Magnatars and Jormungars and Yetis, Oh My!
Patch 3.2 brings us the Coliseum (Trial of the Crusader), Blizzard's latest attempt at completely streamlining raiding (as in no trash, one big room where everything occurs, and four versions - 10 man, 10 man heroic, 25 man, 25 man heroic -of the same encounters). There are five encounters in ToC which will be released one per week until all five are available, after which the heroic instance will be available. While we're not overly excited about the way Blizzard designed this particular instance, we are looking forward to the encounters. Our first encounter in ToC was with the Northrend Beasts.
The Beasts encounter is actually 3 mini-encounters; you fight three mini-bosses in a row, with limited time between each boss. First in line is a Magnatar; this is essentially a tank and spank fight, requiring that two tanks alternate due to a vicious debuff, and small adds being thrown about the room on individual raiders, which must be killed whenever they show up. Very straight-forward, and dispatched easily. Second up are a pair (yeah, yeah, not one but two, yada yada...) of Jormungar worms, Acidmaw and Dreadscale. Both of them drop debuffs on the raid, one of which cancels out the other. It's critical that this be used to eliminate the debuff from Acidmaw, as raiders will eventually be unable to do anything unless they use the debuff from Dreadscale (on other raiders) to cleanse themselves. Once again, a pretty easy encounter, which we cleared quickly. Finally, Icehowl, a huge yeti appears; he also is a tank and spank encounter, with one twist thrown in; every so often, he stuns the raid, then targets and charges an individual raider. If he hits this raider, he enrages and can quickly wipe the raid. Once we got the raid on its toes, this was a non-event, and Icehowl joined his fellow beasts face down on the ground of the Coliseum.
While new encounters are interesting, the simplicity of this encounter leaves something to be desired. Here's hoping the following encounters, and then the hard modes, make up for what looks to be pretty simplistic raid design.