Ayamiss the Hunter

Ayamiss the Hunter is a giant silithid wasp and an optional boss in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. It rules a nest of wasps around a stone altar in the Comb, deep in the ruined city. The fight starts with Ayamiss in the air, out of reach of every melee weapon, so for the first part the raid's hunters, casters and wands do all the work. All through the fight it paralyzes players on its altar and sends larvae crawling up to eat them.

Background

The Hive'Zara are the wasp swarms of the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, and Ayamiss is the greatest hunter among them. Like the other silithid of Ahn'Qiraj, the wasps serve the qiraji and their god, the Old God C'Thun. Players fighting through the Ruins meet its brood before they meet it: Hive'Zara Stingers, Wasps and Soldiers patrol the paths around its nest, and many of them hit with nature damage. The game gives Ayamiss itself no story beyond that. The Ruins' loading screen shows a giant red wasp hovering over the city, and Ayamiss is the city's best-known wasp.

A larger relative, Princess Huhuran, rules the wasps in the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj.

Abilities

• Flight: Ayamiss starts the fight flying above its altar, out of melee range, until it's down to 70% health.
• [[forever:spell:25749]]: about every 30 seconds it sprays the whole raid for roughly 1,000 nature damage.
• Poison Stinger: while flying, it stings whoever has the most threat. The poison stacks, and each stack adds nature damage over time.
• Hive'Zara Swarmers: it calls a cloud of small wasps that dive at the raid. They're weak and die to any area spell.
• [[forever:spell:25725]]: it shackles a random player on top of its altar. A Hive'Zara Larva then crawls out and heads for them. If it reaches the player, it kills them and turns into an elite wasp.
• It can't be taunted.

Strategy

The fight has two phases. In the first, Ayamiss hovers and only ranged attacks reach it. Hunters, mages, warlocks and anyone with a wand shoot at it, while the melee gather near the bottom of the altar and wait for larvae. A green streak heading for the altar shows that someone is about to be sacrificed, and the larva appears on one side or the other. It's fast and can't be slowed or stunned, so the melee have to kill it in seconds.

The danger for the ranged players is Poison Stinger. Whoever holds threat collects stacks of it, and past about 20 stacks the healers can't keep up. Some raids had damage dealers watch their stacks and stop attacking to pass threat along. Others picked one ranged player with nature resistance gear, such as a warlock whose Master Demonologist talent and Felhunter raised their resistances, or a mage boosted by a priest's Power Infusion, to hold threat and tank it in the air.

At 70% it lands, and all threat is wiped. It can't be taunted, so the tank has to build threat the slow way before the damage dealers open up. Raids usually tanked Ayamiss on the altar with the tank's back to the hill. The larvae keep coming in phase two, and if the tank is the one paralyzed, an off-tank or a druid in bear form has to take over. Nature resistance gear and nature protection potions make the Stinger Spray and the poison much easier to heal through, which is part of why raids in the Ruins collected nature resistance gear from the Cenarion Circle.

Loot

From our database (patch 1.12):

The [[forever:item:21466]] is a one-handed mace for healers and casters, with spell damage and healing and spell critical strike chance. The [[forever:item:21478]] is a hunter's bow with attack power, and the [[forever:item:21479]] are plate gloves for tanks with defense and parry. Like Moam, Buru the Gorger and Ossirian the Unscarred, Ayamiss drops the [[forever:item:20890]] and [[forever:item:20886]] that players turn in for their class weapon from the Ruins.

Sources

• Ayamiss the Hunter, Warcraft Wiki
• Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, Warcraft Wiki