Iggy Pops and Burns

So, um yeah. That's li'l Iggy. With a Beer mug in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Thanks to fishing, ganking and a niggling for a change of pace, he's now pushing level 25. It's interesting, and a COMPLETELY different style of playing.

And I desperately needed help figuring stuff out.

Thanks to some great guidance from Gnomeageddon as well as a nearly verbatim following of Euripides/Critical QQ step by step fire mage guide, I am slowly making headway.

Part of my reason for getting a bit "Mage-y" for this post is actually inspired by the mis-information post that Larisa did over at Gnomeageddon's site. It was a moderately tongue in cheek list of "real" mage attributes, and among them was agility. While the "Agi" itemization stat is NOT important, player agility most certainly is:

OK, admittedly at Patchwerk you can just stand on one spot and spam one or two
nuke buttons. But apart from him and a couple of other exceptions, you actually
need to be pretty movable as a Mage. Somehow you’re supposed to manage to move
out of crap on the ground or evil things coming for you through the air, and
STILL make your several seconds-long spells go off, resulting in pretty yellow
numbers on the screen. A good Mage can nuke on the move. If you’re slow like me,
there’s nothing else to do but to place yourself in front of the dummies in
IF,running back and forward, until nuking on the fly is a second nature to you.

Agility. It’s a must-have for your mage.

When it comes to soloing/questing, I cannot emphasize strongly enough, how important mobility is.

It's kind of odd, actually when I think about it. After all, on Balth, I have to run hither & yon to get into melee range. With Iggy though, it's the opposite: I run hither & yon to stay OUT of melee range. Even with mana shield, a mage is one squishy little target, so mobility (and planning!) are crucial.

Take for example, the Tharil'zun's Head quest. It's listed as a level 25 group quest. Tharil'zun himself is a level 24 elite, with 3 or 4 mobs around him.

Getting there is pretty straight forward;

- 1 target a mob with pyroblast at max range.
- 2 do an immediate followup fireball
- 3 throw a fireblast and (usually) kill the mob, even before he gets to you.
- 4 if he's still not dead (and is likely running in fear to the next group) nail him with Arcane missile (you don't need to turn to keep him in front, AM does it automatically.

If it's a caster, tap counterspell between 1 & 2.

Just repeat this step 6-8 times, and you are nearly there. There's one mob you may get that pulls a second (often a caster) This one is a *little* different:

- 1 target first mob with Pyro
- 2 sheep the second mob (I save casters for last, since they melee like little girls,I can stand toe- to toe with them)
- 3 wait until the 1st mob gets close then Frost Nova
- 4 run (or blink if you're bored) away to give you some room
- 5 (& 6 & 7) Fireball/fireblast/missile the mob to death
- 8 pyroblast the second mob and continue as normal.

The only thing I didn't mention is make sure you have you buffs and protections up (arcane intellect, frost armor, dampen magic and mana shield. For the above trash, it isn't really necessary, but it helps.

AAAnyhow...

So, all the trash, up to Tharil'zun's group is gone. The big problem now is that there is usually a "guard" mob, right at the entrance to his little area, and to get him in Line of Sight (LoS), you have to get REALLY close.

So sheep him, and run out to a good distance, and target him with pyroblast, then fireball and (sound familiar?)

Do the normal pyro attack & kill the second mob in the area, which will leave you with Tharil'zun and another mob right next to him. As mentioned earlier, Tharil is a 24 elite, so you need to be able to focus on him without interruption, so take out the guard first:

- 1 Pyro the mob/guard
- 2 sheep Tharil
- 3 kill the mob/guard (fireball, etc)
- 4 RUN LIKE HELL! (just run far enough that you get out of combat and Tharil goes back to his hole, all alone)

Now, re-buff, mana and heal up, and head back in.

- 1 Pyro
- 2 fireball with a fireblast follow (maybe, depends on distance)
- 3 FROST NOVA
- 4 run to distance and fireball. (possibly fireblast as well, if mana looks ok)
- 5 when he gets close, BLINK
- 6 he should be low now, and if you have the mana, just arcane missile him to death
- 7 if he's still got a good amount of health, run & dodge until Frost Nova comes off CD, and just burn him down.

Fireblast and arcane missile are spells I like A LOT, but they cost a ton of mana, and depending on how often Tharil manages to clobber you (and your mana shield) mana may be an issue, so be careful.

What I *hope* comes across is that during this fight, you need to be running, dodging and using all your mobility (and your mobility reduction on him) to stay alive.

It's not that hard and I never died trying it, but I did have to run to safety a couple times before I figured it out.