Onyxia is Back!

Like so many other things that are reinvented, Onyxia seems to divide the World of Warcraft demography. As always, the most vocal side are the ones not happy with Onyxia's reincarnation, finding a long list of faults in her new forms but personally I am delighted from the update.

The very first reason to like her is the fact that a huge portion of us never got to fight her in vanilla WoW and have only seen her, mainly lying on her back after being zerged by a bunch of level 80s. I, myself took her down with just the three of us, and even from our tiny group two of us were tanks. To make it further ridiculous, the paladin tank also functioned as our healer, who is the same paladin who I know 1-manned her.

This is the case with all old raids and for my life cannot see what the point would be to not redesign them, so they can provide a logical function in the game - instead of just being the occasional punching bag for nostalgic old timers.

The second reason is that now Onyxia is a lot more approachable, instead of feeling like teeth being pulled. Naturally, for some this is a bad thing. Of course, I bet it was a blast to spend over 40 minutes fighting one raid boss. With luck, someone screwed you over because of their teenage angst and you would be starting all over again.

Third but not last, with Naxxramas, Sartharion, and Malygos becoming obsolete we desperately needed a new raid into the game. Granted, it is only one boss but it is better than nothing while we wait for the release of Icecrown. Of course, I do not mean that in condescending, but rather pointing out the fact that those of us who have completed Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader only provides so much entertainment.

So what is Onyxia like these days. After research (and listening to old timers whining), I do not see how the fight is so much different; you go through three distinct phases and a lot of moving around is required to get through them.

Phase 1 is a simple spank phase. Your main tank should tank her against the back of the cave, so the push back does not blow him away and everyone else should stay around or behind Onyxia, to avoid the frontal cleave that can easily turn a clothie into some shredded wallpaper.

Phase 2 begins when she walks back across the cave and takes off into the air. As in the vanilla version, everyone should group up in the middle of the cave, where the floor declines into. Whelps will fly from both sides and your (preferably an aoe capable) tank grabs them while dps aoes them down.

There is an elite type of add that also comes from the entrance, which must be tanked and killed as quick as possible, for they hit rather hard and will overwhelm the tanks if not taken care of. Most notably have your cloth wearers dispel the Ignite Weapon as quickly as possible, for it adds 25k extra damage to their attacks for five seconds.

This phase ends when the ranged dps succeed in bringing Onyxia to 40%, after which your main tank must quickly grab aggro and place himself against a wall, or she makes wind chimes of your raid.

From there the fight continues much like phase 1, except for an occasional inconsequential whelp, fear, and fire cracking from the floor. If you get her this far, you should be able to nail her, as long as you healers do not run out of mana.

All and all, a very enjoyable raid in my opinion.

UI Makeover

Inspired by my fellow World of Warcraft players, I decided to take on it once more and redo my UI. I was mainly intrigued by the popular addon Kgpanels and I wanted to make look really unique - something I had never had before. I must say I am quite pleased with the look. It still has same sense of minilism that I enjoy but also looks really nice.

I had already previously moved from Pitbull 3 to Pitbull 4, after I got fed up with the clunky configuration and just outright anarchy that resides inside the addon. The new pitbull has succeeded in streamlining the layout much more with a lot less chaos than its earlier incarnation.

Aside from Kgpanels, I also added SLDataText to replace the uncomfortable Fubar texts, as well as to compensate for the lack of a microbar, so I can always see my latency, memory usage, and frame rate. The last newcomer is caelNamePlates for prettier nameplates, however I am not complete satisfied with it. The plates tend to crowd and blow the view.

Esthetically, I have separated the public channels into their own chat window on the right. The minimap addon is still the same, Sexymap, however I did consequently change to a more prudent skin.

For a view of my older UI, feel free to read up on Rhin's User Interface. Promise though, it like a monkey's ass compared to this one.

For future features, I will most likely experiment for a proper castbar addon, such as maybe Quartz and Aloft for a better nameplates.

Nerd Rage

I am sure that anyone who has been playing World of Warcraft for more than a week is no stranger to this phenomenan. In a way, the game is a perfect analog for rl sports, where cheering for your team and defending the ethnic correctness is defended to the last one and it is not just in-game. It spreads like wildfire, infecting discussion boards, news groups and just everyday talk between buddies.

Sometimes I wonder if it is the only aspect of the game that some people know how to do. The examples sure are more numerous than one could list, e.g. horde vs alliance. Aye, seems rediculous at first but people tend to take it very seriously and the hatred for anyone not of your faction is thick enough to cut with a butterknife. Same goes between guilds, especially if you are unlucky to be in one that aroused the ire of the community, you might not even be accepted to PuGs because of it.

One of my all time favorites is asking or just talking on trade or the general channel. The trigger can be almost anything really, like asking if someone wants to take part in your group quest or just asking directions where a specific quest is completed. Perfectly understandable isn't it? After all, though it reads "Suggested for groups [5]" doesn't really mean it is meant for groups. It is perfectly soloable in the uber gear that we are all privied to.

Other good examples include pvp, which is an instant combustion for the losing team, certain classes, of death knights are a prime example (after all, was our fault that we were so overpowered back in the day when earth was still flat), poor gear, mistakes on instances and raids, or just happening upon the same bond that someone else is already fishing in.

I understand many play the game with great passion. Personally, I am very much the same. I love playing it and I try to do so every day, but it does not make me hate the world and certainly cannot find it in myself to degrade and ruin someone else's gaming experience just because I am prone to psychotic episodes. In my mind, people like this have no place in the game and personally hope Blizzard would implement more strict tolerance for it.

It is still a game, one have volunteered to subscribe to, and the joy of playing is the only valid reason to continue playing.