Reason for The Hate on Dragon Soul

[Twilight Cultist]

TLDR: Dragon Soul has a lot of execution based encounters with little to no fights that require raid awareness or has any elements of surprise. I feel the difficulty on LFR is fine, Normal is fine (not the first 4 bosses though, they are more like 5 mans rather than actual raid bosses), and Heroic is perfect. It is not a terribly designed raid, and has really good lore, but I feel it could have done much better with the boss mechanics to make it more exciting.




As you can see from numerous posts, there are a lot of people who find Dragon Soul to be boring or lacking in some way. I feel the same way, but I think the reason this is, is not because of the difficulty of the raid itself, but the lack of mechanics to make the fights more complex or memorable. Dragon Soul Normal could be overtuned to hell and I think most people would still feel the same way. This is because all of the bosses in this raid are more execution based rather than awareness fights.

In a execution based encounter, the bosses abilities are far more predictable. They do the same thing, at the same time, in the same way. There are little to no variations in the mechanics, making them easier to master, but less engaging because it has less of a sense of danger because you know how and when it will happen; there is no element of surprise. For example, the Heroic Warlord Zon'ozz encounter. The melee and ranged stay in their positions and bounce the ball back and forth, after 5-7 bounces you knock it into the boss, eight or so adds spawn and there is heavy damage being done to the raid which is reduced the more tentacles you kill. The tentacles spawn in the exact location each and every time, making the black phase very predictable. This for this fight you simply need to find a strategy to deal with this and learn to execute this, there is no rng involved, no bad setups of adds that is more difficult to handle. There is the debuff that the boss places on people, but when he does it, people are already stacked up, making it easier to avoid blowing up people. Madness is even less rng based, where the only mechanic that does have some rng is in phase 2, which does not last very long.

In an awareness fight, there are much more mechanics that are random. This gives the player something they fear the most, the unknown. You may know when it will happen, or you may not, but most of the time you do not know how it will happen, making it so the players have you use their own judgement when something unexpected happens. A perfect example of this is Heroic Ragnaros, a rng monster. Magma Traps, Sulfuras Smash, Wrath of Ragnaros, Position of Sons of Flames, Blazing Heat from Scions, World in Flames, who the Meteor targets, where the Breath of Frost spawns, where the bubble spawns, where Dreadflame spawns, where the traps spawn. All of these are unpredictable, making them a little more interesting and exciting.

Is Dragon Soul the worse raid ever? No, far from it. But compared to the fun and exciting fights in T11 content, for me at least, T12 and T13 are disappointing. I myself am 4/8 Heroic currently, and although the fights are somewhat intense dps and healing checks, they feel really tedious. From a dps perspective Ultraxion is pretty much the same, just execution. Gunship is the only one that looks a little cool because of the fire, it reminds me of Mimiron Firefigher, but Spine (excluding the ridiculously pro tank kiting lol) looks the same for a dps, just more execution, and I can not say anything about Madness obviously, but I am hoping that it is more fun than it sounds from reading the new mechanics on the Dungeon Journal, it sounds like the same fight with a exploding debuff and adds that heal the boss like HC Ryolith.

[zenga]

A perfect example of this is Heroic Ragnaros, a rng monster ... all of these are unpredictable, making them a little more interesting and exciting

You use 2 types, execution and awareness fights. Well awareness in my book is what arena is all about, a fight like Valiona & Theralion on 25m heroic, a fight like Toxitron on 25m heroic, ... you have to be aware of your surroundings, know when to interrupt, when not to dps, move out, check dps on others, etc ...

But on the other hand there are fights where you have to do a dance: the tornadoes on alysrazor, atramedes hard, world in flame on ragnaros, sinestra .... I don't see at all how this adds any fun to an encounter, for the simple reason that there is a big factor that adds to the rng: lag & lag spikes. These happen every raid, and in 25m it's more a matter of waiting for an attempt where no one has a single lag spike, else he fails the dance. And the dance is very repetitive. I can't count the times we wasted 15 minutes on ragnaros hc because someone had a lag spike and died, resulting in a wipe.

I much more prefer fights where a certain mechanic requires you to move out, mechanics that make the tight dps check harder. But then again this is only harder for certain classes/specs.

There were plenty of fights in T11 where you had to run out or stack with this or that debuff, that required an interrupt and target switches; but no dance was involved. On the other hand ultraxion heroic is the perfect fight for me at the moment, but that is gonna last 2 more weeks until everyone pulls 2-3k more dps and it becomes easy for the raid. So was baleroc.

So I think it's a very subjective argument that you use. A raid should have a mixture between as you call it execution fights and awareness fights, but the dance should be skipped, since there it's an artificial layer of difficulty based on lag.

My personal opinion why DS doesn't feel like T10, T11 (awesome mechanics) or T12, is because the lack of an epic end boss. Madness (on normal) might have some interesting mechanics, in no way it compares to the Lich King, Nefarian, or Ragnaros. You fight some tentacles and that is not bad ass enough in most peoples book. And I can see why. All in all DS has some interesting encounters on heroic, but it lacks that epic end boss feeling, definitely for an expansion.

[Twilight Cultist]

You use 2 types, execution and awareness fights. Well awareness in my book is what arena is all about, a fight like Valiona & Theralion on 25m heroic, a fight like Toxitron on 25m heroic, ... you have to be aware of your surroundings, know when to interrupt, when not to dps, move out, check dps on others, etc ...

But on the other hand there are fights where you have to do a dance: the tornadoes on alysrazor, atramedes hard, world in flame on ragnaros, sinestra .... I don't see at all how this adds any fun to an encounter, for the simple reason that there is a big factor that adds to the rng: lag & lag spikes. These happen every raid, and in 25m it's more a matter of waiting for an attempt where no one has a single lag spike, else he fails the dance. And the dance is very repetitive. I can't count the times we wasted 15 minutes on ragnaros hc because someone had a lag spike and died, resulting in a wipe.

I much more prefer fights where a certain mechanic requires you to move out, mechanics that make the tight dps check harder. But then again this is only harder for certain classes/specs.

There were plenty of fights in T11 where you had to run out or stack with this or that debuff, that required an interrupt and target switches; but no dance was involved. On the other hand ultraxion heroic is the perfect fight for me at the moment, but that is gonna last 2 more weeks until everyone pulls 2-3k more dps and it becomes easy for the raid. So was baleroc.

So I think it's a very subjective argument that you use. A raid should have a mixture between as you call it execution fights and awareness fights, but the dance should be skipped, since there it's an artificial layer of difficulty based on lag.

My personal opinion why DS doesn't feel like T10, T11 (awesome mechanics) or T12, is because the lack of an epic end boss. Madness (on normal) might have some interesting mechanics, in no way it compares to the Lich King, Nefarian, or Ragnaros. You fight some tentacles and that is not bad ass enough in most peoples book. And I can see why. All in all DS has some interesting encounters on heroic, but it lacks that epic end boss feeling, definitely for an expansion.

Oh yeah I totally agree with you there. I'm not saying they a raid needs every fights to be an awareness fight where everything is unpredictable, but just a little more than what Dragon Soul offers. It seems like the beginning of Cata is where blizz wanted to try to bring back some of their old playing style, where 5 mans and raids require CC and interrupts, but after that it seems they just scrapped that idea and went back to easy 5 mans, and boring normal modes.

[Pokty]

The two Deathwing fights are horrible, but other than that, I don't think it deserves any hate.

[stevepelle91]

Other than the utterly atrocious encounter they call the Spine of Deathwing, I really enjoyed this tier and the Heroics are at a pretty respectable level of difficulty. I'm just really disappointed in the DW encounter and I think it will go down in my book as one of the all time worst encounters, along with Faction Champions.

[Keosen]

DS fights are fun and the heroics are hard enough to enjoy the fights.
It's really hard to come up wist greatly innovative mechanic after so many raids and over 100 bosses your experience in killing things is more than enough to get familiar with any mechanic nowdays.
Personally i like the DS fights except Hagara maybe.

What would be an interest/challenging mechanic for you can you give some examples?
And just a friendly reminder that opinions are subjective, you can search and find topics like yours but instead of DS is Bot,BWD,ICC etc etc

[Deleted]

worst raid ever, now firelands seems like an awesome raid. Ragnaros was a really good final boss. DS just feels like wrong and boring, including hcs. I hope diablo 3 is soon released and I will come back for the next expansion

[Jervaise]

warmaster heroic is very much an awareness fight, apart from that clicking a button check style fights are getting old.

[Deleted]

Many people cried there is to much "dance" in Firelands. Now they will cry there is lack of it in Dragon Soul. /sigh

[Brakthir]

Rag was a terrible fight. Heroic of course. FL was a giant piece of crap because it was 6 easy bosses and one giant cockblock of epic proportions. Raids should have a gradual increase in difficulty, not have the first 6 bosses be 3 out of 10 on difficulty and the last boss be a fucking 12 out of 10.

Tier 11 was the best tier they released in Cata. It was hard all around. Most of the bosses (except Halfus) were pretty hard but not smashing your head against the wall till you bled hard (maybe Ascendant Council). FL was a joke. DS heroic is actually not too bad. You have an easy entry fight on Heroic Morchok and then two decently difficult healing and dps check fights. Hagara is an execution fight, but pretty easy. Ultraxion is the boss we're on right now, its a pure execution/dps/healing check. After that, I don't have any experience but I have heard Warmaster is harder than Ultraxion and Spine is the huge cockblock.

[Deja Thoris]

If people are going to spends many hours raiding in DS then the least Blizzard could have done was making it aesthetically pleasing. It looks like a sewer pipe. A rehashed one at that (tentacles and oozes teleported right out from the Twilight Highlands)

I agree with the OP, once you find combo's that work for you then its just about execution and that doesn't keep you on your toes.

[Scummer]

Personally I enjoyed DS , for the actual raid content, granted it could have been better and made slightly more difficult although aslong as HC provides an adequate challenge then there's really no trouble.

My only major gripe with it, is the awful story and ending and the fact all bosses are just reskins.

[Rikhart]

Ofc most nabs, after nabbing their way via LFR, now say DS is bad.

If there was no LFR, and they never even saw it on normal (or maybe kill it in, but only in a few months) then the aura of mistery would remain, and everyone would say its awesome.

[Rayzzzer]

6/8 is ok. Spine and Madness are fucking retarded.
50 years later, sitting in a chair and telling stories to grandchildren
Hey kids, did you know that I fought a dragon once?
Oh my, how?
Well, lets say, I've killed a lot of tentacles
Tentacles?
Yeah, there's been an awful lot of them
A dragon with tentacles?
Yep
*yawn*

[Pavidus]

Lore, dungeon layout/design, difficulty, ramp up, and final 2 fights are terrible. MoD is incredibly underwhelming for an expansion's final boss. You literally rinse and repeat the same phase 4 times, with one difference on the 4th platform, you have to single target the tenticles down. OHHHHHHHHH LORDY HOW WILL WE MANAGE!!!

I understand it's Normal, but there is absolutely zero flavor in any of these fights, especially the final encounter. Lootship 2.0 should have been combined with SoD.

Lich King 25 Normal mode puts this entire tier to absolute shame.

[Azshira]

The reason why so much hate is quite simple. People can see everything can kill it simply in lfr/normal and complain that there is no hard bosses. They see top guilds rushing through the content and already have a guild that killed the final boss on heroic and they believe it's too easy, when in fact, no, it's not easy, the heroic content is quite tough and most of the complainers are the people that will never see such content and cry bloody murder that some of the best players in the world are killing heroics. They don't understand the preparation and months of training on PTR.

Also to another extend, the re-using of content and models also puts people into suspect that Blizzard was not creative with the raid and felt it lacking, especially after the amount of re-used content seen this expansion already.

[Logbc]

I really REALLY don't enjoy fights like gunship and spine where I'm fighting trash. They aren't fun to me. Hagara is kind of lame too. I like the first three fights + ultraxion at least.

[4KhazModan]

Man so excited for the final confrontation with Deathwing...'s tentacles. It saddens me that the final boss of the entire expansion consist of 2 add based encounter. I wanted to fight deathwing himself, not his blood!

[McNeil]

I hated the fact that the dungeon itself is just in Dragonblight, 2 underground mouth area's, EoE, gunship, Deathwing's back and Maelstrom is. Only Deathwing's back is ''new'' content

[Deleted]

Essentially what you're saying is you want more RNG. No thanks.

First off you're wrong about DS lacking in RNG as is, just as an example you talk about Zon'ozz but neglect to mention heroic Zon'ozz where the knockback debuff placement is very random and can double the difficulty of phase 1 if you get unlucky.

There is plenty of RNG in Dragon Soul, or "awareness mechanics" as you decided to call it. I'd rather not have more of it, certainly not to the extend of bosses like Ryolith.