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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsLoot Reaver gets his revenge
by Mike Schramm 
Apr 4th 2008 at 9:00AM
Void Reaver, after 2.4, is apparently, "wrecking fools," according to Korin on the Silver Hand. We all called him Loot Reaver before 2.4 -- if your guild could finish off Karazhan, and survive VR's trash, he was basically a pushover. But a whole combination of factors, including addon problems (with DeadlyBossMods and VoidReaverAlarm) that killed the addons that made it cake, as well as a few bugs and other problems with the fight after the patch, means Loot Reaver is getting his revenge. He's back to being a real challenge in Tempest Keep.The hardest part of the encounter is avoiding these orbs he shoots out at random spots where a guild member is standing. When he shoots one out, everyone in the guild has to move away from that spot and each other, since getting hit with one is instant death. Those addons were meant to tell you when an orb had been fired, as well as let you keep an eye on the proximity of where it was hitting (so you could easily dodge it). But without the addons, people are back to judging where the orbs might land, and guilds that haven't practiced the fight much aren't that great at judging. Not to mention that there are some bugs, apparently -- some of the orbs are invisible, and others may even be moving through walls and underground.
The fight is still doable, but apparently Blizzard wasn't happy with how easy it was to waltz in there with some addons and collect your loot. Whether it's bugs or addon changes, Void Reaver is currently back to "wrecking fools."
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Fan stuff, Add-Ons, Raiding, Bosses
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Netherscourge Apr 4th 2008 9:42AM
The problem is that Blizzard keeps designing boss encounters that REQUIRE ADD-ONs.
Blizzard has screwed up the game to the point where it's next to impossible to play it without unofficial 3rd party add-ons.
If you try playing the game with only the built-in, Blizzard-provided UI, you will never get anything done.
Heilig Apr 4th 2008 1:47PM
That's because if they didn't design them that way, then using mods (which everyone does) would make the encounters trivial. Since EVERYONE is using them, Blizz has to design encounters with that in mind.
eMarkM Apr 4th 2008 4:17PM
Hehe, try doing Bloodboil without a working Omen. Tanks need to stay very close in threat to each other and everyone needs to stay below all the tanks, who all get knocked back and have threat reduced periodically. It's difficult for anyone to judge where they stand with Omen all loopy.
Zumwalah Apr 4th 2008 9:42AM
ROFL!!! we finally went back to loot reaver lastnight.. hes still balls easy.. is very simple.. watch for balls, if balls r floating at you, run. thats the whole fight
Mattlistener Apr 4th 2008 9:59AM
"...random spots where a guild member is standing."
"...everyone in the guild has to move away."
Hm. Anyway, 2.4 changed VR to no longer directly target people at whom he was casting Arcane Orb. This is because for the fraction of a second someone at range is the focus, they only need 110% tank threat to pull aggro, instead of the normal 130%. This was not intended.
Also not intended was leaving the Arcane Orb cast out of the combat log. This makes it impossible for mods to announce. That'll be put back in.
Bloodelfer Apr 4th 2008 10:03AM
Loot Reaver is Wipe Reaver now xD
ShadowEric Apr 4th 2008 10:06AM
Makavelli, do you even read the threads you link to ? Here's what it says:
"Void Reaver intentionally no longer targets or faces players that he casts Arcane Orb on. This was done to fix a bug.
There is a bug in that there is currently no combat log message for him casting Arcane Orb (just the impact message), causing boss mods to not work. This will be fixed in a future patch."
VR will NEVER again target the player he shoots the orb at. The bug is that there's no message telling you he's starting casting one. The bug isn't that it doesn't tell you who's the target. So boss mods will at some point be able to tell us that an orb is being thrown. but never again who the target is.
Mattlistener Apr 4th 2008 10:10AM
Combat log entries state who the target is of a targetted ability.
ninjasuperspy Apr 4th 2008 10:09AM
Aw man, and I was looking forward to getting t5 shoulders from a PUG... Oh well.
Cascade Apr 4th 2008 10:26AM
When my guild first learned VR (almost a year ago), we wore 150ish arcane protection and used arcane prot pots. the rogues stayed in and just dps'd away regardless. Ranged tried to avoid but if they got hit, they usually took only 3k...everyone thinks its easy so they won't gear defensively looking for max dps.
Cynra Apr 4th 2008 10:51AM
I've been running Void Reaver in a raid on my priest for quite a few months now. This is an established raid group with experienced people and pretty well geared. Even with working DBM (which the raid required), it took that group about two weeks to successfully down Void Reaver and another week or so until we said that he was being farmed.
Last Friday my hunter's 25-man group jumped into Tempest Keep for the first time. Out of the group, perhaps five had been inside before. Most of the people there have only post-TBC raiding experience, having joined the game around the time of the expansion. They'd never done the fight before; they hadn't tried the fight with add ons. The results of the evening? After a first wipe while people got the mechanics of the fight down, we pulverized Void Reaver in a little over eight minutes. No sweat. No tears. Little blood.
Over and over again I'm amazed by the performance of this group. People caught on quick, they had no problems relying on an add on to tell them when to move, and I think that the second time we had only four deaths. In fact, they found it ridiculously easy all things considered and I got to experience the fight again from a ranged perspective (I'm a melee priest healing usually, which means that I'm usually right under Void Reaver hoping that I don't get squashed!).
Velanna Apr 4th 2008 10:56AM
My guild's first down (in fact, first attempt as well) of VR was just before the patch, and we did have all the addons. It was cake, a bit over the top easy. We tried again just after the patch... it took 3 tries, and it was after a few hours of wiping on Al'ar and we were all pretty tired. Yes, it is quite a bit harder, but it actually felt like a boss encounter should - epic. As each person dropped one by one, it just got more intense on Vent. By the end, I was solo healing the tank while our other two healers ended up helping dps the boss. It was just great fun and made the whole raid leave in a good mood.
Fuzzballs Apr 4th 2008 11:06AM
It sucked, the first time i stepped into that place was the day after the patched touched down. I logged on to play around with my UI and my guild begged me to heal VR for them. Never having been I was a little nervous.
So i downloaded VRA and went at it when we got to VR we wiped, and wiped, and wiped. The Tanks and melee dps were calling us incompitant 'cause we couldn't avoid the orbs and "they weren't getting hit by the orbs" - although i don't know if they can tell or if they do get hit by orbs.
We breezed through the trash, and couldn't handle those orbs. And I got the slack for it. Even though I outlasted 90% of the dps on the fights. It was sad
Cynra Apr 4th 2008 1:07PM
Oh, you can tell! I'm my raid's melee healer and I spend the entire time under Void Reaver's feet casting mostly Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing for the entire duration of the fight. It's Pounding attack does about 2,000 damage a second on all targets within range for three seconds. Arcane Orb does about 6,000 damage per hit. Believe me; if you were in the middle of a Pounding and suddenly get hit by an Arcane Orb, you'd know!
The nice thing about being melee is that Arcane Orbs won't hit anyone as long as they're about thirty yards from Void Reaver. So you can sit there, get subjected to the Pounding, and not have to worry about an Arcane Orb - unless some mindless ranged person bumbles towards the center and gets targetted with an Arcane Orb at that moment. Pre-2.4 when this happened, we'd scream, yell, and try to drag Void Reaver away from that spot; now, without those addons that were mandatory before we probably wouldn't even notice it and die.
It's also the reason why most raids don't advocate having melee DPS run away from Void Reaver when he begins pounding; the potential 6,000 hit and silence mechanisms would guarantee a wipe if one of the melee running out of range got targeted.
Shinkou Apr 4th 2008 11:24AM
Lootreaver is still Lootreaver just as Azgalor/Kaz'rogal are also known to my guild as Azgalol/Kaz'rolol. Easy fights that only require you to pay attention and know what your doing. Helps if your group doesn't suck as well.
For Lootreaver all you really need to do is pan your camera facing upwards a bit to see which direction the balls are moving. If you see one coming towards your move left, right, or backwards then return to your position after it hits. If you're constantly moving then you're just increasing your chance of getting hit by an orb that you didn't notice. Pay attention and play smart.
kenney Apr 4th 2008 12:34PM
If dodging is too hard, and you have good healers and arcane resistance, you can also put the entire raid in the close area, and just heal through his pounding. It's a lame but viable strategy that I have seen executed firsthand.
Bootsanator Apr 4th 2008 4:11PM
we got orbed because the hunters have a minimum range to be effective....i mean, i guess they could melee, but really, lawlz.
It's still not really that tough, though. Zoom all the way into first person and look up. Strafe away when you see one coming.
This doesn't Always work, but it does most of the time, and while he's not loot-reaver straight out of kara any more, guilds who have him on farm shouldn't have much trouble IMO.
I will be happy when they fix it and put it back the way it was, though :)
kenney Apr 4th 2008 5:59PM
If you tank him dead center of his circle, you can stand anywhere in that circle and he won't orb you. There is a fairly large deadzone where you are not in melee range of him, or far enough for himto decide to orb you. You WILL be hit by his pound ability though, so you want arcane resistance. Plenty of room for hunters to shoot here, especially now that their dead zone is practically nonexistent.
Not that I'm advocating this strategy over doing it "right"- just saying that if your guild has players that keep whiping your raid because they can't function without an addon, then this strategy will let you brute-force the encounter with less player coordination required.
David Whyld Apr 4th 2008 1:00PM
I think it's quite interesting that an addon failing can make what was originally a very easy fight into a very difficult one. Makes you wonder how many of the "hardcore" raiding guilds would still be stuck in Karazhan without addons telling what to do and when to do it.
Odseus Apr 4th 2008 2:25PM
ret pallie here, melee gets decimated between ground pound and the arcane orbs. it is impossible to do any real real dmg always running back in and out.
When your shoved so far up VR's ass you can't see where the orbs are coming out of let alone where there going to land.
O well already have my t5 shoulders so i'm good.