Raiding: February 2008 Archives

I was catching up on some podcasts recently, and in World of Warcast they were talking about how a lot of the BC instance bosses have a gimmick that, once you learn it, makes the fight easier. 

It got me to thinking on one of the subjects that both exilerated and infuriates me.  Random factors.

On taking on Prince in Karazhan, the number one reason why any of my groups fail is because of those dang infernals.  One drops on the tank and he can't move quickly enough, one drops right in front of the ranged folks and they're stuck out of range, et cetera.  While the strategies might include ways of moving him and so on, no matter what, the sheer randomness of where the infernals drop is what I find to be the hardest part of the fight.  Keeping the tank healed?  Yep, can usually do that.  Keep other people healed when there's axes?  Check.

Keep order and tell everyone where to move and have them do it right without getting in the shadow nova.  Umm...

There are other fights like this, of course.  I've heard that Lady Vashj has a similar random factor.  It just annoys me to no end when we wipe because of a chance event rather than because we just plain screwed up.

Prince does lead to funny death poses, though.

To Infinity, and Beyond!

While drinking my "morning" (mid-afternoon because I was up until 6am tanking BM for a guildie) coffee I browsed the notes from patch 2.4 on the test realm.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/02/08/2-4-patch-notes-up/

A lot of the instance notes seem to be aimed towards making the 25-man instances more accessible and easier.  Such as the loss of attunement needed for Hyjal and BT, being able to fight Vashj and Kael'thas without downing the rest of the bosses, and it sounds like Mags is getting whomped with the nerf bat.

Is this a good thing?  I think there's two sides to it.  It's a good thing because it should allow more guilds to get through these dungeons quickly and perhaps actually get to experience Hyjal and BT before the WotLK.  It's also obviously designed to help more people along to being able to see the new Sunwell raid. 

However, all of those guilds that have been struggling with Vashj and Kael'thas to get their Hyjal attunements are bound to end up feeling a little superfluous.  And along with whenever content is speeded up, some guilds might end up in Hyjal or BT well before they're ready for it, just like how we were seeing >70 characters asking for heroic instance runs.

People who did the quest will get a nifty new title, though!  They'll have something different from "Champion of the Naaru" to display.

All I know is, I'm going to keep pushing to get our guild geared up in Kara, and then go see how much easier the Mags event is.  Hold onto your tail, mister pit lord.  We're coming for ya.