Wednesday (30 Sep) - So, There's This Dragon Called Onyxia

Wednesday (30 Sep) - So, There's This Dragon Called Onyxia

So, there's this dragon called Onyxia, ever hear of her? Big girl, somewhat nasty disposition, probably because she has waaay too many children. Too many chaperones, too, with all those Black Dragonfight types around. Kinda makes it hard to get a date, ya know?

Well, we got a date with her. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

When Wild logged in at 5:35pm on Wednesday, I was expecting to see a few more than four guildies. But that's how many were on. It's a weekday, though, and many raiders can't get logged in until closer to 6pm. With twenty raiders signed up, we had a chance actually get a 25 man going.

Wild headed out to the Argent Tournament grounds to wait for invites, and then went afk while I watched some of the Tigers-Twins game (which my favored Tigers later won 7-2 to my great relief). What wasn't so great is that at the 6pm invite time we had only 16 raiders to invite, the same 15-17 number we've been stymied at for several raid days now.

Once it was clear we were again going to come up short, the raid leaders asked if we would hang around for a bit for an announcement about changes to our raid schedule. Everybody got on vent.

First off, we were all praised for our attendance and support of the 25 man raids, and acknowledged the frustration we were feeling over not being able to field a full raid. A lot of effort by raid leadership had gone into trying to find enough raiders both within and outside the guild, but for whatever reason interest in the 25 mans was waning and there were few takers.

So raid leadership was proposing a change. The proposal will be posted on the guild website, but they felt that those of us who kept showing up deserved to hear it directly and have a chance to comment.

The proposal is to set 25 man raiding aside - for now. A date will be set, but a period of a few raids or a month were mentioned as the likely timeframe. Replacing the 25 man raid would be a new ten man team with a special purpose.

The guild has two stable ten man teams and two others that are less so, meaning they regularly have trouble filling the raid. Lady Hunter's ten man would have to be put in the "less stable" category right now. The new ten man would be open to all raiders, including alts, and would focus on three primary areas: increasing raider familiarity with the raids in ten man to help us later on with the 25 man version; gearing up mains that need help (which will also help the 25 mans) as well as alts when mains aren't available, and of course, to have some fun and increase guild participation in raiding. The idea is that with attendance on Wed/Fri stuck at around 15-17 raiders, a very good ten man could be formed with the ability rotate raiders in on those two days so that everyone will get a chance to raid. There would be no "regulars" and everyone would get opportunities to participate. Ideally, there would be enough raiders left over each raid day to run a five man and do some chain Heroics or anything else we would want to do. I believe the hope is that this will also serve to increase attendance, perhaps leading to fielding two ten mans on Wed/Fri, and eventually get us back to 25 man raiding.

I like the idea. The actual proposal hasn't been posted yet, so I may not have things exactly right, but I think I've got the basics covered.

There were a few comments from other raiders, all positive. The focus quickly turned to, so what are we doing tonight? After all, we were all here to raid. So let's raid! We began working out who would comprise the night's ten man and discussing where we would be headed.

Wild intends to continue to sign up for the Wed/Fri raids, as well as for Lady Hunter's Tues/Thurs ten man, which I hope will continue. If, due to one raid or the other, Wild gets locked out of another raid, then that'll just have to be the way it is. I'm glad that Lady Hunter get's first crack at Wild since Tuesday comes before Wednesday, and I love that group. But Wild will go with whichever one gets him in a raid. As long as Wild is raiding, I'm happy.

There is also my elemental shaman, JB. She is going to be a level 80 in the not so distant future. Raw, solo questing oriented, with next to no dungeon or raid experience, but she'll be an alt that I'll make available if needed on raids where Wild is locked out. Speaking of which, JB is now 73% of the way to level 77.

It did not take long for us to form up a ten man raid, and those who did not get in on the raid had volunteered not to go. Wild was in. So was P-Jo, Wild's healing partner in Lady Hunter's raid. We also had another priest and another druid who could heal or DPS depending on what was needed. Our 25 man main tank, Rh, was in one of the stable ten mans and could not come, but his alt, a feral druid, came instead since we needed a second tank. The main tank was a mostly full time moonkin who was also a very experienced tank.

Ok, so where are we going? Didn't I say something about a dragon awhile back? The choice was Onyxia's Lair.

Onyxia's Lair was a level 60 classic WoW raid from pre-expansion days. There was a pretty tough attunement for it, for which raiders received the [Drakefire Amulet] which acted as the key to enter the Lair. Wild had that amulet.

The latest patch reintroduced a level 80 version of Onyxia's Lair, with new loot and even some stat upgrades for favored old loot. Neither the attunement or the amulet are required anymore. I guess Wild can throw that amulet away now.

Us oldtimers remember Onyxia, and a few newer raiders have already made forays into the level 80 version. However, most of the raid had never seen this fight. It took me a long time digging through old posts to dredge up the first time Wild faced Onyxia. The SN forums search "feature" is a useless hunk of bad coding.

The first inklings of Wild's interest in Onyxia attunement came at the prodding of the guild leader at the time who patiently and persistently kept Wild on the hook. Wild was already running Molten Core and was just starting on Blackwing Lair, but was still missing the thirty minute Onyxia run that usually started the evening raid because he wasn't attuned. Wild ultimately completed the fourteen quests (and multiple trips into UBRS and LBRS) to get attuned, achieving that milestone on 18 Oct 2006, also known as "the attunement that took one year, seven months, and 26 days" to achieve. Unlike the Karazhan attunement, though, which after it was done Wild went many, many weeks before actually getting into Kara, the Onyxia run came much sooner. On 24 Oct, 2006, just six days after Wild got attuned, Wild happened to be around for an unscheduled guild Onyxia run. Onyxia fell. You could look it up - page 21 in the SN journal pages (although those earlier entries are not yet available on the Wild Family blog).

Now it's October 2009, just shy of three years since Wild's first Ony kill. And here we are, now level 80, and Onyxia is back and feistier than ever.

Once the decision was made to attempt Onyxia, Wild at first drew a complete blank as to how to get there, or even where "there" was. A raider mentioned that the closest flight path was Mudsprocket. Mudsprocket? Wild had never heard of the place. No, no, Wild hadn't forgotten the place, I really had never heard of it.

Since we were all hearthing back to Dalaran first, where there are portals to the major cities on the other continents, Thunder Bluff was named as the city to head for first. Things then started to come back to Wild. Onyxia's Lair was in Dustwallow Marsh. The horde town there was Brackenwall Village, which in Wild's day was the jumping off point for the ride to the Lair, through mid-forties level mobs, many of which were elite and could drag down even a level 60 that aggroed too many.

All of that has changed, though, mostly from patch 2.3 many moons ago which hastened the level 20-60 levelling process by dumbing down quests, adding more quests, turning elites into non-elites, etc. Part of that patch added the new quest hub of Mudsprocket, a neutral town available to both horde and alliance located closer to Onyxia's Lair than any other town.

Wild bypassed having to locate Musprocket by getting a Summons directly to Onyxia's Lair. The sight brought back memories. The area around the cave entrance was still full of mid-40s level dragons, but they were all now non-elites and terrified of the packs of level 80s that came and went, occasionally one shotting a few of the mobs just for sport. There were also the pvp flagged alliance hanging around trying to start a war, and sometimes succeeding.

Wild trotted up the familiar U-shaped rock ramp to the closed gate. Wild tried to open it - Yes! Wild still had the touch. The gate opened and Wild entered. Wild needed a moment to adjust his eyesight to the deep blue and black gloom of the interior. Wild recalled that there was a shortcut to the spot where we assembled, but would have missed it if I hadn't seen a couple of raiders already there. Wild made an abrupt right turn, stepped up on a rock ledge, and jumped down to the rally point.

The raid began to get itself together. We had five possible healers with us. So who is going to be the healing leader? the raid leader asked. None of the healers who held that job in the 25 mans were with us. None of us spoke up right away. We were a shy bunch. There was a senior priest in the group that Wild hoped would raise a hand, but when that didn't happen Wild started typing that he would take it. I didn't get to send it, though, as two chat messages hit the raid at the same time ahead of Wild. One, from P-Jo, nominated Wild to be healing leader. That got a smile from Wild. The second came from the raid leader, and he assigned that role to Wild.

Ok, ok, I got it, I was going to volunteer anyway. Eventually. Wild set up the healing assignments, initially using four healers as that's what I thought I'd heard. Wild then corrected that when I learned that the senior priest (whose tag I cannot recall at the moment - we have so many priests!) had switched spec to shadow for the ranged/magic DPS and raid buffs. We fought our way through a winding tunnel peppered with mobs without any trouble, and arrived at the only boss, Onyxia. Wild assigned himself to main tank healing. I assigned the other druid to off tank healing and P-Jo to raid heal and back up the tank healers. I could have gone the other way, but there is a lot of raid damage on this fight and I knew P-Jo could handle both raid and backup tank healing.

Onyxia's Lair is a slightly egg shaped chamber. We entered from the southern tip, with Onyxia resting at the north end. On each side (east and west sides of the room) is a side chamber full of eggs.

The druid main tank counted down the start: 3 . . . 2 . . . 1, then cast a lifebloom on himself before shifting into bear form as he moved across the room to Onyxia. Wild followed the tank, dropping a rejuv and a stack of lifeblooms as we ran. With only the main tank to heal on this first phase, P-Jo covered for Wild when the tank took the first big hit from Onyxia, getting a big fast heal to the tank to supplement Wild's Hots. By then we were in position and Wild could use longer cast spells as well as his HoTs. Positioning was important, and the raid took damage as raiders learned where NOT to stand. Onyxia has a deadly tail sweep if you are too close behind her, a nasty cleave if you stand toward her front on either side, and a frontal flame breath which only the tank should have to absorb. The tank also had to survive wing buffet, which knocks the tank back, which is why he stands with his back against a wall.

We wiped on our first try, but now everyone had seen how the first phase unfolded.

On our second attempt we were able to beat Onyxia down to 65%, at which point she took to the air. Ranged DPS could still target and attack, and even the melee could hit her by standing directly underneath. When she took off the raid sort of scattered about the room, which wasn't exactly what we should have been doing. Wild followed the main tank, who had switched targets to an incoming Lair Guard. They spawn in pairs and they hit hard. Wild was healing the main tank on one of the lair gaurds when the room flooded with whelps, forty flying baby dragons that instantly took after the healers. The off tank worked frantically to round them up so that they could be AoEed. We survived the first wave lair of guards and whelps, but not the second, wiping again, with Onyxia at 59%.

We went at Onyxia again and again, making progress on nearly every attempt, and learning a bit more about the fight as well. We had struggled with the initial positioning, but now had that down. We had problems with the whelps wiping out the healers, and adjusted to a "retreat to center" strategy when they spawned so it was easier for the off tank to coral them and the AoE to kill them before the healers went down.

We made six attempts, all wipes. The problem was too many targets and not enough DPS. The whelps had to be focused on. Then there was the lair guards, which could not be allowed to roam free. And there was still Onyxia, who would stay in the air and send lair guards and whelps at us over and over again until we battered her back down to earth by getting her health down to 40%.

We had two problems. Our DPS was stretched too thin. And we had also not figured out how to survive Deep Breath. More on that to follow.

By the third attempt the raid leader knew we weren't getting enough DPS on Onyxia, and asked Wild whether we could manage with two healers. One less healer added significant risk, particularly of losing a tank. The second druid healer needed help on the off tank when those whelps came flitting in. I told the raid leader we needed three healers.

After the sixth wipe I knew we needed to try another approach. Wild reopened the healer question and told the raid leader I wanted to try it with two healers. The third healer, the druid, would switch to his moonkin main spec and Wild and P-Jo would handle all of the healing. Wild and P-Jo are used to healing as a team. P-Jo took over as off tank healer. I knew she'd also drop heals on the main tank if he took a big hit, and she knew that I'd be keeping Hots on the off tank. We looked out for each other. With enough extra DPS on Onyxia, maybe we could get her out of the sky and into phase three before things fell apart.

We engaged again. And again. And again. We were still making progress, with only a 3couple of misfires which drew laughs rather than groans. Melee got caught in a Blast Nova from lair guards which prematurely wiped us on one attempt. Wild found himself mysteriously attacked on another attempt. I was so befuddled at what could be hitting me when only Onyxia was present that I missed a heal right when the tank got flame buffeted, bounced off the wall from the knockback, and died. Clawing through the combat log after the wipe, Wild discovered that he had gotten too close to Onyxia and had been Cleaved. Not just once, but several times.

P-Jo had given Wild a gerbil at the beginning of the run (don't ask) and when I mentioned in raid chat the mysterious damage, P-Jo immediately announced that "It's the gerbil!" I think we might have wiped just from laughing so hard.

The real nemesis, though, was Deep Breath. While in flight Onyxia uses this attack over and over. There is a short warning. Anyone caught by that Breath dies. There were two ways to avoid it - get yourself up next to the nearest wall before she cast it, or find out which direction she is facing and get on one side of her, away from both head and tail. Sooner or later one or more of us would get hit with it, and we could not get out of the second phase.

We made seven attempts using the two healer approach, which was the right number of healers. We had the DPS to do it, too, but just couldn't get down how to manage the Deep Breaths.

After 13 total attempts on Onyxia, the trash mobs that lined the tunnel to Onyxia respawned, and we called it a night.

I'd rate the night a great success, though. Not only did we tackle a newly reinvented encounter, we did it in the new spirit of our ten man strategy of learn and improve.

Wild doesn't know if there will be a Lady Hunter raid Thursday night, but I'll be there just in case. I'm not locked to either Ulduar or ToC, or even VoA, for that matter. Wild also plans to be in game for the Friday raid as well. Wild may or may not end up in that raid, depending on who is there and what we're doing, but that will be fine either way. At least we're raiding again.