Doctor's Report: Horridon

Looking at Horridon now, he seems a poor shadow of what the boss once was. The first time we came up against Horridon was pre-nerf, and we grinded ourselves on perfecting and getting down each door. Due to our healing composition, the poison door was particularly annoying if we let -any- of the volleys get through, and so we had to pay attention a lot just to get past the second door without too many stacks. Then the disease from the third door would start stacking and... yeah you get the idea.

So we finally got down Horridon after I think ten or so tries, and this felt fantastic. We were glad that this damn boss went down and now we can focus on Council. Then the first wave of nerfs rolled over Horridon's arena...

We went into the fight the next reset, wondering how much the fight had changed. We then proceeded to oneshot a boss that we had spent ~5 hours progressing on originally. No setup changes, no immense gear difference. One shot, one kill.

This, I believe, is due to a quite common disease called Wrathofthelichkingitis. This is a disease that affects the brain, where people are used to bosses falling over and they get their free epics, so when they don't get free loot from early bosses they cry a bit on the forums and big old Uncle Blizz sorts them out. They move on then, probably to the next boss to whine about that instead.

Unfortunately, the nerfs didn't quite stop there. I'll list them all (quoted directly from WoWPedia's page on Horridon)

• Hotfix (2013-04-10): "
  • Reduced the health of Farraki Wastewalkers, Gurubashi Venom priests, Drakkari Frozen Warlords, and Amani Warbears in the Horridon encounter by 15% in 10-player Normal difficulty.
  • Drakkari Frozen Warlord now deals less damage with Mortal Strike in 10-player Normal difficulty.
  • Risen Drakkari Champions and Warriors now deals less damage with Deadly Plague in 10-player Normal difficulty."
• Hotfix (2013-03-12): "Reduced the health of adds in the Horridon encounter by 15% for 10-player normal mode and 10% for 25-player normal mode."
•  Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Added.

These changes were completely unnecessary. In the space of  7 days the adds of this fight were rendered a minor inconvenience by most of our raid team. We could destroy all of the adds with little trouble, and they weren't doing enough damage to make our healers panic even once. I don't think I ever used any defensives on the adds themselves after that.

Sadly, this change makes Horridon one of the easiest fights in the instance now, compared to the immensely difficult (compared to Jin'rohk) fight that he was. I hope Blizzard sorts out this problem of designing bosses in  the future, because it really does cut deep when a fight goes from a challenge that you savour for the rest of the reset, to free loot.

/terentw

You have received loot: [Confidence Booster] - A Quick Look At Jin'rohk The Breaker

So, while tabbed out of WoW while waiting for Oondasta to spawn, I thought I'd take a look and see what good points and bad points I can pull out of Jin'rohk, the first boss in Throne of Thunder, to anyone that might be intimidated by stepping foot into the world of current raiding content.

Jin'rohk is a very interesting fight, requiring some quick thinking on occasion, but for the most part is a very good boss for raising confidence. Why, you might ask? Part of his tactics require you to stand in a gigantic puddle of win and deliver massive amounts of damage into the boss' face at quite regular intervals.Nothing wrong with this of course, it's always fun to see 300k burst from your class, but at the same time I feel that this is the main flaw with the fight.

See, Horridon (which I'll cover in the future) is a much harder fight than Jin'rohk. Or at least was, pre-nerf. And so gaining this sense of "I just crapped damage all over that boss, lets go nuke the next one!" is a bad thing. People will assume their damage is more than adequate and proceed to have a hard time getting through certain parts of the Horridon fight, never mind the bridge trash mobs.

So if you're a new raider, or perhaps your guild is a tad behind the times and is only just setting foot in here, keep in mind that the numbers on your Recount/Skada/Tinydps are going to be 1.5x-2x larger than what you're used to seeing, and that's perfectly normal. Unfortunately, those aren't -your- numbers, and as such you should take this fight with a pinch of salt if you're a DPS.

As a tank it's very simple, much like the other fights in this raid. Tankswap when you get the debuff... What's new?

As for healing, I think the only major part to worry about is the Lightning Storms, at which point healers should always have a major cooldown (Tranq, Spirit Shell, PW:B, etc) to cover this. It's perfectly doable with 3 cooldowns.

That'll do for Jin'rohk. I'll probably get around to writing one for Horridon while in an LFR queue at some point...


Or even maybe one for the bridge trash. ;)

/terentw

BEAT SHIL LOL

*does a dance*

Boss Difficulty in the Throne of Thunder.

This is just a brief analysis of how I view the fights 1-11 in Throne of Thunder 10M Normal, from a Protection Warrior's perspective (iLevel 519, for gear reference):

Jin'Rohk the Breaker - Interesting mechanic for tank swaps, making it so that bad tanks punish the entire raid, bit of a "free loot" boss in my honest opinion. From a loot perspective however, good weapon considering current optimal stats for active mitigation, with a socket for straight +Stam to boot. Yum.

Horridon - One of my favourite fights in the instance, though I only really panicked when I got 15+ stacks of the Triple puncture debuff and lucky blocks saved me from taking ~1m damage straight to the face. Quite easily stomped when add tanking due to Disrupting Shout for any AoE interrupts and Mocking Banner to make sure any stragglers don't decide to wander off and attack dps.

Council of Elders - I like the fight, but felt a bit... reheated to me. Never been a massive fan of Council fights, but I think the Dark Power energy bar that they get adds an interesting mechanic. Biggest failing is the "zergable" nature of the fight, stack the Frost King, Sul, and Mar'li on top of each other and nuke Sul while cleaving the other two is a tactic that unfortunately works.

Tortos - In my honest opinion, hardest boss out of the first 11. The RNG factor of turtles knocking dps up into the air or not being able to kick because of this is very annoying. Not to mention as soon as the bats start meleeing a target that isn't a tank, they turn to mush pretty damn quickly. Not to mention that actually tanking the adds through the raid-wide stun almost guarantees a tank death unless cooldowns were in place or the adds were CC'd somehow.

Megaera - Second favourite fight in the instance, just in front of Horridon. Always been a fan of Hydra-style creatures so to see Cloud Serpents mutilated to create this monstrosity of a boss is awesome to see. Again, the LFR tactic of GRGRGRG for a kill order is unfortunately the most viable, but at least the tanks then have to be on their toes for the insane damage the blue head throws at you with 120% damage done and 120% increased attack speed.

Ji-Kun - I hate this boss. You stand still and hit a bird-shaped target dummy for 6 minutes. It's boring as hell to tank, I'll move on.

Durumu - Fun fight for healers I can imagine, with the stacking healing debuff on tanks, as well as the raid damage from the eye beams. AND OH MY GODS THE MAZE. I actually find it easier to Alt-Z my UI away and run the maze with no UI visible, but I'm very comfy with where my damage abilities are, and when my defensive/offensive CDs will be up. Very fun fight, very original.

Primordius - Or as we in The Undecided call it, LootMoredius. Not sure what the plan was for this fight, but it is easily my favourite in the instance. The first time we attempted this, I had about 50% knowledge of what to do from memory from beta testing the instance. We managed to kill the boss on the first try with only one death. As easy as it is, it's my favourite fight for the childish reason of: I MUTATE INTO A MASSIVE F*CKING LIZARD MAN! WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

Iron Qon - Fun fight, though some of it seems a bit pointless. Like the tornadoes doing more damage, on top of the AoE and 50% healing reduction in the air phase. After asking my co-tank (Stealthduck@Argent Dawn) what he thought of it, as I couldn't form a decent opinion, he said that it was an "okay" fight, where tanks are overlooked a lot, which in his opinion happens a lot.

Twin Consorts - Loot Consorts, killed on first try using no buffs. Thanks Blizz. Though I very much like the Beasts of Nightmare mechanic and how only tanks can deal with it. Needs to be harder I think.


Thanks for taking the time to read this, I'll be sure to post my opinions on the Lei Shen fight after he's down and before we progress on to Heroic Jin'Rohk!

/terentw

Every story has a beginning...

So I guess this is where I start.

I'm Teren, Protection Warrior tank for <The Undecided> @ Argent Dawn EU. We're a semi-hardcore raiding guild and we've gotten a few decently ranked kills for a Horde raiding guild on an Alliance dominated server (think 4 Alliance 90's to every 1 on Horde -_-).

During my time off from raiding I enjoy a myriad of things from simple walks down the beach, to listening to a lot of odd music from varying countries, as well as just sitting and chatting with my guild and friends. I'm very open for discussions about various classes and I'm usually around or online on Argent Dawn EU, so if you're online and want a chat feel free to ask any of the people in my guild if I'm around!

Usual other methods of contacting me are:
Via email: devouringfiend@gmail.com
Via Skype: Veren1994
Via Website: undecidedwow.enjin.com

I hope you stick around for any future rants/discussions on stuff that happens in MoP and beyond!

/terentw