Attumen the Huntsman Strategy Guide (Karazhan)

Karazhan Raid Guide

Karazhan Attunement

Karazhan Loot

Attumen the Huntsman

Moroes

Maiden of Virtue

Opera Event

The Curator

Terestian Illhoof

Shade of Aran

Netherspite

Chess Event

Prince Malchezaar

Nightbane

Welcome to our Burning Crusade Classic raiding guide for Attumen the Huntsman in Karazhan! Attumen serves as Karazhan’s first boss, although he is an optional encounter. As the three-phase encounter is pretty simple, it’s worth doing and serves as a good measure of your raid’s DPS output and healer mana management. Let’s get started with how you can kill the first boss in Karazhan!

Getting Started

The main thing about preparing for this fight is the trash in the stables. You have 25 minutes to kill the boss before the trash in the room respawns, which can cause issues if they respawn during an encounter. Because of this, you should clear trash as quickly as possible and be ready to pull immediately afterward. Focus the Spectral Stable Hands, then horses, and use CC to minimize damage output.

Role Summaries

DPS

• Always stand behind Attumen.
• Kill Attumen or Midnight in phase two depending on your raid group’s strategy.
• Slow on DPS during phase changes.
• Assign one DPS to soak Berserker Charge, preferably a hunter.

Healers

• Keep both tanks alive in phase two.
• Remove Intangible Presence.
• Conserve mana for phase three.
• Hold off on casting for a few seconds after each phase change.
• Assign a healer to the designated Berserker Charge soaker.

Tanks

• Offtank should pick up Midnight in phase one.
• Main tank should pick up any add spawns in phase one.
• Main tank should quickly pick up Attumen in phase two and face him away from the raid.
• Keep both bosses 10 yards apart in phase two.
• Use Disarm on Attumen.
• Try to Spell Reflection his Intangible Presence cast.
• Quickly build aggro at the start of phase three and face Attumen away from the raid.

Fight Overview

Phase One

The beginning of the fight is fairly straightforward and only involves Midnight, Attumen’s horse. Have your offtank pick up Midnight. You simply need to remove 5% of her health to progress to the next phase, but watch out for any trash spawns that she calls over. If she summons any undead horses, have the tank preparing to pick up the boss (main tank) quickly grab them. Phase one should end extremely quickly and there’s little to watch out for.

Phase Two

Phase two is a little harder because you’ll face Midnight and Attumen. This means you’ll need a tank ready to pick up the boss in addition to the tank you have on Midnight. Grabbing aggro on Attumen as quickly as possible is a must because he can easily kill squishies and lead to a wipe. Should he kill any healers, just leave the stable to reset the encounter.

Ensure that DPS avoid hitting Attumen and healers stop casting for a few seconds until threat is generated at the beginning of the phase because he cannot be taunted. Whoever is tanking Attumen should take him roughly 10 yards away from Midnight and face him away from the raid because he casts Shadow Cleave, hitting multiple targets for decent damage. Warriors should use Disarm whenever available to help mitigate incoming damage.

Attumen will also use Intangible Presence, a nasty curse that reduces spell and melee hit chance by 50%. This can be reflected on the boss via a warrior’s Spell Reflection if used in time. Otherwise, it should be immediately removed by any casters with a decurse.

Beyond this, the phase is pretty simple and will just take some time. Damage output is relatively low, so healers should try to conserve mana. Phase three begins when either Attumen or Midnight reach 25% health and you can choose to bring either down first. However, whichever has the higher health will be Attumen’s remaining life to start phase three, meaning that you need to strike a balance between balancing both Attumen and Midnight.

Most of your damage should be on Midnight, but you can distribute some DPS onto Attumen if healers have no problem keeping the Midnight tank alive. If mana is stretching thin, put more focus into Midnight. Keep this up until Midnight (or Attumen if your raid is stomping the phase) reaches 25% health.

Phase Three

Attumen and Midnight will merge to begin phase three. All threat will disappear, so your tank will need to reestablish aggro. Attumen will continue to use Shadow Cleave and Intangible Presence, so you’ll need to continue facing him away from the raid and being quick about decurses. Whoever was previously tanking Midnight will no longer have a tanking assignment and should be careful to avoid grabbing threat so that the boss doesn’t face the raid and cleave.

The only mechanic to be worried about in phase three is Berserker Charge. This is a charge to a random target, which stuns them and deals damage. Occasionally, Attumen will also deal an auto attack, which can nearly one-shot a squishy. The caveat of this mechanic is that it has a minimum range of 8 yards, meaning that the entire raid can avoid it by being directly behind Attumen within 8 yards.

With this in mind, assign one player to be your designated soaker. Ensure that healers are ready to top them off after each cast. If you didn’t use too much mana during the second phase, phase three will be simple and should end quickly. Just maintain position and keep the tank and soaker alive to finish off the fight.