It’s been long since the last time, but finally I got the opportunity to enjoy a raiding night with 20 wipes and not a single boss kill. And I enjoyed every single second of it.
It hasn’t happened since we were fighting Archimond last summer and I feel that I’ve missed it. Surely, conquering Naxx has been lovely in every way – especially for me, since I never saw the original Naxx instance. I can imagine it wasn’t quite as exhilarating for people who already have “been there, done that”. Going to a party in a dress you’ve had for three years never can give the same feeling as wearing a brand new one.
But even if Naxx, with all it’s variation of bosses and not too much of trash mobs to cut your way through, has been fun, something has clearly been missing. We’ve got it to farm status too quickly and we haven’t banged our heads into a wall many times enough to get the real super-cheer on TS when the bosses go down. Sometimes it’s more like a “meh”, “was that all”.
It probably sounds a bit weird to many of you, but I really like encounters that require you to suffer a bit. I also want fights to be varied, neither too short or too long (about 10 minutes is just fine) and not make me to corpse run over half of the continent or wade through a ton of boring trash mobs for every reset (thinking Kel Thuzad or the famous MH waves, sigh).
Malygos
Malygos has got absolutely everything I could wish of a boss fight. The other night I saw him for the first time. This was the first time the guild devoted a whole 25 man raiding night to him, and we had some 20 tries, with the best one at 7 percent, before calling it night.
The first time we made it into phase 3 was the most exciting moment for me. Of course I had watched videos, but they could in no way describe the feeling I got when the floor suddenly disappeared below my feet, I fell in space, just to be picked up by a dragon. I swear - it was like running a rollercoaster in an amusement park. You got the same sensation in the stomach. Not to mention all the psychedelic patterns towards the end which the developers have thrown in, apparently with the intention to make people like me completely disoriented and seasick.
This fight was so fun and so varied from the beginning to the end, that I would have been pretty disappointed if we had killed the dragon him at first sight. I want to make this ride not one, but several times! What if we had gotten him early? That would have left us with three hours of raiding time but nothing more to raid (all other 25 man instances cleared earlier in the week). Of course I wouldn’t have regretted if he had died in our last beautiful 7 percent fight. It would have felt well deserved and put a perfect end to a night, where we learned, tweaked a bit and improved with every try. Still, when we called it, I had a big smile on my face.
The reward
It hasn’t happened since we were fighting Archimond last summer and I feel that I’ve missed it. Surely, conquering Naxx has been lovely in every way – especially for me, since I never saw the original Naxx instance. I can imagine it wasn’t quite as exhilarating for people who already have “been there, done that”. Going to a party in a dress you’ve had for three years never can give the same feeling as wearing a brand new one.
But even if Naxx, with all it’s variation of bosses and not too much of trash mobs to cut your way through, has been fun, something has clearly been missing. We’ve got it to farm status too quickly and we haven’t banged our heads into a wall many times enough to get the real super-cheer on TS when the bosses go down. Sometimes it’s more like a “meh”, “was that all”.
It probably sounds a bit weird to many of you, but I really like encounters that require you to suffer a bit. I also want fights to be varied, neither too short or too long (about 10 minutes is just fine) and not make me to corpse run over half of the continent or wade through a ton of boring trash mobs for every reset (thinking Kel Thuzad or the famous MH waves, sigh).
Malygos
Malygos has got absolutely everything I could wish of a boss fight. The other night I saw him for the first time. This was the first time the guild devoted a whole 25 man raiding night to him, and we had some 20 tries, with the best one at 7 percent, before calling it night.
The first time we made it into phase 3 was the most exciting moment for me. Of course I had watched videos, but they could in no way describe the feeling I got when the floor suddenly disappeared below my feet, I fell in space, just to be picked up by a dragon. I swear - it was like running a rollercoaster in an amusement park. You got the same sensation in the stomach. Not to mention all the psychedelic patterns towards the end which the developers have thrown in, apparently with the intention to make people like me completely disoriented and seasick.
This fight was so fun and so varied from the beginning to the end, that I would have been pretty disappointed if we had killed the dragon him at first sight. I want to make this ride not one, but several times! What if we had gotten him early? That would have left us with three hours of raiding time but nothing more to raid (all other 25 man instances cleared earlier in the week). Of course I wouldn’t have regretted if he had died in our last beautiful 7 percent fight. It would have felt well deserved and put a perfect end to a night, where we learned, tweaked a bit and improved with every try. Still, when we called it, I had a big smile on my face.
The reward
Did I earn anything? Well, apart from increasing my DKP a little – nothing. I didn’t get any loot, just a high repair bill. Does it bother me? Not the slightest. I don’t evaluate the time I spend online in terms of efficiency. I don’t play WoW to gain gold. I play it to have fun. And sometimes the fun consists of wiping.
Now I’ll just practice my flying skills a bit more, doing Aces high. I haven’t yet quite got used to the idea of positioning myself in three dimensions and I think I’m not alone in this. But it probably won’t be long before we nail him. And what’s left then? I guess we’ll put up more dragons on Sartharion, waiting for Ulduar to come out. We are raiders. And raiders need a wipe night every now and then. That’s a part of our nature.
Now I’ll just practice my flying skills a bit more, doing Aces high. I haven’t yet quite got used to the idea of positioning myself in three dimensions and I think I’m not alone in this. But it probably won’t be long before we nail him. And what’s left then? I guess we’ll put up more dragons on Sartharion, waiting for Ulduar to come out. We are raiders. And raiders need a wipe night every now and then. That’s a part of our nature.
15 comments:
Aces High is disorienting indeed. WoW just isn't suited to truly 3D fights. I'd spill the tactics for you, but instead I'll just say that you can macro the combo-building HoT. It's just something like
/cast [target=whatevertgedrakeiscalled] whateverthespelliscalled
Then bind that to something off your main bar, since if you're like me that gets replaced and can't be modified. This saves a lot of click-spell, click-me, click-spell...
*ahem* On the actual topic of your post: A few wipes make the kill that much better.
God, how I hate the third stage of Malygos :P
you're absolutely right - the 3d orienting is disorienting, especialy in space that really has no landscape references (at least when I'm flying across the northrnd, i have mountains and rivers and buildings and nooks and cranies to tell me where up and when down is)
my guild just got him last week for the fist time (on 25 man's) it was one of those shoudl have been a wipe things - incredibly exiting and at the same time frustrating, becasue I felt like I wasn't contributing enough (I died on every attempt)
Couple of things we figured out though and I've been practicing on aces high. what really does the most damage is the stacks of that finish move you do (button number 2) you can hit your main attack twice, then 2 then main attack again. with HoT (at least during the daily), I started having a lot less troube with it once I realized that I can stack it on myself 5 times, and then simply renew it by hitting 3 once when there was only 2-3 seconds left on it. that way I constatly had 5stack HoT going on myself, at all times. another thing that help was going into interface options and selecting autoselfcast option - with it, I didn't have to switch targets - just hitting 3 was enough to get and keep the HoT going.
hardest part about Malygos fight, as far as I'm concerned is positioning. you have to position the sparks, you have to position the raid, you have to make sure you are protected by those domes and finaly - you all have to fly in tight formation. its like a very complex dance, where any false move will ruin the entire number
ugg...
/mutter what is it with Wrath and vehicle fights you cannot seem to escape?
I agre thoough, when bosses go down too easily - there's no excitement, but when they put up a fight - oooooh, now that's fun :)
"It probably sounds a bit weird to many of you, but I really like encounters that require you to suffer a bit."
This isn't at all weird, the feeling is in fact shared by a great many people. The people who are whining about WotLK lack of raid content are essentially whining about that, a whole lot of "Meh, is that all ?" on TS is what we have experienced for all of Naxxramas, Archavon and Sartharion without drakes.
The only feeling of excitement we got was indeed Malygos and most of all Sarth 3D (that one was huge).
I sincerely hope Ulduar will live up to expectations.
Good to hear that someone is interested in progress. Go Larísa.
Its a great fun fight. It really is. And *the* best part of bossfighting is not getting them down, )thats usually just a matter of luck the first time) but the feeling you get when you are just about to succeed. That attempt where you can tell that your strat is working, and that everyone in the raid 'gets it'. That feeling when you know that its just about timing and luck before you get that boss down.
Thats what I live for.
For now for us, its Sarph 3d, and I cannot wait till we dedicate an entire week of wiping in there. That is one SW worthy tuff fight :) -look forward to it, ill bet its next for you too.
I agree that wiping makes it that much better when you finally get him down. It's that sense of accomplishment that you tackled something hard and EARNED it, rather than just had it handed to you.
I know exactly what you mean! My guild spent last night wiping on Sarth 2D, and it was the most fun we've had in a long time. I loved every minute and I wasn't even IN the raid! (For some reason, playing on the laptop while my boyfriend was playing on the desktop caused us both to lag, so I stepped out and watched the raid over his shoulder.)
just a lil bump for my new blog not nearly as good as the Pigtail.. but i'm workin on it..
thanks larisa for the inspiration
http://wowclifdog.blogspot.com/
Next is working on some of the achievements, like Undying and The Immortal. Or tackling the various boss achievements in Naxx 10.
I know that achievements are not the bee's knees for everyone, hell I blogged about them being WoW's version of "bucket lists", but they do have some merit when they are skill based. Go for Shocker in 25m Naxx, see if you can get the entire raid to not cross the polarities. We got it last night, and I've not felt better about an encounter as the Guild Master in a long time, because some of the most simple things often allude our raid, like the Heigan dance took a few weeks to get, and now Shocker, next would be the 4HM kill em all within 5 seconds, or Loatheb without his spores being killed.
Realistically there is no longer material reward for my guild at least, sure there are people that are filling out their remaining slots, and we have some new recruits that its nice to gear up. But after taking out all of the content by now, our last option is to check off our "bucket lists".
Good luck on your next Maly night, its a really fun fight, and once you all master the movements and learn to keep applying your stacks, you'll enjoy that fight even more.
I got my first shot at Malygos the other night in a ten man. Sadly, we barely made into the second phase before the leader called it. I can't blame him, considering it was everyone's first shot at him with our gear being as low as it was... but anyway...
Thank you, also, for providing the correct URL for you blog. :)
@Klepsacovic: It would indeed help not to have to switch target between me and the dragon. I'll have to check that macro out, thanks! And indeed, the best spice for a boss kill is some wipes to begin with.
@Leah: I had no idea for a while what was up and down. Tight formation seems great. I saw Matticus had a nice post today about phase 3, showing the movements in a very easy-to-understand way. Great idea about self-casting options. Hadn't thought about that!
@Mokhtar: I'm glad I still have S+3 drakes to look forward to! I can't imagine today how we'll make it, but I trust we'll keep trying until we do... Unless Ulduar will get in our way and get all the time...
@Gevlon: thanks! So no disapproval of the waste of gold then? I didn't think you would actually.
@Dw-Redux: oh, you're absolutely right! I guess that's why I was so happy after this night: even if we didn't get him, it definitly felt very doable in not a too distant future. Phase 1 was flawless, phase 2 good (although a little slow), it's just phase 3 that needs a little more of practice.
@Kyrilean: oh yes, it's a completely different feeling. And the loot is definitly not the issue here.
@Elleiras: oh, you'll get him soon hopefully. And I hope you're in the raid at that point!
@Clifdog: welcome to the Blogosphere. I hope you'll stick to blogging and discover how fun it is. Be patient though. It takes a lot of time to get the hang of it and to get a few readers...
@Goshon: I'm a fan of the raid acheivements, I even wrote a post about it recently. I think it's a good solution so that casual players can "see all bosses" and more dedicated, advanced raiders, can get challanges. Don't know how long it will be before we can start trying for heroic achivements. I guess we'll get there.
@Dallanna: my pleasure. And I really hope you'll get to phase 3 soon. It was well worth seeing, even if you don't manage to down the boss.
I will admit, the entire focus of raiding seems backwards to me.
You raid to get gear, so you can do harder raids to get better gear. But unless you're raiding, you don't really NEED that level of gear.
Also, dying repeatedly for me is normally a sign of "too tired to concentrate" so I should stop playing. If I go through an instance and don't wipe, its AWESOME, not too easy.
I'm also disatisfied with a lot of the wrath loot because its not as cool looking as TBC :(
Larisa,
I share your opinion that a night of wipes, as long as people are learning, is a rewarding experience.
We one shotted many of the progression bosses in Naxx, but they were hollow victories. There was no thrill of excitement, no cheering on vent, no sense of accomplishment knowing we had overcome a worthy adversary and grown as players through the experience.
It was a delight to begin working on Malygos and Sarth & drakes and experience a night of wipes again. This time, when we succeed, it will mean something.
Love your blog, thanks for sharing your experiences and insights with us!
@Fish: I know it sounds a bit weired but I guess it's the just the raiding bug. Wiping a lot isn't necessarily because you suck. Hey, we all have our learning curves to deal with. No one is perfect from the start. Unless the content is ridiculously easy.
@Aleathea: thank you for your kind words.
Actually we got Malygos at our fifth try or so the second night we were there, so maybe he was a little bit too easy after all. A few more wipes wouldn't have hurt. Next challange will be Sarth + 2 drakes. We've already started the wiping process. Looking forward to proceed the wall-banging.
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