Earlier this week I queued LFG looking for a few heroics when I got a whisper asking if I’d like to heal for the final two bosses of 10-man Naxxramas. Now I hadn’t cared much about doing Naxx at that point, but it was a shot at 3 badges, and some decent loot, plus it was early in the evening so time wasn’t a factor. I accepted his offer.
I knew where Naxx was, but wasn’t sure how to get into it. I figured out that you have to fly up into it from the bottom. The “waiting room” contains a summoning stone, and four portals. I believe, but am not positive, that these portals all go to the same place, but I just followed our group.
The first boss was Sapphiron. I’m not going to go nuts with strategy but I’ll sum up what I found important from a healer’s perspective.
We started the fight by half of the going left, the other half going right. I was responsible for keeping my half of the group alive, and we’d all chip in to keep the tank up. The first thing that I noticed, and it took me by surprise, was Sapphiron’s “Frost Aura” which is a constant stream of damage (1,200 damage every second) to the entire raid, all of the time. So I began the fight in a panic because my party’s health was dropping rapidly. I started bursting out with Prayer of Healings, and Circle of Healings to get caught up and I wound up depleting quite a bit of mana.
The next spell that I noticed was his Blizzard. It’s not hard to avoid, but if you get caught in the middle it can be a pain because of the slowing effect.
He does a drain life to a random pary member. This has to be de-cursed by the appropriate classes because not only does it deal massive damage, but it also heals Sapphiron.
And finally, his most deadly move…
When he flies up into the air, we had to group back together at the door. He’ll shoot 2 frost bolts which will “ice block” two party members. You have to get behind those frozen players to “line of sight” the boss. His next spell is a nasty flame breath thing that will one-shot anybody who is not sheltered behind an ice block. Once this is over, go back to your position and repeat.
We wiped the first time due to too many of my party dying, but we got him the next time.
An important change that I made the second time around was casting Prayer of Mending on myself and letting it bounce to each party member close to me. Since we’re all taking damage every second, PoM bounced all 5 times, and when it critted I often got a free flash heal to hold me over until the cool down was up again. Prayer of Mending saved the fight for me.
Luckily for me, he dropped Circle of Life ring and I won the roll. Cha Ching.
The next and final boss that we faced was Kel’Thuzad.
I’m not going to get into the details of the fight because I don’t know them all that well. As a healer, the most important things for me to remember were to immediately stop what I’m doing and flash heal the hell out of the player who gets “ice blocked”. They take about 22% of their maximum mana every second for 4 seconds which means that they’ll die if they’re not healed within four seconds….and even less if they aren’t at full health when they get blocked.
The only other thing worth mentioning is that it’s a long fight. I popped shadow fiend very early so that I could use it later in the fight.
When wiped the first time but got him down the second. Not bad consider it was a few players’ first times in Naxx. He dropped Helm of the Lost Vanquisher and Hammer of the Astral Plane.
I definitely could have used the mace as it’s an upgrade to Titansteel Guardian, but I had already won the ring on the previous fight so I passed to another priest.
