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Raid Rx: Raid bosses that brought healers to their knees - Part 1
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Ever wondered what were the hardest fights to heal in the game? Based solely on my opinion and experience, here's a list counting down from number 10 to number 6. Different raid bosses had different ways to challenge healers. Tanks and DPS players had to worry about their own position, damage output, threat, and other abilities. Healers were focused more on keeping the rest of the raid alive through varying levels of damage and attacks. This is a multi-part article where I take a look at some of the most tear inducing raid bosses that the game has to offer. This week features number 10 to number 6!
The marathon raid day?
A friend and I were idly wondering about the possibility of tackling all Burning Crusade raid content the way you'd watch the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy on a rainy weekend: doing it all without stopping, intent on a glorious finish. Nobody's arguing that the point of such a marathon is to have fun every second while you're doing it; I'd say this is the classic undertaking where it really is about the destination and not so much the journey. But let's say you had an enterprising bunch of raiders sitting around bored on a weekend and your choices were either raiding Tarren Mill again or trying something adventurous. Or if you had Wrath coming up the next week and you wanted to conduct a triumphal tour of the content your guild had conquered, stopping only to relish the wholesale slaughter of bosses who'd given you so much trouble (here's looking at you, Gurtogg). Would it be possible to cut a swathe of destruction across the BC raiding landscape all within the space of a day?Assuming a bunch of experienced raiders, we came up with the following figures:Karazhan: 2-3 hoursGruul's Lair: 1 hourMagtheridon: 45 minutesSerpentshrine Cavern: 3-4 hours Tempest Keep: 3 hoursZul'Aman: 1 1/2 hoursMount Hyjal: 2 1/2 hours Black Temple: 3-4 hours Sunwell Plateau: 4-5 hoursOn the low end, that's 20 hours and 45 minutes. On the high end, it's 25 hours (and I have to pause here for a moment's respect over just how much raid content Blizzard programmed for BC). If you lopped Kara and ZA off the marathon in the interest of doing only 25-man content, an experienced (albeit insane) raid that stomped each site and methodically proceeded to the next with no wipes along the way (probably not likely in Sunwell) could probably wreck BC raid content in maybe 18 hours start to finish (giving them a little extra time for travel and bathroom breaks). Has anyone been crazy enough to try this? Should anyone be crazy enough to try this?
Tank Talk: The irresistible fight
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and Allison Robert (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. Since Tank Talk began, we've gotten a few questions from people about raid fights that require tanks to use resist gear. With all of Burning Crusade's raid attunements now removed, and with lots of guilds testing the waters in Tier 5 and Tier 6 before Wrath hits, I figure now's as good a time as any to discuss what resist sets you're going to want if your guild is intent on progression. The resist gear issue is nowhere near as dire as it was in vanilla WoW (Molten Core, anyone?) and in general the raid as a whole rarely needs to worry.Tanks are special. But you knew that already, didn't you?This guide covers all of the existing 10-man and 25-man content in the game outside of Sunwell Plateau:
Raid Rx: Analyzing your healers Part 4
Raid Rx is designed to encapsulate and cure the shock and horror that is 25-man raid healing. Ok, so it's mostly horror... Anyways, if you're a big fan of X-TREME Whack-A-Mole (or are being forced into it against your will) this is the column for you. That above is the fun product of Wordle. I creatively call it "WoW WWS Healing". Click on it to give it a spin of your own. So, if you've just randomly stumbled upon this multi-part saga on WWS meets healing, here's a lovely link to get you caught up. For the rest of you operating with mere short term memory lapses, this link right here will transport you to the example WWS we've been mulling about. But more on that after the jump.
Tank Talk: Do you feel lucky, punk?
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and myself (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. At least, that's what the others said they were doing. I intend to use it mostly as a soapbox to complain. Absolute power tends to......something something.Welcome to Tank Talk. I am your bear Druid hostess for this week, with a topic that occurred to me while reading a recent article here on the site. Eliah Hecht wrote that his guild is facing a not-uncommon tank shortage and that he has considered the possibility of leveling a tanking class to 70 before Wrath, or tanking on a Death Knight afterwards. A number of people on my server and in my guild have talked about doing the same thing, or switching mains once Wrath hits. With so many people playing Death Knights, I think it's very possible that more people will discover they enjoy -- or at least, don't mind -- tanking, and may seek to do so in a raid environment without necessarily knowing what they've really signed up for. From those of us who have tanked raid content in vanilla WoW or BC, here are the 10 questions you'll want to ask yourself if you're considering the possibility of tanking serious raid content:
The tanking Rogue strikes again, 5-mans Gruul
You may remember Gaeowyn, the Rogue from Shards of Existence who tanked Mother Shahraz thanks to an insane amount of dodge via agility. She's struck again, this time taking down Gruul with herself tanking, along with a Paladin (with Blessing of Kings), a Shaman (with Grace of Air), a Hunter with Scorpid pet Sting, ad a Druid (using Insect Swarm in addition to Mark of the Wild, of course). After all the buffs and debuffs, she had 76.31% dodge, 12.16% parry, and 14.16% chance to be missed, resulting in 102.63% avoidance. She posted a link to her spec and gear for tank mode, too. The video's short, but it took them a little over 23 minutes to down him. They also got to discover that his Growth caps out at a 30-stack, and that it expires after 5 minutes.
Phat Loot Phriday: Messenger of Fate
This week it's off to the Black Temple for a little stabby stab stabby.Name: Messenger of FateType: Epic One-hand DaggerDamage/Speed: 112-169 / 1.40 (100.4 DPS)Abilities: +22 Agility, +31 Stamina On equip: increases attack power by 44. Handmade for Rogues to use as an offhand. The speed makes up for all those offhand misses, and while Warriors who know what they're doing might like this one, too (since most of their abilities are all based on "next attack" procs), Rogues should get first pick on this one. This weapon was made for them. Also, while we're told the pic above is what this dagger looks like in 2.3, it used to look different. We're not sure why Blizzard changed it-- the old look is a little cooler. But then again, this new look is much closer to the icon. How to Get It: Drops from Gurtogg Bloodboil, a raging fel orc boss in Black Temple. The stats have it dropping at about 14 or 15%, but my guess is that it's a little lower than that. At any rate, if you can make it up to him in the Black Temple, and drop him about five or six times, it should pop up. Win the roll (or spend the DKP) and it's yours.Getting Rid of It: Disenchants into a Void Crystal, or vendors for 14g 22s 63c.
Nihilum - Taking down even more bosses
There are a couple of hazards of being a blogger on this side of the pond. The first being that, when you consider one of the largest raiding guilds currently tearing through raid content is in the EU, there's quite a bit of time lag between when they take bosses down and when I sit down to run news postings. The second thing is that in the case of a guild like Nihilum, they've trained on the PTRs for quite some time and are thereby completely ready to tear through these fights and rack up the official Live Server World First kills in nothing flat. This said, as if to answer my progression post yesterday, Nihilum returned to Black Temple on the heels of their last string of accomplishments and took down three more bosses. First they turned their collective might toward Teron Gorefiend who dropped some quite tasty goodies. From there, they chewed up Gurtogg Bloodboil and spit him out. (again, not without snagging some sweet loot first!) From there, Nihilum headed for (and successfully tore down) the Shade of Akama for lots more nifty purple goodness, and another live server World First. While they did not finish the Essence of Souls event (pictured) they are hoping to return and knock that out in short order.Now some of the reactions I got in mail the last time I posted a progression post for Nihilum raised an interesting question to me. If a guild goes on the PTR and learns the strategies there does that somehow lessen their world first accomplishment on live servers? It seemed like several people felt that the accomplishments were diminished due to having been done prior on the PTRs. Personally, I've got mad respect for those who blaze the trails -- whether on the PTRs or on Live servers, although I am nostalgic for when it was a bit more of a surprise as to who would do so. (One of the few downsides of the job, I suppose. heh)[via Nihilum]
