Ace the Instructor Razuvious Encounter as a Shadow Priest

Fight Instructor Razuvious as a priest successfully and how to consistently perform well in the fight, earning a raid spot in Naxxramas 25 Man raids over other healers by using this simple guide. When patch 3.1 came out, priests had to get dual specialization and master both dps (damage per second) and Healing aspects of the Priest class.

One of the most challenging fights to learn is the Instructor Razuvious fight. The reasons why this fight is challenging is that many priests played healers prior to dual specializations but with the right macros, techniques and gear any priest can successfully conqueror Instructor Razuvious. Success in the Razuvious fight is all it takes, combined with good healing to get invited back again and again for Naxxramas 25 man raids and will help build your reputation and get you invited for better raids in the future.

When you encounter Razuvious, it can be a frustrating fight at first because; you will suddenly be thrust into a new role, instead of healing far away from the action, you are the center of the action, the critical factor that wins the encounter for the raid. Your role will be tanking the boss and dealing melee damage. New skills come into play as you must use mind control, quickly pick up your targets and keep the boss tanked, rotating bone shields with the other priests in the party.

You will need the following to successfully win this encounter for your raid: a full understanding of the fight, high spell hit gear, set focus and good macros to help with timing and picking up targets. As a Shadow Priest, your job is to use the Mind Control Spell to control one of Instructor Razuvious' Death Knight Understudies and use them to tank the boss. In order to effectively tank the boss, you must cast bone shield which has a limited duration, when your bone shield is about to wear off, you must let the other priest know, so that they can use bone shield and taunt the boss off of your understudy.

If Mind Control breaks repeatedly, it will be impossible to tank the boss efficiently and the raid will wipe and they will all blame you or the other priest. Expect Mind Control to break often but minimize it by taking the Shadow Focus talent for an extra +3% to hit to all shadow spells, Misery gives another +3%. Use the Glyph of Mind Control: reduces the chance targets will resist or break your Mind Control spell by an additional 17%. The spell hit cap is 288.55 or 17% for spell casters to hit raid bosses 100% of the time but many priests find that they are effective with only 158- 200 +spell hit in the Instructor Razuvious Naxxramas encounter. If you have less Shadow Focus ranks, you will need more hit to reach the +spell hit cap. Make sure that no one in the raid has a tremor totem out or has used shadow protection, as both buffs will increase the chances that the Death Knight Understudy will break free of the mind control spell. Assuming that you have all the talents, glyph and +266 spell hit, your next challenges will be to focus on your assigned understudy, rotate taunts with the other priests and find your understudy quickly when Mind Control lapses.

Getting to +266 spell hit to be ready for Naxxramas can be a challenge if you just turned level 80 but you can do it through a combination of the gear from pvp and heroics, gems and enchants. If you are jewel crafter you can make Rigid Dragon's Eyes that give +27 to spell hit chance, Veiled Monarch Topaz gives both 8-9+hit and spell power. The Enchantment Precise Strikes gives +15 hit rating to gloves, Icewalker gives +12 hit and critcal strike chance to feet, The Arcanum of Power gives +15 hit rating and 22 spell power to helms. Some easily attained Shadow Priest gear includes: Titan Forged Slippers of Dominance from Wintergrasp +36 Hit Rating, Titan Forged Rainment of Dominance +51 hit rating.

Before the pull use Mind Soothe so that you can get closer to the Death Knight Understudy without pulling, next use set focus, to make a hit point bar appear that you can use to quickly find your understudy again.

The following macro streamlines the pull and will help you be successful:

/target focus
/cast Mind control
/target Instructor Razuvious

This macro will target your focus, the Death Knight Understudy, cast the Mind Control spell and then target the instructor. Instead of trying frantically to pick out Razuvious while he is buried under rogues, tanks and pets by hand, your macro will automatically target him. All you need to do is run into melee range with your Death Knight Understudy, cast Bone Shield and taunt.

Good teamwork with the other priest is what wins this encounter for the raid because bone shield doesn't last long, it's important to have good communication. Below is a good macro which will help you let the other priest know what you're doing and when they need to use their understudy to taunt off you. If you have ventrilo or team speak you can also call out when you need the other priest to taunt.

Priest Taunt Rotation Macro:

/sw 15
/script Stopwatch_Play();
/target Instructor Razuvious
/script CastPetAction(6); CastPetAction(5);
/tell [priests name] === I AM TANKING INSTRUCTOR ===
/in 15 /tell [priests name] === TAUNT NOW!!! ===

Source: Wowiki with credit to Poena's post on Shadowpriest.com

This macro will use the stop watch to cast bone shield and to taunt Instructor Razuvious every fifteen seconds as well as tell the other priest when to taunt the boss off of you. By mastering this encounter, you set the stage to become a sought after priest, good luck! The following links below are to videos, posts and articles relevant to the fight.

Resources:

Tankspot's Videos of the Instructor Razuvious encounter:
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/42142-naxxramas-instructor-razuvious.html

Shadow Priests.com:
http://www.shadowpriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=17541&start=30

Wowkiki Instructor Razuvious write up:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Instructor_Razuvious#Macros