My guild has been steadily working working on the Lich King encounter on 25-player mode for several weeks now. We've managed to gradually chip away and gain some meaningful progress on the
Defile and Twin Val'kyr phase. If it were just Defile, it wouldn't be a problem. Likewise, if there were only Val'kyr to worry about, we'd ace it easily. But combined, they present quite the interesting challenge. It isn't exactly the most enjoyable part of the encounter for me as a healer. After taking him down in the 10s, I can say the phase where all the spirits are flying around and waiting to explode on some player is enough to keep me on my toes, as well. The last boss I remember really holding my breath on would be the final phase when tackling Yogg-Saron. I suppose my best theory on that would be the longer I've worked on a boss, the more tense and focused I would get.
Other encounters?
There was one specific phase during the Illidan fight that kept me on my toes. The veterans of the game might remember the second phase where Illidan took to the air and impaled his war glaives on the ground, which summoned two fire elementals. They had to be tanked at a certain distance and a certain angle; otherwise, the elementals would completely fry the raid.
Archimonde had the same effect on me. Can you guess which part? It was when players were thrown in the air and had to rely on
Tears of the Goddess to safely land. I cheated and
Levitated.
A more recent encounter would have been Sindragosa. Every time she pulls players towards her and lights up an explosion, I get a little uptight. Someone seems to get hit.
What about you? Which parts of a fight cause your back to straighten and your fingers to hold that mouse with a firmer grip?
Tags: encounter, facebookfeed, game-discussion, gamer-discussion, mechanic, phase, raid, raiding, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-topics
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Raiding
May 7th 2010 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
m.arnold84 May 7th 2010 8:08AM
I always get tense during the last few seconds of sartharion and three drakes up. Even though it is ridiculously easy nowadays I'm always tensing whilst trying to solo heal the last few seconds before my inevitable death.
Calcine May 7th 2010 8:09AM
Sindragosa really keeps me on my toes as well. As a rogue, I'm attacking pretty quick and it's always scary to watch my stacks shoot from 2 to 9 in a manner of seconds thanks to SnD, especially when CoS and Vanish are on CD.
Boz May 7th 2010 8:25AM
The first half of the Sindragosa encounter is really long but fairly easy once you get the mechanics, but the last phase requires lots of practice. This makes repeated wipes time consuming and frustrating for raiders. So when you get close, it's edge-of-your-seat, no question.
pere May 7th 2010 9:11AM
I know a lot of the rogues on my server/in my guild drop SnD all together during the final phase because it builds stacks too much
Rapskallion May 7th 2010 10:33AM
I also raid as a rogue... and on P2 on Sindragosa I'm never on her. My team has dual wielding melee on the ice blocks with two handed melee and casters on her. Never have to worry about stacks of anything when one is simply running back and forth between ice blocks while everyone else kills the boss.
Samuel Reese May 7th 2010 8:10AM
As a healer, this one is a no-contest: Phase 3 of Anub'arak in ToGC25. Having to heal just enough to keep everyone up, but not so little that people can be one-shot is killer. If there's one fight where you need to know exactly how much you can heal and what tool to use during a fight for a healer, it's that one.
TERU May 7th 2010 10:04AM
I fully agree, this is by far the most stressful part of an encounter for us healers. Back when this was progression we had to balance out heals to keep everyone between 500-1k health to prevent healing on the boss from outweighing the dps. Then on top of that you had to wach out for your Penetrating Cold assignment, changing every 15 seconds or so and would one shot the target if you didn't get your heal off in time. Then have add pickups which could just as easily turn and own a healer then be tanked. Personally I had it easier then most, as a resto shaman I just stacked a SP set and let my Healing Stream tot do all my group healing work. God bless our resto druid for taking 2 targets by himself.
xxxsnowflamexxx May 7th 2010 8:10AM
For me personally, it was always Gluth in naxx. Seeing everyones health so low so fast always came as a shock for some reason. So yeah, definatly the decimate.
When I was in a pug, it was always the safety dance. Everyone seemed to fail at it so badly :(
Oh, and C'thun pre-nerf :D
thegatherer May 7th 2010 8:24AM
So this, the safety dance. Oh, that and frogger.
dagimp May 7th 2010 8:10AM
Phase 1 Hogger Anybody??
Back in BC it was phase 2 Lady Vashj. So much going on that phase and minor slip up would wipe raid. You know an encounter is hard when everyone in raid needs a special macro just to make a phase easier, and more doable.
Amaxe-1 May 7th 2010 12:21PM
Damn, you beat me to it!
Elennoko May 7th 2010 8:17AM
I'd have to say, so far? Saurfang and Rotface. As a healer, and mainly raid healer on Saurfang, I start to tense up a bit after the first mark, 'cause I dunno if the person will accidentally move out of range.
For Rotface I'm always freaking out after the first explosion: Will we have two big oozes? Will somone get smacked by his spray with the infection? I'm reaaalllyyy paranoid. =|
Jez May 7th 2010 8:16AM
I hate the Saurfang encounter when the Blood Beasts spawn... I don't use any raid warnings so if I time an unlucky Hammer of the Righteous or Consecration, everything goes to shit. :)
(I just think that things are so much better when you haven't got an addon telling you WHAT to do and the only test is that you carry out instructions properly.
DBM and the like give no room for ingenuity, there's no risk, no ideas, no daring or genius... just pure labour..
Perhaps it's just a twisted perspective that I have... but I think most boss fights would be a lot more intense and fun if people had to react to what was going on under their own steam.)
Burnaphatone May 7th 2010 8:32AM
This may be true if Blizzard hadn't embraced DBM back in BC and tuned their raid encounters accordingly. DBM is definitely not a requirement but with so many ways to monitor each and every aspect of a fight such as range from other players and boss cooldowns (nuking portals during Heroic Jaraxxus required impeccable timing when it was new) I have come to accept the fact that DBM is going to assist me in being the best raider I can be. Hell, when I first started the game I considered wowhead and thottbot as "cheating" but this game is so vast that it requires community corroboration to move along at a steady pace.
Jez May 7th 2010 8:37AM
A very valid point. Voted+
Even so, I hope for Cataclysms larger health pools to mean that there is a little more room for movement... meaning that people who don't use DBM and the like have a chance at negotiating new content in a reasonable amount of time.
Perhaps that's the case to a degree now.. but I highly doubt LK25 would have been anywhere near completed if it wasn't for these addons.
The question (off-topic) might be: How mandatory are these addons and is it right that they should be so necessary for raiding guilds? Perhaps a discussion for another time... but I see your point. Although I see a difference between people helping each other and an automated addon giving instructions. Anyway. :)
Burnaphatone May 7th 2010 8:54AM
After thinking about your question, I have to say in my experience DBM isn't a 100% raidwide requirement. For instance, even though my entire raid had DBM and there were trumpets blaring during flame wreathe our RL would always yell "flame wrathe don't you fucking move!" And I can basically recall from every raid encounter at least once where the RL would be the voice of DBM over vent.
Sinthar May 7th 2010 9:50AM
"DBM and the like give no room for ingenuity, there's no risk, no ideas, no daring or genius... just pure labour.."
Ingenuity? So being warned that 'Fire Is BAD' removed your ingenuity?
Risk? I admit this is reduced - thats the POINT surely
Ideas? I fail to see how having something time abilities/notify you of events means you cant think about it - ideas are about responses, not the causes
Daring? - Sorry but from a RP point - attacking something 50+ times larger than yourself that can command armies etc does seem daring to me
As to genius, i fail to see how ANYTHING in the game can be attributed to that, problem or solution. Devious, yep...Cunning, sure....Genius, nope just dont see that - examples please.
But if you truely want to experience all boss fights without any raid enchancements, please feel free to form your own guild, or just pug em til you have had enough of people asking 'So are we meant to move when he yells BONESTORM and lands on us?'. Oh and please dont expect any Realm Firsts, or to be on the 1st 200 guilds on your server. (or much loot, etc etc etc)
Joerendous May 7th 2010 10:01AM
He can dance if he wants to.
(cutaia) May 7th 2010 10:29AM
"I hate the Saurfang encounter when the Blood Beasts spawn... I don't use any raid warnings so if I time an unlucky Hammer of the Righteous or Consecration, everything goes to ****. :)"
TIp from a DMB-free pally tank: It takes two cycles of the tank debuff for the blood beasts to spawn. So they'll either spawn when you're taunting, or when he's being taunted and they'll keep doing it that way for the whole fight.
It's helpful to have a Hammer of Justice macro for that fight too so you can instantly stun a blood beast if someone else does some AoE at the wrong time.
galestrom May 7th 2010 10:44AM
The problem with conveying DMB info over vent is the lag often associated with it. Those two to three seconds of latency sometimes means that the warning arrives at the same time as the ability/effect.
In a former raiding life, this meant that a player who was adamant about not having DBM installed would regularly cause wipes, declaring that it was the raid leaders inability to call things out promptly that caused him to fail. This may be a bad example given the obvious. lol
Personally, I don't care if a player uses a boss mod or not. If they have the situational awareness to do their job without it, more power to them. =)