Javaed posted on September 30, 2009
It's been a long while since I've posted. Sorry about that. To make up for it, I figured I'd post about not one, but two bosses and finish up this series regarding ToC. So then, today we're going to talk about Twin Valkyrs and Anub'arak.
Who Doesn't Love Twins?
If you don't know about this fight, I suggest you watch the Tank Spot video, as it provides a great general over-view. Rather than describe the entire fight for you, I want to focus on a few particular things I've noticed.
1) Be Warry of the Orbs
Obviously you're dodging the orbs that are of the opposite color of your character, as they'll damage you. However, if you happen to absorb an orb of the same color while you're casting Mind Flay, you're going to lose a tick of Mind Flay damage. If you're very unlucky, you're going to lose 2 ticks. We basically get spell pushback from getting hit whether or not we take damage from the orbs, which sucks.
I deal with this by being a bit pro-active, and keeping my camera moving around constantly. If I see a group of orbs I'd like to get for a buff, then I move toward them, and use this time for casting SW:D and DP. That way I can keep up DPS while moving about and not suffer too big of a loss. When I get the buff, and want to stand and unleash, I'll try to stand close to a healer or another DPS, somebody who'll keep absorbing orbs.
2) This isn't a Multi-Dot Fight
Unfortunately, the way the Auras work prevent us from effectively multi-dotting this fight. However, when we make the switches from Holy to Shadow every minute or so, you could maintain Shadow Word: Pain on both targets, through Mind Flay refreshes. Since the damage increases and decreases are percentage based, you'll be doing decent damage to both targets with the DoT. However, do to all the movement involved with this fight, and the need to burn down targets
periodically, I haven't found much time to practice this.
My recommendation is that you spend your time focusing on doing as much single target DPS as you can. Pop your Shadow Fiend at the start of the fight, and as soon as he's off cool-down.
Squashing Anub'arak
This is a pretty fun fight, and Shadow Priests can do decent damage on if we put in the right effort. First, you'll have one of two assignments on this fight. You'll either be asked to focus on the boss and adds, or to focus on bringing down Permafrost.
To bring down the Permafrost, you'll have to attack Frost Orbs that are floating in the sky. Now to be honest, the first couple of times I downed this boss, my methods for bringing down orbs weren't exactly the best. I tried Mind Flay, and this was slow as can be since I often need all three ticks of MF to kill an orb. Mind Blast and SW:D weren't terrible, except that they would often leave orbs with somewhere between 1 and 50 hp. I'd wind up taking 3 - 5 seconds to down each orb, and this was slow and a major loss of DPS time.
Here's what you should do. Spam Shadow Word: Pain like there's no tomorrow. I start by getting an opening rotation and full DoTs up on Anub. I then start looking for orbs, and just Dot them up. I might put SW:P on one or two, in between using my normal rotation on Anub or the adds that spawn on Phase 1 of this fight. This leads to very minimal lost DPS time, especially since I'm keeping DoTs rolling on two targets at a time. This also leads to having plenty of Permafrost on the ground.
Phase 2 of the fight (The Burrow Phase) really depends a bit on luck. We can't burn down the Scarabs very quickly, but they don't have enough HP for full dots either. And they tend to spread out a ton, so Mind Searing isn't an option. What I tend to do is move to the corners of the map where they spawn, and pop SW:P on each one as the spawn. Once I get a group of 3 or 4 of them dotted up, I'll toss out some Mind Blasts and Shadow Word: Deaths, usually on the first couple of Scarabs. It's not mana efficient at all, but I can do decent DPS overall. This works best of you team up with another DoT DPSer, like an affliction Lock or another Shadow Priest, so that several DoTs ticking at once lead to quick deaths.
Phase 3 is a straight up burn phase. If you've got an add alive, you can pad your numbers by DoTing it up, but this is wasted DPS. The most effective thing you can really do on this phase is toss up Vampiric Embrace, as the healing will ease a bit of the pressure off your healers. At the least, you can negate much of the damage you'll be taking personally.