Gothik the Harvester Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot
Gothik the Harvester is the second boss of The Military Quarter in Wrath of the Lich King Classic's version of the Naxxramas Raid and is commonly the eighth encounter of the instance as a whole. Do not forget to be aware of the various Raid Buffs and Debuffs as you work to optimize your Raid Composition for this encounter's mechanics!
Overview of Gothik the Harvester in Wrath of the Lich King Classic's Naxxramas
Gothik the Harvester is the second boss of The Military Quarter that you will face in Naxxramas and was considered one of the harder encounters during his initial time in WoW Classic. Fortunately, this time around the necromancer has lost a bit of his strength, resulting in a much less stressful time for players.
Role-Specific Tips for Gothik the Harvester
DPS Tips
- As many of the adds on this fight have low health, you will likely have to compete with other players in order to do any serious damage in this encounter.
- Since the common strategy for this fight now involves staying together as a raid, there will be a moment for massive AoE at around the 2:30 mark of the fight. Consider saving your cooldowns for it.
Healer Tips
- For the most part, there is nothing to worry too much about for healing in this encounter. You will mostly need to be aware of players taking random amounts of damage between the time that the various adds spawn and a tank establishes threat.
Tank tips
- You will be spending much of this fight gathering up adds that spawn in multiple locations around your half of the room.
- Be ready to establish plenty of threat and use your AoE taunt effects when the central gate opens and a swarm of Spectral adds flood in!
- Remember to get Gothik's attention quickly once he teleports into the main encounter area.
Gothik the Harvester Abilities
- Gothik
Shadow Bolt — Gothik will be casting this on whoever is tanking him once he is active
Harvest Soul — Gothik will periodically reduce the stats of every player in the raid by 10% once he is active. This acts as your soft-enrage for the fight, as Gothik must be defeated before this debuff reduces your damage too significantly.
- Unrelenting Trainee/Spectral Trainee
Death Plague — This is a basic DoT Disease applied to players hit by the Unrelenting Trainee's attacks.
Arcane Explosion — Spectral Trainees will periodically deal AoE damage around themselves.
- Unrelenting Death Knight/Spectral Death Knight
Shadow Mark — the Unrelenting Death Knight will occasionally perform a whirlwind; any players hit by this attack become vulnerable to the Unrelenting Riders'
Shadow Bolt Volley for 15 seconds.
Whirlwind — Spectral Death Knights will periodically deal AoE damage around themselves.
- Unrelenting Rider/Spectral Rider/Spectral Horse
Unholy Aura — Unrelenting Riders will radiate Shadow damage to all players within 45 yards every 2 seconds for as long as they are alive.
Shadow Bolt Volley — Unrelenting Riders will cast this ability on any players who have been recently debuffed by
Shadow Mark
Drain Life — Spectral Riders will drain life from players in order to heal themselves over time.
Stomp — Spectral Horses will occasionally Stomp around themselves, dealing damage and snaring any players hit.
Strategy for Gothik the Harvester
Gothik's main mechanic of the encounter is to initially split the space into two separate sections before spawning adds in the section underneath his balcony. Upon defeating these adds, they will respawn in the other section of the room as spectral variants and need to be defeated again. This repeats until Gothik eventually enters the room himself.
Ordinarily, this would mean that you need to split your raid into two groups to handle each section of the room due to a gate blocking the sides off from one another. However, this is no longer necessary. Instead, have the entire raid stay on Gothik's side of the room and defeat every Unrelenting enemy as they spawn. After approximately two and a half minutes, the central gate will open and numerous Spectral adds will swarm in. At this time, use all of your AoE abilities alongside your cooldowns to destroy the Spectral adds and continue the fight as normal. From this point on, every Spectral enemy that spawns will immediately run into your section of the room.
Continue to defeat the waves of Unrelenting and Spectral enemies until Gothik himself tires of your refusal to be defeated, upon which he will enter the room and can be slain.
Gothik the Harvester Loot
10-Player
Item | Type/Slot |
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One-Hand Sword |
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Trinket |
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Ring |
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Neck |
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Cloth Wrist |
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Leather CHest |
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Mail Chest |
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Mail Belt |
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Plate Feet |
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Plate Waist |
25-Player
Item | Type/Slot |
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Wand |
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Main Hand Sword |
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Trinket |
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Trinket |
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Trinket |
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Trinket |
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Cape |
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Cape |
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Cape |
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Cape |
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Cape |
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Libram |
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Idol |
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Cloth Helm |
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Cloth Wrist |
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Leather Helm |
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Leather Legs |
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Leather Belt |
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Mail Helm |
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Mail Legs |
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Plate Helm |
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Plate Shoulders |
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Plate Wrist |
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Plate Wrist |
Further Reading
Gothik the Harvester is just one of the 15 encounters present in the Naxxramas raid of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. If you would like to learn more about the others, or would like to see the loot tables of every boss at the same time, please see our other pages for the raid below.
Changelog
- 27 Sep. 2022: Page added
This guide has been written by Sinzhu, a passionate retail player who has since rediscovered the joys of what WoW classic has to offer.
- Hour of Twilight Arrives to Cataclysm Classic on February 18th + Raid Release Schedule
- Season of Discovery Hotfixes: February 4th
- Transfers from Hardcore Realms Temporarily Disabled
- Cataclysm Classic Hour of Twilight PTR Notes: January 30th
- Season of Discovery Hotfixes: January 30th
- Season of Discovery Naxxramas PTR Development Notes: January 30th
- Season of Discovery Phase 7 Now Live + Patch Notes
- Additional Sanctified System and Seal of the Dawn Adjustments in Season of Discovery Phase 7