Comments on: Makings of the Mundane – A Look at Heroic Spine

By: The 5 worst raid encounters in Cataclysm | Owned Gamers

The 5 worst raid encounters in Cataclysm | Owned Gamers — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 02:29:33 +0000

[...] Looking at it another way, if it took your raid 200 pulls to get through the heroic version of the encounter (which seems to be about average, though that’s reducing now), then you got to burn tendons 1,000 times and kill 1,000 amalgamations, plus uncounted numbers of corruptions and bloods. Is this fun, or busywork? [...]

By: anafielle

anafielle — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:58:39 +0000

I rofl’d at the reforging macro…. screw stopping in the middle of the evening. Especially when Blizz intends to take our precious Have Group Will Travel away. And then at “Grips….. GRIPS. WOW SERIOUSLY. GRIPS.” That is like the whole damn fight. 100% accurate to how spine goes.

Also with a bonus helping of, “More cleave.” “Stop cleaving!” “Help with cleave?” “LESS FUCKING CLEAVE” “WOW STOP CLEAVING” “I need 5 more adds…” etc.

By: The Renaissance Man

The Renaissance Man — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:34:03 +0000

I disagree, I think they were trying to bloat the instance up as much as possible. Two tendons, one platform, then the burn would actually take less time than the 15 minute grindfest that is Madness, much less the time spent on madness plus the time left on spine, add in all the unskippable RP sequences, and the joke that is ultraxion trash, and the bifurcation of the deathwing encounter, it looks to me like they designed the instance so that it couldn’t be cleared in less time than it took to complete an LFD 5 man. I’m really dissatisfied with T13 content.

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:53:24 +0000

I think they were worried about how to make the fight without making it too long. But what they did currently is certainly not particularly interesting, that is for sure

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:42:03 +0000

It’s definitely “easier” than Heroic Rag for sure. It’s just horribly designed from top to bottom! Good luck with both spine and madness!

I’m not sure why it required you to log in, I didn’t change anything that I’m aware of. Maybe it’s in the newest WP update?

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:40:38 +0000

We’ve been pretty lucky with the jumping so far *knocks on wood*. It seems if people remember not to do any movement enchancers they are ok, we’ve spent about 4 hours on Madness so far and are trying to work out the second parasite on the fourth platform (amongst other learning pains…like why did the tank die, why did you blow up the raid, etc). I’m optomistic for a kill soon-ish

But yes, any fight that makes life easier with severe class stacking is just not well done, I’d agree!

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:25:16 +0000

haha, I think people would have revolted if I posted that it was a “fun” fight on the front page!

I agree, it was poor fight design to have an encounter balanced on an 18 second burn. It was ripe for class stacking. Not to mention that at it’s inception it was also apparently balanced around how many legendaries you could shove into your raid.

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:22:49 +0000

I think that they upped the level of the tendons some time ago, so people had to remain hit capped. The issue is that some specs aren’t “top dps” specs over all, but are top single target burst damage specs. And because those specs require different stats you are still stuck playing the respec/reforge game. We’ve taken to just giving a 15 minute break when we get to spine, and another when we finish with it, so people can go take care of their gear.

It’s ok on normal. But that is one of three raid sizes. If it’s failure on two of the three, I don’t think that constitutes a “success”. Successful fights, I would think, are ones that translated into fun and interesting encounters on all three iterations of the fight.

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:08:07 +0000

I agree that on LFR it’s also very dull. I do thin that they should have left a FEW more of the mechanics of the fight in on the LFR version.

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:56:33 +0000

Good Luck!

And yes, we’ve taken to just giving a 15 minute break when we get to spine, and when we finish with spine. Just for people to go get their gear back together.