Antorus, the Burning Throne is the final raid in WoW: Legion. With this new raid, the developers of World of Warcraft have come up with some interesting ideas and delved deep into their trick bag. Many of the new mechanics offer a fresh gaming experience!
Mechanics of Antorus: The Garothi Worldbreaker – Destroyer and Annihilator
The fight against the Garothi Worldbreaker is the first boss encounter in Antorus. It’s quite linear and doesn’t have many frills. However, for a first boss of a raid, it has some tricks up its sleeve.
Its most interesting mechanic comes from its shoulder cannons, Destroyer and Annihilator. The oversized devil hunter mostly stands at the edge of the platform, occasionally delivering blows with his metal fists. His cannons breathe life into the fight.
They have the abilities “Annihilate” and “Decimate”. The special thing is: at 65% and 25% health, the cannons are exposed and can be attacked. If destroyed, the Worldbreaker can no longer use the ability, but becomes stronger. A nice idea that allows for alternative strategies for differently composed raids!
Mechanics of Antorus: The Antoran High Command – The Capsules of the Commanders
The Antoran High Command is the third boss fight in Antorus, the Burning Throne. Here, you face off against three powerful opponents: Admiral Svirax, General Erodus, and the Supreme Engineer Ishkar.
The High Command is a council fight. This means they share health points, but only one opponent can be actively fought at a time. The other two create difficulties for the raid from the backseat. So far, so familiar.
The unique aspect of the fight: As long as one boss is active, its command capsule can be used. In these, players can use special abilities that make the fight easier and are sometimes even necessary for victory. It’s significantly more innovative and interesting than a dull blood orb that you have to tank with level 1 spells.
Mechanics of Antorus: Varimathras – Misery
You fight Varimathras rather late in the raid. In Antorus, he stands as the fourth-to-last in the order. Especially for that reason, the fight against him is very easy and purely a DPS check, a so-called “patchwork fight” (from Patchwerk in Naxxramas, the first boss of this type).
Particularly in normal mode, he has only two phases: Fire and Shadow. Or simpler: Life and Death, to which his heroic variant adds the intermediate stages Frozen and Furnace.
His Misery mechanic makes the fight exciting. As soon as you receive shadow damage, you can’t be healed directly for a few seconds. Since after 6 minutes, shadow damage is dealt every second, all healing is prevented and the raid is wiped out in no time.
The coolest part is that only direct healing is prevented. Shields and indirect healing, like that from the Spirit Link totem, still work! This means that this mechanic can be countered by some classes, like Discipline Priests. It opens up a whole new perspective for many class combinations in the raid.
Mechanics of Antorus: Eonar, the Lifebinder – Foot Soldiers of the Legion
In the Elarian Sanctum, amidst Antorus, you will find Eonar. You must protect her and prevent waves of enemies from destroying her soul. This idea is nothing new. In Icecrown Citadel, you had to save Valithria Dreamwalker from undead servants.
However, the fight for Eonar has three changes that were missing in previous wave fights:
- The enemies come on three different levels to make your life difficult. From three portals, foot soldiers continuously stream towards Eonar, and from another, flying units use their own route.
- A battleship of the Legion, the Paraxis, oversees the fight from above and intervenes with abilities.
- There are special enemies that reinforce the foot soldiers and, unlike the special enemies in Northrend, need to be handled differently.
Additionally, there is the possibility to jump into the air and glide briefly with an Extra Ability to reposition quickly. A mechanic that requires a different playstyle than any previous boss fight.
Mechanics of Antorus: Argus, the Unmaker – Death
Argus, the Unmaker is the final boss in Antorus, the Burning Throne. However, he is also likely the last boss of WoW: Legion and thus probably the last encounter of the addon. As such, he has the privilege of delivering a particularly extensive fight.
The manifestation of the World Soul of the emerald star goes through several phases. His most interesting gameplay mechanic is found in the last phase. Before the phase begins, Argus pulls all players to the center of the platform – to harvest their souls with a sweep of his scythe.
Thus, the entire raid dies. But instead of ending the fight in a wipe, or being resurrected like with the Lich King, death now serves as a mechanic of the fight.
During the last phase of the fight, Eonar grants you a Life Tree that you can use after releasing the spirit in the spirit realm. If you touch it, you come back to life. The spirit realm offers the possibility to activate the Titan Forge.
But here it becomes important to use death. Whenever possible, stacks of “Titanforged” should be generated, and someone should die to collect particles in the spirit world.
The Life Tree, however, does not have unlimited charges. It is active as long as it has energy. After that, it withers more with each resurrection and must be kept alive by the healers. If it withers away, no resurrections are possible. Death becomes a resource.
Benedict says: With Antorus, Blizzard has really come up with some great ideas. As someone who has seen and enjoyed every raid since The Burning Crusade, such gameplay mechanics are truly exciting!
