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.
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