Achieving great things in the kingdom of the spiderfolk

This past weekend my buds and I did an achievement-o-thon in Azjol-Nerub and the Old Kingdom. We managed to bang out every achievement those two instances had to offer except for two–one being Party’s Over, which we already had, and Volazj’s Demise, which we tried a few times but couldn’t nail down. I’m going to share the strategies we used so you can pick up these achievements too.

Watch Him Die

Group makeup: Paladin tank, Druid healer, Hunter dps, Mage dps, Warrior dps.

This achievement we actually came back and finished up on Sunday, because we couldn’t hammer it down after multiple attempts on Saturday. What we learned quickly was it’s close to impossible to zerg the boss, because the Watchers will web wrap and blind periodically, and if the tank or healer gets either, the attempt ends pretty quickly.

Part of the success of this strategy that did work, however, was based in how skilled our hunter was. Cendra is a total pro when it comes to traps/herding mobs, and back during that awful pvp/boss fight in Magister’s Terrace he would kite three of the mobs back to the entrance of the place while we dispatched Delrissa.

What he did this time was first pulled the boss and feigned death to reset and all the mobs disappeared. Everyone in the party except for the hunter ran to the back left corner of the boss’ area (that is, back left while facing the boss) and waited for the mobs to repop. We did not pull the boss or his retinue while hanging out back there.

Cendra then pulled all three watchers plus whatever accompanying mobs he grabbed by accident and started running back to the beginning of the instance, using frost traps to slow them down. I dashed in, grabbed the boss with Exorcism, popped wings, and began wailing on him while the other two dpsers did the same.

Part of our success might have also been due to the dps on the boss being able to put out around 3000 dps each.

Hadronox Denied

Group: me tanking, Druid healz, Hunter deeps, DK dps, Ele Shammy dps.

Ok, we cheated on this one a tad. Here’s the quick and dirty way to get this achievement: situate your party on the ramp directly above the pull that starts the encounter, then have someone use a Crashin’ Thrashin’ Racer to pull said mobs, and let them kill the racer. Every mob will disappear–the first pulls, the adds racing down to Hardonox, and Hadronox herself.

Everyone then jumps down and beats feet all the way down to where Hadronox spawns. By the time you get there you have about 5 seconds before she pops. When she does, pick her up quickly, and then dispatch her before the adds show up. Make sure she doesn’t turn to kill any, because they will give her back life. And, don’t AOE the adds, because you don’t need them turning on you too!

When Hadronox goes down, loot and hop down the massive fall to escape the adds.

Gotta Go!

Group: me tanking, Druid heals, Hunter dps, DK dps, Ele Shammy dps

This achievement is absurdly easy for any group in Naxx purples since they nerfed it. You have four minutes to kill the boss, so just don’t lose anyone, don’t dawdle on killing the adds, and don’t be slow on dps, and you should be fine.

Respect Your Elders

Group: me tanking, Druid heals, Hunter dps, DK dps/offtanking, Ele Shammy dps

We tried this fight a couple of ways all based on the same premise, that you needed to keep the guardians in one place, and the boss in another. Because Nadox goes immune when the guardians get too close to him, one of us would have to stay behind and pick them up/tank them, while one of us would have to tank the boss.

(Apologies for how crappy this map is, I did it in Paint on a work laptop.)

One tank needs to be positioned in the boss room where the guardians spawn. I’ve found they tend to spawn randomly from one of the giant egg piles in the room. You’ll end up with about three guardians to tank during this. And be careful not to kill them, they have less HP than you’d assume.

The other tank needs to position the boss behind the stairs, but taking care not to accidentally go up them. If Nadox goes up the stairs he’ll enrage and one shot the tank.

Now, after a few attempts in which the DK was having trouble keeping the guardians from running off from him, we decided to do a switch and he would tank the boss and I would grab the guardians. It turns out this was a great decision because thanks to Hand of Reckoning, Judgements, Avenger’s Shield, and Exorcism, I had a lot of tools to grab the guardians before they could dash past that yellow line of death.

This is a pretty easy achievement to get once you get the mechanics of it down.

The Party’s Over

Group: me tanking, Druid heals, DK dps, Ele Shammy dps

The point of this achievement is to take down the second boss of OK with only four party members. You can actually put together a quick four-man group to attempt only this achievement if you want, because the first boss can be skipped and the trash isn’t too bad.

In any case, the key to this fight is (1) you need heals good enough that they can keep up the party member getting their life force sucked out by the boss, and (2) dps good enough that they can knock the boss off of whomever he’s decided to attack. Easily done in Naxx purples.

Volunteer Work

Group: me tanking, Druid heals, Hunter dps/disarming from afar, DK dps, Ele Shammy dps

This achievement, obviously, scales in difficulty based on how well the tank is geared. When enraged Jedoga can hit for quite a lot (I wasn’t watching the exact numbers, trying to live and all, but it looked like 1/3 of my HP was being knocked off with each enraged hit). Good heals helps too, well, as always.

In any case, you’ll want to bring either a warrior or a rogue for disarms, which is something we foolishly did not. When disarmed, the boss his for significantly less. However, melee dps needs to watch out for a whirlwind/cyclone attack she does that will one-shot them. So, bring nimble warriors or rogues! Agility of at least 18 amirite?

(Oh god I made a d&d joke in here…)

In any case, from a tank’s perspective, what I did to stay alive was firstly maximize HP using the Essence of Gossamer, a Guru’s Elixer, Elixer of Major Fortitude, and Dragonfin Filet. I think that got me up to around 32k HP. Then I made sure to keep Holy Shield up the whole time she was on the ground, which guaranteed (because I was blockcapped) I was going to either avoid the hit or shave ~1800 damage off it. Ardent Defender helps too!

The first time she came down I relied on the hunter range disarming her, the second time I popped bubblewall, and the third time I relied on the speedy reflexes of my supremo healer. We dropped her before she could get a fourth charge in.

Volazj’s Quick Demise

Group: same makeup as the last 5

So we didn’t actually get this achievement (details, details), but we were definitely on the right track. The main crux of the strategy was the undeniable fact that a resto druid, when made into an Insanity copy, is invincible.

A great idea that I saw on wowhead for ameliorating this is for me, the Paladin, to DI the Druid healer when Insanity is being cast. This remove both of us from having adds made of us, and making Insanity very easy to get through for the other three.

While the rest of the party (aka the chumps) are dealing with their adds, the healer battlerezzes yours truly, I use Lay on Hands to recharge everything, reapply Righteous Fury (grrr), and get ready to repick up the boss (because dying is nature’s most effective aggro wipe).

Where this strategy fell apart was that the second Insanity you have to do like normal, invincible Tree and all. One thing I noticed which made this easier for me was to have the druid shapeshift to Cat form, which the Insanity copy will stay as. I could then run over, pop wings, and stun her, and then quickly Judge, Shield Slam, and Avenger’s Shield. I killed her before she became unstunned (must have been lucky with the crits, though).

While in kitty form, the Druid will on cast nourish on herself, as well as attempt to melee dps. This way she at least can’t cast more major heals on herself, or any heals on others.

Unfortunately we took too long to get through the second Insanity, and missed getting the achievement.

One idea I had that might just be crazy enough to work is have a Ret Paladin as one of the dps. Then during the second Insanity, he can DI the healer. That should give us enough time, even gimped with one less deeps, to drop Volly before he can cast a third Insanity.

I’ll keep you posted on whether that mania actually succeeds.