Mutated Infection and You: A Slime Owner's Guide

[Ustinov]

Studies have shown that prolonged contact and/or proximity to Rotface may result in exposure to a Mutated Infection. Symptoms include a greenish glow on your skin and up to 4000 Nature damage every second. The Schadenfreude Department of Fish and Rotface has released a set of preliminary guidelines for those who may have contracted an Infection.

Part A: So You've contracted a Mutating Infection
----

1) Don't panic. Though you may be covered in green slime and taking damage over time, SDFR-approved field medics will be on hand to treat your injuries and cleanse you once you have reached safe quarantine distance.

2) Identify and seek out your tour group's Designated Slime Handler. The DSH should be clearly marked and can usually be identified by the giant ball of animate ooze that's trying to kill him/her.

3) Stand near your DSH and wait for cleansing if you have not been cleansed already, or wait for the Infection to wear off on its own after 12 seconds. The purged infection will then coalesce into your very own Little Ooze; please proceed to part B for further instructions.


Part B: The Care and Feeding of your Little Ooze
----

Your Mutated Infection will eventually develop into a Little Ooze and begin to follow you around. This is a perfectly natural part of the Ooze life cycle and should be encouraged. The following are some tips to keep you, your disgusting oozeling, and the rest of your tour group happy during the short time the two of you will be spending together.

1) If your Little Ooze has appeared while you are still in the tour group, step away from the group and look for your DSH. If your DSH is not currently being chased by Oozey death, stand near him/her and wait for another quarantined group member to arrive with their own Little Ooze.

2) When two Little Oozes are placed within close proximity to each other they will merge into a Big Ooze, at which point the DSH will take over attending duties. Once you know the Ooze merging process has begun (i.e. once your Little Ooze has stopped following you) please return to your tour group. Do not linger too long out of emotional attachment; the resulting Big Ooze does not remember you anymore, and any attempts to reestablish contact will result in approximately 25,000 melee damage.

3) In the likely event that your DSH is occupied by Ooze handling duties, please walk towards the space between your DSH and his/her Big Ooze with your Little Ooze in tow. When conducted properly the Big Ooze will stop as it merges with your Little Ooze, giving you time to return to the tour group and providing the DSH with valuable not-dying room. If your DSH is moving through a hazardous material zone, the SDFR recommends walking around the zone to the leading edge of the DSH's path instead of trying to run through the liquid.

4) In order to provide sufficent space for Ooze merging to occur, make sure to keep your Little Ooze between you and the Big Ooze's path at all times.

Let nature take its course!

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Avoid walking directly towards the Big Ooze to trigger the process as this will place you between the Oozes as they attempt to mate. The mating rituals of the Mutated Infection Oozes, while perfectly natural, also involve overlapping 5000+ Nature damage auras.

Don't get in the way of Ooze Love!

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5) In the interests of Big Ooze population control, try to avoid other group members who are currently attaching their own Little Oozes to the Big Ooze; wait for other quarantined members to finish dropping off their respective Ooze before you approach.

These guidelines should help keep you safe and maintain control of our Ooze population during the course of your tour. Until next time, have fun and practice safe ooze merging!

-Your friends at the Schadenfreude Department of Fish and Rotface

[Camyu]

OMG DRAGONQUEST SLIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3

[hung]

*****
(5 stars for the ASCII illiterates)

[hung]

NewsFlash:

The SDFR has received unconfirmed reports of big oozes abruptly leaving their DSH and heading to people in the tour group. Big oozes seem to have unusual affection for tourists dual wielding two-handed weapons, though any tourist dealing out AOE may be at risk.
If you see a big ooze heading towards you and you are not a SDFR certified DSH, then call out for a hand of protection. A quick response may help the DSH capture the big ooze's attention in time to save the tour group.

[Ustinov]

Congratulations on your field commission to the Schadenfreude Department of Fish and Rotface - Slime Handling division. If you have been directed to these instructions then one of the following has occurred:

A - a Big Ooze has chosen to ignore your Designated Slime Handler's commands and is approaching your group instead.
B - a second Big Ooze has spawned from a Little Ooze that was previously following you, either from crossing another quarantined member's path accidentally or because the current Big Ooze is undergoing an Unstable Explosion.
C - your DSH has become incapacitated due to Ooze melee-related complications.

In any case, it has fallen to you to carry the responsibility of Slime Handling until taunt- or Rebirth- based help arrives. Here are some tips that can help you and your new Ooze friend to manage in the interim.

1) Feel free to panic. Your Fight-or-Flight reflexes are your best friend in the first few seconds of this situation (hint: it's not Fight) and the initial burst of adrenaline should move you far enough to get a head start.

2) Maintain safe distance. The Big Ooze's reach is deceptively long.

3) Try to hold the attention of your new Ooze friend as best you can at the beginning. The only scenario worse than the Ooze coming for you is the Ooze reaching for a random healer instead. If you have been chosen for this task it is usually because you have a means of forcing the Ooze to follow you that doesn't require close proximity.

4) In many ways, Big Oozes are no different from their Little counterparts, other than their damage potential being increased by an order of magnitude or two. The SDFR still advocates merging Oozes whenever possible, so if your DSH is still attending another Big Ooze you can try to merge them together as with any normal Little Ooze scenario, with extra care taken to keeping your personal Big Ooze from getting too close to you. Please refer to your Citadel Guidebook Chapter 3.3.4a: Blood Beast Obedience Training as some of the tips therein will apply here as well. Note that behavioral patterns of the resultant Ooze created by two Big Oozes merging is unconfirmed at this time; make sure that the DSH has contained the new Ooze before returning to your normal duties.

5) In the event that your DSH is unavailable and no Rebirth assistance is forthcoming, you may be asked to direct your Ooze friend indefinitely, or at least until it explodes. There is a very good chance you do not have the means to survive the steeplechase of hazardous material zones that you will need to run through, let alone even one hit from the Ooze itself. If you have ranged attention-directing abilities or effects that increase your running speed, now is the time to make use of them. Otherwise do what you can to keep the Ooze away from the tour group for as long as possible; the SDFR /salutes your sacrifice and assures you that you will be missed.

-Your new colleagues at the Schadenfreude Department of Fish and Rotface

[Akane]

*DIES* ROFL that was awesome!

[Daewen]

*DIES* ROFL that was awesome!

Awesome, yes, but more importantly: COMPLETELY ACCURATE.
Please, let nobody get caught up in the kinder, gentler form of instructions, lest they ignore the life-saving steps outlined.
To reiterate, it is a LIFE-THREATENING situation for you and all of your friends! Do not get your friends killed!

[Ustinov]

Slime Thrust Vectoring: Crossing the Streams Not as Bad as You'd Think

An interesting trick came up last night over the course of our ICC10 Rotface Dance. Ooze merging has always been a hazardous occupation, due to the sheer number of potential overlapping damage auras: the one you bring (mutated infection/Lil' Ooze love), the one you're trying to reach (Big Ooze love) and the environment you're running through (floor and spray). A lot of the time people found themselves out of position to meet up with the OT and having the unenviable choice of:

a) dragging the ooze the long way through more slime pools and possibly other people trying to reach the Big Ooze
b) trying to run up to (or, even more painfully, through) the Big Ooze itself and deal with its unwelcome advances.

As soon as you realize you're infected, you should look to see if a Big Ooze is getting kited, then turn (best practices be damned, keyboard turn if you have to) towards the OT before exiting the crowd. Then wait for the OT to walk in front of you before moving out to the wall. Don't walk directly along the OT's path or try to match speeds, just walk directly towards the wall, crossing the space between the OT and the big ooze, like so:

The wall is your friend!

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If you time it right, your slime (trailing behind you) will meet the Big slime as their paths cross, like so:

If only I had any idea how to make animated .gifs

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From there you can wait for the Slime Train to finish passing or walk around and get back to beats if have a safe path. There are still risks involved, of course. While you're at the far wall there's always the chance you'll get a slime pipe spilling out over your head right around the time Rotface's Slime Spray decides to come and say hi. If you have to negotiate slime pipe spills while waiting for the train, it's usually best to wait at the edge of an existing pool, since if it decides to spill in your waiting area you can quickly evacuate to the previously spilled, now drained floor.

Please look both ways before crossing the streams

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Hopefully this will help a little. Apologies for the poor image res; MS paint is not Photoshop.

[Camyu]

2 death knights, 1 rogue, 1 hunter, 1 shaman, 1 priest, 1 pally, and 2 druids, plus the pally ooze tank! Look at that accuracy!

[sphie]

Wait, why does my dot look like it soiled itself in the corner?