Kel’Thuzad 10-man Boss Strategy Guide
December 5, 2008 by Zuggy
Make sure to check out the complete Naxxramas 10-Man Instance and Boss Strategy Guide.
Kel’Thuzad is the 2nd and final boss of both Frostwyrm Lair and the entirety of Naxxramas. Once the chief agent responsible for the spreading of the plague across Lordaeron, Kel’Thuzad was struck down by Arthas in the 3rd war. Following his mortal demise Kel’Thuzad was reborn as a Lich and sent by Arthas to the floating necropolis of Naxxramas.
Kel’Thuzad Abilities
Phase 1 Abilities
- Skeleton - These skeletons will cast dark blast on themselves, when they hit someone this will blow up dealing 3,000-4,000 AoE damage.
- Abominations – Apply a healing debuff on hit, -10% healing per hit, stackable.
- Ghosts – Deals a 6,400-8,600 AoE knock back.
Phase 2 Abilities
- Frost Bolt – single target frost bolt on random player, deals 10,000-12,000 damage.
- Multi-Frost Bolt - AoE frost bolts across the entire raid, deals 4,500-5,500 damage.
- Shadow Fissure – Summons a red circle object on the ground under a random player. After 5 seconds the shadow fissure will go off, dealing 62,000-100,000 damage.
- Frost Blast – Casts an ice block on a random player, this will chain to all players within 10 yards, casting ice block on all of them. Deals 104% of their maximum HP over 4 seconds.
Kel’Thuzad Boss Strategy
Phase 1 Tactics
Phase 1 is fairly straight forward. The entire raid will start in the center of the room, after a few moments this phase will begin. Monsters around the perimeter of the room will start to walk towards the center of the room, don’t panic though, only a few will come at a time.
These monsters must be killed before they reach the middle, specifically the skeletons and the ghosts, who both have strong AoE attacks. You’ll want to rely heavily on your ranged DPS here, as melee venturing out too far can risk pulling additional mobs or getting AoE themselves. Phase 2 begins after a few minutes of killing mobs.
Phase 2 Tactics
You’ll know phase 2 is starting when you see all the additional mobs around the perimeter despawn. You’ll have to kill the remaining ghosts, aboms, and skeletons as phase 2 is starting. Just make sure your main tank is ready for Kel’Thuzad at this point.
Healing Pointers
Healing wise there are several things we’re going to be looking for. First, we’ve got the frost bolts, both single and AoE. These are going to be firing off the entire time so be prepared to immediately heal your raid up. You don’t want to leave anyone below max HP for long.
More importantly though, let’s talk about the main issue that may kill people, frost blast. You’ll need to be quick on the heals here. After the ice block lands on the player you have exactly 4 seconds to get some sort of heal on them, otherwise they are dead. Make sure your healers are spread evenly around the room, preferably towards the center so you can heal anyone in your raid without worrying about range.
Positioning and Frost Blast
Frost blast is bad enough on a single player…let alone multiple, but it will chain to additional players within 10 yards of the original targeted player. For this reason you need to have aprx. 10 yards of separation between everyone in the raid. If it casts on 2-3 people per blasts chances are someone is going to die.
Phase 3 Tactics
Phase 3 really isn’t a new phase, it’s simply the spawning of 2 nerubian crypt lords. These adds both spawn at 40% and must be immediately picked up by your off tank. All other phase 2 abilities will continue during these phase.
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Would say it is worth mentioning Detonate Mana (spell is at http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27819) which he does, no huge dmg and should be spread out anyway to avoid others but always helps to prevent nasty surprises especially for healers.
yeah, that’s a good point Farfetch, thanks for reminding me.
So when the nerubian crypt lords spawn, does dps burn the boss or adds first?
you just off tank the adds, don’t attack them. DPS should remain on kel’thuzad.
From what I have read, the adds stack a debuff on your offtank or something so damage on him starts increasing. All I know as a healer is that the damage on the offtank definitely increases over time. This last phase is basically a DPS race between killing Kel and your healers not being able to keep your OT up.
Can’t you get a third offtank to have the debuff fade, then?
You could, but it seems fairly unnecessary. Perhaps the damage does increase, but I think this is more of a roundabout way of including a traditional enrage timer. The time stop is on the adds, not KT.
If you’re DPS are doing their job you should have no issues. Last time I did Naxx on my shaman I didn’t notice any abnormally hard hits on any of the tanks.
The adds grow and do more dmg as time goes on like Gruul, the problem we have had is if KT casts Frost Blast on the OT (me) the OT will almost certainly die. so we tried letting the MT tank the adds( as long as our 3 healers can keep the tank up and our dps kills KT fast enough)
@Wraith.
well, there’s your DPS issue there. Unless your guild is still in the process of gearing up there really is no need for 3 healers on KT. 2 geared healers should able to sufficiently heal your entire raid.
This will allow you to bring an additional DPS in and hopefully resolve any time issues you are having with your OT on the adds.
You have a valid point with the OT getting frostbolted, but this once again gets back to your healers not doing their job. The OT could call out the fact that a frostbolt is being queued up on him, or the healers should just be aware of the target switches on these frostbolt.
Generally I watch this using target of target of a focus frame.
we just used this tactic and it worked beutifully, but i (MT) died at around 15%, the OT then tanked kel and both adds untill death :) so as long as your dps and healing is fine, it really shouldnt be a problem
just reading comments if the OT takes the 2 adds as far way as he can he wont be hit with ice blast onless we got lucky cause we had the same problem as wraith an when we took them to the far side of each other we downed him no problem (an this is a fun fight for healers but thats just me :) )
Just completed Naxx this morning, our MT died at about 35% due to iceblock (nub didn`t move when a mele got ice blocked) Our DK OT picked up Kel and with only 6 of us alive including 2 healers we downed him, luckily none of the healers got ice blocked the entire fight, was great fun, used your guide for all the bosses, thanks a lot.
The video is good but why can’t we have a fight narration during a video instead of music? I think that’ll be much more helpful than some rock music.
keep up the awesome job ^.^ your guide is so easy to follow =) tyvm