Festergut – Icecrown Citadel (10) - WotLK Classic

Author: Passion
Date: October 14, 2023
Updated: October 14, 2023
Expansion: WotLK Classic

Alongside his brother, Festergut acts as warden of the Plagueworks, prohibiting anyone from disturbing Professor Putricide’s experiments.

This guide will offer a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to deal with Festergut and his vile gas.

Make sure you get Inoculated.
Use personal cooldowns to survive the constant raid damage.
Dodge Malleable Goo.

Make sure you are always spread at least 8 yards from other players.

Coordinate defensive cooldowns for both raid damage and tank damage.
Make sure you are always spread at least 8 yards from other players.

Make sure both tanks and ranged get Inoculated.
Shift legs every 10 seconds to avoid Malleable Goo.

Communicate taunt swaps.
Manage your threat as the off-tank to avoid Gastric Bloat aggro rips.
Manage the high tank damage appropriately.

Call for melee to swap legs.
Call Gas Spore targets.
Call Pungent Blight casts.

Abilities

Putricide will release gas into the arena, dealing constant raid damage every 2 seconds and stacking up to 3 times.

Every 33 seconds, Festergut will use Inhale Blight, absorbing one-third of the gas, reducing the raid damage, but increasing Festergut’s damage dealt.

After 1 minute and 40 seconds, Festergut will exhale the gas using Pungent Blight, dealing heavy raid damage and restarting the Gaseous Blight cycle.

Every 30 seconds, Festergut will use Vile Gas on a random ranged player. This will deal damage every 2 seconds, as well as disorienting them for 6 seconds. This will spread to any player within 8 yards, necessitating that ranged players remain constantly spread.

Every 30 seconds, 2 Gas Spores will attach to random players, exploding after 12 seconds. The explosion will debuff everyone within 8 yards with Blighted Spores, dealing Shadow damage every second for 6 seconds. Additionally, targets will also be debuffed with Inoculated, reducing their Shadow damage taken by 25%, stacking up to 3 times.

Players can only gain one stack of Inoculated every 30 seconds. Because of this, you will want your raid to stack in 3 groups, each with their own Gas Spore.

Inoculated is vital for dealing with the damage dealt by Pungent Blight, making 3 stacks effectively mandatory.

Every 12 seconds Festergut will apply one stack of Gastric Bloat to his current target. This deals a chunk of upfront Nature damage, and increases the damage the target deals by 10%, stacking up to 100% or 10 stacks. This debuff lasts for 100 seconds.

Upon reaching 10 stacks of Gastric Bloat, Gastric Explosion will occur, instantly killing the player and dealing massive Nature damage to everyone within 10 yards. This makes it very important for tanks to swap at 9 stacks, giving them the maximum possible damage increase, without the downside of exploding.

Every 10 seconds, Putricide will throw a vial of Malleable Goo at a random player. This is telegraphed with a green circle on the ground, which will explode after 5 seconds, dealing heavy Nature damage to everyone within 5 yards, as well as slowing their attack and cast speed for 20 seconds.

The raid will want to remain spread at all times to avoid this hitting more than one player, as well as making it easier to see the telegraph. Melee players will instead want to shuffle between Festerguts feet every 10 seconds, as it will be almost impossible to see under a stack of players.

Raid Composition & Preparation

This fight has no specific class or spec requirements.

You will want 1-3 healers on this fight, with a good mix of both raid healing and single target tank healing.

There are no strict requirements for DPS classes or specs here, you simply want a combination of good raid buffs and debuffs, as well as the best players you can muster.

You will need 2 tanks for this fight to avoid exploding.

Heroic vs Normal

Malleable Goo will not be used on Normal difficulty.

The Pull

Ranged players want to make sure they have at least 8 yards between each other for this fight, so plan accordingly. As usual, a portion of the raid needs to remain outside of melee range at all times.

Festergut can be reset using Feign Death, giving the raid some valuable time to organize ahead of time.

The Fight

The primary loop of Festergut involves effectively spreading Blighted Spores to the entire raid. Every 30 seconds, 2 players will receive a Gas Spore. After a 12-second delay, this Gas Spore will explode, infecting everyone within 8 yards with Blighted Spores. This deals damage over time, but most importantly, it grants a stack of Inoculated. Each stack of Inoculated reduces Shadow damage taken by 25%, up to a maximum of 75%.

Stacks of Inoculated are mandatory to deal with Pungent Blight. Festergut casts this roughly every 2 minutes, dealing colossal Shadow damage to the entire raid. Players are only able to receive one stack of Inoculated every 30 seconds, allowing the raid to effectively spread the Gas Spores to 2 different groups. One Gas Spore should always the be with the melee stack, and the other with the ranged stack. Ranged players will need to collapse into a stack for this, but should immediately return to their 8-yard spread once Inoculated. If both Gas Spores end up in melee range, one will have to back out into the range stack.

Once towards the start of the fight, and every 30 seconds after that, Festergut will cast Vile Gas on a random ranged player. This disorients anyone hit for 6 seconds, as well as dealing damage over time. This debuff will spread to any player within 8 yards, making remaining spread vital.

Every 12 seconds, Festergut will apply a stack of Gastric Bloat to the current tank, dealing a chunk of Nature damage and increasing the tank’s damage dealt by 10% for 100 seconds. This effect stacks up to 10 times, but if you reach 10 stacks you will be instantly killed by Gastric Explosion, dealing massive Nature damage to everyone nearby. As this increases damage dealt, tanks will want to sit at 9 stacks as much as possible, taunt swapping at 9 stacks once the first debuff has disappeared.

Professor Putricide joins in on the fun, releasing Gaseous Blight into the arena, dealing constant raid-wide damage. Roughly every 30 seconds, Festergut will Inhale Blight, inhaling a portion of this gas, lowering the damage it deals but increasing Festergut’s damage. This effectively trades raid-wide damage for tank damage, and after three casts of Inhale Blight the gas will be entirely gone, but Festergut will be significantly stronger. After another ~30 seconds, Festergut will exhale the gas with Pungent Blight, restarting the raid damage cycle. This will continue to loop for as long as the fight lasts.

When Festergut has 2-3 stacks of Inhale Blight, defensive cooldowns become vital for survival. Lesser cooldowns like Trinkets and Hand of Sacrifice can be used at 2 stacks, while more powerful cooldowns like Pain Suppression will be needed at 3 stacks.

Putricide will also launch Malleable Goo every 10 seconds, targeting a random player. This is telegraphed with a brief green marker, after which the Malleable Goo will explode, dealing heavy Nature damage to everyone within 5 yards and reducing their attack and cast speed for 20 seconds. Ranged players will want to make sure they dodge appropriately, but melee will have to be more proactive. Seeing the cast is almost impossible under the melee stack, so as a precaution, melee players should shift between Festergut’s left and right foot every 10 seconds.

Here are some of the main things that can typically go wrong in this fight:

Off-tank over aggro due to 90% increased damage.
Missing Inoculations.
Poor spreading.
Face tanking Malleable Goo.

Congratulations on defeating Festergut! Don’t forget to open the valve before you leave.

About the Author

Passion

I love MMOs of all shades, especially the nitty gritty numbers parts of them. You might recognize me from the Shadow Priest discord, otherwise I play a little bit of everything, especially games with support roles available.