Cataclysm Beta: Handling Blackwing Descent's Omnotron defense system

Hey look, it's the Tron defense system! It is one of the initial roadblocks your raid will encounter in Blackwing Descent. These four golems will prevent you from advancing further until you neutralize all of them. This raid instance can be found on top of Blackrock Mountain. It's sandwiched between Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge.

Read on to find out more about what to expect!

The four trons are a multi-mob encounter. They all have shared health; it was about 32 million on 10-man. Not only do they all share health, but they seem to share threat tables. The gimmick here is that there will be about two to three trons active at any one time.

Every time you arrive, a different tron will be active. Once the encounter starts, you'll have some time to DPS the first tron down. Note the energy bar on the mob. When the energy reaches the halfway mark, it will activate a defensive system. The omnitron system will then bring online a different tron. You can tell which tron is coming up next because there will be a beam that emanates from the base unit. While the first tron can still be targeted and hit, it is generally a bad idea, because its shield effects can cause a wipe. Once a new tron comes up, switch to it when the tanks give the all-clear. At the same time, when the original tron reaches zero energy, it will automatically shut down until the omnitron system reactivates it again.

In terms of DPS time, it looks like we shaved 35 percent off the encounter when we went through a full set of trons. It's possible to tank two trons on top of each other and use cleave attacks. Just be wary of the defensive shields and make sure a tank pulls it off to the side.

Here's a quick rundown of the different trons and their abilities.

Arcanotron

It deals with effects that are, uh ... arcane.

Power Generator It creates a spinning vortex on the ground. If a player stands on it, they'll gain buffs to their damage and mana regeneration. It is similar to the effect from Iron Council in Ulduar. I recommend sending in 1 or 2 players on top of it just in case there is another tron with AoE effects that are active. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket.

Power Conversion: Converts damage against the target to be converted into additional magic damage and cast speed. This is his shield. Once that shield goes up, DPS needs to stop.

Magmatron

As you can guess, Magmatron is the fire guy.

Incineration Security Measure Jets of flame will radiate outward from him.

Acquiring target Magmatron will "paint" a player with a red beam. After a few seconds, a jet of flame will belch out. It looks like it is a conical effect. The target needs to stand in a place where there isn't anyone else. Other players can help by getting out of the way. Healers will need to burst heal the target so that he doesn't die.

Barrier Absorbs 300,000 damage, and if the barrier is broken, it releases a gale of flame, inflicting 84,975 fire damage to all enemies. This is Magmatron's shield and as you can guess, DPSing and shattering it would not lead to a win.

Electron

Watch out for lightning and other electric-based attacks. Don't forget guys, ground beats electricity (kidding).

Chain Lightning Spread out! I can't tell you what the radius is, but I got dinged a few times.

Lightning Conductor This places a debuff on a player. It has a chance of hitting any player (including the tanks). Get away from the group if you have it. If the tank is the one who has it, get away from the tank.

Unstable shield Electron's shield unloads a fatal and explosive AoE effect. Again, don't strike this shield either when it is up.

Toxitron

Poison-soaked shell The boss places a stacking DoT effect on the attacker. As you are attacking with the effect, you'll deal a large amount of damage. Don't get too greedy with it, as you can die from it.

Poison Protocol Just when I thought we were done with oozes from Professor Putricide, I find out that Toxitron will generate his own oozes. They'll appear underneath him and then beeline for players at random. If it impacts a player, it will explode and create a green pool of sludge. If you kill them before they reach their target, nothing happens. They're easily slowable (Earthbind totem or Chains of Ice).

Toxic gas: I don't remember the exact ability name, but anyone standing in it takes increased damage. Yes, this also applies to the trons. While it isn't required, your tanks can earn bonus points if they can deftly maneuver a tron so that they are standing in it. Let your DPS go to town.

Even though I haven't tried out a whole bunch of raid encounters yet, I think this is by far the most intense. Your eyes are assaulted by a constant number of effects and abilities. You really have to stay on your toes and be aware of the different stuff that's being dropped. Not only that, the DPS has to make sure they're on the right target.

This encounter teaches a number of fundamental basics to players who haven't really raided before. There are good things to stand in and bad things to stand in. There are adds to be managed. Healers need to react and burst heal targets or cover AoE healing during some stages. This encounter is all about controlling the various states.

After all the resets, it was satisfying to take him down.

Very fun encounter, for sure. I'm not sure if Omnitron needs any tuning or anything, but this seems to be fairly close.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.