Two Bosses Enter: Echo of Tyrande vs. Warlord Zon'ozz
by Mathew McCurley 
Feb 6th 2012 at 6:00PM
As the poll closes for last week's matchup. the Echo of Sylvanas from the End Time dungeon successfully trumped the second raid boss to be a part of Two Bosses Enter, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping. Looks like this unsleeper is being put down for the night, if you catch my drift. You don't? Oh, Yor'sahj lost. By 800 votes. Another surprisingly close match, considering who Sylvanas is.
This week's matchup proves to be another fun one, especially for the commenters, who are doing their best to reconcile raid mechanics and 5-man mechanics while remembering that this is about spirit and fun. The Echo of Tyrande, leader of the night elves and caretaker of Nordrassil and the druid barrows, will have to pull out every trick in the book as she goes up against Warlord Zon'ozz, one of the two generals at the helm of the assault on Wyrmrest Temple.
Now the fate of these two champions is in your hands. Who wins it, loyal readers and fans? Does the Echo of Tyrande have the strength of will to stand up against the madness of the Old Gods' servant Warlord Zon'ozz?
| Tyrande (End Time) | |
|---|---|
| Warlord Zon'ozz (Dragon Soul) |
The rules of the ring
- The WoW Insider Ring is considered neutral territory, where both combatants are able to access their usual encounter mechanics and abilities. If you can't visualize it inside the squared circle, visualize it someplace else -- but you must take into consideration all of each bosses' abilities and mechanics.
- Assume that each opponent is intelligent and capable of strategic thinking.
- All of the competitors' abilities, including crowd control and other effects to which bosses are usually immune, work on their opponents (with apologies to considerations of lore on this point).
- Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools, and comparative overall damage output.
- Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter.
- Don't neglect style, story, and scale. Everything is a factor; seeking balance is your goal as a spectator and judge.
In Corner One: Echo of Tyrande
Deep within the eternal night of the Emerald Dragonshrine sits, ever waiting for salvation, whispers of the being once known as Tyrande Whisperwind. Ripped from time and abandoned to the nether after Deathwing's successful sundering of Azeroth, the night elf leader now rests eternally, the shrine blocking out the moon she so reveres. Will you bring light back to Elune's most faithful servant, ever faithful even when all things were undone?
I suspect that Tyrande will be a fan favorite in the tournament alongside Sylvanas because there are few women who get to be a part of the tournament. Most elemental bosses, which Cataclysm was full of, are predominantly depicted as male. It's just the way things are. Women who can dominate in the ring are going to garner votes, because who doesn't love a kickass lady? Especially one who has to do practically everything while her lazy husband sleeps for thousands of years.
The Echo of Tyrande's abilities include:
- Moonbolt Tyrande blasts a target with a moonbolt.
- Dark Moonlight Tyrande summons a pool of dark moonlight that surrounds her, slowing spellcasting.
- Stardust Tyrande scatters a diffuse trail of star energy into the wind, inflicting damage.
- Moonlance Tyrande summons a powerful lance of moon energy that travels along the ground and splits into three parts that deal damage and stun.
- Eyes of the Goddess Tyrande summons the twin eyes of Elune, which fly around her in a circular orbit, emitting Piercing Gaze of Elune.
- Lunar Guidance At 80% health and 55%, Tyrande's spells cast 25% and 50% faster, respectively.
- Tears of Elune At 30% health, tears of Elune rain down, dealing damage.
Long ago, in a time when recording history was of no concern to the darkness, the Old Gods fought over primeval Azeroth, a Titan creation infested with the universe's most seething chaos. C'Thun, N'zoth, Yogg-Saron, and other great beings fought for an eternity, exerting their influence on all the creatures of the young planet. Warlord Zon'ozz, the faceless one, existed then and fought for N'zoth without hesitation or fear. Now, N'zoth's greatest weapon against the Titans and Azeroth, Deathwing the Destroyer, is in danger of being felled by a mortal and his ancient artifact. Warlord Zon'ozz is called to the front lines of the Hour of Twilight -- lay siege to Wyrmrest Temple, and do not let the Dragon Soul be activated.
Zon'ozz's encounter mechanics were some of the hardest to wrap my head around in terms of what they would have to change from normal mode to make the fight accesible in the Raid Finder. It turns out Blizzard thought of this, like it usually does, and the mechanic is similar but of a different scale. Players still get a feel for the bouncing ball, but the mechanic has built-in autocorrects just in case mistakes are made.
Warlord Zon'ozz's abilities include:
- Focused Anger Zon'ozz increasingly focuses his anger and rage, increasing physical damage and attack speed.
- Psychic Drain Warlord Zon'ozz channels a waves of psychic force in a cone in front of himself, dealing damage.
- Disrupting Shadows Covers enemies with Disrupting Shadows, inflicting damage over time, more damage, and a knockback on dispel
- Void of the Unmaking Summons the Void of the Unmaking, which will Void Diffusion after colliding with an enemy, dealing massive damage to all in range and bounching the Void back in the opposite direction.
- Zon'ozz will become more vulnerable if his Void of the Unmaking collides with him.
With a fairly decent 700-vote margin, the Echo of Sylvanas takes last week's matchup home and moves onward to the next round of the tournament. Sylvanas is going to be a fan favorite in this tournnament, I can feel it. Utilizing the encounter-specific abilities and Sylvanas' own cunning, the Dark Lady stomped this nightmare back into Old God city.
Commentor clundgren gave his outcome of the fight in the plainest way possible. Sometimes you just don't need too many words to describe a thing.
Let's see...one of the greatest tacticians Azeroth has ever known, and such a badass hunter that she can shoot down an ice barrier with *arrows*, versus a guy who stands still for much of the fight and eats slime.So arrogant! So flippant. It's that attitude that got Vanessa VanCleef defeated in season 2. You do not want to catch all of your undead, plagued chickens before they hatch, now do you?
Tough call. Tough call.
Not really. Sylvanas crushes him. Unlike Vanessa, in this case the hawt outfit is just a bonus.
Rai gave the fight to Sylvanas due to her ability to assess her opponent. By gaining the upper hand with an understanding of how slime summoning works, Sylvanas can exploit Yor'sahj's own immobility with her own devestating attack.
"Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools, and comparative overall damage output" is the key thing to take note before I explain why I'm voting for Sylvanas.Awesome comments and accounts of the fights this time, guys. The Echo of Sylvanas has moved on to the next round, and I'm absolutely sure that this will not be the last time you see her around here.
Yor'sahj has a lot of nasty abilities here and might stand a chance if void bolt began stacking up, despite the fact a lot of the abilities are designed for multiple targets and Sylvanas is on her own (for most of the fight).
If comparative overall damage output is the name of the game, then Yor'sahj would be in trouble. Sylvanas' sacrifice ability is a killer: and if not, then more than enough to win this for her. Sylvanas is cunning, she'd realise that while Yor'sahj is channeling his oozes, he is unable to move. Therefore, that's the best time for her to summon her circle of ghouls. The ghouls would reach Yor'sahj around the same time his oozes would, if not before - either way he has no time to move out of his impending doom.
Even if he survived one, one of the three oozes would die from Wracking Pain so even with the best of luck, Yor'sahj just wouldn't be able to win this.
Vote now for who wins the epic matchup this week. Leave your comments and accounts of the battle below. Go, go, go!
| Echo of Sylvanas (End Time) | |
|---|---|
| Yor'sahj the Unsleeping (Dragon Soul) |
Set aside the world order -- let the WoW Insider Ring determine who's the champion! Your votes determine the outcome in WoW Insider's series of fantasy deathmatches, Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves.
Filed under: Two Bosses Enter
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Erebos Feb 6th 2012 6:11PM
Tyrande is literally the only boss in that instance that I worry about fighting. She hits like a truck, and you can easily get two-shotted by her Moonlance stun and the Eyes of the Goddess. All it takes is one misstep, and it's hard to tell where it's safe to stand with those Eyes.
She'd lay the hurt down on Mr. Ping-Pong.
jeansteffano Feb 6th 2012 8:51PM
TENTACLE DISCO PARTY!
Rai Feb 6th 2012 6:34PM
I'd have to give this one to Warlord Zon'ozz.
Firstly, none of his spells would realistically be affected by the cast time, so melee combat isn't an issue for Zon'ozz. The average raid group is forced to rely on the stacking debuff he receives in order to do enough damage to beat the enrage timer, so Tyrande's spells would have to be capable of doing enough damage on their own. That's fair enough.
Moonlance is the Echo of Tyrande's most dangerous weapon here - the ability to stun Zon'ozz would be of great use to her considering his size. However, he can use Psychic Drain in order to increase his health slightly and allow his stacking Focused Anger to do more damage. This really comes down to the bouncing orb mechanic and how well Tyrande can handle it.
Tyrande doesn't normally move during this fight, but we're going to have to say she can out of fairness and because she probably is capable of remembering how to walk. She could most likely follow the orb and bounce it around to increase the debuff on Zon'ozz. She has a pretty good shot.
However, I mentioned I was giving this to Zon'ozz and here's why - Eyes of the Goddess silences. Now, I know it could be argued that she could just not silence Zon'ozz - more on that in a moment - but it's the Echo of Tyrande. The entire time you're in the Emerald Dragonshrine, she is actually trying to help you. Not enough to let you kill her everytime, but she'd seek a peaceful solution, which silencing would do, albeit temporarily.
Silencing/stunning Zon'ozz increases the risk that he won't cast his spell to summon the orb, or will at least delay the summoning by an extended period of time. During this time, Focused Anger stacks will increase to alarming levels. It's the comparative damage output demon once again, and when the rules are considered, I believe Zon'ozz would come out on top.
TL;DR - Tyrande silences and/or stuns Warlord Zon'ozz, summoning of the bouncy orb is delayed/prevented, Focused Anger stacks too high and he overpowers her.
Matheus314 Feb 7th 2012 11:37AM
Remember, theses raid bosses have been added here because of the Raid Finder tool, that made everyone and their friends check out how raid bosses are.
So I'll assume that Zon'ozz is using his LFR mechanics, meaning that if Tyrande don't even touch the void, it'll circle around him and then come back to Zon'ozz before the stacking buff reach high levels.
That's why I think Tyrande will get this. Based on the rest of your analysis (which I agree).
musicchan Feb 6th 2012 6:34PM
There's a lot of aspects to the Tyrande fight, a lot of things to worry about. But the ball-bouncing bit for Zon'ozz seems like something difficult to handle with one person.
Would Tyrande's stuns help negate the increasing damage he does? Is this Raid Finder mechanics for Zon'ozz or normal mechanics? I feel like the dot would have considerable consequences if the damage and knockback were applied. Not to mention that the damage done when bouncing the ball on normal.
I kind of feel like this one would go to Zon'ozz, despite the fact that I really like Tyrande. I mean, her fight is hard, but Zon'ozz is pretty hard on normal. (Coming from the viewpoint of someone who hasn't progressed far in DS raiding)
clundgren Feb 6th 2012 6:48PM
I'm voting Tyrande just because a Tyrande vs. Sylvanas final would be epic. You know there has to be some serious bad blood between those two Alpha hunters.
But assuming her Eyes of Elune can deflect the Void of the Unmaking, Tyrande has a legitimate shot here.
Ballmung Feb 6th 2012 6:53PM
Ok this one is tough to set up a battlefield since they both kinda need to be where they are. Lets have some fun and put Tyrande's puddle in the middle of Zon'ozz's Old God servant.
In the middle of the arena we have Tyrande as a time twisted psycho and a painful barrage of magic spells. And surprisingly still the support of Elune. But she also stays still. Also in the center of the arena we have Zon'ozz. Old God servant that helped cause the End Time that warped Tyrande in the first place. With a little self healing and a bouncing ball he has his tricks and once big advantage of actually moving. Assuming there is reasonable intelligence Zon'ozz can move out of the way of moonlance. But Tyrande is doing nothing about that ping pong ball. So Zon'ozz isn't getting his debuff all that often and I'm not sure Tyrande will have the mind to remove Disrupting Shadows since she's always casting.
Tyrande does talk a big game and the fanboys wanting to take her out of Malfurion's arms are going to support her but when it comes down to it she's still just standing still in a puddle of her own tears.
Robert Feb 6th 2012 7:01PM
Zon'ozz deals more damage as the fight goes on.
Tyrande deals more damage as the fight goes on.
Zon'ozz takes more damage as the fight goes on.
Tyrande does not.
Therefore, Tyrande wins.
IvanZephyr Feb 6th 2012 7:10PM
Zon'ozz has a self-heal
Tyrande does not.
Prissa Feb 7th 2012 3:56AM
Tyrande is a priestess of Elune. How finitely do you wanna follow the rules of the ring to say she doesn't know how to heal herself? I like reading into flavour better than wowhead abilities.
Natsumi Feb 7th 2012 10:37AM
@Robert
Zon'ozz gets the increase to his damage faster than Tyrande does, and the amount of additional damage he would take would be significantly reduced due to the fact that Tyrande cannot be split into two people to play Pong properly.
This means that at most she can get 1 bounce per summon, IIRC that's only a 5% damage increase to the boss. The Pong ball has a set CD from cats to next cast, thus Focused Anger stack ridiculously high between casts, which easily .... eclipses the 5% damage bonus that Tyrande would be getting. Zon'ozz wins before the third orb hits him.
@Prissa
While it is fine to look to the flavor of the character, if you are basing your vote on that you end with Brann Bronzebeard winning again, and he's not even in this competition!
Saf Feb 6th 2012 7:04PM
Assuming RF mechanics that prevent Zon'ozz's ball from hitting the wall, and that send it into him after a set amount of time regardless of how long it's been, I'd still have to give the fight to him over Tyrande because of the amount of damage he does to his main target.
When fighting Zon'ozz in RF, if you are ever going to wipe, it is going to be from the tank dying to his melee attacks, or from the raid dying to the AOE phase. Yet, when fighting Tyrande, you are most likely going to wipe because your healer can't do F-all between the stuns and silences.
Therefore, in a 1v1 fight, Zon'ozz would win because of sheer damage output. Tyrande simply doesn't have enough single target attacks to kill Zon'ozz before he smashes her face in. Ball bouncing or not... Heck, it be an even quicker kill because he'd be able to cast Disrupting Shadows on Tyrande, which would tick for the full duration even if he gets stunned/silenced.
Vaniya Feb 6th 2012 7:31PM
While I really want Tyrande to win, I guess this could be taken as a tie or even a win for Zon'ozz. I really like writing these because it's great practice :) Hope you vote for Tyrande!
Zon'ozz approached the darkened shrine in a flash of light. Confused and disoriented, he stomped around, looking for a reason for him being brought to the place. His twisted eyes had little problem seeing through the unnatural haze, and he quickly took in what appeared to be a small humanoid kneeling in a pool of darkness.
Tyrande quickly takes notice of the abomination. "Mother moon, let me guide this poor soul into your light." she said, as she fired off a moonbolt.
"xythl mas htecor axt'tzl!" shrieked Zon'ozz, blocking the attack with his claw. Not in the mood for this, he summoned tentacles from the depths of the earth, ready to obliterate his opponent.
As the tentacles closed in, Tyrande plead "Mother Moon, I can no longer see your light! Guide me from this darkness!" stepping out of the shadows came fragmented sentinel souls, accompanied with twisted nightsabers. The sentinels held the tentacles back, as Tyrande summoned stardust to deal with Zon'ozz. He was anticiPating this, and sent a sphere of pure darkness at Tyrande. It hit her, and she fell to the ground.
Zon'ozz then cruelly drained the remaining light from the darkened place, absorbing the essence of the sentinels and tentacles, locking Tyrande down. "Elune, your daughter can no longer see your radiance!" a beam of light shot down from the heavens, enshrouding Tyrande.
Zon'ozz fired off another void, ready to finish his foe, when Tyrande's call was answered. In a flash of moonlight, the last vestiges of Tyrande's eternal companion Dori'thur swooped down and blocked the void, sending it back to Zon'ozz's surprised face. Taking advantage of him being stunned, Tyrande got back up and conjured a moonlance.
With one final burst of strength, Tyrande threw the lance at Zon'ozz, and he burst in an explosion of light, his fractured carapace smoking in the darkness. With the last of her power gone, the eyes of Elune descended upon Tyrande, finally calling her to the afterlife.
direbadgercvlry Feb 6th 2012 8:45PM
Killer description of the battle, I was looking for a good reason to vote tyrande
Vaniya Feb 6th 2012 8:56PM
Also, I know some people aren't a big fan of her new voice or look, but she deserves a win here! Just pretend Richard Knaak doesn't exist, and that she and Malfurion have a pre-WotA relationship
;P
Prelimar Feb 6th 2012 7:44PM
go, Tyrande! she should win just for her emotes alone.
SolitudeZero Feb 6th 2012 7:47PM
Tyrande materializes into the arena as she spots Zon'ozz.
"Elune, grant me strength!" she shouts.
Zon'ozz whispers to Tyrande, "Your Elune will not save you." as he summons the Void of the Unmaking.
Seeing this glowing sphere, Tyrande realizes that since they are not in the maw, they the Void will not be absorbed by it. She begins her assault on Zon'ozz by firing off a couple Moonbolts as he charges her. As Zon'ozz reaches her, he casts Disrupting Shadows on her as she readies her Stardust.
Reeling from the blow of the Stardust, Zon'ozz then uses Psychic Drain to return some of his health from the previous attacks while damaging Tyrande. This goes on for a bit while Tyrande's health gets lower and lower until she calls upon Lunar Guidance.
Meanwhile the Void is growing larger and larger and eventually is absorbed by Zon'ozz, removing his speed and strength increases and increasing his susceptibility to Tyrande's attacks. She takes advantage of this to use her increased casting speed to really do some damage to the faceless one.
Staggering, Zon'ozz summons another Void of the Unmaking and proceeds to continue to swing at Tyrande while casting Disrupting Shadows and Psychic Drain on occasion, using the latter to restore lost health. As his strength and speed increase he forces Tyrande to call on another round of Lunar Guidance. This back and forth continues until Tyrande screams, "Elune, save me!"
As the Tears of Elune start to fall, Zon'ozz absorbs the second Void. Tyrande furiously fires off volley after volley at the faceless one. As Zon'ozz is about to fall, Tyrande realizes that she's been taking severe damage while he has the ball absorbed into his body and is about to fall as well. Tyrande begins to cast Stardust as the phase ends and Zon'ozz comes to his senses. While she's mid cast, Zon'ozz casts Psychic Drain before she can finish the cast and fells Tyrande.
"The Destroyer shall prevail, your Elune could not save you." he whispers.
Travy Feb 6th 2012 8:47PM
I'm voting Zon'ozz because I dislike Tyranade. For the horde.
GhostWhoWalks Feb 6th 2012 8:52PM
Zon'ozz is a very tank-like fighter, with loads of health (even when compared to other Dragon Soul bosses) and a self-heal, requiring opponents to slowly wear him down while trying to weather his attacks. Tyrande lacks adds with which to bounce the Void around, she stands still for most of the fight and thus is in no position to avoid any of Zon'ozz's attacks, and many of her own attacks are area-of-effect or anti-caster in nature, neither of which is a major threat to Zon'ozz. It would end up being a fairly boring fight, with the two of them standing face-to-face (er...face-to-ankle?) and wailing on each other, but Zon'ozz would outlast Tyrande.
I See What I Did There Feb 6th 2012 9:24PM
*Vote Spoiler*
Tyrande (End Time) 627 (50.0%)
Warlord Zon'ozz (Dragon Soul) 626 (50.0%)
So very close right now...