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.
