Tuesday, April 28, 2020

A Bad Day in the Horrific Vision of Stormwind

While a bit repetitive, I've really enjoyed the Horrific Visions as soloable content in patch 8.3. However, today, some combination of bad luck or just being off my game has made the horrific visions this week a real pain.

It's Stormwind, which is always a little tougher, thanks to boss mechanics that are harder to avoid or interrupt you, as well as the narrow paths that tend to make things like Split Personality (which I think has now been like 4 weeks running?) a real pain.

I'm at a point where 3-mask runs are the level I'm running on my best-geared characters, and that's fairly unforgiving anyway.

Typically, I consider Mask of the Burned Bridge the default easiest one to take, as it's not terribly hard to avoid it. Next, I usually go with Dark Imagination, as when you run fast enough, you can often keep ahead of the curve, holding your sanity above 50% and thus ignoring the side effects of the mask (aside from the damage and health boost your foes get). For the third mask, I started with the Pained this week, but upon discovering that this gave Lost areas both Split Personality and the one that sometimes fears you if you stand still, that became a total nightmare - especially given how narrow spaces are in Stormwind's Lost areas - sometimes you just have to wait out Split Personality as there's literally nowhere to go.

My first run, I hit Trade District and Mage Quarter first, then Dwarven District and Old Town, but I got unlucky and stun locked right before facing Shaw, losing the run.

The second time was far more frustrating. Clearing the whole thing, I was on Alleria, with her at 2 or 3%, and I didn't quite get behind the pillar when she did her big AoE sanity attack (I had been trying to LOS the eyes you get from Shaw) and failed with about one or two attacks left to take her down.

Having sunk about 40 minutes into each failed attempt, I decided I needed a break.

I do really like these visions, though there are some fights, particularly the Alleria one, that I wish weren't quite so punishing. Comparing her to Thrall, for example: with Thrall, other than occasionally dodging out of the way of his stun or moving away for his jump thing, you can basically always be on him. Between Chain of Servitude and her Void Nova thing, and the bombs she tosses, melee character need to line of sight her constantly to avoid standing in the nasty stuff. Also, I freaking hate those eyes from the Shaw fight, which are practically unavoidable.

Still, for scaling soloable content, I'm really excited to see them apply the lessons learned in this for Torghast, which sounds like it's been a hit on the Alpha so far.

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