Who’s Healing Valithria?

I’m all about putting the right person in the right spot to do the right thing.  When I had initially heard about Valithria and that it was a healing fight I was absolutely a flutter.  I was downright gleeful.  Then we got to it on 10man and I realized that maybe I wasn’t cut out for the job.  The biggest reason that I personally can’t do it is that I’m a huge micromanager.  Having to focus on one thing isn’t something I do well so I passed the job up to two other great healers Kahnti and Conifer.  They rocked the joint out and setup the stage for our 25man.

In 25man we had a variety of healers, a paladin, a shaman, a druid, and a priest (initially) healing Valithria.  It quickly became clear that not all healers were created equal.

(Disclaimer: This is a VERY limited pool of test subjects (ie. my raid) but just giving my opinions and observations on healing this fight.)

Sindra-boring-as-fuck-gosa

Ever put kittens in a bag and drop ‘em into a river?

Why not?

You probably haven’t gotten to Sindragosa yet.

Let me explain.  The frost wing started out phenomenally.  You have a mini event that gets you a frost badge and then you get to do the Valithria boss (which for some reason I’m HORRIBLE at).  You clear some more trash and then you get to Sindragosa.  You may or may not watch a video on how to do the fight (if you do I suggest this one).  You realize the fight looks somewhat complicated but doable.

You start your first attempt and wonder… why did they say to use 3 healers again?  Who cares… oh I got sucked into her cavernous chest… run run run… woot I’m alive!  Heal tank… check.  Heal raid… check.

Ice blocks?  Oh yea, hide behind them.

1…

2…

3…

4… frost bolts.  Okay now we break them out and back to p1.

(elapse time it takes to ride a hot air balloon to the moon)

35%!  That means p3.  /loosen up

Dodge iceblock, duck behind ice block… oops not my turn yet, tank low, heal, heal, HEAL!  raid needs heal, uhoh I’m at 17 stacks of unchained magic healer (cuz its ALWAYS ON A HEALER!) and 4 stacks of mystic lunch so I can’t heal for 8 seconds and now I’m dying to a constant AE (now I understand why there is 3 healers).

Roughly the time it takes for heroism to fade you wipe, actually I’m not even sure if we did live 45 seconds.

That’s how p3 is… quite frantic.  I’m not bitching about p3 though.  I like p3… its where the fun lives.  My problem is the first 65% of the fight where you do fuck all.  The fight basically doesn’t even start until 35% and that ends so quickly you are wondering if the hooker took off with your wallet.  We were taking AFK pee breaks and I took some time to order a pizza (srsly… I did… cuz I was chained for almost an entire attempt).

I should probably tie in the kittens now huh before you call PETA on me.  The frost wing started out fantastic, tons of fun and then you get to Sindragosa and her first half is painful… painful like watching kittens drown.  See, I tied it in.

She should just start at 50% so that you get to experience that p1 and p2 which aren’t bad and quickly progress to the difficult part of the fight.  I just expected so much more after Valithria and it’s a serious let down.

On another note any priests that have been doing Valithria?  I did lose my stacks a few times on 25man which accounted for some very bad attempts from me but even on the good attempts I wasn’t pushing anywhere near the pally / shaman / druids that were going inside.  I tried a variety of healing but I’m not sure if flash x3 then g.heal is greater than just spamming flash (especially since I have 2p t10).

Valithria & Stuff

When your desire to play WoW begins to decline… so does your ideas on things to write about.  I’ve sat down several times and just stared at a blank screen… but you aren’t here to read about my QQs.  On to the new raid content!

Crimson Halls Review

Tuesday night Zordon sent us to ICC10 for the new Crimson Halls.  We headed for the Crimson Halls first, wanting to take a peek at it…

Trash: D+ (boring, the + is for lich slap)
Mostly a letdown, just gather it up and AE it.  The lich is kind of funny though because he casts an ability called lich slap… lich plz!  hahaha… love that.

It can be shield reflected though, then you get to yell out, “Stop hittin’ urself!”

The commander’s put a bleed debuff on whoever is tanking them that stacks to 3 and was doing 10k dmg a tick.  Pretty nasty, especially if he gets stunned with a bunch of mobs on him.

Blood Princes: A- (hella fun!)
REALLY fun fight, completely mechanic driven and has people doing all sorts of shit!  You have 3 mobs that share an HP pool but only one of them can be dealt actual dmg (that counts towards their HP) at any given time.  When they are the mob with the HP they become ‘empowered’ and hit like a mach truck carrying photon torpedos.  There’s a whirling thing that knocks peeps back, a giant fireball that you have to semi kite, some black clouds that pew pew and buff you and some bombs falling from the sky.

Its like droppin’ a rabbit into a pit of lions fun.  Mainly because of the vortex that gets created and knocks peeps around (the bombs that fall to the ground can do it to).

Queen Lana’thel: B (a mix tape of boss abilities)
First of all… does anyone realize what lana spelled backwards is?  Just thought I’d point that out so you adults can nix your kids from playing such a perverse game.  Someone should start an online petition to make it more ‘kid friendly’.

Its Festergut with a twist.  She has like double his HP but she initially bites someone which increases their DPS by 100% and after 50 seconds they have to satisfy their craving for blood by biting someone else.  If they don’t then they become MC’d and you gotta kill ‘em.  As you can imagine… that’s bad.

In the meantime you will get other debuffs like Mother Shahraz’s Fatal Attraction (only the opposite of it cuz they have to run together instead of apart).  You’ll also get a wonderful continual AE going on like the two trash mobs before Lady Deathwhisper.  Next on the menu for abilities is Lord Jaraxxus’ flame poop ability (but this one is a pretty purple and lasts twice as long).  She will debuff the person closest to her other than the MT and hit them for the same dmg that she is hitting the MT (but its shadow instead of physical).  Overall though its very easily managed stuff…

Until she decides to go vampire bat-form so she can hop into the sky, spinning around and spraying fecal matter like some rabid monkey that’s been hittin’ the pipe too hard.  She hits people with some bolt that explodes, doing damage to them and people nearby which quickly adds up and toasts the raid if you aren’t spread out enough.  This is going to be stupid painful on 25man, not looking forward to it.

If you live through that you get a chance to go back to p1 and start it all over again.

Seems fun though!  We’re going back in this coming Monday to try and take her down.  11 attempts left so I think we have a good shot of getting her down.

Overview: B
The trash in this wing is just that, trash with no interesting abilities or real thought put into them.  They hit hard and can easily wipe you if you just fuck around but not ‘interesting’ (not counting lich slap).  The Blood Princes are a great pick me up and tons of fun.  The Queen is a nice entree with a variety of spices that make you ask, “please daddy, can I have some more?”

How To: Putricide Video(s)

Remember yesterday when I was whining about Putricide being difficult?  Yea, me neither.  But if someone were say whining about Putricide being difficult they could check below for an amazing video that spells it out pretty clearly on WTF is going on.  Also, a quote from Blizzgods…

Just as a point of clarification. The Professor Putricide encounter is working as intended. You are only allowed one abomination up at any given time in both 10 player and 25 player modes.

[...] We are attempting to reproduce the spawning of multiple aboms. It’s definitely not intended and will be hotfixed.

[...] Wing end bosses will all be extremely difficult and should feel like a step above everything else – even in non-heroic difficulty (10/25 person). They will, of course, reward appropriately for the rise in difficulty, granting tier 10 armor tokens (25 player/10 player heroic only).

If anything the 10 man version might be slightly overtuned. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the fight and watching player feedback/stats.

Apparently in 25man you only get one Abom which I didn’t know about and people were reporting that as a bug (since you only get 1 in 10man as well).  Blizzard says it isn’t and I REALLY hope they stick to their guns on the difficulty level of Putricide.  I’m a pessimist though and I’m pretty sure they’ll cave in the next 2 weeks but here’s to hope!