How would you design the Deathwing raid?

[TheImperios]

Considering that Dragon Soul was obviously a very late decision by Blizzard caused by them scrapping War of the Ancients raid, the Deathwing raid could be much better, and probably use more new content and models. How do you think it could play out?

I imagine that the Deathwing raid could be set deeper in the Grim Batol, using dwarven architecture but corrupted and Old God-esque, all purple and orange - starting out fairly deep but eventually ascending until we finally face Deathwing at the very top of his fortress. Alternatively, he could have taken Wyrmrest, warping its architecture and expanding its underground chambers.

Bosses would include dragons, elementals, Faceless and Twilights, each having their own wing, so that the raid would be nonlinear, ending with Spine and Madness, and probably his human form before that. However, Deathwing would appear earlier as well, threatening us and aiding bosses.

And no Thrall. NO. THRALL.

[Amerissis]

You ask that now? YEARS after the fact? Who cares?

[Amirila]

The thing was that Deathwing didn't have a fortress or something. That's why we got this whole Dragonblight/Maelstrom thing

[Nayami]

Here's an awesome idea! We fight Deathwing... on his back!! We could ride on his back during the fight and... oh wait.

[Ratyrel]

I think the second half of the deathwing raid is fine. The first half could have been in Grim Batol as you say, in his lair, I think that would have made the first three bosses a lot less stupid.

[Deleted]

I think they missed out on a boss encounter that could have been cool. So, Deathwing's flying around Wyrmrest and we're on the top of it, yet he doesn't stop us using the Dragon Soul? Seems silly.

So why didn't they slot in a fight between Ultraxion and the Gunship deck battle where he lands on Wyrmrest, dramatically transmforms into his awesome human form, stuns all the Aspects and we have to fight him personally?

Obviously we can't kill Deathwing ourselves so we just fight him for a while and rather than killing him at the end of the fight it goes cutscene mode and Thrall uses the Dragon Soul to blast him off the edge of the temple. It even works with the existing cutscene, because we're all like "Yay he's dead" but then out of sight as he falls down Deathwing turns into dragon form again and flies off, destroying the Horde gunship.

Seems to me it would have added a badly needed unique boss model to the Reskin Soul raid, and we'd actually get to fight Deathwing instead of his tentacles and chin.

[Backjauer]

I actually quite liked the Deathwing fights. It'd be nice if they segued, so they'd be different phases of the same fight rather than two separate encounters, and maybe have a 3rd phase where we fight him in his dragon form.

Aside from that the whole thing could be redone. It never really felt like a whole raid, partly because we're porting all over the place.

[Adoxe]

His human form should've been used. It was a great model that was used only twice in the entire expansion, plus it would look and feel better than fighting against tentacles and it's literally impossible to stay toe to toe against his dragon form.

[deadman1]

I imagine that the Deathwing raid could be set deeper in the Grim Batol, using dwarven architecture but corrupted and Old God-esque, all purple and orange - starting out fairly deep but eventually ascending until we finally face Deathwing at the very top of his fortress.

Sounds like BWL

And no Thrall. NO. THRALL.

Or maybe just a not so cleverly disguised anti Thrall thread.

[Deleted]

Here's an awesome idea! We fight Deathwing... on his back!! We could ride on his back during the fight and... oh wait.

I actually think that was a good way of fighting him. The fight at the maelstrom just should've involved more Deathwing and less tentacles.

[SirBeef]

Despite being easy as hell, I kind of liked it. You had the the initial fights in Dragonblight where DW was supposed to destroy the world according to alternate future we saw in the End Time dungeon. We put an end to that and stopped all of his other schemes causing him to improvise where Thrall blasts through is armor and we take the fight to DW. To me, the whole Cataclysm expansion felt rushed. I do not mean that from a development standpoint. I mean that from DWs plans. He broke out and was trying to set his plans into motion getting stopped or deterred at every turn. This caused DW to do things earlier than he wanted to or do things differently. SO there was this whole sense of urgency to stop DW, and this sense of urgency on his part to destroy Azeroth. I liked it overall, it was just too easy.

[solarfallz]

Spine was a great fight very different from other bosses. Madness was super intense from a mechanics/boss fight perspective, but would have benefited story-wise from having the parts resemble deathwing more, rather than just being giant orange tentacles.

[Tekkommo]

The fact that Grim Batol was not used is a crime!

[Aqua]

I think the second half of the deathwing raid is fine. The first half could have been in Grim Batol as you say, in his lair, I think that would have made the first three bosses a lot less stupid.

This and also I think the Infinate dragon flight messing around in the raid was a GOOD idea, but really a shame they kept it for the 5 mans.

Could have been a good multi purposed raid. And goddamn if the final boss could have been a bit more about killing deathwing and a little less about killing fire tentacles.

Visually it was just an unimpressive raid apart from the final two encounters and THOSE encounters failed to be fun! (Thrall the killstealer ho!) Why couldn't the dragon soul have been being charged in the background and the players had to all use it at certain points to stop the encounter from wiping. Why did thrall have to be the one to have the Kamehameha powers.

Just a huge disappointment of a raid really... Didn't make the player feel any kind of awesome for finishing it, story was rushed through and the encounters were meh at best, and a huge let down at worst. And visually for the first six boxes it was bankrupt of creativity.

[Jewsco]

To begin with it would of been nice to fight deathwing himself instead of his chin and tenticales.
Also would of been nice if thrall was involved that he help a bit instead of hearthstoning to a little island away(who puts their hearthstone thier anyway?).
Then he comes in at end like helped just like in SoO.
Finally wasn't this raid like 3 years ago?
Who really cares now

[Cute Chen]

It's kind of too late to care now, but the most important thing I wanted to see was Deathwing in his humanoid form. It would have been so drastic fighting him for a short phase in his humanoid form and seeing him enrage and turn into his dragon form. Another major thing was they could have made the attack on Wyrmrest Temple more important & dangerous. All the trash mobs were just nicely lined up, patiently waiting for us to kill them. Morchok was waiting to greet us, "hey guys! want some loot?". Maybe they could have done a more streamlined Hyjal-waves-style defense of the temple (but better designed, not as tedious). The same concept, but the same amount of time the trash normally takes. I still don't know why we killed the tentacle faces in the pits on each side of the temple. They didn't seem to be bothering anybody, minding their own business.

I get why we went to the Eye of Eternity, but it could have been visually explained better, rather than 10 minutes of RP text. The ship battle was just a tool to get us in the air for the Spine fight, the concept that we get on an air ship while Deathwing is flying around tearing shit up, is ludicrous. I probably liked the Blackhorn fight the most in the dungeon, but the airship just felt like a dumb gimmick.

Overall, as most people agree, it was a lazily thrown together dungeon with some cool boss fights but nothing tying them together.

[Golden Yak]

Grim Batol raid = Bastion of Twilight.

What prompted them to change the location from Grim Batol itself I don't know, but the design aesthetics of the area don't leave a lot of room for doubt.

As to a place to fight Deathwing - possibly the Earth Palace or whatever in Deepholm? Honestly, I liked the Dragon Soul raid just fine. I wish there'd been a few new enemies, but otherwise.

[Arrashi]

I would add more tentacles. Like tentacles on tentacles. And some on Go'el. And some on players. But overall more tentacles.

[Nekovivie]

More tentacles and more blood. I think that would be the winning formula.

[Redwyrm]

I would add more tentacles. Like tentacles on tentacles. And some on Go'el. And some on players. But overall more tentacles.

I think I saw that anime. [shudders]