Avarice Alliance takes down Onyxia again...

[Lissa]

...and done it without Fear Ward more times than with. Who says Alliance has to realy on Fear Ward and Fear removing trinkets.

[Tal]

...and done it without Fear Ward more times than with.  Who says Alliance has to realy on Fear Ward and Fear removing trinkets.
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Well to be honest I have lead the last two (three?) Onyxia wins on Sharanna. Clearly paladins need to be nerfed. :)

GREAT JOB GUYS! :w00t:

[Darian]

Well to be honest I have lead the last two (three?) Onyxia wins on Sharanna. Clearly paladins need to be nerfed. :)
[right][snapback]91593[/snapback][/right]

No, just Tal.

[lfd]

...and done it without Fear Ward more times than with.  Who says Alliance has to realy on Fear Ward and Fear removing trinkets.
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I wasn't aware anybody had. You've still got priests in plate and BoS, though ;-)

:shuriken:

[Tal]

I wasn't aware anybody had.  You've still got priests in plate and BoS, though ;-)

:shuriken:
[right][snapback]91605[/snapback][/right]

heh - I drew aggro twice last night healing our MT and only survived because of the fire resist I had. Seems Onyxia prefers to breathe on priests, druids and paladins when angered so plate is of little use in those situations. :)

BoS has been hashed to death. Suffice it to say that Shaman bring unique things to the Horde that Paladins cannot and vice versa. :)

[lemekim]

heh - I drew aggro twice last night healing our MT and only survived because of the fire resist I had. Seems Onyxia prefers to breathe on priests, druids and paladins when angered so plate is of little use in those situations. :)

BoS has been hashed to death. Suffice it to say that Shaman bring unique things to the Horde that Paladins cannot and vice versa. :)
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On Onyxia, often when you seem to draw aggro it's really because you resisted fear while the main tank did not manage to prevent it, and since fear is a big aggro dump, it's pretty much same as you causing a lot of aggro. I just don't see how a paladin could draw aggro otherwise, with the BoS and the low-aggro heals that they have.

And no, what Shaman brings to the table doesn't even come close to what Paladins bring. Not trying to bring that dead horse up again, since it's probably at the glue factory by now, but I think it's silly to say "Who says Alliance has to realy on Fear Ward and Fear removing trinkets" when Horde does it every day.

[Tal]

On Onyxia, often when you seem to draw aggro it's really because you resisted fear while the main tank did not manage to prevent it, and since fear is a big aggro dump, it's pretty much same as you causing a lot of aggro. I just don't see how a paladin could draw aggro otherwise, with the BoS and the low-aggro heals that they have.[right][snapback]91623[/snapback][/right]

Both times I had come out of a fear and had dropped a big heal on Anadrol just as he was re-engaging.

And no, what Shaman brings to the table doesn't even come close to what Paladins bring. Not trying to bring that dead horse up again, since it's probably at the glue factory by now, but I think it's silly to say "Who says Alliance has to realy on Fear Ward and Fear removing trinkets" when Horde does it every day.
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Glue factory is right.

[Kevin]

but I think it's silly to say "Who says Alliance has to realy on Fear Ward and Fear removing trinkets" when Horde does it every day.
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And everytime we mention that we've beaten Onyxia on these boards fear ward has been brought up in a fashion that makes it seems like since we did it with alliance players we suck and had to use fear ward. That is why the quote, it's to the damn lurkers specifically who keep bringing up fear ward.

As to Blessing of Salvation. I know it was down on me by the middle of phase 3 (we had a sloppy transition so things started taking longer) so I'm assuming that most of the rest of the raid didn't have it at that stage either.

I'm not going to argue that paladins don't bring more to the table in most of the raid encounters than shaman. I play both sides and while I haven't done 40 man raids horde side I feel safe in extrapolating how things will work to them from my experiences with my L56 horde and my 3 L60 alliance. I do think paladins offer more to a 40 than shaman and that shaman offer more to a 5 man than a paladin.

In my book the most powerful paladin blessing is the one that never gets mention. Blessing of wisdom. It returns more mana than a mana tide totem will and you can put it on all mana users not just one group. Judgement of light and wisdom are also huge huge benefits that never seem to get brought up. Salvation helps but not as much as people like to claim. Kings for the extra HP is also a very big deal when 100 HP can mean life or death. Salvation can be lived without, might will help with DPS but the shaman totems will do just as well if not better for the people they affect (and shaman can buff hunter DPS a lot more than a paladin can and since hunters get to zero out aggro at intervals that is a big deal too). Cleanse also puts them ahead of the shaman. Survivability is pretty much a toss up because I see both raid shaman and raid paladins in a mix of cloth, leather, mail, and in the paladins case plate. Neither of them should be taking much in the way of physical damage though so again it's just the resists that they have on that +healing +int +stam gear they are wearing that really matters as the few hunder more armor that drops the hit from 1550 to 1545 won't really matter.

[kandrathe]

Both times I had come out of a fear and had dropped a big heal on Anadrol just as he was re-engaging.
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I'm just glad you kept her distracted so the handful left standing could drop her the remaining 2%. Near the end she was a little too close to me on the west side for comfort (my dead zone) and I took a 3000 pt cleave, so I risked (right after a fear wave) running under her butt to get to the east side of the room. I think my life had dropped to under 50, so I bandaged and quaffed a health pot and tried to burn her down with all I had left. How many were alive at the end? The last 5% was where the miracles occured. Some great saves by healers and warriors to control her that last bit.

[Kevin]

I'm just glad you kept her distracted so the handful left standing could drop her the remaining 2%.  Near the end she was a little too close to me on the west side for comfort (my dead zone) and I took a 3000 pt cleave, so I risked (right after a fear wave)  running under her butt to get to the east side of the room.  I think my life had dropped to under 50, so I bandaged and quaffed a health pot and tried to burn her down with all I had left.    How many were alive at the end?  The last 5% was where the miracles occured.  Some great saves by healers and warriors to control her that last bit.
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Not sure, I think we were looking at 10 at most because of the transition issues.

I know I got a flash of light on Syladril when he got aggro after Anadrol couldn't stance dance due to the fears coming too fast and then someone got a big heal on Syl. I threw a few hammers at her and got a lay of hands on anadrol at one point. I threw a heal at some mage at some point, not sure who, but yeah we didn't have a lot left at the end and I was cursing the timer on the mana pots and just waiting for a proc of seal of wisdom and blessing of wisdom to get some more healing out there. But I know I was standing when she fell.

[lfd]

And everytime we mention that we've beaten Onyxia on these boards fear ward has been brought up in a fashion that makes it seems like since we did it with alliance players we suck and had to use fear ward.  That is why the quote, it's to the damn lurkers specifically who keep bringing up fear ward.

And yet this time it was brought up by the original poster, rather than one of the Damn Lurkers... :o

We (horde guild) had a pretty disastrous run on Onyxia the second week of 1.7; whether some AI has been tweaked to make deep breathes more likely or not I don't know, but during one attempt on her that week she let loose 9 of them. And we'd been downing her consistently before that (and had done so in 1.7 the week before), so it wasn't that we didn't know what to do. Back to normal the week after, though, although we still seem to take a couple of deep breathes rather than none as we did before.

I didn't have the luxury of being in a shaman's group for tremor totem, but even so I ended up resisting the fear a lot, and having to scrabble for fade when she started heading towards me. Guess I should rethink those points in Unbreakable Will, eh? :P

[Kevin]

And yet this time it was brought up by the original poster, rather than one of the Damn Lurkers...  :o
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Yes and that was to try and nip that freaking comments in the bud. And I've been a lurker for a long damn time, network54 days though I was much more of a lurker than a poster and was registered as Sixpence and not Gnollguy so my comment wasn't directed at lurkers from a "outsider in the alliance" it was directed at lurkers as a lurker. All the petty horde vs alliance #$%& that comes up on a strategy site pisses me off, moreso when I'm guilty of doing it.

As you mention later, Onyxia, even when you know what you are doing, can wipe you at times, we're just tried of it being belittled when we beat her.

As for fear, the best way to stop it is to keep the damage up. The more damage she is taking the less frequently she fears. Deep breath seems to be pretty much the same deal. We only see them if the DoT's are low and she isn't seeing enough damage on her, of course since we have an abundance of hunters and mages we generally can keep a lot of damage on her in the air so deep breath is something that seems only a myth to some of our newer raiders I think. :)

Lack of any good way to rez people in phase 3 is the hardest part of the 1.7 fight now, you have no good way to recover from a bad transition you don't stay out of combat long enough with any of the tricks I've seen tried to get a rez on anyone else. So I guess horde has a slight advantage here in that some of their healing corpe, if they time it right, could get back up bandage/potion/maybe totem and start healing again though I don't see that as a huge help.

[kandrathe]

We (horde guild) had a pretty disastrous run on Onyxia the second week of 1.7; whether some AI has been tweaked to make deep breathes more likely or not I don't know, but during one attempt on her that week she let loose 9 of them.  And we'd been downing her consistently before that (and had done so in 1.7 the week before), so it wasn't that we didn't know what to do.  Back to normal the week after, though, although we still seem to take a couple of deep breathes rather than none as we did before.
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Personally, I think as long as she dies, its good. My fear ward has only ever been to improve fire resistance and "run against the wall and stay away from lava cracks", and if I do get damaged, feign death, bandage, pop a potion, or munch on a mana biscuit. :-) As long as there is a tank controlling her, and healers keeping the tank alive Phase III is indefinate until the healers run out of mana. I think the secret of Phase III for DPS types is just figuring out how to stay alive to be able to deliver your payload of damage.

I'm sure this is rehash for you, but... We only ever have Deep Breathes as a problem in Phase II when the DPS, or the number of DOTS are too low. With v1.7, and more DOT slots, at the start of Phase II everyone who can, should DOT her. Nearer to 40% life we slack off DOTs to eliminate transition problems of her aggroing a DOT'er. With full DPS on in Phase II, we burn her from 60% life to under 40% life in what seems only a few minutes. Less time in Phase II means less fireballs and lower risk of deep breath.

Next time, I will need to take some timings. It's getting to the point now where we could take a video of the entire fight. From last Warder to Onyxia dropping is now taking very little time at all.

[Lissa]

And yet this time it was brought up by the original poster, rather than one of the Damn Lurkers...  :o
[right][snapback]91633[/snapback][/right]

Because it was brought up specifically to head off that kind of comment about fear ward. It seems like any time Alliance does something that has a raid boss that uses fear a lot, like Onyxia and Mags, someone from the Horde side chimes in with a snooty attitude that Alliance can't do these fights without Fear Ward.

[kandrathe]

Because it was brought up specifically to head off that kind of comment about fear ward.  It seems like any time Alliance does something that has a raid boss that uses fear a lot, like Onyxia and Mags, someone from the Horde side chimes in with a snooty attitude that Alliance can't do these fights without Fear Ward.
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I just don't want to fight her naked, if that's what it takes to prove we have the cahones. :D

[Tal]

I just don't want to fight her naked, if that's what it takes to prove we have the cahones.  :D
[right][snapback]91650[/snapback][/right]

Well Killion is usually nekkid so that must be the key to our success. :lol:

[Tal]

I'm just glad you kept her distracted so the handful left standing could drop her the remaining 2%.  Near the end she was a little too close to me on the west side for comfort (my dead zone) and I took a 3000 pt cleave, so I risked (right after a fear wave)  running under her butt to get to the east side of the room.  I think my life had dropped to under 50, so I bandaged and quaffed a health pot and tried to burn her down with all I had left.    How many were alive at the end?  The last 5% was where the miracles occured.  Some great saves by healers and warriors to control her that last bit.
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There was no keeping her distracted as I went from full health to 500 life in one breath. I just ran over to the Beast and hoped he grabbed her quickly enough that I could pop a shield and heal up. :)

[Quark]

How many were alive at the end?
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I couldn't believe when I went down. Got aggro, vanish, tail whip, pot and bandage. Get back up to full life, beating her down, fear, run in front of her, Breath for full damage, survive with 50 life, fear into lava.

I had crazy-luck resist going until that breath. I'd rather be only semi-lucky the rest of the time if it means not taking a full shot from her breath :/

[Pesmerga]

I couldn't believe when I went down.  Got aggro, vanish, tail whip, pot and bandage.  Get back up to full life, beating her down, fear, run in front of her, Breath for full damage, survive with 50 life, fear into lava.

I had crazy-luck resist going until that breath.  I'd rather be only semi-lucky the rest of the time if it means not taking a full shot from her breath :/
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Jeez, even I managed to stay alive the entire time.... and I was doing a fair amount of damage. :)

[Quark]

I just don't see how a paladin could draw aggro otherwise, with the BoS and the low-aggro heals that they have.
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You try to keep BoS up on 40 people in the middle of an intense, 15-20 minute fight. Aggro is reset for Phase 3, and phase 3 is right when my BoS went down.