Unbearably HoT

Turn off the Evanescence, emo-kid.

What I didn’t mention earlier today was that the GM we’d been working with to take care of a few issues told us that she’d stop by tonight during our Immortal run and come wish us luck. As our raid moved from Spider Wing to Plague Wing to Military Wing to Construct Wing, our hopes of meeting our GM friend dwindled, as did the prospects of another two weeks of Immortal attempts. After Grobbulus, however, one of our intrepid raid leaders had us hold up before pressing onto Gluth. Surprise!

GM Leayre, as she appeared in this incarnation, showed up to give us some much needed stress-relief and moral support—as a DRUID no less! She inquired as to who was leading on meters, how we’d set up our healing, and what we still had left to accomplish.

Clearly, she hadn’t seen our tremendous fail on Kel’thuzad the week prior. Before she said goodbye and we all moved on, GM Leayre had a few more surprises for us:

After running around festooned in Halloween costumes and rose petals (and a hopeful request from one particular Hunter who wanted her to summon Illidan), we thanked GM Leayre and tried to settle down from the rest of the run. If the normal Immortal pressure wasn’t enough, we had the added weight of a GM promising to celebrate with us if we actually came through. And presents! Fortunately, after a tense Kel’thuzad and some supremely epic healing, we snagged our titles (and many got their proto-drakes) and headed to the Gates of Ironforge, where Leayre had cryptically demanded we meet.

Fireworks! Congrats, East Coast Raiders—you earned it. And thanks again to GM Leayre for all her support! This was quite possibly one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in game to date, and I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in it with a fun, hardworking group of people.

Ulduar awaits!

When everyone starts talking about the new bosses in Ulduar, I can’t help getting a little excited about the XT-002 Deconstructor—and it’s not just because he drops Twisted Visage. I remember Doomwalker’s ominous voice with peculiar longing, and I’m not sure anyone can resist watching Void Reaver rev his invisible motorcycle. Nothing gets my pistons pumping like giant robots, and I don’t think the Deconstructor will disappoint. The Deconstructor goes back up for testing on the PTR next Tuesday, and I’ve attempted to provide a comprehensive overview of the the Deconstructor’s abilities and offer general strategic information. This information is based on previous PTR testing and is thus subject to change dramatically.

OVERVIEW

XT-002 lurks at the back of a long, rectangular room and seems to be doing some sort of mech-calisthenics when you open the door. I guess I’d be pretty pissed if a bunch of mouth-breathers dropped in on me during my private exercise session, and he reacts accordingly. The main tank pulls Mr. Roboto and tanks him where he stands, just barely pulled back up onto the stairs (although I’ve also seen him pulled back to the room’s entrance). As the raid enters the room, spread out—the Deconstructor will randomly target any raid member and drop a Light Bomb on him or her. This debuff does approximately 2,500 damage per second to any target within 10 yards, so the idea is to get your sorry ass to 11 and eliminate any chance of splash damage. We’ve seen this mechanic on bosses from C’thun to Illidan to Kel’thuzad, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise now. Don’t stand in the fire, don’t BE the fire, and turn on your range checker.

While thoroughly trashing the tank, XT-002 will choose another random target and cast Gravity Bomb. This is another range-sensitive ability that necessitates the Gravity Bomb haul ass out of the raid (think THE LIVING BOMB). After nine seconds, the target explodes and creates a Gravity Well. If the Gravity Well is within 10 yards of any other player, those players will be sucked into the well and crushed for approximately 19,000 damage. Clearly, this is not optimal. As a DPS Druid (or any Druid pressed for time, for that matter), you can hit up Dash and peace out pretty quickly (as if your already increased movement speed isn’t enough). If you happen to be tanking, you don’t have to worry about either of these spells (unless melee is giving you splash damage).

The Deconstructor will periodically cast Tympanic Tantrum: a 2 second spellcast that nukes the entire raid for 10% damage every 1 second for 12 seconds. It also applies an AOE daze effect, making it more difficult for bomb targets to move into and out of the raid. Everyone will be taking damage. Resto Druids make particularly good use of Wild Growth, here, and stacking other AOE healers such as Holy Priests and Shamans makes this portion of the fight mostly trivial. Don’t worry though—Paladins and Discipline Priests still form important components of the 25-man raid group for both buffs and superior single-target healing. It’s a smart idea to dedicate your Paladin or Priest to the main tank so that you ensure consistent tank healing during the Tympanic Tantrum phases. For all you trees out there, it’s well worth watching who’s been target with a bomb before the Deconstructor casts Tympanic Tantrum. The bomb target will take an enormous amount of damage very quickly, and a well-timed HoT could mean the difference between dangerously low health and a dirt bath (a good time for Survival Instincts, if you’re me). 

But it can’t stay that easy the entire fight, right? At 75%, 50%, and 25%, XT-002 spawns a series of adds from the corner scrap heaps that need to be destroyed immediately before DPS can return to the boss.

• XM-024 Pummeler: Melee mob with a “frontal Arcing Smash, a Trample, and Uppercut.” Can be tanked, and has the most hit points of all the bots.
• XE-321 Boombot: What does it sound like? This blows up. Everything. You, other bots, you name it. 12-13k damage within a 20 yard range.
• XS-013 Scrapbot: Zombie Chow. If you let this reach the Deconstructor, it will heal him for a fixed percentage. Has the fewest hit points of all the bots.

Right now, these mobs can all be Death Gripped and pulled back into the raid to be AOE’d to death or be picked up by a designated off-tank. I recommend focusing damage on the Scrapbots  while letting an off-tank dick around with the Pummelers. Feral Druids are in a unique position, because even without the ease of dual-specs, a Cat can still stop damage and tank (and admittedly take more damage) and a Bear can still do reasonable damage and then head back to pick up the bots. To be fair, however, this off-tanking job could likely be accomplished very similarly by a DPS Warrior with a shield or a Death Knight using Frost Presence. If you do this rather than stack an additional “fully Prot” tank, you can maximize your overall damage done. Ranged DPS must focus-fire the Boombots, unless the healers are bored and the melee have a collective death wish. 

While all this is going on, the Deconstructor simultaneously shits out an “Energy Orb” that moves toward a random corner of the room. If you have your ranged DPS focus on the “Energy Orb” and bring it down to 50%, the orb will explode, reducing everyone’s HP by half within 20 yards (this is why I say RANGED DPS; I’m looking at YOU, Boomkin). This major explosionkapow also decimates any adds nearby, which means that if you can finagle the bots into the 20 yard radius of the moving orb, you can focus DPS on the orb rather than each individual bot—and then play clean-up. Handy, m I rite?

This fight is essentially a rinse and repeat show, and judging from some of the feedback on the forums, isn’t all that difficult so long as you’re playing it smart and ensuring you’ll make the 10 minute enrage timer. If you were to hit the enrage at exactly 10 minutes, this means putting out 29,750 total raid damage per second. Assuming seven-ish healers, one main tank, and one occasional offtank, this means that the other 16 DPS need to average 1859 DPS. That’s pathetic. More than likely, everyone will average higher than 3k. Sustaining 4k (which may not happen since you’ll be running around and killing adds) will average out at 64,000 raid damage per second. That’s pretty good. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. 

ABILITIES

• Tympanic Tantrum. Deals 10% damage every 1 sec for 12 sec. Nearby enemies are also dazed for the duration.
• Light Bomb. Deals 2500 damage every 1 sec. to all enemies within 10 yards of the caster for 9 seconds.
• Gravity Bomb. Charges the target with dark energy, causing them to explode and pull in nearby allies after 9 sec.  This triggers Gravity Well.
  • Gravity Well. Pulls enemies within 10 yards into a gravity well, dealing 19000 to 21000 damage. 

BREAKDOWN

1. Boss is engaged. Main tank brings the Deconstructor to the back of the room so that the scrap heaps are on either side and places his/her back to the wall. The raid spreads out so that there’s approximately 10 yards between each individual to minimize splash damage from Light Bomb and Gravity Bomb/Well.
2. Hard DPS as normal. Boss will periodically target a raid member for Light Bomb (AOE damage to others) and Gravity Bomb (initial damage and then a Gravity Well). Treat these individuals like Geddon’s “Living Bomb” and make sure that they exit the raid (ensuring 11 yards+ between other raid members).
3. Boss periodically casts Tympanic Tantrum which AOEs the entire raid (10% damage every second per 12 seconds) and dazes everyone. AOE healing is preferred.
4. At 75% (and every 25% thereafter), the boss spawns Pummelers, Boombots, and Scrapbots. He also conjurs an Energy Orb that moves toward the corner of the room. The Energy Orb may be taken to 50% where it will blow up and reduce everyone within 20 yards HP to half—and destroy all bots. Scrapbots cannot be allowed to reach the Deconstructor because they’ll heal him. Stay out of the way of the Boombots.
5. Once all adds have been destroyed, resume damage on XT-002.

Repeat steps 2-5 and collect loot.

HARD MODE OVERVIEW (because we like it hard, right?)

Every 25% (you know, when all the adds are spawning and there’s a big energy orb), XT-002 bares his heart to the raid—you can choose whether or not to break it. Right now there seems to be a bug in that only ranged DPS can hit the heart (2 million HP) unless you do some super positioning on the stairs and/or the ledge; I imagine this will be changed to prevent XTREEM ranged DPS stacking. After you kill the heart, XT-002 will be healed to full and initiates Dashboard Confessional mode: you break his heart, he increases damage and HP by 25%.

In addition, the Gravity Bomb targets now spawn Void Zones that hit folks for 7,500 damage, and the Light Bombs spawn Life Sparks that cannot be crowd controlled and deal 1,500 Nature Damage to anyone within 500 yards every 3 seconds. The rest of the fight proceeds as normal.

The clear difficulty indicator here is whether you kill the heart at 75%, 50%, or 25%—the longer you wait, the more staying power you need to get the job done within the 10 minute enrage timer.

ABILITIES

• Heartbreak. The heart of the XT-002 Deconstructor has been severed, removing the combat limitations of the XT-002 Deconstructor.  Damage increased by 25%. Health increased by 25%.
• Gravity Bomb: Spawns Void Zones. Summon a Void Zone that deals 7500 Shadow damage to enemies that stand within it. 
• Light Bomb: Spawns a Life Spark add every 15-30 seconds that can’t be crowd controlled, has 189k HP (Heroic) and casts Static Charged.
  • Static Charged. Deals 1500 Nature damage to all enemies within 500 yards every 3 sec. 

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

• Many YouTube videos.
• WoWWiki
• World of Raids
• StratFU
• WoW Dungeons & Raids Forums
• Wowhead’s PTR site
• Updates and additional information are welcomed.

Most, if not all boss encounters in both normal and heroic Naxxramas are relatively straight forward: DPS beats things, the tanks generate threat, healers play the bar graph game, and everyone makes sure they’re not standing in shit on the ground. Sure, there are tricks and gimmicks to everything; for example, kiting the Zombie Chow during Gluth’s encounter (if you have the tools to do it) is much easier on healers than standing there and letting 85 damage-increasing diseases (no exaggeration) stack on you.

 

But it rather goes without saying that waltzing into the Four Horsemen’s chamber without knowing what’s up essentially sets you up for failure. To that end, I’ve outlined a two-healer strategy for the 10-man encounter that involves a series of first-grade drawings. Use at your own peril, and note that updates and tweaking will follow.

 

For reference purposes, colors and numbers are as follows:

• 1 = Lady Blaumeux
• 2 = Thane Kor’Thazz
• 3 = Baron Rivendare
• 4 = Sir Zeliek
• Red = Bosses
• Brown = Warrior (substitute another melee tank if you’d like)
• Orange = Bear Druid (substitute another melee tank if you’d like)
• White = Healers
• Yellow = DPS
• Blue = Ranged DPS Tanks

 

Abilities

For a comprehensive list of all Horsemen abilities, I recommend checking out Wowhead. All you need to know is that each Horseman can indefinitely stack a “Mark” on you if you’re within a 55 yard range that exponentially deals Shadow damage. You do not want multiple Marks from different Death Knights, and you need to make sure you’re not letting more than three stack on you at any given time.

 

Other notable abilities to watch out for:

• Meteor. Hey guys, remember the anubisath in AQ40 and that guy who always lagged and died? Thane Kor’thazz’s Meteor functions in a very similar way. He casts this bitch frequently and it does a stupid amount of fire damage (upwards of 50,000) split between everyone within 8 yards. As you can imagine, stacking your DPS with whichever tank is on Thane is a stellar idea. Because of this  ability and the way you need to rotate tanks and Death Knights, Thane needs to go down immediately.
• Void Zone. Another basic DON’T STAND IN THE FIRE ability. Think Netherspite. Lady Blaumeux summons these at random intervals, and as you can imagine, you don’t want to keep standing around inside of it. The ranged tank on Blaumeux needs to be on the look out.
• Holy Bolt. Zeliek enjoys chaining Holy damage to fry people. While this ability isn’t a major issue while only a tank is on him, as soon as the DPS moves to kill him, they need to spread out as much as possible to avoid chaining more damage than is actually necessary.

 

Step 1

Everyone can assume their respective positions around the room before the Horsemen are pulled; this involves getting cozy with the wall. When the melee tanks initiate the event, each horseman pulls to his or her respective corner where each tank needs to pick them up. Note the position of the healers: the tanks on Blaumeux and Zeliek need to be tanking at max range, and the two tanks on Kor’thazz and Rivendare can’t shove themselves in the corner. The healer positions guarantee that they can hit each corner without taking multiple marks from different Death Knights.

 

All DPS starts by the tank on Kor’Thazz, in the case of my diagram, by the Warrior. Because Kor’Thazz’s Meteor deals much of the raid wide damage, your DPS needs to be spot on and nuke the shit out of him instantly: cooldowns, Heroism if you have it, explosionkapow! etc. In an ideal world, Kor’Thazz is killed before the first switch or at least after the second. It’s imperative that everyone stays grouped up to mitigate his Meteor damage, and whenever a transition is about to occur (covered in Step 2), melee needs to hover near the pick-up tank to diffuse the damage.

 

Step 2

The Horsemen will all be casting their respective marks of blah, Rivendare and Kor’Thazz with more frequency than their counterparts. Once each tank has his or her third mark, it’s time to pull the ol’ switcharoo. The melee tanks will move to the middle of the path where the arrows intersect and Taunt. In effect, the melee tanks do nothing except pull a different Death Knight back to their original corners. DPS stays with the first tank to let their marks wear off and gets some damage in on Rivendare. The tank left alone with Kor’Thazz (me, lol) takes considerable damage and will likely use cooldowns during that period of time to diffuse healer angst. Barkskin is great to save for transitions.

 

The two ranged tanks will also switch after every third mark is cast, but instead of taunting and pulling the Horsemen to separate corners, only the tanks will switch. If you’re not savvy to watching your own debuffs, at least make sure you have a boss timer type mod to facilitate knowing when marks will hit. Rinse and repeat.

 

Step 3

Kor’Thazz DIES. Sweet! The DPS will wait until his marks have faded and will then move on to Rivendare. RIVENDARE DIES. If necessary, the melee tanks can still alternate Rivendare to alternate corners to avoid stacking too many debuffs, but the DPS will still take extra marks. At this point in time, a spare ranged DPS can head back to Blaumeux and offer some transition rotation relief to the ranged tanks.

 

Step 4

With Rivendare and Thane dead, the two melee tanks and the DPS let their debuffs drop and then run to the back of the chamber to help kill Blaumeux. DPS now needs to watch out for the dreaded Void Zones and for realz tanks can take over. If Blaumeux does not die after three marks have been applied, the tanks and DPS need to rotate to Zeleik and repeat. Because Blaumeux casts marks at a lower frequency than Kor’Thazz or Rivendare, it’s likely that you’ll kill her without needing to switch again.

 

Step 5

Ding dong, the bitch is dead! All healers and DPS move onto Zel and kill him. Stay spread out.

 

Step 6

Collect loot.

 

 

I realized that I mentioned going to Naxxramas in my previous post and didn’t say anything else about it. We started very late for East Coasters and went to a ridiculously early hour in the morning (at which point all my fine motor skills went to shit), but we cleared out the Plague Wing, Spider Wing, and part of the Abomination Wing. Everyone was largely in T6 or Sunwell gear, and a few folks (namely Lycentia and a few from Drow) had had extensive experience in the original Naxxramas—which is a far greater boon than you might realize. It’s much the same as the original, except considerably simpler: challenging enough to engage the brain, but easy enough that we could still coast through most of it (while we were awake, at least).

I was reminded of how much I enjoy tanking content with serious individuals—and Lycentia. We really are a fantastic tanking tag team, both because we’re individually “good” and because we have the ability to communicate with one another in the same room without the hassle of headsets and push-to-talk keys. We watch each others’ backs. We give advice. It’s a joy watching him make tanking look effortless while kiting Heigan the Unclean through the fiery green eruptions of doom, always knowing exactly where to stop and when to start. It’s my favorite fight thus far, even though I wasn’t tanking. The difficulty lies within herding everyone into the same, muscle memory location rotation, and beyond that, he’s cake (and the visual effects are particularly enjoyable: fountains of green sparks and fire bursting through the floor).

Lycentia and I even managed to pick up a few upgrades.

The shoulders and boots are substantially better than the T6 pieces I was wearing, and couple those with the Essence of Gossamer that I picked up in Heroic Azjul-Nerub this evening…well, I think I’m off to a good start. Expect tanking guides to complicated Naxxramas boss sequences. You know, when I can remember to take good screenshots.

Infected Wounds? Don’t bother. 

Let me back up a second. I had plans last night to hit 80 with some measure of fanfare—maybe a cleverly positioned turn-in screenshot , makeouts, tequila shots, or high fives. Instead, I found myself rushing back to Dalaran so that I could port to Stormwind for training, respeccing, glyphs, chants, and consumables—and then take my timely summon to Naxxramas. 

When Lycentia dinged 80 last night, he almost instantly received a tell asking if he’d tank Naxx—and that they needed another tank-type as well. Awesome guy that he is, he informed the group that he’d have another capable tank in about ten quest turn-ins, and that’s how it all started. 

My hybrid leveling build evolved into this tanking build: 0/60/11. This is essentially a no-brainer core Bear build with all the requisite ass-kicking talents selected. You may notice that I put all five points in Furor rather than dividing them between that and MotW. Why? In my limited experience tanking at 80, the three points in Furor were all but worthless. It’s far more efficient to shapeshift quickly for that guaranteed initial Rage boost—the quicker your DPS can start, the quicker you can finish. 

Improved Mark of the Wild isn’t worth unceremoniously dumping though, especially if you’re looking forward to 10 mans where class slots will be at a premium. As a Feral Druid, you might be the ONLY Druid in the raid, unable to rely on the token Resto or Boomkin to swoop in with extra talent points and reagents. I pointedly picked up 5/5 Furor because I was jumping into Naxxramas without any prior preparation and wanted something I could rely on. In the future, I’ll likely swing back in favor of optimization and pick up 2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild.

My build also boasts 3/3 Infected wounds. In theory it sounds fantastic; in reality, it’s rendered useless when half the mobs in Naxxramas are immune and you have a Warrior using Improved Thunderclap. With those kinds of odds stacked against me, I see little benefit in keeping Infected Wounds when I can shift those three points into Feral Aggression for iRoar. You might be thinking, “Oh, but Warriors can pick up Improved Demoralizing Shout too!” Well, you’re right—but they potentially have more to lose. For Lycentia to rearrange his talents and pick up Improved Demoralizing Roar, he loses some stellar threat generating talents: Cruelty or Incite. The counter argument details that extra threat isn’t as crucial as it used to be; tanks have little problem holding aggro these days. By giving up a few threat boosting talents, he’s picking up better mitigation.

But what would I do with those extra three points if I didn’t pick up Feral Aggression? I could pick up Shredding Attacks for those DPS moments (of which there were many when I wasn’t tanking) and maybe drop a throwaway point into Brutal Impact or Predatory Instincts. At best, I can still only offer 3/5 Feral Aggression (~505 AP reduction) versus Lycentia’s full ~575—but it’s still looking better than it used to. 

Got a Warrior and a plan? I recommend: 0/60/11.