Worst. Instance. EVER.
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Monday, March 30, 2009 - 47 Comments Tags: Achievements, PvE, Ulduar, coldarra, difficult encounters, instancing, raiding, the nexus, the oculus, vehicle combat
iTZKooPA on Monday, March 30, 2009 - 47 Comments Tags: Achievements, PvE, Ulduar, coldarra, difficult encounters, instancing, raiding, the nexus, the oculus, vehicle combat 
My GM made a call to the general members when the guild hit its raiding roadblock the other week. I took up the call and set up a heroic night where members who needed badges, reputation, gear or something to do, could have a dedicated night where others would know to be online. I even put a little thought into it. I selected a weekday that the guild doesn't raid on, ensuring that the heroic night - should it become popular - would not interfere with the general operation of the guild. The plan was to have separate groups, or some sort of rotation, that would enable us to run a few heroics over the course of a night. Brilliant, I know!
The first week was not what I would call a raging success. I was only able to notify the guild via the little used forum, which don't garner too much attention. After about an hour sitting around in Guild Chat a group consisting of a healer, tank and ranged and melee DPS was formed, a PUG was found and we were off to tackle the Daily Heroic, The Oculus. It became the most agonizing instance run of my life, an amazing feat considering that we only wiped once.
I've run my fair share of piss poor PUGs, but that punishment came from other players due to messy pulls, not paying attention, bad play or what have you. Never have I gotten frustrated at the title's design itself, until last week. The Oculus is one of three instances inside Coldarra, the others being another 5-man dungeon, The Nexus (also the name of the area) and the 25-man raid against Malygos, The Eye of Eternity. Many of us have likely completed the other 5-man dungeon, as it is one of the easiest Heroics to participate in. The Oculus is known for the opposite reason, being one of the most difficult and least run heroics that Wrath introduced.
For me, the instance is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst instance ever. The dungeon is high on the fail meter from a culmination of its length, inspiration, execution and general boredom. You spend most of your time flying around the outside of The Nexus killing trash mobs as you make your way to various constructs. The fights with the guardians and constructs are basic, uninspired quick kills. As if that wasn't boring enough, the trash is followed by uneventful tank and spank boss fights. It isn't until the third boss, Mage-Lord Urom, that an encounter becomes interesting. About 90 minutes after we zoned in - no wipes up to this point - we finally pulled Eregos, the only enjoyable aspect in the entire dungeon. Many players hate the final encounter because it's a very fickle battle, requiring knowledge and near perfect execution. Thanks to a fantastic explanation and constant communication, our group downed him in only our second go.
The designers attempted to make The Oculus heavy on vehicle combat but it just didn't work. The battle against the blue dragonflight is painfully boring mainly due to all the crappy trash you have to clear to do anything of consequence. Hopefully the team behind The Oculus learned from their mistakes, and passed that knowledge on to the team responsible for Ulduar's vehicle-based encounters. At least those fights inside Ulduar will enable gear to make a difference.
The Oculus was a valiant effort at trying something new, but it didn't come together. If you feel like torturing yourself then you can run it, just be prepared for agony. We ended on a high note, as the the entire party received a chuckle after we downed Eregos. This came by way of the Guild's GM receiving six, yes a half dozen, achievements all at the same time. As for Solidsamm, he shall never return there, daily or not.
Reader Comments (47)
Believe me ... '''The Oculus'' Is actually pretty easy .....
Did it about 6x (heroic) now ... with like 3x wiping on the third boss if im right ONLY .... (that kite guy)
The last boss is an Piece of cake ... Nuke ...
''stop time' 'when enrage ( ~ every minute he enrages)
and run away when he spawns those light thingies....
I gotta be honest..... we did use Ventrilo (Online conversation program) and it were guild runs ... (done one with pug without whiping)
Just all pick the right Dragon in the start ! VERY important
Cheers,
Ariavo Hellscream - EU !
*giggles: The real achievement ... is getting all achievements!
I have only ran one Occ...I dont have Vent....It was on H...it was a PUG group....I was flying a Red Dragon...( I'm a Lock)...somehow we won I only died while not on the drake lol
What the hell were you guys doing in there for 90 f'ing minutes with only 1 wipe? Oo I mean, someone must have been afk or something? The 20 minutes achievement isn't that hard if you don't wipe at all. But only 1 wipe would cost you less than 5 minutes, so where did you take that additional ~65 minutes? :x Just curious. oô
I've been visiting this site for a while now, and I finally have to comment.
Occulus sucks the first time, the learning curve is very sharp. Once you get some practice in though, I found that it is one of the most engaging instances in WotLK. Learning all the drakes, and having a reason to with achievements, is a fresh new scenario in a game where truly new things are few and far between. Things like Make It Count, which is seemingly very difficult at first glance, are how you can truly gauge your ability to adapt to whatever Bliz can throw at you.
XD I remeber my first and only Oculus run...it took about 5 wipes to just get to the last guy...and then it took another 4 wipes to finish him...and it was on Normal!! I was the only one in the group who knew what to bloody do and I have Project Lore to thanks for that ^_^. Even if it was only on the PTR, it still was helpful enough to know what to do.
Heroic Oculus is the only instance I have left for my Champion of the Frozen Wastes achievment/title. Ran it once on an alt and decided that was enough. Going on three weeks of not being a "titlewhore." Pray for me that I stay strong.
: P
I've only done heroic Oculus once, and that was when I was called in because the PUG's healer had bailed. We managed to get to Eregos without too much trouble, but fighting the head honcho himself... muy mal!* None of us had done Eregos on heroic before, we were coordinating by typing, and a couple weren't handling their dragon very well. I haven't been back in that place since then, but I know deep down I'll have to venture there if I ever want to get into an EoE or Ulduar PUG.
* "muy mal" is Spanish for "very bad"
Don`t really know what is so hard on Oculus. Unlike the other instances who are basicly tank and spank this one actually requires u to have a brain. Why do u think so manny ppl hate malygos as well cause they just got used to the normal-borins setup : tanks-tank healers heal tank and maibe raid and dps just kill stuff.Sadly more and more ppl just refuse to think, I think if it was possible they`d just like the chars to play by themselves in instances and they could just go pvp or something. This fight is where u really tell apart ppl who actually have an ideea about how to play the game from the ones who should be switching to Mario or something.
Don't agree but I understand the sentiment. Some instances are just painful. Shadowlabs comes to mind. And Shattered Halls.
I disagree with the assessment that people dont like Malygos because of the normal boss setup. I'm not crazy about Malygos because positioning the sparks is a headache for most classes other than a DK.Which makes running the instance at all highly reliant on getting a DK for positioning purposes. I also dislike Malygos because of how easy it is to fall behind on healing on the drake part, and how akward vehicle targetting is (there doesn't seem to be a good way to target them via keybindings which is annoying). Lastly I dislike Malygos because of how glitchy the bubbles can be and how the Scions can all choose to focus fire one person, which can mean auto wipe.
The frustrating part isn't thinking and adapting,it's when instances hose you simply because you don't have a certain class or because of gimmicky mechanics which randomly kill people while you remain more or less helpless to stop it regardless of skill - like the second boss of Shadow Labs.
Honestly, I've never really had any issues with the Oculus. Do you think that the one pug you had made a difference, in a bad way? Cause 90 mins in there is a bit long.
I know in my guild we have all watched the TankSpot videos and this way everyone going in knows the fight to some extreme thus making it easier to plan and fight.
Honestly I enjoyed the fight mechanics and this has me looking forward to Ulduar.
Hey Zul'Farrak is one of my fav vanilla wow instances :P so that sort of make s me a weirdo considering IU like Occulus and ZF right?:))
Oculus is only hard if you're not experienced and don't know what to do. I'm guessing your group killed EVERY drake trash in which is not needed. A group that knows what they're doing completes it in 20-30 minute. This is not the Shadow Lab!!
I had done occulus ONCE before and chain wiped on like every boss up to the end boss, when the group decided to call it. I vowed never to go back there without a decent group. So I'm very glad we got it done, which finished up a shit ton of acheivments I was lacking.
Honesly 90 minutes for that instance isn't TOO bad from everything I've heard about it.
i love the drake fights its new i only done it once got past the first boss and the group fell apart i been meaning to do it again but these post really discourged me and theirs nno people who wans to do it ever
come on come on the oculus no matter how you spin it sucks thoguh the drakes might be fun thats probably the best part of it which is kind of sad no one is perfect people make mistakes all you can do is except it and hope you dont make teh same mistake hopefully teh people who design unduar dont make the same mistake
time to switch servers if you cant handle oculus good luck in ulduar
I am sad to say that I killed Maylgos before I downed Eregos. At this point in the game many people hate running Occulus so much that it is hard to find a good group to clear it quickly.
Will I run Occulus again if given the chance? Probably not unless your my best friend and it is your dying wish.
I haven't played in like 2 months now after quiting, and before i quit i ran this in heroic first time.... out of all the hours wasted on this crappy game, the oculus was the biggest waste because blizzard have totally cocked up wow XD
Occ is awesome! Y'all are crazy.
I loved it in normal mod, it's freaking slow but the new gameplay is AWESOME!!
I wanna run it in heroic, but ti seems that I need to find a good party that can follow orders. -.-"
I was there as healer in level 79. We wiped first time on the Mage-boss, since I didn't have any instant heals.
Then we decided to slay some trash, so I could ding 80 and achieve my instant heal.
Then we took him down easy as Dell!
Love the instance, btw :)
Worst instance in the history of WoW. 3 easy bosses, and one that is impossibly hard unless you are very very lucky. The Pug I was in didn't finish the last boss and I am never going back in there.