End time is the first of three brand new instances being added in Patch 4.3 that deal with the lead up to the Dragon Soul Raid.

In this first instance you get to see what will become of Azeroth if Deathwing is victorious. You end up going here with Nozdormu’s help from the Caverns of Time to help find the Dragon Soul so that you can slay Deathwing. However there is a disturbance that is not allowing him to send you back in time to retrieve it before it was hidden, therefore he has to send you to the far future first to resolve the disturbance.

This is an awesome looking bleak future that really shows the destruction that awaits if Azeroth’s mighty heroes do not stop Deathwing from unleashing a second Cataclysm and truly destroying Azeroth.

A few other interesting things about the instance are the loot and the boss fights. First up the loot is amazing, being item level 378, which is the same as normal mode Firelands raid loot. This is great for anyone who does not raid as it gives them some very big upgrades. It also provides a way to get ready to join in the Raid Finder as you can get an almost complete set of gear between this and the two other new 5 player instances.

Next up, the bosses, there are five of them in the instance, but you only face three each time you play through it. The first two bosses you fight are random out of four possibilities and the last boss is always Murozond.

Echo of Baine - Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: End Time

Echo of Baine

The fight with Baine has some very different fight mechanics. To start with, both you and Baine can get buffed to melee damage by coming into contact with the lava in the room, boosting melee damage by 10,000 fire damage per hit. Next up Baine can throw a totem at a player, if it hits it deals a large amount of physical damage and throws them back, it then remains on the ground for 20 seconds. While the totem is on the ground any player may pick it up and hurl it back at Baine. When it hits him it deals 5% damage to him and stuns him for a short time, and debuffs him to suffer 50% additional damage for 20 seconds. Baine can also slam the ground dealing damage to everyone around and destroying the platform he and the players are on.

The fight is fairly easy, especially if players watch closely and hurl the totems back at him. Even without the debuff on Baine he does not have enough health to cause issues for most groups.

Echo of Jaina - Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: End Time

Echo of Jaine

Jain has several abilities that need to be watched for. The most dangerous are Flarecore and Frost Blades. Flarecore which launches an ember at a random location on the ground. This needs to be DPS’ed down within 5 seconds. If it is is explodes for about 50k to anyone within melee range, if not it hits everyone in the room for roughly 100k. Frost Blades are essentially three frozen blades launched in a forward cone, and anything they hit is trapped in an ice block for 5 seconds.

Besides her main abilities she has a pyroblast that deals heavy damage to her main target, a frostbolt volley that slows players and deals light damage but is interruptible, and a blink to help her move around.

The fight is all about controlling the embers so they do not explode, interrupting her frostbolt volley, and avoiding being frozen. It really is a pretty simple fight.

Echo of Tyrande - Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: End Time

Echo of Tyrande

Echo of
Tyrande has several abilities that are all based off of Druid abilities. She has moonbolt which hit the main target for heacy arcane damage, startdust which hits all targets in it’s AOE for arcane damage, and a moonlance which is a beam of arcane energy that moves around the room severely hurting anyone caught in its path. In addition she is surrounded by dark moonlight that slows all casting within 15 yards of her by 50%.

During the fight Tyrande calls on the assistance of Elune as is granted it in several ways. Throughout the fight the Gaze of Elune will sweep around the room damaging and silencing anything that lays in its path. Also at 80% health and 55% health Elune will grant Tyrande a stacking 25% haste buff to her casts. Lastly at 30% health Tyrande will be granted the Tears of Elune, causing a constant rain of stars causing arcane damage to all players.

The fight is mainly about keeping away from AOE damage and keeping casters away from Tyrande. While the damage does speed up over the course of the fight, it should not be hard for most healers to keep up with it. Overall a pretty easy fight as long as players move properly.

Echo of Sylvanas - Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: End Time

Echo of Sylvanas

Sylvanas has a few abilities that she uses throughout the fight. She can do a shriek at a random player that can slow them for 30 seconds and deals shadow damage. She also has three main shots with her bow. An explosive shot this does AOE damage around the target. Secondly an unholy shot that hits the main target and 3 additional within 10 yards dealing damage and a leaving a DOT on the players. Lastly, a blighted arrow shot that marks the ground with a rune, if you remain in the rune until the arrow lands you suffer damage and are knocked back.

Her main ability however is Calling of the Highborne, which raises her into the air and summons ghouls all around. These ghouls are connected by a beam with a poison cloud behind it, and they march in towards Sylvanas. If caught by the beam you suffer major damage and if they reach Sylvanas they explode wiping the group. All you need to do however is focus one down to break the beam, and run out of the opening and get far enough away to avoid the explosion when they reach her.

The fight is just avoiding her shots as much as possible and killing a ghoul to escape whenever she does Calling of the Highborne. A pretty simple fight, although it is a cool new mechanic for a 5 player instance.

Murozond- Patch 4.3 Heroic 5 Player Instance: End Time

Murozond

The last boss is the leader of the Infinite Dragon flight Murozond and the fight has some very cool mechanics. The main mechanic in this fight though is the giant Hourglass of Time in the middle of the room. The hourglass can be clicked at any point during the fight to rewind time. It reverts players to where they were at the beginning of the fight and resets all cooldowns and clears all distortion bombs (more on them later). This is an awesome ability as it allows you to use all major cooldowns several times in the fight.

Murozond has three major abilities that he uses throughout the fight. He has a temporal blast that hits all nearby targets for damage and increases the arcane damage they take by 10% and this debuff can stack. Next up, being a dragon he of course has a breath attack, his hits everything in his front arc for fire damage. Lastly he can send out distortion bombs. These launch out at a random player and then they hit the ground they leave an arcane distortion area that deals damage to anyone in it, these stay in play until the end of the fight or cleared with the hourglass.

The fight is all about managing the amount of Distortion Bombs in play and timing your major cooldowns so that they reset each time you use the hourglass. Murozond has a significant amount of health (18,000,000) so be prepared to need to manage these carefully to have enough time to DPS him down.

Messiah's Overall Opinion on WoW Patch 4.3: End Time Heroic Dungeon

This instance is a great example of what can be done in an instance. The storytelling is great, the instance has a good flow, and the bosses are all fun. The whole thing works especially well at telling a story to the players and bringing the game and the world to life.

If I had to complain about one thing, it would be that the instance is way to easy. It feels significantly easier that Zul’aman or Zul’gurub even going in not knowing all the strategies. I can only hope that Blizzard makes it at least 15-25% harder than ZA/ZG since it gives out significantly better gear, but other than that it is an awesome instance. Please sir, may I have another… Oh, wait, there are two more to do… HURAY!