Just wondering if one of you MT types can give me some information from your combat log from an Anub'rhekan encounter.

I keep asking the nubs I'm in Pugs with to look it up for me but get no help and we cant get enough guild members on due to queue times sucking. Since I am a healing class I generally don't get close enough to get a message in my log when Anub'rhekan begins casting Locust Swarm

I have captured the gains Locust Swarm message since our MT moved too early too many times ;)

So my question to you melee/tank types is the message in your combat log:

Anub'Rhekan begins to cast Locust Swarm. ?

You cant see him casting in the combat log.

Sorry, you need to watch the encounter instead of asking for handouts.

;o

Handout? hmmm

We have devised our strats...I have even created timers based on the 90 second cycle of the Locust Swarm and we execute on these timers.

I informed you that I can see the "gains Locust Swarm" message and currently we use this to begin Kiting. If that message shows in my combat log, I'm guessing a "Cast" message shows up in a melee combat log.

I know Anub'Rhekan does the Ostrich move and slows when "gaining Locust Swarm", it would be even more beneficial to know when he "begins casting" so people can start moving sooner.

From a Mod programmers standpoint I want to make my Mod more efficient.

I simply asked for a message in a combat log which should be there. If you ( a mage standing =>30yards away) can not help please do not post.

The answer is clear: Sacrifice yourself one time. In the name of science!

1) This mage has killed him, and is in a respctable guild. Your an unkown, asking for a handout. (Maybe you can fix this)

2) There is no "LoL casting locust swarm" message in the log. Both of the warriors who tanked him (also the melee who was in range when we were learning him) said they didnt see anything.

GOD FORBID BLIZZARD MAKES AN ENCOUNTER THAT YOU CANT AUTO RUN WITH MODS.

Yeah, I've often wondered when Blizzard is going to stop throwing us a bone by putting everything in the combat log. Dark Glare was a nice example of how a lot of this stuff could work. Bellowing Roar would be, except it's also plainly visible in the combat log.

But even Dark Glare is on a very precise timer. Everyone knows that for 40 sec they don't have to worry about it, and then for 5 seconds every minute and a half they have to be super-alert about which direction he's going to glare. What if Dark Glare could happen anywhere from 30-60sec after the last one ended, randomly? That along would make phase 1 a lot harder. It'd force everyone to remain attentive to the color and positioning of the Eye, even while handling other threats and healing and staying spread out.

That sort of thing is one way I can see Blizzard introducing a higher degree of difficulty without necessarily requiring us to deal with 20 adds at once or making mobs that can one-shot our tanks. It's a concept that would apply equally well to a 10-man or even 5-man boss. Require attentiveness to one's environment rather than parsing a combat log and making a mod.

Man, I can't speak for anyone else, but I sure am impressed.

Man, you know it. Chicks luv my uber 1337 skilz.

I worded that incorrectly, but uh, I r 1337 sauce. kk thx.

It's a good thing that they don't make you take language courses to be in a 'respectable' guild. Or etiquette, even!


On a non-trolling note, I think they should only really give you numbers and names in the combat log, just for a universal point of reference when talking about the abilities. The 'starts casting' and such really can mess things up. I mean, just look at Premeditation for rogues. Not that it's a good ability in the first place, but the widespread nature of SCT means that anyone can see "Backstaberzzzxx gains Premeditation." If you don't fall out of your chair laughing, that rogue's lost his major advantage. Taking out the casting info from the combat log would at least help this.

But they should only really do this once they make sure that the casting animations will show up each and every time, or that there'll be some sort of hint or predictable indication about the ability. The Priests in ZG can get somewhat screwed up on my screen sometimes, where there'll be the "Jeklik begins to cast Heal!" message, but her hands won't glow at all. I'd have no problem with just watching visual or other cues, if they were there all the time, most of the time.

Back to the regularly scheduled thread discussion:

You will have to put on your Role-Playing hat here, but I actually enjoy running an event monitor and writing some simple code that can interface with WoW. The customization of Wow is almost limitless.

If you or I were to be toe-to-toe with these foes in the game, the time between us noticing an ability being used and our counter to that move would be split second.

The reality of our digital universe is that there is latency and hardware limitations. In order for us to achieve the same edge as we would up-close-and-personal, Blizzard has given us text that may reach our UI prior to the arrival of the graphics.

God forbid Blizzard makes an encounter where you have no idea why your release box is waiting for you to click "release".

But it's not, really. You aren't necessarily watching the boss to get a feel for when he's going to use his ability. You're focusing on other things, and a mod is watching it for you. The mod then parses it, and is set up to flash text on your screen or play a loud gong sound, or both, to make sure that even if you weren't paying attention before, you are aware that some attack is coming. There is a qualitative difference between having to watch your environment for cues and having a mod present the information in a manner that you can't ignore.

I'm not saying I don't use these mods, because of course I do. Step one in learning any boss is combat logging everything to time his specials and capture the relevant syntax so we can make the same sort of mod people have been making since they realized Magmadar fears every 30 seconds. But it doesn't have to be that way.

I thank for your the normal forum troll "LoL your spelling sucks" flame. Please, grow up. Alright, I admit, I presented my point incorrectly, but the point still stands.

I think Blizzard realized that people are making mods to think for them.

Sorry, but there is no combat log queue when Anub casts his Locust Swarm. Just l2p and start running 5 seconds before he is suppose to cast. Once he does his ostrich move, have a hunter turns pack on for the warrior, and haul ass.

Dont wanna break the news to you, Nax isnt something thats gonna be easy.

There's still something wrong with you're quotes.

well when i was on a couple of anub attempts and the warrior tanking anub had quuspell alert, it showed him when anub started to cast locus swarm. How is this possible if its not in the combat log?

Yup. That's also part of what makes the exchange in this thread even more amusing. :P

Irony ftw?

Anyway, a group of people from various Cenarius Horde and Alliance raiding guilds(I feel dirty every time I ask the paladins for Salv) have been working on Anub for the last 4 nights or so after our normal raid times. We decided to learn the fight on our own, rather than relying on a guide of some sort, and came up with a lot of things I haven't seen posted anywhere else.

While it won't help you to create a mod for it, you might find these observations useful:

1. There ~IS~ a visual cue when he begins to cast the swarm(not when he gains the aura, although a Detect Magic will make that obvious anyway). The problem is that it's either the exact same casting animation as Impale, or extremely similar. If Anub uses an Impale right around the time we expect him to cast a Locust Swarm, the MT will haul ass to start kiting him around the room with a normal speed Anub chasing him, and the raid group has to reposition accordingly to keep the MT/kiting hunter healed, but also avoid the swarm. Fortunately, ranged DPS can both reach him and avoid the swarm from the very middle of the room, so it's mainly an issue for the healers and the melee which will have to promptly reposition the add so they don't get webbed in the kiting path and owned by a swarm.

2. Whitetooth of Heist has been with us on one or two of our nights, and he actually has a very elegant mod for the fight, so it IS possible to make one. The significant thing we noticed from his mod, though, was that Anub seems to not always cast his swarm 1:30 in. He hypothesized that it was on a random timer between 1:30 and 2:00. We had at least two occasions where the swarm actually began casting two minutes after engaging him according to our timers. We're not sure what can cause this, but it's been another source of early kiting. It's realistically not a big deal to just kite him around the room for about 30 seconds in the case of a late swarm, but it can seriously throw people off.

Overall, it's really not that difficult of a fight, you just have to get the execution down, which is something that's very difficult in a pug unless you spend hours working on it with the same group. If you can, try having the same MT and MT group hunter every time you go. They're the ones who have it the hardest in this fight. We were actually able to get through a couple transitions last night, but our MT hunter kept dying to the swarm(Learn2kite Rusrus =P). We've got a few minor adjustments to make and we should have a lovely killshot to take home to mom tonight.

@Brilliance: Everybody who's trying to seriously test this content and isn't one of those "lol sorry I wiped us, my main is actually level 39 but I wanted to try a raid" deserves a cookie. We're all just trying to work out the finer points of the encounter so that we can walk into Naxx on patch night and watch world war three break out over the tier 3 bracers ;)

cough, im one of those dudes in your raid!! im just on newarrior since newladin is locked out. And yeah having a hunter not dying keeps a bunch. theres one thing im still not sure about the fight and its the corpse scarabs from the adds you killed already.

Haha, hey man. Didn't realize it was you :P

You should bring Newladin tonight. I'm not sure what time we're going(Eventide was hoping to play with C'thun tonight), but it'll probably be about 9 or 10 PST and, as much as I hate to say it, we're chronically short on paladins :S

Whenever I want to feel superior, I just turn off all my mods and laugh at the fact that I still rule and you're all still dying in spite of them.

the best way to learn the encounter if the test realm queues are a nightmare is to play wc3 tft playing as the scourge with a spider/crypt lord build.

Won't tell you anything about timers on Anub's abilities but it will tell you roughly what they do.

To know your enemy is to be your enemy.

The pvp realm doesn't have a long queue.

i have access only to the European Test realms, and the queu on both was ~6,500 five minutes ago :(

that and we can't transfer our characters in...