[Raid Idea] The Grand Observatory

[Sanctity]

Welcome Reader
Ok, my first major post on these forums was a thread about my ideas for a raid dungeon, The Grand Observatory, which received largely positive feedback. Since I made it I have tried on and off to work on the ideas with slow progress, however I feel that now I am ready to post this back up and see how it goes. I made these ideas as a personal project and hope you enjoy seeing the product. There will be some role-play heavy segments, especially when talking about locations and the lore behind the bosses. There will also be many walls of text, that is unavoidable although I aim to try and present my work in the best structured method I can. TL;DR at your own peril.

Please post what you think once you've read it, it'll take pitance next to the time invested to do the reading and I enjoy the feedback.

- Sanctity

Honorable Mentions
First and foremost, thanks to vlad43210 for all the constructive feedback you have given. I truly appreciate it.
Second, to my guild mate Colossi. You also made outstanding feedback that helped me polish the second and third bosses particularly.
Thirdly, to Bibi and the IRC for this post. You had to be there ;D.

INDEX:
The way I'm going to work this is having each part linked to from the OP in this index, check here for updates.

I. The Story of The Grand Observatory
II. Location and Lore
III. The Courtyard and High Gatekeeper Tysander
IV. The Stargazer's Hall
V. The Starlight Atrocity
VI. The Archives
VII. Librarian Sideria Normal Mode
VIII. Librarian Sideria Hard Mode
IX. Librarian Sideria Summary
X. The Main Stairway
XI. The Vault Console
XII. The Holding Cell
XIII. Zwordid the Fleshen
XIV. The Viewing Chamber and The Starlock Normal Mode
XV. The Starlock Hard Mode


[Discontinued] Alternate Fourth Boss and Associated Lore

[Sanctity]

The story of The Grand Observatory
This is a little overview both of the story of creation, abandonment and renewal of the idea and the story of the greater plans I have here. If you want to skip this and read the RP as it come feel free.

The idea of The Grand Observatory (TGO) was something I first dreamed up in late 2009. Initially I wanted to put seven bosses into it, I had the ideas for two of them kinda worked out and, as with any idea to begin with, the sky was the limit. So I sat down and wrote up my planned instance's lore and the two bosses I had worked out and then I kinda let it drift. While this had been happening a set of exams had been looming toward me so I dedicated to those and this awesome setting I had made just sat there. Then when I came back to it I just didn't feel the spark for it that I had before.

After awhile of it being in a thread here on MMO I decided to remove the content. I did this after a particularly frustrating session where I'd looked at my copies of what could come next and then been dragged into trying to fix parts of what I had already done in spite of the fact they were mostly fine anyway, I got so wound up I just took it down and hid it out of mind. TGO is now back online, and I'm working on it again hoping to finish this instance I created. However, I would like to record here the over arching story of the Observatory as I never told it before and I think that it's worth having it up. I recommend glancing at the map once you've read this because you will see the progression describe here in the layout of the instance I though out.

From here this summary does reveal the overarching story of the Observatory so if you'd rather go in not knowing that then stop reading this and skip to the next post, you were warned. You the player are leading your party to investigate TGO, you fight your way past it's gatekeeper into eerie halls and the next significant boss is in fact an invader, clearly something is afoot here. Next you proceeded into the archives and after defeating the third boss there a talk through with the now friendly boss NPC would reveal part of what was going on.

The boss will reveal that they had caught the attention of a star fairing being with their magical scrying of the heavens and then, without warning, the being had used it's own magic to travel to Azeroth. The being had been a monster and Alterius the Chronicaler, a first-hand servant of the titans and master of the observatory, had struggled to contained it. So once it was contained, however tenuously, he had ordered the observatory sealed against anyone entering or leaving to help keep this interstellar monster here. You are then granted access to the lower floor of the Observatory.

Here there is a room containing boss 4 which I was for a long time unsure about. I labelled it a workshop where the constructs were kept/maintained for lack of a better idea but I have now decided it will be something much more interesting. Boss 5 was an event boss in of that there was no single enemy, you had to fight to brake the seal imposed by the Chronicler to contain the monster. Sixth, and sort of last, Alterius the Chronicler is an Algalon style fight with the leader of the observatory in his own chambers on the basis of the old gem. No, you fools broke my seal!, you must be agents of the monster! Once you low health him he is inclined to realise you're on his side.

Lastly, hard mode only, you could choose to fight the cosmic horror itself, a being so powerful that time and space are it's playthings. A monster that crossed the incalculable void with ease to inflict death on this world. Good luck...

That is the plan!

Floorplan / Maps:
Here are the floorplans I drew of the instance as it looks in my head. Click to enlarge.
[img width=120 height=200]http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee236/pyrokin_photo/groundfloor.jpg[/img][img width=200 height=200]http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee236/pyrokin_photo/lowerfloor.jpg[/img]

[Sanctity]

The Grand Observatory

Courtesy of WoWWiki:
Uldum (pronounced: Ul-doom) is an ancient desert located on the southern coast of Kalimdor. Fragments of notes unearthed from Bael Modan suggest that a great titan city lies deep within the rocky expanse of the southern desert. So far, dwarven expeditions have yet to track down the location of Uldum, but they are confident that it’s only a matter of time. Uldum is a research facility for the titans in their continuing efforts to enhance the biosphere of Azeroth. Uldum is actually located on the southern edge of the continent, and it was hidden by some sort of Titan cloaking device. The Cataclysm damaged the device, and unveiled the long forgotten, mysterious land.
… The zone will contain two new dungeons inspired by ancient Egypt.

This dungeon is separate from the two announced ones as I'm sure Blizzard has plans for those.

The Grand Observatory Rests in the mountains between the desert of Uldum, the primordial Un'goro Crater, the desert of Silithus and the labyrinthine Ahn'Qiraj complex. Set into the imposing mountain peeks the Observatory is quite a sight to behold, it's walls are hewn directly out of the mountains and are adorned with sweeping, large scale designs complimented by intricate motifs; the Observatory is ancient and areas of it's walls have been worn by the wind but the detailing upon them is still clear and imposing.

Besides the grand, adorned walls, the other extraordinary feature visible from outside is a large, sturdy cylindrical tower at the rear of the Observatory, protruding up above the main body of the complex and topped with a massive dome. Made entirely from stone and completely devoid of the delicate decoration that adorns the other walls and the tower the whole of the hemispherical dome appears perfectly smooth. The highest peaks of the summits that long ago would have risen above the dome and caused obstruction have been very deliberately leveled to flat plateaus. Some of the former peaks have statues upon them, but most are merely silent tributes to the titanic power that broke the spires of these mighty mountains, leaving peaks of jagged rock with tops as smooth and level as an undisturbed lake. Often a magical portal, circular in shape, can be seen moving across the surface of the dome like an eye; roaming the skies and asking questions of the stars.

Fragments gathered from other sites in Uldum refer to this place as The Grand Observatory. Entrusted to Altairus the Chronicler, the installation was intended to record the progress of Azeroth and to research and record information about terrestrial Azeroth and other planets and stars. The Observatories records should be accessible from any other Titan console in Uldum but in reality no such records can be found. It seems that the Observatory has been sealed off from the outside world and has been forgotten in all but historical records, however from the outside there is no appearance of anything amiss. It is a mystery that has left the forces of Azeroth eager to find out the secrets of the Observatory. That is where you and your heroic companions enter our scene, beginning the climb from the base camp at the foot of the mountain up to the Observatory gate and then into the Observatory itself!

[Sanctity]

The Courtyard:
Lore/Aesthetics:
You enter the instance, the initial view as the path cuts through a mountainside on the final stretch to the Observatory gates is of a rocky crevice , the sky visible far overhead, the floor sloping down toward a Gate of a scale that boggles the mind. As you proceed toward the Gate the path emerges from the mountain and the sides fall away, you walk on across a causeway bathed in desert sunlight, supported on large pillars that seem to be impossibly tall. The gate itself is set into another mountain and the scene creates a sense of awe, this is a titan installation and it looks the part. The causeway ends in a semicircular area formed where part of a mountain has been carved out so as to reveal the intricacies of the Observatories walls. The gate commands the centre of the area and there are imposing statues set into the walls on both sides and a long the sides of the platform which seem to be standing to attention, awaiting a call to arms.

Trash
None!

Boss: High Gatekeeper Tysander
The boss stands before the gate, baring entry to the Observatory. The fight with him is a gear check for raids. He appears, a towering construct of stone, wielding a shield and a mace of truly grand proportions.

Normal Mode:
Phase One
The boss is engaged and the first phase is essentially a DPS race to get the boss to 40% before he kills the tank/s. For this phase I'm going to break his abilities down by target.

Abilities
Main (Active) Tank:
Melee attack. The bosses melee attack is quite powerful.
Beheld. the bosses target get a debuff called beheld, if the beheld target dies the boss gains back a significant portion of his health.
Disdainful Strike. Causes fairly low damage but reduces the percieved threat of the target by some ammount. This is something like 2% of current aggro +1000. numbers plucked out of the air.
Gatekeepers Wrath. Causes high damage after 5 seconds, dispellable.
Crush. Increases all damage taken by a fixed percentage for each stack. Applied on a regular timer, undispellable.
Watchful Fury. Each time the boss changes target he gains a stack of this, increasing his outgoing damage by a fixed percent.

Off (Secondary) Tank/s:
"Hurtful Strike". Causes high damage to either the 2nd or 3rd place person, choose the one with highest health. Grants extra threat to the recipient.

General Raid:
Detonation. The boss places an orange template which moments later detonates for heavey damage, the more players hit by detonation the more damage it does. for one person it's non leathal, two is borderline, three or more is fatal.
Berserk. Strict enrage timer after which he runs about one-shotting people.

The tanks need to stand together, the main tank and offtanks all taking punishment and needing constant healing love. The tanks need to be a threat monsters as well as being able to mitigate incoming damage because of the disdainful strike and watchful fury mechanics respectively making it hard to keep aggro and making an unnecessary pair of target switches for an overaggro very damaging. The off tanks will be getting free threat and also need to be careful not to surpass the main tank too soon.

Crush forces a tank rotation but again, tanks want to be efficient and stretch their surviviblity to the limit to reduce the number of target switches needed as each means the next tank can go less time. Dps need to race to get the boss into phase two before a tank death while dodging detonations because if the boss heals the berserk timer will be a problem.

Phase Two
Phase two begins immediately at 40%. The boss buffs himself with 'Titanic Defence' causing him to become immune to damage however he stops most of his phase one attacks and becomes immobile. He should be ignored during this phase. At the same time a raid wide debuff called 'Sandstorm' begins ticking, the first tick will remove any stacks of crush on your tanks, the raid wide damage it causes will wear down the healers.

From the wall three (10 man: two) 'Gatekeeper' mobs spawn, these mobs may be taunted and should be picked up one each by your tanks. Tanking them together or near the boss is not advisable as they gain Protectorate Fury from proximity to each other increasing attack speed and damage. The adds hit moderatly hard but their specials are the main problem.

The adds will only die together, all three stay up until all three are killed. On a fixed timer the adds will each use a special ability which the group must react to, mirrorsoul and earthshatter both always come up and either fixate or regroup is the third. The abilities are used by random gatekeepers.
Mirrorsoul Defense. Reflects spells and melee attacks back on their casters.
Fixate. The gatekeeper selects a member of the raid and pursues them. ends after a fixed period of time.
Earthshattering Strike. 8 second cast, causes massive AoE damage arround the construct.
Regroup. The construct attempts move to the boss with increased speed but becomes sucpetable to snares, stuns and slows. ends after a fixed period of time. should it reach the boss the construct is restored to full health.

The raid need to kill the adds while dealing with their fairly frequent specials, also detonations still happen in this phase which need to be dodged. Once the adds are killed the boss rejoins the fight for the second round of phase one except he starts with three stacks of Watchful Fury and now applies Crush two stacks at a time to make things interesting. Sprint to the finish against tank death and the berserk timer!

Hard Mode
Creating a good, differentiated Hardmode for such a stright forward DPS check was difficult but here goes. Activiation is by nuking the 'creature' Binding Shackles off the six or so statues arrayed around the edge of the platform. These respawn after each attempt, have low health and no abilities.

The big difference in hard mode is the addition of adds that need to be delt with while still meeting the tough DPS check and not having a tank death. Ambient raid damage should still be low if you're doing everything properly. The adds are:

Stoneskin Protector. These spawn from the back/edge of the platform, hit like trucks and have extremely high health and armour. they need to be aggroed by a range dps and not allowed to run to and own the healers. the way to kill them is with an armor debuff eg. Sunder, Expose, Farie Fire or Curse of Weakness and Acid spit/Sting from hunter pets. Each application causes huge, threat free damage to the mob; FF, CoW and hunter pet spells are much less effective becauser their debuff is weaker and can be applied from range. If the creature stays up too long it gains an intercept ability to prevent cheesey kite strats.

I adpted the idea from this discussion. As a ball park example I'm thinking 3 apps of sunder/expose or 6 apps of acid spit or 8 apps of sting/CoW/FF to kill an add. Spawns a Shade on death.

Vigilant Shade. These spawn from the corpse of the Stoneskin Protectors and are affected by the debuff "Enduring" which states "It'll take a large blast to finally kill this tough creature" these have quite alot of health but no armour or spell resistance. These need to be switched to and DPSed to low HP then they need to be hit by one of the bosses Detonations to finish them, no other spell can finish them off. Detonation removes 20% of their life. They move fast, staying on top of their target (whom they fixate on randomly upon spawning) and afflict them with Ceaseless Gaze, silencing and reducing the attack speed of the victim by 100%. Remember if more than one person is in that detonation it is liable to kill both people.

The adds spawn throughout the fight, timer decreasing alittle in each phase. something of the order of every 40 seconds in P1, 35 seconds in P2 and 30 in P3. They need to be delt with as priority one by the DPS, things will get particularly interesting with the three gatekeepers in P2 also requiring focus for their specials. Tanks don't get a new mechanic but I think cramming one it would just feel clunky so I'll settle for saying that obviously Crush / Watchful Fury are stronger and the threat loss from Disdainful Strike is more significant.


Boss Quotes:
Voice: The boss speaks with a deep voice, aged but not weary and he speaks efficiently and commandingly as any officer should.

Engage: “The Master ordered the gates be shut. What the master has ordered closed I shall not allow to be opened.”
HMengage: as above plus “You trespass here so casually mortals. You shall have no mercy after such insolence!”

Crush: “Insignificant mortal!” / “Perish for your trespasses, whelp” / “You shall not open this gate!”

40%: “Gatekeepers, destroy them! They must not breach the gates of the Observatory”
HM40% above + “Hold nothing back! Let them face the true might of the titans creations”

HMP3: “Impossible! You leave me no choice, I must tap my deepest reserves.” + below
P3begin: “The gate is shut! You must not be allowed to enter!”

Death: “Master! These mortals are beyond my power to halt. Forgive me.”
HMDeath: above + “I gave my all, and you have surpassed me. The master will know what to do... He always knows best.”

Area Cleared event:
A small sub door in the grand gates creaks ajar, opening a passage across the threshold of the observatory. The observatory is so vast you have no trouble leading your ground mounts inside. You feel a chill run up your spine as you leave the desert sunlight of the arena for the unknown halls of the Observatory.

[Gravion]

The Grand Observatory Rests in the mountains between the desert of Uldum, the primordial Un'goro Crater, the desert of Silithus and the labyrinthine Ahn'Qiraj complex. Set into the imposing mountain peeks the Observatory is quite a sight to behold, it's walls are hewn directly out of the mountains and are adorned with sweeping, large scale designs complimented by intricate motifs; the Observatory is ancient and areas of it's walls have been worn by the wind but the detailing upon them is still clear and imposing.

The Grand Observatory Rests in the mountains between the desert of Uldum, the primordial Un'goro Crater, the desert of Silithus and the labyrinthine Ahn'Qiraj complex.

The Grand Observatory Rests in the mountains

in the mountains

Sorry, couldn't resist. ;D

Great ideas though, OP, well thought out, introduces some new mechanics, like an immune boss that requires buff/debuff management. Great ideas.

[Sanctity]

The Stargazer's Hall:
Lore/Aesthetics:
As you cross the threshold you cannot help but be awed by the immensity of the place, the hall is so tall and so wide that the largest giant you ever fought would only reach halfway to the ceiling and could easily spread his arms wide and not touch both walls. To the right of the entrance is a balcony set into the wall, impossible to climb to. The roof of the chamber is ablaze with a glorious cascade of stars, suspended by unseen means. There are signs of movement ahead, it's appears there are further automated sentinels with the Observatory that will no doubt need to be dealt with.

Trash:
Trash is sparsely arranged in the hall and comes in three kinds. Most trash will need to be killed to progress down the hall unless you are good at dodging patrols.

Patrolling Constructs are, funnily enough, patrolling mobs that have a generic construct appearance except they are very worn – particularly at the joints – and have clearly not been properly maintained. These mobs move slowly and should be kited to begin with as they melee extremely hard initially. As they are damaged they break down (stacking debuff), increasing movement speed but decreasing damage done so that after a while they can be taunted and tanked normally, these mobs also cast a siphon life type spell called “Emergency Siphon” that is a DoT on random raid members that heals the Construct.

Watchful Sentinels are also present in the hallway, these are stationed at regular intervals up the sides of the hall. These mobs use a mortal strike effect that should cause some issues, they are tauntable so a tight rotation can work round the debuff. They also have a melee range AoE “Stomp” that should be run from and a Shockwave that will cause some raid damage.

Packs of Starlight Wraiths are the last form of trash. They come in groups of seven to ten (10man: 5-7) and have the appearance similar to that of other shades in pale blue with a white, glowing heart. The packs seem to wander slowly about the hall. The Wraiths are type-less and susceptible to all forms of CC however if more than six (10man: 4) are CCed then all CC is immediately broken. These mobs melee for initially mild damage, albeit quite fast, however their melee attacks place a debuff on the their target, one per mob, lasting 30 seconds. The debuff increases damage taken substantially so CC will need to be tight to keep the number of attackers beating on a tank to a minimum.

As you slowly neutralise the Constructs and Wraiths and progress into the Observatory you see a large, locked door on the left side of the passage. Further investigation reveals a basic Titan console which insists that entry to the lower Observatory be authorised while the Observatory is on high alert. The console is most unhelpful and resolutely refuses to budge without proper permission. Upon approaching the top of the hall you find that there are two doors, to the left you find the entrance to the Solarium, inside which dwells the Starlight Atrocity - the optional second boss, and to the right you can see the archway leading into the Archives.

[Sanctity]

Boss: Starlight Atrocity
Lore
The Atrocity is a creature of dark magic, he resides in the Solarium basking in the light of countless stars, drawing their power into himself. He has been here for many ages and from a simple malevolent apparition he has grown to be a formidable creature. How he came to be is unknown, but however it was it should not have been. A sense of wrongness pervades the solarium as this creature continues to gather power, no other creature dares enter the chamber any longer.

Looking at The Atrocity it has no apparent features and if floats in space. It has a dark hazelike quaility and near the it's surface runes of fiery-light can be seen to skitter and dance. The solarium itself is dusky, a dull orange-gold glow suffuses the circular chamber as a result of most of the light being drawn directly into the atrocity. The creature occupies the northern-most part of the room, content in it's growing power.

Normal Mode:
The boss doesn't aggro upon you entry to the solarium, but once aggroed the door of the solarium closes. The boss is immobile and buffed with “Incorporeal” making it immune to damage. This fight is about managing debuffs and adds until the boss become vulnerable then nuking.
Nova cast from time to time causing moderate raidwide damage

Darkfire: 2 second cast. Cast on random targets but never people afflicted with other major debuffs or the tanks. This causes moderate fire damage up front and will chain to additional targets as far as possible causing equal damage each time. The main target becomes afflicted with Starburn. Jump radius is only 5 yards.

Starburn: causes high arcane damage over time to the affected, dispellable.

Fuel Exhustion cast on healers, casting a heal causes you to pulse a 15 yard AoE for damage based on what you healed for. Also for every second you do not cast a heal you stack up a DoT on yourself. Lasts 30 seconds.

Gravity Crunch: this debuff causes very high damage after 15 seconds divided between the debuffed person and anyone within 8 yards of them. This requires people to stack up and divide the damage. drags all those within 8 yards who divide the damage to a central point.

The adds spawned in this fight come in two varieties:
Radiant Fragment: These have fairly mediocre melee damage but come in large packs. They require tanking and should be aoe'd down. Over time these grow, increasing their damage done so make sure you're not letting any of them live long enough to become dangerous.

Atrocious Essence(Mob): These are deadly to melee, they pulse a powerful AoE every 3 seconds that disorientates and causes high shadow damage in an 6 yard radius. They move at 50% of normal speed however and must be kited and dpsed by ranged players. On death the person highest on their aggro table (untauntable to prevent silly taunt shenanigans) is afflicted with the following debuff.

Essence of Atrocity(Debuff): this debuff ticks for 90% of the target's max HP over it's duration, lasts 30 seconds. If, when the duration expires there are people with 8 yards of the carrier then the debuff is cleared from the host, jumping to the nearest available carrier. The new version lasts half as long (15 seconds) but still ticks for 90% of max HP over the duration. After it expires it attempts to jump again. If, when attempting to jump, there are no available carriers within 8 yards the debuff deals high physical damage to it's carrier that will one shot non tanks. If the carrier survives the boss is afflicted with “Essence Loss”. If the carrier dies while they have the debuff the creature respawns.

The idea of this is that the people with it need to get the debuff to the tanks who then need to get clear of others and lunch the hit. When essence loss stacks to 3 (i.e. All debuffs survived) the boss is afflicted with “Coalesce” making him vulnerable to damage and also stunning all adds still alive.

The events in this fight are on timers. The Radiant Fragments start spawning in two groups of 10 (10man:5) almost immediately after engaging, they spawn from the south-west of the room and should be picked up by tanks. They come in waves every 30 seconds. After a few seconds the boss begins to cast Solar Flare and Gravity Crunch. Solar flare is cast regularly every few seconds on random target. Gravity crunch is on a ~20 second cooldown and affects a random person excluding people with aggro on any of the adds. After a short while three Atrocious Essences spawn (10man: 2) under the boss so your melee need to have moved or they will be owned by the AoE pulses these mobs have. Additional waves of these spawn every 80 seconds.

The fight will be best done by having you healers and melee dps stay loosely in groups so if they get grav crunch they are ready but not chaining Darkflame too much, melee kill the radiant spawns. Ranged spread out and kiting the Atrocious Essences, ready to run to either the melee or the healers if they get crunch and able to run towards a tank when they get Essence of Atrocity. Tanks need to juggle tanking the radiant spawns and moving toward people and space so they can get and eat the Essence of Atrocity.

The fight should be tuned so that 4th possible phases of Coalesce will get the boss down if everything goes perfectly with optimal dps and that after the time in which you could have had a 6th phase of coalesce the boss enrages and chain casts Darkflame, 1shotting people.

Hard Mode:
Activated by talking to an automated console outside the solarium and asking it to open the shutters in the Solarium fully and dpsing the (broken) shutters open yourselves once in the solarium before engaging.

Phase One
The main difference in this difficulty is that there is a second phase added to the fight. All mobs involved have incrased HP and damage to increase the tuning of the fight. In phase one a few changes are in place:
Darkfire: Now afflicts the first three targets it hits with Starburn. Not just main target.
Starburn: causes high arcane damage over time to the affected player and all allies within 5 yards, dispellable. When dispelled causes the dispeller to be stunned for 3 seconds.
Fuel Exhustion: now increases the cost of all spells by 100% while active.
Gravity Crunch: Now used every 15 seconds so there is always a gravity crunch up. In addition this debuff causes a fair sized (~8 diameter) void zone to spawn when it detonates, the zone starts ticking damage after 5 seconds and then hits every second for high shadow damage. Void zones last 35 seconds.
Radiant Fragment: This creature now stacks a 5% movement speed reduction on the target they are attacking, stacks up to 10 times for a maximum 50% reduction.
Atrocious Essence(Mob): These creatures now move at 80% of normal run speed, up from 50%.
Essence of Atrocity(Debuff): this debuff now ticks for 150% of max HP over the duration.

The aggregate effect of these changes is to make the whole encounter less forgiving in the first phase. The boss is tuned so that 4 coalesce phases are needed to get him to 20% and that after the after the time in which you could have had 6 coalesce phases he enrages. Once the boss hits 20% the whole fight changes. All adds still alive move to the boss and despawn and all gravity crunch void zones despawn. There is a brief transformation sequence where you can dispell Solar flare and the speed reduction from the radiant fragments will tick off. The enrage is no longer considered. You should have ample time to be in position for phase two.

Phase Two
This new phase is an overload phase, the whole phase is about survival while the boss explodes. The boss now gains "Radient Blaze", an aura that causes fire damage to the whole raid every few seconds. The Berserk timer is no longer considered

The room is now on fire, blazes spring up under players semi regularly and doomfire chains of snaking fire pursue targets accros the room trailing fire in their wake. Everyone needs to keep moving. next up: Comets, these are vital to spot, their templates are small and red so in all the orange/white fire you need to be paying attention. The reason is that they cannot be allowed to kill people. If they go off without killing someone they spawn a dust column void zone which will be important later, if they kill someone then no column spawns and if you stand in the column you die and despawn the column.

Antimatter Suffusion is a debuff that happens to a small number of random targets in this phase that requires them to stand still, moving with it causes a massive AoE explosion for high shadow damage. Failing on Suffusion will probably wipe the raid as much as no dust columns.

While all this is going on the raid needs to be nuking the boss to take down his last 20%. Comets come every 10 seonds and you have approximately 5 seconds to move from the template. After the fourth coment the boss starts to cast an 8 second cast spell called Supernova that will oneshot people unless it is LoS'd behind a dust column left by a coment. Remember touching the column will kill you and despawn it depriving the raid of a place to hide.

After Supernova is cast the boss gains a stack of Intensified Fire tripling damage done by Radient Blaze, after the third Supernova damage will be far too much to heal, therefore you have ~150 seconds to take the bosses last 20%. Burn hard .


Boss Quotes:
Voice: entry quote is in a sluggish, unhurried tone. Others are in a more serious matter of fact tone. The boss should sound evil, arrogant and decadent. After the hard mode phase transition the voice changes become less emotive, more sinister.

EnteringSolarium: "Begone pests... I will not suffer any intrusion... The lord of these halls is the only one capable of threatening me... but my creator is keeping him well occupied. Ha!”

HMActivation: “Light! Too much... To fast... what did you do? Who are you to disturb me? I will kill you for this irritation!”

HMaggro: “You would try to Vanquish me?! This is intolerable. I shall make your demise as painful as it will be swift.” + below
Aggro: “Your attacks are pointless, you cannot harm me! You can't even touch me!

Slay: “Ha! Pathetic”/“One less nuisance”/“So Tiresome.”

FragmentSpawn: (not used on initial spawn) “Overwhelm them my minions!”

GravityCrunch: “die! Insect!”/“The might of the stars is against you!”/“Feel the force of my power!”

EssencesSpawn: “Your death will be by my hand!”/“I shall destroy you myself!”

Bezerk: “Trifling worms! Your stalling has served only to waste my time! Die!”

CoalesceEnds: “Argh... That hurt you pitiful maggots!”/“Do not believe this is over!”

DeathOrTransition: (used at 20% if HM is engaged, on death otherwise) “NO! I am unbound!”

HMPhaseBegin: “So be it, We shall die together! My existence has been glorious but the radiance of my demise will consume you all!”

HMSlay: “It was... Inevitable... Death shall claim us all.”/ “One by one... Into the void.”

Supernova: “I can't... Contain... We shall... all... BURN!”

FinalDeath: *in a quite whisper* “My Creator will have you. Do not take solace in outliving me, you will not escape death.”

Area Cleared event:
As the fiend dies a wave of peaceful light sweeps through the Solarium, it's warming glow suffuses the room in which the bitter battle was fought. The light of the stars baths you and your surviving allies in it's warming glow, the sight is beautiful and soothes your aching body and weary mind. Leaving the Solarium's warm comfort is an effort indeed but there is more to be done and much still to be discovered here.

[Sanctity]

Ok, I've decided to take a new direction with this thread and removed quite alot of what was here before. If you read it while it was here great but for now at least it's offline andyou'll have to make do with this more cohearent summary of just one of my instance ideas. This is what happens when I make spur of the moment posts I guess.

The new verison on Gatekeeper Tysander is up and I'm working on getting his hardmode finished. The Starlight Atrocity is for now just how it used to be but changes are in the pipe for it too, I'll be making a lot of updates to this tomorrow

[Tatsh]

Most of this is kind of cool actually. I like the idea of having to break the windows in the second encounter, and that the boss goes into hardmode when he's able to gather all the light energy from the shutters.

Most of the "I made my own raid" posts are really lame, but this seems like it would be a lot of fun. Kind of makes me think of karazhan in a way, the eerie undertone of the place kind of relates how something very sinister is going on in the background.

Really nice job so far, I am definitely interested in seeing more!

[Sanctity]

@Gravion, I've repurposed the post I originally used to reply to you but I'd like to say that I do still remember you ;D

@Tatsh
I am a supporter of the ulduar style of hard mode where there is an in-game trigger and where the change it causes is significant to how the fight runs. Therefore I'm trying my best to have such hard modes for my bosses.

Reminding you of Kara I'll take for a compliment as I loved that place, I vist occasionally still in the hopes of a sweet mount but so far no luck on that front

More is coming, working on a few bits of polish for the second boss now and hope to get the third boss up soon.

[Nadorei]

This place does remind me of an eerie Karazhan type deal, but also reminds me of a wierd type of AQ 20 type deal.
Nice job, keep up the good work.

[Sanctity]

Thanks for the possitive feedback so far, had to do more stuff RL than I was expecting today so only just finished adjusting SA's HM from Heigen 2.0 to something not an obvious rehash. Third boss is coming though!

[Ryuukossei]

Very Good Read so far, i was actually trying to visualize the fights in my head as i was reading the abilities, what the boss said, and managing the debuffs and heals :P Lol...

[Sanctity]

One of the key things I wanted to focus on was detail in the fights. No wishy washy "some kind of boss that does a few generic things and the whole fight is about this one mechanic..." like many of the fight concepts I've read I promised myself. To be fair that style does work in some cases, there was a good example with an "in the dark" fight just a few days ago, but I wanted to go the whole way and make the entire package.

[Sanctity]

The Archives:
Lore/Aesthetics:
The Archives lead off from the Stargazer's Hall. Passing through the colossal arch that marks the entrance you can immediately see that the ceiling is different, here it is undecorated stone. There is less light past the archway but you can easily make out the walls; they are covered in bookcases, each filled with countless tomes that must contain an unimaginable wealth of information. Beside the bookcases there are strange mechanical panels that must hold their own secrets.

Venturing across into the chamber you realise this must be an archive of the Observatories discoveries, but if all this information exists why was it unavailable from other titan consoles? Perhaps the answer awaits within.

Trash:
The Trash in the Archives is all non-hostile but must be cleared in order to engage the boss as there is a door sealing the bosses room that only opens once the trash is dead. The trash here can all be pulled individually and there isn't that much of it.

The trash is of two kinds. First there are Chronicle Echos which when attacked despawn and instead you fight mobs from the story with the Echo narrating the story, for example:

A pack of Forest Trolls spawn (1 healer, 1 caster, 2 melee) and you begin to fight them the Echo narrates: “The Trolls of Zul'Aman had been driven from their land by the High Elves and, angered, united to wage war on the Elven Kingdom of Quel'thalas. Raiding parties consisted typically of one shaman, one mage and two warriors. They were feared...” et cetera. Long narrations that either finish or tail off once the mob is killed.

Other possible mob spawns include but need not be limited to: Demons, Dragonoids, Aqir (proto-silithids), Naga and Elementals. There would be five echos in the Library each spawning a group.

The other kind are called Data Keepers. These have a melee attack and must be tanked by at least two tanks as they use a 8 second, undispellable disorientate called data flood. They also use a mind control and use a wide arc AoE to cause some raid damage. Much more run of the mill and there are a fair few of them about.

At the far end of the library chamber there is a partition wall also covered in bookcases except for the door which is a solid iron slab with an image of an open book carved into it. As the last Echo fades and the last Data Keeper construct falls the door swings open allowing you access to a second chamber of the archives.

[Sanctity]

Boss: Librarian Sideria
Lore:
Stepping cautiously through the door you find a square room, the floor is littered with books, all opened to reveal passages ranging from blood soaked descriptions of the second war to analysis of star maps recorded by the Observatory. In the corner you see what can only be the Librarian, a higher being than any you have encountered here before. She is tall with translucent pale skin, she wears a robe of ethereal blue with it's outline marked by points of starlight. Truly she is a close servant of the titans, a being crafted by their hands to watch over the world of Azeroth. Looking closer though you see that beneath the initial visage of grandeur her eyes are unfocused and her clothing is dishevelled. She must have been alone in this room for an age with naught but her books and their stories for company.

You enter the room from the north side, the boss stands in the south eastern corner and is not aggressive. The room is a square and though you can see a short staircase on the western side of the room leading up on onto the balcony you saw from the Stargazer's Hall there is a large stack of books piled on the steps that mean you cannot ascend there. In the north east corner there is a slightly raised platform with a lectern, a particularly thick, ancient and menacing looking tome rests closed on the stand.

Normal Mode
The fight begins as soon as you pull the boss, she herself is not engaged and immediately after being aggro becomes impervious to harm. The fight takes place inside a story the boss narrates, this will make most sense if I include relevant boss quotes in with the description, they'll be in separate paragraphs and in bold italics to break things up.

"Who approaches here? The band of heroes, intent on conquest, here to slay the dragon in his lair, kill the wizard in his tower and defeat the king in his castle? I've read your story, oh yes! I've read it a million times and in a million different books but your story, it's always there, the same. Let me read it to you now, then you can know your own story as I do."

While the boss is talking a dragon, a wizard and a king all spring up. They are all boss level mobs and must be tanked, the wizard doesn't have a melee attack and may be tanked by a well geared DPS if necessary although on 25 man this may be inadvisable. Who is tanking the boss becomes important later on, swapping them round is not necessary. The mobs each have their own abilities.

The Dragon has the traditional Breath attack and Tail Swipe, also an AoE fear with a 10 yard range. Oh and an air phase! are you shocked yet? The air phase specifically involves the dragon becoming untargetable and hovering near the ceiling shooting fireball volleys at people for a little while and I'll add more information about it shortly.

The Wizard uses Arcane Bolt as his main nuke on his "tank". He also uses Arcane Barrage on a random raid member as a kind of forked lightning type spell, it hits the victim and all people that targeting the victim places in a cone in front of the boss. He'll occasionally blink across the room to mess your positioning up. At specific times he will use invisibility and become untargetable. during this time he will randomly appear, untargetable, around the room and cast an arcane explosion that should be run away from. The explosion does damage based on proximity so most of the raid takes a little bit and if you're standing next to him you take a lot, hence the need to move.

The King is like a rogue, he duel wields and uses blind on a few targets picked at random, he stacks a bleed on his tank and has a dispellable frenzy. The blind is undispellable and the bleed has a stack limit so no tank swap is needed. On a timer he will cast vanish then sneak up on people and garrotte them, garrotte lasts 30 seconds and causes moderately heavy damage over that time.

While the bosses have nothing super complex in of themselves there are three of them and they all need to be dealt with. The main hazard of this fight is in teleports, controlled by the narative. About five seconds in you get this little gem.

"As they always had done they fought with precision and honour, faultless technique borne of innumerable experiences. No foe could stop this fighing force, or hold them, or reason with them. If it was prescribed that you were the enemy then sooner or later the heroes would march on your house and tear down all that stood against them."

Then after 45 seconds you get the first teleport phase. One of the following is read based on which boss teleports.

"But slaying dragons is not so simple, dragons are cunning and powerful creatures. Often dragons lured unsuspecting victims into their lairs where they tormented and devoured them at leisure. Such was the fate of more than one adventurer, unable to escape from the fire and claw that claimed their life."

"Wizards are not so easily killed! Many Sorcerers dedicate their lives work to the creation of powerful defensive magics to ward off injury and age. Selfishly they would burn sacred relics as reagents to charm but a little more security in to their lives, but no matter how selfish the act was it was potent. No wizard is without means to destroy an unprepared attacker."

"Regicide is no small order, Kings should never be underestimated. Many have died in the defence of kings, and many have been slain in a kings name. So it is that any party that marches on the king's castle will face determined and unremitting resistance from the kings loyal guards."

At this point one of the bosses uses it's phase out mechanic (Vanish, Invisibility or Air Phase) and the person that was tanking that boss is also phased out. The boss on lowest health will be the one to "vanish" this first time to try and ensure the raid sees each boss vanish at least once.

The abducted tank has been placed inside the story of the boss that abducted them. In all three scenarios the boss is shielded by "Narrative Armour" which in the case of the king and the wizard you need to dps down in order to escape and in the case of the dragon you just ignore the boss anyway, getting too close to it is a one shot. Now a tank on his/her own wouldn't last very long in one of these scenarios so just after the teleport four "portals" spawn dotted in the room where the raid is still fighting two of the bosses. They look like vortexes leading down into the books. You should send a healer and three DPS down each time, portals despawn once taken.

The portals stay up for twenty seconds or until used, if they despawn having not been taken then all three bosses gain a stacking enrage for +5% damage done per portal. This +5 enrage of "because I say so" is to make sure you don't just sacrifice the tank and play the encounter properly, the enrage lasts for thirty seconds. once overgeared you may be able to send less people down but that's by the by.

King: you are in a throne room, the king is sat upon the throne and royal guards are spawning from the chamber door and running up to you intent on your death. you have to break the kings shield before your tank is overwhelmed by the constant steam of guards, after a while the king uses Royal Order and all the guards enrage and kill you, this means you took too long inside. As soon as the Narrative Armour breaks all players are ported back up and the king reappears.

Dragon: Cave lair with the dragon flying above, you must flee through the cave full of whelps before the boss catches you and one shots you with a breath attack. All whelps must be killed or the door at the end is shut, no cheating. The boss moves slowly shooting fireballs that leave hugely damaging burning ground, progress quickly. If you take to long the boss catches you and you die. Once you click the opened "cave exit" you are ported back up and the dragon descends from it's air phase.

Wizard: Tower chamber with the wizard in the centre, he casts a massive spell and while he charges it arcane magic nastiness afflicts you. A player may gain spell suffusion which is a bomb thing they need to run out with. Random arcane elementals can spawn and chain cast arcane bolt at people, they will need tanking. Take too long and the bosses spell goes off and you die. As soon as the Narrative Armour breaks all players are ported back up and the wizard reappears.

Guards and Arcane things for King and Wizard scenes have very high hp so you cannot realistically kill them. whelps are, obviously, more balanced. The time allowed to re-emerge is 45 seconds after which time the current boss reappears upstairs, everyone downstairs dies painfully and the next boss vanishes. Threat is not wiped by teleport phases. I would expect most player groups to escape a teleport scene in 30 seconds or so.

"Woe befalls the < noble lord/cunning sorcerer/proud beast >, in spite of the best laid plans and strongest power the advance of the heroes could not be halted. Their assault continued unabated and the world looked on with baited breath to see if this would be another victory for their champions."

Rinse and repeat from then on, there is a teleport every 45 seconds. The boss with lowest health vanishes first but then cannot vanish again till the other two have vanished once, the lowest health of the eligible pair will be selected next and then the remaining boss goes third regardless of health. Fourth one is based on lowest health again and so on. Once one boss goes down the bosses don't vanish from upstairs but still zone the tank into the story so an offtank needs to be ready to pick the boss up and the portal team still need to go and break the other tank out.

Once a boss is killed the other bosses enrage, gaining a little +damage. I considered granting them extra abilities as other bosses die but I think this fight will be a more simple job of just learning and controlling all the mechanics. I don't want it to be too complex. It is expected you will do the fight by killing one, then the next, then the last; there would be an achievement for killing them all within 30 or 45 seconds because obviously doing that will be harder.

"And so the king falls. Regicide is done and the killers shall be hailed as heroes. They shall think nothing more of the king beyond the bloodstains on their murderous blades! That is the way of history and tradition, so shall it continue."

"So strong and proud a creature is the dragon, laid low now by the remorseless efforts of the heroes. They finish it now, driving pikes into the dragons eyes and swords into it's belly then take the head for a trophy and claim their glory."

"Drained, the last drop of his magic utterly spent. The conjurer is all out of tricks. Now his blood will soak into the tower floor, his research and resources shall be taken as spoils and he will be forgotten like the countless others that proceeded him."

Once all three bosses are dead the Librarian kinda snaps out of it and becomes friendly, she's a little confused but I know I'd be crazy after spending long enough alone. She spawns a chest for you to loot and the pile of books block the stairs can now be right clicked to push them off the stairs for a quick jump down back to the main entrance.

"The story is over, how are you still here? Could it be... is this truly my story? Have you come to save me heroes, is that why you have come here? *Tearful laugh* It's been so long, I have waited so very long. I... I had become lost. I am found again now thanks to you mortal champions. Deepest thanks to you..."
"Please if there is anything you need to know ask, I shall try my best to answer your questions but my mind is... unclear."

[Sanctity]

Btw, I each time I re-read an old segment I seem to find odd little spelling or gramatical errors. If you can please do point these out because they always annoy me to find.

[vlad43210]

Wow. Great job!

First, type alert: "this is a titan installation an it looks the part" -> "this is a titan installation and it looks the part"

Now, some more high-level comments.

1. I love the flavor. The place is basically dripping with it, it could one-up Ulduar, which is saying something (as my first experiences with Ulduar generally involved my jaw dropping in sheer awe). Not really anything to criticize here, just keep doing what you're doing For some reason, when I think of this place, I think "Sunwell with moar flavor!"

2. So far, you've shown three fights, and all three have adds to some extent. Fights 1 and 2 are substantially different, but fight 3 feels a bit like "what, now we have to fight MORE add waves?" One of the things I loved about Wrath is it really introduced a number of different fight styles, along with bringing back earlier ones. Here's a brief list (bolded are I think areas you haven't covered / are not in the current outline of the instance):

-gearcheck / Patchwerk. That's your boss one
-add management. That's your boss two
-survival. That's your boss three
-positioning. Mostly covered by boss two, though a fight more like PP would be nice too
-event. Sounds like boss five will be this
-"council" (multiple boss-level mobs, Iron Council, Blood Prince Council).
-vehicle (I still think vehicles can be used well and creatively! FL was actually not that bad...).
-strange mechanics (Valithria, BQL). Would love to see one of those in this instance.
-final boss (combination of the above). That sounds like your 6th boss

I certainly don't think a good instance needs to incorporate all these elements, maybe you're fine as you are (especially for a "short" instance with ~6 bosses vs. ~12 bosses). Just something to think about for the sake of fight diversity. It's probably also a good idea to not double-down on the above categories in a "short" instance.

3. Difficulty. Tysander sounds like Brutallus*2, Atrocity sounds like an insane version of Curator. I happen to enjoy fights like these, I know they will test my ability to think independently but also work with the rest of the raid, maximize performance, and in general be at the top of my game. These are a little crazy given Blizzard's current raiding philosophy, but then again I'm guessing you're not trying to submit this as The Next Blizzard Raid Instance idea. Just pointing it out that this instance's first two bosses have been pretty difficult, definitely topping many of the fights in all of Wrath + TBC. What is the final boss going to be like, Lich King + Yogg0 + Mu'ru? Personally, I would have a "gear check" boss just to make sure that people are properly geared at first, then a couple of easier bosses, then much harder final 3-4 bosses, but that's just my opinion.

[Deleted]

Boss: Librarian Sideria

...

Normal Mode
The fight begins as soon as you pull the boss, she has normal aggro, may not be taunted and must be tanked. Her abilities, besides her very average melee attack, include
...

A more fun way to start the encounter could be something like:
The closer you get to the boss the more books there are laying on the ground. When stepping on the books she tells you to watch your step. After stepping on the books a couple more time she gets angry and it'll start the encounter.

Atleast, that's how I see it.

[Zagnaphein]

Just wanted to write W O W! Mate keep it up waiting to read the last boss rofl! I want this raid!