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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news[Updated] Blood Pact: Warlock tips for Naxx-10 part 1
by Nick Whelan 
Apr 6th 2009 at 6:00PM
The time for Blood Pact has come again! This week, we delve into the dread citadel itself, the very stronghold of mighty Kel'Thuzad's power: Naxxramas! Following meekly behind the rest of the group, documenting his experiences for your entertainment, is Nick Whelan.
With Ulduar getting closer every day, I thought this would be a perfectly inappropriate time to write up some helpful hints for all the Warlocks out there who are clad primarily in pre-raiding gear, and would like to start moving forward with their progression. This post is aimed toward helping Warlocks who haven't done much raiding in the past, and would like to try it out now that Blizz has made it so much more accessible. Furthermore, since it's unlikely that such a person has a spot waiting for them in a group which full clears weekly, I also assume in this post that the rest of the people in the raid are similarly geared. By using these tips, new raiders will be doing their part to ensure that their group gets a full clear as soon as possible.
This guide isn't meant as a substitute to an overall Naxx guide. For something like that, be sure to take a look at Ready Check. Rather, this guide is intended to cover the information specific to Warlocks which won't be included in the raid leader's pre-boss explanations. As such, some of this information might be difficult to decipher if you've never participated in the fight before. I would recommend reading Ready Check's Naxx guides first, or even just referencing this page right before the start of a boss fight.
I should also note, before I begin, that I am primarily an Affliction Warlock. Despite my attempts to sample and reflect on other specs, I've never cleared Naxx as anything but Affliction; because Naxx is seriuz buziniz, and I always try to bring my 'A' game. I have attempted to keep this post largely neutral in regards to spec, but the fact of the matter is: I know more about how to play Affliction than I know about how to play anything else. Pointlessly suppressing my strengths in favor of neutrality would only result in a weak article, so, included throughout are several Affliction-specific notes. Sorry, non-Affliction Warlocks.
On the difference between 25-man advice,
and 10-man advice.
and 10-man advice.
It's important to be aware that Naxx-10 is not Naxx-25. There are 10 classes in the game, so the odds that all of them will be present in a in a 10-man is relatively low compared to 25-mans. It's probable that at least one or two, if not more, classes will not be represented in a 10-man raid. In my group, for example, we have no Priests or Magi. That means no Arcane Brilliance, no Prayer of Fortitude, and you can forget spec-specific buffs like Prayer of Spirit.
What this means is that not every buff is going to be available in a 10 man group. And while there are those who would disagree, the smaller number of people in a 10 man means that each person is responsible for a larger percentage of the overall group's success or failure. Since my group lacks any class capable of giving spirit or intellect buffs, I keep my felhunter out to provide everyone with Fel Intelligence. And when the group was first starting out. our healers were still in blues or even Tier 5. So I used Dark Pact more often, because despite the recent hatred for this spell, it's better than feeling smugly superior while you're lying on the ground, dead from Life Tapping when there was nobody to heal you.
Spider Wing
Aub'Rekhan
Grand Widow Faerlina
Maexxna
- When Locust Swarm begins, if your pet is DPSing at melee range, remember to pull them back! If the healers can't be bothered with the Rogues and the Death Knights, where do you think your pet falls on the priority list?
- When Corpse Scarabs pop up, go ahead and take a second to Rain some Fire on them.
- If you're Affliction, you may want to talk to the raid leader about not switching to DPS the Crypt Guards when they spawn. Nobody likes to see their DPS droop by being forced to switch to adds now and again, but Affliction Warlocks are hit particularly hard when forced to switch. If the group is having trouble getting the Crypt Guards down quickly, however, you'll just have to bite the bullet.
- If you do need to switch to the Crypt Guards as Affliction, go ahead and clip your dots on Anub before the CG spawns. That way they'll keep ticking while you're occupied elsewhere.
- [Update] Reader Wolfblitzer (and several others) mentioned something I'm going to be doing myself from now on: Lay down a Demonic Circle in the spot you plan to DPS from. When Anub'Rekhan uses Impale to knock you into the air, just teleport right back down to the ground again! You save yourself the fall damage, as well as give yourself a few extra seconds to DPS.
Grand Widow Faerlina
- When she enrages, and DPS is instructed to kill one of her adds, Searing Pain is the best choice. Unless you're the only DPSer who switched targets like they're supposed to, you probably won't have the time to get anything with a longer casting time off.
- There's a lot of AoE in this fight, and if your healers are still a little under geared, this would be a very good time to make sure everybody has a healthstone.
- If you feel like being an ass, locate a large group of healers, and cast Rain of Fire on them. It's funny to watch them flee before you. And it keeps them on their toes. Everybody wins!
- I'm not going to talk about gear much, but Grieving Spellblade is enough to make me Seed of Corruption in my robes.
- Once this fight is over and the group begins to move on, make sure everybody in the raid has Detect Invisibility on them, and keep it on them until you reach the next boss. Otherwise the group may be slain by an unseen Shade of Naxxramas.
Maexxna
- Warlocks should not be the ones dealing with people who are webbed against the wall. If they make it your job, however, then use Searing Pain.
- Alternatively, if you have the felguard, don't send him against the boss. Just keep him next to you and send him after all the webbed people.
- If you're the one who gets webbed, you can always instruct your pet to free you. (At least I believe so. I have the most amazing luck with avoiding the webs. So I haven't been able to test this -- but it works elsewhere.)
- Different groups deal with the tiny spider adds in different ways, but be warned that Rain of Fire is difficult to target in here, because the targeting reticule doesn't show up on the ground.
- Most groups stop DPS at 35% and wait for the next Web Spray before continuing, so that the tank isn't killed when Maexxna enrages at 30% Remember that if you're an Affliction Warlock, you can't stop your DPS on a dime, so plan ahead. It's unlikely that a few dots will account for 5% of the boss' health, but if some other players simply don't listen, your dots could be the straw which breaks the tank's back.
Plague Wing
Noth the Plaguebringer
Heigan the Unclean
Loatheb
That's it for this week! Next week, I'll cover Military and Construct quarters, as well as Frostwyrm Lair. Speaking of which: if you know of any tips I missed, or any tips you'd like to see me include in next week's post, let me know! I always appreciate learning a new trick.- There's really nothing to this boss which a Warlock should do any different than any other DPSer. Not that I'm aware of anyway.
Heigan the Unclean
- If your group is as new to the instance as I'm assuming, Heigan will probably pose a few problems. Due to that, make sure everyone has a healthstone before this fight begins! It's possible to survive being clipped by the green lava, and having a healthstone on hand could mean the difference between one of your raiders living or dying.
- During phase 1, assuming your group has the casters on the platform. (The "smart way" as I like to call it.) don't just rely on the tank to keep Heigan at the appropriate distance from you. If you really want to avoid Spell Disruption, then use the width and breadth of the platform to maintain max range.
- When phase 2 is about to begin, clip all your dots. You won't be refreshing them for awhile.
- Summoning a Demonic Circle near the edge of the first 'section' before the start of the fight can help prevent players from running too far into the first section to make it to the second in time.
- It's certainly possible to DPS Heigan during phase 2, but I whole-heatedly recommend against it until you're 100% comfortable with the dance. You'll score higher on the DPS meter if you survive.
- If you feel comfortable with it, and you have the spell, use Dark Pact during phase 2. The healers will probably be too busy trying to stay alive themselves to heal a Life Tap. Additionally, Life Tapping means that getting clipped by the green lava has a higher chance to kill you.
Loatheb
- I cannot stress enough the importance of making sure everybody has a healthstone for this fight. During the scant few seconds the healers can heal, they may not be able to get to everybody. Just make sure everyone in the raid is aware that healthstones are subject to Necrotic Aura, same as everything else.
- If you have Dark Pact, then this is your moment to shine. Since heals are so restricted in this fight, you want to Life Tap as little as possible. So make sure to use Dark Pact as soon as you have enough of a mana deficit to make use of all of the mana you will receive. This way your pet will have the maximum amount of time to regen their mana before you need to Dark Pact again.
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 you only read Blood Pact to make sure it's being written properly, then hit up the WoW Insider 3.1 news center.Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Kalerender Apr 6th 2009 7:35PM
Heigan - If you know your zone edges very well, going into zone 4 or zone 1 will give you enough time to fire off a 1.5 second cast of your choice, since you don't have to run through the wedge.
Nick W. Apr 6th 2009 7:59PM
You're completely right, but I think you're missing the point somewhat.
You can only cram so much information into the human brain at once. And in my experience, raid leaders aren't the most eloquent teachers.
Heigan is a fight with a very small margin for error. It's best, in my most humble opinion, to keep things as simple as possible for the first few runs, and people on their first few runs is exactly who my audience was here.
Once a person become a little more comfortable with the encounter, then they can learn to start mixing things up a bit to improve their performance. But there's a reason you don't teach university math courses to kids in jr highschool, ya know?
Kalerender Apr 6th 2009 8:06PM
You asked for tips, not 'basic stuff to teach people with poor hand-eye coordination/basic reasoning skills'. You get more then just the ultra-new warlock raider reading posts like this. I'm sure each person who reads another person's suggestion can decide for themselves whether they can apply it successfully or not worry about it.
sinthar Apr 7th 2009 7:15AM
You can get 1.5 sec casts off in most zones if you are positioned correctly, HOWEVER that is for experienced dancers, not for novice ones. Practicing on an achievement run is not recommended. Basically stick to insta cast DOT's unless you have low lag, and know the fight well (and can dance with your eyes shut almost)
rosencratz Apr 7th 2009 7:59AM
I disagree, zones 1 and 4 are the best zones to do this in as you don't need to travel from one side of the zone to the other to do the cast. (unless your dancing nearer to the platform.)
Certainly though it's possible to keep Haunt up along with all instant dots and even throw off some nightfall proc'd shadowbolts during the dance which is nice but as the article is for fresh runners it's hard to expect them to do all that. The amount of aggro gained almost guarantees they'll need to soul shatter after the first dance and depending on your tanks gear/skill you might not be able to do it all on the second dance for fear of pulling the boss.
emberdione Apr 6th 2009 7:44PM
If anyone is still having trouble on Heigan doing the dance go buy some flares of the Auction House, have someone who knows the zones mark the centers of them at the beginning and then have people run to flares.
Takes out the guess work and anyone can use the flares not just engineers.
After about 3 runs with the same people you don't even really need the flares anymore, people just don't die to it.
Veliaf Apr 6th 2009 8:09PM
Good article, didn't think it would be relevant to me but there was in fact a couple of things I would never had thought of, and several more in the comments thus far :D
With regards to killing Heigan, I'd just say always use the imp - it won't die, whereas melee pets certainly will, and so you won't lose dps having to re-summon after every dancing session. Besides, extra health can be handy for anyone who gets caught.
Rappelza May 20th 2009 9:34AM
I have just started ( last night ) to try to put Curse of Doom on Heigen when he teleports to the platform. I play a 41/30 Dem/Destro Lock. The CoD is nearly up by the time I have to leave the dance floor.
Drago Dracini Apr 6th 2009 10:34PM
>.> my strat for Maexxna involves watching when the tiny spiders spawn and right before they do make sure a seed of corruption hits, they usually all die when they spawn when I time it right and I'm getting pretty good at it.
Dynamte Apr 6th 2009 11:16PM
my raids usually have a CoH priest or pally healers (we are so over stocked on pally tanks and heals atm)
they usually throw a becon the locks and we start tapping 2-3 sec before the aura vanishes.
on more than one occiasion i have tapped and gone to my trusty HS only to find that i'm already at full HP
if we using the circle priest just stack on them and do the same as the beacon
Ardy of Nagrand Apr 7th 2009 5:20AM
Dunno if im the only one that does this, but on the teleport phase after the first set of adds are down, lifetap full, you shoudnt really be taking alot of damage and healers shouldnt be too busy on that phase. Less lifetapping in the fight = moar DPS
rosencratz Apr 7th 2009 6:37AM
You should really try to be in the habit of lifetapping during your spell rotations.
Whilst it's fine to life tap multiple times during a quiet phase you'll find it's a bad habit to be in, especially later on when you might have the 4-set tier bonus for "moar DPS" as you say.
rosencratz Apr 7th 2009 6:30AM
I didn't know it was possible to keep your pet on the Thaddius fight, i'll try that killrogg trick in future.
For Gluth though i find all i need to do is press the "follow" button or "ctrl-2" I've not looked into the subject much but i've always figured it's a question of range as to whether the pet will reappear next to you. Which is why i've always thought it wasn't possible to get them to join you on Thadd. I usually just dump an infernal down at some point. Definately going to try the eye trick though now.
holdwine Apr 7th 2009 8:23AM
I really enjoy reading Blood Pact these days. For the eye stalk gauntlet, I usually do a Voidwalker sacrifice to make sure I can get through OK. Also if you are targeted and slowed, Escape Artist or PvP trinket will get you out of it.
As for pet choice for Heigan for a Demonology Lock, if you have two points in Fel Synergy, the Felguard should survive. Whatever pet you use though, it's important to keep them on passive so you can recall them when he teleports to his platform.
Another recommendation I'd contribute is be sure to feed your Felguard his mammoth treats. And for Affliction and Destro Locks using the imp or Succubus, make sure they aren't phase shifted/invisible during buffing before the start of a fight. You want your pet buffed, too.
Ghel Apr 7th 2009 11:06AM
Noth the Plaguebringer has an added trick on 25-man that I didn't see mentioned, and it tends to play hell with Affliction warlocks. He blinks every so often, and when he does, it wipes the threat table. The poor Afflock with a full stack of dots rolling is suddenly Noth's least favorite person in the room; if that's you, please move toward your tank so they can get him back. Backing up or trying to run from him doesn't do you any favors.
krowtz Apr 7th 2009 1:23PM
If you are a demo lock like me and have deadly boss mods on it will give you a little "healing in 3 seconds" warning during Loatheb. Wait a second and make drain life your next cast, makes the healers job that much easier. Also, thanks for the shadow ward tip! I feel like a noob for not knowing that he is doing shadow damage.
Also, just keep soulshatter somewhere on your ui - it has saved my ass so many times.
andrew mclaughlin Apr 7th 2009 2:26PM
Not sure if someone else commented on this but...here goes. On the safety dance as Affliction we are still able to keep all three instant cast DoTs (corruption, CoA, siphon life) on Heigan at all times. No need to clip before the dance or let them run out during it. To me its far and away a better option than attempting to get a quick cast off or being idle.
Malcalypse Apr 8th 2009 4:23AM
Notes on Loatheb that are missing:
If you're deep Affliction spec you can cast Haunt with 12-13 seconds of Necrotic Aura left for a heal when it drops.
Also use Drain Life when Necrotic Aura drops...help your healers out.
Cblood Apr 13th 2009 9:57PM
One thing I want to add to loatheb is the spell Drain Life. All sl/sl locks are familiar with it and it can be your savior from death if you cast it everytime that window opens (Preferably 1 second before it actually does so you know your getting healed). Also for affliction locks on Laotheb, there is no point in you casting Siphon Life, it won't do damage and heal you, only on windows but not enough to waste the mana it costs to cast it.
Temeluchus Jun 24th 2009 10:14AM
When fighting Max, Warlocks should always help with spiderling adds. But for god's sake don't use rain of fire. The reticule doesnt show up and the amount of time it takes you away from the boss kills your dps. Instead, about 2.5 seconds before the spiderlings appear, cast a seed of corruption on Max. It will pop just as the spiders emerge, dealing all of them about 4-5k damage and making them much easier to mop up by others.