Naxx Flash Cards

Naxx Boss Flashcards

This will be a 5-part post (one for each wing), and I'm hoping to ilicit a guest post from a healer to finish these off.

I'll be posting flash cards for each boss from a tanking, offtanking, and DPSer perspective. What are these flash cards? 3-4 important things to remember for each boss.

Starting off with the Spider Wing:

Anub'Rekhan:

Tank: If you're kiting during locust swarm, strafe kite. Don't walk backwards.
Remember the timer for Swarm is a cooldown timer, not an exact timer.
Offtank: Be ready to pick up the adds, quickly and pick up grubs as needed.
DPS: Stay spread out. Anub's spikes are a directed aoe.
Melee: Back out when the cooldown for Locust Swarm is up. You don't want to be caught in that.
Switch to the adds when they spawn.
Be prepared to AOE the grubs if needed.

Grand Widow Faerlina:
Tank:
Have cooldowns ready for her enrage.
Decide if you're pulling her to the adds or vice versa.
Keep her seperated from her adds so your DK and paladins can do their aoe thing.
Offtank: Keep aggro on her adds, and burn one down at a time, getting it low so it will be a quick kill once she enrages.

DPS: Stay out of rain of fire.
Switch to the add as soon as she enrages and burn it quick.

Maexxena:
Tank: Save your cooldowns for when she web wraps on enrage.
Offtank: Don't taunt the boss. Use aoe abilities to pick up tiny spiders.
Be ready to grab the boss if the MT goes down on enrage.

DPS: Burn down the webs as people get wrapped.
Burn down spiders if you're on spider duty.
Save cooldowns for below 30%.

Malygos, how I loathe thee

We spent nearly two full hours wiping on Malygos-10 tonight. Our biggest issue being, lack of DPS in Phase 1.

Deaths were not a problem, aside from stupid tank deaths when I moved too far away from the healers a couple times ;)

All I can say, is this fight was the most intense fight I've had to do as a tank. Spacial and raid awareness is at its peak, as instead of worrying just about mob placement, I'm worrying about Sparks, gigantic dragon placement, raid placement, strafing, and threat.

We only managed phase 3 once, but its a big long learning experience, and I think we're getting closer and closer to getting that all-important phase 1 down.

Our biggest issue was stacking the sparks right on top of one another, so if anyone out there has input on Maly, and spark stacking in ten man (that doesn't involve "bring more Deathknights") please, share.

Also, we run a melee heavy raid (had 2 hunters, and 4 melee dps and me tanking along with 3 healers), is that going to be a problem for us in phase 2?

I don't know.

All these questions, yet, after a night of personal frustration, after thinking about it... we did pretty well to get as far as we did.

Each attempt we improved. Each time the sparks got smoother and smoother, and my kiting the big dragon in circles got better and better.

Maybe our overall DPS was a bit low. Maybe it was because I still haven't upgraded my titansteel boots. STILL.

Being a better tank

So, while I'm standing in one spot, speakers turned up, waiting for tiny hearts to fly over a Night Elf's head I thought I'd write a blog post.

Since I'm going to be revamping my UI tomorrow (when I finally have time), I wanted to blather on and try to make sense of all my buttons.

I've been tanking bigger and badder things lately, and I've really been trying to "use all my buttons" as a warrior. The problem is, there's 12 of them.

Yes.

12.

Shield Slam
Shield Block
Revenge
Shield Bash
Devastate
Heroic Strike
Taunt
Thunder Clap
Demo Shout
Shockwave
Concussion Blow
Cleave

Now, this does not include, Charge, Intervene, Heroic Throw, Berserker Rage, Shield Wall, Last Stand, Enraged Regeneration, Healing Pots, Healthstones, Trinkets, "Shoot"....

What does this mean? Why do you care?

Warriors have a TON of buttons to press. I can't speak for the other tanking classes, but sometimes, it gets a little overwhelming.

So, here I go trying to reduce things down a little bit:
Heroic Strike is for (single target) boss fights. Cleave is for trash. So I swap those on my hot bar.

I want to improve. I want to do more DPS while I'm tanking these bosses. My threat is plenty high for the DPS I run with, but I still want to jack it up even more.

Ways I can improve:
-Use Concussion Blow. I basically use it as a stun on trash now. Never on boss fights. This will change.
-More Heroic Strikes. I try to hit it for every melee swing, but I miss quite a bit. I can get better at this
-Less devastates, more other threat moves. I should use shockwave every time its off cooldown.
-Keep Commanding shout up more. I'm terrible at this.
-Keep Demo shout up. Why do I keep Thunderclap up no problem, but always forget Demo?

If anyone has suggestions on keyboard layout, macros, etc that they use for tanking for all these buttons, please, feel free to share.

Naxx, Naxx, Naxx

3 wings down. 1 to go. We got to Gluth for the first time as a guild, and rolled through everything else for the most part.

Iceravens took to tanking like a lab to water. He was as worried as a certian hunter was her first trip into Karazhan.

We found a pugging DK and dragged him into the run, and then into the guild, and he helped out with strategies, ideas, suggestions on the bosses we hadn't done yet. The toughest was the four horsemen, which was more of a "lets get used to this mechanic" much more than a "Gosh we suck and can't do this".

I'm so happy to run with my guildies, its always refreshing, fun on vent, and relaxing (well, aside from the finger cramp I got while kiting Globulous backwards for 10 minutes).

Basic suggestions for the fights that I found helpful:

-Four Horsemen-
- if you're running with a paladin tank, have him /focus the other tank, and have a macro /cast [target = focus] Righteous defense

Only _after_ that goes off, the other tank will need to taunt his mob on the switches.

-Globulous-
If you are the kiting tank, turn 'run' off, and walk backwards constantly around the room. Its a good pace for kiting him at, and it allows your melee dps to get a few hits in on him and avoid the poision clouds as well

Melee dps should concentrate on the slimes, period. Ranged stays focused on Glob.

I got the uber tanking sword, Iceravens got the Shield, Neshura looted all of Four Horsemen... and other people got other loots too!

So, Grats me, and Grats KoU on 11/15 in Naxx!

Oh, and... how come the mobs can ride horses but we can't? HMMMM? DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF?

Naxx, Initial excursion

In case you couldn't tell by Neshura's awesome posts, I finally made it into Naxx with my guildies. Had an absolute blast. Rolled over the first two bosses in the Spider wing and then came to the "HAY POS HOW GOOD IS UR GEAR?" boss.

We wiped 5 or 6 times, and then finally got the evil Spider down with just a Ret paladin and a Hunter still alive.

Our biggest problem was, of course, the web wraps when she was enraged. 6 second stun when the mob is hitting me for 8k a swing is a tough thing to live through. I can manage once, by blowing cooldowns, but when the second one comes, I'm all but dead.

If anyone has suggestions, please, post them. We ended up needing 3 web wraps to down her, one I cooldowned, one I got Hands Layed on me by a ret pally, and the 3rd one I died.

I realize our raid dps may be a tad low overall, but, its amazing how smoothly everything else ran, except for this one thing. What it came down to, wasn't our raid, wasn't who we had in there, wasn't our dps, wasn't our healers.

It was my gear. As the main tank I need better gear. So, plvl my gear, please.

I was sitting at almost 33k hp raid buffed, and it shocked me how quickly I went down.

Had druid and priest hots rolling on me at all times. I suppose I could have her bubbling me as well.

Warrior Tanking (part 2)

Things that are tough to get used to?

Taunt now has a range. 20 yards or some such. Its nice. Very nice. Its also very tough to get used to at first. I no longer have to run around to collect a mob that goes off after the healer (or the Warlock or the Boomkin)

How does this change things? A quick target, taunt, then retarget the main mob, and as soon as the taunted mob gets to you, switch back to it, shield slam or revenge, and continue on.

It makes life much easier as a warrior. I love it.

Onto the New Charge.

Usable in and out of combat with the right talents. I love it. I cannot express how useful this is while instancing (and pvping, but thats for my next post). So, two mobs charge for the healer? Taunt number one... pause half a second, then charge the 2nd mob, and devastate/shieldslam/revenge or whatever you want to do to pull its aggro back.

Changes in my personal tanking style, thus far:
I'm doing way more AOE tanking, much less CCing, and as a result, Thunderclap and Shockwave are both a major part of my arsenal. Heroic Strike is being used a lot more, due to the glyphs (+10 rage and a free HS after devastate). Other than that, not much has changed.

I lost a lot of Defense with the patch (went from 510ish to about 472... I still don't know exactly how).

Anyway, thats all for now. T-minus 8 days.

Warrior Tanking in 3.0 (part 1)

Okay, so you have some new skills, some new abilities, and some old ones (Thunderclap & Taunt) have gotten buffed, big time. Threat has been revamped as well.

The big question is, what does this mean?

First off, as a warrior, you can now AOE tank, and you can AOE tank WELL. Really, really friggin well. Warlocks cackling with glee well. Now, the question is, how do you open up against mobs to get maximum threat for that AOE to open up early?

Here's my (current) aoe threat rotation:
1) Bloodrage
2) Charge
3) Thunderclap
4) step backwards to organize the mobs & shield block
5) Shockwave
6) Shieldslam the primary target
7) Thunderclap

The mobs should be glued to you after that. Obviously, there are some exceptions to that rule. Just do your tab devastates, revenges, heroic strikes, and hit T-clap whenever its up.

Now, the major issues with this?
-Druid trees: I love them... but they are slow. Mom-taking-you-shopping slow.*
Make sure they are standing up next to you before you charge, else, they will be waddling up to heal you (because you charged out of range) and you might go splat. Okay, so that goes for all your healers, but you get the idea.

-Charging the correct mob: Be aware of which mobs are casters and which mobs are melee. Its easier to move a melee than a caster so if there's 2 melee and a caster, try to charge the caster. Oh, hey, and don't worry about the melee running up to you if you get within their aggro range before you can charge... you do know you can charge in combat now, right? ;)

Part 2 will be on single targets, and getting used to the new taunt and charge.

Questions? Comments?

*Mom-taking-you-shopping slow is the pace at which, when you're 13, your mother picks out clothes with you simply wanting to get the jeans, put them in the cart and leave. Its a sunny Saturday, and you want to be outside, but, there's now 17 pairs of jeans to try on. Its summer. You don't even need jeans.

The hiatus is over...

I got my steak, so I have to start posting again.

First things first, we just ran Kara again on Friday night. It went very, very well. It was Pos's first time as a tank through the whole instance.

We went Attumen to Prince down in just over 3 hours, skipping only Illhoof (no warlock). My fellow tank was Owaru, and we only ran into problems when I noob-bulled a pat before Opera, and when I was tanking Prince during phase 2, I went down twice.

The 3rd time was a charm, though, and we took him down.

Then we went to try Netherspite. After the first couple of tries, we got the strategy down (its a tough one to do without ever having seen it)

We had him to 18% but the untimely death of Orzag the Uber cost us.

We then had respawns and decided to call it, as we were past the 4 hour mark at that time.

Things I learned:

Offtank/tank synergy is a big deal. If you're the tank or offtank, your job is not only to hold aggro, its to mark, to prepare, and to keep the raid moving through trash.

Your job is NOT to dps. Your 180 dps means diddly poop on trash mobs. Take that 15 seconds and go mark the next group. Why? So as soon as the current target dies (after a quick check on healer mana - dps mana doesn't matter, no matter how much they whine) you can then pull the next group and keep the raid moving. 30 seconds here, and a minute there turns a 3 hour run into a 4 hour run.

I think that is the biggest difference between our current runs and our old regime runs.

Setting a DPSer to be the loot master, also another plus. When you down a boss, everyone but the loot master heads to the next spot. By making it a non-tank and non-healer, we can just roll on.

I felt like I did a good job. Like things went smoothly. The usual suspects praised me, but, I think they would do that if we wiped 87 times on Attumen, because, they are my good friends.

Next step? Netherspite and Nightbane.

We may need a 2-run week to do that, perhaps, next weekend we'll give it a go.

One night for a clear, one night for a learning process (and flasks for everyone!)

Welcome aboard....

Well, for me, and my WoW career, today was an eventful day, after an eventful week. Eventful. The majority of the core raiding group I was with, left the guild, to pursue their interests (of SSC and TK and other things) elsewhere. My closest group of friends has remained. They've - I suppose I should say 'We've' - retained the Knights name, and have decided to move forward instead of sideways or backwards.

Nothing, for me, is more fun than a solid 10 man raid. Chatting with friends on Vent, while progressing, and simply enjoying ourselves. The problem was, the guild stopped progressing. Just 3 weeks after a guild first (downing Netherspite), the inflation of the ranks to "try to get enough people to do Gruul's" killed Karazhan. No one wanted to go and wipe on shade with people in greens.

As K and Orrarruuuu like to put it, "You don't gear for Kara in Kara."

Anyway, back to today. We made the decision to keep KoU together. To pursue our idea of a casual raid guild.

The definition of what that is?

We're casual. We have fun. We like to do crazy stupid things, and joke around, but, for those 4 hours, we're hardcore raiders.

No, we won't be giving "MINUS 50 DKP" or anything like that, but... we will be telling you if you're screwing up.

We will be running WWS to try to see how we can improve, individually, and as a result, as a whole.

Now, back to today: Posolutely hit 70 two days ago. Today, I tanked my first Heroic. Mech. Orzag, Tiandrah, Antigen and Tasogare (Gnome!) tagged along with me. Afterwards, BigP and Taso helped me out with some enchants, and a new cloak, and now Pos is probably set to offtank Kara. 12.8k HP unbuffed, 12500 armor, and over 490 Def.

The other eventful thing? I agreed to lead a Kara raid. I'm nervous. Thankfully, Annuubis will be there (along with Orzag, K, Boon and Orrarruu).

Now that I've rambled. Time for sleep.