5 Bosses down in Naxxramas II [Plague Quarter]

After the Arachnid triplet, we went for the Plague Quarter.

Trash mobs are harder, one mob that heals, and another pack with 2 gargoyles that have to be tanked apart. The last trash "keep moving" sequence resembles AQ40 before the corpion boss.

First boss, Noth is easy, actually much easier than what WoWWiki describes. Tank and Spank, nuke. Decursers were fast. If not, random players would get some heavy Shadow damage plus dot. Boss supposedly goes beserk after 3 add waves but looks like our two healers and dps could handle it fine before he upgraded to 1000% dmg.

LOCK SELF HINT: Pet (Imp) should be active in this fight.


Second boss, Heigan... is a dancing hell. I had seen it in movies since pre-TBC, but never saw it for real.
Well it is hard. The timing must be absolutely perfect. No delay, and also NO RUSH. I rushed a few times about 1-2 yars in front of our imba tank and arrived too early. That said, I was able to manage it. What was harder to manage for many, me included, is the exact moment when the teleport occurs. DBM stops talking about the teleport 15 seconds before, afterwards it only says "Teleport soon". When it happens, we have to be fast.. or use Demonic circle. So easy it sucks LOL.

But the problems dont end with that. On the DPS platform there are two additional problems.

One is spell disruption with a 20 yard aura, 300% cast time.

The other is a Decrepit Fever, which is randomly targetted and THEN , it has a 20 yards aura around the target. Some ppl talk about of an aura, but it doesnt look like it. I remember I was on the platform, beyond 20 yards (btw, TARGET RANGE ADDON HELPS HERE) and still got it. Conclusion, if it's on platform, every ranged gets it. If it's near boss, every melee gets it.

In general, we should have Nature Resistance aura up. I think we missed it and that was a cause for too many deaths while learning the fight. In the end, we did it. Healers and tank did a great job with half the raid dead.

LOCK SELF HINT: Do NOT active imp pet here. In order for him to be in range, he gets fever and dies. Or gets spell disruption and each firebolt lasts 10 secs. So forget about it. Felguard/felhunter may be much better here because of nature resistance. To be confirmed.

HUNTER HINT: Use Nature Resistance Aura. Helps a lot for poor melee dudes getting the Decrepit Fever and slower dudes getting off the platform, getting hit for 7.5K nature/sec, as well as ground eruption which is Nature damage too. In general, NATURE RESIST FTW.

GENERAL RANGED HINT: Use a "Show target distance" addon. It helps. Or just cast as far as possible within range, in the middle of the platform. Or do small semi-circular movements as boss goes from area 1 to areas 2,3,4.



And then comes the healing nemesis of the Plague Quarter, Loatheb.

It looks so easy when it starts, and it's a nightmare. U can only heal anything every 3 seconds out of 30.

To "add" us, adds spawn frequently, and when killed, give an imba buff (with 0 threat) to every dps. That also means it's mandatory that tank spot doesn't get it.

I was in charge of pulling the adds to us dps dudes; I got marked so ppl would gather around me.

Well, first, I must say I need an addon like Solarian Alarm that sets a "BLUE SCREEN" when it's time to heal. DBM keeps talking, says a lot of shit, even a HEAL NOW, but in the middle of the maelstrom screen, it's easily missed. If we miss the 3 sec window, my HS is used for nothing.

Then there are two damage sources:

One is Deathbloom, doing NATURE damage. Hunter aura will help, but it's not so much damage.

The other is Inevitable Doom, doing SHADOW damage. Supposedly cannot be resisted, but IS absorved by Shadow Ward. Tbh I didn't use it, It was a flaw. It's 3.3K damage absorption for free, with 30 seconds duration.

HINT: Inevitable Doom#1 is aprox. 2m 10 seconds into the fight, every 30 seconds, with 4K damage so...just keep it up all the time the cooldown is over.

And then... there's the task of pulling the adds. It looks easy, just curse it with a 0 damage curse, like COE/COW and it comes to you. WRONG. It gets aggro not only from my curse, but from what others do, meaning, e.g if it's healing time, it aggros healers that just might be on the opposite side of the fight, so it goes straight to the tank. Or it gets aggroed by dmg ppl are doing in the middle and goes there, even if it got no damage from the fight. That's what I saw happening. 0 damage curse won't probably work. Curse of Agony might work coz it gives continues low damage at first and then builds up. To be confirmed.

Of course, the add cannot/should not stay alive forever, so DPS ppl have to gather quickly around me, something that was not so easily accomplished as I had to move every time a new one showed up, in order to pull them. And mobs were weak but NOT THAT weak. A 300 dps wand on him would make something like 10%.

Then there's the fact that the buff is 90 (looked like 120) seconds, but adds come in every 20-30 seconds. So some dps may not have to move.

And then there's mana going down very fast. And then.. Doom#n, Doom#(n+1).. too many dooms every 15 seconds (every 30s until 5 mins). That was a major issue for me, increased from the fact that ... "no life tap and no mana pot allowed"

We wiped a few times and called it a night. But it was entertaining.

A 3rd Circle of Healing based priest here would work wonders. Besides 0 sec cast AoE heal, it has shields !

Voidwalker demonic Sacrifice won't probably work here.

What works here is... FELGUARD + SOUL LINK

LOCK SELF HINT: Use FELGUARD spec here, according to all comments, the damage is purely AOE so he gets nearly none. He keeps fighting even If I'm busy collecting adds. And... use SHADOW WARD ! And pull with CoA. And use Soul Link. 20% less dmg for me. And dont forget, Pet may charge the add every time I need him to stop going into the wrong direction (aka tank or remote healer spot)

HUNTER HINT: Use NATURE RESISTANCE aura, helps mitigating Deathbloom.


In general.. for this quarter, Felguard Spec looks like a winner here. 0/50/21 or 0/41/30. 0/50/21 will give more crit power to the pet and will give 10% spell power to all the raid, continuously. That's A LOT. 0/41/30 will give me 0.25 secs in every Incinerate and 15% for my Fire damage. It's nice but a more egocentric spec. Considering (for this raid) 2 healers + 2 mages + 2 warlocks... it would give 6/10 * 10% = 6% more raid power.