Saturday was definitely “the night”. The server was cooperating. Ability lag was minimal. At 5pm we zoned in and gave Thaddius some really good attempts – including a wipe at both 3% and 1% before our consumables ran out.

Then.. sadly.. it was time to move on. We were out of pots. We’d burned our flasks. Durability was at zero. The skeletons were piled in two neat clumps around the defiant Thaddius, who refused to fall even as the lag kicked in and polarity changes grew more and more sluggish.

So we went and did BWL – and thus did the first sign of what was to be a great night occured. Nefarian dropped Wrath for the third time EVER.. and not just Wrath, check out this ridiculously good loot table. Our excitement woke Galreth, who had drifted off to sleep Solaris-style, and he joined us for the rest of the venture.

If only we could get this stuff every week? Alright, forget the Netherwind.

Considering it was 11:30pm, and we were still smarting from the 3% and 1% wipes, I suggested that we go and take one crazy midnight shot at Thaddius – just throw everything we had at him. And someone suggested, “why don’t we get the head buff?”. Sign number two.

The third sign of what was to come was very simple.. because of the buff, everyone displayed a greater than normal focus when running to Thaddius. It was, in fact, the first time ever we’d run to Thaddius without losing people to the slimes.

We potted. We flasked. We used some last minute consumables bought from the AH, scrounged from mailboxes (thanks Arethor), brewed in-flight.. everything. Prot warriors used crit stones, mongoose and Recklessness. Greater Marks of the Dawn were consumed in one final act of desperation.

It all came together in one crazy post-midnight attempt. At 12:33 server time, Critical Mass killed Thaddius and cleared the Abomination Wing.

Here’s the money shot, click to see the full size image courtesy of Dugrin.

I don’t believe i’ve ever been part of a more satisfying kill. After all the hardship, the server lag, the consumables used (and used again), the repair bills, the skeleton piles and the frogger slime deaths – Thaddius is dead. Now, we can focus our attention on the last four undefeated encounters in lower Naxxramas.

What a great night. Our third ever Wrath, our second ever Crul’shorukh, and our first ever Abomination wing clear!

In theory. It would be very cool in practice if it didn’t lag everyone to hell and back, stop updating people’s polarity, randomly disconnect people, ability is not ready yet, all the usual fun stuff

In spite of all that happened we made quite a bit of good progress on Thaddius. It’s actually fairly straightforward if you take the lag out of the equation. I like that about the Nax encounters. Overall the zone is very enjoyable – but stuff like this just has to be tuned a little better.

This was our best attempt:

Oh well. We’ll get him just as soon as the server cooperates. I know now that Thaddius is doable. Only one thing stands in our way… Stormrage.

.. here we are.

Thaddius. Very cool encounter.

Continue reading One week later… →