Saturday, June 22, 2013

Army of One: Malygos and Bypassing 1-1-2-3

Note: Malygos' health at .01%---before transitioning to Phase 2.
Army of One is a series featuring tips on soloing fights for chances at vanity items, mounts and pets. I've successfully completed the fights with a melee (enh shaman) and ranged (shadow priest) character, though some classes will experience greater difficulty. I include class-specific advice at the end of the post when requested/needed.

Malygos is no pushover like Onyxia, even for a level 90. Nope. This fight requires certain strategies---ignoring them will certainly result in death. What's more, perfect execution of the first part of the strategy means you can ignore the second part of the strategy: the famous 1-1-2-3 sequence. Wait, why are we killing Malygos again? Oh yeah, the Azure and Blue Drakes.

Location: Eye of Eternity in Borean Tundra
Fight Notes: 3 phases: Phase 1 to 50%, Phase 2 until all adds are dead, Phase Three riding the drake until Malygos dies,
Concerns: Boss positioning and survivability in Phase 1, timing the deployment of critical burst damage, winning at pressing buttons in sequence during Phase3

To start the fight, click the orb-thingy in the middle of the room (oh yes, that's right, it's called the Focusing Iris). This upsets Malygos, thus begins his quest to kill you. Little does HE know...so! Just start beating on him for a little while, but save any damage cooldowns that are greater than 90 seconds. You're going to need these in just a bit. Keep an eye on your health here, though I have no issues with my enhancement shaman or shadow priest. Our goal is to bring Malygos down to between 55-60% health, and hit our damage cooldowns when the time is right.*

*We are about to discuss when the time is right.

We'll be dealing with a couple of mechanics, Power Sparks and Malygos' Vortex. As you're killing Malygos, you'll see a message stating "a Power Spark has spawned from a nearby rift." I recommend you immediately "/tar Power" followed by "/focus" (or create a macro to do this) because Malygos will soon use Vortex, which picks you up in the air and whirls your character around in a circle. When it drops you, it can be rather disorienting. It's extremely important to know where that first spark is. If you get lucky, the second spark spawns from the same rift. If not, you're going to have to work to ensure both sparks die at the same location.

Boss positioning can be key, especially for melee; I've found stacking him in the middle works best. When you kill a Power Spark, it leaves an electrified ring on the ground. Standing in this ring causes you to take increased damage, but also causes you to do increased damage.

TL;DR: You want to kill the first spark before it reaches Malygos, and you want to kill the second spark that follows in the same place where you kill the first one while ensuring that Malygos is between 55-60%. Once you've done this, pop everything and blow up Malygos until he flies away.
Players should have saved their CDs for this moment to push out as much DPS here as possible -- this is where we do most of our damage, so some melee classes may struggle more than others.

Once you're comfortable with this encounter, it should go something like this:

1. Click orb in middle and beat on Malygos
2. Power Spark 1 spawns when Malygos is around 75%
3. Vortex whirls you for a bit, ceases
4. Find and kill Power Spark 1 near the middle of the platform
5. Malygos should be around 60% and the 2nd spark is coming**
6. Stop attacking Malygos---he mustn't drop below 50% before the two sparks are down---and kill the 2nd spark on top of where you killed the first spark
7. Stand in the pool the sparks have left behind and pop everything you have and burn Malygos.

**It took some practice on my shadow priest to get this right, since his burst isn't as great as the shaman. However, once I became comfortable, I can easily burn him to 1HP with both toons.

When done right, most decently geared 90s should be able to send him into Phase Three packing 1 HP. Yes, you read that right---one hit point. See, it's impossible to kill Malygos prior to phase three, but it is possible to rob him of all but one sliver of health before Phase Two begins.

There you have it! Below is a video of my enhancement shaman pushing Malygos to 1 HP before Phase Two (sped up for time's sake).


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For those transitioning into Phase 3 with more than 1 HP:

This might be tough til you get the hang of it. I can't stress this enough: mastering your burst will eliminate the need to do much of anything in Phase 3, so focus on that. But, if, like me when playing my shadow priest, you find yourself in Phase Three with a chunk of health to get through, this is what you're going to have to do.

Immediately spam your 3 button (the HoT) until you have five stacks on you. You must keep this HoT on yourself for the duration of the fight, something that will happen by default if you don't mess up the button-pressing sequence. Malygos will be slightly above you at this point, so you may want to hover up---just a tad so you don't over shoot him---and wait for him to become targetable; again, I spam '3' until Malygos is targetable.

Note: I've killed him when he had more than 30% health remaining going into this phase, like in the video of my shadow priest below. It is tedious. One mistake will likely result in your death. So long as you focus on hitting the ability sequence---1, 1, 2, 3---and strafe away from the balls of lightning he'll occasionally place at your location, you're golden.

So, once you get dropped onto a drake, the fight should go as follows:

1. Spam 3 (HoT) until Malygos can be targeted.
2. Hit 1, 1, 2, 3 and repeat the sequence---that exact sequence.
3. Strafe clockwise or counterclockwise away from the balls of lightning.

After your first two ability sequences, you WILL have to wait a bit (for the drake's energy bar to reach 50) before you can hit 2, so what that looks like is: Press 1, Press 1, wait for 4-5 seconds, Press 2, Press 3, then repeat. The key is to have patience, avoid panicking, and stay out of the ball sparks. You'll have it in no time!

Let me know if you have any questions, or if you can offer any-class specific advice some might find helpful. 

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