Wednesday 28 October 2009

Death to Onyxia redux!

Having killed Onyxia solo before she levelled up, Kam stepped back into her lair for a rematch, this time with 9 friends. Despite being similar to the level 60 fight, the increased toughness made it all the more delicious. Due to some fire damage going on, the raid-wide Fire Resistance Totem is recommended if no paladin is present to put up their aura.

Phase 1 or You Tank It and We'll Spank It
Phase 1 is just totally straightforward, the only tricky aspect is when the tank pulls Onyxia to the back wall, you have to be careful to run at her side. Getting too far in front gives you the chance to eat a Cleave which will likely kill you, getting too far behind and that massive tail can swipe you straight into the whelp cave. No one likes getting swiped into the whelp cave *blush*.

Once she is in position with the tank's back to the back cave wall, standing at her side hitting her soft ribs is the order of the day, liberal use of Magma Totem is advised.

Phase 2 or I Tire Of You Irritating Gnats!
At 65% Onyxia will wander off toward the entrance of her cave and proceed to take off. A Flame Shock and a bit of Lava Burst & Lightning Bolt action will show your disapproval, then it's into phase 2 proper!

Initially whelps will appear and pester the MT and OTs, but in all honesty apart from annoy a couple of them, there is very little for Enhancement to do here. I dropped Magma Totem to sear them lightly, but generally Kam is hanging around waiting for the...

Lair Guards who will spawn from the entrance every so often and get tanked away from everyone else. These are almost prime melee territory, apart from their ever-so-annoying Blast Nova which require you to run out of the Nova (so much like Emalon it's unfunny) then back in again to continue the pwnage.

Occasionally Onyxia will deep breath, that most terrifying of classic raid emotes. All you need do here is look at which direction she is facing, if toward you, the fire stuff will be on you, so it is essential to move to one side or another, so you are no where near the direction her head points.

This phase is pretty straightforward if on Guard duty - while I destroyed the Lair Guardians the ranged were dealing with whelps, racking up silly AOE DPS numbers and bringing Onyxia carefully down to 40% when nothing else was up because...

Phase 3 or Ph34r Teh Lavazor
Onyxia lands at 40% and immediately fears everyone, so Tremor Totem needs to be down before she lands or asap afterward. True pros can keep Strength of Earth up for phases 1 & 2 then switch to TT - I tend to miss the initial land, leading to calls of "do we have Tremor Totem down?" over vent. Tremor Totem is of course party only so those expert raid leaders will have you in a group with the tank and a healer or two.

Lava will also start spewing up from the cracks in the floor, but it didn't really seem to do much damage (around 5k without resistance according to WoWWiki) and I had Fire Resistance Aura from some paladin.

Adopt the side position, DPS Onyxia and have a relax during the running-around-feared bits and soon enough she should be dead. A good and fairly epic fight, although due to the length of the phases, quite a lot of trouble for 3 Emblems of Triumph! It was much easier when Onyxia was level 60, but grats on the ding anyway old girl.

No comments:

© 2008, 2009 FlameShock. All Rights Reserved.