Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj is a 20-player raid in southern Silithus, the outer city of the Qiraji empire, just behind the Scarab Wall. It opened with the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj in patch 1.9, "The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj", in January 2006, but on each realm only once players had finished the server-wide war effort and opened the gates. Its six bosses guard the city, its loot runs on Cenarion Circle reputation, and the last boss, Ossirian the Unscarred, was one of the more unusual fights in Classic.

Background

A thousand years ago, the qiraji (insect-like servants of the Old God C'Thun) and their silithid swarms marched out of Ahn'Qiraj against the night elves. The War of the Shifting Sands ended only when the bronze dragon Anachronos and the children of the other Dragon Aspects sealed the city behind the Scarab Wall. Anachronos left behind the Scepter of the Shifting Sands as the key to the wall. Among the night elves who died was Valstann, son of Fandral Staghelm.

By the time of patch 1.9 the qiraji are stirring again, and the silithid hives across Silithus have started spilling out. The Cenarion Circle runs the effort against them from Cenarion Hold. Once the gates open, the human general [[forever:npc:15471]] and his kaldorei elites push into the outer city with the players, and the qiraji commander [[forever:npc:15341]] leads the counterattack.

Getting in

There's no attunement, but on each realm the raid could only be entered after the gates opened. That required the Ahn'Qiraj War Effort: Alliance and Horde players on the realm gathered huge quantities of supplies in Ironforge and Orgrimmar, and one player completed the long Scepter of the Shifting Sands quest chain and rang the Scarab Gong with [[forever:quest:8743]]. The gates opened at different times on different realms. Warcraft Wiki lists Medivh (US) as the first realm to complete the event, on January 22, 2006.

After that, the Ruins portal stands on the left as you pass through the gates. The Temple portal is on the right. The lockout is three days.

The war effort and the Ten-Hour War

The war effort was the first time a whole realm had to work together to unlock a raid. Each faction had a list of goods to hand in, stack by stack, to quartermasters in the Military Ward of Ironforge or the Valley of Spirits in Orgrimmar. Some goods were shared by both factions, such as 90,000 Copper Bars, 80,000 Thick Leather and 400,000 Runecloth Bandages. Others were faction-specific, from Thorium Bars and Arthas' Tears for the Alliance to Mithril Bars and Rugged Leather for the Horde. Every hand-in paid out Commendation Signets that could be spent on reputation with the home cities. Progress was tracked in game and on a Blizzard website, and on some realms the collection took months.

When the supplies were in, the armies spent five days moving to Silithus. Then the scepter holder rang the gong and the server-wide message went out. For ten hours, giant qiraji and anubisath poured out of the gates, General Rajaxx led the attack in person, and crystal formations rose across Kalimdor, from Silithus and Tanaris to the Barrens and Darkshore, spawning qiraji and mind-controlling players nearby. In the last hour, Varok Saurfang rallied the combined Horde and Alliance army at Cenarion Hold for the final charge on the Scarab Wall. When it ended, the Ruins and the Temple were open for good.

Bosses

Kurinnaxx, General Rajaxx and Ossirian are required. Moam, Buru and Ayamiss are optional, but they drop the Qiraji hilts needed for the class weapons.

Strategy notes

General Rajaxx. Rajaxx's encounter is a gauntlet. Officers such as Captain Qeez and Major Yeggeth come in waves with their troops, and the raid has to protect Lieutenant General Andorov while it fights. Andorov sells goods to players afterwards if he survives. Rajaxx himself uses Thundercrash, which takes away half of every nearby player's health.

Moam. Moam drains mana from the raid's casters to fill his own pool. When it fills, he hits the whole raid with an arcane explosion. Warlocks and hunters keep his mana down with Drain Mana and Viper Sting, and the raid kills him before the bar fills.

Kurinnaxx and Ayamiss. Kurinnaxx stacks Mortal Wound on his target, cutting the healing it receives, so two tanks trade him back and forth, and players have to step out of the sand traps that appear under them. Ayamiss starts the fight flying out of melee range, so the raid's hunters, casters and wands carry the first part. Throughout the fight, larvae carry paralyzed players to an altar to sacrifice them unless the raid kills the larvae first.

Ossirian the Unscarred. Ossirian is immune to most damage and takes a "supreme" buff that makes him hit very hard. Crystal pylons appear around the area. When a player activates one, he gets a weakness to one school of magic and loses the supreme buff for a short time. The raid drags him from crystal to crystal while dodging moving sandstorms, changing which damage school it uses each time. Hunters and casters with the right spells for each weakness were the deciding factor.

Loot

Class weapons, rings and cloaks

Like Zul'Gurub, the Ruins hand out much of their class gear through quests instead of direct drops. Boss drops such as the [[forever:item:20886]] and [[forever:item:20890]], combined with idols and scarabs from trash and scarab coffers, can be turned in at Cenarion Hold for a class ring at Honored, a cloak at Revered and a weapon at Exalted with the Cenarion Circle. Wearing all three gives a set bonus. The weapons include [[forever:item:21392]] for warriors, [[forever:item:21395]] for paladins, [[forever:item:21401]] for hunters, [[forever:item:21404]] for rogues and [[forever:item:21410]] for priests.

Ossirian's head

Ossirian always drops [[forever:item:21220]]. Bringing it to Commander Mar'alith at Cenarion Hold with [[forever:quest:8791]] rewards a choice of neck piece, such as [[forever:item:21507]] or [[forever:item:21504]].

Direct drops

Notable boss drops include [[forever:item:21452]], [[forever:item:21459]] and [[forever:item:21715]] from Ossirian, [[forever:item:21492]] from Rajaxx and [[forever:item:21466]] from Ayamiss.

Reputation

Almost everything in the Ruins is tied to the Cenarion Circle. Every kill inside gives reputation, as do Ossirian's head and the Silithus quests around Cenarion Hold. The class rings, cloaks and weapons need Honored, Revered and Exalted. Other Cenarion Circle rewards, such as nature resistance gear, are sold at Cenarion Hold to players with the right reputation, which is why guilds often wore it in both Ahn'Qiraj raids.

[[forever:quest:9023]], from [[forever:npc:16091]] at Cenarion Hold, links the Ruins to Zul'Gurub: it asks for a venom sac from Kurinnaxx and another from High Priest Venoxis, and rewards a choice of six weapons Raiders working through both 20-player raids could finish it in a week.

History

Patch 1.9 released on January 3, 2006. It was the largest content patch of the original game: two raids, a server-wide event, and a revamp of Silithus and its quests. Because the gates had to be opened by the players, the Ruins arrived on each realm weeks or months after the patch itself, depending on how fast each realm finished the war effort.

The Ruins served the same role as Zul'Gurub. It was a 20-player raid that 40-player guilds ran on off nights, and that smaller guilds could run as their main raid. Nature resistance helped against some trash and against Ayamiss, though much less than fire resistance did in Molten Core.

Later history

In Cataclysm (patch 4.0.3a) the Ruins became a 10-player raid, and both Ahn'Qiraj raids stayed in the game as old content. In World of Warcraft Classic, the Ahn'Qiraj war effort and the gate opening were run again in 2020, and the raids opened on each realm when its gong was rung.

Sources

• Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, Warcraft Wiki
• Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, Warcraft Wiki
• Patch 1.9.0, Warcraft Wiki