Running out of time in Naxx

In a way, we’re all kind of running against the clock when it comes to the current tier of raiding in WotLK. How many weeks can we reasonably expect to have left in which Naxxramas is main raiding dungeon? 3? 4? 6? Probably a month at most. It’s that thought that is compelling me to worry a little bit more extensively about getting as much of my best in slot gear obtained as humanly possible.

I ticked off one of those goals last night in Naxx when I picked up the Last Laugh (mark it, that’s the third time I’ve mentioned this now). Now my big goals are the Valorous Redemption Handguards, the Legplates of Sovereignty, the Bracers of the Unholy Knight, Kyzoc’s Ground Stompers, and the Ablative Chitin Girdle. And suddenly I’m stressed! Yikes…

In any case, let’s talk about Naxx. At this stage in the game, Naxx has become insanely easy. We have a nice raid core of about 18 people or so that go to every raid, are nearly topped out in iLevel 213 purples (with a smattering of 226s), and generally know their class really well and reflect that knowledge in the dps charts/heal charts/etc. The seven other slots are usually filled by whoever makes it on that night and can jump in.

So Saturday night we entered Naxx with the intent to at least clear all four wings and maybe finish the place up if luck was with us.

Oh, something I need to digress into first–the loot system was changed. Last weekend while I was away there was some loot drama over an Idol that dropped and someone who was typically one spec wasn’t allowed to roll on it because they were running Naxx in another one, or something. Details aren’t important, I tend to ignore them when it comes to loot drama. Long story short: the loot rules were modified again.

Now you have three rolling phases. First is the super main spec phase, which everyone is only allowed to win an item (that fits their main spec) in once. Then phase two main spec, where anyone who has one an item in phase one is consigned. I’m not entirely sure, but I think you can’t roll in phase two until you’ve won an item in phase one, basically forcing you to not hoard your roll. Lastly, phase three is offspec, and literally so. No one can roll on an item in this phase if it fits their spec.

It’s a really Byzantine system, but it worked pretty well this weekend. One key change was making it so people who didn’t use their phase one rolls had them carry over to the second raid night, so they wouldn’t be penalized for being patient (for good or ill). Calculating might be a good word as well.

The only issue I have with this system is that the best loot tends to be on night two, and if you don’t hoard your roll, and stick with the raid both nights, once you finally get to Kel, you’re screwed by whomever comes in just for night two and gets their choice of the best loot. Not intentionally of course, but that’s a major hole in the system. This comes into play later in this post.

Now, like I was saying, Naxx was a cake walk. On Saturday we burnt through the first three wings (in which I used my phase 1 roll to grab Broken Promise and snatched some offspec stuff that the Holy Pally didn’t want). We steamrolled out way right up to Thaddius and promptly hit a road block. A pity too, because the way we were going we easily could have cleared the whole citadel out that night.

We ended up trying Thaddius about four or so times, each time people getting more apparently frustrated at those who could not get the mechanics of the fight. As a guild we’ve downed Thaddius 25 many times, but there’s always those times when you bring in someone news, and they just can’t seem to get it that north is positive, south is negative, stand appropriately damn you.

Also I feel compelled to back up a little and mention that we engineered the cleanest Gluth fight ever that night. Usually the way Gluth goes these days is that I’ll run around in the back, taunting the Zombie Chows of the hunter/mage that help wrangle them, as well as using shield toss and exorcism to grab new friends as I dash back and forth across the rear end of the room. Then, decimate strikes, and I get a good holy wrath in once the mage’s frost nova wears off to buy the dps a little more time to nuke the suckers down.

Early on in our attempts in Naxx (weeks and weeks ago) this fight was hell, but we’ve refined our strategy a lot and it shows.

So Saturday night ended with everything but Thaddius, Sapph, and KT down (aka, the usual). And last night we returned to Naxx with a different line up–a few from Saturday couldn’t make it so some others came in–and a renewed determination to finish the damn place up so we can do Malygos as well.

It took us about three attempts to get Thaddius down, mostly due to some initial difficulty with the charges. In fact, the last attempt was successful only by the skin of our teeth. We downed him right as he enraged. Too close for comfort!

Then, as always, we one-shot Sapph. For the guard dog to Kel’Thuzad, that wyrm is very easy. How embarrassing for KT.

And Kel was another story. The fight is so RNG heavy (ice blocks and possessions) that even the best players can get tripped up. As you can imagine we had some seriously unlucky ice blocks that froze four people, some possessions of people that were not easy to subdue (damn unpolymorphable Druids), and the requisite people not noticing that shadow fissures were under them.

One thing that really bothered me was when the adds were coming out I found myself having to unduly defend my tanking, because the adds were up for too long and when that buff of theirs hits 210% it’s pretty hard for any healer to keep the tank up. So I went splat on the first attempts from the adds. The second attempt got ice blocked while tanking them, and quickly dispatched as you’d imagine.

The other prot pally who was tanking the adds with me then got all four, and because he is neither block capped nor as well geared, he couldn’t stay up for long. The third time I watched said prot pally die from a shadow fissure (he probably couldn’t see with the giant Nerubians attempted to claw his face off), and that attempt ended soon in defeat.

The fourth attempt the GL did his best “dad impression” and informed us all that we wouldn’t do Malygos if we couldn’t get Kel’Thuzad down. Well played to him, because he either scared the hell out of us enough to get things together, or we just hit the RNG jackpot that time. The melee didn’t get ice blocked to death so they could stay up and interrupt frost bolts, which meant the healers were less taxed, which meant there was more mana available for the last third of the fight. Everything gelled and KT went down.

Now going into this fight, I was terrified that if Last Laugh dropped I wasn’t going to get a chance to roll on it. The main tank (awesome, awesome warrior) got his two weeks ago, and nominally the next one was supposed to be mine. Alas the new loot system demanded that the second prot pally, him being new, had a phase one roll, and if he so chose he could snatch it right up.

And of course it did drop.

I totally lucked out, because he wanted the T7 helm more and used his roll on that. And I got LL without any competition to speak of.

When I tell you my palms were sweating, I mean you have no idea. I was so nervous this other guy (he of 2/3 Touched by the Light and 3/3 Stoicism) would get LL before me. Thankfully things worked out for the best.

And on top of that, Betrayer of Humanity and the Turning Tide dropped, and the former went to our top dps warrior, and the latter to the top ranged caster. So the guild definitely benefitted by how the loot worked out.

After Naxx, we did try Malygos. We didn’t down him, so he’s on the menu tonight. I’ll let you all know how that goes.