The first wing of Throne of Thunder has unlocked for LFR, and so the first thing I did upon logging on today was to run it.
The first wing, as you might gather from the name, is all about Trolls. All three bosses are troll-based, and it's here that we see the Zandalari represent.
The trash (which we found rather tough on Normal, though the guild is way undergeared) before Jin'rokh is not too bad, though my co-tank was a little overeager, making it next to impossible to pick up anyone off him until he died, even with taunts. Did I mention how much Vengeance needs to be redesigned?
Jin'rokh the Breaker:
In case you're wondering, yes, this is the old Dire Troll guy from Yojamba Isle. I'd always held out hope that the Zandalari we had been friends with back in the day were actually still good guys, but it would seem that is not the case.
Jin'rokh is a simple fight, but not Patchwerk-simple. Essentially the whole thing is based on water and electricity. There are four statues that will get shattered over the course of the fight, and they'll create a big pool of water. Standing in this water gives you a boost to damage and healing, but it also makes you take more from his lightning attacks. Tanks will have to switch when the other gets Static Wound, because with the debuff they deal damage to the raid every time they take a hit. The damage decreases over time, but you'll still want to do some swapping. When he tosses one tank at a statue, he'll go to number two on his threat list, causing a kind of automatic tank swap.
He will also send balls of lightning at random raid members. Those who are targeted should run away from the raid, and seriously avoid doing two things: dropping an orb on the spot where another orb detonated, or bringing it into the water. Either of these things will do massive raid-wide damage.
Finally, the conductive pools of water eventually get electrified when he casts a Lightning Storm, so move out of them when that happens.
Trash before Horridon:
The trash here is actually one of the hardest parts of the wing, at least if you don't do it carefully. There are several bridges covered with gusting winds that will threaten to push you off and make casting spells nearly impossible. Do defeat the Mogu spirits floating above the bridge, simply pull them back to an area without wind. There is a Voodoo Golem about halfway through that does nasty tank damage (he sunders, so you probably are supposed to tank-swap, but given my co-tank...) Meanwhile, troll spirits hover above providing big spots of death that you should avoid.
Horridon:
Horridon himself is a giant Direhorn (triceratops) and is not terribly tricky. One tank grabs the dino while the other goes to the first of four open doors where Farraki, Gurubashi, Drakkari, and Amani trolls pour in. DPS and the second tank take on the first tribe of trolls until a Zandalari Dinomancer shows up. When he's down, anyone can click on the orb he drops to make Horridon crash into the currently open gate, stunning him and stopping the flow of that tribe of trolls.
The tanks now switch jobs to allow Horridon's debuff to fall off, and you alternate between the two until all four tribal gates are destroyed.
After that, War-God Jalak jumps down. The free tank picks him up and dps burns him down, and then it becomes a burn phase on Horridon until he's dead.
The one trick for Horridon is that he will do something called Double Swipe, where he swings his head and tail. There's a generous cast time on this, so everyone, including the tank, should run out of the way. Occasionally he'll charge a random raid member, and he always does Double Swipe after one of these.
Trash before Zandalari Council
The trash here isn't so bad. Essentially Gara'jal (from MSV) raises the dead trolls you kill so you have to fight them again.
Zandalari Council
There are four members of the Council - one of each of the major Troll tribes. I don't recall their names, but their tribes are pretty obvious, so I'll just go with those.
The Amani guy cannot be tanked, and just charges around hurting people. The Farraki guy will summon sand elementals that turn into sand puddles when they die, which will snare and eventually entrap you if you don't get out in time. The Gurubashi priestess summons spirit adds and might do some healing, but is fairly light on damage. Finally, the Drakkari guy needs to be traded between tanks as he puts on a debuff that eventually stuns the tank.
One tank picks up the Gurubashi while the other picks up the Farraki and they trade duty on the Drakkari.
Meanwhile, Gara'jal will possess one of the members at a time, empowering their abilities. DPS wants to focus on this one, because they will build power as long as they're possessed. To de-possess a member, you need to do 25% of their health in damage.
Unlike some council fights, these do not have a shared health pool, nor do they heal when another one dies, so cleaves and multi-dotting is a good idea here. Overall, it's a chaotic fight, but not terribly difficult.
Overall Impressions:
I'm really liking the place. Obviously, we've only just scratched the surface here, but especially once people get better used to the fights and geared up a little stronger, I expect this to be a lot of fun to run many a time.
Oh! And I got the Sand Elemental pet off the Council fight. It's really cool.
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