam and generates Aggro. All players capable of mana drain spread out beside and behind Moam and start chaining mana drain abilities. After the tank has a firm hold on Moam all other players can start DPS on Moam.
Since the Priests need to be mana draining Moam, the tank needs to be kept alive by alt healers (Druids, Shamans, Paladins), all other players should not be damaged much in this phase and should be able to bandage and potion themselves back to full health.
It is important to aim for less than 50% mana and roughly 60% health by the end of this phase. When roughly 80 seconds have passed all players should move away from Moam to the side or rear, with Warlocks moving to the front. At 90 seconds Moam will summon 3 Mana Fiends. This starts phase 2.
Phase 2
The 3 Mana Fiends have a very nasty AOE Arcane explosion that does roughly 1000 damage so it is critical that the Warlocks chain banish them as soon as they appear. Each Warlock should have a pre-set Fiend to banish (left, center, right) and needs to have them targeted to re banish when they are released.
In this phase Moam uses his stone form ability, which will last 90 seconds or until he gets to 100% mana. All players need to DPS him as fast as possible while Warlocks and Priests attempt to keep his mana down. Again, there is no aggro table for Moam at this point in the fight so you can go all out and ideally drop him before he comes out of stone form.
Phase 3
Phase 3 potentially two things, finishing of Moam and killing the Mana Fiends. If Moam is still alive you need to finish him quickly as you are unlikely to be able to keep up the mana drain due to mana shortages. If he is not dropped quickly he will reach full mana and explode.
Once he is dead your raid should heal as much as possible while keeping the Mana Fiends banished. Once in a good state of health let the banishes expire one at a time and kill the Fiends quickly. They are not that difficult one at a time, and have surprisingly little health.
2.4 - Buru the Gorger
Buru the Gorger is the forth boss in the Ruins of Ahn''Qiraj (AQ20) and is a very large tick. You think you dislike ticks in real life? Wait till you check out Buru! Seriously though, Buru is a very entertaining encounter. The main reason is that EVERYONE gets to have a chance to kite him around his room. I find it very entertaining to try to kite a boss around since it is not a normal task for many classes. Hence Buru is one of my favorite encounters.
Abilities
Buru has many different abilities that must be dealt with, they are as follows.
Dismember - This is a stacking DOT that does insane damage (roughly 1200 damage every 2 seconds). Buru will put this DOT on anyone who is kiting him that he catches.
Immune to Taunt - You can not taunt Buru, once he starts watching someone he stays with them until he takes egg damage or they die.
Speed Up - As Buru chases a player he starts out slow but speeds up over time. At the beginning of a chase he is easy to get away from, however by 30 seconds he is moving just slower than players. By a minute he is going fast enough to catch players.
Creeping Plague - When Buru enters stage two Creeping Plague is triggered. Creeping Plague is an especially nasty DOT that hits everyone in the raid so you must drop Buru quickly. The DOT does 80 damage per tick and adds 80 to the damage every 3rd tick. This means the damage looks like this; 80, 80, 80, 160, 160, 160, 240, 240, 240, 320, 320, 320, etc. As you can see, many players will have serious issues dealing with this.
Buru''s Lair
Buru''s lair plays an important part in the fight. When you enter his room it is usually by jumping off of the ledge above into the deep water of the pool. There are three important features about the room that need to be taken into consideration while fighting Buru.
The first is to remember where the deep water is so that you do not enter it while being watched by Buru. Even going slow, he can catch you while you are swimming.
Secondly is the ramp in the room. This offers a good method of escape from Buru. You can run part way up the ram and then jump off the side back into the water. This usually gives you a bit of a lead on Buru. NOTE: make sure you do not go past the second ridge on the ramp, as it may bug the encounter.
Lastly and most importantly, you will see eggs surrounding the water in Buru''s lair. These eggs are the key to defeating him. When you kill them they explode causing up to 500 damage to players, but up to 40,000 damage to Buru (roughly 5-6% of his health)!! When the egg explodes it will also spawn a Hive Zara Hatchling that must be dealt with.
Strategies
The Buru fight is broken up into two phases. The first phase is made up of kiting Buru and attempting to destroy his shell, the second is DPSing him down.
The phases work roughly like this:
Phase 1
In Phase one Buru still has his Tick shell on and is therefore very resistance to damage, much like a tick in real life. He is also completely immune to taunts so tanking him is not really an option. Before starting the fight the raid should break up into 2 main groups, group 1 to deal with eggs and group 2 to deal with the spawns from the eggs.
When the fight starts Buru will call out that he is watching someone. He will then watch that person until he is damaged by an egg exploding or he catches and kills that player. If you are that player your job is to kite him around the room until the egg group calls you to a location.
The egg group starts damaging eggs around the room getting them to roughly 5%. It is also important to never use DOTs on the eggs as they may continue for too long. You should always have at least 2 eggs ready to explode. I have found it best to start at one egg and work in one direction around the room, but this is personal preference. The eggs will respawn and there will always be at least 2 up in the room.
When you have an egg ready to explode the leader in the egg group should call out to Buru''s kitter and ping the map to show the location. Everyone gets ready and should destroy the egg while Buru is over it, causing Buru a large amount of damage and causing him to switch who he is watching, starting the sequence over again.
The spawn group should be dealing with the elite spawn from the egg. Some groups like to destroy 2-3 eggs in rapid succession and then destroy multiple spawns at one time. I have seen single and group strategies work, so it is really up to you. While not dealing with spawns the group should have DOTS on Buru, heal other players and even help with the eggs.
This phase repeats until Buru is down to 20% when his shell will break off and you enter phase 2. It is important to setup for phase 2 as best as possible. You can accomplish this by ensuring that at 22% you stop all damage on Buru and clear all egg spawns, then heal everyone as much as possible, have everyone drink nature resist potions that has, and then get an egg ready to pop. At this point DPS Buru down to just over 20% (20.1 if possible) and then destroy the egg with him over it. He will drop to roughly 16% health to start phase 2.
Phase 2
When Buru drops below 20% health his shell cracks and exposes his fleshy innards. Time to have FUN! This phase is a DPS fest. Buru immediately hits everyone with creeping plague and summons additional elite hive zara hatchlings. He continues to summon additional hatchlings throughout the fight so be prepared.
The only way to win this fight can be summed up in two words: DPS and Fear. You must do as much DPS as fast as you can on Buru. This means all available debuff slots must be filled with DOTS and all ranges and melee DPS should be at full output. The spawns can be pretty much ignored if you chain fear them with warlocks and priests. Once you kill Buru the adds will disappear, so if they are chain feared they never need to be dealt with.
With the creeping plague debuff on players to only real healing that helps is the prayer of healing since it effects everyone in a group. Paladins, Shamans and Druids are all better served doing as much DPS to Buru as they can instead of healing. To have a valid chance you need to be able to drop Buru in less than 25 seconds as at that point most of your cloth wearers will be dead from the plague.
2.5 - Ayamiss the Hunter

Ayamiss is the fifth boss in the Ruins of Ahn''Qiraj (AQ20) and is a large flying insect similar to the many you have already encountered, except much larger. It is an interesting fight as you can not conventionally tank him while he is flying for the first half of the fight. Once on the ground though the fight is fairly standard.
Abilities
Fly - Ayamiss starts the fight in flight and can not be meleed until you get him down to 70% health.
Poison Spray - Ayamiss can spray poison from his stinger. It affects everyone in the raid and does roughly 1000 damage. He triggers this ability every 30 seconds. The damage is nature damage so can be resisted.
Poison Stinger - While in flight, Ayamiss can sting the person with the most aggro. When he does it puts a DOT on that player that does 25 damage per second (dps). This dot can stack up many times, I have not seen an end to it, as the player ussualy dies before they hit any sort of limit.
Paralyze - Every roughly 30 seconds Ayamiss will teleport someone to the altar and paralyze them. At the same time a larva is released to each them. The raid must kill the larva before it reaches the paralyzed player or it will kill them and spawn an elite Wasp.
Summon Swarms - Ayamiss can summon a swarm of wasps and does so every 20-30 seconds. There are a lot of them but they do not hit very hard and can be AOE''ed down very quickly.
Strategies
The Ayamiss fight is broken up into two phases. The first phase is while Ayamiss is flying around the room and can not be meleed, the second phase is once he lands.
Phase 1
Phase one starts with two major jobs to be done. DPS Ayamiss down to 70% and to kill the larva before they kill a paralyzed player. The raid should plan out melee, ranged and healing groups.
In phase one the most important thing is that no player hold aggro for too long as the poison sting DOTs can seriously add up and put you beyond saving from the healers. We handle this by never holding aggro past 10 DOTs, which is 250 damage per second. If you hold it for longer than that healing becomes difficult. Basically everyone works in shifts, doing 100% damage for about 10 seconds and then slowing to about 50% for 10 seconds. This works well and keeps aggro off any given person all the time. We have also tried rotations pulling aggro back and forth between players and that works well too.
When Ayamiss paralyzes someone all the melee players need to find and kill the larva that spawns very quickly to avoid a player death. All ranged players should keep DPS on Ayamiss.
As soon as Ayamiss hits 70% health he will land and enter combat.
Alternate Phase 1 Strategy
The following alternate strategy was submitted by Quart of the Atrum Guild on Kalecgos.
An alternate strat for phase 1 of Ayramiss is to have a hunter/mage/lock wearing nature resist gear tank her for the first 30%. No firm number was given, but a guess based on MC fire resist effectiveness would be about 200 base.
Phase 2
In phase 2 you can now tank Ayamiss on the ground. Ayamiss also does not use his poison sting any more, so the main tank can hold aggro for the rest of the fight (unless paralyzed), there is no need to trade agro back and forth between players.
The rest of the fight is now fairly simple. The only real concern is watching for the grubs attacking the paralyzed person and killing them, while continuing to DPS Ayamiss down as fast as possible. The only time the fight gets difficult in stage two is if the Main Tank happens to become paralyzed. To combat this we usually have a second tank building agro as well, but not trying to take control. I have heard of groups using duelling tanks (fighting back and forth for agro) to resolve this issue as well.
2.6 - Ossirian the Unscarred
Ossirian is the sixth and final boss in the Ruins of Ahn''Qiraj (AQ20) and is a Anubis-like construct. The fight occurs in a room full of crystal that respawn and play an important part in the fight. It is again a very different fight from most in other instances. This fight can be very difficult until you get the timing and strategies correct. The two guilds I have defeated him with, both thought he was harder than the MC bosses (with the exception of Domo and Rag) and probably harder than the first half of BWL. Once we got the game plan correct though, he goes down without much trouble.
Abilities
Supreme (God) Mode - Ossirian starts the fight in Supreme mode and will re-enter it when he is given the chance. In supreme more he can hit for over 10,000 damage, which usually instant kills players. To remove supreme mode you must activate a crystal next to him. He will gain a debuff that makes him fight normally and become weak to a school of magic for 45 seconds.
Curse of Tongues - Ossirian has an AOE curse of tongues that increases your casting time by 50%.
Warstomp - This is a small AOE (essentially just larger than melee range) attack that hits for roughly 1000 damage and knocks players in the AOE back causing additional fall damage of roughly 600.
Enveloping Winds- This attack is targeted against the person highest on the aggro list, usually the Main Tank. It causes an 8 second stun and a loss of aggro until the spell fades.
Ossirian''s Room
There are several key features of Ossirian''s room that must be taken into consideration when fighting him. The first is the the crystals that must be destroyed to debuff Ossirian (discussed in the strategy section) and the second is the roaming Tornados. As soon as Ossirian is attacked, several tornados spawn and move around the room. You must avoid these while still dealing with Ossirian. If you are caught by one you will be killed very quickly by its damage.
Strategies
The fight is fairly simple in theory, but difficult to execute until you get some experience. It can be broken down simply to the following steps:
• Have someone ride around on their mount looking for the next crystal
• Have the tank lead Ossirian to it
• When Ossirian gets there have someone activate the crystal and it will debuff
• Rinse and repeat...
If only it were exactly that easy though...
The fight needs a few pre-assigned people to do the following tasks: Main Tank (Duh!), Off Tank, Crystal Finder and a Crystal Activator.
The person assigned to find crystals needs to spend the whole fight mounted and should have an epic mount. Their sole job is to find the next crystal that pops up and then let the raid know where it is. This is usually done by pinging the mini-map and letting everyone know a direction on voice chat. It is usually best to work in a single direction (like you do for Buru), either clockwise or counter-clockwise. If done randomly you may have some extremely long runs from one crystal to another.
The player activating the crystals needs to run ahead of the main group as soon as the next crystal is found and be ready to activate it as soon as Ossirian gets there. It does take about 3 seconds to activate so do not wait for the last possible second to click it if Ossirian''s debuff is about to expire. When the debuff is on Ossirian the activator should call out which spell damage Ossirian has become vulnerable to. His resistance to spells of this type drops significantly and all casters should try to focus on that type of damage.
The main tank and off tanks jobs are to tank Ossirian (obviously), but also to lead him around to the crystals as they are identified. This can be complicated by the wandering tornados in the room and by Ossirians enveloping winds spell. Enveloping Winds combined with Ossirian''s 1-shot kill ability while debuffed is why you should always run with an off tank. If the main tank is stunned or killed he losses aggro and Ossirian will head back towards the party and away from the next crystal. Ossirian will then loss the debuff and start 1-shotting all of the players, leading to a fast wipe.
To start the fight, it is best to get someone other than the tank (someone expendable) to pull Ossirian towards the first crystal. You should have all 4 main players near there to start the fight. As soon as Ossirian is in range, the activator can debuff him with the crystal and the tank can grab aggro. All players can then start their assigned tasks. Once the main tank has firm control he can announce that others can start doing DPS.
Most of the DPS in this fight is done with ranged DPS, although you can also use melee DPS. The issue with melee DPS is Ossirians warstomp ability, causing roughly 1500 damage to everyone in range. If the healers attempt to heal everyone they will run out of mana before the end of the fight. The way I have seen melee DPS work is they use pots, bandages and down time to manage their own health. This means they are running at about 50% up time. If you find that you have extra healers, using melee DPS all the time can speed up the fight.
Once you have the rhythm down, and can haul him around the room while ignoring the tornados the fight become easy. LONG but easy. With ranged DPS only it normally takes about 8 minutes to kill him. I have seen him go down in a little less than 5 with melee DPS involves and lots of healers, but that is a rarity.