Deathwing falls lower than our framerates
Dragon Soul is looking to be a solid tier of raiding. The weakest point without question being the abundance of framerate issues across a few of the bosses, especially the later ones. Hopefully Blizzard will figure out a way to optimize ground heals and/or Green Gem otherwise Heroic Ultra is going to be a nightmare.
We are Cue the Credits, 6/7, the "99% of the 1%"
Yeah while we just nabbed 5/7 a few days prior, the nerfs let us and everyone else worth a shit clear up to Ragnaros Heroic easily. It's a shame, Baleroc was more than doable pre-nerf. Well, onto the grind that is Heroic Ragnaros!
You see when it's Heroic, it's only 50% of the fight Heroic Major Domo down
Fun fight! Even though you know for some reason on Heroic they decided to make Scorpion phase useless and force the healers into a boredum coma. Quite a bit of strategy variation on this one though which was a nice change of pace. Definitely beats out the cookie cutter strategies Firelands has been fond of thus far.
Ron Weasley can rest easy tonight, H-Beth down
Oh look a legitimately tuned and well paced encounter. Who knew they existed in this tier? Definitely the best Heroic encounter thus far. Perfectly controllable encounter with minimal, if any RNG. Alysrazor should be interesting!
Planets aligned, stars in sync; H-Ryolith down
Blizzard, take one of the most RNG bosses you've ever created and shove it up your ass. You'd think 7 years into the game you'd learn how to tweak a mechanic that's outside your norm to at least work moderately efficiently. Going from faceroll Heroic Shannox with no stress on the DPS or raid for that matter to Golem McDiceroll with two moderately tight enrage timers makes no sense in regards to pacing. I pity any guild that struggles with Ragnaros/Heroic Shannox with plans to move forward beyond him.
Heroic Shannox down in 4...
Clearing Firelands Normal in 1 week is fine. Expected, really. But 4 shotting the first Heroic boss? Blizzard, what the fuck.
CTC parries Obiliterate, Heroic Nefarian down
6 new tanks and healers later (fucking Cataclysm) Nefarian and Onxyia are down. While this boss should have been over with weeks ago I'll submit to Cataclysm drought as a new entity raiding has to deal with. Cho'gall next.
Who needs Rogues? Not CTC vs Herioc V&T
Pretty straight forward and fun fight once the strategy is laid out. With 2 bosses down in 2 days I'd say we're finally back in action. I have yet to dislike a hard mode yet, here's to hoping the trend continues with Nefarian onward. Shooting a RBV for Heroic Maloriak this week and hopefully pushing Version 3 out for Public viewing!
WTS Ambien, Heroic Omnotron down
Representing kill #7 is an infamous clusterfuck fight that just requires the raid to calm down and be confident with what they're doing. It was Freya in early WotLK, Vashj in early BC. Thankfully it didn't take everyone very long to settle down and push for the kill.
Heroic Conclave vs Recruitment Drought
After a painful recruiting blackhole (thanks Cataclysm) things are finally returning to normal. Heroic Conclave has sort of been the side project while we bring down other hard modes and after managing to plug the recruiting sinkhole it went down without too much trouble. But seriously, what is up with this expansion and recruits just quitting the game after 3 days of raiding?
Herioc Magmaw
Frantic movement seems to be a trend with Blizzard this expansion... and I like it! Keeping players on their toes like this will only lead to good things later on in the expansion. With the recent tweaks here's hoping Firelands requires an average ilvl of at least 365...
Herioc Maloriak
Definietly one of the most nerve-racking encounters I've done in awhile. Dark Vial adds a perfect level of crazy that actually fits the encounter which is rare for Blizzard when they throw more adds into the mix. Nice job grabbing it before 4.1 which is undoubtedly going to trivialize the encounter with all the buffs to aoe.
Herioc Atramedes
Oddly entertaining considering how boring the mechanics are in normal.
With the Conclave unannounced fix/nerf to Rohash Blast I expect them to be down soon as well.
Chimaeron down, praise ritalin
After wiping a fair too many times due to attention spans that would make a guppy cry, Chimaeron gets a checkmark.
As with the Halfus kill, a few people managed to grab the Chimaeron kill and I'll have it up on RBV asap.
Herioc Halfus down along with 8 372's...
I'm all for gearing faster to push these hard modes quicker but 3 11.5 tier pieces off the first one? Really?
Two guys managed to get the kill on record so expect an RBV for it soon. I'll update this post when it's finished.
Nefarian down, hello 12/12
With the first wave of normal mode content complete it is clear that Blizzard wants to make a statement that they still have the ability to create properly tuned encounters. Much unlike Cho'gall, Nefarian deserves his position as the final boss of BWD and of the content itself. Hopefully hard modes are just as well tuned.
Next week RBV Version 3 should be ready for mass consumption and Nefarian will be the introductory raid for it's public reveal. (Hopefully!)
