Anduin Wrynn Strategy Guide for Sepulcher of the First Ones

In Phase One:

• Split the raid into two equal groups, with a tank and healers in each group. Alternate which group gets hit by the Kingsmourne Hungers frontal cast and gets sent to the other realm, where you kill the adds and heal the friendly mobs to restore Anduin's Willpower.
• When several players get circles around their feet, quickly spread out. Each circle will either turn yellow or purple, and each player has to come into contact with someone that has the opposite color circle as them. You explode if you are too slow or come into contact with someone with the same color circle ( Blasphemy).
• Everyone stack in the healing absorb barrier that spawns on the ground, and healers blast the raid to shrink the barrier and get it to disappear before it explodes ( Befouled Barrier).
• When players get arrows above their heads, they need to move away from the raid and dodge the projectile that shoots out from the boss and returns ( Wicked Star).
• Tanks taunt swap on Anduin frequently to reset his attack speed buff, and make sure to taunt swap right before getting sent to the other realm ( Dark Zeal).

In Intermission One:

• The boss goes immune and spawns a big ghost add. The raid gets a buff that gives up to 200% damage done and 90% damage reduction, based on how much Willpower you restored ( Force of Will).
• Nuke the big Remnant add, because it effectively shares health with Anduin, and cleave all the other adds down. On Heroic, be ready to quickly execute the Abomination add once it gets to low health to prevent its cast from going off.
• Tanks taunt swap after every cast of Soul Reaper.

In Phase Two:

• Most of the mechanics are the same as Phase One, but the yellow and purple debuff mechanic is replaced by caster adds that spawn occasionally. CC, spam interrupt, and kill them one by one; and on Heroic, do not aim any of the boss's projectiles at them.

In Intermission Two:

• The same adds spawn, but this time you also have to dodge walls of skeletons that move through the arena ( March of the Damned).

In Phase Three:

• When several players get a purple circle around their feet ( Hopelessness), they need to remove it by stepping into the pool of light in the middle of the room within 30 seconds ( Beacon of Hope). However, you have to stagger the number of people who clear at once, and if two circled players come into contact, they explode. Try to only have a small amount of players step into the pool at a time, and wait for the debuff to fall off before more players step in ( Purging Light).
• Continue to dodge the projectiles from the earlier phases, as well as perform the same taunt swap.

Anduin is a very complex boss. There are three different phases and two intermissions. In Phases One and Two, the main goal is to fill Anduin's Willpower bar by splitting your raid and dealing with adds in a shadow realm, while also dealing with some tough mechanics in the regular phase. In the Intermissions, you fight a remnant of the Lich King's soul, which effectively shares health with Anduin and spawns a ton of little adds. And in Phase Three, it is a race against the clock, as the healing requirement ramps up and you start to run out of ways to deal with a new super-deadly mechanic. We recommend using Bloodlust/ Heroism in the first intermission, because the raid will be doing up to 200% increased damage and will effectively be doing boss damage.

• The main goal of this phase is to fill Anduin's Willpower bar, in order get a certain buff in the intermission. So before pulling, split the raid into two equal groups, with a tank and healers in each group. You do this because the boss casts Kingsmourne Hungers twice in this phase, which is a frontal that sends players into another realm. You need players to get sent to the other realm in order to kill a big add and some small adds, as well as heal some friendly adds, because they restore Willpower when dealt with. The tank needs to get aggro on the big add and drag it around to each small add that is moving toward the middle of the room, while everyone cleaves them down and uses slows or CCs to prevent the little adds from getting to the middle and despawning. On Heroic, be sure to dispel the friendly adds before trying to heal them, because they cannot be healed until then ( Gloom). The big add restores 20 Willpower when defeated, while the little adds and healer adds restore 5 each. You only have 35 seconds to deal with the adds before being pulled back into the regular phase. You also cannot get sent to the other realm twice in a row, so that is why you have to assign two different groups. You may not need an entire half of your raid to get sent down each time, based on your raid's throughput, so a little trial and error is needed.
• The big mechanic in the regular phase is Blasphemy. The boss marks several players with a yellow or purple debuff and circle around their feet. Coming into contact with any player that has the same color causes a 6-yard one-shot explosion, so be sure to spread as this is going out and be careful. Remove the debuffs by coming into contact with someone with the opposite color. You only have a few seconds to clear it or else the same 6-yard one-shot explosion happens. The best way to handle this seems to be having one color stay still, while the other color moves around finds partners.
• When players get marked with an arrow above their head, they need to move away from the raid and dodge the projectile that comes from the boss and then returns ( Wicked Star). Getting hit by a projectile does a crazy amount of DoT damage and silences you.
• When the boss puts a shadowy barrier on the ground, everyone needs to stack in it, and the healers need to blast healing on everyone ( Befouled Barrier). The barrier absorbs a huge portion of the healing done to anyone inside, which shrinks the barrier and reduces the raid explosion it does at the end of its duration. If you shrink it entirely, the explosion does not even go off. Assigning healer cooldowns to these is probably a good idea, especially when it happens while half of the group is in the other realm.
• The tanks need to taunt swap on Anduin frequently, in order to keep resetting the attack speed buff he puts on himself after every melee swing ( Dark Zeal). Make sure to swap right before one of the tanks gets sent to the other realm, because you will not be able to reset it until the other tank gets back.
• After the second group gets back from the shadow realm, Anduin starts the Intermission.

• Anduin goes immune and spawns the Remnant of a Fallen King, which is a big ghost of the Lich King. He also puts a buff on everyone that gives up to 200% increased damage and 90% damage reduction, based on how much Willpower you were able to restore in Phase One ( Force of Will). The damage requirement and damage taken in the Intermission are insane, so you definitely need this buff. And the Remnant effectively shares health with Anduin, so using cooldowns on it with this huge buff is a must.
• The Remnant spawns waves of a ton of little adds that jump around to random players and do 6-yard splash damage ( Necrotic Claws). This damage also applies a healing taken reduction, so try to stay a little bit spread out in this phase, but do not be too far away from the boss to hinder cleave damage on the adds.
• On Heroic, a big abomination add also spawns. Cleave this add down beside the Remnant, but be sure to quickly execute it whenever it gets low on health in order to prevent its Necrotic Detonation cast. This cast negates all healing for 10 seconds, which would be really rough to deal with.
• Tanks taunt swap on the Remnant after every cast of Soul Reaper, which significantly increases the target's Physical damage taken.
• After about a minute, the Remnant despawns and Anduin becomes active again, starting Phase Two.

• This phase has all the same mechanics as Phase One, except that the yellow and purple debuff mechanic, Blasphemy, is replaced by something else. Instead, caster adds occasionally spawn around the room that try to spam cast a raid-wide fear and DoT ( Psychic Terror). Use crowd control and spam interrupt these adds while focusing them down one by one, because one of these casts going off could easily result in a wipe. Also, On Heroic, be absolutely sure not to aim the Wicked Star projectiles at them, because that would cause them to become immune to CC and interrupts.
• After the second group gets back from the shadow realm, Anduin starts the second Intermission. Be sure to finish off any caster adds before this intermission starts, because they would become immune to CC and interrupts.

• This Intermission is exactly the same as the first one, but there are also walls of skeletons that move through the platform that need to be dodged ( March of the Damned). Try to keep the Remnant out of the middle of the room to make dodging them a bit easier.
• After about a minute, the Remnant despawns again and Anduin starts Phase Three.

• This phase is very different from the first two phases. There is no more Willpower to restore, and only the taunt swap and projectiles carry over. This phase is simply a race against the clock.
• The main mechanic of the phase is a debuff he puts on everyone in the raid, which puts a purple circle around players' feet ( Hopelessness). Two players coming into contact while they have the debuff, or the debuff expiring after 30 seconds, causes a 6-yard one-shot explosion around the player. So make sure everyone spreads out before the debuff is applied. The only way to clear the debuff is by stepping into the pool of light in the middle of the room, but clearing a debuff triggers a 3 second DoT on the entire raid that stacks with further triggers ( Purging Light). This means the raid has to stagger clearing the debuffs. Have a small amount of players step into the pool at once, then wait for the DoT to fall off, then the next group of small players steps in, wait for the DoT to fall off, and repeat until all the debuffs have been removed. The pool can only remove a certain number of these debuffs, so they act as a hard enrage on the fight.
• There is also a permanent DoT on the raid that gains stacks and ramps up in damage as the phase goes on ( Empowered Hopebreaker). This in combination with the staggered DoTs makes the healing requirement in this phase insane.
• The more boss damage you do throughout the earlier phases makes this final phase shorter, because the phases are not based on health thresholds. Try to maximize boss damage as much as possible, especially in the Intermissions!

We have encounter journal pages for each of the four difficulties, which you can access by clicking the links below.