The lead designer of World of Warcraft now gives tips on how guilds should approach the new raid, the Blackrock Foundry. The order in which you tackle the bosses of the Blackrock Foundry is important.
Regarding the new raid “Blackrock Foundry”, there is a bit of stress in the US forum of World of Warcraft. Is it currently “overtuned” or “undertuned”? Too hard or too easy, is being discussed. This brought WoW lead designer Ion Hazzikostas to the forefront, who explained the Blackrock Foundry.
Wing raid like Naxxramas
It is a “wing” raid, like Naxxramas back in the day. This requires a change in mindset for players. The bosses become harder “within” their wings. If you suddenly face the Crucible Collective after Gruul and the Ironcrusher, you might feel overwhelmed. This is because you would jump from boss 1-3 directly to boss 7. It would be better to switch wings and continue elsewhere.
The first bosses like Gruul or Darmac are entry bosses. You might want to save the “wing bosses” for later.
The early bosses of other wings will offer a more suitable challenge, and will offer valuable item upgrades to help prepare you for the end bosses of each wing, and of course for Blackhand himself.
Designed as a complement to Highmaul, not as a replacement
And for players who find the Blackrock Foundry raid too easy, the lead designer also has an answer: The raid actually belongs to the first raid tier, so it is practically on par with Highmaul.
Here, they are still experimenting with a proper strategy. For Cataclysm, all raids of a tier were launched at the same time, which overwhelmed players; they were inundated with content. In Mists of Pandaria, they waited a month with the raid “Heart of Fear”. This also gave some players the impression: Blizzard is rushing us, we are too slow.
Now they waited two months, and players are starting to feel: This is a new raid tier. And the raid seems too easy, especially because players had such a long time to farm a raid at a similar level.
At Blizzard, they design the raid with players in mind who can typically defeat about one or two “new” bosses per week while collecting better gear.
Blackhand tough nut, only eight guilds have killed him on HC
A bit overtuned, Hazzikostas admits that the final boss Blackhand is probably the toughest at the moment. But only a bit! He is supposed to be hard.
At the moment (7.2.; 9:45) eight guilds have defeated Blackhand on HC worldwide. The Chinese guild Style War was the first in the world.
