Nightmare Grove (Dragons of Nightmare) Guide – WoW Classic & Season of Discovery

The Emerald Dream and its denizens are under constant attacks by malevolent forces, with many of its members falling prey to corruption. This is also true for even the mightiest of them, the protectors of the realm, Emerald Dragons. Such four creatures have succumbed to corruption and now act as emissaries of the Emerald Nightmare, seeking to destroy the Emerald Dream and eliminate any adventurer that may stand in their path.

In WoW Classic, the four Dragons of Nightmare (Taerar, Lethon, Ysondre, and Emeriss) break through the Emerald Portals and take shape in the Physical World, seeking to destroy Azeroth and all its inhabitants. In Season of Discovery, the 4 Dragons of Nightmare gained their own instances, inside the Emerald Nightmare!

Dragons of Nightmare WoW Classic

The Dragons of Nightmare spawn around each of the four Emerald Dream Portals spread across Azeroth! The portals can be found in four specific locations: Duskwood, Ashenvale, Hinterlands, and Feralas. All of the four Dragons of Nightmare share the same spawn timer but have a randomized spawn location. This means that specifically hunting for one of them can be difficult, especially if you seek specific loot.

Dragons of Nightmare Abilities

All of the Dragons of Nightmare have powerful abilities that players have to deal with! Each boss shares a set number of abilities but every boss has its own set of unique ones as well. Some of the unique abilities of the Dragons of Nightmare are used consistently throughout the encounter while others trigger at specific HP thresholds: 75%, 50%, and 25%!

Emeriss Abilities

• Noxious Breath – Cone standard AoE Dragon’s Breath ability that places a DoT effect on the affected target and increases all cooldowns by 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 6 seconds.
• Mark of Nature – 15-minute debuff received upon death that prevents any player from re-engaging Emeriss by placing them in a Sleep state.
• Immunity: Nature – Emeriss is immune to all forms of Nature Damage!
• Seeping Fog (Dream Fog) – Fog that places any player coming into contact with it into a 5-second Sleep. Can be avoided.
• Tail Sweep – A tail attack that knocks back any player standing behind Emeriss, dealing considerable damage and forcing players to take Fall Damage as well.
• Volatile Infection – Emeriss debuffs a player with a Disease that deals heavy Nature Damage to all nearby players every 5 seconds.
• Spore Cloud – This ability triggers whenever a player dies, dealing massive Nature Damage to all players caught in a 13-yard radius.
• Corruption of the Earth (75%/50%/25%) – Emeriss places a debuff on all players, dealing 20% Maximum Health every 2 seconds for up to 10 seconds.

Taerar Abilities

• Noxious Breath – Cone standard AoE Dragon’s Breath ability that places a DoT effect on the affected target and increases all cooldowns by 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 6 seconds.
• Mark of Nature – 15-minute debuff received upon death that prevents any player from re-engaging Taerar by placing them in a Sleep state.
• Immunity: Nature – Taerar is immune to all forms of Nature Damage!
• Seeping Fog (Dream Fog) – Fog that places any player coming into contact with it into a 5-second Sleep. Can be avoided.
• Tail Sweep – A tail attack that knocks back any player standing behind Taerar, dealing considerable damage and forcing players to take Fall Damage as well.
• Arcane Blast – Taerar blasts a target with high Arcane Damage and knocks the target back.
• Bellowing Roar – Every 30 seconds, Taerar unleashes a dreadful roar, placing a Fear effect on all players within 30 yards.
• Summon Shade of Taerar (75%/50%/25%) – Taerar becomes invulnerable, summoning 3 clones of himself, having a few of his abilities. Taerar remains invulnerable until the clones are killed.

Ysondre Abilities

• Noxious Breath – Cone standard AoE Dragon’s Breath ability that places a DoT effect on the affected target and increases all cooldowns by 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 6 seconds.
• Mark of Nature – 15-minute debuff received upon death that prevents any player from re-engaging Ysondre by placing them in a Sleep state.
• Immunity: Nature – Ysondre is immune to all forms of Nature Damage!
• Seeping Fog (Dream Fog) – Fog that places any player coming into contact with it into a 5-second Sleep. Can be avoided.
• Tail Sweep – A tail attack that knocks back any player standing behind Ysondre, dealing considerable damage and forcing players to take Fall Damage as well.
• Lightning Wave – Ysondre periodically throws a chain lightning attack, affecting up to 10 players and dealing increased damage with each bounce.
• Summon Demented Druid Spirit (75%/50%/25%) – Upon reaching the specific HP thresholds, Ysondre summons multiple Demented Druid Spirits to aid her in combat. The spirits have 3 abilities: Silence, Curse of Thorns, and Moonfire.

Lethon Abilities

• Noxious Breath – Cone standard AoE Dragon’s Breath ability that places a DoT effect on the affected target and increases all cooldowns by 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 6 seconds.
• Mark of Nature – 15-minute debuff received upon death that prevents any player from re-engaging Lethon by placing them in a Sleep state.
• Immunity: Nature – Lethon is immune to all forms of Nature Damage!
• Seeping Fog (Dream Fog) – Fog that places any player coming into contact with it into a 5-second Sleep. Can be avoided.
• Tail Sweep – A tail attack that knocks back any player standing behind Lethon, dealing considerable damage and forcing players to take Fall Damage as well.
• Shadow Bolt Whirl – Lethon periodically throws a volley of Shadow Bolts targeting all players! The bolts originate from each side of Lethon but hit players in front of him as well.
• Draw Spirit (75%/50%/25%) – Upon reaching the specific HP thresholds, Lethon stuns all players within 100 yards for 5 seconds and places a Shadow Damage DoT on each player. The effect also spawns Spirit Shades that are immune to AoE spells and slowly walk toward Lethon, healing him for a large HP chunk upon contact.

Dragons of Nightmare Strategies

All of the Dragons of Nightmare have very similar strategies, especially when it comes to their shared abilities. What truly differentiates each encounter is the unique abilities they possess, which slightly alter the encounter. Generally, each encounter functions similarly to the typical dragon fight, meaning that the tail should always be avoided due to Tail Sweep. All players should ideally position themselves into two separate stacks (Caster & Melee). In addition, each of the Dragons of Nightmare shares the Noxious Breath ability. While its damage is not spectacular, each tick increases the cooldowns of the affected targets by 10 seconds up to a 60-second delay. Due to this mechanic, a Tank Swap tactic must always be used to ensure that Threat can be maintained.

Besides avoiding Tail Sweep and rotating tanks for Noxious Breath, players must ensure they are not affected by the Seeping Fog (Dream Fog). Stacking properly and moving with the assigned stack will greatly diminish the chances of multiple players being stuck in the Sleep effect! It’s important to remember that while the sleep only lasts 5 seconds, getting a healer caught in the fog can result in quick wipes.

Raid composition is also a thing to consider as some classes won’t fully be able to use their rotations since all of the dragons are immune to Nature Damage because of Immunity: Nature.

Emeriss Strategy

Emeriss is by far the easiest of the four Dragons of Nightmare, having straightforward abilities that can be easily mitigated or avoided. Volatile Infection is the first ability that healers have to watch out for and that should be dispelled as soon as it gets triggered. The ability deals a high amount of Nature Damage to all nearby players every 5 seconds. Due to the tick rate of the ability, the affected player can simply isolate himself if healers are too busy to dispel at that specific moment.

Spore Cloud can be entirely ignored if all players from the raid group survive. If a player manages to die, all players should reposition and quickly avoid Spore Cloud as it could trigger a chain reaction if multiple players die.

Lastly, Corruption of the Earth is the ability that triggers at multiple HP thresholds, dealing 100% HP damage to all players over 10 seconds, ticking for 20% every 2 seconds. It requires massive AoE healing but can be easily mitigated by raid composition. Having at least 1 Priest in each raid group or multiple Restoration Shamans can negate this ability easily.

Taerar Strategy

Taerar requires Fear Wards or Tremor Totems for key members of the raid group due to the Bellowing Roar mechanic! Since the fear happens every 30 seconds, either one of the abilities has to be strategically rotated between key party members such as healers and tanks. Tanks should beware of the Arcane Blast mechanic as the displacement can result in aggro loss, Taunt abilities should be kept for such occasions.

Lastly, the Summon Shade of Taerar is the difficult part of the encounter, since it forces the group to have at least 3 strong tanks. Each of Taerar‘s clones has access to the Noxious Breath ability, meaning that the raid has to burst them down quickly. However, the breath attack is slightly weaker for the clones, so tanks can relax since some amount of leeway is present.

Ysondre Strategy

Ysondre can also be considered an easy encounter if players react quickly! Her Lightning Wave deals moderately high damage, meaning that healers can easily out-heal it as long as the encounter doesn’t last too long. The burdensome part of the encounter is the add phase, where Demented Druid Spirits spawn. The problem with the adds is that they have a Silence mechanic. The ideal scenario for this encounter is to have all the DPS switch to the adds as soon as they spawn, especially since they all spawn at once.

Managing to kill the adds as soon as possible allows the raid to not worry about the Silence mechanic at all. Allowing the adds to live for too long can result in some disastrous scenarios, especially since Ysondre never stops attacking while the adds are alive.

Lethon Strategy

Lethon is by far the hardest encounter due to his HP threshold mechanic! While the Shadow Bolt Whirl is dangerous as well and places quite a hefty amount of pressure on the healers, Draw Spirit is the true problem. Since Draw Spirit places a DoT effect and stuns the targets, it can lead to many surprising wipes. Additionally, the main problem is its second component, the Spirit Shades that spawn after the DoT effect is placed. Each player spawns a Spirit Shade, with the Spirit Shades being entirely immune to AoE damaging spells, including AoE slowing spells. Once they come in proximity to Lethon, they each heal him for a considerable amount of health, resulting in an encounter reset. Players must kill as many shades as possible using Single-Target abilities or attacks.

The problem with the Draw Spirit is that it occurs at the same time while Lethon continues to use Noxious Breath and Seeping Fog (Dream Fog) is present on the ground. Both Melee and Caster Groups should ideally reposition before the specific HP thresholds to ensure that they kill as many Spirit Shades as possible!

WoW Classic Dragons of Nightmare Loot

Nightmare Grove (Instanced Raid ) Season of Discovery

In the Season of Discovery, the four bosses, (Taerar, Lethon, Ysondre, and Emeriss) will no longer spawn around the Emerald Dream Portals! Players will instead be able to enter the portals and venture into instanced versions of the Emerald Nightmare where they can fight each boss. The spawn location for the bosses remains the same as in WoW Classic. However, in Season of Discovery, upon defeating one of the bosses, a portal will open inside the instance itself which will lead to one of the other dragons. This will happen after each Dragon of Nightmare is killed until all four are slain.

The portals to shift between instances are right before the Emerald Dream Portal!

For players confused about how the Emerald Dream Portals can be accessed considering that Nightmare Incursions share the same portals as access points, there is a quick and easy to do so. Both the Nightmare Incursions and Nightmare Grove share the same portal, but each zone has a small portal that can be used to toggle the state of the zone!

By clicking on the small dream portal, players can instantly phase the areas and toggle between the incursions and the instanced bosses. This will be indicated instantly by the area filling up with the demons present outside the portals which are tied to the Nightmare Incursions event.

Nightmare Grove Loot (SoD)

Like the WoW Classic version, each boss comes with its own loot, but all of the four Nightmare Dragons also come with shared loot! Season of Discovery offers the same items as the original version, but enhances each item, granting it higher stats and effects.