Shannox Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Always be aware of new traps and be ready to move away from them quickly, especially melee DPS.
• Move away from any Hurl Spear or Magma Rupture locations as they will easily kill you, especially melee DPS.

• The tanks will need to frequently move during this encounter, make sure your healing target will always be in range.
• Coordinate defensive cooldowns for each Magma Rupture towards the end of the fight.

• Managing your Jagged Tear debuffs is the main task you have during this fight. Don't be afraid to kite if needed.
• Both tanks need to be aware of each others positions at all times to create the most distance between Shannox, Riplimb and his spear as possible.
• Save all major defensive cooldowns for the burst phase at the end of the fight.

Unlike most other bosses, Shannox will patrol around the entire frontal area of the Firelands, allowing you to choose when and where you want to fight him. Be sure to clear out any and all nearby trash in the area where you choose to fight him as this fight has tons of moving around during battle.

Shannox himself only has a few abilities that he uses directly, starting with Arcing Slash, a frontal-cleave that applies a stacking bleed Jagged Tear; Shannox can only use this ability while he is wielding his mighty spear. While normally a stacking bleed like this would be a simple tank swap mechanic, Shannox is immune to taunt, making this battle require other tactics to defeat him.

The other main ability Shannox uses is Hurl Spear, where Shannox will target a random area and throw his spear there, dealing fatal damage to enemies in the impact location, dealing raid-wide fire damage, and creating multiple circles of flames around the impact area. Quickly move away from the spears impact location and position yourself to avoid the flames afterwards, using any defensives required to survive the AoE fire damage. While Shannox does not have his spear, he will be unable to use Arcing Slash, allowing your tank time to reset their stacks of Jagged Tear. However, Riplimb will attempt to return the spear to his master quickly by running to its landing spot and back to Shannox with the spear.

Frequently throughout the entire encounter, Shannox will drop both Immolation Traps and Crystal Prison Traps in random nearby locations. Players will need to avoid activating these by quickly moving away from any freshly placed traps before their 2-second arming timer expires. If a player steps on either trap after they have become armed, the trap will activate on that player only; Immolation Trap will place a heavy Fire damage-over-time debuff on the player, while Crystal Prison Trap will entomb the player in a block of ice that must be destroyed in order to break the trapped player free. These traps are needed to handle the adds that accompany Shannox and must not be activated by players on accident.

The main portion of this fight will be dealing with both Riplimb and Rageface that are always with Shannox and the many enrages that can occur during this encounter. If either Riplimb or Rageface are more than 60 yards away from Shannox, both dog and owner will become enraged with Separation Anxiety, quickly leading to a wipe. If either dog is alive when Shannox reaches 30% health they will enrage with Frenzied Devotion, quickly leading to another wipe. Lastly, Shannox will enter a Frenzy whenever either Riplimb or Rageface dies, gaining 30% increased damage and attack speed for each pet.

With all of these enrages and frenzies in mind, it is important to follow the basic strategy when encountering Shannox: damage Shannox down to around 35% health, get both Riplimb and Rageface as low as possible, kill both dogs and use all cooldowns to burn down Shannox as quickly as possible before the Frenzy overwhelms your raid.

To control the adds you need to utilize the Immolation Trap and Crystal Prison Traps that will constantly be placed during the fight. Rageface will run around attacking targets at random and can not be tanked. Occasionally he will use Face Rage on a random target, leaping on top of them and stunning them while dealing damage every 0.5 seconds. This damage dealt will quickly ramp up over time as long as Rageface continues to attack the same target, but while doing so all attacks against him will be guaranteed critical strikes. Rageface will continue the Face Rage assault until he is damaged for at least 30,000 damage (in 10-man difficulty) or 45,000 damage (in 25-man difficulty) from a single attack. You will ideally want to force Rageface to walk on an Immolation Trap to increase his damage taken by 40%, allowing you to easily end the Face Rage.

Riplimb has a traditional aggro table and must be tanked by a second off-tank. Riplimbs main threat is Limb Rip, which deals moderate damage, however the main threat comes from the stacking debuff it applies, Jagged Tear. The only way for the tank to survive this encounter is to kite Riplimb around, using any Crystal Prison Traps available to freeze him in place. Whenever Riplimb goes to return Shannoxs' spear to him, the tank should use this time to kite as much as possible and allow their stacks to reset.

As mentioned earlier, Riplimb will also run to the Hurl Spear landing location and attempt to return the spear to Shannox. Have the off-tank do their best to position Riplimb in a manner than will force him to walk through a Crystal Prison Trap while on his way towards the spear. This allows both tanks plenty of time to reset their Jagged Tear stacks, and if more time is needed some good old fashioned kiting can buy you a handful of precious seconds to reset your debuff stacks. Keep in mind the ranges between all 3 enemies, as it is very easy to accidentally activate Separation Anxiety while kiting.

Getting a clean transition into "phase two" is a crucial part of this fight. Start off by getting Shannox low and stopping at around 35%; remember that we do not want to drop him below 30% health while either Riplimb or Rageface are alive or this will trigger Frenzied Devotion. Once Shannox reaches 35% health, swap to DPSing both adds evenly, you want them to ideally die around the same time. Once both Riplimb and Rageface die, Shannox will gain a stack of Frenzy for both, greatly increasing his damage output. Be sure to use all offensive cooldowns here to burn the boss quickly.

During this final phase while Riplimb is dead, Shannox will no longer use Hurl Spear, but instead will use Magma Rupture. This acts almost exactly the same as Hurl Spear, players will need to avoid the impact area and the flames that pop up after, but Magma Rupture increases all Fire damage taken by the raid by 40% per stack, quickly leading to deaths in this phase as the AoE Fire damage ramps up over time. Rotate defensive cooldowns for the last few Magma Ruptures and kill the boss before he kills you!

Achievement	Description
Firelands	Defeat the bosses in Firelands.
Firelands Guild Run	Defeat the bosses in Firelands while in a guild group.
Heroic: Shannox	Defeat Shannox in Firelands on Heroic Difficulty.
Bucket List	During a single engagement, bring Shannox to each of the following locations in the Firelands before dispatching him:

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