Oondasta

As soon as I logged in yesterday, Veluxia sent me a tell informing me that Oondasta (the new world boss) was up and she was in a raid to kill it so I quickly logged onto my Alliance toon. Getting out to the Isle was going to take a bit of effort as I hadn’t made the trip there yet. Even before I had started flying, they had pulled the boss so it was a race to get out there in time. With only the skill for basic flying, I took the only option as a summon was now out of the question – a taxi. Veluxia commented on the sheer number of people so I asked if there were Hordies there as well. Turns out it was all Alliance – four raids worth of Alliance! By then the boss was at already at 30%!

Once I landed in Zouchin Village (thank goodness I already had the flight path) I took off and flew the last leg of the journey, levitating myself as I fell into the water (since the Isle of Bones is a no-fly zone). It was then a quick race to manoeuvre my way to the middle of the island as fast as I could. Without a direhorn costume, I managed to aggro quite a bit but I passed so many ghosts along the way it acted as a kind of road map to the raid.

By the time I had arrived at the scene, it was a massacre, only a handful of people were alive and I was eager to shoot off my first cast… a few seconds later I was dead. After the second death, I managed to get a battle rez but this was not a good idea due to his abilities.

One of the first things I noticed amongst the sea of bones was the proximity warning on my screen. But it’s hard to stay at range when you have that many people, particularly if those toons standing next to you are not in your raid. In the handful of times that I died, most of the time was spent casting once, instant dying and then spending a bit of time running back.

I hadn’t read up on the fight at that point so I wasn’t sure of his abilities but the Piercing Roar was sure familiar from the 91 elites out there – as Cool and I found out earlier.

Credit: Effraeti, Awaiting the Muse

Abilities

• Crush – Oondasta crushes his current target, inflicting 462500 to 537500 Physical damage and reducing armor by 25% for 1 min. This effect stacks.
• Alpha Male – Oondasta seeks only the most hearty challengers, making him immune to taunts, but also increasing tank-specced players’ threat against him by 100%.
• Frill Blast – Oondasta’s armor is more than just for decoration, and can charge up this powerful blast that inflicts 800000 Fire damage to all players in a 60-yard hemisphere in front of Oondasta.
• Growing Fury – Oondasta’s rage grows as the fight progresses, increasing all damage by 10%. This effect stacks.
• Piercing Roar – Oondasta unleashes a piercing roar, inflicting 200000 Physical damage to all players and interrupting spell-casting, preventing spells of that school from being cast for 10 sec.
• Spiritfire Beam – Oondasta fires a beam of spiritfire energy at a player, inflicting 138750 to 161250 Fire damage and jumping to a nearby ally. Up to 20 players can be affected, with damage increasing by 50% with each jump.

This was the view for most of the fight – running in ghost form

My kill shot as I died a few seconds earlier.

Oondasta can drop the Reins of the Cobalt Primordial Direhorn as well as some 522 epic loot. I managed to walk away with an achievement and a Shiny Pile of Refuse which is the Thunder King version of a consolation bag.

Looking at his abilities now, it’s no wonder it took that many people to kill him and the reason for all the instant deaths. From what I’ve read, there were a lot of server firsts yesterday so I’m really happy to be able to say I was one of the first to see him in all his glory. I just hope Cool can take the journey with me next time and on our mains!

Thx again to Veluxia for the alert and invite. You’re a star!

Edit: Oondasta’s health pool has since been nerfed by 50% (872 million to 436 million) so will need a lot less people to kill him these days. Last night we killed him with two raids.