Pimp Your Druid: Soloing Anzu

This will be the first installment of my Pimp Your Druid series of posts on how to obtain a Reins of the Raven Lord from Anzu from Setthek Halls. Being as we are all druids, I figured this would be the best one to start off with and as it is one of the easier ones. While this is something that has become easily doable in WOTLK, it was something that was possible since lv 70. My luck has been pretty poor when it comes to Anzu, since the introduction of achievements, I’ve done this close to 100 times (50 on the statistics tracker, explained below). Hopefully you will have better luck than me.

Prerequisite

• First and foremost, you need to have finished the Druid epic flight form quest and as a result have an Essence-Infused Moonstone which allows you to summon Anzu. If you haven’t done the epic flight form questline, you can start here Morthis Whisperwing
• Anzu can only be summoned in heroic mode only
• While you don’t have to be level 80, it definitely helps to make things easier and faster

What gear do I need?

• As this is soloable at lv 70 in T6, any gear post TBC should allow you to solo this
• If you’re not wearing T7 or above, you should probably be in a bear type spec
• Personally, I wear my full T8.5 cat set (gear I usually have on) to solo Anzu, with no buffs aside from Mark of the Wild and Thorns
• If you are worried about your gear, try entering battlegrounds to get some buffs/food first, before starting your run

Getting to Anzu

• You can stealth through all the trash until you arrive in his room
• Make sure to hug the right when passing the first boss Darkweaver Syth, he has stealth detection
• If you pull any packs by accident, Shadowmeld is your friend

Clearing Trash

• There are 5 trash packs in his room, you do not have to clear the pack in the back left.
• Personally, I like to speed things up, I open with a Pounce, Barksin and Cat Swipe 3-4 times (dependening if I get a Clearcast) before shifting into bear.
• Kill Sethekk Prophet first always, they fear which could cause you to aggro multiple packs
• If a Prophet is going to cast fear, Bash to interrupt or Berserk if the fear gets off
• When Prophets die, they spawn a Sethekk Spirit, kite away from these as they do damage

Anzu Fight Mechanics

Anzu has the following abilities:

• Spell Bomb: 8 second curse, burning 2000 mana and deals 1000 damage if a player affected by it casts a spell; Anzu whispers the player affected by the debuff, effectively warning of the effect. It is very important that casters take note of when they have this debuff on them. (This can be avoided, explained below)
• Cyclone of Feathers: Targets a random party member (minus tank) and puts them in a cyclone for 6 seconds. Considered a magic effect, but the debuff also makes you immune for normal dispels. Can be dispelled with Mass Dispel. This ability has a cast bar and can (and should) be interrupted. (This is not used when soloing)
• Paralyzing Screech: A 6 second AoE stun on the entire group. Has a 5 second cast time but is not interruptible in any way. It is recommended to place heal over time spells and shields on the tank when you see the cast. Cannot be outranged.

In addition, there are 3 statues to help assist you during the fight:

• Hawk Spirit (left): Grants Protection of the Hawk. All players receive 500 less damage from every attack. Applied before armor.
• Eagle Spirit (right): Grants Spite of the Eagle Deals 300 damage every second to all enemies in the room. (Ignore this one, unless Boomkin/Resto -> see below)
• Falcon Spirit (back): Grants Speed of the Falcon. Gives 25% movement speed increase, 25% ranged haste and 25% spell casting haste. (Ignore this one)

The fight will unfold in the following manner:

• Anzu will engaged by himself until the 66% and 33% marks
• At 66% and 33%, he will banish himself and spawn a pack of birds that need to be killed
• If the birds are killed before 1 minute, Anzu will unbanish himself, if the birds are not dead after 1 minute, Anzu will unbanish regardless

How to Solo Anzu

I pull Anzu by the following way:

• Regrowth the Hawk Spirit so that damage is reduced, this is only done on the pull, I don’t bother reactivating the spirit again
• Moonfire Anzu from behind the front left grave and pull back behind the grave
• Rejuv and Lifebloom on the way backwards and shift to bear.

Once Anzu banishes himself I do the following:

• Move from behind the grave to the other side to LOS Anzu, this ensures that I won’t get cursed (Cyclone of Feathers)
• When I am free of being cursed, I’ll heal myself back to full, make sure you don’t get Paralyzing Screech in caster form
• Easiest way to avoid getting Paralyzing Screech in caster form is to wait until he uses the ability (while you’re in bear form) before you force him into a banish

When dealing with the bird adds:

• Bear form and swipe them all down
• If you were not able to heal yourself up and you are low, you can kite the birds to the back right grave and force Anzu to run to you, use this time to health yourself once the adds are dead

Repeat this twice (66%/33%) and you have a 1% chance at Reins of the Raven Lord!

Other Tips

• If you are unsure of yourself or are trying this for the first time, you may want to kill Talon King Ikiss first, this will ensure you are locked to the instance and if you die, you won’t have to reclear trash (Trash will respawn if you are not locked). Note that you can also skip the big trash pack before Ikiss.
• Killing Ikiss will also allow you to track how many times you’ve done an Anzu run. I didn’t start killing Ikiss till later so I only have 50 registered kills.
• Remember to use all your damage reduction talents, such as Barkskin and Demoralizing Roar

Lastly, if you aren’t a feral druid, you CAN do this as resto or boomkin. All you have to do is keep a rolling hot of anykind on Eagle Spirit so that it causes a 300 dmg per second dot on Anzu that does not aggro him. Continue to keep the dot rolling until you bring him down to 1-2% then quickly kill him before he can banish himself. While it is a lot slower, it is a way for non ferals to solo him.

I will post some screenshots later tonight to help with the explanation. There are lots of videos on YouTube as well to help illustrate how to do the fight. Not all of them are good examples but it gives you a jist of what needs to be done. Happy Farming!

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