Did Blizzard Purposely Make Shrine of the Storm the Worst Dungeon in the Game?

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
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Now, before I get hate for either this being a common topic or that there have been worse dungeons, I know for the former, and agree for the latter. HOWEVER, I do think there is something to be said about this specific dungeon, especially in mythic + content, and here’s why: As a warrior, I am not a meta class for high keys as DPS, I understand this, but the only dungeon that is almost unplayable as a warrior is Shrine of the Storm above 15.

The reason behind this is very simply stated, the 2nd boss mainly, and the 4th boss sometimes. The second boss of this dungeon very blatantly favors ranged DPS as the tornados that the Galecaller spawns hit very hard, as blend in with the ground relatively well. The majority of the time they’re up I can dodge them, but if one just spawns, etc. I get hit by it and it hurts. Now, I’ve seen a lot of people complain about that fight in general because of the imbalance of the second fight, but aside from that, the rate in which she (the Galecaller) casts Slicing Blast at is far too high. Generally speaking, I don’t see many mobs anywhere else in the game, even mythic raids, casting 3-4 spells within a 15 second window that is raidwide damage. As many of you know, warriors have a 15 second cooldown on interrupt, so we can usually get 1 in every 3 or 4, and of course if stacks get high you can drop in reinforcing ward as well. That being said, sometimes getting to the reinforcing ward is challenging because you need to cross the arena… of tornados, which have a slightly larger hitbox than their animation show on-screen. This makes it much easier to say, have a group interrupting very quickly and consistently, meaning warriors, rogues, shamans, etc. but those classes also don’t perform as well. Alternatively, bring only ranged, which becomes aggravating to me when Blizzard makes content like this that makes you wonder why melee dps are even in the game if they are going to make a content balance difference so high. This isn’t a complaint towards ranged DPS players or anything, it is a fact that you guys have less mechanics to deal with generally though, which is fine to an extent.

Enough about the second boss though, on to the fourth boss, being Vol’zith, who I rather like as a fight. The only complaint I have is sometimes I’ll underestimate the range of the tentacles in the mind phase and get one shot, but that’s pretty much my fault. Otherwise I have no real issue there. I suppose Worst dungeon in the game isn’t entirely accurate as the mechanics are engaing, but rather it should be called the hardest dungeon for melee in the game, at least as a warrior. I will not even go into trash mobs or affixes in there because pretty much everything to be said there is extremely negative and I don’t think there’s any “good” affix to run shrine with, certainly not bursting, bolstering, or in some areas sanguine. The second boss during tyrannical week just makes me want to never run it, and I probably won’t ever run it again anyway after I time it on 15, the IO for that dungeon isn’t worth it to me. Thank you for listening to my rant, and I’m sure I’ll read a bunch of warriors or melee in the comments telling me to get good. (I will be sure to search your IOs and logs to determine if you have authority to be making those comments =).

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Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t write this with college level writing mechanics, proper diction, syntax, or MLA citation.

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Shrine is a horrible place for ranged dps, actually. They have it worse (for once).

2nd boss can be tanked in the corner and everyone else stands on the ledge. You pretty much don’t even have to move and avoid all tornadoes. This is pretty much the only way to do this boss at higher keys because the tornadoes are very hard to avoid. 100%. You need to rotate kicks - Ideally you go in with 2 melee into this place. 1 kick on tank, 1 kick on melee, 1 kick on other melee, and 1 kick on ranged.

Only problem with tentacles on the 4th boss is that they are extremely faint. I am not sure why they never increased the visibility of this mechanic but you after a few months you’ll never have to see this dungeon again.

So in short, have your tanks tank the 2nd boss in the corner. On the 4th boss, you just have to pay extra attention, it’s ok to sacrifice some DPS or a rotational mistake to pay extra awareness to the tentacles. You do 0 DPS when you’re dead.

After the many nerfs this place received it now has a very generous timer. I personally like it on Tyrannical because on fortified the mini-bosses are essentially bosses, hp wise. The trash will 1 shot you on high fortified if a single cast goes wrong. The bosses are easier here (I do not like the 4th boss faint tentacle either), so maybe try doing it on tyrannical.

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Thank you for the well thought out reply and tips.

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Til paragraphs are college level. Here I was learning it in the second grade…

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Shrine has the problem of coordination. Kicks can’t be missed or your tank will take a lot of heavy magic damage. I’ve singlehandedly died on many +15 shrine attempts just because of that, lack of kicks. The boss fights are also massive “dummy checks,” where you can’t just wing it, you actually have to know what to do. It makes it very punishing on tyrannical week, especially the 2nd and 4th boss if interrupts are missed.

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No comment on this yet? Or was I the only one who read this far? So, having obviously never played a ranged class, what motivated you to try to pass this little gem off as something remotely related to reality?

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Complaining about ranged vs melee mechanics is a huge red flag to me that someone is a noob and doesn’t know what they are talking about.

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Perhaps I’m a noob, but you are lying to yourself if you think ranged have anywhere near the mechanics to handle as melee. The only thing coming to mind as ranged specific is kill MCs on Ilgynoth, or chain lightning on Ra Den. Playing a ranged class is a joke, that’s why people play them, if YOU even had watched the Mythic Dungeon competition recently, you would have seen that 3 hunters was very common as they had almost no mechanics to deal with in freehold for example. You can call me bad for thinking ranged have it easy, but it’s a matter of fact that you do, so I’ll just assume you’re upset that you’re getting called out for a free ride.

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Sometimes discord is required for kicks, that 2nd boss can be annoying without a rotation. :slight_smile:

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Not perhaps, most definitely.

This is so far detached from reality that I wish you were just trolling me. Unfortunately, I’m sadly aware that you’re serious.

And in the real world, melee classes are vastly over represented in the player base, so what does that tell you, using the same logic you’re trying to apply right now?

Based on the way you’re talking, it doesn’t matter what you saw in the MDI, you aren’t qualified to understand it.

It’s not at all a “matter of fact”, it is actually the opposite in almost all circumstances.

I just main switched to a melee class this tier. You have clearly never played ranged, because if you had, you would be aware that the mechanic responsibilities are heavily weighted toward the ranged classes. I’m sorry you think frequently interrupting, standing behind your target, and occasionally moving out of a well telegraphed ground effect is so demanding.

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I mean none of the roles are really that hard, they all just have different jobs to do and one person not pulling their weight can sometimes severely screw things up.

You talk about the mechanics that range have to do in raid, so I’ll add that what do tanks really have to do in raid? A lot of the fights have little to no tank mechanics. Wrathion? Face big scary dragon away and swap when dbm beeps. Maut? If it’s not mythic you can just zerg the adds, and even if you’re keeping the adds out the boss doesn’t do enough damage to warrant any concern. Skitra you can literally one tank, but the call out mechanic is cool.

I can go on and on. This raid in general is pretty easy, even moreso with bigger corruption budget and people overgearing everything.

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Not sure why you would believe Blizzard intentionally designed a dungeon for players to hate. Melee definitely don’t have it harder than Ranged, some dungeons favor one or the other and that’s perfectly fine, I get the impression you have never played ranged or are incapable of understanding what it’s like playing the game as ranged.

You’re not forced to run Shrine so if you hate it this much just don’t do it, I’ll never understand how people can complain so much about a tiny fraction of the game but continue to do it. Please space out your posts next time, it’s not enjoyable to read a wall of text, most people will just opt out and not read what you have to say.

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I would tend to agree tanks don’t have much to do either, since many tanks I know generally just watch taunts and afk the rest of the time.

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Can’t tell if trolling or just that stupid.

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Must be trolling, you can’t proc TD with just taunt

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Listen, I don’t get into tanks because I appreciate what you do for the community, but if we’re being honest, tanking is generally a full on joke, especially as a warrior, lets not sit here and act like it’s hard at all. I’d say the hardest thing to play in the game is any form of end tier healer.

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Tell me more about how tanking isn’t hard and at the same time complain because you have to dodge 1 mechanic during a boss fight while pressing whatever button lights up on your bar.

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worst dungeon in the game in my opinion is The Oculus. By a very long shot.

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