Posts with tag conclave-of-wind

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we contemplate the effect wrought by raid achievements.

Achievements as a whole are great for World of Warcraft; they ask you to look at the game a bit differently, to create challenges for yourself, and to get involved with zones and stories that you might otherwise ignore. Unfortunately, they can also spur players and guilds to approach raid content in a way that's not necessarily fulfilling for all concerned.

Since Wrath of the Lich King, I've slowly gotten the sense that raiding as a whole is much less rewarding than it used to be, and this is a sentiment that's been echoed by a number of other players. Unfortunately, achievements -- originally intended to add another means of accomplishment to raids -- may well be among the causes.

EDIT: This article resulted in a lot of discussion, and the subject was revisited two weeks later. You'll find it here, at OverAchiever: Reconsidering achievements and raids.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen is busy looking in the mirror instead of playing a proper spec. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com, produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

In previous weeks, Spiritual Guidance has tackled how to heal the various raid encounters in tier 11. This week, we're going to revisit each boss on heroic difficulty. Once more, I'll be examining which spec is better equipped to handle the fight while also examining the differences in the new encounter and how to deal with them. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started.

First, I want to point out that a major difference between any heroic and normal mode encounter is that abilities in heroic do an increased amount of damage. In order to avoid being redundant, please keep in mind that when I point out the differences between modes that the need for more healing will be assumed. If the increased damage significantly impacts the strategy of the fight, however, I will explain how.

The Throne of Four Winds is a bite-sized raid with only two real fights. Despite its low number of bosses, the Throne of Four Winds can be very challenging to raid groups. This is because the mechanics of each fight require a lot of coordination and precise maneuvering.

In the first encounter, the Conclave of Wind, you must split your raid into three parts. There are three bosses on three different platforms. Your team must be able to move across the platforms in a coordinated way and react to what the bosses are doing. Movement of this kind can be very disorienting for a raid, so folks who aren't comfortable with the dance steps could have some trouble.

The second encounter is against Al'Akir. It's a three-phase fight and ends in three-dimensional space. Interestingly, Al'Akir combines the "fire wall" mechanic from Sartharion as well as the "fly around" mechanic from Malygos. Again, if you had trouble with those fights, you'll probably be challenged here also. That being said, Al'Akir is a pretty fun and engaging encounter.

• WoW Insider's Guide to Conclave of Wind
• WoW Insider's Guide to Al'Akir

---

Ready Check shares all the strategies and inside information you need to take your raiding to the next level. Be sure to look up our strategy guides to Cataclysm's 5-man instances, and for more healer-centric advice, visit Raid Rx.

---