Wotlk in Review

Posted by Weezzii in , ,

So we're a little ways into Wrath and I, like many individuals, have some mixed feelings about the content that's currently available in the game. This is by no means an "AMGZ BLIZZRAD SUX!" post... but they certainly came up short in a few areas.

Leveling
Without a doubt, the leveling process in Wrath was 50 times more enjoyable than previous releases. I'm not a huge fan of leveling, but that doesn't mean that the grouping of quests and the storylines that drove you from one quest hub to another were subpar in any way, shape, or form. The questing in Dragonblight alone should be enough to get people chomping at the bit to see more epic quest lines involving cinematic scenes similar to the Wrath Gate's.

5man Content
For the most part the 5man dungeons were pretty enjoyable, but too easy in some ways. They were visually impressive in many cases (Halls of Stone and Lightning come to mind), and the boss encounters are creative. On a normal mode of a dungeon I can understand having some relative ease to encounters - on heroic mode however, I expect at least some level of a challenge that relates to the abilities of how the poeple in my party play their class, rather than how well or poorly the group can AoE tank and dps.
Perhaps there really isn't a "fix" to this.. and instead the game has just evolved/devolved to this stage where every pull is an AoE pull. "What, there are healers in that group of mobs? Fuck it, pull 'em and just AoE it down." I thought I read somewhere prior to the release of Wrath that Blizz wanted tanks and groups to be "afraid" of bosses (this applies more to raids). This is definitely not the case. Pull - Tank all - AoE all... move on. The way tanking has changed is surely a major influencing factor here... but I do miss the initial fear/respect that you would even have for trash pulls in Shadow Labrynth in the Inciter's room... or any of the packs of pulls in Magister's Terrace.
We are not afraid, Blizz. Prz adjust for the future, luv weezumz.

10s / 25s ~

Naxxramas
We'll start with Naxx.. the thing that is getting old faster than Kara did.

SWEET WE GET TO DO NAXX, WE MISSED OUT ON THE OPPORTUNITY IN VANILLA WOW.. AMGZ YES.

Now that we have that out of our system... time to do Naxx ---
Oh.. hay, we just killed everything in here on our first time in... hmm. From a tanking perspective there is nothing to fear in there. It's okay to run around below the Defense soft cap too. It's a sandbox, go play around in it, don't take it seriously... piss on your brother's sand castle if you feel the urge, mis-direct your healers.. whatever.
In comparison.. the initial difficulty of Karazhan was like a 50 sided rubix cube.

Naxx on 25 doesn't bring much new flavor to the table over the 10 man. The trash is not intimidating... just send your tanks in and then AoE stuff down. Your tanks are less likely to die in 25s then they were in 10s.. and the mobs don't have much more HP than its 10man counterpart. Admittedly, we have a very strong group of healers as a backbone to anything that our guild raids. That being said, on most boss encounters there is little need to be concerned about relating to people dying to non-random aspects of them. So n' so get hit by lava and dies... so n' so was killed while healers were web-wrapped... so n' so got zapped 432 times by the raid because they stood on the wrong side of Thaddius.. etc etc. Thankfully however, Blizz was one step ahead of us on cranking up the difficulty for any and all encounters.. and better yet, it's completely random.

WUT IZ THIS U SPEEK OF WEEZZII?

.... Lag, of course. Everyone loves some good ol' fashioned instance/encounter lag to throw a little spice into the game. If we're not going to die to the encounter itself... we should at least be challenged by something we cannot control what-so-ever.
-- Queue the "slow clap" sign.
Here's a visual, if need be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhTiJEYqqY8

Vault of Archavon / WG Boss
From both a 10 and 25 man perspective, I don't mind the way this encounter is set up. It's extremely simplistic and easy... but it's something you can just jump in a pug group for and not be terribly worried that you might wipe more than once. The liklihood that you're going to get the piece of loot you may be looking for from him is very low... but meh, it seems fitting for the relative ease of the encounter. It wouldn't hurt to toss it on a 3-day reset, in my opinion. You can't farm him to deck yourself out in gear.. it's simply not going to happen.

Malygos
This would have been cool if like... I dunno... if phase 3 was completely different.
I understand that a number of people enjoy this encounter. I think Phases 1 and 2 are good and challenging when you put it in perspective of the enrage time n' all that. But I do not enjoy flying around on a drake vehicle. It was dumb in Oculus and it's dumb in Malygos. Good encounter thrown in the shitter, imo.

Obsidian Sanctum / Sartharion
Easily the best thing in the game right now.
I feel like I'm going to Taco Bell and trying to decide if I want 3 hard shell taco supremes or a chicken quesadilla. It's great.
Yes, killing all of the drakes makes for a very easy encounter. Bump up the spice level if your feel the urge though.
We've spent two nights in there messing around with 3 drakes alive on 10man. There is no doubt that it's a challenge.. and extremely fun. I can be in the exact same encounter as someone else that doesn't revel in the idea of wiping 100 times before killing something.. they can go in, do it on the difficulty they want it to be on, and be perfectly content.
Thank you, Blizz. Now put it on a 5 day timer, luv teh weezster.

Taking a step back
We kinda got hosed on PvE content.
We've got 1 old dungeon with 15 bosses in it... and we have three different single boss encounters. There isn't any sense of "progression" in my opinion... just stuff to go do. I feel like that takes away from the feeling that most PvE minded players are particularly after.
Sure... in some ways it is more content than we've had previously because of the whole 10man AND 25man versions.. and different quantities of drakes alive on Sartharion. It simply doesn't stack up though.

With any luck, Ulduar will be a PvE'ers wet dream. That's possibly a little too hopeful... but I'll raise a glass to hope.

-Weezzii

1 comments

Misdirecting healers....hmmm...

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