Healing Naxxramas – Instructor Razuvious (10 man)

Instructor Razuvious is the first boss of the Military Quarter (Death Knight Wing). He’s a rather unique fight in that your tanks don’t actually tank him themselves. Tanks have to hold threat indirectly.

The gimmick

The first thing you have to understand is that Razuvious hits really hard. He hits harder than normal. He hits so hard he can remold the face of your bear tank and dent plate in others. He has 2 Understudy’s with him. There are 2 orbs on either side. The goal here is for your tanks to activate the orb thus granting control of the Understudy’s to you. Your players have to use their abilities to tank him. They have to taunt off each other and activate their abilities accordingly.

Who should MC? The groups I ran with had both main and off tanks on the orbs. For Guilds going in for the first time, I don’t advise this. I’d suggest having a tank and a random DPS use the orbs. The reason being is that if a mob breaks early and the orb controller can’t get the Understudy back, your tank can blow a taunt and temporarily hold aggro until the orb controller can get it back.

Above: Picture of an orb controller.
Below: Orb controller in action.

Abilities

• Random throw: Applies DoT damage to players. Need a healer to get them back up. Similar to the Zul’Jin phase 1 mechanic in Zul’Aman.

Releasing control allows the Understudys to gain all of their health back (this may have been changed with recent beta builds). Ranged and healers will want to stand at maximum range. When your orb players lose control, the Understudy will immediately run towards players who have MC’d them. Tank Raz as far away as possible to buy time for your orb players to pick it up again.

If you look at the header image at the beginning, note that room is circular in shape. Tank Raz at the very top part as much as you can.

Understudy’s CAN be healed. But please don’t rely on it too much. I suggest placing 1 healer on the raid, 2 on the Understudys (1 each).

The Understudy has 3 abilities:

• 4: Damaging melee attack (I think)
• 5: Taunt
• 6: Bone Barrier which reduces magical and physical damage taken by 75% for 20 seconds. You definitely want to use this.
• 1: Auto-attack

 

Vocabulary

Communication is extremely important. When I took down Raz, I’ve heard successful tanks use the following:

• “Taunt ready!” (When their taunt cooldown is up)
• “Taunt now!” (When the tank is about to lose control and needs the other tank to take over)
• “Debuff is off!” (There’s an Orb debuff that prevents them from using any orb for about 60 seconds)
• “Losing him in 5!” (Provides a 5 second warning that the MC spell is about to fall off and that the other tank should pick him up while the original tank is going to lose control of an Understudy and has to use an Orb again)

Note: I’m going to re-emphasize this again. Healers can NOT sustain Understudy’s on their own for extended periods of time. Don’t try to tank it with just 1 Understudy the whole way. Tank switching and Orb releasing is imperative. The job for healers in this fight is to help extend Understudy’s for as long as possible.

1 healer on the raid to cover up the DoT damage that’s applied and the other 2 on the Understudy’s should be more than enough. This is a DPS fight more than anything else.

When it’s over

We’re not done yet. We still have 2 of these MC’d mobs up. Have one of your tanks release control and have the other Understudy taunt that. Use the mob to tank the other mob. As soon as you DPS that one down, have your free tank (Main or off tank) taunt the remaining one. DPS that down and you’re home free.

Loot

• Accursed Bow of the Elite
• Girdle of Lenience: Belt for Resto Druids
• Iron Rings of Endurance: Bracers for Resto Shamans
• Mantle of the Extensive Mind: Possible Priest Shoulders (lacks Spirit)
• Plated Gloves of Relief: Holy Paladin Gloves
• Rapid Attack Gloves
• Scepter of Murmuring Spirits: Potential Druid or Priest healer Off-hand (lacks Spirit)
• Waistguard of the Tutor

More guides to healing Naxx can be found here.