Sunday, April 19, 2009

LF1M VoA wipefest

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Gone are the days of plowing through VoA. WoW Insider sums it up pretty accurately here, but I thought I'd give you a write up of some first hand experiences.

A few guildies and I went in there on a 10 man last night. First of all, it should be noted that I was completely out of it. Sick as a dog and jacked up on Dayquil, tylenol, and orange juice. My fever had gone down, but the stuff coming out of my nose.... /shudder. My entire head felt like it was in a fog. If by fog, I mean fog made out of mucus. Ugh. Concentrating was difficult.

Consequently, I wiped the raid at least twice, once by running in haphazardly and pulling mobs and then getting defensive and trying to jokingly blame it on Belgar, who was running around trying to pick up 4 different mobs (sorry Bel), and once by staying so far back that I wasn't in range of the main tank (sorry Tal).

And in between pulls, as I was hacking up a lung, blowing my nose, and getting another trash bag in which to throw snotty tissues, I missed other important things as well:
[Raid] [Averna]: bah, I need to repair
[Raid] [Tal]: ...
[Raid] [Belgar]: ...
[Raid] [Tal]: TWO repair bots were just put down. You missed both of them?
[Raid] [Averna]: ...
[Raid] [Averna]: really?
[Raid] [Averna]: ...>.<
Ugh.

Sorry, raid. Obviously not my night.

Overall, I think we wiped around 10 times. We eventually got him down, but damn, this is going to be a difficult dude to pug.

The setup: Two tanks, two healers, six dps. One tank gets the four adds, one tank gets the boss. Healers, pick a tank and stay on them, healing the raid as needed. WoW Insider has all of Emalon's abilities listed, so you can check them out there. This is what I saw from a healer's point of view.

  • Unless your tanks have 45k+ health, expect big spikes of damage. Once the pull is live, make sure you have a healthy amount of hots on the main tank. You can pre-hot on the main tank a bit, but hold off on the adds-tank. There are four adds and you don't want lolbloom aggro pulling one off the tank and onto you.
  • Make sure you're spread out. He casts chain lightning that jumps from raider to raider. Ow.
  • Make sure you're not in melee range! He casts this nova thing around him that will blast you.
  • Every so often, he'll overcharge one of the adds. All dps have to switch over to this add and get him down asap. This doesn't really affect you - you just keep healing your target and the raid as usual. If the dps don't get the add down in time, the raid goes boom.

TL;DR: Keep an eye out for spike damage, don't stay in melee range, and spread out!


Also, don't be a sick nooblette and have people waste repair bots on your silly tree ass. =(

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4 remarks:

Anonymous said...

Took us nine times in the pug I was in. Once we figured out the spacing and how to pick up the add we got him down. Went for a 25 man this morning and we didn't stand a chance. Too many people for the spacing without good coordination. Don't think I'll pug the 25 man again.

Averna said...

@Anon: The problem with pugs is that so many people will take two wipes and leave. Or even just one. Then you have to work on replacing that person, and people wait, and then you replace them, and just as you're about to get going again, someone else says "guys my cat just barfed gotta go" or something, and then you're back to square one again. And then it just ends up falling apart.

That's awesome though that you had 10 people able to stick it out for 9 tries. It's good to know pugs like that exist!

Doomkin said...

Did a guild 25man of it last night for the first time and it was hectic enough! I cant imagine pugs being too successful.

We ended up trying a few strats, but settled on the boss being tanked on the back (east) wall, the 4 adds in the center of the hexagon, and ranged being spread out in a semicircle around.

Somehow it worked! ...but no druid loot =(

"E" said...

Averna, you weren't THAT bad! I mean, we did DOWN him which is better than most of the stories I've heard this week about people going up against Emalon! BTW, :) on being added to your blog roll!