My opinions on this boss encounter are somewhat skewed because of the circumstances under which I fought him. On 10-man, he was an absolute breeze, and I found myself seriously questioning the rumors that I’d heard about it being a “healing-intensive” encounter. My second run-in with the big red guy was on 25-man, and it was a nightmare. I’ve since realized, though, that this was less about Jaraxxus and more about the raid. First, we didn’t know about dispelling Nether Power. We thought his Fel Lightning was one-shotting people because it must chain the way Thorim’s does. But in fact it does not. Even after we figured that out, we had a sort of off-raid that night, which meant that we had only two mages to dispel the aforementioned Nether Power, and we had NO REPLENISHMENT. It was rough.

Happily, with proper raid buffs and dispellers, Jaraxxus is not bad at all. On with the show!

Jaraxxus has a variety of abilities that have minimal bearing on a holy paladin’s routine. He buffs himself with Nether Power, which must be dispelled. He casts Fel Fireball, which must be interrupted. He summons two types of add: Infernals and Mistresses of Pain, which must be tanked. But there are still a number of his abilities that we can do something about.

The first and simplest is Touch of Jaraxxus. It’s a magic debuff that seems (in my experience, anyway) to only be placed on his primary aggro target. We just need to dispel it as soon as possible, so it doesn’t spread too many curses.

The second ability to watch for is Incinerate Flesh. This will be cast on a random raid member throughout the fight. I would strongly recommend that you add this debuff to your list of tracked debuffs, whether on Grid, Healbot, or specific tracking add-on. It works like an absorption bubble that absorbs healing instead of damage. The amount that it can absorb fluctuates based on the difficulty setting of the encounter (30k on 10-man normal, 40k on 10-man heroic, 60k on 25-man normal, and a whopping 85k on 25-man heroic.) Once you’ve thrown enough healing its way, the “bubble” will pop harmlessly and the target will resume doing full damage. If, however, you do not pop the bubble by doing the requisite amount of healing after 12 seconds, the target will explode and deal pulses of damage to the raid. You want to avoid this whenever possible.

The nasty thing about this particular debuff is that, as holy paladins, we’re a great option for healing it. Our “big heal” is spammable (unlike Penance, for example), and we tend to gear and spec to maximize our ability to spam it. Why is this nasty? Because the heals are “Absorbed,” which means they don’t transfer via Beacon of Light. It’s a pain, but Jaraxxus’ tank damage is generally not so severe that we can’t afford to Holy Light the Incinerated Flesh a couple times, even without Beacon transfer.

Legion Flame is another debuff to be aware of, as you’ll probably catch it at least once or twice during the encounter. The debuff lasts six seconds and spawns fire under you. However, in my very limited experience, it seems to behave strangely. Whether due to graphical latency or design, the fire doesn’t spawn immediately, and if you spend all six seconds running to the back of the arena, your whole trail will light up with fire when the debuff expires. The important thing is that you do not stand still, and that you do not run the fire through other people.

Finally, there’s Fel Lightning. Your raid should spread out in the usual fashion for dealing with Chain Lightning-style abilities, but as I mentioned in the into, this is not Thorim’s lightning. It doesn’t grow stronger with each jump. It’s very manageable damage, so long as Jaraxxus doesn’t have too many stacks of Nether Power up when he casts it.

And that’s pretty much it for Jaraxxus. Except… his adds have a few tricks of their own.

Mistress’ Kiss is an ability that should worry any holy paladin that reads its description. I certainly was. Unlike every other healing class, we only have access to a single spell school (holy.) If we get this debuff, our only options are to rely on instant spells for the duration, bubble out of it, pop Aura Mastery with Concentration Aura, or just suck it up and eat the interrupt. Unfortunately, I can’t give any first-hand advice as to which of these is the best choice, since I never got the debuff, in 10- or 25-man. And the weird thing? Neither did any of the other healers I talked to. I’ve got nothin’.

Spinning Pain Spike does damage equal to a percentage of the target’s health. That percentage fluctuates with difficulty setting, but on all settings, it’s pretty serious. This, along with Incinerate Flesh above, is something you’ll want to track, because massive damage will follow the three-second “You’re being targeted!” debuff. Power Word: Shield is really the ace in the hole for dealing with this ability, but we can still prime a heal to help with the damage that gets through.

The only other thing of note won’t affect you directly, but you still need to know about it: Shivan Slash. This will keep the damage on the Mistress’ offtank even higher and spikier than the damage on Jaraxxus’ tank. Something to be aware of, both in selecting your spells and your healing assignments.

Fel Inferno is the only thing to really worry about with regard to the Infernals that Jaraxxus will spawn. All it means is that you should always try to be 15 yards away from them.

Now let’s talk about our cooldowns. There’s a lot of raid damage, but it’s all very spiky and hard to predict. This means mitigation cooldowns like Aura Mastery (you’ll notice that most of the damage is Fire, so rock the FR aura if you can) and Divine Sacrifice don’t have an easy “USE ME NOW” moment. If you find yourself forced to bubble, say due to Mistress’ Kiss, then go ahead and use Divine Sacrifice then, while the bubble is up anyway. If infernals start AOEing the raid due to poor placement, it’s another good time to pop something.

Damage will be highest while a Mistress of Pain is active, so if you’re being conservative with Divine Plea, wait until one of them has just died. Based on my limited testing (in a replenishment-free post-battlerez environment of pure chaos) it is mostly safe to melee Jaraxxus for Seal of Wisdom procs. His Fel Lightning seems to always prioritize ranged targets before melee targets. The only time it’s not safe is if Infernals are in range, or if a portal is opening (they cause AOE damage as well.)

Aaand… that’s about it for Big Red. Looking forward to playing with the Faction Champions this coming week, which you’ll be able to read all about in the third installment of this series.

This post will lay out the key mechanics of the new bosses for a holy paladin. This is not meant to be a full write-up or Bosskillers-style strategy guide… Instead, I look at each encounter in terms of potential holy paladin opportunities: when is it safe to use Divine Plea? Can you melee this boss for mana? When is the best time for Divine Sacrifice or Aura Mastery? There will undoubtedly be things that I do not cover (like the need for Jaraxxus’ buffs to be dispelled or his Fel Fireballs to be interrupted) because they have no real bearing on holy paladins.

I hope this will prove useful not only to my fellow holy paladins, but also raid leaders and healing leaders who want to assign their paladins optimally in the new instance.

All that said, let’s look at the new bosses!

Our first encounter is the “Northrend Beasts”–three of them. Well, four of them. Well, four and some snobolds. Are snobolds beasts?

The encounter is a series of bosses, with no out-of-combat time between bosses. Essentially it’s one boss with three very disparate phases. Unlike Mimiron, these phase changes are so quick that there’s not even really time for a Divine Plea between them. The first phase is a fight against:

Gormok is probably the most straightforward of the three (or four) beasts you’ll be fighting. Here’s the scoop:

Gormok is an absolutely perfect fight for Beacon of Light. He places a stacking DoT called Impale on his primary aggro target. Due to the stacking bleed effect, two tanks will alternate taunting him so that neither of them gain more stacks than can be reasonably healed through. This means that in 10-man, both of your tanks will be taking simultaneous damage for pretty much the entire fight. In 25-man, your raid will have to decide how many tanks to rotate through, but anywhere from 2-4 would be reasonable. This means that we can easily maintain a steady flow of HPS on two tanks at all times. Raid damage is minimal, so you’ll likely find yourself healing your Beacon target through a second tank.

Gormok will also create patches of resistable fire on the ground, so depending on your raid composition and other auras and resistance buffs available, you may want to turn on Fire Resistance Aura to help raid members as they move out of the fire. The fire is a fairly static feature, so there’s no particular moment that popping Aura Mastery will do the most good–just use your best judgement. In addition, Gormok will toss Snobolds onto the backs of random raid members. DPS will need to kill these, unless you’re going for a particularly hilarious achievement, but the damage they do is very minor–no real need to help out on raid healing, especially since you have the ideal two-tank setup already in place for Beacon.

In terms of mana, if you use Seal of Wisdom, all of your procs will have to come from Judgement on Gormok. His Staggering Stomp ability will interrupt (and lock out) spellcasting for eight seconds to all targets within 15 yards, which means we cannot safely melee him for mana without risking interruption. Unlike Freya’s Ground Tremor or Ignis’ Flame Jets, there is not enough time to ensure that you can stop casting before the interrupt goes off. So, just stay at range. As long as your tanks are good at swapping at a reasonable number of stacks, the damage on this fight is not especially difficult to heal, and it should not really tax your mana pool. Do note, however, that Impale will continue to tick even after Gormok is dead, all the way into the next phase. So you’ll need to keep the heals flowing all the way into the next encounter.

Phase two of the fight is what makes three phases equal four beasts: that’s right, not one but two Jormungar worms.

As there are two worms, so too must there be two tanks. Yep, that’s right, another fight right up Beacon’s alley. When Ghostcrawler referred to us as “exceptional dual-target healers,” he may have had this place in mind. Acidmaw is, for convenient shorthand, the poison one. Dreadscale, on the other hand, is the fire one. The worms will occasionally burrow into the ground and re-emerge elsewhere. Each time this happens, they will alternate: one will be rooted into the ground, and the other will be mobile. When Acidmaw is mobile, he’ll drop Slime Pools, very similar to the ones from Grobbulus back in Naxx. Because of this, the tank will be moving him around constantly. This means that the two tanks will often be varying distances from each other. Fortunately the new range on Beacon of Light means that you’ll be able to reliably heal them both throughout the duration of the encounter. This is definitely a fight where you want your assignment to be “the tanks, both of them.”

Raid damage will come primarily from the debuffs placed on random raid members, Burning Bile from Dreadscale and Paralytic Toxin from Acidmaw. Burning Bile will deal periodic damage, and Paralytic Toxin will paralyze you after a short time, causing a highly-damaging long-duration stun that will prevent you from doing anything, let alone healing the tanks. Happily, the bile can be used to cancel out the toxin. So if you are at risk of being paralyzed, you need only move near someone with Burning Bile to remove the debuff, or have them move to you (the toxin will snare you. Hand of Freedom didn’t seem to help.) Nonetheless, fire damage will be happening no matter what, so Fire Resistance Aura remains an excellent choice.

Unlike Gormok, we can safely melee the rooted worm, just so long as we avoid any poison clouds and stay behind them (they both deal constant damage at a very rapid rate to any target in front of them.) This is good, because if your mana will start aching at any point during the Northrend Beasts encounter, now is as likely as ever.

When the first worm is killed, the second enters a soft enrage. Now is a good time to use either Divine Sacrifice or Hand of Sacrifice while bubbled, to alleviate the tank damage during the enrage. That said, the enrage is not particularly rough, and you may wish to save Divine Sacrifice for the next phase.

Icehowl is the last boss you’ll face in the Northrend Beasts encounter, and I have to say: at least on normal difficulty, he’s the easiest.

Icehowl requires a single tank, so Beacon will be slightly less useful here. There’s still some sporadic raid damage you can toss a Holy Light or three on though, so it’s not useless by a long shot. Occasionally he’ll spin around and use his Arctic Breath on a portion of the raid, freezing them solid and dealing a decent amount of damage. Switching to Frost Resistance Aura is a sound move, and popping Aura Mastery during the breath will help. If you’re unfrozen, now’s the time to heal the raid and let Beacon take care of the tank. The damage will not kill anyone on its own, assuming a basic level of gearedness, but they’ll need to be topped off so that they aren’t killed by his big move: Massive Crash.

Massive Crash is what the fight is all about. He hops to the center of the arena and stuns everyone, flinging them against the walls. It does a lot of damage, so when you see him start to leap, it’s a great time to pop Divine Sacrifice (while bubbled, of course) and mitigate 40% of it. Once everyone is stunned and flung against walls, he’ll turn towards a raid member (with a nice easily-visibile yellow text warning as to whom he’s targeting) and then rush towards them. Everyone in the area needs to bolt like lightning out of the way as soon as the stun wears off.

After that, it’s all about whether or not you got out of the way in time. If you didn’t, whoever was hit will almost certainly be dead. In addition (as if that wasn’t punitive enough) Icehow will go into a Frothing Rage, increasing his damage and attack speed by 50-100%, depending on difficulty setting–it’s pretty serious. You’ll need to spam big heals, tanks will need to pop cooldowns, and if the tank should die, a new one will need to pick Icehowl up. It’s bad times for everyone.

If you did get out of the way, he becomes stunned and takes increased damage. Do this reliably and he becomes the biggest cuddliest loot pinata ever. Much like XT’s heart or a stunned tentacle on Yogg, you should take this opportunity to whack him for Seal of Wisdom procs. No damage will be happening, and you might as well. Even without SoW-melee, mana should not be an issue here. Even if your raid fails at dodging his charge, the damage only comes in short, predictable bursts followed by long, long lulls. There’s a lot of time to regen, whether through Divine Plea or just mp5. If you do need the mana, however, make sure to wait until he’s stunned to melee him. Otherwise you’ll likely catch one of his Whirls, which can make healing a little difficult.

And that’s it! Beasts defeated, loot collected, and on to Lord Jaraxxus. Which is where I’ll be picking up this weekend with Part 2 of this little series. Hope it was helpful.