This game is, well, a game (gasp!), and thus should be fun. So with that in mind, I figured I'd open up a thread and see who dislikes what in the way of boss encounters. I got to thinking the other day about how much I dislike solo-healing Arcatraz (Skyriss being the sole reason, really), and I figured I'd make a thread out of my thoughts and suggestions, and hope other people post their thoughts on other encounters etc. Please limit this discussion to bosses only, since there other threads about various other mechanics such as trash and consumables. The situation I'm going to bring up to start this thread is fairly specific, but its what got me started thinking about this subject.


Unfun Encounter:

Harbinger Skyriss - This encounter is actually very well done for what it tries to be. Referring to the boss himself, he has a mixture of abilities that basically just cause chaos in your camp, and it does it very well. I like chaotic fights from time to time, they get the blood pumping, and are mostly enjoyable. Blackheart the Inciter is a good example of a well-done chaos encounter.

This guy however, is a total bitch, if and only if you are the only healer of your 1-healer group. Trying to solo heal this guy is an exercise in frustrating auto-sodomy, and it really just boils down to a single thing... his stunning mind flay. If you as the solo healer get targetted with that twice in a row, its game over. He doesnt even have to have an image attacking you too. That one ability, if randomly chosen to attack you twice in a row, is game over. This sucks. For me, if I decide to solo heal this place, it turns an extremely well designed and normally fun encounter into an absolutely infuriating wipefest. Unfun!


Suggestion for improvement:

There are many options to make this encounter readily doable with 1 healer in the party, and still retain its challenge and chaotic fun aspect. They pretty much all have to do with the mind flay:
-Reduce the damage it does
-Remove the stun effect
-Reduce the range
-Change the random targetting system
-Increase the cooldown

Out of those, I'd choose the last one. By simply increasing the cooldown on his mind flay by a couple or a few seconds, it would change the fight drastically for a solo healer. It still retains its threat, its still high dps (and stuns to boot), so still must be reacted to quickly and efficiently, but it no longer would have the bullshit "oops you got it twice" auto-lose aspect. On a sort of side-note, it feels like it already is sort of a dynamic cooldown, it feels like it shortens in each progressive "phase". By the second image, he is able to do it so quickly that he just annihilates you if you don't burn him down. I think several of the other options to tune the mindflay would reduce the difficulty a little bit too much. Reducing the range, for instance, would make him trivial. The runner up choice for me would be changing the random targetting system to simply not allow back to back casts on a single person.


Anyway, thats my long and verbose explanation of why Harbinger Skyriss is extremely unfun, in certain situations. I love this game, I love the boss encounters the most, and it pains me when something can piss me off this much. It takes a lot to piss me off about this game, and for the most part it only occurs when its something that I can have little to no control over.

I'm interested in other people's views on other encounters in the game that they find unfun, and for what reason, and what they would do to change it to be fun. After all, thats the point of it all!

Not being rude, but I think the whole point of the Harbinger Skyriss encounter is to have more then 1 healer. It's one of the encounters that promotes hybrids. Have an elemental shaman switching to healing gear for that boss.

The same goes for Blackheart the Inciter.


You can call it bad design for forcing you to have 1.5 healers, but the encounter is fine as you say yourself.

Going further on this line of thinking, I don't think it's bad design when the requisite for the group is that general. However when an encounter requires a single class ability, I don't think it's fun. (note: except in 25/40-man raids.)


/edit; There was a thread recently concerning fun encounters, essentially the same idea, might be you can find something you like there.

It is possible to get a Healthstone/pot off between Mind Flays?

Personally, I don't find this fight too hard. We did a Heroic Arcatraz last night for the Trial of Naaru, and killed him on the first go. I think we did have an optimal group though (potted a bit too).

Tank: Feral Druid
Healer: Holy Priest
DPS: Enhancement Shaman, Affliction Warlock, Paladin

And it's funny that you mention Blackheart, because that's one encounter that I hate. Being able to do nothing as your other party members kill you and having your cooldowns popped is not fun at all.

In general, I prefer the "controlled chaos" encounters to the "intricate planned strategy" ones. Things that require quick assisting, movement and reactionary measures are my favourite encounters, despite the disadvantages I face due to having ~500ms latency. Jin'do, Ossirian, Satura in WoW 1.0, and Curator, Illhoof, and Prince in TBC. It feels more like a game and less like a memorization exercise. I have similar preferences in shoot 'em up games... I enjoyed Ikurga right up until I realised to "progress" anymore, I'd simply have to memorise the approach of every plane/bullet into the screen.

Yeah, harbinger is pretty simple if you just bring a hybrid healer or just plain second healer and yet it still maintains that hectic high paced encounter appeal. Honestly if you're calling a fight unfun just because it requires a specific class or two, well then you might want to reconsider mentioning Blackheart since in heroic SL, it's nigh impossible to paladin tank him since he puts you pretty much oom and unable to regain agro after a charm.

While I agree that there's a certain lack of appeal to bosses with a 20% chance of "haha you lose" abilities...harbinger is one that you can pretty easily overcome.

That being said...

I'd have to say that yeah, I haven't really encountered a boss fight yet in TBC that has left me upset beyond all measure of being pissed off. It's definitely the trash clears that annoy me to unfathomable ends. Here's another vote for "Once it's dead, keep it dead."

I think what I dislike about skyriss is how trivial having a certain mix of classes can make it, versus how difficult for a different mix.

Compare Shaman/Paladin vs Priest/Druid for healers. Neither of the former have instant healing for when they have to move or for reacting to stuns, while that is the specialty of the later. Priest/Druid also provides much needed health and resistances for the entire fight as well as potential CC (Fear/Cyclone). Having Priest, or Druid and Paladin or Shaman is still significantly better than Shaman/Paladin.

Hunter/Warlock vs Warrior/Rogue is just as bad a difference for DPS. Pets (and snake trap) absorb Mind Flays, Fears, and MC. Traps and Fears for CC vs a couple stuns. Ranged vs Melee for the 3rd and 4th Pods also makes a big difference for healer mana.

edit: I strongly disagree with Cirocco. With 4/9 (44%) of the classes in the game being capable of healing and then designing encounters that require 2/5 (40%) of the group to be capable of healing isn't that bad of an idea. The problem arises if your tank is one of those 2/5, basically forcing you to bring 3/5 healers or a warrior tank.

Harbinger is healable solo if you have something like Grid setup so you can tell if someone is going to receive mindflay before it actually casts, your tank also needs enough hp to not die whilst you heal yourself after mindflay and ofcourse healing peoples entire hp pool for 5+ minutes isnt going to work so you need to have some decent dps (no hunters teehee)!

Finding just one healer willing to run x instance is painfull enough, finding two every time would be painfull in the extreme and drain the last dregs of fun from the game completely. My responce was to the post saying they thought it was designed with two healers in mind, done it quite succesfully a number of times with only one healer, though I imagine trying on heroic with only one would be painfull.

I don't think offspec healing classes would be getting any less groups, but forcing a group to bring a particular class make up outisde of "tank healer anyone anyone anyone" is indeed bad design, and, speaking as a player with a main that is a non healing class, I definitely think it's a bad design, frustration with not getting groups is definitely a factor in the player drain at the moment.

blackheart the inciter is amusing the first couple times, but the fight is just annoying the more times you do it. having to pop any cooldowns in the first 30 seconds so he doesn't use them on my party is rather stupid. the fight isn't hard, just a pain in the ass.

Better execution simply being more healing? I didn't say that it should be "Tank Healer DPS DPS DPS".. I said "Tank Healer Anyone Anyone Anyone" ..provided that the anyone's all know how to play their class well and are geared up to x standard. An encounter with five people really shouldn't have abilitys that require any particular group setup outisde of healer and tank.

No, better execution just means that whatever it is you need to do to kill the boss, you have to keep doing it for longer if you have less dps. So if it needs people moving around flawlessly and avoiding adds, then you have to do that for longer, etc etc

I don't basically disagree with you, though. But the only way I see to make encounters that flexible is to make them easier. I kind of like needing 2 healers on some runs, it makes a change from struggling to get dps guys in -- but that's entirely a function of the makeup of my guild and friends list.

I just solo healed in our group against Blackheart the Inciter this weekend and I am feral spec. Cost me a mana potion though.