Preparing for Sunwell

I, for one, am anxious to see Sunwell on the PTR, as well as the rest of our guild, Mob Mentality. This will mark the first time our guild will fully attempt a new raid instance on the PTR, with every intention of learning every fight we can, and destroying every fight we can… preparing for, hopefully, an early full clear of the raid instance.

Not much is currently known about the instance aside from the basic structure and a little bit of the layout (there is more known about the 5-man wing than the 25-man wing at this point). Recently, it was pointed out that the 1st boss of the raid instance will be a similar fight to the 1st boss of the Abomination Wing in Naxx… Patchwerk. I welcome our new potion intensive overlords. I’m not concerned though. We have the tanks to sustain a silly amount of damage from any type of melee boss, provided Blizzard does not add a resistance component to the fight (or any new bosses that are resistance gear heavy fights).

But we need to go into the PTR will the full intention and cooperation of the entire guild to not only want to clear this instance quick, but sneak in some server firsts as well. While Horde firsts on Sargeras are nice, we really aren’t in any danger of not getting them once 2.4 releases. Our primary competition will be Eminence (Alliance), and I have no doubt that they will also be on the PTR, learning and beating Sunwell right along side of us. As long as people show up and do their best, and we get through some of the un-tweaked bosses, we should theoretically blow through Sunwell in 2.4… until maybe the final boss since the game has had a history of making instance final bosses either way OP, or with broken AI.

Several screenshots of “potential” gear/weapons were released into the internet over the past week or so. Blizzard has neither confirmed nor denied if these items and their stats are accurate, but they have said that the instance wings will contain tier 6.5/7 items. The latest screenshot released shows some weapons and trinkets that may or may not be legit. All I have to say is… where are the maces and, *deep breath*, FIST WEAPONS?! Fist weapons continue to be the red headed stepchild of the weapon types in this game. Now I know the items listed may not be real, but if they were fake, at least humor us and put a fist weapon in there. =p And the easy solution due to the fist weapon mounting issue… make it a graphic that is symmetric around the entire hand/forearm, that way only 1 graphic model needs to be made for the item (like if you shoved your hand into a Pringles can and glued nails all around it).

As far as the boss fights go, I am optimistic that Blizzard will create more unique style fights, but doesn’t make them insanely difficult in doing so. Make them creative and fun, yet still a challenge and at least possible to beat with enough practice. Please don’t make suppression room fights or have a really long string of trash mobs before the boss room. That got annoying quick with Kael’Thas trash in a hurry since the fight had one of the largest learning curves in the game… if not the longest, second only to maybe Archimonde. But at least he has no trash mobs to deal with. If he had trash waves like the other bosses in Hyjal did, I’m sure that it wouldn’t just be my head spinning off of my shoulders. =p

Now if you don’t mind, I’m back to work. And then later, off to spread my ramblings on the Blizzard Rogue boards, harp the “class leaders”, and continue on the long road to 1850 on my 3v3 team… hopefully.