Nightbane ( boss ) Nightbane is a summonable raid boss in Karazhan . He is a fiery skeletal dragon , transformed by Medivh from Arcanagos and formerly of the blue dragonflight . While not the ruler of Karazhan , a position apparently held by Prince Malchezaar , many consider Nightbane to be the true final boss of the tower , due to his superior difficulty in the early days of the dungeon ' s release . A raid member must have completed the questline to summon the boss . This means Heroic Shattered Halls and Sethekk Halls must be partially completed in order to obtain the , which is used to summon Nightbane . He may be a form of emberwyrm or magmawyrm , although he was raised from the Blue Dragonflight . Attacks and abilities . Nightbane has two phases that he transitions between several times during the course of the fight . During the Ground Phase , tank the boss on the ground in a style reminiscent of Onyxia . At 75 % , 50 % , and 25 % health , he enters the Flight Phase and takes to the sky , during which time the raid ' s attention is focused elsewhere . After Nightbane finishes casting Rain of Bones and then Smoking Blast he begins a slow descent back down to the platform ( to roughly the same location as the original landing ) and Phase One begins anew . He is NOT tauntable . Strategy . Ground Phase . The Ground Phase lasts from when Nightbane lands until his health hits 75 % , 50 % , or 25 % , at which point he then takes to the air for the Flight Phase . All during the Ground Phase Nightbane casts Charred Earth , Fears , and Cleaves . Tanking Nightbane . Tanking Nightbane is a fairly straightforward affair , with the exception of fear . Handling fear is paramount to success , as one or two uncontrolled fears will guarantee a wipe . Warrior tanks can minimize the effect of fear by stance dancing . Having a macro to avoid fear really helps . For the Druid or the Paladin tank , however , things are not so easy unless Fear Ward is present . Patch 2 . 3 changed the cooldown of Fear Ward to 3 minutes , making it difficult to rely on by itself for the encounter . But since Nightbane will chase the tank even if the tank is feared , raid members can run out of range of the fear to avoid getting caught by a cleave or tail sweep . A tremor totem in the tank ' s group is a huge help for this strategy by reducing the amount of time the tank gets feared . Everyone else . Healing in this phase is not particularly difficult , with the fight resembling a simple Tank and Spank , but be careful not to rip aggro with an early heal on the tank . Nightbane has a lot of burst potential when his melee is combined with his cleave and smoldering breath , so healers need to be somewhat awake , even though they can get outside the 5 second rule quite often . Another ability that might be problematic during the Ground Phase is the Charred Earth . Assuming it appears beneath Group 1 , Group 1 should briefly shift over to Group 2 ' s position until the area is safe again , and vice - versa . Occasionally , both groups may fall victim to Charred Earth at the same time — if this happens , all healers and ranged must temporarily shift " forward " to remain in range of the tank and the boss . Consequently , both groups will be closer to the boss and vulnerable to the fear . The tank must be ready to take preventative measures as required should the raid ' s healers suddenly find themselves incapacitated . When melee DPS are avoiding Charred Earth , they must be careful not to move into the area vulnerable to Cleave ( ahead of his front legs ) or Tail Swipe ( behind his back legs ) . Any melee - type wandering into his head area are prone to being one - shot . This is a long , healing - intensive fight that can last upwards of 10 minutes . Timed correctly , many mana - regenerative cooldowns such as Innervate and Shadowfiend may be used twice during this encounter . Flight Phase . Nightbane flies into the air , signaling the start of the Flight Phase . Flight Phase lasts until Nightbane has finished using his two abilities of Rain of Bones and Smoking Blast . Preparing for Smoking Blast . Immediately after Nightbane summons skeletons while in his Flight Phase , it targets the raid member with the highest threat and repeatedly casts Smoking Blast on this target . This is typically a healer . Smoking blast deals physical damage , so the more armor the target has , the better . Paladins would be ideal ; however , due to their mechanics , it is very difficult for them to have the highest threat . Even if paladins have improved righteous fury , their healing threat generation is only 0 . 5 * 1 . 9 = 0 . 95 compared to the 0 . 7 * 0 . 8 = 0 . 56 threat ( Priest or Druid with blessing of salvation , 0 . 595 for a Shaman ) that the other healers will have . In general , it is fairly difficult for the paladin to compete with healing aggro for Smoking Blast against priests and shaman who have AoE heals . Healers must be prepared to spam heals on whomever the affected primary healer is . This will likely occupy a majority of your healers ' time , which complicates dealing with the skeletons . When formulating a strategy for killing the skeletons , remember that your healers are otherwise occupied . Alternate Method # 1 This method requires a Resto Shaman with Earth Shield . When Nightbane takes off , have the Shaman place an Earth Shield on the tank . Once the Rain of Bones begins and the skeletons start to spawn , have the tank grab aggro on as many of them as possible ( Thunderclap [ improved talent works wonders here ] for Warrior tanks , or Swipe for Feral Druids ) . The skeletons will proc the Earth Shield on the tank , thus generating the healing aggro on the tank . This will limit healing in multiple ways , 1 ) only one to three people actually taking damage from Rain of bones , 2 ) Earth Shield will keep the tank up easily provided the resto shaman ' s gear is decent , 3 ) the Smoking Blast will only be hitting the tank with the Earth Shield ( which will in turn proc it more ) . You can drop a Tranquil Air Totem if the tank is not in the healers ' group to ensure that healing can still go out , but Smoking Blast will hit the tank . Dealing with skeletons . All healers and ranged collapse to where the main tank is standing in order to avoid the Fireball Barrage . Once Rain of Bones starts , all players must immediately move away to avoid taking too much AoE damage . Five skeletons will spawn during the Rain of Bones . These hit fairly hard . To mitigate this damage : Lacking a good Paladin tank , it may be more effective to kill the spawns one at a time rather than AoEing them . Be warned : Due to the Smoking Blast occupying the healers , there isn ' t much chance for survival if a mage or warlock draws aggro from AoE . Also , If you are still having trouble with this fight being the Skeletons still are not going down fast , people are dying or its killing the healers mana , It might be an idea to have your raid pre - prepared with Stratholme Holy Water from the Undead side of Stratholme . Using this when all 5 are up will deal decent damage , and if everyone that can ' t AoE uses this they should go down much quicker . Transition to the Ground Phase . Ten seconds before Nightbane lands , all members of the raid should fall back to the previous positions , dragging whatever skeletons are still alive with them . Ideally , all adds will be dead at this point , but having one or two still up before Nightbane descends is fine . The tank must remember to keep an eye on the casting bar , and stance dance to avoid an early fear . A recent change has made this fight a bit easier for raids that do not have fear wards / tremor totems / warrior tanks . Nightbane will keep aggro on the tank , regardless of whether the tank is feared or not . This introduces the challenge of the tank being feared into the ranged group , but it does make paladin and druids tanks more of an option . The most dangerous parts of this fight are the transitions between the Flight and Ground Phases , when the main tank must reestablish aggro . Hunters ' Misdirection is especially useful here , to make sure the boss goes directly for the tank . Ground Phase begins again when Nightbane lands , rinse and repeat at 50 % and 25 % until victory . Warrior Tanks - the stance dance is thus :