Last week got a little crazy with all the Encounter Journal and PTR stuff, so we let the guys and gals cool down and take some time to think about all the new Firelands content they got to test. Considering there was a lot of ground to cover, with 6 of 7 bosses tested so far, we split the answers into two installments so you wouldn't have to read a novel's worth of text all at once. Today we cover the first two days/bosses of the PTR and general impressions of the new instance with the rest coming next week.





Daniie

Just like current content I feel that in both the encounters ranged DPS are much more favoured. Also, the testing should've lasted a bit longer on both, but as a first look it was enough to get a feel for the bosses and get a strategy down.

The zone itself looks awesome, it's huge and very well designed, the travel time to the bosses is a tad long for my liking, and I'm not really looking forward to the mass amount of trash that will fill it.

Tjani
Resto

Unfortunately I have only been able to see the spider boss so far (awesome PTR crashes), but from what I have seen the instance itself looks great. I love the open layout, tho due to the size it's a little concern that there is going to be a LOT of trash!! haha.

Judging by the difficulty on some of the bosses that have been tested already on 10 man, I think hard modes are going to be pretty insane to start with, and really look forward to some nice challenges ahead that hopefully this instance can provide!

I like it so far. I feel like this major fiery theme fits a lot better with this expansion, maybe this should have been a first instance instead of Blackwing Descent (so they could have time to fix that god awful instance).

We have only tested two bosses so far, but both fights were very unfriendly to pets. It could be just that the boss abilities are not set up properly to ignore pets, or at least I hope that's the case. Otherwise it's going to be a pain to constantly micromanage our pets so they don't die from most of the abilities.

Holy

I like that all the bosses so far have new mechanics, I think the hard modes are going to be really interesting.
I don't like the fact that Lord Rhyolith is based almost entirely on RNG and I hope that Blizzard change him so that volcanos can't spawn right under him and maybe give some warning about which volcano is going to be erupting.

One thing that sucks so far is that ranged multi-doting classes are going to be heavily favored on thse 2 bosses. I hope that there is going ot be some melee favored bosses to balance this out.

Santella
Retri

Looks good. By the size of the instance I feel there is going to be a lot of trash, but I don't mind that. The two bosses that have been tested feel pretty good. We'll see about the rest, even though the journal has destroyed a lot of the fun.

Zumadin
Holy

My first impression upon entering the instance was "wow this looks awesome", so definitely good job on the design.
I've only been testing Lord Rhyolith so far, and I quite like the idea behind the encounter. As other people said, the reaction time on his movement could be better, which I'm sure it will be by the time it goes live. RNG also plays a big part in the encounter, as in where the volcanos will spawn and which volcanos will erupt next, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Inz
Shadow

I personally haven't tested any of the encounters yet, however, the instance looks stunning and the bosses on the stream look really cool. If you aren't hyped about Firelands there is something wrong with you.

Rivah
Shadow

Hyped - The 2 bosses tested are awesome, sure the giant could be a bit frustrating but they can easily fix that by making him more reactive to movement and fixing some bugs where he would drink from lava when he was 100 yards away and not drink when he was literally bathing in it.

The zone itself looks stunning, it's the best looking raiding instance in my opinion.

Both bosses tested favor ranged, and especially multi dotting classes, the amount of AOE damage dealt to the raid is ideal for Shadow Priests due to masochism, no mana problems at all.

Sonie
Holy/Disc

I like Firelands so far, the two encounters that we have tested are really interesting. Sure they could probably improve a bit when it comes to the Lord Rhyolith steering mechanic, make it react quicker and easier. But hey, it's PTR, that's why we test them. :)

There was an annoying bug on Lord Rhyolith for us that played Shaman on him. He kills your totem almost instantly if you don't time it correctly. So you needed to be extremely careful when puting down Mana Tide.

But if you put those things aside, I think that Firelands has great potential to become epic content from what I've seen so far.

Stekharn

Only tried Lord Ryolith so far and his new boss mechanic is interesting, Beth'tilac looks pretty crazy as well. I hope the other bosses are more standard but still interesting and challenging! I think the whole Firelands situation can be pretty awesome all in all and I think the idea is to make it feel like Isle of Quel'danas and Sunwell, or more recently the whole Trial of the Crusader place. Hopefully it will be more like Sunwell, since Trial of the Crusader felt like a halfharted project.

I still have a lot of hope for Firelands and just have to wait and see how all pans out.

Jadle

The first boss we tested seemed decent, a bit buggy but it's PTR so that's fine. Rhyolith, however, seems so RNG it's insane, if you get good volcano spawns you can zerg through the phase rapidly, and on the flip side you can get a volcano spawn right infront of the boss as you are about to reset his stacks, and you are ****ed!

That seems like a poor design for a boss to me, but hopefully it will end up being adjusted slightly. We were fortunate enough to have the GM Xelnath with us while testing Rhyolith, so hopefully he will listen to what we said. As far as how classes will play out, well, multi dotting is going to be OP, melee are a liability again. I don't know why Blizzard keep doing that, it makes no sense.

Pets seemed to have a few problems on both bosses too, mine seemed to be killed a lot on Rhyolith in particular. Having to micro manage your pet every second of a fight isn't fun, so let's hope they make some adjustments there. The look and feel of the instance is really nice though and I do have high hopes for it over all.



Holy

Bosses: Really good so far, I think. Seems to be a long and hard progress ahead of us! The individual damage foot mechanic is something completely new, I have to admit I'm surprised to find something new like this.

Server: The first day was really annoying because of all the disconnects, char lost in space etc. Day 2 went a lot better, I just hope when 4.2 goes live the netcode doesn't start doing hiccups again and people don't get perma disced  etc. as was the case in 4.0.6 and 4.1.

Phøenix
Holy

Unfortunately I didn't get to test the bosses myself, but I was watching and listening along. The boss mechanics are different than usual, bosses whose movement you have to direct by damaging their feet. Hello?! New = must be awesome. The bosses really fit in well with the instance itself and the design really comes through well! I just hope they aren't too ranged or melee dependant. It's always stupid when a few really good melees have to swap out for ranged and vice-versa. Same thing with healers. I always prefer when the bosses are balanced, so that a "normal" setup is enough for a kill and everyone gets a chance.

PTR:
Well yea, you couldn't really test much on day 1. Constant DCs during the fights and other obstacles in the very limited time you have to test the bosses. Everything went a lot better on the second day (really great job of fixing that, I doubt anyone expected it to go that smooth). I hope Blizzard eventually gets a hang of it, so that there aren't constant DCs every time a new PTR is up.

Conclusion:
Firelands was set up to be pretty demanding on the PTR, but I doubt the dificulty will stay like that on the live servers. It won't be long until the first nerfs rain down from up high.