Thursday, April 16, 2009

I give in... How was your patch day?

How was your patch?

Overall for myself, it was an entertaining evening.

Priest:
I started off by hitting the mailbox with my priest, and reaping the rewards of my herb farming and glyph mass production with my priest, then hit the trainer. I bought dual spec, hit one side up Discipline and the other Shadow. Realise now that the talent preview is an interface option… so next time I login I need to respec my shadow tree as I just mooshed it together to try.

Ulduar:
I logged into my mage, talented up and with a few of the guildies hit up Ulduar. After the best part of an hour from scheduled start, everyone was setup and ready to go, we went over tactics, jumped in our vehicles and zoomed off to clear up some trash. This was awesome fun – I recommend everyone try it, even if your not going to take on the boss.

We sidled up to the boss, and with a rough draft of tactics went on in to see how it would play out.

Splat. 60% wipe. Not bad for a clueless first try.

Second time around he bugged and one of the Siege Engines “lagged out” for about 10 seconds whilst being pummeled. Wipe at 75%

Third try ended up being our last as… well… It broke. We went in, one of the vehicles was too close behind when it got targeted, got flattened, quick path to a 70% wipe, but it was a much cleaner fight.

The Crash:
At this point we were unable to re-enter the instance, and were stood outside with hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of other players. (All Choo-Chooing, Argh! The noise was frightening!) We decided to go gank Malygos since we had a powerful group – but it turned out that the instance servers were completely borked and nothing was running, so we called it there and went on our merry way.

Back to Glyphing I went. I still have money streaming in from Auction House sales, and so far I have gone from a balance of 1400 gold to 1700 Gold – and that’s AFTER buying dual spec and some training to max out new skills, so a good 1300 gold profit and counting.


Dual spec:
I only have one Dual specced character, and at the moment I don’t see any point in doing it any other way – and even then, I feel I may have wasted my money.

My priests Discipline abilities got a mojor boost – almost every ability is more powerful. Stackable devine Inspiration (each crit adds a bubble for 30% of the heal value, and I can stack them now up to a 10k Bubble!) cheaper faster and more powerful heals, targetable AOE heals as Discipline… Its looking good.

Shadow – I cant see me using this spec often at the moment. I pull about 1700 unbuffed DPS which I guess isn’t too bad considering im wearing like 2 items from heroics, 2 from Naxx 10 and the rest is quest rewards or level 78 craftables. When grinding Im more prone to AOE grind with Holy Nova – especially now its mana cost has been reduced!

Cant help but think Holy might have been a good secondary spec… but I have little desire to use Circle Of Healing – especially now I have improved AOE heal abilities on my priest – who wasn’t struggling before hand with AOE healing anyway… (49% healing on Loetheb with a pally and another disc priest – both better geared, whilst maintaining 3 bubbles on the tanky types to keep em standing… One death… That’s why Im not concerned with the group heal abilites of Disc.)

Summary:
Overall I am enjoying some of the features of the patch, and for a while, Ulduar will provide much entertainment. We are confident Flame Leviathan will go down in a couple of tries tonight – it’s a surprisingly simple fight if you break it down to individual tasks instead of trying to take the whole thing in. Basically Kite and DPS. Two people get launched to take out the turrets on the FL, and the choppers run around dropping tar in its path, and picking up the catapaulted people once they are done. No big rush at the moment, it should be one-shottable – it’s the next boss that will be the problem, from what I read – he is currently bugged.


-V

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Naxxramas Step 1: Anub'rekhan

Long time no post. With the release of Ulduar and the launch of patch 3.1 today, I figured instead of posting the usual mash of info you can get on just about any other wow blog... I would try my hand at some guides to Naxx bosses. Why? Because I was bored at work, thats why!

Anub’rekhan – First boss in Arachnid Quarter

Quirks:

Locust Swarm:
Every few minutes the boss will initiate a locust swarm. Everyone within 30 yards starts receiving heavy damage, and is unable to do anything but move, therefore, everyone but the tank must be clear of the boss as this goes off.

Crypt Fiend:
A crypt fiend will spawn during the locust swarms. These will be taken down ASAP.

Corpse Scarabs:
Periodically corpse scarabs will spawn from the corpses of the Crypt Fiends. They need taken down ASAP. Whilst individually they are not very tough and don’t hit very hard – they still disrupt casting and when enough of them get nibbling, they can quickly take down a soft target. They also spawn from the corpses of players as soon as they die, which often leads to an exponential wipe.

Main tanks job:
The boss is tanked in the doorway that he is standing in. Every couple of minutes he casts locust swarm – when he does this you must run to the doorway at the opposite side of the room, against the wall behind the ooze pit. Heroic: Boss moves faster so you need to be on the ball and start running quicker. Speed enhancements or an intervene target are useful for inexperienced kiters.

Off-Tank(s) job:
Crypt Fiends will spawn during the kite phases, they need to be tanked and nuked down ASAP. When no Crypt Fiend is around, the offtank guards the corpse of the crypt fiend and will attempt to tank any Corpse Scarabs that spawn off it. Heroic: The fight starts with 2 Crypt Fiends flanking the boss. These are pulled to the centre of the green circle and killed.

Healers jobs:
The healers will be allocated to either heal the MT or to raid heal/heal the off-tank(s). They will usually be stood with the ranged DPS although in some cases one may be positioned behind the pit of green goo for the main tank to Intervene (if a warrior) both are fairly easy jobs as long as the tank doesn’t kite too slowly, and the ranged space out to avoid being hit with the bosses spike attack. Heroic: As Normal but there will be multiple healers on the MT and stray corpse scarabs are more hazardous. If you get any on you – stand in the AOE that’s flying around so someone else peels the aggro off you.

Melee DPS:
Priority kill order: Crypt Fiend > Corpse Scarab > Anub’rekhan. The melee must stay clear of the boss during the locust swarms. As soon as the timer is up or your called out – retreat to the ranged group and prepare to fight adds. Melee will focus on the Crypt fiends whenever they spawn. Scarabs will generally be AOEd by the casters – but every little helps, especially for any strays.

Ranged DPS:
Same kill priority as the melee – they must also try to space out a bit as the boss does a spike trap AOE which hits anything in its path between the boss and the target, and anyone in the vicinity of the target. The spike hits quite hard and throws you into the air causing further fall damage. Excessive numbers of people being thrown into the air or hit at the wrong time has caused wipes as corpse scarabs erupt from anyone that dies, rapidly taking out the group.