Wednesday (19 Jan) - BRUTAL is the Word: Cata Heroics

Wednesday (19 Jan) - BRUTAL is the Word: Cata Heroics

Wildshard was beaten black and blue on Wednesday night. The assault took place in Abyssal Maw: Throne of the Tides (AM). Way back on Cata launch day, Wild, Bd, and other guildie friends had cleared normal AM. It was an awesome experience and it seemed oh so appropriate that this dungeon would mark Wild's first foray into Cata Heroics.

That said, "Awesome" is not how Wild would characterize his first exposure to Cata Heroics.

AM is part of an underground grotto deep in the sea. It's home to a large variety of naga as well as minions of the Old Gods. It's a beautiful place, actually. Plants of every description blanket the area in a riot of exuberant color. There is even a passageway where the walls are transparent and you can watch the sea life outside, just like in an aquarium. Although in this case it was us who were the exhibit.

We had just completed a run in Baradin Hold (which I'll report on later) and the two tanks from the BH run were sorting out who wanted to do heroics and how to divide up those who did. Wild has raided with both tanks extensively, but I was hoping to get my first Cata heroic exposure with Bd as the tank. That wasn't how it worked out, though. One of our regular G2 healers, the priest Ch, only recently made it to level 85 and, despite her desperate wish to join us in Baradin Hold, was held out because she just didn't have the gear to do it. So Bd promised her he'd invite her to heal heroics once we finished BH.

The other tank, Fn (a paladin), asked Wild if I wanted to heal for him, and of course Wild said yes. The other three in the group were a hunter, a mage, and a warrior. Wild only knew them vaguely and had only grouped with them a couple of times before. Once we were all grouped up, Fn asked us if we wanted to use the dungeon finder or pick a particular dungeon. The advantage of the dungeon finder is that completing the dungeon would earn us Valor points, of which Wild had exactly zero. The potential downside was that Fn had not yet tanked all of the dungeons and there was a chance we'd get a dungeon that he wasn't familiar with. We split the difference, deciding to try the dungeon finder (DF) and if we didn't get what we wanted we could back out and try again, or select a specific one. The DF is pretty fussy, and for higher ilevel groups tends to give them the level 85 dungeons; while lower ilevel groups tend to get the 80-84 level dungeons.

The DF gave us AM, which is an 80-81 level dungeon on normal. Of course, all dungeons on Heroic are 85 only, but it gave us one inkling about what the DF thought of our gear levels. Wild was at i336 and just over 100k health. The tank was at i340 and he had a bit over 133k health (unbuffed, of course). Let's just say we didn't impress the DF.

There are three boss encounters in AM, although on one of them there are two bosses, so technically there are four bosses. There are endless corridors in AM, and at every fork, and every twist and turn, there are mobs. Lots of mobs. Packs of five mobs were common.

We zoned in to AM, appearing in a circular chamber full of shallow water. A low, wide set of steps led up out of the water, inviting us into a corridor. A pack of five mobs greeted us as our first challenge once we were inside.

The tank asked another raider to do the marking because he was having UI issues with Marking. In addition to marking two mobs to be attacked first (always labeled with a "skull" for the first to be attacked, and then "X" as the second mob to be attacked after "skull" was killed) we also marked crowd control (CC). Those marks aren't as standardized, particularly since cc was little used during WotLK and players just aren't used to doing it. Wild was assigned the "Star" mark, which meant that Wild would have cc duty on any mob tagged with a star. Wild's experience with using Hibernate in BH the week before was pretty cool - even though the mob turned out to be immune to it and killed Wild for even trying it. Wild would be using Roots on his star target, and hoped it would work a lot better than Hibernate had.

Wild had buffed himself with savage sagefish (+90 int/sta food, better than the group level food the guild currently had access to, which was +60 stats) and used a pre-Cata Frost Wyrm healing flask since the Cata level flasks still cost almost 300g each (vs 15-20g each for frost wyrm, and which JB can make).

It was 8:24pm. We engaged.

It was a disaster. Ok, so Wild's Roots did work on his target. So did the Ice cc on another target. The trap set by the hunter was ignored by a third mob, so we had three mobs on us in a hurry. The tank's health dropped like he was emptying it with a fire hose. The fury warrior died while Wild was still desperately trying to save the tank. Wild's rooted target broke free, swept in and savagely attacked Wild before I could get another Roots off. It took us about 15 seconds to wipe.

"That went well," said our tank, as we were rezzing at the graveyard. Wild was having a bit of a confidence problem. I told the group that this was Wild's very first Heroic and that I wasn't sure wasn't sure if I had the gear to be in here.

Now remember that while Wild has raided with Fn many times, this was the first time I had grouped with him in a five man. I wasn't sure how he would react. What Wild got was welcoming comments from all of the other guildies and assurance from Fn that no one in the group was "experienced" in Heroics. Wiping was not an aberration - it happened all the time. Feeling much, much better, we set up and went after the group again. We had managed to kill one of the mobs on that first attempt, and with now four to deal with we took them down without anyone dying. Wild was still a bit shell shocked at how ferocious the damage against the tank was. I might need to buy me a backup keyboard given how hard and fast I was pounding on it.

We faced more mob groups, and they were no easier than the first group. Every pack required maximum crowd control. DPSers had to focus fire the Marked targets as we could not survive that many attackers for long and needed to bring at least one or two down very quickly. The tank had to pick up all loose mobs so the DPS and healers could do their job without a mob in our face, and the healer - keep the tank alive ... keep the tank alive.

We had been pushing forward in a straight line down the corridor we had entered at the entrance. We came upon a cross passage and continued past it to a circular chamber where Lady Naz'jir waited. Our first boss. I had spent some time earlier in the day jotting down a few notes on the cata bosses in each dungeon. The two pages of notes, unfortunately, weren't much use to me because I hadn't made it easy to find the information. I think I'm going to try 3x5 cards next. No one else was all that familiar with the boss mechanics, though, so one of the guildies read us the main points over vent. There were things to avoid, plus a geyser that would throw us around, and a Waterspout that pretty much makes Naz'jir un-hittable while she spawns an army of mobs to plague us. She also has a water cannon she can torment us with.

I think we wiped five times. I started counting such things, but I quickly decided that counting wipes was going to soon become pretty depressing. I decided to count boss kills, instead.

We got our first, killing Naz'jir.

After the first boss kill there is a fascinating cut scene that is kind of shocking the first time you see it. Fn assured Wild that what I was seeing was normal, which I appreciated even though I did remember it from that first normal run so many weeks ago now.

Ok, Wild is going to be giving directions, and everyone knows how that works out, so take them with a bag full of salt.

Once Naz'jir was dead we backtracked a short distance to that cross passage we had passed. The center was actually an open elevator, and it took us to an upper floor where Commander Ulthok waited. Our second boss. Had Wild not been so intense and focused on the fight, he might have even had a little fun with this fight. Ulthock's specialty is slamming players with a huge smash that not only does something like 65,000 damage (which would be more than half Wild's total health), it also leaves a void zone on the ground that is a quick death to stand in. Then, just for giggles, Ulthok will pick up random players, toss them around, and then drop them, usually into a void zone.

By now Wild had taken on the role of deciding when we were ready to go. That's because after every battle, whether a boss attempt or a trash mob group, Wild had to rez the dead, heal the survivors, rebuff, eat another savage sagefish if Wild had been among the dead that time, and drink to fill his mana bar. I've read a lot of posts about DPSers and tanks who kick healers in heroics because they have to stop and drink between fights to restore mana. Let me say that if Wild ever does a PUG heroic and I get kicked for that reason, I'd say good riddance to a bad group. Wild needed to drink between almost every fight. And our group was fine with that, and patient. They waited on Wild to give the word that he and the group was buffed, topped off, and ready.

We engaged Ulthok. It started well, and Wild was finding a bit of a rhythm - a frantic, heart-pounding rhythm, but a rhythm nonetheless. What we were surprised by was how often Ulthok did his Slam (crushing half the life out of a player that Wild had to get heals on) and how fast the pools of void zones expanded, leaving us less and less real estate to stand on safely. We were overwhelmed and wiped.

On our second attempt we went at him a long time, to the point that there was nothing left but small islands of safe places to stand, and players had to run through voids to get to those safe spots. Wild had run out of mana pots (gotta remember to buy a bunch more) and had already used his innervate. Wild likes to use the term "healing on fumes," meaning that my mana was gone and I was healing only when regen delivered enough mana to cast a spell or I got a clearcasting proc. Wild was picked up by Ulthok using Squeeze, which ate away at Wild's health and then dropped me - on the one safe spot in an ocean of void zones. Fn actually cheered when he saw that the near dead Wild hadn't been deposited somewhere that would have finished me off. Fn had survived on his cooldowns, and the six seconds in the grasp of Ulthok had regened some mana for Wild, and we held on just long enough for the DPS to finish off the boss. Wow. Two attempts. I felt like I do when we bring a raid boss down the first time in fewer attempts than we were expecting.

We went back to the lower floor and took one of the side passages to the next boss - or boss pair to be exact - Erunak Stonespeaker and Mindbender Ghur'sha. This is a two phase fight, with Erunak in play for phase one, and Ghur'sha in phase 2. This encounter gave Wild all kinds of trouble.

Wild had to remember to debuff emberstrike off the tank, which deals additional damage with each hit. Wild had to remember to stand behind the boss at all times to avoid a particularly deadly belch of fire Erunak coughs up in a frontal cone. The hardest thing, though, was to do those things while avoiding earth shards, which are spikes erupting from the ground. Wild's problem was that he was having a terrible time seeing the small line in the sand that showed the direction the spikes were heading before they erupted. It didn't help that the spikes seemed to LOVE Wild. Other players started avoiding their healer because those spikes seemed permanently aimed at Wild no matter where I was standing. All that movement would also inevitably place Wild in the line of Erunak's belches or take him out of line of sight of the tank. Of course Wild wasn't the only player having troubles, and we wiped several times.

We finally got Erunak down to 50%, and Ghur'sha dropped off of Erunak to start phase 2. Ghur'sha is a small octopus like thing. Don't underestimate it. Ghur'sha exudes an unavoidable AoE that Wild has to heal the group through constantly. Ghur'sha then enslaved a player by leaping onto his head (the graphic is quite disturbing) and began buffing them while mind controlling them to attack the rest of us. DPSers have to burn the player down to 50% health to force Ghur'sha off the player's head. If thirty seconds pass before getting the player to 50%, Ghur'sha kills him and picks another target. There a many other things to deal with such as clouds of deadly fog, and two pillars that can help on line of sight issues, but to Wild the pillars just kept getting in the way of his healing. If I had been counting wipes I would have soon lost count of them.

But after an interminable amount of time and deaths we finished them off. [Decapod Slippers] dropped. "Slippers' usually means cloth, so Wild almost missed that this was leather caster gear. Wild was the only leather wearer in the group. Wild got his first piece of Cata heroic gear. The i346 slippers replace an i333 piece. Unlike WotLK heroic gear, Wild really appreciated the effort that went into winning that "Heroic" tag on those slippers.

The final boss in AM is Ozumat. Getting to him, though, required running a gauntlet of mobs. Our fury warrior told us that the final boss was an easier fight than prior boss encounters in AM, and that as long as we kept moving we wouldn't have any trouble with the gauntlet. Wrong and wrong.

The gauntlet drove us crazy. If you stopped moving even for a second, new mobs would spawn and the number of things to kill would get larger and larger. Move too fast and an even nastier pair of mobs at the end of the passageway engaged and beat the snot out of us. Wild figured that out when on one of the attempts Wild ran to the top of the passageway to get to a place I could heal people from, only to get whacked by the pair at the top. Not to mention I dragged a hundred mobs to the top with me. We eventually found the speed of advance that allowed us to kill the mobs faster than they spawned while giving Wild moments when I could do more than toss instants around.

Ok, so maybe the warrior was right about the boss, Ozumat. There are three phases to the fight. In the first two phases, though, Ozumat isn't even present and both phases feature killing mob spawns. Wild had to scamper around avoiding the many mob spawns, but while the healing was intense it wasn't any worse than those trash mob five packs. In phase 3 Ozumat showed up, buffed us all up to giant size, and blanketed the room with an AoE that stacked until either Ozumat was dead or we were.

As soon as Ozumat entered the room Wild's already large frame grew so large I couldn't even see all of me on the screen. Moving was a waste of time and the damage would hit no matter where I stood, and Wild's heals were in range no matter where the rest of the raid was standing. The healing buff I got reminded me of healing in the ICC Dreamwalker fight - no matter how hard and fast I healed, I still had Mana! And it took hard and fast healing, too, as the AoE kept stacking and the damage got higher and higher. Wild quickly started spamming regrowth over and over on everyone, and a little later popped Tree of Life so regrowth became instant cast. It was a race to see if the DPS survived long enough to kill the boss. I knew that if I started losing DPS it would take longer to kill the boss and the bigger the AoE stack would get.

We killed Ozumat with no deaths. [Sea Star] dropped, a +285 spirit trinket. No one needed it and Wild won the greed roll. Wild would love to be able to use it - after all, it's his second Heroic piece - but Wild would lose +219 int on the trinket he would replace, and that costs too much in mana. Maybe at some point in the future it'll be worth equipping ...

The whole run took a little over two hours, although it really seemed much longer. After that wipe on the first pull, Wild did not think we would ever be able to finish AM. No PUG would have hung together through the countless wipes, either. The bottom line is to expect the wipes, keep learning, be patient, and keep a sense of humor. At one point after some frustrating wipes Fn called Wild over and said "Mount up." There is a bug in certain areas of AM that allows players to mount up on another player, also mounted, and it looks like the extra rider is standing on the head of the mounted player. Silly things like that kept us going. Fn also has a knack of constantly talking before, during, and after battles, none of which I remembered afterward, but which was a steady source of distraction from worrying about what nightmare we would face next. Maybe that jabber is a tank trait, as Bd is prone to that as well.

We also had a wipe on the second to last boss encounter that baffled us because Wild went out of mana way before I should have.

"Uh, Wild," asked the tank, "how's your gear look?" Wild looked. My durability was ZERO. All Wild's gear was broken. Wild was essentially shooting blanks. The nice thing about the new dungeons is that not only can you teleport out of the dungeon using the DF, you can teleport back into the dungeon using the DF, too. It only took a minute to repair Wild's gear - at a cost of 45g.

Wild got his valor points and also a good bit of rep for Dragonmaw faction (since I'm wearing the DM tabard). And his first clear of a Cata Heroic dungeon.

The Baradin Hold run is up next.