TBC Anniversary Mount Hyjal Guide: All 5 Bosses, Waves and Tier 6

Archimonde is the prize at the end of Mount Hyjal, and beating him is the hardest survival test in TBC Classic. Along the way the raid hands out two of your five Tier 6 slots, the upgradeable Scale of the Sands rings and a personal loot table off Archimonde that includes the Bristleblitz Striker, the hunter bow half the ranged in your raid will be chasing.

Five bosses, but the real work is the trash. This guide covers the wave gauntlet that defines the raid, every boss and the mechanic that actually wipes you and where the Tier 6 and reputation rewards come from. For the phase-wide picture see our TBC Phase 3 overview.

The wave gauntlet

Here is what makes Mount Hyjal different from every other raid in the game. The first four bosses do not just stand there waiting. Before each one, eight waves of twelve to fourteen Scourge attack your base camp, the Alliance camp with Jaina Proudmoore for the first two bosses and the Horde camp with Thrall for the next two. If Jaina or Thrall dies, the encounter resets. If your raid wipes, you repeat all eight waves before you get another shot at the boss.

That structure changes how you play. Mana management between waves decides more pulls than boss tactics do, since a raid that burns everything on the trash has nothing left when the boss walks in. Your healers and casters need to pace themselves, drink in the gaps and keep enough in the tank to actually finish the encounter. The waves are fixed, so once your raid learns the order they become routine, but they punish a group that treats them as a warm-up.

Attunement

You need The Vials of Eternity to enter, which means killing Lady Vashj in Serpentshrine Cavern and Kael'thas in Tempest Keep and looting a vial from each. Attunements are account-wide in Anniversary, so one character clears it and your alts walk in free. Full attunement detail is in the Phase 3 overview.

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Rage Winterchill

The first boss, and a healer reaction test more than anything. Rage spawns about a minute after the first eight waves fall. He drops Death and Decay under the raid that you simply walk out of, casts a Frost Nova you dispel and throws Icebolt at a random player for enough damage to drop them if a healer is not already watching. Keep the raid spread, keep everyone in range of a healer and move out of the black puddles. That is the whole fight.

Anetheron

A positioning fight. Anetheron hits your healers with Carrion Swarm, a frontal cone that cuts healing received by 75% for 20 seconds, so healers stay out of his front. He summons Towering Infernals from Inferno that an off-tank needs to pick up and hold away from the raid. Sleep knocks out three random players for ten seconds, and his Vampiric Aura heals him for a share of the melee damage he takes. Split your tanking, keep the Infernals controlled and keep healers off the cone.

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Kaz'rogal

A mana race with a detonation twist. Kaz'rogal's Mark drains mana from the raid over time, and when a marked player hits zero mana they explode, dealing heavy damage to everyone nearby and often chaining into the next person. Mana classes have to manage that carefully, burning or dumping mana on their own terms rather than getting caught empty in a cluster. He also War Stomps and Cripples melee. The fight is a straight race: kill him before too many players bottom out and the explosions cascade.

Azgalor

The Doom fight, and the last boss before Archimonde. Azgalor puts Doom on random players, and when a Doomed player dies a Lesser Doomguard spawns that an off-tank has to grab and the raid burns down. Handle the Doom targets, keep them topped or manage the Doomguard cleanly and deal with his Rain of Fire and the Howl of Azgalor silence on melee.

Azgalor drops the Tier 6 Gloves tokens, the Gloves of the Forgotten Conqueror, Protector and Vanquisher for the three class families, which you hand to Tydormu near the raid entrance.

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Archimonde

This is the fight the whole raid is built around, and it is pure survival. Archimonde has a small health pool and a nine-minute enrage that never matters. Raids wipe here because people die to mechanics, and every death makes it worse.

Before you pull, everyone talks to Tyrande Whisperwind and picks up Tears of the Goddess. This is not optional. Air Burst throws a random player and everyone within 13 yards high into the air, and the Tears are what you pop just before landing to survive the fall. Too early and you still splatter, too late and there is no fall left to slow.

The ability that kills raids is Doomfire, a trail of fire that spawns at Archimonde's feet and chases random players, dealing 2,400 fire per second to anyone who touches it. It gets lethal when paired with his raid-wide Fear every 40 seconds, which sends feared players sprinting straight into the fire. The main tank wants Fear immunity, so a Warrior with Berserker Rage is the preferred tank, and the rest of the raid stays in range of a Shaman's Tremor Totem to break the Fear fast. Stay far from every Doomfire, not just out of it, so a bad Fear does not walk you in.

Two more mechanics round it out. Grip of the Legion is a curse ticking 2,500 shadow every two seconds, so spread your decursers across the raid and clear it on sight. Soul Charge is the punish mechanic: every time a player dies, Archimonde unleashes a raid-wide nuke keyed to that player's class, which tends to kill someone else and cascade into a wipe. And if the tank is ever feared off and nobody is in melee range, Archimonde casts Finger of Death for 20,000 shadow to a random player. Keep a tank glued to him and that never fires. At 10% he is blessed into irrelevance by Tyrande and the wisps finish him.

Archimonde drops the Tier 6 Helmet tokens for every class along with his item level 151 personal loot, the highest in the raid, including the Bristleblitz Striker. He also gives 1,500 Scale of the Sands reputation on the kill.

Tier 6 and the loot

Mount Hyjal holds two of the five Tier 6 slots. Azgalor drops the Gloves of the Forgotten tokens and Archimonde drops the Helm of the Forgotten tokens, both exchanged at Tydormu by the entrance rather than in Shattrath. The other three slots come from Black Temple. Archimonde's personal table is the highlight of the raid at item level 151, and the trash is worth checking rather than blowing past, since several of the best healing trinkets and physical DPS rings of the phase drop from it, along with epic Jewelcrafting designs.

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The Scale of the Sands rings

Reputation with the Scale of the Sands comes only from kills inside Hyjal, so this raid is the entire grind. Trash gives 12, Frost Wyrms give 60, each boss gives 375 and Archimonde alone gives 1,500. At Friendly you choose one upgradeable ring for your role, and it improves as your standing climbs:

• Band of the Eternal Sage for caster DPS
• Band of the Eternal Champion for physical DPS
• Band of the Eternal Restorer for healers
• Band of the Eternal Defender for tanks

The faction also sells the epic gem designs, which is why Jewelcrafters camp it.

Skip the wave grind

The thing that makes Mount Hyjal a slog is not Archimonde, it is repeating eight waves of trash every time a pull goes wrong, week after week, on every character you raid on. If your group keeps resetting on the waves or falling apart in the Archimonde survival check, our Mount Hyjal carry teams run full clears and the attunement, so the Tier 6 tokens and the Scale of the Sands ring land without the marathon.

FAQ

HOW MANY BOSSES ARE IN MOUNT HYJAL? 

Five, killed in a fixed order: Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Kaz'rogal, Azgalor and Archimonde. The first four are each preceded by eight waves of trash. Archimonde has no waves

WHICH TIER 6 SLOTS DROP IN MOUNT HYJAL? 

Two. Azgalor drops the Gloves tokens and Archimonde drops the Helm tokens. You turn them in to Tydormu at the entrance. The Shoulders, Legs and Chest come from Black Temple

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU WIPE IN MOUNT HYJAL? 

On the first four bosses, a wipe means repeating the eight trash waves before that boss. If Jaina or Thrall dies during a wave phase, the encounter resets. Archimonde has no waves, so he can be pulled straight away

HOW DO YOU SURVIVE ARCHIMONDE? 

Everyone picks up Tears of the Goddess from Tyrande before the pull to survive Air Burst, decursers clear Grip of the Legion fast, the raid stays far from Doomfire and breaks Fear with Tremor Totem. Above all, nobody can die, since every death triggers a raid-wide Soul Charge nuke