First off, like the Dungeons article, I'm going to focus on the raids themselves, and not raiding as a whole over the course of Mists. Additionally, because Siege of Orgrimmar is still missing nearly half of its bosses on LFR, I'm going to break this section up by tier.
Thankfully, after the pretty sorry number of raids (or rather, the rather sorry size of said raids) that came with Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria has released a series of grand, epic raids.
Tier Fourteen used the Burning Crusade raid tier model, dividing the tier between three raids, or perhaps more precisely, having a "pre-tier" beginning raid in addition to tier 14 proper. Each of these raids on its own is fairly small, but put together, one gets an impressive 16-boss raid tier, making it the largest since tier 7.
Also, unlike, say, tier 5 or tier 11, the raids here are meant to be completed in a specific order. The first raid within the tier actually awards a lower quality of gear, and does not have any tier tokens within it, making it the clear "starter raid."
Mogu'shan Vaults:
Somewhat in the tradition of Karazhan, MSV is a raid that's all about exploring. Lorewalker Cho accompanies you the whole way, giving insight (or expressing a mutual confusion) about whatever you're dealing with.
Mechanically, the bosses are varied in interesting ways. The Stone Guard feels a little like Halfus Wyrmbreaker in that it varies from week to week. Personally I think Feng the Accursed should have been the first boss, as his mechanics are simpler for a raid to deal with and therefore he makes for a good "gatekeeper" boss, but such is life. I enjoyed Gara'jal the Spiritbinder quite a bit, though his totem mechanic is far more complicated on Normal than it is on Raid Finder (and I'll get into that issue when I do my big "raids, dungeons, and scenarios" article.) The Spirit Kings also had some fun variation, in that you could find yourself fighting them in a different order each week.
And then there's Elegon, the guy who drops you through the floor. On one hand, it was annoying to see how many people would fall, but then, I can't really blame Blizzard here. My only issue with this fight was the degree of lag that I encountered during it. Finally Will of the Emperor was one of those fights that I detested at first, and then grew to find very fun. Essentially, this is one of those fights where you need the raid to commit to performing the mechanics the way they were intended, or else you're going to have a mess on your hands. Once the dps realizes the purpose of Titan Gas and the tanks figure out how to dodge the dual bosses' attacks (DBM helps a lot there.) it actually becomes a sort of elegant dance of a fight, which are always fun.
Aesthetically, I'm always a big fan of going into forbidden ruins. While it's hard to create a good sense of stakes in such a situation (Ulduar being an exception,) I think that as a convention for the beginning raid of any expansion, it makes a lot of sense. Also, Lorewalker Cho is always fun to have around.
Heart of Fear:
While the Klaxxi are my favorite of the 5.0 factions, I felt that Heart of Fear was sort of the dullest of the raids in Mists. Granted, I'm not saying it's a bad raid, and there are fun mechanics (and one really painful one,) but so many of the bosses felt like another "kill this one Mantid guy." I realize that it's the Mantid headquarters, so it would be kind of funny to do anything other than kill Mantid, but oh well.
Aesthetically I also think they could have played a little more with the fact that you're up in a tree. Really at no point in the raid does the building you're in feel organic.
There were a few mechanics here that made little bursts of lag a real pain, particularly on the Blade Lord's final phase. One could find oneself running down the little corridor, getting almost to the end, and then simply because of luck, a new tornado would form underneath you on the previously-pristine section of the floor you were on. This could be very frustrating.
And then there's Garalon. First of all, it's always tough to get someone who's willing to do pheromones, and usually when there is, they're terrible at it. The buff one gets when dealing with the legs is nice, but the area you have to stand in is pretty tiny, and the fact that the boss is often turning very quickly means that you'll rarely benefit from it to any great effect. Still, I will say that this was a boss that had unique mechanics, and was a very good one for training tanks how to use active mitigation, as he had really just one big telegraphed move to deal with.
I did enjoy the Amber Shaper fight, mainly because I always thought that there ought to be a fight where players have to attack one of their own raid members.
Terrace of Endless Spring:
On one hand, this raid commits the grave sin of being tiny and having you fight two bosses in the exact same place (though admittedly, Sunwell did this too.) On the other hand, there are some cool mechanics here.
The Protectors of the Endless have a lot of things going on, but aren't terribly interesting. On the other hand, Tsulong does something cool by blending a conventional boss fight with a variation on Valithria Dreamwalker.
Lei Shi is kind of annoying for two reasons: one is that the water elemental adds spawn at percentages rather than after a set amount of time, meaning that you're going to have to deal with them very frequently if you overgear the place. The other is that those classes that don't have much in the way of untargeted AoE (Ret Paladins have none at all) don't really have anything to do when she hides (and she hides a lot!)
However, the crown jewel of tier 14 is the Sha of Fear, and this is a fight that I actually enjoy quite a lot. Not only is this one of those fights that was great for introducing this new Active Mitigation tanking concept (Thrash) but we also got to be sent off in little 5-man groups to fight mini-bosses at the same time.
While small, and not varying much, at the very least the Terrace of Endless Spring gave you a nice view. Given the current state of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, it may in fact be the last place to see how pleasant the old Vale used to be.
Tier 14 Conclusion:
The first tier of any expansion is the one where you're going to want the most variation, and Tier 14 certainly delivered that. While the linear nature of the tier meant you didn't have much in the way of options for how you would like to progress, it did solve the old problem of arguing with your guild over which of the new raids you'd want to go to.
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