Image from MMO-Champion, obviously.

The Gauntlet

Before you get to fight the boss, you will have to battle your way through an army of Iron Dwarves, robots, and helicopters. You will be using the vehicles at this time, and can easily mow through all the mobs. This is a perfect time to get used to all your abilities. There are a few things can take out on the way to the boss, but they are optional. One of those things are pillars which will keep spawning mobs unless you destroy them. Those you pretty much want to destroy while you drive past them. The others will determine the difficulty of the boss.

After making your way through the army of Iron Dwarves, you will reach a gate guarded by two giants. After taking out the two giants, The Flame Leviathan will bust through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man and the boss encounter will start.

Hard Mode

There are four towers located in this big battlefield area: The Flame Tower, Ice Tower, Lightning Tower, and Life Tower. For each tower you destroy, The Flame Leviathan will gain a new ability. Destroy the Flame Tower, he gains a Fire attack, Ice Tower, he gains an Ice Attack, Lighting Tower, he gains a Lighting attack, Life Tower, he can spawn these plant mobs. Leaving all the towers up puts the fight into “Easy Mode”, destroying all the towers puts him into “Hard Mode”.

We actually misread the “Orbit-uary” achievement, thinking that taking out all the towers will put him into “Easy Mode” and learned that we actually put him into “Hard Mode”. But since we didn’t have too much difficulty, we decided to reset the instance and only leave the Life Tower up, making it 3/4 Hard Mode. Which also has its own “Nuked from Orbit” achievement.

The Vehicles

There are three types of vehicles to choose from for this fight: Siege Engine, Chopper, and Demolisher. For each of those vehicles the driver has a few set abilities, and the passenger has a few set abilities. Each vehicle can only have one driver and one passenger.

Siege Engine: This battle tank vehicle acts as the main tank/kiter for the boss. The driver has the ability to Steam Dash to put some distance away from the boss, and Electroshock to interrupt one of the boss’s ability. The passenger has the ability to shoot rockets at the boss, the ability to shield the tank for a short amount of time, and the ability to shoot down air units (which drop ammo).

Demolisher: This is the catapult type vehicle which will act as the main DPS for the boss, but will sometimes have to kite the boss also. The passenger has the ability to use Grab Crate on the items which are dropped when an air unit is killed. After grabbing one, they have to Reload Ammo for the driver to use to DPS. They also have the ability to use that ammo to get a burst of speed (in case the boss is after them). The passenger also have the ability to load themselves for the Demolisher to use them as ammo! The driver has the ability to shoot the ammo in which the passenger loads, which also means the passenger if he/she loaded themselves.

Chopper: These are the quick and versatile motorcycles which is used as the utility vehicle for this fight. The Chopper usually starts off with out a passenger (no passenger abilities), so the driver does all the work. They can drop Tar which can slow down the boss if you kite him over it. The tar can also be ignited to do damage to the boss. The Chopper can also do some DPS with its Sonic Horn or run away with Speed Boost. Another important responsibility for the Chopper is to pick up any passengers that the Demolisher may have shot away.

The Gear Requirement

Wait you’re in a vehicle, your gear doesn’t matter right? It actually does! The amount of health your vehicle has, and the amount of damage it does, depends on the item levels (ilvl) of the gear you are wearing. So if you are 25 man epic’d out with ilvl 213 gear and up, you will have better stats than a player that is 10 man epic’d out with ilvl 200 gear. So if your in a guild which is clearing Naxx, Maly, and Sarth regularly, make sure you don’t shard all unwanted gear. That unwanted ilvl 213 Cloth Belt might come in handy for the next expansion.

Also if you are one of those unlucky passengers getting shot out of the Demolisher, since you will be out of the protection of a vehicle, you will need to be geared enough to survive outside for a good amount of time.

The Strategy

If you look at each vehicle’s abilities for driver and passenger, you can pretty much see how this fight plays out. Siege Engines kite, Choppers slow, Demolishers DPS. During the entire time, the boss will continually do raid wide damage, and since there isn’t a way to repair the vehicles, it really is a DPS race to take him out before he takes you out.

Remember when I said Demolishers had the ability to launch their passengers? There is a reason for that. By shooting the passenger onto the boss, those players can take out the npc’s which are shooting rockets at the raid, and mess around with a few buttons cause an Overload Circuit. During this time, the boss goes into a shutdown mode, and will take additional damage.

Also depending on which towers you leave up, you will have to dodge a few giant lasers of doom. If you ever played Command and Conquer: Generals, the lasers are like the USA’s Particle Beam Cannon. It looks like THIS (skip to the 1:40 mark), but a bit less destructive. You know you have to avoid any lasers you see.

The Loot

For clearing the 10 man version of the fight with three towers up, we only got two pieces of ilvl 219 gear. I’m guessing Blizzard hasn’t implemented additional drops for each difficulty mode yet (or else we’ll be seeing one piece of loot for two towers up, and a /golfclap for one or zero towers up). This is what we got:

• [Lifespark Visage]
• [Kinetic Ripper]

The cloth caster helm stats are a bit better than the Tier 7.5 Helm, but that socket bonus isn’t too Mage friendly. Hopefully we hear some of this “Make Spirit better for Mages” news sometime soon. The First Weapon looks like Fulgore’s (from Killer Instinct) weapon, and has a little electric spark which moves up and down the blade of the weapon.

Meanwhile the caster helm, if shown, will shave your head, and turn you into a ninja with an Olympic medal.

The Shroud of Akali drops off of the last boss in the instance, Gal’darah. He’s the boss that turns into a Rhino and impales you with his horn. The cloak that got replaced wasn’t Black Temple or Sunwell gear, it was from Tempest Keep. The [Royal Cloak of the Sunstrider] dropped off of Kael’thas Sunstrider, and I was actually the only person in the guild to get the cloak (it only dropped once for us). This cloak lasted me all of Mount Hyjal, Black Temple, Sunwell Plateau, AND 7.5 levels of Northrend. Really sad to see it gone. Let’s see how the new cloak stacks up against the old one.

I lost 2 Spell Power, but the Hit Rating I get more than makes up for it. Especially when I went from 12.5% Spell Hit, down to around 7.5% Spell Hit, just by simply leveling up 7 levels. The higher the level you are, the higher the Hit Rating required to equal 1% Spell Hit. More on that subject coming soon!

*edit*

For the umpteenth time, the answer is: RatingBuster

These leggings were a huge upgrade for me, even bigger than the [Sunflare], which drops from Kil’jaeden. The leggings I had before was the [Leggings of Channeled Elements], and for the loss of 18 Spell Hit (I am still over the Spell Hit cap), I gained stats all across the board.

I put a [Runic Spellthread] on these pants, and gemmed it with 2 x [Runed Crimson Spinel] and 1 x [Quick Lionseye].

This also pushed my Spell Haste to 310 or 19.7% increased casting speed, giving me a 2.09 sec Frostbolt. Soon I will be able to break under 2 second Frostbolts.

My new neck is the [Amulet of Unfettered Magics] which drops from the Eredar Twins, the fourth boss(es) in the Sunwell Plateau. I lose 2 Spell Damage and a bit of Spell Crit with the neck piece, but gain a ton of Spell Haste. A pretty big upgrade for me.

Now my passive Spell Haste rating is at 273, which is a 17% Spell Haste, and it brings my Frostbolts down to 2.13 second casts. 2 second Frostbolts don’t look too far off anymore now. With Trinket + IV, my Frostbolts are at 1.61 second casts.

Also during this raid, one of the other Mage respeced Deep Frost, and we both had 3/3 Frostbite (15% chance to Freeze target), and man it was a total critfest for us. The trashmobs are snareable and could be frozen, so we were getting a lot of Frostbite procs, and a lot of Shatter crits. Winter’s Chill was up much quicker too. It has been awhile since I raided with another Deep Frost Mage, and it was fun.

Just think of the damage output with two (or more) Deep Frost Mages, if Winter’s Grasp were to come out in WotLK.  WTB Winter’s Grasp nao!

I also managed to get my last piece of Tier 6, my [Belt of Tempest]. 8/8 Tier 6 w00t! Now I am at 174 Spell Haste, which brings my Frostbolts down to 2.25 seconds. Not bad at all I am now also way over the Spell Hit cap for Frost Mages, with no gear to swap out. Hmm… what to do, what to do…?

Brutallus also dropped [Heart of the Pit], but a Shadow Priest won them over me. Next time they’re mine hopefully.

I even got myself loot out of the run last night. Kalecgos dropped [Bracer of the Forgotten Vanquisher] for me. I turned them in for my [Bracer of the Tempest] and got them enchanted with +15 Spell Damage. The Guild was out of [Crimson Spinel] so I settled for the blue [Runed Living Ruby] until we get some more Spinels or until the Epic Gem Vendor on my server opens (yea yea, still not opened yet…).

I am now 7/8 Tier 6! My Mage Belt token also dropped last night from Brutallus, but a Rogue won them over me. Oh wells, I’ll get them next week if it drops. Even though I have 7/8 Tier 6, I currently only wear six of the pieces. My [Leggings of Channeled Elements] that drops off of Kaz’rogal in Mount Hyjal are way better than the T6 Leggings. I am also trying to replace my T6 Helm with the [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] that drops off of Illidan Stormrage, but he hasn’t been dropping any caster loot lately.

With the release of the Sunwell Patch, it opened up many options of ways to mix and match pieces of gear, and still be able to keep the four piece set bonus of the Tier 6 set. So even though I would have been happy if Blizzard gave us an eight piece set bonus, they made a good choice to give us this option to choose other gear instead.

So its a great start of a new raid week. Hopefully we keep march on with high spirits and make some good progress with the Eredar Twins.

Its not as pretty as the mount you get from the Druid epic flight form quest, but its nice to have a different mount as everyone else. There is already eight guildies with the Bear Mount already from ZA so the Hawkstrider is nice to have.

I haven’t noticed any big differences between Heroic and Normal modes for Magister’s Terrace. Other than the fact that the mobs hit harder, I don’t think there is any changes in fight mechanics of each boss fight. There are enough good loot in the instance to make it worth farming it on Heroic everyday.

Next on my list to get: [Phoenix Hatchling] and [Orb of the Sin'dorei].

Oh I remembered to Fraps the fight between Madrigosa and Brutallus in the Sunwell Plateau this time. I missed a bit of the beginning of the fight, and I did a horrible job with the camera work, but you can still see what is going on. I’ll work on the video later tomorrow. Don’t expect any flashy intro or effects. I are still teh noob at video editing.

Also here are the drops for the night. Triple Protectior wtf! Oh wells, it is always good to have our main tanks gear up. Nice Mace too!

We worked on Felmyst for a bit with raid positionings and Priest’s Mass Dispell timings for a good half hour. Real attempts at Felmyst on Sunday! I hope the big death birdy goes down. Papa needs a new pair of shoes!

 
Mount + Mojo = Fun!

The fight is fairly simple. It reminds me of a beefed up version of the Moroes fight in Kara, with the adds and the CC’ing.

Hex Lord Malacrass will be accompanied by four bodyguards, generated randomly out of eight possible choices. Each add will be suseptable to some form of Crowd Control (CC). Some will be sheepable, banishable, shackleable, or hibernate…-able(?).

Anyways, the general strategy is usually to CC the adds and kill them one by one before switching to the Hex Lord himself. Most groups kill two of the adds and switch to Hex Lord while keeping the remaining two adds CC’ed for the entire fight, giving more time to dps the Hex Lord down before he gets too powerful to tank. He does Drain Power every minute which reduces raid member’s damage by 1% while increasing his by 10%.

While this is going on, Hex Lord will shoot Spirit Bolts every 40 secs. It will hit everyone in the raid for 450 Shadow Damage per bolt. He will shoot 20 bolts with in 10 seconds. So any form on Shadow resistance will be helpful here. Also note, due to the spell pushback these Spirit Bolts do, I recommend re-CC’ing your targets before he does this attack.

Thats not all! Immediately after each Spirit Bolt phase, he will cast Siphon Soul on a random raid member, and steal some of thier moves.

• Druid – Thorns, Lifebloom, Moonfire
• Hunter – Freezing, Snake, and Explosive Traps
• Mage – Frost Nova, Frostbolt, Ice Lance
• Paladin – Consecrate, Avenging Wrath, Holy Light
• Priest – Psychic Scream, Flash Heal, Mind Control
• Rogue – Blind, Wound Poison, Slice and Dice
• Shaman – Fire Nova Totem, Healing Wave, Chain Lightning
• Warlock – Curse of Doom, Unstable Affliction, Rain of Fire
• Warrior – Mortal Strike, Spell Reflect, Whirlwind

Depending on who he targets, the raid must act accordingly. The toughest in my opinion is when he steals the Priest’s power or the Mage’s power. Mind Control could spell disaster if CC’ers are MC’ed, and the shatter combos he does when he steals the Mage’s power can really hurt. Remember to interrupt any heals he may do if he takes the power of a healing class. Also note, his buffs like Lifebloom or Avenging Wrath may be dispelled or spell stolen.

These phases continue until he or the raid is dead.

In my opinion, Hex Lord Malacrass is much harder than the final boss of the instance, Zul’jin, but is a fun one.

You have all experienced it before. You try to loot the body and get stuck in the crouching position. Then you run around the place because you think it looks funny when you are sliding around on your knees. Then you cast spells because it looks cool because your hands stays glowing with the casting animation of the spell your casting. Then you proceed to run around with the glowing hand animation.

Meanwhile, everything else on your screen looks like they have been frozen in time. Except that they are running in place, or stuck in a casting animation. About thirty seconds go by, then all of a sudden, your screen goes into fast forward, and everything on your screen moves around in a quick blur.

You receive an error at the top of the screen. Unable to loot at this time (or something along those lines). The corpse is still glowing. Deep down inside you know you will be stuck again if you try to loot it. There is an internal struggle within you.

“What if you get stuck again?”
“Should I relog?”
“You might die while lagged out”
“ZomG pHat LooTz!?“

You try to loot again. You fail. Three or four more times in fact. And when you finally receive your loot? [Primordial Essence] /wrists

Last night while I was in Black Temple with Utada, we had a problem with loot lag issues, but we didn’t worry about it too much. We kept on moving along, losing 2-3 players each pull due to lag. Kept on going- they’ll be back soon. We managed to make it to the first boss: High Warlord Naj’entus

We all buff up, drink our consumables, oil up, eat our foods. Then we pull…

Healer #1: “I think I’m lagging”
DPS #1: “You’re just running in place on my screen”
Healer #2: “You’re stuck in casting animation on mine”
Raid Leader: “Spine on DPS #3!”
DPS #2: “I got it!”
DPS #3: “Thanks, I’m out”
DPS #2: “Uh oh.. I’m lagged out trying to loot the spine”
Me: “Oh dear…”

Eventually Naj’entus gets bugged and we ran away like little girls and he reset himself. Arggh… this looks like it’s gonna be a long raid night…

For those who don’t know the fight:

Naj’entus will occasionally do Impaling Spine on a random target. That target will be incapacitated with a huge spine sticking out of their body and take massive amounts of damage until another raider clicks on the spine to pull it out of the person. The person who pulls the spine will receive an item, [Naj'entus Spine]. Every minute or so, Naj’entus will cast Tidal Shield on himself which makes him immune to all damage and heals himself 1% every 2 seconds, and the only way to break his bubble is to use a spine on him.

So you can imagine how much harder this fight is with loot lag involved. The server eventually fixed itself and we did a full clear of BT.

Naj’entus didn’t drop my [Slippers of the Seacaller] or [Ring of Captured Storms], but I made off with a couple loots for the night.

I got [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] off trash mobs, [Waistwrap of Infinity] off Supremus, and [Leggings of the Tempest] off the Illidari Council.

5/5 Tier 6 now! Yay!