by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Welcome back, fellow players! Curse of Naxxramas continues its weekly roll out of content with the release of the Plague Quarter last Tuesday. Hopefully, by now, you’ve all waded through the myriad payment issues and have been able to wander these poisonous halls. In continuing to chronicle my experience with the adventure thus far, I decided that we would concentrate a little more heavily on the battles themselves this time around. This series of articles is here to serve as more of a “Things I Observed” while walking through the halls of the necropolis rather than a “How To Destroy Everything ASAP” guide, though. We will definitely have that kind of coverage for you, so stay tuned! I luckily was able to get in with no true issues when I got home Wednesday night and took to defeating the dastardly denizens of the Plague Quarter with haste.

Noth the Plaguebringer

Noth is the undisputed master of Undeath. Every minion is fodder for his creations.

So thus reads the description for Noth before you engage in battle with him and for good reason. This exact manipulation of death is reflected in his Hero Power:

You all know me well enough by now that you can assume I started to tackle this encounter with my Priest deck. This was an advantageous starting point, since the winning strategy for this fight is to make value trades and keep your minions healed up to prevent them from dying. The idea of a passive Hero Power in general is pretty cool. With it being something conditional like we see with Noth’s, I don’t actually see that being too too overpowered. (We just won’t talk about the Heroic version of it though!) I’m curious if many of these boss fights also serve as ways for the developers to test player reaction to the tools the bosses are given and help determine whether they might try to incorporate some of those mechanics/cards in future hero additions or card designs.

That Plague card is something similar to what we saw out of last week’s discussion of cards that are just way too overpowered (like Necrotic Poison), but I could see something like the Skeletal Smith actually being viable. It’s a very strong minion for 3 mana, exceeding the “vanilla test” while also providing a useful Deathrattle. I have said in the past that I wish there were more ways to remove weapons besides Acidic Swamp Ooze and Harrison Jones, so…

Anyway, as long as you manage to prevent Noth’s Undead army from taking off and work around his use of Mage secrets, this fight goes down without a hitch!

Kel’Thuzad has not lost his sense of humor in this wing either.

Heigan the Unclean

Heigan has rigged the very walls and floors of Naxxramas with traps that he can trigger at will.

Why, yes. Yes he has. I remember when Heigan was the first boss revealed for Naxxramas back at PAX East and how excited Marc was in subsequent podcasts about the return of the Heigan Dance.

Location, location, location. Where you stand can spell life or death, and my World of Warcraft friends tell me that this Hero Power is very flavorful to the original fight against Heigan (thus all the talk of the Heigan/Safety Dance). For me, personally, this was a lot of fun. I luckily managed to have a Northshire Cleric in my opening hand, so throwing that down on 1 and Heigan tagging it with Eruption on his Turn 1 basically guaranteed the card draw next turn and for subsequent turns as I synergized with Earthen Ring Farseer and on and on. And speaking of card draw…

I managed to Thoughtsteal this bad boy from Heigan’s deck, which is one of his special cards for this encounter. Talk about overpowered – it’s the Battlecry of Coldlight Oracle mixed with a Wild Growth, except you can actually use that mana crystal right away, too. Nuts! Getting that managed to really help my Priest move along in taking down Heigan, since much of the best tools of the Priest are slated into the later game and having many mana crystals to play with.

The only other thing of note in this fight was that Heigan primarily used Warlock cards as he sported the new class card for Warlocks in Voidcaller along with other staples of the class. When he played a Doomguard, I actually saw him discard an Acidic Swamp Ooze, too, so be wary of your weapons! As long as you continue to be cognizant of the position of your minions and keep your heals up (Seeing a theme here yet?), cleaning up Heigan is Light work! (The puns though.)

Loatheb

Loatheb is a hideous reminder of the Plague’s effect on the creatures of Azeroth.

…and yet despite this delightful description, so many people seem to adore this guy. Well, at least the card of him anyway. The actual boss presents some unique challenges not yet seen in Normal mode:

In the image above, you’ll notice two things right away:

• That’s a hard hitting Hero Power. It’s the Hunter Hero Power, Steady Shot, boosted a little bit. (This also further signifies just how good Frostbolt is as a completely random aside.)
• That’s…that’s a lot of health. I’m on a timer.

So, how exactly does one deal 75 damage to a boss that’s hitting you, at the very least, for three damage each turn? Well, Loatheb is not without some gruesome mercy.

Spores! Spores everywhere! I guess when you deal in poison and mushrooms, you’re bound to spread a few things here and there. In order to down Loatheb, strategically activating his Spores are the key. It’s a battle of attrition, where your goal is to develop a board that’s hearty enough to clear his side while sticking around to benefit from Spore activations and deliver mighty strikes against the face of Loatheb. Area-of-effect spells (or Wild Pyromancer) are your best friends in helping to make this fight one that you can win, but don’t be surprised if you have to give it a couple of tries. It feels like, in general, that the fights in this wing, even on Normal Mode, were a step above those of the Arachnid Quarter, which I personally appreciated.

Hunter Class Challenge

I’m ridin’ Spinnas; I’m ridin’ Spinnas! (They don’t stop.)

That’s right. You want to earn your class card? How about a deck with ONLY that card? This fight is honestly pure, unadulterated fun. I have completed the challenge a few times just for the entertainment factor and that’s one of the main reasons why I gave Webspinner the nod as my favorite card reward from the Plague Quarter yesterday. The RNG inherent in this card will make it difficult to rely on,but it’s a great one drop, and Constructed strategy aside, it’s just plain fun to use. From King Krush to Captain’s Parrot, the Beasts of the world are waiting for you behind Webspinner’s door.

You fight Loatheb in this challenge, so the Spore strategy is once again in full effect. All you can do really is spam your board full of Webspinners and hope for good Beasts to result from their Deathrattles. Once you finally get some stickier minions, you get to your Spore activation and go for the throat! I had two particularly memorable moments here:

• Around Turn 9 or 10, I had gotten a Starving Buzzard off of a Webspinner death and proceeded to cycle my hand to get more Webspinners while putting Webspinners into play so that I could Webspinner while I Webspinner.
• I killed off multiple Webspinners that simply just gave me another Webspinner as my beast of choice from their death. That’s A+ trolling right there.

It’s all worth it though when your board ends up looking like this glorious mess:

Yeahhh…

Mage Class Challenge

Not to be outdone, the Mage Class Challenge was fun, too. The combo of the day here was the use of Duplicate, the class card that you’re vying for, along with Mad Scientist, a lovely minion that we will be getting access to in the Construct Quarter, two weeks from now. This rag tag combo made it so that I had a ridiculous amount of Secrets in play at all times, which inevitably left me cackling maniacally as Heigan walked into misplay after misplay, seemingly befuddled by the tireless onslaught of Duplicated Mad Scientists. I’m actually slightly fearful for when this becomes a real thing on the ladder. The current Giants deck floating around with Duplicate is already scary enough.

It is however worth noting that the star of this battle is actually the Undertaker minion. The Mad Scientist/Duplicate and Secret fiesta is Heigan’s little Bouncy House to deal with. You, on the other hand, still have to deal with killing him off and this is where the constant stream of Mad Scientists come in, since they continue to buff up Undertaker. Basically, you put Mad Scientists into play on the left, Heigan kills them with his Hero Power (“FOR SCIENCE!”), you get a free Secret and likely already had a secret like Duplicate in play, get more Mad Scientists, and continue to assault Heigan with your ever-evolving Undertaker threat. Well played!

Looking Forward

As I mentioned above, it felt like these fights were a step above those in the Arachnid Quarter, even when just playing on Normal. Heroic Mode felt like even stronger puzzles and if this is the route that the adventure is taking, with each wing being inherently a little tougher than the last, then I look forward to the challenges that await. If you missed my rundown of the Arachnid Quarter, head on back and read up. Otherwise, stop on by next time when we get together and play the Military Quarter!