And now for something different…
Last Updated on Tuesday, 1 February 2011 07:02 Written by vashert Thursday, 20 January 2011 11:30
I have been unfortunately very busy these last few weeks and missed a few raids. In my absence, the EC 10-man groups have continued to make good progress with the new raid content. Here are two guest write-ups from Zumnar and screenshots from Deadwing.
Slightly less dangerous than a high school chemistry lab this “alchemy fight” is all about coordination. This is how it went: Interupt this, don’t interrupt that, collapse, spread out, ae this, stop ae’ing, purge this, break that ice block, move here, move there, aggro this, don’t aggro that, dps, stop dps’ing, wait until green phase, he’s gonna beserk!, ah screw it tip him to phase 2…and then you get to 25% and the hard part starts.
The gimmick of this fight is managing the adds, you need to release enough adds throughout phase 1 so that you are not overwhelmed during the last phase but you also need the add tank to remain relatively healthy. I enjoyed this encounter because everyone’s role is equally important, this isn’t a healer fight, this isn’t a tank fight, it’s an everyone fight.
An easy fight! Unless you happen to be a healer, if so say goodbye to a couple layers of stomach cells. Simple tank swap mechanics, one minor collapse and spread and a whole boat load of damage.
After we decided it’d be best to not do this encounter for the first time in heroic mode (and we learned to not right click the big dog/dragon/hydra thingy) we essentially one shot the encounter. With the raids health pool hovering between 1 and 20% for the majority of the encounter our healers put on a clinic of how to do everything right. It was truly amazing as we all watched the bosses health drop lower and lower on our first pull. Well done indeed!
One giant worm and two bickering dragons
Last Updated on Sunday, 16 January 2011 09:46 Written by vashert Sunday, 9 January 2011 11:30
One night, two new kills. That is pretty good progress if you ask me.
First up was Magmaw in Blackwing Descent, a relatively straight forward awareness and gear check encounter. The mechanic of jumping onto Magmaw’s back to impale him was interesting as was the recovery break that ensures when he’s finally down. When he’s active, it is an all out parasite killing and healing blitz; the melee have it pretty in this encounter. From a tanking perspective, I think Agent Kay from Men in Black summed it up pretty well except in his case it was a giant cockroach, “I’ve just been down the gullet of an interstellar cockroach. That’s one of a hundred memories I don’t want.”
Next up were Valiona and Theralion in Bastion of Twilight. It seemed that neither one of them wanted anything to do with us. That’s kind of too bad. I had one angry little gnome who wanted his loot and wasn’t going to take no for an answer. The encounter is all about control and movement, lots of stacking together and spreading out at the appropriate times. It wasn’t too easy, but not terribly challenging either. It is what you would expect from an entry level raid encounter.
What would you wish for?
Last Updated on Sunday, 9 January 2011 03:34 Written by vashert Saturday, 8 January 2011 11:30
With so many people eager to make some more progress with the new raid content, we took an off night to explore the Throne of the Four Winds.
The Conclave of Wind is a fun and interesting encounter. There are three Djinns each with very unique abilities. It requires a fair amount of movement flying across the wind bridges (when they are active) and attention to detail. It’s pretty easy to mistime something or get knocked off the platform, which can lead to a quick wipe. There is a sprint to the finish as all the Djinns have to die within 60 seconds (in the 10-man version) so everyone has to be alive for the finish.
Overall, it is one of the more unique and doable encounters in Cataclysm so fly up, rub the Djinns, and make a wish for your desired loot.