If It At First You Don't Succeed...

... wipe, wipe again.

Last Thursday I lead a PUG Naxx-25 raid. It took a while to get things rolling and most of the DPS was iffy at best, but we were able to clear out most of the instance in one night.

The roadblock we ran into was Thaddius. For some ungodly reason, about 5-6 people in the raid either could not handle the Polarity Shift. At the first shift, I would undoubtedly have 4-6 fried, smoking husks of raiders at Thaddius's feet. I was employing my tried-and-true stock car strategy for Thaddius: group up, turn left. These fellas, however, just couldn't grasp it for one reason or another. When questioned about their inability to grasp the simple concept of "go around the fata$$ boss to the other side," I got reasons ranging from absolute silence and no acknowledgement of my question, to "sorry my comp sucks," to "that's not how my guild does it."

I don't care about your reason for sucking. I just want you to fix it or get out, you're mucking up my raid.

That's what I said in my head. What I said out loud was more along the lines of "all right, as a reminder to everyone, positives are on the LEFT, negatives are on the RIGHT, and everyone needs to stack up at max melee range. Make sure to go around Thaddius clockwise, meaning to your LEFT, when switching sides on the Polarity Shift." I didn't call anyone out publicly. We also didn't kill the boss.

On Monday, after I had taken care of work, class, dinner, and all that jazz, I logged in to finish what I had started. The only bosses I had left up were Thaddius, Sapphiron, and Kel'Thuzad. It took me 30-45 minutes to form up the raid, and then awaaaaaayyy we went, straight to Thaddius. Same strategy - group up, turn left, positive left, negative right.

On the first Polarity Shift of the first pull, 4 people got fried. 3 of them were DPS, and we hit the enrage because we were short on damage despite burning 2 Heroisms. I wasn't doing this again. Names got called.

"X, Y, Z, and Q, what happened, why'd you die?"

X, Y, and Z told me it was a connection issue - they got disconnected mid-fight (or so they claimed). Q said he flubbed it and went to the wrong side.

"We good now? Everyone know where they're going and stable?"

No objections, so we pulled again.

This time, only X and Y got fried. Thankfully, we were able to kill Thaddius without them.

I'm seriously considering imposing loot restrictions in my PUG's for people who can't grasp the fights. If you spend a fight dead for more than 33% through your own actions (i.e. aggro pull, incorrect switch on Thaddius, etc.), or cannot manage to do 1.5 times as much damage as the tank on the boss, then I'm not awarding you loot for that boss. Gevlon would be proud of this line of thinking, I bet. The sad part is I check everyone's achievements before I invite to make sure they've killed most/all the bosses in Naxx on any difficulty and do a spot check on gearing. These jokers passed my screening, and then went and got themselves cooked on Thaddius.

And now for the happier portion of my post.

Before the raid I had declared that the Key to the Focusing Iris would be looted by me so that I could lead a Malygos-25 PUG as well. We were able to 2-shot Sapphiron (the tank got Deep Breathed on the first breath during the first attempt - he claimed he was behind the block, but his death proved otherwise), and I grabbed that sucker. After a 1-shot of Kel'Thuzad which had absolutely zero complications...

... all right there were a few, as in a few special people not understanding the idea of spreading out to avoid getting Frost Blasted, and others standing in the red swirly death of the void zones...

... I handed out the loot and then proclaimed that we'd be raiding Malygos! Huzzah!

After I filled the holes in the raid voided by those that left, I formed up the raid at the Eye of Eternity. I employed my guild's 6 minute Malygos strategy and had one of my guildie's DK alts take care of spark management. I did this instead of letting the tank go whereever he pleased so that the added damage in phase 1 would off-set any failure by PUGs to shield themselves in phase 3.

I'm glad I did, because several people took beams to the face and took a tumble into the black abyss. We beat the enrage timer handily without them, though. The funniest part is the Malygos-25 kill was my first true attempt at the 25-man version. I got the heroic Denyin' the Scion and Spellweaver's Downfall achievements from the kill.

I can now say that I've successfully PUG'ed every 25-man encounter in WotLK with me at the helm. I'm a WoW-approved cat herder.

Boss Spotlight: Thaddius

That's right, folks, Boss Spotlight is back on the air!

In a continuing effort to educate the community on how Retribution Paladins should approach fights that pose specific difficulties to the class, E4AE proudly presents another "Boss Spotlight!" In today's crosshairs: Thaddius.


Thaddius is a flesh giant, and the last boss of the Construct Quarter in Naxxramas. Sewn together of women and children and powered by tesla coils, Thaddius is a fearsome foe. However, you must topple him to gain access to the upper level of the citadel, where Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad lie in wait. When you enter Thaddius's chamber, he is on the far side of the room and un-attackable. You must engage and kill two mobs, Feugen and Stalagg, before you can take some swings at the big undead man on campus. The boss's abilities are limited - regular melee on the tank, Chain Lightning, and a Polarity Shift that will debuff everyone in the raid, much like Mechano-Lord Capacitus in Mechanar from The Burning Crusade.

Why are we talking about this boss?
At first, Thaddius doesn't seem very dangerous. His melee isn't especially strong, his Chain Lightning hits for about a quarter of a DPS's health bar, and the Polarity Shift debuff doesn't seem like it should pose a threat.

Your enemies here are time, latency, and other people.

Thaddius has a 6-minute hard enrage, which isn't hard to beat if everyone stays alive and executes correctly. However, if the Polarity Shift isn't handled correctly, many will perish in shocking fashion as electrical charges fry the offending parties. Allow me to explain how Polarity Shift works, for those who are unaware:
Not long after activating, Thaddius will stop attacking and channel his Polarity Shift ability. When the cast is complete, everyone in the raid will either have a positive or negative charge debuff. About 4 seconds after the debuff is acquired, anyone with a positive charge standing next to a negatively-charged person will deal damage to that oppositely-charged person, and vice versa. A negatively-charged person standing in the middle of a pack of postively-charged people will experience near instant-death once the charges are set after 4 seconds.

Paraphrasing the immortal Dr. Egon Spengler, crossing the charges is bad.

Conversely, anyone standing near a like-charged person will gain a stackable buff that increases damage done. The same-charge buff-stacking is necessary to do enough damage to burn through Thaddius's large health pool.

What to do when facing Thaddius
First and foremost, don't miss the jump. If you don't make it onto Thaddius's platform immediately after killing the tesla twins, you will cause major problems re-entering the fight after the Polarity Shift. Move to the edge of the platform, onto the lip, and take a running jump. If you're especially worried about it and you're an engineer, use either a pair of Nitro-boosted boots to long-jump the gap or a cape with a Flexweave Underlay to safely float to the lower platform. The jump isn't especially difficult, however, and these are just extreme measures for the under-confident.

Once the Polarity Shift happens, make sure you know a) what your charge is, b) which direction is your safe zone, and c) which direction traffic is flowing. As soon as you recognize your charge, move to your safe zone in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion around Thaddius, depending on what your raid designates as proper etiquette. Make wide turns. After re-positioning, stand at maximum melee range. If you and another melee'er with opposite charges stand close in to Thaddius, you'll fry each other. Don't worry about Thaddius parrying your attacks - it's lost DPS, but it's unavoidable for this fight. The good news is Thaddius doesn't parry-haste his melee, so there's no consequence to your tank.

Once you and your 9-24 friends master the time-lost art of not electrocuting each other, it's a simple tank and spank. Pop your cooldowns early and often, keep your rotation flowing (he's undead, remember to throw Exorcism and Holy Wrath in when you can!), and collect your loots.

Until next time, this has been another edition of E4AE Boss Spotlight, with your host, Josh!