WoW HandbookThe Independent Handbook for WoW Forever.

Onyxia's Lair

RaidLevel 60+40 players

Raid Map, Bosses & Location

Onyxia's Lair, the 40-player raid against the black dragon Onyxia in Dustwallow Marsh.

Dustwallow Marsh

Map Art

Dustwallow Marsh world map art
Brackenwall Village, Dustwallow MarshTheramore, Dustwallow Marsh
Onyxia's Lair entrance
—
Onyxia's Lair entrance in Dustwallow Marsh at 52.3, 76.1.
Level
60+
Raid Size
40
Bosses
1
Location
Dustwallow Marsh
Continent
Kalimdor

About Onyxia's Lair

Lady Katrana Prestor advises the throne of Stormwind. She is patient, she is well-liked, she is considered one of the steadier voices in the House of Nobles, and she has spent years arranging the kingdom's decisions to suit ends the House would not recognise if they were read aloud. She is also Onyxia, daughter of Deathwing, and the two facts have never once inconvenienced each other.

The brood's method is not conquest. It is counsel. Her brother works the mountain with dragons and armies; Onyxia works a capital with a chair at the table, and the wars the Alliance has not quite been able to explain to itself over the last several years have her fingerprints on them.

Her lair is in the Wyrmbog, in the far south of Dustwallow Marsh, and it is not hidden so much as unvisited. Getting in at all means getting past the Stormwind end of the arrangement first — proving what she is to people who have every political reason not to hear it. The dragon at the bottom of that cave is the easier half of the problem.

First Run

  • The lair is in the Wyrmbog in southern Dustwallow Marsh, south of Theramore.
  • Forty players at maximum level.
  • A single boss, and the shortest raid lockout in the tier. It is a coordination fight, not an endurance one.
  • The attunement chain is long and runs through Stormwind or Orgrimmar depending on faction. Start it well ahead.

Veteran Notes

  • One boss, forty players.
  • Three phases, with the whelp waves in phase two deciding most attempts.
  • In Forever this is the 40-player raid of the opening tier.

Changes in Forever

  • Onyxia's Lair opens the game's first raid tier. It unlocks on December 9, 2026, alongside Barrow Deeps for ten players and Hyjal Summit for twenty, so the first tier has a raid for every roster size.

Raid Bosses

1 boss waits in Onyxia's Lair.

  1. 01Onyxia

Getting There

  1. ContinentKalimdor
  2. ZoneDustwallow Marsh Levels 36–43 · Contested territory
  3. Nearest flight pathTheramore, Dustwallow Marsh Alliance · 67.5, 51.2
  4. Entrance52.3, 76.1

Raid Progression

  1. Barrow Deeps10 players · 0 bosses
  2. Hyjal Summit20 players · 0 bosses
  3. Molten Core40 players · 10 bosses
  4. Onyxia's Lair40 players · 1 bosses
  5. Blackwing Lair40 players · 8 bosses
  6. Zul'Gurub20 players · 10 bosses
  7. Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj20 players · 6 bosses
  8. Temple of Ahn'Qiraj40 players · 9 bosses
  9. Naxxramas40 players · 15 bosses