Ruisu wrote:
Wint wrote:
4) This is something I wanted to write about more in depth, but it is definately different. You saw in the alpha videos that there is now a cool down timer system in place. For solo work it makes the battles faster, but my worry was with party play. I got to do The Thousand Maws of Toto Rak with the community team (Pinurabi, Bayohne, and Rukkirii), and the combat really worked well for that, especially with larger monsters. Strategy is definitely required, it's not a zerg rush kind of thing at all. You actually have to be aware of not only the boss himself but the environment around him as well. It was really fun, I'll have more detail in my writeup.
It might be just me, but this sounds a little vague. Paying attention to the environment can mean looking at the door/set of stairs/gate/portal for adds during a boss fight (like Norgannon in vanilla WoW), but can also mean avoiding icicles that fall from the ceiling while you move the boss around and deal with debuffs and other mechanics (like Hodir in Ulduar). Likewise, strategy can mean establishing an interrupt rotation between your DPS, but can also mean designating people for buffs/debuffs that are part of the boss fight.
Would you be able to elaborate a bit, Wint?
Edited, Feb 22nd 2013 1:10am by Ruisu Well I wanted to wait for my article, but I'll give you the example I was going to write about.
During part of my hands on I got to do a run through the level 25 dungeon Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak. They've revamped it from 1.0 extensively. When you get to the boss level, there is this sticky goo over places that makes your char run slower than normal. There are also these pods that, if you get too close to, burst open and poison everyone in range. I was Archer for this so I was able to pop the pods from a distance.
When we finally made it to the boss (a giant Mite type mob with a scorpion tail), there were more of those pods all around the room, so that was one environmental aspect that I had to manage. Another was every so often the tail would swing up and start glowing and you would get a message on the screen. If the tail wasn't "defeated" then it would start spitting venom on the floor turning it a bio-hazard green in places. If you happen to run over that stuff you lose health while standing in it. So you have to watch out for the pods, you watch out for the floor, and you have take on adds the boss summons as well as the main boss itself.
We were a group of 4 that were 10 levels higher than the dungeon and we still wiped on the first run. Once we figured out a strategy for dealing with all of these things, we managed to beat it. This is what I mean also when I say there is more to it than just running in and killing everything. You have to analyze and think through how to take on the boss, so party play is definitely not dead.