Nefarian Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot (2024)

Last updated on May 26, 2024 at 00:00by Abide

Nefarian's End is the culmination of Blackwing Descent, being an epicshowdown against the resurrected and corrupted dragonkins, Onyxia and Nefarian.You'll face off against all forms of shadow, fire and lightning hazards as youaim to put an end to his nefarious schemes once and for all.

• If you are targeted by Dominion, use Siphon Powerto stack up Stolen Power buff, using Free Your Mind onlyright before you touch the Dominion Portal or if it will walk you intofire.
• Ranged DPS can hit Nefarian in the air during phase two, butmakes sure you do not trigger an Electrocute.

• You will need to use a raid-wide defensive cooldown for each Electrocute to survive.
• Tanks will take very high damage on this fight, especially in phase three.
• Break the Dominion instantly with Free Your Mindas you do not need the damage buff.

• Keep both Nefarians and Onyxias heads and tailsfaced away from the raid.
• Try to always have a defensive cooldown available for each Electrocute.
• Try to kite the Animated Bone Warriors as much as possible, avoidtanking them if you can. Do not break CC on the adds with DoTs or damage, youdo not need to damage the adds at all once you have established a high threatlead.

Phase one of this fight starts off with you engaging a revived Onyxia,and Nefarian flying down to join in battle 30 seconds after theencounter begins. Both Onyxia and Nefarian use Shadowflame Breath and Tail Lash, requiring them to befaced away from the raid and all melee DPS to stack on their sides to damagethem. Onyxia and Nefarian must be split apart acrossthe room, as if they are within 50 yards of each other they will each gain Children of Deathwing, increasing their attack speed by 100%.Before landing Nefarian will cast Hail of Bones,dealing Shadow damage to nearby players in an area and summoning multipleAnimated Bone Warriors, which start with a full energy bar that slowlydrains over time. When the Animated Bone Warriors energy bar reaches 0,they will become inactive. They will gain stacks of Empowering Strikesas they lose energy, increasing their damage dealt and movement speed the longerthey are alive. As their damage is very high, you will want a tank to gatherthem early on to generate some threat, then move them towards the bottom of theroom and kite them around until their energy reaches 0 and they collapse. If acollapsed Animated Bone Warrior is hit with Shadowflame Breathor Shadowblaze Spark, they will return to 100 energy. Make sure bothNefarian and Onyxia are faced away from the areathat the Animated Bone Warriors are being kited.

You will deal with Onyxia first, and when she dies phase twowill begin. Onyxia gains over time, andif she reaches 100 energy she will cast Electrical Overload andwipe the raid. She will periodically use Lightning Discharge,dealing damage to all enemies on both sides of her; the damage of Lightning Discharge increases with the amount ofElectrical Energy Onyxia has. When the orbs on the sides ofOnyxia start to spark she will use Electrical Overloadshortly after; the tank will need to turn her sideways, facing her tail towardsthe raid to prevent everyone from being hit by Electrical Overload.While this will mean players can be hit by Tail Lash, it does farless damage than Electrical Overload, making it the betterchoice. As killing Onyxia starts phase two, you will want toswap over to Nefarian after Onyxia is low health,only killing Onyxia right before she reaches 100Electrical Energy. Doing this will greatly increase your chances ofsuccess in this encounter once you reach phase three.

After casting Hail of Bones to summon theAnimated Bone Warriors, Nefarian will fly down and engagethe raid. He must be quickly picked up and dragged away from Onyxiato prevent him from gaining Children of Deathwing, and tanked in asimilar way to Onyxia with his head and tail facing away fromthe raid. Every time Nefarian loses 10% health he willattack the raid with Electrocute, dealing massive Nature damageto all players. Coordinate a raid-wide defensive cooldown for this every timeas this can cause deaths easily. If Onyxia is still alive, shewill gain 25 Electrical Energy whenever Nefarian uses Electrocute, so keep this in mind when you are damagingNefarian in phase one. On heroic difficulty, Nefarianwill use Dominion to mind control some players for 20 seconds.These players will walk towards a nearby Dominion Portal, dying if theyreach it. While you are under the effect of Dominion you willgain two new abilities, Siphon Power and Free Your Mind.Your DPS players should use Siphon Power a few times to gain somestacks of Stolen Power, increasing your damage done per stack, and use Free Your Mind to break out of the mind control before they reachthe Dominion Portal; healers should use Dominion Portalright away.

The goal in this phase is to deal as much damage as possible toNefarian before you must kill Onyxia. GetOnyxia down to around 10% before swapping all DPS over toattacking Nefarian, while keeping an eye on OnyxiasElectrical Energy. Whenever OnyxiasElectrical Energy is getting close to 100, swap all DPS back to her andkill her before she can reach 100. Remember that every time Nefarianloses 10% health he will use Electrocute, which givesOnyxia 25 Electrical Energy; make sure that this won'tcause Onyxia to reach 100 Electrical Energy. Depending onyour raid composition, another strategy is to have all of your melee DPS attackNefarian only in this phase, and have your ranged DPS stick toOnyxia. Regardless of your tactic, you will want to getNefarian to use Electrocute twice in this phasebefore killing Onyxia and starting phase two.

At the start of phase two Nefarian will fly into the air and fillthe room with lava. The three pillars in the room will be the only safe spotsfor players to stand on to avoid taking damage from the lava. Split your groupup evenly so each platform has a healer, someone that can interrupt, and fairlysimilar DPS. On each platform there will be a Chromatic Prototypedragon add, which will constantly be casting Blast Nova. If thisis not interrupted, it will deal massive Fire damage to the entire raid, likelycausing deaths. Make sure each platform has a reliable interrupt and these castsnever go off. During this entire phase, Nefarian will bombardrandom targets with Shadowflame Barrage from the air, requiring a healeron each platform to keep the raid alive. On heroic difficulty a random playerwill get debuffed with Explosive Cinders, dealing damage to themevery 2 seconds and exploding after 8 seconds, dealing damage and knocking backall nearby allies. Whoever gets the Explosive Cinders debuff mustquickly jump in the lava and swim away from the platforms, only returning to theplatform after the debuff expires. Phase two will end after all threeChromatic Prototypes are dead.

This phase is almost exactly the same as phase one, but you will only be fightingNefarian. At the start of phase three all Animated Bone Warriorswill gain 100 energy; grab them, slow them or crowd control and kite them around thesame as phase one. Position Nefarian against the wall again, withthe raid stacking on his side. The main difference in this phase is thatNefarian will frequently use Shadowblaze Spark, throwinga projectile at the Animated Bone Warriors. This will deal 50,000Shadowflame damage to all nearby enemies, restore all Animated Bone Warriorsto 100 energy, and remove any slows or crowd control effects on them. It willthen spawn a purple fire patch that will continue to move around the room,eventually covering up the entire area.

The tank assigned to the Animated Bone Warriors will need toconstantly kite the adds around the room, avoiding the Shadowblaze Sparks as much as possible, and using the areas where thereis no fire. You will need to assign a few DPS players to crowd control the groupof Animated Bone Warriors from time to time to allow your tank to kitemore easily; for example a Mage using Ring of Frost, or aFrost Death Knightusing Hungering Cold. On heroic difficulty, Nefarianwill keep using Dominion, be sure to stack up the buff as a DPSand break free before you reach the Dominion Portal, or if it will forceyou to walk through fire.

Aside from the limited time you have in this phase because of the Shadowblaze Spark fires that will eventually cover the room, the mainthreat of this phase is the Electrocute. Be sure to rotateraid defensive cooldowns and healer cooldowns to keep the raid alive for eachof these. Tanks will especially need to be ready with personal defensivecooldowns as it is very easy to die when the Electrocute goesoff. Once you have Nefarian and the raid in position, burn allof your DPS cooldowns and finish him off.

4.

Nefarian Loot

NormalHeroic

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Usethe different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroicdifficulties.

4.1.

Normal Difficulty Loot

Item	Type/Slot
Mantle of Nefarius	Cloth Shoulder
Shadowblaze Robes	Cloth Chest
Belt of the Nightmare	Leather Waist
Spaulders of the Scarred Lady	Mail Shoulder
Pauldrons of the Apocalypse	Plate Shoulder
Belt of the Blackhand	Plate Waist
Shadow of Dread	Back
Rage of Ages	Neck
Prestor's Talisman of Machination	Trinket
Andoros, Fist of the Dragon King	Main-Hand Mace
Crul'korak, the Lightning's Arc	One-Hand Axe
Reclaimed Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood	Two-Hand Sword
Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield	Shield
Helm of the Forlorn Conqueror	Paladin, Priest, Warlock
Helm of the Forlorn Protector	Hunter, Shaman, Warrior
Helm of the Forlorn Vanquisher	Death Knight, Druid, Mage, Rogue

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Usethe different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroicdifficulties.

4.2.

Heroic Difficulty Loot

Item	Type/Slot
Mantle of Nefarius	Cloth Shoulder
Shadowblaze Robes	Cloth Chest
Belt of the Nightmare	Leather Waist
Spaulders of the Scarred Lady	Mail Shoulder
Pauldrons of the Apocalypse	Plate Shoulder
Belt of the Blackhand	Plate Waist
Shadow of Dread	Back
Rage of Ages	Neck
Prestor's Talisman of Machination	Trinket
Andoros, Fist of the Dragon King	Main-Hand Mace
Crul'korak, the Lightning's Arc	One-Hand Axe
Reclaimed Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood	Two-Hand Sword
Akmin-Kurai, Dominion's Shield	Shield
Crown of the Forlorn Conqueror	Paladin, Priest, Warlock
Crown of the Forlorn Protector	Hunter, Shaman, Warrior
Crown of the Forlorn Vanquisher	Death Knight, Druid, Mage, Rogue

Achievement	Description
Keeping it in the Family	Damage Nefarian below 50% health before he lands for the finalconfrontation and then defeat Nefarian in Blackwing Descent.
Heroic: Nefarian	Defeat Nefarian in Blackwing Descent on Heroic Difficulty.
Heroic: Nefarian Guild Run	Defeat Nefarian in Blackwing Descent on Heroic difficulty while in aguild group.

Nefarian is just one of the six encounters present in the BlackwingDescent raid of Cataclysm. If you would like to learn more about the others,please see our other pages for the raid below.