Big stakes and the end of an expansion
by Matthew Rossi 
Dec 28th 2011 at 1:00PM
I'm sorry, but you have to be 50 kinds of jaded to not enjoy this. One of the things I've really enjoyed about patch 4.3 and the Dragon Soul raid is how it unabashedly throws massive, crazy, world-ending doomsday events at you. Between fending off not one but two faceless ones from within bloated abominations, balking an ancient earth elemental giant at the base of Wyrmrest Temple, and defeating Ultraxion and then taking on Deathwing himself, the fights feel enormous. The stakes are huge, and while the supposed saviors of Azeroth spend a lot of time thinking really hard at a McGuffin, we step the heck up.
Whether you are hitting it via Raid Finder, attending your weekly 10-man hardcore raid, or participating as a member of a casual 25-man raid alliance (or anything in between), in terms of pure aesthetics, Dragon Soul is a very satisfying raid in terms of pure scope and sweep.
No better than this bitter end
To be honest, I sincerely hope Blizzard doesn't try to Sunwell this expansion. Cataclysm must go out on Deathwing's demise. He was the villain all expansion long, and we put him in the ground. There's no better end for this expansion than to see the Age of Mortals come rolling around and for us to be the mortals that make that happen. Après Neltharion, le guerre, if you'll permit me to horribly butcher the helpless French language for a moment.
The Hour of Twilight heroics and the Dragon Soul raid do exactly what they should do and provide us with the end of Deathwing's story and his attempt to remake the world to his own twisted desires. I've never run a set of 5-man instances that so perfectly dovetailed with the raid they were intended to complement, not even the ICC 5s. (Those were admittedly close, however.) Perhaps it's as simple as finally getting made into another race than a human in a CoT or getting to see the biggest event in the Warcraft setting's history up close, but I'm in love with these instances.
Out with a bang
This is a seven-year-old game. The fact that it can contain a fight like Madness of Deathwing, that a raid like Dragon Soul can be this big in terms of pure engagement, that in eight fights we get to save the bloody world and everyone in it is pretty dang awesome. This isn't If we don't stop Arthas, he'll eventually destroy us all; this is Stop Deathwing right now or the planet blows up -- stakes we haven't seen since Algalon. And it was a blast to do it, too.
This is fairly awesome. I can only hope Mists can take this energy and run with it. Whatever your feelings about Cataclysm (I had some serious issues with it at start), no one can deny it went out big.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
othragon Dec 28th 2011 1:07PM
I couldn't agree more. Between progressing in DS, the weekly LFR run, gearing my alts in with the latest 5 man gear and valor capping them, i've had my hands full! Not to mention i'll eventually turn to Arena to grab some cataclysmic glad pieces!
I reckon peeps will still claim they're out of content very, very soon, but i don't think they'll be putting out any more patches till 5.0 hits. We could see a Ruby Sanctum-esque kind of patch however, wouldn't surprise me either.
sh0wtime Dec 28th 2011 1:16PM
I disagree. I feel that the end of Cata has been anything but epic. The concept of Spine is interesting, but I never felt that I was on DW, during the fight. It felt more like a regular, trash-heavy boss. And Madness, oh sweet little Madness; this fight felt more like we were fighting claw monsters, with a really cool Live Wallpaper in the background.
As for the HoT heroics, they feel more like undertuned normals than anything else. Additionally, they are so short that I have serious trouble distinguishing between them.
Transmorg is awesome, that much is true.
Sqtsquish Dec 28th 2011 1:24PM
I agree that the fights didn't have a "visceral" feel to them, not sure how that could have been fixed though. I mean if you make things 'too big' you always run the risk of feeling like it plain couldn't be possible at all, unlike the feel of the Shadow of the Colossus game, where you felt EVERYTHING.
Talsenar Dec 28th 2011 1:40PM
Visually a lot of the fights have been impressive but tactics wide I think quite a few of the fights leave a lot to be desired, the biggest offender being Madness itself. I'm used to end of raid bosses being big multiple tactics events, the usual being 3 phases with 2 mid phase moments. Madness though is just two phases, the first consisting of "do the same ~3 minute fight over and over again with increasing difficulty" I didn't like this design because it just made the whole fight incredibly repetitive, we spend a couple nights trying to get pass the third and fourth tentacle but that meant having to do the same first two bits again and again and again, I've never been so bored taking down a end of raid (let alone end of expansion) boss.
loop_not_defined Dec 28th 2011 1:40PM
If Spine or Madness didn't even remotely awe you, then I'm not sure what could. Being honest here.
Kolyarut Dec 28th 2011 1:41PM
I don't know that I'd agree with the points about the 5-mans, but I'm inclined to agree about the Deathwing battles.
I partially get the idea that it would have been silly to have a city sized dragon tanked by a single person (though not that much sillier than any of the other 100ft. tall raid bosses we've fought since BC onwards), but I still don't feel we got a proper fight against Deathwing. Peeling off the armour plates was a good start, but then Thrall stole our kill, and we sunk back down to waste disposal. Maybe that makes me 50 kinds of jaded, but if a boss is supposed to be too powerful for mortals to fight, then maybe he's not a well designed boss.
I'm absolutely still prepared to be amazed by this game - Ulduar still gives me chills every time I run it, and I can't wait to see what Mists will offer us, but Cataclysm had an uphill struggle trying to make us care about Deathwing, and I don't think it suceeded.
It's still just so hard to take him seriously. I know he's supposed to be an apocalypse-level threat, but he just never even seems to make an effort. I get that he feels we're too insignificant to kill, but I'm sorry, considering all we've overcome so far, that just makes him dumb as a sack of bricks.
Come to think of it, going through all the lore ever written about him, is there ever any single case of him actually canonically fighting or killing anyone? Ever?
Edymnion Dec 28th 2011 1:43PM
I have to agree, I enjoyed ICC more than I have DS.
I mean, we've got one boss thats pretty much just the Stonecore dragon with a different model, two faceless bosses that are so similar most groups can't tell them apart without the trash (and even then raid finder usually can't tell them apart with the trash up), and two fights against Deathwing where we don't actually fight Deathwing at all. We fight some trash on whats supposed to be his back, but other than the occassional quip from DW about forgetting we were still there doesn't FEEL like we're on his back, and one where we just wail on some pillars that are supposed to be claws (that don't even really look like claws). At no point did I feel like I was actually going toe to toe with Deathwing himself.
And while I will admit Hagara was one of the most fun fights from a gameplay perspective for me, she really felt more like an overgrown 5-man heroic boss from my point of view. It reminded me of the end of Occulas at times, where you stand still and burn, then everybody runs around in a circle for a little bit, then go back to burning, just with some ice tombs thrown in every now and then.
I dunno, maybe I'm just jaded after all the years, but I just really was not impressed with Dragon Soul. Won't stop me from running it every chance I get for the loot and to work on my legendifying my rogue daggers, but it just didn't feel as good as Arthas did.
Now Arthas, that was cool. Someone that showed up enough to antagonize you that you felt you actually had a personal reason to go after him, and an end fight so hard even raid geared 85's can still routinely wipe on him today. That felt like an accomplishment, like we had really done something big (it was freaking Arthas the Lich King for Pete's sake). This one, not so much.
I really think DW just wasn't personable enough. Yeah, he broke the world, and he occasionally showed up as an achievement for burning places at random, but he never felt fleshed out. He was just an abstract force of nature type boss. Arthas felt more personal, he wasn't insane, he wasn't random, he just personally wanted you dead.
To bring my movie preferences into it, I feel like Arthas was Freddy Krueger, and Deathwing was Jason Vorhees. And we all know Freddy was scarier than Jason because he was an individual that tormented and killed you because he thought it was fun, not the slow inevitable tide coming in that was Jason.
eel5pe Dec 28th 2011 1:53PM
I agree with sh0w on spine. The concept is just so amazing, Shadow of the Colossus-esque, but I was pretty unimpressed afterward. I never felt like I was fighting on the back of evil incarnate, who was doing everything in his power to throw us off (was I the only one totally stoked by "Deathwing's Immune System"? I'm a huge bio nerd but I was totally thinking we'd be fighting white blood cells).
But I just felt like I was on lootship 3.0. The environment was very static and not ominous at all.
loop_not_defined Dec 28th 2011 2:02PM
The deal with Arthas is that he didn't want to kill you, though. Not yet. Really don't know how Blizzard could've translated that to Deathwing without leaving a ton of people scratching their heads over why Deathwing DIDN'T just wipe them out.
I'm kind of worried about some of the comments I'm seeing focusing on Arthas and his story. Arthas had an entire game (and expansion pack) featuring him before WoW. Deathwing did not, and could not. That's how things are going to be from here on out, folks.
Sqtsquish Dec 28th 2011 2:37PM
Spine and madness were kinda boring- I mean even fully zoomed out I really couldn't tell what was happening in Madness and on spine- I mean if someone was literally stabbing you in the back, tearing your tendons out- you'd certainly take notice and do more about it. They felt unusual to me. Kinda bland for the "feel" of them altogether. I mean Perothan from the 5 mans takes more thought than some of the bosses. Heck Hagara needs more focus than Madness. I mean it didn't even feel like I needed the help of the aspects to down Deathwing. Heck as weak as he seems he shouldn't have been able to raise his body off the ground. In fact that is the one thing that always got on my nerves about super huge bosses: why don't they have 'crush zones' where they just get pissed and step on people in their way (perhaps people in the wrong areas) and insta-kill them.
Pyromelter Dec 28th 2011 2:47PM
@loop... you're right... and you're right. About arthas, and about being worried.
The solution to this is so simple it boggles my own mind. Warcraft 4, or if not WC4, then make a new single-player campaign using the W3 engine. It isn't as pretty as Starcraft, but all the tools are there.
It's Blizzard's model, btw. SWTOR is in the opposite direction - the players are the heroes, the universe revolves around you, the player, not "yoda and a band of adventurers." If you're going with the "main character NPC + a band of adventurers" then you need a single player game that features that main character npc, to develop their story in the in-game format. A vast majority of major (still alive) NPC's were prominent in WC3, off the top of my head Thrall, Baine, Sylvanas, Malfurion, Kil'Jaeden, Cenarius, Tyrande, Maiev, Vol'Jin, Rexxar, Jaina, Chen, Muradin.
A Warcraft 3 expansion pack that focused, say, on the Dwarves (and with it many Alliance heroes) would have the double effect of increasing awareness of Alliance heroes while maybe giving some depth to the leadership on their side.
(cutaia) Dec 28th 2011 3:55PM
"I mean if someone was literally stabbing you in the back, tearing your tendons out- you'd certainly take notice and do more about it."
You could say something similar about every single raid boss that's ever existed. "If 9-24 easy to kill guys were behind you doing a lot of damage to you and healing folks, while you were busy attacking a hard to kill -- but not very dangerous -- foe, you'd certainly take notice and do more about it, right?"
Kolyarut Dec 28th 2011 4:28PM
"You could say something similar about every single raid boss that's ever existed. "If 9-24 easy to kill guys were behind you doing a lot of damage to you and healing folks, while you were busy attacking a hard to kill -- but not very dangerous -- foe, you'd certainly take notice and do more about it, right?""
Every other boss at least makes some effort to fight back against someone. Deathwing just flaps along, bleeds incontinently and doesn't even try. It's sad, more than anything.
PodPeople Dec 28th 2011 4:45PM
I'd have to agree with sh0w in so far as the final fight was rather lacking. I think there is something missing. I think they could have fixed it by having the spine fight be phase 1 of the DW encounter. with a transition of after his armor is off, he tries to shake us off and we have to grab onto something to stay on while he lands, kinda like the rope swing in the new deadmines. Phase 2 should have been the raid fighting DW in a more traditional "we're killing internet dragons" type of deal, with him on the ground being tanked and spanked. obviously they could have all kinds of things in the fight to make it interesting and distinguishable from all the other WoW dragon boss fights we've seen so far. I would envision it including Thrall fighting with us similar to the new 5man, and he's keeping us all from being 1-shot by DW. Second transition could be DW takes off flying and we have to chase him down on the riding of various drakes, and then Thrall can shoot him down with his golden M&M laser. THEN we do the whole claws and tenticals as a phase 3. At least those are just my thoughts on how the fight could have been more interesting, and epic feeling.
Skarn Dec 28th 2011 11:38PM
"then Thrall stole our kill"
I think this is really the root of the problem. Deathwing was never meant to be something we mortals could kill. That's the entire POINT of the way the two fights unfold. Deathwing is just plain too much for us. We can NOT do it alone. Thrall can't steal "our kill" because WE can't kill Deathwing. He's just too powerful.
The design of the fight was supposed to emphasize this point, but it obviously failed in some respects. The point is that you can't stand toe-to-toe with Deathwing. We can barely take out his foot WITH help from the Aspects. Taking out the whole dragon with just your raid isn't going to happen.
The problem is that Deathwing's immense power, apparently, hasn't been shown clearly enough. Random roasting of zones was a good idea, but it's too remote and unattached. Though it's too late, here's my idea. After killing Ultraxion, before Thrall can use the Dragon Soul, Deathwing should have attacked us. He could have been all pissed that we killed Ultraxion and flown up to take his place. While he's chattering about how mad he is, he would be an attackable mob, though he wouldn't attack back. He'd have a buff called "Elementium Plating" which reduces all damage he takes to 1. It might even prevent debuffs like Hunter's Mark or Sunder Armor from being applied.
So here the raid would be wailing on Deathwing and doing nothing. He'd finish his speech, laugh and swipe at the tank. BOOM, dead tank. That swipe would not only one-shot the tank, but it would cleave and kill anyone in melee range, maybe even the ranged. If not, he breathes fire and wipes out anyone left alive, except the Aspects in their bubble. This is the point Thrall uses the Dragon Soul and the cinematic shows up. Deathwing tries to dodge, takes a hit, blows up a gunship and flees, just like now. Except we're all dead. We faced down the Destroyer and were killed like the gnats we are. Alexstrasza rezzes us (similar to Terenas in the LK fight), thanks us for the help and apologizes that they must ask more of us.
Here's where we show the heroes we are. Even though we just got rocked by the Destroyer, even though no one would blame us if we backed out after that, we hop on the Gunship and go anyway. I think this would have offered a better context to the whole Spine/Madness fight. It helps the players directly understand how powerful Deathwing is: We tried and couldn't even dent him and then he wiped us out. The only reason we have a shot later is because the Dragon Soul did the damage and gave us the opening. Even then we still need power from the Aspects. Yet they couldn't do it without us. Despite just being crushed, we get back up and won't give in. That's what makes it Heroic, that we refuse to back down in the face of true despair.
I think that's what's really been missing all expansion. A true understanding of just how powerful and unstoppable Deathwing really is. The feeling you got from the Lich King in HoR as you did everything you could to escape, but it (almost) wasn't enough. Deathwing's random torching was cool, but it didn't give you that real feel of despair and powerlessness. The idea behind Madness is good, it just wasn't fleshed out well enough pre-fight.
Andrew Dec 29th 2011 1:51AM
I totally agree, Skarn. I don't think I got the gravity of the situation in fighting Deathwing until a PUG failed to kill an appendage before Cataclysm was cast. After that, the whole raid was one-shot, and the screen blacked out. There was nothing: no corpse, no Maelstrom, no Aspects lamenting having just woken up or something. Just a blank screen with a "Release Spirit" button. That's when I realized exactly what losing this fight meant, and it wasn't a new ditch in The Barrens.
Marolas Dec 30th 2011 1:01AM
"The problem is that Deathwing's immense power, apparently, hasn't been shown clearly enough. Random roasting of zones was a good idea, but it's too remote and unattached. Though it's too late, here's my idea. After killing Ultraxion, before Thrall can use the Dragon Soul, Deathwing should have attacked us. He could have been all pissed that we killed Ultraxion and flown up to take his place. While he's chattering about how mad he is, he would be an attackable mob, though he wouldn't attack back. He'd have a buff called "Elementium Plating" which reduces all damage he takes to 1. It might even prevent debuffs like Hunter's Mark or Sunder Armor from being applied.
So here the raid would be wailing on Deathwing and doing nothing. He'd finish his speech, laugh and swipe at the tank. BOOM, dead tank. That swipe would not only one-shot the tank, but it would cleave and kill anyone in melee range, maybe even the ranged. If not, he breathes fire and wipes out anyone left alive, except the Aspects in their bubble. This is the point Thrall uses the Dragon Soul and the cinematic shows up. Deathwing tries to dodge, takes a hit, blows up a gunship and flees, just like now. Except we're all dead. We faced down the Destroyer and were killed like the gnats we are. Alexstrasza rezzes us (similar to Terenas in the LK fight), thanks us for the help and apologizes that they must ask more of us.
Here's where we show the heroes we are. Even though we just got rocked by the Destroyer, even though no one would blame us if we backed out after that, we hop on the Gunship and go anyway. I think this would have offered a better context to the whole Spine/Madness fight. It helps the players directly understand how powerful Deathwing is: We tried and couldn't even dent him and then he wiped us out. The only reason we have a shot later is because the Dragon Soul did the damage and gave us the opening. Even then we still need power from the Aspects. Yet they couldn't do it without us. Despite just being crushed, we get back up and won't give in. That's what makes it Heroic, that we refuse to back down in the face of true despair."
This, this, a million times this.
One of the reasons the Lich King seemed so powerful is that, despite your best efforts, the Lich King could always have destroyed you with a single blow, and he actually does so. The only reason he fails at the last second was due to his overconfidence in his moment of triumph, where Tirion actually earns his 'kill steal' by saving the souls of the party.
Deathwing has never shown us his true power firsthand. We've seen the Cataclysm trailer and got burninated in the countryside, but when push came to shove and we brought the fight to his very spine, he's still all, "Meh, I don't feel like fighting you. You're not worthy of fighting me." Instead of being enraged at being destroyed in a humiliating fashion (for the book fans: remember how he reacted when Khadgar started using magic to attack the weaknesses in between his platelike scales?) he gives you a bit of dialogue about how he'd forgotten you were even there. We came for an epic battle against a maddened Aspect, and instead we're getting Nefarian-esque taunts thrown at us while we fight an IMMUNE SYSTEM.
Amaxe Dec 28th 2011 1:12PM
"To be honest, I sincerely hope Blizzard doesn't try to Sunwell this expansion. Cataclysm must go out on Deathwing's demise. He was the villain all expansion long, and we put him in the ground."
I agree, but I think it may be a question of whether Blizz can deliver an expac as soon as everyone hopes. I see a lot of people clamoring for MoP in Summer 2012, but unless it is a small xpac, I don't see how that can happen... unless the Alpha testing is far more extensive and secret than we know.
If they can't deliver (and I freely admit I don't know if they can or not), WoW may have to create some sort of placeholder patch like Argent Tournament or Sunwell to hold people over.
Luke Dec 28th 2011 2:03PM
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of an additional patch between now and MoP.
On the one hand, I agree with Amaxe, we may be in for a long wait. Which means I'll be able to run my stable of alts through all the content they haven't played through just yet. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to wait until summer for MoP or new content, so if they could add something, it doesn't have to be a boss, it could just be interesting 5 man dungeons and a quest hub for all I care.
Sean Dec 28th 2011 3:36PM
I've been saying this since Blizzcon. Blizzard knows that 4.3 won't hold up as long as they need it to, so they offer up Diablo III for free in exchange for a 12 month commitment to WoW.
Right about the time the average player is "done" with Cataclysm (whatever that means for each player is different, of course) Diablo should be ready for us to play. That will give us a good distraction from WoW (so no Sunwell patch needed) and when the Beta comes out, we can choose to go back and check out Pandaria if we like.
Personally, I'm probably going to avoid the Beta, I'd rather enjoy the content fresh when it goes live.