The Great Onyxia Race

[MongoJerry]

THE GREAT ONYXIA RACE -- The Tale of Two Raids
An Adventures of Neriad Tale

In the waning days of the closed beta, Blizzard desperately wanted players to test out the recently added Onyxia raid encounter before the game was finalized for retail. They came up with a contest. Whatever guild managed to kill Onyxia would have its name reserved on whatever server it chose in retail. This was a pretty lame reward, but the most important part was that whatever guild managed to kill Onyxia would forever be known as the first guild to kill Onyxia. The race was on.

Not being one interested in guilds or guild politics, I tended to be a free agent about such things, and being a well known level 60 priest, I got lots of offers to join Onyxia raids. At least I'd like to think I was invited to raids because of my renowned skills as a priest. In truth, by the final week of the beta, the population of high level characters on the closed beta PvP server had dropped significantly as people left to play with their friends on the open beta servers. There were one or two Onyxia raids a day and while the banner that we were fighting under changed, in reality the cast of characters doing the fighting changed little from attempt to attempt, since the same crew of free agents like myself tended to dominate most of the raids.



We never did kill her, and the reasons were many. (See my writeup of the first attempt to kill Onyxia in the closed beta, if you want a good laugh). The biggest one was that raids in general were new, so people weren't used to knowing what to do or how to act in them. We also didn't have any of the nice raid-specific custom user interfaces like CT_raidassist that people use now, and most people didn't use Teamspeak or any other such voice communication system, which made raids much more difficult to coordinate. Of course, we also had to deal with the fact that the Onyxia encounter was brand new, so we ended up spending attempts just trying to figure out how the encounter works. For example, one time we intentionally attacked Onyxia's eggs, thinking that that might weaken her. (It didn't work). Also, as a largely pickup group, we sometimes had to deal with idiots who messed everything up -- like the time one guy took it upon himself to attack the dragonet eggs even after we told him that it didn't work. Finally, it didn't help that at the time, warder guards would spawn next to Onyxia after two failed attempts to kill her. This was basically "game over" for any raid, which was a shame. Sometimes raid groups would just start to get into a rhythm and then suddenly those guards would show up and break everything up. Luckily, the guard spawns were taken out in retail.

Despite all the problems, I am happy to say that our ragtag group managed to get Onyxia up in the air and fly, something that most other beta groups did not manage to do. (Our best attempt got her down to 62%). Still, I set as one of my primary goals once retail came out to get back to Onyxia and finally see that *expletive deleted* dragon die. I quickly got to level 60, farmed some useful +fire resist gear, and got the Onyxia key as quickly as I could. (The Horde Onyxia key quest is a long quest series that starts with the Lower Blackrock Spire quest, The Warlord's Command).

Now all I needed was 39 other people who wanted to kill Onyxia, and there was the rub. Being a person unaffiliated with any major guild complicates efforts to get in some of the large scale raiding parties. (I play under the banner of the "Lurking Loungers," because I am the site administrator for the WoW section of the unaffiliated game strategy site, The Lurker Lounge). Still, raiding parties always need priests, and I figured with my outgoing personality I would eventually find some groups I could regularly raid with. Sure enough, after putting some feelers out, I started getting raid invites, first for pick-up raids and then some more guild-centric raids. After a couple of good experiences with The Offenders, I started raiding almost exclusively with them.

There was one problem. Everyone was raiding Molten Core, while nobody was raiding Onyxia. I kept getting raid invites from Unholy Legion and later from Grim Vengeance combined with some friends I knew from the Basin. I wanted to additionally raid with those groups very much -- especially the GV/Basin group, since I knew so many people there -- but the game locked players into instances for seven days (now six days). I hated that restriction, as I kept having to turn down friendly invitations with a litany of "No, sorry, I told the Offenders I'd raid with them this weekend, so I can't get locked into your instance" and "No, sorry, I'm locked into the Offender's instance. Good luck!" However, I always told people, "But, hey, if you ever do Onyxia, look me up! I have the key." The response was always the same: "Not enough of our guildies have keys." My dream of killing Onyxia had to be put on hold.



Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly there was a flurry of activity among Tichondrius Horde players to get Onyxia keys. When inviting people I knew to instance runs, I got several "Sorry, I'm helping some guildies kill world dragons" or "Sorry, we're doing UBRS runs to get blood." I didn't know what precipitated this sudden interest in Onyxia, but I was glad that it was happening. Two weekends ago, I got my first invitation for an Onyxia run from a group that was a mixture of Grim Vengeance, Unholy Legion, Basin, and a smattering of people from some other guilds. I badly wanted to go, but I had already committed to running Molten Core with The Offenders all that weekend. (Don't get me wrong. I had a blast playing with TO that weekend. We made great progress, clearing all the way up to Golemagg). I told the guys who invited me that I would definitely be interested in joining them for any weekday attempts on Onyxia, though.

That Wednesday, I logged on to do some Dire Maul runs and noticed that Sabik, the Offenders primary raid leader, was on. I asked him when the next Molten Core raid was going to be, and he replied that the guild was going to try to kill Onyxia instead and was in the process of doing UBRS runs to help people get their keys. I thought that this was strange. We were on a roll with our Molten Core runs. Each week, the group was getting farther into the Core, and fights were getting faster and more systematic. I had visions of getting all the way to Ragnaros in a couple of weeks, and it seemed strange to break up the group's rhythm by suddenly switching to fighting Onyxia. It was like the whole Horde was caught up in a massive group-think that we had to kill Onyxia, and I didn't know what caused this sudden change.

I didn't know, because I didn't read the official Tichondrius server forums. If I had, I would've learned that an Alliance guild had killed Onyxia and was lording the accomplishment over the Horde players on the forums. It didn't help that the Alliance guild was one of those annoying guilds. Players on PvP servers will know what I'm talking about here. It's the type of guild that considers killing a person in a 10-vs-1 fight while the person is stuck in loading lag as his or her bat touches down a great accomplishment. The major Horde guilds couldn't let this situation stand, so they started pushing their members to get their Onyxia keys. Horde guilds wanted to kill Onyxia for the honor of the Horde, and they each wanted to be the first Horde guild to accomplish the feat so that everyone would know exactly what guild brought this honor to the Horde.

A new Onyxia race was on!

UP NEXT: The Return to Onyxia's Lair

[MongoJerry]

ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: The Return to Onyxia (Thursday, March 31st)

The next day, I logged on to join The Offenders on their first attempt to kill Onyxia. I got multiple invites from Grim Vengeance and Basin friends to join them on their raid, but I told them all that I had already committed to The Offenders' raid that day. I was excited. Finally, I was returning to Onyxia's lair after a six month hiatus, and I knew that the crew I was going with had the skill, organization, and stamina to win. The race to be the first Horde raid group on Tichondrius to kill Onyxia was going to be close. The Grim Vengeance/Unholy Legion/Basin group had a head start, but The Offenders had more experience with raiding in general and raiding with each other specifically. This race was going to go down to the wire.

The Offenders' raid formed up, and we entered Onyxia's lair. There are four Onyxian Warders that you have to fight one at a time to get to Onyxia herself, but those fights are pretty easy. The Warders have some nasty area-of-effect attacks, but they have a short range -- like 20 yards. All one has to do is send a warrior to tank the warder, while healers spam heals on him from a distance. After the main tank builds up enough aggro, the rest of the raid members then turns on their ranged dps. The fights are quick and easy.



Ah, Onyxia. We meet again.



Prior to the run, Sabik and some of the other raid leaders had read the accounts of other raid groups who had killed Onyxia. Most or all of such accounts are written from an Alliance perspective, however, so we've often found ourselves having to adjust tactics somewhat to account for the differences between paladins and shamans. (The fight against the Molten Core boss Baron Geddon, for example, required a major alteration of tactics from the written accounts). Prior to engaging Onyxia, Sabik held a dry run with one of our druids in seal form playing the part of Onyxia. There are three phases to the fight with Onyxia, and the screenshot above shows the proper placement for Phase I, with the main tank tanking Onyxia against a wall with the rest of the raid split on either side of her. Our goal on this evening was to quickly learn how to deal with Phase I so that we could start learning how to deal with the much more deadly Phase II part of the encounter.

The First and Second Attempts



We charged into Onyxia's main chamber. The first objectives are to get Onyxia turned around and pulled up against the north wall and to let the tank build up some aggro. The first moments of the fight can be a little tricky, because obviously the main tank is going to take some hits in the act of turning her around and pulling her and yet the healers can't heal the tank too much or else pull aggro. To make this initial stage easier, we had Ephedra, another warrior, charge in first to turn Onyxia around and pull her to the wall and then had our main tank, Sabik, come in shortly behind and steal aggro with some hits -- thereby splitting the initial damage that Onyxia dishes out between the two warriors. It turns out that this two-warrior trick isn't necessary, but it was a nice idea nonetheless.



Once Onyxia is pulled to the back wall, the rest of the raid party can rush to Onyxia's sides. Her sides are the safety zones. In front of her, you'll be hit by her swiping claw attacks and her fire breath. If you get behind her, you'll be swatted into the air by her tail and can end up landing in the dragonet egg pit, causing swarms of dragon whelps to fly out and attack the party. We set up a healer rotation made up of three pairs of priests, and this was more than adequate to keep Sabik alive. After Sabik build up some aggro, the raid was told to slowly turn dps on. The key to Phase I is to make sure that no one ever pulls aggro off the main tank. If someone does, then Onyxia will turn to toward that person and likely fire breath the entire side.



On our first two attempts, we had breakdowns in Phase I. Keep in mind that this was the first attempt to kill Onyxia for nearly all members of the party, and it was the first attempt to kill Onyxia for Sabik, our main tank, in particular. The reason why one pulls Onyxia to the north wall is that she has a knockback attack, and if the main tank gets knocked back too far, the tank will lose aggro completely, typically resulting in a wipe. If the main tank is up against the wall however, he or she won't get knocked back too far and can therefore keep aggro. It sounds simple, and for the most part it is. However, the wall has a slope to it, and there's only a small section of it where it is steep enough to prevent a tank from being knocked back too far. It can take a couple of attempts to get the feel of where this spot is. Once Sabik figured out the landmarks to look for and knew where to stand, however, the group never again had trouble with Phase I.

[MongoJerry]

The Third Attempt



We charged forward for our third attempt.



Yeah, yeah, Phase I. We got this. What else do you have?

Onyxia yells: This meaningless exertion bores me. I'll incinerate you from above.



When you see Onyxia take off for the first time, it's an awesome sight.



She slowly glides over the heads of players who try to pelt her from below.



She then shoots fireballs at random players that explode for more than 2k+ fire damage with a wide area of effect.



At the same time, swarms of dragon whelps fly from the egg pits in the southeast and southwest corners of the chamber. In theory, we were setup for this event in that groups 7 and 8 had been assigned to deal with the whelps that entered on their respective sides of the room. In practice, the anti-whelp effort was disorganized (everyone was probably gaping at Onyxia) and didn't have enough firepower. When Onyxia shot a fireball at a party that clumped too close together while attacking whelps, she took the whole group out. The whelps then ran rampant through the raid, and after a few abortive attempts to recover, we wiped.

At least we got to Phase II, but we hadn't even seen Onyxia's most dangerous attack.

The Fourth Attempt



Fourth attempt, Phase I, let's move on.



Phase II started off much better than the previous time. Our whelp teams jumped to their stations and other people helped out as they could while also directing what attacks they could up at Onyxia. We still lost some people, but with soulstones and combat rezes, we were doing OK.

One of the shamans had suggested after the third run that perhaps shaman totems could be used to draw Onyxia's fireballs away from players. We had sometimes used a similar trick against Molten Core bosses who have attacks that target random enemies. Shaman totems count as an "enemy," so shamans can sometimes drop cheap rank 1 totems in an effort to have them absorb attacks. We decided to try out the idea and had shamans drop a bunch of cheap totems in the middle of the room. It worked! Onyxia did indeed target the shaman totems and saved players from being hit by fireballs. Unfortunately, they had another side effect.



Onyxia's most deadly attack is called Deep Breath. When she detects a large concentration of enemies, she issues an emote, saying "Onyxia takes in a deep breath...". In theory, you have five seconds to get out of the way. In practice, five seconds isn't enough time to figure out where to move to and get there. After the five seconds are up, she emits a huge flame breath that covers a huge swath of the room and is nearly always fatal. Looking at my log, I noticed that the breath seems to come in three waves in quick succession. One time, I managed to resist one of the waves and barely survived the attack. Go go fire resistance!

Also, you'll notice in the screenshot above that several players were calling for hunters to use Aspect of the Cheetah and for shamans to use tremor totems. Unfortunately, those are tactics for Phase III, which starts when Onyxia is down to 35-40% life. At this point in the fight, Onyxia was only down to 56% life, and we still had a long way to go before we got to Phase III. This was another sign of "opening night jitters" or perhaps "noob jitters." It's OK. That's why we were there -- to get over our jitters, to gain some experience, and to figure stuff out.



Those who didn't get killed by Deep Breath got finished off by the next wave of whelps. The whelps come out of the pit in waves. I didn't time it, but I would guess that the waves happen about once a minute. With the raid severely depleted by Deep Breath and constantly pelted by Onyxia's fireballs, the extra wave of whelps was just too much to handle.

[MongoJerry]

The Fifth Attempt

By the time we got around to starting the fifth attempt, it was already very late. We lost several people due to the time (damn east coasters and all their "work in the morning" excuses), and we were down to 34 people. Some people asked if we were going to try to recruit replacements, but we decided it wasn't worth it to make everyone wait while we found people, got them down here, and explained to them how the encounter worked. We knew we weren't going to kill Onyxia this evening, so we figured we would make one last attempt to figure out Deep Breath. We could do that with the 34 people we had.



We got to Phase II, and I and others tried to help out the groups killing whelps as much as we could. We were definitely getting better about focusing more aoe power on the whelps as they came out.



Still, I could feel how shorthanded the raid was when a couple people died to the first wave of whelps. After this screenshot, I faded, of course, and continued to help the shaman and mages you see here finish off the whelps. But I was damaged by the whelps and died when one of Onyxia's fireballs hit me for 2176 damage.



A druid combat resurrected me (that is such a nice skill in a raid situation), and I drank as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I got hit again and placed in combat before I got a chance to resurrect anyone else. We were struggling, but we were managing. And then...



One of the ideas we had was that perhaps we could avoid getting hit by Deep Breath if we could quickly figure out where it was headed. So, we had one person ping the minimap periodically to show exactly where Onyxia was. (She slowly flies around the chamber during the fight). The theory was that she breathes toward the opposite end of the room, so we figured when the emote came, we could try to run to a side of the room out of the direction we thought the breath might go. It didn't work. Or at least, it didn't work well enough.



The Deep Breath cut a swath through an already shorthanded raid. The remnants tried valiantly to keep things going. (I'm confused by one of the screenshots I have. I think I may have been rezed again and then instantly killed by another fireball). Another wave of whelps came, and it was too much for the remnants of the raid to handle. The raid slowly but surely fell.

This was obviously the last run of the night, but we were feeling OK. Even with a shorthanded raid, we managed to get Onyxia down to 47% health. We still hadn't figured out this Deep Breath thing, though. It was getting obvious that the only way to deal with Deep Breath was to make sure Onyxia never used it in the first place. Looking back at my screenshots from the perspective of another eight attempts under my belt, I can see some of the mistakes we were making. We were bunching up way too much, and we should have told our shamans to not use any totems at all during Phase II. Instead of having someone ping the map to show us where Onyxia was, we should have had someone direct people where to go to make sure they didn't cluster too much. Oh, well. That's the kind of thing that a few wipes teaches you.

By the time that our fifth attempt was completed, it was getting late, even by pacific coast standards, so that was our last run. As we broke up, it was decided that we would meet again at seven o'clock the next day to see if we could kill this *expletive deleted* dragon.



Friday, April 1st

At this point, I should mention that I had received a major take-home graduate physics exam that week, which was due on the following Thursday. I made a schedule of what problems I would work on each day and even scheduled breaks and rewards for finishing them. One of the things I scheduled was that if I finished problem #1 (an admittedly easy problem that would only take a day to finish) on Friday, I could then spend Friday evening taking a break guilt-free. An evening of Onyxia runs fit the bill nicely.

On Friday, after successfully finishing the problem, I logged on to WoW at a quarter to seven and found the server strangely devoid of Offenders. None of the main raid leaders were on and when I did a "/who offenders," everybody was in instances runs of some kind. After putzing about Orgrimmar for a bit, I finally messaged one of them asking about the Onyxia raid:

Neriad: Hi! What's up with the Onyxia raid?
Name_Withheld: It's at 7, I think.
Neriad: It's 7 now.
Name_Withheld: Oh, dunno. Nobody's on.

I rolled my eyes and continued to putter around. It was hard to figure out what to do. I couldn't join an instance run, if there was a chance that the raid would be starting up sometime soon (if a bit late). And anyway, after an exhausting day of solving physics problems, I didn't feel like it. I was either going to do an Onyxia run or log off for the night. I did some auction house stuff and learned fishing for the heck of it. At around 7:30 with no sign of any fresh activity on the raid front, I messaged another Offender.

Neriad: Heya! What's up with the Onyxia raid?
Name_Withheld2: Dunno, nobody's on.
Neriad: Yeah, I noticed.
Name_Withheld2: I think they wanted more people to get their keys.
Neriad: Ah, that makes sense. Too bad. Well, I'm going to log off and do some homework, then. Could you send me a message saying when the next run's going to be when you find out?
Name_Withheld2: Sure thing.
Neriad: Thanks

I was disappointed. I was looking forward to the Onyxia raid very much, but hey, things happen. And I could understand if they wanted to get more of their guildmates to get their keys. At least 15 people in the raid on Thursday weren't Offenders or part of their regular raiding group. They might have been thinking that they'd have a better chance if more of the regular crew was involved.

I later found out that this wasn't what had happened, though. It turned out that the Onyxia run did happen -- only a couple hours later than the scheduled time, when people actually started logging onto the server. When I found out about this, I was annoyed. If you say the raid is at 7pm, then show up at 7pm. Or if people can't show up until 9pm, then schedule the raid for 9pm. Don't say 7pm and then show up at 9pm! And understand, this wasn't just a few people. This was the raid and guild leadership who did this. I was pretty damn pissed. (And yes, for a moment I did consider the possibility of an April Fool's Day joke. No, that's not what happened).

Oh, well. It was a busted evening, but Real Life happens. I logged off and started working on problem three of my physics exam (I skip around on tests). I figured I would log in the next day to find out if there was another Onyxia raid scheduled for the weekend, but it turned out that I got into "the zone." Seriously, all I did for the next four days was eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and do physics problems. I may have taken a shower. I'm not sure. As far as World of Warcraft was concerned, I was incommunicado. In that time, Grim Vengeance/Basin and The Offenders may have held some Onyxia runs, but I wasn't a part of them. The Great Onyxia Race continued without me, and I would have to wait until my own Real Life issues were resolved before I could pick up the baton again.

UP NEXT: Entering Phase III

[liffuie]

I dunno what to say about your situtation Neriad accept I imagine it sucks=/

I know alot of times lately I just hang around offline doing other things till raid time starts then log in, say "hey whats up! raid invite please." If the raids not ready yet i'll idle a bit, then log after asking someone to IM me when the raid actualy starts up. I can easily imagine thats what happened with you, officers saw not everyone was online, so they asked people "hey IM us when 25+ people log in then we'll start gathering".

[Bolty]

Stop posting these! You're making me want to play on Tich really bad!

-Bolty

[MongoJerry]

Stop posting these!  You're making me want to play on Tich really bad!

-Bolty

Hahahahaha! Nice reverse psychology there, Bolty!

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Entering Phase III

On the following Wednesday (April 6th), I celebrated the completion of my take-home graduate physics exam (seriously, it was brutal) by logging on to WoW to do some Dire Maul runs. The Offender I had talked to on Friday ("Name_Withheld2") apologized for what happened on Friday. I told him it was no problem, stuff happens, it wasn't his fault, etc. I then asked him when the next Onyxia raid was. After double checking with his guildmates, he told me "6:30 tomorrow." "Cool," I said. "I'll be there."

Thursday, April 7th

The next day, I logged on a few minutes before 6:30 and was immediately struck with a sense of de ja vu. None of the Offenders's guild or raid leadership was on, and most of the Offenders who were on were in instance runs of some sort. I messaged people in the guild to find out what was happening and got a bunch of "I don't know. It's supposed to be at 6:30" and "I don't know. Nobody's here." So I was stuck. I didn't know when or if the Onyxia raid was going to happen, so I couldn't commit to an instance run of some sort. I could farm for a bit, I guess, but that bores the heck out of me and anyway, the spots I'd want to farm (Eastern Plaguelands, mostly) are far away from Orgrimmar, and I'd hate to travel all that way only to have to hearth back to do the raid once I got there. So I started fishing off the coast of Duotar and skilled up in cooking, while simultaneously being bored out of my mind.

Meanwhile, on the Grim Vengeance/Basin/Stasis/Unholy Legion/Immortal Dragons/others side, things seemed to be going well. I got a series of invites from close Grim Vengeance and Basin friends to join them in their Onyxia raid, and I had to keep telling them, "No, sorry. I told the Offenders yesterday that I'd raid with them today." They formed up and headed to Onyxia's lair while I remained stuck fishing in Duotar not knowing if there's going to be an Offenders raid at all.

Finally, at about 8:30, The Offenders guild and raid leadership started logging on in rapid succession, and the raid formed up. To say I was both bored out of my skull from fishing and pissed off at being treated this way would be an understatement. Heck, if I'd known that people weren't going to show up until 8:30, I could've done a Dire Maul run or something.

Oh, well, stuff happens. Let's kill this dragon.



We entered Onyxia's lair at 9pm, two and a half hours after the scheduled start time. Grim Vengeance/Basin/others had gotten at least an hour's head start on The Offenders this evening.

The First Attempt



Phase I? No problem. We didn't skip a beat. And then...



I don't know what happened here. Looking at my screenshots, I have several screenshots of Phase I, then this picture, and then us forming up for the second attempt. I don't know if it was a Deep Breath or whelps or what. Meh, call this first attempt a warmup.

The Second Attempt



When Phase II started on the second attempt, you could definitely see the results of previous experience coming to play. For one thing, we finally got it through our heads that the best way to deal with Deep Breath was to make sure that Onyxia never used it. We were much better about spreading ourselves around the chamber. The priests and hunters kept dot's on Onyxia, while those who happened to be in range of her continued to blast away at her as best they could.



On the whelps front, I would give us a passing but not stellar grade. We were certainly dealing with them better than we had before, but the whelp fights were still more chaotic than they needed to be.

The reason for the chaos was pretty simple. We had been so traumatized by Onyxia's Deep Breath that we were overcompensating for it. There was a fear that we were clumping too much while fighting whelps, so the new anti-whelp tactic was to have each of the rogues, hunters, and warriors single target whelps and pull them back to fight them away from everyone else. The idea was that everyone could stay spread out this way even while fighting the whelps. This wasn't necessary. We should've instead aoe'd the mother out of the whelps and killed them before Onyxia even noticed the clumping. But we managed our way nonetheless.



While Phase II is hard on a raid group in general, it's actually a low-stress period for priests -- at least for those who aren't directly assigned to heal the anti-whelp groups. (In our case, druids and shamans were assigned to heal these groups). There isn't a main tank to keep alive, and with everyone spread out and largely out of healing range, raid members are expected to handle most of their own healing needs with first aid bandages and healing potions. (An Onyxia fireball hits you for 2k damage? Heal yourself for 2k health with a heavy runecloth bandage). So, I took upon myself the following jobs:

1. Keep SW:Pain on Onyxia. DOT's are good in Phase II, because you can move forward, cast the dot on her, and move back out of the way -- thus keeping the dps up on her while still not clumping up. There's also a theory that Onyxia is less likely to do her Deep Breath when she has multiple dots on her, but I think that's a myth.<>
   
2. Shoot wand shots at Onyxia when she happens to fly in range.<>
   
3. Help the anti-whelp groups as needed. Sometimes I'd throw an extra heal on someone and sometimes I would throw some wand shots or SW:Pain's on the whelps. In the above screenshot, I decided to pick off a single whelp and fight it solo. When it was nearly dead, a rogue came by and landed the killing blow. I guess he was being chivalrous, thinking he was protecting a priest or something, but come on, guys, a priest can kill things too, you know.<>
   
4. Save some mana for Phase III.<>
   [st]
   
   Things were looking good. We took some losses in Phase II due to whelps and fireballs from Onyxia, but we were able to recover with soulstones, combat rezes, and rezes from rezers who died, got combat rezed, and were then out of combat and therefore could rez. (That's a mouthful). Onyxia's life slowly but surely drained from her.
   
   Onyxia yells: It seems you'll need another lesson, mortals!
   
   
   
   Onyxia landed and Phase III began. We had managed to get through all of Phase II without inducing a single Deep Breath. This was a major accomplishment.
   
   Phase III is a chaotic hectic battle. Onyxia casts an aoe fear (I'm guessing about every 15 seconds but don't quote me on that), and lava spurts up between the cracks in the floor. From the written accounts, The Offenders got the impression that it was the lava spurts that caused the fear, so it seemed like all one had to do to be safe was to not stand on a crack. This is in fact not the case. Onyxia herself casts the fear and it affects everyone in the room no matter where you are. The lava spurts merely do damage. The fear causes you to run, if you run through the lava spurt, you take a lot of damage. If you run through two or more spurts, you'll likely die. And, of course, the main tank is getting feared along with everyone else, which makes everything that much more chaotic.
   
   
   
   I'll describe how one deals with Phase III later on, but suffice it to say that our group wasn't prepared for it. People were being feared all over the place while whelps were running rampant through the raid. (I think they were mostly leftovers from Phase II, although it's possible that someone got feared into an egg pit). I got nailed by a Flame Breath, and we were all pretty much Onyxia's playthings as we got picked off one by one. Raid wipe.
   
   We didn't get very far into Phase III, but it was still a huge accomplishment just to get there. This was the first time that we had made it through Phase II and the big thing was that we had been able to get through all of Phase II without inducing a single Deep Breath. If we could learn to do that consistently, then the whole Onyxia encounter could be reduced to figuring out Phase III. And once we were able to do that, it'd be light's out for Onyxia. I knew we still had some distance to go, but we were rounding the last bend, and I could see the finish line.

[MongoJerry]

The Third Attempt



We were getting closer to the finish line, but stupid mistakes can still happen. Here, someone pulled aggro off Sabik during Phase I, wiping the whole raid. Doh!

The Fourth Attempt



We learned our lesson and got down to business. We can't lose focus even in phase I.



Phase I complete. On to Phase II.



Screenshots like these make me want to have a time machine so that I can go back and scream, "YOU FOOLS! WHY ARE YOU PUTTING DOWN TOTEMS?!"(*) I'm now firmly convinced that all pets should be dismissed and all totems destroyed before Phase II. They're just not worth the added risk of triggering a Deep Breath.

(*) Of course, there are probably greater tragedies one should probably try to prevent if one did own a time machine.



Things were looking good, however. Onyxia's life was slowly being whittled down.



Whelps? Check. They were being handled smoothly.

And then...



The Deep Breath tore up half the raid party, and the remnants were chewed up by whelps and fireballs. Wipe.

[MongoJerry]

The Fifth Attempt

By the time we started the fifth attempt, we were down to 34 people because of the lateness of the hour. (Again, I was having a funny sense of de ja vu). We decided to give Onyxia one last go for the evening.



Phase II started with no problems.



We got Onyxia down to less than half health, and we were still going strong. The dot's were being kept on her, the whelps were being dealt with, and we had only lost a couple of people.



At 42% health, we got ready for phase III. Things were looking good. We were spread out, dealing with whelps well, and keeping the dps on Onyxia up. Most importantly, we hadn't induced any Deep Breaths.

And then...



Right before she was about to land for Phase III, Onyxia decided to do a Deep Breath, which tore through an already shorthanded raid.



Onyxia landed shortly thereafter and the aoe fear and lava kicked in. Still, the remainder of the group showed excellent poise. Druids resurrected priests and those priests tried to resurrect others. People tried to kill the leftover whelps.



However, someone got feared or knocked into the egg pit at one point, spawning a couple dozen whelps. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Wipe.

Still, we had to look back on what was a pretty amazing achievement. We were a shorthanded raid that absorbed a Deep Breath, yet and we still took Onyxia down to 23%. If we could get a full raid together and work out the leftover kinks in our system, we'd be golden. Just a few more attempts, I figured, and we'd have this thing. The finish line was just a sprint away.

As we were logging off for the evening, one of the raid members relayed the results of the Grim Vengeance/Basin/others Onyxia raid. They had taken her down to 11%.

UP NEXT: Vengeance

[Wiccan]

Stop posting these!  You're making me want to play on Tich really bad!

-Bolty
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Me & wife characters are already just low level mage and priest

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Vengeance

At the end of our fifth and final attempt on Thursday, I couldn't hold back any longer.

Neriad: I hate to sound like a whiner, but setting a 6:30pm start time and having people show up two hours later is not cool. Can we set a time and stick with it, please?

I got several "agreeds" from others in the raid who had been in a similar situation as me and even got an apology from one of the raid leaders who arrived late. OK, what time was the raid going to be the next day, then?

"5:30" (on Teamspeak)

I couldn't believe my ears. The raid had had enough trouble getting people to the raid at 6:30. What were they thinking? Are they on Hawaii time or something? Then, I heard the confirmation, "Yeah, 5:30." I couldn't believe it. Alright, I thought. I'll see, but I'm not going to hold my breath while waiting for people to show up.

Friday, April 8th

I actually came home in time to log on at 5:30, but I couldn't get myself to face the inevitable disappointment. So I surfed the web, puttered around the house, and finally logged on at 6:30. Surprise, surprise, few of the raid regulars were on and many of the raid leaders were missing. I messaged one of the Offenders I knew and was told to message a particular person for an invite. I thought, no way. No way was I going to go through that again. At that moment, I saw an advertisement in the general channel of Orgrimmar looking for a priest for a 5-man run of Undead Stratholme. Perfect. I told him, "I'm going to do a 5-man run of UD Strat. I've wanted to do that since beta. Maybe I'll join you guys when I'm done as a replacement player or something."

And that was a true statement. I actually have wanted to do a 5-man run of UD Stratholme -- well actually all of Stratholme -- since beta. I had a blast the one time I tried it in the beta (we wiped deep in the Scarlet Bastion), and I always love a challenge. However, there was also a part that I didn't say: Maybe by the time I'm done, you guys will get your guildmates online. I joined the 5-man party and headed over to the Eastern Plaguelands.

On my way to Stratholme, I started receiving multiple invites from Grim Vengeance and Basin folks I knew, asking if I wanted to join their Onyxia raid that evening. I thought, "Man, I wish I'd known they were raiding tonight, too," although looking back on it, I probably should've guessed that they would. I turned them down, though, since I'd already committed to the UD Strat party and wasn't going to let those people down.

I shouldn't have bothered, thought, because the UD Stratholme run ended up falling apart when one person went link-dead and didn't return for fifteen minutes. Other people in the party suddenly had "guild things" that came up (sounded like excuses to me), and I ended up being stuck out in the Eastern Plaguelands for no reason. I messaged wayneigan, the Grim Vengeance raid leader, asking him how the recruiting was going. He replied that they hadn't formed up, yet, because people were still in instances but in about a half an hour they would. At the same moment, I got an official invitation join to the Offenders raid. I stared at the invitation for a long time. I was pretty annoyed at the Offenders by this point, but I had previously raided with them quite a bit, and I still felt some loyalty. I saw that at least Sabik was on now, although some of the other regulars were still MIA. Alright, I thought, if they're actually going to get going this time, I'll go. I hit "Accept." It was 7:15 and we still had only half a raid party at this point. I settled in to farm water elementals to get some Essences of Water I need for a +healing enchantment I want. It was going to be boring and repetitive, but at least I had something to do.

Time passed slowly. I killed a really stupid Alliance warrior who tried to gank me while I was fighting a worm (he was from one of those ganker guilds that don't know how to fight one-on-one). I then killed an Alliance rogue who probably didn't deserve to be attacked, but I had to let him know to get his own lake of elementals. The rest was all drudgery while waiting, and I never did find any Essenses of Water. By 8:00, the composition of the raid had barely budged, with perhaps 3-4 people having been added in the previous forty-five minutes. Then, at 8:05 (I looked at the clock), wayneigan sent me the message, "We have 39 people and would love to have you."

I looked that the Offenders raid list of 25 people with four of them offline and said, "I can't take any more of this." I messaged wayneigan and said, "I'm in." I then sent a carefully written message to the Offenders raid:

Neriad says: Hi, guys. I'm sorry, but this is the third time I've shown up to do an Offenders raid, and the raid hasn't been ready. I've been recruited by GV for an hour now, and they have 39 people. I'm just going to go."

I got two private messages from Offenders players who said they understood. I wasn't the only one who was feeling let down by the guild and raid group. Twenty minutes later, however, I got an angry message from an Offender who accused me of being disloyal and asked me how I could switch raiding parties at the drop of a feather after all the raiding I had done with them. I replied that it was something that I had given a great deal of thought to and that it was a decision made due to not just what had happened that evening but also the previous two times I had tried to join the Offenders on an Onyxia raid. I wasn't very clear in the moment when I was replying, and I was angry at the same time that I was trying to be diplomatic, so I my words were probably a jumbled mess. However, looking back on it, I wish I would have said, "If you want to raid, get your @#$% guildmates to show up for your @#$@ raids." That just about sums everything up.

When I joined the Grim Vengeance/Basin raid group, I was greeted by a chorus of cheers from long-time friends and acquaintances with whom I'd instance partied many times. I didn't like doing what I did, but I knew that I had made the right decision. It was time to kill a dragon.

The First Attempt



The tactics employed by the two groups were similar, but it was interesting to notice some of the differences between the two groups. The first thing I noticed was the difference in group compositions in that the GV/Basin raid had a much deeper healing corps with seven priests, seven shaman, and five druids. You can make up for a lot of mistakes with that kind of healing and rezing support backing you up. Second, GV emphasizes soulstones more. In addition to the soulstones from the two warlocks who came on the raid, they had warlock alts soulstone priests just outside Onyxia's lair prior to runs, so we had around six priests soulstoned at the start of each attempt. This seemed like a bit of an exploit to me, but oh well. Finally, one minor difference between the two groups was that Grim Vengeance likes to have their healer rotations swap at 50% mana rather than have the priests burn their whole mana bar on each turn. It's a minor difference, but I like it. Priests rotate more quickly, which keeps everyone awake and focused, and it allows all priests to keep a reserve tank of mana in case something goes wrong. If I'm ever welcome back on an Offenders run, I'll definitely recommend that change to them.

On The Offenders side, a couple of their priest regulars spent the talent points to get Divine Spirit. In long raid fights, spirit and mana regeneration in general takes on great importance, and having a priest add 35 spirit to every mana user in a 40 person raid is a big bonus. I was shocked to find out that none of the seven priests in the GV/Basin group had it, since I was so used to just saying "Divine Spirit, please" and have it pop over my head. Right now, I use a hybrid holy/shadow/discipline spec that works well for both PvP and 5-player instance runs. If I continue to do a lot of large-scale raiding like this, however, I might switch back to a holy/discipline setup.

At this point, I should explain the guild composition of this raid party, because it really was a consortium of guilds. The main guilds involved were Grim Vengeance, The Basin, and Stasis. In addition, I understand that Unholy Legion played a big role in some of the group's earlier practice runs, although they didn't participate on this day. In addition, there was participation from Immortal Dragons, I Can't Win, Big Game Hunters, The Lurking Loungers (me), probably some other guilds I'm forgetting, and even a member of The Offenders. However, the players who were doing most of the organizing, recruiting, and leading were from Grim Vengeance, so they deserve to have top billing. I'll use terms like Grim Vengeance or GV/Basin, but what I really mean is the collective group as a whole.

Back to our story, Phase I of the first attempt passed without a hitch.



Then, Phase II started. What's kind of cool is that at the start of Phase II, you get a free shot at her for about ten seconds as she walks from the north end of the chamber where groups usually tank her down to the south end of the chamber where she takes off. While she's walking, everyone should feel free to go full burn on her. Warriors should burn all their rage, and rogues should burn all their energy on her. They'll never get a better shot at her.



It's in Phase II where Grim Vengeance showed their extra experience running Onyxia. As I mentioned before, The Offenders had become decently good at dealing with whelps the night before, but here, the whelps were dispatched with almost unconscious precision. Each time a whelp wave came, someone would call out "whelps," a warrior on each side of the chamber would walk toward the whelps, shout them to him/her, and aoe power would flood the area around the warrior from all directions. The whelps would all die in less than 10 seconds, and the group would get back to fighting Onyxia.



In addition, the whole group spread itself around the room in a formation that was beautiful to behold. One Grim Vengeance member directed traffic to relieve the occasional clustering. e.g. "You're bunched up a bit too much in the northeast -- move down to the space in the southeast." "The middle's kind of bare. Some people move to the middle." But most people didn't need to be told where to go. They just spread out and silently found their own isolated spots calmly and coolly. I looked at the formation and thought, "I wonder how many Deep Breaths they experienced to get them to do that?"

It's interesting to see in this screenshot that Grim Vengeance shamans were using some totems as well. I'd love to run an experiment to find out if totems increase the chances of a Deep Breath.



With the whelp situation handled and with the group spread out, preventing Onyxia from using her Deep Breath, all group members had to do was keep the dps up on Onyxia as she flew around the room and heal themselves whenever they got hit by fireballs. Phase II was looking almost as easy as Phase I.

Incidentally, Grim Vengeance members are firm believers in the theory that keeping dot spells on Onyxia lowers the chance of her using her Deep Breath, so whenever the number of dots on her dropped below five (mostly SW:Pain and hunter Venom Sting), there were loud calls to get dots back on her quickly. Again, I think that this is a myth, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have the extra dps on Onyxia while she's flying around. Whether the theory is true or not, it's a good idea to have those dot spells on her anyway.



Onyxia landed at 40% health, starting Phase III, and chaos erupted. People were way out of position from the start.



On top of that, while Venom, our main tank, was pulling Onyxia back to the north wall, he pulled her too far to the northwest, taking me and a swath of other people out in the process.



I and others got combat rezed by druids, but the fight was a chaotic mess. The situation got further complicated when a stream of whelps flew in from the egg pits. It turned out that Rubix got feared into Onyxia's tail and subsequently whacked into an egg pit. Imagine a healthy steroid-juiced Barry Bonds tossing a baseball up and whacking it out of the park. That's kind of the way it was with Rubix playing the part of the baseball.



The fear, lava, and whelps played havoc on the party.



Not surprisingly, the screenshot after this one pictures me running back through Dustwallow Marsh on a corpse run. Raid wipe at 32%.

Goodkarma: 32% is awful :(

I chuckled when I saw Goodkarma's comment. The group's warmup run got them through Phases I and II with no loses. Sure, we needed to work out our transition into Phase III, but the group was in good shape.

And despite the early Phase III exit, we did learn some important things about Phase III. The tactics for Phase III work very similar to Phase I. The main tank drags Onyxia up to the north wall of the chamber, while the rest of the raid splits up and stays on either side of her. The only thing that complicates Phase III is all the fearing and lava spurts, so you have to find a way to deal with them. We learned on this run that tremor totems don't prevent or stop the fear, so there doesn't seem to be anything you can do to keep from being feared. (I wonder if that dwarf priest anti-fear buff works here. If so, that'd be a huge advantage for the Alliance if parties could keep their main tanks unfeared. If not, then score one for the good guys -- the Horde, I mean). However, you can minimize the fear's effects in several ways:

1. Hunters can turn on Aspect of the Pack. Apparently, the fear triggers the AoP's dazed effect and stops all those affected from running.<>
   
2. You can move back and forth quickly. Apparently, if you're moving while you get feared, you end up just standing still.<>
   
3. There are small ledges on both the northwest and northeast sides of the chamber that one can climb up to. (Levitate makes getting up to them easier). The ledges are in healing range of the main tank, and when you get feared, you don't have anywhere to go, so you just stand there. All healers and ranged dps players should go to those ledges.<>
   [st]If everyone uses one of these tricks and ends up standing still whenever they're feared, then nobody gets sent through the lava spurts or gets feared into Onyxia's tail. It makes things pretty simple.
   
   In theory.

[MongoJerry]

The Second Attempt



Attempt 2, Phase I, steady as she goes.



Phase II starts and people are spreading out. Looking good.



Whelps? Check.



Dots and dps on Onyxia? Check.



Onyxia landed at 40%, and I'll be honest here and say that I wasn't ready for it. I was far down in the south and came this close to getting feared into an egg pit as I made my way north. Unfortunately, a couple of people in front of me weren't so lucky.



I made my way north and got in position to heal Venom. As I turned around, however, I saw this scene. No way could we recover from this. Raid wipe.



Incidentally, I got this screenshot on this attempt that shows what the ledge on the northwest section of the chamber look like. (Seen in the background in the screenshot). There's a small ramp that lets you get up there with a little bit of maneuvering (or a little bit of Levitate).

After the wipe, I rezed at the spirit healer and hearthed back to Orgrimmar. In my haste to join the raid at the start of the run, I had forgotten to stop by the bank to pick up my Onyxia gear, so I figured I'd take care of that now. It turned out to be a good time for it, because as I was flying back to Dustwallow Marsh, I found out from raid chatter that the instance had spawned extra Onyxian warder guards -- seven instead of the usual four. I had heard that this sometimes happens, but I don't know what triggers this bug/feature. I rejoined the group as they were clearing the last warder. At this point, one of the raid members relayed info from The Offenders raid that was going on at the same time.

The Offenders are going to kill Onyxia.

People asked, "Oh? What's happening?"

22% and going strong

Silence descended on the Teamspeak channel.

18%

It was like being at a Red Sox game during a pennant race and listening to the Yankee game on the radio. "Yankees up 5-4, bottom of the ninth, Mariano Rivera pitching, 2 on, 2 out..."

SABIK IS DOWN!

I could feel the intake of breath over Teamspeak.

Someone dared ask, "Wipe?" I knew something these guys didn't know about The Offenders. The Offenders have three other excellent warriors in Ephedra, Thyrfing, and Orth. I've seen each of them on separate occasions run in, successfully take aggro, and assume main tanking duties after Sabik had died in raid situations, and The Offenders healing corps is good about switching targets once a new main tank has been established. Several seemingly sure wipes were prevented this way on Molten Core raids. Sabik going down didn't have to mean a wipe.

12%

After a pause, another person asked, "Wipe?"

Wipe at 12%.

The raid quietly got back to the business of buffing and preparing for the next attempt. It had dodged a bullet, but you could tell that people were wondering how many more chances they would get before this race would be over.

[Crusader]

Good writeup, very good read. Of course, We on Europe aren't even getting close to Onyxia, but you're getting me very excited about it! :D

[Phoenix]

Good writeup, very good read. Of course, We on Europe aren't even getting close to Onyxia, but you're getting me very excited about it! :D
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This might be complete fiction but I've heard from many people on my server (Stormscale) that a Horde guild has killed her. I wonder though, could they really be that quick?

[Crusader]

This might be complete fiction but I've heard from many people on my server (Stormscale) that a Horde guild has killed her. I wonder though, could they really be that quick?
[right][snapback]73783[/snapback][/right]

I very, very much doubt it... As you can read above it would take numerous attempts and 40 experienced Level 60's with a good sense of organisation. I think it's myth.

[Phoenix]

I very, very much doubt it... As you can read above it would take numerous attempts and 40 experienced Level 60's with a good sense of organisation. I think it's myth.
[right][snapback]73787[/snapback][/right]

Did some research. She's been killed on a bunch of servers, actually.
WaR LegenD on Archimonde
Minions of Mithril on Silvermoon.
And here is what I was talking about: Nolby Pride on Stormscale.

Probably a few more, but I think three is enough. WaR LegenD was first, and they did it on the 30th of March, which is one and a half month after the EU release.

[MongoJerry]

The Third Attempt



It was clear that our main problem was the transition from Phase II into Phase III, so several people made macros to use for when Onyxia was got close to 40% health that would remind people to move away from the southern part of the chamber.

Phase I went smoothly, as usual.



Phase II started. Looking good.



Whelps? Handled.



Dps on Onyxia? Check.



Everyone spread out? Check.



Phase II was starting to feel easy now. The Blizzard developers should make Onyxia do at least one Deep Breath on each run just to shake things up.



At 40%, Vince sent out the call, "She's landing soon. Follow your side leaders... COME TO US OR DIE." We cleared away from the southern part of the room to get away from where Onyxia would land and where the egg pits were. Not a single person had died in all of Phases I or II.



In their haste to move north, it looks like the anti-whelp groups left a couple whelps unkilled. Oh, well, I dispatched this whelp myself.

And still Onyxia didn't land. When Onyxia hadn't landed at 35% health, we started wondering if we were in a bugged instance. We had had to kill seven warders on the way in, remember, so it wouldn't have surprised us to see Onyxia bug up. Several people wondered nervously if Onyxia would Deep Breath us.



But she finally did land and this time the raid was ready for her. Venom got aggro and pulled her to the north wall, and the raid party was split up on the northwest and northeast sides of the chamber, waiting for her.

[MongoJerry]

Venom lost control of Onyxia at one point (he probably got feared to the side), and Onyxia Flame Breathed most of the northwest side of the room.



A big chunk of the raid fell due to this. Plus, people were dying from lava spurts. I'm a little confused by the above screenshot, honestly. The 40% health screenshot from six minutes earlier clearly showed me soulstoned, and I had been soulstoned by one of the warlocks who was participating in the raid. And yet, this screenshot definitely shows me without the option to self-rez. I don't remember dying before this point, but it's possible that I had died due to lava or an Onyxia hit or something and had self-rezed myself so fast that I didn't bother getting a screenshot.



Venom regained control of Onyxia, and druids came over from the other side of the room to combat rez the priests and druids who had fallen. I rezed, forted and healed myself (I had to -- otherwise, I would've died the first time I got feared into a lava spurt), and set about drinking as quickly as I could. (Go go level 60 water!). I wanted to get some mana together and try to resurrect as many other people as possible. While drinking, I got feared into a lava spurt and placed in combat. Luckily, however, unless you get hit by Onyxia herself, attack her, or heal someone who is on her aggro list, the in-combat status fades after a few seconds. I healed myself and sat down to drink again.

When I reached full mana and stood up to start resurrecting people, the call went out.

8%

"What...? You're kidding me," I thought.

7%

(Raid leader on Teamspeak) "Guys, at 5%, Onyxia will start going nuts on Venom. Healers, whatever you do, keep Venom alive!"

Keep Venom alive... keep Venom alive... keep Venom alive... The words echoed in my mind. Like a zombie, I hit my Target Venom macro key and hit "6", my Flash Heal key, repeatedly. Forget those dead guys. Keep Venom alive.

5%

At 5%, Onyxia started going berserk on Venom. 66666666666666666666666666... One of the nice features of CT_raidassist is that is has an adjustable healer mana conservation option. In my case, I have it set to 85% so that if the target of my heals has over 85% health left, CT_raidassist will interrupt my Flash Heals just before they go off. With a whole raid equipped this way, it allows multiple healers to spam heals on one person without wasting any mana with overheals. It's very nice.

4%

(Raid leader on Teamspeak) "Calm down, guys. Keep healing Venom."



3%

At 3%, I took a risk and grabbed this screenshot. As you can see, a third of the raid was dead by this point. But our main tank was up and we had six priests and four druids healing him. No way were we going down.

2%

(Someone on Teamspeak) "Nuke this f***ing b**** down to the ground!"

(Raid leader on Teamspeak) "Full dps, guys, full dps!"



1%

(Someone on Teamspeak) "One! One!!! ONE!!!!"

I couldn't believe it was happening. I was going numb. Come on, come on!



After 20 minutes and 10 seconds of battle, the great dragon fell!

Cheers erupted on Teamspeak, and I turned on my mike to give out a huge high pitched "WAAAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!" You can hear it loud and clear on Rubix's video if you know what voice to listen for. Tears of joy were streaming down my face. It's five days later, and I'm tearing up over just the memory of it.

[MongoJerry]

This was a great accomplishment for this loose band of players who united for one solitary goal: To be the first group of Horde players on Tichondrius to kill Onyxia.

There was a small comical scene, while people were dancing about after the kill. People wanted to know what items dropped, but there was one problem. In our excitement, nobody had resurrected wayneigan, who as master looter was the only person who could tell us what was on the body. We resurrected everyone, and wayneigan gave us the rundown:



In addition, Onyxia dropped a Codex of Fortitude and some random blues and greens. I didn't win any of it, but I didn't care. (Although, those boots would've gone well with my belt). I had already gotten what I wanted -- watching Onyxia die -- and anything else was just icing on the cake. In addition, Onyxia dropped this:



Rubix won the roll, and the condition for letting him pick up the Head of Onyxia was that he had to do turn it in that night while the rest of the raid was there to witness the event. After all the loot was distributed, Onyxia was skinned (it takes 315 skinning skill to skin her) and she dropped this:



We also rolled on the scale (I didn't win). It turns out that there's some quest to collect and turn in ten of these scales. Assuming the scales get distributed evenly among the raid members, that would mean it would take on average 400 Onyxia kills over 5 1/2 years to complete this quest. Sounds doable. (Can you sense the sarcasm?)



Before heading to Orgrimmar to turn in the Head of Onyxia, we settled in to take some group photos. (Yes, this happened before she was skinned). If you prefer to see the group photo with the names turned on, here you go.

This was an amazing accomplishment that took a lot of work and patience to make happen, and I'm so proud and happy to have been a part of it. Finally, after dozens of runs in the beta and in retail, I had seen Onyxia fall.

Another thirty more kills, and I'll be even.



We ported to Orgrimmar and the first stop was the Valley of Wisdom, where Rubix presented the Head of Onyxia to Thrall. Thrall then told Rubix to take the head to Overlord Runthak, the head orc general (kind of the Horde equivalent of General Marcus Jonathan), near the entrance of the city to have the head put on display. When Rubix gave the head to Runthak, he linked the rewards he had to choose from:



Since he was a druid, Rubix chose the Dragonslayer's Signet. We made complete fools of ourselves in yells and in the Orgrimmar general chat, of course, and we made sure that everybody for miles around knew that we had killed Onyxia. More than a hundred people gathered in the main square in the Valley of Strength to wait for the big unveiling of Onyxia's head. The lag was horrific (a preview of Battlegrounds?). People kept asking when the head was going to come out, and we kept having to tell them, "Relax, it's coming. It's just lag." And finally, it appeared.



We all basked in the glory of our accomplishment and a big dance party ensued. In addition, we waited patiently for the buff that we had heard was supposed to come. Finally, a thunder sound was heard and light flashed all around us. The Dragonslayer Buff had come to everyone in Orgrimmar... except that it didn't show up on our screens. "Relax, it's just lag. Give it a minute," we were told. But then the server that runs Orgrimmar couldn't take it anymore and crashed. When we logged back in, we had been rolled back a few minutes. Everyone still had their items from the Onyxia run and Rubix still had his ring (and no longer had the Head of Onyxia), but there were no buffs and the big display of the Head of the Onyxia was gone. The only person who actually got to keep their Dragonslayer buff was a person who had ported to Undercity before the crash. We sent knowingly ineffectual petitions to game masters, asking that the head be restored, but there was nothing that could be done. Still we were happy. We knew what we had done, and screenshots are forever, right?



Was it all worth it? Oh, hell, yeah, I had a blast. But, no, let's talk practicalities. Is it worth it to run Onyxia? Yeah, it is. It took an enormous investment of time and effort to get to the point to where we could kill her, but the thing is, now that we've done it, we're confident that we can do this again and again with little difficulty. Once a person kills Onyxia, they get locked into the dead instance for five days, so Onyxia is can't be run multiple times a night. However, if a group were to meet once a week for an hour, they can get three high level epic items plus other delicious goodies each and every time. Plus they get the honor, buffs, and bragging rights that come with it. The group that killed Onyxia last Friday has already scheduled a new run for this week, and I hope that this is something that continues on an ongoing basis.

Onyxia Raid Video!

Rubix has done a fantastic job of putting together a video of the fight and the party afterward. It is really well done. For links, check out this Blizzard forum post:

First Tichondrius Horde Kill of Onyxia Video

Some comments on the video:

1. Before first contact, you'll see everyone jumping around. Right before they go, the Grim Vengeance raid leaders ask everyone to move down the hill and jump around to determine if anyone's AFK.

2. You can see me, an undead priestess in a yellow robe, early in the video running behind Rubix and cutting across in front of him while throwing heals on Venom. I wasn't in the first group of the healer rotation, but in those first few seconds, it's everyone's job to keep the main tank alive until everyone gets set.

3. In Phase III, you'll see Rubix doing a jig, moving back and forth, so that if he gets feared, he'll stand in one place rather than be sent off running.

4. In the final scenes, you can see me standing right behind Rubix. :-)

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Lurker Lounge for hosting my screenshots and for hosting the best game strategy discussions in the world.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the celebrations, I received a message from a friend in the Offenders, asking if I wanted to join them on their run. Apparently, they were still trying to kill Onyxia and needed some reinforcements (it was late in the evening). I replied:

I'm locked into the GV instance for five days. We killed her, you know.

There was a pause and then an obviously downcast reply came:

They ran her a 100 times more than we did.

This was an exaggeration, of course. GV/Basin had had only one more run and around eight more attempts than The Offenders had. I didn't say anything, but if I had, I would've said this:

Sometimes the most important part of winning a contest is just showing up.