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Loatheb revealed for Hearthstone's Curse of Naxxramas
Another new card from Hearthstone's Curse of Naxxramas set was revealed this afternoon: Loatheb. Loatheb is a legendary with one heck of a Battlecry. On the turn after Loatheb has been played, enemy spells cost 5 more mana. Any spell-heavy deck will be crippled for at least one turn, including the ever-infuriating Miracle Rogue. Loatheb's 5/5 stat spread falls right into the standard range for a 5 mana minion. However, combined with its Battlecry, many players are already shouting overpowered. They may not be entirely wrong; 5 mana for a minion that can briefly cripple an entire deck and is quite beefy through raw stats alone is a huge threat. Loatheb may go down the same road Sylvanas did. Sylvanas was also once a 5/5 for 5 mana, but her cost was later changed to 6 mana to better reflect the actual threat she posed.
Desperately seeking Mr. Bigglesworth
Patch 5.1 is an exciting time, whether you're continuing on your questing for Wrathion in search of a legendary or you're just really jazzed about having more dailies to do. It also introduced the ability to go into old raid instances without actually having to be in a raid, making them much more accessible for solo players. For some of us though, it is an opportunity to continue on with a never ending hunt. The hunt for rare and special battle pets! Laugh if you will, but patch 5.1 introduces 12 new rare pets that are spread throughout classic raids from the yester-years of World of Warcraft. It gives players incentive to revisit those raid instances, and rewards them with some pretty cool looking pets. It also rewards those with the motivation to farm the content with the achievement Raiding With Leashes. If the achievement wasn't enough, as an added bonus for collecting all 12 new rare pets, you get the pet Mr. Bigglesworth, who may in fact be the most sought after mini pet since he was introduced as the trusted companion of Kel'Thuzad back when Naxxramas made it's first appearance. So, with 12 new rare pet drops from 12 classic raid bosses, how hard can obtaining these magnificent prizes solo be?
WoW Archivist: The changing raid design of Naxxramas, page 2
Similar to the issues with the Anub'Rekan fight, Instructor Razuvious suffered from the "bring player abilities" to the fight rather than having all of the tools necessary already available in the encounter itself. In the original 40-man raid, Instructor Razuvious was accompanied by four death knight Understudy adds who could be Mind Controlled by a priest in order to turn the tables on the Instructor and tank his untankable damage with innate abilities. Student becomes the master, etc., etc. You had to off-tank two of the adds and have your priests Mind Control two for the purposes of taunt and tank rotations on Razuvious, and then keep the Understudy adds off of their respective Mind Controllers because they would gain a debuff that would prevent reapplying Mind Control for 45 seconds.
Raid Rx: 2009 Boss healing awards
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. Welcome to the 2009 healing awards where we look back on some of the craziest healing encounters introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. Which fights frustrated healers the most? Which ones involved a ridiculous amount of healing? Which boss went directly against our role as healers? The judging panel should have consisted entirely of gnomes, but Wilfred Fizzlebang was unable to make it at the last minute and I was asked to step in at the last minute to help finalize the results.
Raid Rx: Raid bosses that brought healers to their knees - Part 3 & 4
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 5 to number 1, along with everyone's favourite "Honorable Mentions" list to follow! Before continuing with reading the list, I'd strongly suggest you check out part 1 and part 2. Healers have a unique role they play. Almost none of their time is spent with bosses in their crosshairs or target frames. Us healers are busy making sure everyone is alive so they can kill the boss while the rest of us hold down the fort. Enough with the preamble. Let's find out what the biggest pain in the ass bosses were from number 5 to number 1 are.
Mage solos Naxxramas Military Quarter
WoW Insider's inbox has been absolutely flooded with tips about the video you see above. Yes, what you're seeing there is a Mage soloing the Military Quarter of Naxxramas. Not the 10-man Naxxramas, but Heroic Naxxramas.This crazy stunt comes from the same crew that pulled off the two-man Loatheb kill, and uses another pretty funny gimmick. This one uses a combination of Spellsteal on specific mobs, a talent called Incanter's Absorption, and a talent called Burning Determination.The Bone Armor that is cast by the Death Knight Cavaliers was able to be spellstolen, and it absorbs 1,200,000 damage. You could get up to hundreds of thousands of points of spell damage, in theory. In practice it probably comes out to much less than that most of the time. Still, as you can see from the video, 100,000 spell damage was completely possible. Burning Determination was necessary because those same mobs like to spam Strangulate.
Spiritual Guidance: Reacting to the Circle of Nerfing
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Today Matticus will examine the Circle of Healing nerf. In case you've missed the news, it's been announced that Circle of Healing would be getting a 6 second cooldown. I had a feeling the nerf would be happening and I can't say I'm surprised. It does make me cry a little bit on the inside. Is it justified? How can we adapt? Read on!
Loatheb 2-manned by Die Uberspitzen
Here at WoW Insider, we still love to see quirky ways of killing things, and I think the above video definitely qualifies. Pai and Smiliey of the guild Die Überspitzen on Todeswache-EU have duo'd the raid boss Loatheb from Naxxramas. Let me be more specific: Heroic Loatheb, meaning the 25-man version of the boss.Am I surprised by this? No, not really. I definitely give these two huge props because fighting one boss for 3 hours would drive me insane, but Loatheb is not exactly challenging. In fact, I think bringing fewer people to the encounter would make it dramatically easier for a Healer. This isn't the first time Loatheb has been knocked down a peg by a hilariously small group, either. Back at level 60 when Naxxramas was a 40-man dungeon, Loatheb had been 5-manned by a Warrior, a Warlock, and 3 Shadow Priests.
Ready Check: Guide to Naxxramas (Plague Quarter)
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we continue exploring Naxxramas by venturing into the territory of plague beasties. Continuing our journey through the halls of Naxxramas, which began last week with the Arachnid Quarter, this week's Ready Check takes a close-up view of the Plague Quarter. As with last week's guide, don't read any further if you want everything to be a surprise when you venture in. We'll be looking at Noth the Plaguebringer, Heigan the Unclean and Loatheb. But first, let's talk about trash...
Death and Taxes 5-mans Loatheb
Our Guild of the Year for 2006, Death and Taxes, hasn't wasted any time in 2007, either. At a time when most guild are trying to keep their raiding numbers up, D&T doesn't bother-- they just go in with less people. And now, reports Curse, they've downed Loatheb with just five people-- three shadow priests, a warlock specced with Nether Protection (or maybe not, see comments), and a warrior.The official announcement is over on their forums. They don't say specifics on attempts or how long it took them, but apparently they've got 15 gigs of video from FRAPS on the kill. That means, of course, that a video is coming soon, but as one of the guys says, we probably don't need to see a video to know what happened: "Just imagine a shadowbolt and 3 blue lines flying in the air for 40 minutes."
