Grobbulus

Grobbulus is a bloated flesh giant full of plague slime and the second boss of the Abomination Wing (the Construct Quarter) of Naxxramas. He was built to spread the plague by injecting his enemies with living ooze, and in his fight he does exactly that: infected players have to run away from their friends before they burst. Meanwhile, Grobbulus leaves a trail of poison clouds that slowly fills his room, so the raid has to plan its use of space from the very first pull.

Background

The Construct Quarter is where the Scourge stitches together its abominations and other monsters. Grobbulus is the first successful flesh giant, a new kind of construct meant to help build an army that could spread the plague quickly. He carries the same plague slime that flows through Naxxramas inside his huge body. His victims, injected with that living ooze, would run back to their allies in a panic and take them down too.

Abilities

• [[forever:spell:28169]]: Grobbulus injects a random player with mutagen. After about ten seconds, the player explodes, damaging everyone nearby and leaving a cloud of poison on the floor. Curing the injection early sets off a weaker explosion right away, wherever the player is standing.
• [[forever:spell:28240]]: Grobbulus himself leaves poison clouds as he moves. They grow and last a long time, so his tank keeps moving him.
• [[forever:spell:28157]]: a cone of slime that hits players in front of him. Each player hit spawns a [[forever:npc:16290]], which damages everyone near it.
• Slime Stream: if his tank leaves melee range, he sprays the raid with slime.
• Enrage: after twelve minutes he enrages. Below 30% health he injects players more often.

Strategy

The main tank picks Grobbulus up on the ramp he patrols and moves him slowly around the room along the outer wall, always stepping away from the clouds he leaves behind. Raids learned to move him as slowly as possible, so the clouds would use up as little of the room as possible.

Every injected player runs to the edge of the existing clouds, as far from the raid as possible, before bursting, so that their own cloud lands on ground that's already lost. If a healer cures them, they have to be in place first, since the cure sets off the burst immediately.

Damage on Grobbulus comes mostly from range, because melee in front of him get caught by Slime Spray and spawn more Fallout Slimes. Ideally only the tank's slime appears, and a few melee kill it away from the casters. Nature resistance helps a great deal, so shamans' totems and hunters' Aspect of the Wild are welcome.

Late in the fight, once he passes 30% and injections speed up, the room starts to run out of safe floor. Raids that spread their clouds carelessly early on found themselves with nowhere left to stand.

Loot

From our database (patch 1.12):

Grobbulus drops the Tier 3 shoulder tokens, like Patchwerk (see Tier Sets). [[forever:item:22988]] is a one-handed mace with spell power that also gives druids 305 attack power in cat and bear form. The [[forever:item:22810]] is a gun with attack power, and the [[forever:item:22803]] a caster dagger. The [[forever:item:22967]] and [[forever:item:22968]] are frost resistance shoulders for the Sapphiron fight. The [[forever:item:22726]] is a piece of Atiesh.

Quests

• [[forever:quest:9229]]: he has a small chance to drop [[forever:item:22708]], which starts a quest at Light's Hope Chapel.
• Tier 3: his tokens go into quests such as [[forever:quest:9080]] for rogues and [[forever:quest:9089]] for druids.

Sources

• Grobbulus (Classic), Warcraft Wiki
• Grobbulus, Warcraft Wiki