Spiritual Guidance: The Undying experience of a Priest
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matt offers some tips and insights for the Priest aiming to go after the Undying title!
I wanted to share some thoughts and tips this week on a successful Undying run I participated in with my guild. It continues to be one of the most challenging achievements in the game. To put it bluntly your entire raid group must navigate and clear out every encounter in Naxxramas without dying to any of the bosses. The amount of coordination, luck and skill needed is high. Remember that dying on trash is perfectly okay. It's the bosses where you can't afford to lose players on.
But I want to let you all in on a secret. There's a trick to earning the Undying.
What is it?
Simple.
Take a deep breath and relax. My group got through all four quarters before we realized that no one died. I was still Discipline. I had a Resto Druid for support up to that point and we flew through all of the quarters flawlessly.
I read a great article in Wired magazine about air traffic controllers. In it one of the observers mentioned that you can tell how relaxed a flight controller is by the angle of their back. If a person's back was upright at 90 degrees or if he was leaning back slightly at 100 degrees, then you would know the controller was at ease. However, if the flight controller's back angled any lower than 90 (leaning forward), then they were under a considerable amount of stress.
My back was either straightened or slightly relaxed up until we reached Sapphiron before the Ret Paladin made the decision to go Holy just to help.
Priest tips
Don't hold yourself back: Take advantage of the correct regen mechanics as much as possible. I wager most Priests aren't using their Shadowfiends or potions regularly. You still have those in reserve along with Hymn of Hope.
Use cooldowns at the first sign of trouble: As a healing Priest, you're either going to have access to Pain Suppression or Guardian Spirit. Use those spells liberally when you feel things become dangerous.
Prayer of Healing glyph: I personally like this glyph. It's like having additional 5 additional HoT spells at your disposal.
Here are a few things that I kept in the back of my head when I was working my way through the various Naxx quarters.
Military Quarter
Instructor Razuvious
I stayed primarily on the Understudies the whole time. I let my partner worry about the raid. Use your judgment on this especially when it comes down to when to heal them. I waited for their health to drop down to around 90% or so before I unloaded healing spells.
Gothik the Harvester
Cover the undead side. Shackle if things get out of hand. I did not have to use it but it was nice having the option there.
Four Horsemen
I tanked the rear ads (Sir Zelik and Lady Blameaux) in tandem with a Boomkin. I healed the two of us. The Resto Druid was up front covering Thane and Rivendare.
Construct Wing
Patchwerk
You stay full time on the off tank. Let your partners worry about the main tank. They should assist you in anyway possible on the offtank as well but I never deviated from the off tank at all.
Grobbulus
Stay in range of diseased victims. You never know. Have a quick heal ready for them if they happen to step in the wrong direction.
Gluth
Heal your zombie kiters here. In fact, I even kited with them. Just like Gothik, I had a shackle ready in case a zombie managed to come in close.
Thaddius
Nothing particularly special here. Keep firing the Prayer of Mendings non step. Heh, do levitate when dealing with the ledge boss. He managed to get me a few times before in the past. How embarrassing.
Plague Wing
Noth the Plaguebringer
Positions yourself in the corner opposite from the entrance. If you happen to pull any unfriendlies toward you, they have to go through your tanks first.
Heigan
If you know there of a player in your raid group who can't dance, keep a shield and a Prayer of Mending on them during the dance phase at all times. If they get hit, it should still take 2 more eruptions to kill them (in theory at least).
Loatheb
Nothing special here. I placed myself in the tank group so that Prayer of Healing could hit the tank.
Spider Wing
Anub'rekhan
He's a walkover. Do what you normally do and make sure you are not getting caught by locust swarms.
Faerlina
We didn't really bother with ad control. The raid group just blitzed her down and AoE'd the rest at the same time.
Maexxna
I didn't do anything special here. I kept track of webbed victims and watched the timers for any web wraps past the enrage timer. I remember using Pain Suppression during this point. She only wrapped once.
Frostwyrm Lair and Kel'Thuzad's Chamber
Sapphiron
I had my Frost Resist gear handy and tossed it on. I mentioned earlier that our Ret Paladin turned Holy to help out. Yes it took an air phase longer. But better to be safe then to be sorry. There's nothing wrong with adding an extra thousand or two thousand hitpoints.
Kel'Thuzad
The tension during this encounter was really high. I'm not kidding. My hands were literally frozen. We split up the healers. Holy Paladin to my right, Resto Druid to my left, and I took center stage in the middle of the green circle. Other than the tank, there were only two melee. Each healer had a dedicated melee just in case they got blocked. I had my camera at max distance to spot the ice blocks as they formed over the raid.
The most important thing any player can do is to remain calm and not panic. Because the moment one player starts to panic, it will start a ripple effect and the rest of the players will start panicking. If you can stay cool, then Undying will be yours.
Want to find more great tips for carrying out your Priestly duties? Spiritual Guidance has you covered with all there is to know! And don't forget to check out our other Leveling Guides as well as our Wrath Guides and Galleries!
