04-17-2005, 10:23 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-17-2005, 11:30 PM by MongoJerry.)
EPILOGUE
With the pressure of the race removed, The Offenders decided that the best thing to do was to wait until more of their guildmates got their Onyxia keys before trying to tackle Onyxia again. So they spent the weekend raiding Molten Core and then the rest of the following week helping their members get through their Onyxia key quests. I wasn't sure if I would be welcomed back after defecting on Friday and after posting the journals you've just read, but people seemed to be cool about it and some guild members even complimented the journals. Still, I didn't know if that reflected the feelings of the guild leadership or if they only reflected the feelings of a few friends I knew in the guild.
The first indication that things were OK was when I got an invitation from Sabik on Wednesday afternoon to try to kill the outdoor raid boss, Kazzak, in the Tainted Scar. It was a mostly pickup raid, and we failed utterly, but it was still nice to have been invited. (Kazzak seems like a pretty easy boss to kill, but he's murder on raids with noob players in it. I'll bet a reasonably organized group could kill him with 20 players and barely break a sweat). On Thursday, I joined an Offenders UBRS run, designed to help one of their members get Drakkisath's blood, one of the Horde requirements to get an Onyxia key.
That day (April 14th) was also the day that the Grim Vengeance/Basin group that had previously killed Onyxia was going to meet to kill her again. Unfortunately there had been a major scheduling snafu. I and a healthy chunk of the Grim Vengeance guild had been told that the raid was going to happen at 7pm, while everyone else had been told the correct time of 6pm. The UBRS party was in the middle of fighting the Beast, when I got the message from a Grim Vengeance officer, "Oh good! You're on. It turns out the raid's at 6pm instead of 7pm. Ready for an invite?" I thought, Dear God, I'm not going to do this again. I told him to save me a spot, that the UBRS run I was on had just killed the Beast, and that I'd join them the moment we killed Drakkisath. He responded, "OK, I'll do my best. The raid's filling up fast." The success of the previous Friday combined with the popularity of Rubix's video and, well, these journals led pretty much everyone and their dogs to want to join the raid. I gave running updates of the progress of the UBRS run as we were clearing Drakkisath's room to the GV officer. "Three mob groups to go and then Drakk", "Two mob groups to go and then Drakk," etc. But it was too late. Every guild wanted to invite its guildmates, and every raid participant wanted to invite his or her buddies. Despite the intentions of three high ranking members of the raid I was in contact with, the raid filled and there was nothing that could be done. At least a dozen other people had to be turned away as well.
I was bummed, and I privately cursed the GV officer who told me the run was at 7pm. But when I calmed down, I thought, "Maybe this is a good thing." After a moment's reflection, I messaged Sabik:
Neriad: What time's the Onyxia raid tomorrow? We need to take her down.
Sabik: 6:30
Neriad: I'll be there.
Friday, April 15th
I logged in at 6:15 the next day and got the raid invite. 30 people were already in the raid, and by 6:40 the raid was full and on the move. As Thyrfing told me privately, "Well, this is definitely the fastest forming Onyxia raid ever." I laughed hard at that one.
![[Image: Onyxia_epstart.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_epstart.jpg)
After getting ganked by an Alliance raid forming at the entrance to Onyxia's lair (Onyxia runs seem to have suddenly become popular on the Alliance side as well), I and others zoned in, and we started clearing the Onyxian Warder guards.
![[Image: Onyxia_eppractice.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_eppractice.jpg)
Keeping in mind that this was the first time meeting Onyxia for a healthy chunk of the raid, Sabik led a dry run of the encounter with one of our druids in seal form playing the part of Onyxia. All three phases of the encounter were rehearsed this time. When the rehearsal was finished, we rebuffed each other, and when I asked Mick to buff me with an Arcane Intellect, he replied, "if you include me in your onyxia novel maybe." I told him, "No promises, but we'll see. :-)" There you go, Mick.
![[Image: Onyxia_epcharge.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_epcharge.jpg)
We charged forward and quickly assumed our phase I positions. It was weird not being in the healing rotation. We had ten priests in the raid (I don't think I've ever seen that before), and I think Dastree, who takes care of coordinating healing teams for The Offenders, had difficulty finding jobs for all of us. He ended up assigning six other priests to the healing rotation for Phase I and assigned me and another priest to handle heals on Sabik during the transition from Phase II into Phase III. During Phase I, I threw up random heals on Sabik and poured a modest amount of dps onto Onyxia.
![[Image: Onyxia_eplostcontrol.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_eplostcontrol.jpg)
We twice lost control of Onyxia in Phase I due to someone pulling aggro. The first time wasn't too bad, because the person who pulled the aggro either died quickly or realized the mistake quickly enough to jump to where Sabik was before Onyxia breathed on everyone. The second time (pictured above), however, was much worse and could have been disastrous if not for the fact that Onyxia's life was already below 70%. After a few scary seconds, Onyxia did her "This meaningless exertion bores me" emote and started walking toward the south end of the chamber. Phase II had begun. We were saved by the bell!
![[Image: Onyxia_epflying.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_epflying.jpg)
In Phase II, the Offenders showed that they definitely subscribed to the theory going around the Blizzard forums that the way to keep Onyxia from doing her Deep Breath was to full burn kill her. Sure, they spread out, but they focused far more heavily on dealing damage to Onyxia than the Grim Vengeance/Basin group had. In fact, when Onyxia's health was down to 75% back in Phase I, Sabik had told all the casters to only use wand shots in order to let their mana bars fill up for Phase II.
Why would going full burn on Onyxia stop her from doing Deep Breath? There are three competing explanations for this. The first is that perhaps the developers simply wrote Onyxia's AI that way. In other words, it could be an "If they focus too much on whelps and don't hit Onyxia enough, let's burn them!" kind of thing. It's possible, but I don't think so. The second explanation is that perhaps if individuals don't do anything to Onyxia herself (they kill whelps or just stand around out of range), they eventually drop off Onyxia's aggro list. So you could have a situation where Onyxia's aggro list gets down to, say, 20 people who are mostly hanging out in one section of the room, the section that's near her, of course. Her algorithms that measure the clumpiness of the raid would then say to her, "Hey! They're all in that one section of the room! Flame them!" If you have your raid emphasize dps on Onyxia, however, people are unlikely to drop from Onyxia's aggro list, and you won't have this problem. It's a reasonable explanation that's based on the fact that there used to be a bug in Phase II where people would indeed drop off Onyxia's aggro list and get out of combat. However, that bug appears to have been fixed, so there's room for doubt that this explanation is correct.
The third and final explanation is the one I subscribe to. It says simply that if you go full burn on Onyxia, Phase II goes by faster, so there's less time for mistakes to happen and fewer opportunities for Onyxia to check to see if she wants to Deep Breath. Whatever the true explanation, the bottom line is that saving up mana and then going full burn on her in Phase II seems to work well.
![[Image: Onyxia_eplanding.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_eplanding.jpg)
Onyxia yells: It seems you'll need another lesson mortals!
Onyxia landed to start Phase III and a moment of chaos ensued. First of all, a fresh batch of whelps came out. I used to think that any whelps around at the start of Phase III were just leftovers from Phase II, but this has happened too many times to be coincidental. I now think that a new batch of whelps always pops during that transition period from Phase II to Phase III. I'm not 100% certain of this, but it does appear to be the case.
![[Image: Onyxia_epdead.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_epdead.jpg)
But the bigger issue was that Onyxia charged over to the crowd of healers and ranged dps players waiting for her in the northwest corner of the room and took it apart. Dastree later explained what happened. As Onyxia landed, he Flash Healed a warrior that was next to Onyxia's landing spot and drew aggro. Everybody got feared, so nobody got a chance to hit her to draw aggro away from Dastree. Onyxia charged at Dastree in that northwest group, and although Dastree Faded as quickly as he could, it was too late. (Most likely either Onyxia had gotten too close to other people in the northwest corner by then or others in that group had cast heals or cast some damage spells, too. Actually, looking at the screenshot, there were several DoT's on her. Maybe that's what drew her in the first place and not Dastree's heal after all).
With the pressure of the race removed, The Offenders decided that the best thing to do was to wait until more of their guildmates got their Onyxia keys before trying to tackle Onyxia again. So they spent the weekend raiding Molten Core and then the rest of the following week helping their members get through their Onyxia key quests. I wasn't sure if I would be welcomed back after defecting on Friday and after posting the journals you've just read, but people seemed to be cool about it and some guild members even complimented the journals. Still, I didn't know if that reflected the feelings of the guild leadership or if they only reflected the feelings of a few friends I knew in the guild.
The first indication that things were OK was when I got an invitation from Sabik on Wednesday afternoon to try to kill the outdoor raid boss, Kazzak, in the Tainted Scar. It was a mostly pickup raid, and we failed utterly, but it was still nice to have been invited. (Kazzak seems like a pretty easy boss to kill, but he's murder on raids with noob players in it. I'll bet a reasonably organized group could kill him with 20 players and barely break a sweat). On Thursday, I joined an Offenders UBRS run, designed to help one of their members get Drakkisath's blood, one of the Horde requirements to get an Onyxia key.
That day (April 14th) was also the day that the Grim Vengeance/Basin group that had previously killed Onyxia was going to meet to kill her again. Unfortunately there had been a major scheduling snafu. I and a healthy chunk of the Grim Vengeance guild had been told that the raid was going to happen at 7pm, while everyone else had been told the correct time of 6pm. The UBRS party was in the middle of fighting the Beast, when I got the message from a Grim Vengeance officer, "Oh good! You're on. It turns out the raid's at 6pm instead of 7pm. Ready for an invite?" I thought, Dear God, I'm not going to do this again. I told him to save me a spot, that the UBRS run I was on had just killed the Beast, and that I'd join them the moment we killed Drakkisath. He responded, "OK, I'll do my best. The raid's filling up fast." The success of the previous Friday combined with the popularity of Rubix's video and, well, these journals led pretty much everyone and their dogs to want to join the raid. I gave running updates of the progress of the UBRS run as we were clearing Drakkisath's room to the GV officer. "Three mob groups to go and then Drakk", "Two mob groups to go and then Drakk," etc. But it was too late. Every guild wanted to invite its guildmates, and every raid participant wanted to invite his or her buddies. Despite the intentions of three high ranking members of the raid I was in contact with, the raid filled and there was nothing that could be done. At least a dozen other people had to be turned away as well.
I was bummed, and I privately cursed the GV officer who told me the run was at 7pm. But when I calmed down, I thought, "Maybe this is a good thing." After a moment's reflection, I messaged Sabik:
Neriad: What time's the Onyxia raid tomorrow? We need to take her down.
Sabik: 6:30
Neriad: I'll be there.
Friday, April 15th
I logged in at 6:15 the next day and got the raid invite. 30 people were already in the raid, and by 6:40 the raid was full and on the move. As Thyrfing told me privately, "Well, this is definitely the fastest forming Onyxia raid ever." I laughed hard at that one.
After getting ganked by an Alliance raid forming at the entrance to Onyxia's lair (Onyxia runs seem to have suddenly become popular on the Alliance side as well), I and others zoned in, and we started clearing the Onyxian Warder guards.
Keeping in mind that this was the first time meeting Onyxia for a healthy chunk of the raid, Sabik led a dry run of the encounter with one of our druids in seal form playing the part of Onyxia. All three phases of the encounter were rehearsed this time. When the rehearsal was finished, we rebuffed each other, and when I asked Mick to buff me with an Arcane Intellect, he replied, "if you include me in your onyxia novel maybe." I told him, "No promises, but we'll see. :-)" There you go, Mick.
We charged forward and quickly assumed our phase I positions. It was weird not being in the healing rotation. We had ten priests in the raid (I don't think I've ever seen that before), and I think Dastree, who takes care of coordinating healing teams for The Offenders, had difficulty finding jobs for all of us. He ended up assigning six other priests to the healing rotation for Phase I and assigned me and another priest to handle heals on Sabik during the transition from Phase II into Phase III. During Phase I, I threw up random heals on Sabik and poured a modest amount of dps onto Onyxia.
We twice lost control of Onyxia in Phase I due to someone pulling aggro. The first time wasn't too bad, because the person who pulled the aggro either died quickly or realized the mistake quickly enough to jump to where Sabik was before Onyxia breathed on everyone. The second time (pictured above), however, was much worse and could have been disastrous if not for the fact that Onyxia's life was already below 70%. After a few scary seconds, Onyxia did her "This meaningless exertion bores me" emote and started walking toward the south end of the chamber. Phase II had begun. We were saved by the bell!
In Phase II, the Offenders showed that they definitely subscribed to the theory going around the Blizzard forums that the way to keep Onyxia from doing her Deep Breath was to full burn kill her. Sure, they spread out, but they focused far more heavily on dealing damage to Onyxia than the Grim Vengeance/Basin group had. In fact, when Onyxia's health was down to 75% back in Phase I, Sabik had told all the casters to only use wand shots in order to let their mana bars fill up for Phase II.
Why would going full burn on Onyxia stop her from doing Deep Breath? There are three competing explanations for this. The first is that perhaps the developers simply wrote Onyxia's AI that way. In other words, it could be an "If they focus too much on whelps and don't hit Onyxia enough, let's burn them!" kind of thing. It's possible, but I don't think so. The second explanation is that perhaps if individuals don't do anything to Onyxia herself (they kill whelps or just stand around out of range), they eventually drop off Onyxia's aggro list. So you could have a situation where Onyxia's aggro list gets down to, say, 20 people who are mostly hanging out in one section of the room, the section that's near her, of course. Her algorithms that measure the clumpiness of the raid would then say to her, "Hey! They're all in that one section of the room! Flame them!" If you have your raid emphasize dps on Onyxia, however, people are unlikely to drop from Onyxia's aggro list, and you won't have this problem. It's a reasonable explanation that's based on the fact that there used to be a bug in Phase II where people would indeed drop off Onyxia's aggro list and get out of combat. However, that bug appears to have been fixed, so there's room for doubt that this explanation is correct.
The third and final explanation is the one I subscribe to. It says simply that if you go full burn on Onyxia, Phase II goes by faster, so there's less time for mistakes to happen and fewer opportunities for Onyxia to check to see if she wants to Deep Breath. Whatever the true explanation, the bottom line is that saving up mana and then going full burn on her in Phase II seems to work well.
Onyxia yells: It seems you'll need another lesson mortals!
Onyxia landed to start Phase III and a moment of chaos ensued. First of all, a fresh batch of whelps came out. I used to think that any whelps around at the start of Phase III were just leftovers from Phase II, but this has happened too many times to be coincidental. I now think that a new batch of whelps always pops during that transition period from Phase II to Phase III. I'm not 100% certain of this, but it does appear to be the case.
But the bigger issue was that Onyxia charged over to the crowd of healers and ranged dps players waiting for her in the northwest corner of the room and took it apart. Dastree later explained what happened. As Onyxia landed, he Flash Healed a warrior that was next to Onyxia's landing spot and drew aggro. Everybody got feared, so nobody got a chance to hit her to draw aggro away from Dastree. Onyxia charged at Dastree in that northwest group, and although Dastree Faded as quickly as he could, it was too late. (Most likely either Onyxia had gotten too close to other people in the northwest corner by then or others in that group had cast heals or cast some damage spells, too. Actually, looking at the screenshot, there were several DoT's on her. Maybe that's what drew her in the first place and not Dastree's heal after all).