A Peep Into Emerald Nightmare – Darkbough

The first wing of Emerald Nightmare went live in LFR yesterday, and my main met the item level requirements to pay a visit.

Raid Design 

The raid itself is very beautiful. These shades of red color are really an innovation within WoW. It’s so rich, colorful, and at the same time corresponds the intended dread of corruption. I was impressed THIS much only at Dread Wastes in Pandaria – you know, when you take a first look at the skies… Oily, oozing black and white sha colors were also new and intimidating.

Yellowish fel green and ‘proper’ fireland fires have grown pretty old: we’re being fed by it throughout the expansions. This red feels pretty fresh – considering we are doomed for Fel Green by expansion storyline.

Most of all I liked the floors in the middle room: those batches of small nightmare tumors/pimples are something I stopped to take a closer look at. They are amazing. I want my personal nightmare puddle in Class Order Hall now where I can plant those. And pop them for fun :)

I like the ‘apocalypse’ themes where a familiar landscape goes bad – and then it heals. Haven’t seen the healing yet, but a look at disrupted Thunder Bluff was awesome. Didn’t feel anything about Un’Goro – I didn’t recognize the place even if I’ve been in every corner of the zone. The highlight of Un’Goro is a small volcano and tar pits among the jungle. I couldn’t recall an important tree there in the open world, so I’ve no idea where this was happening.

Bosses

The encounters were pretty simple. Well, Highmaul’s first wing was easy as well. Although bosses of EN didn’t seem like utter trash mobs (Butcher…) – the fights were long enough.

I think that people are so experienced in different mechanics that it’s very easy for them to overcome most of the boss abilities.

Draenor has trained us to kill adds, and people now switch to adds by instinct. We were not overrun by them ever. We were trained to step out of the bad, and people stepped out of the bad. We are keen dragon slayers, and so we fight dragon hitting in her side scales, never at a tail or in front of any breaths. When we catch a debuff, a small peep in the journal is sufficient to cope with it: whether you bring it in the raid or out of it.

Il’gynoth wiped us, but just once. Exactly half of the raid didn’t step out of the room, so we deliberately lay down, and our next try was flawless since we knew what to do.

All the other times we were almost at full health, and everyone performed well and behaved correctly.

I confess I have some encounters in previous expansions where I still don’t understand a bit of mechanics or fail to follow it – even if I ran them dozens of times with many alts. Here in EN everything was clear yet, I felt total control of my actions.

The bosses as EN bosses are beautifully designed. They do feel like foes, they are dangerous by plot, and they totally fit the storyline. You are motivated to kill them, and that’s important.

People

Now, that surprised me most. I expected bitching, I expected pompous assholes, I expected wipes for just being silly, blaming and all that. You know, LFR.

The raid was perfectly polite and behaved like humans. I could blame it for excellent run through – people tend to explode after failures after all. But no. There wasn’t a single bad word after our wipe at Il’gynoth.

Moreover, after every boss people actually SHARED their loot to the others. I mean: WHAT? People asked if someone needs their item. My own luck was 5+5+5 gold, but… After the first boss someone – I didn’t even manage to read the name – just walked to me without a word and gave me the loot ring. It was ilvl 850, while I boasted a pair of 800 and 805, so it was a great improvement. To say I was surprised is to say nothing.

What’s going on?

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