Two Bosses Enter: Vanessa VanCleef vs. Daakara
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title.
Lord Godfrey trounced watcher Setesh in last week's battle, cutting short the easily skippable combatant with a flurry of bullets and a cool-looking hat. Godfrey's moves were too much for Setesh's portals, void adds, and general titanic powers. Personally, I think it was the hat.
This week's matchup is going to be a doozy. Vanessa VanCleef, one of the most popular contestants on Two Bosses Enter, is fresh off her win against Hex Lord Malacrass, but who really expected Malacrass to beat VanCleef in a one-on-one fight? Not me, at least. Vote, minions!
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The rules of the ring
The WoW Insider Ring is considered neutral territory, where both combatants are able to access their usual encounter mechanics and abilities. If you can't visualize it inside the squared circle, visualize it someplace else -- but you must take into consideration all of each bosses' abilities and mechanics.
Assume that each opponent is intelligent and capable of strategic thinking.
All of the competitors' abilities, including crowd control and other effects to which bosses are usually immune, work on their opponents (with apologies to considerations of lore on this point).
Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools, and comparative overall damage output.
Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter.
Don't neglect style, story, and scale. Everything is a factor; seeking balance is your goal as a spectator and judge.
In Corner One: Vanessa VanCleef
Oh, Vanessa. You thought Alex Ziebart had a crush on Vanessa, did you? She has a fandom. She has a following. She has an insurmountable legion of adoring disciples who loved to see her work her diabolical magic and are sad to see her go. She always excelled at poisons, you know.
Vanessa VanCleef's toolkit includes:
Poisons, poisons and more poisons
In Corner Two: Daakara
Daakara is a Troll boss who actually won a fight on Two Bosses Enter, which is kind of a big deal because readers really hate the Troll dungeon bosses. I call this the Zul'Phenomenon -- the utter hatred of a boss' location and mechanics drives votes down because of undesirable past experiences. Well, Daakara is cool, Troll boss or not, so consider him a worthy opponent to the princess of poisons.
Read about Daakara's abilities on Wowhead.
Last Week's Winner: Lord Godfrey
Gun enthusiast Lord Godfrey of Shadowfang Keep beat back titanic watcher Setesh in a fairly one-sided win. Fans love Godfrey because of his no-frills attitude, John Woo-style pistols akimbo, and the fact that he took out the Banshee Queen at the end of the Silverpine zone by shooting Sylvanas in the back. How many people out there like to live vicariously through Godfrey during that whole ordeal? Too bad Sylvanas made a nice pact with those spooky Val'kyr ladies, hmm?
Anyway, the award for best description of this awesome fight goes to Fizzyl and, while his dramatic retelling of the conflict is too long to copy and paste in its entirety, I will pull out some of my favorite passages.
At last the horns sounded, and that great ham Fordring raised his fist, to a cheer from the crowd.
"CHAMPIONS - BEGIN!"
The great doors drew wide, and Setesh moved in like night falling over the desert.
He was toweringly tall, this construct. Carved from some dark stone and hung with ornaments of white and gold accented with the strange glyphs of Uldum, the thing was even - magnificent, in its way. Godfrey cocked his head, admiring it, even as his avid glowing eyes caught the glows of purple in its eyes. Brann Bronzebeard had written extensively of Setesh, a Titanic watcher set to guard some sort of engine Brann had ranted about. Brann wrote of him as "the Construct of Destruction". Godfrey sighed elaborately and drew his pistols, letting them rest in his idle hands as his ghouls began to caper back and forth, watching the thing lumber slowly to the center of the arena.
"The Construct of Destruction. Only a dwarf could've come up with that bit of imbecility,"
....
"Do you understand now?"
The voice spoke out of nothing again, and Godfrey pulled his hat over his eyes, standing his ground as the watcher of Chaos approached. His pistols rested in his bony grip, and his eyes gleamed hatefully.
"Of course I understand. Some people want to watch this world burn."
He grinned, cold in the night.
"Others want to be the ones responsible for burning it."
Setesh paused, as if considering the undead man's words, and then raised a stone hand. Purple energy crackled around it. A purple sphere, swirling with unknowable energies, rose above its palm, and with a gesture, Setesh tossed it to Godfrey's feet. Vincent Godfrey watched it come, and embraced the end as the energy burst all around him, seething, wrapping him in agonizing flares of purple fire. He did not cry out again. He would not give the construct the satisfaction. Across the arena, his ghouls died all over again at the teeth of the void worms even as they managed to claw them back into nothingness, and one bold ghoul gibbered and leaped into the portal, which closed around it as it clawed at infinite nothingness.
....
"Yes. Harness ... your ... hatred."
The voice blew away on the night wind, and Setesh crumbled, its long watch over. Godfrey stood for a long moment and let the wind blow around him and then looked up at Tirion, his yellow eyes blazing. He lifted one pistol in salute, still cracking with purple fire, and smiled - or at least bared his teeth.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Highlord."
Godfrey chuckled as he turned and limped out of the Coliseum, still smoldering and cracking, and walked back down to the cells he had been given. His books awaited, and he had reading to do - on the nature of Chaos.
Yesssssssss... excellent work, Fizzyl. Well done. Well done. Reader GhosWhoWalks had some poignant musings about why the titan construct should have taken this fight:
Setesh is one of my favorite bosses for two reasons. Well, three.
First, he's an unusual boss encounter, and a change-up from the standard "big enemy that blasts the tank with stuff that the DPS have to avoid, etc etc".
Second, Setesh has an "I just don't give a f***" attitude that I find to be hilarious. Adventuring band of heroes? Rogue running around shiving my legs? Whatever. I'm gonna go take a walk, you guys have fun with my minions.
Third, the guy is a very blatant reference to Star Wars. Evil shadowy powers? Hordes of mindless soldiers? Telling his enemies to "harness your hatred"? This guy's the Egyptian god of the Sith, and it's awesome.
Godfrey? Meh. What I remember most about him was the Worgen starting area, where he was a self-centered elitist nobleman and hurled himself off a cliff rather than accept that his king was a bit furrier than he once was.
So Setesh gets banished to the void he attempts to control, and Lord Godfrey moves on to greener, semi-final pastures. Can he take it all the way? We'll know soon.
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The battle begins!
Remember, Two Bosses Enter matchups are all about substance and style, not gameplay, mechanics, and numbers. Don't base your strategies on player tactics, which opponent has been easiest or most difficult for you personally, or the difficulty of each opponent relative to instance progression. Vote for the spirit of the battle as set forth above. Set aside differences in opponents' health pools, game level, and actual damage output. Absolutely no game mechanics nitpicking!
Set aside the world order -- let the WoW Insider Ring determine who's the champion! Your votes determine the outcome in WoW Insider's series of fantasy deathmatches, Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves.
