Saturday, July 13, 2013

Forgotten Depths: A Restospective

Continuing my fond farewell to the current Raiding tier, let me reintroduce you to the bosses in the second act of the Throne of Thunder: The Forgotten Depths.  Three giant critters make up the second act: Tortos, Megaera, and Ji-Kun.  Slaying these bosses makes me feel like we're putting them out of their misery.

According to "Lore by Bells (TM)" says that Tortos just wants to dance.  Look at all of the Dragon Turtle adds - they come whirling out from behind him doing the turtle spin breakdance - and that's all Tortos wants to do.  His body has literally fused with the cave walls around it, immobilizing him and keeping him from being able to pull out his blue suede shoes and bust a move.  Not to get too far off topic, he was just a victim to Mogu magic floating down and making him one with the wall.  What kind of an existence must it be to sit day after day, unable to move or even scratch your back?  (I apologize if this sounds too much like your workplace, guys.)

Megaera was once a cloud serpent, free to roam the skies and feel the sunshine on her scales.  She was twisted by Mogu magic into a hideous hydra.  When I picture the cloud serpents, I can't help but think of my majestic mount that I raised from an adorable, playful hatchling to a graceful adult.  To think of the agony that would transform that to a creature full of hate and desire for vengeance is sobering.

Ji-Kun I feel a touch less pity for as she is in the Forgotten Depths of her own volition.  She entered the Depths to feast on the flesh thrown aside by the Mogu.  She reigns supreme in her chamber.  I've often wondered if she feasts on her own offspring, as she is the only living creature in there when we arrive. Granted her eggs are everywhere, but you'll notice there's not another bird flitting about anywhere in the Throne of Thunder.

Stories aside, here's how I feel about the second act of the Throne of Thunder.


Tortos



A part of me loves Tortos, because it truly is one of those fights that I feel that a Druid can absolutely shine.  Lots of damage on lots of people? Check.  Lots of movement? Check.  Lots of damage DURING MOVEMENT? CHECK SIR, I SAY CHECK! *cough* Where was I? Oh yes.  Despite the fact that a Resto Druid can really shine on this fight, I truly did not like Tortos, not one bit.
The reason he and I didn't get on so well is because of the randomness of it.  Lack of control on DPS part, such as kicking too many shells and not having one at the needed moment or not dropping the shells quickly enough, would wipe the raid and there was nothing I could do about it.  A poorly directed or poorly timed kick would have the same effect.  The Vampiric Cave Bats also loved to feast on my flesh instead of the tank's (which we  figured out how to deal with) and if the tank handling them wasn't topped off things went south fast.  Poorly dodged rockfalls or a whirl-a-turtles made things even more hectic.  I really wanted to love this fight.  Truly I did.  Tortos, it wasn't you....it was me.

Megaera


I can say with utter honesty that Megaera is hands down (branches down?) my favorite fight in the Throne of Thunder.  Megs is a great example of a "pick your poison" type of fight where you pick the abilities that will affect you.  Our team triggers red and blue most frequently, making this a movement and dispel intense fight.  I love that I always have something to.  Rampages are probably the first time I really felt mushrooms were valuable, despite the huge overheal.  Depending on DPS pace, you may find yourself having to scramble for CDsduring Rampages.  Too fast, you won't have enough to cover the intense damage in time.  Too slow and Megs will drain your mana from dispels or raid heavy AOE.  Kiting the Torrent of Ice, trying to place them in a Cinders circle, and getting out of Dodge when Acid Rain is falling from the sky all kept me on my toes.  And I loved it.

Ji-Kun


Meh.  My opinion of Ji-Kun would assuredly change if I weren't the healer hopping from nest to nest.  Why?  I was so utterly bored for the vast majority of this fight.  I felt like I could get up, make a sandwich, and watch Game of Thrones all before things would get interesting.  Because...well because they didn't.  From what I understand, healing the platform on Ji-Kun is quite challenging.  The most difficult part of healing the nests was remembering where to go and about when Quills would start flying through the sky.  That was it.  The flying was probably the most fun I had during the entire fight.  I tried switching my spec to include Dream of Cenarius so I could do some damage, but really that didn't make an ounce of difference.  I think (on normal 10M at least) you could really get away with one and a half healers for this fight - one healer on the platform and a DPS offhealing the nests.  A shadow priest, elemental shaman, or a Boomkin could have kept the nest team alive while making the fight go faster.  I personally work hard to keep as many of my healers in raid as possible. Another fight like this one, where I feel that one of the healers is wasted because of the fight mechanics may make heals leads throughout Azeroth weep in despair.


The Forgotten Depths was a total change of atmosphere from the Last Stand of the Zandalari.  The Last Stand had us outdoors fighting against Trolls who, pawns or no, who were fighting for something they believed.  The Forgotton Depths was made up of creatures who were thrown aside and forgotten about by the Thunder King.  They were simply fighting for their own miserable survival, and we were only cutting through them to make our way to our final goal.  They were victims for their entire existence, and they were victims in the end.  Hopefully....by putting them out of their misery....they can now go to their next existence in peace.

How did you feel about the second act of the Throne of Thunder?

As always, thanks for reading!  Until next time, long days, pleasant nights and happy Raiding!

Credit goes to Dayani over at Healiocentric for the term Restospective

3 comments:

  1. I agree wholeheartedly with you on tortos. I really really hate that fight just because of the randomness. Its also kinda comforting to know that im not the only resto druid that looks like particularly tasty to those bats. do you know the reason why your group triggers blue mostly? It seems like every group i have ever heard/seen has tried to minimize blue or cut it out entirely. we 2 heal ji-jun (10man N) with me being the platform healer and its actually quite boring there too. the biggest thing there is to watch your feet and timers to know when to blow cooldowns. overall i was kind of disappointed with how boring that fight is.

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    1. With the bats on Tortos we designated a spot for the tank and the person with aggro (usually me....) to meet up at when the bats were descending. In broccoli form, it was particularly easy for the tank to find me. We joked that the bats were vegetarian rather than vampiric.

      The reason we trigger blue is because of the raid comp we ran with on our first kill. We two healed it, myself and a Resto Shammy. Stacking up makes their heals most effective, which you can't really do with green in the mix. With the combo of my strength of healing on the run plus hers of the stacking heals, it worked out best for our team. The (small) bonus of kiting those blue beams through the Cinders getting rid of those void zones helped too.

      I'm hoping if we get to H Ji'Kun that the healing there will be more interesting. You can't win them all though ;)

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    2. that is a very interesting point for blue. I two heal with a resto shammy as well and we do not kill blue at all. It is really healing intensive but out dps have a really bad time with beam mechanics. we have a shadow priest in out group so i generally symiosis him to get leap of faith to pull people out of the green pools as well as giving him a rid healing cooldown to blow on a rampage if we are running dry.

      the tank that does the bats for tortos is one of my roomates so we dont set marks to meet at i can just yell at him :P. I generally have a pretty recognizable transmog set so im told that makes it easier to find me. we have a running joke between those of us that are transmogaholics that we all go into different color schemes just to make us easier to find in raid.

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