Blackwing Lair Raid Guides (Updated for the Season of Mastery)

Trials of the Dragonflights:

• Players may speak with Victor Nefriendius (a completely normal human man) just inside the Entrance of Blackwing Lair that will allow them to add additional trials inspired by the different dragonflights.
• Completing the raid with additional trials active will provide additional rewards after Nefarian has been defeated.
• Trials that have been added may be disabled at any time. Trials may not be added after you've been saved to the raid (ex. completed the Razorgore encounter).
• The entire raid must be completed with additional trials active to be eligible for additional rewards.
• Players may enable all 5 trials for the greatest challenge, but no additional rewards are available for activating more than 3 different trials.
• Additionally, there is a weekly "bonus" for having a specific trial in place. Eagle-eyed players will spot a hint for which flight's trial is the bonus each week near Victor Nefriendius (a very handsome, but very normal, human man).

Blackwing Lair is the second major raid in World of Warcraft Classic. Deep within Upper Blackrock Spire, you are able to enter Blackwing Lair, where you can work your way through the raid to ultimately defeat Nefarian. However, there is also a much shorter path to entry available through becoming attuned.

There are two ways to get into Blackwing Lair: completing the attunement, or traveling through Upper Blackrock Spire to find the actual raid entrance.

Similar to Molten Core, you can choose to skip out on the attunement if you wish, although it is not recommended to do so. You can choose to send in 10 people at a time through Upper Blackrock Spire to find the raid entrance deep within, allowing 40 people to slowly enter the raid that way without a single person needing to have completed the attunement.

On the other hand, the attunement quest itself is quite easy. To start the quest, you will need to find the Scarshield Quartermaster, which can be found in the hall to the right of the entrance to Lower Blackrock Spire. Kill him, and you will get Blackhand's Command as a drop, which gives you the quest Blackhand's Command. This quest requires you to fully clear Upper Blackrock Spire to touch the Orb of Ascension that sits behind General Drakkisath. Once you touch it and complete the quest, you will then be able to zone into Blackwing Lair by touching the Orb of Ascension that is found at the end of the same hallway outside of the Lower Blackrock Spire entrance.

Blackwing Lair is a 40-man raid, which means you can have up to 40 people in your raid group while inside. Unlike Molten Core, Blackwing Lair is a noticeable step up in difficulty and will require more effort, gear, and coordination from the players in your raid. This also means that while you can run any comp you want, certain classes will make your experience easier in the raid.

Specifically, Warriors and Rogues are far and away the best DPS in this iteration of WoW Classic. Blackwing Lair is the sweet spot for melee where weapons are strong, but casters do not have the high amounts of spellpower yet that is needed to start contending for those top DPS slots. Melee are in a class of their own, meaning it is almost always the correct decision to stack more Warriors and Rogues.

• 10 Warriors (2 dedicated Prot Warriors, 2+ Warriors that can off-tank when needed)
• 6 Rogues
• 5 Mages
• 4 Warlocks
• 5 Priests (1 Shadow, the rest Healers)
• 3 HuntersHunters
• 2 Restoration Druids
• 5 Holy Paladins [A] / 5 Restoration Shamans [H]

For more information about the best healers, tanks, and DPS, check out the tier lists for each here.

While the above setup is what would be considered an optimal group in a perfect world, it is extremely important to emphasize that you could complete Blackwing Lair with almost any raid composition. At the end of the day, players are more important than specs and classes in WoW Classic, so try not to focus too much on crafting an ideal group.

Unlike in Molten Core, the bosses will be significantly more dangerous than the trash pulls here. However, there are still some dangerous pulls that require you to know what you are doing. The most notable trash pulls are found in the Suppression Room and the Drake's room.

• In the room after Vaelastrasz the Corrupt, there are lots of trash packs that are tightly grouped and will patrol around close to each other. The best strategy here is to pull them back one by one into Vaelastrasz's room to safely kill them.
• The Suppression Room is a long room that contains pillars that will spray a toxic mist out from them, massively slowing anyone who walks into them. While you are in this room as well, multiple trash packs will patrol around and engage with you, making this room more like a gauntlet of trash. The key here is persistence, to never stop moving and AoEing down the whelps. Have Rogues use Disarm Trap on the pillars in the direction that your group is moving to clear the way while your tanks hold and slowly move the enemies that you are killing.
• The trash room before the drake bosses is also quite dangerous, mainly due to the Blackwing Technicians. These techs will throw bombs at their main target, which will annihilate tanks and melee. Instead, you should have your Hunters start the pull by attacking the techs to gain aggro before continuously moving away from the group to avoid being hit by the thrown bombs. The group should completely ignore the techs, and then focus on killing the remaining enemies.
• Death Talon Overseers and Death Talon Wyrmguards can be found in the room after the Blackwing Technicians. These are extremely dangerous, and will need to be tanked separately, spaced out around the room away from each other. If you are dealing with Overseers while in the Suppression Room still, have a Hunter pick them all up and kite backwards the way you came, eventually using Feign Death to let them run back to the group when your group is done killing everything else.
• There will be several more pulls with Overseers and Wyrmguards. For all of these pulls, focus down the caster adds first while tanking the Overseers and Wyrmguards separately before switching to kill them.

1. Razorgore
2. Vaelastrasz
3. Broodlord Lashlayer
4. Firemaw
5. Ebonroc
6. Flamegor
7. Chromaggus
8. Nefarian

Each boss page contains a list of the loot that the specific boss drops, but you can see a full list of available drops on our Blackwing Lair Loot page.

You can find overviews of the Tier 2 sets for each class in our Tier 2 Sets Overview, which contains images of each set, as well as their set bonuses.