Monday, February 23, 2009

Shadow Priests and Naxx 25 (Part 2)

The long awaited (or maybe not) second part to my ongoing series of raid strategies for Shadow Priests. Continuing now with the Arachnid wing of Naxxramas.

Anub'Rekhan (or, aaaah! beeeeeeees!)
This guy is a big crustacean-looking vampire-ish thing (he can't wait to drink your blood). I'm not even going to go into the strategy really, because all you do is deal damage. First you damage the boss, then you damage the Crypt Guards he summons, then you damage the boss again. You do all of this from the center of the room; a nice convenient circle where everyone (except melee and tanks) stands. Things to remember:
  • Occasionally, you will be launched into the air. Just ignore this and resume casting as soon as you are back on the ground.
  • People will probably be saying things in vent about swarms, healing tanks, and kiting, but really you can just turn your little bod in one spot and dps most of the time. If you have the mind flay glyph you may not even have to move back and forth in the circle.
  • He drops between 3 and 5 things you might want, so pay attention to the loot.
Grand Widow Faerlina (or, just say NO to religious fanaticism)
I just love the story behind this creepy lady. She's the only humanoid boss in the wing, and she appears to be leading an induction ceremony of some sort when you first come into the room. There are two ways to do this fight as a shadow priest, and which you do depends largely upon your group's gear level. If you're stepping into the room with mostly Ulduar-ready people, you will just kill the followers and Faerlina straight out. DPS fight all the way. You don't have to care about her abilities or anything. If, however, you are going with a less-geared group, you'll want to follow this strategy:
  1. At the beginning of the fight, you need to go stand close to the Worshippers, at least in Mind Control range.
  2. When Faerlina goes into a Frenzy after 50 seconds (you can do some DPS if you are close enough), Mind Control one of the Naxxramas Worshippers. NOTE: Do not try to Mind Control the Followers, as they are dumb and useless. Faerlina enrages, and the Worshippers calm her down by giving her a hug and telling her she is a pretty princess pants.
  3. If fire starts raining from the sky, move your cutie patootie.
  4. Calling things by pet names is a good way to both alleviate stress and annoy your guildies.
There are 4 worshippers, so you will potentially have to MC 4 times. If you have to MC 4 times, you are probably going to wipe anyway. After doing this strat with your guild a few times, you should just be able to burn down Faerlina and not even bother with the MC.

Maexxna (or, Oh what a Tangled Web we Weave)
The final boss in the spider wing of Naxxramas is a giant spider named Maexxna. This fight will test your attention span. It's very simple from the priest's perspective, but you do have to pay attention.

Basically all you have to do is DPS mister spider and watch for Web Wrap. Basically, Maexxna sends a couple of people flying to the back wall and wraps them in...you guessed it...a web cocoon. Your job (if your raid leader assigns you) is to destroy the web wrap before it kills your raid buddy. I find that 2 Mind Flays and a SW:D take care of it nicely. There will be up to 3 of these all the time. Other ranged should be helping, but kill as fast as you can.

That's about it for this week's installment on Shadow Priesting in Naxx25. I do hope you've gotten something out of it. Now, wish me luck as I try to tackle the real world problem of fixing the computer that feeds my WoW habit. Toodles!

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