Cory Boggs ENG 1510 J.

Dehaven 1/23/13

Project 1: Part 1

The Pinnacle of Nerd-Rule My memory of achieving greatness is related to teamwork, communication, situational awareness, understanding of myself and my comrades, and the major deciding factor chance. I am of course talking about my accomplishments in the virtual world of Azeroth, located in the video game World of Warcraft. The date is June 19th 2010, the months leading up have been all leading up to this one night. Over the passed month the newest update the the game had released and also introduced the main antagonist the Lich King the lord of the undead and the icy continent of Northrend as a killable character in-game. Myself and my group of ten guild-mates (clan, group, associates) had spend countless hours working our way through the instance (dungeon, scenario) fighting the bosses before the final battle. With every fight being unique to that boss, we had to learn what it took to defeat them. This included everything to the environmental effects, outside interference, the tactics of the enemy and what to do to overcome each obstacle as they came. Added to knowing where to be and what to do, the most important part is knowing your personal character and what they are capable of as far as being an effective fighter. With each boss being defeated we came closer to our goal; the Lich King and the glory that came with being the first on the server to take him on. The environment is the frozen throne, a glacial plateau atop a large citadel. On one side the main protagonist in the story line and my group mates whom I have grown close to over the time spent working together to accomplish this one task.With my specific group make up we had two tanks, two healers, and six DPS (damage per second). The best way that I may explain the group is to briefly describe the existing class system. At the time there were ten classes available to play, and each class has a different functionality to how they work in the game. Each class has a set of three specializations or specs that influence the play style of the character even more. Some classes may have more adaptive specs that allow them to preform two or possibly all three roles in a group dynamic (but not at the same time!). For example the melee class of the rogue is limited to pure damage at close range so the spec is more of a personal preference. The death knight class has two performable roles from their specs, they have the choice of being frost (the tanking spec at the time) or blood/unholy and become DPS. A few of the classes may serve as all roles. A paladin has these abilities with their specs of: Holy (heal), Protection (tank), or Retribution (DPS). Understanding your class and its functionality to the fine details is crucial to success. The tanks role is to mitigate the massive amounts of damage from the boss and the adds (or additional enemies brought on by the boss). The aspects that are looked for in a tank is high stamina which directly correlates to the amount of health the player has, and depending on the class of tank a high damage mitigation percentage. As an example of mitigation by class is a druid tank, which takes the form of a bear. The form of a bear grants high armor (reduces damage taken by a %), and high dodge chance (chance to avoid all damage from a single strike). A healers specific role in the battle is as implied by the title, they heal the group and protects them from damage to the best of their abilities. A good example of the different ways a healer by class has protective abilities is to look into the tactics of the restoration specialized shaman. They have a spell that places an earthen shield over a player (usually a tank) that has nine charges, every time the player is struck while buffed (effected by a beneficial spell) they are healed for an amount. This heal essentially reduces the amount of damage taken or even heals more than the 1

Cory Boggs

Project 1: Part 1

damage caused therefore negating it completely. A DPS is the majority of any well balanced raid (ten or more people in a group). Their role is to cause as much damage to the enemy as possible. As the name suggests the quality of damage dealer is the amount of damage they produce per second. There are many ways to kill in the world of Azeroth, there are melee fighters such as the warrior with high armor spear-heading the assault, or the hunter class in the back shooting magical arrows or bullets while their trained pet animal attacks in melee range. There are also spell casters such as the mage, a class that is specialized in the destructive magics of fire, ice, and pure celestial magic referred to as arcane. They are very vulnerable due to their low armor so they are made to deal damage from a distance and have many abilities to keep the ideal distance from their opponents. After spending much time working with each one of my guild-mates we have all learned all of each others styles and developed the much needed communicational skills, we are finally ready to prove ourselves against the strongest fight the game has to throw at us the Lich King. The fight is broken down into five separate phases that change at a certain percentage of the boss. Phase one involves the main protagonist being incased in a tomb of ice and leaving the group to deal with the Lich King on our own. The fight starts with the main tank taunting the boss which forces them to focus attacks on them, and walking them to the edge of the platform for reasons explained later. The DPS take their place behind the boss because the boss cannot mitigate their damage as well. The healers are broken down to main healer and raid healer. The main healer is in charge of the main tank taking massive amounts of damage, and the raid healer is responsible for the others that are taking significantly lighter damage. The fight continues like this till phase two is triggered. At this point the boss runs to the center and casts a channeled spell (which must be continuously casted to be used). The spell is an AoE or Area of Effect and it deals damage to all targets within its vicinity. By walking the boss to the edge of of the plateau he must run back to the center and that gives the group enough time to reach the safe zone located at the outer most part of the fighting area. While phase two begins the boss is unapproachable because of the deadly damage he produces. So he summons two very powerful zombie minions as adds that the two tanks must immediately have attacking them. Addition to the adds he inflicts one random player with a disease that will kill whoever is effected with it instantly after ten seconds pass, it is also spread to the nearest target when cured. To over come this particular obstacle the group must communicate who has the disease, and then the whole group arranges themselves to ensure the adds are the closest to the infected player before the healer cures them of it. This is done so the disease is then transferred to and instantly kills the add. This happens till the two adds are dead. Phase three starts when the adds are dead, the boss then stops casting the AoE and casts a spell that destroys the outer most ring which is where the group is located, so now being safe to approach the boss the group resumes the arrangement of phase one. Phase three brings in the bosses ability to summon two ghostly angels called Valkyrs that will life one player each off the ground and carry them off the platform to drop them, thus another instant death. The goal at this point is to kill the adds before they reach the drop zone, to give the group time to react they snare and root the adds (spells that slow the movement) till they die. Randomly during this phase the boss will cast an AoE spell under a random player. At first the AoE is so small it only damages the person it was casted on but it grows exponentially for the time a player is in it. So to keep the AoE from growing to the point its unavoidable and results in a wipe (everyone died {loss}) it is imperative that the person reacts and moves away the second

Cory Boggs

Project 1: Part 1

it is placed under them. This AoE is much easier to deal with if the raid members are spread out evenly so no one is standing within the AoE while if it is not cast on them. This process continues till phase four. This phase consists of the same of all the fight mechanics of phases one and three with the addition of the bosss sword Frostmourne stealing the soul of one random player that he is not attacking. This player is sucked into the world of the sword that has absorbed millions of souls. At this point the only thing visible on the battle field for this player is the sword floating in the center and a ghostly character that is the Lich Kings father whom he betrayed. If the player is a healer they keep the ghost healed while he destroys the sword, or as DPS they aide him in destroying the sword from the spirit world. For the other players during this they cannot see, or help the player within the sword. When the selected player succeeds in escaping the spirit world they apply a debuff (or harmful spell) that increases the damage taken by the boss by 100% but also increases his damage done by 50%. This is the most intense part of the fight. Everyone casts their CD spells (spells that have a several minute cool down that benefits the class significantly. The tanks are taking unreal amounts of damage that could kill them instantly, the healers are straining themselves to keep everyone alive, the DPS should be nearly sweating from the amount of stress put on them to do the most damage possible and end it as soon as possible. Phase five comes when the Lich King reaches 10% health. At this time he instantly kills everyone in the group. This was definitely an absolute shot to the heart seeing it for the first time. After everyone dying a cinematic scripted scene plays out where the Lich King gloats about defeating the greatest warriors of the planet and how they will serve him even better once he raises them from the dead as his loyal servants. Before he can do this the protagonist breaks free of the tomb and deals a blow that shatters the sword Frostmourne and any power it gave the Lich King, this also resurrects the entire group. The destruction of the sword releases all the tortured souls that have been captured by the Lich King, they hold him back long enough for the protagonist to deliver the final strike to the boss. As the Lich King dies the spirit of his father (and the former benevolent king of their homeland) appears and simply says No king rules forever my son. This is when we all screamed in celebration for being the first group of thousands to be successful in conquering the hardest fight in the game. We were widely known and respected across the server as the best. This is the most memorable achievement that I have had in this game, it took much time, work, and sacrifices. I consider my sponsor my guild and my group mates that I worked with refining my skills and learning more, I achieved more than I previously believed was possible before.