Cloak of Shadows: 5 - Baroness Anastari: 0
by Krystalle Voecks 
Apr 19th 2007 at 3:15PM
Inspired by an old post about the Endgame Bosses Being Bored a couple of post-60 folks in my guild decided to pay Baron Rivendare a visit (and take some 55+ folks for a drag) as opposed to fighting for spawns in Outland. The sad thing is that this particular instance run simply drove home the point that Old Endgame just isn't nearly what it used to be. The first thing we noticed was how utterly easy the mobs were. Gone is the time when a 45 minute run was proof of skill at L60 for non-raiding guilds. With the inclusion of a L68 Shaman healer and a L66 rogue, the instance became a cakewalk, completed in a blazingly fast 28 minutes from start to finish. (including looting) But the eye-opening sad/funny part was to come when the party got to Baroness Anastari.
As anyone who has been in Dead-side (or UD) Stratholme will tell you, the Baroness can be a bit annoying. Or at least, she could be when you were level 60, and you invariably got someone who forgot to burn all their cool-downs at the beginning of the fight. (To explain, the Baroness mind-controls a party-member and disappears. If you have special trinkets or talents, she is likely to use them immediately on your fellow party members.) So, with a few freshly minted near/60s in tow, the group jumped her, and everyone blew their cool-downs. Well, everyone except the rogue, not being used to that Cloak of Shadows button on his bar yet. Sure enough, first possession target was that same rogue. It went a little something like this:
Tank: Crap, she got the rogue!
Rogue: huh?
Tank: I've got her.
*fightfight*
Tank: Man, she must like you.
Rogue: ...
Tank: That was fast.
*fightfight*
Apparently every single time the Baroness decided to possess the rogue, the first thing she burned was Cloak of Shadows. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is the level 66 Rogue ability that instantly removes all existing harmful spell effects and increases the chance to resist all spells by 90% for 5 seconds. It also, amusingly enough, breaks mind control. So the Baroness controls the rogue, pops Cloak of Shadows, and is immediately brought back to the fight. Later runs confirmed that every single time she decided to possess a level 66+ rogue, she seems to favor immediately popping Cloak of Shadows on herself.
We're just wondering when they are going to find some way to make NPCs who can mind control somehow not pop Cloak of Shadows straight off. Not to complain, but it's really kind of sad watching her do that to herself over and over.
Of course, until Blizz gets it fixed we'll just
/target Baroness
/point
/laugh
Anyone else notice other mobs who mind control and then pop Cloak of Shadows on themselves? Any other mind control interrupting talents/abilities causing lots of laughter for you? I know the poor Baroness can't be alone in her questionable tactics.
Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, Humor, The Burning Crusade, Bosses, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mad Cow Apr 19th 2007 4:03PM
No really a mind control trick ... but every time I've run BM with a rogue ... the rogue is the only one who gets feared / sheeped. wtf?? I guess that's good the healer doesn't ... but even when all 5 of us are piled on the mobs .. /target rogue ... /fear /sheep.
Odd.
mihn May 26th 2007 1:37PM
Few times in Shadow Labs i was MCed by second boss and he saved me using CoS. As u know CoS doenst break his MC, but it can protect you from warlocks/mages/spriests/oomkins pwning your ass in 1 shot :>
Anson Apr 19th 2007 4:15PM
Terrible at names, but the 'time for FUN' guy in shadow labs does a mass mind control as well... so locks, get out the succy and, 80% of the time, she'll seduce you during the time.
rock.
Doc Apr 19th 2007 5:15PM
@1
In black morass, the rift lords will sheep/fear the 2nd agro person, which is almost always the rogue. It's more or less the rogues job to eat fears/sheeps so the casters don't.
Petter Apr 19th 2007 5:15PM
She is not alone - all the old MCers do that. It's hilarious.
Argent Apr 19th 2007 5:53PM
baroness easy mode: if you pull her back to where the conistoga-looking cart is (diagonally back towards the entrance gate) and stand right by it, you'll never have to even deal with the MC. each time she possess someone, it increases your size -- until you bump your head on the wagon, which causes the MC to be aborted.
ah, the good old days...
Junzim Apr 19th 2007 6:38PM
Nah all bosses are /point /laugh when they MC me.
First thing they do is obliterate Cooldowns:
BERSERKING!
INNER FOCUS
Ojnos a fast casting free +25% critchance-
LIGHTWELL!!!!!!!
Oh yeah! We're all really F****d now!
Michael Calfee Apr 20th 2007 10:21AM
As a rogue I always get the sheep/fear in BM, but the good part is the mage dragons usually break their own cc within a few seconds with their AoE blastwave.
lol Apr 19th 2007 9:19PM
why do morons like you guys point out stuff like this? =) I'm quite happy with it working the way it does. Do they really need to fix it?
Ghen Apr 19th 2007 9:29PM
@7... you spec lightwell?
/point
/laugh
Krystalle Voecks Apr 19th 2007 9:40PM
Petter: Heh, it seems like most of the old endgame bosses do weird things with the new talents. I haven't been back to MC since the expansion, but I can totally see it being equally funny.
Michael: Yeah, what is up with the sheeps? I mean, I know why (player) mages do it in PVP, but why do the NPCs go rogue-happy? There again, sometimes the free heal is nice. :D
Loubear Apr 19th 2007 9:48PM
lolwell
Sherp of Ahrotahntee Apr 20th 2007 1:49AM
I had a druid friend a while back who was telling me about this fight. He got MCd and right after blowing all his cooldowns, the Baroness picked his Teleport (Moonglade) spell.
I would have liked to listen in on their Ventrilo channel for that.
Junzim Apr 20th 2007 8:53AM
@10
Ever watched Nihilum's vids? Notice that big shiny thing that's visible several times in the backgrounds?
/point
/school
Kalandrah Apr 20th 2007 5:04AM
The MC'ing mobs just before Murmur do the same. The MC'ing naga in the Slave Pens as well.
For a warlock, whenever they get mindcontrolled, they always seem to go for Rain of Fire.
Twinny Apr 20th 2007 5:59AM
@15
and howl of terror, which isnt as nice.
Tilt Apr 20th 2007 6:40AM
I've yet to find an MCing mob that can get my druid out of treeform. I normally end up running around getting dozens of "invalid target" messages as I attempt to heal everybody to death.
I sure Bliz will fix that one day, but it's funny for now.
Kirby1612 Apr 20th 2007 9:13AM
@13
Your druid friend lied to you. That spell isn't castable in combat and as far as I know never has been.
On topic-While in Black Morass, the dragons don't polymorph me (since I'm a feral druid) but instead go to the next person on the aggro list (at least I think so) because they always go after the paladin/priest healing. And as far as the druid MC in forms, they wont take off the form you are currently in, that you can do yourself, but if you are in caster form, they won't cast a shapeshift either.
myguy Apr 21st 2007 2:48PM
Funny u should post this, as the other day i went to Strat to stealth out a Piccolo when i decided to see how far i could burn the baroness before i had to vanish. Oddly enuf, she doesnt MC u when u fight her alone. And my CoS ended up saving my little gnome ass. That coupled with a shot from my healpot injector and some mind numbing poison, i was able to solo the baroness down for some nice 1g vendor warlock(?) boots. I was completely shocked by this, as my mouse was floating over vanish the entire time expecting a grim fate. But after the dust cleared, i had won. Much to my suprise. Go 70 rogues.
Ohh, and i even got the piccolo same run. Go Figure.
Myguy
70 Gnome Rogue
Palmarium
Runetotem
godai Apr 25th 2007 12:07AM
She used to blow my iceblock cooldown all the time.