The Thaddius jump revisited, and yet another reason boys are weird.

I have to admit, I'm a little surprised — not to mention relieved (it's so nice not to be alone!) — by the number of visitors WordPress tells me have stumbled upon my little blog after Googling the key words "Thaddius jump."  I suppose I shouldn't be: after all, after that first disastrous night in Heroic Naxx, I Googled it too.

I mentioned this briefly in an update at the bottom of my original post, but since there seems to be some interest from the spatially challenged among us (and I definitely fall into this category, so absolutely no judgments here!), I thought I'd take a minute to revisit a simple yet effective solution for those of us who won't have access to Slowfall until Patch 3.0.8.  (/envy, btw.)

Ta da!

It's hard to believe, but a level 5 potion can be the difference between a clean one-shot and an agonizing night of near-misses on the Construct Quarter's final menace.  The Swiftness Potion is craftable via alchemy, at all of skill level 60, but the formula appears to be a world drop off of low level mobs (according to WoWHead, the best drop rate is 0.9% off of Corrupted Surf Crawlers in Durotar) so not every alchemist will have it.  Fortunately for me, our priest officer does.

As you can see from the Auctioneer tooltip, the potion sells for about a gold and a half on my server.  Its mats include one Swiftthistle, one Briarthorn and a single Empty Vial.

The Swiftness Potion potion only has a 15 second duration, so you'll want to wait until Fuegen and Stalagg go down before you take it.  After they do, it's a simple matter of popping your potion and taking a running leap off the raised ledge to Thaddius's platform.  Believe me: if I can do it, anyone can!

I've come to depend on these things so much that as soon as I realized I had entrusted my last stack to my shaman, I hearthed to Dalaran mid-raid, switched characters and mailed them to myself before catching a warlock summon back to Thaddius's lair.  (Where I had no problems whatsoever with the jump, by the way.  /flex)

...  of course, my officers may or may not have teased me about my inability to do the fight without my drug of choice, and may or may not be threatening to stage an intervention. >.>

Keep in mind that the Swiftness Potion it shares a cooldown with every other potion in the game, so you won't be able to use it and pop a runic health or mana pot later in the fight.  I've never needed either on Thaddius, though, so it's a total no-brainer for me. (If you can't l2jump, at least l2Lifetap!)

And in other news!

Once upon a time, a long time ago (i.e., high school), the boys used to stand around at lunch and during passing periods, doing nothing more than nodding occasionally and quoting movies and TV shows at each other.

Apparently, this is something they never quite outgrow ...

For the record, I was in Group 1 (the tank group) instead of in Group 4 with the other casters  because I was feeling nostalgic.  Before Blood Pact went raid-wide, I was often assigned to Group 1 as the 'lock on imp duty.  Since 3.0 obliterated changed raid synergies, I haven't had an excuse to hang out with the tanks, so I switched spots with a fury warrior for a few minutes at the beginning of the raid — just to say "hi."

... I didn't know there'd be rules ...

The Thaddius jump should drop badges.

For me, the hardest part of Naxxramas isn't the Helgian dance. 

It isn't managing Marks on the Four Horsemen, kiting Zombie Chow away from Gluth or remembering to "explode somewhere private" (to quote one of my boyfriend's finer pieces of raid leading) when Grobbulus targets me for an injection of mutagen.

It isn't even the dreaded slime room, which I learned to love and fear the day Canada won the World Junior Tournament  did something amazing and utterly inexplicable that I cannot for the life of me explain.  (Thank you, Karthis, for explaining to me the significance of the occasion!)

No ...  It's making the jump down from the two elevated platforms in Thaddius's room to the ledge where he's tanked.  I don't know why, but I absolutely cannot make this jump consistently. 

The first time I encountered it was in Naxx 25, since my 10-man group hadn't quite made it that far into the instance yet.  I spent our entire attempt on Thaddius jumping, falling, running, jumping and falling again.  I wasn't the only one who fell, but I was the only one who fell every. single. time. 

Since then, I've learned to drop a summoning circle on the platform right before I make the jump, so if I fall, I can teleport to the top and try again.  I can usually manage to make it the second time, but /sigh ... not always.

Last week, I replaced myself with a wait-listed Ret Pally after I once again failed to make the jump.  Not just once.  Not even two or three times.  But for the entire duration of the boss fight. 

That makes me, co-founder and guild leader, the first and only person ever benched from a Surreality raid for poor performance.  Even when we were learning Archimonde, and the same people wiped us again and again, we practiced together until every last raider mastered the movement of the fight.

I know I'm not alone.  Larísa posted similar frustrations about the Thaddius jump a while back, and I've pored over her readers' comments several times since then in search of solace and inspiration. 

I've also asked in raid chat for help, and received a variety of tips from sympathetic guild members.  These tips range from swiveling my camera for an aerial view to popping a Swiftness Potion (the rogues and kitties tell me that an extra burst of speed helps) to asking a hunter to turn on Aspect of the Dazed Pack. 

Larísa actually inspired the solution that ended up working for me, although she doesn't know it yet.  She mentioned in her post that she was eventually able to Slowfall through the jump.  Unfortunately, as a Warlock, I don't have that ability — but I do have a decent enough reputation with the Steemwheedle Cartel to purchase the next best thing.

Can you see where I'm going with this? 

For the last few raids, I've managed to bluff my way through the fight by chain-chugging Noggenfogger Elixirs and praying for Slowfall to proc.  One of these days, I'll have to take a screen shot of me as a mini-skeleton, slowfalling through the air behind the rest of the raid (since it's taken four or five hits of Noggenfogger to get the desired effect).

Unfortunately, the last time we did Thaddius I forgot to stop in Gadgetzan on my way through Dragonblight, so I didn't have any Noggenfogger to see me through the jump.  You would think that I would have learned to do without by now, but ... no. 

Apparently, I'm just as much of a klutz in-game as in real life.

Anyway, we cleared the Spider, Plague and Military wings in Naxx 25 last night, which means the Abomination wing is next up on Saturday.  I'm really hoping to finish Naxx 10 before then so I can practice in a clear raid ID, because benching myself because I can't handle a little jump, of all things, is just humiliating.

Solo five-man group quests in Sholazar Basin?  Piece of cake! 

Jump off a platform and land with both feet firmly on the ground?  ... not so much.

Even my imp is laughing at me.

Update:  SUCCESS!  I ran Naxx 10 on my shaman last night (after I wrote this post, but before its scheduled publication this morning), popped a Swiftness potion at the crucial moment, and had no problems soaring over the divide between the raised platform and Thaddius's ledge.  Remind me to send a certain priest many, many +16 spirit gems in thanks for his brilliant suggestion!