Warcraft Experience

Our new raiding schedule is Thursday nights Onyxia then MC to kill Lucifron and Magmadar. The rest of MC is reserved for Sunday night, IMO I think that run is too long since we are now including Rags in it but we’ll see. Monday nights are now devoted to BWL. WOOT!

Onyxia took forever to get the group put together. People had a rough time logging in and once in would drop sporadically for no reason. CT Mod was still giving others fits and then we had people drop in favor of others because they already had their Tier 2 helm. Suffice it to say I could have read a book in the time it took the raid to be put together. It’s no-ones fault it just seems like this particular run in jinxed.

We finally got all settled and kicked butt once we got in there. Garand won the [item]Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire[/item] with a 92, Pandion won the [item]Dragonstalker’s Helm[/item] with a 95 and Mynn won the [item]Helm of Wrath[/item] with a 79. About time the warrior helm dropped! Babbaganoosh won the [item]Onyxia Hide Backpack[/item] with a 99 (my roll was a measley 6), and Theseus won the [item]Head of Onyxia[/item] with a 96 (this time my roll was a 8 ). Alahn had the [item]Codex: Prayer of Fortitude[/item] foisted off on him, and Carnilion won the [item]Cow King’s Hide[/item] from the LM /random 40. Finally, Varlok actually got an upgrade in the [item]Heartseeking Crossbow[/item].

A quick portal, repair and a bird flight later we were at MC.

One of the first Core hound’s yielded the [item]Nightslayer Bracelets[/item] that Deflickshew won with a 16. Gotta love when that happens

Lucifron dropped the usual Tranq shot Tome. Make it BOE would ya Blizz? Ahnvil won the [item]Lawbringer Boots[/item] with a 42 and Burthona won a greed roll on the [item]Flamewalker Legplates[/item] with a 99.

Magmadar dropped the [item]Lawbringer Legplates[/item] for Theseus to win with a 56, the [item]Talisman of Ephermal Power[/item] for Gwadraw’s roll of 91 and the [item]Felheart Pants[/item] that went to Devliana and his 91.

Overall not a bad run but I wish we took a little longer in MC to not make Sunday’s run soo long. Grats everyone!

Since the raid calendars have been turned topsy-turvy we took advantage and ran Onyxia again on Thursday night. And followed that up with a quick dash to MC to kill Lucifron and Magmadar. The rest of the MC run will finish on Sunday and we will try our hand at BWL on Monday.

Phat loot netted from Onyxia

* [item]Mature Black Dragon Sinew[/item] – Schnitzel. Happy Hunting with your Hunter quest.
* [item]Head of Onyxia[/item] – Bahouth with a 83
* [item]Elven Spirit Claws[/item] – random /40 by the master looter
* [item]Deathbringer[/item] was first offered to the warriors and they all passed. It was opened up for a greed roll to all parties that could use it and Burthona won with a 98.
* Aveliana won the [item]Ring of Binding[/item] with a high-roll of 99.
* [item]Halo of Transcendence[/item] went to Tasmpriest with his roll of 97. I think very few of our priests don’t have their tier 2 headpiece now, which is a great thing in my book!
* Smokinjoe won the [item]Judgement Crown[/item] with a mediocre 50. BUT he won it!
* Ahnvil was on the quest chain for his pally weapon and received the [item]Heated Ancient Blade[/item]. He quickly headed off to DM after the run and turned it in for the [item]Quel’Serrar[/item].

A quick portal to IF for repairs and off we headed to MC to kill Luci and Mags.

We made it to Lucifron in 22 minutes (a new record for the alliance) and received the [item]Gauntlets of Might[/item] (Mynn with a 4) and Carnilion won the [item]Choker of Enlightenment[/item] with a 88.

44 minutes later we had Magmadar dead at our feet and were passing out loot. Mynn won again, this time the [item]Quick Strike Ring[/item] with a 99. It was warrior night for loot because the [item]Medallion of Steadfast Might[/item] dropped next and Burthona won with a 97. Our last piece of loot, the [item]Striker’s Mark[/item] went to greed roll and Mez won with a 100.

Congrats everyone!

Sidenote: we did the run this way because we had the opportunity to pull Onyxia again. Hopefully we won’t do this again in the future because it reduced the amount of core leather, etc. that we would normally get on a Thursday run. Not to mention it makes the Sunday run that much longer since we have 2-3 extra bosses to kill that are normally already dead.

I will share the exact tactics we used to kill Onyxia. Once you know what to do, the fight is surprisingly easy.

Where is Onyxia’s Lair?
A surprising amount of people do not know where it is located, and it is easy to understand why. Believe it or not, this high level dragon is located in Dustwallow Marsh. She is located in the Wyrmbog, in the south-west region of the map. There is a cave that looks like the mouth of a dragon, this is the place!

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Items You Will Need
First of all, if you haven’t already, you will need your [item]Drakefire Amulet[/item]. You get this by doing the long string of quests that start in the Burning Steppes. The Drakefire Amulet is not only a decent stats neckpiece, it is also the key to Onyxia’s lair. It is not necessary to wear the neckpiece to get in the lair, you can get in just by carrying it with you. Everyone in the raid must have one!

Fire Resist Potions
While not necessary, it is a good idea to keep a few Greater Fire Resist pots with you, since they will come in handy to absorb the fire damage she will be dealing.

Fire Resist Gear
Be sure to have some decent fire resist. No need to go insane, because stats are better, but have at least 60 fire resist as a caster/ranged and 100 or more for melee. The Drakefire amulet conveniently adds +15 Fire Resistance, so if you don’t have a better neck-piece, you might consider wearing this for the encounter.

Some Set Pieces
It is a good idea to have some set pieces; at least the ones from UBRS. Stats are important if you want to last through the fight, and if you are wearing crappy green gear, you are most likely not going to last, or you’re going to absorb too much healing/mana from your priests.

Group Arrangement
Group 1 – Pally with FR aura, 2 Priests or 1 Priest/1 Druid, Main Tank Warrior, Warlock for Imp Buff. Be sure to use a warlock who has the improved imp ability. It adds 54.6 Stam.

All other groups can have a combination of 1 healer and 1 pally if possible with FR aura. Keep the ranged people in one group and the melee in another to ensure all get healing from their respective range.

Warders
After zoning into the lair, you’ll see 3 – 5 warders. Kill them at range, with minimal melee. They have a fierce AOE fire attack that can do lots of damage to many people. If only the tank is holding them, the attack isn’t too bad. Just try not to get more than one warder at a time, or you can have a wipe on your hands, or at least a slow-down.

Buff!
Ok, you’re through the warders. Wait in the little doorway to her lair, but be sure no one goes in yet. Buff up, soul stone the MT and healers. Drink whatever buff potions now.

Begin!
Send your MT in, and have the rest of the raid follow very closely in tow. Have even groups go to the north west side of the cave, and odd groups go to the north east side. Be sure everyone goes all the way to the north, and avoids the two whelp egg areas on both sides of the cave. If you go in there, many whelps will spawn, which is a mess.

Phase 1
With everyone in position, no one should be attacking Onyxia except the main tank. Let him get his aggro while the raid waits. Have the MT pull onyxia north middle side of the cave, so that the raid is on either side of her. The MT is pinned between her and the north wall. After about 30 seconds, the raid can begin LIGHT dps. If you try to be a dps hero here, you will pull aggro, and you will wipe the raid. DON’T do high dps here, just the lightest attacks you have. Casters use non-fire wands, rogues/hunters be sure to feign/vanish often to wipe aggro.

Phase 2
Once the Phase 2 signal comes, around 65%, Onyxia will become airborne. At this point it is crucial that the raid spread from each other. No one in the entire raid should be closer than 3 yards from the next person. If Ony sees you are close to someone else, she will do a deep breath, which will wipe most of the raid. If you see the deep breath warning, run to the walls of the cave as fast as you can, you might live, but probably not. During Phase 2, everyone does MAX DPS. No aggro to worry about here. Go balls out dps, and have her dotted constantly. Dots will also keep her from deep breaths.

Phase 2 also brings about the occasional whelp pack. When this happens, have a mage frost nova them, then have warriors/pallies hold them, while aoe’rs finish them off. Be clean, and still maintain the 3 yard rule.

At 42%, all dots should stop except from one chosen high dps hunter. Choose this hunter at the beginning of the raid. That hunter needs to sustain dots and high dps, while the rest of the raid needs to go back to wands and light dps. That hunter has a crucial role for Phase 3.

Phase 3
The toughest and sloppiest phase of all. Onyxia will start to land anywhere from 23% to 35% health. When she does, ALL DPS completely stops except for that chosen hunter. The MT needs to go back to the north side of the cave from phase 1. The raid should go to their phase 1 positions. The hunter will have aggro and should bring Ony to the MT. At that point the Hunter needs to feign death or die.

DPS remains off until the MT reacquires aggro. Once aggro is nailed down, everyone will go max dps but remain in their phase 1 positions. Now you must kill Ony as fast as possible, because everything is against you. The lava splashes will do lots of dmg, whelps will continue to come out, and Ony’s tail and breath will do loads of damage to anyone in its path. Stay parallel to her eye or chest and give it all you got.

Conclusion
With practice of phase transitions, you will effectively take down Onyxia. She is a quick instance boss with great loot, and her head can be turned into Stormwind for a great epic quest reward. One head per raid. She can be skinned and her scales can be used to make [item]Onyxia Scale Cloak[/item] for Blackwing Lair and Fire Resist.

View a movie of an Alliance Onyxia Kill here.

Yea, I know…I’m running a bit late posting this. Since Sunday was Christmas we post-poned our normal MC run to Monday and added Ony to the list. We started a tad late but we finished it all!

MC

Lava Annihilator – [item]Giantstalker’s Belt[/item] – Kurosawa with a 66

Lava Elemental - [item]Lawbringer Belt[/item] – Gern won with a 17! Great pally rolls guys!

Lava Elemental – [item]Gianstalker’s Belt[/item] – Asterioidea

Sulfuron Priest – [item]Nightslayer Belt[/item] that Chuckers ninja’d with a 97. Welcome back!

Sulfuron
- [item]Pauldrons of Might[/item] – Kobort won with a 25. Personally I think he should have removed his roll and given it to Static or Hurtu. Unforunately it only seems to be the officers that do that. I like how people go on and on about how they are only there for the friendship but have a piece of loot drop that they need and the truth comes out. Try another story guys.
- [item]Shadowstrike[/item] – We didn’t even bother trying to greed roll this polearm and went straight to nexus crystal roll. Viitanus won it with a 100.

Firelord - [item]Cenarion Belt[/item] – Moonwinna with a 89

Golemagg
- [item]Lawbringer Chestguard[/item] – Alahn with a 98
- [item]Arcanist Robes[/item] – Quisver with a 86
- [item]Azuresong Mageblade[/item] – Gwadraw with a 61. WOOOOT No more b*tching from him.
- [item]Sulfuron Ingot[/item] – Bank

Majordomo
- [item]Wild Growth Spaulders[/item] – Moonwinna with a 13
- [item]Gloves of the Hypnotic Flame[/item] – Espinoza with a 37. Dammit I really want those but you could only roll if you didn’t have purple gloves. Well F U too.
- [item]Ancient Petrified Leaf[/item] – Schnitzel

Ya know different stuff than what we normally get on Sunday’s dropped. I wonder if it has anything to with it being a Monday night or just dumb luck. What do you guys think? I’d be interested in giving it another shot and see if there are different drops “assigned” to different nights. Interesting….

Onyxia
- [item]Head of Onyxia[/item] – Bolicious with a 99
- [item]Onyxia Hide Backpack[/item] – Mez with a 100
- [item]Sapphiron Drape[/item] – Rapunzel with a 97
- [item]Halo of Transcendence[/item] – Medikman with a 45
- [item]Dragonstalker’s Helm[/item] with a 96 went to Jadzia

Congrats Everyone!

We kicked butt last night in the Onyxia fight but dang was it hard to get people there. We didn’t have a full raid group and phase 3 came early and killed about 10 people along with the whelps that were still out from phase 2. BUT we prevailed and kicked some butt. I died when phase 3 hit so I got to sit there and watch everyone else do the dirty work. LOL

It was another night of two of the same head pieces [item]Judgement Crown[/item] dropping but this time for the Pallys. Poor Smokinjoe didn’t have his good dice with him last night and lost out. Butters and Galvar walked away happy though with their high rolls of 85 and 80 respectively.

Static won the [item]Ring of Binding[/item] with a 86. This was is considered a “warrior only” roll for now since they need the resistances more than the rest of us. But we are running out of warriors that want it so I bet it will be opened up to rogues and pallys soon. The +4 defense won’t do anything for casters so there is no reason for us to roll on it until way down the line.

Jadzia walked off with the Mature Black Sinew. Pandion won the [item]Onyxia Hide Backpack[/item] with a 90 (again my roll sucked – 49). Hexperiment won [item]Head of Onyxia[/item] with a 97 and will turn it in next week so we have the Ony head buff for day 1 of MC. A couple blues dropped and were /40 randomed by the ML and the Tome of Arcane Brilliance went to the bank. Hey, at least it wasn’t the Druid book this time.

Not to bad of a run and it only took about 20 min once we all got there and quit screwing around. What is it about that cave that makes everyone under the sun want to duel?

Bolicious and Bahouth wanted to know if we would go out to Silithus and summon a Raid boss from the Greater Wind Stones. Between the two of them we could summon 6 so most of the raid headed down there. Of course the closest camp was overrun with horde and it looked like they were going to summon a Raid boss too, so we headed to the far south one. Shitheads followed up down there and flagged. Well who can resist the temptation of that so we flagged and PvPed for a bit. There really was no point since Horde always wins over alliance (I wish I knew why though). We were going to wait to respawn until we unflagged and then summon but a couple people kept starting with the horde. Either way we knew someone was going to be reported for griefing and since Blizz likes Horde we knew they’d win. So…..we cancelled our plans to summon a Boss.

Which I might add, I am PO’d about. The first time in a while that we were going to do something different and we can’t get our shit together long enough to do it. O don’t get me wrong – I flagged too and killed a few before I died but I was really hoping to see that Boss. Maybe next week.

Wow we had a hard time of it last night. We had a couple new people there, and Tasmpriest was off playing horde, Traitor!, so one of our main healers was gone too…..

I don’t know if Ony was bugged or we were just being stupid but it took us a couple of attempts before we finally killed her. The first two times we ran in we managed to pop one whelp on the left or “odd” side of the camp and then it seemed to go downhill from there. I died so much last night my cache of 3g + some silver from Ony didn’t even cover my repair bills. Sucky.

I was on the odd-side or left-side of the fight and in the whelp AOE caster camp and I made it through phase 1 just fine, half way thru phase 2 and then Ony busted our her deep breath and I died instantly. Even with 162 FR and a blink to the side and splat! there I went. Since it was so early in the fight I ran back, which normally ports you into the fight immediately but this time it didn’t until everyone but 2 or 3 were dead and then it ported me back. Of course, the damn dragon looked at my squishee butt funny and I was dead again. I must have to that cave about 6 times total. Gee I think they could have put it a little farther away too.

After some kvetching and confusion we finally took her down on our 3rd attempt. Once again I walked off with nothing but a repair bill. Booooo hooo for me. LOL

PHAT Onyxia Loot
* Ring of Binding – a warrior’s only roll – went to Druela with his win of a 26. Static and Dru tied on the first roll with a 88 but he finally won. I think he is one of the lowest equipped FR warriors anyway, so it’s prob good that he got it.
* Mature Black Dragon Sinew – Kurosawa!! Wooot!!! But only after Burthona had to be mean. If you could have heard it, wow. Basically he made it seem like it dropped, then told Kuro that it hadn’t. After a couple seconds of dead silence on vent…you could just hear Kuro swearing up a storm in your mind…Burthona dropped it into his bags.
* 2, yes 2! Halo of Transcendence – Lorick with a 100 and Phifer with a 69. So now that is 3 or 4 of our priests have it. Rock on.
* Book: Gift of the Wild – Galvar for the bank. Thats like what…5 now….
* Onyxia head – Hazmatt won with a 98
* 18-slot backpack – Hazmatt won with a 96. (I rolled a 83; I’m getting higher.)
* AND the /random ML blue – The needler went to Hazmatt too.

That little twerp sure cleaned up on his first Ony run. Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy for him – but I’m just disappointed that it seems like the game is biased towards the new players on runs. I know its a toss of virtual dice but there is some mathmatical formula in there somewhere that really leans towards the “newbs”. At least he can’t win the stuff again I also think one of the main reasons it was so disheartening was bc it took us 3 attempts to kill her which equals a lot of pots, repair money, time, etc. that we weren’t counting on using.

The cleanup on aisle 5 by Hazmatt led us to start discussing having Ony loot rules similar to MC. We’ve never had this happen before so it never dawned on us to make them. I guess we’ll see where this takes us.

Wacked Ony and were going to go try Rags, but about half the raid voted against it.

Ony Drops
* [item]Codex: Prayer of Fortitude[/item]
* [item]Bloodfang Hood[/item] – Mez won with a85 but removed his roll in favor of Kugnar since he doesn’t have a purple headpiece. <3 to Mez. I think Kugnar needs to send him a huge xmas present.
* [item]Halo of Transcendence[/item] – Rapunzel with a 65
* [item]Ring of Binging[/item] – Burthona with a 93. We had the tanks roll on this since it offers armor and +10 to all resists. Since they are up close and personal they need it the most. Took us about 10 min in officer chat to discuss it though. There were some people opposed to our decision so next week we’ll random it.
* [item]Onyxia Hide Backpack[/item] went to Wendra; he rolled a 99. Me? I rolled a 3. WTFBBQ!
* [item]Scarlet Kris[/item] went to Varlok with his impressive roll of 15.
* Kyjethu won the [item]Head of Onyxia[/item] with a 98. He is also a leather-worker so now we can start getting the cloaks made.
* A couple other greens and another blue dropped but not really worth a mention. The loot master did quick work with /random 40 and dropped them in people’s bags.

So we went hunting for some world dragons to kill. Found Emeriss in the Hinterlands and headed on out. The first try on Emeriss we got him down to 75%, which is the first time he starts killing people and turning them into mushrooms. If someone near you is a mushroom – run away! Otherwise they explode and kill you too. So we had people turning into mushrooms and one of the dragon patrol mobs we killed earlier re-popped (we spent soo much time talking about the kill and not doing anything) and aggroed on a priest. Needless to say it was a bust. So we all ran back, discussed it while we waited for our nature poo to disappear (it has a 15 min cooldown) and bidded our time. Second time all hell broke loose and we hardly did anything. Then everyone was done and ported out. WTF! We spent two hours talking about, 2 min doing it and then when we didn’t get an immediate kill we all took our toys and went home. Lame. I hung around for a bit because another group was there and there was talk of trying it again or at least kiting him to a horde town. 10 min later and no action but the flapping of the gums on vent and I left.

Here is the strategy that we were using: http://www.wowwiki.com/Emeriss

Here is a video of a group killing him (apparently they like to continue trying until they figure it out): http://www.filenuts.com/download.php?det=381

Went on our weekly Onyxia run on Monday night. We were out some of our “normal” crew because of holidays and whatnot. It took us like 4 or 5 trys before we finally took her down. I was popping those pots from Mascara before each fight and I think they actually helped. It’s funny to think that regen 2 health every couple of seconds and adding 27 health actually helps. But ya know when you are in the party that AOEs the whelps, anything works. Especially when your priest is in the front of the cave and not tossing you heals. The last fight I used a scroll that increased my armor by 150. Man did that help. I’ve now started browsing the AH to see what I can find. Really though you don’t care about my crazy tactics, do you? Ok well some the mages out there might. I had 128 fire resist on (did put on the Onyxia amulet this time) and used those pots.

The first attempt Dworkinn (the other mage in my party AOEin) went down quicker than a card building. The next couple of times we lasted a little longer – but again those damn whelps took us down. I really wish healers would pay attention to you when you AOE. We annouce the whelps over vent and which side they come out, move your little squishee butt down to where they are and toss me a heal. Really. It helps the rest of the raid not wipe.

Anywho…..we killed her. Hoping to move Onyxia to farm status pretty soon. Then onto Blackwing Lair. WOOT!

Devliena won the [item]Nemesis Skullcap[/item] with a roll of 94. And Ahvil won his [item]Judgement Crown[/item] with a 76. Damn Kyjethu (he’s really on a winning streak) won the [item]Onyxia Hide Backpack[/item] with a 98. And Asterioidea won the [item]Eskhandar’s Collar[/item] with a 91. Congrats everyone!