I just got through Siege of Orgrimmar part 2 on LFR with my hunter. It really wasn’t a walk in the park. Many of the forum posts indicated that part 2 was a horror show and practically the whole thing was a nightmare. And it’s a nightmare described accurately in those forum posts.
While part 2 is meant to be an epic battle, the end result is that in practice it’s a horrible amount of trash cleaning. The trash leading up to the Dark Shamans is particularly brutal in that it’s needlessly long. As far as I can tell, there is no difference in the amount of trash between Flex and LFR, but I feel that at least 30-40% should be cut down since there really isn’t any purpose to most of it. I think we must’ve wiped around 12 times to trash altogether, which is pretty senseless and a poor usage of time. My personal belief is that this is supposed to be the Alliance’s “fist pumping moment” where they can get their revenge without any PVP repercussions. Unfortunately, the entire situation just feels pointless.
The first two fights for part 2 are not that horrible. But it all really depends on your tanks. The tanks we had for the most part were Timeless Isle geared so they were horribly squishy. Unfortunately, we couldn’t kick the one tank out who ended up persisting to the end. I think having him stay caused at least several wipes just on the basis of wasted battle rezzes. Of course, the real other issue is that most people just refused to listen or pay attention to how the fights operated. I can see when people might have a moment where they tunnel but after a wipe or two, they should learn. In reality, they never will just because they have a poor attitude.
The Dark Shaman fight was particularly brutal. The real problem outside of the trash was that both tanks were ill prepared and one just was a plain asshole. Fortunately, we managed to kick that fucker to the curb before he could continue to grief everyone. That said, the fight itself is pretty brutal for an LFR fight. The mechanics as far as I can tell are pretty much the same as Flex. I believe we got to 6 stacks of determination before we downed them. Part of that issue was just people intentionally screwing everyone over and creating those stacks. I really don’t know why people are willing to wait for a queue to pop like that then waste everyone’s time (especially their own). My only rationale is that these people are mentally sick and probably should be thrown into some mental ward deep in the Atlantic Ocean. That said, I think some of the damage in that fight is pretty unforgiving and probably needs to be reduced by 10% or more.
Somehow we persisted and managed to make it through. Then we got to General Nazgrim. I think the fight isn’t mechanically that bad. What makes the fight hard is just people not paying attention to how the fight has to operate. I’m partly guessing that a good portion of people simply do not have any add-ons that inform them of events. Another interpretation is that people probably are on a serious amount of drugs and just don’t care. That said, the fight is pretty tight and probably a bit overtuned for LFR. I’ve heard of groups getting 7 stacks of determination, which leads me to believe that the boss’ health probably should be reduced by 20-30%. Someone also mentioned that the boss’ defensive stance probably goes on for too long in LFR, which causes quite a bit of unnecessary downtime since most adds end up getting killed during that period, leaving people nothing to do and then refocusing on the boss. So perhaps 5-10 seconds trimmed off of Nazgrim’s defensive stance would probably make things a little easier on top of the reduced health.
The experience for part 2 was overall painful as others had mentioned. I believe I stuck it out for 4 hours. Now, part of it was going along with my friend’s guildies. However, by the time I got to Nazgrim, I decided just to stick it out. Other issues that compounded this 4 hour LFR was the constant swapping of tanks, healers and DPS. By the end, it felt as though everyone had a 2 hour kick prevention countermeasure. I would say if people just were patient, would listen and wait a lot of this situation could be avoided.
In contrast, I’m finding that part 1 is moving smoothly. There are the occasional wipes, but the situation isn’t as horrible, especially with the corruption bug fix. I feel that part 1 doesn’t really need any adjustments and is fine for what it is. Mechanics-wise, I haven’t really encountered anything in part 1 that is hair pulling frustrating. Matter of fact, I’m enjoying a few of the fights like the Sha of Pride.
Fortunately, at least for my hunter, I was able to get some gear out of both LFRs. So the pain was more or less worth the effort. But I can see how there are some people who feel that part 2 needs some adjustment. I wouldn’t want the mechanics to be adjusted; I think leaving the mechanics in as a matter of practice for the more difficult levels of LFR is a good thing. I do think that part 2 for the Siege of Orgrimmar probably takes a bit longer than it’s worth; they really just need to cut down on the trash mobs and cut a few of the bosses’ health down so that it runs smoother.
Fight-wise, I honestly don’t think that these fights are really that horrible. The real issue is just getting used to the mechanics, being at the right place and the right time, knowing which mob to hit and learning when to use your cooldowns and special abilities. Quite honestly, I didn’t mind the wipes at this point because I haven’t had that much practice on these fights. I look at the situation as a learning experience for myself in preparation for Flex.