I have very mixed feelings about the Putricide fight. As a fellow healer on my team said, it's controlled chaos if you do it well; very predictable, fairly easy to heal once you get the hang of it. But there's a ton going on, and a lot of movement depending on the method you use. Not exactly a paladin's best friend. However, it gives us a chance to break out some quick usage of spells we may have gotten lazy with in our comfy straight heal-bomb fights. Putricide always puts me at about half HPS of what something like Festergut would have me, so this is not one of our strong fights for sheer output. Where we shine here is with versatility and a quick response time.
Preparing for the RaidThere isn't much in the way of differing preparation here. Get your flask and your food - most anything is fine, though heavy crit or SP may prove beneficial to some - and, you know. Show up. In 10-man we 2-heal this, though with the 5% buff it may be possible for most raids to get away with 3-healing if it's truly needed. It certainly does give a bit of leeway. I have somewhat of a perfect world in that my other two healers are generally a druid and a holy priest, so we've got a bit of everything covered on our team. For 25, we were running 6 but I fear we may have to knock that down to 5 once people get the hang of the fight and darting out of the avoidable damage.If you haven't done so, I recommend setting Sacred Shield to a keybind. For this fight, I change mine out with Cleanse. You can try a castsequence macro with Sacred Shield, Flash of Light, and Holy Shock, but I tend to find it distracting more than anything.Professor PutricideThe good doctor has the following abilities in his quest to destroy all life on Azeroth:
Slime Puddle: Tossed on the ground through all phases. If your abomination tank is quick, they shouldn't be much of a problem to avoid.Unstable Experiment - Green Ooze: This is always the first experiment cast. Creates a green ooze that will target a player, make them immobile, then come pounce on their head. It will proceed to pounce on other players until it is dead. Unstable Experiment - Gas Cloud: Chooses a target and puts 10 stacks of Gaseous Bloat (a DoT) on them. The player must kite this experiment; if it reaches them it blasts everyone near them for a significant amount of damage. Tear Gas: Signals the change between phases. Rogues can get out of this and stab the boss while he's monologuing, but the rest of us get to stand there and wait.
Choking Gas: Starts with Phase 2. Two flasks are placed on the ground; standing near them does damage to you and reduces your chance to hit. Not as much of a worry for a healer, but you want to avoid them when they explode.Malleable Goo: This is your big menace, especially as a holy paladin. Starts in Phase 2, bounces toward a target. Damages on impact with a high splash radius, but most importantly, increases casting time by a whopping 200% for 20 seconds. Do not want. Mutated Strength: Phase 3, essentially makes the Professor 50% meaner.Mutated Plague: If the room filling with slime wasn't enough of an enrage timer, this'll do it. Stacks on the tanks, pulsing outward to damage the raid. If it stacks too high, you're guaranteed death. The StrategyPhase 1First thing's first: Step away from the cleanse button. If you've just done Rotface, you may be a tad cleanse-happy. Unfortunately, Mutated Transformation shows as a dispellable debuff on Grid and you can, in fact, remove it. Doing so knocks the abom tank out of the vehicle and forces them to get another potion, losing valuable time in the process. My raidmates have learned that when the start of the fight is followed shortly thereafter by swearing from me, I've accidentally cleansed this debuff. Now I just move cleanse off my bar for this fight.
Depending on your raid, you will form up on the orange or green side. The raid leader for our 25 prefers the green side, our 10 man leader prefers the orange. If you're forming up on the orange, you have some time and space to get things ready. Toss a Beacon on the abom tank once they are in the vehicle, then pop off a few quick heals on folks who get caught in slime puddles. The Putricide tank should not be taking all that much damage just yet. Once you see the warning for Unstable Experiment, get ready. You'll see the target on Grid and get a warning in DBM - throw a Sacred Shield and Flash of Light on them as soon as possible, and collapse into them. If the slime reaches them and you're thrown into the air, hit a Holy Shock on the way down. If the slime has chosen a new target, repeat the process as quickly as possible.Note that if you start on the green side, all melee are going to get damaged and knocked back, and you'll have far less time to react. Be prepared and adjust accordingly. Quick, reactive heals are the key for both of the initial phases. Head to the green side if you're not there already, but be wary. If your tank is moving the Professor, he may be taking increased damage from lack of block/dodge/parry. Don't be afraid to stop for a moment to get off a Holy Light. You can always catch up before the experiment drops. When it does drop, same thing as last time. Put up a Sacred Shield + FoL HoT on the target, Holy Shock if they need it. Because of the nature of the Gaseous Bloat debuff, they will take a lot of damage initially, tapering off as time wears on.
Ideally you will get to Phase 2 before the third experiment drops. We usually get him down before the second, but we've had times where the Gas Cloud is up. Either way, when you see the warning for Tear Gas, hit your Divine Plea. It will tick through the stun and provide some mana if you need it.Phase 2
Keep up with the experiments as before, but now you need to be aware of one more nefarious component: Malleable Goo. This is easy to avoid, but surprisingly easy to get caught in, as well. And boy, is it embarrassing when you do. Fortunately, DBM gives a warning not only when it's targetting you, but when it's near you. If you see this warning, just strafe out of the way. The only problem comes if you are switching sides or otherwise moving around and dart into the Goo's path. Don't get Grid tunnel-vision here: You will get smacked in the face.The choking gas is of very little concern for you; just move off of it before it explodes and you should be fine. Putricide is pushed into Phase 3 at 35%, giving you another chance to hit Divine Plea during Tear Gas. You want to have no experiments up at this point, and ideally no slime puddles, as well. Phase 3
Here's where things change up quite a bit, and if you're not expecting it, you're guaranteed to lose a tank. The abomination will disappear, leaving you with one tank to Beacon and one to Sacred Shield. Your raid should not be taking much damage, and it's more important that you focus on the tanks at this juncture. Tank swaps occur quickly, so I don't recommend switching Beacon targets unless you actually have a moment to breathe.
You'll need to stay ahead of the tanks here, thus ahead of the slime that will be swiftly filling the room. Don't let yourself get backed into a corner; you can't afford to blow your bubble for something so silly. Now is the time to pull out all the stops. Once your tanks start getting to 3 stacks of the debuff, blow talented Lay Hands for a bit of a buffer, use BubbleSac (make sure you're in the same group as the tanks!), even Aura Mastery if you're running Devotion Aura; every little bit helps. Pop your cooldowns - two piece T10 + Divine Illumination is excellent here - and heal your ass off. After what amounts to a short, hectic phase, he'll either be dead or your raid will explode. Hopefully it's the former.
Loot
Apparently the only screenshots I have from our kills look like a snowman in a snowglobe, so you’re getting a generic one courtesy of these folks.
Last Tuesday kicked off the new arena season and with it another boss from which to steal shiny baubles. By shiny baubles I of course mean warlock pvp gear, since that’s all that seems to ever drop for us. But for a few of you lucky paladins, there’s a shot at Tier 10 gloves and leggings on 10 man, and the sanctified versions of these lovelies on 25. It’s definitely worth running weekly. You can decimate all of Vault in an hour once you get the new fight down.
Preparing for the Raid
Because it requires your faction holding Wintergrasp, Vault is generally done on the fly. Still, you want to make sure you come prepared. Bring two tanks. For a 10 man, two healers will be sufficient so long as one has strong group heals. For 25, we ran with 6 just to be on the safe side, but I’m sure it can be done with 5 exceptional healers. Because this boss has a soft enrage mechanic, the margins for DPS can get a bit tight. Still, you should have no problems doing this with current gear, even in a PUG.
The Trash
There’s only one trash pull before Toravon, ignoring the rock guys that patrol. To get to his hall you head as if you’re gallivanting off toward Archavon (take a left around the circle to avoid pulling Emalon’s trash by accident) and then skip merrily down the right hall. Or not. Your choice, really.
Unfortunately while there is only one pull, it’s because the two in Toravon’s hall seem to be having some sort of watercooler chat and they tend to pull together. You’ll want an offtank picking up the add as these guys will use the same ability Toravon has: Frostbrand weapon. This will inflict a stacking DoT on your tank, and having it stack twice as fast is not recommended. A tank swap should not be necessary.
Toravon the Ice Watcher
Toravon is a frost giant and has the following abilities:
Frozen Mallet – This is the same buff the trash have, only Toravon’s is a lot more painful. Has a chance (unconfirmed proc rate, for now) to proc Frostbite on the tank.
Frostbite – A stacking frost DoT that inflicts about 1k damage in 10 man (2k in 25 man) and slows the target’s movement speed.
Frozen Orb – These spawn periodically throughout the fight. One on 10, three on 25. Anyone within an 8 yard radius will get pummeled with frost damage every second.
Whiteout – Stacking debuff that causes 12k damage on 10 and 14k damage on 25 to everyone in the raid, as well as applying a 25% debuff to frost damage taken.
Freezing Ground – It’s… Frost Nova. Seriously.
The Strategy
Whiteout is going to be your chief healing concern here; you need to be prepared for it. Update DBM if you haven’t already, and be aware that Whiteout is cast every 38 seconds. Barring no other paladins in the raid, you should be running Frost Resistance Aura over anything else. And if you have Aura Mastery, you should definitely be the one running it.
Lead in with your standard Beacon and Sacred Shield HoT on the tank and find yourself a cozy spot out of the way. Our tanks decided to position him more or less against the back wall to give more room for the people killing orbs.
Speaking of orbs, those are going to spawn fairly quickly. They will appear as white rings hovering over the ground before actually creating the frost orb. If you see a ring, move away from it! It’s important to note that they do have a threat table and you will most likely get one on you at some point in time. Just keep moving until it’s dead or drops onto someone else.
Be aware of the tank swap and switch your Beacon accordingly. You will need to help with raid healing here and you can’t afford to have the tank go down after a Whiteout. Our tanks swapped at 5 but you may find another number more comfortable. In theory, at 5 stacks the tank is taking 5k damage every 2 seconds (10k in 25 man), not counting the 25% stacking debuff from Whiteout.
Assuming people are killing the orbs quickly, the first few Whiteouts shouldn’t be a problem. Pop off some quick Flash of Lights to help heal people back to full, then go back to focusing on the tanks during swap transitions. Also keep your Cleanse ready for Freezing Ground. You don’t want someone rooted with Frost Orbs up.
Once you start getting over three stacks of the Whiteout debuff, things are going to get rough. At that point you’ll be taking 75% more frost damage from Whiteout alone, in addition to any orbs that wander in range. I recommend using BubbleSac on the fourth Whiteout to help mitigate some of the damage, then saving an Aura Mastery boosted frost resist for the fifth Whiteout.
If you see a sixth Whiteout… Light help you. The raid will take an additional 150% damage from the cast alone. If you think your DPS is going to be tight, save your Aura Mastery for this Whiteout as it’s going to be your last resort to save someone in the raid and finish him off.
The damage in this fight is very predictable, so it should be fairly easy to heal once you get the hang of the Whiteout timing. Good luck on snagging some free T10!
Friends
