I ran this dungeon with random groups several times in a row yesterday on a bunch of different characters, and this particular boss is always fascinating. For those not familiar, he applies an effect that significantly increases spell cast times if you’re anywhere in range, applies a nasty stacking bleed effect to everyone in melee, occasionally summons damage effects targeted at a party member’s location, and sometimes pulls everyone to his location.
The results of this in a random dungeon group that doesn’t know what to expect are kind of spectacular. Since healing spells take so much longer to cast, conventional healing strategies can’t keep up with damage output. I don’t think there’s been a single time that every member of my party has survived this encounter. If people don’t die mid-fight, they’ll often bleed out from Carnivorous Bite after combat ends, since it takes a while to wear off.
Reactions I’ve seen to this have ranged from “oh right, this boss, that’s just how it goes” to laying blame on the healer and kicking them from the group, not realizing they’re at the limit of their throughput and did as well as could be expected. One player I saw just instantly left the group as soon as she died (…what?), and another one took the opportunity to complain further about a tank they already decided they didn’t like.
My discipline priest did OK. Mistweaver struggled a bit, restoration shaman struggled a lot. I suspect druid would do well since rejuvenation is instant. Haven’t had a chance to try holy paladin or holy priest yet. Blood death knight and protection paladin both did pretty well, especially with the paladin’s ability to shield away the bleed effect on herself and one other party member. I’ll bet my protection warrior and brewmaster won’t have as good a time, though guardian druid will likely be OK with Frenzied Regeneration and maybe a Swiftmend if I can sneak it in somewhere.
I kind of just want to keep running this same dungeon over and over to see the player reactions. Since most other bosses in these lower-level dungeons don’t require nearly as much attention to mechanics, I guess expectations aren’t set accordingly, and players who haven’t been here in a while (or haven’t been at all, and don’t read the adventure guide beforehand) get surprised and don’t know how to handle it. It’s a glorious train wreck.