Finishing up BoD – Might of the Alliance

I’m back after a crazy month IRL! Finally I got around to editing and posting the last bit of footage from our Battle of Dazar’alor clear on Normal difficulty. While the Jaina fight stole the show for me, another standout fight is definitely Mekkatorque. The neat mechanic there is when he uses his Gnomish shrink ray on three random players, who then have to communicate in order to deactivate robots that shrunk players can take control of.

I love how this expansion has really been show-casing Jaina’s powers and showing the extent of her Frost Mage abilities. She left her home of Kul’tiras to study at Dalaran, the city of mages, and was apprentice to the late Antonidas. Her story in Battle for Azeroth has been one of my favorite parts of the expansion, and I’m looking forward to seeing her make that ship fly again!

After the Mekkatorque fight, we see him escape in an ejected pod into an unclear fate. He is apparently being kept alive in a machine with magics the likes of which even Jaina hasn’t seen, so it’s probably a big deal. My guess is that it’s going to serve as a lead in to Mechagon in 8.2. For this last wing of the raid, Alliance players were turned into Horde in order to play out the story of how the Horde defeated Mekkatorque, Stormwall, and Jaina. Blizzard has made quests like this in the past, where a quest-giver is telling a story that you participate in, in order to see the ending. Being on the opposing side of Jaina was awesome because we fought her at full force (and she gets away at the end), whereas with Mekkatorque it was sad because we don’t know yet if he survives.

A huge part of this expansion is the story, told through cinematics and quests to get the point across. This raid is no exception, as it’s the next step in a progression of battles in this expansion. The Battle of Dazar’alor, with it’s beautiful design and music, fits right in with the “Battle for Azeroth” theme. While I have issues with how this expansion began and think the whole war theme was forced upon both Horde and Alliance, I do really enjoy this raid and think that Blizzard did a great job creating a raid which carries that theme.