This post is dedicated to Murloc the Goldfish.¹

So the other day, I decided I was going to do Throne of Thunder’s last wing on LFR to try and get my final two Secrets of the Empire. For whatever reason, when I queued, I was in the elemental offspec I had set up for Brawler’s Guild due to the way some of the fights are just utterly unforgiving for melee. When the queue popped, I shrugged. So I was still in elemental - maybe not standing right up the boss’s hind end would be a novel experience.

Amazingly, I got a 0/3 queue, so I figured, hey, maybe I can get some tier tokens for my main spec! No time to think about that, though - it’s time to fight Iron Qon. In case you haven’t fought Iron Qon, he rides a series of three Quilen, and each time his spear - which he throws - does something new. On the first boss, it puts lines of fire on the ground. Dodge them, easy-peasy.

Once you beat his first pet, he mounts a second one up and throws out a bunch of tornadoes! He stuns you a little bit at the beginning, and then most of the tornadoes kinda stick around for the entire fight and seem to chase you around. They’ll pick you up and stun you a little bit while they carry you around, then deposit you somewhere at the other end of their path.

His third spear, go figure, sticks with the elemental theme and causes lines of ice to appear on the ground. These cause you to move slower and, as I soon discovered, cast slower as well. If they stack? You get frozen in place.

Well, it turns out that the tornadoes don’t care at all if you’re frozen - they’ll pick you up anyway. What’s aggravating is when they pick you up crossing an ice line and carry you to the other end. You still get ice debuffs.

And then if it carries you back again, you still get debuffs.

And it keeps going.

Although, eventually, I found out you will, in fact, stop.

Postscript: This story does have a happy ending; while I didn’t get any tier tokens, I did get a ring for my elemental spec, 1 secret from Lei Shen, and 1 secret when we downed Durumu on normal that night. Victory!

1. Right after we cleared all the trash before Iron Qon, the warrior tank goes “brb, fish died, kid crying.” And we all kind of shuffle our feet and make some jokes about stuff and have a /dance party and, you know, all the stuff a good-natured LFR does when waiting on a tank to return.

So the tank comes back and he’s like “Well, the kid’s pretty upset.” And we all make some sympathetic noises, and then he goes “So, let’s kill this guy in the name of Murloc the Goldfish (seriously).”

Lots of /y FOR MURLOC! and then we killed Iron Qon.

Well, I say “we” but, well, you saw what happened to me.