Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog

Disclaimer:  This what I do.  Some people will do things differently,  but these are some of the things that you may not have thought of doing.  First  rule is  do what your instructed to do by your raid leader. eg if you are told to kill adds –  kill the adds.  Don’t just DPS the boss ” I can’t dps the add’s because it lowers my dps onthe boss” I quote someone from a raid I have been in.  That’s just lazy.   Second rule:  Do as much damage as possible using all your tools – this means.  LOVE your mindsear.  Use it where practical.

Flame Leviathon :

Hostile entities detected. Threat assessment protocol active. Primary target engaged. Time minus thirty seconds to re-evaluation

 Besides using the Vehicles and standard strats for the Vehicles.  Shadow Priests are good choices to get thrown up on on top of the Leviathon.  We can sheild – which reduces the push back from the damage you get up there, we can also Shield/heal the other person taking down the turrets with us. Any healing hybrid  dps will  work.   I’ve had to spend less time taking down turrets and healing/shielding  some of my more squish- er counterparts like mages.  If your counterpart is in the same group as yourself, your VE healing not only helps you, but them as well. I do like it when there is another class up there with me that can look after their own health.    When you get thrown  off shield yourself, and start hoping that someone picks you up rather quickly or leviathon will one shot you.    Marking the people getting thrown up, and the Vehicles they belong to works very well in getting you back on the horse.  Call out where you will land so the bikes can pick you up faster.   Worse case and no one comes to rescue you,  dispersion will help you survive for an extra 6 seconds,  which can be just enough time to get rescued.

Ignis

Insolent whelps! Your blood will temper the weapons used to reclaim this world!

This is a pretty standard fight for Shadow Priests.  Be extra careful about flame jets, and stop casting.  Unlike other classes,  if we get spell locked,   that’s all our offensive spells in Shadow form.  Its a waste of time and mana dropping Shadow and trying to Smite as Holy – the spell lock will be over  but its still a significant period of time ( 8 secs)  so don’t get spell locked.  If I get slagged pot I make it a habit to hit Disperse to reduce my Damage.  I trust my healers to heal my through it, but you should be helping yourself where possible.  This was especially useful when were learning Ignis because  healing assignments and load hadn’t been quite worked out, and Dispersion ensured I survived.

Razorscale

“Expedition Engineer yells:Ready to move out, keep those dwarves off of our backs!”

Watchers need to die first, then Guardians,   ( Sentinels require Immediate attention if they come up – as per strats) but there is nothing stopping you from dotting as much as possible, and when you can mindsear for max damage.  Use a Guardian as your target so you are damaging the watchers. 

When Razorscale comes down  make sure you use your fiend.  You should be at that point where you should be using it anyway,  but save it for Razorscale.  The cool down should come up about the same time as the 2nd landing of Razorscale where you need to get his health low enough for a permanent landing. As extra DPS the fiend is quite useful – I think the most damage I ever got out of it was during a Heroism for about 48k damage. For a little thing with a short life it can pack a punch.   So even if you don’t need mana,  if there is no massive mana drain going on.  Use it every opportunity.

XT-002

“New toys? For me? I promise I won’t break them this time! “

We have had quite a few shots at Heartbreaker on XT – trying to Max dpsonthe heart which I find difficult to do without all my dots up, and those precious seconds in global cool downs means less DPS. When we were chasing Heartbreaker I played around with adding Shadow Word death back into my Spell rotation trying to push out as much damage as possible.  It didn’t make a huge difference,  but with the lash-back damage being reduced  when your pushing the timer  it can be easier to use it as an instant cast  then trying to fit one more Mind blast in.  Make sure if you are attempting heartbreaker  use Wild Magic Pots, and make sure you use your fiend again.    Having Devouring Plague recast-able has come in handy because I don’t need to wait for a cool down to put it on the heart when it comes out. 

If you are doing it normal,  then I still find the heart  the best time to use the fiend because its up long enough for the fiend to get a good work out . 

When the waves of adds come  – Shadow Priest AOE is very useful especially combined with any slowing effects from hunters and mages.   pew pew pew.   Do it from a distance so that you don’t get hit by a bomb.  

Assembly Of Iron

‘You will not defeat the Assembly of Iron so easily, invaders!”

Both guilds I have been in for Assembly of Iron have used the Shadow Priests as their dispellers on the tank tanking Steelbreaker for when he casts Fusion Punch.  I made the mistake of using decursive for one fight and that extra second delayed reaction time caused a tick of Fusion punch.  I then got 5 people whispering me asking me if I knew what I was doing.  Conventional or not I make the tank I’m dispelling  my Focus and stick Dispel magic on my 1 key.   When Fusion punch is about to cast you need to stop dps.  You should not be in a global cool down of casting when your dispelling  fusion punch.  It doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to do your normal dps, but when Fusion punch thats the most important thing in the world.  When its being cast I select the tank and mash my 1 button.  It works.  As for the rest of the fight  its pretty standard.  Stand in blue circles when you can.  Avoid Runes of death.   If your doing normal and get Stormcaller’s lightening tentacles too close hit disperse.   Its damage you can avoid, and healers will not even notice you did something stupid and got too close.  

If you are doing medium mode and Runemaster Molgeim is the last alive.  When he opens up a Rune of Summoning and those little voidy  type creatures pop out  – your Mindsear is useful Aoe.  They don’t have long lives but they need to die.  It doesn’t matter how, as long as they die quick, and you can help there.

I haven’t done hardmode with Steelbreaker the last alive,  but I imagine it will be a rather stressful fight for the dispeller. ><

Kologarn

 “None shall pass!”

I stand as far left as possible  ( near the right arm)  People near the door seem to get his Eyebeam just a little bit more.  This is also an excellent position for killing the right arm and the adds that Spawn under where the right arm was.   When we were doing the achievement where you took turns killing the arms I found my extreme left position hard to reach the adds under the left arm when they spawn but on normal,  right arm gets killed – left arm is last so my position puts me in an ideal position for massive use of Mindsear. ( I love my Aoe…) 

Kill the right arm – When it’s dead as the Add tank is getting agro I throw a few  dots onto Kologarn – that gives the add tank plenty of time.  Then Mindsear to your hearts content.   Rinse repeat.  ( Fade when you can because those adds can be a little slippery.)  Throw your fiend in as much as possible ( it all helps)  

Auriaya

“Some things are better left alone!”

Don’t forget your fear ward.  Regardless of what other fear mitigation is already in your raid.  There is nothing funnier then watching all your raid run off in terror ,  and your standing there alone.  My first Ulduar guild used our 3 Shadow priest’s fear ward on rotation on a rogue so that they were always able to interrupt her, but if you haven’t been directed to use it on anyone,  use it on yourself.    Try and cast it on you before you engage so you get more uses of it’s 3 min cooldown.

My Deadly bossmods tells me just before the Swarming Guardians appear.  As soon as they appear using  Auriaya as your mindsear target  this happens…. you kill them all on the metres.  ( Except that pally.. darn him!)

Rest of fight is standard.

Mimiron

Oh, my! I wasn’t expecting company! The workshop is such a mess! How embarrassing! <grumbles>

Nothing to special here. Stay away from bombs & rockets!  Dps your required targets  – I find the best time to use Dispersion to get some mana back is when he  does Laser Barrage your normally moving anyway, and its extra protection..  but you should be quick enough to not get hit!  In the Last phase it doesn’t hurt to dot up each of his three sections as long as their health isn’t too low.  Keep an eye on the health levels and you can usually be aware enough to know when to switch.

Freya

The Conservatory must be protected!

Do your thing.  Stand under Mushrooms.  Kill the trees  – be mindful of each of  the health levels of Ancient Water spirit, Snaplasher and Storm Lasher when they spawn.  If your not given a target I dot up all of them, then work my way through them on what ever one needs more dps.   When it comes to Detonating Lasher phase you should all be grouped up on Freya.  Target Freya to use your mindsear,  because its important that the Dentonating Lashers get dpsed as evenly and quickly as possible it wouldn’t do to have one higher in health because we all know that our target takes no damage from mindsear

Thorim

“I remember you… In the mountains… But you… what is this? Where am– “

I am normally in the Arena for this fight  and you need to be so careful of agro.  Everyone should be bunched up in the circle.  Do not leave it, your pallys/Dk’s should be holding agro with their Aoe Agro  but this will only catch the ones in the centre,  you can steal agro of the mobs running in.   We single target Evokers and Champions – Have a target macro set up because you may not be able to see much, anditmakes it easier to find and dot them.   Its tempting to just Aoe the arena with mindsear.  Resist.  Your Dps may not get as high,  but you will survive longer.   If I do Aoe,  I only do it when my fade is on cooldown, and there aren’t too many mobs.  If your Aoe hits the mobs your tanks haven’t picked up then a champion will one shot you.      Once Thorim hits the ground  leave the circle and you can Aoe the remaining adds with no argo problems.  Stay out of every-ones way for the rest of the fight and  live!

Hodir

“You will suffer for this trespass”

On intial agro, we free all the iceblocked npc’s, I dot a few of them then finish them up. 

People like using Shadow Priests as dispellersoffreeze for this fight too, even if they don’t there is no excuse for not getting yourself out of a freeze.  It would get very confusing.   Trying to  stand near a fire, and in a white beam ect ec dispel people from freeze while trying not to get more then 2 stacks of biting cold and avoiding ice shards and flashfreeze and freeing mages after a flash freeze. I used to feel like a chicken with its head cut off.  Dps went out the window. Dots would fall off.  When they don’t make me dispel ( the hard modes trying to him down before he shatters his Cache ) Dps near a fire, and in a moonbeam as often as possible.  

General Vezax

“Your destruction will herald a new age of suffering!”

I hate this fight as I am sure most classes with Mana will do.    Most of your casting is done on the remains of a Shadow Crash, but your competing with all the other classes who will want to clamour to get in as much dps as possible which increases the chances of getting another shadow crash ontopofyou, or a life drain that goes to the boss.   Only our healers are allowed to stand on the Saranite vapours,  so there is no mana regen for the dps.   ( though I did see a healer on our shadow crash the other night…  ) If you have mana at the end of the fight you are doing it wrong.  If you have it try and use it by the end of the fight  otherwise its wasted dps.  Obviously its better to Dps when on a Shadow Crash Aura  –  but if there isn’t any near you and he is about to die cast.

Make sure you have your wand’s Shoot button handy, as you will be using it often.   Its  manafree, and  it beats you standing there doing nothing.   If you want to get more shadow Crashes I find hanging out near the warlocks helps.  They seem to get more crashes thrown at them because of their higher burst.    Avoid shielding, and if you do cop damage use your bandages  ( remember those… )  don’t forget your Fiend is melee! – You won’t get mana back, but he will do additional damage, but never enough to take argo, so use it on cooldown.

Yogg

Sara yells: Let hatred and rage guide your blows!

I have a special dispel spec for this fight as I’ve talked about before  on my post Smacking Ghophers on the head so I am by actions ( and result) the main dispeller on this fight.   Its up to the raid how you want to use your Shadow priests,  but if your not dispelling,  ( or even if you are)  “More dots!”  Dot what you can.  Take down the Crushers, kill the constrictors and corrupters  ect ect ect.   Find quite moments to use your Disperse – like running to the next crusher,  or standing in a life well.   Do not use your fiendonCrushers when they are waving themselves around your fiend will die. Wait till a brain freeze then you can use your fiend on a crusher if that is your target.

In the last phase I try and stand with my back to Yogg as much as possible, because I am dispelling alot more then DPSing.    I try as often as possible to dot up Yogg as well as the current targeted Immortant Gaurdian and keeping the dot ticking by refreshing with mindflay if I can.