Malygos and His Big Blue...
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iTZKooPA on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 14 Comments Tags: 10 man, Raid, big blue wings, boss attempts, encounters, eye of eternity, game design, good encounter design, leviathan, malygos, raiding, sapphiron, vehicular combat
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 14 Comments Tags: 10 man, Raid, big blue wings, boss attempts, encounters, eye of eternity, game design, good encounter design, leviathan, malygos, raiding, sapphiron, vehicular combat  Wings. What did you think I was getting at? |
Malygos, being a Dragon Aspect, is a fight that I would expect to be quite epic. Not only in its general gameplay design, but its overall presentation. After running it for the first time last night, I can say that it largely lived up to my expectations. As soon as you zone into the Eye of Eternity the Lord of Magic begins taunting, teasing and harassing you for being one of the lesser beings. He also alludes to interference from the other flights, namely Alexstraza and her red brood , which comes into play later. My big knock against the presentation is his voice. The dialogue and taunts he tosses at us are well-written, but the vocals just aren't epic enough for me. They do not command my respect or grab my attention as other dragons have. In short, Malygos' voice makes me picture a nerd puffing out his chest in a vain attempt to look larger and more confident than he really is.
Visually, we are placed on what may be the least laggy battlefield in all of Azeroth, a platform with four pillars that looks out at the vastness of space and a collection of celestial bodies. Why Malygos would chose to live surrounded by heavenly objects I do not know - seems more like a Nozdormu thing to me - but it looks freaking awesome. Though, I do love space, so I could be slightly biased in this department. Blizzard selected the final frontier to enable their designers to go nuts with spell effects and abilities during Malygos' three phases. And go nuts they did.
The humble casual guild I am a part of did not manage to get the Steward of Magic to drop any riches, but we did experience all three of his phases. The first phase is a glorified tank-n-spank battle with a small twist. Should one of the summoned sparks get to Malygos, they will grant him a debuff that is almost guaranteed to wipe the raid due to 50% more damage on the tank. The object is to pop the sparks where the DPS can sit in its debuff pool to receive their own damage increasing debuff. Like Onyxia, Malygos doesn't just let you smash his face ass during this phase. Every so often he will rise up and flap his wings, causing a huge tornado which turns all players into a flying cow, albeit one that takes a hefty amount of DoT damage. The effect is awesome, pushing your camera way out so you can grasp the full size of the twister created by Malygos' wrath.
Once the raid burns the blue down to 50% he will lift off, sending a collection of adds on floating discs to destroy you. During this phase Malygos is untargetable, although he continues to rain destruction upon you. The floating guys, and the vehicular combat they bring to the table are nice, but the combination of the anti-magic shells and the leviathan's (take that Knaak) Deep Breath collide for some awesome spell effects. Phase 2 is the coolest phase, but it ends quickly, thanks to the squishiness of the adds. Upon killing the final add, the floor gives way and the raid falls into the abyss. As alluded, each player is rescued by a minion of Alexstraza for a last bout of rather boring vehicular combat.
As far as raid encounters go, I very much enjoy the overall design and presentation of the Eye of Eternity. Although his character isn't given the epic treatment that I think he deserves, the encounter is well crafted and fine tuned overall. At the same time, the fight doesn't feel gimmicky or leave a class or role out of the equation. To me, the sign of good encounter design is when the success of the encounter hinges on the collective skill of the raid, not an overpowered member or two. Initially, we are hit with something akin to all the previous dragon battles, then we see Malygos' full magical wrath before being tossed into more mundane vehicular combat. Our night of attempts failed because of poor spark pool placement, 26% was our best attempt thanks to the enrage timer. I'll be happy to participate in this fun encounter again, even though there is no loot in it for Solidsamm.
With Malygos attempted, I only have a single Wrath boss left, Sapphiron. How'd you like Malygos?
Reader Comments (14)
I hate that final phase, its so stupid and awkward. The rest of the fight is ok, but unlike you, I think they couldve made the visuals of his "lair" more appealing. I mean, cmon, Sarth gets a huge volcanic valley with flowing and falling lava, but Maly just gets a platform in empty space. Whats up with that?
Maly is the only boss I haven't downed in Wrath (minus Ulduar of course). This is mostly because I never can seem to find a group that wants to do it when I'm on. Still the fight seems pretty cool and hopefully sooner than later I'll beat him down too :-D
yea i agree with his voice sarths voice is epic imo
The entire thing about Malygos is that he is the keeper of magic and this is where the blue dragon flight is sending all the magic from Azeroth to. The only reason you fight Malygos is because he wants to destroy all magic on Azeroth which will in turn tear Azeroth apart like what happened in Outland. You say the vehicle combat is so boring and mundane but it is always the sticking point for everyone.
I have yet to experience Malygos, but I'm looking quite forward to it. There are many battles and boss fights that blizz has done a great job giving the 'epic' feel to it. In BC many of the boss fights had this great feel to it. (as well as making it very tricky in the boss fight mechanics)
While going through Naxx, OS and Vault I definitely have enjoyed myself, but it doesn't seem to hold to the 'Epic' feeling many of the other boss encounters give.
So now after reading this article i'm excited to eventually (on this toon once i level him up) experience a well crafted 'epic' battle in Wrath. Great post :)
I have to say Malygos is one of my top 10 most hated bosses in game. The drake phase is very demanding and i suck at it.:P Still our guild downed him the first time in 10 man in 3 hours.
i hate the damn tornado
"leviathan’s (take that Knaak) "
You just brought back painful memories :)
i've only been once with a pug didn't get past phase 2 so dunno wat the drake phase is like don't sounds tht bad rli.
from what i have experianced of it i perfer sarth ^^
I really hate the vehicle phase of this fight. Not because it's mundane and insanely boring, but because I lag so bad I can barely move. My computer could use some ram, but it seems to handle the rest of the game quite well. This guy drops no loot I absolutely need, so I just hide on an alt when my guild is doing this particular raid.
One of my favorite bosses because it's a very quick fight for some nice gear. In fact, I just one shotted him with a PuG on 10 man this morning.
That said, I've run Maly in not so quick circumstances too; he's not an easy boss if you're not used to the fight. The trick to this fight is that... well... everyone needs to know what they're doing. Practice makes perfect. And the thing is, I love fights where you have to pay attention and get used to different mechanics. It keeps the game fresh.
Interestingly enough, this fight is probably the second shortest WotLK instance in the game (after VoA), which makes it very nice for quick loot.
I've been in several PUGs for EoE 10, and the best out of all of them was the one in which we survived 10 seconds into phase 2. :S
I also hate Malygos because of his Vortex in the first phase. Why? Let me just say that it sucks to be a resto shaman. While I'm up in the air, the only healing I can do is Riptide and use my herbalism CD. It's why my spec gets spurned a lot when it comes to EoE 10, since having a holy priest or resto druid is SO much more ideal.
I have yet to do EoE 25, so maybe I'll have more luck getting invites than for the 10-man version. Either way, Blizzard failed to live up to its new ideal of "bring the player, not the class." Way to go...
This is the only Wrath raid instance I've never stepped into and I doubt I ever will as (on my server at least) all the PuGs I've ever seen inviting expect you to have the achievement before you're allowed to come. So my reasonably geared holy priest (2.1K spower un buffed, 380 mp5 in combat along with 63 days playtime AS a holy priest) is turned down repeatedly purely because I don't have that damn achievement. I know the tactics, I can see how I would play to keep the raid alive and I've done that damn Aces High daily ad nauseum.
Stupid Malygos.
I love this fight with all my heart. I even love the final dragon phase. The entire fight is action packed and very demanding on the raid as a whole. By FAR my favorite raid encounter outside of Ulduar.
I think the entire thing is PURE epic.