Did I mention how much I hate the soccer championship? Last raid exactly 10 people online and every living body had to go healer offspec to have 2 tanks and 3 healers. We cleared the trash, including the "commander + 2 melee + 2 caster" pack without any serious problems. Then we wiped on the 2 dragon trash because those are easy, no need to plan, let's just zerg.
Then came General Zarithrian. We tried the normal strategy: switch to adds, back to boss. The adds came faster than we killed them. Let's deathgrip the adds and AoE them (had 3 DKs). Some just stopped before AoE range, wipe, wipe, wipe. Let's zerg the boss, outheal the adds. Wipe, wipe. And I don't mean the "we are progressing and learning every time" wipe. They were those hopeless 80%+ wipes like the "GS pugs vs BQL". General Zarithrian seemed totally impossible, at least without enough rogues to constantly disarm him.
When you raid a hard mode, you can be sure it's killable, you just have more to learn or some M&S to kick. When you raid in blues, you can just bang your head to the wall without hope since the boss is mathematically impossible likeGormok, Anub'arak, Marrowgar, Saurfang, Festergut, Sindragosa and the Lich King. 11 wipes without getting below 80% and one at 60% with extreme luck (no add ran out of AoE range until 60%).
Then someone came up with the idea to tank the boss at the entrance, where one of the adds spawn. So that add will walk into the AoE, just one left to grab. We also switched tanking-healing as druid HoTs are ticking during the fear. The next try:
We spent the rest of the time practicing on Halion, mostly with 9 man. Due to our no-life farming of Halion with at least 10 "mains" many people shown obvious lack of routine with the beam in the twilight realm (and with the "run away with debuff"). As soon as we learn this mechanic, Halion will be down.
The PuG update: Damn soccer hit us too, but we found a way to raid without enough people: The dedicated few, and numerous other achievements. But of course the point was not the flashing window, but to visit a piece of forgotten content.
Then came General Zarithrian. We tried the normal strategy: switch to adds, back to boss. The adds came faster than we killed them. Let's deathgrip the adds and AoE them (had 3 DKs). Some just stopped before AoE range, wipe, wipe, wipe. Let's zerg the boss, outheal the adds. Wipe, wipe. And I don't mean the "we are progressing and learning every time" wipe. They were those hopeless 80%+ wipes like the "GS pugs vs BQL". General Zarithrian seemed totally impossible, at least without enough rogues to constantly disarm him.
When you raid a hard mode, you can be sure it's killable, you just have more to learn or some M&S to kick. When you raid in blues, you can just bang your head to the wall without hope since the boss is mathematically impossible like
Then someone came up with the idea to tank the boss at the entrance, where one of the adds spawn. So that add will walk into the AoE, just one left to grab. We also switched tanking-healing as druid HoTs are ticking during the fear. The next try:
We spent the rest of the time practicing on Halion, mostly with 9 man. Due to our no-life farming of Halion with at least 10 "mains" many people shown obvious lack of routine with the beam in the twilight realm (and with the "run away with debuff"). As soon as we learn this mechanic, Halion will be down.
The PuG update: Damn soccer hit us too, but we found a way to raid without enough people: The dedicated few, and numerous other achievements. But of course the point was not the flashing window, but to visit a piece of forgotten content.
It's good to see use of the actual strategy involving party cleaves. It annoys me to no end when a raid leader informs that everyone must switch to adds, driving the ferals/afflictions/retadins quite insane. Taking advantage if incidental AoE is definitely an under-used strategy.
ReplyDeleteI will be curious to see what strategy you guys have planned for Halion in the twilight realm, I likened healing that to trying to throw water balloons correctly on a tilt-o-whirl while five people are throwing them at you.
Get the shadow tanking right and you're sorted. We got him down on Friday (would have been a one shot but I mis-judged the cutter position and got nuked).
ReplyDeleteOur shadow realm strat, all stack on his right, the tank spins him in position ahead of the cutter position, this keeps the dps / healers away from his tail which was causing grief.
It's heavy on the concentration to tank down there but a damm good challenge.
@Fizzle.
ReplyDeleteThere's no enrage timer. As long as there's at least one DPS up top and one down below, it'll go swimmingly. You could even go with a tank, a DPS and a healer up top, and then a tank, 2 DPS and 4 healers in the twilight realm if you needed to!
You neglected to mention how OP Druid healers and Paladin tanks are.
ReplyDeleteWe were still having issues with the "tank at the door" strat, but when we switched the bear to tree and the Solaire to tank, we nailed him without so much as an itch. I am one to think that druid healing saved the day there.
About Halion, check Tankspot's guide to the encounter. The positioning on p2 is very useful. Even if we don't do the "stand still strat" being able to rotate him with the cutter always to the right of the tank makes for very predictable positioning.
Still haven't killed him on my main realm.
@ Frederick
ReplyDeleteThere acutaly is enrage timer, my raid learnt it the hard way.
"We'll worry about the enrage timer when we die to it".
ReplyDeleteSo far we're dying from other stuff, so it's not an issue yet.
I'm just gonna say "Nay" on this one. I hope you down Halion, but I do not think undergeared will be able to before any buff/nerf to the instance.
ReplyDeleteYou're gonna bash your head on the wall alot on this one.
It may not be the championship. We can all see the game is in a lull, which means people may be looking for the excuse to find something new to do. Even people who aren't that into soccer could be going to spend time with their hexagon-headed friends, but I think they will find new ways to avoid logging on after the cooldown.
ReplyDeleteStunts can only draw attention for so long!
11 wipes before figuring out a winning strategy. Then according to ardoRic you were "still having issues" with that strategy and swapped a tank and a healer. So that's at least 12 wipes before you managed to kill General Zarithrian. I am again struck by the main difference between the people in undergeared and people in other (most?) guilds: perseverance. You guys are willing to keep going and keep trying new things until a boss finally goes down.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the reason for this is a difference in goals between undergeared and many other guilds. Your goal is to down a boss. There is no other objective because your gear has stayed static. Other guilds want to down bosses, but they also want the gear that drops. After each wipe everyone in a raid does their own cost/benefit analysis on whether or not they want to continue. After a certain amount of time most raids realize that whatever gear they might get is probably not worth the continued headache. They think that they can come in next week with better gear and get the boss then. But the people in undergeared know that they are never going to get more powerful than they are right now. I think that makes them more likely to stick around for longer which ultimately allows them to down bosses they otherwise wouldn't.
Halion and 1-boss instances are loot pinatas made for "teh cool pplz".
ReplyDeleteIts just that the gear difference is starting to really show (as they are prolly tuned for retards in ICC gear)
I have no doubt you'll down him pretty easily.
I'm starting to think that your Undergeared project starts to lose its reason for being. You started this thing to prove people that you dont need 5k GS for say a ToC10 pug (atleast I think, dont remmember). Clearing the old raids was not so much really, I'll not even comment on Naxx, ULD10 is basicly designed for ilvl200 gear plus it went through so many nerfs since the first 3 months of the instance. ToC was really a joke, easier than Ulduar, Ony10 was 3manned not long after "re-release".
ReplyDeleteThen ICC, I'm not gonna comment on the buff. You did very nice things there and I love using you as an exmaple when arguing out of boredom with random "LFM 4/12 ICC10 need 5.4k GS". But what did you really prove there for these normal people? That you can kill LDW with 12 wipes? Rotface with 10, Princes with 18, VDW with 14, Festergut with 18. Now you went to RS and have 30 wipes in total on just trash bosses. And it isnt lack of skill (I guess) that makes you wipe but lack of gear.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that your project is still somewhat interesting for readers of your blog but it has lost the original thing to prove. Yes, you might kill *boss* in blue gear but you will wipe many, many times. Isnt it better to really just do it with "appropriate gear" and only let the skill of people limit you?
PS: Halion10 has 8min berserk (seen it in HC after most DPSers slowly died but we tried to keep going) so you need smth like 23,500DPS times 480sec (8min) in normal. Most if not all people think that the boss doesnt have enrage, you dont hit it on normal with "appropriate gear and skill" but you might in HC when people die :>.
PPS: I really admire you perseverance. Doing this, literally bashing your head against the wall on those latest kills with no real reward (loot, mount, achi, smth...), that takes some guts :). GL in the future.
@ Anonymous
ReplyDelete12 wipes would not be a lot in progression raiding.
It took Paragon 170 attempts to down the Lich King for their world first heroic kill.
And they said afterwards that that many attempts showed that the content was at just the right level of difficulty.
The second guild to do it did it 16 days later.
"Our shadow realm strat, all stack on his right, the tank spins him in position ahead of the cutter position, this keeps the dps / healers away from his tail which was causing grief. "
ReplyDeleteIt's actually better to go just behind, so that if you lag a tiny bit, you don't get fried.
There is an enrage timer, ~8minutes, from what i've heard rumor wise. Only done it on HM, so i can't confirm. He also has an enrage ability on his table on wowhead.
That's it, I am creating an account on the EU realms!
ReplyDelete@Wayne
ReplyDeleteThis is the anonymous you replied to. I would argue that that is one of the main differences between a guild like Paragon and many of the guilds below them. I will admit that I only just started raiding in February and I haven't ever been in a guild that had that much dedication.
In fact the most positive raid experience I've had in this regard was just this past Friday with a guild I'd just joined. We wiped several times on Professor Putricide, but each time something substantial changed. We were learning, and learning wipes are a good thing. It's just been my experience that people get frustrated and quit after only a small number of wipes.
Interesting. Since it looks like there is indeed an enrage timer on Halion, contrary to the early reports, this fight becomes a lot stickier. 23.5k dps is nearly as much as what was needed to beat Festergut (with the 25% buff), but the conditions are much less optimal. Theoretically possible, but quite tricky.
ReplyDeleteWill be interesting to see what happens, now that the World Cup is no longer an issue.
@Adrius
ReplyDeleteIn a previous (and very well written post) it was stated that Undergeared was there to show the competent players who were stuck in "fun social guilds" who were spending most, if not all of their time running the same content over and over again to "boost" their inept guildies. All the gear in the world cannot save an idiot. Sure, it may slow down damage being dealt, or extend a mana pool, but relying solely on that to see you through, rather than mana management, avoiding all avoidable damage (so mana isn't wasted there in the first place) is something people just don't seem to be able to do. They'd rather sit there and rely on someone else to keep them alive, and unless you're a tank or have some nasty debuff that requires healing, you're being an idiot.
That's the kind of situation I'm in currently. Granted, with some new recruits we are actually progressing again finally, and a second team for ICC10 was set up that is more for "gearing up" the idjits.
Good job in Ruby Sanctum! If only I had the money for an EU account! Maybe for Cataclysm!
I don't remember Gevlon ever saying that his group could beat anything in one run.
ReplyDeleteThe sheer difficulty in completeing his monumental task in blues surely affords his group the privilage of wipes. His group can't stand in the fire and heal through overwhelming damage. Adopting different strategies to take down the boss is exactly his point.
If Gevlon goes no further with his group of outstanding players, he already has done what was said impossible.
Hats off.