Onyxia Deep Breath and Phase 2

[Eonblue]

I posted this in guild forum but thought i would bring it up here too...

"Okay so i have been pretty curios about Ony's deep breath for sometime now and there seems to be three main theories as to what causes her to deep breath:

1. Two many people bunched up- Ony is smart and when she sees the oppurtunity to take out many raiders she will.
2. Lack of dots and or dps- I have personally noticed this and believe that her DB are significantly affected by dots-the more the merrier (no few than 10-20 on at all times in phase two consistently usually translates to no more than one maybe two DBs).
3. Lenght of time in phase two creates more DB-i have noticed this too but i believe is relates to the longer she is in phase 2 the more people die therefore the fewer the dots and the more chaotic things get therefore the fewer dps = more DB.

I have seen it noted that a patch updated her deep breathes so she wasnt as 'smart' and being bunched up did not affect her deep breathes near as much, however there are many who vehemently protest this.

Now i just read a post where someone stated that once spread out, not to move as people moving too much tends to create more deep breaths (maybe because this means more people will inadvertantly be bunched up?) and the post even indicated that in most cases avoid moving even at the risk of loosing dots.

This is pretty contrary to how i handle the encounter: Once phase 2 is announced i chase her to the south side throwing up my dots as she takes off then pretty much follow her around to stay in range in phase 2...always trying to keep as close to the walls as possible in case of DB(although trying to stand still when able cuz obviously the less i am moving the more i am casting and therefore the more damage i am doing..in other words get in range cast cast cast till she moves out of range then get in range cast cast cast, ect.).

It is my feeling that all casters and dotters need to get her down as fast as possible with as many dots as possible and ranged dps, the shorter phase 2 the better and to hell with positioning (although again...staying near walls is good and stayin spread out just makes good sense for obcious reasons).

What is everyones opinion on the matter?"

It should be mentioned that our guild usually 20 mans her so there are not a plethera of dots but a few unlucky fireballs and we almost assuredly have issues with DBs.

[FodderCannoned]

Our guild has done it all clumped up, everyone on top of each other, and we had no deep breaths.

I believe it is luck based. And the reason dots help is dots = damage, and the more damage you do the less time she will be in phase 2, and the less time she is in phase 2 the less chance she has of just randomly casting a deep breath.

[wesje]

its completely random and nothing u will do will affect how many times she does it or if she does it at all.

must have downed onyx about 45 times now, we allways do the exact same thing and we had the deep breaths range from none at all to 7(!) in one go. Usually we get 1 or 2, its totally random

[Dutchgrass]

Just throw maximum dps at her when airborn, it'll speed up the fight and reduce odds of DB.
It also seems that DB is a cone to the front and back, it's possible to evade it altogether when you're at her left or right side when she casts it.

[Steamboat]

On my server there is an Onyxia pug every Sunday - it's sort of a charity event run by the guys in Pals for Life. They claim that it's both spreading out and keeping up lots of DoTs that avoids a deep breath. And that's how I've seen it work.

Since it's a pug they explain it every time - "for some reason dots don't last the full duration on Onyxia, so if you have dots keep recasting them every 3 to 5 seconds." They also position half the raid on either side of Ony. When people listen and keep the dots up, there are never any deep breaths. When they don't, we always get a few. Even though it's a pug we've killed her everytime I've gone, with as few as 31 people.

[Stigg]

I was under the impression it was threat based. If you dont have a majority of the raid on the threat list, then you will get DB'ed. When Ony comes into phase 2 we all throw dots/ranged DPS. When it gets close to entering phase 3 we stop all dots and just do dmg...this will allow the tank to pick her up easier without the dots creting aggro. We rarely have DB's. When we do, its normally because somebody (usually healers) didnt do anything besides heal.

[Oatmealsmurf]

I think it's completely random personally. There are times when we've had 6 locks in the group she's been fully dotted the entire time and she still does 2-3 deep breaths.

We keep her dotted anyway... but how we handle the deep breaths is we have one person who's responsibility it is to call out her position. What happens is she starts on one side of the cave and blows her fire down while flying to the opposite end. So we just avoid the deep breaths. When she's in the North or South everyone gets on the East and West Walls... When she's in the NW we you go to the NE or SW corners.

Since we started calling her position we rarely have any deep breath deaths... and when we do.. it's just one person who tried to get that extra spell cast off.

[Dynatos]

It also seems that DB is a cone to the front and back, it's possible to evade it altogether when you're at her left or right side when she casts it.

She breathes from front to back based on where she's flying at the time of the DB warning. If she's facing North or South, she'll breathe along the North/South axis. If she's facing East or West, she'll breathe along that axis.

It's possible and, in fact, not very difficult to avoid any damage at all from her deep breath by paying attention to where she is when she starts to breathe.

That's how 10 and 15-man runs are accomplished. :wink:

Edit: Cross posted with Oatmealsmurf, but we do the same. Typically, we have a Hunter pinging her position on the minimap.

[Aerath]

We have a Shadowpriest using Mindflay - just follow the blue streak of lightning ;P

Anyway - from what I can tell it's solely based on two things
1) Time spent in phase 2
2) The number of Debuffs (not necessarily DoTs). Keep this @ max and you'll see 0 or at worst 1 DB.

You can avoid the DBs by keeping an eye on where she is aiming at and, more importantly, hitting the side of the room. Just avoid the whelp caves.

We currently completely ignore spacing, and apparently so does she :cool:

[Magikhat]

Its not random. It has nothing to do with a full dot bar either.

It has to do with phase 1 vs phase 2 dps. If your phase 2 dps is higher than phase 1 you will get no deep breaths.

[Dynatos]

Its not random. It has nothing to do with a full dot bar either.

It has to do with phase 1 vs phase 2 dps. If your phase 2 dps is higher than phase 1 you will get no deep breaths.

Can you back this up with some sort of proof?

We've done Onyxia with very few ranged DPS / DoT classes. She drops through Phase 1 extremely quickly, and takes forever in Phase 2 (i.e., not enough DoTs to fill 16 debuff slots) .. and I don't think we've had Deep Breath problems on some of those attempts.

[AeroJonesy]

It's definitely random. The reason for spreading out is that she drops a fireball that does AoE damage when it lands and if everyone is clumped up, more people are going t get hurt.

The only thing that helps is killing her faster, so yes, DoTs do reduce the chances she'll have of doing a deep breath since she won't be in the air as long.

[Oatmealsmurf]

Yeah there is no way it's based on better phase 2 dps... standard tactic is to do white damage through phase 1... that's what we do and then everyone unloads in phase 2 (except locks who only throw dots to keep their aggro in check and help make the phase 3 transition smooth). There is no way we have less dps in phase 2 than phase 1. We average about 1-2 deep breaths... and it's whether she's fully dotted or dots are falling off. I suppose it's like praying and in that it isn't gonna hurt your chances to go the dotting route (and we continue to do just that). But I've seen no evidence whatsoever that deep breaths have any sort of pattern.

And what he said about spreading out... that's just to make sure that only one person gets hit with a fireball at once instead of half the raid taking 1000 fire damage from one ball.

[Magikhat]

You can think its random or lack of defbuffs or whatever you want. We get zero deep breaths now because we do it correctly. Just because you are doing white damage does not mean you are doing less dps during phase 1. Perhaps your rogues and tanks dont know how to dps correctly during phase 2.

[Oatmealsmurf]

That's a chuckle right there I tell ya. That MUST be it... there could be no other explanation. LOL

[Eonblue]

Well, unfortunatly everyone disagrees as usually on this matter :P What i can say for certian is usually we get her down with 1 or two DBs in phase two, we usually have between 14-20 dots at a time (no fewer than 10 usually)we always stick mainly to white damage in phase 1. we HAVE had ZERO deep breathes ONCE before, and we HAVE had up to 3 DBs in a 30 second (apprx) window at least once before.

I certainly do not think it is random, in my experience, more dots/higher dps = less DBs, i have never seen consistantly fewer than 10 dots not result in at least 3 or more deep breathes in phase 2. I think the idea that anything in scripted epic boss battles to be random contridicts the purpose of having scipted battles.
Honestly avoiding DBs isnt too bad but going into phase 3 with 0 deaths is a good feeling :D Thanks for the discussion everyone :)

And one final note for life and for WoW: Personally I dont trust anyone who claims to know anything 'definatly' anyway ----unless the post in in blue :P

[Dynatos]

we usually have between 14-20 dots at a time


14-16, you mean? :wink:

[Eonblue]

14-16, you mean? :wink:

HHAHAHAHA.....yeah 16...but doesnt 20 sound like a better number :P

Eon Says to Eon L2P Newb!

[LordXeper]

We've been killing Onyxia for a while now to the point where alot of helmets are being sharded and we only go for 5g easy money, the 18 slot bag and the Ony buff to get some extra speed thru dungeons. We have found that 2 things prevent DB

1: Dots
2: Spreading out.

If we do this we do not get nay breaths at all. When we bring trials/QuelSerrar forgers/item buyers we occasionally get the DB from people going too close to eachother.

Our first rule is, 1 person per stone. We've been doing her with an average of 1-2 deaths now. Still no flawless kills as there is always some hero going mental dps and getting ganked.

[Magikhat]

Nevermind. I wont even make fun of you.

[Magikhat]

Sustained DPS

[Grendo]

Its random.

With full dots, more dps in phase two, and every other voodoo suggestion in this thread, weve still seen as many as 5 (!) deep breaths during one encounter. Just like the number of initial welps in phase2 is random.

Keep in mind Ony was patched to become mroe difficult in the recent past (ala more deep breaths), and I havent seen 0 deep breaths in a month or so. Its been anywhere from 1-5.

[j1mb0x99]

I've had a wacky theory for quite a while now. I have come to believe that it depends on the amount of time she is focuses on one person. As a rogue I'm always following her around during phase two looking up at her. She is constantly changing targets whether to fireball someone or if they are on top of aggro. It seems like whenever she stops on one person for too long, that is when the deep breath comes.

-JiM

[bhroam]

Ony's deep breath is probably one of those mystery's we'll never really know the answer too.

I suspect the designers read these posts and have a barrel of laughs because it's probably some really simple algorithm used based on something we haven't even thought of.

I suspect it's based on semi-random algorithm based on a lot of what we've talked about.... and I bet it's changed over the patches.... and that's the thing. Ony probably is tweaked every patch changing everything.

Oh and one really really really bad day, my guild saw 7 deep breaths in one fight...

[Eonblue]

I know agree with magikhat and others, sustained dps in phase 2 relative to phase 1 definatly seems to play a roll in DBs and therefore constant dots are a must and only white damage in phase 1. We still need many more test to confirm this, if such confirmation is even possible, but so far the results have been completly consistant with this.

[Dynatos]

I know agree with magikhat and others, sustained dps in phase 2 relative to phase 1 definatly seems to play a roll in DBs and therefore constant dots are a must and only white damage in phase 1. We still need many more test to confirm this, if such confirmation is even possible, but so far the results have been completly consistant with this.

I still disagree.

We did Onyxia with a feral Druid who had never tanked her as the MT. To make it easier on the Druid, we had everyone do white damage through Phase 1, and fully unload in Phase 2.

We had 40 people, and only 6 of them were melee classes. Most were Mages, Warlocks, and Hunters. Our phase 2 DPS was much, much greater than our Phase 1 DPS.

Yet she still Deep Breathed twice.

[Eonblue]

I still disagree.

We did Onyxia with a feral Druid who had never tanked her as the MT. To make it easier on the Druid, we had everyone do white damage through Phase 1, and fully unload in Phase 2.

We had 40 people, and only 6 of them were melee classes. Most were Mages, Warlocks, and Hunters. Our phase 2 DPS was much, much greater than our Phase 1 DPS.

Yet she still Deep Breathed twice.

To confirm..did you always have steady dots? I only ask because watching the dots all fall off even if they are reapplied 'seems' to increase the chances of deep breaths (hence the idea of sustained).
Also, with that many people, in phase 1 did you have dots on her? and what kind of damage was your melee classes doing? There are many factors here of course.
Maybe having only 20 people or so are affecting our results because when we
1) Light white damage only with no dots (or very few..soemone always throws somethign up :P )...this phase always takes forever if we are doing it right.
2) All out dps with sustained dots in phase 2

seems to always result in no more than 1 deep breath with about everyone alive in phase 3 ftw.

likewise, when we really arent paying attention and say we have a fury warrior pop deathwish and we through up dots to speed up phase 1
results in no fewer than 3 deep breaths (last night we got 6 after trying to speed up phase 1)

Again, who really knows but our results are seeming to be pretty consistent.

PS. 2 deep breaths is still pretty minimal...try to go mad dps in phase 1 (but obviously not too crazy as not to pull aggro) then slack slightly in phase 2 and count how many deep breaths you can survive :D

[brandondash]

we've spread out so far that there were 3 dots on her only - 0 DBs
we've spread out so far that there were 3 dots on her only - 3 DBs
we've spread out and clustered the dot classes in the middle for max dots - 0 DBs
we've spread out and clustered the dot classes in the middle for max dots - 3 DBs
we've run around like idiots max dpsing her - 0 DBs
we've run around like idiots max dpsing her - 3 DBs

There is no rhyme nor reason to it. In my experience, your only chance is to max dps her so phase 2 only lasts 30 seconds and cross your fingers.

b-

[Thoragord]

Actually the targeting thing makes sense. When you are max DPSing because of variations in who is attacking when and cooldowns different people will constantly be being targeted. When You slack on DPS usually the one keeping it up stays targeted which may explain why deepbreaths occur when DPS isnt sustained.

The way to test this is to have 4 or 5 DPS toons rotate and try to hold her attention as long as possible and se if she deepbreaths. Then rotate faster by having them switch more frequently to see if she changes targets more often and does fewer deep breaths.

[Eonblue]

Actually the targeting thing makes sense. When you are max DPSing because of variations in who is attacking when and cooldowns different people will constantly be being targeted. When You slack on DPS usually the one keeping it up stays targeted which may explain why deepbreaths occur when DPS isnt sustained.

The way to test this is to have 4 or 5 DPS toons rotate and try to hold her attention as long as possible and se if she deepbreaths. Then rotate faster by having them switch more frequently to see if she changes targets more often and does fewer deep breaths.

I think this could hold water...have you ever noticed in fights where deep breaths occur more often she seems to switch targets less frequently and the fights where she is switching targets every second there are less? I dont know..i may be on crack here but it does fit with the other theories :P...

ps...people, please dont say its random, it obviously is not random, the only thing that could make this seem random is the randomness that each players own stats and game play style brings into play which affect crit chance, hit chances, dps ect as well of environmental variables such as who is when at any given moment in the fight including who is where when welps spawn ect. ect. ect.

[bhroam]

It may be random, it may not... I doubt we'll ever know. The one thing I do know is that the human brain attempts to group things together and made sense of randomness.

I mean how many times have you heard what loot drops is based on who first enters the instance? Or the raid leader is? This is nonsense... but it's just the way some people's minds try and cope with the randomness of the loot drops.

This is a computer game.... any computer game AI is to some extent based on randomness. I am sure by far the most commonly called function in World of Warcraft is random().

I suspect that a large portion of her deep breath chance is based on randomness. Then you through in other semi-random states like how far people are away from each other, and the current stream of dps... number of debuffs/dots etc. It's probably all thrown in there.

I still think the blizzard developers made Ony just to screw with us... I mean why else would you create a raid instance which drops loot as good as the end boss of MC, but make only 4 trash mobs between the front of the instance and her.... just to really screw with our heads so they can get a barrel of laughs.

[Cerberus]

Obviuosly more dots will give less deep breath (or potential ones).
Not slacking on dots and having priests and whatnot using dots will give you a shorter phase 2.

DB is random. She will decide to move or deep breath every now and then. Bigger chances of her moving than DB. She makes a decison every ~20 secs afaik.

[brandondash]

ps...people, please dont say its random, it obviously is not random, the only thing that could make this seem random is the randomness that each players own stats and game play style brings into play which affect crit chance, hit chances, dps ect as well of environmental variables such as who is when at any given moment in the fight including who is where when welps spawn ect. ect. ect.
You just contradicted yourself. While it may be a misnomer to say that her DB is random in and of itself, the amount of percentages that go into each and every cast for each and every player virtually guarantee a random effect - or at least an effect that no human would be able to divine in real time.

brandon-

[Seeo]

Spacing is very very important...

Not to avoid DB's however, clumping together WILL NOT TRIGGER a DB. It's the ammount of people in that clump that will take damage.

For example:

everyone's scattered but there's 1 clump of 12 people. Well, there's a 12/40 chance she'll DB in that direction exactly. And you knwo what? That's 12 dead players. If you STAY SCATTERED and get his with a DB, you might only loose 4 instead of 12. This is why hunters do clumping, not to avoid triggering a completely random DB, but to avoid getting more people killed while clumped. The more scattered you are, the less will die.

[Eonblue]

You just contradicted yourself. While it may be a misnomer to say that her DB is random in and of itself, the amount of percentages that go into each and every cast for each and every player virtually guarantee a random effect - or at least an effect that no human would be able to divine in real time.

brandon-

The idea that her DBs are not affected by any external forces such as dps, spacing, dots, ect and that her DBs happen based on some random /roll type code equates in mind mind to Ony's DB being random.
The idea that Ony's DB are somehow being affected by external actions such as dps, spacing, dots equates in my mind to Ony's DB not being completly random as to some degree the external actions can be mitigated and relativly controlled, even if the exact results cannot be predicted (For ex. Assume Onys DBs are affected by DPS in phase 1 relative to DPS in phase 2, now assume you have a fury warrior pop deathwish and his basic hit attacks go up past 1000 where as before his basic hits where around 700. You would know regardless of any exact numbers, the dps in phase 1 would be higher with deathwish than without so to mitigate and reduce dps in phase 1 you would not pop deathwish....assuming of course reduced dps in phase 1 did affect DB in phase 2). (Or another ex. if am sm/ruin warlock with +400 spell damage is doing mad dps on a given target and giving everything he's got and pulls aggro does that mean aggro is random because the exact numbers where random? No, he can control, again even if the exact numbers will change.)
I apologize for the confusion it was my goal to indicate this in the last post in not so many words and not contridict myself. :)

[Eonblue]

It may be random, it may not... I doubt we'll ever know. The one thing I do know is that the human brain attempts to group things together and made sense of randomness.

This is a computer game.... any computer game AI is to some extent based on randomness. I am sure by far the most commonly called function in World of Warcraft is random().

I still think the blizzard developers made Ony just to screw with us... I mean why else would you create a raid instance which drops loot as good as the end boss of MC, but make only 4 trash mobs between the front of the instance and her.... just to really screw with our heads so they can get a barrel of laughs.

I think this is my favorite post on the matter...very good point...thank you :)

[Oatmealsmurf]

Spacing is very very important...

Not to avoid DB's however, clumping together WILL NOT TRIGGER a DB. It's the ammount of people in that clump that will take damage.

For example:

everyone's scattered but there's 1 clump of 12 people. Well, there's a 12/40 chance she'll DB in that direction exactly. And you knwo what? That's 12 dead players. If you STAY SCATTERED and get his with a DB, you might only loose 4 instead of 12. This is why hunters do clumping, not to avoid triggering a completely random DB, but to avoid getting more people killed while clumped. The more scattered you are, the less will die.

Quoted for Untruth. The direction of Ony's deep breaths is completely based on her position in the cave. If she's north the deep breath goes from the north to the south. If she's in the East it goes from the East to the West. If she's in the NW it gose from the NW to the SE.

You can have your entire raid clumped in one corner for the entire fight if you want and you will never risk taking damage from a deep breath as long as you continually move to the correct corner/side of the cave in relation to Ony's position. The only problem with clumping up is that when she starts spitting the random fireballs anyone near the person she targets will take damage as well and that is why you spread out during phase 2.

We haven't been able to completely avoid Ony taking a deep breath but it's been months since we've had anyone die from one.

[Cerberus]

What Oatmealsmurf said.

The thing that tend to get people confused is that they think she will DB the direction she is facing. She will allways DB based on her position in the room.
Just make sure to move accordingly when she moves and you're safe.

[bhroam]

yeah I tried to run under her once during a deep breath. I made it under her to get nuked by the DB.

I don't know where that deep breath came from, but it sure wasn't her mouth.

[Cholo]

DB usually hit spots with high concentration of players who do most of dmg in phase 2 (at least that is based on my experience). Trick is that u leave wall sides in the upper part of the cave free. DB is connected to location and not to the ppl, so when u get warning for DB u have just enough time to run and hug the wall, u will probably get burned but not killed because DB will hit the spot where u were while dps-ing.
If u are in lower part of the cave just go to to the closest wall too but avoid whelp caves.
When we (my guild) do Ony with full raid, we certainly get DB one or maybe two times on spot where are most players doing dps in phase 2. But, when we do Ony with 20-25 ppl and spread equally, we don't have DB.

[Oatmealsmurf]

Again Ony's deep breath direction has absolutely NOTHING with where the raid is positioned. It is entirely dependendent on her position in the cave (position... not where she is facing). If she is positioned in the north she will deep breath from north to south and you want your raid against the walls of the East and West. If she is in the West she'll deep breath from west to east and you want your raid against the walls in the North and South.

She doesn't target anyone when she deep breaths... it just has such a big are of effect that if you are not against the proper walls you're going to get hit. And if you pay attention to where she is positioned no one should take any damage.

[Eonblue]

Here is a silly diagram i did for our guild website...

Red Dot= ONYXIA
Yellow Arrow= DEEP BREATH
Black arrod = Direction YOU want to head

*Keep in miind her DBs are very wide so its a good idea to stay as close to the walls as possible
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f330/markharper80/Ony.jpg

[teck21]

Thanks for the diagramatical (?) explanation.

The diagram lists the 8 possible positions Onyxia may be during phase 2right?

She will only DB when she is position? Does she still do her regular fireball attacks when she is moving from one position to another? or is the time during which she is flying one in which she does not attack at all?

Once she starts moving to the next position, will a hunter tracking her be able to tell instantly which spot she is headed to so as to ping the map and give advance warning? Or is there no way for the hunter to tell until she actually reaches her new positon (and possibly DB straightaway when she gets there)?

Thanks.

[Oatmealsmurf]

When she moves to a new position she will always wait a little while... start spitting fireballs at people close to the top of her aggro list and then either move again or deep breath. You can have a hunter track her. The problem is when whelps come they can interfere with your tracker and be a bit confusing. We have someone who's job it is to visually track her and call out her position. And once you get used to the fight it's not hard to do yourself and not rely on calls. That's what I do.

[Cerberus]

Doesn't she have 6 spots btw (not 8)?