Horrific Visions

[ghoselle]

I 4-masked it in tank spec while getting the last doodads to upgrade my cloak, and had a sanity orb left over.  Things that let you break snares seem to free you from leaden feet -- this includes druid shapeshifting...

[ghoselle]

https://blizzardwatch.com/2020/03/12/horrific-visions-will-number-one-source-corrupted-gear-next-week/

Looks like all gear from visions will be corrupted gear starting next week.

[Marco]

This week is the final cloak upgrade, requiring at least four visions to get the eight pages.  (If that seems like a slog, just think how it was originally going to be 18 pages.)  The upgrade just gives you a bump from 75% to 80% insanity resistance; this is big for visions but won't help you elsewhere, so there's no need to cram the vision runs into the beginning of the week.

After this week, there will be three levels of engagement:

* To increase corruption resistance by +3 once per week, do one full clear (it seems no masks will be required for this).  Or kill N'Zoth on normal and you won't have to run any visions.

* To get good corrupted gear, do at least one full clear per week with as many masks as you can manage.  The rewards scale up to ilvl 470 at five masks.  Successive runs at the same difficulty will get you the next lower tier of loot that you haven't gotten for the week (so, for example, three four-mask clears will get you a 465, a 460, and a 455 piece).

* To get sockets, do as many visions at you can at the highest mask level where you can be thorough.  It will likely take at least five visions to earn one socket.

[Marco]

The Drag boss has a tree stump next to his encounter area, which blocks void torrent.  Melee can run around it during the cast; it makes the fight take a while, but with minimal sanity loss.  Weirdly, it does not block player line of sight, so casters can continue DPSing during the cast, and pet classes can just set up opposite the tree stump from their pets and do the whole fight standing still.

On Umbric (back in Stormwind), toys no longer seem to stop his ice storm after he teleports, but class abilities like totems still seem to work.

I've started running Purification Protocol on every character who runs visions, since stunning aberrations can effectively neutralize a lot of mob packs.  On Rexxar it's good for stunning his boars, particularly when he summons two at once.  Some people prefer Reaping Flame for its ability to delete mobs (particularly casters who can stun or fear you), but I find that avoiding the 45s cooldown is an extra thing I prefer not to have to think about.

[ghoselle]

There was a weak aura that was being shared around a week or two back - I highly recommend getting it.  Specifically it tracks the duration and cooldown of the gift which gives you 15 seconds of corruption immunity.  Knowing when that can proc can make a big difference.  Having it off cooldown for Rexxar means that it will likely proc on one of the first 2 boars you kill and you'll be able to kill the rest without losing sanity.  I found that I was paying attention to this cooldown a lot for engaging any of the mini bosses, and that managing it made them much easier.

I managed to do Ogrimmar 5 mask as ~471 tank - I ended it with over half sanity, the get out of jail still left, and I used a sanity orb before Thrall despite being at 80% sanity.  I did get  lucky with Twilight Devastation procs (turns out as tank, they almost 1-shot the boars; so of 6 boars across 2 fights, 3 died to TD+cleave.)

[jsoh]

There was a weak aura that was being shared around a week or two back - I highly recommend getting it.  Specifically it tracks the duration and cooldown of the gift which gives you 15 seconds of corruption immunity.

https://wago.io/14Sz-T-dm

[Marco]

My notes on five-mask runs:

* With a rank 15 cloak, you do not need to pull quickly or do big pulls.  I never pull more than one trash pack at a time outside of the starting zone, and never pull a trash pack with an elite.  Avoiding mishaps and understanding your mistakes is more important than going fast.

* High-mask runs are generally easier solo or in a group of two.  You have more control over mob positions and burned bridges is less of a factor.  If you do go in a full group, have someone go tank and let that person pull.

* Trash packs do not drain sanity, except by making you run over burned bridges.  Their abilities go after your health, and at five masks they can kill you pretty readily.  Identify casters (especially ones with names like Tormentor or Dominator) and kill them first.  If there are multiple casters, line of sight can often be used to group them up.  You can use purification protocol to stun aberrations, particularly tentacles that will otherwise waste your time by burrowing.

* Elites are trying to drain your sanity.  Every elite has two abilities, one of which is sometimes more subtle than the other.  Pay attention as you fight them; if you have unexplained sanity loss, look them up on wowhead after the run.  For example, the elite before the valley of spirits (Orgrimmar west) has a decimator ability that sends a projectile out and then back.  If you only dodge his charge and not his decimator, you'll lose a ton of sanity with Daredevil active.

* Picking up sanity potions is a pretty big boost.  Doing some lower-mask runs where you try to get all of the chests and odd crystals will help you get familiar with where potions can be found.

* Sanity food can be a substantial boost if you need it.  Try to use it in middle areas or the starting area rather than lost areas, as you'll lose less sanity from sitting for ten seconds.  It doesn't interfere with your food buff.

* Every madness has counterplay, even if it isn't perfect.  Leadfoot is about not moving when you don't have to.  Split Personality is about moving away from walls before it procs and not fighting near walls when you can avoid it.  Molten Feet is about triggering it safely each time it procs, or standing still when you can.

* If there's an elite with an ability that can't be fully countered (like Boundless Corruption with leadfoot, or the elite in the trade district with the channeled sanity drain), try to pull it with Gift active.

[Snique]

Sanity food?

[jsoh]

K'Babs. Restores 100 sanity if you eat for 10s. 3m CD.

Slightly pricey on the AH, but.. you know..

[Piralyn]

As Marco notes, it's most useful in the lighter areas, since you will continue losing sanity at the normal rate for the area while eating. If you're still losing 5 sanity a second or whatever in the hard areas, then you're only gaining 50 sanity out of the food due to the time it takes for it to give you sanity. That's not a huge boost. The primary situations I've found it to be useful have been A) I don't feel quite comfortable with the sanity amount I'm going into a mini boss with, but it's close, and using an orb will mean I likely won't get the full 200 sanity from Elite Extermination or B) about to head into a mini boss that Gift is useful/mandatory for (Corrupted blob in Trade or Valley of Wisdom) but the internal cooldown isn't quite up. In that case, it will let you 'tread water' on sanity for a short bit. You'll still have to kill something to proc Gift most likely, but it at least gives you time.

I have, however, found the 20% movement speed food (Baked Voidfin) to be extremely helpful. While you can mount up and move through a lot of the Visions, sometimes the distance between packs is short enough that it doesn't make sense. That +20% movement speed seems to add up a lot of bits and pieces of time throughout a run and the little nudges it can make to when you reach certain points can make Gift or Orb usage timing work out better than without it.

[Marco]

I find https://wago.io/VisionCounter very useful for doing thorough vision runs.  It tracks the number of chests and odd crystals you've found in each zone, without any manual action required.  (If you get confused by it thinking there are four chests in the starting zone, that's because it's counting the ethereal's reward chest for odd crystals.)

[Snique]

Is there a concise summary of crystals and ethereals somewhere? I have bumped into it once or twice but not enough to GAF.

[Marco]

https://www.wowhead.com/guides/horrific-vision-odd-crystal-locations-stormwind-orgrimmar

There are two per zone, with four possible spawn locations per zone (three in the starting zone).  They are harder to find than chests since they're tucked into corners, but with enough experience you can learn where to look.  Finding all ten is worth 425 mementos when you talk to the ethereal, independent of how many masks you use.