maloriak
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Breakfast Topic: I hate you, Maloriak
I solo Maloriak every week. Every week he fails to drop my hat, so I have to come solo him again the next week. I hate this for two reasons - Maloriak is an intense pain to solo, with many awful mechanics that make me curse and swear, so having come back and do it again is bad enough by itself. But I also hate Maloriak for more intangible reasons. It's been two plus years since Maloriak was relevant in any way, and yet here he is, still stymieing me every week. I hate the way the cauldrons are randomized, so I never know if I'm going to get frozen in place for 20 second and then he'll get a fire cauldron and melt me to death while I'm completely unable to do anything. And I hate that ridiculous end phase, while he's putting a healing over time spell on himself while punting me up in the air and setting the ground on fire and swarming the room with adds. I hated Maloriak when he was relevant even though as a warrior tank in Cataclysm I was well suited to tanking his adds - even though I enjoyed tanking adds on fights like Nefarian and even Spine of Deathwing, I hated them on Maloriak. I just hate everything about you, Maloriak. And I'll see you next week, since you didn't drop my hat again. Got a fight you really hate, but can't seem to get away from?
The 5 worst raid encounters in Cataclysm
Last week, we covered the five best raid encounters in Cataclysm. Today, we're flipping the coin to take a look at the worst. Be it bad mechanics, fight bugs, horrible randomness, or just plain boring bosses, these are the fights with elements you never want to see again. Of course, it is uncouth to criticize without suggesting improvements, so I'm also putting on my amateur game designer hat and throwing out some other options that could've made things more entertaining. 5. Maloriak, Blackwing Descent Maloriak wasn't terrible, but the encounter had two major flaws. First, interrupts. Tier 11 was Interrupt City in general, as several classes got new interrupt abilities and Blizzard apparently wanted to make sure we were using them. However, this particular fight was notable for having two interruptable abilities, one that had to be interrupted, and one that had to not be interrupted -- but only a certain number of times. ("Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.") While this led to some interesting voice chat during raids ("Which ability did you just interrupt?" "I don't know!"), the overall mechanic was confusing. Why not have an actual button that he runs to and presses, and your tank can choose to let in happen or not via Taunt? Second, the fight just doesn't scale well. For well-geared groups in normal difficulty, there was an eternity when you had to stop DPS before 25% and wait for him to finish releasing all his adds and start a second green phase. Meanwhile, groups in heroic difficulty got to deal with a dark phase, which featured nothing but AoE for 90 seconds. Not the most fun, since most classes have a one-button AoE rotation, and not very balanced, as classes with consistent AoE damage (aka mana users) absolutely smoked others. If they'd just have the cut the phase to 30 or 45 seconds or so, it'd have been a lot less frustrating and a good bit more balanced.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing tips for tier 11 heroic mode raids
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 is busy looking in the mirror instead of playing a proper spec. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com, produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. In previous weeks, Spiritual Guidance has tackled how to heal the various raid encounters in tier 11. This week, we're going to revisit each boss on heroic difficulty. Once more, I'll be examining which spec is better equipped to handle the fight while also examining the differences in the new encounter and how to deal with them. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started. First, I want to point out that a major difference between any heroic and normal mode encounter is that abilities in heroic do an increased amount of damage. In order to avoid being redundant, please keep in mind that when I point out the differences between modes that the need for more healing will be assumed. If the increased damage significantly impacts the strategy of the fight, however, I will explain how.
Patch 4.1 hotfixes for June 1
Don't make the mistake of thinking that because the patch 4.2 PTR is up that patch 4.1 won't see any changes, because today's round of hotfixes will teach you otherwise. Once again, Blizzard's Zarhym brings us a grocery bag of class, raid, and other fixes, including the following. Warlocks will no longer be able to give people the increased buff from Improved Demonic Tactics when they switch specs or otherwise lose the talent, and their Glyph of Imp will now not affect all warlock pets. Maloriak in BWD is now going to prefer to cast his Flash Freeze on ranged players and won't cast it on a player specced to tank. Tanks can still have it chained onto them, however. Bountiful Bags guild perk will no longer create more keystone items from archaeology finds. The goblin racial Best Deal Anywhere will now only work with vendors you have reputation with and won't stack with exalted guild reputation dealing with guild vendors. The full list of hotfixes after the beep.
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 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Fighting evil (and riding Sandbox Tigers) by moonlight, winning love by daylight ... Your shadow-specced host for the Wednesday edition of Spiritual Guidance never runs from a real fight -- for, you see, he is the one named Fox Van Allen. Ladies and gentlemen, do not be distracted by the ridiculously adorable Sandbox Tiger -- we've got serious business ahead of us. You see, the evil Queen Beryl dragon Nefarian (sorry, I get them mixed up all the time) has filled Blackwing Descent will all sorts of treasure-filled minions. And you, as duly deputized Van Allen Scouts, are tasked with taking them all down. Last week, I charged you with defeating the relatively easy Magmaw and Omnotron Defense System. I gave you some basic strategies, and you dispatched them with haste. This week, though, our marks are more difficult: Chimaeron and Maloriak. With great risk comes great reward, however ...
Shifting Perspectives: Druid feral cat raiding strategy for Cataclysm, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our weekly feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! Last week, we began our detailed look at feral raiding by discussing the "easy 5" raid bosses this tier. This week, we'll head over to the Throne of the Four Winds to discuss the Conclave and take a look at two of Nef's minions. First up: Conclave of the Wind, Throne of the Four Winds.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing strategies for Maloriak and Nefarian
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 runs a counterfeit penny operation out of his basement. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. It's a very special occasion on Spiritual Guidance today; spring has come, which means for the first time in months, you get to read about priest healing while simultaneously anticipating that the weather is going to be nice soon. What? That isn't exciting? Okay, fine, whatever ... I tried. I'm just going to go use the last of my Blossoming Branches on Fox right before the tank pulls so I can screw up his DPS rotation then. No! Okay, seriously, today on Spiritual Guidance we'll be finishing up Blackwing Descent with the last two bosses in the raid instance, Maloriak and Nefarian. As you know, we've been steadily working through all the tier 11 raid bosses and examining how to heal for them as a holy or discipline priest. After you've read this, you'll be able to heal your raid to victory and finally stop dealing with that damn elevator.
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.
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.
