Raid Mechanics: What Happened to World Bosses?
by JR Cook - 9 years ago show comments
Recently I have leveled an alt with my significant other and we were trying to figure out what stuff we could do to gear up. In this conversation the topic of world bosses came up. I remember having done Tarlna the first week it came out but after that I did not see the point of doing them every week.
This apathy for world bosses is something recent that is pretty much consistent with all the non raiding content this expansion. Back in Mists of Pandaria one of the things I enjoyed doing outside of my raid times was doing world bosses. I would find a group of random people and fly around the world killing bosses, it was not the most exciting of things, but it was simple content I looked forward on doing most weeks.
One of the biggest differences between now and then is the quality of gear that is dropped. In Mists their was normal raid quality gear (which would now be heroic), this helped the rewards stay relevant for a lot longer. The bosses that dropped PvP gear also had tier pieces so more of the player base was incentivized to kill them. Now two of the bosses drop gear that is worse than most LFR and the third one drops gear just bellow Blackrock Foundry normal. Most of the Pandaria bosses also have mount drops which makes them relevant even now. Only Rukkhmar can drop a mount and from all I have seen it is the only one worth doing at the moment.
In terms of the design of the bosses, the current ones are just bigger re-skinned versions of dungeon bosses. The Pandaria ones were not incredibly designed fights and most of the time were just zerged to death, but at least they all felt unique and different. It also does not help that Tarlna and Drov share a loot lockout, this just makes it harder to find and make groups for them as less people need to kill one specifically.
To be honest I don’t think Blizzard can do anything to fix it for this tier. They can’t just buff the item level for their drops and call it a day because it would have to be a very big buff to make any difference. I hope that if they introduce more world bosses in 6.2 they are more like the Pandaria ones.
Have you done any of the new world bosses? What do you think Blizzard can do in the future? Let us know in the comments bellow.
There used to be a time when “world boss” meant people going berzerk in /2 , Horde vs Alliance raids turning Feralas in a battleground, and bodies…Tons, and TONS of bodies…
*huge sigh*
I guess that’s why my account is frozen for so long…
*huge sigh again*
I use the example of Pandaria bosses because it is still recent and a good portion of the current player base will relate. The experience for world bosses in vanilla was great but it excluded a big part of the players because their spawns were usually controlled by large guilds. The design of Pandaria bosses made them more accessible and at a good spot in terms of rewards.
I agree … as one who ran all the world bosses weekly in Pandaria. In WoD I’ve only hit 2 of the 3 and even then only a couple times. The loot just isn’t worth it.
I might mention the new garrison raid bosses are not really any better accept there is at least one that can drop a mount – maybe more, I haven’t searched it. But one of my guild-mates walked away with one. We summoned our first 2 garrison bosses this week, Annihilon & Commander Dro’gan. I got a 645 pair of boots when I was already wearing 670. The second boss, which I did on an alt since you can apparently only loot these bosses once per week (like world bosses) I got a a 660 belt.
I have never done any of the Garrison bosses my guild is progressing through heroic Foundry and just from running heroic Highmaul before we already have better gear than what these bosses drop. The fact that you have to complete a invasion to have a chance at spawning one of them also does not help.