My favorite zone in Burning Crusade was Netherstorm. I'm not really saying it had the best quests (questing back then was an improvement over vanilla, but Wrath was a big improvement on BC,) but I loved the feel of it. Some people are purists, but I love when the chocolate of science fiction gets mixed up with the peanut butter of fantasy, and Netherstorm felt like a crazy alien world, with its purple rocks floating in an atmosphere just buzzing with magical energy.
When they announced Warlords of Draenor, we discovered that a lot of familiar places once had different names (except Shadowmoon Valley and Nagrand,) but quests in Netherstorm gave us a bit of an image of what it used to be when it was Farahlon.
In those early announcements, the zone was included on the maps, but it has since disappeared. We're definitely going to Tanaan Jungle, but the fate of Farahlon is totally up in the air. I imagine that if we get a new island zone in the vein of Quel Danas or Timeless Isle, Farahlon will be the first one they jump to use, but there's a real possibility that Tanaan Jungle is the only new zone we'll find in Draenor before we head off to our next adventure.
Still, it's fun to think about Farahlon.
The denizens of Netherstorm were largely aliens. The biggest feature of the zone was a group of Naaru-built Manaforges, which were presumably built after the disaster that destroyed Draenor and apparently was there to pump magical energy into Tempest Keep - which means the whole zone could have been essentially a gas station.
The Blood Elves under Kael'thas' control had launched a huge campaign to capture the Manaforges as well as Tempest Keep (which despite being called a "Keep" was actually a ship, with each 5-player dungeons as well as the Draenei capital of the Exodar as satellite structures.)
It was in Netherstorm that we discovered Kael'thas was now fully allied with the Burning Legion, and the zone was home to some of their Forge Camps.
Netherstorm was also home to the Consortium, a group of Etherals who had fled their own homeworld of K'aresh in order to escape a Void Lord, who then followed them to Outland.
Likewise, there was Kirin Var Village, the home of Archmage Vargoth (who was and is still physically trapped in his tower by a spell cast by Kael'thas Sunstrider. Good thing he's a whiz at astral projection.) Unfortunately, Vargoth's really the only living member of the village, which had been an outpost for the Alliance Expedition after the Second War.
And then of course there was the Steamwheedle Cartel, which set up Area 52 and Cosmowrench in order to try to extract some of the extremely unusual materials that could be found on a piece of land that was more or less humming with Nether energy.
The point being: pretty much none of these people would be in Draenor's Farahlon.
Admittedly, there were already some aliens there. The Draenei had multiple settlements, some of which are now occupied by the Consortium and some of which are just haunted ruins. Presumably areas like Enkaat, Arklon, and the Stormspire might exist on Draenor.
The zone is also more seriously affected than any of the surviving areas in Outland (so it's better off than Arak and Frostfire,) so it's possible there are far more settlements. We don't know if there's a particular Orc clan that lived there - it's possible that the Blackrock or Laughing Skull might have had a presence there.
Geographically, we have only a little other than the wreckage and a quote from Archmage Vargoth, who describes Farahlon as originally having fields that would not look out of place in Westfall, which seems to suggest that it was an agrarian area, perhaps with amber grains growing on farms. It could have been another major Draenei settlement, like Shadowmoon and Talador.
Stretching a bit, in the early Beta of Warlords there were Botani-affiliated creatures called Fara - they used Tol'vir models and were probably going to be sort of smaller Genesaurs, but I believe they were replaced with the Mandragora. Could Farahlon have been named for these beings? Even if that got axed, the proximity to Gorgrond could allow for both the Primals and the Botani to have a presence there.
Apparently the original plan for Farahlon was for there to be a unique starting experience for boosted level 90 players that was separate from the Tanaan Jungle intro. Those got folded into each other, which left Farahlon kind of drifting.
Personally I'm still holding out hope for a third raid tier with Warlords, but I think that Farahlon would be a great place to set it. If the Iron Horde falls completely after we invade Tanaan, we have one more established zone to visit.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
BRF Item Level Changes Not Yet Implemented
Despite the fact that last week Blizzard said they would be changing the item level of all Blackrock Foundry rewards and those of equivalent content (so, the new Apexis gear and the stage 4 crafted upgrades, and presumably Rukhmar drops) "next week," it will apparently take a bit longer, despite the fact that I think most people assumed it would happen on the reset.
Note again that this change will be retroactive, so there's nothing wrong with running the raid now in search of drops that will be upgraded by 5 points some time in the next few days. Still, if you have a flexible raiding schedule, you could wait until the upgrades are live so that your existing gear will be better and you'll thus have an easier time on the fights in there.
It's kind of surprising that this change was not part of the normal Tuesday restarts, but oh well - as long as it happens eventually, it's all good.
UPDATE:
The change should go live tomorrow.
Note again that this change will be retroactive, so there's nothing wrong with running the raid now in search of drops that will be upgraded by 5 points some time in the next few days. Still, if you have a flexible raiding schedule, you could wait until the upgrades are live so that your existing gear will be better and you'll thus have an easier time on the fights in there.
It's kind of surprising that this change was not part of the normal Tuesday restarts, but oh well - as long as it happens eventually, it's all good.
UPDATE:
The change should go live tomorrow.
How Many Patches to Go? Speculations on 6.2
Much of the discussion about the future of Warlords of Draenor is about how many raid tiers we'll have. Clearly the next zone that's going to open up is Tanaan Jungle, which is the headquarters of the Iron Horde.
We don't really have a solid idea of when Tanaan Jungle will open up. Right now, Blackrock Foundry is kind of settling into a raid's middle age. Mythic Blackhand has been defeated by the world first guilds, and we're seeing a few adjustments to it, but it's not at a point where we're sick of it yet - Blackhand isn't even available on LFR yet, meaning that most players likely haven't even attempted the fight at all (either that or I really need to PUG more.)
6.1 has come already, but there wasn't really a headliner in terms of content for it. Even Mists of Pandaria's in-between patches has the Krasarang quests and Battlefield Barrens, but 5.1 was almost entirely a systems update - with a few quests thrown in there, but nothing huge.
So for that reason I almost wonder if 6.2 will bring us to Tanaan but not actually open up the next raid. I could imagine getting the new zone, complete with a quest chain and possibly a new Timeless Isle-like structure (though hopefully with a bit more form than TI,) along with new story development and another chapter in the Legendary chain.
I think it's definitely too early to open up tier 18, but when it does open up is somewhat contingent on both whether the next raid tier is intended to be Warlords' last, and also how far along expansion six is coming.
So what would I like to see in 6.2?
I'm hoping Tanaan Jungle will be a compelling zone. If they could release a zone with the number of quests and content of a launch zone later in the expansion, I'd be overjoyed. One of the laments of this game is that the characters you work the hardest on sometimes find themselves without anything to do. I love powerfully wrecking bad guys on my Paladin, but at this point there's not a huge amount of motivation to do so. So to have real quest content after having gotten geared up in epics would be pretty cool.
I DESPERATELY want to see some new, compelling reason to run dungeons again. The daily quests that came with 6.1 are not remotely good enough - rewarding garrison resources that I'm already always on the cusp of capping anyway. Bringing back Valor points or just giving Apexis crystals for running dungeons would encourage us to zerg through the old ones, but what I really want is new dungeons to run. Warlords launched with the fewest 5-player dungeons of any expansion yet, and I think we can all agree that it was pretty frustrating to only have the nine we had in Mists for two years.
Additionally, I'd love to see the "Timewalker Dungeons" implemented. I know that finding a compelling reward structure will be tricky, but there's such a wealth of dungeon content in the game that we just never touch anymore. I mean, when's the last time you ran Magister's Terrace at the appropriate level? Having scaling dungeons would be very exciting, but again, they've got to hit a sweet spot where the reward is compelling without feeling mandatory (I'd err on the side of granting vanity items like transmog gear, pets, toys and mounts.)
I'd like to see new dungeons set in Tanaan - preferably two or three - that reward (on heroic) gear with new art equivalent to normal Blackrock Foundry, or possibly 5 levels lower (so 665, given the 5-level buff that's happening later today.) It's got to be exciting enough for people who have geared up through LFR, and by the time it comes out, those who wanted BRF gear from Normal will likely have gotten it.
I think they should continue adding new upgrade items for crafted gear - these upgrades have offered a fantastic solution to keeping crafting relevant throughout the expansion. Even though transmog has made it less of a problem since 4.3, I'm happy that I'm still able to wear my goggles.
Garrisons are probably ready for some new buildings, but they also might want to buff some of the existing ones. For example, other than the treasure-hunt missions from the tier 3 inn, the ability to recruit new followers or get extra daily quests that reward 630 gear is hardly exciting stuff.
Likewise, having more stuff to spend garrison resources on would be nice. Right now I burn off any extras I have on the Dwarven Bunker and buying professional materials to keep my Enchanting Study always churning.
I think opening Tanaan is also the right time to finally allow flight in Draenor. I would be fine if it required a quest chain at 100 to unlock, and even though I remain convinced that you can design compelling questing with flight, Draenor was clearly not designed that way, so it should at the very least require you to be level 100. And while, again, Tanaan could theoretically be designed to allow flight, I'd be ok with them restricting it there.
I'm sure we'll start to hear whispers of 6.2 in the coming month or so. This has been admittedly more of a wishlist than real predictions, but I'll be eager to see what we do wind up getting.
We don't really have a solid idea of when Tanaan Jungle will open up. Right now, Blackrock Foundry is kind of settling into a raid's middle age. Mythic Blackhand has been defeated by the world first guilds, and we're seeing a few adjustments to it, but it's not at a point where we're sick of it yet - Blackhand isn't even available on LFR yet, meaning that most players likely haven't even attempted the fight at all (either that or I really need to PUG more.)
6.1 has come already, but there wasn't really a headliner in terms of content for it. Even Mists of Pandaria's in-between patches has the Krasarang quests and Battlefield Barrens, but 5.1 was almost entirely a systems update - with a few quests thrown in there, but nothing huge.
So for that reason I almost wonder if 6.2 will bring us to Tanaan but not actually open up the next raid. I could imagine getting the new zone, complete with a quest chain and possibly a new Timeless Isle-like structure (though hopefully with a bit more form than TI,) along with new story development and another chapter in the Legendary chain.
I think it's definitely too early to open up tier 18, but when it does open up is somewhat contingent on both whether the next raid tier is intended to be Warlords' last, and also how far along expansion six is coming.
So what would I like to see in 6.2?
I'm hoping Tanaan Jungle will be a compelling zone. If they could release a zone with the number of quests and content of a launch zone later in the expansion, I'd be overjoyed. One of the laments of this game is that the characters you work the hardest on sometimes find themselves without anything to do. I love powerfully wrecking bad guys on my Paladin, but at this point there's not a huge amount of motivation to do so. So to have real quest content after having gotten geared up in epics would be pretty cool.
I DESPERATELY want to see some new, compelling reason to run dungeons again. The daily quests that came with 6.1 are not remotely good enough - rewarding garrison resources that I'm already always on the cusp of capping anyway. Bringing back Valor points or just giving Apexis crystals for running dungeons would encourage us to zerg through the old ones, but what I really want is new dungeons to run. Warlords launched with the fewest 5-player dungeons of any expansion yet, and I think we can all agree that it was pretty frustrating to only have the nine we had in Mists for two years.
Additionally, I'd love to see the "Timewalker Dungeons" implemented. I know that finding a compelling reward structure will be tricky, but there's such a wealth of dungeon content in the game that we just never touch anymore. I mean, when's the last time you ran Magister's Terrace at the appropriate level? Having scaling dungeons would be very exciting, but again, they've got to hit a sweet spot where the reward is compelling without feeling mandatory (I'd err on the side of granting vanity items like transmog gear, pets, toys and mounts.)
I'd like to see new dungeons set in Tanaan - preferably two or three - that reward (on heroic) gear with new art equivalent to normal Blackrock Foundry, or possibly 5 levels lower (so 665, given the 5-level buff that's happening later today.) It's got to be exciting enough for people who have geared up through LFR, and by the time it comes out, those who wanted BRF gear from Normal will likely have gotten it.
I think they should continue adding new upgrade items for crafted gear - these upgrades have offered a fantastic solution to keeping crafting relevant throughout the expansion. Even though transmog has made it less of a problem since 4.3, I'm happy that I'm still able to wear my goggles.
Garrisons are probably ready for some new buildings, but they also might want to buff some of the existing ones. For example, other than the treasure-hunt missions from the tier 3 inn, the ability to recruit new followers or get extra daily quests that reward 630 gear is hardly exciting stuff.
Likewise, having more stuff to spend garrison resources on would be nice. Right now I burn off any extras I have on the Dwarven Bunker and buying professional materials to keep my Enchanting Study always churning.
I think opening Tanaan is also the right time to finally allow flight in Draenor. I would be fine if it required a quest chain at 100 to unlock, and even though I remain convinced that you can design compelling questing with flight, Draenor was clearly not designed that way, so it should at the very least require you to be level 100. And while, again, Tanaan could theoretically be designed to allow flight, I'd be ok with them restricting it there.
I'm sure we'll start to hear whispers of 6.2 in the coming month or so. This has been admittedly more of a wishlist than real predictions, but I'll be eager to see what we do wind up getting.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Blackrock Foundry and Equivalent Loot Buff
All gear from Blackrock Foundry, as well as the new Apexis gear and crafted upgrades are getting a 5-item level buff in an upcoming hotfix.
Blizzard says that they feel BRF hasn't been rewarding significant-enough upgrades and so they're increasing the item level of every piece of gear that drops in the raid by 5, and so that crafted and Apexis gear doesn't suddenly become irrelevant, they will also be getting equivalent buffs (though I believe only at the new, BRF-like level.)
While I don't think this goes so far as to make the two raids feel like fully separate tiers, the main takeaway is that we're all going to get a pretty decent buff.
So, to lay it out: Blackrock Foundry gear will now be 655/670/685/700.
The seriously profound consequence of this is that LFR Blackrock Foundry gear will now be fully equivalent to Highmaul Normal gear - especially given that Highmaul does not have any set pieces. Thus, there will be far less incentive to run Highmaul on Normal. Basically, the two that I can think of (beyond the fact that running with a guild is more enjoyable than doing LFR) is that the gear looks better, and you'll need to take down Mar'gok on Normal in order to start getting heroic quality gear from Highmaul Caches.
Indeed, it looks like gear from BRF will essentially be equivalent to the next higher difficulty in Highmaul, so likewise, gear from Normal BRF will be equal to Heroic HM, and Heroic BRF will be equal to Mythic HM.
Beyond making BRF a bit easier, I suspect this will really diminish Highmaul's continued relevance.
One thing remains slightly ambiguous, which is the LFR tier sets. I'd assume that these would get the same 5-level boost, making them 660, but they were not specifically mentioned in the announcement.
Blizzard says that they feel BRF hasn't been rewarding significant-enough upgrades and so they're increasing the item level of every piece of gear that drops in the raid by 5, and so that crafted and Apexis gear doesn't suddenly become irrelevant, they will also be getting equivalent buffs (though I believe only at the new, BRF-like level.)
While I don't think this goes so far as to make the two raids feel like fully separate tiers, the main takeaway is that we're all going to get a pretty decent buff.
So, to lay it out: Blackrock Foundry gear will now be 655/670/685/700.
The seriously profound consequence of this is that LFR Blackrock Foundry gear will now be fully equivalent to Highmaul Normal gear - especially given that Highmaul does not have any set pieces. Thus, there will be far less incentive to run Highmaul on Normal. Basically, the two that I can think of (beyond the fact that running with a guild is more enjoyable than doing LFR) is that the gear looks better, and you'll need to take down Mar'gok on Normal in order to start getting heroic quality gear from Highmaul Caches.
Indeed, it looks like gear from BRF will essentially be equivalent to the next higher difficulty in Highmaul, so likewise, gear from Normal BRF will be equal to Heroic HM, and Heroic BRF will be equal to Mythic HM.
Beyond making BRF a bit easier, I suspect this will really diminish Highmaul's continued relevance.
One thing remains slightly ambiguous, which is the LFR tier sets. I'd assume that these would get the same 5-level boost, making them 660, but they were not specifically mentioned in the announcement.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Blizzcon '15 Announced, Nov 6&7
Blizzcon 2015 has been announced, and it'll be on November 6th and 7th this year.
That's pretty much all the new information I have, but what does it mean for WoW and Blizzard's other games?
I think we could easily hear about a new Diablo expansion - Reaper of Souls came out last year and more or less fixed the game, but at this point Malthael is old-hat.
Hearthstone is seeing sort of lower-stakes expansions with less fanfare. I'd expect to see more of that, unless Blizzard decides to create a new class, like the Death Knight or Monk (Arthas and Chen Stormstout, I'd assume as the heroes.)
Starcraft likely won't have anything huge to announce, as the Legacy of the Void will be the next big thing for that franchise.
We could get a Heroes of the Storm official release date (though now that you can pay to be in the Beta... what's the difference between that and its being available? I don't understand you, MOBAs!
Overwatch will likely be more fleshed out. Given that it's a brand-new property I think we might be waiting a bit longer for an actual release, but I expect we'll see a whole lot more detail about it in the year that's passed.
And finally:
We are 99.99999% certain to get the announcement of WoW's next expansion. Really the only reason we wouldn't is if we already knew about it. And, ok, that's maybe a bit better than a .00001% chance, but I think we're going to see thing play out they have for the past five expansions - every year we alternate between announcement and release.
So if we assume that expansion 6 will not be announced until Blizzcon, what does that mean for scheduling and Warlords of Draenor?
After the long delay for Warlords - the expansion was announced two months after there was nothing left to implement in Mists of Pandaria, yet we still didn't get the thing until the usual Fall release - I dearly hope that Blizzard is aware of the effect of a content drought. To be fair, every expansion has had one (BC had it between patches though, as Black Temple came out way too early and people had to wait a long time for Sunwell.) Still, I think we're going to be in big trouble if, having predicted a faster cycle, Blizzard designed Warlords around two raid tiers, and then wound up with the same two-year expansion cycle.
So if they don't announce the new expansion before Blizzcon, they're going to need to bring the big guns. Announce the start of the Beta as something imminent, not something to be expected eight months later.
Anyway, Blizzcon doesn't strictly determine when expansions come out, though, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic and remind myself of the fact that I am actually enjoying the current expansion, and I'm eager to see what's in store for us in Tanaan Jungle, what with SPOILERS happening there.
That's pretty much all the new information I have, but what does it mean for WoW and Blizzard's other games?
I think we could easily hear about a new Diablo expansion - Reaper of Souls came out last year and more or less fixed the game, but at this point Malthael is old-hat.
Hearthstone is seeing sort of lower-stakes expansions with less fanfare. I'd expect to see more of that, unless Blizzard decides to create a new class, like the Death Knight or Monk (Arthas and Chen Stormstout, I'd assume as the heroes.)
Starcraft likely won't have anything huge to announce, as the Legacy of the Void will be the next big thing for that franchise.
We could get a Heroes of the Storm official release date (though now that you can pay to be in the Beta... what's the difference between that and its being available? I don't understand you, MOBAs!
Overwatch will likely be more fleshed out. Given that it's a brand-new property I think we might be waiting a bit longer for an actual release, but I expect we'll see a whole lot more detail about it in the year that's passed.
And finally:
We are 99.99999% certain to get the announcement of WoW's next expansion. Really the only reason we wouldn't is if we already knew about it. And, ok, that's maybe a bit better than a .00001% chance, but I think we're going to see thing play out they have for the past five expansions - every year we alternate between announcement and release.
So if we assume that expansion 6 will not be announced until Blizzcon, what does that mean for scheduling and Warlords of Draenor?
After the long delay for Warlords - the expansion was announced two months after there was nothing left to implement in Mists of Pandaria, yet we still didn't get the thing until the usual Fall release - I dearly hope that Blizzard is aware of the effect of a content drought. To be fair, every expansion has had one (BC had it between patches though, as Black Temple came out way too early and people had to wait a long time for Sunwell.) Still, I think we're going to be in big trouble if, having predicted a faster cycle, Blizzard designed Warlords around two raid tiers, and then wound up with the same two-year expansion cycle.
So if they don't announce the new expansion before Blizzcon, they're going to need to bring the big guns. Announce the start of the Beta as something imminent, not something to be expected eight months later.
Anyway, Blizzcon doesn't strictly determine when expansions come out, though, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic and remind myself of the fact that I am actually enjoying the current expansion, and I'm eager to see what's in store for us in Tanaan Jungle, what with SPOILERS happening there.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Iron Assembly DPS Perspective:
I took the DK into the new BRF wing today. There's not a huge amount of new information to worry about, but I did get a bit better insight into a few mechanics.
Beastlord Darmac:
This fight is more or less the same. You'll want to DPS down any of the spears that are pinning raid members. The packs of beasts will go down relatively quickly, but you should most likely go into full AoE mode on them. Also, when he's on the Wolf or afterward, try to run away from him as he jumps away and back for Rend and Tear, as you can avoid getting stacks of the bleed this way.
Operator Thogar:
The best advice I can give is to keep your camera pointed at one of the two rows of doors. The most important thing is that you not get hit by the trains. If you need to stop DPS in order to do so, do it. Remember, a dead DPS does zero DPS. There are many adds here, so go full-blown AoE on them. Interrupt the heals if you can, but don't worry too much about it on LFR.
Iron Maidens:
This time I got a significantly new experience, as I was assigned to take the hooks to the boat.
One tank, one healer, and four DPS will need to take hooks to the ship in order to stop the bombardment - be sure to assign this ahead of time, as on our first attempt we wound up with no tank (which actually wasn't the end of the world for Gar'an's crew.)
Jumping to the ship will give you a group of adds to deal with. You'll need to kill the adds and then sabotage the turret's ammunition feed (by right-clicking on the bombs there,) which will then blow you back onto the main platform and end the bombardment phase.
When Gar'an jumps, you'll have two adds - one is a shaman who casts a shield and a lightning bolt. Kill this one first, interrupting the shield, then focus on the hunter who will fire at random people.
Source's adds consist of a single big elite and several Eviscerators. The Eviscerators will fixate on random people, so kite them and slow/stun them. There are to to start with, but I believe more will spawn if you kill them, so just take down the big add and blast the ship.
Finally, Mar'ak's add is just a single Dire Orc. He'll cause pools of corrupted blood to show up under each player on the ship, so you'll need to be moving pretty constantly.
On the main platform, make sure that you run to the edge of the room if you get Rapid Fire on you, and try not to drag the circle over other people. It's pretty slow, which means you can actually slow down and let it catch up to you a bit if you want to make a sharper angle (and not drag it into a healer or something.)
Finally, if you're melee, you're probably going to just have to stay away from the turrets on the last phase and let ranged deal with it. If you are ranged, your number one priority should be burning those turrets down ASAP. While the fire can be dodged, there will be far too much of it before long, and it quickly stacks up a powerful DoT on anyone it hits.
Beastlord Darmac:
This fight is more or less the same. You'll want to DPS down any of the spears that are pinning raid members. The packs of beasts will go down relatively quickly, but you should most likely go into full AoE mode on them. Also, when he's on the Wolf or afterward, try to run away from him as he jumps away and back for Rend and Tear, as you can avoid getting stacks of the bleed this way.
Operator Thogar:
The best advice I can give is to keep your camera pointed at one of the two rows of doors. The most important thing is that you not get hit by the trains. If you need to stop DPS in order to do so, do it. Remember, a dead DPS does zero DPS. There are many adds here, so go full-blown AoE on them. Interrupt the heals if you can, but don't worry too much about it on LFR.
Iron Maidens:
This time I got a significantly new experience, as I was assigned to take the hooks to the boat.
One tank, one healer, and four DPS will need to take hooks to the ship in order to stop the bombardment - be sure to assign this ahead of time, as on our first attempt we wound up with no tank (which actually wasn't the end of the world for Gar'an's crew.)
Jumping to the ship will give you a group of adds to deal with. You'll need to kill the adds and then sabotage the turret's ammunition feed (by right-clicking on the bombs there,) which will then blow you back onto the main platform and end the bombardment phase.
When Gar'an jumps, you'll have two adds - one is a shaman who casts a shield and a lightning bolt. Kill this one first, interrupting the shield, then focus on the hunter who will fire at random people.
Source's adds consist of a single big elite and several Eviscerators. The Eviscerators will fixate on random people, so kite them and slow/stun them. There are to to start with, but I believe more will spawn if you kill them, so just take down the big add and blast the ship.
Finally, Mar'ak's add is just a single Dire Orc. He'll cause pools of corrupted blood to show up under each player on the ship, so you'll need to be moving pretty constantly.
On the main platform, make sure that you run to the edge of the room if you get Rapid Fire on you, and try not to drag the circle over other people. It's pretty slow, which means you can actually slow down and let it catch up to you a bit if you want to make a sharper angle (and not drag it into a healer or something.)
Finally, if you're melee, you're probably going to just have to stay away from the turrets on the last phase and let ranged deal with it. If you are ranged, your number one priority should be burning those turrets down ASAP. While the fire can be dodged, there will be far too much of it before long, and it quickly stacks up a powerful DoT on anyone it hits.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Iron Assembly LFR - Tank Perspective
The final real "wing" before we face Blackhand, the Iron Assembly has us facing Beastlord Darmac, Operator Thogar, and the Iron Maidens: Admiral Gar'an, Enforcer Sorka, and Marak the Blooded.
Trash before Darmac:
As with all the wings, you'll begin at the very start of the instance, with that nasty Ogron to deal with. You'll head right, but go farther in past the door to the Slagworks.
The trash in this wing is fairly easy to deal with and rather straightforward, so I won't focus much on it.
Beastlord Darmac:
Darmac is off in a little side room. He has three mounts that he'll jump onto at certain points during the fight - a Rylak, an Elekk, and a Wolf. He'll jump onto whichever living beast is nearest to him. When he does so, you'll have to kill the animal in order to attack him again. When the beast is dead, Darmac will gain one of the beast's abilities.
Periodically, he'll call in a bunch of beasts from the north-central door in the room. Whichever tank is not on the boss should just go pick them up and then the raid should AoE them down.
Additionally, spears will fall from the air. Try to dodge these, as those who are pinned by them will be stunned until the spear is destroyed. If you see someone pinned, help them out by killing the spear.
The Elekk has a tank-swap armor debuff and a channeled AoE called Tantrum. When the Elekk is down, he'll retain Tantrum.
The Wolf will do Rend and Tear, jumping into the ranged group and then back, applying a stacking bleed to anyone in range. There is a slight delay before he jumps, so you should be able to dodge. Darmac learns this after the wolf is dead.
Finally, the Rylak has a fire-DOT that works as a tank-swap mechanic. It also has a flame-breath, which players should run out of. When dead, Darmac gets "Burning Shrapnel," which is roughly the same as the flame breath.
Darmac's relatively simple.
Operator Thogar:
Thogar is basically a rail station conductor, and you'll fight him on a set of four tracks. Throughout the fight, trains will come through on the tracks. You definitely don't want to get hit by the trains - make sure you're watching which doors are open to know which track to not be standing on.
Thogar has a simple tank-swap mechanic in the form of Enkindle (taunt at two stacks.)
Three kinds of trains will come through.
Express Trains just charge through, shooting fire near them (like the Iron Stars on Garrosh) and dealing a bunch of damage (on LFR it's not automatically lethal, but it ain't good.)
Troop Trains will drop off several adds. These guys should be AoE'd down. Some will drop time bombs and others will create little electrical puddles that do a bunch of damage.
Finally, some trains will come in with turrets that I believe ranged can kill.
As the fight goes on, it seems that more trains park on the tracks, giving you fewer places to run to avoid getting hit.
Again, though, not terribly difficult - make sure to look at the doors on either side of the room to help predict where the trains are coming from.
The Iron Maidens:
This one's tough, though not quite Kromog tough.
There are three bosses, Sorka, Gar'an, and Marak. Gar'an is a hunter and will target random raid members, so tanks only need to throw some nominal threat on her (to keep her grouped up with the others.) Sorka is a rogue and Marak is a shaman. At first you'll want to cleave them down evenly, as when one of them gets to 20% health, they'll all gain Iron Will, increasing their damage done over time. So you want them as close to each other as possible until they get to 20%, at which point you'll want to take Gar'an, then Marak, then Sorka down.
Throughout the fight, one of the bosses will jump over to the ship and begin to bombard the platform you're on. One tank, one healer, and I believe four DPS should go over and kill the adds on the ship in order to get her to go back (I think you might have to set off a bomb or something - the other tank was doing the ship.)
While one of the bosses is on the ship, you'll get three abilities to deal with, always in these same order. Alpha Pattern bombardment will cause damage in a relatively sparse pattern - easy to dodge. Omega Pattern however will only leave a few safe spots. When the bombardment starts, a grid of bombs will appear. Those not hit by Omega Bombardment will begin to glow red/pink and explode. Get away from them, but quickly get back into the gap they've left, as all the other bombs will soon explode thereafter.
Gar'an will do a couple things. She'll shoot at random raid members. Sometimes she'll line up a powerful shot, signified by a straight red line. The more people in the line, the more the damage gets split. She'll also single out people for Rapid Fire, which will chase the player. If you get focused, run away from the raid and don't run the thing through them. At the last phase, she'll summon turrets that spit out fireballs that do a stacking DoT. Ranged has to focus these down ASAP.
Marak, other than melee, pretty much just does Blood Ritual on random players. Tanks can intercept this squiggly red line to save the raid member (the damage I took from it seemed to be insignificant.)
Sorka will jump to random raid members and stab them, but she seems to be the least troublesome.
Once all three maidens have done their ship duty, it's time to take them down. The worst of these is Gar'an's Deploy Turret - make sure that Ranged focus the turrets down as soon as they can, but melee should stay far away from them so they can more easily dodge the fire.
There are plenty of other abilities, but most are your sort of standard raid damage stuff (I think there's a debuff to be dispelled, but I never got it.)
One last note: for the Legendary chain, you'll need to go out onto the rock surface next to the dock you're standing on to get the Draenic Navigation Orb, as it's not actually picked up from the bosses themselves.
And with that, we've got the third wing of BRF down. It's just Blackhand now!
Trash before Darmac:
As with all the wings, you'll begin at the very start of the instance, with that nasty Ogron to deal with. You'll head right, but go farther in past the door to the Slagworks.
The trash in this wing is fairly easy to deal with and rather straightforward, so I won't focus much on it.
Beastlord Darmac:
Darmac is off in a little side room. He has three mounts that he'll jump onto at certain points during the fight - a Rylak, an Elekk, and a Wolf. He'll jump onto whichever living beast is nearest to him. When he does so, you'll have to kill the animal in order to attack him again. When the beast is dead, Darmac will gain one of the beast's abilities.
Periodically, he'll call in a bunch of beasts from the north-central door in the room. Whichever tank is not on the boss should just go pick them up and then the raid should AoE them down.
Additionally, spears will fall from the air. Try to dodge these, as those who are pinned by them will be stunned until the spear is destroyed. If you see someone pinned, help them out by killing the spear.
The Elekk has a tank-swap armor debuff and a channeled AoE called Tantrum. When the Elekk is down, he'll retain Tantrum.
The Wolf will do Rend and Tear, jumping into the ranged group and then back, applying a stacking bleed to anyone in range. There is a slight delay before he jumps, so you should be able to dodge. Darmac learns this after the wolf is dead.
Finally, the Rylak has a fire-DOT that works as a tank-swap mechanic. It also has a flame-breath, which players should run out of. When dead, Darmac gets "Burning Shrapnel," which is roughly the same as the flame breath.
Darmac's relatively simple.
Operator Thogar:
Thogar is basically a rail station conductor, and you'll fight him on a set of four tracks. Throughout the fight, trains will come through on the tracks. You definitely don't want to get hit by the trains - make sure you're watching which doors are open to know which track to not be standing on.
Thogar has a simple tank-swap mechanic in the form of Enkindle (taunt at two stacks.)
Three kinds of trains will come through.
Express Trains just charge through, shooting fire near them (like the Iron Stars on Garrosh) and dealing a bunch of damage (on LFR it's not automatically lethal, but it ain't good.)
Troop Trains will drop off several adds. These guys should be AoE'd down. Some will drop time bombs and others will create little electrical puddles that do a bunch of damage.
Finally, some trains will come in with turrets that I believe ranged can kill.
As the fight goes on, it seems that more trains park on the tracks, giving you fewer places to run to avoid getting hit.
Again, though, not terribly difficult - make sure to look at the doors on either side of the room to help predict where the trains are coming from.
The Iron Maidens:
This one's tough, though not quite Kromog tough.
There are three bosses, Sorka, Gar'an, and Marak. Gar'an is a hunter and will target random raid members, so tanks only need to throw some nominal threat on her (to keep her grouped up with the others.) Sorka is a rogue and Marak is a shaman. At first you'll want to cleave them down evenly, as when one of them gets to 20% health, they'll all gain Iron Will, increasing their damage done over time. So you want them as close to each other as possible until they get to 20%, at which point you'll want to take Gar'an, then Marak, then Sorka down.
Throughout the fight, one of the bosses will jump over to the ship and begin to bombard the platform you're on. One tank, one healer, and I believe four DPS should go over and kill the adds on the ship in order to get her to go back (I think you might have to set off a bomb or something - the other tank was doing the ship.)
While one of the bosses is on the ship, you'll get three abilities to deal with, always in these same order. Alpha Pattern bombardment will cause damage in a relatively sparse pattern - easy to dodge. Omega Pattern however will only leave a few safe spots. When the bombardment starts, a grid of bombs will appear. Those not hit by Omega Bombardment will begin to glow red/pink and explode. Get away from them, but quickly get back into the gap they've left, as all the other bombs will soon explode thereafter.
Gar'an will do a couple things. She'll shoot at random raid members. Sometimes she'll line up a powerful shot, signified by a straight red line. The more people in the line, the more the damage gets split. She'll also single out people for Rapid Fire, which will chase the player. If you get focused, run away from the raid and don't run the thing through them. At the last phase, she'll summon turrets that spit out fireballs that do a stacking DoT. Ranged has to focus these down ASAP.
Marak, other than melee, pretty much just does Blood Ritual on random players. Tanks can intercept this squiggly red line to save the raid member (the damage I took from it seemed to be insignificant.)
Sorka will jump to random raid members and stab them, but she seems to be the least troublesome.
Once all three maidens have done their ship duty, it's time to take them down. The worst of these is Gar'an's Deploy Turret - make sure that Ranged focus the turrets down as soon as they can, but melee should stay far away from them so they can more easily dodge the fire.
There are plenty of other abilities, but most are your sort of standard raid damage stuff (I think there's a debuff to be dispelled, but I never got it.)
One last note: for the Legendary chain, you'll need to go out onto the rock surface next to the dock you're standing on to get the Draenic Navigation Orb, as it's not actually picked up from the bosses themselves.
And with that, we've got the third wing of BRF down. It's just Blackhand now!
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