- Author: Passion
- Date: September 23, 2022
- Updated: September 23, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Gothik the Harvester is the second boss of the Military Wing in Naxxramas. He is one of the Scourge’s master necromancers, capable of instantly reviving armies of the dead to continue their fight for the Lich King.
“Gothik, the Harvester. A master of necromancy and conjuration, Gothik is said to be able to beckon forth legions of the undead at a moment’s notice. It is with his guidance that even the weakest of Death Knights can raise the dead.” –Commander Eligor Dawnbringer
This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with Gothik the Harvester’s onslaught of both the living and dead.
Role Summaries
- Make sure your raid is properly split between the two sides, either 4-6 Living/Undead or 5-5 Living/Undead.
Phase 1
- Avoid the Death Knights to minimize AoE damage on the raid
Phase 2
- Make sure your DPS cooldowns are active for this Phase, you want it to end as fast as possible
Phase 2
- Make sure your DPS cooldowns are active for this Phase, you want it to end as fast as possible
Phase 1
- There can be a lot of AoE damage, be proactive with healing
Phase 1
- Make sure you are ready to grab any adds on your side, except for Trainees.
Phase 2
- Gothik is tauntable during this Phase and will need to be taunted as he swaps side, because the teleport does not reset threat.
Abilities
Phase 1
During this Phase, you will be fighting against the living and undead legions of Gothik. Each individual enemy type has its own abilities, most of which are best handled by simply killing the enemy before it has a chance to become a problem.
Living Enemies
Undead Enemies
As enemies on the living side die, they will be resurrected on the undead side, transforming into spectral versions of themselves with similar abilities that are again best dealt with by simply killing them before it becomes a problem.
Phase 2
For this Phase, the only concern is Harvest Soul, which puts a timer on the raid to kill Gothik before you reach too many stacks.
Gothik the Harvester
Raid Composition & Preparation
The Pull
Before you pull you want to make sure everyone is on appropriately split between the Living and Undead sides, having at least 1 tank on either side, as well as enough DPS and Healers to not be overwhelmed. The Undead side can sometimes be the harder side as they get more enemies at a time than the living side, so some raids may want to weigh their group heavier towards that.
When everyone is in position, simply pull Gothik with any ranged attack to begin the encounter.
The Single-Side Pull
Some groups opt to do this fight on one side instead of split between the two. This strategy requires less micromanagement but can lead to raids being overwhelmed later in the fight. This is the more common strategy, but generally, neither is faster or easier, only different.
For this pull, simply gather everyone on the Living side and pull Gothik with any ranged attack to begin the encounter.
Phase 1
Gothik will periodically spawn waves of enemies for 4 minutes. These enemies will spawn on one of the 3 platforms on the Living side and once killed will respawn on the bone piles on the Undead side.
The Unrelenting Trainees and Spectral Trainees are mostly fodder enemies that will quickly crumble, tanks will typically not want to bother with these as they will die too fast to worry about anyway.
Unrelenting Death Knights and Spectral Death Knights are mostly simple and quick to deal with, but they will need to be tanked as they can easily kill squishier DPS classes. Melee may want to avoid engaging these all together to avoid their AoE’s, but this fight is generally very slow and very boring so it may be hard to resist engaging.
Unrelenting Riders are the main threat on the Living side, they need to be killed as soon as possible to minimize the damage dealt by Unholy Aura. They also deal a lot of damage to the tanks and need to be handled because of that.
When an Unrelenting Rider dies, a Spectral Rider and a Spectral Horse spawn on the Undead side. These two together are the strongest adds in the fight, dealing constant AoE damage with Unholy Aura and Stomp. Because of this, it can become an issue if Living adds are killed too quickly, potentially overwhelming the Undead side.
Here are some of the main things that can typically go wrong in this phase:
- The Undead side gets overwhelmed because the Living side kills things too tightly together
- Players get bored and lose focus, leading to adds not dying or players dying.
Phase 2
After a long and boring 4-minutes, Phase 1 will end and Phase 2 begins. Gothik will teleport down from his balcony down to the Living side, teleporting between the sides every 10-seconds or so, until he is at 30% health. At 30% health the gate in the middle will open, letting players from both sides gather together and DPS him down.
Gothik himself does nothing particular during this Phase, but every 15-seconds the raid will gain one stack of Harvest Soul, effectively putting a timer on killing him.
Congratulations on defeating Gothik! Next up is The Four Horsemen, so I hope you feel well rested and ready after Gothik!
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