Naxxramas 25: Construct Quarter

Last night we decided to combat the entire Construct Quarter (and hopefully complete the Military Quarter) for the first time as a guild. We ventured into the Nerubian Ziggurat with high expectations due to the velocity which we gained from clearing the Arachnid and Plague wings a couple of days ago. Some challenging scenarios were cleared easily and faster than expected, other feats required a large amount of concentration and effort.

We got going a little late due to some last minute retractions and wait listed people not being present to fill some gaps. Once some smart improvisations were implemented, we had a solid group and we went on to the first boss.

Patchwerk is a familiar encounter. We immediately assigned two healers for each tank, and we killed the boss easily in one try. It's great to see how implementing strategy that we learned from previous encounters with this boss worked perfectly. This was purely a textbook kill.

The Safe Zone Ends Here

We proceeded through the Frogger trap (aka the 16th boss in Naxxramas) which razed more Gladiators than Patchwerk consumed. After completing Naxxramas many times, one wonders what sadistic scamp contrived this trap.

In the 10 man version of Naxxramas, Grobbulus has always been a moderate challenge, but has never been a major stumbling block. This fight was far easier than we had expected. The raid did very well with positioning the poison clouds in the appropriate spot. The fight progression was very smooth until near the end where many clouds were stacked in one spot near the corner of the room and the slimes began to overwhelm some casters. This was still unexpectedly easy overall, and the raid recovered quickly after any signs of trouble.

I was MT for this fight, I may have allowed two clouds to be dropped in the same place by missing one. This would explain the unsettled state of Ventrilo comments at the end of the encounter - "look at all the clouds!". In the 1o man, it was easy to see the cloudd being dropped by Grobbulus and one can just move on the visual queue. In the 25 man version, the haphazard collection of every Spell Effect, AoE and Melee player squeezed within a 10 yard radius makes visual queues impossible (hell, it may burn a hole in my monitor). The addon Big Wigs gets the credit for the boss kiting decisions in that fight!

With our victory in stride, we marched on to tackle Gluth. This encounter appears to be unchanged from a strategy standpoint except that there are more zombies and they will spawn from all three grates instead of one grate. We started with two kites and one healer in the back section on the adds. It was apparent immediately during the first attempt that there were not enough resources to tactfully manage the zombies. Even with the occasional death (and subsequent battle resurrections), Gluth's health bottomed at 15% before the raid wiped.

For the second attempt, two healers (a Shaman and Druid), two Hunters and a Retribution Paladin were assigned to kite duty. They had some very minor issues but pulled through and Gluth died very quickly. Wonderful Job!

Only Thaddius Left Right?

For visual types, here is a graph representation of the Thaddius attempts:

Since Gluth has been the largest stumbling point in the 10 man version of this instance, the raid members thought that Thaddius would be a breeze. This was certainly not the case!

The encounter strategy is identical to the 10 man version. Kill Feugen and Stalagg at the same time. Jump to Thaddius' platform. Watch for polarity shift. Go to the left of him if you have a Negative(-) debuff, to the right if you have a Positive(+) debuff.

We had a brief discussion about how to move to the appropriate sides of Thaddius. It was loosely decided that the movement would always be clockwise, meaning that if you wanted to go from the Negative Side to the Positive side then you would go between Thaddius and the wall.

Round 1 - Feugen and Stalagg were killed at the same time easily, onward to Thaddius! Some people missed the jump to Thaddius and landed in the poison water. This caused confusion and chaos in Ventrilo, but the remainder of the raid scattered around Thaddius awaiting his awakening. Polarity Shift incoming - Zap! Many people died during the first shift. We deconstructed what had happened; we need to react to the shift very very quickly and immediately reposition ourselves. Since the raid had consisted of somewhat lazy movement until now, this is easier said than done.

One major issue was determining and clearly communicating which side of Thaddius players had to run past when they needed to shift polarities. It was decided that instead of rotating clockwise, the direction of choice will instead be counterclockwise. So when you shift polarities, you move to your right instead of left (analogous to driving). Players with a Positive debuff move to his right when facing him. Negative to the left. During more attempts, players would frequently say things in ventrilo which crossed the wires in the heads of some of the raid participants (understandably).

"Am I on the right side?" - "You're negative, go to the left" - "You mean go along the left side of Thad?" - "No, the left side" - "Okay, that's the right side then" etc.

The voice chat chaos was cleared up eventually ("Only RLs and Officers can talk!"). Most people got used to the jump (or a mage put slow fall on them). The incoming polarity shifts were being called out to remind players to check their buffs. (This should not need to be done for this fight. It became clear who didn't have boss mods installed.) Everyone's movement became immediate and refined. The last aspect of this fight to overcome after a lot of attempts and practice on this was hitting the enrage timer. Two or three people died every time, and we were always about 2 or 3 people worth of damage short before Thaddius smacked us down. The designated raid end time approached and a couple of people stepped out. We went on to replace them as we were so close to victory.

By the last attempt, the progress of the players in this raid was incredible. Many players improved from sluggish movement and lackluster positioning to top notch awareness and reaction time. The second attempt after calling on the reserves, we killed Thaddius and this victory was well deserved by all the participants.

Despite the difficulties in this raid (especially on Thaddius) with movement, position, getting players to watch buffs etc., this raid was very fun and enjoyable. There were a lot of laughs and a comfortable group dynamic. We all worked well together and helped each other out throughout the encounters.

Next week, there are three nights of Naxx 25 scheduled. I predict that we will come very close to clearing the instance or even clear the whole thing. Every raid we improve, learn and teach others. Hopefully we can carry this type of atmosphere into next week's raids and at very least have a fun time.

Taste of Twenty Five

My guild finally decided to venture into 25 man Naxx. I have been looking forward to this moment for a long time!

We had a well balanced group. The tanks were a Death Knight, a Warrior tank and a Paladin tank (myself). We had three Priests, two Shamans and a Paladin healing (where did the Druids go?).

We clobbered six bosses in about three hours and eventually killed Patchwerk.

Details? Well, we started off with the Arachnid Wing. I got to MT Anub and he was pretty easy. I would kite him around the outside ring every time he started casting Locust Swarm. I think there was some confusion because some people's timers were off for when to expect the incoming swarm. Mine were dead on (latest version of Big Wigs) which made the fight easy. There was a window near the end of the kite where I would be in Locust Swarm. Since the healers were still adjusting their positioning, I ended up getting dangerously low an health and there was nothing I could do other than pop a potion, hit a trinket etc. I did die right near the end w/ Anub at about 100k health but we killed him without a problem. The death was a combination of the already existing range problems, I was impaled right at the end of the last kite (then the healers exclaimed "red range!"). Talk about bad timing. Well we killed him, time to note what can be done better next time and move on.

Faerlina was unexpectedly easy. I was the adds tank for that one (QQ). We had a little mishap where Faerlina was enraged for a good 25 seconds. The healers and MT for the fight did a phenomenal job! I think we could do the [Heroic: Momma Said Knock You Out] achievement next time to kill her in the 25 man. We did do [Momma Said Knock You Out] without a problem before.

Onward to Maexxna! Cake! Sort of. Most of the players had done this fight numerous times so they knew what to expect. I was MT for that fight. I took quite a bit of damage during the immobilization phase. I anticipated as much as possible and hit some damage mitigation abilities immediately before the freeze. One stupid thing that I did was not trust the healers midway through the fight and hit Divine Protection with the hopes that the DPS would burn her down before the immobilize during the enrage part. Well I was wrong. Near the end of the fight, Heroism was hit and the DPS burned hard. We still got immobilized with about 200k left on Maexxna. The HoTs stacked were not enough and I hit the floor again. We still killed her though. There was certainly something to be learned from a tanking perspective during that fight.

Because of the group composition, the Plague Wing appeared to be the next best place to go for our first Naxxramas-25 adventure.

Noth was 1-shotted. Not much to discuss there. The MT had no problem on Noth, the DK and I picked up the adds fairly quickly. Easy.

Then onto our favourite boss in the instance - Heigan. Aside: one of the biggest differences that I have noted between hardcore raiding and casual raiding is the ability for players to move. This fight is 95% movement based which can get a bit hairy with a casual group. End Aside.
I was MT for this. This is one of my favourite fights to tank; it's very different from most encounters so it presents some variety in encounter types. I have been trying to increase avoidance values on this fight, so I have been strafing in such a way that Heigan is still facing my block radius. This is easier said than done, but it's a good exercise for a tank. Most of the usual suspects in the raid died. Some of the players who most often die didn't die which was very good, it shows a definite improvement in movement skill for those players from when we first started doing this encounter. Great job!

Next we decimated the healers' adversary Loatheb (an anagram for "healbot"). Our raid had exceptional DPS so this fight was a breeze. I was the MT for this affair. This is one of the easiest encounters to tank as a Paladin because I can heal myself during the 3 second healing window (usually with LoH near the end). I have seen the healers in this raid do an exceptional job in the 10 man raids that I have done with them, and the 25 man was no different. Kudos!

Since we cleared all that without a problem, where to next? We could have easily done the Military Wing. I suggested that we do Patchwerk in the Raid Leader channel, with the justification that he is a good gauge of how strong our raid is as a whole and will reveal weaknesses that we may have for eventual completion of the instance. Off we went to Patchwerk!

So the first question for this was 'who will MT and OT due to the mechanics?' The Warrior and myself were hovering at ~35K HP raid buffed and the DK had about 33K HP raid buffed. The DK was a newer face in the raids and we figured he should have a shot at MTing something, and he certainly had enough gear and skill to do it. This is the first time I was a Hateful Strike tank. Every time I for whacked with a hateful, my heart skipped a beat. It's certainly a different experience. Now I know what all the Druid Hateful Strike tanks had to go through.

After the first pull, the DK picked Patchwerk up but accidentally touched the poison puddle cutting his HP in half and then he died immediately. Well perhaps that can be is "initiation" to MTing for this guild. We laughed about it, he shook it off and did another attempt. The second time, we got a little further into the fight. The healers would sometimes get behind in healing the Hateful Strike tanks and the Warrior died. In the gaps between when I was healed to full, Patchwerk subsequently went on to one-shot the melee DPS. It was a wipe but we made progress. It was suggested that the majority of the non mana melee DPS stand in the sludge to have their HP cut in half so they never get a Hateful. This was met with some resistance, even though that's the way it's supposed to be done... well if the melee wants to die, that's their choice I guess. Normally we don't assign healers but it seemed to be necessary in this case. Healers were assigned, fine positioning was discussed and with that in place, we killed Patchwerk. The new DK did a great job Main Tanking Parchwerk, the healers got into the right mindset for healing the Hateful Strike tanks and the DPS did their job with ease!

This proved to be a useful benchmark for how raids this week will go. I think that our accomplishments prove that Naxx 25 can be cleared with this group or a comparable one.

Obsidian Sanctum with Tenebron

The guild's other pursuit for new 25 man content was 25 man OS with Tenebron up. I was initially waitlisted for this raid and I did not expect to be called upon to go. There were four no-shows! Ouch. So I was asked to attend. I was assigned to tanking Tenebron. He's a slippery dragon for sure. I missed Tenebron's first landing which resulted in him killing a couple of healers (oops). So I asked the hunter for a MD and such. He's a difficult mob to pick up for me, I'm trying to figure out what the problem is. Firstly, he becomes untargetable for a while while he's flying above our heads, so I need to target him as he is landing. When he lands, it appears that there is a 3 second window in which you can shoot him not it does nothing to his aggro table.

Position & Confusion

I tried tanking Tenebron facing the same direction that Tenebron's Tail was facing, near the middle of the platform (like some videos of the fight had showed). This was too intrusive and some people got it by Tenebron's breath. So then we decided that I would tank him parallel to Sartharion. This was not necessarily a good idea as both tanks were getting hit by Sartharion's fire breath. After the first couple of bad pickups, I managed to get him into a safer spot on the corner of the square island (closer to the portal side) as was suggested by a member in the raid. Meanwhile this is occurring when a lava wave is incoming and the whole place is lagging to hell.

We killed Tenebron a few times during the encounter but just couldn't hold on to kill Sartharion. Despite some bad starts, learning positioning and everything, what the real killer was was the Fissures that appear on the ground throughout the encounter. This was frustrating to watch as a fissure appears beneath five or six people and they are toast within five seconds. This is again where movement problems are staring us in the face. No gear improvement can prevent people from being killed in that situation.

Despite some ongoing issues with people getting killed in the Fissures, we killed Tenebron numerous times and just couldn't hold on with all he whelps and fire adds pouring in. Each attempt got cleaner and we were working well as a group. However, it was decided that the raid would be called early. Personally I would have liked to see a few more tries because each attempt was more productive and we really were not in OS for that long. Perhaps more time can be allotted to this cause during a weekday when the attendees can concentrate a little more.

Upcoming Raids

This week looks like it will be a great time for guild raid progression. There are a ton of signups for all raids. We will have two full nights in 25 man Naxx and get to return to the Eye of Eternity to take another shot at Malygos. It appears that the Malygos groups will be about the same as last times, however we have better gear and more practice so this week looks promising for a Malygos-10 kill. Malygos will die!

Until next time, Malygos

Until now, all raid content that the brave adventurers of have undertaken in Northrend has been a breeze. Well now we've met our nemesis - Malygos! (10 man)

We ventured into the Eye of Eternity with high expectations and with an aura of success from our other raids. The Thugs now have a challenge. We spent three hours in EoE but it was not a waste; much was learned and this knowledge will lead us (eventually) to victory.

Let's Go Already

The other Raid Leaders and I decided to get all the participants to practice the Aces High quest before encountering Malygos. We've had many difficulties with anything involving vehicles and flying, so it's a perfect place to practice!

We all went up and flew in formation. Most people learned how to do effective DPS with their mounts and stick with the healer. You can cast while moving which eliminates a lot of complications when you strafe away from Malygos' Static Field.

The raid quickly became impatient after about ten minutes and we decided to proceed with the run. This may not have been the best idea.

We had a Paladin MT (me), Two Priests and Shaman healing, two mages, two DKs and a Hunter.

Phase 1

We had a few quick wipes on this phase for many reasons. The raid needed time to get used to synchronizing their cooldowns for CC on the sparks. I needed to brush up on getting nice positioning on Malygos.

We immediately noticed how stressed the healers were during Malygos' Vortex. Some players had used more survival gear and consumables as is stated in the strategies, others didn't and it showed. The healers were OOM part way through Phase 1. Part of it was everyone taking too much damage and the healers were getting used to a strict mana management regime.

A combination of solutions led to completing Phase 1 very quickly and with ease. Both of the Death Knights in the raid were Unholy specced to do pure damage, however their buffs and auras don't stack nicely (or at all) so one of the Death Knights volunteered to respec to Blood.

Especially when multiple Sparks were stacked, the Death Knight's Blood Aura helped the whole raid and that help persisted when people were doing all instant cast damage in the Vortex. The benefits of Blood Aura were buffed in Patch 3.0.8 so it makes this incredible aura even more powerful!

Another key to the healing during Malygos was that one of the Priests specced into Lightwell. Lightwell was always a running joke because it sucked before. Now my mind has been changed! The Priest dropped the Light Well in the middle of where the spark buffs were stacked. Everybody clicked it before we got launched into the air. Tada! A free HoT for the whole raid!

The healers also saved their +mana cooldowns and pots for the transition between Phase 1 and 2. Phase 2 is high intensity damage so they can not blow everything in the first phase.

We practiced a lot and managed to slow and CC the sparks enough to have three stacking damage buffs at once. With the appropriate classes, it may even be possible to have a four stack. The DPS fell into a nice rotation of not sacrificing too much DPS by constantly paying attention to the spark placement (we have struggled with this in the past). How the spark are stacked is very class dependent. I like to let the DPS work it out. They basically declare all their slows and effective CC abilities, the ability cooldowns and the range. Then they worked out a rotation for Spark CC that was effective.

Phase 2

Again we wiped a few times on Phase 2 because we simply needed practice. Once the healers went in with full mana then it was easy. Surprisingly a couple of the stronger players still stood out of the bubble a couple of times during the Deep Breath.

It's hard to emphasize constant aggressive DPS but then forcing people to hold on for one moment during a time of survival. It's as difficult as telling a tank to stop gaining aggro. The concept "If I die, I do ZERO DPS" must be hammered into everyone's brain.

If your raid has to blow the lid off on this one... pop EVERYTHING that has not been exhausted by now. Every second counts and you must get to Phase 3 with more than 3 minutes left.

Phase 3

Your raid falls hopelessly into the darkness only to be rescued by a pack of Drakes. One would imagine that such majestic creatures would harbor an trace of intelligence, however they must rely on the commands of the worn out, tired, stressed and drunk soldiers who land atop their backs.

Don't misinterpret this, this fight is buckets of FUN! It's hard to lose control of the character you tweak and control for a simplified version of whack-a-mole. However, the worst part is the embarrassment of failing to comfortably do a sequence of casts with a vehicle that has six buttons.

The practice ahead of time paid off. We were flying in sync, learning to cast and move etc. Many players had difficulty knowing when to hit their shield. Deadly Boss mods places a skull target above your head if you're the boss' target. Unfortunately Malygos has a severe case of TAB-Targeting syndrome and couldn't make up his mind. Many players burned their shields and energy for no reason. We all got used to anticipating when he will single target damage. It wasn't enough though, we got so close but by the time we perfected all that was stated above, the raid end time drew near and it was time to call it a night.

The Best Leaders Know When to Quit

This was a three hour scheduled run. We avoid going too far past stop times. It seems that we hit the apogee of performance at about two hours into the raid. The Raid Leaders and myself observed a decline in aggressive DPS and a steady increase in absent minded mistakes as the raid went on. We saw this coming. Pur instincts were to quit shortly ofter our best attempt but we kept trying until the very last minute. As a leader, one must always ask themselfes "is this really worth it, are we learning anything, are we having fun?". I still don't know if we should have called it ealier. Maybe I will someday have insight to make that call.

The Best Leaders Know When to Keep Fighting!

So the night ended a little flat on the enthusiasm. To summarize - we got to the third phase multiple times with more than three minutes left. This is within our grasp! Malygos will die... eventually. There are some upcoming scheduled runs and the signups look great, I don't know if the others are but I'm looking forward to it.