I've had a few days to digest the main parts of the Icecrown Citadel patch, not only from my own class/spec perspective but from a more general perspective of the main features touted in the patch notes. So I'll divide it up appropriately from the specific to the general:
Shadow Priest DoT Haste Scaling
Well, let's be honest, what can anyone say but "awesome"? It's far from being an overpowered change -- it sits just nicely in with the buffs that almost all classes have received. Unfortunately, the one fight on which I would have excelled -- Deathbringer Saurfang -- I have yet to DPS. I switched to Discipline for that fight because I was worried that we might need three healers. Turns out we didn't -- the healing was manageable. I've not yet noticed an increase in my DPS because, in new content, I am more tentative of other fight mechanics at first. I have a feeling that the DoTs are the only reason I managed to come second on the Marrowgar meter, though.
Icecrown Citadel 5-man instances
Forge of Souls
I wish I could get into this more than once per day on Heroic without going through the randomiser. I had spoiled it partially for myself with the PTR sound files of Bronjahm's voice. The music while fighting him, though, makes it so much better than I could have anticipated. POWER-JAZZ. Additionally, of course, the instance music in general sets that mood. If you know that there is a James Brown-esque boss, you instantly notice the Hammond organ solos mixed in with the general spooky vibe that the place is intended to convey.
Devourer of Souls is somewhat annoyingly voice acted and you only get the hot Desire-esque face and voice if your group isn't decked out in 245 epics and zerging him super hard. The loot, however, is brilliant. Blizzard knew exactly what it was doing when it designed that boss and wanted to give maximum nostalgia to anyone who was in Black Temple.
Pit of Saron
This is where things start getting brutal in terms of difficulty. The trash pulls in FoS are more annoyingly-positioned than anything else. The trash in here, though, hits very hard. Magic damage is in the 10k region and melee damage 4k per strike. I feel that Scourgelord Tyrannus's initial conversion into Undead of the Coliseum Champions is not particularly well done -- they're turned from 330k-HP elites into 5k HP normals. I get that the idea trying to be conveyed is that he can turn them immediately, but another point of the Scourge is that the more powerful you are in life the more powerful you become in Undeath. Additionally, because they have so little health, and because Jaina only spawns at the instance entrance when you're already close to pulling the first trash mob yourself, her own "Empowered Blizzard" spell gets unnoticed as you just zerg through the non-elites yourself.
I feel, therefore, that the introduction to this instance is a bit poor -- in terms of specifics, though, rather than overall concept. I see what they're gunning at, but they don't tune the mobs correctly for what they're trying to convey elsewhere. Jaina should spawn much sooner from when you move away from the portal, and the Undead that Tyrannus spawns should be more powerful: it would give both Jaina and the Scourge a more realistic sense of their respective powers.
To move on with the actual instance, though -- Ick is fairly well-designed, but Pursuit (as yet) does not have a "non-tank" modifier -- i.e., it's possible for Pursuit to be trivialised 20% of the time because the tank can be targeted with it. Garfrost's adds are irritating to try to tank, because they are so spread out, and the platform itself lends itself to irritation on the melee DPS side of things. The idea is that, when Garfrost forges a new weapon, it gives you plenty of time to wipe your stacks of his Permafrost debuff by LoSing it. But for a Death Knight, say, with self-removal of the debuff, it's just inconvenient time-wasting because of the distance away to which he jumps. The trash before Tyrannus's gauntlet is the most brutal part -- heavy melee and magic damage, and if you don't have a disease dispeller, or people who read tooltips, you're a bit screwed. Tyrannus does win this instance's Best Voiceover award, though I deducted points for him being American. It would be nice if Blizzard were to get some British actors in when they want that type of voice, rather than Americans who can just affect a fairly decent accent.
Halls of Reflection
This is one of those instances where, if you don't know what you're doing, and you overgear the instance, you'll have minor problems resulting from mistakes. If you don't know what you're doing and you're in appropriate level (Ulduar-level) gear, you'll wipe. If you do know what you're doing and you're in appropriate level gear, it'll be a challenge, but not impossible. It is very well tuned, and I really hope Blizzard doesn't nerf it owing to people complaining that it is "too hard". Falric is an excellent DPS check and Marwyn is a superb group balance-enforcer. Either you have all four decurse bases covered, or you'd better have a damn good healer.
The lore retcon, ignoring a key questline in Icecrown, is rather annoying. There are some weak arguments that can be conjured up such as "Tirion is blinded by his zealotry to see the need for a Lich King", but I don't exactly understand how Blizzard is going to pull the "This new Lich King [Possible spoilers: Bolvar. Well, honestly, it's pretty obvious.] is good and/or won't destroy us!" rabbit out of the Lore Hat without the whole thing being comical.
The Escape from the Lich King event has just one flaw in it, which you only experience once but which is pretty silly: To activate the event, you have to talk to Jaina/Sylvanas. This is not indicated in any way by the hero, nor is it implied by what they say -- they say, quite clearly, "I can't hold him for long, we must run away RIGHT NOW!" -- so what my group did was run down the path. Then someone noticed that nothing was happening, so they went and talked to Jaina. The event started, and all four of us were on the other side of the first ice wall when it appeared. Instawipe. Irritating. "Make your preparations with great haste!" would convey the same sense of urgency without implying that the event starts with no player-given cue. Aside from this design flaw, the event itself is excellent. Watching Arthas inch closer and wondering if you have enough time to kill this mob before he unleashes wintry instadeath on you is quite scary, even after the first time.
Overall
Blizzard said it would be epic. It is epic. The whole three instances back-to-back form a 5-man raid more than a set of 5-man heroics. You really feel like it's easy to screw up and wipe, even if you're overgeared. Priests, naturally, should dust off their Shackle macros (Yes, you should have it macroed) and have a raid mark keybound to indicate a Shackle target.
Looking for Dungeon system
A success, without a doubt. I think the gear-matching system is a bit squiffy, as it seems to match players of equal gear, rather than matching "less experienced players with more experienced players" as Blizzard diplomatically puts it -- so it feels like the rich are getting richer and the poor ... not poorer, but certainly richer at a slower pace -- but maybe it's as golden for people in Tier 7 as it is in Tier 9.
The removal of /rw in parties has to be reversed, though -- or a /pw (Party Warning) command needs to be added. It is very irritating to have one's /rw Pulling %t now! macro disabled and having to resort to /s.
I will look forward to using this on my lowbie alts. It might even encourage me to level them solo instead of relying on the 3-man static group I occasionally enjoy on my shaman.
The one problem, of course, is Additional instances cannot be launched. Please try again later. Hopefully this will be fixed somehow.
Icecrown Citadel 10-player
"Balanced" is again the word to be used here. It was quite easy for us, but we're decked out in iLvl245 epics, which is a whole tier above the intended range for ICC10N. It is also epic. I would like to pick out two aspects I particularly like:
Trash
I think that Blizzard now has the balance perfect in terms of trash tuning. Good trash, to my mind, fills three purposes:
1) Prepares you, either through abilities or through mental strain, for the boss it prefaces. Some of the best examples of this were found in Ulduar: Dark Rune Thunderers before Thorim and Faceless Horrors before Vezax are the two strongest examples of direct mechanic training. Deathwhisper trash has such mechanics: some of the trash gets raised as an undead copy of itself once it falls, and the large single pulls demonstrate the importance of spreading out.
2) Can wipe you. This should not be in an overpowered sense, like Ulduar first-week trash being overtuned in 10-man, but rather it should feel like you need to use CC and you need to be careful, alert and awake to make it through.
3) Should be short. If it goes on for too many corridors, trash is just a waste of time that serves less and less of a purpose the more you increase its frequency.
These three rules serve one overall aim: for the whole instance to be fun -- not just the bosses. If you keep the trash short but hard-hitting, such that people take as much time over four hard packs of mobs as they would ten or twelve easy packs, then you create a much more enjoyable feel about it. It's boring when trash is a faceroll but goes on forever, and it's also boring when trash is too hard but goes on for a long time (see Tempest Keep trash). It's much more fun when you reach Deathwhisper and you can see that, yes, there is trash, but it's just four packs. It makes you more likely to take your time and enjoy taking your time.
The pace of the whole instance so far is enjoyable, and the remaining wings will be worth the wait. Some of the achievements for the Glory meta will require four weeks to get used to (I'm looking at you, I'm on a Boat), so the leisurely pace we can afford to spend is welcome.
Storyline
5-man retcons aside, the story in Icecrown is proving to be epic. I won't spoil anything, save to say that what happens after you kill Deathbringer Saurfang is rather moving and (on the part of certain characters for whom jerkassery is par for the course) surprising.
Disenchant button
Thank you, Blizzard. <3
Quest Tracker
Apparently it's inaccurate as hell for some categories of quest, so please do send in bug reports if it tells you to go somewhere that ends up being false according to the facts (Searched through Wowhead, of course).
No comments:
Post a Comment