Shadowlands Delivers! Onineko storms into Castle Nathria 6/10N

Raiding is back! Castle Nathria launched this week and Onineko took our first steps into the inaugural raid of the Shadowlands expansion. But first, a word from our sponsors:

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*ehem*

Castle Nathria kicks off with the Bat Boss (BB for short). BB, like most of Facey’s patients, can’t see for shit, and this is the fundamental mechanic of the BB encounter. Unfortunately, like BB most of the fine raiders in Onineko also have eyesight issues, and are unable to see the difference between line of sight and not. So I pose a question to you, the reader, if 30 blind people and a blind bat can’t see each other, will the boss die?

The sharp ones amongst you will of course know the answer depends on whether the raid is set to normal or heroic. Indeed this is a funky boss to kick off with and was a good warm up for the night to come.

Fact of the Fight: Shacarius died twice on the kill.

5/7 Roaks

We progressed onto the second boss, Goldilocks and the 3 doggos (henceforth G3). From the get go, I could tell blizzard had stepped up their game and in spite of some minor threat issues (I’m so sorry Zura) this was a real fun one to tank. The first dog is kinda boring and to be honest I’m not sure I’m really needed as Bob is usually doing fine on his own, but shit gets real once dog two shows up, and the ghosties spawn and start walking up to G3. Anyway, it looked like Bob was having fun kiting or something, I was too busy judging melee (*cough* Sandy) for facing their back to the raid and having knives rocket into the range group. Once doggo two is dead, doggo three makes his appearance and is also pretty nasty… but again Bob handled it so I just happily tanked the boss, making sure that Bob bastard didn’t outthreat the boss from me.

This was a real tough fight and possibly took the most wipes to get our heads around and for the second boss it was pretty neato.

Fact of the Fight: Angry died twice in this fight and STILL beat Shacarius on heals.

7/7 Roaks

Moving along, Hungering Destroyer was the next target and honestly… I’m really struggling to remember what this guy was all about. The tank mechanic was a stacking buff the boss gets from hitting the same target, but I remember the fight being way more complicated than that. In any case, I can’t think of anything interesting .

Fact of the Fight: Shacarius scored lowest in dps on this fight in the entire raid.

?/7 Roaks

Our final stop for the evening would be at the door to Artificer Xy’mox (AX) and this one was a doozey! Periodically, players are marked for dropping portals and theres some crazy coordination to land two portals at certain markers for the sake of performing mechanics later down the track.

There’s probably a bunch of mechanics you pleb players need to do, but for us tanks, it’s all about Glyph of Destruction, a debuff with an 8 second timer that will explode for a lot of damage if not taken out of the raid.

Then, just as the AX’s health is about to get to zero, the unthinkable happens. It turns out AX is a Paladin and he bubble hearths his way out of the instance. What a cunt.

Fact of the Fight: Shacarius is also a cunt.

2/7 Roaks

We returned the next night for round two and as it turns out, Kael’Thas (KT) is back after yet another mere setback, this time in what looks like an Anima BDSM dungeon as they milk the former Elven Prince for all he’s worth.

This is the so-called heal fight, but I wouldn’t know I’m not into that nonsense anymore, so instead it’s the add fight. We have:

• Big Boys
• Caster Boys
• Little Boys
• Stone Boys and
• Channel Boys

BBs need to be tanked, they do a debuff or something that requires taunting (standard). CBs have no threat table and lower threat generation abilities. LBs a small little shits that seem to have no bearing or consequence. SBs are difficult to gain threat if CBs are up, they also turn to stone at around 50% and if they get the cast off, heal to full. ChBs just run to the boss and do a thing.

Then phase two starts and KT comes down from his Spanish Donkey and and shits fire out his face and bum and everywhere else for a minute or two until phase one starts and rinse repeat.

Hectic fight, lots of shit going on, good fun!

Fact of the Fight: Shacarius died slowly over twenty seconds… and didn’t use his health stone.

6/7 Roaks

We finally come to the final boss of the week, Lady Inerva Darkvein (LID), from what I hear, there are mechanics with the giant anima cannisters and stuff and Facey and Yog deserve all the praise, however I’m known to have unreliable sources and for all we know, Sandy was doing all the mechanics (lol).

Like most of the fights in this raid, there’s a lot of shit going on at any one time, for me and Bob, we had to deal with LID trying to expose our heart and satisfy our most twisted and warped desires (actual spell names). I don’t know about my Bob, but I’m pretty fucked up so yeah…weird fight.

In any case, this one took a fair bit of coordination and some heroic solo efforts from a few individuals, good fight!

Fact of the Fight: Shacarius was the only player to die on the kill.

6/7 Roaks

That’s all the time we have folks, if you made it this far, thanks for reading!

– Roak