Monday 16 March 2009

AMOV Special: Naxxramas: The Arachnid Quarter


Sunday, March 15th - Aggro My Own Vegetable's first ever guild raid. Unable to do a full clear in one sitting, at the end of day 1 we called it a day at Grobbulus in the construct quarter. The Day 1 report is here. This evening we continue hopefully clearing the construct and military quarters before heading for the final two, including KT who is on my hit list!

Doing a full report of the whole run in one go would probably be a bit too much for me to do and you to read so I'll post a quarter at a time.

The check list


Going on a raid isn't quite as simple as just turning up, you need to get everything ready so I went through this check list:
  • Raid & Pet Food [Strangely YOU have to eat the pet food for the pet to get the bonus]
  • Buy 5600 arrows/bullets [28 Slot quiver/ammo pouch]
  • Unless you're gunning for a undying/immortal achievement, get the relevant flasks which persist through death.
  • Repair all your gear.
  • Make sure everything is enchanted/gemmed.
  • Check your hit rating [Being hit capped might not be possible for everyone]
  • Read boss tactics.
  • Sign into Vent [If available]
With all the above done, you'll already be better than 90% of PuG raids and ready to go. When buying bullets/arrows, if you're not an engineer or if you don't have one in your guild I would buy the cheaper arrows/bullets from a vendor and then a few stack from the AH of the highest damage arrows/bullets and swap them in for any boss' which need a little more punch. Remember, you can even change your ammo type in combat. For an example of the difference in price, a stack of 200 Terrorshaft arrows cost around 30 silver, while a stack of 200 Saronite Razorhead arrows on the AH cost about 8 gold! On average I would say a quarter of Naxx might use up 8 slots of ammo, so if you're just using the expensive ones, that's 64 gold per quarter!

Enter, Stranger(s).....



For the first time in the history of AMOV we not only had 10 level 80s online but we were going on a raid! The 10 split was as follows and only Wideeye, a Level 64 BM hunter, was left behind. Some say he was left to cook and wash up while the men went to battle.

Tanks
Asaron (MT) - Frost DK
Succi - Feral Druid

Healers
Heloko - Holy Paladin
Mynnx - Resto Druid
Cumulonimbus - Resto Shaman....or possibly a cloud

DPS
Valilor - MM Hunter, a.k.a ME!
Ultradeath - Blood DK (who also happens to have the same name as my pet, Dave)
Deepcreepy - Combat Rogue
Gloam - Ret Paladin & Mana Battery
Rosencrantz - Arcane Mage

A plague of locust



So off we went into Naxx, for some of us we'd been here before but for some it was their first time. We didn't get off to the smoothest of starts, as Raid Leader at the beginning we went in for someone to point out that I still had it on heroic, d'oh! For once it wasn't something I could blame my pet for. Once that was all done Heloko and I, both cooks over Lv400, thought we'd have a cook off. Heloko put down a great feast, a good solid entry. I went one better, I put down a great feast and then cast a ring of light on it! I thought that was enough but then someone helped out heloko and did the same, it was a draw...Bar humbug!

Once we were all buffed we went into Naxx. Killing all trash on sight we were an unstoppable machine, all fell before us. Would we roll on straight through the first boss?

Anub'Rekhan was first up. Looking like some freaking beetle, this Nerubian Crypt-Lord would be our first challenge. There's 2 tactics to use on the boss here, both involve the ranged DPS and healers to stand near the middle of the room but where they differ is how to tank the boss. Option 1 is to kite him around the room when he casts his locust swarm while Option 2 is to heal the tank through it. The OT picks up the adds and everyone kills/AoEs them down before going back to the boss. We went for option 2.

Not much to report here other than it was a cakewalk, Anub'Rekhan was dead after 4 mins 28 seconds with no player deaths. The report is here: WWS Anub'Rekhan.

As far as my performance was here - it was ok. With lots of adds to switch between it makes an impact on my DPS. For Boss fights, single targets are much better for my DPS as AoE (Volley) is mana inefficient so I'll do better on single targets. This isn't the cast on trash, where Volley is king as my Rapid Recuperation will proc and keep my mana up.

Drops? Well if you saw my previous post you'll know that there wasn't anything I'd need on in this quarter so nothing useful here...



Not so grand



Without much bother we were at the next boss, Grand Widow Faerlina. This boss has 4 worshippers in Naxx10 and 3 abilities to look out for. One is a poison DoT she casts at the closest 3 players, an AoE called Rein of Fire and most importantly Frenzy. The Dot is disspellable, the AoE needs to be stepped out of and Frenzy can be stopped by killing a worshipper, so the tactic here is to tank and spank the boss until she frenzies, then kill 1 worshipper and go back to the boss. Easy. And it was, after 3 mins 13, no player deaths, boss #2 was down. WWS Grand Widow Faerlina.

A better performance for everyone's DPS here as while we had to hit a few extra mobs, they died very quickly so we were nuking the boss 99% of the time.



Sorry, no Rogues



The last boss in the arachnid quarter is said to Feign Death and give out loot but after 2 easy boss kills, fighting Maexxna didn't go so smoothly....

After clearing out the rest of the trash, we climbed up the webbed ladder and entered Maexxna's lair. Looking like a a Myst Spinner from Bloodmyst Isle, I offered for everyone to stay where it's safe and I'll go in and tame it....the offer was rejected! Maexxna's abilities are to spawn little spider mobs which need to be AoE'd down and off tanked (or at least kept off the healers), poison, web wrap (which freezes everyone for 2 secs every 40), enrage @ 30% health and cocooon, which randomly wraps one player in web from which they will need to be freed - a bit like the spiders in AN. Our tactic was to tank the boss, everyone else DPS and Rosencrantz and I take care of opening any cocoons.

*Ready Check Confirmed*
"Everybody in?"
"Yes" x10
*Asaron engages boss*
"WTF?" x 3



Yup, 3 DPS were locked out of the Boss fight as they weren't in properly, lol. Here's the stats for that attempt. Without 3/5 of our DPS missing we didn't have the fire power to kill off the boss very efficiently and after 8 mins 25 seconds we wiped after the boss enraged. I hope it was a fun 8 mins to watch from the sidelines guys!

After running back in (None of the 3; Deepcreepy, Ultradeath or Rosencrantz could res) and rebuffing we were ready to take down this big spider.

*Ready Check Confirmed*
"Everybody in this time??"
"Yes" x10
*Asaron engaged boss*
"WTF?!?!" x1

LOL, Deepcreepy didn't make it again - looks like Maexxna, like most people, don't like Rogues. Pretty strict door policy really! With only 1 DPS missing this time the attempt was a lot more successful and in exactly half of the time we wiped in, we killed the boss (4 mins 12 secs). WWS Maexxna attempt 2.



With 3 boss' down we bugged out of there (Get it? Bugged! LOL) and headed to the next quarter where we heard someone called Heigan was having a Disco!



TO BE CONTINUED......

5 comments:

  1. *Blog Edited*

    I corrected the spec of Asaron from undead to frost (dur!) and also which option we went for on Anub'Rekhan.

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