All Stories

Every story, article, column, piece, and so forth on World of Matticus ever published.

Healing Ulduar: Thorim

by

thorim_31_phixr

For other bosses in Ulduar, check the Ulduar Healing Strategy Page.

“Interlopers! You mortals who dare to interfere with my sport will pay… Wait–you… I remember you… In the mountains… But you… what is this? Where am–“

Thorim is the lord of storms and brother to Loken. He is one of the Keepers of Ulduar.

The fight is broken down into 3 phases, with phase 2 having two parts. First, lets see what Thorim can do.

Abilities

Sheath of Lightning – When the encounter begins, Thorim will coat himself in an almost impregnable sheet of lightning.

Charged Orb – Charges an orb in the arena with the power of storms. The tower will discharge Lightning Shock which can chain to multiple people in close range to each other.

Lightning Shock / charged Orb Example:

lightning_phixr2

Storm Hammer – Thorim throws his hammer into the arena causing Deafening Thunder. It can interrupt your casting and places a debuff that increased casting times by 75% for 8 seconds

Summon Lightning Orb – Sends a ball of lightning down the corridor towards the players, laying waste to everything in its path.

Chain Lightning – Thorim casts a lightning bolt into the party that increases in damage the further it jumps.

Lightning Charge – Thorim absorbs the power of a nearby lightning orb and then discharges it in a cone back towards the orb he siphoned the power from. After the charge Thorim will hit faster and harder. This is a stacking buff, and acts as a passive enrage in phase 3

Lightning Charge example:

lightning-charge_phixr

Unbalancing Strike – Reduces the tanks defense by 200.

Enrage – When you start phase 2 you have 5 minutes to reach him before he enrages and clears the raid out.

Adds

Thorim has a lot of friends who want to play with you.

Runic Colossus

Ancient Rune Giant

Those two are like mini bosses. They don’t hit too hard.

Dark Rune Warbringer

Dark Rune Evoker

Dark Rune Champion

Dark Rune Commoner

Waves of trash will consist of these mobs.

Execution

The fight itself has 3 phases, with phase 2 having two parts.

Phase 1:

You enter the arena to see a giant Jormungur facing off against opponents of the opposite faction.

thorim_phixr

They are easily dispatched and don’t really hit hard on tanks. Clean them up and get ready for phase 2.

Phase 2:

Phase 2 is split into two sections, a Ramp/Gauntlet group, and an Arena/Pit group. We’ll talk about the ramp group first.

The Ramp group will normally consist of one tank, seven DPS, and two healers. Speed is the biggest factor here. The faster you get to the end of the hallway, the sooner you can start phase 3. For healers you want someone who can snap big heals, or heals on the move. We found that druids and holy paladins work incredibly well for the ramp group. Large effective heals and lots of mobility.

There will be three groups of Warbringers along your way and a giant golem at the end of the hall that sends death down one side at a time. We assigned someone to call out which side to move to. As a healer, don’t worry about keeping someone who stands in the line of fire from the golem alive, they’re going to die. It’s pretty easy to heal the Gauntlet, just keep the tank alive and burn through as fast as possible.

The Arena group has it’s own tree of woe to deal with. The aforementioned adds will be flooding into the arena to get a piece of us would-be adventurers for ruining their entertainment. The easiest way to do it is to have tanks set up an AoE pit in the center of the arena. We use three tanks (bear, paladin and warrior just for reference). The druid and the paladin tank the vast majority of the mobs while the warrior pulls the champions off to the side slightly (see triangle on the diagram) to keep them from whirlwinding the dps.

arena

Healers (blue circles) should spread out around the AoE pit to minimize the impact of the Storm Hammers. Priests should be ready to mass dispel the Runic Shield from the evokers. Group healing helps a lot in this part of the fight.  CoH, Chain heal, glyphed Holy Light and even Wildgrowth will help keep the DPS in the AoE pit up. Just keep an eye on aggro happy AoE damage dealers though, sometimes warlocks like to explode without warning here. Healers that are spread out should watch for Lightning Orbs and be ready to move quickly, lest they chain the damage to other players. If you get snap aggro from adds through healing, you should run through the AoE pit to give your tanks a chance to snag them with a taunt or even just Consecrate / Death and Decay to grab them. Continue to burn down the pit, picking off Evokers and Champions as you can until your ramp group reaches Thorim and starts phase 3. Name of the game is survival. Heal your rear off! keep everyone up, especially tanks and you’ll be good to go.

Phase 3:

Once you reach Thorim’s platform he jumps down into the arena. A tank has to pick him up right away while everyone else works on adds. Thorim hits reasonably hard when he connects so it is suggested to have a few healers on the tanks. Normally We put 3 healers on the two Thorim tanks, Druid, Paladin and a Disc priest have been wonderful for evening out damage and making Unbalanced Strike transitions easier. As the fight goes on, Thorim hits harder and harder, much in the way of Gruul the Dragonslayer, but three healers should be enough to keep the tanks alive. The rest of the raid and healers need to be spread out around the room, more than 10 yard away from someone if you can. When Thorim Chain Lightnings, it can have disastrous results.

While you’re healing keep your eyes peeled for a white pulsing line going between him and one of the pillars. At this point, you want to run away from that line as quickly as possible. After the line is done energizing him, he will cast an arch of lightning in a 60 degree cone towards wherever he pulled the power from. If you’re caught in it it will hurt. Stop your casting and move fast and then resume healing. The tanks will keep rotating so make sure they are topped off while your raid healers keep track of everyone else. Tank healers have to be careful to make sure they switch to the new tank quickly otherwise you run the risk of the new tank eating two large strikes back to back later in the fight.

In my opinion the hardest part of this encounter is phase 2 for arena healers. There is just a lot going on. There’s a ton of movement, a ton of raid damage and a ton of situational awareness needed to make it through. Heads up Healing comes in very handy in the arena as it lets you move before you’re splatted. It also helps you when you can see the mobs turn to go take out that AoEing warlock before they actually hit her (looking at you Jahadura!) and splatter their remains all over the arena floor. Once you get this part down, the rest of the encounter is no harder then anything else you’ve faced so far. Now for the good stuff.

Healer Items:

Once you free Thorim and he’ll leave behind the Cache of Storms, here’s some goodies he has

T8 Helm token

Scale of Fates – Trinket (Haste/Spellpower)

Pauldrons of the Combatant -Shoulders (Shamans)

Wisdom’s Hold – Shield (Paladins, Shamans)

Leggings of Lost Love – Legs (Priest, Druid)

Also a little poll here. My guild leader thinks Thorim sounds like Patrick Stewart, I think my guild leader is very mistaken. What do you guys think? Does Thorim sound like Patrick Stewart?

Until next time, Happy Healing

sig3

Is Tree Form Fun?

by

On Thursday Ghostcrawler put up a provocative new topic in the healing forms asking druids an open question–is tree form fun? Ever since I’ve been following the topic, and I must admit that I’m glued to my seat. I’ll post below my answer to GC’s query:

In all honesty, I love the druid healing style but hate tree form.

Tree form is a sacrifice I make so that I can play in the style I like.

Why?

1. The form is not aesthetically pleasing. The tree is unfeminine, un-treelike, and brown all over. In the blogosphere, we’re jokingly referred to as rotten broccoli. I love the grace and beauty of my elf. I originally healed on my character because resto druids could stay in elf form. I do have healers of other classes, but it is the playstyle, not the look, of my druid that makes her my main.

2. The limitations of tree form restrict certain types of behaviors in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. It makes me less likely to contribute dps in a raid when other healers would do so (XT’s heart).

3. The limitations are no longer verisimilar (realistic). I actually used to like the tree snare of 20%. I healed some fights in Tier 6 in form, some out. I shifted to move. I liked this mechanic, as it showed the “true” elf underneath the “false” tree skin. Now that the limitations are purely arbitrary, I don’t see their purpose.

I’d rather keep the elf form for healing–would it be possible just to glow green or something?

Otherwise, can the tree form be updated to something
1. customizable
2. anthropomorphic (dryad/nymph and centaur please)
3. gender-specific
4. horde-alliance specific
5. gear-progression revealing. This isn’t a big deal to me, but many players would like to display a weapon as moonkin do.

Thank you for including this topic. It raises my hopes–please don’t disappoint!

And now, for the blog, maybe I’ll explain a bit more what’s most important to me. In my opinion, which I recognize may differ from others, the art is the number 1 attraction of any game. I simply won’t play if the visuals don’t appeal to me. As far as druids are concerned, I like the concept of shape-shifting in its original form (cat and bear only when Syd was created), but I don’t like to be locked into shape-shifting. I also love being an elf.

Here are my suggestions to Blizzard for managing the overwhelming outcry for new, better-looking forms in this topic.

1. I would make the greatest number of people happy with the least work. Along with “display cloak” and “display helm,” let people click a box for “display form.” This is a solution that costs little, allows for customization, and doesn’t require an artist.
2. If Blizzard is determined that all druids must display a form, start actually working on them. I know that art is costly and time-consuming. I also know that artistic projects can actually be finished–if they are being worked on. Even though Blue posters say that druid forms are “in the works,” they have been at that state for years. Pardon me if I don’t believe them. I think it’s a shame, because any budget spent on player character art will be directly appreciated by the player-base. It is a better investment than designing a great T8 shoulder. When it’s the character itself, something that we look at all the time, the artwork really shows itself to best (or worst) advantage.

I’m not saying that I’ll reroll a priest right now just to get to see my elf form while I raid, but it’s definitely something I might work on for the next expansion, especially if we get some raiding down-time. I do love the druid playstyle though–it’s just that it requires me to be uglier than anyone else in raid.

Also, did I ever tell you guys about the time I failed the Thaddius ledge boss? Yep, I thought the tree druid in front of me was me. There can, in fact, be PvE advantages to customization.

What’s my ideal “tree” form? Well, I think I’d just use the priest’s shadowform and turn it green and sparkly. Either that, or let’s scrap the tree, I want to be one of the gorgeous new girl centaurs they introduced with Wrath–naturally, with a customizable hair style and color.

Patch 3.2: Crusader’s Coliseum Reactions

by

In case you haven’t heard, some details of Patch 3.2 have been released. The biggest change that appeals to me is the Crusader’s Coliseum. We’re not even done Ulduar yet and already there’s another instance being released.

What is it?

It looks to be the new instance hub that 3.2 will offer.

Let’s stop for a second. Lots of reactions on Twitter have been knee-jerk negative reactions.

“I don’t want to 25 man joust!”
“What? A PvP instance?”

Take a step back and start analyzing. We don’t know anything about this instance yet. All we know is that:

  • There is an instance
  • It will come in 5-player, 10-player, and 25-player varieties

I want to stress that we do not know what type instance it’s going to be inside.

Speculations

I love raiding. I love looking at the lore behind it and the mechanics, the environment and so forth.

I don’t think the Coliseum is any sort of PvP type instance.

What I think will happen is that a raid group is going to march in there and engage in gladiatorial combat against raid bosses. Think of an instanced version of the Ring of Blood quests that we first saw in Nagrand and then in Zul’Drak.

Are we going to see mounted combat? It’s a possibility. Maybe half the raid is on horseback and the other half is on their feet. I honestly have no idea.

New Battleground: Isle of Conquest

A new large-scale siege Battleground where Horde and Alliance have to battle head-to-head for control of strategic resources to lay siege to the keeps of their opponents.

Not quite death match. Sounds to me like it’s another control-the-point battleground with vehicles (large-scale and siege). Now I wonder if it means large-scale as in 15 player or large-scale as in 40 player.

Yeah. Alterac Valley in siege tanks.

Also, note that it’s called Isle of Conquest. (The island part, not the Conquest part, although it’ll be corny to jump in there and go “GET OFF MY ISLAND!”, because you know my guild’s name is Conquest, hah.). This leads me to wonder if we’ll get access to naval units. Maybe drivable ships or something to attack from the water in addition to laying siege on land.

Final Notes

Don’t perceive that this is what’s actually going to happen. Take a step back. We’re only seeing pieces of the puzzle here. There could be more stuff coming out. Actually, there will be more stuff coming out.

What do you guys think? How’s my reasoning? Sound? Terrible? Are you looking forward to any of these? (Bloggers can link and trackback here too!)

Healing Ulduar: Kologarn

by

kologarn

For other bosses in Ulduar, check the Ulduar Healing Strategy Page.

Kologarn is the sentinel that stands in the way between your raid group and the rest of Ulduear. He is a challenging boss for guilds that are new to raiding. Like Deconstructor, victory lies in the ultimate ability of individual players.

Abilities

Eyebeams: Two ways to handle this. Run out the door or run circles on the right side of the platform. More on this later.

Stone grip: He’s going to pluck three players into the palm of his hand and attempt to squeeze them to death until they get broken out. The only way to break players out is by DPSing the arm. Once it takes 380000 damage, the players are released.

Execution

DPS priority is going to approach the boss in this order: Right arm, Elementals, torso. When any arm is destroyed, the torso loses the same amount of health.

It’s best to call out right arm health at 5% intervals starting from 20 so your tanks know when to switch. After the right arm falls, elementals will spawn.

Two tanks are needed to hold Kologarn’s attention. He’s got a Gluth-like debuff that requires two tanks to taunt off each other. Otherwise, the debuff becomes flat-out unbearable.

kolo-beams

Dodging eye beams

When you get focused by twin green beams, you have around 2 seconds to start hustling before you get rocked. There are two ways to handle avoiding them:

Out the door

Make a beeline for the door and down the stairs. The upside is that it presents minimal risk to the players in your raid group. The down side is if the player is too slow, they might die due to line of sight issues. As healers, we don’t have to worry about this.

Laps on the right side

Have beam-focused players run circles along the right side of the room. The pros and cons are the exact inverse of the bailing-out-the-door method. Focused players are well within the range of healers. But poor kiting can lead to multiple casualties.

Whatever solution you choose, drill it in the heads of the rest of the raid to immediately get out of the green. The beams are extremely hard to miss. Keep your head up.

The Elemental Tank

It’s happened before. I’ve seen the off tank gain aggro of all ads and get focused by beams at the exact same time. As a tank, he’ll live for a few extra seconds but not anymore after that. Use whatever saves you can on him to help lessen the blow. Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit and Blessing of Sacrifice work admirably.

Healing strategy

Around 6-7, healers is a good number to start with. This can drop with more gear and experience. Expect an enormous amount of raid damage being doled out. His left arm sweeps the entire raid for around 15000+. Pick two of your strongest tank healers and assign them to the main tank (this will vary as they’re taunting off each other). Be sure to have Kologarn’s target up so you can see which tank he’s presently on.

If you have access to two Resto Shamans, they can anchor the Stone Grips quite easily.

Healer items

Ironmender OH (Priests, Druids)

Gloves of the Pythonic Guardian Gloves (Paladin)

Robes of the Umbral Brute Chest (Priests)

Unfaltering Armguards Wrists (Paladin)

Which Came First? The Aegis or the Shield?

by

pws-vs-da

On my daily patrol through the Plus Heal forums, I came across this thread with one very important question by Sundotz.

If I proc Divine Aegis ( for 12 sec) and then apply PW: S (15 sec after absorbed), which shield is absorbing damage first?

I could have commissioned a study on this with the assistance of guildies. But I decided to take matters in my own hands and test it out only in such a way that true Dwarves would do it.

I’d tackle the Molten Colossus of Ulduar after activating both shields in an attempt to see which happened first. Here’s 5 combat logs with different cast sequences. Log’s been trimmed somewhat.

Test 1:

Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 1977.(4306 Overhealed) (Critical)
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Inspiration.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet gains 300 Mana from Mallet’s Darkglow.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 0.(4185 Overhealed)
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 18720 Physical.(8103 Absorbed) (3247 Overkill)
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Power Word: Fortitude fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inner Fire fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 2:

Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 0.(5915 Overhealed) (Critical)
Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 16490 Physical.(9530 Absorbed) (12804 Overkill)
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 3:

Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Mallet gains 300 Mana from Mallet’s Darkglow.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 2330.(1824 Overhealed)
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Forethought Talisman.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 0.(6049 Overhealed) (Critical)
Mallet gains Mallet’s Inspiration.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Effervescence.
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 16490 Physical.(9895 Absorbed) (6884 Overkill)
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inner Fire fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Forethought Talisman fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Effervescence fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 4

Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Molten Colossus’s attack misses Mallet. (My agility and dodge is strong)
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 16490 Physical.(7968 Absorbed) (13299 Overkill)
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Ragadast’s Leader of the Pack fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inner Fire fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Renewed Hope fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

Test 5

Mallet casts Power Word: Shield at Mallet.
Mallet is afflicted by Mallet’s Weakened Soul.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Borrowed Time.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Renewed Hope.
Mallet’s Flash Heal heals Mallet for 5654.(Critical)
Mallet gains Mallet’s Effervescence.
Mallet’s Borrowed Time fades from Mallet.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Inspiration.
Mallet gains Mallet’s Divine Aegis.
Molten Colossus’s melee swing hits Mallet for 15100 Physical.(7651 Absorbed) (21476 Overkill)
Mallet gains 300 Mana from Mallet’s Darkglow.
Mallet’s Power Word: Shield fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Divine Aegis fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Weakened Soul dissipates from Mallet.
Ragadast’s Leader of the Pack fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Inspiration fades from Mallet.
Mallet’s Effervescence fades from Mallet.
Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
Mallet died.

So in conclusion, while not technically a scientifically valid test, I’ve conceded that the order in which the different absorb effects are used are based on which one happens to land first. If a DA activates before a PW:S, then the DA gets consumed. If a PW:S lands first followed by a DA, the PW:S gets chomped alive before the DA.

A simple, easy, and cheap test. 5 minutes. 45 gold.

Done.

But also incorrect. So take this entire post with a grain of salt.