With the recent resurgence of Evangelism within raiding, there is plenty of confusion surrounding how to use Rapture. This post aims to discuss the nuances of combining it with your Evangelism ramps or separating them completely. This, in turn, should help you decide how to tackle whichever boss you may be on with your guild.

Keep in mind that there is not a single solution for each boss. You may opt for a different strategy from the suggestion below depending on what your raid group needs.

Why Combine Evangelism and Rapture?

In previous tiers, the most common advice was to always separate these two CDs. This was because Rapture did not add to a ramp and only served to lower the amount of healing Atonement would do on those with the applied shields. Our legendary CoM causes Power Word: Shield's Atonement duration to be increased by 6 seconds. This enables Rapture to improve our Evangelism ramp with considerably longer single target Atonements.

While this still means that the initial shields still soak up potential healing from the main ramp, you gain tremendous atonement uptime for your burst window. Your first applied Atonements are active for the entire duration of your damage output. This is especially more potent when using Boon of the Ascended. You will have more Atonements active for the duration and a potential higher total count for your Eruption. Having a longer burst window allows us to cover a large portion of the damage patterns in the Sanctum of Domination. The Bosses I would consider combining these CDs on are as follows:

  • Eye of the Jailer- If your raid is doing the strategy of having the entire raid move as one you can benefit from raid-wide coverage as the DoT stacks get higher.
  • Soulrender Dormazain - To cover the chains. A longer burst window allows you to cover each individual break, especially if your team is slower at breaking them.
  • Remnant of Nerzhul - This boss has some very awkward timers and a longer burst window may allow you to cover multiple damage events such as Malevolence and Shatter in the same window.
  • Guardian of the First ones - This boss has an extremely bursty pattern and you can cover the tail end of Purging Protocol and a large portion of the Unstable Energy ticking damage.
  • Kel'thuzad - Again another bursty damage pattern followed by ticking damage which benefits a longer burst window.

As a more minor note, combining these CD's makes for an easier playstyle as you have fewer timers to juggle and Rapture serves as a ramp start indicator.

Why Separate Evangelism and Rapture?

Our Evangelism ramps, without Rapture, can be more than enough output for the damage intake you are planning to cover. Meaning you do the majority of your burst damage at large Atonement counts and top everyone during it.

Using Rapture while Evangelism is on CD allows you to have a wider Atonement spread in between to cover even more damage events. While it will only encompass your lower output damage spells it can still be a worthwhile amount of healing at the same time as smoothening out the damage intake for the raid. The Bosses I would consider separating these CDs on are as follows:

  • Terragrue - You don't need wide ramps on this boss as only 5-10 allies should be taking damage at a time due to the ticking DoT. Having Rapture available after a main ramp for the Mists movement mechanic is handy.
  • Eye of the Jailer - If your raid is doing the strategy of having two teams you won't always be in range to do a big ramp so Rapture available separately as DoT stacks get higher is a lifesaver.
  • The Nine - The majority of damage intake is over time so covering more events rather than one big event is advised. You can also put stronger shields on those with the dispel on them or those who need to soak.

While we are not the best at spot-healing Rapture can serve as a pseudo spot heal as its shields are very strong and could prevent deaths from mechanics in between our ramps. With that said, it is still primarily an Atonement applicator tool so you want to apply as many as possible rather than using multiple shields on a singular target.

Other Bosses

We made recommendations for specific bosses but some have been left out as you could play them either way. You could combine/separate Rapture for the following bosses as you see fit:

  • Painsmith Raznal.
  • Fatescribe Rog-Kalo.
  • Sylvanas.

What Is Gained? (Summary)

Combining Rapture and EvangelismUsing Rapture Separately
- Higher potential HPS ceiling- Stronger coverage in between ramps
- Longer burst window
- Easier playstyle