Shade of Eranikus - Sunken Temple 20-Player Raid Guide (Season of Discovery)

Author: Passion
Date: April 9, 2024
Updated: April 9, 2024
Expansion: WoW Classic

Sunken Temple Raid Overview

Dreamscythe and Weaver

Once a consort to Ysera, Eranikus was sent to guard the ruins of Atal’Hakkar and prevent the Atal’ai from allowing Hakkar to return. Slowly but surely, the influence of the Emerald Nightmare corrupted Eranikus, trapping him between the physical and dream planes. Unable to discern reality, Eranikus will fight any intruders to prevent Hakkar’s return.

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with the Shade of Eranikus, guardian of the Temple of Atal’Hakkar.

TL;DR

Dispel Lethargic Poison
Interrupt Bellowing Roar
Walk into a cloud during Waking Nightmare cast
Dodge Acid Rain
Always prioritize adds
- Except in the final Phase, where you will need to burn the boss.

Abilities

Like any dragon, Eranikus does not like people behind him. Stand at his side at all times.

This is an AoE fear that can and should be interrupted. Allowing this cast to go off will likely have your raid be in a very difficult to recover from situation.

Eranikus spits poison at 5 players, dealing heavy Nature damage every 3 seconds, as well as reducing their hit chance and doubling the cost of their abilities. This is a Poison and can be dispelled. Leaving this ticking for too long will cost you a lot of DPS as well as require a lot of healing to keep up with.

Poison Cleansing Totem is a fantastic tool here.

Eranikus casts this on his current target, dealing heavy Nature damage and reducing their armor by 100% for 12 seconds. This is effectively a tank swap mechanic, requiring tanks to swap out while this debuff falls off.

Clouds will periodically appear around the arena. Standing in one of these will put you to sleep for 20 seconds, reducing all damage you take by 99%. These should be avoided most of the time, but become very important when Waking Nightmare is cast.

Having your ranged players stack together will cause these clouds to be more predictable and easier to handle.

This ability will deal 30000 Shadow damage to everyone awake after a 6-second cast. To avoid dying to this, run into a Deep Slumber cloud to fall asleep. This ability will wake you up, but being asleep protects you from the damage it would deal.

In Phase 3, Eranikus will rain acid down from the ceiling. This is telegraphed with a pulsating circle, and you will want to avoid these as they deal a significant amount of Nature damage if you are hit.

Raid Composition & Preparation

For this fight you will need 2-3 tanks to handle tank swaps and adds, as well as at least 4 healers. Any DPS with cleave damage will be a welcome addition during the later Phases.

The Pull

As you can no longer use the edges of the arena to simplify this fight, you there is nothing particularly noteworthy about pulling Eranikus.

The Fight

Phase 1

Phase 1 is fairly simple. The raid should stand in two stacks at the side of the dragon. One ranged stack farther away and one melee stack up close. Interrupt Bellowing Roar whenever it is being cast. Dispel Lethargic Poison on whoever it targets. Whenever a tank is hit by Corrosive Breath, they will want to swap with the second tank for a minimum of 12-seconds to allow the debuff to fall off.

Avoid the clouds that are floating around until Eranikus begins casting Waking Nightmare. When he does, everyone should immediately move into a cloud, putting them to sleep. Anyone not asleep when Waking Nightmare finishes casting will be instantly killed.

Intermission

The intermissions begin at 70% and 40%. Eranikus will go to sleep, spawning two Lumbering Dreamwalkers for you to fight instead. These adds will need to be tanked, and can be grabbed by one tank each to minimize risk. These adds cast Lethargic Poison just like Eranikus, but can be interrupted, so make sure that they never get a cast off.

Phase 2

Phase 2 begins when the Lumbering Dreamwalkers are dead. Eranikus will wake up and continue to do everything he did in Phase 1. Along with that, he will also spawn a handful of Nightmare Whelps every 10 seconds. They are fairly squishy and will need to be killed as fast as possible, otherwise they will quickly overwhelm the raid.

Phase 3

Phase 3 begins after the second intermission. Eranikus will yet again continue everything he did from Phase 1, as well as spawning the same Whelps as Phase 2. He will also spawn 2 Nightmare Scalebanes, another type of add. These are tankier and hit harder than the Whelps. Killing the adds is your first and only priority for DPS in Phase 3. The boss will go down eventually, don’t stress.

In addition to the two different types of adds, in this Phase Eranikus will cast Acid Rain. This will spawn pulsating circles on the floor, marking where a bolt of acid will land shortly after. Avoid standing in these to minimize damage.

Phase 4

At 10% health, Eranikus enrages, dealing significantly more damage. He will continue to spawn adds, but at this point your priority is simply to kill the boss. Burn him down as much as possible while trying to cleave adds where possible to minimize damage taken. If you do not kill Eranikus fast enough, you will very quickly be overwhelmed.

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

Bellowing Roar is not interrupted
Players stay awake during Waking Nightmare and die
Healers accidentally walk into clouds, going to sleep early
Adds are not correctly handled, causing the raid to be overwhelmed
Lethargic Poison is not dispelled

Congratulations on defeating Shade of Eranikus! While this could be called the last boss, there is still one more fight left if you want it.

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.