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

Healing Naxxramas – Thaddius (10 man)

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thad

Thaddius is the idiot check boss of Naxx. There might be others (wait ‘til I get to Heigan), but I do think this one really separates those that can and those that can’t. You’ll find out why momentarily (but keep the first boss of Heroic Mechanar at the back of your mind).

Engage

When you enter the room, you have to engage two mini bosses before you can engage Thaddius. Fuegen and Stalagg need to go down together within seconds of the other dying. Unlike the original Naxx, you don’t have to stack melee players on one side and range on the other. The raid needs to be split fairly equally with 5 on one side and 5 on the other. It’s going to be hard to do with 5 total DPS (assuming 2 tanks and 3 healers) so I recommend pairing your top 2 DPS players together and the bottom 3 DPS players together. If necessary, adjust on the fly and rotate a DPS from one side to the other to help play catch up.

The two tanks (literally) will fly back and forth and switch between Fuegen and Stalagg respectively. I think when the Tesla Coil portion of the fight activates, the tank switches. Healers have to be aware of which tank is presently on the side that they are on. I suggest using a range finder of some sort. Aggro shouldn’t be a problem. One healer on both sides should be enough (although you’ll have an extra one, so use your discretion there). AoE healing will be the order of the day. Try to ensure everyone is near full as much as possible.

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Once you kill the 2 constructs, here’s the challenging part. You have to run and actually jump from the ledge onto the platform below! If you decide to fall off, then you’ll miss the platform entirely and hit the sludge water below (just turn around and head towards the entrance as there is a ramp that will allow you to try again).

Now you’re onto Thaddius himself.

He uses an ability called Polarity Shift.

  • Polarity Shift: Places either a Negative Charge or Positive Charge to all nearby enemy targets. Players near other players with the same Charge type increases each their damage dealt. Players near other players with the opposite Charge type deal damage to nearby raid members.

thad-4And that right there is the gimmick for the fight. I like to designate left side as positive and right side for negative. You don’t have to stray too far out. Melee players with opposite charges can remain 180° from each other and still stay within striking range of the boss.

Your raid leader should be extremely vocal:

“Polarity shift soon!”

“Polarity shift, MOVE MOVE MOVE!”

Some players fail at checking their debuffs and can potentially wipe the raid. As the raid leader, I strongly recommend that you hold their hand through this as it is not worth the frustration.

Healing

thad-2 Healing is a walkover on this boss. AoE heals and single target heals on the tank should the order of the day. Your AoE healers will be able to cover both groups no matter which side they are on. Keep a single target healer on the tank at all costs. He does like to randomly fry players with lightning. It’s nothing a healer can’t handle, however.

One last thing

DO NOT LOOT YOUR ITEMS AFTER THE BOSS DIES! Wait for your charges to wear off before doing so or else you’ll be in for a very nasty (and shocking) surprise.

4 Key Guild Related Tasks to do Before Wrath Hits

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Its Wrath Boarding time!

The Wrath plane has landed and passengers are boarding soon! Are you going to be taking it first class or taking the back seat in the economy section?

Veneretio wrote a hot post about dealing with the last few weeks before the new expansion hits and the game resets.

So what does Vene say is the most basic thing to keep in mind as time passes by? His number 1 is to continue to make goals for yourself. He admits that “a lot of what you get now [will be] replaced later”. I’m inclined to agree. Even the most equipped players will be hanging up their present armor and gear once they approach the upper level 70s.

For me, most of my hard work was done over the summer. My reputation has largely been grinded out. The last one was Sporregar (which I felt took forever, personally). I may not have enough gold to live and spend lavishly, it will be enough to function comfortably once raiding expeditions start up again. I’m not as invested in my alts as other players are. I level them and gear them to the point where I know I can switch healers if necessary for raids with different people. My Priest is my main and any fun stuff like Achievements and Titles go straight to him.

While Vene says to make goals, Matticus has another rule that’s more prominent:

Relax!

I’ve played this game hard for over 2 years with intermittent breaks. Realistically, the point at which we start raiding as a 25 man unit will not occur until the Christmas holiday arrives. This means that most raiders will be out of action due to Christmas and New Year parties. This pushes back our raiding until early January.

I don’t know about you, but I plan to take it easy as much as I can over the next few weeks. Outside of WoW, I have a few papers, several exams, and a presentation to deliver. The assignments are due within 3 weeks. The presentation is due 4 days after Wrath releases (and I want to finish constructing it first so I don’t have to over the weekend).

Now is the time to get all the real life stuff out of the way. Finish off your work projects. Get cracking on school essays. Bury yourself in the textbooks and take time away from the game where it doesn’t matter as much anyway. If you have goals to complete, then by all means, go ahead and try to get them done. But leave a bit of room for yourself if you’re a progression oriented player who wants to sky rocket to 80.

Revisit loot

Numerous guilds will be wiping their DKP systems and starting fresh. Take the time to examine your loot system. Find out what worked and what didn’t. What would you have changed differently? Try bringing it up as soon as you can. Work out any kinks or problems with the loot system so that you don’t have to do it later when it matters the most: In the middle of a raid.

Roster check

Examine your roster again. Try to ascertain who is likely to stay and who is likely to go. Find out if there’s any holes in there that need to be plugged. My guild has lost a Rogue already and we may lose a mage. We realize that we can always sift through and acquire replacements during the leveling process, its far better to find players now so that the guild can spend more time knowing about new players.

Promotions

Now is an excellent time for promotions. If anyone is stepping down or retiring from the game, its a good time to find players who have demonstrated veteran and leadership qualities to take their place. Raid leaders: Let others take over. See if anyone has expressed interest in doing so. Try to find alternative raid leaders to run your raids. It’s great to have alternate leaders in place in case your main guy needs to sit for a while. There are no less than 6 people in my guild who are qualified to run and lead raids.

One of my guild officers have stepped down and I’ve been promoted. If you do decide to promote someone, the most important thing you can do is outline their tasks. Tell them straight up front what they are expected to do. I signed a 2 month contract as an officer because I wasn’t sure if I was willing to do this long term. I’ve served in a leadership position before but I didn’t feel particularly effective at the time. In my case, I’m being asked to provide healer presence to officer chat and contribute to raid strategy. I also get a vote in what raid directions the guild should go in. I’ only agreed to do this on the interim. Between responsibilities with my blog, WoW Insider, and school I don’t know if this is a position where I can actually contribute to.

Wrap up loose ends! Get it done quick whether its real life related or in game related! Need a title? Hurry and join a group or form it on your own! Want to push reputation? Start soon before people stop running certain instances!

Quick leak: WoW Insider’s going to be doing a quick and comprehensive guide for the various classes when 3.0.2 becomes official. The brass wants us to outline major talents, and changes to the way we operate and other things of interest.

Help me out. I have to write something up by Sunday. I already wrote about healing at level 80. What would you like to know about Holy Priests at level 70 in regards to the new patch?

I plan on including stuff about:

  • Talent suggestions
  • Quick spell overviews
  • Game mechanics that affect us

Anything else you can think of?

Image credits: photos71

Bank of Matticus Goes Public

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banking

Due to requests from certain Hunter bloggers, the Bank of Matticus Financial Group has decided to go public. As part of the public disclosure process, CEO Matticus Moneycus has decided to reveal various assets that the public needs to know if they wish to invest in this banking powerhouse. Matticus leads a syndicate of prominent WoW Investors who have entrusted him with their finances and assets.

Hydroponics

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This is but a fraction of the hydroponics sector of the Bank of Matticus. Herb specialists continue to acquire species of plants around the clock to invest in Inscription the moment it becomes available.

Consumables

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In a bid to stream line workers, over 1000 Gnomes were released with severance pay with the option to rehire within the next year. Simply put, there is too much supply of consumables and not enough demand for them.

Ore

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Efforts to equip the soon-to-arrive Death Knights are well under way. They’ve agreed to become Smithies in order to augment themselves. Here is a fraction of some of the Ore and Stone that’s been gradually accumulated.

Supplementary

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The supplementary portion of the bank has largely been liquidated or is still in the process of being liquidated. Epic gems have largely been sold as well as a significant number of normal gems. Food consumables still remain as do other high performance consumables.

You’ll notice the gold count looks unimpressive. There’s a good reason for that. Bank of Matticus finances are spread out through a network of Dwarven and Goblin banks. In the event of a security breach, it will not result in the complete loss and destruction of BMF. Rest assured, hard currency sits at the 5 digit level. But that information cannot be disclosed here for the time being. It’s a result of Enchanting mats and numerous amounts of cloth being liquidated. The fifth bank tab has been hidden as it contains sensitive items and materials. Negotiations are currently underway Ironforge International Bank of Commerce for rights and access to a 6th tab. This is expected to happen within a year as assets continue to accumulate.

Healing Naxxramas – Gluth (10 man)

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gluth

Who let the dogs out? No, really. Gluth is this really large dog that has been pieced together with flesh from various beasts (or people). He is the third boss you have to tackle in the Construct Quarter.

Abilities

  • Mortal Wound: Reduces healing taken by 10%. Stackable debuff!
  • Decimate Flesh: Consumes everything in the room for approximately 90% of their health
  • Infected Wound: Increases the Physical damage taken by an enemy by 100 for 1 minute
  • Enrages: Hits slightly harder than normal unless he gets a Tranq Shot

There’s no trash needed to clear to him. The path is empty from the moment you kill Grobbulus. There’s a green tube (pipe) that you need to go through and when you exit it, you will be thrown into combat right away and engage Gluth. Stay on the right side as you walk through the pipe.

So here’s the gimmick with the fight. You’ll need to have two tanks on Gluth the whole time. That Mortal Wound ability I told you about gets periodically applied to him. Ideally, our tanks will taunt off each other once the debuff reaches 3 or 4.

Not only that, there will be zombies (Zombie Chow) that stream in from time to time and they have around 500000 health. Those need to be kited. There’s no way the raid group can kill all of them right away.

gluth-1

Kiting Methods

  • Using a mage to run around while casting Frost Nova and Ice Lance to grab aggro
  • Having a Hunter with Freezing Traps and Explosive shots grab aggro
  • There are other ways, but those are what I have witnessed so far

One more thing

Gluth does a Decimate Flesh ability that you see in the opening shot of this post. Everyone’s health including the Zombies drop down to 10%. That’s your cue to get the entire raid to focus fire the Zombies and kill them. Otherwise if you don’t kill them quick enough, they will run towards Gluth and he will consume them and gain a lot of health back. And you do not want Gluth to get healed.

Pro tip: A few seconds before Decimate hits, have your kiter run to the opposite side of the room where Gluth is to buy your raid a few extra seconds of DPS time.

Healing

I’m strongly advocating a 2 single target healer on the tanks and 1 AoE healer on the kiter approach. Tanks will be taking a bit of a beating. Normal hits on Pate for about 4500. Enrage hits on Plate for about 5500+.

Tank healers have to focus and listen for the calls. Make sure the tanks are communicating so that tank healers know when they’re switching.

gluth-3The AoE healer will be keeping an eye on the kiter. It is inevitable that the kiter takes a few glancing blows here and there. Every time a player gets hit by Zombie Chow, they suffer a disease called Infected Wound which cannot be cleansed. It wears off after a minute. The disease causes players to take increased physical damage by 100 every time it is applied. I once had 20 applications of the debuff and believe me, it wasn’t fun at all.

After he hits Decimate Flesh, the raid’s health drops straight down to 10%. AoE heals are big at this point. Have the tank healers get the tank health back to 80% or higher and spam the rest of the raid. Don’t forget, during this portion of the fight, that zombies don’t aggro onto anything. They’re going straight for Gluth.

Priests

Circle of Healing a few times to get everyone out of the red. Finish off with direct heals or Prayer of Healing to get more heal strength down. In fact, consider using Holy Nova while you’re near players and are also in range of the Zombies. Every bit of DPS helps.

And lastly, here’s an action shot of a Gnome Mage being chased by some hungry Zombies. I wonder if he gets away…

gluth-2

Blizzcon Predictions from Bloggers and the WoW Twitterati!

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Whelps, Blizzcon’s just about here! I decided to activate the crystal ball that is the WoW community in an effort to predict the news, events, activities, and happenings that would unveiled at this years Blizzard convention! You’ll hear it from from the 3 of us along with other bloggers and the chemical catalyst that is the WoW Twitterati!

Dying for the return of Starcraft: Ghost. With the merger with Activision, wouldn’t it just rock to see Ghost on the CoD 4 engine? We know that dual talent specs will be explained more. I think we’ll hear a lot more from the class designers regarding design choices and intents for the various classes. I’m hoping for first shots of Arthas in Ice Crown but I believe that’s unlikely to happen. Will definitely be paying a lot more attention to the raids and dungeons aspect of the convention. And it won’t be Blizzcon without Starcraft and Diablo related news! I’ll have multiple split screens set up so I can keep track of everything.

Here are Sydera’s guesses at the announcements that might be made at the druid class discussion.

“Many people are concerned about the size of the big bear butt. We are as well, because we play druids, and we can’t tank half as comfortably as we’d like with big fuzzy in our faces. So, we’re instituting a new, improved, Slim Bear Butt form. Just apply a minor glyph, and your bear will morph into a lean, mean, streamlined-rear machine. The graphic comes with black and yellow bicycle shorts to further hold in bear cellulite. And remember, you can only eat [Raw Carrots] and [Celery Stalks] in Slim Butt Form. Side effects of this form include nausea, dizziness, and increased irritability. Those mobs had better watch out! They look tasty.”

“Now that we’ve removed the 20% snare from Tree of Life, many of you Restos will never see caster form again–at least not while you raid. So, to respond to your aesthetic concerns, Tree of Life will shift colors every season. Shifting days will be tied to the closest Tuesday to the equinoxes and solstices. We are removing the Rotten Broccoli coloration entirely. Spring Form will have yellow-green leaves with blooming pink flowers, while Summer Form will be deep green with [Shiny Red Apples], Autumnal Form will have brilliant orange-red leaves that drift, one at a time, to the ground, and Winter Form will have no leaves at all, just a dusting of sparkling snow. We would like to thank Sydera for repeatedly posting this idea for us on the suggestion forums. We really could not have thought of it ourselves.”

“We have recently heard that druids are quite proficient at 2v2 and 3v3 arenas. In fact, many in the gaming community consider druids’ mobility to be overpowered for arena. So, just for druid arena players, we have decided to implement Potted Plant Form, a new shapeshift form that all druids will gain at level 80. Druids will no longer be able to heal in caster form or Tree of Life form in the arenas. Instead, they must use their new healing-specific arena form. In Potted Plant Form, which looks just like a window-box full of geraniums, druids’ mobility is reduced by 100%, but their healing is also increased by 100%. Their resilience is buffed by 400%, but they cannot cast Lifebloom at all while shifted into Potted Plant Form. We think that the introduction of this new form will be exciting for players, particularly the forum trolls that haunt the druid class forms, making whiny emo posts every time some Druid-Warrior combo beats them in 2v2. Just especially for the arena druid, we will also be introducing the [Glyph of Potted Plant Form], which will attract cute little butterflies and chipmunks to your pretty red flowers. The butterflies and chipmunks apply a stacking spell haste buff of 10 spell haste per critter, which can stack up to 10 times.”

Possibly another expansion after Wrath (unlikely to hear about it). Definitely hear more about Starcraft. The healing trees of all classes besides Priests will be removed and Priests will get a tanking tree :). Murlocs will be a playable race. Alliance and Horde will, for the first time ever, be able to talk to each other. Full slots of legendary grade items (On a side note, why aren’t there any legendary items aside from weapons?).

Other Bloggers

Joveta: I predict a big announcement that’s non-Wrath related.  Maybe a date for the new Starcraft or Diablo (or both!).  (It is Blizzcon, not WoWcon, after all)

Veneretio: My prediction is that the new spec system will include a sandbox area where you can pre-build specs and save them. This in conjunction with a single click respec feature would allow for easier, safer, faster respecs for maximum level characters.

Seri: Lots of wrath promo. New pvp info. Dual spec ui teaser for post-wrath. New Diablo info. Maybe a demo. Class panels with lots of QQ. Photos of drunken fanboys with devs and CMs. Pin the tail on the Tauren.Felicia Day sighting.

Lassirra: Naked Gnome races and Murloc rodeos!

The Twitterati

@Medros wow 4.0, updates on dual spec and dance studios, and general fanboi craziness

@shinmeko Blizzcon predictions: Alex and I get drunk, Felicia Day stuns nerds far and wide, and Starcraft never gets released.

@isheepthings from the blue feeds it looks like they will hash out a bit more about duel-spec mechanics. rest will be d3 news.

@Laikia i have a sneaking suspicion we’ll all be a tad disappointed. But maybe a release date for Starcraft II

@honorshammer Tigole or Kalgan will make an offhand comment in one of the class Q&As that will get disected for days and days on the forums

@roflwolf  I predict there’s a potential for getting felicia day’s autograph… assuming I can rely on my friends… so, probably not. lol! Otherwise, it’s going to be E3 w/o the competition… whatever that means.

@eliah No big announcements. Overpriced collectible crap. I will stay up late posting.

@IcE_IcE_Luwin Jessica Alba will reveal she is a hardcore WoW player (plays a female dwarf priest)

@justanna  someone, somewhere, will murder a murloc horribly. I predict chalk outlines, as this becomes a new Blizzcon trend.

Image credits: mmagallan