Chromaggus – Breeds of Brood or Loot Breeds?
Also in the Blackwing Lair was Chromaggus, the penultimate boss of the raid instance. This two-headed dog, which emerged from the experiments of the black dragonflight, held up many raids for weeks and months. Not only was he really hard to kill because he had a berserk mode and would quickly wipe the entire raid, but he also had a set of abilities that are simply absurd by today’s WoW standards.
He had five different Breeds of Brood. These were debuffs that he placed on parts of the raid that generated various negative effects. Some increased the fire damage taken by 100% or significantly decreased the healing done.
The goal was to quickly remove the debuffs from the important players. Since all Breeds of Brood had different effects, different classes could remove them. Mages removed the curses, priests removed the magic effects, and so on.
But the real raid killer was Breed: Bronze. This effect caused players to be stunned for a few seconds at regular intervals. For tanks, this quickly meant the end, as stunned players could neither parry, evade, nor block.
The debuff “Breed: Bronze” was not removed through a player’s ability but through a consumable! This was dropped by most mobs in the raid. However, these items were limited, so after a certain number of attempts, there was no chance to defeat the boss anymore. You had to either wait for trash respawn or push the whole thing to the next WoW week.
Such limited boss encounters, which depended solely on the number of looted items, are now nonexistent in WoW.
By the way: Those who had too many Breeds of Brood at once were promptly turned into a dragon by Chromaggus and fought on his side. The effect didn’t even end with the wipe of the raid, so captured players often stood by the boss’s side for minutes – only to die again as soon as the effect wore off.
On the next page, there is only a setback – or a stab in the back.
