Blog Archive by month: November 2011



Transmogrification with legacy PvP gear

by Tachyon on Wed. 30. November 2011, 20:15

Filed under: transmogrification, pvp, gear, 4.3

Last minute changes before patch 4.3 went life, with good news:

The legacy PvP sets from classic and TBC can now be used for transmogrification!.

Blizzard almost ruined transmogrification for me by omitting those sets (it's hard to find cool looking black robes anyway), I'm so glad they changed their minds finally

Blue post:
The items out in the world (Marshals, Grand Marshal's, High Warlord, etc) that use the level 60 PvP art are un-transmogrifiable (including the item level 115 stuff that shares the name from Burning Crusade).

In Area 52 a set of vendors has replaced the PvP Vendors who used to live there. Grex Brainboiler, Krixel Pinchwhistle, Tini Smalls, Kezzik the Striker, Big Zokk Torquewrench, and Leeni 'Smiley' Smalls. These vendors sell new, transmogrifiable versions of the classic armor to players who have the Feat of Strength for Legionnaire/Knight-Captain or higher under the old PvP system.
[...]
The design intent with the Feat of Strength achievement requirement was specifically to limit these particular art styles to players who earned them through the OG (and relentlessly difficult) PvP honor system, while keeping the door open to reward them to more people in the future.
[...]
Potentially related, since he's in the same area, Kezzik the Striker sells inaccessible Season 1 Gladiator's, Season 2 Merciless Gladiator's, and Season 3 Vengeful Gladiator's gear to all players, as the majority of that gear didn't have restrictions.

Dragon Soul Tactics: Fall of Deathwing

by Tachyon on Sun. 20. November 2011, 11:45

Filed under: cataclysm, guide, strategy, deathwing, dragon soul, raiding



Welcome to the 2nd part of the Dragon Soul raid tactics. If you've missed the first part (Siege of Wyrmrest Temple), you might want to read that first for tactics on Morchock, Warlord Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping and Hagara the Stormbinder.


Ultraxion
http://www.wowpedia.org/Ultraxion

This fight is a tank-and-spank fight, where especially healers and tanks have to deal with the increasing damage done by this boss. The buffs granted by the dragon aspects (crystals, only one can be active on each player) grants the healers more healing power.
Tanks gain a buff from Thrall, reducing defensive cooldowns by 50% and increasing the duration of defensive abilities by 100%.
The dragon aspects will summon crystals behind the raid in regular intervals. Those are meant to be used by the healers, every healer can have one (and only one) buff for the entire duration of the fight.
  • Red crystal (Alexstrazsa): increases healing done by 100%
  • Green crystal (Ysera): causes all healing done to be duplicated and distributed evenly amongst the raid
  • Blue crystal (Kalecgos): reduces mana cost by 75%, and haste by 100%.
Healers should organize before the fight which crystals each healing class takes, and in which order they want to get buffed.

The fight takes place on two realms: normal and twilight. Players get a bar with a spell button for Heroic Will in the lower center of the screen, which will allow to escape them from the twilight realm for 5sec, butrenders them unable to do anything until they're back in the twilight realm. Some addons may cause problems by obscuring the bar with the special button, so better make a macro for that:
/click ExtraActionButton1
All players gain a Timeloop buff by Nozdormu, which prevents death once (instead of dying, you'll lose the buff and your health is filled up).

  • Boss explodes if he's not killed within 6 minutes, so it's also a DPS race (also because his damage increases steadily during the fight)
  • Hour of Twilight: tanks stay in twilight realm and use defensive cooldowns to survive this, all other players escape to the normal realm.
  • Fading Light: Ultraxion applies this debuff to 1(10)/ 3(25) players. You need to leave the twilight realm using Heroic Will ~2 seconds before the buff expires, otherwise the explosion will kill you.


Warmaster Blackhorn
http://www.wowpedia.org/Warmaster_Blackhorn

Also known as: Lootship. The fight starts with waves of two meele attackers and drakes, which need to be killed, before in phase 2 Blackhorn and his drake Goriona enter the fight.
  • Kill adds (Sappers need to die quickly), casters focus on the drakes
  • Twilight Onslaught: large swirly patches on ship the ship, this is where Goronia's next attack hits. Enough players need to stand in them to soak up the damage (otherwise the damage hits the ship, and if you lose the ship you're dead).
  • Phase 2: Kill Blackhorn and Goriona (drake, will eventually fly away), casters and healers need to stand at least 10y away because of disrupting roar
  • Twilight Flames: Goriona casts purple (non-swirly) void zones on the deck of the ship, don't stand in them as they deal massive damage


Spine of Deathwing
http://www.wowpedia.org/Spine_of_Deathwing

After defeating Blackhorn and talking to the NPC on the Lootship, you get ported to the back of Deathwing, where the fight immediately begins.
Be warned: this fight can get quite chaotic, make sure everyone on the raids knows exactly what to do.
  • Kill one of the four Corruption Tentacles. Each killed tentacle leaves an open wound on Deathwing, from which adds (large Hideous Amalgamations and small Corrupted Bloods) will spawn.
  • Killing Corrupted Bloods near an Amalgamation give it an Absorbed Blood buff. Bring the Amalgamation low, but don't kill it before it has 9 stacks of absorbed blood. Once the Amalgamation has 9 stacks, it will do heavy AoE damage, so meele should step aside and let the ranged classes kill it.
  • The Amalgamation will cast Nuclear Blast upon its death, which pries open an elementium plate and exposes a Burning Tendron within. Nuke and kill it quickly before it finishes casting Seal Armor Breach. Once it is dead, another armor plate is removed, exposing two additional Corruption Tentacles.
  • Kill the next Corruption to spawn another Amalgamation, and proceed as with the first one.
  • The fight is won after 3 Burning Tendrons are killed.
Note: Barrel Roll isn't needed in normal mode, but I suppose it plays a role in hard mode. Barrel Roll can be used to get rid of the adds on Deathwing's back, but players have to get near a Grasping Tendril in order to not to fall of during the barrel roll.


Madness of Deathwing
http://www.wowpedia.org/Madness_of_Deathwing



The final fight against Deathwing takes place at the Maelstrom. There are four platforms around it where players can stand, and each platform is supported by one of the dragon aspects. The platforms are, from left to right:
  • RED (Alexstrazsa, presence: +20% health)
  • YELLOW (Nozdormu, presence: +20% haste)
  • GREEN (Ysera, presence: +20% healing done)
  • BLUE (Kalecgos, presence: +20% damage done)
The platform order can be freely chosen (once you've 'done' a platform, you lose the effect from the dragon aspect there).
The recommended platform order is Green->Yellow->Red->Blue. This lets you profit from the +20% dmg buff the longest, and you only have to deal with the Blistering Tentacles on the last platform.

On each platform:
  • Attack tentacle
  • Switch to Mutated Corruption as soon as it appears
  • When Elementium Bolt is cast, target and kill it quickly. Step away from its impact location, as damage you take is lower the further away you stand. Use the 'Dream' ability before it impacts (until you've done Ysera's platform). A '/target Elementium Bolt' macro is recommended.
  • Kill small adds (Blistering Tentacles, Regenerative Bloods)
  • When the Mutated Corruption is slain, switch back to the tentacle and kill it (if you don't kill it fast enough, Deathwing's Cataclysm spell will wipe your raid)
  • After killing the tentacle, proceed to the next platform

Each platform gets a litte harder, as you lose the support of a dragon aspect once you've done his or her platform. The Elementium Bolt is really fast after you've done Nozdormu's platform, so be careful to step outside its impact location immediately when it's cast. After Alexstrszas' platform, you've got to kill the Blistering Tentacles by yourself (this has top priority, failing to kill them fast enough is a common wipe cause), and depending on your setup you might want to use bloodlust/heroism/timewarp here. The Blistering Tentacles spawn when the platform tentacle is at 75%/50%/25% health. On the PTR it seemed like the Blistering Tentacles are immune to AoE damage, so you might want to focus kill them.

After the 4 platforms, go back to the first (where you started), and attack Deathwing. Adds will also spawn also in this phase, kill the first add waves but remember to focus on killing Deathwing quickly (tanking and ignoring the last waves), this phase is a pure DPS race.

Dragon Soul Tactics: Siege of Wyrmrest Temple

by Tachyon on Fri. 18. November 2011, 20:43

Filed under: cataclysm, guide, strategy, deathwing, dragon soul, raiding



The Public Test Realm offers a good occasion to get a sneek preview of the upcoming raid dungeons. In patch 4.3, we get three new 5men dungones, and a new raid dungeon called Dragon Soul, where we finally face Deathwing himself.

Patch 4.3 also offers a new PUG-feature for raid instances, with slightly downgraded difficulty and loot: Looking for Raid. Players can participate in LFR multiple times a week, but only roll for loot the first time a boss is beaten. Nevertheless, the LFR invite pops up really fast (only 2 tanks needed per 25men raid, so it's way faster than LFG) and it's a hell of a lot of fun to do for casual raiders and twinks.

Now that I've done Dragon Soul (normal and LFR) almost daily over the last two weeks, I decided to sum up the strategies and tactics we have established and tested successfully, in the hope to help you get through the instance without worries.

The Dragon Soul entrance lies the Caverns of Time in Tanasris (as do the 5men instances, by the way). Once you enter you stand in front of Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight, ready to face the first boss after about three trash packs.

Morchock
http://www.wowpedia.org/Morchock

Morchock is the first and one of the easiest encounters, to the point where you could consider him 'freeloot'.
  • Positioning: huddle up behind Boss (so the Stomp damage splits between all Players)
  • Crystal Orb: Morchock summons a red crystal that explodes after 12 seconds. The 3/8 Players standing nearest to the crystal get connected to it with a yellow line, and need to run quickly to the crystal to soak up the damage (damage is larger the further you stand away from the crystal, the line turns blue if you stand close enought)
  • Spikes: when the spikes arrive, take cover behind them from Black Ooze that follows shortly after (black stuff that floats on the ground). Casters should position themselves between two spikes so they can continue casting during Black Ooze.
  • Another stomp will follow after the ooze goes away, don't return too early or you might get killed by the stomp (unless you're in LFR difficulty)

Warlord Zon'ozz
http://www.wowpedia.org/Warlord_Zon'ozz



Tank turns boss away from the raid (Psychic Drain cone AoE, 30° angle).
Make two camps: one ranged, one meele, and mark them with symbols.
  • Focused Anger stacks on tank as boss attacks, reduces healing received
  • Void of the Unmaking: The Void Orb travels outside, and can be reflected by players. When the void touches the boss, it gets consumed and resets the Focused Anger stacks, but the boss will do a Black Blood AoE for a short time, dealing heavy damage to all players (so huddle up in your camp to make it easier for the healers). During that phase, players also deal more damage, depending on how many times the void was reflected.
  • Obviously you want to reflect the void a few times to benefit from the damage buff, but not too often because you need to reset the Focused Anger debuff on the tank. The void travels outside, so the first reflection has to be done by a member of the ranged camp. The next reflect is then done by the meele camp, and so on.
  • 5 reflections is a good number to start with: Ranged(1) -> Meele(2) -> Ranged(3) -> Meele(4) -> Ranged(5) -> Meele step aside and tank turns the boss in the way of the void orb so it gets consumed.
Most problems arise when the meeles don't step aside to let the boss consume the void orb, or the tank doesn't manage to pull the boss in the path of the void after the last reflection. If you mess up after 5 reflects, you can try again after 7, 9 and so on, and hope your tank doesn't die (one tank is enough here if you don't fail).


Yor'sahj the Unsleeping
http://www.wowpedia.org/Yor'sahj_the_Unsleeping

You need only one tank, as the Void Bolt debuff (reduced healing on the tank, stacks) resets when you kill a globule.
  • Boss summons 3 out of 6 possible globues (randomly).Kill one globule, the one that's most threatening (you can't kill more than one, after you killed the first, the other two will fuse, rendering them immune to all damage, which means the boss will gain two effects).
  • Kill order: Purple > Green > Yellow/Blue
You first encounter the globules as trash mobs surrounding the boss in groups of 3, which is a good occasion to learn their effects. They get the same effects when being consumed by the boss:
  • Cobalt ( Blue): Spawns a void sphere, which drains your mana, and returns it to all targets within 18y if you kill it. Not very threatening, but annoying for your healers and casters
  • Crimson ( Red): Huddle up, massive AoE dmg that has to be healed through, use heal cooldowns
  • Glowing ( Yellow): Boss attacks faster (60%), abilities used twice as often
  • Dark ( Black): Summons adds that fixate players, AoE kill them quickly
  • Acidic ( Green): Acid splash damage to single players, spread out (at least 4y away from other players)
  • Shadowed ( Purple): Every 5th heal or absorbtion effect causes a heavy explosion in the raid (so stop healing during deep corruption). This is the most dangerous effect here, so killing this globule has top priority. Healers should be aware that the same effect occurs when you fight them as trash.

Hagara the Stormbinder
http://www.wowpedia.org/Hagara_the_Stormbinder

Hagara has alternating phases (normal, frost, normal, lightning, normal, and so on).

NORMAL PHASE:
  • Ice Lance: deals damage to a player (Beam), has to be healed through (mild damage). Other players have to stay away from the beams (especially where they intersect). Players with beams on them walk away from the other players a bit, towards the source of the beam.
  • Ice Tombs: Trap players, have to be killed
  • Focused Assault: channeled, deals heavy damage, but tank can just walk out of it.

FROST PHASE:
  • Boss is immune during this phase
  • Ice Wave: 4 ice waves, spread apart in an 90° angle, rotate around the boss (clockwise), and must be avoided. They grow from the center to the perimeter before they start rotating, make sure you position yourself between two of them before it's to late.
  • Run clockwise around the boss, stay away from the impact locations where ice meteors will rain down (blue area on ground)
  • 4 Binding crystals (~totems, on N/E/S/W) that have to be killed to remove the boss' shield, so she can be interrupted to end this phase
  • Frost Flake needs to be dispelled (leaves behind a frost trap that must be avoided)

LIGHTNING PHASE:
  • Crystal Conductors which have to be energized to end this phase
  • 1 (LFR difficulty)/2 adds spawn, kill them on crystal conductors (on opposite ends of the platform) to energize 2 crystal conductors. Players standing nearby will get hit by an ongoing chain lightning, players have to reposition in a way the chain lightning passes through them into passive crystal conductors to activate them and end the lightning phase.
Hagara requires a lot of movement, and the lightning phase is a bit tricky, as it requires some coordination on where players have to form chains.

As this is my favourite boss in the first part of Dragon Soul, I made a video I'd like to share with you, hope you like it (watch it on Youtube for FullHD)



Coming up next: tactics to the 2nd part of Dragon Soul, with Ultraxion, Warmaster Blackhorn, Spine and Madness of Deathwing.

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