The issue is that these mechanics were designed with the intent that you would be watching every cast bar, learn their unique behaviors and behave accordingly. The mobs have several different attacks that do not have a definitive animation and simply unleash at the end of their cast.
Footsoldier’s Charging Slash can be avoided by standing in melee range.
Battlemaster’s Whirlwind is 5 yards. Technically it can be avoided by standing at max range and moving immediately. Chain Drag hits targets at range, don’t stand with anything bad between you and him to avoid the bad.
Technician’s Grease Vial can be avoided by moving before the cast finishes. It also shoots a hard to see blob on its way to the target, but it’s probably too late to dodge at that point.
Same with High Explosive Grenade; move before the cast ends.
Deckhands cast Hatchet Toss. Same story, move to a clear spot before the casts ends to avoid the swirly aoe axes.
Flameslingers cast Burning Arrows… move when it’s cast.
Flamespitters Lava Barrage dumps random fire puddles near party members. Move when it’s cast.
Some extra insight:
Wranglers have a nasty cleave and cast Serrated Spear on random targets. On higher keys If you get 2 stacks you either use a big defensive and get spam healed, or you die. Period.
Caltrops are hard to see, but are just a swirly that looks like a bunch of spiky iron balls on the ground. Don’t stand in them.
It’s a dungeon from a different time, with mechanics that reflect a different design. It’s not hard for me to see why players aren’t dealing with it well and I think it’s something important for the devs to keep in mind. I don’t think it meshes well with current player expectations and requires a different approach that isn’t very obvious.
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Agree. It’s also a mechanically different expectation. Warlords (and MoP) challenge modes weren’t a scaling difficulty mode. Many abilities were done with the intent that they would just damage players, and players would just mitigate/heal through them. With infinite scaling, that increasingly becomes unmanageable, and often at weird and inconsistent points. Another thing to keep in mind is that abilities/mechanics need to be playable with ~300ms latency, since WoW isn’t a game that’s just played by players within close proximity to their server, and that changes the dynamics of how reliable certain mechanics can be to dodge on casts that are fairly short, or abilities with short delay between going off and doing damage. Seeing tuning adjustments like abilities being nerfed by 40%+ should literally never be a thing. IT sadly isn’t unique to scaling up old content though, since Sepulcher also had changes to that magnitude for its tuning.
With party healing and class utility also being in a completely different state post-Legion/Shadowlands revamps, Tyrannical vs Fortified throwing major wrenches into the mix, and a clearly inadequate testing process, I don’t even know if it’s just that players aren’t dealing with it well.
2 Likes
the timer ain’t good either. too tight of a key
2 Likes
For the pull sizes required to properly time in midtier keys of 14-18, it can absolutely be a problem due to the constant groupwide damage and debuffs the adds do.
Constantly group wide damage from trash that isn’t interruptable/CC’able with skilled counterplay shouldn’t be a thing, and it really wasn’t until they added WOD dungeons with design philosophy different than Legion onward.
Hammers can be dodged but without a weakaura this will be hard, same for grenades if you pulled the technicians behind first boss. The serrated arrows I just run like a maniac because I don’t know what to look for I just know those arrows 2 shot me. Also stop hurting yourself and invis past all that nonsense and pull zulga with the dreadlord off to the side, hero and then do boss and slowly chain trash that has technicians in the back once the wolf dies
Ive done multiple 20s of iron docks and have no problems? Imo it seems like the easiest dungeon if you can get someone to do the stars correctly im sure a 26 is busted but 20 and below shouldnt have a problem imo. Maybe its the group? Or route u guys take idk but its the easiest for me.
We run a prot pally/restro sham or pug healer with a surv hunter and boomy with random 3rd dps. If anyone is currious.
Which ability does this work on? They cast two, both of which have always seemed avoidable with either circles or a cone, so I never thought to even try because I never really took the fire damage otherwise.
I don’t know about the cone but the flame patches on the ground are reflectable.