But who's watching the Watcher?
In addition to Ulduar, patch 3.1 also brings a new raid opportunity in Emalon the Stone Watcher. Hanging out with Archavon the Loot Pinata in Wintergrasp, he puts a decidedly different flavor on what was previously a raid instance through which you could sleepwalk.
Emalon is a quick 3 pulls down a side corridor in the Vault, thus making it a very attractive target when we hold Wintergrasp. In stark contrast to Archavon, he requires solid raid coordination. Add management is critical to success in this encounter; every 45 seconds or so Emalon buffs one of his adds. When this happens the raid must switch all dps to this target immediately. If the target isn't killed quickly, it will explode and wipe the raid. Meanwhile, Emalon is throwing chain lightning spells that do a significant amount of raid damage, requiring that the raid stay spread out enough to minimize this damage, yet be close enough to kill the adds with minimal dps loss due to movement. All in all, a nice challenge, which, of course, TDC defeated (in both 10 and 25 man flavors).
While holding Wintergrasp is not a constant occurance, Emalon is a solid challenge and will be on the menu whenever we have the opportunity.