[Paladin] Blood Princes – Like Getting Slapped In the Face With A Dirty Sock

Last night was the third time we killed Blood Princes in our ICC 10 since the Crimson Halls opened, and one would think that after having seeing the fight (and even one shot it last week) that it would have become a no-brainer. Our tanks all know the fight, our hunter (with his pet) can keep up the disco balls almost entirely by himself.

But we had two new folks with us last night and that resulted in a lot of Empowered Shock Waves throwing healers around the room that just shouldn't have happened. Aside from that, we had a couple jaw-dropping tank deaths in the first few seconds of the fight that resulted in me calling for a wipe, and since I'd come on my paladin as a healer, that resulted in much self-berating (as well as a request for the bear to Barkskin while running into position, just to give a little breather).

When we first beat the Blood Princes I came away from the fight loving it for its franticness and coordination, but it's funny how a few weeks later it's still crazy frantic. I did this first as a moonkin dps, and twice now as a paladin healer and it's just so much OMG OMG OMG, I can't screw up or we're gonna die.

Our first few Festergut attempts were like this, where if I didn't start spamming Holy Lights we were going to lose a tank, but we've gotten Festergut to the point where we can almost do him with two healers (providing we have four ranged dps). The Blood Princes still require three healers going full bore. Our vent chat is full of healers calling out their mana regen cooldowns or shouting at someone running out of range (usually the warlock tank or the hunter on the disco balls).

When I say that Blood Princes are like getting slapped in the face with a dirty sock it's because last night was like a rude awakening, a surprise, and it stank. It was a reminder that we still have to pay attention even if we know the fight, because it's tricky enough that we can't go on autopilot, not yet. Sure, some of it could be attributed to new people in the raid, but the two early tank deaths were definitely due to unprepared healers.

I got back in the habit of spamming Holy Lights at the start of the fight whether I thought the warlock needed it or not, because I couldn't risk that he would get one-shotted, and even if he didn't, my beacon was on the bear, and I needed to make sure the bear stayed up.

As the fight wore on I could afford to mix up the HL/HS/FoLs together, but that opening while everyone was getting into position was critical. I'm not sure why our one shot last week hadn't brought that home. It had been my first time healing it. But maybe we'd gotten lucky.

One thing that helped over the duration of the fight was that I recently set up Power Auras for my paladin. While healing Festergut I'd noticed that I tended to get tunnel vision in regards to my mana bar, and sometimes I wouldn't remember to Divine Plea until I noticed I was running on fumes (<25%). Not a good thing.

Now there is a row of three possible icons that appear beneath my feet in a raid (where I can't miss them) if the cooldowns are available; one each for my Divine Plea, Avenging Wrath, and Talisman of Resurgence cooldowns. Additionally I added a blue ring around me that shows up when I have 50% mana to I make sure to use DP when it's both available and I can use the regen, and as a general reminder myself that I might have to start playing a little conservatively (or use a mana pot) if DP is on cooldown.

I like to alternate between using Avenging Wrath and the Talisman of Resurgence to offset the healing penalty when using DP, and once I have the two piece set bonus for T10 I'll probably add Divine Illumination somewhere, maybe make a little T with the icons. It's not often that I feel I need to Plea while both Avenging Wrath and the Talisman of Resurgence are on cooldown, but it happens sometimes, and the two piece T10 is stronger than either of them.