tricks | Secret Agent Cat

L2Dragon

Whew! So, TigerCon ’08 has wrapped up, we’re now firmly into ’09, and come hell or high water <Unemployed> is going to step into 25-man raiding this week!

Or so help me….. *shakefist*

ANY-hoo, during my few weeks’ absence I have been relatively active in-game. We’ve now cleared 10-man Naxx (twice), wiped up Obsidian Sanctum quite a bit, and shaken our fist at Malygos from our spots on the floor of his lair.

That post I was talking about before was a guide on killing dragons. So, in that spirit I offer you this image, featuring the ever-fluffly chin of Malygos.

l2dragon

Now, I’ll start my breakdown with one small caveat: Every dragon is different. Hitbox sizes are quite variable and sometimes the cleave radius changes. I’ll note these exceptions when I see them.

General Information:

On the whole, all dragons have a similar strategy. They have either a cleave or breath weapon (sometimes both) and a tail swipe. I’ve found that the frontal attack does more damage while the rear attack often has a knockback component. Ranged players are usually far enough away (as long as your tank isn’t parading said dragon around will-he-nil-he) that they don’t need to worry.

Melee is not so lucky. For most dragons it’s safe to make sure you’re attacking from the side. Throughout my dragoning life I’ve just made sure to be whailing at about a 50º angle to the line of the dragon.

Until, that is, we started on Sapphiron. That dragon has a MASSIVE cleave radius, seriously, it’s massive. I can’t stress to you enough how big (and painful) it is. Rogue-man & I quickly found that the only real way to be able to safely dps the big guy was to strike up a steamy love affair with his back leg.

On the flip-side we have Malygos, who doesn’t have a tail swipe (or so I’ve been told, I’ve only ever tanked him so I don’t have first-hand experience). I don’t think he has a cleave either, but his breath weapon is pretty painful. You hear that healers? If the tank has to rotate him so the dps can get to a spark you’d better move!

So there we have it, a general dragon strategy! Whenever our guild tackles a new one the raid lead always starts out by saying “Ok, regular dragon strat except for -this, this, and this-” and then we continue on as normal!

2009: 01/06
CATEGORY: Instancing
TAGS: dps
Instancing
raid
raiding
tricks
1 comment

Wait… You SKIPPED It?

Last night, while I was cruising around Nagrand with my tail between my legs while looking for clefthoof to kill Mr. Tigerfeet took his guild on their first serious attempt at Zul’Aman.

I’d like to note, that while I’m in a guild that’s quite a bit farther progressed than his, I got a leg up whereas he decided to build his empire guild from the ground-up about a month or two ago.

There, ok, on with the show.

They got in one attempt on Nalorakk. Unfortunately something bugged and they couldn’t re-start the fight. So, unwilling to risk pulling the bears and having Nalorakk rain trolly goodness down on them at the same time, they decided to go take a stab at Akil’zon.

They start their raid time at about 8 and finally finished up around midnight-thirty. (Too late for me) He came over from time to time to ask me the odd piece of advice, I remember madly moonfire-tagging some mobs because I don’t like to share while assuring him that yes, the bear riders do need to be tanked away from each other. No, I don’t remember why, just do it.

The next thing I know he’s wandered out of his little cave again to get a drink and I ask “Hey, how’s it going?”

To which he replies, “Good, we’re just taking a bio break and repairs before we try Akil’zon again.”

“Oh! How’d the gauntlet go?”

“We skipped it.”

Wait… what? You skipped it?

What followed was a very intense explanation while I hunched over his chair, scratching my head and biting my lip as cries of unfair! and broken! welled up in my chest. I’ve heard of people running naked up to the top with the intent to die on the platform and res with a soulstone or ankh, but the trick he and his guild executed left me nothing short of flabbergasted.

To put it simply… they played fetch.

My husband has the extreme misfortune* of having a plethora of hunters in his guild. So for him, this little trick will become a matter of course. Here’s the nitty gritty:

The entire raid clustered at the base of the cliff atop which the gauntlet road runs. The hunter in the group uses eagle eye to get a look-see on the top of the cliff.

He then locates the troll Tidecaller (I think that’s what he’s called). Tidecaller gets marked and selected. Eagle eye is cancelled.

The hunter then sends his pet in. Just his pet, poor little kitty gets to run headlong and attack mister big scary troll. After one or two successful attacks the hunter recalls the pet to his side, thereby dragging the tidecaller with him and maybe one or two extra mobs.

Raid proceeds to kill the tidecaller and any random mobs, Zul’Aman lookout despawns, and raid continues up the ramp virtually unmolested.

That

INSANE

I was left gaping and spluttering for a good couple minutes after I saw that. Is this something that’s normally crazy-common that I just didn’t know about? I have no idea, I’ve never heard of anybody doing this.

Apparently one of his members had done his homework and, secluded at the end of one of the boss strategies he was watching was this little trick. The man was promptly given a promotion.

Good job I say! I can’t wait to try this the next time I’m in Zul’Aman with a hunter!

*I’ve nothing against hunters, I love hunters! But damn has he got a LOT of them.