Reflecting on Ny'alotha

While perhaps nothing will compare to Icecrown Citadel as perhaps the most anticipated expansion-end raid of all time, Ny'alotha, the Waking City is a worthy entry into that pantheon. Starting the raid by fighting a dragon isn't an original idea, but executed much more effectively by removing any trash pulls that would stall the momentum of an exciting launch into the instance.

From there, Ny'alotha had an unusually gentle learning curve boss to boss, probably because the Prophet Skitra and Shad'har the Insatiable were under-tuned (although hats off to Valdra and RunningElk for making the Skitra mechanics stupidly easy to begin with.) I especially appreciated the callback to classic WoW in Maut's mechanics, and Inquisitor Xanesh was brutally strict in requiring the raid to execute the mechanics correctly, but felt fair in allowing the raid to coordinate and rotate players in kicking the orb around the arena.

Ra-den felt less memorable than either his insipid trash pulls or his incredible loot table, but Vexiona and Il'gynoth stood out as excellent "wing-end" bosses worthy of the fist-pump of victory after dodging all the mechanics to keep everyone alive for that final, frantic burn. The Carapace of N'zoth was also technically a fight, but in a lot of ways it felt more like a cinematic sequence with three different phases than a single encounter that could stand alone. Still, it felt fitting as the prelude to the final boss, and the presentation of N'zoth itself rising in the distance and all around you was one of the most visually impressive elements in ANY raid.

In the end, though, I think N'zoth the Corrupter could have been harder. Unlike Vexiona and Il'gynoth, who were still threats in their final moments, N'zoth fell easily once the entire raid had passed through his portals. This may have felt more like a duly-earned reward after an arduous journey if the prior raid had not also suffered a similar defect in Azshara's encounter falling flat as her intricate mechanics were quickly overcome by brute force.

On the whole, even if Ny'alotha was a little easy, it made up for it as an exciting, interesting, good-looking, FUN final raid!

Ritavu