Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Wing Two Open with Amirdrassil's Accelerated Raid Schedule

 Typically, when a new raid comes out, it's another week before it opens on Mythic, and it's then that we get the first LFR wing. This week, when we'd normally expect to just be starting LFR, we've already got two of what I imagine will be four wings unlocked (there are four bosses left, including Fyrrak, so I'll assume we get a wing with the remaining pre-Fyrrak bosses and then fight our big fire dragon). (Actually, checking WoWHead, apparently all the remaining wings will be two-boss deals, with Fyrrak and Tindral Sageswift teaming up in the last one).

The new wing is relatively short, with the big Fire Snake Volrocoss and Larodar, whom we saw in the pre-10.2 Druids of the Flame quest with Shandris Feathermoon.

I've now run this on my Paladin (tank) and Death Knight, Demon Hunter, and Mage (Frost, Havoc, and Frost, respectively).

Volrocoss is a turret boss - the enormous serpent hangs out in a pool of lava while we fight on the donut-shaped platform around him. There's a lot of "don't stand in the fire" stuff, and for tanks, like Larodar, there's a cast that you will taunt in the middle of. The snake will sometimes slam its tail down on the platform, which is literally foreshadowed by a shadow of it on the platform, giving you time to get out of the way. The other big element here is that two people will get a big fire swirl on them, and you'll want to have as much of the raid (ideally all of it) stack up in two even groups to soak this. The soft enrage timer here is that the platform will get covered in lava. I think the big soak-circles might simply target a location rather than a player, and if that's the case, they go in opposite directions around the circle, so the raid will want to divide evenly with one going clockwise and the other counterclockwise.

Larodar is actually fairly complex, and will be particularly taxing on your healers. The boss himself, a corrupted Keeper of the Grove, will periodically charge the current tank, dealing less damage the farther he has to charge, so when he starts casting his charge attack, the other tank should taunt while the previous tank runs away (it's even fine to do this into the blackened lava patches). Larodar will also summon a trio of treants who need to be DPS'd down, but when they're at 0, they become friendly, and healers will want to get them right back up to full, as I believe that they help with the next part: a fire-corrupted seed or root will appear that DPS also needs to take down to zero, but after doing that, the healers need to get it up in order to create a protective shield for a raid-wiping channeled fire burst that Larodar does when he hits 100 energy.

Larodar has a brief transition phase when he gets to low health, pulling people to him and pulsing damage, so players will want to run away from him as I think he'll kill anyone underneath him (on LFR it might not be as intensely punishing). After this, the tanks will get a different tank-swap mechanic, which is a frontal cone that reduces the healing received by anyone hit by it (ideally only the current tank) but then allows them to leech HP from nearby allies. There will also be various fire-balls falling to the ground that individual players should soak.

And with that, we're 5/9 of the bosses in the raid. Assuming I don't suddenly get super-sick of LFR very soon, this will actually mark the first time since Legion that I've fully completed all the raids of an expansion (I still haven't set foot in Sepulcher of the First Ones, which is a shame because it looked pretty cool - I was just very burned out. I've managed to solo some of the BFA raids that I missed, but it seems that both Dazar'alor and Eternal Palace have some fights that will just kill you if you're alone. I should try again, though, as I think I did those early in the expansion and I have much, much better gear now.)

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