Spiritual Guidance: A Priestly Primer to Black Temple - Part 1
by Matt Low 
Jul 8th 2008 at 6:00PM
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus. This week, unforeseen and uncontrollable forces have delayed the column by a week and a few days. For the next few weeks, I'll be taking a look into the depths of Black Temple from a Priestly perspective starting with Naj'entus, Supremus, and Shade of Akama.
Black Temple used to be the most challenging raid instance in the game. Now that honour belongs to the Sunwell. This week, I will help guide you through the trials and tribulations enroute to Illidan. I wanted to write this column for a while but I did not feel it was appropriate since I had no Illidan kill under the belt. We killed him last week and I want to share what I've learned to Priests that are fighting and progressing their way through this milestone instance. I'm only going to list stuff that's relevant for Priests to know about.
Before going in
Depending on a multitude of factors, Black Temple raids will typically last between 4 - 9 hours. Be sure to plan your schedule around accordingly.
Gear Preparation
Shadow Resistance gear is not important until you reach Mother Shahraz, who is the 7th encounter within the instance. Try to aim for around 270 Shadow Resistance with buffs. The gear is a little expensive to create and gearing the entire raid group will take some time (like months to gather the Hearts of Darkness). However, if you're just starting to work your way though Black Temple, do not feel pressured to rush out and get the Shadow Resistance gear right away.
Consumables
On progression nights, be sure to bring your usual cocktail consumables:
- Flask of Mighty Restoration (or the Shattrath equivalent, or if you're fancy, Flask of Distilled Wisdom)
- Superior Mana Oil (or Brilliant Mana Oil if you're richsauce)
- Golden Fish Sticks
- Super Mana Potions (or the Injectors)
- 100 Sacred Candles
- Netherweave Bandages for brownie points even though I never find the opportunity to use them
High Warlord Naj'entus
Before even trying the boss, be sure you have at least 8501 health after buffs. You want to survive the spike if you get hit by it.
The gimmick: Naj is a repeating two stage encounter. Phase 1, he hurls spikes around at random. These will deal damage to the initial target and splash out to others around him (known as Needle Spine). One of these will literally impale a player, paralyze them, and cause them to lose health over a period of time until they are dead (known as Impaling Spine). Technically, you don't have to go after a spike if it hits a player near you, but I like to do it anyway. I have trust issues.
When phase 2 strikes, a shield goes up where he slowly regenerates health (known as Tidal Shield). And the only weapon that can bust this shield? You guessed it. The spine that you looted has to get thrown back at his face before it goes down. It's an item located in your inventory so be sure to organize your bag space accordingly to reach it with ease. When the shield buckles, everyone in the raid takes 8500 damage and then phase 1 resumes with the random spikes and such. It's important for healers to get themselves and the raid up as quick as possible before a spike manages to kill someone.
This is the first boss you will meet. Naj has been widely dubbed as a healer check. Entry level raids may wish to consider bringing about 8 to 9 healers.
Things to remember
As Priests, our AoE heals will shine here quite nicely. I find myself using Binding Heal frequently in order to get myself up along with my targets. If you're already starting to work your way through Black Temple, then I don't think I need to tell you to continue spamming Prayer of Mending. Rest assured, that spell will run its course within 10 seconds no problem.
Supremus
The gimmick: Make like the Beegees and stay alive. This is another endurance type of encounter as the enrage timer is over 10 minutes. Phase 1 is a textbook tank and spank. The onus on you as the Priest is to ensure that you're outside his massive hit box as much as possible.
Why might a Priest be caught inside his hit box?
Because in phase 2, he will gaze a player at random and walk towards them. If he gets within melee range, rest assured that player is done. As a Priest, feel free to place up one wave of Shadow Word: Pains on him if you have the opportunity.
Things to remember
A frequent problem that I've always encountered facing Supremus is that I would end up on the wrong side of him. The tank would be on one side and I would be on the other. I solved this by ensuring that the raid would have 4 healers on one side and 4 on the other. Being on the main tank, I would communicate over Ventrilo that either I was in range of him or that I wasn't. This is a cue to other healers in range so that they are aware of whether they need to switch focus or not. The rest of our tank healers did the same thing.
Another problem is death from the volcanoes. For progression and learning fights as a Priest, I mixed in a few pieces of PvP gear to increase my health slightly. All this meant was that it would take me 4 shots to die instead of 3. Don't underestimate the severity of volcanoes. If you see one spawning beneath you or near you, stop what you are doing and move.
Shade of Akama
The gimmick: Shade is the first fight in Black Temple where outlasting the boss isn't going to earn you any brownie points. This is a straight up DPS burn and crowd control fight and our ability to influence the outcome is going to be severely mitigated. In the first phase, various mobs will stream into the room that will have to be controlled or tanked accordingly. In the second phase, the Shade of Akama is released and will engage the real Akama.
Things to remember
There isn't much for us here. Keep the players around you alive as best as you can and keep an eye on what threat you generate. Have Fade on standby in case you happen to pull. Typically, there will be a tank picking up the Ashtongue Defenders that are coming in so do keep an eye on that player.
Two sets of groups are set up on both sides controlling incoming mobs. Position yourself in a way that you can hit the tank tying up the Defenders as well as the tank and players CCing the other sets of ads coming in.
When phase 2 kicks in, feel free to switch off as necessary and contribute with Smite on the Shade. Remember that you only have 60 seconds before Akama dies. Every bit of damage counts.
Next week, I'll help you help your raid get over the humps that are Bloodboil, Reliquary of Souls, and Teron Gorefiend.
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 the WoW Insider Directory for more priestly info!
Filed under: Priest, Tricks, Walkthroughs, Instances, Raiding, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
vern Jul 8th 2008 7:39PM
The Black Temple isn't overall too difficult for priests and we will shine there because of Circle or Healing and Prayer of healing.
But what you need first is stamina.
You need at least 10k health any time after raid buffs.
You could very well cheat using elixir of fortitude, Elixir or mastery and stamina food.
Obviously, mana can also be a concerns in AOE healing spam: give some serious thought to the Eye of Gruul (10% proc on COH unless it was nerfed(?) = 100-150 mp5). Ask for a shadow priest if your raid has enough of them...
In term of pure healing output, the sustained damage on multiple raiders at once makes the priests the optimal healers for BT. Enjoy it, because the Sunwell is the kingdom of chain heal!
Xxvaceltic Jul 8th 2008 7:05PM
If your lacking in + Healing rather than Mana Regen, you can replace the Superior Mana Oil with Superior Wizard Oil. Although the tooltip reads "Increases damage done by...", It adds the +42 to your Healing as well as your Spell Damage.
Nachoes Jul 8th 2008 9:05PM
I'd go for Flask of Distilled Wisdom instead of Flask of Mighty Restoration:
The MP5 from FoMR are static (both I5SR and OO5SR), while the additional INT from FoDW will give you about 56 MP5 OO5SR.
Aigarius Jul 8th 2008 11:14PM
Gratz on the Illidan kill, btw.
Clevins Jul 8th 2008 11:50PM
*ahem*
Surely you meant "A HOLY Priestly Primer..." right my goody goody brother? :)
Doc X Jul 9th 2008 11:50AM
Amen, brother. There's very little in this column that helps *my* priest such as how to DOT up the channellers during the Shade fight, whether the extra threat is worth VE on Supremus during phase 2 and how the Tidal Shield on Najentus makes VE higher priority than VT after the shield comes down to help with raid-wide healing.
Remember, not every Priest heals. . . or, at least, heals more than they dps ;-)
moink Jul 9th 2008 7:15AM
In general two elixirs are better than a flask, especially on fights where you need stamina. I always run with elixir of draenic wisdom and elixir of mastery. It's usually cheaper than a flask too, even with a lot of wipes. On Naj'entus I use stamina/mp5 food instead of the golden fishsticks.
My goal for stamina is to be battle-rezzable on Naj'entus. That is, with just fortitude (which I can cast myself), to be above 8500 health. Right now I'm good if the druid who rezzes me also casts mark of the wild, but otherwise I'm 5 points of stamina too low.
Tychon Jul 9th 2008 1:49PM
I would say that on Naj if you have less than 9k heath you will pretty much die during some point of the fight. As a Healer its a good idea to try and stay within range of other healers in case you get spinned. I've stood in the back and died due to not being in range of any other healer, live and learn I guess.
Supremus If you die to him its your own fault as to not paying attention, if you see a volcano spawn on top of you, a PoM, bubble, renew will keep you alive until you are out of the range of it. getting into melee range of him is just complacency, as not being in a proper position to heal and be ready to run, then again this is fundamentals of raiding for everyone and not specific to healers.
Shade of akama is a joke of a fight, you only really need a couple of healers to keep the tank up that has been tanking all the adds, usually this is where my guild has a competition with what healer can do the most dps. since pallys and druids are better at tank healing tbh it doesn't even matter who heals the tank because shade dies in like 10 seconds.
Tychon Jul 9th 2008 1:49PM
I would say that on Naj if you have less than 9k heath you will pretty much die during some point of the fight. As a Healer its a good idea to try and stay within range of other healers in case you get spinned. I've stood in the back and died due to not being in range of any other healer, live and learn I guess.
Supremus If you die to him its your own fault as to not paying attention, if you see a volcano spawn on top of you, a PoM, bubble, renew will keep you alive until you are out of the range of it. getting into melee range of him is just complacency, as not being in a proper position to heal and be ready to run, then again this is fundamentals of raiding for everyone and not specific to healers.
Shade of akama is a joke of a fight, you only really need a couple of healers to keep the tank up that has been tanking all the adds, usually this is where my guild has a competition with what healer can do the most dps. since pallys and druids are better at tank healing tbh it doesn't even matter who heals the tank because shade dies in like 10 seconds.
Teresa Jul 9th 2008 2:04PM
Great guide so far!
Just want to add something:
I know you said you only NEED 8501 health. However its recommended you have 10k buffed to make Naj easier. If you're still under with PvE gear, then pop on the neck & wrists from PvP, and you'll have better survivability.
Also, if you're lacking in stam in BT.. One great way to increase survivability, is to respec so you have 5/5 Spell Warding. 10% less spell dmg taken really does make a difference.
Eisengel Jul 9th 2008 5:54PM
Wow, you missed a lot of stuff, wondering about:
- threat mechanics on Naj's shield (reset, spike threat, tick through?), and how does it affect your mitigation potential with VE? How do you fit your MB+sw:d combo for max VE mitigation after the spike into your GCD progression/cycle given the random timing for someone to use it out of their inventory?
- what spellranks of VT/VE with what spell rotation do you usually run to maximize mana/health return on Supremus vs mana costs and DPS loss?
- how do you be sure not to overthreat on Akama, also do you drop or downrank your sw:deaths, possibly Inner Focus+lowrank sw:d to fiddle with spell damage aggro?
Oh.. wait.. you're ONLY healing? Ah... so this is the Holy priest guide to BT?
Aylii Jul 10th 2008 9:45AM
I think you meant 365 SR buffed. ;)
Silly mallet.
Hentaya Sep 14th 2008 12:17PM
L2Read, n00bs....
First text line: Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession.