Grand Widow Faerlina Strategy Guide – Naxxramas (25)

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Naxxramas (25) Raid Guide

Gear & Best In Slot (bis)

Naxxramas (25) Loot

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Patchwerk

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Grobbulus

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Gluth

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Thaddius

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Anub’Rekhan

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Grand Widow Faerlina

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Maexxna

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Noth the Plaguebringer

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Heigan the Unclean

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Loatheb

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Instructor Razuvious

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Gothik the Harvester

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The Four Horsemen

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Sapphiron

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Kel’Thuzad

Grand Widow Faerlina is the second boss of the Arachnid Quarter in Naxxramas. She is the caretaker of the spiders of Naxxramas, surrounded by her cultists and followers ready to give their life in service of Grand Widow Faerlina and the Lich King.

“The Grand Widow Faerlina, a botanist in life, breeder and caretaker of arachnids in death, she oversees the spider wing, developing the most potent of poisons for the Lich King.” –Commander Eligor Dawnbringer

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with Grand Widow Faerlina and her loyal followers.

Role Summaries

Priests

Abilities

The abilities of this fight are mostly dealt with using correct positioning, ducking out of Rain of Fire, and making sure there are Cleansing Totems in groups with the 10 players closest to Grand Widow Faerlina. Because this fight begins with 7 targets, it only gets easier to manage as you progress and slowly take out the extra targets.

Grand Widow Faerlina

Every 15-seconds Grand Widow Faerlina will hit the ten closest players for 3375 to 4125 Nature damage, as well as applying a poison damage-over-time effect that deals 1900 to 2100 Nature damage every 2-seconds for 8-seconds. This can be dispelled or prevented with Widow’s Embrace. Ideally, this shouldn’t happen very often, if you can sync Widow’s Embrace well, but when it does it can be quickly dispelled.

Every so often Grand Widow Faerlina will cast Rain of Fire on an area, dealing 3700 to 4300 Fire damage every 2-seconds within an 8-yard radius for 6-seconds. Just move out of this as soon as it happens and you’ll be fine.

Around every minute Grand Widow Faerlina enters Frenzy, increasing her Physical damage dealt by 150%, her melee haste by 50% and her size by 50%. This cannot be removed by normal means such as Tranq Shot and instead is removed by Mind Controlling one of her Naxxramas Worshippers and casting Widow’s Embrace after she enrages, sacrificing the Naxxramas Worshipper and removing Frenzy.

Naxxramas Worshipper

The Naxxramas Worshipper throws a Fireball at the person currently tanking them for a small amount of damage. This isn’t a big concern, just a natural part of their fight instead of melee swings. This gets tanked by your off-tank and is likely quickly healed back up.

When Mind Controlling, Naxxramas Worshippers can cast Widow’s Embrace, sacrificing the Naxxramas Worshipper and debuffing Grand Widow Faerlina if used close to her. This is a key mechanic to the fight and is the only way to stop Frenzy.

Naxxramas Follower

Naxxramas Followers cast an AoE silence around them, lasting for 6-seconds. This should never end up on your casters or healers, and is easily avoided by simply tanking these mobs away from them.

Occasionally Naxxramas Followers will charge a target, knocking them back and dealing a large clump of damage. Either just power through and heal the damage, or kill the Naxxramas Followers ASAP to minimize charges.

Raid Composition & Preparation

This fight requires 1-2 Priests to deal with Mind Control, as well as at least one person to deal with Poison debuffs.

You will want between 4-7 Healers for this fight. The particular classes aren’t very important, but you want at least one Priest, preferably two, but neither has to be a Healer specifically. All healing classes are valuable because of their ability to dispel Poison effects with spells such as Abolish Poison, Cleanse, and Cleansing Totem.

There are no strict requirements for DPS classes or specs here, you simply want a combination of good raid buffs and debuffs, as well as the best players you can muster. You want at least one Priest, preferably two, but neither has to be DPS specifically.

You will need 2-3 tanks for this fight: A main-tank to stick with Grand Widow Faerlina for the fight, and either 1 off-tank for all the adds or 1 off-tank for each type of add. Specific tank classes are not required and they can be any of the 4 tank classes.

The Pull

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On pull, you will want 3 tanks each going for separate targets. The first tank will want to grab Grand Widow Faerlina and place her on the edge of the circle in the middle of the room. The second will grab the Naxxramas Worshippers, bringing them close to where your Priests are, but away from the rest of the mobs so they don’t accidentally die to AoE. The third tank will grab the Naxxramas Followers and stack them together with Grand Widow Faerlina but away from your Casters so that they can be AoE’d down effectively.

Ideally, your ranged players should spread out on pull so that Rain of Fire hits as few targets as possible, but it isn’t the most important factor as long as they quickly dodge out.

faerlina positioning

The Fight

This fight is relatively simple, but it can feel very chaotic at first. Your group will need to make sure the Naxxramas Followers are stacked with the boss and quickly cleaved down, without killing the Naxxramas Worshippers.

Typically this is done by fighting the boss close to the middle of the room while bringing the Naxxramas Followers with her and keeping the Naxxramas Worshippers separated from the stack.

Every time Grand Widow Faerlina is about to cast Frenzy, a Priest should Mind Control one of the Naxxramas Worshippers. As soon as Grand Widow Faerlina gains the Frenzy buff the Naxxramas Worshipper should be sacrificed using the Widow’s Embrace spell. Sacrificing the Naxxramas Worshipper before she has the Frenzy buff will not do anything except waste a Naxxramas Worshipper.

During the fight, Grand Widow Faerlina will periodically drop Rain of Fire onto a random raid member. Everyone in the Rain of Fire will need to quickly weave out of it before they continue what they were doing. Around every 15-seconds, Grand Widow Faerlina will cast Poison Bolt Volley on the ten closest targets, which is easily dealt with by dispels. An easy solution for this is simply to have the 10 people closest to Grand Widow Faerlina be in 2 groups, each with their own Shaman dropping Cleansing Totem.

This really is all there is to the fight, outside of the chaotic beginning there isn’t much to worry about and this should be doable quick and easy.

Here are some of the main things that can typically go wrong in this phase:

  • During the pull, the adds get messy, leading to them spreading and potentially killing players early.
  • The Naxxramas Followers Silence key players, leading to a tank dying
  • The Mind Control is late, resists, or breaks early
  • The Priest has action bar addons preventing them from using Mind Control abilities
  • The Naxxramas Worshippers are accidentally killed, leading to Faerlina being free to tear the tank apart in Frenzy
  • Players don’t react to Rain of Fire or simply underestimate it

Congratulations on defeating Grand Widow Faerlina! Time to move through the skittering spiders and cobwebs and into Maexxna’s lair.

 

About the Author

Passion

I love MMOs of all shades, especially the nitty gritty numbers parts of them. You might recognize me from the Shadow Priest discord, otherwise I play a little bit of everything, especially games with support roles available.
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