Kanrethad Ebonlocke: Love or Hate?

[Roulette Kneebasha]

Im gonna go against the trend here and say i hate him. Let me explain!

I have Green Fire now but it took at least 5 days of solid attempts (about 60-80 wipes) to finally get him down over about a 3 week period. I should say i got the book on my first rare mob kill so i was trying him from night 1 on patch day. Now let me get into why i'm not a fan of this fight. I started my Warlock when i bought the game in December 2004. I think since probably launch day there have been Warlock's asking for Green Fire so this has been almost a decade in the making. To "gate" the fight like this is in my view terrible. Perhaps if it had rewarded some kind of awesome Warlock transmog set/weapon i could understand the difficulty for a reward you don't really even need. But this is something most Warlock's would want and i dont think should be rewarded after a fight like this.

I began my attempts at sub 470 ilvl (468-69 ilvl) and only began to make progress when i got VERY lucky in LFR 1 week and i shot up to almost 480 ilvl. The following week i scored a couple more pieces plus some valor gear which put me at 485 ilvl which is what i was at when i finally got him. This to me, based on reading the various threads on this quest seems like the minimum for being successful on this fight. Which puts it out of the reach of anyone who is returning to the game/just leveled a lock for the first time. Again, maybe if it was an item id feel differently but this is something that really adds to the class and differentiates it from the other classes (Mages in particular). It is largely for this reason that i wish it were tuned down just a little from where it currently sits.

Fun is also probably not a word id use to describe my feelings for this fight post kill. Anyone who has raided the really difficult content knows it isnt always about fun. Something else kicks in after the nights of constant wipe's and you just want to get the bloody fight done with. For me it got to this point. I stopped having "fun" with it and just wanted to get it over with. It also doesn't help that Blizz decided that Warlock's would form the beta testers for there upcoming solo scenario content they are heading towards for 5.4. Which i think probably contributed to the state this encounter finds itself in, this fight is clearly an extreme example of what solo content could be to judge reaction to it. It wouldn't surprise me to see this and the following solo content being a little less demanding in the future. Unless Blizz thinks only heroic raiders will want to participate in the content.

Im happy its done and i certainly got a rush when i saw the fight finish, but overall i think it needs to be tuned down.

It is nice to hear that from someone who has beaten him. I expect a rush when I finally beat him but I know it won't be the same thrill as some of the others posting here. I'll just be glad it's done with so I can go along my merry way.

[Deleted]

When I killed it I felt like I never wanted to do this ever again but then yesterday I suddenly started trying to solo a zandalari warbringer (5%wipe :'( but Ill be back!)and now Im really glad Ive done this quest, because how corny it might sound... it did make me a better lock and more confident in taking on future challenges.

[Deleted]

I both love and hate the fight.

The fight is brutal, it's so awesome Was so happy when I killed him. Overall, I think I love it. It's so well tuned, so unforgiving. It punishes you if you screw up, and really requires you to push your knowledge and skill of the class.

Hate for the wipes, love for the overall epicness and brutality.

[Dopplegager]

I finished Kanrethad last a week ago today and I can say I'm glad I did it. I have been playing my lock for years and I can say that I became a better lock hands down.

I would hardly call the fight fun. I personally never ever want to do it again. I do however find it funny that I see so many more locks playing the game right now than I have in a long time and deep down I know most of them will not have green fire until they get a lot more gear or they level up 5 more levels. The fight is brutal and can be downright demoralizing. I've found 2 more books and have given it to my lock friends just so they can understand. An issue I have with it is that the quest seems over tuned for the current content. I'm not saying impossible since others and myself have done it. There just seems that there was nothing to prepare anyone for this fight.

I do however feel that fights like these are a great way to teach players to learn all the tricks that their class can do. Well played Blizz.

[jackvii]

Im happy its done and i certainly got a rush when i saw the fight finish, but overall i think it needs to be tuned down.

I've mentioned before, but the fight is really a test of dedication rather than skill. You really have to learn, memorize and boil the fight down to muscle memory, when you're simply fluidly moving though each phase. There's a lot more to the fight in terms of bonus damage and buff/debuffs that make the fight a little more intense for sub 480s. but essentially if you bothered to gear you lock up at all, you can beat him.

But it takes lots of attempts, lots of time and being able to wipe over and over again and dive right into the next run. Was it terrible at times, sure, but what an achievement. It's a solid "you did this, congrats".

It also helps that I'm the only warlock I've seen with green fire and I'm managing my dailies and some rBGs. Not one other warlock . . .

[Ackthal]

Loved it! I really hope they come out with more solo encounters of the like. Although I think they shouldn't have required a rare drop item to begin the quests.

[Deleted]

Have a warlock at 50 and this makes me want to level him to 90 and do this boss. :P
I don't care if it is hard, I just want to know:

- Do you need a specific item level to make it?
- Do you need to do a questline first?

[xskarma]

Have a warlock at 50 and this makes me want to level him to 90 and do this boss. :P
I don't care if it is hard, I just want to know:

- Do you need a specific item level to make it?
- Do you need to do a questline first?

- Do you need a specific item level to make it? Well no, not really, since people have done it at pretty crazy levels of low gear allready, but the average seems to be somewhere around 495, I think.

- Do you need to do a questline first? Yes, you need to kill rares on the Thunder Isle to get this particular rare drop book. Once you have it you can start on a short-ish questline that will lead you to the Black Temple. There you will need to do a solo scenario that features this boss as the final step. If on a decently populated realm with Warlocks that know what they are doing you might be able to find the book on the AH as well.

[Deleted]

- Do you need a specific item level to make it? Well no, not really, since people have done it at pretty crazy levels of low gear allready, but the average seems to be somewhere around 495, I think.

- Do you need to do a questline first? Yes, you need to kill rares on the Thunder Isle to get this particular rare drop book. Once you have it you can start on a short-ish questline that will lead you to the Black Temple. There you will need to do a solo scenario that features this boss as the final step. If on a decently populated realm with Warlocks that know what they are doing you might be able to find the book on the AH as well.

- Alright but isn't 495 raid level? So I have to raid first?

- Okay thank you.

[the0o]

- Alright but isn't 495 raid level? So I have to raid first?

- Okay thank you.

or get really lucky with TOT LFR drops

[Nicola]

- Alright but isn't 495 raid level? So I have to raid first?

- Okay thank you.

Depends what you call raiding. LFR is ilvl 502 with newer valor items being 522, conquest PvP items are 496.

Also, the drop rate of the book will increase over time so every warlock can get it later on.

[Deleted]

Depends what you call raiding. LFR is ilvl 502 with newer valor items being 522, conquest PvP items are 496.

Also, the drop rate of the book will increase over time so every warlock can get it later on.

Oh okay, so it's very doable. I will just get Honor pvp gear and do it with that.

[Nicola]

Oh okay, so it's very doable. I will just get Honor pvp gear and do it with that.

Honor gear is very low though as it's only 476. Unless you really have the skills and patience for it, I suggest getting 490+.

[Magpai]

The idea of a solo warlock duel of this proportion is pretty cool, but I did not like the implementation. I'm not a big fan of trial and error gameplay to this extent. A puzzle boss is one thing, but a boss with a bunch of "gimmicky" mechanics like this, most of which have one approach and one approach only to countering, is just not my cup of tea.

I'd say the main problem I had was that there were too many "Press this button/do this minor action" responses to mechanics. Click to stun boss during cataclysm. Click (or macro) fel flame breath constantly to dispel debuffs. Cast Singe magic on cooldown for the same. Even the chaos bolts are just a lame inconvenience for most of the fight - you just glyph gateway attunement, set up a gateway to your (too far away) LOS sanctuary, and put your teleport circle on top of one of the gateways. Then it's just "press teleport button to win, and have fun running back". If there was a big red button in the middle of the room for a boss that you clicked to stop a raid wiping ability, would that alone be interesting or challenging? Not really, unless there's some other mechanic that interferes with the button press.

It just kind of got to the point where I felt like I was playing Guitar Hero. It just came down to pressing the right buttons at the right parts in the script. To be honest, it actually made me seriously question why I even play WoW to begin with, since that's something a lot of the game is built around... Anyway maybe I'm just not as in tune with my warlock as I should be or maybe I'm just dumb, but each challenge the fight presents is just so unintuitive and unforgiving that you're pretty much forced to rely on a guide.

I will say I did like the demon pet phases. At first the fel imps were just a boring annoyance, until I mastered the art of using them for embers rather than killing them immediately. Kind of a nice "counterattack" feeling to it, where I use the mechanics to my advantage instead of merely nullifying them. The felhunter phase is pretty cool too, if for nothing else because there's multiple approaches to defeating it and it actually makes dps relevant for a change. I ended up saving dark soul for that and just popping havoc, chaos bolting, then finishing with shadowburn while healing/popping defensive cooldowns, all while racing against the clock to get my demon re-enslaved before cataclysm - a feat made more challenging if you're too slow and have to flee for his chaos bolt. That was much more of a respectable challenge than the other mechanics I thought. Even the doom lord is kind of a neat idea. It throws a banish to keep track of, and then the second one forces you to tank it with the pit lord, removing him from the damage on the boss. It makes the encounter a bit more interesting for the remainder, rather than just being an obstacle to step over.

To top it off, the fact that you can basically just double the enrage timer with a potion of purification is just asinine.

I have to admit I enjoyed it quite a bit once I abandoned the silly notion of going in without a guide and got over my resentment over the style of "challenge" it imposed. It's a fight I'd have fun redoing now that I've got a strategy worked out.

[Deleted]

Honor gear is very low though as it's only 476. Unless you really have the skills and patience for it, I suggest getting 490+.

Oh well I will try it at least. :P

[Deleted]

Hate it so much, had the book a couple weeks now, I just can't kill him

[Magpai]

Oh well I will try it at least. :P

Honestly I think you could end up being fine. DPS is not particularly relevant for this fight. If you can come up with a good way to handle the felhunter phase, you should be set.

[Nicola]

Having good dps helps a lot tho. The longer something takes to go down, the more time it has to screw you up

[Count Zero]

The idea of a solo warlock duel of this proportion is pretty cool, but I did not like the implementation. I'm not a big fan of trial and error gameplay to this extent. A puzzle boss is one thing, but a boss with a bunch of "gimmicky" mechanics like this, most of which have one approach and one approach only to countering, is just not my cup of tea.

I've seen people suggest and use more than one tactic for most of his abilities. The only set in stone things I've seen are enslaving the Pitlord and using its Charge to interrupt Cataclysm.

I see people soak the Chaos Bolts. I see people LoS them. I see people drop threat to have the Pitlord take them. I've done all three on various attempts. I mostly soaked. On my kill I think my Pitlord ate one for me. Didn't LoS on my kill.

I see folks RoF + FnB immo/incin to take care of the imps, I see folks just RoF + Pitlord Breath them ... I did the latter.

Folks LoSing the Pitlord from the Felpups, folks using him to help kill them. I've tried both. Using his Charge on the 2nd pup was what I did on my kill. On previous attempts I got by just with him Charging the first.

Folks Banishing the Doomlord, folks having the Pitlord tank 'em -- again, on various attempts I'd tried both. I think I even saw one person say they just nuked it.

Seen people rely on Pitlord breath for dispels, others use Imp Singe and/or Unbound Will.

I agree that many of the mechanics are perhaps unintuitive, but I don't think any were ultimately counterintuitive. I think it certainly could be done without any outside knowledge, through trial and error.

[matthias9742]

The only thing I think that should be changed are mostly lock abilities. Having enslave or circle naturally wear off is beyond frustrating. Also the curse should just be removed. People are able to potion it off making it a non-issue and reminds me of the old days when it was whoever could farm the most consumables would be the best raider.

For me the fight ends up being:
(Assume i will use gate on CD to keep threat down, this means i wont eat CB)
(Also Assume i stand in every fel breath and use dispel on CD)
Check all buffs
lay down gate
pop circle a decent ways away from gate
start fight
enslave pit lord
interrupt doom with charge and wait for outcome
-wonder if he will bug out and not cast cataclysm the first time
-die because he decided to cast it this time while my charge is on CD
-not die because he chose to cast doom again, or just decided to stand there
Constantly use gate to let pitlord handle agro
fel breath most of the imps
interupt cata again
run pitlord to a corner and make sure i dont have gate debuff
RoF gate and pull hunters
Soulshatter because i cant use gate or the fel hunters will ignore me when they spawn even if i hit them for 100k
Kill felhunters using circle and shadowfury to buy some breathing room
interupt cata again
Dismiss pitlord
re-enslave pitlord
let pitlord get agro on doomlord and ignore him for the rest of the fight
repeat all previous steps
drink purification potion to ignore timer
hope i didnt BLEEP up one of the previous steps and die horribly

This fight is not fun, this fight is who can draw forth their inner korean micro-management skills while finding ways to sidestep mechanics best. If the pitlord just had an AoE taunt(something like 20yds so you would have to move him away from hunters), enslave and circle lasted 15 min, and health funnel didn't work on him then it would be an interesting test of your DPS without all the extra micro-management required.