How's everyone like Sanctum?

[DazManianDevil]

Overtuned, buggy garbage.

Overtuned? Sounds like a personal problem /s
OT: I think this raid is delightful so far. Sylvanas transition is pretty slow and tedious, but the fight doesn't feel like a long slog. 6 minutes of Carapace felt longer than 14 minutes on Sylvanas.
Being the only dps in my guild who got lucky with 3set Domination is a lot of fun, I can see these fights getting much easier over time as this system picks up steam across a full roster.

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is this just me, or is the new raid a „maximum RNG overpower“ form of a raid? to me it seems wether class nor skill decides who is topping the meters. solely RNG seems responsible for the results.

or is this just a false, subjective point of view?

Can you give an example? Outside of a few anima powers on Terragrue I don't see what you mean.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Nothing about a 14 minute fight is enjoyable. That's some shit design.

Gonna have to side with this sentiment.

14 bloody minutes... Maybe I shouldn't be so salty about missing this tier after all.

[Jastall]

-Early bosses are a lot more fun than in most raids, IMO. Tarragrue in particular may be the best first boss in a long, long time, and I also really like Ner'zul and Soulrender even if I can tell Garrosh's yelling as you clear trash will get old fast.

-Painsmith is ridiculous, mostly not in a great way. The design of the fight is fun, but my AOTC guild got absolutely stomped by him in Normal and called it quits. I did the rest with old guildies who were 8/10M in Nathria and they took a couple pulls still. It's especially glaring since the next two boss fights are a lot easier, especially Guardian who is probably easier than all but the first 3 bosses.

-Fatescribe is really great and I look forward to me and others trolling the raid on farm.

-KT is a solid fight, felt a bit easy on Normal but still quite good.

-Sylvanas... I dunno man. First phase is pretty fun and the best part, but the intermission and phase 2 are faaaaaaar too long, buggy and unnecessary. They could easily have cut the length and number of adds/abilities in half. Phase 3 after that is ok but at that point I'm tired from the second phase. This does not look like a fun boss to prog on at all.

All in all not too bad, the early bosses are better than CN's but the late bosses I'm not so sure, and I'm also quite certain Sylvanas will make me miss Sire Denathrius.

[Julmara]

its alright so far but knowing it will be up a good bit longer than usual till the next patch comes i will hate it eventually x3

[enigma77]

That's true. Raiders, Key runners, collectors and PvPs are the actual target of the game.

So pretty much the entire playerbase? I mean what else is there to do?

[Skyforge1]

Am 7/10H and 10/10N after it being out a few days

Really enjoyed every fight bar Tarragrue (Joke of a fight) and Sylvanas (Way too long)

Painsmith is probably equivalent to an early mythic boss in terms of difficulty for a Heroic so wouldn’t surprise me if it sees nerfs at some point

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think the Sylvanas encounter would have been better paced if it was split into two fights. Have us fight her in Sanctum as the first boss, turn the current second phase into a gauntlet style event and then have the current phase three as a separated boss. They would need to flesh out phases one and three a bit to make them full fights, but I feel it would be better than a one really long boss fight.

I have the same issue, this would have been 2 fun fights (maybe a bit more going on in P1) with some gauntlet trash inbetween, having this all as one fight ... no thanks.

In general I think the first 5 are a bit too easy and the raid really starts with painsmith. All the trash around the first boss and the long ass walk towards painsmight are a pain as well, I hope they shift the respawn point a bit. A bit too much trash betfore the first fight as well and probably some other places here and there, this will become more apparent on reclears when the sightseeing attuitude wears off.

[dacoolist]

Raid is great. But 14 min fight with sylvanas even on normal is too much.

I can't WAITTTT to see this on LFR

[Niwes]

Overtuned? Sounds like a personal problem /s
OT: I think this raid is delightful so far. Sylvanas transition is pretty slow and tedious, but the fight doesn't feel like a long slog. 6 minutes of Carapace felt longer than 14 minutes on Sylvanas.
Being the only dps in my guild who got lucky with 3set Domination is a lot of fun, I can see these fights getting much easier over time as this system picks up steam across a full roster.

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Can you give an example? Outside of a few anima powers on Terragrue I don't see what you mean.

examples:

- heavy melee dps drop when chains at Raznal
- anima powers at Terra (as you said)
- random kill target last phase Terra (i.e. you are a warrior and be killed as 1st - watching boss for 9% - no execute - heavy loss of dmg, since execute is huge factor in warrior dmg) PS: i dont play warrior.
- selected (melee) player at Nherzhul (takes much time, especially if blasts at same time) pure random
- selected (melee) with debuff at The Nine. takes time till all are together and debuffed
- many other things…

to me it seems, like many RNG based stuff to handle takes relative much time, which is a big dps loss, when randomly selected.

RNG based boss spells and randomly selected players was always the case in raid encounters. which always injected RNG in log results. this is nothing new.

but to me it seems that a lot of the mechanics in Sanctum takes rather much time to handle them, which results in a relative high dps loss, which makes the RNG a bigger factor than in previous raids. at least from a melee perspective (me rogue).

but maybe thats just me. thats why i asked.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

I love it. I just entered yesterday on Painsmith. Went through the corridors hearing those screams from Garrosh. I was like "What the hell is going on here?" Then the boss just welcomes me by cleaving the souls with one move. Then my eyes went to the ceiling as something was flying there. I creeped out. Then we started to fight and he goes like "Unleash the instrument!". I laughed so hard all evening. I killed few bosses, will definitely continue later. Some of them are easier some require a bit of patience, but overall it's a very fun raid.

[Chonar]

Love the design, the theming, the encounters.... but Spiky Balls Boy is just a wee bit overtuned, and I swear I've gotten hit by spikes and balls when I shouldn't have been, depending on my position.

IT'S THE PING. Blaming the lag. Heyooo.

[Coldkil]

Am 7/10H and 10/10N after it being out a few days

Really enjoyed every fight bar Tarragrue (Joke of a fight) and Sylvanas (Way too long)

Painsmith is probably equivalent to an early mythic boss in terms of difficulty for a Heroic so wouldn’t surprise me if it sees nerfs at some point

I've yet to touch HC, probably next week - we are slow and chill, but we wasted an entire evening on painsmith (but we also are running in 30 and some mechanics really punish being too many, also some not really good ppl in, but it's fine - we just trimmed the group and it went down in a handful of tries aswell the guardian).

The real issue of painsmith is its placing. It's middle of the raid, but the step up in difficulty is really offputting. Many things can just overlap and complicate the life of players for no real reason imho.

Don't read me wrong, i absolutely love the fight. I've done just normal, and it's not THAT overtuned. If it was just before Kel'Tuzhad it would have made sense, but i've yet to try Kel. Guardian and Fatescriber are a lot easier to do, so it's just really oddly placed as a boss. Given we basically oneshot everything before it.

EDIT: i also had a 100% parse on tarrargue first night, now it's 99 due to more parses going. Some powers are insane XD

[DazManianDevil]

examples:

- heavy melee dps drop when chains at Raznal
- anima powers at Terra (as you said)
- random kill target last phase Terra (i.e. you are a warrior and be killed as 1st - watching boss for 9% - no execute - heavy loss of dmg, since execute is huge factor in warrior dmg) PS: i dont play warrior.
- selected (melee) player at Nherzhul (takes much time, especially if blasts at same time) pure random
- selected (melee) with debuff at The Nine. takes time till all are together and debuffed
- many other things…

to me it seems, like many RNG based stuff to handle takes relative much time, which is a big dps loss, when randomly selected.

RNG based boss spells and randomly selected players was always the case in raid encounters. which always injected RNG in log results. this is nothing new.

but to me it seems that a lot of the mechanics in Sanctum takes rather much time to handle them, which results in a relative high dps loss, which makes the RNG a bigger factor than in previous raids. at least from a melee perspective (me rogue).

but maybe thats just me. thats why i asked.

I agree with some of your points, though I am a bit perplexed.
1) melee chains on Painsmith. You can still do your full melee rotation and not clip anyone, just be off-set from the melee stack.
2) Killed on Terragrue first, this seems very unlucky to be top threat, however I personally would default to flaming my tanks and tell 'em to kite harder. /s
3) Nherzul is a bit of a cockbag, agreed.
4) Fragments on the nine, I'll agree this is a pretty dumb mechanic and it does unfairly punish melee, but only melee.
Melee tax is pretty bad this tier, however once you get Sylv daggers I'm pretty sure you'll mop the floor with us ranged peasants despite the melee tax.
Things will get better.
Come to think of it, on The Nine can't you sprint to the stack, cloak and shadow step back or am I dumb?

[HildaKristiansen]

Nice blog post.

[kamuimac]

-Early bosses are a lot more fun than in most raids, IMO. Tarragrue in particular may be the best first boss in a long, long time, and I also really like Ner'zul and Soulrender even if I can tell Garrosh's yelling as you clear trash will get old fast.

-Painsmith is ridiculous, mostly not in a great way. The design of the fight is fun, but my AOTC guild got absolutely stomped by him in Normal and called it quits. I did the rest with old guildies who were 8/10M in Nathria and they took a couple pulls still. It's especially glaring since the next two boss fights are a lot easier, especially Guardian who is probably easier than all but the first 3 bosses.

-Fatescribe is really great and I look forward to me and others trolling the raid on farm.

-KT is a solid fight, felt a bit easy on Normal but still quite good.

-Sylvanas... I dunno man. First phase is pretty fun and the best part, but the intermission and phase 2 are faaaaaaar too long, buggy and unnecessary. They could easily have cut the length and number of adds/abilities in half. Phase 3 after that is ok but at that point I'm tired from the second phase. This does not look like a fun boss to prog on at all.

All in all not too bad, the early bosses are better than CN's but the late bosses I'm not so sure, and I'm also quite certain Sylvanas will make me miss Sire Denathrius.

painsmith is just awarness check - problems starts when people panic insted follow mechanics - gear will help a lot with this when you will be pushing phases much faster.

fatescriber ? in theory fun boss - unless you are unlucky to have to do most inner ring which is pure bullets hell

[Temp name]

Joined a friends guild for some heroic, and what I've seen it's okay. Wish I didn't have to do it for dom sockets though

I've yet to touch HC, probably next week - we are slow and chill, but we wasted an entire evening on painsmith (but we also are running in 30 and some mechanics really punish being too many

Beats some of the bosses being hilariously overtuned for tiny raid sizes though.

[Milfshaked]

Some raid bosses require endurance as part of the challenge. As long as the fight is interesting enough to support it. Heroic/Mythic Garrosh which had a few phases and changes in the fight is a good example. It helps he had a P4 for Heroic.

To me, Heroic Garrosh is an example why endurance is a horrible part of the challenge. Never progressed on a more boring fight than that. You spent 10 minutes in a fight with barely any interesting mechanics. 80% of the pulls was just sleeping through 10 minutes to get to the P3 DPS check and wipe. P4 was a joke.

Thankfully that raid tier had actually fun fights to progress like Siegecrafter and Paragons.

[VinceVega]

I Loooooove long fights. So a 14 min fight is good. But could be longer still^^

[Coldkil]

Beats some of the bosses being hilariously overtuned for tiny raid sizes though.

Totally. We'll try first HC bosses tonight, i think we can safely down the first 3 without too many issues.

As for shards, it's useless to run multiple difficulties - from what i gathered, your chance to drop them is gated weekly, and they drop on a per-boss basis. So, if you did normal for example and didn't drop the shard, you're not getting it until next week (maybe).

I am fine with how shards are managed in terms of being deterministic in setup and upgrades, but hell acquisition is pitiful. Downed 7 normal bosses last night, i dropped only a back and zero shards. I luckied out first week by dropping a shard AND boots to put it in.

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I Loooooove long fights. So a 14 min fight is good. But could be longer still^^

Me aswell but the problem is that it's a drag. And if you wipe at the end, you'll have to do the whole thing again, with a lots of intermissions/RP and basically being inactive and waiting. Which sucks.

Long fights are fine if they're like one time only - like in old school JRPGs. In an MMO where you are supposed to try/do it multiple times over weeks to get specific gear, it's just annoying as hell. I don't want to see another Denathrius where people were all pumped up to get AOTC and then everyone disappeared.

[Zenjie]

I like it so far!
PAINSMITH IS A BEAST OH MY GOD.
But until everyone is 226. Then we might do better for that painsmith. it is first of the weeks anyway.