Strategy: Razorscale

This is the second in my series of strategy tips for protection paladins, following the one I did on XT-002 Deconstructor. In this one, I'll be discussing Razorscale, the armor-plated dragon early on in the Ulduar instance. On this fight, my role is to be one of the tanks handling the massive number of adds that spawn throughout the first phase, then to be the second tank on the grounding phase. As usual, I'll just discuss what I do in this fight. Your mileage will vary, depending on your role.

First, gear. My general gearing strategy for any fight is to gear for the toughest part of the fight. For example, on Deconstructor, I gear for dps, since the timer is the real enemy. For this fight, despite the fact that I will only be actually tanking the dragon for about fifteen seconds, that it the part I gear for. At the end of the day, I'm not too worried about threat in the first phase of the fight. I am, however, worried about getting one-shot by a breath during those fifteen seconds. I use an assortment of my normal tank gear, plus a few extra items I've picked up for stamina. I use both my Essence of Gossamer and my Monarch Crab, for example. Unbuffed, I'm running a little under 33k in this set.

We divide the ground up into three sections, and each tank takes a portal. My job is to take the "middle" portal when the dwarves come up. This is a little harder than it sounds, since the portals actually appear just about anywhere and at random times. Sometimes, two portals will appear one behind the other, and neither is really the "middle" one. At other times, one will crop up over on the "north" side of the room, be picked up by the "north" tank, and then another one will pop up even further north. The trick here is just vent and good communication between the tanks. I usually just say in vent, "I'll take the close one" or "I'll take the new one" whenever something awkward like this happens. Pickups are easy. If I get to the portal before the mobs spawn, I drop Consecration. Otherwise, I use Avenger's Shield.

For this part of the fight, I use Seal of Righteousness, not Corruption. Why? If something gets away, your dps might want to use some form of CC in order to protect themselves. However, if I've DoTted the mob, they can't do it. It's a little less dps and threat, but there's no reason not to do something a little more safely if it doesn't really hurt anyone. During the landing phase, also, enterprising mages will sometimes throw a sheep on a stray add so I can join in the dps fun. They can't do that if I've DoTted up the mob.

The kill order on the mobs is Sentinel, Watcher, Guardian, three synonymously named mobs with not nearly synonymous enough powers. The Sentinels need to die fast and they whirlwind. Since the whole raid will focus on them, I'll shield slam these guys right away for a nice threat lead. The Watchers and the Guardians are next. Watchers can be tricky to move, because they are casters, so I usually just fight the mobs where they spawn or right after the Avenger's Shield silence wears off. Guardians are wimps and aren't really dangerous to me.

The key to killing Razorscale, though, is getting him to 50% in two landing phases. As soon as he lands, my job is to dps, unless I'm still fighting a sentinel or a watcher. Dragging a sentinel into the melee is just an instagib for everyone in your path, so don't do it. Watchers cast chain lightning. If I only have sentinels on me (or nothing at all), I pop wings, Seal of Corruption and dps away. Sure, my dps is terrible in my dragon gear, but it's still over 2k and even 3k with wings, so that's nothing to sneeze at. Everything helps here, including me. If I get a chance to dps, I will. At the end of the burn phase, you get knocked back. Locate yourself in a spot so that you get knocked right back into your original taking position.

Okay, now he's down to 50%. What now? Because my threat is so high, I try not to do too much dps until it is my turn to tank. I'll throw up a JoL for healing and a hammer or two, but I won't shield slam. In principle, I could drop Righteous Fury for this part, but if something goes wrong, I want to be able to taunt immediately with it up, so I go into "plink" mode. Don't forget to put Seal of Corruption back up, though. The first tank, a druid, turns him clockwise, so I try to stay to his left, just out of range of the breath. When he calls for my turn, I immediately move to where he is standing (I don't just taunt) and taunt the dragon.

The trick with Razorscale is that he breathes and then leaves blue fire on the ground. Fire is bad. So, every time after he breathes, I move to the left so that I'm standing just out of the fire. It reminds me a little of the Illidan adds, actually. He also casts "Fuse Armor" on my, which reduces my armor and movement speed by 20%. As you can guess, this is bad. Once I get a third stack, I call out for the next tank and he taunts off of me. If I survive the transition (which I often don't), then I go back into plinking mode for the rest of the fight, doing as much damage as I can without pulling aggro. I don't take RF off as even a few seconds of extra tanking if something goes wrong can save the fight.

That's the whole thing. I hope you have found this useful and that it will help you in tanking this fun and interesting fight.