by ALEX ZIEBART

This quest is actually training for Phase 3 of the Malygos encounter, in which you do battle with the Aspect of Magic from the back of a red drake. 

You pick up Aces High! from Corastrasza on the Band of Transmutation, one of the floating platforms around The Nexus. If you’ve never done it before, head down to the Transitus Shield, there’s a quest that will tell you exactly where to go. Practicing with this quest will make the fight much, much easier when you fight Malygos one day, because the abilities the Drake has in this quest are the exact same as the ones in that fight.

Once Corastrasza has put you on a drake, your action bar will change to the vehicle’s action bar. If you’re not using any bar mods, the vehicle UI will pop up. The abilities you’ll be given are as follows:

• Flame Spike (10 Energy, 60 yard range): Fires a quick jet of fire at your target, causing 943 to 1057 Fire damage. Awards 1 combo point.
• Engulf in Flames (50 Energy, 60 yard range): Launches a blast of flames igniting your target for 1500 Fire damage every 3 sec. This effect stacks. Lasts longer per combo point.
  • 1 point: 6 seconds
  • 2 points: 10 seconds
  • 3 points: 14 seconds
  • 4 points: 18 seconds
  • 5 points: 22 seconds
• Revivify (10 Energy, 60 yard range): Heals the target for 500 per second. Lasts 10 seconds. Awards one combo point, stacks up to 5 times.
• Life Burst (50 Energy): Releases a burst of rejuvinating energy, healing friendly targets within 60 yards and increases the caster’s healing done by 50%. Heals for more and lasts longer per combo point.
  • 1 point: 5,000 heal/5 sec
  • 2 points: 7,500 heal/10 sec
  • 3 points: 10,000 heal/15 sec
  • 4 points: 12,500 heal/20 sec
  • 5 points: 15,000 heal/25 sec
• Flame Shield (25 Energy): Surrounds the caster in a shield of flames, reducing all damage taken by 80%. Lasts longer per combo point.
  • 1 point: 2 seconds
  • 2 points: 3 seconds
  • 3 points: 4 seconds
  • 4 points: 5 seconds
  • 5 points: 6 seconds
• Blazing Speed (30 sec cooldown): Increases flight speed by 500% for 8 seconds.

Dealing Damage
This almost plays like a Rogue, but not quite. Using Flame Spike builds a combo point on your target. Engulf in Flames uses those combo points to apply a hefty DoT. The thing to note here is that more combo points doesn’t increase the damage on Engulf in Flames, it only increases theduration of the DoT. The DoT also stacks, and the duration on the DoT refreshes when you add a new stack. 

The goal here is not to use Engulf in Flames when you have 5 combo points, but rather put as many stacks of the debuff up as possible while making sure the duration is long enough that it won’t immediately drop if you need to stop and heal yourself.

A 1-point Engulf in Flames will only stay up for 6 seconds. While 1-point finishers can stack the debuff very very quickly at the beginning of the fight, it won’t work later. You’ll have Energy problems and if you need to heal yourself, you’ll lose your stack. When you’re first learning how to do this quest, try starting by using 4 combo points, then the finisher. Another four combo points, then the finisher again. Repeat until you need to heal, or the other dragon is dead.

After you do that just fine a few times, move down to three combo points. You can keep a stack up with 2 combo points, but 3 is what you should stick with here. 2 is better for Malygos himself because you’re not going to need to worry about healing at all, just using the Flame Shield at the right time. Stick with 3 or 4-point Engulfs on this quest.


Healing
You know how a Rogue can only build combo points on one target at a time? If he builds a combo point somewhere new, he loses those he had on a previous target? This works the same. Your enemy is a target, andyou are a target. Building combo points on yourself via Revivify kills the combo points you had built up with Flame Spike. DPS or Heal, one at a time. Don’t try to spam Flame Spike while building Revivify on yourself.

While doing Aces High! you generally don’t need to keep your HP topped off. You don’t need to be at 100% all of the time. Don’t worry about being a little reckless, just keep stacking on Engulf until you’re well below 50%. Once you do start healing, there are a couple of things to be aware of. First, your combo points from using Revivify stack on you, so when you try to use Life Burst, guess who you need to target? Right, you need to target yourself. Even if you have Auto Self-Cast turned on, you’ll need to target yourself/your drake.

Unlike Engulf, Life Burst is something you’ll probably want to use when you have a full 5 combo points. If not for the heal itself, more combo points will give you a longer duration on the Life Burst buff, which makes your HoTs more potent. Stronger HoTs means less time spent babysitting your health bar. If you’re sitting in the danger zone, a 1-point Life Burst isn’t a bad idea either, to get your HoTs up at full effectiveness immediately.

Flame Shield
This one is pretty easy. The Flame Shield uses any form of combo points you have active, whether they’re on your target or on yourself. You still need to target the appropriate target (them or yourself) to use them, but either will work. The only time you need to use this is when the Blue Drake is using the ability Arcane Surge. It hits for a crapload.

Again, additional combo points only extend the duration of this buff, not make it stronger or anything like that. While using a 5-point Flame Shield is ideal so you can absorb the entire surge, it’s not necessary. A one or two point Flame Shield will save you from death, and your healing will let you recover. If you don’t use the shield at all, you will probably die. Again: 5-points will reduce the whole Surge, a couple of points will absorb enough to let you survive.

If you’re a raider, spend a little time practicing that, too. It’s one of the key parts of the Malygos fight.

FAQ
Q: Wow, that all sounds really complicated! Is it hard?
A: Nope, not really. It’s pretty easy! I went into more detail than I needed to because it’s an integral part of a raid encounter. It takes these mechanics and makes them a little more extreme and demanding. The quest itself is really easy once you get the hang of it.

Q: Help! Help! My combo points aren’t showing up, what’s up with that!?
A: You’re probably using a unit frame mod. Vehicle combo points aren’t integrated into most of those yet, since it’s such an uncommon thing. The easiest fix is to count your combo points in your head. 1… 2… 3… Engulf! 1… 2… 3… Engulf! The more complicated fix is going to vary from mod to mod, if you want to keep your custom unit frames. It will either take an update of that specific mod, or some lua editing on your end. Look up your mod on Curse or wherever you got it, then see if there’s any information on that there.

Q: So the Malygos fight is exactly like this? That sounds really easy.
A: Only the last phase of the fight. There are a total of three. The third phase is really easy if your raid has been practicing this daily quest, though. In the raid itself, you’ll only have to worry about damage orhealing if your group has been set up properly. Everyone will need to worry about the Flame Shield, though.

Note that the strategy here was written somewhat with that encounter in mind. Doing one role at a time, and learning each one. You can win by not putting up the DoT at all and just healing yourself and spamming Flame Spike, but it’s probably not a good way to teach yourself to do it.

Q: Okay, that’s cool. But what are the rewards?
A: At level 80, the Aces High! daily quest rewards you with 13 gold, 23 silver, and 250 Wyrmrest Accord reputation. That’s 275 for us Humans. High five!

Tags: aces-high, blazing-speed, combo-points, corastrasza, engulf-in-flames, flame-shield, flame-spike, kirin-tor, life-burst, malygos, revivify, transitus-shield, world-of-warcraft, wotlk, wotlk-guide, wow, wow-guide, wrath-101, wrath-dailies, wrath-of-the-lich-king, wyrmrest-accord