Monday, June 22, 2009

Environmental Damage and You

I hate Naxx. Not because it was recyled, not because I can't seem to find that PuG group that can master Thaddius, or the one that thinks we don't need a deenrage for Gluth (Heal harder noob! /cry). No. I hate it because it made stupid raiders.

Naxx was supposed to get you ready for the next level of content, and in a way, I suppose it kind of did that. You started off with easy bosses, working your way up (lol@Loatheb) to harder ones, until you finally faced Saph and KT. The problem was, Saph's AoE was a joke, and KT let you lean on your healers. For example I never moved from Sapph's AoE, not once. I'd slap on my three pieces of frost gear, beacon myself, and then go crazy on the tank. It worked, and we were successful.

The problem is, our healing was so good that everyone else could do it too. Maybe we had too many healers - but unless you missed the insta-gib frost nuke, you'd live. KT's iceblock was the same way. I'd see three or four melee get chained, and maybe one would die....maybe. The only insta-gib was the shadow fissure, and there weren't a lot of those.

Sarth 3D upped the ante to some degree with this, but most guilds never attempted this encounter (at least on my server it seems). Hell, we still don't have a 10 man 3D kill on our server. At least here though there were dire consequences for missing out on environmental damage. Failure to react properly resulted in death, and generally losing one or two key players would result in a wipe.

Jump to 3.1

Hellooooo Nurse! We've got fire, ice, lighting. We've got one shot ice, laserbeams from the sky, rockets, and pulsing AoE like nobody's business. And nobody is trained to move from it.

Here's a few gems from our last raids that really drive the point home.
Me: "You going to stand in that light beam until it kills you? Guess so"
Dead Raider: "Sorry, wasn't paying attention"

Raider that kills others: "I'd rather hit a mine than die from the overload" (phase 2, she eats a laser in the face - gg)

These are the kinds of things I'm talking about. In Naxx, and to some extent the easy modes of Ulduar, you can brute force your way through encounters. Take the mine incident. Yes. In this situation she didn't die, and that's great. Hard mode and we'd be scraping her up. How can I trust that she's going to do the right thing when we're working on the next level of content or hard mode?

If you stand in lightbeams from heaven, or eat Thorim's lightning bursts, how can I count on you to avoid rocket strikes and shadow crashes?

For all my guildmates who read this - and everyone else - I hope the following list helps you out.

Flame Leviathan - Unless you're the Siege Engine, don't be near it. Definitely don't be in front of him, you're just asking to get rickrolled.

Razer - See that blue fire on the ground? Stay out of it. Yes - you will get hit with fire, but when DBM is barking at you, it's a clue you should move.

Ignis - You can dance if you want to, but don't do it on the big patches of scorched earth. Remember you can still cast while in the slag pot.

XT - Range check is your friend, especially on hard mode. Don't drop a shadow fissure on your friends, and if you've got a light-bomb on you, and you aren't melee, you probably shouldn't move. I love watching a caster run Left to Right all the way through the raid "look out, you missed someone!"

Assembly of Iron (IC) - Death and Decay (big green circle on the floor), and giant lightning tendrils. Other than that, you're probably fine.

Kologarn - Lord have mercy, there's no environmental here that you can avoid. Except for the exploding elementals that is.

Cat Lady - Don't kill the guardian in the raid, and you shouldn't have to worry about the shadow fissure. Of course this means you have to stop your AMFGDPS long enough for the DK to grip it out....

Hodir - Jump around, jump around...or at least find a cozy fire. Make sure you stand ON the giant snow mounds during the deep freeze. Use your self heals (pots, stones, etc) during his frozen blows.

Thorim - See those beads of lightning on the ground? That's the center of a 45 degree arc of lightning. Move out of it. Also, stay more than eight yards away from your neighbor, or you risk chaining lightning onto him. By the way, if FB says you fail at lightning, you really do. Hard Mode - stay out of the blizzard too. Yes we can heal through it at the start, but once the tanks are taking instagib type damage, you're going to die.

Freya - Roots (you can break them yourself), ground tremors (/stopcasting), and beams of light make this fun for the whole family. Don't kill your friends with Nature's Fury, and don't stand on exploding green balls in phase two. Bonus points if you don't kill your healers by killing lashers in quick succession on them.

Mimiron - Oh my. Don't stand in front of his big guns in P2 and P4. Run out of the overload WITHOUT hitting mines in P1 and P4. Rockets in flight, afternoon delight! Yeah - move from that red circle on the ground in P2 and P4 as well. Oh, and watch the bomb bots in P3. Hard mode you're on your own. If you're ready for Firefighter, you're not going to get much from this post.

Vezack - Stay out of the shadow crashes fool. JoL is getting nerfed (from the ret paladins anyway), so it'll take longer to heal yourself up. Don't risk it.

Yogg-Saron - Stay out of the clouds. It's not environmental, but I'm going to yell at you anyway.


Tonight - repeat on Yogg if we can.

3 comments:

  1. hehe... i love this post. it's so true- ulduar is still pretty easy but it at leasts lets you see who the scrubs in your guild are. we were doing general hard last night and we had a new trial ele shammy who got hit with the shards like 3 or 4 times every attempt. you should have heard my gm go off after the 3rd attempt and then again when he sat him after the 4th try. good stuff! i think it's actually why i raid... not the purples, not the epeen, not the encounters... i like to see morons get bitched at and then booted by my gm! and ulduar is perfect for weeding the bads out.

    moral of the story- if you can't avoid fight mechanics... get better or gtfo. you're wasting everyone's time.

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  2. Something I'd like to add - Everyone screws up at some point. Even the best of us end up exploding all over the raids collective face once in awhile...I can handle the occansional fuck up.
    What bugs me to no end is when people make excuses. When you get called out, don't spend 45 minutes trying to find a reason why it wasn't your fault. It wastes our time, and makes you look more retarded than the original mistake. Just say oops, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

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  3. Exactly. Our best Disc preist died to a beam on Freay +3 because he was going for his lightwell (he was holy for that fight) and missed the beam.

    It's the ones like this....

    Me: So, if you can't get out in time, don't go in the brain - we need you alive for Phase 3.
    Him: I never go insane.
    Me: Uh - what happened last time? You went insane..so don't say it never happens.

    Seriously - learn from it and move on.

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