SoO Wing 4 LFR - Good or Bad, Too Confused to Tell.

I am not confused about the fights, so to speak, as I know them.  I am confused about how my run through the LFR will help anyone that goes into it again next week.  I am confused as to if anyone can get a feeling for it from me sharing my experiences. It was not a bad run really.  We wiped once on the first bosses, one shot the second boss and wiped three times on the last boss.

We had one of those horrible LFR moments that reminds me why I do not tank the LFR but outside of that, it was okay.  Lets start at the start and I will point out what confused me.

Over all LFR wing 4 seems easier than LFR wing 2 and LFR wing 3, which in and of itself is confusing. Blizzard really needs to work on their design for random content, they have no clue where they want it to be.  Shouldn't the earlier ones be easier?

Boss one.

No one mentioned assembly lines.  No one mentioned tanking the shredder away from the boss.  No one mentioned crawlers.  No one mentioned anything really.  They left it up to the group to be able to figure it out on their own which if history proves anything it proves that is not a good idea.

In all honesty, anyone that queues up for something like this should have a basic idea of the fights even if they never did them before.  If you queue for group content it is your job to make sure that you are not wasting the time of 24 other players and as such it is your responsibility to know the fights beforehand.  That is my opinion at least and I know a great many disagree with me.  Seemingly, most of the LFR I was in disagreed with me as it seems a hand full knew the fights.  I would say at most 10 of the 25 had a clue, just so happened it was just the right people that knew it to get us through it okay.

I was going to do the assembly line but someone mentioned I got the line so I just figured I would pew pew because that is all there really is to do.  Pew pew and avoid crap.

Being the assembly line was never explained, the healers were extremely powerful and healed people through a lot of stuff they should have avoided, and the DPS was okay, which is unheard of in an LFR, the fact that most people there had no clue did not hurt us as much.

So next week when most of these people go into the LFR none of them will know about the line, they will all think the damage means nothing because it was healed through by the great healers we were lucky enough to have and, effectively, they will have all done the fight and still have absolutely no clue how to do the fight.  If that makes any sense.

Was it our job, the people that knew, to at least explain a little?  Explain what was going on, so even if they did not understand they would know there was something going on?

We wiped once on that fight because the damage became too much.  Someone mentioned after the wipe to keep the shredder away and for people to try to avoid the avoidable, but that was about it.  We downed it the next time on the backs of 4 250K DPS and 4 of the 6 healers being pretty much this side of awesome.

Boss two.

Boss two was a one shot affair.  I know the fight and it is the only fight I would never want to explain in a million years.  I despise council fights to begin with when it comes to explaining them and if I never saw one in the game again I would be a happy camper but one with 9 bosses, no thank you, let someone else explain, this brings the annoying council fight explanation thing to an entirely new level of "go f yourself blizzard".

Were there differences between LFR and normal?  Damned if I know.  Seriously, I have no clue.  I am confused.

We one shot the boss.  No one said a word, heck we went from trash pulling into the boss fight instantly.  I would be willing to bet 15 of the 25 people (which I am figuring is probably the amount that has never seen the fight) thought we were still on trash.

The only words said in raid was a /rw that said single target skull only.  And that is exactly what we did.  Well, all execpt one person that was more interested in meter hogging than doing the fight the way intended.  Be prepared to see a lot of that on this fight.  It will usually be followed by the prerequisite posting of recount and some damage dealer saying how awesome he is even if he completely ignored the mechanics. And no, the person AoEing was not a lock with rain for embers or a shadow priest or boomkin for procs, it was someone that gains no benefit from hitting more targets what so ever except to stoke his own epeen.

One died, another skull popped up, one died, another skull popped up.  The fight went by so fast I did not even see any mechanics, maybe I was never targeted by anything, maybe they were all going down so fast, maybe some of the abilities are not in the LFR version, maybe I had one of those "baddie" moments where I was ignoring mechanics and didn't even know I was ignoring them.  Who the hell knows.  I sure don't.  I knew it was a boss fight and was so confused by it if I did not know I might have thought it was more trash too like most of the raid probably thought.

Either way, the paragons went down in what are probably the easiest fight of all the LFR SoO fights.  Where there mechanics?  Maybe, who knows.  I did not see any.

Maybe that was the right way to do it, if you tried to explain 9 bosses with 9 sets of abilities and how the 9 interact with each other in some cases and the buffs and debuffs it might have made the fight a lot harder than it was.  Like I said, they started the fight so quickly that most probably just thought it was more trash that was slightly harder trash.

It sure felt like that, just some trash that was slightly harder.  I am confused how the hell we managed a one shot on it and I am sure other there will be confused the next time they are in there and the fight is not a joke like it was for this group.

Trash to boss three.

Yes, trash to boss three needs its own header.  Why you ask?  Because we wiped (using that term loosely) 10 times on that trash.  Yes, a group that two shot the first boss, one shot the second boss, and here we meet trash that starts a wipefest galore.

This is also when the standard tank drama starts.  It is not an LFR run if someone doesn't call at least one of tanks bad right?

So before we even start the trash one tank drops.  I do not blame him, I would not put up with that shit either.  The other tank decides, it is just trash, lets pull, to which I agree.  One person said "single target".  It seems only I read that.  We wipe.  Well, they wipe, I am a hunter, I always live or try to.

To be completely honest, I am not sure even if we single targeted we would have survived, but I agree with the single target approach.  Everyone gets back and we try it again and things go haywire again.

Tank goes down and one mob comes straight for me.  This quick mental exchange goes on.  Feign death, MD to pet, growl, crap pet got one shot, run away run away, damn I miss readiness.  Concussive, trap, kite, FD back up, use it.  Woohoo, I survived.  Go hunter, go hunter, its your birthday, its your birthday.

But then I noticed something.  Something cruel if you really wanted to think about it.  When I FD someone else gets aggro, that someone else will not live long.  But they will live long enough for what I need to use them for.

I go about this routine for all the adds while everyone is running back over and over.  I attack, I get aggro, my pets still dead so it is just me, me and the unsuspecting soon to be dead others.  I trap and concussive to slow and burn as much as I can.  I FD when it gets close, let it go on someone else and get my distance again and start to pew pew once more.  When they die and it starts to come for me again I trap, concussive and kite until FD time once more when he gets close then let someone else get aggro and do the routine all over again.

Basically I keep sacrificing others so I can pick them apart.  Effectively I kill all of them with a little help from unsuspecting victims.  I use the number that we wiped 10 times because after all was said and done most people were talking about how many times they died, most people were saying at least 10.  I died once.  I basically killed all of them.  Even the time I died the sucker that killed me went down at the same time.

During this time they are bashing the tank for not keeping aggro.  The tank drops, we get two more, people start screaming at them as soon as they zone in.  One died the second he zoned in and dropped group, the other tried to get things in order but died near instantly.  He stuck around a short time before he dropped too.

We get two more tanks and the raid starts complaining about how horrible the other tanks were, they both drop before even doing a pull.  If all that venom was being spat at me the second I zoned into an instance I would drop too.  No way to win over a group when they already hate you the second you zone in because they blame tanks for everything of course.

We sit and wait for two more tanks, which was good because I needed a bathroom break.  So far we have spent more time on the trash than we did on the first two bosses and their associated trash combined.

Now another moment of confusion on my part.  Why is the trash to the last boss harder than the previous two bosses?  Does blizzard really think people in random content want hard trash?  Do they think it is fun?

Well, tell you what, I was having a blast.  I was loving it.  I had fun kiting, I had fun seeing how many people I could pass aggro on to and get them killed while I kill the mob.  I had a hell of a lot of fun, probably the most fun I have had in an LFR in months.  But then again, I only died once and I did most of the killing, so that is why I had fun.  There were 24 other people there that would very likely say they did not have fun.  More so the people I let die so I wouldn't.  Hehehe.  Sorry, I could not help it, that was funny.

When we finally get two more tanks, numbers 5 and 6 to enter, not counting the two we started with, so up to 8 for the run, we finish the last of the trash off.  Again, I end up doing my hunter thing, surviving, while everyone else around me dies a horrible and brutal death.  Hehehe.

Boss three.

Someone actually made an effort to explain this fight.  After the last boss fight and the failed attempts at this one I was almost starting to think maybe it would be better if we did not flood a bunch of random people with simple data because it is only simple data once you know what it is.  If you don't, it sure it a lot to suck in.  Most people would suffer from information over load.

It would be better to just have someone instruct as you go with raid warnings.  I read what was being said, I read that the guy that did the lines will do the engineer.  This tidbit of information will come into play later and act as proof that no one read what the poor guy that made the effort to explain had to say.

We go at it and it goes well.  I almost had this feeling we were going to one shot it, until the mind control phase and no one, except myself it seems, switched to the MCed players.  We had some issues earlier with people not stacking for the weapon as suggested and set up with markers, but that was manageable.  I put myself on weapon duty.

By putting myself on weapon duty I noticed that more than a few people did not read what the guy wrote, and sure as hell did not understand what he said if they did read it.  Weapons target ranged players.  Not players at range.  There is a difference.  If a hunter stands in melee he is still a ranged player and can still be targeted. 

The guy explaining actually did say it targets a ranged player and not it targets a player at range.  But the thing with that is, even if people read it, which they did not, many would not understand the difference in terminology.  Only people that know the fight would know the difference and as I mentioned most people here did not really seem to know the fights so you know what that means right?  If you guessed weapons in melee, here, have a cookie.

Hey, I do not know the fights well either, I only read about them, watched a video or two and only did them once, I could even be wrong about a lot of things, but I try at to understand at least and I respect anyone that will take the time and effort to explain and I will read what they have to say and follow their lead.  I wonder why so few others do that.  Even if they have never read about it or watched a video or done it, at least have the common courtesy to read the advice being given to you by sometimes that has and is willing to take the time to share that information with you.

After the first couple of weapons they started landing in melee because ranged players decided, if I stand at melee I will not get targeted for the weapon.  Wrong.  A ranged player is a ranged player no matter where you stand, thanks for dropping the weapon in melee.

I was the only one that switched to the weapons when they were at range which made for them taking a little while to down but once one landed in melee it seemed a light blub popped over a few peoples heads that said, maybe downing these things is not a half bad idea.

Even with all the weapons landing everywhere except where the markers were set up and people, for the most part, just letting them sit and spin until they were in melee, it was going quite well.  Until the mind control phase, as I mentioned.  Pro tip: you can kill MCed people in LFR.  Oops.  I was thinking it would just break them out at 20% because it was LFR, apparently I was wrong.  Sorry people I killed.  At least it was fun. For me.  Hehehe.

The reason we wiped during the MC phase was not me killing people, it was me being the only person that went after the MCed people.  Sadly my murderous streak for killing my team mates was not enough.

Second time around we did much better.  People switched to the MCed people, ranged mostly stayed at range, or at least the weapon only targeted ranged that were at range except for once, and things were moving nicely.

I was starting to get into that "we 2 shot it" mode in my mind but I must have thought about it too soon because when the empowered MC went out people where tunneling the boss and once again, as much as I like to think I am good, I am not that good.  I could not take out all the MCed people myself and we wiped.

A gentle reminder was given that people need to switch to the mind controlled people and someone said, there weren't any, just these sha things.  Well, those sha things are mind controlled people.  Attack them.  Or in my case, kill them, but shhh, don't tell, I did accidentally kill a couple more people.  I need to learn some self control.  Sorry dead peoples I killed. Hehehe.

With 2 wipes under our belt I was ready for a kill but we wiped again and I will not even call it a wipe for the sake of this.  It was completely accidental and not exactly sure how we managed to wipe, but it was over as fast as it started.  We did not even get a stack of determination for it.

Next real attempt the entire ranged point gets crushed by an iron star.  I mean nearly wiped out.  I was one of only 3 that managed to survive.  Maybe because I noticed it was coming and took actions to avoid it.  The rest of the raid apparently thought it was a bug.

People started saying "there is only supposed to be one of them", "how did that happen?", all comments like that.  See, it shows no one knows the fights before they go there and no one reads what people are saying when explaining the fight.  The person that was on engineer duty apologized and admitted it was his fault.  A very bold thing to do in an LFR.  If anyone even so much as suggested kicking him I would have kicked them for suggesting it on general principle.  That guy is the reason none of you even knew about the iron star.  He was doing a great job, he made a mistake, he owned up to it and said it will not happen again.  That, my LFR friends, is what a decent player and a decent person does, try acting like that a little more often and take a lesson from him.

With 3 wipes under our belt now thanks to more than half the raid dying an iron star death, we go back there for attempt four and blow him away as if everyone there was doing this fight for months.

Everyone stacked where they were supposed to.  The engineer guy did his job again.  Everyone was on the MCed people instantly.  No one got killed in the transition phases, which could not be said of the previous attempts, and we beat him like a red headed step child.

Was it a good run or a bad run?  Who is to say, it had its moments of each and the normal moment that I would consider it being a bad run, when names were being called and insults being thrown around, I was loving every minute of it kiting and killing both enemies and friends. Hehehe.

The run, over all, was decent, due to a few people that knew what to do and took care of the little things like the assembly line guy, the engineer guy, the target switching guys and everything went okay.  I just feel bad for all those people that knew nothing about the fights, because even if we did well, they still are left knowing nothing about the fights.

Makes me wonder, good runs like this are nice, but what do good runs like this do for the community, nothing.  Because if 15 of those 25 people knew nothing of those three fights, the 10 of us that did, really did nothing to teach them.  We took care of everything that needed to be taken care of.

So what happens the next time they are in there with people that do not know, they will be confused on why it was so easy last time and so hard now.

One thing for sure, when adding in the wait time for tanks, we spent more time fighting, waiting, running back, and everything else on the trash leading up to the last boss than we did on everything else combined.

Yeah, it was an odd run, good and bad, and confusing a bit, but nothing is more confusing than why the hardest part of SoO wing 4 in the LFR is the trash.

I would love to give you a review of the wing but I can't because in the end, I was kind of confused.  Even knowing the fights, I kind of had no idea what the hell was going on.  So how is someone that knows nothing of the fights supposed to understand them?

Still, even if I am sure most people will have runs a lot worse than mine this first week, wing 4 is WAY easier than 2 and 3 were.  So be happy for that.  But they are still too hard for the average LFR group.  I am 100% certain of that.

I hope, for your sake, you ended up in a group like mine, as confusing as it might have been sometimes, it was a decent run.  If you go in with a group that knows nothing, expect to wipe.  Maybe a lot but surely a lot less than you did on shaman or the general.

How was your first LFR wing 4 run?