Category: raiding

LFG, ICC and other assorted acronyms.

Kurn / / dps, druids, dungeons, facepalm, healers, hunters, icecrown citadel, paladins, patch 3.3, raiding, ramblings, tanks

As I write this, I’m waiting for a random Lich King Dungeon for my mage, who is now 75, thank you very kindly, and I’m amazed by how long it takes to form a group.

Compared to, of course, level 80 instances that I DPS on my hunter.

Or any level instance when I queue as a healer or as a tank.

Hell, queueing up as a healer AND a tank means you’re never going to ever, ever wait. It’s hilarious. I’ve done the random heroic every day (from Wednesday on) on my paladin, queued as both a healer and a tank and so far, I have tanked: Nexus, Forge of Souls, Azjol-Nerub and Trial of the Champion. I have healed nothing.

Ooh, VH for my mage!

…Interlude for discussion of VH-related fail…

… the DK tank just wiped us on the first boss. Granted, it was the kite boss. But, the DK tank hasn’t dropped death and decay once and he had no presence up WHATSOEVER, much less FROST presence, until wave 5.

By the end of the second boss, the DK tank seems to have learned to drop D&D, has been in Frost Presence and has hauled ass to portals in a reasonable manner.

And yet, by the end of the instance, it appears that the DK tank did not learn from his mistakes. At all.

Happily, the healer was also from Proudmoore, so we queued up for a random dungeon together, with her in her tank spec (she’s a druid) and got the same ele shammy as in VH, plus a priest and a ret pally. We ran DTK randomly and VH (not randomly). How is it possible to reset a dungeon from within the cross-realm LFG interface? We couldn’t seem to reset DTK.

Anyways, it’s nice — my mage made a friend. And is 3 bars from 76!

Right, so, where was I? Oh, yeah, queueing up as a tank AND a healer.

So those are the two roles for my druid, right? So I’ve taken to doing this before I queue:

– check spec.

– put on opposite-spec gear.

– queue for whatever I want.

– get called in to tank or heal and, once zoned, only have to change EITHER spec OR gear to match the role I’m in.

Basically, I’m sitting there in tank spec with healing gear on, but my queues generally go like this:

Tank, tank, tank, tank, healer, tank, tank, healer, tank, tank, tank, tank… tank.

There ARE no tanks out there for lower level instances and so very few at higher levels.

In other news, thanks to some gratuitous trash-farming, Kurn has the Ashen Band of Vengeance while, due to a guild ICC25 and a pug ICC10, Madrana has the Ashen Band of Wisdom. Kurn has yet to kill a single boss in ICC (though not for lack of trying on Deathwhisper 25), whereas Madrana has killed them all twice already, once on 25 and once on 10.

My thoughts on ICC:

– Trash is icky unless you know what you’re doing.

– The first four bosses are basically a review of Black Temple with a hint of SSC and just a sprinkle of Hyjal.

– Marrowgar might be a little overtuned in 10s, but seemed like a pushover in 25. I worked HARD in that 10-man pug, which was mostly some guild’s run. They’re not amazingly geared, but they’re good enough that they shouldn’t have had to struggle as much as they did. This fight steals from SSC’s Leotheras the Blind (whirlwind), Hyjal’s Archimonde (the fire, although it doesn’t chase you) and BT’s Naj’entus.

– Deathwhisper is a little overtuned in 25m, I think. The big Death and Decays are fine, the deformed fanatics/adherents are fine, the resistance to various forms of damage based on mob type, all fine. The MC + the Curse of Torpor need to go or at least  be nerfed on 25 or else your cleansers/CCers HAVE to be on their game. 10m is a freaking pushover in comparison. This fight steals from the Shade of Akama fight, in that you deal primarily with adds until the boss comes out.

– Gunship Battle is HILARIOUS. I love it. The guild one-shotted it, I believe, and the 10-man only took four attempts or so. Got it by the skin of our teeth, mind you. But we got it anyways. :)

– Deathbringer Saurfang. 3 tries on 25m. 2 tries on 10. And I even got this on 10m:

stormingmess10

That’s I’ve Gone and Made a Mess, which was originally a reference to our good ol’ buddy Moroes in Karazhan, because Saurfang originally Garrotted, the way Moroes did.

– The best item in the ENTIRE GAME, hands-down, drops off 25m Deathwhisper: Zod’s Repeating Longbow. I haven’t seen it, but it’s in the drop table at wowhead and OMG. Reference to Superman II? WIN. “Kneel, son of Jor’El! Kneel before Zod!” God, I love that movie. If Kurn can get this bow, ever, I may never replace it. Okay, so I probably would in Cataclysm, eventually, but it would sit in my bank right next to my Rhok’delar.

Other achievements I’ve recently gotten include the BEST-NAMED ONE EVER.

retreating

That’s “We’re Not Retreating; We’re Advancing in a Different Direction.” I got that with my RL friend, the resto druid and three of “our” guildies, although I was on my hunter which not everyone knows about. I laughed my ass off when I got it.

I’ve also been getting a lot of rep while doing the new dungeons. Madrana got these:

mad15

And Kurn got:

kurnknights

Both Kurn and Madrana have gotten:

lfm

Which brings us back to LFG and the dungeon tool.

There I was. Level 71. Tanking, on my druid, in Azjol-Nerub. (As if I don’t deal with Anub’arak enough as it is!) I’m in with a 74 rogue and a 76 DK, as well as a 73 mage and a 72 priest.

I can’t keep aggro off the 76. And have trouble with the 74 at times. And because I’m always taunting off of them, it’s tough to get aggro back from the healer. So I basically stopped worrying about them and worried about the healer. Because, as we all know, if the tank dies, it’s the healer’s fault, if the healer dies, it’s the tank’s fault and if the DPS dies, it’s their own damn fault, right? :D

So the DK is all like “wow tank how come you cant hold aggro?” And I mention that he’s never on my target, so yeah, he’s going to pull aggro. And then I say:

Me: “I’m trying to taunt off the priest and so my taunts aren’t up for you.”

Him: “thats what im doin waht ddid u think i was doin to boss” (I think this was referencing keeping on my target.)

Me: “Watch your Omen. If you don’t have it, get it. Better, run an instance that’s suitable for your level.”

DK: “funny mate funny”

Me: “True, I can’t keep aggro from a level 76. I’m not supposed to.”

DK: “still ur a tank”

Healer: “a tanks job is to keep aggro off the healer, a dps job is to keep aggro off himself now lets stop arguing”

DK, to me: “u cant ever hold agro off all us so stop telling me what to do”

Me: “You really don’t understand the mechanics of this game…”

DK: “what fuck u talkin about now”

DK: “what u think im doin”

Of course, this was all happening during the trash and boss fight for the second boss in Azjol-Nerub. So as soon as we were done:

votekick

I’m going to write three how-tos, I believe. How to Behave as a Tank/Healer/DPS in random dungeons.

The overriding rule to them all is, of course, don’t be a fucktard dick.

Thoughts about healing in TOGC25 & gear stuff.

Kurn / / gear, healing, paladins, raiding, ramblings

So, I have 5/5 T9 and I have the heroic Breastplate of the Frozen Lake and the heroic Legplates of Failing Light. Breaking my 4pc T9 set bonus to equip both of these pieces kind of makes me sad. I’m a tank healer — I usually heal the MT or OT and beacon the other. Sacred Shield is usually up on both, as I usually heal with another holy paladin. So when we have a situation where I can spare the second or so to refresh Flash of Light on my non-primary target, I do so. Having a Flash of Light hot ticking for over 1000, every second, for 12 seconds, on big-damage fights like Heroic Twins is amazingly effective. This “heal over time” business is actually freaking awesome. And to have the hot going on 2 targets at once? Sweet deal.

But the heroic chest and pants are still better items than their 245 ilvl tier counterparts. And I get up to 710 haste (a bit overkill, but am I really complaining? No.), more intellect (due to the itemization and one extra gem socket on each item, meaning +40 intellect from gems alone)…

So while, logically, I know that the non-set pieces are *better*, I miss my ultra-uber hots.

I decided to try out which benefits me (and the raid) more on Heroic Anub’arak attempts.

For about 7-8 attempts, I wore 3/5 T9 and for the last 7-8 attempts of that night, I wore 4/5 T9.

Altogether, the results are basically the same: people need to stop sniping my goddamn heals. ;)

I think that in certain situations, such as the way we do Twins, it would be more beneficial to the raid if I bomb Holy Light as much as possible and ignore the FoL hot on the second tank, because the Glyph of Holy Light really helps out with healing the entire raid.

But I think that, until our one Anub OT gets to the point of being unhittable, taking the time to hot him up will be more beneficial in keeping him up than helping out on the raid with HL bombs. The guy is taking insane damage because he’s just not geared properly:

[01:01:40.338] Nerubian Burrower hits Warrior Dodge
[01:01:40.338] Nerubian Burrower hits Warrior 11696
[01:01:40.338] Nerubian Burrower hits Warrior 11776
[01:01:40.550] Nerubian Burrower hits Warrior Dodge
[01:01:40.550] Nerubian Burrower hits Warrior Miss
[01:01:40.550] Nerubian Burrower hits Warrior 1962 (B: 4019)

Yeah, 24,000 or so damage in .212 seconds.

Tonight, we start TOC fresh again. And maybe THIS will be the week the warrior gets the bracers off Maexxna and the belt off of Razorscale to help him with his avoidance set. ><

Observed.

Kurn / / paladins, raiding, ulduar

So on Sunday the 22nd, my guild finally got this:

observed

Yep. Defeated Algalon for the first time. AND it comes with a snazzy title!

astralwalker

Woot!

Algalon is not exactly a difficult fight, honest. It’s just making sure the black holes are closed properly, you don’t stand near collapsing stars, you don’t stand near cosmic smash and that you avoid big bang. Oh, yeah, and the tanks are taking obscene amounts of damage, too. He hits hard and *fast*. To the point where me and the other holy pally use 4pc T8 for the Sacred Shield thing — it’ll proc the damage reduction by Sacred Shield every 4 seconds instead of every 6.

That said, my fellow holy paladin died. Twice. Subsequently, this is how I finished the fight:

algalonmana

That’s right. 816 mana. Divine Plea on cooldown. Divine Illumination on cooldown. Divine Favor on cooldown. Wings on cooldown. Mana potion on cooldown. And I couldn’t run to melee Algalon because if I stopped casting for too long, the tank would die, period. I’d rather get yelled out for being completely oom than be yelled at for whacking on the boss to regain mana and not spam healing the tanks. Basically, it’s a damn good thing we got him down when we did, or else it would have been a wipe. (Incidentally, that total mana pool is a less than my usual buffed mana pool, since I’m in 4/5 T8 instead of 4/5 T9. Normally, it reads 38,989 mana. Which is gross, but I love it.)

So after we downed Algalon, it was back to Trial of the Grand Crusader.

Twins were already down, so we were going to attempt Anub’arak.

We really haven’t had a lot of practice on the encounter, for two reasons:

1) Attendence has been crappy. And I really can’t blame people. TOC is a shitty raid instance.

2) Our MT, who is the add tank on heroic Anub, is trying to do the “I’ll tank all four adds by myself and will not be hit and will block every attack for more damage than they can deal to me” strat.

As I understand it, and I am not awesome at math, Nerubian Burrowers (there are four of them each wave) hit for a base of 6.8k damage. If your tank is wearing a block value set and is 102.4% unhittable (yes, that’s unhittable, not uncrittable), the tank takes 0 damage despite the fact the adds are buffing themselves with haste or something and you can AOE down the adds on top of Anub, doing double damage, basically.

Guess who doesn’t have 102.4% unhittable status? That’s right. Our MT.

So he’ll dodge, parry and block a LOT… and then he’ll be unlucky.

Now, see, here, he blocks a couple of time and COMPLETELY blocks all of the damage:

[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Miss
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Block (3614)
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Parry
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 10347
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.356] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.509] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Block (4505)

Of course, that’s 7 hits by 4 adds in the same second. Eek.

And then he gets unlucky. In the same second.

[01:23:29.746] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 12616
[01:23:29.762] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Miss
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 10486
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 2050 (B: 3410)
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 3651 (B: 3410)
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Miss
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 2100 (B: 3410)
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 9392

That’s like, 40k damage. And he doesn’t have much more than 40k health in his block gear.

Surprisingly, this is not what killed us, primarily because us healers are leet.

What killed us on our best attempt was Hand of Protection.

The goal is to basically use as little of the ice as possible on heroic Anub, because the frost orb things do NOT respawn. You get six for the entire encounter. So, when Anub pursues people during the burrows, this is what happens.

Burrow 1, first person chased runs towards a patch of ice we drop at the entrance. It’s far, they stand there and run Anub into the ice.

Burrow 1, second person chased stays with the majority of the raid over by where Anub starts out (which is where we fight him). A paladin (can you see where this is going? haha!) casts Hand of Protection on this second target when Anub is almost on top of them. They wait until the buff is down to about 2 seconds left and then strafe on to the patch of ice they’re standing next to.

Burrow 1, third person chased kites for ~7 seconds.

Burrow 2 works in exactly the same way. And if you have a third burrow, you’re fucked.

So my RL friend, the resto druid and healing lead, assigns us our BOP cooldowns (seriously, I can’t say HOP with a straight face. I’ve tried.).

Since both the other holy paladin and I have 2/2 Guardian’s Favor, this is how it was organized:

I have people on the odd burrows (1/3, if needed) and the other holy paladin has people on the even burrows (2/4, if needed). So the second person on the first and third burrows gets BOPped by me and the second person on the second and fourth burrows gets BOPped by the other paladin.

It was, I believe, our third time getting to the burrow. I’d been BOPping people as assigned.

Burrow 1: I BOP a warlock.

Burrow 2: I’m the person who needs to be BOPped.

The MT/RL says, in raid chat:

“BOP at the last second, Mad.”

And I’m like “boy, I hope the other holy pally read that…”

And then I die to the impales from Anub’arak’s spikes.

The MT/RL says: “or just die.”

So the other pally is like “but I bopped the warlock” and I’m like “no, I did”. My BOP still had 30+ seconds on its cooldown.

It was only after I logged off that I remembered that Hand of Protection CAUSES FORBEARANCE and that there is NO WAY both of our BOPs could have been on cooldown! And since mine *WAS*, he was LYING to me! And made me out to look like a complete, total idiot in the raid!

I was SO angry that I uploaded the logs and checked them… and then I got even angrier. Because I was wrong. And oooooh, I hate being wrong!

[01:43:18.796] Madranah casts Hand of Protection on  Warlock
[01:43:18.903] Other Holy Paladin casts Hand of Protection on Warlock
[01:43:19.016] Warlock gains Hand of Protection from Madranah
[01:43:19.016] Warlock’s Hand of Protection fades
[01:43:19.016] Warlock gains Hand of Protection from Other Holy Paladin
[01:43:29.058] Warlock’s Hand of Protection fades

What the hell is that? That is some really fucking dumb luck right there. That we synched to the point where they BOTH landed on the warlock at EXACTLY the same time is just unfathomable to me. But the logs prove that he didn’t lie. He cast it.

Of course, he shouldn’t have cast it on the warlock. But at least he’s not a lying bastard.

Anyways, that’s basically all the news that’s fit to print.

Wow. Just… wow.

Kurn / / coliseum, general, healing, raiding, ramblings

Heroic Twin Val’kyrs down. Using the DUMBEST STRATEGY I have ever encountered in my ENTIRE LIFE.

The whole basis of the fight is that there are auras that you should switch to based on what’s happening right then in the fight, and the aura portals are in four spots (two for each) of the room.

But does my guild do this?

No.

On the kill, 3 of us got the light aura, 21 of us got the dark aura. (Did I mention we 24-manned it? No? We did.)

Those 3 were two hunters and a warlock in BT Shadow Resist gear, basically collecting white orbs and dodging as many black orbs as they could.

As I understand it, here are four abilities the twins use.

Light Vortex – surge of light, 16k fire damage to anyone not with light aura every second for 5 seconds.

Dark Vortex – surge of dark, 16k shadow damage to anyone not with dark aura every second for 5 seconds.

Twin’s Pact (Light) – light-coloured shield that people with dark aura should have no issues killing, then interrupting the cast (which is a heal)

Twin’s Pact (Dark) – dark-coloured shield that people with light aura should have no issues killing, then interrupting the cast (which is a heal)

So, just by describing that, one would think that half the raid is light, half is dark, everyone switches on vortex, right? WRONG.

We healed through Light Vortex.

2 resto shammies, 2 holy priests, 2 holy paladins, 1 resto druid.

It meant popping two Divine Sacrifices that overlapped (even if they don’t stack) AND all four druids in the raid popping tranquility for their groups.

But, by golly, we healed through it.

And the shammy blew heroism at the right time. And they swapped DPS targets on time. And we won!

But it was pure luck.

The order of those four abilities (which happen once a minute, I believe?) is random. But they won’t repeat until the fifth time an ability comes up. And THAT is also random, I believe. So we only got one Light Vortex. Had we gotten two, we would have been SCREWED. I was ready to Divine Protection/Divine Sacrifice (which would have killed me) if I had to, but we got through without a second Light Vortex.

Some stats:

Effective raid DPS: 121,717

Effective raid DT(taken)PS: 50,469

Effective raid HPS: 50,966

RAW raid HPS: 91,732

And only 44.4% overhealing.

My RL friend, the resto druid? 9133 effective health per second. To my 4064.7.

Whew.

Shocking.

Kurn / / gear, hunters, raiding, ramblings, ulduar

Two posts in a single day. Good Lord, I know. What’s the world coming to?

It was a productive day. Went out and got my hunter the T9.10 shoulders with 30 Emblems to go with the T9.10 pants I got off Koralon a while back. Serpent Sting critting is hot.

Then went through Ulduar 10 with a pug and did FL, RZ, IG, XT, KO and AU, all for the first time on the hunter. So very, very, very weird to DPS those fights and that trash instead of healing them. Too bad we broke up before Hodir due to mass AFKs/DCs/etc.

Let’s see, what else… Did VOA 25 – no hunter loot. Did Ony 25 – no hunter loot, but I did win the head! So I got the Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant to replace Pendant of the Outcast Hero. Pretty groovy, eh?

I’m at 264 hit rating and have replaced… I think it was 4 or 5 +16 hit gems. I’m cheap at the moment, so I only replaced them with +16 agi, but eventually, I’ll upgrade the T9 at least with +20 agility.

I managed to pull 5k DPS at some point today, albeit on trash. The Explosive Shot nerf has smacked me upside the head, so I’m only pulling about 4-4.5k DPS instead of like, 4.8-5.6k DPS (depending on available buffs, etc). I guess that makes sense, because hi, I’m in shit gear. ;)

Still, Explosive Shot dots are still critting, under ideal circumstances, over 5.5k. I tried Marks after the ES nerf and felt the pain of it and the fact that I don’t have remotely close to the amount of Armor Penetration I’d need to make a Marks spec work nicely. So even post-nerf, Survival’s working well for me. Or at least better than Marks. I find that I’m really accustomed to Survival, too. It felt weird to not be refreshing SS because I was using Chimera to refresh it.

Anyways, enough rambling. Productive day today. Maybe a ToC 10 on the pally tomorrow before the raid. (Incidentally, Tuesday raids have been dropped and all other raid days are now until 2am instead of 3am! Ecstasy! Maybe now I won’t be a freaking zombie!)

Rounding up the last little while.

Kurn / / apotheosis, coliseum, facepalm, general, raiding, ramblings, ulduar

First thing… I tried Algalon for the first time tonight, ever. It was 25m. It’s a seriously fun fight. We only got through one Big Bang at most, though. The guild I’m apping to hasn’t killed him on 25m yet and only killed him on 10m for the first time tonight (after the 25m attempts were done). Still, I didn’t fuck up hardcore, so I’m pleased. Still, look at this damage.

[00:00:25.621] Algalon the Observer hits Tank1 4639 (A: 7176)
[00:00:25.621] Madranah Flash of Light Tank1 +*0* (O: 6637)
[00:00:25.621] RestoDruid Lifebloom Tank1 +525
[00:00:25.854] Algalon the Observer hits Tank1 24051
[00:00:25.854] Tank1 Necrosis Algalon the Observer 74
[00:00:25.868] Tank1 Retribution Aura Algalon the Observer 209
[00:00:26.028] Tank1 Frost Fever Algalon the Observer 353 (R: 88)
[00:00:26.164] Tank1 Retribution Aura Algalon the Observer 233
[00:00:26.343] Algalon the Observer hits Tank1 7441 (A: 4659)
[00:00:26.343] HolyPally1 Flash of Light Tank1 +443
[00:00:26.714] Tank1 Plague Strike Algalon the Observer 1131
[00:00:26.726] RestoDruid Lifebloom Tank1 +1066
[00:00:26.897] Algalon the Observer hits Tank1 21430 (O: 2249)

And just like that, dead like dinner. My holy light was in the middle of casting and I just needed another half second to make sure it would land… Anyways. I didn’t make a fool of myself, which is nice.

As to the previous guild’s drama…

Continue reading “Rounding up the last little while.”

/facepalm

Kurn / / facepalm, raiding, ramblings, ulduar

Through a VERY odd series of events, I’m having to update DKP from my last guild on Bronzebeard.

Now, since I wasn’t actually at the raids and such, I’m having to go back through their World of Logs parses, along with various screenshots the tank officer sent me.

So I’m looking at a log from Ulduar, where they were doing Thorim, Hodir and Freya.

And, while browsing the log, I see that there was 630,000 damage taken from Biting Cold.

I scratched my head. Yep, just the one attempt…

1) Unnamed Resto Druid Who Doesn’t Know How To Play At All Which Makes Me Wonder Why She Was Even In The Raid: 108,454 damage from Biting Cold.

2) New Holy Paladin Who is Clearly a Moron: 65,148 damage.

3) New Shadow Priest Who, One Must Wonder, Seems To Never Have Done Ulduar Before: 62,135 damage.

4) Long-Time Holy Priest Who Manages To Look Good After That Bunch Of Morons: 39,534 damage.

5) Decent Resto Druid Who Apparently Needs To L2Move His Ass: 39,930 damage.

Seriously?

I just did Hodir this last Wednesday with the guild I’m apping to.

254,051 damage from Biting Cold.

1) Moron Hunter Who Was Dying To AOE All Night: 54,054 damage.

2) Dumb Enhancement Shaman: 48,052 damage.

3) Moron Of A  Mage App: 45,027 damage.

4) Pretty Decent Mage App: 26,270 damage.

5) “Senior” Holy Paladin: 11,226 damage.

Where was I?

13) Me: 2,944 damage.

Where was the resto druid in the raid?

18) My RL Friend: 584 damage.

The level of play is just a LOT higher on Proudmoore in general, I think. I feel badly for people on Bronzebeard.

Tales of patch 3.2.2, Onyxia and many failed pugs.

Kurn / / facepalm, guide, hunters, onyxia, raiding

Onyxia has been back in our lives since the servers came up on Tuesday. That’s about 30 or so hours ago.

In the last 30 hours, I have:

– Killed Onyxia on 10m in a semi-pug with my hunter (and gotten the Dragonstalker Helmet after dying early on while pulling whelps off a priest)

– Killed Onyxia on 10m in a full pug with my shammy healing (and been one of four people left standing — me, the MT and two DPS — because people don’t understand the concept of whelps, aggro and deep breaths)

– Killed Onyxia on 25m in a raid with my paladin healing with the guild I’m applying to (with nothing bad to report)

– Killed Onyxia on 10m in a pug raid with my paladin healing (whereupon I died and the druid in the raid apparently didn’t know what “BR” or “brez” meant)

– Wiped several times on 25m Onyxia on my hunter (I think it’s three different raids?) including one where one of the “tanks” had 30k health unbuffed and was wearing PVP gear

I know I need to write a post about guild drama and why I’ve ended up on Proudmoore, but honestly, that can wait.

HOW TO DO ONYXIA WITHOUT BEING A DUMBASS

It kind of astounds me that I feel I even have to think about writing this, but apparently, there are a ton of people out there who never killed Onyxia the first time around. I used to lead Onyxia raids. Granted, they weren’t altogether successful (due primarily because we would go in with 30 instead of 40 people) but I DID down her pre-BC and I have my Rhok’delar to prove it.

Step 1: Trash

If you’re new to the Onyxia encounter, you don’t know about her trash. Which is okay. But as with all new encounters, there are two ways of learning about them — researching and experiencing.

Onyxia’s trash consists of four mobs, called Onyxian Warders, and they are pretty easy to dispatch. Key points to bear in mind:

– They have a Cleave. Do not stand in front of them unless you are a tank.

– They have an AOE fire nova ability. Do stand at range if you can.

– Do attempt to pull one at a time. (Hot tip! If you’re a tank, do not stand over that hump in the tunnel, because your healers do NOT have line of sight on you! You’ll know the hump in the tunnel when you see it.)

Once the trash is taken care of, it does not seem to respawn within 20 minutes or whatever the old timer was. For this, we should all be grateful.

That brings us to…

Step 2: Lady Katrana Prestor, I Presume?

So there she is. Lying there on the ground in her lair. The environment hasn’t changed at all and most of Onyxia’s abilities haven’t changed. In fact, the fight is remarkably similar to how it used to be. Old-school raiders shouldn’t have any problems.

Phase 1

Your tank, presuming he or she is not a complete moron, will run in and turn Onyxia around, so the tank’s back is to the north wall and Onyxia’s back (and tail!) is facing the south tunnel where you came in from. If your tank is not doing this, your tank is likely an idiot and I urge you to hearth the hell out of there ASAP. :P

Once positioned, Onyxia in Phase 1 is pretty simple. Phase 1 lasts from 100% ’till 65%. Things for everyone to bear in mind:

– Standing in front of her is only for the tank. By “in front” I mean anywhere in front of her front legs. She has a 180 degree CLEAVE, breathes fire and has a wing buffet that bounces you quite some distance — which is why your tank should position themselves to bounce off the north wall to land, more or less, exactly where he or she was pre-wing buffet.

– Standing in back of her is for NO ONE. You hear me? NO ONE get anywhere near that damn tail! You get hit by her tail and it’s not some stun like on Sartharion, ohhhhh no. You get hit by her tail and you get shot over into the whelp eggs. Upon doing so, you will break the eggs. And in so doing, you will likely wipe your raid. So do not stand behind her.

– Melee (and OTs) should stand at her midsection, preferably closer to her hind legs than her front legs. OTs should watch for whelps to pick up.

– Ranged should be, you know, at range, and keep an eye out for whelps to DPS down when the OTs have aggro on them.

Phase 2

Phase 2 begins when Onyxia has hit 65% health and ends when she lands at 40%. She’ll be all “screw YOU guys, I’m gonna fly around and ruin you!” I think the phrase is actually “I’ll incinerate you from above!”. Don’t say she didn’t warn you.

Several things happen in Phase 2.

a) 20 whelps spawn from each side every 90 seconds. This can be poor. Give the OTs a chance to grab aggro before you AOE things. Healers should watch your healing at the spawn so you’re not ruined by 40 whelps right off the bat.

b) Lair Guards are a new twist to the fight. They’re a lot like Onyxian Warders. They ALSO cleave. They ALSO have a blast nova. And they also have this thing called “Ignite Weapon“. So that’s 25k damage to targets in a 5 yard radius on 25m and 17.5k damage to targets in a 5 yard radius on 10m. The trick is that Ignite Weapon can easily be dealt with by… that’s right, disarming them. The blast nova still sucks, but since melee have to be directly underneath Onyxia to beat on her, you can put melee on these Lair Guards to help disarm them and have them run out during the 5 second cast on Blast Nova. Basically, you want to burn these suckers down ASAP.

c) Onyxia needs to be taken down to 40% health primarily by the ranged DPS in your group. Due to the fact that she moves around a LOT, dots are here to save the day. That means every single dot you can think of. Whatever does the most damage the fastest wins. Ranged should primarily down the whelps whenever they spawn (after giving tanks a chance to get aggro) and then return to focusing on Onyxia. It’s best to refresh your dots right when the whelps spawn to ensure maximum damage done on Onyxia while you AOE.

d) Onyxia will be flying around the room, as I mentioned. She’ll also be casting two spells. One is Fireball and it hits people for 5-8k damage (10m/25m) and has a 10yd splash radius, so do /range 10 and stay away from people.

The other spell is, of course, Deep Breath.

When you see the emote that Onyxia is taking a deep breath, you have exactly 8 seconds to not be fried by it. What you need to do is this:

a) Look up.

b) Find Onyxia.

c) Run behind her or to her sides.

d) If it’s not possible to run behind her or to HER sides, run to your closest side of the cavern, without spawning whelps, please. Or, if you’re REALLY in trouble, you can iceblock or bubble through it. It’s a cone-shaped breath that doesn’t last too long, but if you take the full brunt of it, you’re literally toast.

Assuming your raid can handle the whelps and the Lair Guards and doesn’t get fried…

Phase 3

Give your tank Fear Ward or, at the very least, Tremor Totem. Strength of Earth or Stoneskin totems are fail in Phase 3. Shammies should be split up so one is in each group, assuming you have that many shammies. Tanks, then healers, then DPS should have priority on Tremor Totem. Why? She does a Bellowing Roar that fears you like a moron for three seconds. You’ll know it’s coming because the screen will shake just beforehand.

In conjunction with that, lava now spews out of the cracks in the floor. So don’t stand on cracks in the floor. Oh, and she still does EVERYTHING she did in phase 1. So watch where you’re standing!

Unlike classic Onyxia, 3.2.2 Onyxia no longer resets aggro between phases. She should come right back down to your main tank. MTs, you should be in position when Onyxia hits about 43-45% health so that she comes to you and positioning isn’t so much of a pain in the ass.

Then you burn her and collect your phat lootz.

Loot:

In addition to the helms (there are 3 different Judgement, Stormrage Ten Storms helms, 2 different Frostruned helms, 2 difference Transcendence helms and 2 different Wrath helms — all for different specs) and other gear she drops, she will drop an Enlarged Onyxia Backpack (Unique, 22 slots), an Ashen Sack of Gems (similar to Magtheridon’s gem bag, containing 1-3 epic gems) and, of course, her own head. Her head leads to a quest, which leads to some nice loot, which you can check out here.

But what about the Mature Black Dragon Sinew? Does Onyxia still drop it?

Way back in the day, hunters had a class quest for an epic bow, staff and quiver. To start the quest, you had to get the Ancient Petrified Leaf from Majordomo’s chest in Molten Core. He would always drop EITHER the leaf or the priest item for their quest, the Eye of Divinity.

But even without being on the quest, you could acquire the Mature Black Dragon Sinew (needed for the bow and the staff) from Onyxia. That’s what happened to me. I was in a pug Onyxia run and was the only (nub) hunter who hadn’t already gotten her bow. So I got the Mature Black Dragon Sinew and eventually got the Leaf and then got my bow.

Bornakk, a blue poster, has said that the Mature Black Dragon Sinew would still be available in-game, though probably not off Onyxia herself. WoWHead comments attest to this, claiming a drop off a non-elite dragon somewhere outside of BRD (possibly the Burning Steppes? That would make sense, as there are dragons from level 50-60 in the zone, and it’s a levle 60 quest.).

What this means is that hunters can still get their bows, if they so desire, which means my brother should start farming dragons for his sinew. :)

Heh.

Kurn / / healing, paladins, raiding, ulduar

Good to know that with 36,389 mana (raid buffed), I FINALLY have enough mana to not need saronite vapours on Vezax, normal mode.

And, for the first time ever, a raid group I was part of one-shotted Yogg. With 21 people. 5 healers. Regular mode, of course. But Phase 3 was upon on faster than I thought possible. Portal DPS must be sick.