25 Man
I'm getting tired of PUGs and miss my DF friends, so I thought I'd try to get a raid together. As the title implies it's Sarth + 0 (aka Easy Mode for most of you), so bring your alts, guild apps, or anyone else who wants to play. It's a casual run, so just come prepared to have fun! 25-man would be great, but if turnout is low we can opt for a 10-man.
Invites go out at Noon server. Sign up to get one!
How to do "The Immortal"
Shihli — Fri, 03/20/2009 - 11:45
Starting from the top. Going to ignore trash because we shouldn’t be dying on trash anyway, and I know you guys will anyway …
GENERAL RULES
- Drop/sell/remove all items for Divine Intervention from your inventory if you are a paladin.
- DO NOT use Shadow Word: Death, Life Tap, or any other spells/abilities that reduce your health.
- Classes with taunts that are not tanking (Death Knights, Hunters, etc) – REMOVE TAUNTS from your bars.
- Have Omen installed and updated, and PAY ATTENTION to your threat.
- Don’t slack off.
- Don’t die, do whatever it takes to survive.
- If your connection is shitty going into the raid, figure out what’s wrong with it before we start pulls, or you may be asked to sit out.
- Don’t be stupid.
- DON’T – BE – STUPID.
Now then, without further ado …
Deathknight Wing
- Instructor Razuvious
- Tanks (Nuitarin, Pudolski, Orky) must lead the charge in, dps does NOT follow them in until threat is established on Razuvious.
- Paladins – cancel Shadow Resist Aura.
- Mind controllers need to be vocal about when to taunt, when their shields drop, and when they are dropping their student.
- Dps wait for the “start dps” signal before opening fire.
- After Razuvious is dead the fight IS NOT OVER. Kill the students without dying.
- Gothik the Harvester
- WATCH YOUR AOE. Generally just single-target dps.
- Don’t attack something that has no tank on it.
- If you are low on health, stand back and get healed/bandage before jumping in.
- Four Horsemen
- Stack on top of your tanks if you’re killing Thane (circle)/Rivendare. (diamond).
- MELEE – NEVER EVER get near Zeliek (triangle).
- Do NOT run through groups of people when running away from Zeliek (triangle) to let DoT stacks drop off, due to Holy Wrath.
- Make sure a tank doesn’t eat a Meteor on Thane (circle) all by themselves.
- Remember, on Blamieux (star) and Zeliek (triangle) the closest person by proximity will have PERMANENT threat until someone else gets closer – make sure you’re not closer to the boss than a tank.
Plague Wing
- Noth the Plaguebringer
- Decursing is a high priority, make sure everyone gets decursed quickly – this includes you, mages/boomkins.
- When he blinks he aggro drops, be careful and don’t yank off your tank (Orky).
- Offtanks (Nuitarin, Pudolski) – pick up adds quickly and know where they spawn from.
- During Phase 2, the adds can and will cleave – be careful, melee.
- Heigan the Unclean
- Deadhli will have a SQUARE over his head – during the dance phase, stay with him and try your best not to run ahead of, or fall behind, him.
- Diseases need to be cleansed VERY fast – totems can do this but manual cleansing may be needed as well.
- Remember, there’s almost two full cycles of “dancing” required each dance phase, so don’t stop early.
- Loatheb
- Spore-killing groups need to kill their spores quickly to make sure they don’t get close to the main tank (Orky).
- Healers – know which groups you’re going to handle.
- Everyone else – stand in a tight pack so that AoE heals will do the most healing possible.
- Power Word: Shield is your friend, use it liberally.
Abomination Wing
- Patchwerk
- Main tank (Pudolski) needs to be a step or two behind the offtanks (Nuitarin, Orky) to make sure he doesn’t get insta-gibbed by Hateful Strike.
- Melee dps can ONLY begin when both offtanks (Nuitarin, Orky) have taken a Hateful Strike.
- Healers – be very clear about who is healing who.
- Grobbulus
- Melee needs to stay behind Grobbulus at all times, at maximum effective range, to make sure you don’t spawn additional slimes.
- Grobbulus needs to be moved out of the poison clouds quickly and cleanly – no extra/random movement please.
- Slimes will need a touch of dps to make sure they don’t pile up too much on the offtank (Pudolski).
- Do NOT cleanse the Mutagen Injection.
- If injected, run back along the established kite path and “blow up” near the other spawned poison clouds. Do not stand in them though, and leave as soon as your injection goes off.
- Once Grobbulus is dead, DO NOT loot his corpse or stand in poison clouds until you have FULLY left combat.
- Gluth
- DO NOT USE Blood Pact or Commanding Shout, or any other “short-term” health boosts, as they may wear off during a Decimate and you will get one-shot.
- Kill zombie chows as soon as Decimate goes off.
- Be careful getting into the room, and don’t pull aggro off of your tanks.
- Thaddius
- NEGATIVE charged people will run to the LEFT of the platform, based on facing Thaddius from the entrance to his room.
- POSITIVE charged people will run to the RIGHT of the platform, based on facing Thaddius from the entrance to his room.
- Polarity Shifts will be called, so watch your polarity and move accordingly.
- Groups need to stand at maximum melee range, and be tight-knit to make sure when polarity shifts occur, you don’t have far to run.
- IF SOMEONE DISCONNECTS DURING THE FIGHT, listen over vent because Thaddius will have to be moved away from that person.
- ONCE THADDIUS IS DEAD, SPREAD OUT AND WATCH YOUR CHARGES. Treat the post-fight charge wear-down as part of the fight. Make sure you are on the correct side for your charge!
Spider Wing
- Anub’Rekhan
- Watch your threat at all times.
- Kill corpse scarabs when they spawn.
- Move out of the Insect Swarm early.
- Healers – make sure you don’t get touched by Insect Swarm as it will silence you.
- Take care of yourselves and watch your health when he Impales.
- Grand Widow Faerlina
- Kill the two Fanatics (X and Skull) first, and quickly. Ignore the other adds.
- Don’t stand in Rain of Fire.
- Move quickly out of Rain of Fire so that dps can stay strong.
- Main tank (Orky) will need heavy heals when she goes enraged.
- Maexxna
- MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT BURN HER BELOW 31% BEFORE SHE DOES A MASS WEB WRAP. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.
- Kill spider adds when they spawn, quickly.
- Two people (usually hunters) must be assigned to break people free of web wraps. These hunters will likely need one healer to babysit them.
- Watch your threat.
Frostwyrm Lair
- Sapphiron
- Melee – STAY OUT until the main tank (Orky) has threat. Sapphiron starts the fight funny and she can one-shot you before Orky has a change to start building threat, if you stand too close to her as the fight starts.
- Frost Aura will help here.
- Make sure, when in melee range, you are not standing behind her (Tail Whip) or in front of her (Frost Breath, Cleave). Stand next to her right hind leg.
- Watch out for the Chill (looks like a Blizzard). Do not stand in it, and when it is on you, move out of it.
- Melee – Sapphiron has a huge hit box so if you’re in a Chill, there’s a lot of room to use to get out of it while still being able to attack.
- SHE WILL ICE BLOCK THREE PEOPLE before using her Frost Bomb. Get behind these blocks ONLY after all three have gone up – otherwise, you run the risk of hitting people with the quick AoE that being blocked does, if she targets you with it near a group of people.
- MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE OUT OF LINE-OF-SIGHT when behind a block. THIS IMPORTANT.
- After the bomb goes off, run in and resume your job.
- Kel’Thuzad
- Move in as a group, don’t lag or fall behind.
- Healers will start the fight with marks over their heads, make sure you are all evenly spread out around the room during Phase 2/3.
- Be clear about healing assignments, particularly when offtanks (Nuitarin, Pudolski) have to tank in Phase 3.
- When killing adds in Phase 1 – don’t accidentally shoot the skeletons in the back of the room; this will force A LOT of them to attack, and potentially wipe the raid due to their high raid-wide damage when they die.
- Phase 1 – make sure there’s a tank on the Abominations before attacking them.
- Kill all adds in Phase 1 quickly and be vocal about them.
- Melee – during Phase 2/3, STAY TIGHT in your assigned groups so as not to chain Frost Blasts onto other groups or the main tank (Orky).
- Ranged/healers – spread out to avoid chaining Frost Blast.
- Watch if you are hit with Detonate Mana and move out of groups accordingly when you are.
- MOVE OUT OF VOID ZONES – THEY WILL ONESHOT YOU.
- When Kel’Thuzad casts a mass Mind Control, HE WILL DROP ALL THREAT. Dps needs to stop at this point in time and make sure the main tank (Orky) re-establishes threat. This also means that ALL AOE-TYPE DAMAGE NEEDS TO STOP so as not to kill mind-controlled people.
- People who are mind controlled need to be feared or cycloned – PREFERABLY FEARED. Polymorph and/or stuns should be used sparingly if at all.
- DO NOT KILL PEOPLE WHO ARE MIND CONTROLLED!
- Interrupts need to be used on Kel’Thuzad’s Frost Bolts, PARTICULARLY after he has used his mass Mind Control. He may target a non-tank with a Frost Bolt and hit them for up to 30k damage.
- Make sure if you have to move out of position for ANY reason that you avoid running near other players so as not to chain Frost Blast.
That should cover most of the strategy required for The Immortal. Anyone have anything else to add, I will add it to this master document.
Raid Achievements and Hard Modes, your thoughts.
Agoney — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 09:50
So I was thinking lately on how the game has changed (at least, imo for me) when it comes to raiding and the whole landscape of it. I probably should warn this post may or may not sound elitist, take it however you'd like. It's not my intention for it to sound that way, but I'm sure it'll come across that way at some point.
Basically, I'm going to come out and say my view on it and just run with it from there. I think (some) raid achievements and "hard modes" have ruined the game. Let me get in before "its just starter content" and "everyone deserves to see all content". Let me also get in before the inevitable "PTR content always is exactly how it is when it's moved to live".
For me, my favorite instances were AQ40, original Naxx, and the Sunwell. You could even include ZA bear runs as well (although, then again, its a "hard mode"). The thing about the first 3 however, was they were all challenging. You couldn't just run in and dps shit down and win with knowing just part of the strat. The only fight that rivals any of those original challening fights now is Sarth 3D, and even then it is much easier compared to the others (I would rank 10man sarth3d up with the others though). Max consumables were needed for each boss fight, and there would be countless nights of wiping on the same boss. The process of putting in so much to an encounter, failing over and over, and then finally winning is where I truly got the most out of raiding. There was no, oh if you kill all these drakes, you can down the boss, but you get less loot. There was no easy/hard mode. You either did the fight the right way, or you failed.
Some people liked it, others hated it, some didn't give a shit, but the PvE race was a great aspect of the game. You could make a case that achievements can provide something similiar, but its not the same. Honestly, how many people cared about who killed the eredar twins in reverse order first..??? And then it was realized reverse order was actually easier, and you got more loot, so that became the general strat. So it was no point really to track or care about it. I know we don't "compete" on the world level or anything, but we do generally on a server level, in a sense. We might not get server firsts, but we like to be generally close or within a good time period (although, yes, thats not the #1 goal[which is to have fun :) ]).
So lets look at the current picture and compare it to the past. Naxx, being the starting instance, won't be as tuned as it was previously. Understandable. So lets compare it to a Kara or MC. We'll also figure Malygos = Gruul/ony, Sarth = Magtheridon, in terms of raid starting level. I'm hesitant to include kara, as it wasn't really that difficult compared with the exception of nightbane, which, at the time provided a decent challenge. Not to mention it was a 10 man. But for the most part, the high percentage of raiding guilds were not clearing the full instance within their first raid reset. People were getting stuck on certain bosses, wiping on other stuff, etc. Some may think that its hard, but it shows the game is actually challening. If you compare new naxx to MC, it's not even on the same difficulty level. Forgot the 40 vs 25 aspect. You needed both gear and skill. You had to clear MC numerous times to be prepared for rag, the end boss of that level of raiding. With the new naxx, you can effectively clear it with fresh level 80 gear. There is not one single difficult fight in that instance. You don't need naxx gear to defeat its KT, its end boss. You don't need new gear to defeat malygos, let alone Sarth. If everyone performs their best, at most you will need a week or two worth of naxx clearing to defeat Sarth3D. Looking back to only TBC, you had to have farmed decent gear to survive gruuls, and at the same time to survive Mag. All content was not being defeated within a week of release.
So, is the game(pve) to easy? IMO, yes, it is. Blizzard decided to go with this achievement system as a way to reward raiders who went the extra step, but it's really gone the other way. It's now become lets go for Xxxx achievement otherwise raiding would be boring gear farm until the next content is released. Before, it was more enjoyable. Farm gear to go further in content to defeat more difficult bosses. Now, its become farm gear and do XX achievement until they release new content. The achievements are nice and all, but it proves some of the fights arent nearly as difficult as they should be. Not MCing and casting widows embrace on Faerlina would become instant wipe. Sarth 3D should only of been available in 3d form, and tuned a little bit better.
So, now, the future. From my understanding guilds are ripping through Ulduaar. Of course, these fights may be undertuned and such, as they are only testing them, but they did say that about the new naxx originally as well. Blizz even commented that guilds were not trying them the "hard" way, as thats one reason guilds were seeing sucess. I don't think there should be a choice, it should just be the hard way, or you fail.
I'm really hoping to see raiding return to how it was originally, or, if they must keep "normal/hard modes" in the game, at least make the normal modes difficult and challening.. not something that will be defeated after two or three attempts.
TLDR version: QQ, raiding is easy, Shin's my dawg.




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