24 pulls is all it took us and Alysrazor collapsed.
It took us 46 pulls to get her down on normal.
Something ain’t right here.
(Yes, I’m still talking about nerfs.)
Do I want to wipe more on a boss like Alysrazor? No, not particularly. But I don’t feel as though we earned the kill. Granted, our kill was near-perfect execution, except for Majik’s Mumble client dying on him and Kaleri dropping her Power Word: Barrier on the other side of town at the pull. ;) And I could have done without some of the deaths we had, to be sure… but it went very smoothly. If we can do that every time, we’ll have no problems killing her every single week on heroic.
However, it just feels as though Alysrazor has been de-clawed, had her wings clipped, whatever.
Tornadoes move just as slowly in heroic as they do on normal.
Firestorm won’t automatically kill you if you don’t line of sight it, not if you’re healed up and use a defensive CD. (Our pally tank app ate a Firestorm while still working on a hatchling. He put up Ardent Defender and blew Lay on Hands and lived with plenty of health to spare.)
The biggest challenge, it seemed, was re-allocating DPS.
I’m sorry, but is that all there is to heroic Firelands bosses?
Let’s examine them, shall we?
Normal Shannox: Some people on dogs, some people on Shannox.
Heroic Shannox: Just about every single person on Shannox, a few people on various dogs for slows and breaking Face Rage.
So that’s a simple reallocation of DPS.
Normal Rhyolith: Some people on Fragments and Sparks, some people on legs.
Heroic Rhyolith: Same as above — stun/slow/blowback Liquid Obsidium.
Another reallocation of DPS, but I’ll admit, this one was effing tricky — at least pre-nerf.
Normal Beth’tilac: Some people on caves, some people on spinners and drones, some people on top of the web.
Heroic Beth’tilac: Same as above — and then blow up the Engorged Broodlings.
Same damn thing, more reallocation of DPS and some healing, but the worst part about this fight was making sure caves were covered. Once we had that down, the boss died.
And now…
Normal Alysrazor: Some people up top, some people on Initiates, some people on hatchlings. Dodge Brushfire, Tornadoes, Lava Spew and Incendiary Clouds.
Heroic Alysrazor: Same as above — plus dodge Firestorm and Meteors and Boulders.
Really? I mean… it’s just not that difficult. I’d say it’s actually easier than normal because the hatchlings die so quickly. The worst part here isn’t even the Firestorm, it’s making sure Initiates die quickly enough that interrupters can interrupt them.
At least Majordomo Staghelm has a “real” new mechanic in Concentration. I’m looking forward to that fight, but am prepared to be “meh” about it.
It makes me sad. It feels very much as though these “heroic modes” are like “normal” modes now that the nerfs have gone through, at least to an experienced raid group. I’m sure Ragnaros will be different, of course, and it’s not like the challenge has completely vanished from heroic Firelands… but I didn’t enjoy heroic Alysrazor. At all. And, prior to our work on heroic Alysrazor, that was my favourite fight. I really didn’t feel as though I was healing with finesse last night — I felt as though all I was doing was praying that my tank wouldn’t get two-shotted or that people wouldn’t fall out of the sky or die to tornadoes.
I spent the vast majority of our time on Heroic Alysrazor just hoping we could execute it, but there wasn’t anything to figure out after the first 10ish pulls. We tried a couple new variations last night and eventually just said screw it and went back to what we’d been doing, essentially, with very minor tweaking to get Initiates down.
And then, on one glorious attempt when most people didn’t die or disconnect or anything… she died.
Totally anticlimactic.
Am I proud? Of course. Am I pleased that we’re 4/7? Absolutely.
But ultimately, I got more of a sense of accomplishment at knowing that we budgeted our raid time this week extremely well (repeat of H Rhyolith and H Shannox, plus first kills of H Beth and H Alysrazor and a full clear and we even did Volcanus!) than I did when we downed Alysrazor.
Sad.
Please, don’t let raiding be this ridiculous in 4.3.
Your comments would be the same whether the content was needed or not. The only difference would be you spending about 2 weeks on heroic alysrazor instead of 2 nights. The nerfs don’t change the mechanics, just expose them for how easy they are to execute.
If you are expecting the 4.3 hard modes to be much different, you are settin yourself up for disappointment.
Here’s heroic rag in your terms: same fight for 10 minutes, then reallocate some dps to deluge. Stand in the frost, victory.
Here’s my take on the specific bosses so far:
Shannox – Not a huge disappointment. He wasn’t particuarly challenging even before the nerf and I really haven’t noticed a big difference since then. There are some noticible things (like being able to stack Jagged Tear so high), but it is still possible to really screw the fight up.
Rhyolith – We did so much work on this guy before the nerf that I still feel like we deserved our first kill. He’s noticibly easier now though.
Beth’tilac – I still thought this fight was chellenging. Having to intercept broodlings and really focus on healing heavy damage on only 2 or 3 people for most of the fight was a big, very welcome change for me. Even though she was nerfed, I still felt like we worked really hard for this kill. For me personally, this was the fight that has challenged me most in Firelands (probably about on par with my job on heroic Magmaw).
Alysrazor – Totally agree. So disappointing. This is the kind of fight that just ends up frustrating everyone. The mechanics are super simple. The hatchlings die fast, the initiates die fast. There’s very little unavoidable damage for most of the fight. All of our wipes were just due to people standing in the bad. It’s one of those fights where it’s really easy to blame others – “Hey, you 4 that just died to tornados…we’re wiping because of you. Happy now?” I was guilty of this a few times our first night on her which was frustrating. I think these kinds of fights are unhealthy for raid groups.
Alysrazor was nerfed the harshest by far, that’s why she seems so easy. The other bosses are more forgiving than they were before, but Alysra (for you Kurn ;) ) just lost all her splendour.
And honestly, Heroic modes were pretty hard pre-nerf. I don’t mean for this to come across as snide, but if you’d progressed faster this would not have happened. I disagree with the timing of the nerfs, but what you’re going through is why they happened, so more people could see the content.
Meanwhile, Hc rag is still challenging, no worries :>
I have to totally agree with Borsk here – I mean, look at any of the HM encounters since they were started. It’s always just a small adjustment, and then you’re back on track.
As far as the nerfs go, if Blizzard doesn’t disappoint me and they drop 4.3 right after Blizzcon, then this is the perfect ramp up to the Demon Soul. You’ll have some good gear in your pocket, and you’ll be rolling over bosses to get to the end goal. This is also a great time to start examining your roster, and if any changes need to be made, at least you have easier content to get them in on.
My guess is that if Demon Soul drops by Nov, we’ll see nerfs to the content by March – and hopefully have a new expansion on the horizon.
I’m not sure if this stuff is harder on 10m or if we just aren’t the same calibur of players, but we really struggled with HRhyolith on 10m before and even after the nerf. Most everyone in my guild now hates that fight and I actually consider it the worst fight blizzard has ever done, it’s just so damned random and hard to control. We finally got him down and I wasn’t elated about a first kill, I was just relieved that I didn’t have to do the fight any longer. I did not count how many attempts, somewhere in the high 30s low 40s over a few nights, and when we finaly killed him it didn’t feel like we had gotten the fight right so much as lucked out on where volcanoes spawned. Terrible, terrible fight design, worse than Prince Melkazar in kara with those stupid infernals.
Majordomo is another story, however. We decided to try him next and while he isn’t perhaps as difficult as you might be looking for, the fight is awesome. Timing cooldowns, handling meteor swaps and dropping seed debuffs and spreading/collapsing. I think we had 17 attempts on heroic to get it down. Unlike rhyolith, it actually feels like improvement as you get further in the fight instead of just RNG, but there’s just enough RNG with the metoers, cat jumps and seeds that it keeps it interesting. I enjoyed the fight on normal, I love that fight on heroic.
Although, looking back, both of the kills feel kinda hollow. It’s not that they weren’t challenging (both were) it’s just the knowlege that we didn’t get the “real” kill, we got some sort of lesser kill. And not becuase we couldn’t do it, we’ll never know if we could or not, we never got the chance just becuase we progressed slower than top-ranked guilds do. Saying I’m 3/7 HM just doesn’t mean as much now as it should.
We’re 6/7 HC since the nerfs, as we were pretty close to killing most of those bosses pre-nerf anyway.
Majordomo is a joke – get healers with cooldowns, get Paladin tank to cooldown / AD the cleaves solo every second and overload cooldowns on the same tank every other one. Take one scorpion, spread, take seven cats, run in, repeat, loot.
Only real challenge after the nerfs is Baleroc who is basically a ‘retard check’ and it’s very easy to pinpoint and eliminate failers, who spread Torment around or can’t handle a shard.
Happy that Ragnaros HC seems to be the actual challenge here, I miss having to wipe hundred times before killing a boss, like we had to with Nefarian HC.
I think we get it that your not happy with the nerfs but please move on it is becoming a bit ho hum.
Other commenters, I’ll get to you shortly. :)
Neil – You know, it took me a few minutes to decide whether or not to approve your comment. I decided I’d do so in order to write a response to you. This is my blog. These are my opinions. I raid. It’s the primary thing I do in WoW. I’m going to comment on all the things that get me thinking and a lot of that will be raid related.
While the Firelands nerfs are already an old topic, I hadn’t downed Alysrazor pre-nerfs. Thus, to come in to the fight and down her relatively quickly and painlessly will undoubtedly cause me to relate my impressions here on my blog.
I appreciate your feedback, but I’m going to keep talking about things now versus pre-nerf until 4.3 drops, probably. It won’t be every post, but any time I get a new boss, any time I see something that gets me thinking “man, and this is done POST nerfs…” I’m going to post about it. I apologize if you think it’s boring, but you don’t have to read every post I write and since it’s relevant to me, I’m going to keep writing about it.
/tar Kurn
/cheer
I agree with you there – It’s your blog – if you want to talk about your lawnmower, that’s your call. Besides, the nerfs are still a big topic of disussion.