On Dragons and Seige Engines

Well, I've finally done it. Marrisol has gotten Champion of the Frozen Wastes. Just a wee bit behind the curve. =) But, you know what? I have a small secret to tell. At the same time that I received CotFW, I also received two other achievements: Northrend Dungeon Hero and...Heroic Oculus. It wasn't Malygos that was my sticking point. It was Ley Guardian Eregos. (I finished off Malygos about a month, month and a half ago.) I actually didn't plan on doing this until they nerfed it after the next patch, but Beta Rogue really wanted to get it done, and they couldn't find a third dps inside the guild...so I ran it rather than make them suffer a PUGger.

I'm not the biggest fan of vehicular combat in WoW. Now, I don't detest it like some, but I do think that it's a bit gimmicky. We have a hunter/shaman in the guild who just goes nuts over it, though. He runs Wintergrasp every time a battle is up and squees over Flame Leviathan. He made an interesting comment when I was making my nth attempt on Eregos the other night: "I really like that fight because it's hard. It's hard to find a challenging fight now."

And he's right, to a degree. The fight is hard. I was originally going to write that I think it's hard for the wrong reasons...but in writing out what I thought the reasons for that are, I think I may have convinced myself otherwise. The fight doesn't challenge you to play your class to the tip of its ability. Really, it can't, as class's abilities scale with gear. Once you're Naxx/Ulduar geared, Heroics become a joke (I healed a timed CoS the other night and didn't drink once). So, they brought in the equalizer of a vehicle with static stats. Now everyone's on the same playing field. It's all about organization and strategy. So, Oculus and the Eregos fight are a success in that it brings a level of strategy and teamwork into an area that has otherwise become "CC lawls faceroll ftw".

I still think that introducing an alien mechanic into a fight makes it unnecessarily...I want to say difficult, but no. Unnecessarily frustrating. You have to do something completely different in order to win. The best example of this that comes to mind is Giants: Citizen Kabuto. If you're unfamiliar, this game is a bit RPG, a bit RTS, and a bit slapstick action. Except for the jet ski level. That's right, I have to lay down a little town, run around and kill dudes, manage resources...and then I have to run a jet ski race. It doesn't fit at all. That's what the Oculus fight feels like to me. A jet ski fight that I don't want to do. (I actually never made it past that level as it's not even a very good jet ski race. The bad element made me never finish the game.)

My frustration with vehicles is lessened in Wintergrasp. There, it actually makes sense. "We're assaulting the fortress, go get us a siege engine!" Yeah, that I can get behind. I can't breach a wall with shadow spells or arrows, so I need something that can throw boulders at it. But in a boss fight...I'd really rather just throw down some dots and call it a day. I'm not adverse to a gimmick that makes the fight harder...I'm not even against something that neutralizes the advantage of greater gear. But I do like to be able to control my character in the way I've become accustomed to.

Fortunately, I think that Blizzard learned a bit from all the moaning and groaning they heard about Eregos, because the vehicle portion of Ulduar is not nearly as onerous. The vehicles are actually *fun* to play! You get to mow through hundreds of dudes at a time (we actually got Dwarfageddon completely by accident last run) rather than having to spend a minute or so on each piece of trash. That feels much more epic. And the vehicle abilities have more application to what you're doing, rather than just doing the same thing that your character would be doing...only not doing it as well.

So, yeah, I'm a bit of mixed minds about vehicles, but I think I've just won myself over. =)

Now I'm not nearly so sure how I feel about the Flame Leviathan vehicles scaling with gear and/or the upcoming scaling of the drakes on Malygos and Oculus as I was half an hour ago.

PS - Update on Paks' gear. I've seen the first bit of torso armor creep. I expect that line of flesh to steadily move up for the next thirty to forty levels. =)