Healing Opera: Figaro!

I had a really funny pic to go along with this post. But Bloggers picture thingies was down and then I lost the link.

Sad panda.

Anywho!

I know it's a long time coming(in fact, this has been in drafts for a loooong time now. Since October 17th to be exact...) Here be my experiences with the awesome Opera event in Karazhan.

Now, what's nifty about this event is that it has three different types of bosses. All three are big fairy tale rip offs, but that makes them even more amusing.
The three events you can get are The Big Bad Wolf (BBW), Romulo and Julianne (R&J) or Oz. All three have their quirks and this is by far, one of my most favorite fights in the instance.

So, I'll start with the "easiest" fight.

Big Bad Wolf

Firstly, about a minute before the fight starts, Fear Ward the tank. This way you have anout a minute into your cooldown into the fight and you might get another ward off during the fight.

Usually our MT tanks Wolfie in a corner, and all your ranged DPS is going to be grouped in another corner. You're going to want to start, as always, with your handy dandy Frisbee, and sometimes, BBW will start the fight with a Little Red and a Fear, so be on your toes. The Little Red Riding Hood Debuff he does is SO. MUCH. FUN. Srsly. I luff's it. You turn into this cute little gnome in red clothing, your armor is reduced to zero, but your running speed gets a boost. When the debuff happens and its not you, prepare to shield/frisbee/heal the bejesus outta the Little Red.

Depending on how many hit points the victim is and how well their "OMG I'M THE GNOME!" running technique is, they may need it. Also, while there's not much of an aggro table while he's running after Red, keep in mind that he resumes normal aggro after the debuff wears off. The debuff lasts about and a half runs around the stage or until Red gets clobbered. So still, watch your aggro. And re Frisbee the tank as soon as you can.

Otherwise, it's just your standard fair of Frisbee/Renew/GHeal on the tank. Due to the new fear rules, if you miss out on a Fear during the fight, don't worry too much, just make sure your Renew is still going since, well, you can't heal when you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off for 3 seconds.

Oh and btw, when YOU get to be little Red, don't panic. Just Shield while running, slap a Renew on yourself juuuuuust in case, and make sure you hug the wall. Don't take any short cuts while you're running along the wall, because Wolfie will catch up to you (he cheats.)
And once the bugger is dead, he'll have a nice cloak waiting for you (RIGHT?!)
Red Riding Hood's Cloak


Romulo and Julianne

This fight is pretty gimmicky, but it's also fairly simple to heal. We've always done this fight with two tanks, though I've heard one tank can do it too. There are two bosses and the idea is this:

The fight starts with Julianne and she has some fairly standard abilities: she heals, she has a holy DoT she'll randomly toss on people and she's got a buff on her that makes her cast faster.

Usually you put whatever spell interrupters you can on her, because that heal is annoying and possibly fight breaking (you'll see why in a sec.) During this part, if you're assigned to heal this tank, it's pretty smooth sailing with your Renew/Frisbee combo, though be prepared to toss a Renew out to your raid members since that DoT does a good chunk of initial damage and DoT.

Once she's kissing floor board, Romulo spawns. (Keep in mind, these guys are UNTAUNTABLE, so try to time your Renew if possible. Romulo one shots clothies T.T)
So ok, once you've stopped giggling at how flaming Rom sounds, just keep in mind he's all melee. He has a buff that makes him attack faster, he'll fling any DPS that's directly behind him waaay across the room and he has a Poison that stacks on the tank that decreases their stats by a %.
That poison is nasty, and hopefully you have a Druid/Shammy/Pally to get rid of it. Not much we priesty types can do about poison. This tank will be getting hit a bit harder because Rom's all... muscle... (we guess XD) but he also dies fairly quickly and simply.

Now the fun part. Once Rom's down, Julianne rises from the dead (again) and rez's Rom.
Now you have both up and here's the kicker: they both have to die within ten seconds from each other, or else the living one rez's the other. Here's where Juli's heal becomes extremely annoying. But otherwise, it's a repeat of healing techniques, just watch out for the raid since Juli's going to be DoTing away at her hearts content at them. If you have the interrupts, you could see if they could use one or two on those DoTs, but priority goes to killing her heal. Also, the Buffs (Devotion on Juli, Daring on Rom) can be spell stolen and Dispel'd. So if it's needed, you can dispel those buffs so that they aren't going all super speedy.

It's a bonus, swarz.
And once they're both in eternal slumber, you can hope to nab the Masquerade Gown from Julianne (Rom's got nothing for healy types.)

Oz

By far, the most awesome and fun of the three events in Opera. Few things of note:
Dorothee's aggro table is random - she just shoots frost bolts at whoever and she's usually the first to die.
Tito spawns mid fight and is a tank and spank. Just make sure Dorothee's dead before you kill him or else she enrages and things get ugly.
Strawman does an AoE fear/stun but he can be pretty much solo'd by a lock/firemage/flaming shammy. Fire spells keep him confused and do uber damage to him. And no, Holy Fire doesn't count T.T (I tried).
Roar hits pretty hard, but he can be kept feared by either a lock, your Psychic scream, or a hunter's Fear Beast and it lasts a bit longer than normal, because he's weak to fear. He's usually the third to go down after Dorothee and Tito.
Tinhead hits like a truck and is usually given to the MT to kite around the room. You see, after like 15 seconds, he starts getting this debuff called Rust and it slows him down. So as long as the tank has his attention, he's pretty much the last one to die in the melee (before Crone.)
The Crone doesn't spawn until all the others are dead. She does a chain lightening, doesn't hit all that hard, and separate from here there's a Cyclone whizzing around on stage. Just avoid it, otherwise it knocks you into the air (you can still cast instant spells, like Levitate ^.^) and then you fall to the ground and take a bunch of falling damage if you happen to be out of Light Feathers >.>

Try and have an OT tank Tito, Roar and Strawman, and watch the raid's health with Dorothee's crazy frost bolts. Renew is probably going to be the biggest thing you do in the fight. Though, when Tinhead comes into the fray and your MT picks him up, toss a few Frisbee's the MT's way to solidify his aggro on him. Otherwise, watch your butt around Strawman (that aoe fear thing sucks) and keep everyone healed.

Don't worry too much about going low on mana if you do: if you keep Tinhead till last and you have a pally in the group /cheer. Have them toss up a Judgement of Wisdom? (the one to get mana back) and just level your weapon skill. Tinhead has a lot of HP, and make sure ranged and melee don't attack him during this. It's a great way to refresh the raids mana pool for the Crone.
Once she spawns, MT picks up, watch out for the Cyclone, and stay behind and away from her. That Chain Lightening isn't a pleasant feeling. Frisbee/Renew/GHeal and then... LEWT!
The biggest thing for the healy priesty here is the Blue Diamond Witchwand. Rejoice in your lewtness! ^.^

Ok, there was one item that can potentially drop from all three fights that I skipped and thats the Ribbon of Sacrifice. I have it. I've used it before in Kara... but I find it lacking. The use trinkets really aren't all that optimal for priest types because a lot of our heal strategy is based on burst/planned healing. Renew and the Frisbee are really good maintainers, but we don't spam GHeal or FHeal unless we want to go OOM very quickly. It's a good OH SH!T button, but from what I've heard it's a better for 25 mans... I'll try and get back to you guys on that, but for now, I've just stuck with my Scarab of the Infinite Cycle and (Pre Gruul) Bangle of Endless Blessings.