Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Let the magic of this wonderful holiday make all your wishes be true in next year! Happy holidays!

 

Christmas coming soon!

          Heya, friends! I just want to make this small notice and remind you that Christmas is coming soon. I want to share some of my holiday joy and offer you to watch this touching Russian movie (dont forget to turn subtitles on!). Enjoy!

Part 1:

 

Part 2:

 

Xul'Horac Mythic 11/13M

 

Tactical requirements: high
DPS requirements: high
Overall difficulty: 8/10
Attempts: 129
World rank: 2094
          Either we were so unskilled, or this boss was very hard, but we wasted so much time here. It was actually so easy - put green on one side, purple on another, if different patches are close come and explode it, while others have to move away. But no, people were totally blind to see Shadowfel Annihilation. The fight itself is very short - less than 4 minutes in our gear, but we couldn't make it for so long.
          To be honest, I see many guilds are struggling to kill this boss, even after first kill, I don't know why. Seems we are skilled enough, just the boss is hard :)

 

 

Isaac: Best game so far, but ...

          That was my best game so far in terms of luck with items. My first item was Lucky Foot, that's why I believed this game should be really lucky :) So it was! In the first Treasure Room I got piercing shots ability, after 2nd boss I had a chance to step into Devil's Room. I had 4 hearth containers, so I decided to exchange two for The Pact - damage and tears bonus. In The Catacombs I had a chance to step into another Devil's Room, and you know who awaited me there? That flying guy, who drops Lump of Coal :)
          Now my damage was superb, knights was not a problem at all, everything died so fast. And right before Mom I found My Reflection. Now imagine this: maximum damage multiplied by piercing shots + Lump of Coal damage bonus + boomerang shots, that scales with Lump so well + Hard Knuckle multiplier. I never had so huge damage! I killed Lokii (that's right, double "i") in about ummm ... 5 seconds!
          Now the most funny part - I had like 6 hearth containers, 2 of them was empty at the moment I encountered It's Alive. I had one of those Telepills with me. I didn't plan to use it, but clicked on it by mistake, and ...
... it teleported me to "I'm Error" room! O_o Can you imagine this? :D Now, that's not all. The room was full of pills, 5 of them was the pills with +1 hearth container effect! Have you ever seen so much luck in one run? :D
          I came to Satan with 11 hearth containers, 4 of them was empty though. Eh, if only I didn't get hit by those damn eye right before Satan :( You see this screen? I died right in the moment Satan's leg had HP to be one-shotted - I needed only 1-2 seconds, yet ... yeah, this game is really hard, and depends on luck :)

 

SC II: Day 7

Ugh, short break due to exams, but here we go!

Mission 09 - The Temple of Unification

Difficulty: 2,5/5
Tries: 2
Savegames: 18
          I'm not going to comment on the mission since its average difficulty, but I want to say a few words about cinematic before the next mission. It was freaking awesome! Really! I may sound naïve, but I like it very much when forces unite. In any game, movie, or book, I like when enemies finally make piece and starting to work together. Also, I missed Kerrigan :) Really, don't tell me, that you didn't :)

Mission 10 - The Infinite Cycle
Difficulty: 2/5
Tries: 1
Savegames: 10
          I don't want to say that the mission is easy. Even if you have only two units, if you don't use all your abilities right enemies overwhelm you. The hardest moment was in the end when you must defeat huge army of protoss and hybrids while being chased by big ray. I used "Load" button about 50 times here.

Tyrant Velhari 10/13M

Tactical requirements: high
DPS requirements: very high
Overall difficulty: 9/10
Attempts: 147
World rank: 1073
          Funny thing - we killed Velhari right after 6.2.3 was released. Though we could finish this encounter weeks ago, we were clearly lacking DPS, and DPS requiremends for this fight are VERY high. This boss is difficult, really it is, each phase is a challenge, but this is all due to "kill it fast before it kills you" mechanics. I believe this is the first boss to be trivialized right after people will get enough Valor for their upgrades.

 

SC II: Day 6

Mission 08 - Forbidden Weapon

Difficulty: 4,5/5
Tries: 4
Savegames: 45
           Another very hard mission. Your time is very short, enemies are numerous. When you are far away you cannot defend your base, since enemies attacks you from the gates you cannot breach. I cannot even say how many times I used "Load" button here - probably about a hundred times - even this didn't save me from starting it over and over again. The key to the success in this mission  is combination of Stalkers shield regeneration ability via Blink and ship's Freeze ability (very useful btw, you can stop and destroy entire army - 20 seconds of freeze). Though as you see on the screenshot I BARELY made it in time even with savegames.

SC II: Day 5

Mission 07 - Brothers in Arms

Difficulty: 2/5
Tries: 1
Savegames: 8
          Quite easy mission (for Brutal :)) Now you are not short on time, also the enemy almost never attacks you. Thought enemy forces are quite numerous. I made it with Immortals + Stalkers.
          The cinematic is great too as well.

 

SC II: Day 4

Mission 06 - Sky Shield
Difficulty: 3,5/5
Tries: 3
Savegames: 18
          If there was no timer the mission would be quite easy - focus all your power on defense, then hiding by cannons make an army and destroy those facilities. But there is a timer, you just cant build cannons or you wont have enough resources to make units in time. In the same time, when you are trying to complete mission objectives enemies wont hesitate to attack you, so you need to rush to facilities and defend your base in the same time.
          First try I used the same tactic as on previous mission - Dragoons as firepower plus Zealots as shield, but this quickly become futile. Zealots was dying way too fast, you just waste resources on making them. Also you cant make Dragoons only - their attack is way too slow so they quickly become overwhelmed by small units, like Zerglings.
          My next idea was to use Dark Templars, but this was quite useless too. Templars cannot attack air units, and detectors are everywhere, so you have to make both Dragoons and Templars. This is very hard to control, one wrong move and all your Templars being smashed by Siege Tank in a matter of seconds.
          Third try I switched from Dragoons to Stalkers. Their ability to regenerate shields after Blink is very useful, I even didn't expect this. Every 8 seconds (just eight!) you are able to regenerate half of your shield - awesome! But the main problem still persisted - those untargetable bombs fired by Terran Ravens. Blink is very helpful too - you just Blink this unit away to catch the bomb, but in the crowd when in the same time several bombs target your units, tanks attack you from the back and Battlecruiser is shooting from the side.
          By the way - reinforcements are also very helpful here. Just before an assault you summon Pylon, getting 4 units and being able to summon more to you via Warp Gate.

 

          On this screenshot you can see my base is being destroyed :) Though I made it before I got defeated :)

 

War. War never changes...

        War never changes, but Fallout series does ...

        Right, after first 10 hours of gameplay I finally want to state my opinion of the game.

          First of all – really it was not what I’ve expected after I saw all those advertisement trailers. We were promised none less but new Fallout 2 Starcraft Baldurs Gate Dark Souls, but from user reviews one can clearly see it was faaaar from truth.

          Far from truth in all directions:

          Graphics: We were promised graphics at least on par with The Witcher 3 level. Graphics is good, really, but comparing to Witcher? Nope, not even close. I can compare Fallout to Wolfenstein or Bioshock – 1-2 years old games – good graphics, but nothing more, although humongous system requirements trying to convince us otherwise. I even bought new videocard – and for what?

          Plot: This is the weakest point. After 10 hours of gameplay I completed only several dull quests. Protagonist is completely emotionless. He comes out on the surface with face like “ok, nuclear explosion, sh*t happends”. The game didn’t tell who are those people, how did they survive, where did they came from. You don’t live with your character, it is like you are playing Counter-Strike. But this is Fallout after all! Remember those quests lines from Fallout 2? I could feel the world is living there and my character lived in that world. Now I cannot understand why, what for, where …

          Gameplay: I don’t like the games when you need to create your own story. Take Bioshock Infinite for example – playing the game is like you are watching awesome action movie, every second something happens. In Fallout things are like this – you want to get fun? Ok, take hundred of house patterns, take walls, doors, bath tubes and flowes – and make your own home! Go and find some fun for yourself! Probably this is the core of sandbox – maybe I just don’t like sandbox games.

        Controls: This is just bad console port, controls are very bad, you can cancel some menus with ESC, but some only with TAB and this is really painful to remember HOW TO CLOSE EACH MENU – like wtf?! Why I cant cancel it all with ESC?

          Crafting system: For those who like The Sims probably it can be fun, although I have doubts Sims fans will play Fallout games. You can salvage everything – very “realistic” indeed.

          So what did we get? Another Skyrim in post-apocalyptic world with guns instead of magic. Skyrim was great (with better plot btw), but why make second one?

          You know, the best game of all Fallout series for me was Fallout Tactics, and you know why? Because the game had its story. You have had clear course of all missions, you knew that in the end of this map new gauss gun awaits you, while F4 presents with another rusted coffee cup in the end of the long cave.
          The only fun moment so far was in the beginning – the nuclear explosion is really well made – I could almost feel it on my skin, and share those people horror. Too bad that’s the only fun moment in the game. I really should spend those 60 bucks somewhere else. If you are Fallout fan – imagine F4 was never released. Probably it was just a mistake to bring Fallout in 3D after all.

Verdict: wasted 60 bucks. Farewell, Fallout, we will never meet again ...

SC II: Day 3

Mission 04 - Amon's Reach
Difficulty: 3,5/5
Tries: 3
Savegames: 19
          For this mission I've chose Dragoons - their damage is huge and the range is good, they serve as firepower - and Zealots with added ability - Whirlwind. The hardest point is to deal with Void Giants - to defeat them you must mix invisible units with your regular army, or you will never break through zerg bases. When the last Giant is defeated to finish the mission is not a problem - I was even able to ravage all zerg bases :)

 

Mission 05 - Last Stand

Difficulty: 4,5/5
Tries: 3
Savegames: 20
          Do you remember this mission from Brood War? I remember! The last and the hardest mission - the defense of the temple of Xel'Naga. This is not the same temple, though, but the mission is very similar. And VERY difficult. The advice is - use Dark Templars - their invisibility serve both as block and additional firepower.


 

SC II: Day 2

Mission 03 - The Spear of Adun

Difficulty: 4/5
Tries: 3
Savegames: 30
          Now the first REAL difficult Brutal mission :) I cant express how I like this sense of difficulty! :) When you play WoW and defeat the bosses you've already defeated sometimes you are even yawning. When you play, I don't know, Civ 5, SimCity, Hearthstone you don't feel adrenaline that rush through your veins, but here you feel it - when you barely complete the mission when the enemy almost overwhelmed you.
          The difficult part is not the one, that enemies are strong and numerous. Usually you just make units until 200\200 and fortify your base with zillions of Photon Cannons. But here your resources are very limited - you cannot just sit on your base forever rebuilding broken Photon Cannons. I made it from the 3rd try, and even then I was close to be defeated - on my last assault, when my resources was over I decided to abandon my base and just rush to last point.

 

SC II: Day 1

          A.W.E.S.O.M.E.! This is only what I can say after first two missions :) This game is a good example how games today should be made. Genius plot, marvelous cinematic, just flawless!
          And do you remember, how I like to evaluate things? :) As I completed WoL and HotS campaigns on Brutal difficulty, I'm going to complete LotV on Brutal too. Every several days I'm going to complete few missions and post something here. I thought how can I rate each mission? Just to share my opition on difficulty wont be enough, so I'm going to stress 3 things - difficulty obv., amount of tries, and amount of savegames - I thing this will show the real effort I put on each mission :) So lets start, shall we?

Mission 01 - For Aiur!
Difficulty: 1/5
Tries: 1
Savegames: 9
          First mission is the first mission, obviously easy. There is no tactic, since you don't have the base. You just gather your army and rush forward. Though, it can be considered wise to attacks with Collosuses first - light units as Zerglings will die even before they reach your army, so you save more Zealots.

Mission 02 - The Growing Shadow

Difficulty: 2,5/5
Tries: 1
Savegames: 16
          "My life for Aiur!" ... I cannot believe Zeratul has died. He was with us for the very beginning - from SC I. But the cinematic was just incredible. Such spirit, such fight!
          As for mission itself - this is the first real Brutal mission :) Not very hard, but still. You have to act very fast and gather big army, if you want to advance. Since there are only two units, there is no choice but to make them.

 

For Aiur!

          At long last we can finally try the last SC II campaign! 5 years of great saga is coming to its end. I cant even express how long we've waited for this, and finally today we can set our foot on Aiur again!
          For now I've completed only first three Prologue missions, but even this filled me with anticipation! That long forgotten sense of difficulty! Missions on Brutal difficulty made me sweat once again :)

          Congratulations to everyone! EN TARO TASSADAR!!!

#starcraft2 #legacyofthevoid

Fel Lord Zakuun Mythic 9/13M

 

Tactical requirements: average
DPS requirements: high
Overall difficulty: 8/10
Attempts: 38
World rank: 1160
          Another "Patchwerk" of HFC. And none less hard than original Patchwerk, especially in the last phase. We were lucky to kill him that fast.

          Check dat dps btw :)

Socrethar the Eternal Mythic 8/13M

 

Tactical requirements: average 
DPS requirements: average, high for shielding add
Overall difficulty: 7,5/10
Attempts: 38
World rank: 1367
          Due to some problems with atendance we wasted more time than we intended to. Definitely easier than Gorefiend this one is still a challenge for unprepared group. You have to have good offtank to manage the golem.

 

Back to casual gaming

          Btw, suddenly I remembered I didn't tell you where I've played and where I play now :)
          Meanwhile I plan to continue raiding - I started to look for casual guild with average progress. My requirements were so:
          1) First of all I was looking for Russian-speaking guild. That may sound weird since I'm writing here on English :) But my native language is Russian (one can probably notice this by amount of mistakes I'm making^^), and at least for now I feel more comfortable to play with Russian fellows.
          There are several such guilds: http://www.wowprogress.com/?faction=&raids_week=1-2&lang=ru&class=&spec=
          2) No more than 2 days per week (for now I can spare only 2 evenings)
          3) No more than 8 hours per week (no point to play just 2 days but 10 hours per day)
          4) Good progress (at least world top 1000)
          Looking from link above there are only 4 such guilds. Problem is their raid time is Saturday and Sunday, but I didn't want to waste all my weekends on WoW. There is a guild with raid time of 2 evenings - Thu and Sun called Rock'n'Rolla, what sounds perfect for me. I tried to apply, but they were full on mages :( That's why I had no choice but to join Static guild on my server.
          Speaking short, I could not make it to arrive in time - even my weekends were too busy and after a month my GM asked me to leave the guild. But after a month Rock'n'Rolla was in a need of a mage, so finally I joined them :)
          I hope this guild will be my new home for a long time :)

          p.s. Actually I want to thank Static guild members and their GM called "Зкология" on Russian. Thanks to them I was able to catch up with my item lvl and Mythic progress, I hope they don't mind me.
         

Shadow-Lord Iskar Mythic 7/13M

I can fly again!

Tactical requirements: low
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 7/10
Attempts: 24
World rank: 935
         

 

Gorefiend Mythic 6/13M

Tactical requirements: high
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 9/10
Attempts: 186
World rank: 918
          Really, really difficult boss, probably second hard following Mar'Gok. We wasted almost 4 week resets to defeat it. Problem was not even in DPS or hard tactical movements, no. This boss is about surviving long enough to finish the fight. Too much different things happens - spiral explosions on the floor, debuff, skeletons chasing you, priestesses aoeing, and on top of that you have to pay attention to people's shadows - you need to kill them not very soon - or you will be drown in skeletons, and not too late or you can miss the moment and one will die. And all this happens when raid is taking HEAVY damage from boss aoe and abilities.
          The key to the fight is killing all adds - priestesses > skeletons > big add fast enough. As soon as people will learn to ignore the boss except burst phase and focus only on adds you will start to make progress. Also, when you are inside Gorefiend's stomach, don't try to kill skeletons - you will not have that much DPS, try to lower their HP at least by half. As Arcane mage that was simple due to slow debuff - slowing one skeleton - several arcane blasts, then switch to another, and so on.
          Actually I missed our first kill, but here is a video:

 

#worldofwarcraft #warlordsofdraenor #warlords #wow #mythic #hellfirecitadel #gorefiend
 

Killrog Deadeye Mythic 5/13M

 

Tactical requirements: low
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 7/10
Attempts: 24
World rank: 1124
    

No killshot though :(

Hellfire High Council Mythic 4/13M

 

Tactical requirements: average
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 8/10
Attempts: 90
World rank: 1163
          Yeah, this one was really difficult. It could be guessed by amount of hours spent by top guilds like Method. They dealt with first three bosses in a matter of minutes, but wasted half of a day here, on Council. Fight is long and hard, but again guessing by Method's killing time next boss will be easier.

 

Archimonde 2.0, The End of WoD

          Just look on this screenshot - this is real madness :D Seriously, I do not remember any boss, where you can see really NOTHING. All screen in green, everything is flashing, PANIC, PANIC, PANIC! :D
          I've never killed Archimonde v. 1.0 (BC one), but I saw movies, and I remember when the boss HP is low screen starts to splash with red, and I expected something like this with current Archimonde. So you see, I wasn't far from truth :D
          Now I saw all bosses (at least in normal mode) and I think it is time to discuss content of Warlords of Draenor.
         

          Overall: From the very start till this one moment - almost an year of expansion have passed. Content wasn't rushed, nor it was slowed down as it was with SoO. Overall I can say I am quite happy with WoD.
          Garrisons: The idea of garrisons caused some contempt, I could not say I fully appreciate the reworked guildhouse idea of being cut from the rest of the world alone, but it was more good than bad. I didn't feel actually alone with all those NPCs and guild chat - garrison was my place I could hide from time to time, but bad thing is I had really nothing to do in the world except to sit in garrison.
          The beginning: The start of the addon was awesome as usual, despite all those crazy lags on our server. There were a lot of arguing about flying. As for me I enjoyed this RPG-style hunt for treasures, though I think they should add flying earlier.
          Raids: Last, but not least. All bosses are made in Blizzard style - very well. Of course many of them share appearance and abilities with previous bosses, but I understand it is very hard to make something really new from scratch. Some bosses, like Brackenspore, Imperator Mar'Gok, Operator Thogar, The Blast Furnace, Gorefiend and Archimonde are quite remarkable due to either model or strategy. I hope this content would not last more than 5-6 months and already at Christmas we will trample the roads of new world again! :)


#worldofwarcraft #warlordsofdraenor #warlords #wow #mythic #hellfirecitadel #archimonde

Kormrok Mythic 3/13M

 

Tactical requirements: high
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 7/10
Attempts: 31
World rank: 959
          Somehow this one reminds me of Tectus, although this is very different boss. Honestly I cant say I understood all movements. Why do we move the boss? Where to move it? I just remembered the order which I had to follow - dps until jump, move to my spot to catch a spittle, then aoe hands, then moving spheres, then aoe hands again, and so on. This is probably the first boss I understood so bad :)


#worldofwarcraft #warlordsofdraenor #warlords #wow #mythic #hellfirecitadel #kormrok

Iron Reaver Mythic 2/13M

Tactical requirements: low
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 7/10
Attempts: 32
World rank: 1057
          This is new The Butcher of 6.2. Though The Butcher had very high DPS requirements due to enrage timer, this one has its own enrage timer too, but its much more forgiving. One have to pay attention to bombs, that was our main problem and reason for wipes. As soon as we fixed it - we divided people to watch own its own sector - the boss was killed.
          Iron Reaver was really hard on heroic difficulty - harder than few subsequent bosses, but with good gear it become significantly easier. Same thing here - I bet this boss was really hard for world top guilds while they were undergeared. Our gear was fine, so it wasn't very difficult.


#worldofwarcraft #warlordsofdraenor #warlords #wow #mythic #hellfirecitadel #ironreaver

Hellfire Assault Mythic 1/13M

 

Tactical requirements: low
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 6/10
Attempts: 58
World rank: 1122
          I don't know why we wasted so much time there (actually is was only 2 raid days, but still), because there wasn't anything particularly hard. Simple thing we could not figure out that you have to divide your dps EXACTLY by half on both sides. For example if you have 2 guys with 50k dps and three with 33k dps, you should send first two to one side and the rest to another. Usually you don't have time to run to another side to help in case of emergency, but mages and rogues can do it sometimes. I think this tactic can be used in higher gear, but our idea to use it was failure. Just divide your dps and you will be fine.
          The boss still looks like several big trash packs coming together, the only hard phase is when drill-machine and named adds are coming - you should save all your CD's for that.
          Overall its nice boss for the first Mythic encounter in HFC, reminds me of Hyjal bosses :)

p.s. Man, I forgot to make a screenshot :(

#worldofwarcraft #warlordsofdraenor #warlords #wow #mythic #hellfirecitadel #hellfireassault

I'm back, baby!

Hello, everyone!
It has been quite a while since I posted here. That was because I was terribly busy working on my diploma. In additional to biochemistry courses and job I had to do I was left with only 5-6 hours of sleep every day including weekends. But finally I finished my studying, and now I have more time to play :)
Now the news: today I defended my diploma with "A" grade therefore finished my many-years education! This is over, I'm an engineer of chemical technology! )))

Six long year have passed, 6 years - when I started it I was so young, I still cannot believe it. In the same time I remember all like it was yesterday. Long hours of lections, brainstorming during seminars, work in laboratory and with each lesson I was opening secrets of chemistry, biochemistry, physics and so on. Yeah, this page of my life was turned today, but new page started! New page of graduated life! :)

Surprisingly my oral diploma defense and 6.2 WoW patch arrival came at the same day :) So after ceremonial part in my university I came right into my guild's first Hellfire Citadel raid :D
My GM allowed me to join the second raid, despite the fact I missed all BRF Mythic. Honestly, I was so excited! My successful diploma defense and new raid all in one day!

As usual (though last "usual" time was 1/2 year ago :)) I'm gonna describe and rate all bosses I saw so far. Lets start! Oh, and by the way, this was Heroic raid, keep in mind all raiders were in ~700 gear (mine was even lower) while bosses in this raid drop 705-720 gear.

          1) Hellfire Assault - 2nd try - 2/10 - As usual first boss was easy. TBH I didn't even see the boss. Encounter just looked like trash packs we saw before. Too bad mages don't have good cleave mechanics :( I think Blizzard should make Ice Lance glyph like "Hit for 50% for all targets except your main one." They can even add something like "This effect diminishes for all targets more than two." Because warriors have increased damage for each target, shamans have, DKs have, why not mages? Our cleave is good only for two targets.

          2) Iron Reaver - 9th try - 5,5/10 - Significantly harder than previous boss ... suddenly I remembered Oregorger ... Fire is everywhere, people were burning all the time. Even with BRD Mythic gear we were struggling to kill this one.

          3) Kormrok - 3rd try - 3/10 - I didn't understand what we were doing here TBH :) Sometimes hands spawning, sometimes boss jumps, sometimes waves coming. Boss is easy, none of his mechanics are deadly, but I still don't understand it :)

          4) Hellfire High Council - 3rd try - 3/10 - Ol'good council boss, I missed this one since SoO Protectors. Good thing is 2 of 3 bosses are known from previous content - TBC and WC3. There is only one dangerous mechanics - flying voids - not deadly, but hits hard, so take care, two our wipes was because people didn't pay attention.
Look I can even see my DPS from here )))

          5) Kilrogg Deadeye - 4th try - 4/10 - Big amount of HP - fight is quite long, I believe this boss with increased damage will be hard in Mythic mode, but for Heroic its quite easy, one just need to pay attention to mark, and everyone should kill adds fast. I even won 710 item, yay! :)

          6) Gorefiend - 8th try - 5/10 - Second difficult boss after Iron Reaver. I bet this one will be a read challenge on Mythic mode. HUGE amount of HP - more than all previous bosses in this expansion. No deadly mechanics, but some mechanics combined (there are a lot of different mechanics btw) can kill you. Remember, adds are always prio.

That's all for today, boys and girls, this crazy long day has finally came to its end, time to go sleep :)

So close, yet so far ...

     
          The kill was so close, you could almost sniff it. The words "Cutting edge achievement unlocked!" was almost ready to flash on my screen, yet they didnt. Our best try was 13% Cho'Gall - very close, but still it was clearly we were lacking DPS. I was hoping I could achieve first "Cutting edge" achievement in my WoW life before leaving the game again, but alas, this dream didnt come true. I dont say "farewell", I say "see you later". Maybe I was stay in the game for more casual play.
          So, see you later! :-)

#worldofwarcraft #warlordsofdraenor #warlords #wow #mythic

Blackrock Foundry Heroic - Day 2

          Unfortunately we have had only 2 days to spare for BRF Heroic - we still have Imperator to defeat. But we made quite good progress, taking into account the difficulty of this raid. Even first bosses provided significant challenge, last bosses of wings are almost on par with Highmaul Mythic bosses. We even had few wipes on Blackhand Normal!
          In our 2nd BRF day we defeated 2 more bosses with Blackhand only left.
          8) The Blast Furnace - 25th try - 7,5/10 - 12 minutes fight, almost the same as Imperator Mythic. 3 phases, each one is more difficult than previous, I'm afraid to even think about this boss' Mythic mode.
          9) Iron Maidens - 14th try - 7/10 - Same as The Blast Furnace, the fight lasts for 12+ minutes. Quite hard. All bosses have 300+m HP in sum, what opens great opportunity of cleave, but its still too much.

          Now we have 2 more days to defeat Imperator, and I hope we will succeed.

Blackrock Foundry Heroic - Day 1

          Woah! Let me catch my breath ... Our weapons are still smoking from blood of orcs, gronns, gorens and one magnaron! But I am already here like a battle correspondent, bringing news from the very field!
          I have mixed feelings about new raid instance. As I was afraid environment is cave-, workshop-ish - brown, gray with fire sometimes - very dull. Boss models are even more disappointing. Gruul is the first and the last with unique model. The rest are orcs, oversized orcs - "malkoroks", female orcs, one goren and one "Kologarn". Who are those orcs, why they are here, why do we kill these orcs but not other orcs.
          For anyone who played in ICC and Ulduar, remember how much lore was behind each boss? Lets compare.
          Ulduar: Flame Leviathan (unknown, unique model), Razorscale (known as Thorim's mount, unique skin), XT-002 (unknown, unique model), Algalon (unknown, unique model), Thorim (well known, unique model), Mimiron (well known, unique model), Freya (well known, unique model), Hodir (well known, unique model), Vezax (unknown, unique model), Yogg-Saron (well known, unique model). In total 6/12 bosses that had some lore behind them, 10/12 bosses had unique model.
          ICC: Marrowgar (unknown, unique model), Lady Deathwhisper (unknown, unique model), Gunship (well known, unique model), Saurfang (well known), Rotface (unknown, unique model), Festergut (unknown, unique model), Putricide (unknown, unique model at p3), Princes (well known, unique skin), Blood Queen (unknown, unique model), Sindragosa (well known, unique model), The Lich King (very well known, major lore character, unique model). In total: 5/12 bosses were known before ICC, 9/12 had unique model.
          BRF: Gruul (known, unique model), The Blast Furnace (unique model), Kromog (unknown, "Kologarn" model), Blackhand (known, unique model). 2/10 bosses with lore, 3/10 unique models. See the difference?
          Now, where was I? Oh, yes! (c) The only thing that makes BRF awesome is boss mechanics. I have never seen anything like Oregorger rollings, Hans\Fran guys' conveyor lines. Some mechanics are well known, like Ka'grazs wolves' link, but in link with other boss' abilities the fight becomes unique. Kromog void zone mechanics are well known, but I have never seen such thing as clasping hands. We've defeated 7/10 in one day:
          1) Gruul - 5th try - 4,5/10 - This old gronn have not lost his skills and have learned some new tricks. I thought first boss should be easy as Kagrath was, but Gruul showed us with his hook that it wasn't so. Even despite the fact raid had 680+ gear we even wiped few times due to massive damage of Inferno Strike.
          2) Oregorger - 9th try - 5/10 - His "rollings" are so random - in first second you doesn't even see the boss, in 2nd second something hits you like a truck.

          3) Hans'gar and Franzok - 2nd try - 4/10 - Despite some new mechanics and several phases this boss doesn't seem too difficult. A lot of running required
          4) Flamebender Ka'graz - 4th try - 3/10 - Easy boss, mostly tank'n'spank. One needs to pay some attention to wolves HP.

          5) Kromog - 2nd try - 4/10 - We made world 193th kill and many my friends from other guilds similar with ours didn't defear Kromog. This is strange, because I didn't find anything particularly difficult there.

 

          6) Beastlord Darmac - 2nd try - 3/10 - We counted 7 phases - more than any boss in current content have. And amount of different boss abilities can be overwhelming at first, although only few from them are dangerous.
          7) Operator Thogar - 4th try - 4,5/10 - Very funny boss. It was fun and even scary when you see train rushing on you :) I think this one can provide some challenge for undergeared people, but for our gear it was quite easy.

          8) The Blast Furnace - 9 wipes, was not defeated - 7/10 - The Blast Furnace will be nerfed very soon, I bet my hand on it. 10+ mins fight - heroic boss cant be SO hard. 3 phases, each one is challenge, our healers was doing 60-80k HPS and even that was not enough. This boss is on par with Highmaul Mythic bosses in difficulty.

          To summarize - I was satisfied with BRF. So many new boss mechanics, Thogar with trains is my favorite. I hope we will finish Blackhand this week and start Mythic raids next week.

Ko'ragh Mythic 6\7M

 

Tactical requirements: average
DPS requirements: average
Overall difficulty: 8/10
Attempts: 43
World rank: 550
          This post supposed to appear here earlier, since our first kill was about two weeks ago, but I wasn't present on that kill. For me its the first kill, so I can post only now.
          Not many differences from heroic mode. Fire mechanics is easy to deal with. Mind control is easy to deal with. The boss just hits harder, actually, everything hits harder and more DPS is needed to defeat Ko'ragh. Its usual dont-stay-in-fire boss. In the end when 8+ bombs are falling to the ground it can be messy, but the fight should be over about that time. Fight is short, difficulty is about the same as on Tectus.
 

Blackrock Foundry raid on PTR

          Today we had a chance to try new raid instance before it opens. I even stealth-sneaked to several areas to see the bosses :D Though only one boss was available - Gruul-no-longer-Dragonkiller. Cruel orcs cut poor creature's hand. We even gave Gruul couple tries, before server got closed for maintenance. Boss itself is easy, we got him to 50% from 2nd try, there are several mechanics, but only one is dangerous - and it is only for tanks. For others it is usual DPS & "don't stay in fire" boss.

          But there was another thing that troubled me. I love lore and environment, I like to look on different areas, instances, zones. For example Elvynn Forest is still my most favorite area. Siege of Orgrimmar was very well made - it was very fun to fight under Vale, to fight in Orgrimmar itself, too bad the way to Garrosh very soon turns off to boring catacombs with anvils, molten metal and grille floor. From first view Blackrock Foundry looks like the very same orc citadel we saw dozen times already. From Blackrock Depths\Spire\Caverns and almost all TBC instances to Blackwing Descent and SoO - this pattern is the same - walls and spikes of black metal, molten lava and orcs. Granted, I understand it is FOUNDRY after all, and I didn't see whole instance yet - I just hope there will be something new.
         

Imperator Mar'gok Mythic

          No, we didn't get him yet :P
          But we are working on it. For past two weeks we are trying to break through this encounter. Imperator is really the hardest boss of current content, difficulty is similar to once Heroic Garrosh. I don't remember when we saw 15 min fight last time. And during this long 15 minutes you need to focus constantly - one mistake usually leads to wipe.

 

 

          Problem is this boss has high requirements to individual skill - EVERY participant in the raid must know his task perfectly. Because from my previous experience, every guild (except Method and Paragon probably) has some players better than average guys - people who don't usually fail, average guys - 2nd category, and people who fail constantly. On Normal or Heroic guys from 1st and 2nd group carry those who fail, but this last category of people being quickly separated on Mythic bosses. On Mythic bosses it is guys who does not fail usually carry those average guys - not because they like it, but because there are usually only few such good players. And this is actually fine - all people have different skill level, but once again, on Mar'gok this does not work. That's why we have so few kills right now.

 



          We have more than 120 wipes for now, and I don't know will we get him before Blackrock Foundry opens. But we will do our best - for sure :)

 

 

The Butcher Mythic 5/7M

Tactical requirements: low
DPS requirements: very high
Overall difficulty: 9/10
Attempts: 58
World rank: 683
Awesome boss! Ol'good Patchwerk fight :) These fights usually are tactically easy and very short but after combat you can feel your hearth trembling even more than after long Brackenspore/Imperator fights. When you overgear this boss this becomes short but boring tank and spank fight, but for the first kill when you squeeze yoursekf gor evety tiny bit of DPS, pushing buttons like mad, wipe over and over and feel a scream growing inside you when you see last percents of boss' HP fading. Awesome!

DPS requirements for the Butcher are VERY HIGH. We barely made it using all available gear, crafts, upgrades, even 50 stat runes! After several tries we understood our DPS is not enough, so we went to AH and spend all our gold to all available upgrades and runes - that is the price for victory, but I would gladly pay it over again for all the fun I got yesterday :)

p.s. I was sooooo sad when the guy who make our logs said he recorded all wipes but kill try >.< Though my guildmate made me a present today - he recorded a movie, I can even hear our nerdscreams! :D Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weRdBJA7DJ4
p.p.s. Mages are top again! :P

 

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