SoO Bosses - First Impressions (Mechanics/visuals)

[Koca]

We are yet to see the heroics, but I was curious what you guys thought of the fights so far. We just got to 13/14 tonight, and I think some of the bosses are really fun:

Immerseus - Good entry boss, simple mechanics and nice visuals. 7/10
Fallen Protectors - Seemed like nothing special, but I'm sure that's because we outgear it a lot right now. Heroic should be better. 5/10
Norushen - Pretty chaotic at first, the individual phases are fun. 8/10
Sha of Pride - 7/10.
Galakras - I like the presentation/area that we fight, trash packs remind me of Horridon. 7/10
Iron Juggernaut - Great fight. The knockback mechanic is super-fun, and the design of the boss is amazing too. 8/10
Kor'kron Dark Shaman - THIS fight will be such a bitch in heroics, especially for melee (rogue here). Don't know if I love it or hate it. 7/10
General Nazgrim - Again, just kinda fell over because of ilvl. We'll see. 6/10
Spoils of Pandaria - Normally not a fan of add fights, and this is just a big trash pack basically, but being able to control the pace of opening boxes and seeing creatures (ANIMA) from previous raids/quests makes it a great concept, IMO. Sorta like a good-bye to t14/t15.
Thok the Bloodthirsty - Second favorite fight so far. I'm in 10 man, however I can see how much fun this can be in 25 man when the dino is chasing you. Both phases are intense, can't wait for heroics. (DBM: "BEWARE, BEWARE,BEWARE!!") 9/10
Malkorok - Meh, was okay I guess. 6/10
Siegecrafter Blackfuse - I pretty much tunneled the boss so I didn't get to go to conveyor belts, but the sheer chaos aspect of this fight makes it enjoyable. (Dat magnet)
Paragons of the Klaxxi - Absolute favorite fight. SO MANY mechanics, so much randomness, but so much fun! At some point I was looking at the raid and there was 3 people linked trying to run away from each other while a Paragon trying to snipe one of us while the other puts colors on us to make us stack/spread/run. I am honestly scared of the heroic mode, but that's a loooong way ahead anyway. 9.5/10
Garrosh Hellscream - Only got 1 pull on him, we'll see.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with fight mechanics/boss visuals. Maybe the environments are not as unique as ToT, but I think the fight mechanics will be on par, if not better.

What are your thoughts?

[Deleted]

To be frank, I like it just because I get to do something else than ToT now, but I'm afraid that this raid's longevity will be minimal compared to the epicness that ToT was. I feel that there are too many basic mechanics and nothing innovative except for Siegecrafter, who, along with Klaxxi, I cannot wait to do on heroic.

I also don't like that they have so few new models and overall, seems that a great deal less thought and work went into this raid than went into ToT. The quality of the bosses was better. Each boss was worth something, Jin'rokh>Immerseus by far from the fun aspect.

But my biggest grievance (ye I know I whine a lot, but because of that when I see something beyond the usual, my reactions are just as intense on the positive side!) is the lack of quality to the last boss of the expansion. I wanted to almost cry, because I felt let down again, for two expansions in a row they utterly miss the mark on the design of the main protagonist of their expansion. I hoped that they had added some engaging mechanics to the fight from the PTR iteration, but no - nada.

overall, when grading normal alone: 5/10 (ToT was 10/10)

[Deja Thoris]

To be honest it's shaping up that I preferred ToT a lot more. I'll give context first so people understand (though they may not agree) We were always a normal mode guild with a heroic kill or 2, then we changed some personnel shortly into 5.3 and killed 13/13HC but only 2 days before the patch. That makes us overgeared for the content but in my mind I'm still not a heroic raider.

I expected to find more challenge in the bosses. I know we technically outgear it but you can run into the fights blind, mess up an extra-ordinary amount and still kill the boss. It seems to have gone the other way from ToT where personal responsibility was high (get out of jin'rokhs pools, kick turtles etc)
The other thing I dislike is theres too many add fights.

Immerseus - Right difficulty for an entry boss, felt boring, unengaging and not fun. Completely underwhelming. If I designed encounters I'd start with something to make people excited for the raid. I wouldn't have them hit a big blob that shits little blobs 5 times. 3/10
Fallen protectors - Some nice mechanics and a bit of chaos 6/10
Norushen - I had lag that evening which made the tank test complete shite. I got hit by every fucking ability even though I never stopped moving and missed every interrupt even though I had my finger hovering over the ability. It completely ruined the fight for me. Stuff is also pretty hard to see in general 4/10
Sha of pride - 6/10 -
Galakras - Fucking trash everywhere. Red fire on an orange background is amazing, especially when you have 600 adds and 95 friendly npc's loitering around. It's 6-8 minutes of complete boredom followed by 90 seconds of wtf damage. 3/10
Iron Juggenaut - Fun fight. 7/10
Dark Shaman. Bring the player not the class. Just make sure the player isn't melee. Seems like Blizz threw 100 abilities into a hat so they could pick a few out and then just took them all anyway. 5/10
General Nazgrim - Oh more adds. Despite a colossal derp on the first pull (boss healed for 100mill) and me crashing we still came within a whisker of killing it that pull. It died the 2nd pull. Too forgiving for it's place in the raid. 5/10

I guess I'm a bit underwhelmed so far this tier. I've loved the previous ones though.

[Tojara]

I like it better than ToT. It actually feels like you're at war and invading a strong hold. The ambiance and atmosphere is downright amazing. The trash will be annoying in weeks to come, but at least it feels like a city.

The reason why it feels easy is because a lot of people massively over gear the place, myself included. However, unlike previous instances it actually has a fairly linear difficulty curve. ToT really wasn't hard. To us 3-4 bosses were, two of which had misplaced 25 man values in the 10 man version during the first week. Trust me when I say that for your typical 13/13H guild that you will find the last couple bosses more challenging. They are still normal mode bosses mind you, but for a normal mode boss they are a nice challenge.

If you're 13/13H only the last few bosses are intended for you. The front of the instance is tuned around people with 522s and the middle is more for people around 530 and above. They did a really good job progressing the instance, although I feel the very middle could have been a tad harder.

I found Garrosh to be a good encounter. A lot of people herald the LK encounter but I found that even more boring. It wasn't like anything I was expecting and LK was a huge letdown. Mind you it wasn't as much as Deathwing, but I think Garrosh on normal is a lot more fun than LK normal was.

There is plenty of personal responsibility to throw around in the raid. If you don't soak a void zone on Malkorok it's pretty much a wipe, and if you don't remember where he smashed you will die.

I'll probably end up liking Paragons eventually, but for now it was just an overwhelming amount of things see and an order which changes every week. Blackfuse is probably the best encounter in the instance IMO, a perfect mix of things that make an encounter really epic. Reminds me of Mimiron in a lot of ways.

The only encounter I didn't like was Dark Shaman. To me they just picked random AoE abilities you don't want to stand in, confined you to a frustrating area to move around and called it a day. It just felt like a boss with 3-4 void zones that looked differently lol.

[Thursley]

You guys seem to like Iron Juggernaut, did I miss something on that fight? We started with him last night amidst the login problems and decided to pull with 23 people just to test stuff and we wound up killing him with basically no effort. He put up about as much of a fight as Immerseus, if even that much. Sure, we outgeared it enough to not have to worry too much about always stomping 2 mines but if you guys are already that far in the instance than you did also. I'm sure it will be a lot more interesting on heroic, but even as normals go it felt like there was a big important piece missing from the fight (like Twin Consorts last tier).

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

Iron Juggernaut is probably the worst fight in the instance... not sure what you guys are smokin.

[klaps_05]

ive always liked the combination of dungeon into open space into dungeon and just go deeper and around different levels like sunwell was, so id say an overall 8/10 feeling and visuals. some mechanics could use a little tuning(area/size/etc), but overall interesting.

[Deleted]

12/14 atm and pulled Klaxxi a few times, I play Mistweaver.

Immerseus - Even as a first boss in the tier it's extremely easy. I like the visual design though and the HC mechanics could make it quite interesting. 6/10.
Fallen Protectors - I like the design of the fight, plenty to watch out for, not really much that's particularly deadly on normal though. Will be an enjoyable fight on HC when performing the fight mechanics properly is more important, I feel. 7/10.
Norushen - A bit overwhelming visually and I don't feel like the fight is that interesting mechanically. Dodge the laser and handle the Manifestations properly and that's pretty much it. 7 minute enrage timer seems to be a first wall for some lower geared/skilled raid teams and will probably be tight at first on HC. 5/10.
Sha of Pride - Huge raid awareness check. Can snowball everyone's Pride out of control quickly if people screw up their Projections/Prisons. I quite like the fight though, plenty to watch for, personal checks and the room looks nice with the Prisons etc. Going to be horrible on HC looking at the journal. 7/10.
Galakras - Easy fight to be honest. Handling the adds is pretty much just a matter of stunning the Bonecrushers when they Fracture. I haven't been up the towers but didn't seem to be challenging from what I heard. Galakras phase just a matter of splitting into 2 groups and having the person with the flame run behind their group. Fair amount of raid damage but health pool of boss too low to cause problems, just blow it up with Hero. Different feeling fight though, I enjoyed it. P1 will get boring on farm. 6/10.
Iron Jug - Plenty to heal and tests peoples' class knowledge with mine soaking. Felt easy though. Glad they took the health down from about 600m on PTR, would've been a boring 2 phase fight with that health pool. Lacking a mechanic or two I feel, might be helped on HC. 6/10.
Dark Shamans - Abilities everywhere. Gets very clusterfucky when they have all 3 totems up. Dogs feel pointless, there to stop a Hero + Boss burn being too good I suppose. Good raid awareness check but the Poison lines feel annoying + very dangerous, probably horrific on HC with the Iron totems up from 95% too. Fast paced and intense fight though, I enjoyed it. 8/10.
Nazgrim - The high rage abilities really don't feel punishing on Normal. Smallish health pool meant he died fast. Adds were easy to deal with too. Feels extremely easy until the flood of adds at 10%. Will probably be horrible on HC with the Warsong's damage at 65% of max hp. 6/10.
Malkorok - Nice fight IMO, the three slam mechanic made too easy with raid markers though. Decent amount of damage/awareness checks going out, once again will be interesting on HC where things are more punishing. 7/10.
Spoils - Boring. Interesting design but nothing really feels that challenging and it will be frustrating on HC if one side screws up a few more times than another. Killing the two large crates and AoEing down everything else needed is too simple. 4/10.
Thok - Really intense fight, P1 damage ramped up extremely fast. Our raid is geared at about 443 average ilvl and killed it in a Blood Frenzy phase we couldn't end. This fight will severely challenge lesser geared guilds / those carrying a couple of dps that don't do as much as they should. 6/10.
Blackfuse - Loads to do, seemed that the crux of the fight was tank damage on the Shredders. Rest of mechanics really easy to handle, and health pool was quite low, though a lot of the time much of the DPS is not on the boss (conveyor belts / mines). Well designed boss, enjoyed the mechanics. 8/10.
Paragons - Not killed but I think the mechanics and interaction between them being different is a cool design. Perhaps too much of a flood of abilities, I'd rather have had fewer Paragons with higher HP. I do not feel it is overtuned/overwhelming though, just a higher learning curve than usual. 8/10.

Overall I think the raid is really interesting and the fights' mechanics are fun. Looking forward to knocking over Garrosh this reset and seeing some HC modes!

[Kalmah]

I don't mind most bosses I've done except Galakras.

Galakras is a shit encounter. There's absolutely nothing happening for 7-8 minutes even if you're in the tower team. Then the boss comes down and does completely stupid damage. They should've either made more interresting mini-bosses or removed a tower.

[Deleted]

I like it better than ToT. It actually feels like you're at war and invading a strong hold. The ambiance and atmosphere is downright amazing. The trash will be annoying in weeks to come, but at least it feels like a city.

Not sure yet if I like it better than ToT yet, but the rest of this is very much true. Great atmosphere, great raid so far. Then again I don't really hate any raid bosses like many people seem to do.

Immerseus: Fight looks great, but can be a little annoying with the puddles that cover EVERYTHING. It has a nice synergy like the tsulong fight, while not having too many mechanics.

Fallen protectors: I don't like these kind of council and add switching bosses much, this was no exception. There's loads of stuff going on, but half of it doesn't concern you. I don't like the clutter on fights like these. I can see how a ranged multidotter would absolutely love this fight. I suppose it's not badly designed.

Norushen: I haven't tried it myself, but the mechanics are again simple but punishing. Such fights just seem epic and difficult when doing them on progress (magaera comes to mind). I like such fights; especially when they are visually appealing.

Sha of Pride: Great. Amazing. Love it. This fight just works well. The mechanics weren't as punishing as i'd like them to be, but the mechanics just seem to fit. Also it looks great.

Galakras: This is again the fight like Dark Animus. You either absolutely adore it, or you absolutely despise it. I for one like both of those fights. We are fucking assaulting Orgrimmar's outer defenses and troops. How much better can it get? I very much like this fight, it just seems epic to me.

Iron juggernaut: Terrible gatekeeper. Seriously, you can run past him. ^^ The fight was a bit dull and mechanics quite easy to handle. It's great how one can always help on crawler mines with a cd up. You feel useful I am not excited for the HC mode, because I'm sure they'll make mines too strong for small cooldowns (unless they add something new).

Dark Shamans: I wasn't in. Again it seems like one of the "few mechanics that HURT, deal with it" fights. Sounds good.

Nazgrim: Seems dull.

Guild hasn't cleared any further as of yet. I am however very excited for the fights: Malkorok, Spoils (plz plz plz be a challenge mode'ish fight), Blackfuse and ofc Garrosh.

[Elios]

Just kill every single Shamans in the raid and everyone will be fine..

Jk...

I'm felling a really strong disparity between the bosses, The first 4 are really easy but they are the first 4 bosses so no big deal, but after that Galakras i can see alot of pugs or casual guilds just hit a wall there, after that Iron Jugg is extremely simple and even if you screw up you will kill it, Shamans are another Wall (dont be melee in that fight or you are fucked), Nazgrin is almost a joke compared to Dark Shamans... Just kill the Shamans and dont get him under 10% with a wave of adds alive and you can kill it, Malkorok is really fun with abilities that make the raid think where they are and where they were...

[Deleted]

I actually dislike the raid...

I was really looking forward to it, the raid itself isnt bad nor are the mechanics, i just dont enjoy it.

[Raioku]

I love SoO, 10/10. Much better than ToT in my opinion.

[Kazlofski]

Much better than ToT in my opinion so far.

I really hated ToT because it's atmosphere was so horrible, it didn't feel epic in the slightest, bosses came out of nowhere without any sort of build up even to Lei Shen (very very small one) + I dunno why but I just didn't like big part of the bosses fights in ToT + environment was boring so it felt so boring to be in there and look around + kill bosses...
SoO on the other hand is amazing, both atmosphere, music and visual/encounter mechanics.


Hopefully people understood what I meant...

[Deleted]

I for my part really liked ToT, i think it catered abit more to the more serious raiding clientel. (12/13 hc myself)

Where SoO is more for the casual crowd. My guild and I oneshot 5 of the first 6 bosses on normal, so i was abit dissapointed with the first 6. But Shamans -> Malkorok i liked much, with Nazgrim being a tad to forgiving for my taste.

But i hope HC modes will ramp it up abit