For The Paladin

I can honestly say that when I first stepped up into Blackwing Lair, I was pretty knowledgeable of Molten Core, taking down bosses such as Magmadar in my sleep.  That said, I felt like I was very knowledgeable about raiding in WoW.

I was wrong.   Very, very wrong.

Razorgore was not only the first boss, but the first MOB in Blackwing Lair, and even his mechanics were something I’ve never seen before in the game.

But i’m not here to write about the mechanics of Razorgore…then the title wouldn’t make sense.

Vaelastrasz had one of the most fun mechanics I’ve ever played in raiding.  He had a spell called Burning Adrenaline which would increase your damage by 100%, your attack speed by 100%, and your spells became instant cast.  How awesome is that?  Imagine being a pure DPS class and you’ve been hit with Burning Adrenaline, you become so overpowered you’d think that it was unfair to even put this spell in the game!

….I mean, there’s also that whole “lose 5% of your max health every second” bit, but it’s still pretty cool.

The craziest part about this spell was that he not only cast it on a random mana users throughout the fight, but also on the current tank every 45 seconds.  That meant that tanks had to have a rotation on when they became Main Tank while the other slowly withered away.   For those who weren’t tanking but had mana to spare, they needed to get to a safe zone to be at, because upon death, they will explode and do 4,376 to 5,624 AoE blast damage.  But if you were being healed, you should have enough health to get a few good nukes in.   Of course, rogues never got hit with this spell (and they damn sure don’t need it).

On top of this intriguing little spell is another ridiculous ability,Essence of the Red.

This debuff is cast on the raid at the beginning of the encounter and lasts for three minutes. Restores 500 Mana per second to mana users. Restores 50 Energy per second to Rogues and Cat Form Druids. Generates 20 Rage per second for Warriors and Bear Form Druids.

It essentially means players have infinite mana/rage/energy for the fight. Circle of Healing. Being a holy paladin at the time, it was time to go crazy with Holy Light and Flash of Light. Add Holy Shock to the mix and you’re pretty much all set to go in terms of healing.

Oh, you should also keep Fire Resistance Aura on, because of Vael’s passive Fire Nova spell.

Killing Vael will grant you access to your Tier 2 belt as well as these items:

Pendant of the Fallen Dragon
Dragonfang Blade
Red Dragonscale Protector

Personally, I had both the Pendant and the Shield back in Vanilla WoW. Both were awesome items for a Holy Paladin.

Keep Tuning in for more Raiding to the Past!