Zuworty's Raid Information

[Orcala]

Oh my lord according to the web stats my dps was in the top 10 last night! (and above a hunter)

http://wowwebstats.com/ro6el5mg4eoeu

woohoo

Edited April 22, 2009 by Orcala

[Holyssa]

Also, if you zoom out, you can see the blue streaking of the fire before it hits the ground, and move out of the way before it hits (the red streaking fireballs are unavoidable, and do 9-12 k damage a hit).

Remember the ol' script used to help spot Void Reaver orbs? It may not be necessary for everyone, but if you have problems spotting the blue flames from high above, copy-pasta this script into your chat (or make a macro!).

/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMaxFactor", "3.4")

With this, you can zoom out and see nearly the entire field, easily giving you plenty of eye coordination when it comes to dodging the blue fireballs.

This will also help in other fights, like spotting Iron Council's X-Box sized Void Zones, or XT's adds.

[Holyssa]

Sorry for the double-post, but just to confirm peoples' concerns: Blizz is indeed already nerfing this place. I've highlighted the Ulduar boss stuff.

By Bornakk:

4/28/09

* Pure Saronite mining nodes have temporarily been disabled in Ulduar and will return in the future.

* The effectiveness of the Priest spell Divine Hymn has been reduced.

* The Priest ability Soul Warding now only reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield by 15% instead of 30%. The tooltip for this spell will be updated at a later date.

* Glyph of Mass dispel will now reduce the cost of the spell by only 35%.

* The Emalon encounter has received the following changes: The total health of the Tempest Minions has been reduced and Emalon’s Chain Lightning spell will now have a limit on the number of targets it can hit.

* The Ignis the Furnace Master encounter has received the following changes: The interrupt effect and duration of the damage from Flame Jets has been reduced, the damage from the Slag pot has been reduced, the number of Heat stacks needed to transform an Iron Construct into a Molten state has been reduced, the base melee damage done by Ignis has been reduced, and the damage bonus Ignis receives from Strength of the Creator has been slightly increased.

* The Assault Bots on the Mimiron encounter will now attack faster, in turn they will do less damage per hit.

* Spring Flowers will not cast or go on cooldown if the target already has the buff.

* The XT-002 Deconstructor encounter has received the following changes: The duration of Tympanic Trantrum has been reduced, the timer for XT-002 to hit berserk has been increased, the damage of Light Bomb has been reduced, the effect radius of Light Bomb has been reduced, and the health of XM-024 Pummeler has been reduced.

* The aggro radius for several trash mobs before General Vezax has been reduced and the health has been reduced on Void Beasts and Faceless Horrors.

* The Kologarn encounter has received the following changes: The damage of Stone Grip has been reduced, the amount of time to break someone out from the right hand has been increased, the radius and damage of Rumble has been reduced, and the damage of Focused Eyebeam has been reduced.

* The Assembly of Iron encounter has received the following changes: The damage of Rune of Death has been reduced, the damage of Chain Lightning has been reduced, and the damage of Lightning Whirl has been reduced.

[Orcala]

Um hello this is supposed to be hard since it's supposedly a step up from Naxx. They make this stuff too easy and we can't flaunt our goods!

[Waldonnis]

Um hello this is supposed to be hard since it's supposedly a step up from Naxx. They make this stuff too easy and we can't flaunt our goods!

Is it not challenging now? I mean, we've only seen four bosses and still can't get Razorscale down without some issues (we won't talk about hard modes too). I don't think the word "easy" fits Ulduar, even with the changes...

[Kailand]

Um hello this is supposed to be hard since it's supposedly a step up from Naxx. They make this stuff too easy and we can't flaunt our goods!

Is it not challenging now? I mean, we've only seen four bosses and still can't get Razorscale down without some issues (we won't talk about hard modes too). I don't think the word "easy" fits Ulduar, even with the changes...

I agree with Waldonnis, even 'nerfed' razorscale/XT/ignis are still more challenging then the T7 content. And from what I assume of blizzards design strategy is that it is to make the bosses get harder as you move further on into the instance, and they do not want to require a certain group makeup, and do not want it so that BiS gear is required. i.e. they're admitting that perhaps they overtuned those encounters slightly (note that in the PTR, guilds testing this stuff were pretty much wearing BiS gear, and were min/maxing to the teeth).

also think of it this way: without the nerf I'd imagine we would have to go back to naxx to farm more gear, and/or boot people who are not performing up to there potential, because lets face it, we are having trouble staying alive/DPSing as it is. With out the nerfs, we were barely making the DPS race that is razorscale, and not even coming close to the XT002 DPS race. Ignis from a DPS perspective is a slightly more dynamic patchwerk... so come thursday we will get a better idea of where we stand in terms of individual DPS (everybody should be above 3.5 k, with some of us nearing 6-7k DPS, minus those that will have special assignments) .

At this stage of raiding (only the second tier of the expansion), think T5 from BC (SSC/TK), not sunwell which is what the guys QQing on the forums are trying to compare it too.

[Holyssa]

More nerfs (although it's just Auriaya):

* Fixed an issue where Mimiron could randomly change targets while casting P3Wx2 Laser Barrage in phase 4. It is still possible for it to appear that he is turning quickly for an instant to shoot another direction, but this is just a visual bug that will be resolved in a future patch.

* The Auriaya encounter has received the following changes: the damage of Strength of the Pack has been increased, the duration of Terrifying Screech has been reduced, the damage of Sonic Screech has been reduced, and the damage from Seeping Feral Essence has been reduced.

[Karrock]

To the previous points, DPS and Survivability will increase as we get more familiar with the fights...moreso than with gear upgrades is my guess (for normal mode). We did very well last week considering it was the first time we have been seeing some of this content and it will get better.

In the same breath, please do not continue to take fireball after fireball (Razor fight) in the face before moving. Those are PROXIMITY attacks a.k.a if he targets you, move...if he hits you, move...which makes me think clumping up is a better strategy (to better disperse the attacks), but as long as she dies, its fine with me.

And do not underestimate the importance of the 10 man runs. Many of us are in 10 man Ulduar and the fights are very similar, if not exact. If you don't have a 10 man, you may want to to think about getting in one (time permitting of course). As far as gear, there are BIS items for me personally that I only get out of 10 man, not 25 man.

K

[Waldonnis]

In the same breath, please do not continue to take fireball after fireball (Razor fight) in the face before moving. Those are PROXIMITY attacks a.k.a if he targets you, move...if he hits you, move...which makes me think clumping up is a better strategy (to better disperse the attacks), but as long as she dies, its fine with me.

People will inevitably disperse or spread out more as the fight progresses, simply because people will move in different directions. I doubt clumping up will really do much other than increasing overall damage taken by the initial tick(s) of the AoE blue fire (more people getting hit). Razorscale only targets one person for the AoE and uses their location at the time as the target spot for the attack, meaning only one person could be proactive (and the rest would have to either react to the blue fire or react to the movement of the proactive person, who may even just be moving for other reasons). This could work well if a clump moved as a group, however. Frankly, "moving as a group" seemed to be challenging for most with Archimonde, so I doubt it'll suddenly be simple now.

And do not underestimate the importance of the 10 man runs. Many of us are in 10 man Ulduar and the fights are very similar, if not exact. If you don't have a 10 man, you may want to to think about getting in one (time permitting of course). As far as gear, there are BIS items for me personally that I only get out of 10 man, not 25 man.

I have mixed feelings about doubling up on the same instance. On one side, you bring up a good point - it does increase familiarity and comfort with the fights for those that do. Loot is an obvious side-benefit as well. There are some detractors for doing so, though, most notably that it reduces the "burned-out and bored" lifespan of many who do this. I saw this a lot in Naxx from the people that were raiding the place 4-5 nights per week and couldn't stop expressing their boredom before long.

Also, one thing that I've noticed lately is that there is a lot of important information that isn't communicated to those not in the 10-man Ulduar runs, and is almost "assumed to be already known" by those in them. I do a lot of research and preparation before fights, so I'm familiar with a lot of things, but I don't know the specifics of the strategy used in the 10-mans that seem to be taken for granted knowledge-wise when we face newer bosses. If you're going to double-up on Ulduar in hopes of gaining more familiarity with the fights, be sure to actually share what you learn instead of just assuming others already know what you do. Don't get frustrated when the rest of us don't learn it all as fast either...we don't have the extra practice time that you have had.

[Holyssa]

Lots of hotfixes for Ulduar. Green stuff is specifically for bosses. Most likely these are to help guilds access Hard Mode loot in preparation for the sea of Algalon tears.

* The NPCs just inside the front entrance of Ulduar (like a repair ogre) should no longer despawn.

* The Druid Tier 8 Nightsong Battlegear 4 piece bonus should now properly extend the length of Savage Roar.

* The Auriaya encounter has received the following changes: The range of Savage Pounce has been slightly reduced, the impact and periodic damage has been reduced in Heroic difficulty, the Guardian Swarm ability now summons 10 Swarming Guardians instead of 25 but their individual damage has been increased.

* The reflected damage done by Elder Stonebark with his Petrified Bark ability has been significantly reduced.

* In the Hodir encounter, the time to complete the hard mode has been increased to 3 minutes. (This will be applied during maintenance beginning with North America on Tuesday May 5.)

* The health of the Heart of the Deconstructor in the XT-002 Deconstructor encounter has been reduced.

* In the Thorim encounter, the Iron Ring Guard’s Whirling Trip ability will now only hit the tank.

* In the Assembly of Iron encounter, the duration of Overwhelming Power has been increased to 30 seconds in heroic mode and the amount of healing that Steelbreaker receives from Electrical Charge has been reduced to 20% of his max health.

* The first pack of trash mobs in the Conservatory of Life has been removed, one of the trash packs in the General Vezax room has been removed, all of the humanoids in General Vezax’s room are no longer immune to stuns, the Faceless Horrors will only go immune and summon Void Beasts once instead of 3 times, and the damage done when a Clockwork Sapper explodes has been significantly reduced.

And while not related to Ulduar, this was data-mined from the PTR and is a TCG item (along with an Ogre Pinata & Path of Cenarius):

*booming UT voice* GAWDLIKE!

[Orcala]

Top 3 dps for me yesterday woohoo!

Watch out I might take #1 when you aren't watching. /AFK

[Eigun]

Top 3 dps for me yesterday woohoo!

Watch out I might take #1 when you aren't watching. /AFK

Hrm. Boss fights says you're #4.

[Karrock]

As a reminder, I will not be in attendance tonight. Let's hope the cable co. actually shows up this weekend or next week could be sketchy...

K

[Holyssa]

Depending on how far we get tonight (and if the crazy cat lady Auraiya dies), we may be able to get a few shots in on the Watchers, the final few bosses who put a strong emphasis on staying out of bad crap.

Based on my own experiences, Hodir is probably the easiest of the four. I edited the revised strat for him in my Ulduar thread (less Engrish, easier to read), so glance over it when you have the free time

[Kailand]

Depending on how far we get tonight (and if the crazy cat lady Auraiya dies), we may be able to get a few shots in on the Watchers, the final few bosses who put a strong emphasis on staying out of bad crap.

Based on my own experiences, Hodir is probably the easiest of the four. I edited the revised strat for him in my Ulduar thread (less Engrish, easier to read), so glance over it when you have the free time

Hi,

Just wanted to let people know to bring your frost resist gear along for hodir... it makes the fight easier to learn as everyone will take less damage during the frozen blow phase. Also to avoid the flash freeze, the fires do not help.... you have to go into the snow piles, and the snow piles will spawn where there is a large blue spot on the ground (about twice as big as the normal blue spots where the snow comes down during the rest of the fight). you will want to move to beside the large blue spots, but not inside, until AFTER the snow has dropped from the sky, otherwise you will take damage and suffer a knockback. He will not spawn the 'safe' snow until after he does his emote and starts casting flash freeze.

After a flash freeze DPS should concentrate on freeing anybody caught in the flash freeze, including the NPCs.

Kailand

[Kailand]

Hi,

I have a few things to say about last night.

First, there was too much directed insults and 'hate'. We aren't raiding to insult people, we are raiding for fun. Making one person feel like crap isn't fun, especially for that one person on the recieving end. There IS a difference between poking fun/teasing people, and just trashing that person, if you do not know where that line is, just don't speak. If you have an issue with anybody's performance, bring it up with thier role lead or the raid leader. We will be wiping quite a bit in Ulduar, do not call out everyone that makes a minor mistake on a single attempt. People will lose focus. if enough people lose focus, or appear to lose focus, then it is time to call a 5 min break. if you think it's time for a break, whisper the raid leader. Ideally we will have 2-3 breaks during a raid period.

Secondly, overall last night was quite successful. We have lots to be proud of. Our DPS is up, individuals who's DPS were low, have improved significantly, and it shows quite well in that we are almost getting razorscale grounded after the second ground phase (1% off). Kologarn was slight improvement over the past 2 weeks.

Now for ignis. Overall, we were doing quite well according to the roles assigned, where we are faultering looks to be on strategy. Why strategy? Well there are a few reasons why: if one of our add team gets in the pot, people die, or the add team gets too far behind on adds, and the bosses buff stacks high enough that the healers are having issues. It is not the add teams fault for this, it's just the RNG getting to us, but we should be able to avoid this, perhaps by assigning Orcala/Eigun/Taidenewy to help out with the add team for controlling the adds in the event that one of the tanks get put into the pot. Also have a secondary shatterer to help out druze, especially if we start getting behind.

As for holyssa's deaths: some were caused by holyssa getting out of range. This shouldn't be an issue and may happen once and a while, and I believe we have corrected that by both having the healers try to stay closer to holyssa, and by having holyssa doing a tighter kite path. As for his incoming damage, I compared him to others tanking the boss in other guilds, as well as other classes. From my limited research it looks like there is really no difference between his incoming damage, and others, and it appears from the various logs that this fight benefits no particular tanking class. From the looks of it, holyssa can take 2 hits (avg of roughly 17k a hit) as well as some incidental fire damage (2-4k) before he is dead (assuming the boss has at most 2 stacks of the buff). as soon as the boss gets 3-4 stacks, holyssa will probably die in the same situation. What this means is holyssa (or whoever is the tank) needs to be topped off all the time. I'll leave it up to Uglutz to sort through on the best way to do that. Note that Iron council (namely steelbreaker) seems to give us similar issues as Ignis: the tank needs to be topped off at all times.

For kologarn, just an observation: We dropped like flies after the right arm was killed for the second time on each attempt. I haven't looked into the precise reason, but we need to avoid this.

I look forward to thursday, and hope the rest of you do too. We should have Zuworty back, so you don't have to put up with me as temp raid lead

[Holyssa]

Secondly, overall last night was quite successful. We have lots to be proud of. Our DPS is up, individuals who's DPS were low, have improved significantly, and it shows quite well in that we are almost getting razorscale grounded after the second ground phase (1% off). Kologarn was slight improvement over the past 2 weeks.

Amen to this. A boss we once bashed our brains over again & again (Razorfail) getting one-shot for the second week in a row (if I'm not mistaken) is very promising, same goes for XT-002

From the looks of it, holyssa can take 2 hits (avg of roughly 17k a hit) as well as some incidental fire damage (2-4k) before he is dead (assuming the boss has at most 2 stacks of the buff). as soon as the boss gets 3-4 stacks, holyssa will probably die in the same situation. What this means is holyssa (or whoever is the tank) needs to be topped off all the time.

After looking at WWS a bit (haven't looked at ALL the deaths yet), the biggest damage spikes hit around the 21-24k+ range per swing, a little over 1/2 my life. I'm assuming this is with just two or more buffs up from Constructs (one I can handle no problem). Coupled with Scorch ticking for 3-4k (can't help taking those first few ticks, since those are spent running for dear life), and I more than likely will not survive a 2nd melee swing without eating a cooldown or two.

Don't be afraid to bunch up directly behind Ignis: if you're a afraid of the Jets, it's a raid-wide silence you will have to eat up (which will rarely miss/resist), and his only other AoE is a frontal cone. This will also save me the trouble of having to pull Iggy into an awkward spot where DPS will need to constantly shift. I noticed some people ran directly in front of the boss! I know it's tough to escape from Construct aggro (if that's the case), but if all else fails, run to the middle so an offtank can catch you and you won't eat flaming death.

[Kadi]

First, there was too much directed insults and 'hate'. We aren't raiding to insult people, we are raiding for fun. Making one person feel like crap isn't fun, especially for that one person on the recieving end. There IS a difference between poking fun/teasing people, and just trashing that person, if you do not know where that line is, just don't speak.

I am probably guilty of enabling this, since I am the target of a lot of the 'hate', and very rarely ask it to stop (usually only when I'm in a really bad mood and I just can't take it for whatever reason). While I think that part of the 'fun' of the raid is to pick on each other a little bit, as long as its in good fun, I've felt that the last few weeks it has grown more hostile... and not just towards me necessarily, but to others as well. I've been frustrated some nights, and last night was definitely one of them. Every time Holy died when I was healing him, that frustration only grew. I think that, in general, a lot of us were just a little off our game last night, and it just compounded that frustration for everyone. For Thursday, hopefully we can just take a deep breath, focus (I need to do this too) and go back out there to kick ass and have fun doing it.

Secondly, overall last night was quite successful. We have lots to be proud of.

I think we have lots to be proud of in general. Yes, there are guilds that are way ahead of us in progression, but they also raid 3-4 nights per week or more for their 25-mans. As long as we keep moving forward, we'll catch up to them eventually, and they'll be bored way before we are.

I look forward to thursday, and hope the rest of you do too. We should have Zuworty back, so you don't have to put up with me as temp raid lead

Nah, you did fine. But I do look forward to having The Pink One back with us as well!

[Orcala]

First, there was too much directed insults and 'hate'. We aren't raiding to insult people, we are raiding for fun. Making one person feel like crap isn't fun, especially for that one person on the recieving end. There IS a difference between poking fun/teasing people, and just trashing that person, if you do not know where that line is, just don't speak. If you have an issue with anybody's performance, bring it up with thier role lead or the raid leader.

Well tonight all hate can be directed towards me if you want. As long as i'm AFK i'm immune haha

[Karrock]

First, there was too much directed insults and 'hate'. We aren't raiding to insult people, we are raiding for fun. Making one person feel like crap isn't fun, especially for that one person on the recieving end. There IS a difference between poking fun/teasing people, and just trashing that person, if you do not know where that line is, just don't speak. If you have an issue with anybody's performance, bring it up with thier role lead or the raid leader.

Well tonight all hate can be directed towards me if you want. As long as i'm AFK i'm immune haha

The only person I know that takes a 30min afk in the middle of the run to sing happy birthday....must be difficult to remember all of those words...

As for the hate in the raid, I never thought I'd see the day when we had complaints of too much hate.

-I do not think any one person is singled out and berated intentionally

-Do not take the hate personally and consider the source. If you really think that any one person in the raid is better than another (on a personal level), you are wrong, and no one should dictate how you feel besides you.

-If people don't like you, they would ignore you. The fact that folks "hate" is just their way of "pulling hair"

-take the time to do better. allowing yourself to suck does not help you or the raid-so don't suck and pay attention. Allowing people to continually screw up is not the answer either. peer pressure works.

-if the raid was meant as a family get-together, then I think I may be in the wrong place. If I wanted to hang out in a stress-free environment, I would go sit around a table and RP. raiding is stressful-hate is a way to release stress and it works.

I personally like the hate and it is one of the things that bring me to the raid. I don't want to raid in a sterile environment, and frankly, would get bored. If you do not want to be hated, let everyone know and I am sure everyone will make a conscious effort not to.

K

[Martok]

First, there was too much directed insults and 'hate'. We aren't raiding to insult people, we are raiding for fun. Making one person feel like crap isn't fun, especially for that one person on the recieving end. There IS a difference between poking fun/teasing people, and just trashing that person, if you do not know where that line is, just don't speak. If you have an issue with anybody's performance, bring it up with thier role lead or the raid leader.

Well tonight all hate can be directed towards me if you want. As long as i'm AFK i'm immune haha

If you do not want to be hated, let everyone know and I am sure everyone will make a conscious effort not to.

K

Correct. Just let me know and I will only talk about you instead of to you in TS.

[Kadi]

First, there was too much directed insults and 'hate'. We aren't raiding to insult people, we are raiding for fun. Making one person feel like crap isn't fun, especially for that one person on the recieving end. There IS a difference between poking fun/teasing people, and just trashing that person, if you do not know where that line is, just don't speak. If you have an issue with anybody's performance, bring it up with thier role lead or the raid leader.

Well tonight all hate can be directed towards me if you want. As long as i'm AFK i'm immune haha

If you do not want to be hated, let everyone know and I am sure everyone will make a conscious effort not to.

K

Correct. Just let me know and I will only talk about you instead of to you in TS.

Don't taze, er, hate me, Bro!!

Yeah okay whatever.... hate away, I can take it! Just, be gentle, okay? *cough*yeahright *cough*

Edited May 14, 2009 by Kadi

[Eigun]

I would gladly take infinite hate + success over some hate + failure any day.

If the hate is perceived to be getting in the way of success, then shut up and do your job until we win. Then hate away as much as you like.

(yes, for you slow-witted monkeys, this post was intended to redirect hate towards me and away from the weak squishy ones)

[Waldonnis]

-take the time to do better. allowing yourself to suck does not help you or the raid-so don't suck and pay attention. Allowing people to continually screw up is not the answer either. peer pressure works.

-if the raid was meant as a family get-together, then I think I may be in the wrong place. If I wanted to hang out in a stress-free environment, I would go sit around a table and RP. raiding is stressful-hate is a way to release stress and it works.

If the above is true for most of the raid, then maybe I'm the one in the wrong raid. I'm fine with insults, but I expect people to actually pay attention during a fight and saving the jabs for afterwards so I can just tune out. As it stands now, nobody can communicate during the fights because half of the raid is busy droning on about who's "full of fail" or whatever. Ignis add tank in the pot? Can't talk because someone's making fun of someone else. Holyssa has too many debuffs and needs a taunt? Oops, sorry, getting stepped on by someone talking about how many times someone else died. I don't expect complete silence, but come on, have some sense. It's just wasting everyone's time and, frankly, is no different than sitting around RP'ing, except with repair bills.

At this point, I'm having a hard time even finding the energy to log in for this raid these days. It was fun back in SSC/TK because the goals were more important than the personal jabs. People worked together and saved the jokes for farm status or in between fights. Now, the jokes and jabs are more important than the raid, and it's more of a competition than anything else. I'm sorry, I raid to kill bosses and experience fights, not to sit around a 25-person knitting circle talking smack...but maybe that's just me.

[Holyssa]

Mini FYI: Orcala and I will not make this Thursday (5/21) since we'll be in town trying to get Anime Boston reservations finished up.