I don't understand Onyxia

[d0z3rr]

Thought I'd try Onyxia today. I figured phase 1 would be simple, and I'd have a little trouble with phase two, but otherwise I expected her to be a pushover.

Not so much, after 9 wipes I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. My group is 3 mages, prot paladin, and discipline priest.

Around 78% Onyxia ALWAYS turns and two hits my priest. Out of fucking nowhere, my priest will be just standing there waiting to do a flash heal and he'll instantly get aggro. My paladin does nothing but constant consecrates and hammer of righteous. He keeps up judgement of wisdom, and seal of wisdom due to the constant consecrates and hammers. My mages basically just sit there and wand.

I don't know why Onyxia keeps killing the priest around 78%. I don't have a threat meter, and the built in threat meter does not warn me of low threat. It seems totally random. And it's not easy to deal with either, I tried healing through it but she destroys the priest. Fading doesn't help, and she's immune to my pally's taunt.

So does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I don't know how the priest could be building so much aggro just by healing. My paladin is always doing a hammer or consecrate when he gets the chance.

Turned out to be a huge waste of money.

[algol]

It's phase one until 65%. Phase one is the wand phase, in which we dps very slowly. Reason being, Ony likes to turn and WTFPWN people. Also note that Knock Away will lower the tank's threat, causing her to turn and WTFPWN people.

Ony is cake, but you have to treat her right to keep the threat where you want it.

Oh, and your priest should spam fade. If you're not spamming fade, why are you not spamming fade? Spam fade.

[CulchazZ]

ot:
lol´d on the response ;)
b2t:
Yes, Ony is a threat boss if you r higher than lvl 3...otherwise your threat would be so low that ony won´t even recognize u if u r standing in front of her, dmging all u have.
Spamming fade, has been mentioned, no?
Uhm ye...the knockback reduces your thrat by 30 to 40%, so you should really really overaggro with your pally, doing al u can, mana shoudn´t be a problem with jow and the other stuff...overall spamming aggrostyles after the knockback..
btw, hf with the eggs :) only reason why i cannot duo her -.-
culchaz

[Tehtsuo]

OK listen the fuck up. You are going to DPS very, very slowly. Now... and by slowly I mean FUCKING slow. If you get aggro, it means you're going to lose 50 DKP because you didn't know what the fuck to do. And watch the FUCKING tail.

[Bigfish]

Kreshim got feared in to the whelps.

[Dominian]

Onyxia wipes her aggro when she lands.. You shouldnt dps as all for a few seconds when she lands!

If you got shadow word pain or any kind of hots it will most likley pull her away from the tank..

[Biz]

Ony will mess you up real bad unless you are very careful with threat. I'd go read up on how/when she wipes or reduces aggro, and how to avoid getting squished.

[Tehtsuo]

In all seriousness, Onyxia does have a very vicious threat wipe. Back at 70, pre 3.0 patch, it was very tough for a prot paladin because of mana issues. It should be easier with Sanctuary, but you'll still need to dump some major agro on Onyxia to stay ahead.

[Crucial]

Also... Ony will deep breath more with a priest in the raid. Just something to think about.

[Naysayer]

MORE DOTS

[elsegundo]

along with the holy shield/avenger shield, have you tried hand of protection on the priest?

[Kaynin]

Well, I suppose it helps to have more then one class that can build aggro and tank for phase 1.

I've done her with my four elemental shaman by just switching spots with whomever overaggroes, and using some extra macro's to make sure the one that has aggro does most to keep aggro the longest either, as to not make it one big mess of constant aggro changes. And found her pretty easy. But phase one will no doubt cause an aggro wipe with a single healer present. The knockbacks onyxia does take away a fair bit of threat on your tank.

That said tho, I find it hard to believe Onyxia two shots a discipline priest. In fact, discipline priests shield be quite viable at being able to tank onyxia. :P So maybe stock up on some extra stamina gear for your priest just for that encounter?

[Crayonbox]

dots. more dots. more dots.
ok stop dots.

WHO THE FUCK WENT INTO THE WHELPS!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!

btw, that guy is on firetree horde. leads a guild called insomniac or something. doesnt sound as interesting on vent. he calmed down a lot since that audio recording :(

And for OP, Wing buffet is the knock back. Almost every dragon pre bc casts it. It is a percentage decrease of your maximum threat. SO WHEEEEE!!!!
Do dragons in wotlk cast wing buffet? I havent actually been in many fights with dragons yet that cast wing buffet. The red one in nexus doesnt seem to do it, and I dont think the undead frost wyrms do it. sapphiron at least doesnt.

[zanthor]

Oh, and your priest should spam fade. If you're not spamming fade, why are you not spamming fade? Spam fade. Disclaimer: I haven't checked fade since pre 3.0 so it's mechanic may have changed.

If it hasn't changed, fade doesn't need to be spammed. Fade didn't do jack shit for PERMANENT agro reduction, so by spamming it all you are doing is lowering your threat when you don't have agro... Fade is a panic button agro drop that reduces agro long enough for teh tank to pull back on top. It's a GREAT tool to cast just after you get on a mobs agro list as it gives the tank time to build threat while you have a buffer, but remember that buffer goes away.

[Kaynin]

dots. more dots. more dots.
ok stop dots.

WHO THE FUCK WENT INTO THE WHELPS!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!

btw, that guy is on firetree horde. leads a guild called insomniac or something. doesnt sound as interesting on vent. he calmed down a lot since that audio recording :(

And for OP, Wing buffet is the knock back. Almost every dragon pre bc casts it. It is a percentage decrease of your maximum threat. SO WHEEEEE!!!!
Do dragons in wotlk cast wing buffet? I havent actually been in many fights with dragons yet that cast wing buffet. The red one in nexus doesnt seem to do it, and I dont think the undead frost wyrms do it. sapphiron at least doesnt.

I was very dissappointed to learn that Sartharion is actually very easily tanked. I was hoping for a bit of an onyxia like encounter. Dunno if you did onyxia early on, but geez, when we were all still in ubrs gear adn going to Onyxia. The randomness was just so insane! But also made it -really- intrueging, as it seemed completely unpredictable. So far all the raid bosses I done ten man are anything but unpredictable. I kinda miss that. The learning curves still exist on a few bosses. Most are down pretty easily tho. And the learning curves now exist entirely out of perfecting strategies. Not about winging it anymore. :<

Onyxia was the first raid encounter, and imo, the best as well. If you havent done onyxia pre-MC you might disagree however. :P But trust me, it was truely epic. Nothing ever surpassed her epicness.

Some dragons do wing buffet in wotlk, but not to the extent as it did on the oldschool dragons. It's not really an issue anymore.

[algol]

Fade didn't do jack shit for PERMANENT agro reduction

No, but 33% of the time it makes you be at the bottom of the aggro list. Harder to pull that way. I'm assuming he's incapable of hitting it fast enough to keep the priest from getting gutted, and it's better than nothing.

Mostly he just needs to realize that phase one is wand time and generate as little aggro as possible on everyone that's not the tank.

[Crayonbox]

dots. more dots. more dots.
ok stop dots.

WHO THE FUCK WENT INTO THE WHELPS!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!

btw, that guy is on firetree horde. leads a guild called insomniac or something. doesnt sound as interesting on vent. he calmed down a lot since that audio recording :(

And for OP, Wing buffet is the knock back. Almost every dragon pre bc casts it. It is a percentage decrease of your maximum threat. SO WHEEEEE!!!!
Do dragons in wotlk cast wing buffet? I havent actually been in many fights with dragons yet that cast wing buffet. The red one in nexus doesnt seem to do it, and I dont think the undead frost wyrms do it. sapphiron at least doesnt.

I was very dissappointed to learn that Sartharion is actually very easily tanked. I was hoping for a bit of an onyxia like encounter. Dunno if you did onyxia early on, but geez, when we were all still in ubrs gear adn going to Onyxia. The randomness was just so insane! But also made it -really- intrueging, as it seemed completely unpredictable. So far all the raid bosses I done ten man are anything but unpredictable. I kinda miss that. The learning curves still exist on a few bosses. Most are down pretty easily tho. And the learning curves now exist entirely out of perfecting strategies. Not about winging it anymore. :<

Onyxia was the first raid encounter, and imo, the best as well. If you havent done onyxia pre-MC you might disagree however. :P But trust me, it was truely epic. Nothing ever surpassed her epicness.

Some dragons do wing buffet in wotlk, but not to the extent as it did on the oldschool dragons. It's not really an issue anymore.I was part of the guild that was the first to down rag and onyxia on my server. Some of the stupid strats we came up with when we were learning onyxia... sigh

"lets try clearing out the whelps so they dont bother us when shes in the air" "lets have a paladin shield and run through the entire egg line. itll work!"

[cairnz]

Onyxia wipes her aggro when she lands.. You shouldnt dps as all for a few seconds when she lands!

If you got shadow word pain or any kind of hots it will most likley pull her away from the tank..

Didn't do this last time i did her (last week). My druid had to build "quite" lots of threat before she went for druid instead of shaman. Omen showed this "correctly" as well - indicating no threat reset on land.

I did not have any aggro problems in phase1 - nor any other problems, she hit like a critter and with fire res totem it was a breeze. (It was different back in the beginning tanking her with 6k hp and not-enough-FR-damnit (oh yes, pre-MC))

stomp stomp.

[Tizer]

Killed with 5 shaman level 78 quite easily, 5 mana tots and chain heal, thunderstorm when whelps arrive and job done. 200g in 15 mins work. Shame its a little far away else i would do regular.