 Anzu the Raven God | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||
| Race | Raven god (Uncategorized) | ||||||
| Level | 72 Elite | ||||||
| Location | Sethekk Halls (heroic), Auchindoun | ||||||
| Status | Killable | ||||||
| |||||||
Anzu is a "raven god" and is a summonable boss in the Sethekk Halls of Auchindoun (on heroic difficulty only). Summoning and killing Anzu allows a druid to complete the Epic Flight Form quest. To summon Anzu, a druid who either is currently on or has already completed the said quest must use an 
[Essence-Infused Moonstone].
Attacks and abilities
Anzu is found at map location 2.
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. If you continue to cast whilst this debuff is on you, it will very probably result in a party wipe. If you are unlucky and your druid is repeatedly given this debuff, you will probably find it very difficult to complete this fight. Note: A druid or mage with this debuff is able to safely cast
[Remove Curse]/ [Remove Lesser Curse] on him/herself to remove it and will not take the damage.
- 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.
- 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 (100 yard range).
- Banish/Spawn Birds — At 66%, then 33%, Anzu will banish itself and spawn non elite ravens, Brood of Anzu, with about 14k health. For the length of his banishment, Anzu will not attack you and you cannot attack him, however he is still able to cast spells. The ravens do around 700 damage on cloth (around 300 with Hawk Spirit up) and can be crowd-controlled.
Bird statues
When Anzu is summoned, three friendly NPC birds appear as well. Casting a druid HoT on the birds will awaken them for the HoT's duration, and will provide the following effects to the group:
- Hawk Spirit (left): All players receive 500 less damage from every attack. Applied before armor.
- Eagle Spirit (right): Deals 300 damage every second to all enemies in the room.
- Falcon Spirit (back): Grants 25% movement speed increase, 25% ranged haste and 25% spell casting haste.
Group makeup
- 1 Tank - Anzu does not hit particularly hard, especially with Hawk Spirit's damage reduction buff.
- 2/3 DPS - It is strongly recommended that at least one of these has AoE capabilities, but this is not required.
- 2/1 Healers - Depending on tank's and healers' gear, one to two healers may be enough. A druid healer can keep the bird spirits up during both phases, providing additional damage mitigation — while a druid tank can only keep the spirit buffs up when Anzu is banished. If a healer gets cycloned or spell bombed, it may be desirable to have an offhealer pick up the load temporarily; although, depending on gear, both effects can be safely outlived.
At least one of the group members must be a druid, since Anzu can only be summoned by using a druid-only quest item/key. A druid may enter the instance and summon Anzu for a druid-less group, but doing so would make this encounter more difficult in the absence of statue buffs.
Level 80 druid solo strategy
A well geared level 80 feral druid with over 30,000 health in Bear form can stealth to Anzu without fighting, and solo him. Beware of Darkweaver Syth, he can see thru stealth and if you stray within the darker circle that his raised dais sits in, he will agro. Darkweaver Syth is a trivial fight that any feral druid worth it's salt can master, if you can't defeat him turn around and leave.
The Anzu fight is moderately difficult if you use all abilities available to you. If your gear is subpar you should have as many buffs as possible. Be prepared with scrolls, pots and food to boost your dps and health to the max, you MUST have Improved Leader of the Packfor this to be feasible.
Anzu will not attack upon summon unless you're in range of your own spells, so once he appears you have time to prepare for the fight by casting your HoTs on yourself and shift to bear form. Pull him and then kite him to one of the corners of the room. DPS him until his health is at 66%.
As soon as he banishes, return to caster form and heal up the damage he's done, don't try to overdo it since you'll use up precious time and you may end up with a lot of birds still up when he unbanishes, one application of 
[Regrowth] and 
[Rejuvenation] is all you'll have time for. During healing you should keep Anzu targeted and remember he will continue to cast his spells, beware of him casting Paralyzing Screech, you can get caught in caster form and be attacked by the birds. If you have kited him away to a corner of the room, the birds will be out of agro range and will allow you to heal in peace. Return to Bear Form ASAP and pull the Brood of Anzu, it's a good idea to blow your 
[Berserk] at this time to down as many of the Anzu Brood as possible before Anzu unbanishes, swipe away to finish them all off.
Continue your attack on Anzu until he banishes again, repeat your healing, and return to Bear Form as soon as possible to avoid massive punishment.
Don't bother with the friendly birds much.
Kill Anzu and loot your rewards.
Tips:
- [Barkskin] is your friend during this fight, use it as soon as your HoTs wear off at the beginning of the fight and thereafter as needed, it will make a big difference in how much your health goes down.
- You may want to use a health pot at some point, make sure you have some with you. Don't [Shadowmeld] to use a second pot or Anzu will reset.
- Tauren druids will find [War Stomp] to be of use against the Brood to keep some of the damage at bay.
- If you have a trinket which boosts your dodge rating, wait until just after Anzu casts paralyzing screech in order to avoid wasting it.
- Frenzied Rejuvenation is best used when low on health and fighting the Brood of Anzu ravens, they hit for relatively little yet give you all the rage you want to complete the heal.
Strategy
The fight is a regular tank-and-spank during phase 1. If a caster is afflicted by Spell Bomb, they should STOP casting immediately; if a healer is afflicted, an offhealer, if present, should heal the party for the duration of the debuff.
As Anzu approaches 66% (and later 33%), he'll self-banish and summon birds that should be AoE'ed. It is very beneficial to keep the Eagle Spirit active during Phase 2, taking advantage of its 300 DPS room-wide AoE. You will probably find that the Eagle Spirit's AoE is more successful than any mage or druid AoE that you use. There is also the advantage that the Eagle Spirit's AoE will not draw aggro to any party member. If you have a Frost Mage in your party, have them freeze the bird flock to help avoid harm to your party members. Anzu will unbanish after 1 minute or when all birds are dead — whichever comes first. If it seems likely that the birds aren't going to die in one minute, the tank needs to pick up Anzu while the rest of the group finishes the birds off.
Generally, you'll want to keep Hawk Spirit up as much as possible, Eagle during phase 2, and Falcon if you have spare time (the haste effect significantly increases the group's DPS, making the fight less time and mana consuming). While [Regrowth] is longer, [Rejuvenation] is instant cast — either may be used depending on the situation. The following macros enable you to cast Rejuvenation on a specific spirit without having to target it directly:
| Eagle Spirit (AoE damage) | Hawk Spirit (Mitigation) | Falcon Spirit (Haste) |
|---|---|---|
/target Eagle Spirit /cast Rejuvenation /targetlasttarget |
/target Hawk Spirit /cast Rejuvenation /targetlasttarget |
/target Falcon Spirit /cast Rejuvenation /targetlasttarget |
Using macros such as the above will make this fight a lot easier than manual targeting. Manual targeting of the spirits becomes very difficult once the bird flock arrives due to the number of mobs on screen.
After the second, and last, wave of birds you may find the best way to finish the fight is to DPS Anzu down quickly.
Notes
- You may find it easiest to bunch together where Anzu is. It will be easier for the AoEers when the flock of birds come.
- If there's a feral druid, shift out and innervate a healer when he banishes.
- Make sure you're ready to heal the AoEers when the birds arrive.
- Try keep the left (hawk) and right (eagle) birds up at all times. Regrowth is the best option because of the duration, but since the 3.0 patch you cannot "cheat" and use rank 1 to use less mana. Depending on your gear and spec you may not want to use your mana for anything but HoTs now that this is the case.
- You don't need super DPS to kill him, he has pretty low HP — just play it smart.
- If you have spell bomb on you, take that time to bandage yourself or someone who needs it.
- This boss can only be summoned by a druid who has the quest or has done it. The summoning item can be received again after completing the quest. The item goes in the keyring.
- More than one druid can complete this quest at the same time.
Loot
Prophecy of the Raven God
From the darkest night shall rise again the raven, shall take flight in the shadows, shall reveal the nature of its kind. Prepare yourself for its coming, for the faithful shall be elevated to take flight with the raven, the rest be forgotten to walk upon the ground, clipped wings and shame.
Steel your minds and guard your thoughts. The dark wings will cloud and consume the minds of the weak, a flock of thralls whose feet may never leave the ground.
The old blood will flow once again with the coming of the raven, the return of the darkness in the skies. Scarlet night, and the rise of the old.
The raven was struck down once for flying too high, unready. The eons have prepared the Dark Watcher for its ascent, to draw the dark cloak across the horizon.
Source: 
[68] Whispers of the Raven God in Blade's Edge Mountains, where the objective is to listen to this prophecy while buffed to understand Ravenspeech. This was first thought to refer to Terokk until patch 2.1 and the introduction of the druid epic flight form questline and hence Anzu as a boss.
See also
Myth
- Anzu is a mythological eagle from Akkadian mythology.
- Anzu also is Japanese for "apricot", but it is most likely not the reference.
Trivia
- In the Warhammer universe, the chaos god Tzeench is said to be the "Raven God", and his followers are outfitted with gear with blue and black color patterns similar to Anzu´s. This is probablly not meant to be a reference.
Patch changes
- Template:Patched
- Template:Patched