Temple of Ahn'Qiraj

At a glance

Forever planning status: Temple of Ahn'Qiraj has no confirmed release or final rules in the WoW: Forever sources checked. Use these inherited Classic encounter plans to organize possible future progression. Raid size, access, resets, tuning and loot still need Forever confirmation before the encounter plan is used live. Confirmed Forever class changes are noted separately; a class having a control spell does not establish that it works on every inherited raid target.

Inherited Classic baseline:

The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, or AQ40, is a level 60, 40-player raid behind the Scarab Wall in southern Silithus. After the server's gates open there is no personal attunement. Every player does not need to complete the Scepter of the Shifting Sands chain.

The route is Skeram, the optional Bug Trio, Sartura, Fankriss, optional Viscidus, Huhuran, Twin Emperors, optional Ouro and C'Thun. Optional does not mean unrewarding: Ouro supplies Tier 2.5 leg tokens. The original Classic raid resets weekly and uses a shared instance save.

Season of Discovery additions and later reduced solo mechanics are excluded.

Before you go

Bring several capable off tanks for Skeram and Sartura, and arrange two Warlock tanks plus melee tanks on both sides for Twin Emperors. The Warlocks need a shadow resistance and stamina set suited to Vek'lor's Shadow Bolts, with healer support and sufficient spell threat. Do not assume an ordinary damage set or Curse of Doom alone will tank him.

Forever class preparation: Demonic Brand reduces Searing Pain's threat in Blizzard's published Warlock changes. Review that talent before assigning a Warlock build to Vek'lor; the ordinary pet-damage allocation is not a verified tank build.

Assign 15 closest players for Huhuran's poison soaking, including tanks and selected melee. Have them prepare nature resistance gear and a raid-agreed target, commonly at least around 200 buffed for progression, with Greater Nature Protection Potions. Exact survival depends on health, healing and kill time. Everyone else can preserve throughput gear while staying farther away. Viscidus needs separate raid-wide poison management and repeated Frost hit sources.

Bring mana and healing consumables, bandages, repairs, reliable interrupts, curse removal, magic dispels and poison removal. Plan the resistance sets and roster before entering, then change gear out of combat for the relevant encounter.

Forever preparation: The developers confirm continued access to Classic consumables. Check current item tooltips and stacking rules when preparing them. Traditional world-buff use inside raids still needs policy confirmation; do not require a collection circuit or count those effects in your guaranteed raid budget.

Threat buffs: If your roster includes a Paladin, assign Salvation by job: its current Forever effect reduces generated threat by 30%. Mass Salvation affects the target's whole class. Check both tank and backup-tank buffs, then have the Paladin use Revoke to remove Salvation from those tanks before pulling. See the Paladin guide for current utility.

The route and trash

Clear Skeram's platform and assign tank positions before the pull. Sartura's corridor and Fankriss's tunnel need coordinated movement: do not send a resurrection team through respawns alone. Keep the group together through the fast-respawning insect approach and establish the next safe stopping point before people drink.

Anubisath Sentinels come in linked packs of four with different abilities. Assign a tank to each and identify the buffs before choosing a kill order. A death heals the survivors and passes its ability to them, so focus one target rather than lowering all four together. Leave the most dangerous transferable ability until late; recheck reflected schools as each Sentinel dies.

Anubisath Defenders combine several random abilities. Assign summoned adds separately and call the combination before damage commits:

Later packs also include dangerous mind control and large melee bursts. Mark targets rather than blindly cleaving. Have a tank collect awakened or mutated bugs around the Twin Emperors. Do not leave the C'Thun entrance as an unmarked bottleneck where the whole raid can be hit by the first beam together.

The Prophet Skeram

Set tanks on the middle, left and right platform positions. Keep a tank in melee with every active Skeram, including copies, and recover him quickly after teleports and threat changes. Spread the rest of the raid with healers able to see all three positions.

At 75%, 50% and 25% he creates two copies. Identify the low-health copies and kill them before pushing another split. Interrupt Arcane Explosion. Crowd control players affected by True Fulfillment; the mind control makes them dangerous, so do not kill your own raid member or assume an ordinary friendly dispel solves it.

Wipe and recovery: an untanked copy, an unhandled mind-controlled player or pushing the next split too early creates the collapse. Reset the platform tanks and copy kill call before restarting.

Bug Trio: Lord Kri, Princess Yauj and Vem

Assign a tank to each bug and separate the active kill target from the other two. Choose the final survivor for its loot table before pulling. Killing a bug heals or strengthens the remaining encounter, so split damage without a finish plan wastes time.

Kri poisons the raid and leaves a dangerous cloud on death: move his kill spot away from the next target. Interrupt Yauj's heals, prepare for her fear and threat disruption, and kill the small bugs released when she dies. Vem charges and knocks players back; keep him controlled, and prepare for the survivors' enrage when he dies.

A common safer order is Kri, Yauj, Vem, but change it only with a declared loot and survival plan. Healers stay in range of all assigned tanks rather than following the first kill target together.

Wipe and recovery: overlapping the death cloud, fear and an uncontrolled remaining bug is more dangerous than the initial pull. Reconfirm the chosen last kill after every reset.

Battleguard Sartura

Assign tanks to Sartura and her three Royal Guards. Spread them enough that their Whirlwinds do not cover the same section of the raid, and kill the guards first. Keep away from the exit tunnel so a chase does not bring in the next area.

They periodically drop normal threat control and chase players. The target moves clear; tanks regain control when the effect allows it. Stun them between Whirlwinds; they are immune to stuns during Whirlwind itself. Melee disengage during the dangerous spinning window instead of trying to heal through overlapping hits.

Healers track the chased player and each add tank. Save cooldowns for the low-health enrage and avoid dragging the fight into its long hard-enrage limit.

Wipe and recovery: several players standing together turn one chase into a group death. Fix spacing and add assignments, then reset together.

Fankriss the Unyielding

Face Fankriss away from the raid. The incoming boss tank taunts around three or four Mortal Wound stacks, then holds him while the previous tank's healing reduction expires. The inactive tank stays behind the boss, outside Mortal Wound's frontal cleave. Keep other off tanks free for the side tunnels and adds.

Spawn of Fankriss worms are the immediate damage priority. They must die before their short delayed enrage makes them lethal. They can be stunned: reserve a Rogue's Kidney Shot or another reliable stun as emergency protection if a worm enrages before dying. Tanks gather the smaller hatchlings, while damage dealers help any player Entangled in a tunnel and kill the threatening worm first.

Healers cover Entangled players and off tanks without abandoning the boss tank. Continue controlled boss damage only after urgent adds are handled.

Wipe and recovery: ignoring a Spawn to finish a damage cooldown can kill the off tanks. Assign a worm caller and direct single-target damage before the next attempt.

Viscidus

Prepare Frost sources before pulling: low-rank Frostbolt, Frost wands and Frost Oil procs count repeated hits, while a larger spell's damage does not replace many separate hits. Clear poison and avoid poison clouds; nature resistance, protection potions and group poison cleansing help sustain the freeze cycle. Current Forever tool: Mages learn the 1.5-second Frost Blast at level 24. Include it in the Frost-hit preparation check instead of assuming the old Rank 1 Frostbolt routine is unchanged; verify that the chosen spell advances the encounter's counter before committing the assignment.

The original fight takes about 200 Frost hits to freeze. Watch the slowing and freezing emotes, then call the fully frozen moment. Switch everyone who can to fast melee weapon attacks: the Classic shatter requires roughly 75 melee hits within 15 seconds. Do not use the much lower hit requirements from later retail solo versions.

On shatter he separates into globs. Assign sections and kill as many as possible before they reach the middle and reform; each killed glob removes part of his health. Repeat the hit-count cycle and continue the mechanics at low health rather than trying an ordinary damage burn through his protection.

Wipe and recovery: insufficient Frost hits, a failed melee burst or uncontrolled poison are different problems. Check the actual failed stage before asking everyone to buy more resistance gear.

Princess Huhuran

Name the 15 closest soakers and preserve that distance ordering. Spread the farther players so Noxious Poison does not silence or damage a large healer cluster. Keep the tank groups in range of their nature resistance support.

Huhuran is taunt-immune. Keep backup tanks high on threat and plan the handover when Acid Spit stacks make the active tank unsafe. Damage dealers respect that slower tank threat during the setup. Hunters remove ordinary Frenzy with Tranquilizing Shot.

Wyvern Sting sleeps nearby players. Removing it causes additional damage, so do not blanket-cleanse it; stop automatic Poison Cleansing Totem or Abolish Poison removal for this assignment and wake a critical tank only with the healer ready to cover the result.

At 30%, Huhuran enters her final Berserk and repeatedly volleys the closest 15 players. This is the planned burn: soakers use nature protection, healers focus their survival and damage dealers use cooldowns. The final Berserk is not an ordinary Frenzy to solve with another Tranquilizing Shot. Spreading everyone out does not replace the 15-soaker assignment.

Wipe and recovery: if healers or low-resistance ranged are among the closest 15, fix positioning before the next pull. A missing soak assignment cannot be repaired with general raid healing alone.

Twin Emperors

Keep Vek'nilash, immune to magic, and Vek'lor, immune to physical damage, at opposite sides more than 60 yards apart. Bringing them together heals them. Their health is shared; damage to either advances the encounter.

Put a melee tank and a Warlock tank at each side. The melee tank holds Vek'nilash; a Warlock with shadow resistance uses reliable spell threat, commonly Searing Pain, on Vek'lor. Stay out of Vek'lor's close Arcane Burst range. Healers are assigned by side, including the heavier damage after Vek'nilash's Unbalancing Strike.

About every 30 seconds the emperors teleport and reset threat. Tanks remain assigned to their side and collect the appropriate emperor arriving there. Damage dealers pause for pickup; melee move to follow Vek'nilash without dragging either boss across the room. Casters use Vek'lor only after the Warlock establishes threat.

Avoid exploding bugs and have an off tank gather mutated bugs. Do not damage neutral insects indiscriminately just to pad area damage. Finish before the roughly 15-minute berserk.

Wipe and recovery: wrong-side threat on teleport or emperors drifting together is the main failure. Recheck the four tank positions and healer ranges before restarting.

Ouro

Maintain tanks near the top of threat and keep a tank in melee while Ouro is above ground. Face him away from the raid for Sand Blast. His frontal attack disrupts tank threat or control; the second tank must already be ready to take him, rather than depend on an emergency taunt. Use safe terrain for Sweep's knockback.

When he burrows, move out of the disturbed ground and handle the scarabs with tanks and controlled AoE. Do not chase an underground boss or gather everyone into one eruption point. Reacquire him promptly as he emerges and restore the facing before damage resumes.

At 20% he enrages and the final damage rises sharply. Use reserved defensive and damage cooldowns while healers keep the active tank covered.

Wipe and recovery: losing melee control after a knockback or leaving scarabs on healers creates the loss. Reset the pickup and add jobs before another attempt. Skipping Ouro also skips his Tier 2.5 leg-token chance.

C'Thun

Phase 1: the Eye

Assign each group a sector before entering. The first Eye Beam can hit immediately, so enter on the pull call and spread quickly rather than stack in the doorway. Maintain about 10 yards between players to stop the green beam chaining for escalating damage.

Kill Eye Tentacles and interrupt their Mind Flay; handle Claw Tentacles without abandoning the spread. For Dark Glare, identify the sweep direction and rotate clear of the beam together. Do not run through the red beam or cross through another group's position in a clump.

Phase 2: body, tentacles and stomach

The body is heavily protected until the stomach objective is completed. Outside players kill dangerous tentacles as they appear: tanks take Giant Claws, and interrupt and kill Giant Eyes before their beams chain through the raid. Do not save lethal outside adds merely to kill them during the damage window.

Swallowed damage dealers attack the two Flesh Tentacles inside. Healers support them when needed; tanks and players with a critical outside job can use the raised exit point promptly. Watch Digestive Acid stacks and leave before they become lethal. Jump onto the center of the raised launch pad between the two Flesh Tentacles to be ejected. An edge launch can hit the roof and drop you back inside, so re-center promptly if the exit fails.

Coordinate the second Flesh Tentacle's death with the outside raid so urgent adds are controlled. Killing both exposes C'Thun for about 45 seconds. Use that window for boss damage while maintaining essential add control, then repeat. Do not continue ordinary boss damage through his protected phase while giant tentacles kill the group.

Wipe and recovery: first-beam chaining, a Dark Glare crossing or a stomach team dying to Acid are separate issues. Re-form sectors outside and inspect the actual first failure before the next pull.

Loot highlights

Tier 2.5 armor requires Brood of Nozdormu standing, a class-appropriate boss token and the specified scarabs and idols. Use the dragons inside AQ40 after Skeram for turn-ins:

The original token class restrictions also match the current public Forever item records. Allocate the correct family for the recipient:

Each armor quest consumes its own boss token. Shoulders and boots therefore need two Bindings tokens when you want both pieces, plus each quest's separate scarabs and idols.

Materials for a complete five-piece set

For one full inherited set, start with 5 of every scarab type: Bone, Bronze, Clay, Crystal, Gold, Ivory, Silver and Stone. Increase the two types in your class's second column to 10 each. That totals 50 scarabs, plus the 10 idols listed. These are full-set totals, not the price of one piece; buy only the active quest's bill if you are collecting fewer slots. The checked Classic and Forever required-item records agree, but final live Forever turn-ins remain unconfirmed.

Weapons and other rewards

Imperial Qiraji Armaments and Regalia are separate weapon quests with Arygos and Merithra in the final dragon chamber adjacent to C'Thun's room, deep beyond the Twin Emperors route. These weapon quests have no Brood standing gate in the inherited baseline; plan access to that chamber as well as the materials. Each quest uses its named token plus 3 Elementium Ore, rather than smelted Elementium Bars:

Other notable drops include Badge of the Swarmguard from Sartura, Ancient Qiraji Ripper from Fankriss and C'Thun's weapons and trinkets. His Eye starts C'Thun's Legacy: take it to Caelestrasz in that final dragon chamber, then take The Savior of Kalimdor to Anachronos outside Tanaris's Caverns of Time at Neutral Brood standing or above. A first-clear recipient may still need more reputation before Anachronos will speak. Choose Amulet, Cloak or Ring of the Fallen God. Visit Caelestrasz before leaving the cleared raid; the Eye is separate from the Tier 2.5 chest token and Atiesh's Base. Atiesh recipients must accept Atiesh, the Befouled Greatstaff before killing C'Thun for its Base; see the Naxxramas legendary steps for the forty-Splinter and Anachronos prerequisites. The colored Qiraji Resonating Crystals are mounts restricted to AQ40, not the separate Scarab Lord black mount.

Save Qiraji Lord's Insignias and Ancient Qiraji Artifacts until the Brood trash-reputation cap when practical. They remain useful afterward. Check the relevant reputation guide before spending them or assuming Cenarion Circle standing satisfies a Brood armor quest.