Since the last post 5.2 has dropped and I’ve been busy with that, I’ve also been busy with a hell of a lot of raiding. I can now add to my T14 retrospective the seven fights that I hadn’t seen back then. We’ve also started on Throne and have got the first two bosses down, making progress on the third and it’s exciting, and really awesome, to be part of a proper progression team. I’ve also got into PvP a bit, my new raid leader likes to PvP and agreed to run some arenas with me for fun. I’ve never really done this before and it’s really nice to see another aspect of the game, it’s hard and we’re losing as much as we’re winning, but it takes practice.
The one downside, in fact the only downside that I can see, in Mists is that it’s such a time sink. I had been gearing my Brewmaster Monk up, and had got 5/6 MSV with it, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do all I want on my main and keep alts, or even one alt, well geared. My friends can do it, I know more than one person who has at least 3 alts 485+ ilevel and probably more. However, most of what they do in game is the gear treadmill. I find that quite repetitive and boring. I’ve never liked gear for itself, more for what it allows me to do, therefore the acquisition of it is a necessary evil rather than enjoyable in itself. Hence why I’ve decided to drop my alts. Oh I’ll still level them all to 90, and I’ll still play them (and therefore gear them slightly as a side effect) but I won’t play them to gear, I’ll play them just to have fun.
Continuing with the look back at T14
- Wind Lord Mel’jarak
I haven’t tanked this fight I was dps. I think I would quite like to try tanking it one day as we only used one tank for it, and the amount of vengeance is crazy, and the challenge to survive and make it easier for the healers, it looks super fun. However, I went ret for the fight, and I’ve only killed it once. It was alright but the fact that I wasn’t tanking makes it a fight that doesn’t exactly stand out for me. I got some nice boots but gear isn’t everything. Plus I’m really not a big fan of single tank fights, I like having a co-tank, a partnership, and single tank fights take that away.
Score: 3/5 which is perhaps unfair as I’ve only killed it once. However, any fight that just calls for one tank is never going to be a favourite of mine.
- Amber-Shaper Un’sok
This fight has a vehicle component which is something else I’m not a fan of. I did tank this fight, but only the once, and I’d say it’s ok. The vehicle part, and the timing for that, is probably where the complexity of this encounter is, and that responsibility is shared by the dps. It’s an ok encounter but really nothing special in my mind. Plus vehicles I like to play the class I choose, not press a couple of buttons on a vehicle.
Score: 3/5 as it’s average in every way.
- Grand Empress Shek’zeer
The end boss of the raid in my mind should be epic. Was this epic? Well it wasn’t as much fun as Will of the Emperor but, as I said when discussing that fight, if all fights were that fun it would make them un-fun. Anyway, it’s got the usual taunt switching for stacks, nothing exciting except there’s more jeopardy in missing one. For most taunt switches if you, or the other tank, winds up getting an extra stack it’s just a little more damage. It’s not what you want, but it means if a tank goes down, the other tank can keep it going until they get combat ressed. With this, you get 5 stacks and you will wipe the raid. Then there’s the add phase. I didn’t tank the first few attempts at this boss, and when I was taken for the next run there I had all the healers begging me to save my cds for the trash. My friend, who was taking his turn sitting out that night confirmed that they “hit like a truck” but thankfully paladins are blessed with a fair few cds. In all the attempts, though I could be mistaken, I don’t think I died once to the trash. A dps did when I didn’t manage to pick them up in time once, which was my fault, but I survived. I like challenges of survivability. I like living when I shouldn’t, it’s fun. Really though, the complex part of this fight, dropping the traps and kiting the adds (not into the traps) is handled by the dps.
Score: 4/5 I wasn’t blown away enough to give it top marks, however it’s an enjoyable enough fight.
- Protectors of the Endless
I was not impressed with the first boss in Terrace. I’m not sure if it does have anymore mechanics than LFR, or if I just didn’t notice anymore. We went for the recommended, easy, kill order our first time there and one shot the boss. We one shot it the first ever attempt. To me it felt just like LFR, only an LFR where people actually do what they were supposed to, so not at all like LFR, just easy like LFR. It went down so easy, it really was not hard at all. However, I’m wary of being too judgemental because the harder kill orders might be more of a challenge, I doubt it but it’s possible. It’s something that we may try at a later date.
Score: 2/5 which is perhaps harsh. It has all the hallmarks of a reasonable fight but it was undertuned. Terrace was a gated raid, I thought it would feel more epic than that.
- Tsulong
We took a little longer on this boss, possibly maybe having 10 attempts, before he went down. I really did not like this fight much as a tank. For the most part it feels like a solo tank fight. One time I kept the boss for two consecutive breaths as I forgot to announce that he’d breathed, it didn’t really hurt at all, and it’s not like I was draining the healers dry either. I spent half the fight pretty bored, frustrated that I couldn’t dispel terrorize, slowing adds with a talent if they got too close, and generally clock watching to see when he would die. Again I couldn’t see anything different, aside from increased numbers from LFR tuning.
Score: 2/5 as I really don’t like it, it was boring for a tank at least. So far Terrace was not living up to expectations.
- Lei Shi
I didn’t like this boss either, there could be a theme here, but I didn’t like it for different reasons than I disliked the two above. I didn’t like this boss because of the ‘Spray’ mechanic when the adds were up. When the adds were up she becomes unhittable, but she’s still spraying me with increasing stacks. I have a couple of external cds, but really the bulk of my survivability comes from active mitigation, which I need to hit something to generate. I died a lot on this fight, including the kill attempt. I loathe ending a fight dead, I feel useless and like I really didn’t deserve it. My co-tank died as well nearer the end, and the boss went round all the other raid members killing them one by one. Thankfully, she was relatively low on health and they managed to kill her before she got everyone. That just put a bad taste in my mouth about this fight. I like taking lots of damage and surviving, I love the new active mitigation system, therefore ensuring that I take as little of the incoming damage as possible, and healing myself if I do. However, when she’s unhittable I can’t do that. I tried pulling across an add and hitting that but that didn’t help much either. I’m sure that there must be a way to do it, perhaps will read this and say that healers should have concentrated on me more. I don’t know, but if I die it’s my fault, I don’t blame the healers, as I should have done more to help them. I just wish I knew what I could do on this fight.
Score: 2/5 out of sheer frustration. Not a fan at all.
- Sha of Fear
The end boss of T14, it should be pretty epic right? Well, I didn’t really feel that way about it. To be honest I haven’t felt that way about an end boss since LFR came out. I think there might be some truth to the “once you’ve killed it, it takes the shine off” argument against it. No mostly I didn’t like this fight because there’s little tanking involved. Oh you stand in one spot to keep the shield up, but the boss, and the adds on the platforms don’t move. I shielded against ‘Thrash’ which was supposed to deal a large amount of damage to the active tank, but I really didn’t notice a spike. Sure I was shielding but if it’s that big a deal I should see something. This fight goes down thanks to the healers and the dps, and it’s that inability to really influence the outcome that makes me not like this fight very much.
Score: 2/5 same as every other Terrace boss. I think I should save 1/5 for emergencies but really nothing in this raid grabbed me. Given that it was gated behind Heart of Fear I expected more, instead I think HoF was harder and more interesting in many ways.
A little word about Archaeology
I had thought about giving this topic it’s own post, however I keep forgetting my post ideas so I’ll just write it here before I forget. I was looking at my gold balance the other day and thinking that I could afford to spend some if I wanted. I’m a chronic saver but the balance is healthy enough to think about Vial of the Sands. The vendors mats alone make this mount quite expensive, let alone what the crafters will charge you for the privilege Hell I can’t blame for that as if I was crafting for a non-friend I’d take the opportunity too. This recipe is found using archaeology sometimes inside the Tol’Vir artefact Canopic Jar. It’s a rare drop and is part of what makes Tol’Vir the most important of all the archaeology races.
The problem I have with this is my main, my paladin, is the one that I started the new archaeology achievements on. However, my main is a blacksmith/engineer not an alchemist. A nice thing about Mists archaeology is you can work on the new areas, and all those new achievements, and buy fragments for the old races. However, the boxed artefacts which you use as currency are soulbound, the achievement criteria isn’t account wide and the alchemy recipe for the mount is also soulbound.
Now I realise that this is mostly my fault for doing archaeology on my main, rather than on my alt druid. However, I like flying around on my main doing archaeology when I’m waiting for a queue to pop, or I’m chatting with someone. It’s not usually something I do specifically for hours on end. Anyway, this has painted me into a bit of a corner because I want that recipe. As it stands I have a couple of options:
– Abandon all achievement progress on my main and only use my druid for archy from now on.
– Complete the achievements on my main and then do archy on my druid. The problem with this is I won’t be bothered to do it when I have the achievements.
Neither of these seem like good solutions to me, but they are the only choices I have.
What I wish blizz would do is make archaeology account wide, most of the rares are bind on account anyway. I realise that there’d be a mailing issue with new servers, so perhaps if a character was rolled on a new server they could be sent BoA archy items in the mail from blizz. Failing that I wish they would:
– Make the achievement criteria account wide so you could work on it on whatever character you wished. As this would mean having to level archy multiple times, and therefore being more of a time investment, I can’t see why this would harm anything.
– Make the crated artefacts BoA, much like pet bandages were, as I think they are the same sort of thing.
If they did the above then that would make archy a lot more player friendly. Neither is asking too much in my opinion, instead it’s just a quality of life change, something to make archy more attractive rather than easier. However, they could just fix the recipe issue by:
– Making the Vial of the Sands recipe BoA rather than BoP. That way even if your archaeology character is not your alchemist, and you are lucky enough to get this rare drop, it’s just sent to your alchemist and everyone’s happy.
However, I can wish all I like that blizz will make one, or two, of those changes but I doubt that they will. Instead, I have to decide how much I want that recipe and if it’s enough to start from scratch on the achievements.
Conclusion
Minifernals are evil pets, they don’t spawn on server reset like nice pets. Horridon turned out not to be quite so horrid as we killed him last night. I’m really loving my new guild and raid team. T14 was a pretty nice tier, but Terrace really let it down. I wonder if the world first guilds will be extending their lock as the race has gone over the reset, or if they will clear the previous bosses again for loot to make the last ones easier. I think that this world first race has lasted longer than the last few have, though I could be mistaken. I don’t think any have gone over the reset for a while. Anyway, the honor of the Alliance is lost as most of the top guilds are Horde, what gives with that? My guilds 2/12 in two weeks, so if we keep up the one boss a week rate, we’ll clear the place on normal in three months which should be in plenty of time for 5.4. maybe we’ll even make inroads into heroic. Now that’s a nice note to end on.
