Gothik the Harvester Strategy Guide (25 man)

Posted by admin on 01 10th, 2009

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Introduction
Gothik the Harvester is the second boss in the Military Quarter of Naxxramas. For the majority of the fight he stands above the action on a balcony, immune to all damage, while the raid group battles a constant stream of monsters. The left side the room, the side that the raid group enters into, is known as the living side. The right side, littered with bone piles, is the dead side. Mobs will initially spawn on the live side. As mobs are killed, their souls fly through the air to the dead side and come back to life as undead mobs at any one of the bone piles. After the mobs are dealt with Gothik will teleport down and fight the raid.

Raid Setup
25-man: 2-3 tanks, 6-8 healers, and a mix of melee and ranged damage dealers.
10-man: 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 damage dealers.

25-man live side: 1 tank, 3-4 healers, about 8 melee and single target damage dealers.
25-man dead side: 1-2 tanks (AoE tanks are best, paladins ideal), 3-5 healers, about 9 ranged and AoE damage dealers.

10-man live side: 1 tank, 1 healer, 2-3 melee/single target damage dealers.
10-man dead side: 1 tank, 2 healers, 2-3 ranged/AoE damage dealers.

Gear Requirements
This fight does not demand particularly good gear. If your DPS and healers have handled Razuvious, they should be in good shape for Gothik. The tanks should be uncrittable to avoid large spike damage from the elites (this requires a minimum of 540 defence).

Buffs and Consumables
The raid group should have normal raid buffs for this fight. Additionally, priests should buff everyone with shadow protection to reduce raid damage, and it is helpful for at least one paladin on each side to maintain Concentration Aura to reduce spell pushback.

The Monsters (Mobile NPCs)
There are three types of mobs on the living side. All are living. Trainees and Death Knights can be stunned.

Unrelenting Trainees - About 10k HP normal / 25k HP in heroic. These non-elites melee for about 300 physical damage normal / 500 heroic. They attack with a stacking disease DoT debuff, Death Plague, which is applied on each melee attack and deals damage every three seconds (85 damage every 3 seconds normal / 170 damage every 3 seconds heroic). It can be removed by anything that cures disease. Trainees can be ignored by tanks since they do low damage and have few hit points and because tanks will need to save agro-generating abilities to pick up Death Knights and Riders.

Unrelenting Death Knights – About 34k HP normal / 79k HP heroic. This elite hits for about 800 physical damage normal / 1.5k heroic. These mobs have an intercept ability that stuns a target for 3 seconds, and a melee whirlwind attack called Shadow Mark. The Shadow Mark whirlwind hits for about 5k on plate, and applies a Shadow Mark debuff to the players that get hit. The debuff itself does not do anything other than make the afflicted target eligible for the Shadow Bolt Volley that the Riders cast. The mark has a 15 second duration. These mobs should be picked up quickly and tanked in the marked tanking area (see diagram) away from the main raid group.

Gothik the Harvester in effusive spirits
Unrelenting Riders - About 35k HP normal / 136k HP heroic. This elite melees for about 1.5k normal / 3k heroic. These mobs have a passive Unholy Aura that deals damage every two seconds (350 normal, 500 heroic) to nearby enemies (10 yards normal, 20 yards heroic) until the mob is killed. They also have a Shadow Bolt Volley. Like all volleys in the game, this attack hits more than one person. In this particular fight, the volley will only hit all players afflicted by the Shadow Mark (which lasts for 15 seconds, and is applied or refreshed to all people in range of the Unrelenting Death Knight’s whirlwind attack) for 4k damage on normal / 6k damage on heroic. This Shadowbolt Volley is unavoidable. If the tank keeps Unrelenting Death Knights away from the stacked up raid, the only people that will take this damage are the tank and melee. Riders must be picked up immediately; it is recommended that the tank save his or her Taunt ability for these mobs.

These are four types of mobs on the undead side. All are undead and immune to crowd control abilities. Trainees and Death Knights can be stunned.

Spectral Trainees – About 10k HP normal / 36k HP heroic. These non-elites melee for about 300 physical damage normal / 500 heroic. They have an Arcane Explosion with a 20 yard range that hits for about 700 damage in both the normal and heroic encounters. Tanks can ignore these mobs due to their low damage and few hit points.

Spectral Death Knights - About 33k HP normal / 79k HP heroic. These elites melee for about 1k normal / 2k heroic. They have a physical whirlwind attack that hits plate for about 2.7k normal / 4k heroic. Spectral Death Knights also cleave for about 2k physical damage and will mana burn players within melee range. Tanks should pick these mobs up quickly and keep them away from the stacked group.

Spectral Riders - About 55k HP normal / 160k HP heroic. These elites melee for about 1.5k normal / 3k heroic. They have a passive Unholy Aura that ticks every two seconds dealing damage to players within 20 yards of about 350 normal / 500 heroic. They also have a single target Life Drain ability that deals 12k HP over 5 seconds to the top target on their threat list. These mobs must be picked up immediately by tanks and should be a priority for damage dealers that are not casting AoE spells.

Spectral Horses – About 16k HP normal / 55k HP heroic. This elite melees for about 1.5k normal / 3k heroic. These mobs accompany Spectral Rider spawns and have a physical AoE attack called Stomp that deals about 2.5k HP in a fixed radius (10 yard range on normal, 20 yard range on heroic) and slows movement speed by 60% for 10 seconds. These mobs can and should be killed quickly after spawning.

Gothik the Harvester
Gothik has about 839k HP in normal mode and 2.3 million HP in heroic. He has three abilities: Harvest Soul, Shadow Bolt (single target), and Teleport. Gothik does not do melee damage. He can be Taunted.

Harvest Soul is a debuff that “reduces all stats by 10%”, applied every 15 seconds and stacking up to 10 times. This debuff will not reduce stats like spell power, mana, energy, or rage by 10% per stack, but rather only reduce your primary attributes (strength, stamina, intellect, agility, and spirit) by 10% each stack. Harvest Soul will be applied to everybody in the raid, regardless of which side you are on, and cannot be avoided. It acts as the enrage timer for the fight: 10 stacks will cause instant death.

Shadow Bolt is Gothik’s only form of damage. It is cast on the highest threat target once a second (1 second cast time, dealing about 3.5k normal and up to 6k on heroic) and cannot be interrupted.

Teleports will accompany stacks of Harvest Soul. Gothik will initially teleport off his balcony into the dead centre of the live side. After 15 seconds he will teleport across the closed gate into the centre of the dead side, then back to the live side again and so on. After 4-6 teleports, the central gate will open and the entire raid can attack him together. Once the gate has opened there will be no more teleports.

Strategy

Preparation
The door will close and the encounter will begin when Gothik is attacked by a ranged ability on his balcony. The door will prohibit movement between the two sides of the room, and act as a line of sight barrier for players. This means that you cannot target, heal, or DPS anything that is on the other side of the gate.

Alternative Strategy
If there are no players on the dead side when Gothik is engaged, the mobs will spawn and stay up until the door opens, at which point they will all rush the raid group. It is possible to AoE down all the mobs when the door opens with an AoE tank in the 10 man, but it is not recommended for the 25 man encounter.

Positioning

Raid Positioning for Gothik the Harvester on the Live Side

As mobs spawn they will immediately aggro onto the raid group. In order to help tanks manage the constant flow of monsters, it is useful to stack up in a corner (particularly on the dead side) and have the tank stand about 15 yards in front of the group.

Raid Positioning for Gothik the Harvester on the Dead Side

The only danger with stacking is the stacked group being hit by the Death Knight whirlwind ability, but tanks should be able to maintain control over these mobs and keep them away from the group.

The Fight – Phase One
The first phase of this fight takes about four and half minutes, and requires the raid group to be split apart. One group will stay in the first room that you enter: the room with the platforms against the wall (this is the “live side”). The other group will go through the gate onto the side with the bone piles and stack up in the corner illustrated in the diagram (this is the “dead side”). The raid leader should divide the raid according to the “Raid Setup” section at the top of this guide. Keep in mind that the dead side is slightly more difficult than the live side, and it will work in your favour to put an extra tank or DPS player over there on the heroic version. Ten man raids can stay equally split with 5 players on each side.

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After being divided by the raid leader, the two groups should get into position on either side of the gate that divides the room. The groups should be positioned according to the diagram, with the tank keeping mobs (especially Death Knights and Riders) at least 15 yards away from the stacked up casters and ranged DPS. This positioning will continue for all of phase one but is irrelevant after Gothik teleports down from his balcony at the beginning of phase two. Both sides of the room should follow this positioning to be most efficient, but it is particularly important on the dead side (due to cleaves and mana burns). It is likely that tanks will not be able to hold all of the Trainees (and they should not bother wasting resources to do so) so healers may pull healing aggro. DPS classes should expect this to happen and be ready to focus fire on the Trainees to get them off the healers.

Although, as explained below, Riders should always be the primary kill targets for DPS, keeping Trainees off healers is also important. Trainees should be killed off as soon the current Rider goes down if they are starting to amass on healers (especially priests). If desired, you can elect one DPS player per side to spend 100% of their attention keeping Trainees off of healers at all times.

When everyone is ready (in position and not AFK), a member of the live side raid group should aggro Gothic with a ranged ability (hunters and rogues work well because they can get back to the group quickly). After Gothik is engaged there are a few seconds for the puller to get back into position before NPCs start to spawn on the live side.

Gothik the Harvester

The live side can expect a total of 35 Trainees, 14 Death Knights, and 4 Riders spaced almost evenly over three minutes and thirty seconds (3:30). Roughly speaking, you will see the first Unrelenting Death Knight about 20 seconds into the fight (and one every 12-15 seconds after that), and a Rider after about a minute, and one every 45 seconds after that. The dead side will see the same number of mobs but the spawn rate is dictated by how fast the live side is killing the live versions. The final wave will spawn at 3:30 exactly, and you will have an additional minute and four seconds to kill them before Gothik teleports down. It should be noted that Gothik will always teleport down into the room after four minutes and thirty four seconds (4:34) of the initial pull, assuming at least one party member is still alive, regardless of how many adds might still be alive at that time.

There should be more than enough time to finish off all of the mobs and get into position for phase two before this teleport occurs. If Gothik happens to teleport while mobs are still alive, the raid group ought to kill any remaining mobs and then switch DPS to Gothik. A tank needs to be ready to Taunt Gothik on the live side, and healers will need to compensate for extra damage if this happens. The dead side will have a little extra time to finish up any mobs that haven’t already been killed if this occurs (about 20 seconds before the first teleport; see the phase two section for more details).

The initial spawn consists of three Trainees. These mobs should be killed as soon as the DPS can target them; healers can expect minor raid damage. Warrior, Death Knight, and Druid tanks should not worry about Taunting or using abilities to hold aggro. Rather, they should take the opportunity to generate as much rage or runic power as possible to control the elite mobs that will be introduced shortly.

When mobs are killed on the live side their souls will fly over the gate and land on a bone pile on the dead side where they will spawn again as their undead counterparts. The tanks on the dead side should be watching for these souls so they know where the mobs are going to spawn, and the DPS on the dead side should be ready to engage and kill the Trainees as soon as they are able to target them. If the undead tank is not a Paladin they should also be building rage/runic power for elites.

Around the third wave is when the live side can expect an Unrelenting Death Knight NPC to spawn. Unlike Trainees, Unrelenting Death Knights are elite and hit hard; a tank must pick them up quickly. When an Unrelenting Death Knight spawns the raid group will want to focus fire on it until it is dead. If tanks are promoted to raid assistant, and have a keybind set for a Blizzard raid symbol (such as Skull), they can quickly mark these mobs, making them easily visible to everybody. Trainees will continue to spawn among Unrelenting Death Knights, and the Trainees that are not killed by multi-target abilities (e.g. Chain Lightning, Blade Furry) ought to be finished off after any elites. At this point in the fight, tanks should be attentively watching for elite spawns on both sides. Healers should be keeping the tanks alive and healing through the raid damage on their side of the room. DPS should be killing mobs as quickly as they can (without pulling elite aggro) by assisting the tanks with Unrelenting Death Knights and keeping Trainees off the healers.

There are a few waves of Trainees and Death Knights before the final elite mob is introduced. This mob is called an “Unyielding Rider” on the live side, and a “Spectral Rider” on the dead side. This mob is the most dangerous in the encounter and needs to be the number one priority for everyone. Tanks should Taunt and mark riders immediately. DPS need to kill them as soon as the tank has aggro, and healers must prepare for raid damage. Riders do not spawn frequently, but must be handled one by one to ensure that numerous Riders do not spawn at the same time on the dead side. It is very helpful for the live side to communicate when a Rider has low HP and dies, so that the group on the dead side is ready and expecting when its dead counterparts spawn. When killed, Riders will spawn on the dead side as two mobs: a Spectral Rider and a Spectral Horse. Spectral Horses should be the primary focus for the dead group since they have fewer HP, and Riders should be killed quickly thereafter. The next priority on the dead side is any remaining Unrelenting Death Knights, and finally the Trainees that do not die from AoE.

Remember that mobs spawn increasingly faster and in larger numbers on the live side. Mobs spawn on the dead side at the same rate as the live side group kills them. About three minutes into this fight the mobs will start coming rather quickly and the two sides, particularly the dead side, will benefit from using AoE damage and healing spells. Riders and Horses will continue to be the priority for all DPS, but AoE casters should start using AoE rather than single target heals if the group ever faces more than about 6 mobs at once (use your discretion). As more mobs spawn, the healers can expect more raid damage, tanks can expect to have to hold aggro on more mobs, and DPS can expect a faster pace as well.

It is perfectly acceptable to use cooldowns, even Bloodlust/Heroism, during the last minute of phase one, or at any point before then if the raid group is being overwhelmed. You wont need them in phase two.

It is ideal to have a protection paladin on the dead side to handle the quick spawns of numerous undead mobs, allowing casters to AoE without pulling elite aggro. Prior to using AoE it can help to use abilities that prevent pushback (e.g. Icy veins). Make sure the live group keeps calling out Rider deaths to avoid unexpected elite spawns that kill a healer or cloth wearer before the dead side tank can establish aggro.

Note To Casters: be ready with Ice Block/Soul Shatter/knock backs in case your spells happen to grab elite aggro or aggro from several Trainees.

Finish all mobs to advance to phase two.

The Fight – Phase Two

Raid Positioning for Gothik the Harvester on the Live Side

When all of Gothik’s minions have been slain, the raid groups should move toward the centre of their respective sides. The two red dots in the diagram for phase two represent the two areas that Gothik will teleport between. The blue circles show where the raid group should be standing. Gothik will only be at one of these two locations at any given time.

Healers should top off raid HP as soon as the final mobs die, and tanks should be prepared to Taunt Gothik. Damage dealers can expect 15 second windows in which they will be able to attack Gothik before he teleports to the other side of the room. Harvest Soul will also begin to stack on the entire raid after Gothik leaves his balcony. It reduces all stats by 10% and stacks up to 10 times. It cannot be avoided or removed until Gothik is killed.

The raid groups will be in the centre of each room when phase two begins to maximize DPS and to allow tanks to Taunt Gothik as soon as they are able to target him.

Healers need to be ready for shadow bolts to be cast (every second) on the primary aggro target (they deal up to 3.5k normal and 6k in heroic).

Damage dealers should open up on Gothik quickly; he does not deal physical damage and is Tauntable, so the repercussions for pulling aggro are minimal. Unlike some other bosses, Gothik will never drop tank aggro after a tank on each side has established (even when he teleports), so DPS can open up hard and fast.

After 15 seconds, Gothik will teleport to the other side of the room, across the gate, and thus out of line of sight to half the raid but giving the other half of the raid its turn to tank, heal and DPS. There is not much you can do while Gothik is on the opposite side of the gate (other than heal and regenerate) while you wait for him to teleport back over.

After 4-6 teleports (depending on the rate of your DPS) the main gate will finally open and the raid group is reunited. If Bloodlust/Heroism is available, this is a good time to use it. Tanks can fight for aggro, healers continue to heal through the shadow damage on the tanks, and DPS blow any remaining cooldowns to kill Gothik before Harvest Soul reaches 10 stacks.