#0 - Dec. 15, 2009, 10:34 p.m.
I read somewhere on the blue tracker that the devs don't like people plainly telling them that their instance sucks without telling you why.
So, heres a step by step walk through as to why oculus sucks:
1 – So it begins...
You get the group, and a few people leave because its oculus, and they think it sucks. Thus increasing the time it takes to get the group ready.
2 – Nom nom nom
Group is ready, and not willing to take a bite out of the poop sandwich. But they are going to do anyway because they got nothing better to do with the next 15 minutes of their lives.
You pull the first pack, they are non-elite blue whelps. But they are casters spread out and constantly casting spells. This sucks because they are all spread out, and its impossible to interrupt them all so the tank (that's me) needs to either hope that my AOE can reach all the blighters so I keep can aggro. Or run around and try to keep aggro by slapping them a few times, which is not a fun way to play.
Failure of the tank to keep aggro will result in a blue barrage of stuff flying towards either a dps who hit more then he bargained for with his aoe. Or the healer through healing aggro. This shouldn't be a problem, as after all, they are only normal mobs, not elite. Oh wait, scrap that. They actually hit fairly hard. And fast.
The first pack this isn't a problem. They are all bunched together so Aoe isn't that much of an issue. But then the throw some elites in (which is fine, they are easy) and then put some more of the whelps and spread them around even further. So you AOE will not hit them.
In short, on the trash up to the first boss. At least one person is bound to die because of the non-elites attacking them and the tank cannot get them off in time. Its literally the welcome mat for the instance and sets the tone for things to come.
3 – the first boss
The first boss is basically a steam roll. You aggro, he says something which I never bother reading and some purple balls start flying around. These balls don't seem to do anything, and if they do he's dead before you actually get to see it.
4 – the flight of dragons.
This is the angle of the whole instance, your fly around on your dragons kicking ass. Which of course is special. Because they are dragons. And they are ancient, intelligent and proud creatures who would probably be hard pressed to allow mere mortals to ride on their backs like they were some goofy donkey which looked like its graphics had not been updated for 5 years now. So riding a dragon is a unique experience for this instance.
Oh - http://www.wowcollect.com/search.php?table=mounts&family=normal_drake
Wait - http://www.wowcollect.com/search.php?table=mounts&family=nether_drake
No - http://www.wowcollect.com/search.php?table=mounts&family=proto_drake
I would like to go on on a bender that drake mounts are so common it might be better to start using them as currency instead of gold. But I'll continue with oculus.
You get a choice of 3 different drakes, red, green and yellow. This is simple enough to explain. The red one is a tanking drake, the green one a healer and the yellow one is a dps. Generally some one who has done the instance before. And then they need to explain that the drakes cant actually do these roles until you're about to fight the last boss. So the tank cant really tank, the healer cant really heal. But the dps can still dps.
Which, to be fair is alright. Because you don't fight anything that hard. Only some blue drakes which much cooler models then the ones your riding around on. They are easy to beat one on one if you use your cool downs right. Which is nice as its actually a challenge(rather then an inconvenience like most of the instance).
But when you want to regain your health so you can fight the next on, you either hover around and wait for it to regen at what apparently is an increased rate. Or land, dismount and resummon another drake. Both of which take time.
The idea of this part is that you need to kill those giant robots that the blood elves used in the tempest keep instances, as they are holding up a shield that's blocking access to the next boss. This these robots and their accompanying mobs are fine. Not awkward to tank. One of them spawns some snowflake which does aoe on everything that people need to watch out so the packs aren't just bland time fillers for the instance.
5 – the second boss.
This boss is actually a lot harder then the pervious one. As this instance is about flying around on dragons you would of thought you could of done it while mounted. But no you dismount from your powerful dragons and go toe to toe with a 20 foot dragon.
This boss is just a melee boss, but after a while he has some energy link with the surrounding pylons on the disc he you are fighting him on. If you stand in this energy beam you take damage. Which is the basic “don't stand in the fire stoopid” fight. Except that the beams are a close colour to the floor, so you might not notice your standing in them for a while. And that they instantly appear and change regularly without any warning that I've seen. Like I said, this is fine IF you can actually see them. The beams are darkish purple and the grounds purply/blue colour. So chances are your not going to see them straight away.
Also! every so often he summons one of those flying drakes you didn't kill to come help kill you. This is also alright, as its just an add. That's flying in the air out of melee range and tanking range. Sure you can taunt it every so often but the rest of the time its probably going to be shooting its dragon love all over your healers face. Generally you can nuke the boss down so only one spawns. But after the boss is killed they don't despawn. And these are the dragons you needed to mount up on those other rare dragons to be able to fight. So your all probably going to die at this point.
6 – Getting to the third boss.
After all being killed by the add from the second boss you enter the instance and start looking for that item you need to summon your drake. Only to find that you don't have it anymore. Exiting the instance gets rid of the item and you need to go back to the first boss to get the item again. Its not that far, and you can go on your ground mounts for this instance. But once again its the inconvenience of having to do so.
We already freed the dragons, cant you just put some other 'dragon vendors' near the instance door once the first boss is killed?
7 - the third boss, no wait. Now we fight it! No hang on...now...dammit!
As you get to where the third boss is you engage him and then he spawns a few adds and teleports away to another section of the floating thingy in the dungeon. Then you get back on your dragons, fly over to the next section which isn't that far away and do the same again. Then you get back on your dragons, fly over to the next section which isn't that far away and do the same again. Then you get back on your dragons, fly over to the next section which isn't that far away. And get ready to actually fight him this time.
No, really that's what you do. And yes its tedious.
8 – right, this time we are defiantly, defiantly fighting the third boss...
Ok, now you get to fight the boss, and after making you do all that mounting up and flying and teleporting away you really want to kill him. When you fight him, its a fairly simple tactic, you fight him. Stay out of the frozen ground he creates. And when he teleports into the middle and starts to caste arcane explosion you run and hide behind the block thingys on the inside of the ring donut your fighting on.
Except that the ring donut your fighting on is fairly thing, the party will probably be close together for the fight. And the frost that he puts on the ground does a fair amount of damage as well as slowing you down and it covers a large area as well. In essence, what happens is this;
boss casts frost bomb at tank, ground is covered, your taking damage so you move very slowly in the same direction as the tank towards the edge, just as you get to the edge of the frost and where you'll be free of its debuff he casts it again at the tank creating another layer of damage dealing frost on a lot of the ground.
Not sure if the damage stacks from standing on more then one layer but it probably does. Meaning that most, if not all, of your party is taking damage from the frost. Which I can imagine for some healers trying to keep the tank and the dps and possibly himself topped up all the time could be rather awkward.
(If anyone wants some help with this I recommend the tank standing in the middle of the ring and anyone who can fight at range go on the outside of the ring, then the frost generally doesn't reach them. But the melee will have to man it up and go through the frost.)
other then that the fights not that bad.
9 - Yo listen up here's a story about a little guy that lives in a blue world.
This is not really related to the progress of the instance and this is also a problem with nexus as well.
But think of the visuals of oculus for a moment;
I like blue as much as the next guy, I prefer green to be honest. But if if that wasn't available I'd go for blue. But your fighting blue dragons or people wearing blue clothes, in an instance that's almost entirely blue and most of their attacks are some sort of hue of blue da ba dee da ba die.
It just gets abit much - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ugkg9RePc
[Continued in next post]
