As we get ever closer to Mist of Panderia dropping it is now that I look back on the expansion that we’ll be saluting to as we sail to the land o’ Pandas, and Beer. Cataclysm had it’s good times, and it REALLY had it’s bad times, but one thing sticks out in my mind over everything else, Firelands was a good raid.
Size DOES Matter
When Cata was in the works, one of the components of previous expansions that Blizzard said it was getting rid of was the very LARGE raid instances. This made me exceptionally sad, since to this day Ulduar is my favorite raid. Then Firelands came along.
With only 7 bosses it shouldn’t have felt as epic as Ulduar, and granted it wasn’t that amazing, but I can’t deny that when I walked into the fiery zone the first time I was taken back by the size and horrible beauty of it. The Zone itself helped to contribute to the grandeur of it all.
Here I was a mere mortal stepping onto the plane of the Firelord and his generals. What gave me the right to be here?
Soft Little Fleshy Things
I know that there are people that enjoy touting the fact that the bosses were “easy” and that FL was “easy”. I am going to choose to ignore that. Firelands was difficult:
- Lord Ryolith would make a bitch out of your raid if you could properly communicate.
- Shannox, the easiest in my opinon, tested your skills to not stand in stuff.
- Beth’tilac was a matter of making order out of what could be chaos.
- Alysrazor, I bet anyone that’s cleared her is now an EXPERT at dodging ANYTHING.
- Baleroc, for me this was a healing fight I’d wanted for sometime. It gave us a neat mechanic, that we HAD to use.
- Majordomo, The action to “Spread!” will never be executed as fast and seamlessly as it was when you had to transition phases.
- Ragnaros, ALL OF THE ABOVE!
This stands true for their Heroic versions as well. These fights were well thought out and neatly put together. So thank you Blizz I will remember Cata fondly because of Firelands.
The People That Make You
Last but not least this raid was also greatly improved by the hugely inappropriate group of hooligans that are the Hater Raiders. Raineva, over at Minions of Raineva, made this from our misadventures.
What will you remember from Cata?
/Cheers
I really enjoyed firelands too, It didn’t feel as punitive as the first two raids of Cata, but it doesn’t feel as mind numbing boring as Dragon Soul (thanks to running it for valor over and over and over on raid finder difficulty)
It just felt so nice to walk into a raid and not have a boss guarded by one set of trash mobs too!
Blackrock really felt like a 5 man to me in that sense.
Ah, Alysrazor where you learned that running and steering with your mouse made life so much more tolerable…
I actually liked FL as well, the encounters were fun and had some interesting mechanics, but I do miss the scale that the older raids had as well. Cata, overall was far from my favorite expansion, but raiding wise has some great and memorable boss encounters like Atramedes and Spine in addition to what you listed out.