Patchwerk

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Overview

When word of his existence first reached the ears of the Brotherhood, none believed the tales of an abomination with such immense speed and strength. Fewer still believed it when he fell the first time…

Commonly regaded as the first and biggest ”gear check” in Naxxramas, Patchwerk’s greatest threat is his incredibly hard-hitting Hateful Strike. Deal with Hateful Strike, and you have mastered the fight. Good preparation and a bit of planning before engaging Patchwerk can make the fight itself very easy.

Gear and consumables

Like most Wrath of the Lich King raid encounters, this fight is tuned for players who are using level 80 epic gear, as well as the best flasks and food buffs available. Getting the best possible gear for your character will make this fight a whole lot easier.

In WotLK, professions can be used to craft high quality epic gear. Most raid and heroic bosses also drop an epic bind-on-equip item. These items are the easiest way to get your character geared up fast, but they’re expensive to craft or buy on the AH. The easiest way to get your hands on them is to use a guide like WoW Gold Secrets, which has tips for making several thousand gold per day. This is a great way to save time and down bosses faster.

Click here to try out WoW Gold Secrets.

Abilities

HP: 4,320,000 (Heroic: 13,000,000)

Melee: Hits a tank for heavy damage. On Normal (10-man) mode you can expect to be hit for around 4,500 in level 80 gear; on Heroic (25-man) mode you can expect to be hit for around 9,000.

Hateful Strike: Patchwerk’s most damaging attack has been modified from the 40-man version of the fight, and in the Normal (10-man) version of the fight, now simply appears to strike the player with the second highest threat in melee range of Patchwerk. If only the Main Tank is in melee range of Patchwerk, he will get hit with Hateful Strike. Used every second, it may deal around 7,500 damage per strike on level 80 tank gear. Note that like all raid boss special abilities, Hateful Strike cannot crit.

The Heroic (25-man) version of Hateful Strike behaves identically to the 40-man version of the ability. In Heroic mode, Hateful Strike will evaluate the HP of all melee-range players who are in second place or lower on Patchwerk’s threat list, and strike the one with the highest health. If only the Main tank is in range, he will get hit with Hateful Strike. Hateful Strike may hit a tank in level 80 gear for as much as 23,000 damage or more.

Frenzy: At 5% health, Patchwerk flies into a rage, increasing his melee and Hateful Strike damage by 25%, and his melee attack speed by 40%.

Enrage: Six minutes into the fight, Patchwerk becomes an unstoppable killer and his damage increases by orders of magnitude. The raid will quickly wipe if he has not been killed.

Preparation

Gear Requirements

Raid The most commonly asked question about this fight is whether your raid’s gear is good enough to beat it. The only way to find out for sure is to try, but as a rule of thumb, everyone should be using level 80 (ilevel 200) blue gear in every slot. (In some cases, Tier 6 and equivalent gear acquired from the Burning Crusade raid dungeons may be as good as ilevel 200 blue gear.) At least the tanks should be wearing some ilevel 200 epic gear as well.

The gear requirements for the Heroic version of this fight are substantially more demanding, in particular for the Hateful Strike tank and his healers. Your best geared tank should be your Hateful Strike Offtank. The tank with the next best gear is your Main Tank, and he should at least have enough Defense to be crit immune.

DPS Your raid needs to output 12,000 damage per second (Heroic: 36,111 DPS) to kill Patchwerk before the Enrage. Using the suggested raid composition in this guide, and ignoring the contribution of the tanks (which can be quite substantial), that’s about 2,400 dps per player on both Normal and Heroic modes. If every DPS’er in the raid can sustain that for six minutes, and no one dies, you have enough DPS to beat the Enrage timer.

Raid Composition

10-Man
2 Tanks
3 Healers
5 DPS

25-Man
3 Tanks
6-7 Healers
15-16 DPS

On the Pull

Main Tank Walk towards Patchwerk until you are within range, then aggro him. You can position him anywhere in the room, but stay away from the slime river.

Hateful Strike Offtank(s) Follow the Main Tank closely, standing only a yard behind him. As soon as he begins building threat on Patchwerk you can engage Patchwerk, too, but be careful not to pass the Main Tank’s threat.

Phase One

Main Tank Build threat on Patchwerk until he dies. You should stay #1 on threat at all times. When Patchwerk reaches 5% health, he’ll Frenzy; this means that around 5-15% health is the time to blow damage reduction cooldowns like Shield Wall if you haven’t already.

Hateful Strike Offtank(s) Build threat on Patchwerk, remaining at the #2 and #3 threat positions, respectively. When Patchwerk reaches 5% health, his Frenzy will increase Hateful Strike damage; this means that around 5-15% health is the time to blow damage reduction cooldowns like Shield Wall.

DPS Don’t expect spot heals if you wander into the slime river or something. The sooner he dies, the lower the chance your healers’ll run out of mana, so blow everything you’ve got on this guy early and often. Burn, baby, burn.

Healers With the exception of Druids, most healing classes will do best if they are assigned to a single tank and never deviate from healing that tank. The Hateful Strike Offtank will usually be taking the most damage, so he should be given more people with stronger gear. Mana is almost always a major concern when you’re working on your first Patchwerk kill, and you can never stop healing to regen, so cancel your heals when appropriate and employ every mana regen ability you have.