3.1 Noth the Plaugebringer

Noth is the first boss of the Plague Wing. Like the other three bosses that are first in the wing (we exclude the Abomination wing). The story behind Noth is currently unknown, especially with his lack of fitting the Plague Wings theme. He’s a formidable enemy but is nowhere near as difficult as many of the other encounters. As far as progression goes, I would not consider Noth until Anub is firmly destroyed.

Like the other bosses Noth will have the ability to drop a piece of the great staff Atiesh along with one Tier 3 belt token and one piece of normal epic quality loot.

As for getting to Noth, simply fight your way through the Plague Wing. There are only two enemies to note, one being the slimes which do a lot of damage but move extremely slowly. Ensure your raid understands that if they are the target that they should move around. Second are the Gargoyles who need to be killed quickly or they will enter stone form (effectively killing the raid). The Gargoyles have a stacking DoT that will eventually get so bad your raid can’t survive it. That’s why when you are pulling packs of two one must be tanked away from the raid.

Set-Up!

You will need three corner groups and one main tank group. You will need to spread all of your decursers out evenly throughout the raid. They will require the assistance of a U.I. mode like Decursive. You need to ensure that when Noth uses his curse that everyone in the raid has it removed. Unlike previous encounters, this curse if one single person gets hit by it then the entire raid will wipe without some really good luck or skill.

Skills

Curse of the Plaguebringer: A curse that, if not removed, will cause the Wrath of the Plaugebringer on all nearby allies.

Wrath of the Plaguebringer: Does a massive amount of initial damage then follows up with a massive amount of Damage over Time.

Cripple: Whenever he blinks he will cripple all nearby allies.

Blink: He blinks every 25-30 seconds and wipes most of his aggro. He doesn’t blink far so the main tank can rebuild aggro quickly with Taunt.

Teleport: He will teleport every 90 seconds (increasing each time he teleports) to the top of the room spawning more enemies at the three spawn points.

Spawn Enemies: Randomly throughout the fight enemies will spawn out of three spawn points (look at the stuff that kind of resembles hay). They come in different vareties. The ones throughout the fight are just melee types while special ones spawn during Noth’s teleport (getting larger in variety each teleport). There is one that Shadowbolts and one that Arcane Explosions. Some of these are stunable (for instance the Arcane Explosion one).

Tactics

Noth is one of the many newer bosses that present a more difficult encounter then a difficult boss. Noth himself is very weak, doing moderate damage and having a lack of devastating abilities. His curse could be considered the hardest part of him as a boss, but that is avoidable with all of your Mages and Druids removing it as fast as possible.

The real challenge of this battle is the three spawn points that spawn elite enemies. You need to assign three groups (one for each spawn point) to contain these enemies. You need a Priest who can shackle the enemies, a Paladin (if available) to assist in bringing them to the tank (Exorcism), and finally a Mage to also help bring the adds to a tank (warning though, they will 2-3 hit a person in cloth). Shamans can also be used to Frost/Earth shock the adds in order to bring them to that corners tank.

Each corner needs to have a main assist. When Noth teleports you need to get all of the enemies under control to remove all of the extra pressure on the wave. Simply have the raid split up to handle each corner and follow a main assist. Once one corner has been cleaned up, have everyone move to the next. Be ready to tank Noth when he comes back (he shows up in the middle).

Speaking of tanking Noth, he should be tanked in the corner that doesn’t have a spawn (facing Noth from the entrance, it’s the top left corner above the entrance to the next part of the Plague Wing). Whenever Noth is on the ground everyone not handling corners should concentrate on him.

Whenever Noth blinks the raid needs to immediately stop DPS and allow the tank to get three Sunder Armors in. He wipes most (if not all) of his aggro so your main tank needs to have him under control again. If the main tank fails are keeping him under control then the majority of the raid (including the guys in the corners) can get hit with the Curse of the Plaguebringer which can lead to a wipe if proper curse removal isn’t happening.

So in summary Noth needs to be tanked and attacked when he’s on the ground while three groups handle each spawn point. When he teleports the raid collapses to their assigned corners and takes out all of the previous spawns along with the new ones, concentrating mostly on casters. Priests in the corners need to shackle any additional spawns while a Warrior handles one. Mages, Paladins, and Shamans should quickly grab any spawn and bring it to their Warrior.

The raid will wipe if the curse fires off on someone near a lot of people or if the enemies in the corners aren’t properly dealt with. Noth himself will rarely wipe the raid unless the tank looses aggro, in which case Noth can make quick work of the raid. The entrances to his area are locked whenever he’s aggro’d so a wipe will finish off everyone in the raid. The raid itself should all be inside of the doorway when it begins to avoid locking people out.

Once Noth the Plaguebringer has been slain you can then move on to any of the other wings or continue on to Heigan the Unclean inside of the Plague Wing.

Want to submit more Naxxramas guides? Email me at [email protected]! Have your name in the spotlight and help the community get through this new content today!