Blood Pact: Warlock tips for Naxx-10 part 2
It's time again for Blood Pact, your weekly Warlock column, detailing the dastardly deeds of Warcraft's demonologists! Nick Whelan returns once again this week, to finish what he started. And this time, it's personal!
Last week, I wrote a column filled with tips for Naxx-10. Specifically, tips for Warlocks, because that's who Blood Pact is written for. But my list ended up being so long that I was only able to write about the Spider and Plague wings of Naxx before the article started to feel a little bloated. So I chopped it in half, and now it's time to conclude our tour of the dread citadel with the more difficult sections of the instance: the Construct, Military, and Frost wings!
Construct Wing
Meta / Ruin Warlocks should be wary of their Intercept > Immolation Aura move, if they choose to use it here. Patchwerk does nasty things to melee who stand in front of him. So be sure to have a Demonic Circle ready, so you can teleport back out again.
Affliction Warlocks, if you never bothered to get Ritual of Doom, then you fail. The doomguard adds at least 500 DPS to this fight. Closer to 800 if you have a good selection of buffs in your group.
If you take any damage in this fight, that damage would one-shot you no matter how much HP you have. So Life Tap without restraint, because it won't matter anyway.
The first time I did Patchwerk, I remember thinking how strenuous it was keeping up my rotation constantly, without interruption, for the five minutes it took my group to kill him. Don't know that I necessarily have any advice for this, but it's something to be aware of.
Using a Soulstone on yourself is a handy way to fool your friends into thinking you're good at frogger. However, you should probably save that 30-minute cooldown for a healer.
As a quick aside to the Warlock hints, this is the most difficult boss in Naxxramas in my opinion. Which doesn't mean it's difficult at all for the individual player. However, one player's mistake can double the difficulty of the fight, and make it more likely that other players will make similar mistakes. Be patient, and attentive if your group is inexperienced.
Controlling the Mutating Injection is absolutely top priority. All other considerations are secondary.
Ensure that your spell detail is at 50% at the very least, so you can see the acid clouds.
Make sure everybody has a healthstone for this fight. There's a lot of damage going around, and everything which can be done to mitigate it should be done.
Most raids I've been in are well aware that Affliction Warlocks shouldn't be attacking the slime adds when they appear. However, if your raid isn't aware of that, inform them. Alternatively, if you're not an Affliction Warlock, inform them that you're perfectly capable of helping out with the adds, and do so.
If you get Mutating Injection, dropping a Demonic Circle before you run to wherever your group wants you to drop acid can help you get back into the action more quickly once you're free of disease.
After you jump down into the boss fight arena, summoning and dismissing Eye of Kilrogg real quick will teleport your pet to you.
Reader Viper007Bond offers an alternative to summoning Eye of Kilrogg. And while I've yet to test it myself, supposedly all you need do toforce your pet to your side is hit the follow button, after casting at least one spell at the boss. Thanks Viper!
Decimate is a percentage based ability, so don't worry about Life Tap. In fact, you should Life Tap all your mana back before Decimate is cast, since you're about to lose all that health anyway.
Whether or not you Life Tap prior to Decimate, make sure you have enough mana to cast several AoE spells in a row right after Decimate. You don't want to let those zombies get all the way to Gluth.
Healthstones can help the raid deal with recovering from Decimate.
Don't forget! Casting Detect Invisibility on everybody in the raid will keep you from suffering a lot of problems in the brief stretch of ground between Gluth and Thaddius.
Before jumping the gap, throw down a Demonic Circle. That way, if you miss, you can try again real quick.
The same tricks that work for getting your pet back on Gluth should work here as well.
Putting a Demonic Circle down where the raid wants the negatively / positively charged players to stand can help serve as a marker for the raid, as well as giving you a quick way to teleport to that side when your polarity shifts.
Military Wing
Like Patchwerk, this is a good time for Affliction Warlocks to bring out their Doomguard for a nice little chunk of free DPS. If the cooldown still isn't up from Patchwerk, then your raid probably doesn't need the extra DPS anyway.
A lot of tanks struggle the first time they use the Orbs of Domination. Periodically releasing and re-enslaving the understudies is a particularly difficult sticking point. I don't know if it's even possible, but if you happen to have the Doomguard (or another high-threat pet) out, and the tanks lose control of the situation, you might just be able to save the day by grabbing aggro on the Instructor. You'll lose your pet, but you may just buy your tanks the few seconds they need to get back on the ball.
This fight can be reset by getting to the top of the stairs. So if you're worried about repair bills, dropping a Demonic Circle somewhere will give you a bit of an edge when the Instructor decides to start taking his ruler to random members of the raid.
Just an FYI: your group is going to put you on dead side. So enjoy that. I've never even SEEN live side.
Phase 1 is full of adds coming from every which way, and sometimes the tank might not be able to pick everything up right away. Because of that, everybody should have a healthstone before this fight begins.
I find Rain of Fire works better here than Seed of Corruption does. Easier to control.
Make sure not to hit anything with your AoE before the tank has a chance to grab aggro on it. The ghosts at the start of the fight are no problem, but once the riders start coming over you'll be toast if you grab one.
Most of the mobs in this fight come from one corner of the room, but their spirits can travel to several different places in the room before spawning. Stay close to the tank, because there's nowhere you can really stand so as to keep him between you and the mobs.
Make sure you cast Detect Invisibility on everybody in the group after the fight is over.
The group will be very much split up during this fight, so make sure everybody has a healthstone on them, in case a healer can't get to them in time.
Many groups will have the Warlock "pet-pull" so that the tanks can stay in their respective corners of the room and simply let the bosses come to them. To do this, send your pet in to attack the horseman which will be coming to your corner of the room -- but be sure to pull him back before he actually hits the boss, lest your pet be forced into a very short tanking career.
Affliction Warlocks make excellent caster tanks. You should volunteer your services if there is nobody better available. Simply use your normal rotation, including Haunt and Siphon Life, and replace Shadow Bolts with Drain Life. Also, remember to use Shadow Ward when tanking Lady Blaumeux!
Frostwyrm Lair
Sapph's Blizzard has a way of sneaking up on you, and once it has you it can be hard to run out of it. Creating a 'safe spot' with Demonic Circle which you can teleport to when you're slowed can save the healers a bit of a headache.
This is one of the easiest fights in the instance for DPS, so long as you remember to put your life ahead of your position on the damage meter. When Sapph creates ice blocks, stop casting and stand behind them!
For DPS, this fight is largely about positioning. Stay away from people, but close enough that you can be healed. As a Warlock, however, it's important to be aware that this is a very intense fight for healers. Don't expect Life Tap heals right as somebody gets hit with Frost Blast.
Frost Blast only ticks for a total of 104% of your health, which means even 5% of your maximum health should keep you alive. And while your healers are (hopefully) up to the task of keeping you safe, keeping Fel Armor, Siphon Life, and Haunt active certainly can't hurt. (Haunt in particular saved me once. But it's impossible to plan that kind of thing.)
I've never had the opportunity to try this myself, but if need be, the felhunter's Spell Lock should be able to interrupt KT's Frostbolt. So if your group is low on classes with an interrupt, be sure to volunteer! The extra task might nerf your DPS a bit if you're not used to it, but the needs of the raid always outweigh the needs of the raider.
And there you have it! The best Warlock tips for Naxx I can come up with. They're no substitute for a good understanding of the encounters, or a firm knowledge of your class' playstyle. But my hope is that these helpful hints will go a long way towards making Naxxramas a more manageable experience for Warlocks who are new to raiding. And of course, I invite my readers to tell me about any tips I missed in the comments!
Blood Pact is a weekly column detailing dots, demons, and all the dastardly deeds done by Warlocks. Interested in implementing these tips, but not yet geared enough to do it? Check out our guide to gearing your Warlock for Naxx-10. Or if your group has not yet graduated from the Spider and Plague Wings, check out last week's tips, and see if you can't speed things along!
