Joo Can Haz No Mana! Die Now Pl0x!

Imagine Naxx 25. Most of us have done it/despise it/love it. I was in a run with Dark Guard, another guild that houses many of my WoW friends (Zephoes, who was a pet tank/healbot for a while, and Chestter,  who was in Rising Phoenix with me, both of whom I have known for over a year, Chestter ).  We glide though with ease the first night, with my only complaint being they didn’t explain loot rules after the first boss I was there to kill (Loatheb) and passed up a chance to win an upgrade for my helm. But whatever, I’m sure I’ll be back–it was an accident and nothing more.  It wasn’t my ideal helm anyway, just an epic to replace a blue (achievement wut?)

Then we hit Thaddius. And someone mentions that Thaddius is the Achille’s Heel for Dark Guard. I’m thinking “We’ve all seen this boss before…Mechanar, hello?” And I’m sure there were other bosses like this.  And it’s easy: don’t be an idiot, move when your charge changes. Right? Right? …Wrong. The first time, healers just…didn’t heal their tanks. And a tank died. So we had to reset. The second time?

Let me put it this way: I thought Failbot was going to explode. The first time we made it to Thaddius, we lost about 6 dps within the first charge switch, from people who didn’t make the jump and didn’t know how to re-enter the fight to people who just couldn’t switch.

After a couple more attempts, we gave up and called it a night.  Because some people had failed many, many times. We’re talking double digits here. People, when your charge switches, the most important thing you can do is move. You do not finish casting/channeling your spell. You do not keep attacking to try to make the most of your CDs. You do not pass Go. You do not collect $200. Or I will cut your face off.

So  last night we went back. We ‘re on Thaddius, of course. Everything is going fine. We dps down the minions. We jump. I stand in the center. I realize that I blew through a decent amount of mana, so I think “Why not use Evocation? Then it’ll be ready for use later on!”

So I pop Evocation. The boss comes alive. I’m still Evocating.

In about 1.5 seconds, my screen flashes “AGGRO!” then BOOM 24351 damage hit. I’m dead. It’s not worth even mentioning the overkill.

I stared at my screen, dumbfounded. How could I possibly forget that Evocation causes more aggro than the Consecration + Taunt that the pally tank cast as soon as Thaddius came alive? How could I possibly think that Evocation, a spell that is already broken and easily interruptable, would actually allow me to successfully regain my mana? How could I possibly imagine Thaddius being so curteous and kind as to allow my pitiful clothie self a chance to even survive his glare?

Lesson Learned: Evocate before jumping so you don’t cause aggro and don’t suffer from the AoE and thus have no mana (and, therefore, no dps) or else you will die (and, therefore, have no dps).

Malygos Should Be Made Into Stew

But really, it’s the idiots who don’t know how to do the damn instance that should be ground up into stew. I was raiding with one of my favorite/ally guilds, Vile Darkness, and there were some people in there who just didn’t get it. Poor Morkill was doing his best to help everyone else out by tanking instead of dpsing, and everyone else just sort of…failed. And all he got to show for being nice was a huge repair bill. Not everyone was failing, mind you, and one time we just got really unlucky, but…well, here is the fight in it’s simplest form, with the problems we encountered embedded in it.

Don’t stand in front of Malygos. He like’s to OM NOM NOM everyone in his path except the tank, which he chooses to LICK LICK LICK and savour until he’s done teasing the raid and goes I R HUNGRY OM NOM NOM and we’re all dead.

Kill the fucking spark. Malygos with the spark is like giving a 6 year old a paint gun on your white carpet. Bad things happen. Your dps isn’t that great. DKs, your job is to Death Grip the spark. Just like it’s a rogue’s job to kick on KT, or a Priest’s job to mind control on Rasuvius. I don’t care if it interrupts your dps. You’re not that great. If we’re dead because of the spark, we’re dead. When you raid, it’s a team effort, and you use your utility or gtfo and lrn2play your class.

BUBBLES SAVE YOU! Don’t stand around like an idiot trying to stay in range of the Blood Elf on the disk flying away from you. Get in the damn bubble. Its’s big and purple and keeps you alive. Dead dps = no dps. Of course, if you’re dead, then precious heals won’t be wasted on idiots.

MELEE GET ON THE EFFING DISKS! You’re worthless otherwise. And look! You can fly! Everyone loves flying. So do it.

When you’re on the dragons, you stack. When Malygos looks at you, SHIELD! Remember that whole “Dead dps = no dps” thing? Yeah. Goes for healers here too. You have a shield that mitigates damage. Why not use it? You can always stack more DoTs. But not if you’re dead. It’s hard to do things when you’re dead. Try it sometime.  It won’t work.

Also. Don’t be that asshole who flies ahead of the rest of the raid. Everyone will hate you. You’re the reason that, at 4%, everyone is dead because we have to try to fly around the storms that are all around us. If you don’t know what you’re doing, which you probably don’t, /follow the guy with the icon over his head and stop moving. If you think you know what you’re doing, you probably don’t. In fact, unless you’re the guy with the icon over your head, assume you don’t know what you’re doing. Everyone else is assuming it too. I assume I don’t know what I’m doing, even though I do. Because you know it? I’d rather get through the raid, get my achievement, and get my loot than try to prove how 1337 I am. No one is 1337 when they are dead. Just poor.

So, grow the fuck up and play.

And Maly? Go fuck a wall.