Throne of Thunder Fight-Specific Tips (Part 1 of 4)

This fight is fun for Atonement.

So, a short warning before we begin. I have not been Shadow since two weeks before 5.2. So while I claim to know some things about DPS, I may be missing the shadowy elephant in the room on some or all fights. My Atonement DPS advice should be pretty sound though.



Jin'rokh

• Atonement is godmode on this fight (and on Horridon.) 60% healing and 40% damage from the pools adds up to to 124% increased healing. Even Disc priests not optimized for DPS should probably use Atonement.
• Hang out near the pool spawn. As you're probably aware, the boss throws the tank, which creates a pool of magical DPS water (somehow) that you stand in. You can plan ahead to minimize your time to get there; he always throws at the most distant available pillar from himself. Just don't be there before the tank lands; there's an AoE stun when he does.
• Use healing and defensive cooldowns on Lightning Storm. PW:Barrier is good for soaking the lightning storm damage if you can convince your raid to stack up. The pool still gives its damage dealt buff for about half the storm's duration, so Shadow priests may want to stay in and roll Vampiric Embrace to help the raid (Vampiric Embrace is also godmode). This is pretty much always worth the risk to yourself if VE is available; 12k DPS is enough to make it break even. It's a net HP gain for Atonement priests to stay in too if they do at least 45k DPS without it, however this is dangerous.

Horridon

• Atonement is godmode on this fight. There is rather a lot of more-or-less random damage on this boss. But you don't have to care. Why? 200% damage buff. 183k Penance non-crit ticks are funny. 377k crits are even funnier. After the first set of trash, just spam DPS the boss. It trivializes all the damage flying around. Don't worry about summoning War-God Jalak too early (30% HP); we had me and a Warlock on the boss full-time doing nearly 500k DPS, and still only triggered it just on-time.
• Mass Dispel is good for phase 1. For the first set of trash, the 3-target magic DoT tends to hit people close to the mob that casts it, so if you watch the mobs' cast bar, you can strip 3-6 DoTs in one spell.
• Use healing cooldowns for War-God Jalak. Bestial Cry can inflict a positively-staggering amount of damage, particularly if your raid's DPS is low. Use healing cooldowns to counter. Atonement on Horridon is still more effective than AoE healing. Shadow Priests should use Vampiric Embrace off of Horridon when War-God's HP is low.

Council of Elders

• The bursty healing of Halo and Cascade are both good for this fight. Raid damage can be pretty erractic, and tends to spike during Sandstorm and Overload. A single well-placed Halo or Cascade is very useful for these.
• PW:Barrier is best used for Sandstorm. Due to the mobile nature of the fight, you're unlikely to find another time to actually make use of it.
• Glyphed Binding Heal is great for Frostbite. 3 targets, pretty good mana efficiency, what's not to like? Ok, so one of the three has to be you, but you're also a decent candidate to help split the damage, thanks to Focused Will, which triggers if there's 2 or less people in the split (and from the random-target sand attacks.)
• Void Tendrils permanently root the Loa Spirits. Since Loa Spirits are susceptible to roots, have no melee, and last 20sec maximum, Void Tendrils always root them for the rest of their life. Enjoy your lazymode CC.

Next week, look for more tips for Tortos, Megaera, and Ji-Kun, including how to rage at not getting your staff.