| Author: Kyth |
Overview
The Immortal
Within one raid lockout period, defeat every boss in Naxxramas on Heroic Difficulty without allowing any raid member to die during any of the boss encounters.
This document will help guilds who need some tips on how to get The Immortal: one or two deaths each week are in your way, and it always seems to be bad luck stopping you.
The Immortal is an achievement for completing all the bosses in Naxx25 without having a single death (on a boss.) It's one of the requirements for "Heroic: Glory of the Raider", the achievement that rewards a 310% speed protodrake.
While it's definitely dependent a bit on luck (and server stability), there are also strategy points you can use to increase the odds of success. I have read repeated stories from people on various forums saying "we would have had immortal except..." and part of the time it's something that would've been fixed with a slightly safer strategy.
Working on other achievements for Glory of the Raider?
Check out our individual achievement strategy guides linked at: GloryOfTheRaider
Contents |
Raid Composition
Trash deaths don't matter for The Immortal, bosses do.
For most of the bosses, extra healing wouldn't have prevented a death. Most non-tank deaths in Naxx are directly attributable to poor play, and even 10 more healers wouldn't have saved someone. So while you don't want to skimp on healing, there's no point in bringing 10-11 healers.
To quote a friend, "Higher DPS is the best MP5 there is" -- the safest way to finish a fight can often be to stack DPS, and not healing.
While it's true there's a handful of bosses where melee can die more easily than ranged (KT and 4H come to mind), there's no reason to raid stack and take zero melee. Just don't bring so many that you won't have room around KT.
Motivation
When we were pushing to get Immortal, we had a rule: if you are the first to die and it's deemed by the officers to have been your fault and preventable, then you owe the guild two Paris Hilton bags: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38082
They're randomed off amongst the raid members. (We also have this rule for dying to void zones on Sarth.)
Similarly, if, e.g., your raiders are bad about decursing on Noth, you can offer a minimal reward (100g?) to whoever is the highest decurser on a successful Immortal run. (not too high, since not all classes can participate -- but it can foster some healthy competition.)
Uninstall Damage Meters
This is probably the best "tip", or some version of it: get your DPS to understand that their epeen doesn't matter that night in any way and if they can give up some DPS for a little safety, they should. The Immortal doesn't involve a minimum DPS amount, just zero deaths, and DPS is irrelevent in almost every fight in Naxx.
No prizes given out for top of the meters, just for staying alive.
The Disconnect Boss
The internet/disconnect boss is probably the hardest boss we ever face.
But there *are* things you can do: our achievement night had a disconnect that could have been fatal, and so did Premonition's.
One, understand ahead of time which bosses (and when) a DC will be a problem. Sometimes, if you're alert, you can just heal through it (e.g. Heigan.) Sometimes you can adjust the raid (e.g. Thaddius.) Sometimes it's just a key player and you can have a backup (e.g. Raz.) Sometimes you have no options (e.g. Sapphiron.)
I'm not sure of the exact mechanics of when you can heal a disconnected person and when you can't -- that's always worth trying however.
When it seems you have no options, you do: Guardian Spirit. http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47788
Guardian Spirit Increased healing received by 40% and will prevent 1 killing blow. 10 seconds remaining
Have all your holy priests spec into it ahead of time and know their order of casting it if it they need to. You *can* have disconnects even in the worst possible cases and survive, as long as your raiders react quickly.
Naxxramas
Naxx has four quarters: Arachnid, Construct, Military and Plague. And then, once you've cleared those, Frostwyrm Lair is available.
You can either start with the harder bosses first (Thaddius, Heigen, etc.) to follow the principle of "if you're going to fail, fail early", or you can start with the easier bosses, so you can still do "And They'll All Go Down Together" if someone died.
How to run a safe Naxx raid, quarter by quarter
Arachnid Quarter
Anub'Rekhan
It's very hard to lose someone here as long as your healers understand to stay away during Locust Swarm so they don't get silenced.
If someone disconnects and you can't land heals, you may need to use guardian spirit on them if they get locust swarm.
Grand Widow Faerlina
We opt to just burn her down, ignoring the adds. The fight is over a lot sooner and there are no mana concerns.
Even if you want to kill the adds like normal, have your healers *assume* the enrage will still go off, so in case the DPS messes up there's no risk of the tank dying.
If someone disconnects and you can't land heals, you may need to use guardian spirit on them if they get rain of fire or the poison dot on them.
Maexxna
Assign two people and two backups to the webs. Make sure, if you have a web healer, that *they* have a backup. Warriors and mages should both help control the spiderlings when they spawn.
Don't just burn straight through her enrage unless you're confident your tank can make it: hold DPS so you burn to 30% right *after* everyone gets web wrapped, so the healers aren't stunned right at the start of enrage.
If someone disconnects and you can't land heals, you may need to use guardian spirit on them if they get web wrapped -- it might get dicey.
Plague Quarter
Noth the Plaguebringer
Offer a small award to whoever decurses the most number of times (100g or whatever.)
Your DPS needs to be strong on Noth: just offtank the adds while he's on the ground, you can kill them when he goes up to the balcony. The last thing you want is the fight to go on forever.
Your DPS needs to know that, when Noth blinks, he drops threat. Your tank needs to be fast to pick him up, but your DPS also need to pause for a moment to make sure the tank gets him, otherwise it's very easy for them to outaggro the initial tank threat and die.
Your only disconnect concerns here are if they're a tank and had mobs on them.
Heigan the Unclean
For P2, your healers *must* heal anyone who clips the flames. It's not automatic death unless they take multiple ticks or aren't healed.
If someone disconnects on Heigan, you may be able to heal them through it even if they are standing in the flames -- Premonition did on their kill.
NOTE: THE TWO TACTICS BELOW HAVE BEEN REPORTEDLY FIXED IN 3.0.8. Source.
According to this post on tankspot, you can tank Heigan on the platform in P1 and your ranged can still out-range the silence/disease while remaining on the platform. This makes P1 easier.
If you're really desperate, there *is* a safe spot on Heigan still (at least until they nerf it?) -- I've never used it myself, so I'll just quote someone else's description of it:
"The spot is right near the front door between where the glyphs on the floor come together and form a 3 yard gap. Just big enough to be covered by a Tauren. Unbelievably we stacked 10 people on this one spot and it works." (Khue on Tankspot.com)
To the right is a screenshot courtesy of Saonserey of Vital on Dark Iron which actually shows the safe spot.
Loatheb
If you know you can beat the enrage on him easily, then bring some extra healers for safety. Make sure your ranged group up to maximize the value of AE heals. You can put one AE healer in each group and make them responsible for that group.
Make sure spores are being done in an orderly fashion: call the groups on vent in order as each spore spawns, and have someone responsible assigned to kill the spore when everyone is there (a healer can actually be a great choice for this.)
Just keep an eye on any disconnected people: if they can't be healed, they may need Guardian Spirit.
Military Quarter
Instructor Razuvious
The hardest part of Raz somehow seems to be the pull now. You can initiate it by having a warrior run out there when Raz is on the near side, near the raid, and just shieldwall while the priests pick up the adds.
DPS *must* wait until they see Raz has targeted a mind controlled mob.
Make sure your priests know to stagger their mind controls, not both picking them up at once, because you don't ever want them to both drop at the same time.
Have a backup MC'er (or two) in case a primary MC'er disconnects. Just keep anyone else alive through his periodic AE.
Gothik the Harvester
Make sure your tanks and healers are communicating well: healers need to be someplace where the tanks can easily get mobs headed for them. Your DPS shouldn't go crazy AE'ing unless they're certain they won't pull off the tanks.
The Four Horseman
The safest way to do this is with a full four tanks and 7-8 healers. Split up the tank and healer crews ahead of time so everyone knows what they're doing.
On engage, you may be able to just burn down Thane without the stacks getting too high. If so, do so, and burn down Rivendare after him.
If not, when you're swapping sides make sure the DPS stays in until the last meteor lands and *then* move: otherwise you will have deaths.
Melee should never get near Zeliak, it's just not worth it. The kill is slower, but the risk is too high. Ranged need to be spread out as well.
If someone disconnects, they should be fine as long as it's next to a boss already dead (we had someone disconnect during Thane.) Otherwise, it may be very challenging to keep them alive if they can't get back in very quickly.
Construct (Abomination) Quarter
Patchwerk
Melee do not have to slime dip. All they need to do is make absolutely 100% sure that your last hateful tank (2nd or 3rd depending on what you do -- we use three) has taken a hateful before they go in.
Have the third hateful tank call "Melee go" when he's taken a hateful and you won't have any melee deaths.
Grobbulus
Make sure everyone turns spell effects *up* to be able to see the slimes.
Your tank needs to be good at moving him gradually around the room, always being conscious of making sure there's room behind him to drop the slimes. Ranged run to a safe spot where the tank has already been (*not* where he's going.) Melee need to help kill the Toxic Slimes that spawn, those can't be allowed to accumulate.
Don't ever step in front of Grobb, otherwise he'll spawn extra slimes.
If someone disconnects it will be okay unless they get injected with the mutagen. In that case the entire ranged clump will need to reposition and be *very* careful to avoid the spreading cloud from the person -- and you need to hope they disappear from the game before they die.
If you die after Grobb has died, but before you get out of combat, it's reportedly okay and you will still get the achievement.
Gluth
Have an experienced kiter for every grate, and an extra one able to step in if need be. Use frost traps and earthbind as needed. Don't be afraid to take DPS off Gluth, as long as your kiters are good you'll do fine.
On Decimate, everyone should pop a HS/pot just in case -- no harm in not doing it.
All AE (not just mages) need to be ready to AE on decimate, and ranged need to understand their number one priority is taking care of all of the decimated zombie chow.
Sebudai of <Juggernaut> notes: We had 3 people die to Decimate because our Commanding Shout faded at precisely the wrong split second causing us to get hit for more than our max health. Make sure you either refresh it early or don't use it -- although moving in and out of range of a warlock imp may cause the same problem.
The same problem can happen with lifetap -- it's just something your raiders need to be aware of and plan around.
Thaddius
In patch 3.0.8 mages and priests will be able to cast slow fall/levitate on others. So if you have someone who just *cannot* make the jump, you have an option.
We have found that Thaddius is most simple if we just engage him where he stands, and on the first polarity Positive goes right, Negative goes left.
On each Polarity shift after that, just run right through him. As long as you move quickly (have one person calling "shift!" on vent each time it's being cast) you won't ever hit anyone with your charge.
Melee need to make *extra* sure they are standing far enough back that they have no chance of dying to the opposite side's charge -- be at the limit of his hitbox.
If someone disconnects, simply move Thaddius. We had a disconnect on our kill and the entire raid shifted from his spawn spot to instead be up against the wall you jump down to after the first two mobs are dead.
Once someone reconnects, it's vitally important that they do *not* rejoin the raid until they get a charge in the next polarity shift, otherwise they will die.
Frostwyrm Lair
Sapphiron
If you currently split your raid in half, rather than having all ranged on one side, then designate a spot to group up during air phase -- this helps avoid the "all the iceblocks on one side" problem that has been the cause of at least two failed immortals in top guilds that I know of (not ours.)
We choose his tail, and as he raises up everyone moves in that direction.
Don't start moving to the iceblock after the first one lands however: there's an AE effect each time one lands and you can't be clumped up for it. After the second it's safe to start moving forwards, and after the third everyone needs to rush behind one.
Check to see if you have LoS on Sapphiron': target Sapph and try to cast a hostile action. If you can, you are *not* behind an iceblock and you need to shift closer. Even healers need to do this.
Outside of that, emphasize to your melee that living is their highest priority, not DPS. Sapph *will* die as long as they live.
Consider giving an award to the highest decurser on each side, if you have problems with the DPS not prioritizing decursing.
Premonition had a disconnect on Sapphiron and they kept him alive with Guardian Spirit through the big frost bomb he breaths on the raid.
Kel'Thuzad
The biggest killers here are:
- mana bomb
- Ice Tomb
- killing MC'd people
- Deaths after MC goes off
- Void Zones
If you get mana bomb, might as well be safe and back up from the raid if you can, or back away from someone who just got it.
Emphasize to your raid how important it is to spread out. Their DPS does *not* matter: if a healer or a tank is moving through your area, as a DPS you must stop DPS'ing and move to avoid chaining Ice Tomb.
This is the one fight where it really can be beneficial to bring less melee if your melee aren't good at not chaining Ice Tomb.
We switched to using fear instead of Polymorph for the bulk of our mind controls, simply because polymorph on the melee kept them in place next to where all the AE's were going off (since so many classes have AE abilities that are worth using against single targets now) and it was too easy for them to die.
Your DPS needs to know that, when he mind controls, he drops threat. Your tank needs to be fast to pick him up, but your DPS also need to pause for a moment to make sure KT is on the tank and the tank has aggro if your next Pyroblast crits.
When moving to avoid a void zone, never get close enough to someone else that you'd change Tomb if it gets cast on either of you.
Make sure your Tomb healers can reach the entire raid, and that someone has backup if one of them gets Tombed.
Healers that have an instant cast heal should save them to use them when a Tomb happens (Riptide, Holy Shock)to give a buffer time for the quick/small heals to land (Flash Heal, Nourish).
Here's a tip for paladins from Lorn, in response to this article:
Just wanted to say that your paladins should all keep their Blessings of Sacrifice on cooldown constantly during the Kel’thuzad fight if you’re aiming for Immortal/Undying.
Kel can make you cast it on him during mind control and that will get you pretty much instantly killed, as my retribution paladin found out during this week’s Naxx.
If someone disconnects, just get away from them -- use Guardian Spirit if you have to, if they get Ice Tombed.
Jan 08 2009 6:43 pm
Just wanted to say that your paladins should all keep their Blessings of Sacrifice on cooldown constantly during the Kel'thuzad fight if you're aiming for Immortal/Undying. Kel can make you cast it on him during mind control and that will get you pretty much instantly killed, as my retribution paladin found out during this week's Naxx.
Jan 13 2009 9:31 am
You might also want to make sure your rogue/rogues keep their blind on cooldown, last week I got instantly blinded by a rogue that got mind controlled, the same second a void zone spawned right under my feet.. that's probably like one in a million, but loosing the immortal because of that would probably be enough to make anyone quit the game.
Jan 13 2009 9:42 am
*nod* stuff like that can happen. Someone can still, e.g., Guardian Spirit you though.
Jan 23 2009 8:12 pm
I can confirm that it's no longer possible to tank Heigan on the platform in Phase 1 since patch 3.0.8. The range on the silence/disease has been extended considerably and our ranged and healers found that we needed to stand quite far back on the platform, even with Heigan tanked out on the dance floor, to outrange the affect.
Feb 03 2009 7:23 am
We tried doing it yesterday and learned that on KT the lack of ranged dps (we had none) is a bad bad thing, long story short - the ladies got close and there was bouncing and dieing alot ;) Onwards to next reset and hopefully the title then :)
Feb 10 2009 11:46 am
As everyone in your raid probably has, Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs (or equals) come up with a range meter. This helps a big bunch for not chaining Ice Tombs. Before you start the fight, make everyone in the raid (especially melee, more especially if they are stacking up because of too much melee) type /range check, and set the meter to 10 yards. This CAN save lives on KT.
Feb 11 2009 3:55 pm
What are the chances of both OT's getting MC'd.... poor us, poor us.
Feb 11 2009 4:00 pm
Oof -- that *really really* sucks.
Feb 15 2009 3:17 pm
"Just wanted to say that your paladins should all keep their Blessings of Sacrifice on cooldown constantly during the Kel’thuzad fight if you’re aiming for Immortal/Undying.
Kel can make you cast it on him during mind control and that will get you pretty much instantly killed, as my retribution paladin found out during this week’s Naxx. "
tell yours dk not to use hysteria during this fight, with a bit a luck they can be mind control and cast hysteria on Kel'thusadFeb 16 2009 3:01 pm
Very good tactics and comments thnx guys all.Imo the most important thing is for the players to be P-R-O.To get the most trusted,most skilled and good players in your guild.Even with 20 ppl it is possible if u have the dps.
Feb 17 2009 6:56 am
Hey Kyth, Awesome strats so far!
I was just browsing through this guide for the immortal and started to think of Naxx back when it was 40 man. On Thaddius more specifically. There where another tactic there, one with 4 camps.
Basically you think of a square around Thaddius and the 4 corners are the different camps. Everyone (including tank) starts at one camp. When the first shift comes all that gets negative go left and all that gets positive go right. When the next polarity shift comes, everyone that gets his debuff changed go right and everyone that have the same debuff goes left. By this you wont have the problem with people running through Thaddius and shocks someone, if someone is a slow runner its no problem either since youll be alone on the first spot.
Also if someone D/Cs youll be alone in the spot, at least until the next polarity shift.
It can be rather tricky for your raiders to learn this but when they do I think its a lot more safer than the current + boss - go clockwise.
If you want any other comments for this please contact me at EJ :)Feb 18 2009 7:18 am
"tell your dk not to use hysteria during this fight, with a bit a luck they can be mind control and cast hysteria on Kel'thusad" That's a ridiculous notion, sacrificing 20% of someone's dps for a 1/1000th chance of Kel'thuzad mind controlling DK and then futhermore casting hysteria on Kel'thuzad as well.
Mar 01 2009 7:03 pm
hey we was 4 times past sapphiron with no-one dieing, but still didnt make immortal .;so here some comments on KT fight
1) when the tank get's mc'd , melee runs out (obviously to play safe) BUT get mages to counterspell frostbolts at that time cuz a ranged or healer gettin iceblocked , can still be nuked after iceblock ends while he might be not at full hp
2) people who can fear shuld make sure its not rdy when they get mc'd , u CAN fear the tank or healers which can lead to disaster (so i kinda disagree using fear on mc'd people , well at least dont use it on mc'd ranged/healers imo)
3) when a healer gets mana detonation , dps shuld move away from em, healers sometime dont have time to move much
4) palla's shuld make sure BoS is used all fight so KT doesnt ninja it when he mc a palla! (it hurts when he does)
5) druids : dont cyclone mc'd melee when cyclone ends same time with mc , they culd be in bad place for chain icetombs
so beware : KT is there to ruin your immortal run ;-)yes all this happened to us while haveing flawless runs up to KT ..
Mar 02 2009 2:23 am
We lost it on Sapphiron yesterday because of a disconnect, Guardian Spirit was used but too soon, thus ending exactly 1 second before bomb exploded, leading to the disconnected player's death, who ofc went offline 2 or 3 seconds later...So yeah, guardian spirit is a solution, but timing has to be good. I guess waiting for the bomb to be cast, or even a bit after, is a good idea.
Mar 02 2009 7:01 am
"That's a ridiculous notion, sacrificing 20% of someone's dps for a 1/1000th chance of Kel'thuzad mind controlling DK and then futhermore casting hysteria on Kel'thuzad as well." I think you're retarded, Hysteria is not 20% of someones damage but more around 5%, if its a geared fury warrior getting Hysteria.
Mar 02 2009 10:57 am
Hey this was a good guide. For Heigan we just had a couple of the people that normally have a D/C problem sit outside of the room. Just a thought.
Mar 03 2009 8:33 am
I just read, that 4HM may actually not be part of Immortal. (Source: http://elitistjerks.com/1130750-post117.html) While I wouldn't put this second hand information to a test deliberately, it means that you probably should try to get on with Immortal, even after a death at 4HM. If it works, please post. :)
Mar 07 2009 1:27 pm
In response to SentinelBorg - I was on an 8 man Naxx last night and we had an Undying going as well. We had a death on 4H (which we did 8 man as well) and one of the raiders that still needed Undying still got it in the end!
Mar 13 2009 12:59 pm
Yeah 4H isn't part of the undying. In fact you'ld only need to kill kel
Mar 13 2009 2:49 pm
4H is part of it for the whole raid, the whole instance is. An individual only needs to kill Kel, but that's only if the rest of the ID qualifies for Undying/immortal.
Mar 14 2009 4:16 pm
Tip: Your Blood DKs should only use Dancing Rune Weapon right after a MC, because when you get MCed while DRW is up, your own DRW will burn you down in seconds. (Happed to me last kel kill)
Mar 14 2009 7:33 pm
I'm curious about the death(s) vs. 4HM for those who got the achievement.
Did the death(s) happen before or after Baron Rivendare died? Thanks. Nyt 80 Bear
CrushridgeMar 16 2009 4:16 am
To all rogues use VANISH ! I got MC’ed in KT fight vanish and then land a killing spree on one of the priests and there was no 1 around him and he die. They can’t CC me cuz of the vanish and they didnt see me coming. We end by me laughing on vent, no 1 say nothing and after the fight was over i end with guild kick :)
Mar 16 2009 6:50 am
BoS CD is reset on MC from Kel. It's a known bug, and there isnt a dam thing pallies can do about it.
Mar 16 2009 10:34 pm
Another thing that can really help... we got all our holy and retadins to spec into Divine Guardian for the 30% raid wide shield wall on bubble. You lose a bit of DPS and I think the Holy's lose a chunk of crit, but it's invaluable for an Immortal run.
We chain cycled it on a number of bosses to minimise the possibility of deaths like the Heigan dance, Maex Web Wraps, Faerlina enrage, Gluths Decemate etc etc. But most importantly we used one on every KT mindcontrol, which really helped with loose players beating on people and even stopped a caster dying due to agro from KT.
The only RNG factor in this achievement is server stability, everything else can have a redundancy in place for "what ifs". We also made it very clear when we started aiming for the achievement that anyone who died (and we deemed it to be their fault) would not be coming in future weeks. It actually encouraged everyone to play better and the overall morale was raised. Got it on the second week.
Also, another trick on Saphiron if you don't think you'll make it behind a block is to run into the grates around the back of the room, because of the slight dip it actually counts as being out of LoS.Mar 18 2009 7:03 am
On 4HM only the Baron has to be killed before anybody dies for the achievement but blizzard might change that in 3.1
Mar 21 2009 1:57 pm
I love saonserey's UI:P. Where can i get it?
Mar 21 2009 3:41 pm
Also, on Gluth.
MAKE SURE YOUR RET PALLY'S DO NOT USE: Seal of the Martyr/Seal of Blood! (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53720)/(http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=31892)
Thank you.
Other then that, great guide :)Mar 22 2009 12:24 pm
Make sure that at least 2 healers got the offtanks in range... ^_^
Mar 26 2009 7:50 am
The DK Hysteria ability is disabled when you are MC'd, it was fixed in beta.
May 10 2009 8:41 pm
Have your Mages ready at all times to spell steal any HoT / Heal / Shield that MC'd healers can cast on Kel, it WILL help out.
May 27 2009 6:42 am
Just want to tell, it might be smart for DK's to blow their Anti-magic shells. Since this makes them immune to Poly, traps, cyclone, blind and etc. Might not be that long to be a raid destroyer, but you will never know. Go Mc'ed on my DK and blowed all CD + Anti-magic shell, after that one healer was dead. The other next to him (within 10y) was under 20%.