Review: World of Warcraft Karazhan Boss Reviews

I did some reviews of Karazhan bosses in WoW, a while back. Just to note some things about MMO boss design, MMO design, and game design in general. Here's what I wrote:

Romulo and Julienne

Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. Julienne comes out first, followed by Romulo, then both. Both have self-buffs that must be dispelled. Julienne is primarily a caster, Romulo is physical. When you fight both at once, they must be killed within 10 seconds of each other.

Good Points: The ability to spellsteal Julienne’s buff for great effect is nice, as opposed to simply dispelling it. Also, Julienne and Romulo are well designed in that only one of them screws up melee, so it naturally divides the raid into who’s attacking who.

Bad Points:

Neutral Points: The progressive nature of the fight.

Tank: Tank one, and/or the other. Quite basic, really.

Ranged DPS: DPS one or the other. Spellsteal Julienne’s buff.

Melee DPS: DPS primarily Julienne.

Healers: Heal tanks and whoever’s getting hit by Julienne’s spells. Dispel their buffs.

Raid Leader: Coordinate DPS between Romulo and Julienne.

Lessons Learned: Again, pulling out pseudo-obscure abilities is good. Makes people remember every spell they have. Dividing the raid can also prove entertaining.

How I would change the fight: Make them both somewhat harder individually. Make them both rez at less than 100% health during the final part of the fight, and whenever you kill one of them, the other one kills him/herself. Shakespeare at its finest.


The Wizard of Oz

Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. The fight starts by introducing, one by one, the members of the fight: Dorothee (who summons Tito), Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar. Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar each have a weakness based on the movie: Strawman is disoriented by fire, Tinhead becomes slower and slower, and Roar can be feared. After this, you fight the Crone.

Good Points: The fight is very funny. The weaknesses of Dorothee’s companions are quite amusing, and logical. Also the fight demands things of people outside their standard roles.

Bad Points:

Neutral Points: The Crone is very easy. If you get to her, you’ve basically won.

Tank: Tank/kite Tinhead, distract Strawman and/or Roar, and offtank Tito.

Ranged DPS: DPS them in order, while fearing Roar and using fire on Strawman, and avoiding Tinhead.

Melee DPS: DPS them in order, avoiding Tinhead.

Healers: Healing on whoever needs it.

Raid Leader: Decide the order in which to DPS them down, and who should control who.

Lessons Learned: Cluster fights can work, and can be quite entertaining. Quirky but logical weaknesses are also fun.

How I’d change the fight: Make the Crone a little harder.




The Curator

Summary: The first fight of the “second half” of Karazhan (or perhaps the last fight of the first half), the curator has several abilities. The first is his sparks, which are summoned every 10 seconds, and must be killed, ideally before the next one is summoned. The second is Hateful Bolt, an arcane bolt that he shoots at whoever is second on his threat list. Last is his evocation, which he does after every tenth spark. He stops doing anything and regains the mana he lost summoning the sparks. While doing this for twenty seconds, he takes triple damage.

Good Points: Tank and Spank with a very interesting twist. The sparks force the DPS to do something other than just sit there and throw spells/attacks at the curator, and the evocations are a natural time to switch to the curator. Also, there’s several ways to deal with the Hateful Bolts.

Bad Points:

Neutral Points: Tank does very little.

Tank: Just tank the Curator. One tank may also be attempting to corral the sparks.

Ranged DPS: DPS the sparks, and then the Curator. One ranged DPS may be “tanking” the Hateful Bolts.

Melee DPS: DPS the sparks and Curator. One may be attempting to corral the sparks.

Healers: Heal the tank, the hateful bolt tank, and whoever gets hit by the sparks.

Raid Leader: Figure out how to deal with the bolts and the sparks.

Lessons Learned: While somewhat complicated, the curator is very much the bridge between the first and second halves of Karazhan. He is a well-designed fight for this, testing all aspects of your raid (save for the main tank, unfortunately).

How I would change the fight: Make it test the main tank somehow. I’d say some sort of spell reflection timing, but that would make it warrior-exclusive. Perhaps making the tank move him constantly, or move him only at certain times. At 50% mana, perhaps, the tank has to move out. Something.




Just three sample reviews. I do like the fights, obviously: I think WoW is a very well designed game, and the bosses are great. I do have some small quibbles with choices made by the designers occasionally, and sometimes larger quibbles - but the progress made over the expansions is great, and by and large everything is really good - as you can tell. My boss reviews (these, anyway) don't have any "bad points" listed, because I really think that all the fights are well done - I do have some quibbles with them, but they're more "things i would do" rather than "things that SHOULD have been done."