Spiritual Guidance: Healing Mimiron

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 No Stock UI, a new UI and addons blog for WoW. Having some difficulty with Mimiron? Let me help!

Mimiron. He is the bane of all healers. Even the most seasoned of raiding healers struggled initially with this gnome and his toys. Perhaps the class and spec that has the a difficulty adjusting to the challenges is the Discipline Priest. Let me help you get through it with a systematic breakdown of the four boss phases and how you can cope no matter which spec you are.

Phase 1

The first phase of Mimiron is going to involve Priests using their saves. Guardian Spirit and Pain Suppression will play key roles in helping your tanks stay alive.

As Holy

Napalm Shell onto players are always a threat to the raid. I like to keep a hasted Greater Heal on standby (with Serendipity). If I'm lucky with Surge of Light procs, I'll try to stand by and delay until the last possible moment for a target that's hit by Napalm before the effect is consumed. I want to save the instant Flash Heal for a napalmed victim.

The emphasis here is on speed.

The raid itself will not be taking an enormous amount of damage. Instead, what ends up happening is specific players will be taking a large amount of damage quickly within a small window of time. Even though it goes against what I wrote about last week, this is not the time for Disc and Holy Priests to get into a territorial spat. If you see the opportunity to shield a victim, then do it. Tap Circle of Healing if you have to even though only one player is being affected by Napalm.

As Discipline

Chances are, you'll be assigned to one of your tanks. But it doesn't mean you should remain idle either. A Shield and Penance combination should be able to take and cover anyone nailed by pesky Napalms. If you've configured your addons to do it, they can highlight the debuff on your frames. Most of the time, your attention will be locked on to the tanks. I personally keep a visual eye on Napalms as they fly out so I can click on the player itself when it lands. 9 times out of 10, I'll hit the player who is getting doused by it. Sometimes I'll get unlucky and hit something else (like a Mirror Image).

Together on the tanks

If you read my Raid Rx column a few weeks ago, I wrote about different save abilities that some of the classes could use to help. This is the perfect time to practice working on that with your tanks. Here's an example of how phase 1 saves can be handled on the main tank.

Before you ask, the purpose is to negate the effects of Plasma Burst.

• Plasma Burst 1: Holy Priest casts Guardian Spirit on the Druid tank

• Plasma Burst 2: Druid tank uses Survival Instincts

• *Warrior tank taunts phase 1 boss*

• Plasma Burst 3: Discipline Priest casts Pain Suppression on Warrior tank

• Plasma Burst 4: Warrior tank uses Shield Wall

• Plasma Burst 5: Warrior tank uses Last Stand

Most guilds have enough firepower to take out the Mark II within 4-5 Plasma Bursts.

Make sure you mind the mines in the middle. Last thing you want to do is get toasted by them after the Mark II scurries away.

Phase 2

The second phase involves a module with 2 gun turrets attached to the sides. It's kind of like a stationary pod with arms extending out the side.

This is the Everest phase for most healers as there is an insane amount of overall raid damage being dealt here. Your tanks won't be doing much tanking as Mimiron just seems to fire and target at will. Melee players will be eating heat waves. Rockets will be launched by Mimiron that can instantly kill players. On top of that, the raid better be prepared to run like a maniac when he starts spinning up his guns.

For 25s

Divide your ranged and healers into three separate groups. Try to maintain an equal ranged DPS and healer ratio as much as possible. The room is divided into three quadrants. Position your each group in its own section.

For 10s

Same kind of concept. You don't have to use the third quadrant. Your raid can be equally split between two quadrants easily. I like to have 1 healer on the far left side of the raid, 1 healer on the far right, and 1 directly in the middle. This guarantees that every player can be accessible by 2 of them at any given time.

As Holy

Use everything you have at your disposal. Circle of Healing should always be on cooldown. Prayer of Healing will be your biggest asset regardless of which spec you are. This phase is like the final boss of a whack-a-mole game. Guardian Spirit is one of the few spells that can save a player from a rocket. However, I personally don't think you should use it as they have to learn to stand out of runes anyway.

As Disc

It's quite difficult for your healing spells to catch up. What you have to do is buy as much time as possible for the other healers around you to help you or to buy time for your spells to land. Focus on your group. They are your priority. Every time Weakened Soul falls off, refresh their Shields again. When you see out of the corner of your eye that Mimiron's guns are pointed in your direction, drop a Prayer of Healing. By the time the spell connects, it should be able to just about heal up your entire group.

Be warned that this will torch your mana entirely. You may wish to Shadowfiend on the tail end of this phase and Hymn of Hope immediately after this phase ends.

Pro tip: If you can, try to group Arcane Mages with Incanter's Absorption with you. They will love you for it as your Shields will power up their damage.

Phase 3

This is another staying alive phase. Junk bots and Assault bots shouldn't present a threat to you. The biggest headache of this phase is bomb bots. Oh yes and Mimiron will be in the air taking pot shots at one person.

As Holy

There won't be a ton of players taking damage. There's one player tanking the Mimiron himself. Another player will be grabbing and tanking Junk bots. Lastly you'll have a few players kiting Assault bots around the room. Not much to say here except heal at will.

As Disc

I'm assuming you'll be healing one of the players tanking or kiting stuff specifically in this phase. Bomb blasts that go off tend to hurt. I've seen my share of players getting instantly nuked by them. Go beyond your role as simply a tank healer. Target the softest players in the raid (clothies or other healers) and maintain shields on them as well.

Phase 4

Whew! You made it this far! Congratulations! This is a culmination of the three previous phases combined with some abilities subtracted. Mines will still be dropped and Shock Blast will still happen. That's done by the bottom. The middle torso still fires out the Laser Barrage and launches a pair of rockets. The head fires Plasma Balls at players.

There isn't much of a difference here between the two healing Priests so I'll summarize some quick pointers.

• Keep a close eye on the mines especially when the boss moves. Tanks will have a difficult time trying to keep the boss positioned appropriately due to Shock Blasts and other effects.

• Don't have to worry about the head as much.

• Always know what direction the arms are pointed at and be prepared to bolt at a moments notice.

• Dot up and add extra DPS to whatever's being focused. Only do it if you see a rare lull in stuff to do and if you have the mana to support it. Shadowfiend should be up at this stage roughly.

While Mimiron continues to be one of the more challenging keepers in Ulduar, there are a number of nerfs incoming.

• The flight time of Rocket Strikes has been increased, and Rocket Strikes will try to prefer players at range.

• The Leviathan Mk II component of the V-07-TR-0N will become stunned during Phase 4 when the VX-001 component begins to cast the P3Wx2 Laser Barrage ability.

• Proximity mines now deal less damage and have a lower duration. A small arming time has also been added so proximity mines will not immediately detonate on creation.

Good luck in there and good hunting!

Have Twitter? Feel free to follow @mattycus!

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!