I've soloed this as a 42 warlock. When Ana'thek is out of the cave, I got in and waited. Casted Howl of Terror to break the group apart and took him down easily. If you are an affliction warlock, they probably won't resist DoTs even with the level difference..

Soloed on my 41 hunter. Sent the pet in, aggroed everything, hit intimidation and rapid fire, killed him, looted, and died. :P

VERY annoying quest to solo,especially as a Rogue.I was level 44 doing this quest and I died shortly after each kill.It is hugely irritating because:

1.The mobs are very close together

2.They run on low health and aggro the entire camp onto you

3.WHEN you die,which you will do a lot,the graveyard is AAAAAAAAAL the way to the north.

Tip:Bring a friend

Be warned, the Skullsplitter Spirit chaser that may be with Ana'thek does a very ugly mana burn. There's no doubt that they should be killed first.

Soloed Ana'Thek and his adds as a 43 druid, used one healing potion but probably could have done it without it.

1. Start in cat form prowled and pounce Ana'thek. Burst him down as quick as possible and watch the mystic, if he starts to heal pop in bear form and feral charge.

2. Once you get him down pop out to caster form, War Stomp, Regrowth, (use potion if you have one), and pop into bear form.

3. Start hitting the mystic and use Frenzied Regeneration.

4. Just maul both of them down.

As a level 44 rogue this was incredibly easy. For Ana'Thek, I sapped the caster and cheap shotted Ana'Thek, then straight away popped Blade Flurry. By the time Ana'thek was dead so was the melee bodyguard and then I just waited until my energy was back and killed the Caster.

For the rest of the mobs I found its easier to pull them with a bow and then get behind a wall out of their LoS so that you can fight them one at a time, or in the case of a hunter, I liked to cheap shot the Hunter and blind his panther. Otherwise, its just as easy to sap the hunter and kill his panther first, but occasionally the hunter will resummon his pet half way through.

i was doing this mission as 43 hunter.
I had no problems with taking bereksers and headhunters, and on that piece of armor, i found accidentaly.
Bbut i have huge problems with taknig downs these hunters. cant find them...

I was able to get the quest at lvl 30.
Same with https://vanillawowdb.com/?quest=585 https://vanillawowdb.com/?quest=585

there's so little of the hunters, and their respawn rate is so long.

don't even bother with the quest. it is a waste of time.

Heres how i see it, go to 47,40 and the road shouold split into 2, one of the roads should be leading up into a fortress. Going into the fortress you will find Beserkers and Headhunters, going the other way will find you many many hunters and Ana'Thek

Berserker - Level 43 -44 (46,42)
headhunter - Level 43-44 (46,42)
Hunters - Level 41-42 (46, 41) Occupied by a pet
Ana'Thek - Level 45, occupied by a level 44 & 43 mob & patrols around lower area.

I did this quest at level 42, pretty easy really. Its a level 46 quest but the mobs aren't too high, the only thing that makes it a 46 quest is Ana'thek, hes a level 45 mobs guarded by 2 mobs and he walks around the camp, you can go to the cave at about 44,44 and you should find him if you wait, there are also many hunters around there.

What i did as a hunter is i just poped all my cooldowns, Bestial Wrath, Blood Fury & Rapid Fire. I put Mend pet before the battle. I ran him quickly took the boss guy down looted him and died, quest complete :P

Do it with https://vanillawowdb.com/?quest=598 Split Bone Necklaces & https://vanillawowdb.com/?quest=209 Skullsplitter Tusks

I seriously hate this quest! The quantity of the mobs is ridiculously low, the respawns take a relatively long time and when you finally spot one, most of the time they are surrounded by 3 or 4 other mobs, mostly casters!
Around 49,39, south-east of the ruin where the lvl 44 elite troll is located, there is a place where a headhunter and a berserker spawn, without any other mob surrounding them, thus making them easy kills. Keep an eye on that spot.

EDIT: Ok, so it's not always a Headhunter or Berserker, but still, they're aesy to kill :P

This was pretty easy as a 45 feral druid. Hop into dire bear form, enrage and then charge the healer/caster when you get enough rage built up. Swipe to oblivion, occassionally maul and always keep up demoralizing roar against the other two melee beating on you. If the healer/caster casts a spell, stun them. When the healer/caster is dead, regrowth and healing touch and then go back into dire bear form, and rinse and repeat with swipe and demoralizing roar.

Worked like a charm :D

Just done it with my priest so thought it would be nice to share some useful info regarding the trash kills.
The boss has already been explained in detail here so i won't go into that part. As for the hunters, berserkers and headhunters, here's the deal:

• they share the common cooldown - in English it means there are no fixed kill places (unlike the boss) - there are, however fixed spawn areas (see below)
• that means you will have to keep killing mobs in 2 relevant spawn areas until enough of the needed mobs actually respawn for you to kill
• hunters and their pet adds spawn at 46,43 - they can either remain there or exit the ruins and roam about - however their spawning is contingent on the said area being available for spawn. They share the common respawn timer with scouts and witch doctors in that area - in other words if the area is filled with the latter, the hunters WILL NOT spawn.
• similar goes for berserkers and headhunters. They can be found at 48,43 and bit further, however they share the common respawn timer with each other plus the spiritchasers (mana burners). Hence you should keep killing all of them until the needed mobs respawn.

As has already been mentioned all of these mobs run when low on health, including the berserkers. You may want to save a heavy spell/strike or similar for those moments. The key to the quest, as always, is ""Patience, discipline..."".

solo'd as a 42 demo lock
when he was in the cave i simply sent in vw and feared the spiritchaser, then DoTd up anathak and hit him with shadow bolt. when he was down i took out the berserker the same way and just before vw died i sacrificed for sheild and finished up spiritchaser easy as that

Solo'd as a level 40 rogue.

Clear the path that Ana'thek takes when he comes out of the cave. When they pass by, get behind and sap Ana'thek, then wait for his guards to walk away. Once the guards are a safe distance away, kill him. At level 40, you WILL need evasion, health pots and bandages. Good luck =)

I'm pleased and impressed to say that i just solo'd this quest as a lvl 41 holy preist. I stack spell power, and with over 200 spell power the lightwell renew heals me for over 350 every 2 seconds, making me effectively invincible, regardless of mana. the quest was red to me, but Ana'thek the Cruel was only orange. I killed the spiritchaser first as i knew he could heal and manaburn (he burned me once). Then the berserker next because he was lower lvl and could be taken out faster then Ana'thek, thus lowering the dmg i would be taking. Once those two were dead I was pretty much already celebrating and kissing my lightwell lol. Killed ana'thek, then went afk on top of the cave and wrote this. Have fun!

This quest is not worth doing. Ana'thek is an easy kill, no real problem, just wait until he comes out of the cave and kill him on the road. But there are NO Headhunters anywhere. I killed probably 75-80 mobs all around the place and none of them were headhunters and none of the respawns were headhunters either. Finally found 1 headhunter at the top of a hill surrounded by 1 berserker, 2 spiritchasers, some human that can heal and a level 45 elite. There is no way to pull only one, anything you try will most likely result in all of them coming at you. I tried pulling the berserker because he was closest to me and all 5 mobs came at me at once. Needless to say I died in 5 seconds. After almost 2 hours of killing mobs in this place and finding only 1 headhunter completely protected by several other mobs, a 2 gold repair bill and pretty much no quest reward other than some Reputation .. this quest IMO is not worth the trouble. If you still want to do it, get a group together, raid the place and after you clear it the first time ""maybe"" you'll have 2 of the 6 Headhunters that you need.

Good luck!

Soloed as a lvl 38 subtlety rogue!

Now, it took me 3 hours just to kill Anathek, the lvl 45 boss, as i did wipe alot because im lvl 38 :) only reason why i spent so much time was to get a real challenge to my leveling and practice my skills as a rogue. (i do have 5 characters that are lvl 70 or above)

TACTIC: Wait outside the cave for Anathek and his 2 guards to start patroling to the outside of the cave. Once u can get behind them, distract them and use sprint and sap Anathek but be careful not to go too close to while sapping him specially if u are trying this at lvl 38 because he will detect you if you go too near, after all at lvl 38 he is a red mob. Wait until his guards are far away and then start on Anathek. Start with a garrote and immediatly use evasion, followed by a ghostly strike/hemorhage as subtlety and sinister strike with other specs until u got 5 combos then use rupture (on my kill he parried,dodged this first rupture attack million times before i got it in) after rupture is on him the kiting game starts but stick to him until your evasion is off. USE crippling poison on both weapons! After your evasion is off make sure he has crippling poison on him and then run away from him to regain energy. (Best path to kite him is going up the hill above the cave and make circuits there around the cave) After u regained full energy run to him again use preperation if u are subtlety spec which i recommend and hit evasion again. Same tactic, once you have 5 combo points on him, rupture but remember to keep attacking him until evasion is off. Every time now is 5 combos>rupture>run away and kite. After all evasion cds are off, no matter should you have 1 or 2 at your exposal, u kite him as much as u can using crippling,your bow/thrown weapon,when crippling is off you wait until he gets to you and start with a gouge no matter if it hits him or not you need to try it>backstab>ghostly strike/hemorhage/sinister and rupture at 5 combos then kite again.

Only thing i havent mentioned now is bandaging which you WILLneed. Best is if u have mageweave bandage or better at your exposal. Usage of bandages can most often be trivial since you have good time to bandage when he has crippling on him (i bandaged 3 if not 4 times on the kill) best advice is to use bandage when you are below 50% hp after the kiting phase starts and your evasion is off.

Sorry for the wall of text but i had to share my tactic to rogues specially low lvl ones when the boss is still a red mob. Hopefully can be helpful for others in some way too :)

CONCLUSION: Doable at lvl 38. GL! :)

soloed as a 40 marksman hunter... had only 2 mail items at the time and did the whole mambojumbo in the cave... was a close call but did it at the first time tho

I find it quite hilarious that he says, ""May he tear off your limbs and leave you to rot and be eaten by carrion. "" Yet there are no carrion birds in all of Stranglethorn Vale.

Ana'thek's entourage contains a shaman....not too bad except for the fact that this lil fella can mana burn like crazy. So for all you mana users: be careful!

As a rogue getting Ana'thek is easy. Sap him while he is about to go into his cave and let the other two go without him, that should give you enough time to kill him and get back into stealth without pulling more.

You will be annoyed, there are only two or three headhunters. you have to kill them and then sit around and wait for them to regen. hooray

This quest baffles me, the spawn rate of the Headhunters is incredibly low compared to that of the Berserkers and Spiritchasers and yet you have to kill more Headhunters than Berserkers.

I also had a problem doing this quest. I cleared the area twice and still no Headhunters/Berserkers spawned so I just abandoned the quest. = /

This quest flat out sucks. Its time consuming, like many of blizzards quests. In addition, in style with blizzards desire to annoy you to no ends, they fill the region with mobs who do not pertain to the kill count you need to turn the quest in, often in packs in which, if you aggro one, you aggro them all. So you need to kill 3-6 mobs to simply get one kill related to your quest As if that werent enough, the want you to kill more of the rarest mobs, and few of the ones that heavily populate the area.
There are much, much better and easier places to do split bone necklace and Skullsplitter tusks outside of this area in many of the ruins where you can find the Troll Trophies. Unless you want to waste your time, go there.

I do agree that this quest is a royal pain in the a**. Soloed Ana'thek as a level 41 ret paladin. Kept consecration up whenever it cooled down to take care of his minions, and had to use Lay On Hands once. Not very mana efficient, but it got the job done without dying. There are a few hunters in the area that I didn't have to wait long for respawns, but the beserkers and headhunters are nowhere to be found. All in all, the quest took me a little over an hour....most of the time just looking for mobs to kill. What a pain....

It took me almost an hour to kill Ana'thek and the other beasts and then I found out there were no headhunters, I kept looking for half an hour then I abondoned the quest. It's a big waste of time.

He can also be outside the cave, he came in a mob of 3 towards me today. Am lvl 45 hunter, having a bit of trouble. Better kill Anathek first, loot and then take on the rest...

Just soloed him as a lvl 38 protection Warrior.
I died twice...once for every add. He had a Berserker and a Spiritchaser with him, Spiritchaser went down 1st then i went down. Ressed and got back in the cave and killed the Berserker and then i died again... Then it was just him and me...popped all my survival cd's everytime they were off cooldown...oh and disarm really came in handy...
If you plan on trying to do this before you hit 40 don't even think to solo it. Bring a friend or two or three...

As a 38 (then 39, cause this took so long. And yes, it's red, and I'm too stubborn to drop this, or wait xDD) Affli Warlock, this is still pretty hideous, even post-patch. Mobs are very 'clumped' together, making it hard to make manageable pulls. Can't really utilize Fear, cause of the vast amount of mobs there. And half of them aren't the ones you need. And there are healers.

Probably not worth the hassle if you wanna get through the area quickly. Or at least wait until you're at a level where the mobs aren't red to ya xD

Back to Headhunter... hunting. BOOM ;D