Every Sunday,Chase Christian of The Light and How to swing it invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the most difficult encounter to date: defeating the fallen paladin Arthas.
Turalyon,Uther ,Tirion and Paladins have a rich lineage of heroes in their lore, dating back for centuries decades. These crusaders of the light dedicated their lives to cleansing Azeroth of the darkness that has plagued us for time immemorial. Every new paladin looks up to these paragons of virtue for guidance and inspiration. Our ancestors set the example for how we should conduct ourselves, and show us the courage it takes to fight. However, the story of our paladin heritage has not always been so pure.
The greatest threat on Azeroth was also once one of the powerful paladins in existence. before losing himself in his crusade to stop the scourge plague from spreading. He gave up his humanity in a failed attempt to save the world, and ended up becoming the half of the entiry known as the Lich King Now, in our final effort to rid the world of the scourge blight, we must confront one of our former brothers, and put the Light's strength to the test against the unholy corruption of Frostmourne.
Atop the highest pinnacle of Icecrown Citadel, Arthas awaits us as we march towards the Frozen Throne. After conquering his lieutenants, his creations, and his enslaved, we've finally reached his lair. by our side (for about 60 seconds), we are tasked with defeating him in combat, and dismantling the scourge threat. While it may seem like a monumental task, the Light will always defeat darkness, and as holy paladins, we are the brightest
Necrotic Plague
The Lich King's first attack is that will easily kill any player afflicted with is. However,we can turn his own magic against him. After the diseased player runs near one of Arthas' minions, use Cleanse to dispel the Necrotic Plague. It will jump to the nearest target instead of an ally. Make sure you give the affected raid member ample time to reach the adds, as dispelling it early will cause it to jump to another raid member. The damage portion of the plague ticks every 5 seconds, so if you don't dispel before 5 seconds have expired, the player will die instantly. This part of the fight can be tricky: pay attention to whoever gets the disease and dispel them as quickly as they're in position.
Infest
If you've read GCD wasted. Infest completely reverses that diagnosis. Arthas will attack every raid member,and they'll keep taking more damage from a persistent DoT until healed to above 90% of their life. A quick Holy Shock can instantly remove Infest from a player, and thus saves the player from taking any extra damage from Infest. While healing this encounter, I actually considered using as Infest is a pretty big deal for healers if you don't have a priest present.
If a player ends up running away from the healers while Infested (this can happen during Phase 2), the stacking damage from Infest can build up quickly and ticks every second.You'll find them face down in the dirt. You need to apply your maximum HPS ability to get them out of the hole and up to 90% life as soon as possible. At some point their incoming damage will be higher than FoL can handle, so HL first and just get Infest out of the way completely. If a player is taking several thousand damage per second from Infest, you can use LoH to save them or to ensure they get above 90% on your next heal. Don't take chances with Infest: heal it quickly with Holy Shock and use Holy Light if it doesn't get removed in short order.
While discipline priests can make short order of Infest, holy paladins are probably the worst at handling the AoE spell. However, we do have one tool at our disposal that can prove quite useful,or to reduce the DoT damage for 6 seconds, which means less overall healing needed to get everyone back above 90%. I like to save Aura Mastery for a situation where one of our AoE healers may be out of position or grabbed by a Val'kyr, and use it then to help offset the healer who is out of commission.
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