Deep Breath Syndrome and related ailments
by Alex Ziebart 
May 18th 2008 at 7:00PM
Burning Crusade has spread this phenomenon to other bosses, too. In Karazhan alone, the Prince, the Maiden of Virtue, and Nielas Aran seemingly cast whatever it is they cast more frequently. Infernals, Holy Fire, Flame Wreath, the whole shebang. In general, this crops up for encounters that have an element of randomness. Malchezar's infernals can drop wherever they'd like. Safe spots are only safe until the randomness of the encounter decides to be random. In the case of Deep Breath, it simply occurs for your raid more often because you didn't take the proper steps to prevent it.
I actually think it's sort of fun to see so many people complain about these things with every patch because it's a good sign of the encounters actually working as intended. I just wonder how many encounters this has applied to over the years. Onyxia is most famous for it, but how far does Deep Breath Syndrome reach?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Raiding
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Timothy Jaxon May 18th 2008 7:11PM
Hogger hit harder after the 1.2 patch. No joke.
Well, maybe a joke.
Hurode May 18th 2008 8:32PM
No way, Hogger's been nerfed to hell and back. I remember when you needed a 40-man raid to take him down, now you can get him with the people left online after the night's SSC run. This game is so ezmode now.
Locky May 19th 2008 10:48PM
Actually there was once after a patch where Onyxia actually DID deep breathe more. Some speculated it was a joke on Blizzard's behalf as this was around April.
Arokai May 18th 2008 7:18PM
Well, they DID have to hotfix archimonde because of his fire. True story. It was going through the melee faster, instead of reaching out towards the ranged. Also, air burst was hitting the MT. :p This was as of patch 2.4.2.
Frustrated on DS May 18th 2008 7:24PM
What about VR being "fixed"? Here's a "deep breath" that Blizzard has just totally overlooked, even though they claimed to have fixed it in 2.4.2. Not that he's no longer doable, but maybe fixing the obvious problems they claimed to have fixed in the *actual* game should still take precedence over designing mounts that two people can ride (whoopie!...) 8 months from now.
Adam May 18th 2008 7:36PM
You're right! Blizzard needs to halt all other development efforts stat and address this travesty, nay, this crime against humanity! In fact, call off Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, their "unnamed next-gen MMO", and retrain their entire office staff to retuning these obviously game-breaking issues NAOW! While they're at it, Vivendi needs to sell off its other assets and put full effort into making Void Reaver the most highly tuned NPC encounter ever imagined, EVER - Oh, and easy enough for a PuG of 80-year olds to one-shot first time.
Too much to ask?
Cynra May 19th 2008 6:58AM
Void Reaver is actually very doable and we still consider it a loot pinata. My hunter's 25-man raid managed to do the fight for the very first time the very same week it became "broken". After a single wipe where people were getting accustomed to the mechanics of the fight, Void Reaver fell well ahead of the enrage timer. This raid has never known it any other way.
My priest's 25-man raid, however, seems to have problems with this fight (though we do manage to down it each week). We did it pre-"broken" status and so many of our raiders used DBM and other addons as a crutch.
This is part of the reason why I dislike many of the addons out there. People rely far too heavily on them and then claim that things are "broken" or "not doable" because the fight's become much more difficult. I understand that they make things easier for people, but they're not absolutely required. In fact, I remember having just leveled my last priest to 60 and hitting Molten Core the past after Decursive became obsolete. Lucifron was ridiculous, mostly because out of the entire raid only three people (a mage, a paladin, and myself on the newly minted priest) could Decurse, Cleanse, and Dispel with the addon. That probably should be a very simple task to do on your own, but people's reliance on the addon -- despite being told that it didn't work any more -- led to more wipes than I've ever experienced on a boss.
Clasifyd May 18th 2008 7:26PM
I sincerely do believe that Shade upped his casting times with 2.4.2. Either that, or his blizzard is lasting much longer.
Fizzed May 18th 2008 7:32PM
The tone of this piece is surprisingly angry. Did Onyxia deep breath you recently or something?
Zeplar May 18th 2008 8:13PM
Shartuul's been screwed since 2.4 :(
Casts multiple Incinerates in a row
Dark Glare deals 90% of your health
Sometimes when you possess a demon instead of coming under your control he just runs off into the sunset
Angus May 19th 2008 9:20AM
SINCE 2.4?!?!?!
Has it been working right ever?
I've had 3 resets done to it where the Shivan Assassin just decided not to show up. Another one where Shartuul didn't, and 4 where it bugged out transferring from the felguard to the terrorfiend. I have never gotten to see the end of that thing because it the one time I got all the way to the end was where he bugged and I gave up.
This event has been super buggy and no amount of "fixing" they do has actually fixed it.
Nati May 18th 2008 8:27PM
Actually, Onyxia -did- Deep Breath more in a patch a long time ago and was hotfixed for it :P
Fyxie May 19th 2008 4:49AM
Yea, she did. It was hotfixed. But we're just old noobs for actually knowing that.
my2cents May 18th 2008 10:24PM
Call me crazy, stupid, or ignorant (go ahead, do it. I dare you!) but I'm pretty damn sure that with 2.4 the location infernals can drop in the prince fight did change (haven't done kara since a few days after 2.4 hit so perhaps it's changed or been 'fixed' since) Our guild, and many many others on our server, had one spot that never ever failed. Infernals would often land VERY close to us, but never enough to hit us. Since 2.4, our guild (and several others) noticed the infernals landing closer to the walls, etc and that spot no longer worked a good 70% of the time. Coincidence? Are we imagining it? Idk but it sure seems to have been a genuine change. =)
Angus May 19th 2008 9:49AM
It seems to have disappeared from the official patch notes but it was there at one point.
There are no longer spots where Prince's infernals cannot drop.
I remember it being pretty significant when I saw it.
bill May 19th 2008 10:05AM
YYou are correct. We had a spot that in over a year of farming (that's 50+ kills) where infernals came close to us. Not one wipe, not even CLOSE. We ran kara a week ago, and we wiped about 5 times on prince due to infernals dropping in the spot before we just gave up and kept moving the whole fight.
I
my2cents May 18th 2008 10:25PM
Oops, I should explain that in my previous post, the ~70% fail rate was based on what people have been telling me since 2.4 hit. I only did 2 (one for each char I raid with) prince fights since 2.4 myself, but both times we had to change our strat because the infernals were hitting us.
Spirit May 19th 2008 9:33AM
Read the patch notes - It mentions that you can't evade the infernals and such now.
Ah, I miss you, little nook near the door - you were so good to me.
Daryl May 19th 2008 8:59AM
I read that the tree/candle standing exploit on the Vexallus fight has been 'fixed'.
Rydo.
Cynra May 19th 2008 7:02AM
I haven't seen anything official on this, but I've heard many other competant people make the same complaints following 2.4. Blizzard might have secretly expanded the drop zone to make the fight more challenging -- especially in light of the fact that more people are going back to the instance for easy badges. Or it just could be an error on their part.
Either way, the official Blizzard word is probably "working as intended." Adapt, overcome, and become a better player for it!