Why is Ruby Sanctum so difficult/easy?

[Kothnok]

I have been in RS for several weeks now and have found this particular encounter is either very difficult or very easy.  There does not seem to be an in between for most people.  I find this encounter to be on the "very difficult" side and I either want to know why, or find a way to improve.  This is where I need your help.  Please reply with insight from your perspective (both sides) and maybe we can figure out how to make this fight easy for everyone.

Let me list the reasons that I, as a healer, find it very difficult for me:

1. The BigWigs timer is not accurate.  When the timer counts down to 0, it may be up to 5 seconds later that I see the laser on my screen.  This doesn't happen every night, but when it starts, it lags all night.

2. I don't know if this is related to #1, but tonight I finally had proof that what my screen shows me is NOT what is actually happening in the twilight realm with regards to the cutter.  I was running "against the cutter" to try and get behind it before it turned on and cut me in half, that way I can stop and heal instead of constantly run from it while it's on, which reduced my healing power.  I had the cutter appear right on top of me and yet it did not damage me at all.  This means if you are on the leading edge of the cutter as it advance towards you, it may be closer than it appears.

3. My camera angle cannot... will not... has not... w/e not... show me both orbs at the same time.  Holding the camera angle near the ground like I usually do means I only catch a glimpse of the orbs (and only 1) as it spins around the outside of the area. Since I only have a vague knowledge of where it is when it will turn on, this forces me to stop with about 5 sec on the timer and try to look around for an orb and then move accordingly.  If I run towards the advancing orb, I run a high risk of being killed due to #2 since I don't know if the graphic is accurate or not.  If I run from the advancing orb, I have to maintain a large lead thanks to #2 as well; while this is the safer method to choose, I now increase the likelihood of being slain by flame breath or letting someone die from lack of healing (either from running or from tail stun).  In either case, even if the graphics ARE accurate, having only one orb on the screen makes it difficult to tell just where the beam will cut across the screen.  I'm fairly spatially aware and it frustrates me beyond belief that I misjudge where the beam will appear.

4. To mitigate #3, I found that by looking from a top-down perspective, I can see much more of the battlefield and my position within it.  Unfortunately, I still cannot see both of those orbs circling around the outside, even at max camera distance.  Having the camera at this angle means that I cannot see any orb if I'm anywhere near the dragon and will force excessive scanning to try to find an orb if my placement coincides with a beam about to come on.

Video issues?  I tried to up my video resolution in the hopes that my 1280x768 was just too small compared to others that find it much easier. I tried to increase it to 1360x768 (same as Fleecy) to see if that would help.  It was a disaster while in RS -- but not because my bar placements were slightly wrong.  Several of my bars and target frames were slightly off my screen which shouldn't have been possible given that I increased the resolution.  To add to my woes, the text that is supposed to appear on top of whatever the button or frame (including built in ones like the ESC button) was being displayed down and to the right of where it should be.  Completely fubar, there is no way I could operate with the game in such a state.  Changing the resolution back was a challenge, but once back in its normal state, my display was still too far to the left for some objects like my minimap and my main Dominos bars.  I manually moved them back into position. 

Now for the strange(r) part...  once outside of RS and I zoned into HoS for a random, those widgets I moved manually were now too far right by the same amount that I adjusted them from being too far left earlier.  After the random, I experimented with my resolution settings again and this time I had NO issues changing my resolution up to 1360x768, not even when I changed it to my max resolution of 1680x1050.

Does resolution play a part in whether or not this encounter is easy for you?  Can you see more with a higher resolution?  IDK the answer yet, but I determined to find out.

These are my issues with RS.  I refuse to believe that at this one encounter "I just suck" -- at least, I refuse to believe it without putting up an effort to improve.  Playing a dps role means I have less to worry about and no one dies if I run around a bit more than usual, but for a critical role of healing, I don't have the luxury of "stop dps and survive" since there's no stopping the heals w/o endangering everyone (thanks a lot constant-zone-wide-damage-aura).

So what is this encounter to you?  I want to hear from you.  I want to help everyone else frustrated with RS as well as for my own benefit.

[Shadowwolf]

The simple fact is RS is buggy as hell. The dragon can hit you with his tail from 20yrds away standing on his side or even under his belly, his breath can hit you if youre standing 100yrds away and the list goes on.

Bigwigs and other boss mods can only be so accurate, esp if you have any lag on your client with the server, it can throw timers off.

This stuff isnt going to be fixed because of the development on Cataclysm sadly, its just part of the instance we need to overcome =/

As far as watching the orbs goes, its not necessary to see both orbs to do. The move in the same direction and once the first beam is cast, it lines up pretty well where you can find a good spot to stand safely and you only have to move every now and then to avoid being hit. You only need to see 1 orb to know where the beam is going to be when you see the warning. When you hear him say Beware the shadow! timers accurate or not, thats when the beam is coming within the next 1-2 seconds. If you give yourself a 10yrd buffer from where the orb is floating you wont ever get hit..

Theres a lot going on in the Twilight realm, thats a given. Between his damn breaths, the beams, void zones, the debuff, his cleave, tail swipe, its a ton of stuff going on, but its completely doable. Is it easy? No, but with practice on the fight it comes. Even with practice there are some stupid buggy aspects that get me now and then. Its heavily reliant on RNG like most of the fights in this game sadly.

[Air]

Your camera is limited while in the shadow realm.  Your only able to go a certain amount before you hit a barrier.  Even with the macro to extend the view distance, still doesn't help in there.

[Kothnok]

That barrier only applies to the ground level where the wall is erected preventing escape.  That is why I tried using the camera pointing from top down, there is no top and so the camera was able to zoom much further away.  Just not quite far enough to see them both. =/