The Hall of Arms is the first encounter in the west wing of the dungeon. While the Baron's northern tower, and the tower to the east with the alchemy lab are tall and jut up into the sky, the Library and Hall of Arms are wide, squatting buildings on the western side of the dungeon.The Hall of Arms actually rests underneath the library, and the trash leading up to the encounter itself is as much a part of the area as the final boss himself. It's a gauntlet of sorts, but a more slow and methodical one.
Anyway, on to the encounter.
Setting:
A loooong, wide hallway (think Curator in Kara, but maybe 1.5 to 2 times the length) with a large tiled checkerboard floor, and suits of silver armor lining the walls on raised pedestals. The final boss is visible from the start, and is a Large Black Knight in a nod to the original Dragon's Lair, and will have the boss beginning the encounter by noting how DARING everyone is for confronting him here:"You are indeed a daring group of adventurers to test your mettle against the likes of me, here in my hall of arms. Be careful you don't singe your toes on the way to me. I'll be waiting. Make your move."
He then thrusts his sword tip into the ground to begin setting the event in motion.
Encounter:
As the party makes their way down the hallway, sections of the floor light up (anti void zones, white or light blue instead of black), in a noticeable and repeating pattern. The ground can flash momentarily before the surge hits, to give groups a chance to react. The group needs to make their way down the hallway itself, avoiding the charged sections of floor, all while the suits of armor activate and engage (based on basic tank face-pulling proximity). Each armor suit is a basic, hard hitting variation on Warrior talent specs (see here for more in depth explanation of the various suit types), with the twist that if the suit happens to come into contact with the 'activated' section of the floor --in addition to the raid's fear that their tank is standing there and taking a large hit of damage from the floor-- the mob itself becomes charged with energy, too, and hits harder. Anyone hit with the floor charge takes damage, and is dazed for a few seconds, reducing movement speed, and compounding the issue of moving off the charged sections of the floor.
Boss:
The boss himself is a huge black knight, as noted, and the fight begins once the group has made their way down the hallway to him. Depending on the amount of healing required to make it this far, perhaps there can be a short stairway leading up to the boss proper, that gives the raid a chance to break and drink before the actual fight.He engages, and the fight is done in a similar fashion as the lead-up. The ground pulses, then activates, and anyone caught in it takes large damage spikes. The tank can have Hand of Freedom put on him in case he gets dazed, and the boss hits extra hard on dazed targets. There need to be two tanks, because every so often, he will grab the person with highest threat, and hurl him down to the beginning of the hallway. This throw leaves the thrown tank with 5% HP when he lands (it will never kill him outright). The secondary tank picks up the boss while the MT works his way back to the group, avoiding the floor charge-pattern as usual. Obviously, the adds are already dead, he just needs to watch the floor on the run back, and it's compounded by the fact that he has 5% health, and one or two missteps will kill him. Whether he wastes time bandaging himself before the run back is his choice.
It's a mobility fight, with the tanks having to kite the boss around in little circles to avoid the floor charges, healers and DPS needing to shift accordingly as well. General abilities include the "flurry or enrage on floor tile activation" (if he's standing on the charged section), the "MT toss", a basic cleave to keep melee on their toes, and the floor itself. When the boss dies, the floor flickers out, and becomes safe.
Notes:
I'm actively trying to keep some bosses rather simple for these warm up fights. There's a trick to each fight, but it's not some mind bending Vashj ordeal where you have to kite 12 adds while watching for contaminated water elementals and becoming rooted while holding the shield deactivation thing. It's a pretty straightforward fight, and is a not-so-veiled nod to Dragon's Lair, mostly. This isn't "final boss" material, just a basic tank and spank with a few fun twists thrown in to keep everyone on their toes.
The idea of an Arcing Smash was also brought up by myself in the comments section of the original post for this. Basically, it's a huge windup slam by the boss that leaves floor tiles broken and permanently charged. This gives the tank less area to work with. I also noted that, were that to be the case, the tank has an entire hallway to kite the boss around in, so if the smash were to be implemented, having the final fight take place on a separate platform (up 5 or 6 stairs, then locked into that little zone) would make more sense.
(link to original post on my blog)
