Siege the front!

With spirits still high from defeating Heroic Malygos (25-man), the guid decided to take on Ulduar. A short break was announced for everyone to repair, restack reagents and turn in the quest from Malygos (for those who had the quest). I was one of the lucky few who won the loot [Heroic Key to the Focusing Iris] from Sapphiron. I flew over to Wyrmrest Temple and got my shiny [Nexus War Campion Beads] :D.

Once inside Ulduar, vehicle assignments were given and vehicle abilities familiarized. Most of the raid already new the fight from the 10-man version so the explanations did not take that long. Everyone equipped their highest ilvl gears then hopped on to their respective vehicles. I drove one of the Salvaged Siege Engines.

A readycheck was made... Then it was time to siege the front...


Down the first plank we rode (I was careful not to use Steam Rush on this plank. I already fell one too many times in the 10-man version because of this bug >.<) as choppers zoomed by leaving behind some tar to slow down the approaching enemy dwarves. Demolishers lit up these tars while Siege Engines rammed down dwarf towers. With the whole area cleared and Towers destroyed, we regrouped before Flame Leviathan (Levi). This fight is all about avoiding damage by kiting the boss around the room and interrupting his channeled AOE spell (Flame Vents). We started with the Siege engines and Demolishers spread apart. While Levi is chasing one vehicle, the other Siege engines should stay close to him for Flame Vent interrupts and some dps through Rams. Five seconds before he starts to change targets (DBM announces this), all vehicles close to him should start running away. If you are being chased, immediately hit Steam Rush (if you are Siege) or Inreased Speed (when he starts catching up) if you are the passenger of a Salvaged Demolisher. Levi has a Gathering Speed buff which slowly increases his movement speed for 5% per stack up to 20 stacks. Our strategy was to launch 4 Demolisher passengers into Levi once the stacks reach 10. These passengers are responsible for destroying the turrets found on top of Levi. Once these turrets are destroyed, Levi gets stunned and takes a lot more damage. This should be the time when Demolishers go all out and hurl their Pyrite Barrels. Choppers should also be dropping tars below Levi were it gets ignited by Demolishers for more damage. After he gets out of the stun, just rinse and repeat.

We got him on our third try. On our first two tries, our Demolishers got beaten up. Bad timing I guess, Levi targeted them just after they launched their passengers. With no one to use Increased Speed, they didn't last long :(.


The raid cheered as the last of Flame Leviathan's body parts crumbled to the ground. After the dust had settled I knelt to inspect the loot. There on the ground lay the most beautiful sword I have ever seen in my entire tanking life. And I said that based on its stats, not physical appearance (this sword looked much like a giant toothpick :P). Without wasting any second I grabbed the [Titanguard] (for about 300+ GP >.<). I was lucky that I had the highest EPGP ratio, lucky that Kel didn't drop the [Last Laugh] in our Naxx25 run about an hour ago :).

"UNTHINKABLE! The mortals will destroy..."

Sunday night, a night full of win.

It started with the raid finishing off Kel Thuzad in heroic mode Naxxramas (We failed to defeat him the night before due to a mix of bad luck and people falling asleep on their keyboards :P). Sadly, [Last Laugh] didn't drop (I was hoarding EP points for this weapon) which turned up to be a blessing in disguise (will be explained in the next article). While everyone was still fresh, we proceeded to the Eye of Eternity for a round 2 battle against the Aspect of the Blue Dragonflight (Malygos).

"None but the blue dragonflight are welcome here! Perhaps this is the work of Alexstrasza? Well then, she has sent you to your deaths. "

With the taste of victory still fresh from Malygos' mouth, he proudly flies above us as we were buffing ourselves up preparing for battle. After a quick readycheck, we engaged...

Phase 1 proceeded normally, sparks stacked, Malygos kited, salving rogue, salving anyone on second threat list (except offtank), me popping bubble wall when life was threateningly low, etc... Phase 2 was quite shaky, dps went all out while tank was positioning inside a bubble, aggro lost, me popping wings, rogue down, druid b'rezzes rogue, me casting Bubble then Divine Sacrifice, me tanking the floor (forgot that I just popped my wings within the last 30secs, booo) , druid b'rezzes me (druids are OP), adds went down, raid stacking on me outside the inner circle, platform breaks, phase 2 ends.

Phase 3 was a disaster, the first two attempts failed pretty badly. Everyone was flying everywhere, like overly excited flies hovering over an overturned trash bin. Static fields were scattered and heals were out of range... We regrouped and reviewed what happened. To minimize the chaos, our raid leader told us not to move after stacking together outside the inner circle since the mounts will automatically fly to Malygos' eye level. So this we did and the result was great, heals were within range and static fields were easily avoided. We encircled Malygos in a counterclockwise direction, the raid moved as one. Fire debuffs stacked as high as 16, the poor dragon had no chance.

"UNTHINKABLE! The mortals will destroy..."


The raid erupted to cheers as Malygos went down. Vent was full of wooot's and weeee's. We lost only one member during the fight, it was epic.

"Alexstrasza! Another of your brood falls! "

Last night we (the guild) had our first glance of Malygos in 25-man mode Eye of Eternity. We weren't able to kill him but managed to bring him down to around 700k life. This is quite good for a first time though. There are still a lot of things we need to learn from this fight especially in phase 3.

I was assigned to main-tank the fight so I slapped on my semi-stam gear (only changed one of my trinkets [Essence of Gossamer] so that I can still maintain a high aggro during phase 1) which put my health at around 38.5k raid-buffed. This is more than enough since I trust my healers to keep me alive during the encounter :P (we have strong cadre of healers :D).

Phase 1:
While someone clicked the orb I fired up Sacred Shield, Divine Plea (glyphed), Holy Shield, popped my wings then threw my frisbee to Malygos. I changed my spell rotation a bit for maximum threat generation while always running around positioning Malygos. I skipped using Holy Shield once in a while since his melee swings are slow making the threat generated from it quite insignificant (like I said, I trust my healers :P) and instead I used Shield of Righteousness every time I could. Exorcism is also quite handy for threat generation now that it can hit non-undead creatures. Phase 1 was similar to the 10-man version, Power Sparks spawn at same intervals and Vortex duration was still the same. Their only difference would be an increase in damage dealt and Malygos now does his Arcane Breath ability right after a Vortex (I didn't notice this during the fight, maybe I was too busy trying to determine the location of the sparks). Two veteran Death Knights were assigned for spark positioning, gripping them to the center to stack the buffs. For additional threat, I sneak in a shield slam when he starts to cast vortex while standing on top of the stacked sparks.

Phase 2:
At 50% of Malygos' life, he starts to fly away and summon adds. During this phase, we had another tank help in holding the Nexus Lords while the rest burned down the marked adds. When one of the adds die they drop their hover disk. Our highest melee DPS then rides the disk to engage the flying Scions of Eternity. One by one raid members (melee) climbed over the fallen disks and attacked the Scions. After killing all the adds on the ground (Nexus Lords) I threw out some raid heals and fired Exorcism/Avenger's Shield to the nearest Scion. I managed to ride on a hover disk (all melee DPS are already on a disk) and even got the achievement Heroic: Denyin' the Scion :D.



Phase 3:
After all the adds are killed, Malygos destroys the platform where the raid is standing on. Everyone falls down... fortunately the Red Dragonflight arrives and catches everyone on the raid. Each member now controls a dragon (drake) mount and phase 3 starts. Some drakes (may be 3 or 4) were assigned for healing while the rest were DPS.

The drake has the following *abilities:

1. Flame Spike - 10 energy (adds one combo point, costs )
2. Engulf in Flames - 50 energy (consumes combo points)
3. Revivify - 10 energy (builds combo points)
4. Life Burst - 50 energy (consumes combo points)
5. Flame shield - 25 energy (requires combo points on your target; consumes them)
6. Sprint (30 second cooldown)

* from stratfu

DPS drakes will be doing a 1-1-2 spell rotation while healers will target themselves and do a 3-3-3-3-3-4 rotation. During this phase, Malygos has an ability Surge of Power which targets 3 random players and deals a large amount of damage every 0.5 seconds for 5 seconds. The targeted drake should then use his shield (spell 5) to minimize the damage taken. This is usually the part where most members die. Either they weren't able to accumulate enough combopoints / energy to cast the spell or they just didn't notice it. We always reach Malygos' enrage phase, the Engulf in Flames stack just wasn't high enough. They completely fall off when using the shield, especially when Malygos targets a member more than twice in a row.

I learned a few things during this fight and hopefully will be put to good use during the next encounter.

1. For phase2, it is much faster if the ranged DPS focus on the flying Scions right from the start while the melee DPS handle those on the ground. If no Scion is within range, ranged DPS can then help killing the ground adds.
2. For phase 3, DPS spell rotation should be 1, 1, 1, 2 or even 1, 1, 1, 1, 2. The debuff time for Engulf in Flames is dependent on the number of combopoints used up. The more 1's you use, the more combopoints is generated and thus the debuff will not fall off so fast giving you enough time to use your shield (when being focused with Surge of Power) and not worry about your debuff on Malygos falling off.

Even though we failed to kill Malygos, I am still quite happy about the progress we have made so far. I did not even expect we were going to reach phase 3. The guild has become stronger as members continually get gear upgrades from our Naxx25 runs. I am however quite annoyed that until today, these words still keep echoing inside my mind... "Alexstrasza! Another of your brood falls! "...

Kel ' zu"Thud"

Giant turtles, giant trees and rampaging hunters and rogues. That was the scene we witnessed as we (me with fellow guildies and a pug) engaged Kel'Thuzad (one of the principal agents of the Lich King) in one of the most exciting battles that have ever been fought within the walls of Naxxramas.

The fight started with us bunching up together in the middle of Kel's room, surrounded by hundreds of scourge, trying to fend them off as much as we could. Waves and waves of skeletons, banshees and abominations march their way towards us as Kel stood by his throne waiting for the perfect time to strike.

The scourge ranks slowly thinned, slaughtered by deadly spells and strikes. Then, Kel'Thuzad struck...

A fellow Paladin engaged Kel at the center of the room as the rest of the raid settled to their respective positions trying to find the perfect spot to cast their spells or assist others through healing. I found a good spot at the lower left part of the room far enough for my ranged spells to hit Kel (not that the damage I did mattered anyway >.>) and far enough to be at a safe distance form other raid members. Realizing the ineffectivity of my damage (loldps is lol), I switched to my healing spells and threw a couple of heals here and there.

When Kel realized he was losing, he called upon the Lich King to send for help.

Kel'Thuzad: Master! I require aid!
The Lich King: Very well... warriors of the frozen wastes, rise up! I command you to fight, kill, and die for your master. Let none survive...

Four Nerubian Crypt Lords joined the battle and started attacking our healers. I grabbed the first two while the other tanks grabbed the remaining two. The two gigantic Crypt Lords blocked most of my field of vision, all I could see now is the blue chitin armor on the underbelly of the Crypt Lord and the ground below me. My life waxed and waned, lifesaving cooldowns were used and trinkets popped to avoid getting clobbered by these gigantic abominations. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours as my body screamed in pain trying to dodge the Crypt Lord's powerful attacks.

Then everything just faded... Blood... Sweet, tasty blood... I hungered for blood...









I regained consciousness in the middle of Kel's room, bodies of fallen comrades littered the floor. There at my side lay the body of Kel'Thuzad. One comrade asked me if I was ok, then I remembered what happened. Memories started gushing in, memories of me striking down my comrades, memories of how the remaining raid members valiantly stood their ground while I was controlled by Kel, how they continued attacking Kel while the Crypt Lords decimated our ranks, memories of Kel falling to the floor, memories of Crypt Lords scampering away from battle after seeing their master fall down...

We did it! We killed Kel'Thuzad! The group erupted into cheers as healing and resurrection spells where cast all around the room.