World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

[CaptainChewbacca]

HAH! Well done, Chewie. That is, of course, why I never PUG (aside from the fact that I don't have to, being in a raiding guild). Too many dipshits.

I'm not quite geared enough for my guild to let me into the big leagues, so I do what I can when I can.

[Rahvin]

I've PUGed a few 10-man's and have been fortunate. But I'll bail if I see a large number of guild names I don't recognize, and if someone plays ninja, I'll report him to his guild officers. I've seen at least two occasions where I or a friend have gotten people booted from their raiding guilds for that sort of behavior.

My biggest problem with PUgs has been tanks - they're hard to find, and finding a decent one is even harder. I used to be able to look at someone's Armory and be able to tell if they were good enough, but now I've been getting burned by people who have the gear but evidently not the skill or intelligence to tank.

I'm now in a guild that regularly runs 10-man Naxx with 2 (and a 3rd forming) groups and is working on starting 25-man. PUGs are no longer as necessary as they have been in the past, thankfully.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'll PUG a 5-man if the people I'm PUGging with come from a reputable guild on the server. If I don't know anyone in the guild or if they don't have a good reputation, I'm not going to respond.

Also, since I don't tend to LOOK for groups, I tend to get PUG invitations that start with "hay can u heal heroic VH plz?".

Well, I suppose that's pretty OK an invite, even though I'm not going to respond. The fun ones are whenever I step foot in Orgrimmar I can't walk down the road without getting tells asking me to run them through X lowbie instance or if can can give them 50 gold for some twink item. One thing I kind of find amazing about WoW as a game and as an economy is that even though it's a damn fantasy game, it STILL somehow manages to generate motherfucking panhandlers.

[Minischoles]

I'll pug a 5man, but only for DPS, and then i've basically placed a blanket ban on taking Death Knights. Having 3 or 4 tanks to heal because none of them can control aggro is great fun.

10mans i've never pugged as i've just set up a regular group of us who go to 10man Naxx within the guild, we do it pretty casually a little each night, but we've cleared it multiple times and we're starting to try Malygos 10man with the group.

Unfortunately 25man progress is getting stalled by the unbelievable instance lag most nights. Take last night for instance, since we had 3 tanks and 1 had to leave early, I decide to take the group to Patchwerk and knock him over early. Wipe on trash due to a lagspike, hope its just due to WG popping and come back in and get to Patchwerk. 3 wipes on him, purely due the 15 second server delay. 15 FUCKING SECONDS FOR £9 A MONTH. This is literally at the point where you're just pressing a heal and hoping it lands when the tank takes a hit, since you can't see the hits before he's dead. Where there is literally no chance of the DPS getting a rotation up, which meant everyone was below 2k, since they were missing buff procs, missing their rotations, everything.
Tried once more to get towards a relatively easy boss in Noth, and we wipe on the goddamn trash because by the time you see the Gargoyle cast bar, the things already healed itself and the debuffs just went up too high.

[Ender]

Well, I suppose that's pretty OK an invite, even though I'm not going to respond. The fun ones are whenever I step foot in Orgrimmar I can't walk down the road without getting tells asking me to run them through X lowbie instance or if can can give them 50 gold for some twink item. One thing I kind of find amazing about WoW as a game and as an economy is that even though it's a damn fantasy game, it STILL somehow manages to generate motherfucking panhandlers.

eh, I take the time to run the lowbies through. Its good karma. Though helping people tends to bite me in the ass. More than once have I pitched in to help someone close to my level, come up with a plan, and then have them do their own thing, get me killed, and bitch at me that we need to try again.

[Teleros]

Problem with helping lowbies is that they latch onto you for life afterwards, all because of your random good deed for the day / week / month.

[Gil Hamilton]

Unfortunately 25man progress is getting stalled by the unbelievable instance lag most nights. Take last night for instance, since we had 3 tanks and 1 had to leave early, I decide to take the group to Patchwerk and knock him over early. Wipe on trash due to a lagspike, hope its just due to WG popping and come back in and get to Patchwerk. 3 wipes on him, purely due the 15 second server delay. 15 FUCKING SECONDS FOR £9 A MONTH. This is literally at the point where you're just pressing a heal and hoping it lands when the tank takes a hit, since you can't see the hits before he's dead. Where there is literally no chance of the DPS getting a rotation up, which meant everyone was below 2k, since they were missing buff procs, missing their rotations, everything.
Tried once more to get towards a relatively easy boss in Noth, and we wipe on the goddamn trash because by the time you see the Gargoyle cast bar, the things already healed itself and the debuffs just went up too high.

Things like Patchwerk I have to turn down spell effects and stuff because of the nature of the fight (Thaddius too, where lag is somewhat more fatal than usual). However, I think more than not alot of the lag and disconnects are on Blizzard's end. During Holidays, the lag becomes TERRIBLE in Naxx.

I can't imagine the stress on healers on a fight like Patchwerk. The Hateful Strike tanks healers must get grey hairs from Cast and Pray healing. I know that I get ticked because it screws up the rather sensitive Boomkin cast rotation I use and I even miss procs (like Eclipse, which is time sensitive and necessary requires you to change the spell you are tapping).

Of course, Blizzard is "aware a problem exists and is looking into it".

[White Haven]

Speaking as someone who alternately heals and tanks Patch, yes, I have found at least one white hair on my head to date.

[Rahvin]

I found 10-man Patch to be rather easy to heal, but in 10-man I didn't have any of the sort of lag issues you're talking about, I'm a Paladin with Beacon and so can heal both tanks at once, and my mana pool and efficiency are such that I can very nearly spam Holy Light for the entire fight without going OOM before Patch is dead.

Speaking of which - is there any reason I wouldn't be able to stand within melee range of Patchwerk? I find that on fights that are friendly to melee I can drastically improve my mana pool with Seal of Wisdom swings. As long as Patch doesn't have some sort of AoE that's likely to drop me, that would make the fight basically trivial to heal (aside from the oh-shit-he-hits-really-hard stress, but that's normal). And if he has a minor AoE (1-2k damage every now and again), the AoE off of my Holy Light should be sufficient to keep me topped off as well.

[White Haven]

There's no pbAoE effect to deal with, but if you end up with more health than the OT/melee at any point, you're likely to get bejesusfucked by a Hateful Strike. It's doable, but be careful about how high you let your health get.

[Sharp-kun]

There's no pbAoE effect to deal with, but if you end up with more health than the OT/melee at any point, you're likely to get bejesusfucked by a Hateful Strike. It's doable, but be careful about how high you let your health get.

On 10 man at least health doesn't matter. It's the two highest on threat and in melee.

First time we had everyone use the slime, second and third we didn't bother with no problems.

[Rahvin]

Well, that makes it easy then. And considering I don't gem/enchant/gear for Stam, as long as I make sure to heal the OT immediately I should be fine.

What's 25-man like? Do more players get hit in addition to the targeting changes? I'll be hitting heroic Naxx for the first time on Sunday.

[Sharp-kun]

Well, that makes it easy then. And considering I don't gem/enchant/gear for Stam, as long as I make sure to heal the OT immediately I should be fine.

What's 25-man like? Do more players get hit in addition to the targeting changes? I'll be hitting heroic Naxx for the first time on Sunday.

3 on 25 man. Again in melee and top 3 on threat.

[D.Turtle]

Don't even think about swinging at Patchwerk for mana on the 25-man version. He hits HARD. As in a hateful strike every 1-1.5 seconds that hits for 20-25k on plate.

The surest way to kill him:
Three tanks, the one with the worst equipment tanks him. The other two are there to soak the hateful strikes. A single healer can heal the main tank, the rest of your healers heal the Hateful strike tanks. And no, you do not have time to do various random stuff while fighting him - even renewing Judgements can lead to close calls.

This fight is ridiculously easy to heal in the 10-man version, but the numbers are increased a LOT for the 25-man. If your healers are asleep the first 2-3 seconds of the fight (or heal reactively), you've already lost your hateful strike tanks and can call the wipe.

[Rahvin]

Don't even think about swinging at Patchwerk for mana on the 25-man version. He hits HARD. As in a hateful strike every 1-1.5 seconds that hits for 20-25k on plate.

The surest way to kill him:
Three tanks, the one with the worst equipment tanks him. The other two are there to soak the hateful strikes. A single healer can heal the main tank, the rest of your healers heal the Hateful strike tanks. And no, you do not have time to do various random stuff while fighting him - even renewing Judgements can lead to close calls.

This fight is ridiculously easy to heal in the 10-man version, but the numbers are increased a LOT for the 25-man. If your healers are asleep the first 2-3 seconds of the fight (or heal reactively), you've already lost your hateful strike tanks and can call the wipe.

That hard? Wow. Hope my mana can last long enough then - I imagine the fight might last longer in 25-man than in 10-man. I'll almost certainly be assigned to heal the actual tank, with Beacon on one of the offtanks.

[Gil Hamilton]

That hard? Wow. Hope my mana can last long enough then - I imagine the fight might last longer in 25-man than in 10-man. I'll almost certainly be assigned to heal the actual tank, with Beacon on one of the offtanks.

Patchwerk is designed to be a gear check. He's a check on the gear of the tanks, the abilities of the healers, and the speed that DPS can lay into him. DPS is important because aside from his enrage, there is ALWAYS the chance that the Force will be with Patchwerk and he'll gib one of your Hateful Strike tanks. At this point, unless you've got some back ups and healers that are really on the ball, he's going to go on a rampage. Killing him as quick as possible minimizes the amount of time that Patchwerk can swing for the fences.

However, if you are just starting Naxx, don't bother with the Abom or Death Knight wings first. Plague and Spider are the way to go. They'll get you geared decently enough for things like Patchwerk and Razuvious (the rest of Abom and DK aren't as bad). Plus, many of the bosses in Plague and Spider are pretty trivial, like Noth the Lootbringer.

[Rahvin]

I believe that's exactly what we're doing, and that we'll only hit Patches if we finish the rest in a short period of time.

But it's interesting to know how hard he hits, and how often, in heroic. I can spam Holy Light nonstop for a little over a minute unbuffed, so hopefully with full raid buffs I can improve on that and last the entire fight. Unbuffed I'm at 38% Holy Light crit, a little over 1700 SP, a bit over 200 haste, and about 17.5k mana (which is what Im working hardest on improving). Holy Light hits for about 10k with crits around 15. I have yet to see what I'll be like with a full set of raid buffs (10-mans just don't bring enough class variety to really see all of the buffs at once). Hopefully my healing will be enough to do at least the first two quarters.

[Teleros]

However, if you are just starting Naxx, don't bother with the Abom or Death Knight wings first.

Tend to go Arachnid, Plague, Military and then Construct quarters in that order - saves the worst bosses for last (ie Patchwerk's & Thaddius' lag spikes). Almost done the 3 minute achievement on Patchwerk (probably could've last time with a few better DPSers), but yet to do any serious healing in WotLK so can't say how best to heal through Patchwerk as a healadin - it'd depend a lot on your tanks as well though.

[Minischoles]

Patchwerk on Heroic is a spamfest literally from start to finish. Get distracted for a second or try and do something else and likelihood is you've just lost a tank. A moments lack in concentration at the start and you've lost a tank and just wiped since he'll rapidly eat through all the melee DPS.

For a druid healer its not so bad, I just get all my hots rolling on all 3 tanks and keep them that way, but even then its beginning to tax my mana towards the end if the DPS are being slow. But like said above, he's a good old fashioned gear check of a boss, and once you've got the gear its easily doable (although it is still no fun for healers, but hey we get that next expansion). Patchwerk isn't even a boss I particularly like or dislike anymore, the only problem is the server lag can make attempts on him very annoying. The only boss i'm developing a hatred for is Sapphiron, simply because its not a DPS race, but its designed so that its required to DPS hard so your healers don't go OOM before you manage to take it down. I've actually spent the last 10-15% of that fight just sitting out of the FSR for 10-20 seconds before jumping back in and rejuveing the raid before going OOM again, just keeping on going for that little bit longer.

The lag was a little better tonight, in that it was just spiking instead of constant 15 second delay, we had jumps and spikes of going from no lag to 15 seconds, then to 5 and back and forth. So decided to only do Sarth with 1 Drake up, then went and managed to knock over Patchwerk relatively easily. Then tried DK wing and due to the lag every kill was very very messy.
Instructor we managed with both tanks dead, only one understudy left alive, half the raid dead, 4 healers left. When the understudy left MC we had to have a shaman pop his earth elemental to tank it. Gothik was hugely messy, thankfully I put our best healers on living side and we just brute forced it and aoed down before we got overwhelmed. Did pretty much the same for Four Horsemen, used the zerg down tactic (nuke Thane first with all DPS, before switching to Baron and doing the same), but due to the lag our warlock tanks died and we ended up losing 3/4 of the raid due to AoE before someone could rush into range. Last few people managed to knock them down before we hit the enrage.

[Gil Hamilton]

Sapphiron is an Old School "Don't Stand in the Shit" fight that Blizzard was so fond of in TBC and before. If your people are catching Blizzards and are being slow about avoiding/getting out of them, THAT'S what eats healer mana. The normal incidental damage and what the tank typically eats aren't terrible otherwise, though people not spreading out when he takes to the air can hurt too.

[Minischoles]

Sapphiron becomes a very trivial fight if half or most of the DPS wear frost resistance, simply because they will take so little damage I can just put a single lifebloom on them and they're healed. Although even on 25man, a rejuvenation is usually enough to keep someone up through the aura damage.

The only place you should really be maybe seeing people die on Sapphiron is if they stand too close together during the first part of the air phase, and they eat the aoe damage of the ice blocks being dropped. Other than that as said just avoid the blizzards, and hope your healers have the regen for the long fight.

Thankfully the lag seemed to be gone today, and we did very very well. In 4 hours of raiding we downed 10 bosses, leaving us with only KT to do on sundays raid leaving us a good 2 full raids to get in and practice Malygos.

[Ghost Rider]

Which is why the achievement is done the way it is. Saph was only a beast in vanilla because how much it took to make the items and beating the Four Horsemen was a fucking pain in oh so many ways.

[Gil Hamilton]

Funny, we never bothered with Frost Resist on Sapphiron and we kill him without any trouble.

[Ghost Rider]

Funny, we never bothered with Frost Resist on Sapphiron and we kill him without any trouble.

That's because you either knew the fight, were not complete idiots about standing in batches and/or your healers aren't screeching imbeciles. Any of the above work, the more the better.

Believe me, like I said...only in Vanilla WoW was he the beast, and only because you needed frost resist, the Four Horsemen were the far larger cockblock back then. His current form is literally they took Vanilla version and went "Oh yea...the players have recieved HP and all sorts of other upgrades over the years, hrmmm ah well.". So yeah, the achievement is pretty easy. Fuck aside from a couple heroic dungeon ones that require a fully decked out DPS party, only 3 dragon 10 man Sarth is out there fucking bonkers.

The funniest part? With his loss as a 60 dungeon, twinks have lost their only way of getting shoulder chants.

[Minischoles]

Funny, we never bothered with Frost Resist on Sapphiron and we kill him without any trouble.

That's because you either knew the fight, were not complete idiots about standing in batches and/or your healers aren't screeching imbeciles. Any of the above work, the more the better.

Believe me, like I said...only in Vanilla WoW was he the beast, and only because you needed frost resist, the Four Horsemen were the far larger cockblock back then. His current form is literally they took Vanilla version and went "Oh yea...the players have recieved HP and all sorts of other upgrades over the years, hrmmm ah well.". So yeah, the achievement is pretty easy. Fuck aside from a couple heroic dungeon ones that require a fully decked out DPS party, only 3 dragon 10 man Sarth is out there fucking bonkers.

The funniest part? With his loss as a 60 dungeon, twinks have lost their only way of getting shoulder chants.

I never reached him at 60, got stuck on Four Horsemen and just never got past it, ended up rerolling Horde before ever managing it.
As for now, you really can't rely on people not being stupid in this fight, its almost as bad as asking people to run in straight lines on Archimonde, you'll get a few who manage it perfectly, but the majority just can't manage it. Take for example the kill the other day, the stupidest thing I saw was right next to our moonkin raider a warlock had the curse, out of range of any other decurser, and not once but twice he just stood there DPSing and letting her die as I screamed down TS for him to decurse.