by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

By now it has been over two months since Highmaul was first introduced, and with the opening of Blackrock Foundry, I think it is a good time to analyze Highmaul as it is the first raid of Warlords of Draenor and a lot of peoples’ first introduction to raiding.

One of the first things that comes to mind about Highmaul is how well-designed most of the fights are. You don’t need many mechanics or really hard fights to have a good raid. Highmaul’s simplicity and ascending difficulty curve makes for a really good experience for both new players and veterans alike. Each fight is so different from the next, and they all teach you different aspects of raiding without being too complex or punishing.

Kargath Bladefist is the first fight in Highmaul, and just from the get-go you get the feeling that something awesome is about to happen. You walk into the instance and are greeted with an elevator that takes you to an arena where you fight Kargath. The fight’s mechanics teach about simple raid awareness and movement; you also have a designated group that has to do a special task. The aesthetics behind this fight are fantastic, making you feel like a true gladiator fighting for your life.

Kargath Bladefist

Next up, you have three different optional bosses: the Butcher, Tectus and Brackenspore. It has been a long time since we had any options as to which bosses we fight, which makes Highmaul feel very fresh. The Butcher is a DPS race with very simple mechanics but a very tight enrage timer. Managing the bleed stacks on separate groups gives individuals in your raid group something else to do, but mostly its all about having good rotations and excellent DPS. Tectus makes your group work a lot on positioning. Its abilities change the landscape of the room and it teaches both melee and ranged how to move around as the encounter gets harder. Brackenspore is mostly an add-based fight and DPS has to quickly change targets and cycle their interrupts to not take too much damage.

Once you complete the bosses in the outside courtyard of the raid, you can move further into the Ogre Empire. Twin Ogron is a fight with two bosses who both share the same health pool. Each has individual abilities that force the raid to stack together or move around. Twins is really good at showing you how important it is to avoid mechanics and stay alive. Most of the damage in this fight can be prevented by playing tight and not standing in the wrong spot.

Twin Ogron

Ko’ragh forces your group to have a balance between physical damage and magic damage. I find the mechanics in Ko’ragh the most interesting in this raid as they create emergent dynamics with how you set up your raid team and which people are in charge of getting a shield to absorb the Overflowing Energy. Not many fights make me think of which type of damage I am dealing to a boss; as a rogue I have a spec for either pure physical or mostly magic damage and it is interesting to switch around just because different groups need more of one or the other.

Ko’ragh

The final boss of the raid is Imperator Mar’gok and he lives up to the final boss status. Imperator has many phases with each of them needing different executions on certain mechanics. It is a very long fight and it takes practice and patience to down him in higher difficulties. It makes you want to work hard and each phase you get to feels like progress.

Imperator Mar’gok

Mists of Pandaria had a very similar raiding experice, as Mogushan Vaults was released before the rest of the tier and it served as a stepping stone into raiding. The biggest problems with Mogushan Vaults was how punishing the bosses were. When I began raiding in Mists most groups I joined fell apart in Stone Guards and the gearing experience outside of raiding was gated by rep grinds which just made my experience miserable. This actually made me take a break until Throne of Thunder launched and I am glad Blizzard was able to improve on that experience now in Warlords.

Overall, Highmaul wants players to follow mechanics more than anything. I think this is important at the start of an expansion, because it lets players understand that mechanics are more important than your numbers on the meters. I really enjoyed my time in Highmaul so far and I am glad to be a raider in Warlords of Draenor.

What are your impressions of Highmaul? Please let us know in the comments bellow.