Developer Q&A - Raids, Dungeons, and Tomb of Sargeras Talk

Slootbag is interviewing Lore and Lead Encounter Designer Morgan Day on his Twitch stream about Raid encounter design, Dungeons, and Tomb of Sargeras. We’re posting the key points of the Q&A, and you can also watch the stream to get the details of the topics. Besides, the final boss of Tomb of Sargeras, Kil'jaeden is finally available for raid testing on Thursday, June 1st. Just like other end bosses, Blizzard has kept the testing on the light side to add an air of mystery and discovery to the fight when it goes live. You can buy wow gold and raid service from raiditem to accept the new upcoming challenges. Want to know more about Tomb of Sargeras design, raid, and Dungeons? Read on the brief summary of Q&A talk below! 

“Raiding

Raiding has worked well so far this expansion. The team hasn't had to make any huge changes to raiding like they have in previous expansions.

Mythic raiding requiring 20 people is working well.

Gear

The item level rewarded from Nethershard gear won't be changing in Patch 7.2.5.

Raid Design

- The first raid of an expansion is an exception to normal raid design, as it could be a player's first raid ever.

- Raids after the first generally have a similar difficulty curve and are more difficult than the first raid.

- The team started with 8 bosses for ToS, and added a 9th with Maiden.

- The number of bosses in a raid partially has to do the with environment.

Raid Testing

- Kil'jaeden being tested late is just how things worked out. Players may still have been working on Gul'dan when the Tomb testing started.

- The team had always planned to test Kil'jaeden.

Raid Design

- The team tries to always have a single target encounter and a multi target encounter.

- Beyond that the team looks at the DPS profile of the remaining bosses.

- Being able to use class specific abilities and mechanics would be cool where it makes sense.

- Having a Mythic only mechanic that requires a specific class might be okay, as the team knows you will have 20 players and the likelihood of having a Mage or Warlock is fairly high.

- Small raids make sense when there is a really compelling story line.

- Having Mythic only phases or bosses are okay when they make sense and fit the story.

- If story is locked behind a Mythic requirement, you can usually see videos of it or go back and do it yourself in a later tier.

- Sometimes the team is testing an encounter and they realize they have accidentally created a Mythic fight.

- New tech and environments help to keep encounters feeling fresh.

- Keeping mechanics easy to understand is important. If raid damage is going out, does it need to be a huge visual effect? If there is a swirl on the ground, does that mean the player needs to run to it or away from it?
- When you go into an encounter and can understand what is going on just by looking at your screen that is helpful.
- The team tries to avoid ever making an encounter more difficult after someone has killed it.
- The team may increase the damage a boss does and decrease the healing needed to tweak the raid composition people bring.

Mythic+ Dungeons
- The team is fairly happy with Affixes as they are now.
- They will continue to iterate and take into account player feedback.
- With Patch 7.2 dungeons were re-balanced to keep the difficulty reasonable. There aren't any plans to add another Affix to make things harder at higher difficulties.
- Adding more rewards in the future is something to consider

Tomb of Sargeras
- The team is using the environment a lot more in these encounters, such as the Fallen Avatar fight.
- Breaking up the floor into lots of pieces is challenging from a technical perspective.
- Keeping visual indicators consistent between encounters is something the team worked on.

Raid Design
- Fight pacing is duration is often tied to the story being told.
- With Gul'dan there was a lot of story to tell in the fight, as well as giving mechanics time to breathe, so it resulted in a longer fight.
- Blackhand was a big orc that hit hard. That was the story, which is why the fight was shorter.
- The team tries to keep the number of tanks and healers in a certain range for all of the fights. Usually the fights are balanced around two tanks, but once in a while it might be a fight where a third tank role would be fitting.
- Mounts are a really compelling reward.
- Sometimes transmog sets are a nice reward too.”

The list was summarized by chaud on forum. Of course, you can watch the interview video to know the details. Tomb of Sargeras raid will arrive this month, and 9 bosses will bring you new experience. Get ready for the new missions and obtain the rewards! What’s more, raiditem not only offers you the latest news and guides, but also a huge selection of wow items all you need in world of warcraft game. In particular, WoW gold free bonus is offered when you buy wow gold packs. The more wow gold you buy, the more bonus you will enjoy!