Loatheb

[Air]

Loatheb is the 3rd and final boss of the plague wing in Naxxramas. Loatheb is a unique encounter that features a healing mechanic unlike any other. This mechanic, which we’ll discuss below, is intended to force healers to be more than just a “healbot”…note Healbot is an anagram of Loatheb, an intentional joke on the part of the original Naxxramas developers.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rVGUKVI4WA&eurl=http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/42292-naxxramas-loatheb.html&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Loatheb Abilities

    * Necrotic Aura - Every 20 seconds Loatheb will cast this on the entire raid. It’s a debuff that reduces healing by 100% for 17 seconds. This means your healers only get 3 seconds to heal the entire raid back up.
    * Deathbloom - Every 30 seconds Loatheb will cast this on the entire raid. It deals 200 damage per second followed by a 1200 damage “bloom” at the end.
    * Inevidble Doom - Deals 4000 damage after 10 seconds. Loatheb won’t start casting this until the 2 minute mark of the fight, at which point it will only be every 30 seconds. After 5 minutes he will cast this ever 15 seconds.
    * Fungal Creep - Increases critical strike by 50% and reduces threat by 100%. Applied when you’re in range of the spores upon their death, lasts 90 seconds. A maximum of 5 players can get the buff from a single spore.

Loatheb Boss Strategy

Starting the Encounter

First, you’ll want to setup the raid so that your best DPS are all in group 1. Everyone needs to know which group they are in, as we’re going to use these for the spore rotation (discussed below). The tank will want to hold Loatheb in the middle of the room, with melee players stacking near the tank and all ranged healers / DPS stacked up together in front of Loatheb. It’s important to stay close together so your AoE heals will have maximum effectiveness.

Spore Rotation

Almost immediately orange spores will start spawning randomly around the room. If you’re nearby when these spores die you’ll get a buff that increases critical strike chance by 50% and reduces threat by 100%. These buffs are crucial to your success during the fight, so it’s important the entire raid always have this buff. Generally you’ll want to have group 1 get the first spore and group 2 get the second (excluding the tank of course).

Understanding the Healing Debuff

Necrotic aura will be applied to the entire raid for 17 out of every 20 seconds. This will leave us with a 3 second window to heal the entire raid. So right away we need to get a little help from the rest of the raid in the way of staying close together. If the raid is too spread out you will likely have trouble getting the entire raid healed up before the next round of necrotic aura is applied. If you’re healing this fight you’ll want to be watching the debuff tick down, when it hits 1 second go ahead and queue your heal and select your second target for heal number 2.

Generally you can get 2 AoE heals and 1 instant cast heal during the 3 seconds (depends on your class). Don’t bother casting any HoTs during this time as they will have little effect. Just get as much healing out in the 3 seconds as you can. Here are some possible healing rotations you could use (and the one I use as a shaman).

    * Shaman - Chain heal, Chain heal, Riptide
    * Priest - Circle of healing, Circle of healing, Circle of healing
    * Paladin - Holy Light, Flash of Light, Holy Shock
    * Druid - Regrowth, Nourish, Nourish

Let the DPS Race Commence!

When it gets right down to the bottom line this fight is a DPS race. For this reason it’s extremely important you always keep the spore buff up on you, otherwise you simply aren’t going to have the damage necessary to kill him before 1) your healers run out of mana or 2) he starts inevidble doom every 15 seconds. Healing on Loatheb isn’t all that difficult, it’s just a matter of timing your first heal to go off the moment necrotic aura lifts and spaming during the 3 second healing period.

Once you’ve mastered these basic mechanics you’ll be well on your way to your first Loatheb kill!