We've chased him across time and space but finally cornered Gul'dan... atop a giant Night Elf er... hold?
I've enjoyed this raid immensely, the aesthetic is fantastic and the fights have been varied and interesting.
There wasn't much challenge for our team on Heroic, we probably carried too much gear from Mythic Emerald Nightmare to hit it at the right level but it was still enjoyable.
And when I say there wasn't much challenge, there was definitely some in the later bosses.
The first 7 died in a fairly straight-forward manner with only a few wipes to learn the tactics before the kill.
Next came Star Augur Etraeus... and our first real challenge.
It's a fantastic setting for a fight, possibly the best I have ever experienced, like an updated Algalon.
The fight itself is very simple but, rather surprisingly, it turned into an incredibly tight dps check.
We had been plodding along through the fight until phase 3 and the inventively-named 'Thing Which Should Not Be' - Everybody knew to look away at the right time, and DBM shouts at you anyway, but a couple of people got caught out.
Then a couple more people got caught out on the next add.
Before we knew what was really happening, the boss is casting Big Bang and we're all about to die!
It took another couple of attempts and some tweaking of when to cast Heroism but then it all came together and another boss was down.
Grand Magistrix Elisande was another step up in difficulty and could easily have been the final boss in the raid.
To be honest, I think the Magistrix should have been the last boss. She has been the major protagonist in the Suramar chain, her dealings with Gul'dan and the Legion more of an undercurrent to the political maneuvering and ongoing battle with Thalyssra.
Maybe Blizzard agreed, at least in part, as the encounter is epic!
More time-bending shenanigans here as parts of the arena itself alter time, killing adds spawns either a 'fast' or slow' bubble, and how mechanics act.
Early on it is just about gaining a speed buff to do the big deeps but, as the fight goes on, it becomes just as important to use the slow bubble to handle various boss abilities.
So clever and so much fun!
Pools need to be soaked but they do damage if you stand in them... pick up a slow buff from the slow bubble and that pool damage ticks more slowly making it easily survivable.
3 debuffs on the raid that will kill everyone if they go off together... 1 person pick up a fast, 1 person a slow, to stagger the detonations.
And various other mechanics could be handled this way.
It is an unforgiving fight though and one particular mechanic killed us many times...
A circle of orbs forms around the outside of the room then contracts on to the boss.
There is no space between these orbs but they follow the same rules as everything else on this fight... hit a fast bubble and move faster, hit a slow bubble and move slower... this creates a small gap around the bubbles due to the speed difference and allows you to escape.
I won't tell you how many times people failed at avoiding these orbs... or the confusion caused by them changing direction in phase 2... but it was definitely the hardest part of the fight for our team.
I think the difficulty came from it not quite being the same each time, particularly in P2 when it was centred on one of the boss's mirror images.
Soaking a puddle with the slow buff could easily leave you out of position, and slowed, when the orbs came...
I lost count of the number of times Ghost Wolf and Gust of Wind saved me so have some sympathy for the raiders that don't have those tools available.
It took us an entire raid night to bring it all together in one attempt and the kill finally came with a famous 'one last go'! :-)
Grand Magistrix Elisande may have deserved to be the final boss in Nighthold but we've chased Gul'dan long enough and there's no way he was going to play second fiddle to anybody!
Progress seemed much more straight-forward on this fight. Not necessarily easier, but more inline with various other multi-phase fights where you learn one phase, master it, and move on to the next.
We had extended the lockout this week to focus fully on Gul'dan and, again, it took us the entire night.
I like how they have experimented with time/speed mechanics in a couple of fights and the last incarnation of this came in the form of a speed 'button' I can only assume we stole from Elisande.
It gives you a massive haste buff but the clever part is that you lose this buff if you take any Felfire damage... and Gul'dan throws a LOT of felfire around :-)
In phase 1 we are just handling Gul'dan's minions while he hides behind a shield. It didn't take us long to push into phase 2. It was just a warm up, you can't win the fight in P1 but you can certainly lose it.
Gul'dan joins the fight in P2 and his abilities are slowly empowered as the phase continues.
The Eye of Gul'dan seemed to be the most dangerous ability, massive damage which sometimes coincided with the empowered roots knocking people back out of range of the action (and sometimes way way back and out of the fight, much to our amusement)
Then Gul'dan absorbs even more demonic power and we move into P3, his body mutating further and is almost unrecognisable (like the Joker in Arkham Asylum)
He begins to harvest souls to gather even more power so we have to absorb them into ourselves... will we end up like Illidan?
Fire everywhere as it erupts from random people then Gul'dan unleashes his terrible power, destroying anything remotely near him.
Empowered Eyes of Gul'dan cause further torment but we push on, soaking as many souls as we can handle before he finally succumbs to face Illidan's judgement.
Are all the best fights multi-phase encounters?
This one followed the trend as Gul'dan absorbed more and more demonic power before taking his final form.
It was epic!
Ahead of the Curve achieved... on to Mythic!
So gul'dan down gratz!
ReplyDeleteI think the most important thing about any fight is not is it multi phase or not. But does it fit or not. Does it make sense take the lich king (yeah yeah here we go harping back to the good old days... no bare with me) it was a multi phase encounter even the citadel was mutlti phase as in it opened up over time, but it all flowed it made sense it wasn't mechanics for the sake of. Even cata raids had some good sense mechanics. On the back of beast flying knocking off the armour nucking the vulnerable part made sense. Its the gimmicky things that have no place for me blizzard trying to induce difficulty by adding mechanics. One example of this failing would be the incredibly complex paragons fight (on paper at least) so many things to do look out for watch etc etc but did any work or hurt... not really sure there were a handful that needed handling but this was the penultimate boss and the fact it took longer to explain things that would later be ignored, than it did to kill then has to be wrong.
So far though this raid is all making sense and even when taking into account the mythic addition to skorpyron they seem to be making sense of course i havent seen all the fights at any level yet but what i have they are so far very good and avoid adding in complexity by means of a mechanic obviously thrown in for just that reason.
So are all the best fights multi phase no they are the ones that feel right.
Cheers!
ReplyDeleteYou are right of course, not all multi-phase fights are great... following on from Spine of Deathwing which did make sense, Madness of Deathwing feels forced as we pry his fingers off the platfoems like Tweety Pie and Sylvester.
Assuming it does make sense, are multiple phases required to make a great fight though?
Can you think of any great fights that were single phase?
Ok so thats a bit more tricky and this time the answer will be different for everyone.
ReplyDeleteGoing to strip this to its most basic of forms to try and explain. Tank and spank. There is nothing great or epic in principal about a tank and spank. There is of course though the feeling you get when you down the boss. If the boss is a dps check and tuned to be a real test. Then this in itself can be a true challenge and the euphoria that ensues after the first kill is the mark of a good challenge. For sure if like most first raid bosses it is just a basic gear and ready check then no there remains nothing great or good. Ever heard your raid team get giddy on team speak for downing the first boss in an instance. Ok so example time.
And no apologies really as this time i am making the same trip down memory lane wotk. So first boss pretty much a ready check in fact the care element needed to get to boss was as much a challenge for tanks and raid as the actual boss fight was. So skip forward a few bosses ok the entire instance nearly, granted. Sindy. What an epic fight. How hard was that fight no mistakes allowed and max number's required by all. Sense of of achievement after the kill immense!
So are multiple phases required to make a fight great. No
But then multi phase encounters are more about the team adapting changing tack and moving on with each phase. I'd say that phase encounters can (that is a can) be easier to learn in some ways as it by definition has distinct phases, master one move on, progressive killing of a boss.
And single phase encounters rely largely on where the team as a whole is at gear wise usually, unless the tuning is really tight. So exactlty which single phase basic encounters feel great are a reflection of how hard the team found them and as such will vary from person to person.
team skill might come into it as in only as strong as your weakest player if they get targeted then you may as well call wipe now... i am thinking push the button type mechanics and people seeing it in time.
Id say on reflection multi phase encounters inject the sense of achievement more often than a single dps check which makes sense youve mastered muliple phases rather than keep up dps while avoiding the same thing over and over.
Sindy was 3 phases, wasn't it? Mystic Buffet in P3...
DeleteBlood Queen maybe? That was one phase.
I'm actually struggling to think of many single-phase fights, all the ones that spring to mind are council fights so a bit different anyway.
Krosus, in Nighthold, is an excellent example of single phase tank and spank done right in my opinion but can't think of many others.
Might have to do some real research on this... sounds like an excuse for a top 10 to me :-)
I'll trust your right re sindy rather than my rose tinted memories.
ReplyDeleteMy recollection though was it was a rinse and repeat tank and spank. Goes into air avoid the bad stuff spread out release encased then back to boss the buffet thing was just the enrage type thing that made it a race. Only went on tanks or something so it sort of meant tanks got one shot after so many stacks which made the race. Only started doing the stacks thing after first set of frost tome thing. Felt very much like a one phase fight as in tank spank deal with something carry on the same something being repeated. And the timer being the debuff on tanks or whoever becoming un healable.
Things like the first wotk boss I'm classing as one phase and was it butcher. Stuff that may really be 2 phases officially one dps burn and then deal with mechanic. But essentially these are more about dps numbers and dealing with one repeated mechanic.
Be interested to see your top 10
It was a long time ago, maybe someone with a better memory will come along and tell us how it really went :-)
DeleteSo any way this list got me thinking just a flat out top 10 boss fights have you done this already somewhere on here be interesting just to link that also see if it needs tweeking with anything that's been released since.
ReplyDelete