Malygos: Good or Bad Design?Follow

I personally think he's bad design.

Phase 1 and Phase 2 are actually pretty fun and pretty well done. They had some interesting elements to the fight that makes him more than just another dragon fight.

However, Phase 3 is where things get dicey. While I assuming some people probably enjoy phase 3 because it's new and unique... this to me go back to one of my general issue with this expansion: Blizzard is a bit to enamored with their new vehicule design.

I don't know about you guys, but I didn't get to level 80, study my class, learn how to play it, gear myself up and farm for consumable in order for all of that to be made irrelevant for 1/3 of the boss fight and have my ability list go from 15+ to 6... This is also how I feel about Wintergrasps, Strand of the Ancient, Occulus and about a dozen dailies - vehicles were fun the first 5 times or so, now they're just annoying.

So here we come to Malygos, who technically is the 'last boss' of the current content patch we're in... and all he devolves into is some kind of extremely gimmicky fight where things such as 'A good of a Rogue/Mage/Warrior/etc are you?' or raid composition, or raid buff, or what not don't mean squat... all it is, is how good are you at controlling a dragon and adapting to having 6 'new' abilities.

Yes, I'm aware that you can (and should) do Ace High in order to practice with the dragon. And I did. I'm a quick study, I had no problem learning it and that's why I got Malygos killed in 10 man with no real issue, but not everybody is like that, and it really sucks to be failing because some people aren't 'good enough' at something that ultimately has no real impact on how they play the rest of the game - controlling a freaking dragon.

Toss in that with all those dragon flapping their wings, the crazy moving background, the huge effect he tosses around, Malygos is low end system killer, making many people's visual lag go through the rough during that phase. Fun Fun.

All I got to say is I hope Blizzard get over their vehicle gimmick sometime soon and that Ulduar isn't about driving a tank to shoot down Yogg-Saron...

The main problem I have with vehicle fights is, once you get the optimal strategy figured out, there's nothing more you can do. I.E. for the DPS during Malygos, the optimal rotation is 1, 1, 2. Just do that the entire time for the flying portion, and hope you don't lag. It's as far from exciting as you can get, and I was completely disappointed at the replay value after you kill him once. There's nothing you can do differently.

I kind of see it as the opposite. It forces players to think outside of the box, and it requires players to be more dynamic than simply moving out of the fire and spamming their standard rotation.

The first few times I did Aces High, I didn't even know it was intended as practice for Malygos. I found the quest, tried it, got roflstomped, and I was determined to complete it. Once my guild announced Malygos 25 was on progression, I went on over to WoWWiki, read up on the fight (to include strategies for phase 3) and went back out to Coldarra and practiced. I killed way more drakes than I needed to for the daily, and then it was time to head in for a showdown with Malygos.

My practice paid off. When we got to phase three, nobody else in the raid had anywhere near as many stack of Engulf in Flames on Malygos as I did. On our last attempt, I had it up to 10 stacks. 1 person had 2 stacks. The other 4 people who got any stacks on him at all had...one application.

We had a guildie about a month prior practically begging people to go out to Coldarra with him so he could "train" them. He did a poor job.

So then the excuses start. "So-and-so 'trained' me but I didn't realize <yadda yadda excuses here>."

No, you didn't read up on the fight...as usual...and no where we are with red gear and our best attempt had Malygos at 35%.

Done properly, phase 3 is a very short phase. There are plenty of "standard" gimmicks leading up to it.

It might have something to do with how TBC went for me. At the peak of my raiding adventures in TBC, I was in a guild that had all of the content I was running with them on farm before I joined. There was no room for me to contribute other than to do what I was assigned to do. There was no opportunity to stand out as a quality raider. If I did what I was assigned to do, I blended in.

Most raiders would tell you they can't find enough people who will think dynamically and adapt well to new situations. Throw in a gimmick that completely levels the playing field and the people who can stand out...do. And the people who have been getting by with a standard rotation with raid leaders doing all of their thinking for them over vent...they stand out, too.

I can understand the perspective and I've asked it myself at times. However, I think I do enjoy vehicles in general. ESPECIALLY in strand of the ancients and wintergrasp. Then again I'm an old Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 player. I've fully come to terms with sometimes people are going to get a hold of a vehicle and hurt me badly. The only difference between this game and those games are that I can stand right next to the "tank" and beat the living tar out of it while its lucky to do much to me if I maneuver right.

I don't have any real strong feelings when it comes to vehicle use in dungeons/raids. Honestly, I think last boss of Oculus is awesome.

How do you feel of the last boss of Drak'Tharon?

Although according to the game its not a "vehicle" you turn into, technically its the same concept. Your character is temporarily given a "debuff" that forces you to use different skills and tactics.

In some all honesty its not at all different to the chess event in Kara. Where you also took on abilities that were not your own.

I have never done the fight but I don't think a boss fight should depend on vehicles. Like you said you didn't spend all that time gearing up just to jump into a vehicle and do the same thing that a level 1 could do.

I found leveling my DK and my Mage that more often though enough I was better off jumping out of the vehicle at some point and just killing the overpowered elite myself. I know I had to do that with some of the ones in Zuk Drak, the dragon in Sholazar Basin, and the barbarian dude in Grizzly Hill.

I have a serious dislike for phase 3. I don't like how it skews people away from their intended jobs. Tanks are there to tank. Not spam buttons and pray you've got enough stacks up.

I like Tyrandor hope that T8 is not vehicle based. One fight I can deal with but if it ends up being the last boss with a vehicle fight Blizzard quite possibly shoved a stake right through the heart of a player skilled in their class.

I agree. I mean the vehicle gimmick is great for things like dailies, maybe trash here and there. For boss mechanics it just feels like it goes against my whole reason for picking a class, endgame play style. And taking out a dragon while on foot has a more epic battle feel to it anyways. That's one thing I really looked forward to in WoTLK was battling dragons. There were tons of fun dragon encounters in EQ. This just makes the battle kind of cheesy.

http://www.wowhead.com/?search=don%27t+have+an+eternity

There is a way to get better at it unless you and every single person in your raid didn't drop a stack of the debuffs.

That'd be great - sign me up! Imagine a 25 man raid of nothing but seige tanks roaring through the dungeon blowing up everything in thier paths!

That reminds me of the scenarios they used to have in WCIII. You would have one character in a old sort of "ultima" dungeon where you had to get into a siege tank and blow the ever living crap up out of everything inside a given time limit.

My only real issue with the third phase is that you all need to be stacked up, making it near impossible to see anything. If it was possible to to keep yourself healed, like you do during the aces high quest, I think I would enjoy it more overall.

Bad.

The use of the sparks is ok as a way of "how do we make a raid that caters to our new class", the drakes are novelty and but Azuarc has a point its just a pain to organize (though Max view distance with a raid icon helps). Its just more poorly balanced Wotlk content. We came into it with blue gear and 70 epics and downed it in half a night of attempts. The massive splash damage is merely blizzard repeating Twins in a limp wristed attempt to deal with the fact that that they gave healers nearly unlimited mana.

Though to be fair while with currrent itemization and balance it really present no challenge in terms of being a gear wall it is still a more involved fight than "click on idiot cubes" that was Magtheridon.