Halls of Reflection exploit trivializes Lich King encounter
by Matthew Rossi 
Dec 29th 2009 at 5:00PM
What followed completely trivialized the event. So much so that I'm torn: on the one hand, I hate HoR in no small part due to the difficulty of picking up multiple abominations and tanking them while also trying to get aggro on the spell casting Risen Witch Doctors. The 'ledge' strategy is very simple: let Arthas walk past you and lumber his slow way up the tunnel after Jaina or Sylvanas like he always does. Meanwhile, the hordes of undead he spawns? They come running back to you, even if you're still at the door to the ledge. Since you could never stop the Lich King from getting to Jaina anyway, you don't lose anything for staying behind him, except that you no longer have to adjust in the event that the Lich King is getting closer to you with his aura of hurty.
Even more trivializing is that the further away from you this all moves, the longer it takes for the multiple mobs in the wave to reach you, making it much easier to pick up the various mobs and have them all be DPS'd down before more arrive. I never had more than two abombs on me at the height of the event's last wave, they lumber in so slowly.
Overall, I know two things: I'm horribly tempted to do this event this way every single time, which probably means at the least Blizzard needs to rethink how the mobs path or how the Lich King works, and furthermore, doing it this way absolutely reduces the difficulty of the event so sharply that it becomes much easier than the Falric and Marwyn event.
Editor's Note:
This strategy is quickly becoming popular and should be considered an exploit, one used to avoid the encounter's mechanics entirely (which is different from Falric and Marwyn where the geometry of the room is used to deal with the mechanics of the encounter, versus avoiding them entirely). We're posting this in hopes that this is brought to Blizzard's attention quickly and a resolution is put forth with all due haste.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, Instances, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
Leviathon Dec 29th 2009 5:02PM
Of the 2 parts of the instance...that is probably the dumbest part to need/want to exploit.
thebitterfig Dec 29th 2009 5:23PM
well, true. but also irrelevant. hadn't heard of this until now, but most wowplayers are going to use any trick like this they can, just because it does make things run a little smoother and faster.
the problem is in how a fix is accomplished. i've been in a run where a DK fell off the ledge before it started, ran back, threw on AMS and ran through the lich king's aura to return to the group. i don't want whatever fix they think up to prevent someone doing something like that.
busuan Dec 29th 2009 5:49PM
I can see an easy fix (at least imo): Give Arthas a 'Trail' AoE. Say, a frozen ground behind him, if you fall behind him, freezes you (and probably does some horrible Forst DoT) until he gets to Jaina/Sylvanas and AoE every1 in 50000yrd to death.
Pyromelter Dec 29th 2009 7:04PM
I disagree. Although this part has become easier as I've gotten more experience with it (on my mage), I've actually found the first part easier. Why? The biggest issue is that the run tests 3 things: 1. How good your DPS is, 2. How well geared/survivability of the tank and 3. The tank's threat - which is all about skillscore, and virtually nothing about gearscore. There have been times I've counted to 10 before starting dps, and still pulled aggro. The encounter is made so that in wave 4, all your dps has to spam AoE to kill the trash waves in time. Biggest issue I've come across (from my perspective) is fail tank aggro. Out of all the heroic encounters in the game, that wave 4 taxes a tank's ability to get, hold, and maintain aggro (as well as dps's ability to lose aggro), and the vast majority of fails I've had were from an abomination one-shotting my squishy self. As a mage, I'm doing 1-2k dps to each mob in the trash pack (that's each mob, not total). The encounter was designed like that. Ledge strategy takes some of that pressure off, not to mention the fact that dps can spread out much more than they can with their literal backs to the wall.
The first part with falric/marwyn, simply is a healer and tank gear check, all you need is one person (preferably a ranged dps) to identify the priest and put a skull on him. You would be amazed at how much easier it goes when you have someone doing this. (Incidentally, I've come to really enjoy the Falric boss fight. "Men, women, and children: None were spared the master's wrath. Your death will be no different" - something about this line just strikes a tone with me. Love it.) Tanks also love it when I put the skull on the priest, it makes it much easier for them to find it.
As far as how to fix it, as someone else mentioned, simply have the trash waves initially aggro on Jaina/Sylvanas.
Zanathos Dec 29th 2009 8:42PM
It sounds more like your problem with the waves is fail dps. It's not necessary or wise to spam aoe nonstop. It's far easier to have a kill order, priests and rogues should be at the top of the priority. Priests obviously, since they heal. Rogues cause tank deaths because they stun, and being stunned means the tanks avoidance has gone out the window. Even for sta stacking tanks, this causes a huge damage spike. Once you've cleared out those two types, you should be free to AOE with impunity, and since the tank will have rounded up all the mobs by then, you shouldn't have to worry about pulling aggro.
EZ Dec 29th 2009 11:03PM
@ pyromelter
Stop blaming the tank and learn to /assist and/or cc.
thebitterfig Dec 30th 2009 12:35AM
w/r/t Pyromelter - with threat, sometimes it's the tank, sometimes it's the dps. my frost mage can pull in a snap if i deep freeze after the first or second frostbolt, and it's got nothing to do with a tank. that's a 15k+ threat spike purely from the dps side of things. likewise, if there is a dps who's really bad at pulling threat, that takes the tanks attention from where it needs to be, at least with warriors. another example: each of the three dps target different targets on general bjornwhatsits in HoL, one on the boss and one on each lieutenant. even if one dps does the proper thing, the fact that the other two fail will impact the tanks threat on the intended first target and start the chain reaction whereby the dps who does it right pulls aggro... that said, there are some bad tanks out there...
as to the trail-of-frost solution, it'd probably work. just make LK's frost aura drop near-permanent frost patches like grob or the not one but two jormungar drop poison ones. that's kind of a dirty-if-simple fix, which prevents someone from coping with being behind LK for whatever legitimate reason they might have. a D/C or a sudden AFK where a paladin throws Divine Intervention on the player and LK walks past them. they come back and want to get in the fight, and i say more power to them.
Psiwave Dec 30th 2009 7:19AM
I don't understand how this is an exploit, that is I know it's not how the instance should work, but how does this make it easier? Whenever I've wiped here it's because big LK has killed little J, surely that will still happen, infact if the trash takes longer to get to you it'll be harder.
Mailia Dec 29th 2009 5:04PM
Very interesting how someone always finds the possible exploits out.
Rai Dec 29th 2009 5:07PM
IMO, he should kill anyone left inside the room when he unfreezes. Problem solved.
Robert Dec 29th 2009 5:11PM
The exploit happens on the ledge outside the room.
Amrytale Dec 29th 2009 5:09PM
Where is the exploit that makes DPS focus fire and interrupt during the Falric/Marwyn trash? That's what I need.
Schadenfreude Dec 29th 2009 6:35PM
This please.
havitech Dec 30th 2009 12:34AM
I agree with this. I'm starting to suspect that I'm the victim of a battlegroup-wide prank. "Okay guys, we're each going to nuke a different target, and when we pull aggro on our target, we'll switch targets only AFTER the tank taunts our original target back and builds back threat."
It amazes me how some DPS make my job so much harder, it really seems like some of them do it on purpose.
Raynier Jan 5th 2010 3:51PM
@havitech I completely agree.
I do not understand how /assist can be so hard. Nor do I understand how difficult it might be to occasionally glance away from your dps meter and look at your threat meter.
(Of course, that's assuming the average randomly pugged fail DPS know what threat is in the first place...)
Bottom line: fail DPS like you, I, and probably all of us have experienced, are what help to ensure a constant tank shortage. Who *wants* to spend three instances in a row frantically spamming taunts and AoE because the DPS don't understand that's the only thing that's currently keeping their precious skulls from really and truly being filled with rocks.
/rant
Monkey Dec 29th 2009 5:09PM
This part of HoR is so easy why would you bother?
Was anyone actually have issues with it? Falric and Marwyn are more difficult.
Stormsinger Dec 29th 2009 6:47PM
Yeah, the chase is not the part of the instance people should need to exploit. After getting the first 2 bosses down (a legit challenge) I've never been in a group that failed to finish the encounter (even losing an over eager ret pally in the chase once). I don't think the chase is trivial, but I go into it expecting to finish.
I'm sure low dps groups will get over run, but a group with low dps, squishy tank or weak healing wouldn't make it past the first encounter anyway.
Eternauta Dec 29th 2009 7:16PM
I have been wiping in the last encounter a lot lately.
When you are the Tank and you're topping recount, SOMETHING'S VERY VERY WRONG.
Due to me being a Tankadin, we finish the first bosses (a bit slower, but we do). Then comes the LK and we wipe on the last icewall because the dps'ers can't burn the adds fast enough.
Angry, I spam recount in /party and /say. And all I get for a response is "lol ur awesome dmg dude". F*ck!!!!! Seriously.
Sorry for the rant, I needed to vent it out.
Finnicks Dec 29th 2009 7:59PM
@ Eternauta
If you the tank are outDPSing the DPS on the Lich King escape encounter, then how the hell are you even doing the first part of the encounter?
On heroic mode the trash waves come on a timer. If you don't have the DPS to bring down the current wave before the next spawns, you're going to be screwed.
And any group with enough DPS to deal with the trash waves has more than enough DPS to handle the waves during the chase.
Bronwyn Dec 29th 2009 8:01PM
The thing you have to remember, though, is that it IS a DPS race and though I've been in groups where we can all burn through and get to the end fast enough to get the achievement, I've also been in groups that we were unable to kill the trash fast enough. If you have a good enough healer the DPS can suck a bit on the first two bosses, but in the end, on that chase, it comes down to having enough DPS. If your group has low DPS I could see wanting to exploit.