Patch 5.2 should -hopefully- be arriving on the live servers tomorrow and as we all look forward to act of challenging the Thunder King in his throne room and hunting down dinosaurs to the point of extinction for their Giant Dinosaur Bones to exchange for prizes from Ku’ma, the bone collector. Before we travel to the two new islands, I want to dedicate this post to continue a tradition I have of looking back on the ending PvE tier award the best and worst boss fights in patch 5.0.
Because I entered the Mist’s raiding world just these two past months I have not had spent enough time with the bosses in MSV, HoF, and T(o)ES boss fights to properly appreciate or loath the encounters. So for patch 5.0 I am just focusing on the 5-man heroic bosses, and hopefully this will not be the case when I write about the best and worst encounters at the end of Patch 5.2
The Best 5-man boss
This award goes to Yan-Zhu the Uncasked, the last Alemental you fight in the Stormstout Brewery.
Thanks to WoWhead for these screenshots
I chose him because he teaches the group of players about basic to some-what advance raid mechanics while always changing the fight each time you see him.
Yan-Zhu’s gimick is that he will randomly have one of two types of abilities from the each of his three categories. One from his AoE spells (wall of Suds or his Fizzy attack), One that helps aids the boss (spawning adds that heals him or creates a shield of bubbles that protects him from all damage) , and one that delivers a debuff to the players (the Bloat debuff that causes damage to players standing on either side of the infected player or the Blackout Brew debuff).
What makes him really shine is that all of his abilities are taught separately by the adds leading up to the boss and then a combination of those are combined for the last fight. It’s not just good training for raiding, but it is also an excellent example of teaching the players about gameplay, giving the players a bit of time practice with the debuffs and mechanics asking them to master them. I tip my hat to the group of Blizzard game developers that created that whole encounter.
The Worst 5-man boss
This one begrudgingly has to go to the Lilian Voss encounter.
It was a shame giving her this award because of her story arc that stretched over two expansions and two instances
This was the only encounter where that I resented doing with the group in Scholomance, the only reason I do not like it as much as the other bosses is because the encounter is just uncomfortably too long.
The boss encounter has three phases, the first phase is where you fight her body, the second phase is where her soul separates from her body and you have to whittle down her soul’s health, and the last phase is when her body is re-resurrected and the players have to DPS the last of Voss’s health while having to deal with her soul that is wreaking havoc on the rest of the group.
The problem I have with this is that it, in my opinion, asks the players to master too many concepts in a short of a time, and if the group wipes at the last burn phase (which at the beginning a lot of the pugs I were in were) you had to jump through all the hoops all over again.
I can justify that sort of frustration on proper raid bosses because that is a part of the whole ‘raid experience’ but that entire fight seems just a tad out-of-place for the instance.
If it seemed like I was grasping at straws for justifying Lilian Voss’s fight you would be right, all of Pandaria’s Heroic fights were well designed and there was not one boss or instance that I actually hated seeing when I zoned in, and I hope that pattern continues in all future content patch.
If you have your own best/worst pick, leave a comment below with your reason why, I’m interested in seeing what other people thought of the boss fights.
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Be MOP focuses on the Mists of Pandaria expansion of World of Warcraft with my own reflections about the current news and developments that happens throughout the game’s life cycle. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
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Noah, The patch will not be here until at least March 5th. And there still has not been an official release announcement.
People kept on telling me it was today, the 26th. Thank God. I was about ready to go cry myself some tears.
Damn, you were right about the release date (from reading other wow sites at-least I can say I was not alone in my wrong-ness)
Interesting choices, particularly because Yan-Zhu the Uncasked might be one my most hated.
Whether I like him or not depends on the combo of his abilities and my class – Blackout Brew + Mage SUCKS, because if I hold still to cast (which I obviously have to), I black out. URGH. But as my huntard, the only real problem I have to watch out for is standing too close to the edges, which makes it difficult to see Wall of Suds coming from behind.
For that fight/combo I just switch to the fire spec and just spam Scorch all day every day, until the boss is down.
What part of the Uncasked that justified your hatred? and what was your favorite fight?
Why I hate Yan-Zhu the Uncasked:
-really long fight
-Adds that are not takeable
-Adds that heal and typical dps that tunnel and not kill said adds
-Blackout Brew. stuns, jumping over beer lines that move along the ground in straight geometrical shapes.
I don’t like fights that I can’t controll as a tank. Basicly I just have to stand beside him and pretend im a plate dps…no tanking/inturupting/skill requiered.
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