Nerub-ar Palace is the first raid in The War Within, and it opens September 10 (that’s today!) on Normal, Heroic, and Raid Finder difficulties

The first raid in the current World of Warcraft expansion, The War Within, is the Nerub-ar Palace, and it’s opening September 10. This raid features the Nerubians as the major antagonists, and it’s the culmination of the storyline that takes place in the Azj-Kahet zone.

As we’ve seen on a recent animated short, the story for the Nerubians of Azj-Kahet is that their queen, Ansurek, made a deal with Xal’atath in which Xal’atath mutated Ansurek’s people into more powerful beings called the Ascended. In exchange, those Nerubians have been helping Xal’atath gather the substance known as the “Black Blood of the Old Gods” from the depths of Azj-Kahet, for Xal’atath’s own nefarious purposes.

That Black Blood of the Old Gods, in fact, is the first thing you’ll see when you first set foot into the raid: you’ll plunge down into a pit of it. From there, you’ll battle your way through the other parts of the palace, until you reach the queen’s own inner sanctum, where you’ll face Ansurek herself as the final boss. A major element of exploration in Nerub-ar Palace is verticality, including going through webs and silken threads to traverse the raid zone.

Nerub-ar Palace will be located at the back of the City of Threads in Azj-Kahet, and it will feature a total of eight bosses: Ulgrax the Devourer, The Bloodbound Horror, Sikran, Rasha’nan, Broodtwister Ovi’nax, Nexus-Princess Ky’veza, The Silken Court, and then the final boss, Queen Ansurek.

The raid opens September 10 on Normal and Heroic difficulties, and the first wing on Raid Finder will also become available on that date. Then, on September 17, Mythic difficulty will open, alongside the new Story difficulty, and the second wing of Raid Finder. Finally, on September 24, the third wing of Raid Finder will open as well. The item level requirement to queue for Raid Finder is 567. In order to tackle Normal difficulty, players are expecting an item level of 575-580, and for Heroic difficulty, 585-590.

Useful guides for the Nerub-ar Palace boss fights

If you’re aiming to tackle Nerub-ar Palace once it’s out, you might want to prepare yourself with some guides. Thankfully, lots of them are already out, as you can check out here:

• Pineappl’ar Palace lets you train on a simulator of the Heroic version of the raid, doing every boss fight. It’s fantastic. (Some might even prefer playing this to the game itself!)
• If you’d prefer to read (and watch short videos), Mythic Trap breaks down each fight in a nice format, cutting them down to the essential details.
• Or perhaps you’d prefer to be guided through the fights in video format, in a more old school style. In that case, Hazelnuttygames has you covered with her playlist.

The verticality aspect of this raid certainly sounds interesting, and it’s great to have an actual raid fully dedicated to such iconic creatures from Warcraft lore as the Nerubians, continuing the story for the Azj-Kahet zone, and perhaps delving further into Xal’atath’s motivations.

Originally posted November 4, 2023. Updated September 10, 2024.