Professor Putricide is the last boss of the Plagueworks wing of Icecrown Citadel.  Phases 1 and 2 require a lot of coordination while Phase 3 is a big gear check.  With a limited number of attempts to down him, you’ll need to make sure to bring your best game to every attempt.

Gear Requirement

Professor Putricide requires high levels of dps and healing.  However, if you can down both Festergut and Rotface, you should be able to down Professor Putricide as well.

Group Make-up

Wonderful news! - {insert bad news here}

Since the dps requirement is so high for this fight, you may find that bringing only two healers will be better for your group than three.  You should have an easier time downing the Volatile Oozes and Gas Clouds as well as making it through phase 3 before his enrage.  Healing is intense in this encounter, but if everything is executed correctly, it should be two healable.  If the encounter isn’t executed correctly it will be very hard for even 3 healers to heal anyway, so two is recommended.  More ranged dps will also help since you’ll be able to switch to the adds faster and from farther away.  You’ll need two tanks for the third phase.  The off-tank will be piloting the abomination for the first two phases.

The Pull

The pull on professor putricide is pretty simple.  Stand in the corner under the brown ooze pipe and heal the tank as he pulls.  Until the Abom is brought up, the only damage will be on the tank.  Try to spread out a bit so that multiple people aren’t hit with ooze puddles.  Be ready for the first ooze puddles and the Abom’s AOE damage and start throwing out some raid flash of lights to keep everyone’s health high when those happen (also, move out of the ooze if its under you).  As long as no one stands in the ooze puddles, healing should be easy here. 

The tank damage here is comparable to the tank damage on Rotface (high, but definitely manageable).  The difference in this encounter is that your tank can take damage from other sources as well, like the ooze puddles, which can risk his life, so make sure to keep heals on the tank while you’re moving and be ready for the occasional burst of damage on the tank.  Use Holy Shock and stop moving and focus heals for a few seconds to keep the heals up when a burst happens.  Judgement of Light can help a lot with healing in this fight since there is a constant AoE damage tick.  If you have another paladin, have him use Judgement of Light as well so your raid can have it on both the adds and the boss and you can make sure its up 100% of the time.

Volatile Ooze

You’ll have a little time at the start to burn the boss with only light healing required, but shortly after the fight begins, a Volatile Ooze will spawn on the other side of the room.  Your abomination will have a few seconds to use his slowing ability on the volatile ooze before the ooze finishes casting Volatile Ooze Adhesive on someone in the raid.  This is the first time healing starts getting difficult, especially if you fall behind.  The person the adhesive is cast on will start taking pretty significant damage.  He will  need some focused heals, especially if he also unlucky enough to end up within a Growing Ooze Puddle, since he’s unable to move.  It is possible to heal him through both sources of damage with focused heals.  

I recommend as a Holy Paladin that you do not stack up with the rest of the raid to split the damage that the Volatile Ooze does when it reaches its target if it hasn’t been killed.  You’ll do more for the raid’s health if you continue healing instead of getting knocked back than if you add an extra person to split the damage.  Instead, start moving to the other side of the room while also healing the person with Volatile Ooze and the raid.  If you get targeted by the adhesive, make sure to heal yourself throughout the duration.  If the Volatile Ooze hits a person, it will do damage to everyone standing around it and also choose a new target to chase.  If it hits the new target as well, it will do raid damage again that is probably not healable unless you can get everyone’s health up very quickly.

Gas Cloud

Shortly after the Volatile Ooze is killed, a Gas Cloud will spawn out of the brown tube you were under at the start of the fight.  Before this happens, the raid needs to make its way over to the other side of the room.  Try to move as quickly as you can to get as far as you can while also intermittently healing.  This add is similiar to the volatile ooze except you can move even while targeted by the Gas Cloud.  If you get targeted, you must stay away from the gas cloud at all costs or the raid will suffer massive damage (about 80% to everyone).  However, you’ll also need to keep your heals up in order to keep yourself, the tank, and the raid alive through the damage going out.  Do your best to stay away from the gas cloud while using Holy Shocks and FoLs to heal yourself while moving.  Things can get pretty crazy so make sure Beacon of Light doesn’t fall off your tank.  If someone else is targeted by the gas cloud, focus them with your heals and don’t let them get out of range.  They’ll be moving around the room, so you may need to run with them to keep them in range.

Phase 2 Transition - 80%

Professor Putricide will transition to phase 2 after 80%.  Your entire raid will be stunned during the transition, which lasts about 15 seconds.  Its very possible that your Sacred Shield and even Beacon can fall off during this transition, so try to recast them before the boss reaches 80% so that doesn’t happen.  Also, make sure to use Divine Plea before the boss reaches 80% so that both the mana regeneration and the cooldown is going during the transition.

Many guides claim you want to make sure the ooze and gas cloud are down during the transition, however, this is impossible.  Professor Putricide will not transition until one of them are up.  Therefore, its up to your raid and your abomination to quickly burn down and slow the add after the phase transition is over.  The add will choose a new target after the transition, it will not usually continue to chase the same target it had before the transition.  Its possible to get Putricide to 77% or lower before the phase transition if you kill an add just before he reaches 80%.  If this does happen, he will transition as soon as a new add spawns.

Depending on your dps level, you can get the transition during the first green volatile ooze, but it will more likely be during the gas cloud or even the second volatile ooze.  To help make the transition easier, burn the gas cloud down low, move away from it, then switch back to the boss and get him below 80% to trigger the transition.  Then, you can quickly kill the gas cloud after the transition.  It may even die during the transition if you have a lot of dots on it.  Its very possible for your raid to take a ton of damage from the add right after the transition, so make sure it is burned down and slowed quickly right after the transition.

Update:  I have seen one video (only one out of many) where there was no add up during the transition, so it may be safe and preferred to burn the add down beforehand.  However, in my personal experience with professor, we always had to have an add up before he would transition.

Phase 2

Phase 2 is the same as phase one with some new abilities thrown in the mix.  Putricide will periodically drop two flasks on the ground near each other that will do AoE damage around them and also explode after a set amount of time, doing a lot of damage.  Make sure to stay away from them and be ready to heal anyone who gets caught in their damage.

The more important ability you need to worry about is Malleable Goo.  Occasionally he’ll throw a large green bouncing ball which will travel in a straight line away from him.  If you are standing in its line when it goes by you, you’ll take some damage, but more importantly, you’ll receive a 200% cast time reduction, making you mostly useless for the next 20 seconds.   It very likely will mean a raid wipe if you get hit by this, so avoid it at all costs.  Try to stay far away from Putricide at all times so that you have warning of the incoming goo.

Continue moving between the two sides of the room, focusing on healing the tank, the person targeted by the add, and anyone else who takes too much damage from the other mechanics until Putricide reaches 30%.

Phase 3 - 30%

Use the same techniques before the transition to phase 3 as you did for phase 2 (use Divine Plea and refresh your buffs beforehand).  You’ll still need to watch out for Malleable Ooze, the flasks, and the slime pools during phase 3, except now the slime pools aren’t going away, so the room will gradually be filled with it.  The tanks will be swapping threat so make sure to get your heals and buffs on the new tank quickly.  There will also be quite a bit of damage to both the tank and the raid that will get harder to heal as the phase progresses.  The damage becomes unhealable after about 120 seconds.  Also, if a tank dies during this phase, the boss will heal for quite a bit.  This phase is a gear check that will really test the level of healing and dps you can do.  Once Putricide is down, you’ll be one step closer to the Lich King’s defeat!

Good luck!

Gear to look for

• Chestplate of Septic Stitches
• Rippling Flesh Kilt