Norman Ralph

I started a new job at the end of August so will be taking some time to settle in and get the gossip before I blog in more depth about it.

I am migrating the test bed part of my site to a different host over the next few weeks, so if you notice anything out of the ordinary on the site then contact me and let me know.

There are essentially 3 parts to this boss and each one is all about positioning. Part one is the phase where Magmaw casts pillar of flame. The second part is the adds phase. The final part is the bit where Magmaw eats the tank. The fight cycles through these phases until wipe or win.

PHASE 1:
This is the starting phase on the pull and the transition phase between adds and mangle.

Starting positions
MT – stand in front and slightly to right of Magmaw
DPS – Stand at minimum range in front and to the left of Magmaw, except for Hunter who will stand at maximum range (staying in range of healers)
Healers – Stack on DPS

Tactics
Raid will take occasional raid wide damage, healers just need to keep up with AoE heals and spam healing. Magmaw will cast “Pillar of Flame” on a random target who is more than 15 yards from him. If positioning is right this will always be the Hunter. Hunter needs to move out of flame and lay an ice trap.

PHASE 2
This is the adds phase and will start as soon as Magmaw casts pillar of flame and is basically a CC and AoE dps race.

Starting positions
MT – as phase 1
DPS – as phase 1 but Hunter now joins main dps stack
Heals – as phase 1

Tactics
Ranged DPS will target all slowing, CC, knockbacks and stuns at the adds whilst nuking them down. It is important that the adds not be allowed to come into melee range of anybody, so if dps is not enough then the adds will need kiting until dead. Melee DPS continue to hit the boss and should feel free to use any ranged dps abilities to help on the adds if needed. Healers should continue to manage raid damage and keep tank up.

PHASE 3
This is the phase where the tank gets swallowed and max dps needs to be put out on boss. All adds need to be down by this stage.

Starting positions
MT – inside Magmaw’s mouth
DPS – Ranged DPS need to step back slightly from boss so they are out of melee range and go all out nuke. 2x melee DPS need to jump on Magmaw’s back, rest should nuke boss
Healers – Stack on ranged

Tactics
Tank will get mangled and then swallowed by Magmaw and will have a 50% armour reduction buff applied. Healers will need to focus heal tank as intial damage at this stage is 100k over 5 seconds. Once inside the mouth the tank should go full dps as they will do 100% extra damage. As soon as tank is swallowed, 2 melee dpes will need to jump on Magmaw’s back and apply the chain ability so that Magmaw is chained to spikes. Once chained, rest of dps need to go all out on the boss and healers should regen mana – pop divine plea, mana tide totem etc as there should be no raid damage throughout the majority of this phase. Any self heals etc should be used by raid to allow healers full restoration time. Magmaw will case AoE fire on half of the room, dps and healers shoould move to other side of room when this happens. At end of this phase Magmaw will do damage to a random raid member in melee range, so make sure all except tank are out of range.

The fight then resets and repeats.

The site will be changing direction slightly over the coming months. The flavour of the site will be returning to its roots as an outlet for things I enjoy and that means increasing the variety of topics I will be posting about. Having said that, a lot of the posts will start to see a more sporting flavour.

If anyone has any strong feelings about this change then feel free to contact me and let me know.

This post is just a quick update to tease visitors to my site with a glimpse at a project I am currently working on. I will be releasing more information over the next couple of weeks, but it is big news and represents quite a shift for me.

At the moment, all I can say is that The No Man will be making a comeback, but not in the guise many will expect!

For those that don’t know what I’m talking about all will become clear soon enough. The No Man is a moniker that was given to me when I decided that there wasn’t enough democracy at the student union at the University of Leeds as every referendum motion and other political action was left unopposed.

Keep your eyes on the site as I will be posting updates on this until we go for the big announcement!

I’m back in the UK following my trip to Europe. Will be adding some blog posts over the next few days on a few of the ideas and thoughts I had whilst sitting by the pool drinking mojitos.

I am currently away on a road trip across Europe which the keen eyed amongst you will have noticed due to the daily updates I have been posting. There will be some video posts coming along from France in a week or so.

I have been mulling over the way in which I produce content for the site and think I will be moving to some new media types, i.e. audio and video blogs for a few of the posts. I really want to get some more interactive material up on the site too to encourage debate and conversation. Anyway, I will be beavering away on the background stuff to make this possible and keep you informed over the coming weeks.

All my new blogs about World of Warcraft will appear at my new dedicated WoW site Casual Wower. Enjoy!

It has been the best part of two months since my last meaningful post. This has been down to a number of factors but mainly down to the fact I started to write a post on sustainability of small atheist social groups which grew into a five part essay on atheist communities. I will be posting this essay in its five parts once a week starting this weekend. Watch this space!