One thing I always had to lament, is the fact that I came to the raid scene behind most people that I now spend my time raiding with. Actually, when I began to play World of Warcraft, I did not even care about raiding; just too many bad stories and stupid people that you have to deal with, if you wish to do good on that field. But then, as often happens, circumstances change and I found myself gearing up, but now, I was seriously behind.
As Ulduar came out, I was still doing casual raids in Naxxramas and while that was a whole load of fun, it did mean that I began to miss on a lot of content. Now I have made it to Ulduar, in a guild I like very much, that raids often and does so with some amazing people. However, I still have not done all that they have and naturally, it is really difficult to persuade them come along for "old" content.
One such is Sartharion, which I can happily report, went down with the one drake just the other. Most of you who have done, know it as a very easy fight, which it is but surprisingly a lot do not succeed at it. Many casual guilds, despite being able to run most of 25-man Naxxramas, cannot succeed at bringing Sartharion down with any additional drakes and the same goes for PuGs. So imagine my joy when I ended in one, extremely proficient group that brought the wyrms down with the first, flawless go.
The only real tactical difference to dealing with the drakes, is the position of Sartharion and having an extra tank. Yes, it can be done with two tanks, but in my opinion, it is simply less grief if you go with three tanks; one tanks Sartharion, one tanks the drake, and the third keeps the adds in check, while the dps burns the drake down. As always, all should the fire walls and burn cooldowns as quick as possible, for healing three tanks does take its toll on the healers.
The drake should go down fairly quickly, after which dps should move to kill the adds and then continue the encounter as ever before. If you can bring the drake down and control the small drakes, you are home free. There is nothing else to the encounter.
Another encounter, a real boogyman for many, is Emalon in the Vault of Archavon, perceived to many as a difficult fight, when in actuality the battle is extremely simple. Long story short, the tanks pull the mobs and Emalon himself apart from each other. One to the right and the other to the left side of the room. Initially DPS should head for the boss and wait for two primary abilities; Lightning Nova and Overcharge.
When he begins casting lightning nova, DPS should head out of range. On 10-man version, only has an effective 20-yard range. On 25-man it cannot be outranged, but distance mitigates the damage done. If you are melee, you will probably only barely make it back to the boss, hit a couple of times before Overcharge comes and at that point, you should head to the adds. If you have DBM, the addon will mark the add that has been overcharged and it needs to be killed in 20 seconds or the raid will wipe.
From there the encounter just goes around and around until the boss dies. However, you need good dps to bring the add down in 20 seconds and it is often the part that scares people. However, last night on 25-man, we beat it easily with only a handful of dps between 3k and rest below, so the encounter is a lot less merciless than given credit. Most DPS who can do 25-man Naxxramas, or has even good 10-man gear from the same instance, should be able to do it.
