Professor Putricide Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• All DPS must instantly swap targets to either the Gas Cloud or Volatile Ooze as soon as possible. These must die quickly.
• Melee DPS must be ready to avoid any Slime Puddles beneath the boss, and move out of range of Professor Putricide to avoid the Choking Gas Bombs.
• Ranged DPS should be spread out to prevent multiple people being hit by the same spells.

• Spread out to prevent multiple people being hit by the same spells.
• Phase 3 has constant, frequent tank swaps, always be aware of who is taunting and when.
• Coordinate raid-wide defensive cooldowns for Phase 3. Ideally you should always have a defensive cooldown up after about 1 minute into the phase.

• Always be aware of any Slime Puddles or Choking Gas Bombs placed under the bosses feet and be ready to move away quickly.
• In Phase 3 you will want to tank Professor Putricide as close to the wall as possible to keep the center of the room free from any Growing Ooze Puddles.
• Be vocal and clear about all tank swaps in Phase 3 so healers are not caught unaware.

Phase one is the shortest, and easiest phase of the fight, lasting until Professor Putricide reaches 80% health. Every 30 seconds he will throw 2 Slime Puddles at random targets, spawning growing Slime Puddles at those players locations. Make sure you have your ranged players pre-spread on the pull to avoid multiple people being hit by this. People must quickly move out of these puddles, and the Mutated Abomination driver must handle them as described below in the Mutated Abomination Strategy.

The main mechanic of this encounter that the raid must deal with are the 2 Oozes that Professor Putricide will frequently spawn during this fight, Gas Cloud and Volatile Ooze. Every 40 seconds he will cast either Volatile Experiment to summon in a Volatile Ooze or Unstable Experiment to summon in a Gas Cloud, with Volatile Experiment always being first.

As we know the Volatile Ooze green ooze will always spawn first, you want your tank to position Professor Putricide just beneath the Green Ooze Tank on the side of the room. This will allow your Melee DPS to have optimal damage up-time on the ooze, greatly helping to clear it out quickly. Your ranged players should attempt to be as far away as possible from the green ooze tank, but still in-range of the Volatile Ooze when it spawns.

The Volatile Ooze ooze will activate after a few seconds, and then choose a target to cast Volatile Ooze Adhesive on. After the 3 second cast, the Volatile Ooze will move towards the now rooted player, and cast Ooze Eruption if they do reach them. This ooze must be swapped to instantly by all DPS and killed as soon as possible. While the damage from Ooze Eruption is high, remember that it is divided between all nearby players; we will be taking advantage of this to increase our DPS up-time overall.

There are a few things to be aware of when handling the green ooze. If a melee DPS is targeted by the Volatile Ooze Adhesive, they should attempt to run towards the ranged group and all ranged players should quickly stack on top of them. If a ranged player is picked by Volatile Ooze Adhesive, all ranged must collapse on them, and melee players should be sure to run in front of the ooze right before it reaches its target. This is a great time to use a raid-wide defensive cooldown, as long as it will be ready to use in Phase 3.

When Professor Putricide casts Unstable Experiment, he will spawn in a Gas Cloud under the Orange Ooze Tank. Unlike the Green Ooze, nobody should be near the Orange Ooze Tank at all, and should be as far away from it as possible. Again, all DPS must quickly swap to killing this as it will cause an instant wipe if not dealt with.

Unlike the Volatile Ooze, the player targeted by the Gas Cloud will be debuffed by Gaseous Bloat, dealing 1,950 to 2,050 damage per stack, starting off at 10 stacks and removing 1 stack every time it deals damage. The targeted player will be able to fully move around, and should use any available movement speed buffs such as Nitro Boosts to kite the Gas Cloud as long as possible. When the Gaseous Bloat stacks reach 0, the Gas Cloud will choose a new target and a fresh 10 stack of Gaseous Bloat on their new target, swapping over to chase them instead.

Not being rooted by the Gas Cloud makes kiting it much easier than the Volatile Ooze, and you should never have anyone get hit by it. The target of the Gaseous Bloat must be ready with any personal defensive cooldowns, as the stacks deal very high damage early on. Also be aware of your healers positions; it can be very easy to out-range most or all of your healers if you use multiple movement speed cooldowns.

The Gas Cloud will follow its target as long as they have stacks of Gaseous Bloat on them. This means that even melee DPS can attack the Gas Cloud, as long as they leave when the current target is down to about 2 stacks of Gaseous Bloat remaining. After the current targets stacks of Gaseous Bloat fall off, the Gas Cloud will pick a new target, cast Gaseous Bloat on them, and begin to chase them.

Professor Putricide will continue this rotation of Volatile Experiment and Unstable Experiment every 40 seconds until reaching 80% hp, where he will cast Tear Gas, stunning the entire raid for 20 seconds. To guarantee you have a good transition out of Phase 1, stop all DPS on Professor Putricide at around 82% and clear any remaining Ooze. Once there are no Ooze left alive, you can push Professor Putricide down to 80% health and start the phase transition.

At the start of the fight, have your second tank run over to the table behind Professor Putricide and click it, drinking the Mutated Transformation experimental potion. This will turn you into a Mutated Abomination, granting you unique abilities that you must master to defeat this encounter.

This players main job will be to eat the Slime Puddles that will quickly grow throughout the room. These puddles will appear every 30 seconds when Professor Putricide throws a 2 Slime Puddles at random raid members. Eating these puddles with your new Eat Ooze ability should be your main focus.

The reason that these Slime Puddles are your main priority is that they will slowly and continually double in size every 3 seconds. Each increase in size will require 1 additional use of Eat Ooze to shrink the puddle back down. This can lead to you easily falling behind on puddles, and letting one or both grow too large and wipe the raid.

While this may seem as if the best thing to do is instantly eat the puddles as soon as possible, this is not exactly the case. Remember that each time you use Eat Ooze, your Mutated Abomination gains 4 Ooze Energy. This Ooze Energy is required to cast your second ability, Regurgitated Ooze. This ability is crucial to killing both the Gas Clouds and Volatile Ooze in time as this debuff reduces their movement speed by 50% for 20 seconds, and deals 95k damage over the whole duration.

To guarantee you always have enough energy to cast Regurgitated Ooze, you will want to delay eating some of the Slime Puddles right away. This can make the fight very tricky to learn early on for the Mutated Abomination "driver", but will greatly help with your progression overall once this player finds a good rhythm and has it nailed down. A good rule of thumb to start with is:

• If both Slime Puddles are near each other you can move between each puddle, using Eat Ooze one time on each, then fully eat one puddle followed by the second when you have around 40 Ooze Energy.
• If both Slime Puddles are far apart from one another, quickly fully Eat Ooze the nearest puddle, then move to the second and trim it down. Keep the second puddle alive long enough for you to "milk" about 45-50 Ooze Energy before you fully eat it as well.

While it is not required by the Mutated Abomination driver to have Regurgitated Ooze available for every single ooze, it will drastically improve your odds of defeating this boss if they can learn the "sweet spot" of keeping the Slime Puddles alive for enough time to pool high amounts of Ooze Energy. This is crucial to master if attempting Heroic difficulty. The third ability Mutated Slash is a filler ability that does about 12,000 damage and reduces the targets armor by 4% per stack, stacking up to 5 times. This is not needed, but helps greatly if you can hit any nearby Ooze with at least a couple Mutated Slash debuffs.

Phase 2 starts at 80% health, after the raid comes out of the Tear Gas stun. Professor Putricide will retain all of his Phase one abilities, as well as gain 2 new ones, Malleable Goo and Choking Gas Bomb. The Malleable Goo is the exact same spell from both the previous Festergut and Rotface encounter. Three random players will have a "green puddle" effect appear under their feet, requiring them and any nearby players to move away from the spot within the next 4 seconds. The Malleable Goo projectile will then bounce behind the landing location, and continue bouncing along the same path. Anyone nearby the targeted players or along the select "path" of the Malleable Goo must quickly move out of the way.

The Choking Gas Bombs that Professor Putricide starts to throw in this phase are a huge threat to the Melee DPS. Every 40 seconds, Professor Putricide will drop 2 Choking Gas Bombs behind him, which will activate after 2 seconds and afflict any nearby players with Choking Gas, reducing their chance to hit by 100%. This is a huge DPS loss and must be avoided by all melee players. Always be aware of the timer for Choking Gas Bombs, and move in front of or away from the boss as these are going out; temporarily losing some DPS beats losing all DPS for 15 seconds or more.

Both of the Volatile Ooze and Gas Clouds will continually spawn every 40 seconds. With the increased amount of "floor clutter" from Choking Gas Bombs and Malleable Goo, in addition to the previous Slime Puddles, it will likely not be possible to keep Professor Putricide tanked next to the Green Ooze Tank. For this reason, it is recommended to tank him somewhere in-between the Green and Orange Ooze Tanks, with your ranged positioning closer to the Orange Ooze Tank. Then, whenever a Volatile Ooze is spawning, you can drag Professor Putricide on top of what should a clear space, and cleave both the Ooze and boss at the same time.

This process will repeat until Professor Putricide reaches 35% health. Similar to phase one, you will want to stop DPS on the boss at around 37% HP, allowing you time to clean up any remaining adds, or a fresh one about to spawn in. After the Ooze are under control and all Slime Puddles have been Eat Oozed by the Mutated Abomination, quickly push Professor Putricide to 35% and begin the transition to the final phase. This transition as well will come with Tear Gas, stunning the entire raid for 20 seconds.

Phase 3 starts when Professor Putricide reaches 35% health, after the raid is no longer stunned by Tear Gas. During this phase Professor Putricide will no longer summon in any Volatile Ooze or Gas Clouds, making the fight much easier. This phase is an extremely tight DPS race, only giving you about 1:30 to 2 minutes at most to finish his last 35% remaining health.

Players will no longer have access to the Mutated Abomination, removing the ability to Eat Ooze the Slime Puddles that Professor Putricide will still continue to throw during this phase. This means that over the course of this phase, your raid will have less and less room as the Slime Puddles continue to increase in size. This is one of the two main "soft-enrage" mechanics of this fight, and why you are so limited on time here.

In addition to the Slime Puddles, Professor Putricide will also continue to use both Choking Gas Bombs and Malleable Goo during this phase, causing plenty of chaos as players try to move in their very limited space. For this reason, we highly recommend that tanks keep Professor Putricide as close to the wall as possible, continually dragging him whenever he drops Choking Gas Bombs or Slime Puddles nearby. This idea is very similar to Grobbulus in Naxxramas, but you want to be as close to the wall as you can.

While the raid is dealing with all of these chaotic spells going off tanks will be dealing with the empowered Professor Putricide, thanks to his newly found Mutated Strength, increasing his attack speed and Physical damage dealt by 50%. In addition to this, Professor Putricide gains 1 more ability, Mutated Plague.

Mutated Plague is applied to Professor Putricides current target exactly every 10 seconds, applying 1 stack of the debuff. The Mutated Plague debuff will deal damage to the entire raid every 3 seconds based on how many stacks the player has on them. Each additional stack multiplies the damage this deals by 3, meaning the damage from Mutated Plague scales exponentially higher for each additional stack the target gains.

Since the Mutated Plagues damage triples with every new stack, the most ideal situation is to split the stacks between multiple tanks, and any other players you have available. This can be done in multiple ways. Firstly, your tanks should never take more than 2 stacks of this in a row; make sure they are evenly splitting their time tanking the boss and dividing these stacks up. Secondly, to buy more time in this phase, it is highly recommended to have classes that can taunt use a cooldown and taunt the boss right before he uses Mutated Plague, as it is on a static 10 second timer. This can be done by any class with a taunt spell by giving them a Hand of Protection, or by classes with defensive cooldowns, such as a Feral Druid using both Barkskin and Survival Instincts and taunting right before the Mutated Plague is applied.

While this is a much higher amount of coordination required, the benefit is well worth the effort, as doing this multiple times will drastically increase the amount of time you have available in phase 3 before the stacking Mutated Plague overwhelms your healers. The biggest issue with doing this strategy is the diminishing returns on taunt that Professor Putricide will gain, becoming entirely immune to taunt if he is taunted 3 times within 20 seconds. This however can also be avoided by using a pre-set rotation for tank swaps, as well as DPS players helping to taunt stacks. Below you can find a basic timeline of what this would look like in phase 3:

Time	Taunt
0:00	Previous main-tank retains threat.
0:09	Any DPS class taunts with Hand of Protection on them and eats the first Mutated Plague stack.
0:11	Main tank taunts boss back.
0:11-0:38	Main tank receives 2 stacks of Mutated Plague.
0:39	Any DPS class taunts with Hand of Protection on them and eats one Mutated Plague stack.
0:41	Second tank taunts boss.
0:41-1:08	Second tank receives 2 stacks of Mutated Plague.
1:09	Any DPS class taunts with Hand of Protection on them and eats one Mutated Plague stack.
1:11	Main tank taunts boss.
1:11-1:38	Main tank receives 2 more stacks of Mutated Plague, now has 4 stacks in total.

This cycle shown above will allow the diminishing returns on taunt to reset always on Professor Putricide, guaranteeing that you can always have a DPS ready to taunt and eat a stack of Mutated Plague. Simply continue adding to the rotation for the longer you need in the phase, rotating players with taunt available to eat a stack in-between the 2 main tanks swapping. If you run out of Hand of Protections to use, DPS players such as Retribution Paladins can toss on a shield and use Divine Protection to quickly eat 1 stack before the main tanks taunt back. This works for similar classes, such as DPS Warriors, or Druids.

Finally, Professor Putricide will be healed if any players with the Mutated Plague die, healing for 2.1 million health for each stack of Mutated Plague on the target. Even one stack of this is an immediate wipe, as you will no longer be able to defeat the boss in time if he heals at all. This means all Mutated Plague players must live for the entire fight, requiring full attention from healers, even at the expense of other DPS.

Professor Putricide gains a few new abilities on Heroic difficulty, the first of which is Unbound Plague. He will cast this every 60 seconds during phases 1 and 2, playing a ramping damage over time debuff on a random target. This spell works very similar to a Curse of Agony, dealing more and more damage the longer its on a target. If anyone goes within 5 yards of the debuffed player, the plague will bounce to them and leave the previous target with Plague Sickness, increasing any future damage taken by Unbound Plague by 250%.

This mechanic normally would require the raid to assign a rotation of people to bounce this debuff between, making sure to not infect anyone with Plague Sickness already. Luckily, none of this is required. Simply have a Warlock use a pre-made Demonic Soulstone on whoever gets the Unbound Plague, or wait for them to die and Rebirth them. This is much easier than trying to coordinate this debuff in the middle of everything else happening.

While the first heroic mechanic is essentially nothing, as it can be ignored, the second new mechanic is extremely difficult. During both the 80% and 35% transitions, Professor Putricide will typically stun the entire raid for 20 seconds with Tear Gas. On heroic difficulty however, this is not the case.

Instead of stunning the raid on these transitions, Professor Putricide will instead summon both a Gas Cloud and Volatile Ooze at the same time. As if this was not hard enough the entire raid will be given 2 different debuffs, Gas Variable and Ooze Variable, with the two debuffs being divided evenly amongst all players. Players will now only be able to deal damage to the Ooze that matches their debuffs color; so players with Gas Variable will have to attack the Gas Cloud, while players with Ooze Variable will need to attack the Volatile Ooze.

This additional level of chaos must be managed quickly as Professor Putricide is at his table casting Create Concoction, only giving the raid 45 seconds to defeat both Ooze. During these phase transitions, it is crucial that the raid stacks with the player rooted by Volatile Ooze Adhesive as there will likely be multiple Ooze Eruptions happening in this phase.

The Mutated Abomination driver must also be aware of the transition timings and make sure to maintain enough Ooze Energy to be able to cast at least one Regurgitated Ooze slow on the Volatile Ooze, ideally as well on the Gas Clouds. Learning these timings on heroic difficulty will help drastically with these transitions as being able to instantly slow both Ooze by 50% is a major boost to your DPS players damage up-time.

• Choking Gas Bomb — Professor Putricide throws Gas Bombs around him, dealing 6,825 to 7,175 Physical damage every second and explodes for 29,250 to 30,750 damage after 20 seconds.
• Malleable Goo — Professor Putricide bounces a Malleable ball of Green Goo at the target, inflicting 23,400 to 24,600 damage and slowing attack and cast speeds by 250% for 15 seconds.
• Mutated Plague — Inflicts damage every 3 seconds, healing Professor Putricide if the target dies.
• Mutated Strength — Increases damage done by 50% and increases attack speed by 50%. Attacks cause the caster to become more mutated, inflicting increasing damage every 3 seconds.
• Slime Puddle — Throws a vial of Mutated Slime, creating a puddle of slime at the targets location.
• Unbound Plague — Inflicts damage every 1 seconds, the damage is increased every second the Blight remains on you! If you get too near to a friendly target, you will transfer the Plague from you to them.
• Unstable Experiment — Professor Putricide begins to peform a wicked experiment on you all!
• Volatile Experiment — Professor Putricide begins to peform a wicked experiment on you all!
• Gas Variable — You have the Gas Variable! You will be targeted with things that also have the Gas trait and are unable to harm Ooze creatures.
• Ooze Variable — You have the Ooze Variable! You will be targeted with things that also have the Ooze trait also you are unable to harm Gaseous creatures.

• Eat Ooze — Eats nearby Slime Puddles decreasing the size of the pool, giving you 4 Ooze energy!
• Regurgitated Ooze — The Regurgitated Ooze has a surprising effect on the target, slowing its movement speed by 50% and dealing 9,263 to 9,737 damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds total.
• Mutated Slash — Inflicts 100% weapon damage instantly and reduces the target's resistance to Physical damage by 4% for 20 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

• Gaseous Bloat — The Gas Cloud is fixated on the player with Gaseous Bloat. If he catches them it will cause him to cast Expunged Gas, inflicting damage to nearby players based on how bloated the player is.
• Gaseous Bloat — Inflicts 1,950 to 2,050 damage every 2 seconds and if the Gas Cloud hits you it will expunge all of the remaining Gaseous Bloat and harm all nearby allies.
• Expunged Gas — The Gas Cloud's attack has expunged all of the gas from the target! Expunged Gas inflicts damage to all enemies based on the number of Gaseous Blight stacks that were remaining on the target when they were attacked.

• Volatile Ooze Adhesive — The Volatile Ooze Adhesive bonds the target to the Volatile Ooze, inflicting 7,313 to 7,687 damage every 1 second and rooting the target. The Volatile Ooze will move towards the target, exploding for 243,750 to 256,250 damage, split among all nearby targets and knocking them back.
• Ooze Eruption — Inflicts 243,750 to 256,250 damage shared with nearby targets, knocking them back in all directions!

Icecrown Citadel bosses have 4 varying difficulties that they can be engaged on, with each difficulty dropping geared tailored to match its' challenges. Below you can find a list of gear dropped on each and every difficulty for this boss encounter.

Item	Type/Slot
Discarded Bag of Entrails	Leather Head
Infected Choker	Neck
Pendant of Split Veins	Neck
Shoulderpads of the Morbid Ritual	Mail Shoulder
Shoulders of Ruinous Senility	Cloth Shoulder
Chestplate of Septic Stitches	Plate Chest
Cauterized Cord	Cloth Waist
Rippling Flesh Kilt	Mail Legs
Unidentifiable Organ	Trinket
Flesh-Carving Scalpel	One-Hand Dagger
The Facelifter	One-Hand Sword

Item	Type/Slot
Discarded Bag of Entrails	Leather Head
Infected Choker	Neck
Pendant of Split Veins	Neck
Shoulderpads of the Morbid Ritual	Mail Shoulder
Shoulders of Ruinous Senility	Cloth Shoulder
Chestplate of Septic Stitches	Plate Chest
Cauterized Cord	Cloth Waist
Rippling Flesh Kilt	Mail Legs
Unidentifiable Organ	Trinket
Flesh-Carving Scalpel	One-Hand Dagger
The Facelifter	One-Hand Sword
Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Protector's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token

Astrylian's Sutured Cinch	Leather Waist
Professor's Bloodied Smock	Leather Waist
Tiny Abomination in a Jar	Trinket
Rigormortis	Main-Hand Sword
Last Word	One-Hand Mace
Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Protector's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token

Item	Type/Slot
Astrylian's Sutured Cinch	Leather Waist
Professor's Bloodied Smock	Leather Waist
Tiny Abomination in a Jar	Trinket
Rigormortis	Main-Hand Sword
Last Word	One-Hand Mace
Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Protector's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token

Achievement	Description
Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion... (10 player)	Defeat Professor Putricide without using Regurgitated Ooze on the Abomination in 10-player mode.
Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion... (25 player)	Defeat Professor Putricide without using Regurgitated Ooze on the Abomination in 25-player mode.

Professor Putricide is just one of the twelve encounters present in the Icecrown Citadel raid of Wrath of the Lich King. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.