Blog Azeroth

Wouldn't it be cool if we could figure out a fight for ourselves?
What are the deterrents to figuring out bosses, and could/should Blizzard do anything to raiding/wiping mechanics to allow for more creativity and independence in raiding?
What could a raid gain by figuring out a fight on their own?

My original thoughts: http://nicgetlife.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-if.html

Players tend to have to learn, and I suppose a guild could choose to learn it the hard way, but then if your time is limited, why not accelerate the process by reading what others have done before? I'd rather read-up and at least have some idea of what is going on.

Another question is: What is bosses were totally dynamic?

I suppose the problem I'd have is that if you make bosses have totally dynamic abilities, then you don't really know what to bring, and wiping is a time and money sink that I hate.

There might be a challenge in there, but a boss without a set of constrained abilities is also very hard to balance. Imagine is Shade of Aran could also Fear randomly, perhaps that might overlap with Flamewreath. Wipage.

Balance in runs is key to the players enjoying the fights.

egs.
- 2nd Boss in MgT: I hate it. If I wanted to play pvp, I'd play pvp, and do not like taking a PvE spec character into a scenario where its basically useless (Pally prot spec). In the rest of the run the Prot pally is very handy.
- Opera in Karazhan: Love it. The variation is ok with me in this, as each variation needs a different strategy. This is a set of encounters, that have logic, steps and powers.

Maybe a solution is to set characters against the Uber Class example. For example a new boss called "Shadow Lord Azzrul", the Uber-Warlock. He can use any of the warlock powers, at any time, beefed up to challenge a team of 10 players. Those fears, deathcoils, shadowbolts, are going to hurt. And the Seed of Corruption and Curse of Dooom is going to really be fun.

You could even have the selection of what Uber-Class is faces be random, according to the example of Opera in Karazhan.

Ok to be perfectly honest, I don't think you can just read a strategy and poof it works that way. As a long time raid leader I've found that reading and doing are entirely different things. Most times your raid has to "learn" how to do it on their own anyway. If you can put together the perfect group that matches the strategy that's great, but 90% of the time I've had to rewrite strategies and tactics for my group and our method of working. So in a sense we are always "figuring it out" on our own.

Do we learn the boss abilities before hand? Yes, but in war, why wouldn't you learn what the enemy can do before you show up to a gun fight with a knife?

mana drain guy
elemental
group and priest
kael.

how is the elemental considered a pvp boss ?

I totally agree that as it is now, the wiping mechanics don't allow us anything more than a few tries on a boss at a time before we call it due to repair, lost time rezzing and rebuffing, and respawning trash. But what if that changed? I'm curious as to how other mmo's do raiding, but repair bills seems like a silly aspect of WoW. And maybe blizz could make rezzing after a boss easier, because we'll rezz eventually - just how much time do we want to waste?



Haha agreed! Though I would hope blizzard wouldn't create quite such a devastating combo! Though come to think of it, the more dynamic a boss fight, the more it seems just like pvp (which some of us abhor, though I enjoy =P). And I love the idea of an 'uber-class' fight!

Maybe all I want is to feel as the really hardcore raiders do, without having to be hardcore! Make some bosses more accessible and dynamic, don't make it immune to half my moves, and don't penalize me so much for trying something new! I don't care if it fails and we wipe, but I do care when it takes so long to recuperate for another try that it frustrates people.

Any thoughts?

Sorry - I meant the 3rd boss. The female priest with the selection of toons backing her up.

Its a pvp fight as there is no threat table to speak of, and it seems that mobs will target and switch targets often, or opportunistically.

Making a fight dynamic means making it open, and open means horrendous to test.

Simple fact is Blizzard could do it already, they could build data from the tournament realms (and may do so already) to show how players of a class play. Bosses could then simply be a specific class with the associated abilities to replicate fighting an X, or a combination of X and Y.

For more static bosses I don't see a problem with randomness, why doesn't Magtheridon cast his blast wave as a 30s cooldown ability with a probability to cast it in the next 2 minutes of 1 (ie: it will get cast at least every 2 minutes once the cooldown is up), to stop the overlap with "knock down walls" add a debuff like forebearance, and it becomes available at 30% and a probability to use it within 30s of 1.

There is no reason this can't be added, the fixed abilities just makes it easier on the server (attack pattern is relatively fixed), it would add a lot to fights and make them more challenging, perhaps as part of a "heroic" 10/25 man thats part of the alteration, bosses don't use fixed attack patterns, so those people who need the rigidity can have it, while those who can adapt get a better challenge.

There certainly is threat involved though.
Some mobs deaggro, but all are tauntable, and have a threat table.

It's more a CC fight.

Nuke the priestess, then handle your CC.

Actually only the priestess has a proper aggro table, the rest don't. There is no point in tanking it anyway or using a threat based approach.

Kill order should be:

Naga
Rogue
Fury Warrior
Shaman
Hunter
Warlock
Priestess
Mage

With CC following the order:

Naga
Shaman
Fury Warrior
Hunter
Rogue
Warlock
Mage

The main issue with the fight is multiple of the melee/shaman types up, the Naga must be cc'd, he does / did too much damage to cloth types to be risked staying up, the rogue and fury warrior can be controlled. Typically with 2 cc you leave up the casters and nuke through 1 other class before the priestess (to waste her heals), or her, but she isn't really a major issue.

In terms of threat they reset / change targets every few 15-30s, and don't maintain aggro (taunts hold them literally for the mandatory 3s and not much more, indicating they don't have an aggro table the typical way we think of it, more they act like a fixating / mocking blow type fight), the priestess responds more typically, however she is not the main issue in this fight so thats hardly an issue.

That fight is why I have been in Magisters exactly one time and refuse to go back. you could guarentee that epics would drop like rain and I would pass.

As was said earlier, if I wanted to PVP I would not be a pve specced holy priest.

Its not pvp, its a fight you approach in a similar way because there is no tank.

Its a strictly pve fight, just the key is you have no tank, approaching it like you can tank it gets you killed, you use cc, and all the abilities in your spell book to survive and get past it (traps, slow, kiting etc), backup healing. Its a lovely fight really, just perhaps a little too tuned initially for a non Lock + mage cc team (giving at least 2, maybe 3 cc).

Perhaps the one time I was there just left a bad taste in my mouth then, that being said I still have no plans to go back.