2fps

This is a crazy fight. Nocturne’s first kill came late last night and by the time Rotface’s health had hit 5% everything had started to fall apart. Little oozes were everywhere and the big ooze was kersploding and Rotface himself was of course, vomiting all over everyone.

Having been in the role of Ooze Kiter Extraordinaire for each of our attempts, I share with you now some (hopefully useful) tips on the care and management of oooooze.

Spec

I tried two different specs for this job and custom-made them specifically with the Rotface fight in mind but also serviceable for general tanking should the need to fill in for a fallen bear arise. The first one I used was a Frost spec and the second one was an Unholy spec.

Frost

The spec: 10/56/5

A two-handed Frost spec that trims out the points needed to beef up dual-wield featuring extended range howling blasts and the Improved Icy Talons buff in case your raid group needs it.

This spec played pretty much exactly how you think it would. Howling Blast on cooldown, Icy Touch if a bit more threat is needed, etc. It is what it is. Were I to use such a spec again I would go for Hungering Cold as well, honestly not sure why I didn’t.

Unholy

The spec: 13/8/50

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner to go with an Unholy spec.

Here’s what makes Unholy awesome for this fight:

• 20% less damage taken throughout the entire fight (you’re not getting hit by anything that removes a charge of your Bone Shield thus it has a 100% uptime.)
• 6% less damage taken from magic
• Stronger Anti-magic Shell

I didn’t end up using Anti-magic Zone very much even though there were moments where I could have for a few seconds I suppose. It probably isn’t worth picking up and the point could be swapped for Unholy Blight or something else to beef up the abilities you will be using. Sad because I do love me that Anti-magic Zone. Someday I’ll find a justification for taking it (besides the fact that its hella cool looking)!

Faster Pussycat, tank tank!

Despite the header for this section I don’t advise actually trying to tank the big oozes. The header was also my guild note for a long while but I never figured out why. Ashmaw, enlighten?

So now it comes to the actual kiting part. We found it easier to cleanse the debuff asap since dealing with the 50% healing reduction was just too risky. People with the debuff would run their ooze to me until it merged with the other little one at first to make the big ooze. Right around the time the first big ooze is created you’ll have a section of the floor just about to flood. Go the other way if the flooded part is close by you and strafe away from the ooze.

Ever heard of a jump-shot? Its what you should be doing with your Death Coils to keep the big oozes fixed on chasing you. Don’t know what a jump-shot is or how to do it? Let’s ask our hunter friend Pike from Aspect of the Hare!

This movie of Pike’s helped learn me to jumpshot proper-like back in the Burning Crusade and hopefully she won’t mind me linking it here. If she does mind of course, it’ll be gone right quick!

To see the original page this video comes from, head on over to Pike’s site.

So coming back to Rotface, we find ourselves strafing away from the big ooze and we’re being awesome and jump-shotting it with Death Coil and we’re very pleased with ourselves.

Uh oh. The room just flooded right in front of you and the big ooze makes turning around a bad idea. No problem. You were probably getting a little starved for runic power anyway right? Pop Anti-magic Shell and continue on through the flooded area as normal. Anti-magic Shell will nullify the slow effect of the flood and convert the flood’s damage into a full runic power bar. Blessing of Freedom is pretty handy too if you’ve got a paladin in the raid. Yeah, I still call it Blessing of Freedom. Deal with it.

Remember also that if you’re dealing with a stubborn little ooze who won’t play nice and merge with the big ooze you can hit it with Chains of Ice to make sure it gets eaten up. To clarify what kinds of snares and taunts are effective against which ooze type here’s a reminder.

Little ooze

• Immune to taunt
• Immune to Death Grip (both the taunt and the pull)
• Susceptible to Chains of Ice and other roots and slows

Big ooze

• Susceptible to taunt
• Susceptible to Death Grip (the taunt effect, wasn’t drunk enough to try pulling it closer)
• Immune to Chains of Ice and other roots and slows

If I’ve missed anything or got anything wrong (I never get anything wrong, ever) just holler at me! Good luck on your own attempts at this guy!