Grand Widow Faerlina

Grand Widow Faerlina is a cultist priestess of the Scourge and the second boss of the Spider Wing (the Arachnid Quarter) of Naxxramas. She fights surrounded by her worshippers and followers, raining fire and poison on the raid and flying into a deadly rage every minute. The answer to that rage is one of the fight's best-known tricks: priests take control of her own worshippers and sacrifice them to calm her.

Background

Faerlina was a high-ranking member of the Cult of the Damned, the human cult that Kel'Thuzad founded to spread the plague through Lordaeron before the Third War. In undeath she tends the endless spiders that swarm from the depths of the necropolis. She is a master of poisons, and the toxins she brews come from the spiderlings of Maexxna, the great spider whose lair lies beyond hers.

Her worshippers and followers are cultists too, living humans who serve the Scourge willingly. Faerlina carries [[forever:item:22806]], a sword that players can loot from her body.

Abilities

• [[forever:spell:28796]]: a volley of poison bolts that hits the players closest to her and leaves a poison that can be cleansed.
• [[forever:spell:28794]]: she drops rains of fire on random players throughout the fight.
• Enrage: about once a minute she enrages, greatly increasing her damage. Her tank can't survive long in this state.
• Naxxramas Worshippers: four [[forever:npc:16506]] start the fight with her. A worshipper under a priest's mind control can cast [[forever:spell:28732]] on her. It kills the worshipper, but it removes her enrage and silences her nature spells for 30 seconds, or holds off the next enrage for 60 seconds if she was already enraged.
• Naxxramas Followers: two [[forever:npc:16505]] also join the fight. They charge random players and silence casters around them.

Strategy

The main tank holds Faerlina while off-tanks pick up the four worshippers and keep them out of the way. The two followers are either killed first, quickly, or tanked away from the casters for the whole fight.

The real work belongs to the priests. Shortly before each enrage, a priest mind-controls a worshipper and walks it near Faerlina. When she enrages, the worshipper's Widow's Embrace is used on her, which kills the worshipper and calms her for a full minute. Using it before she enrages only delays the enrage by half as long. With four worshippers, the raid has four enrages it can stop, so the fight is a damage race of about four to five minutes. If the worshippers run out first, her enrage kills the tanks.

Meanwhile, the raid stays spread out to limit Rain of Fire, moves out of it immediately, and cleanses the poison from the volley. Melee and tanks can wear some fire resistance gear, and fire and nature protection potions help guilds learning the fight. Paladins and shamans spend much of the fight cleansing.

Loot

From our database (patch 1.12):

Like Anub'Rekhan, she drops the Tier 3 bracer tokens (see Tier Sets). [[forever:item:22942]] is a one-handed mace with 161 bonus healing, one of the best healer weapons of the game. The [[forever:item:22806]] is a one-handed sword for tanks and melee. The [[forever:item:22940]] and [[forever:item:22941]] are frost resistance shoulders for the Sapphiron fight, and the [[forever:item:22726]] is a piece of Atiesh.

Quests

• [[forever:quest:9229]]: she has a small chance to drop [[forever:item:22708]], which starts a quest at Light's Hope Chapel.
• Tier 3: her tokens go into quests such as [[forever:quest:9042]] for warriors and [[forever:quest:9118]] for priests.

Trivia

• Warcraft Wiki credits her voice to Kath Soucie.

Sources

• Grand Widow Faerlina (Classic), Warcraft Wiki
• Grand Widow Faerlina, Warcraft Wiki