Champion times two
This weekend I reached another personal milestone and earned myself the Champion of the Frozen Wastes title. In our second Malygos raid, we managed to defeat the bastard in 9 painful tries. We had 3-4 tries where I learned how to tank phase 1, as it was my first time tanking it. It does take some time to get used to it, and I struggled through positioning and aggro management. It was the closest I ever felt to tanking a boss like Nightbane, where threat after the landing was a persistent issue. It was back this time. Eventually, phase 1 just clicked, we had the sparks in perfect control, I strafe-kited him without much problem, and our two priests healed perfectly. Ciderhelm’s video makes it look easy, but it takes a lot of focusing to keep up on threat against the DPS boosted raid plus you have to keep an eye out for sparks yourself. My tip: use the time in the vortex to locate the sparks, and if you happen to be in range of Malygos, keep building threat, you’ll need it.
We faltered in phase 2 once, again due to aggro issues and people being in different bubbles. But that was just once, phase 2 is relatively easy. Charge one Nexus Lord, Heroic Throw the other, move to the current bubble and watch the Deep Breath timer. Once the Nexus Lords were down, I flew up to slap sunders onto the scions, to help the physical DPS girls.
Of the nine tries, we made it to phase 3 four times. The first try was just testing the waters, the second one we failed to beat his enrage timer. The third time everything went great, everyone was alive, stacks were up, things looked good. Bam. The Wyrmtalon drakes apparently got bored and left to see a movie. We all fell to our deaths. And not a fluke, because our sister-guild alliance side did Malygos-25 the same day and had the same thing happen. Very aggravating! But at that point, it seemed like we had figured it out. We killed Malygos with 35 seconds left on his timer. Close, but good enough. I did notice that it’s not that easy to keep stacks up as I thought it would be, I let mine drop off at 10 stacks, which I find somewhat embarassing to admit.
Unfortunately, drops were disappointing. Nothing anyone could use, and no Barricade for me. Maybe next time. I did enjoy the fight as tank overall and would love to do it again. I am not sure I would be able to successfully 2-heal it, unless joined by a Holy priest or druid, because shamans are kinda useless during the Vortex.
Next day was full of frustration for me. I healed in Naxx-10, and though I generally felt very solid on healing, I managed to eff up all my exuberance by switching to Kadomi for Thaddius, for a shot at the Repelling Charge. Yet again I missed the jump and spent most of the fight on a platform, waiting for the right time to jump again without killing anyone. Tonight I will head to Naxx to look for the ledge that lets you not do a jump, so this won’t ever happen again. Blegh. Of course Repelling Charge didn’t drop, so now I have to farm Seal of the Pantheon so I can actually wear frost resist gear for Hodir.
Naxx went so great, I thought this would be our second one-day clear, but then we hit a roadblock at Four Horsemen. No one had done the fight in the back before but one of the tanks. Our first tries didn’t work, so I decided to head to the back. It still took us three tries, and that was the end of our raid. We only managed to clear four wings in our allotted time, after one-shotting everything else. I was really disappointed. But you know, next time we’ll have more people who have done 4H in the back, and we’ll go back to one-shotting them. I think my biggest failure as raid leader was that I did not manage to keep the cheerfulness up. I was so disappointed that I think it was audible on Vent. I should have kept the high spirits up, but I was tired. Something to improve.
In two weeks, we’ll head back to Ulduar, and then I’ll take a break from raiding. We’re moving to a new apartment in another town, so it might be til early August until I get my broadband up and running again. I will try to prepare a couple blog entries so you won’t have to miss me too much. 
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Yeah it was sooo bizarre in 25 Maly when the drakes all dropped us. We weren’t in static field, but suddenly we ALL dropped at exactly the same time. I could see the entire raid dropping above me all in a straight line… so f-d up
I googled it and it seems some other people were having the same issue (also issues with zoning in after he was dead and never being picked up by a drake, so falling to death again and again until they spirit res).
BIG grats on getting Malygos for the first time! Definitely feels like an accomplishment
It’s really hard to keep positive when it comes to multiple wipes on something that you don’t feel should be so long (big difference between wiping on, say, a new Ulduar boss vs something like this), so don’t be too hard on yourself! I think the most frustrating thing as a raider is when officers/raid leaders get annoyed at wiping on new content. I know one guy who just HATES wiping on anything and it is so frustrating to bring him to new content because he complains. a. lot.
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admin Reply:
June 29th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I am still full of nerd rage about 4H. Especially as the try that worked was really super-easy to heal in the back. Worked like a charm. We just rolled through the place before that. Also, we had our cleaner over during the raid, so there were a lot more breaks than I really wanted to have, so I felt bad about that.
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Congrats on killing the big blue bastard!
I really like reading about your guild’s raids. I don’t know why, I just really like these posts. Going on a trip in a couple days so I may miss your next Ulduar post but good luck in there!
On the plus side when I get back from vacation I’ll have around a month of blog posts to get caught up on. Wooo!
Naissa´s last blog ..Vacation Thing.
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Congratulations on downing Malygos, and I’m sorry to hear that loot was subpar. You’ll get that Barricade one of these times, I’m confident. I still hate that fight, so much they could have done with it instead of copping out to vehicle combat and threatless adds.
Good luck in Ulduar! My 10 man has been working on hard modes, and we’re making some good progress. Looking forward to hearing how you ladies fare against the keepers.
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Another Congrats on Maly! Alas, it has been nothing but wipes for my guild…maybe someday.
Hope things go good with your move
and Ulduar!
RJK´s last blog ..3.2 and You..Warriors.
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admin Reply:
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:07 am
Aww, where are you guys stuck on Maly? I actually really enjoy this fight, phase 1 feels like Nightbane reborn for me, one of my favorite fights to tank. It’s only the vehicle part I could do without.
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I find 2 healing Mally as a resto shaman is tough but not impossible. You need to have the glypehd Riptide, Earth shield cooking on the tank and time your Natures Swiftness cool-downs for the vortexes. You can have your ES on the tank Riptide cooking on 3 targets and a instant cast chain heal to help whoever is the second healer keep people alive. Then it is just chain heal like mad until everyone is topped off after the vortex.
Skraps´s last blog ..The Zombie invasion has begun…
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Congrats on Maly–sorry it’s taken me (Liz, btw) so long to check out your site. I R Lame, or somesuch. Looking forward to reading your archives, especially since one of these days I may actually end up tanking, god forbid.
Just a random note on Thaddeus–usually, we try to make sure that each group has either a mage or a priest in the party (sometimes leading to entertaining [for me the mage, anyway] squabbles over who gets whom, if there’s only one of us around). Slow fall and levitate are really fantastic if you have anyone who has trouble making the jump. Makes life much easier in the end.
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admin Reply:
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:08 am
Hey Liz, glad to have you over! I should drop by your server sometime. As for Thaddius, supposedly there is a way to get over via a ledge that does not require jumping, but I haven’t seen how that works yet. Sounds like I need it. :O
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One thing that helps for Malygos is to pin point that person riding your arse for threat, and intervene them right before vortex.
I hate locks on this fight as their dots keep rolling when you’re up in the air, hehe.
Have fun in Ulduar!
Eksy´s last blog ..Ulduar 10 Hard Modes, New Loot, and Unrelenting Assault?
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