Setting:
The fight takes place in a forge. Well, not IN a forge, but it's an armor shop, so there's a forge in the room. The overall lighting and color palette I have in mind for the entire dungeon itself is basically cool blues and greys. Every time I picture it in my mind I see it as night time, with a full moon overhead, and it actually occurred to me that that may be the case because I rarely play WoW at all during the 'day'. My timezone is shifted (here in Japan), and I'm usually in game at what ends up being 2 or 3 am server time. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen Kara in the sunlight? Anyway... there are a lot of hallways and towers to climb, and when you round the corner to this room, orange heat is spilling out of the doorway. The room's shape itself is irrelevant, as long as it's basically divided into four sections depicting the four armor classes (imagine the map of the undercity).
There are waist high little partitions diving the areas from one another, and each section is appropriately littered with items associated with that tradeskill. The leatherworking area has hides curing, and dead animals strung up waiting to be skinned. The plate area has anvils and tongs next to the forge... It's an armorsmith. Work with me, here.The overall idea here is that the fight is basically a big FUCK YOU to classes that roll on gear outside of their spec range (warriors with leather, etc). I know that won't sit well with resto shamans or fury warriors, but that's kind of the point. Blizzard has also stated on various occasions that they have very little sorrow in their hearts for plate wearing classes complaining about survivability while they choose to neglect the benefit that they can wear plate. So this fight is basically telling you "if you wear mail AND plate AND leather, get comfy, because your superstar mix of DPS gear is about to earn you a superstar timeout in the corner". It's the same for healers. No priest likes getting outrolled on cloth gear by a resto druid, etc. This, however, is not the place for that argument. Basically, GIVEN this fight's mechanic, how do you work with it?
The hard part here was figuring out how to enforce it in the first place. I was basically thinking phase shifts that target specific armor classes (effectively making them sit out that phase), and anyone wearing more that one 'type' of armor gets shafted and has to sit out more than one phase. Once combat begins, you can't swap armor, so gear shifting macros or addons along those lines are useless. If it was based on weapon proficiencies that would just be trivial to get around, and is why it's based on armor instead of weapons (plus the angst over someone rolling on 'your weapon' doesn't really apply).
I imagined the fight to begin, and for the first minute or so, everyone just does their thing. DPS gets in their rotations, and everyone thinks 'huh, so this is just a tank and spank or what?', then he pulls a Mr.Smite, and basically 'equips' some set of armor that's sitting on the anvil. This is a serious nod to an oldschool WoW boss that many should get... hell, it could even be Mrs. Smite for old school flavor. How awesome would that be? Let's go with that!So she starts the fight, and you engage her. Her phase shifts go for percentages of health. She does the patented Mr. Smite Warstomp which stuns the raid while she switches around her gear (we need another variation on "You landlubbers are tougher than i thought. I'll have to improvise!"). ;)
100% - begin the fight
80% - dons a robe, and clothies are silenced
60% - puts on some leather and leather wearers can't hit, or (see below) attacks are absorbed?
40% dons mail - and? uhh... mail wearers rust? they can't move? that wouldn't really stop ele shams or hunters, tho... perhaps taking any action infests you with tetanus, lol? need something good for mail...
20% straps on plate - plate wearers armor constricts, slowing movement and causing major damage (or perhaps lightning courses thru your armor?)
We can't make plate wearers totally immobilized, but we can make their lives miserable. The problem here is that 3 of the 4 tanking classes wear plate. While I'd love to just say "you need to bring a druid to tank this phase", that's going against the basic design principles Blizzard is trying to put in their encounters. They want to actively move away from 25 man Razuvious, where you NEED two priests.
That said, this encounter would be impossible if you only have priest healers. For that reason alone, I don't think this encounter will work. In most situations, it's not that bad. Perhaps the debuffs could be tuned to work out... for example, instead of a straight silence on clothies (which prevents them from healing as well), Mrs. Smite's robe could just reflect clothie spells back on them. This would still allow healers to heal, but DPS would need to just relax for that phase. Okay, so that works.
Leather's debuff has them unable to do anything but whiff attacks, and even boomkin spells are totally missing. This is a very similar mechanic to the 'yellow potion debuff' from the Alchemy Lab encounter, though, so let's not overdo that. Perhaps that could be changed to (again) only affect offensive spells. Any attacks are absorbed (instead of miss), but leather healers aren't screwed (in case you only have resto trees in the house). Maybe her leather getup is a juiced up set of old school Green Whelp Armor, and hitting her with ranged or melee puts you to sleep (unrelated side note: that armor was HAX during the Panther boss in Zul'Gurub before it got nerfed!).
Mail armor could rust? Performing any action causes you considerable pain, so you just need to freeze where you are a la Flame Wreath? Mail wearers are who...? Hunters, Shamans, and... yeah... level 39 warriors. : / Shamans could be healers, so we run into the same problem. I mean, it's the same for every type of armor. Cloth priests, leather druids, mail shamans, and plate paladins... we need to be able to allow them to heal if they're the only class that gets brought.
We also need to allow leather or plate be mobile enough to tank, in case any of the one classes is the one that is inside our run. I feel the need to point out that I agree with this mentality... I don't want to be like "well you brought a druid tank, better luck next time. Maybe by next week you'll have a plate tank and not suck". I think this flexibility is a good thing to plan into encounters, and adds a challenge to the designer as well as giving some leeway to those tackling your content.
So yeah. Help me out on this one. What are some good debuffs that would allow healers to still heal, tanks to still tank, but basically disable that armor type otherwise? I have no issue with "plate wearers have lightning coursing through their armor, inflicting constant damage unless they remain still" because it rewards you for having a spare druid tank, but doesn't make it a necessity. The problem I see there is DKs just being like "well I'm gonna keep DPSing, anyway! Keep me healed, bitches!" There needs to be a way to stop the DKs and ret palys, but still allow the plate warrior to do his job.
The only thing I can think of is a basic spell reflect mechanic. Incoming damage spells from each armor class are reflected back. This means a tank would need to not be spamming heroic strike as well, but the plate phase is the last phase, and by then the tank should have had a chance to get a lead in threat to coast that last phase out, or he could just switch to sunders. What about Death Knights? I'm honestly not sure what spells they even tank with, as my DK is still only 59 or so, and full Blood. Misdirects, vanishes, etc could all come into play for that last phase as well, so maybe it would just work alright.
Anyway! That's the debuff section. (phew)
The other parts of the fight have adds spawning as well, and I imagine a scenario where for 'the cloth phase' it's little gnome mage clothies that are helping Mrs. Smite craft the robes etc, and they have initial threat on any cloth wearers in the house. They share the reflective properties of Mrs. Smite, so clothies can't just nuke them down and save themselves, it requires the other classes to step up and handle those, then get around to DPSing the boss to the next phase.
As the phase shifts are happening, she's running to each different section of the room, if that wasn't already obvious. You fight the plate phase near the forge, and the cloth phase next to the looms.
As I said: very loose idea here. I like the idea, but it really needs to be ironed out. The Mr. Smite / Mrs. Smite thing is awesome, and that she mimics her husband's style of stopping the fight, emoting something, and then switching up her loadout is classy. I would just need to hammer out the debuffs, write up her emotes, figure out vanilla abilities, and give more thought to the abilities and number of adds spawned each shift.
Closing Notes:
A few awesome ideas were suggested in the comments section on my blog, one of my favorites being that there's an anvil that becomes magnetized and pulls players to it. I elaborated on it to think that the anvil would all deathgrip that armor class to it, and perhaps THAT could be the mail 'call'. The boss could fight on one side of the room, and have the mail wearers all deathgripped to an anvil on the far side. It would be far enough away that hunters and ele shams couldn't pew pew, but the raid would be standing in the middle of the room, so heals could still go off (although the tank would be with the boss, soo... again, another problem).
One more thing that totally falls apart, is that this only really punishes DPS that roll outside their armor class. We need to have a way to allow healers to continue to heal, so there goes punishing resto druids wearing cloth... perhaps the debuff could be "harmful spells are refected, and beneficial spells are reduced by 75%". You could still heal, but it's not very effective to do so, and if you only brought all priests, then maybe it takes care of itself... three priests could effectively keep a tank up if all three are spamming 25% heals on him... throw one resto druid, sham, or paly in the mix, and it solves itself. This all, of course, depends on the fight damage being thrown around and general tuning.
A really cool idea, but one "still on the board" at this point.
(link to original post on my blog)
We can't make plate wearers totally immobilized, but we can make their lives miserable. The problem here is that 3 of the 4 tanking classes wear plate. While I'd love to just say "you need to bring a druid to tank this phase", that's going against the basic design principles Blizzard is trying to put in their encounters. They want to actively move away from 25 man Razuvious, where you NEED two priests.
That said, this encounter would be impossible if you only have priest healers. For that reason alone, I don't think this encounter will work. In most situations, it's not that bad. Perhaps the debuffs could be tuned to work out... for example, instead of a straight silence on clothies (which prevents them from healing as well), Mrs. Smite's robe could just reflect clothie spells back on them. This would still allow healers to heal, but DPS would need to just relax for that phase. Okay, so that works.
Leather's debuff has them unable to do anything but whiff attacks, and even boomkin spells are totally missing. This is a very similar mechanic to the 'yellow potion debuff' from the Alchemy Lab encounter, though, so let's not overdo that. Perhaps that could be changed to (again) only affect offensive spells. Any attacks are absorbed (instead of miss), but leather healers aren't screwed (in case you only have resto trees in the house). Maybe her leather getup is a juiced up set of old school Green Whelp Armor, and hitting her with ranged or melee puts you to sleep (unrelated side note: that armor was HAX during the Panther boss in Zul'Gurub before it got nerfed!).
Mail armor could rust? Performing any action causes you considerable pain, so you just need to freeze where you are a la Flame Wreath? Mail wearers are who...? Hunters, Shamans, and... yeah... level 39 warriors. : / Shamans could be healers, so we run into the same problem. I mean, it's the same for every type of armor. Cloth priests, leather druids, mail shamans, and plate paladins... we need to be able to allow them to heal if they're the only class that gets brought.
We also need to allow leather or plate be mobile enough to tank, in case any of the one classes is the one that is inside our run. I feel the need to point out that I agree with this mentality... I don't want to be like "well you brought a druid tank, better luck next time. Maybe by next week you'll have a plate tank and not suck". I think this flexibility is a good thing to plan into encounters, and adds a challenge to the designer as well as giving some leeway to those tackling your content.
So yeah. Help me out on this one. What are some good debuffs that would allow healers to still heal, tanks to still tank, but basically disable that armor type otherwise? I have no issue with "plate wearers have lightning coursing through their armor, inflicting constant damage unless they remain still" because it rewards you for having a spare druid tank, but doesn't make it a necessity. The problem I see there is DKs just being like "well I'm gonna keep DPSing, anyway! Keep me healed, bitches!" There needs to be a way to stop the DKs and ret palys, but still allow the plate warrior to do his job.
The only thing I can think of is a basic spell reflect mechanic. Incoming damage spells from each armor class are reflected back. This means a tank would need to not be spamming heroic strike as well, but the plate phase is the last phase, and by then the tank should have had a chance to get a lead in threat to coast that last phase out, or he could just switch to sunders. What about Death Knights? I'm honestly not sure what spells they even tank with, as my DK is still only 59 or so, and full Blood. Misdirects, vanishes, etc could all come into play for that last phase as well, so maybe it would just work alright.
Anyway! That's the debuff section. (phew)
The other parts of the fight have adds spawning as well, and I imagine a scenario where for 'the cloth phase' it's little gnome mage clothies that are helping Mrs. Smite craft the robes etc, and they have initial threat on any cloth wearers in the house. They share the reflective properties of Mrs. Smite, so clothies can't just nuke them down and save themselves, it requires the other classes to step up and handle those, then get around to DPSing the boss to the next phase.
As the phase shifts are happening, she's running to each different section of the room, if that wasn't already obvious. You fight the plate phase near the forge, and the cloth phase next to the looms.
As I said: very loose idea here. I like the idea, but it really needs to be ironed out. The Mr. Smite / Mrs. Smite thing is awesome, and that she mimics her husband's style of stopping the fight, emoting something, and then switching up her loadout is classy. I would just need to hammer out the debuffs, write up her emotes, figure out vanilla abilities, and give more thought to the abilities and number of adds spawned each shift.
Closing Notes:
A few awesome ideas were suggested in the comments section on my blog, one of my favorites being that there's an anvil that becomes magnetized and pulls players to it. I elaborated on it to think that the anvil would all deathgrip that armor class to it, and perhaps THAT could be the mail 'call'. The boss could fight on one side of the room, and have the mail wearers all deathgripped to an anvil on the far side. It would be far enough away that hunters and ele shams couldn't pew pew, but the raid would be standing in the middle of the room, so heals could still go off (although the tank would be with the boss, soo... again, another problem).
One more thing that totally falls apart, is that this only really punishes DPS that roll outside their armor class. We need to have a way to allow healers to continue to heal, so there goes punishing resto druids wearing cloth... perhaps the debuff could be "harmful spells are refected, and beneficial spells are reduced by 75%". You could still heal, but it's not very effective to do so, and if you only brought all priests, then maybe it takes care of itself... three priests could effectively keep a tank up if all three are spamming 25% heals on him... throw one resto druid, sham, or paly in the mix, and it solves itself. This all, of course, depends on the fight damage being thrown around and general tuning.
A really cool idea, but one "still on the board" at this point.
(link to original post on my blog)
