magmaw
Latest
Encrypted Text: Blade Flurry is broken
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article topics you'd like to see covered! Whenever I think of the current state of combat, I recall rogue blogger Aldriana's insightful post from when the Blade Flurry change was first announced. Blade Flurry has always been the spec's signature ability, but now it's transcended into its only ability. Combat rogues currently fluctuate between "just ahead of subtlety" and "best in the game" based on whether or not Blade Flurry works on a particular encounter. Blade Flurry makes or breaks combat rogues, making it incredibly unbalanced. Combat rogues are lucky that Magmaw and Halfus are relatively easy heroic encounters, because doing six-digit DPS on Sinestra would've certainly drawn the developer's attention. At one point in time, Blade Flurry was simply an extra perk of the combat tree. You could pick up some extra damage if there was something nearby to cleave, but it rarely decided your outcome. Even on ideal Blade Flurry fights like the Twin Val'kyr, combat rogues weren't that overpowering. The new BF design is impossible to balance against.
Raid Rx: Pick the best moments for Rallying Cry
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 WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast. 4.1's out! I've been busy killing trolls in Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub, grabbing healing loot for my alts. I wasn't able to get a chance to explore the new healing synergies with all the new healer abilities and Rallying Cry. Warriors have that new ability which temporarily grants 20% maximum health to members in your party or raid for 10 seconds before the health fades away. Like it or not, warriors are now a part of the arsenal that healing leaders have. Also, a nifty trick includes combining both Rallying Cry and Last Stand that leads to mega-health for your tank. Doing this requires two warriors. From what I can see, Rallying Cry needs to be used first, before Last Stand, to maximize benefits. Get your tanking warrior to use Enraged Regeneration, and that'll just about outheal anything most healers can do. Get used to adding Rallying Cry to your skills. Warriors, please remind your leaders that you have it available. Now, on what fights would your warriors be doing their whole yelling thing? I've got several in mind.
Spiritual Guidance: Raiding Blackwing Descent as a shadow priest, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, the shadowier-than-thou Fox Van Allen takes over, trying to undo the damage caused by Dawn Moore's healing-oriented Monday edition. I've been pleasantly surprised with raiding in Cataclysm. It's pretty well-balanced -- raids like Blackwing Descent have a good mix of bosses with varying levels of difficulty. The statistics speak for themselves: While about 94% of raiding guilds have downed Magmaw (or so says WoW Progress), only 20% have made it to and beat Nefarion. That's a pretty wide gap. My discipline-oriented nemesis Dawn Moore has been spending her last few columns covering Blackwing Descent raiding strategies for Maloriak and Nefarion and for Chimaeron and Atramedes. All the while, you poor raiding shadow priests have been on your own while I laid out the law in Shadow 101. Well, no more -- it's time to talk raiding. We have to start at the beginning, though -- and that means taking on Magmaw and Omnotron Defense System. (Hey, everyone needs a couple of easy wins now and then to build confidence, right?) They're pretty easy for experienced raiders, but for those just cutting their teeth on Cataclysm raiding, they can still pose a real challenge. Over the next few weeks, we'll build our way up to the exceptionally challenging Nefarion and even dabble in some serious heroic mode strategies. For now, though it's time to smash some loot piñatas right in their ugly little (Mag)maws.
Raid Rx: Blackwing Descent healing playbook
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 WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. No, this isn't the playbook that will help you secure your dreams and fantasies. This playbook is designed to act as a quick reference guide for normal mode bosses on 25-man. It can be nerve-wracking to organize six to eight healers in a 25-player setting. Sometimes you forget things. Sometimes you're not sure which player or which class is optimal for a given role. If you don't know where to start, then start here. (Note: The playbook assumes that the raid group has a basic understanding of encounter abilities and assorted phases.)
Totem Talk: An enhancement view of Blackwing Descent
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. On Saturdays, Josh Myers (now returned from last week's emergency vacation to Narnia) tackles the hard questions about enhancement. Can we tank? Can we DPS with a two-hander? How does one shoot web? The answer to the first two is "no," and I have no idea about the third. As I've mentioned before, I'm a Burning Crusade baby. This means I missed out on a lot of things: two-handed enhancement, FROST SHAWK, and both Onyxia and Nefarian as challenging raid bosses. While 40 people were beginning to come together and work out raid strategies like "Many Whelps -- handle it!," my young mind was congratulating myself on being awesome enough to beat the main storyline of Morrowind. Cataclysm can't do anything for the first two points, which I don't mind in the least. However, Cataclysm does bring us back Nefarian and Onyxia as challenging raid content. Even better, they're together in the same fight as the climactic ending to Blackwing Descent, one of the three raid instances in tier 11 content. This week, I'll be focusing on looking at the first three bosses of Blackwing Descent from an enhancement perspective.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing tactics for Omnotron Defense System and Magmaw
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow and shovels his way out of a snow storm that Dawn has absolutely nothing to do with (the cookies are in the mail, Christian.) Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. So at this point, you've probably restored the world pillar, been solely entrusted to protecting Hyjal by a demi-goddess, and made off with several dozen pigs (or pumpkins) from the poor farmers of your faction's capital city. You've probably also ventured into countless enemy strongholds and slain everything from wind dragons to rock monsters -- or at least had a panic attack trying to heal the guys doing the slaying. You sure are amazing, and everyone knows it (except the Guardians of Hyjal reputation vendor), so it's not surprising that about now you've been called upon by other heroes to delve deep into the deepest, darkest lairs of Azeroth so you can fulfill your destiny of spamming Prayer of Healing on groups 1 and 2. Sound good? Excellent. If you haven't guessed already, during the next few weeks, the healing side of Spiritual Guidance will be taking a tour of tier 11 raid content and discussing how to best approach it as a holy or discipline priest. If you're ready, let's get started.
The Queue: Entering the modern era
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I have a horrible confession to make. Until late last week, I've been playing WoW with only 2 GB of RAM in my gaming PC. It didn't run well, but I managed to do everything with it, including the highest levels of raid content in Wrath of the Lich King. Sure, my FPS wasn't great, but I still managed to kick ass. Cataclysm ... no. Never. It was never going to happen. 2 GB is not nearly enough, especially if you run any mods. Let me tell you, fighting the Omnotron Defense System with 2 FPS is not a good time. So I've upgraded to 4 GB. It's much nicer. As an added bonus, I can now actually keep a browser window open while I raid. I am standing over Magmaw's broken husk as I write this. Feels good, man. Feels good. Zack asked: Now that Sinestra is down, what is the "terrible secret" she was guarding? I can't find a link to it anywhere!
WoW Insider's Guide to Magmaw
Magmaw is the first boss in Blackwing Descent. You can do Magma with a single tank, if that tank can muscle through getting eaten. If not, you'll need a second tank to help relieve pressure during the "oh my god, I've been eaten" phase.
WoW Insider's Guide to Blackwing Descent
Blackwing Descent is an interesting new raid instance. This isn't merely because it's a new instance for Cataclysm but because it draws on the heritage of the game, going all the way back to a showdown with Nefarian in Blackwing Lair. But Blackwing Lair was just a setback. Deathwing has raised his little boy and girl back from the grave, and they're all zombie and angry at the world. So you and 9 (or 24) of your best friends need to go kill everyone in the Blackwing Descent and make things right again. Check out our strategy guides, below, to get the skinny on how to beat down the bosses all the way up to and including the big, bad Nefarian. Magmaw Omnotron Defense System Maloriak Atramedes Chimaeron Nefarian Ready Check shares all the strategies and inside information you need to take your raiding to the next level. You might also be interested in our strategy guides to Cataclysm's 5-man instances, and for more healer-centric raiding advice, visit Raid Rx.
