Naxxramas 25: A PUG`s RL POV
The title means: Naxxramas 25: A pick-up group`s Raid Leader Point-of-View.
I know that the Devs are sensitive about Naxxramas. When someone is sensitive about a particular piece of one`s work, then it means that one has devoted a lot of time and effort in it. You can also see that in Vanilla Stratholme. It is in my opinion, perhaps the best 5 man dungeon they ever made alongwith Dire Maul.
When Naxxramas 40 was released, it was actually seen and experienced by only 2% of the playerbase at that time. Hence the decision to add it in in the Wrath of the Lich King.
At this stage in the game`s evolution, Naxxramas 25 is no longer `guild progression content` for the vast majority of guilds. The `vast majority` could mean something like over 90%.
Please let me define PUG here. There are two kinds of PUGS:
1. A PUG consisting of riff-raff picked up by spamming the trade channel.
2. A PUG consisting exclusively of members of established guilds. These PUGS are used to clear guild progression content, such as (presently) ToC 10 or Onyxia or Ulduar 10 Hard modes. While technically a PUG, this group has very little if anything at all in common with the PUG above.
For the purposes of this thread, a PUG is considered to be the first variant. Members of the second variant would –presently- never do Naxx 25 anyway.
I. Naxxramas 25 Difficulty Level:
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-A guild consisting of average or new-ish players will find Naxxramas 25 fairly challenging.
-A pro hardcore guild used to breeze through Naxxramas 25 back when it was relevant content. I was in such a guild with my Alliance alts. By 19:00 everyone whould be inside Naxxramas 25 with full consumables including haste pots. It would take us two hours and something to clear Naxx 25 with no wipes and usually no individual deaths either. Then we would go on and clear OS 3D up, and Malygos 25. If WG was up, we`d also clear that. We usually finished with all relevant content by 24:00 server time in just one day, on Wednesdays.
-A PUG now, will only complete Arachnid Quarter with ease, it will have some difficulties in the Plague Quarter (2-3 wipes at Heigan`s Dance part), it will never even get past Instructor Razuvious mostly because the RL (i.e. yours truly) is unable to find even so much as TWO priests in the whole server wishing to do Naxx 25, and it will wipe endlessly at Thaddius.
My own PUG, has been wiping yesterday at Thaddius for 3 hours, i.e. from 22:30 to 01:30.
II. FORMING A NAXXRAMAS 25 PUG: RL`s STANDPOINT
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1. A RL`s primary headache when trying to form a Naxxramas 25 PUG is the lack of Priests server-wide. As you know guys, I need two priests in order to get two MC`s at Instructor Razuvious, at the very least. For PUGS, three Priests are optimal and the alternate strategy that involves Hunters is out of the question, mainly because of the lack of individual ability of the average PUGGER (i.e. low quality players).
(For instance, I have had a lot of trouble in convincing PUG Hunters to use Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Wild, mainly because these abilities were not even on their bars and/or they had never used them before. Others refused to use Aspect of the Wild as that would reduce their 2.5k DPS).
Now I understand that the issue with the lack of Priests has gained some publicity at the US DD forums recently which is just as well.
I use the WoW Census add-on. I have used it on three different EU servers, namely Genjuros, Nordrassil and Darksorrow. These are the servers I played on for an extended perior of time. In every single one, Priests were the least popular/least played class. Priests are dead last in representation of active toons, dead last in number of toons played at level 80, and many guilds only have one Holy Priest and no Shadow Priests at all.
My raid was supposed to start at 19:00, and I spent one hour and 15 minutes trying to find a second priest either Shadow or Holy or Disc or whatever spec. I waived all gear and achievement requirements, and advertised that Priests had prio irrespective of gear. Still, I could not get one.
Now for a Naxx 25 PUG, when you don’t have two Priests, you can`t complete the instance. It is that simple. This because of the mechanics of the 25 man fight. There are no orbs, so that means that the MC`s have to come from two Priests by necessity.
In Naxxramas 25 PUGS, the healers I usually have to work with are:
-3 Holy Paladins
-1 Resto Druid
-1 Resto Shaman
The reason I don’t include a Priest is because I usually can`t find one.
III. NEGOTIATING NAXXRAMAS 25: ORDER OF COMPLETING QUARTERS
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Many Puggies join a Naxx 25 man just to get badges. The way they would like you to do Naxx 25 is this:
1. Arachnid Quarter, 2. Plague Quarter
If you do it that way, you will find yourself with fifteen (15) or so less raid members when you are standing in front of the Construct Quarter. The reason for that is that PUGGIES know that it gets tough in Construct and Military, and so in order to avoid multiple wipes (and repair costs thereof) they leave en-masse when the raid makes it to Construct Quarter.
`O SORRI GAIZ G2G`
Therefore, the experienced RL will do Naxx 25 in the following way:
1. Construct, 2. Military, 3. Plague, 4. Arachnid
Construct is the most unfriendly quarter to PUGGIES. It is also the quarter that a PUG will spend hours in (even an entire day`s worth of raid time) in order to complete it. I suspect that it was designed to be the most challenging quarter. This quarter is full of time waster features:
a. The running slimes past Patchy:
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No matter what you do, 5-6 people will die there. Additional delays because of ressurections and so on.
b. The pipe tunnel before the Doggie:
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You take damage in it even after the doggie dies, so that means that you must stop before it, heal up to full, and then go through it. You must also take into account the fall damage you will take after you exit the pipe and jump below.
c. The jump before Thaddius:
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After you clear the two zombie mini-bosses (Scalagg and Feugen) you must make the jump to Thaddius` platform. I have seen PUGS wiping because many people failed at the jump and landed on the slime floor below.
What it`s required there, is Hunters with the intelligence and presence of mind to use Aspect of the Pack to assist others to make the jump, but like said before, in PUGS you usually have to contend with Hunters who haven`t even bought the spell from the trainer.
/rw One Hunter please switch on Aspect of the Pack
…
/rw One Hunter please use Aspect of the Wild
…
Raid: I LOOSE [sic] DPS
/rw kk
*sigh*
See?
IV. ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN ALL REASONABLE MEASURES FOR RAID MEMBERS TO UNDERSTAND TACTICS:
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Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military theoretician, wrote in his Art of War, the Sun Tzu Ping Fa:
`Ensure that you have repeated your orders three times and explain them five times`
/rw Thaddius throws negative and postive charges on players by shifting polarities.
/rw When you are charged NEGATIVE you go to the LEFT of the Boss.
/rw When you are charged POSITIVE you go to the RIGHT of the boss.
/rw Polarities do NOT always change for all players. If you find yourself having maintained the same polarity, stay at the same spot.
/rw Look at the right side of your screen for the + or – sign to understand what your polarity is.
/rw Focus on getting the polarities right. Do NOT focus on DPS or healing alone.
/rw ---------------------------------BOSS+++++++++++++++++++++++++
/rw Whisper the Raid Assistants if you don’t understand something.
I come from a Naval background myself, and I understand the importance of orders being explained to the men properly and with detail, if with brevity. This is the kind of explanation I would do prior to a Thaddius fight, discussion on the raid chat notwithstanding.
Now respectfully, when the orders have been `repeated three times and explained five times` men failing to follow orders is NOT the fault of the Officers. Thaddius has got a very long learning curve. It requires people to have done the fight quite a few times to really get the feel of it.
Now, while a boss like that would be more than fine for current content (i.e. guild progression content) it is not at all fine for content that is mainly addressed to PUGGIES.
The complexity of the Thaddius fight is just too much for the average PUGGIE player. Content that is primarily addressed to random PUGGIES should not be a `bang your head on the wall for the whole night` experience.
V. SUGGESTIONS:
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Having taken the above into account I have got the following suggestions with regard to Naxxramas 25 man:
1. The Thaddius encounter should be made less complex and more forgiving, considering the quality of players that now primarily seek to do it.
2. Mind Control Orbs should be added in the 25 man version of the Instructor Razuvious encounter, thus removing the requirement for two Priests to be present in order to successfully complete the said encounter.
Like GC says, bring the player not the class.
I find the difficulty of the remainder Naxx 25 bosses perfectly fine for the average PUGGIE, thus I really do not have any further suggestions.
Thanks and best regards
P.S: The European forums are down, so I though I`d post this here to give it greater visibility. Will post same at the EU raid forums as soon as it is up.