With the first week coming to a close i wanted to give some opinions on the dungeons that have been released as of now.
Algeth’ar Academy - 10/10
- well done dungeon all in all. Dense mob packs, perfect amount of casters to not casters. Mobs seem to be hitting perfectly reasonable in damage for the difficulty with a lot of room to scale as m+ becomes available. Mechanics on all the bosses seem very good and are clear on what you should do with them. I would say this is a home run dungeon too as you can choose the route you want to go and room to move around in all areas making it feel like all affixes will be doable here. 10/10 Make more dungeons like this!
Brackenhide Hollow - 1/10
- This dungeon, unfortunately, is the opposite end of the spectrum. Far too many casters and ranged mobs and almost no where to LOS them. Invisible mobs make the dungeon not as accessible to those who cant see invisibilty as well. My suggestion would be to swap about 50% of the casters/ranged with melees (because that’s how bad the discrepancy is) and then fix the geometry to allow for LOSing. There are things now that feel like they should LOS but dont, like the bridge on the south side of the pond. Mobs seem to just fire through the floor of it.
- Some mobs have AOE fear for 6 second duration which seems absurdly high for how frequently they cast it. It’s interuptable, which is good, but again, with the amount of kicks you’ll already be required to bring for this dungeon, it’s crazy.
- The dots in here seem to be hitting far too hard. Granted, they can be dispelled on some classes but not all. So if youre a class that doesnt get a dispel that works youre forced to take alchemy or have a bad time. It feels like plaguefall version 2.0 and is a poor design for the same reasons. Please learn from your mistakes last expansion and fix it.
- There’s also not much room for customization on route as everythign is basically on rails. open cages → first boss → tree mouth → trap guy → last boss. Either that or swap tree mouth with trap guy. This can be a good formula as we saw with Sanguine depths, but in order to do that, there needs to be good mob density that allows for good stacking and mechanics that dont require as many kicks.
- I understand this isnt in the first seasons rotation, but i cannot emphasize enough how the amount of casters and ranged mobs need to be addressed. If not, this will become a dungeon that no one will do willingly. It will become a dingeon you run once to get io and then never again.
Halls of Infusion - 3/10
- This dungion has potential to be good but theres some things that need looked at. The trash at the start of the dungeon hits too hard and casts too much. The chain rooting is exceptionally unforgiving and very unfun; even for a pally with freedom. This can be interupted which is good, but because you need to interupt the cast the little balls do or your party almost gets 1 shot, it feels bad to waste kicks on a root.
- The mushrooms effect and the engineering effects are too impactful and punish people who dont have these professions too harshly. The mushroom is also placed in a bad spot for it to make any sense in the dungeon. It really needs to be near the first boss so that you can take advantage of it with the frogs.
- The frogs are too punishing for classes that dont have a dispel for it. It also stacks up too high too quickly even for those who do have it and causes deaths because the CD on dispel. These frogs can be ccd and coordinated groups will have no issue with this. But newer players and pugs will be absolutely frustrated beyond belief due to this. This feels like a team wide necrotic as everyone will get to a point where they have to kite or die. Experienced tanks are already used to this, the party; not so much.
- 1st boss is fine. Takes a little practice but nothing too bad.
- Frog boss is confusing. I have cleared this dungeon multiple times and never realized he got an enrage when he didnt eat someone. A clarification should be made that if the person doesnt get eaten then he will become hangry. Maybe a buff he gets that explains it.
- Ice boss visuals are too hard to see and are cast too frequently. The tornado is almost invisible, i would suggest adding more color and making them not see through. The tornadoes on the boss from nockhud offensive is exactly how it should look. Additionally, the mechanic that has rings come from the boss and go outward is almost invisible on the first ring and if any ring is in the water. I understand the aesthetic appeal of trying to make it look icy, but its gone too far and needs to have a better visual. The back to back casts are also too close together. There should be some time between to give casters a chance to actually do damage.
- The hallway with waves is garbage. No part of this hallway should ever be implemented in any dungeon ever again. The strategy for this is to just not play it. Have the tank run to the end, pull everything and then run back to the entrance of the room so you dont have to play the waves. This isnt fun, its not engaging, its annoying.
- last boss is just bullet hell with no redeeming qualities. It hits too hard and phase 2 is just terrible because it forces you to do the wave hallway again, except now there are little orbs that get in the way and will 2 shot you on m0 and waves that come with no gaps. This takes the worst parts of Muhzala and makes it somehow worse. The only ideas that i have to make this better without a complete redesign is to reduce the damage coming out and make it so that in p2, the whole group moves as one.
Neltharus - 7/10
- The trash in this dungeon is good. No issues. The clotheslines scattered throughout the dungeon feel really good and is a great addition.
- The bosses, for the most part, feel fine. The one complaint i do have is the last boss though. The items that your rummage from the gold are good in concept. The problem that arises is that during the shield phase, when you have to use the items, the activation of those items takes longer than it takes for the fireballs the boss is shooting to fire out, and land. This is all solved by the activation getting quicker on the items. Additionally, the add that spawns moves too quickly and deals too much ambient damahe. This will scale too hard in higher keys.
Ruby Life Pools - 6/10
- This dungeon is ok but nothing great really with it. The first half of the dungeon, up to the drakes that take you to the upper level are great! When you get to the upper level is when things take a turn.
- The on death portions of the large fire elemental packs that do blaze of glory and the explode are not fun and punish melee pretty hard.
- The 2nd boss is going to be fine for semi coordinate groups, but the room denial portion of the fight is going to be unfun with pugs or new players. Maybe make the room denial smaller on the death of the add and add an arrow to show what direction the fireball is going to roll.
- The trash before the last boss feels like it hits too hard in an aoe and will scale too hard for a mob that you cant skip in higher keys. Tune the damage down or make it so thst we can out play it some how.
The Azure Vault - 3/10
- This dungeon is visually great. I really enjoy the feeling of throwback to WOTLK in the nexus feel.
- The vapors and the stun at the start of the dungeon feels exceptionally bad. It wrecks tanks and hits way too hard.
- If a whelp is triggered and the trash is spawned it is too hard to deal with and doesnt go back to statue form after a whipe.
- first boss is fine once you undersrand the mechanics.
- the rings that you have to kill trash around are terrible. The constant aoe roots suck. They prevent melee from playing this section of the dungeon. Additionally, the comet storm ability has a blue swirly indicator on a blue floor. This makes it impossible to see and needs to be adjusted.
- the 2nd boss is fine except the ambient damage in p2 is too high, and the balls he shoots out are too large and frequent. This prevents melee from playing this phase.
- the trash for the rest of the dungeon is fine.
- 3rd boss is perfect, may even be in need of a buff or two to be honest, but mechanic wise it seems great.
- last boss, honestly seems fine as well. May be a touch too high on damage but mechanically, everything seems fine.
The Nokhud Offensive - 4/10
- If you’re bad at dragon flying this dungeon feels like garbage and will be next to impossible to time. Though, I commend the effort in making something completely unique.
- On the ballista boss, too much trash that is ranged and not enough places to LOS to group it up.
- All bosses are actually really nice and unique. I enjoy those. I would say though that it’s a little unclear what is happening on The raging tempest, but I think that will come the more people do the dungeons. It does seem to be hitting a little hard but I think that may be because of grabbing too many orbs at once.
The trash that stacks mortal strike sucks. I dont know why this was added when necrotic was just removed for not being fun. Its the same mechanic. Please just remove the mortal strike bs.
Uldaman - 5/10
- Honestly, everything is fine with this dungeon, but there’s nothing unique about it and nothing incredibly fun. It’s the definition of a “meh” dungeon. It’s all on rails but has decent mob density. There is a concern that the flame shield boss will have scaling issues with m+, but nothing bad right now.
- The aoe from the golem trash mobs hit too hard in an aoe. This will not scale well in higher keys.
- The RP portion at the end of the dungoe where one player is frozen in time also needs to be removed. No one likes to be stunned for like half a minute.
All in all the dungeons seem to have taken a new direction from previous expansions and seasons and have added a ton of CC mechanics that impact players and specifically the tank. I can unequivocally state that this is possibly the worst direction that we could have gone in. No one likes having the ability to play your own character removed. There are also too many dispels, and too many casters in general. Lastly, there is a severe lack of LOS spots in all the dungeons. It feels like the lessons that should have been learned from the last expansion were not learned and the bad parts doubled down on.
That being said, its not all doom and gloom. There are some really good bones to make this better. Many of the dungeons have easy fixes, i just hope that the appropriate fixes are made.
