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!

To-Do List - Taking My Own Advice

This is more for me than anyone else. I updated the 3.0 FAQ again with new glyph prioritization. I had turned a blind eye to the benefits of Glyph of Consecration, because I semi-frequently respec protection to tank and that glyph would cause havoc with my rotation. However, after running dry for mana toward the end of Patchwerk last week, and with my slow realization that Seal of Command isn't that useful even in PvP (Seal/Judgement of the Martyr hits for more on average and spikes for the same amount), it's time I listened to the power of reason. The Consecration glyph saves nearly an entire mana bar over the course of a fight and eliminates some GCD clashes.

So, my plan going forward:

• Replace my Glyph of Seal of Command with Glyph of Consecration.
• Start liquidating some of my materials to raise cash to buy a Ring of the Kirin Tor - it's better than my PvP ring and has strength, crit, and expertise. Plus I can use it as a hearth to Dalaran. These are a few of my favorite things.
• Research how much it would cost me to get a Darkmoon Card: Greatness. If I can't stomach the price, I'll resume praying to every deity I know for a Loatheb's Shadow.
• Get some Dragonfin Filet. I'm all out of leftover Clefthoof from Burning Crusade, so I find myself lacking in the food department.
• Start advertising my Engineering services in trade again to raise money for all the purchases I've detailed above.
• Use my surplus Badges of Heroism to buy rare quality gems to sell for profit. I had no idea that a vendor in Dalaran started offering 10 badge per gem exchanges!

I've got some selling to do!

Engineering in PvE - An Accelerated Affair

Well, after extolling engineering as a good PvP profession, now it's time to trumpet its benefits for PvE. As you might know, the Hyperspeed Accelerators got buffed in patch 3.0.8 last week. HamSlammer over at the EJ forums answered a question in the ret thread about the Hyperspeed Accelerators (340 haste on use for 10 seconds, 1 minute cooldown), and how they now measure up against the Crusher glove enchant (44 AP), which is currently considered the "best in slot" glove enchant. Here's what he said:

Using Redcape's numbers, Hyperspeed is 25.5 DPS. +44 AP (Crusher, I believe) is 29.92 DPS. These have the benefit of stacking ALWAYS during Bloodlust and AW, so that brings it up a bit. All in all, I'd say whichever is easier to obtain. Hyperspeed might pull ahead on fights where your DPS time is limited, to where this tinker could have a high up time in comparison to your DPS time. Like... um... Heigan, possibly?

... and Gothik, and Sapphiron, and Malygos... I think you get the picture. Any boss that doesn't let you hit him/her for 100% of the fight ups the stock of this handy-dandy tinker.

Now, before everyone jumps on him and says "Haste sucks! Don't listen to him," think this out.

Hyperspeed has a 17% uptime over the course of a fight if used every cooldown. That's like giving yourself a 57 constant haste rating boost. Since haste rating conversion is 32.7 rating = 1% haste, you're looking at nearly 2% constant haste. It may only affect your Seal of Blood and auto-attack damage, but that's still an increase of 2% scaling damage to those two damage sources.

And, on top of that, you can stack the cooldown with your Avenging Wrath cooldown, as HamSlammer noted. Simple napkin math can't capture how much of a damage increase that is, but I'm willing to venture a bet that at tier 7 levels of gearing, getting an extra 10% haste from your Hyperspeed Accelerators for half the span of your wings can make up the 5 DPS difference between Crusher and the Accelerators that HamSlammer theorized.

In addition, as noted earlier, not every fight is like Patchwerk, where you can just flail away at the boss until it keels over. Sapphiron, for example, rotates like clockwork between air phase and ground phase, spending 45 seconds on the ground before taking off and doing his ice block thang. So, you can use your Accelerator during the ground phase, let it cool down during the air phase (when you can't hit him anyway), and then activate it again when he lands, giving the Accelerator haste effect more up-time and therefore more effective haste relative to your on-target time in comparison to the flat 44 AP from the Crusher enchant. With a 10 second up-time and a 45 second window to hit the target, you're talking about a relative up-time of 22% of your DPS presence. 10% haste for 22% of the fight? That's like a miniature, personal Heroism/Bloodlust for over one-fifth of the encounter, and who wouldn't like that?

Conclusion? I'm not investing in the Crusher enchant. I'm making use of my engineering goodies, gorramit! Patch 3.0.8 cutting the cooldown on the use effect of the Accelerators definitely made them a lot more useful. Even if it works out that stacking the Accelerators with wings doesn't make up the small amount of ground separating Crusher from patch 3.0.8 Accelerators, just the cheaper price of the engineering option makes it appealing. Plus, if what the crab said is true, haste might see a buff for melee in the forseeable future:

Haste is a worthwhile stat to some casters but it is not useful for many melee. We are trying some different things to make it more apealing. - Ghostcrawler, 1/24/09

If I may, my friendly crustacean-enamored game developer, I'd like to posit the suggestion that haste lower the global cooldown for melee as well as casters. It'd solve some rotational issues that us ret paladins run into, and I'm sure getting 7% (Note: completely fabricated number with no evidence to back it up) more Heroic Strikes or Sinister Strikes wouldn't be objectional. Am I right, warriors and rogues? (Note: I know that rogues and warriors are not the only other melee classes.)

On a broader note, I might even venture to say that the Personal Electromagnetic Pulse Generator might find a use in Ulduar, since it is a Titan-related instance and they tend to employ mechanicals, but I'll hold my tongue on that one until the instance is actually released.

So, fair reader, if you happen to be one of the tinkering few that remains faithful to M.E.G.A. or G.E.E.K., pop some Accelerators on your gloves and try it out. You might be surprised to find that it's as good if not better than your run-of-the-mill enchanting option. This won't outgain an extra two gem sockets or prismatic gems, but hey, it's something.

Engineering - Not For The Min/Max'ers

Everyone says that the Engineering profession is weak, needs buffing, yadda yadda yadda. Consider this:

• The Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket is instant cast, one minute cooldown, and can be fired at (30 yard?) range to deal ~1150 fire damage. Great for firing at an opponent as you engage at the beginning of an arena match, or to harass a kiting opponent.
• The Nitro-Boosts for boots is a five two second duration run speed increaser with a five minute cooldown. Who needs Intercept or Death Grip? Click your heels together and you'll be 30 yards from here in a blink!
• The Sonic Booster is a stamina trinket with an AP-boosting proc. Great for entry-level arena!
• Saronite Bombs are grenades that can cause siege damage. If those pesky clothies keep hopping in the drivers seat of siege tanks, grab your bombs and blow up the walls of Wintergrasp Keep yourself!
• Charged Titanium Specs give you stealth detection and a nice amount of stamina/strength, which are three things that a PvP'ing ret paladin loves.

Engineering may not be the best profession for min/max'ing your gear in PvE, but it sure is handy in PvP! Sure, you won't be using most of this stuff in a raid, or even a 5-man, but for battlegrounds, arena, and Wintergrasp, I'd argue that Engineering is, in the nomenclature of the medium, "teh secks." Clutch rocket-boots usage can turn an arena match. Seeing/unstealthing a stealthed rogue before he saps you can really mess up an opponent's game plan. Or, my favorite, launching a pyro-rocket at a mage who just rooted you and blinked away with a little more than 20% HP, lighting up your Hammer of Wrath button for a quick finishing blow.

Don't write the tinkers off! We've got some cards up our sleeves that, when leveraged properly, might be qualititatively better than two extra gem sockets or some ring enchants.

Bottom line is this: the community is right, Engineering isn't strong from a min/max standpoint. However, it does bring to the table a few tricks, tools, and toys that cannot be found anywhere else. They are unique, situationally useful, and can grant the engineer the element of surprise (whoa, how'd that ret paladin end up 30 yards away? Or hit me with fire damage? WTF?) or quickly turn the tide of battle (how the f!@$ did he just see me in stealth?). You'd rather have those two extra gem sockets than two extra cooldowns? Fine, enjoy your extra points of strength - next arena season, we'll be back to matches where the team that runs out of cooldowns first loses, and I'm going to have a few extra.

E4AE concedes the point that Engineering stinks for PvE, but based upon the above, contends that Engineering is a great choice of profession for PvP providing the user knows how to employ his techie tools properly.

EDIT: As of 1/20/09, the Nitro-Boosts are a 2 second duration. The above post has been edited.
EDIT2: Lady Jess correctly informed me that the Noise Machine is the SP trinket, and the Sonic Booster is the AP trinket. I edited the above accordingly.