Ouro

Ouro is an ancient giant sandworm and an optional boss in the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. He lives in a sandy cave in the depths of the hive, near the way down to C'Thun, and erupts out of the ground to fight. Ouro spends the fight sweeping tanks away, blasting the raid with sand and burrowing out of sight, only to surface somewhere else. He was the last boss of the original Ahn'Qiraj to fall, months after the harder bosses around him.

Background

Quest text for the Tier 2.5 legguards, which are made from his hide, calls Ouro a being of legendary power and suggests that C'Thun himself created the worm as a mockery of life. Warcraft Wiki adds that his skin is unnaturally thick and nearly impossible to pierce, yet flexible enough to let him move with the speed of a much smaller creature.

Warcraft Wiki points out that his name is almost certainly a nod to the ouroboros, the ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail.

Abilities

• [[forever:spell:26103]]: a sweep that knocks back and damages everyone around him. The tank usually loses threat and the next tank on the list takes over.
• [[forever:spell:26102]]: a sand breath in a wide cone in front of him toward his highest-threat target, for several thousand nature damage. It clears the threat of anyone it hits.
• Submerge: about every minute and a half, or whenever no one is in melee range, he burrows into the ground, out of reach. A dirt mound then roams the cave, shaking the ground and damaging players near it.
• Ground Rupture: when he surfaces, he damages everyone standing on top of him.
• Scarabs: each time he surfaces, a swarm of scarabs comes up with him. They pick a target and chase it, then disappear after 45 seconds.
• Enrage: at 20% health he enrages, attacking much faster and harder, and stops submerging. From then on, dirt mounds and scarabs keep coming while he stays up. If no one is in melee range, he throws boulders at the raid.

Strategy

Ouro is a fight of positioning and tank rotation. Several tanks stand in melee at once, so that when Sweep throws the current tank away, the next one is already there to take over. A swept tank stays out of melee until healed, since Ouro will return to them as soon as they're back in range.

The rest of the raid stands well back and spread into groups around him, so that Sand Blast hits as few players as possible. Healers stay behind the tanks, out of the cone. Nature resistance helps with both Sand Blast and the quakes.

When he submerges, the raid moves to the middle of the cave and waits for him to surface. Tanks have only a few seconds to grab him before he burrows again, and the scarabs that come up with him are slowed, feared, frozen or killed until they vanish.

At 20% it becomes a damage race. With nearly 400,000 health left, the raid throws everything at him before the enrage overwhelms the tanks.

Loot

From our database (patch 1.12):

The [[forever:item:20927]] and [[forever:item:20931]] are the leg tokens for the Tier 2.5 sets: [[forever:quest:8560]] for warriors, for example, or [[forever:quest:8629]] for paladins. The [[forever:item:23570]] is a melee trinket that grants attack power that keeps growing for as long as it lasts. The [[forever:item:23557]] is a gun, and [[forever:item:21615]] a healer's helm. Several of these items came in patch 1.11.

Quests

• [[forever:quest:8579]]: the [[forever:item:21229]] goes to [[forever:npc:15503]] at the temple entrance for Brood of Nozdormu reputation.

Trivia

• According to Warcraft Wiki, Ouro went unkilled longer than any other boss of the original game, until 86 days after the first Twin Emperors kill. He was buggy at release and optional, so guilds had little reason to fight him, and Blizzard hotfixed him several times in April 2006.

Sources

• Ouro, Warcraft Wiki
• Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, Warcraft Wiki