How to: Five Amber drakes in The Oculus
by Mike Schramm 
Jun 22nd 2009 at 10:00PM
After yet another Cracked Egg with nothing but a Cobra Hatchling in it, and the bigtime raiding proto-drakes constantly getting dropped out of the game, there's really only one other option: the Red Proto-drake, a reward for the Glory of the Hero meta-achievement. It's not easy: you've got to not only beat all of the heroics in the game, but all of the hard mode achievements for each of them. Guides like our OverAchievers can help, and a really great group to go along with helps more, but some of the achievements are so tough they need extra attention.The Oculus' achievement, however, is one that needs an even closer look. And 4 Haelz kindly provides exactly that, with an in-depth guide to toppling two achievements in one, both the Emerald and Ruby Void, by doing the boss with five Amber drakes. The Amber drakes are usually meant as DPS, which makes this fight extra tough: you can't take much damage at all, because you can't get any damage back without healers. So what it requires, instead, is communication and coordination. Basically, you use the drakes' Time Stop ability to slow the fight down, and then try to do some coordinated kiting while DPSing like mad, all the time hoping that you can bring him down before he takes one of you out.
As Bell says, once you get the idea (and have wiped a few times -- you should probably be riding the drakes naked, since not only does your gear not affect their performance, but it'll save you repair costs), the fight's not actually that hard to pull off, but it's the learning that's going to hurt.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Tricks, How-tos, Instances, Bosses, Achievements
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tuscansalami Jun 22nd 2009 10:15PM
Given that in 3.2 the drakes in there will now scale with item level, this achievement will be a tad easier, albeit at the cost of a higher repair bill for the failed attempts.
freeway8989 Jun 22nd 2009 10:15PM
Ugh, no thanks. It's stressful enough with a normal dragon group composition.
megamogx Jun 22nd 2009 10:22PM
took me forever but we did it after 2 hours of wipes... Just gotta time it perfectly so whelps to wipe ya n its ez......
miked Jun 22nd 2009 10:30PM
Did this a while back, it was the most fun i've ever had in oculus (not saying much...).
The Claw Jun 23rd 2009 12:08AM
Ditto. An extremely different fight, and one which really stretches your group's coordination to the limit. Beating this was one of the most satisfying experiences I've ever had in a 5-man.
Tabs Jun 22nd 2009 11:05PM
I heard this was hot fixed last patch so you can't get the Ruby and Emerald void at the same time using this method....
I forget WHY you can't use this method, but I got it on my priest, and when we went to help another guild member do it much later, the GM of our guild found it out somewhere..
Kate Jun 23rd 2009 2:39PM
I think you're confused. The strategy that no longer works is kiting Eragos around with 5 green drakes, effectively getting ruby void and amber void at once. The main strat there was to outrange the whelps so they couldn't wipe you. The whelps now have infinite range, so the kiting strategy doesn't work. Five ambers is still possible (and still hard as heck).
A couple comments on the article itself:
1. If you time your timestops correctly, and DPS correctly, you will not get ANY whelps. No kiting involved. This is EXTREMELY difficult and took us 3+hours to get right.
2. It's a bad idea to do this naked if you're going for it post 3.2 since the drakes will now scale with your gear like the vehicles in Ulduar do.
Moonfaxx Jun 22nd 2009 11:06PM
On my quest for the red proto drake, I saved the Occulus as my final heroic destination. I'm still two away (Amber Void and Make it Count) today, but only because I did this all-amber strategy this past week. I would like to make one suggestion that GREATLY simplifies this strategy. I realize this may already be mentioned on some sites (like the one mentioned in the article), but this is mostly to give faith to those players who have become frustrated by the 5-amber strategy... mostly because I used to be one of them. :)
My group was full of very competent and able players... but technology sometimes doesn't play nice for an achievement like this that requires precision. You must be nearly perfect on your DPS rotations and time stops to get this, and lag (be it on Vent or in-game) can ravage an otherwise perfect group. With that in mind, I suggest this: Use FOUR amber drakes and leave your healer off a drake. He/she stands on the platform below, and all the drakes stay in range of those heals. We found that there was a little more wiggle room that way. We one-shotted it once we had a healer! And all five got the double achievement.
It's definitely possible, but don't forget to bring a group you know you can count on for that precise timing!
Cyanea Jun 23rd 2009 12:11AM
The patch notes say that Oculus drakes are going to scale to gear score, making this easier for people who are t8/t9 geared.
Myria Jun 23rd 2009 12:29AM
The hardest part of getting the Oculus achievements, at least on my server, is actually getting a group to go there. About the only way to do that is to hunt down other players and make them join at gunpoint.
You'll need to hunt down quite a few, most will prefer getting shot to a heroic Oculus run.
I managed to guilt some friends into doing a run so my tailor could finish her last heroic and thus get the Whisp Cloak pattern, but that's the one and only time I've ever seen a group for the place.
SuperBell Jun 23rd 2009 1:40AM
I managed to do all the achievements for the Ley-Guardian a few months ago. It was a guild run. We decided to start off with the Amber/Ruby void achievements by using 5 Emerald Drakes. We managed to down the boss after a few attempts, because kiting the boss was something we didn't know we could do - by kiting him in a large circle around the Occulus (when kiting him along the invisible wall was possible), we had a lot of space between us and the boss, I held aggro while my guildmates pummeled the boss with their abilities and keeping the heals up.
I'll still remember that day when we got the achievement and the rest of the guild was... "HOW?!?!" "WTF?!"
Neirin Jun 23rd 2009 3:56AM
I still remember when my old GM got this on his first run through Occ and got the achievements for reg. Occ, H Occ, NR dungeonmaster, NR H Dungeonmaster, Champ. of the Frozen Wastes, Ruby Void, and Emerald Void all at once.
After my group for this got a grip on the mechanics of the amber drakes (3 of them had never used amber before) and we had our time stop rotation set it only took 1 wipe.
DON'T TRY TO PUG THIS, or even Occ in general really. Get a solid guild run together or coordinate with some of the achievement whores on your server to get a group, your average trade chat denizen will likely not even know about vent, let alone be able to do this properly.
Sorro Jun 23rd 2009 3:59AM
Did this a couple months ago. Took a couple hours to get the kinks worked out. Gotta time the freezes just right to avoid the whelps, and keep the stacks up for maximum damage. Challenging, but cool when you get it and guildspam the achievements. ;)
Drow Jun 23rd 2009 11:54AM
Yeah, with item level affecting drakes here too, my 226 and 239 levels will help me get my red drake. All I need is "Make it count". Though, I don't really need it, since I have the Plauged and Rusted Proto's from the 10-man raids, which anyone and their Mom can get with 25-man gear.
flawless Jun 23rd 2009 12:21PM
Got this back in January with a few guildmates at the time, took us a few wipes to get the DPS rotation (charging/dpsing) sorted, then it was a clean kill.