Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?Situational Awareness Training in Ahn'Kahet
 Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom |
Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom (or: A:OK) is one of the new 5-man instances released in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack of World of Warcraft.
It's aimed at the level range of ~72-75 and is the longer of the two instances (including Azjol-Nerub) that reside in the ice pit just west of Angmar's Hammer in Dragonblight. As with all of the WoTLK dungeons, it's a very beautiful and expansive place, with a whole bunch of different environmental details that make your first journey through quite exciting. |
My First Experiences With A:OK and other WoTLK dungeons
I was fortunate enough to find a great guild of players to hook up with just before WoTLK released, so when it did, there was a healthy pool of instant-access people for my Holy Priest to dungeon with during the times when hardly anyone knew where to go or what was going to happen when they did.
Many of my first runs through the new instances during the main-toon 70 to 80 leveling up process were done with guildmates, simply because while the PUGs were there, the attitudes were remarkably different between PUG groups and guild groups.
For example, many PUGs were still used to the loldungeons that existed for the last month of BC and came to think of them as "normal", and thus were unskilled when it came to a truely challenging fight.
Plus, the guild Tank I ran with actually *giggled with glee* whenever we wiped or had a particularly challenging battle, and that one thing did a lot for our group.
Sure, you don't "need" vent for 5-mans, but sometimes it can lighten a situation that is otherwise devoid of sound! :)
The Skill of Dodging Projectiles
Forgotten Ones
Okay, sure, there's not a lot of mobs that actually do this in the same way, but still, I've watched people stand still for Shadow Crash after Shadow Crash on themselves and others and not even strafe for a split-second AFTER the damage hits.
Forgotten Ones are a mob that is great "situational awareness" practice. They're found just before getting to Herald Volaj, the boss who casts Insanity and leaves you to kill all of your dungeon buddies before resuming the boss fight.
 Shadow Crash! |
Forgotten Ones will target a player for a moment and cast Shadow Crash, then return their targeting back to the tank and continue the fight.
The Shadow Crash is a big purple projectile that is only casted at Ranged attackers, does 4-6k damage on Normal mode, and it gives you a couple of seconds to get out of its way. The Shadow Crash will hurt anyone who is near where it lands, so all ranged folk need to watch - not just the one he targets. |
That's Not Much Damage, Why Move?
When I think about this question - which, by the way, is a question that some of my social guild guildmates would ask and strongly believe in - the only answer I can come up with that makes sense to me is this:
If you have no interest in ever Raiding and you just want to level up to 80 so you can hop on to another alt and level it up to 80, then move or don't move, it doesn't matter.
If, however, you have interest in challenging yourself to improve your skills or have an interest in joining a Raid group once you hit level cap, then this is a great opportunity to do two things:
- Practice your "Situational Awareness" reaction timing.
Some raid encounter dynamics require a player to stop and move immediately - not after this cast finishes, not after you've finished channeling a bandage. This is a great way to practice "move NOW". - Save your Healer mana by practicing good Self-Defense
Sure, your healer may have a lot of mana right now (or you may BE the Healer), but it's always good to reduce incoming damage if at all possible, to help the Healer save mana at every opportunity. Then during mana-intensive encounters it's already a habit for you.
Other Raider Training Fights
There are a lot of fights in dungeons and outside of them that are meant to not only challenge the casual player, but train the upcoming Raider.
I'll write more about them as time moves on, but if anyone wants to leave a comment with some helpful information for the readership (and myself), I'd love it!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related posts:
- Greasing the Social Wheels: First Aid Training
- Dungeon Tip: If You're DPS, Nobody Cares About Your Mana
- Practicing The Adventure of Malygos
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Hello. Hello again. I think one of the main reasons people don't try to get out of the way of projectiles is that for 75 levels or so, they've been conditioned not to. Gameplay at lower levels shows that running does no good. If a mob casts a fireball, shadowbolt, etc., dodging is not an option. The player sees it coming at them, and if they strafe, the spells just curves to him them anyway. This creates a turn-based mentality, where the mob's damage is unavoidable: it simply comes across as a matter of mathematics, taking armor, agility, etc. into play. So players stop dodging.
Some don't even try to get out of burning fire. Over the weekend, I helped some mid-70 tauren (can't remember what type) take on Malas the Corrupter in Zul'Drak. We killed him quickly, with no damage to me, and the tauren had about 75% health. But the fight ended with him being in the center of a small island of fire... and that fire did NOT go out. He began chatting with me about "thanks for all the help... died twice before you came... etc." And the whole time he's saying this, his health is dropping as a crazy speed. I start typing "GET OUT OF THE FIRE!" but before I could hit enter, he died. Backspace, backspace, backspace. New message: "The fire - it burns."
But back to that conditioning. I'm guilty of it. Just this last weekend (at lvl 76), I encountered my first true projectile-throwing mob that required me to move frequently during a fight. I was on the final Reliquary of Pain quest (Betrayal) where I have to kill Drakuru. He killed me quickly due to the mistake of assuming that I could not dodge the large blight-crystals he was throwing. While running back to my corpse, I realized, "I gotta move out of the way of those shards." It was a game-changing moment. Now I have to figure out how to be effective while on the move... something very difficult for a lock, who needs to stand still while casting - especially when channeling.
And one question: As a result of completing the quest, I received the Choker of Betrayal, a nice neck-piece with +STAM +INT and a Red Socket. I've read that I really need to increase my hit rating (which is way too low) - so should I try to cram a yellow gem in there if possible? I see that Rigid Autumn's Glow gives +16 Hit... so should I go for that, or is it always better/necessary to match gem colors? In which case I'd add a Runed Scarlet Ruby for +19 Spell Power.
Heya Mortigan!
You make a great point about that being trained that moving doesn't help bit. Interesting thing to ponder on, for sure.
And yes, even in raids people continue to stand in stuff that eventually kills them even after the boss fight is done - the ones doing it so they can loot, I don't mind letting die and resurrecting... ;)
As for the gem, my general rule of thumb is this:
First of all, hit isn't really needed unless you plan to go into Heroics and Raids. If you don't plan to go there, gem straight for damage and forget about hit.
If you have plans to hit Heroics and Raids, here's a second rule of thumb:
Look at the bonus. If it's a beneficial bonus (ie: more hit in your case of current gearing, not more spelldamage or more haste), then get an Orange one with Hit and some other beneficial stat, so you still get the socket bonus.
:)
Hope that helps!
Val
I sometimes heal for my mom's guild on heroics and this seems to be the biggest difference. If there's something on the ground that can hurt, they'll be standing in it. Lol. Mom has learned but her guildmates haven't. I realize how much you learn as you progress through raiding. I also tend to start many explanations with "this is just like Karazhan..." :) ~Bryan
Everyone always laughs and makes fun of the poor saps who stand in the fire and die. I was one of them for the longest time. Not long ago we were discussing it after wiping on Kel'Thuzad (or whatever his name is...the guy who gave me a nice dagger). Anyway, we were telling a couple of our deathknights not to stand in the rings of poo he makes, and they didn't know what we were talking about. After a while one of the paladins threw down a consecrate and I threw down a flamestrike. We asked "do you see the ground effects from those spells?" They couldn't. They had to go into their video settings and adjust the particle density or some such before they could see them. They rarely continue to stand in poo now.
Moral of the story: some people have computers which are not uber. These people may have to turn down their video settings to get a playable frame rate and may be missing a lot of the poo. If you see someone who spends a lot of their time in poo, suggest that they look at their video settings.
Very good point, Sylthi!