Baroness Anastari

Baroness Anastari is a banshee who guards the first of the three ziggurats on the undead side of Stratholme. A noblewoman in life, she was murdered by the Scourge and now serves the Lich King, and her signature trick is to leave her own form and possess one of the players fighting her, turning them against their friends.

Background

Anastari was a baroness of Lordaeron who, as the later Adventure Guide puts it, took what she wanted in life no matter the cost. The Scourge killed her, tearing her soul from her body, and she rose as a banshee. Death did not change her nature: she gave up her love of trinkets for possessions of a darker kind, the bodies of the living.

Her power to dominate anyone she touches displaces the victim's soul and places her own spirit inside them. While she is in someone, she is no longer a banshee but a living body under her control. In Stratholme she guards one of the ziggurats whose crystals seal the Slaughterhouse, where Baron Rivendare waits.

Abilities

• Possess: she takes control of a random player for up to two minutes, raising their health and doubling their damage, until they drop to half health.
• Banshee Wail: shadow damage on her target.
• Banshee Curse: lowers the hit chance of nearby players.
• Silence: stops nearby players from casting.

Strategy

Anastari is a fight about the possession. While she is in her banshee form, the group should do as much damage as it can, to limit how many times she possesses someone. When she takes a player, there are two ways out: damage the possessed player to half health, after which possession ends and, since patch 1.4, they return at full health, or crowd-control them until it fades. Mages and paladins can break it on themselves with Ice Block and Divine Shield.

A possessed player uses their own abilities, often their big cooldowns. Priests, warlocks and warriors should use their area fears on cooldown so the banshee can't turn them on the group. Healers should keep a heal-over-time on the tank in case the healer is the one taken. Players who solo her later should dismiss their pets, or she will turn them against their owners.

Loot

Drop chances are from our database (patch 1.12). Since patch 1.4 she always drops at least one rare.

[Banshee Finger] is a wand, [Screeching Bow] a bow and [Anastari Heirloom] a necklace. [Dreadmist Sandals] are the warlock's Dungeon Set 1 boots (see Tier Sets). She also drops a [Corruptor's Scourgestone] and usually a [Plagued Flesh Sample].

Quests

• The Baron run: killing her and every enemy inside her ziggurat topples its crystal, one of the three needed to open the Slaughterhouse. That matters for [[forever:quest:8945]], the timed rescue of Ysida Harmon.
• The Active Agent: Betina Bigglezink wants Scourge data from the ziggurats, and The Flesh Does Not Lie wants flesh samples like hers.

Later history

Patch 4.0.3a lowered her to level 51, and in Cataclysm's Eastern Plaguelands she became the villain of a storyline, holding the dwarf Gidwin Goldbraids prisoner. Patch 7.0.3 gave her a new banshee model.

Sources

• Baroness Anastari - Warcraft Wiki
• Stratholme (Classic) - Warcraft Wiki