CThun down!

[Rinnhart]

Or just play Alliance and have plenty of paladins and dwarfs who can become immune to the poison volley when she goes berserk.  It's funny to see the difference.  For Alliance, Huhuran is a cakewalk encounter on the way to the Twin Emps.  For Horde, it's a Vaelestraz type fight.  It's really too bad for the Alliance imho, because it's a really fun fight.

It's OK.  Viscidus looks easier for the Horde to do, since shaman can instantly cure the poison dot off their entire party each time.  It's still not a cakewalk encounter, but I definitely see the advantage of having shaman in this fight.
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Can we not go down this road, again?

[Artega]

Can we not go down this road, again?
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HORD > ALLANCE

KTHX.

Actually, let's not go down this road, but I'm not above making smartass quips about it from time to time :x

[Skandranon]

Or just play Alliance and have plenty of paladins and dwarfs who can become immune to the poison volley when she goes berserk. 
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As a technical note to Alliance players reading this thread: Stoneform does not make you immune to Huhuran's berserk-volley. Don't try it, it won't work.

[Rinnhart]

HORD > ALLANCE

KTHX.

Actually, let's not go down this road, but I'm not above making smartass quips about it from time to time :x
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DARE NOT THE WRATH OF THE BORED CUBE DWELLER.

[MongoJerry]

Can we not go down this road, again?
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What road? It's a genuine assessment of the situation. Huhuran = easy mode for Alliance. Viscidus = easier mode for Horde.

[Rinnhart]

What road?  It's a genuine assessment of the situation.  Huhuran = easy mode for Alliance.  Viscidus = easier mode for Horde.
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Hello, Mr. Stone, do you have a circulatory system, yet?

GOD HELP ME, I WILL TRUMP THE BLIND ORC OF ORGRIMMAR, JERRY.

[MongoJerry]

Hello, Mr. Stone, do you have a circulatory system, yet?

GOD HELP ME, I WILL TRUMP THE BLIND ORC OF ORGRIMMAR, JERRY.
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Even without dwarfs (did Stoneform work at one time? Because it's a common belief that it did), pally shields still make the fight easy. It buys your raid those extra seconds that are so crucial in that fight. All those 1% and 2% wipes that Horde raids experience? All wins on the Alliance side. If you don't believe me that it makes a difference, tell your paladins never to use their shields during the Huhuran burndown. It'll be a totally different much harder fight.

As far as emotion goes, Rinnhart, it's all you getting bent out of shape and interpreting some perceived slight. I'm not going to say some encounter is all the same for both factions when it's patently not true. If you wish to disagree with me and say that no the pally shields don't make a difference against Huhuran, then that's fine. But I ask that you keep your discussion logical and civil.

[Rinnhart]

Even without dwarfs (did Stoneform work at one time?  Because it's a common belief that it did), pally shields still make the fight easy.  It buys your raid those extra seconds that are so crucial in that fight.  All those 1% and 2% wipes that Horde raids experience? All wins on the Alliance side.  If you don't believe me that it makes a difference, tell your paladins never to use their shields during the Huhuran burndown.  It'll be a totally different much harder fight.

As far as emotion goes, Rinnhart, it's all you getting bent out of shape and interpreting some perceived slight.  I'm not going to say some encounter is all the same for both factions when it's patently not true.  If you wish to disagree with me and say that no the pally shields don't make a difference against Huhuran, then that's fine.  But I ask that you keep your discussion logical and civil.
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I'm not getting bent out of shape from some perceived slight, I'm enjoying the bloated, rotting rhetoric of a classic WoW forum argument. I'm meditating upon the RSI-inducing nature of this line of thought. It's been done. Old news. New material, please.

[Jarulf]

Out of curiosity, what are the add-ons used on the picture in the original post?

[MongoJerry]

I'm not getting bent out of shape from some perceived slight, I'm enjoying the bloated, rotting rhetoric of a classic WoW forum argument. I'm meditating upon the RSI-inducing nature of this line of thought. It's been done. Old news. New material, please.
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Rinnhart, I perceive your comments as being that you think my arguments stem from some troll posting Blizzard forum fights and that you made the mistake of thinking my comments derived from them. As I have not participated in any Blizzard forum troll fights regarding this issue nor read any of those fights, I can assure you that they are not. My comments come from my own experiences in killing Huhuran and my guild's recent attempts on Viscidus. Huhuran is a fun fight, but I think that it is cheesy that she continues to shoot at paladins who are immune to her attacks. Since the burndown on her last 30% is very quick, this is a tremendous advantage that Alliance raids have and makes the fight much easier to the point where I don't think that she qualifies as a boss that is any more difficult to kill than the previous four bosses in AQ40. For Horde guilds, on the other hand, I think there is a step up in difficulty from Fankris to her. My analogy is that she's about as difficult as Vaelestraz, who even after months of him being on farm status can still wipe our raid on occation.

Regarding Viscidus, my comments stem from our unplanned but excellent evening of attempts on him on Monday evening. He shoots a poison dot on everyone, and I can see that having shaman be able to cleanse an entire party with one click is a tremendous advantage over having paladins and druids cleanse people one by one as they take a ton of damage. For both factions, the difficulty ramps up tremendously, but at the same time, I can see that the Horde has an advantage here.

Now that I have explained myself more fully, I now ask that you refrain from your personally directed comments. You may disagree with my conclusions from your own information or experiences. However, if your comments are not game related and instead continue to involve personal attacks, your posts will be removed.

[Skandranon]

Even without dwarfs (did Stoneform work at one time?  Because it's a common belief that it did)
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Stoneform in 1.9 removed Noxious Poison, the non-typed "grenade" debuff that Huhuran throws, as well as granting immunity to Wyvern Sting. It only gives immunity to Wyvern Sting now, and cannot be activated while being slept by Wyvern Sting. The duration of the immunity is eight seconds, so it must be very precisely timed to have any effect on the fight. Paladin shields are an advantage, allowing a paladin to soak bolts for twelve seconds without taking damage, but not so great as one might think: paladins can deck out fairly quickly in the Nature Resistance mail patterns available from Cenarion Circle faction, raising their NR to levels where the bolt is easily handled by the same Prayer of Healing that's keeping up the people around them.

Besides, it's not as if Horde doesn't have their own interesting advantages on this fight. Nature Resistance totem is the obvious one, but I've heard interesting things about what Grounding Totem does on this fight for those guilds willing to give up their NR totem and try it out.

[MongoJerry]

Paladin shields are an advantage, allowing a paladin to soak bolts for twelve seconds without taking damage, but not so great as one might think: paladins can deck out fairly quickly in the Nature Resistance mail patterns available from Cenarion Circle faction, raising their NR to levels where the bolt is easily handled by the same Prayer of Healing that's keeping up the people around them.

You use Prayer of Healing? We tried it for several attempts and finally abandoned it, because some people would die waiting for the three second cast to go off. We switched to assigning one healer for every two people, a tactic that ended up working a lot better. What the paladin shield does is allow the raid's healing power to concentrate on fewer people, so it in effect not only protects the paladin but also protects the other members of the front line team. In an extreme case, you could stack the deck with eight paladins, but let's say you stick with only around six paladins. Each paladin could quaff a nature protection potion before the 30% burndown, absorb a few hits and then shield. Doing so means about 15 seconds during which the healers, including the paladins, can concentrate their healing power on the remaining 10 front-liners. That's basically a 15-second head start to the burndown, which is forever in that fight.

For those who haven't seen it, yet, it's quite a sight to behold. At 30% Huhuran goes berserk with a poison volley that hits the nearest 16 targets. At that point, you have to burn her down as fast as possible. Once a crack in the dam starts -- i.e. once a couple of people die -- a chain reaction occurs as the poison volley starts hitting the back of the raid. It's a disspiriting sight to see Huhuran at 1% life with half the raid still alive and then *lose*.

You make a great point about equipment, though, Skandranon. The fight is definitely getting easier as we're starting to collect better nature resistance equipment. When we first ran into Huhuran, most of our gear was green "of nature resistance" gear and stuff from Mauradan. But we've been hard at work crafting and finding NR gear off AQ bosses. Also, we've managed to down the green dragons a few times in cooperation with some other Horde guilds on the server, so our tanks have been able to get the epic NR rings and a few decent pieces of tanking NR gear. Once 1.11 comes out, our casters and rogues will be able to get some decent Cenarian Circle NR gear. So, yeah, that will definitely make a big difference with both Huhuran and Viscidus.

Besides, it's not as if Horde doesn't have their own interesting advantages on this fight.  Nature Resistance totem is the obvious one

Not really in this fight. What really matters is keeping your front 16 up, and four hunters can provide the nature resistance aura necessary for those groups. I can definitely see the advantage of Nature Resistance totems in other fights, though.

but I've heard interesting things about what Grounding Totem does on this fight for those guilds willing to give up their NR totem and try it out.
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I'll ask our shaman about this again, but I know our shaman tried it out and abandoned the idea. Either the Grounding Totem idea was just misinformation (like stoneform apparently) and the tactic doesn't work, or the tactic wasn't practical. I think it just didn't work, but I'll check.

[Rinnhart]

I'm not arguing the nature of the fight, I'm saying you don't need to bring up "alliance and horde are different, I'll tell you who has it easier" every time there's a discussion.

[Skandranon]

You use Prayer of Healing?  We tried it for several attempts and finally abandoned it, because some people would die waiting for the three second cast to go off. 

That's a gear issue, and varies from guild to guild. As it so happens, farming for the Scepter of the Shifting Sands generates an awful lot of silithid carapaces, and so fully outfitting anyone who could wear mail in Sandstalker was pretty easy. As for green dragons, we've managed to get a few kills in; all the warriors, paladins, and rogues have Malfurion's Signet Ring, along with some hunters and a scattering of mages and warlocks. As you can imagine, it really helps.

I'll ask our shaman about this again, but I know our shaman tried it out and abandoned the idea.  Either the Grounding Totem idea was just misinformation (like stoneform apparently) and the tactic doesn't work, or the tactic wasn't practical.  I think it just didn't work, but I'll check.
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The reference I remembered was here: post #149 makes reference to learning about grounding totems, implies that once that thing was learned, it changed the entire strategy, and that it was, indeed, useful. Unless this is deliberate disinformation, it does *something*, but its value may not be certain.

[MongoJerry]

I'm not arguing the nature of the fight, I'm saying you don't need to bring up "alliance and horde are different, I'll tell you who has it easier" every time there's a raid discussion.
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OK, thank-you. I admit that my initial post that said, "just play Alliance and have plenty of paladins and dwarfs" was quippy and off-the-cuff -- and half wrong as Skandranon rightly pointed out. However, the initial point was related to the discussion of the level of difficulty of AQ40. Some people are under the impression that AQ40 is a direct progression of BWL in terms of difficulty. That is, that one is supposed to complete -- and had better complete -- BWL before starting AQ40. However, several posters, including myself, pointed out that the first several bosses in AQ40 are in fact designed to be easier or on par with BWL bosses and that guilds capable of beating Ragnaros should be able to make good progress in AQ40 before reaching a wall where the difficulty ramps to something more difficult than BWL.

My contention was and is that where this wall occurs depends on one's faction. I believe it happens at Huhuran for Horde raids and after Huhuran for Alliance raids. But as Skandranon points out, equipment plays a role here. I will concede that as nature resistance gear gets easier to obtain -- especially in 1.11 when a lot of recipes will be added -- the wall could push back beyond Huhuran for Horde guilds as well.

So the point I was making was a genuine point. However, I again apologize for how quippy my initial remarks were. I would like to ask for some leniency in the future, however, over simple remarks I'm likely to make in posts regarding the Alliance. I spend a great deal of my play time looking over my shoulder to make sure that I don't get jumped by some Alliance player when I'm trying to pick herbs or summon a Silithus boss. I enjoy the intensity of the PvP server experience, but you must understand that the moment my brain registers the word "Alliance," it triggers long established fight or flight responses in a Pavlovian way. So, if in the middle of a discussion, I let slip a comment about "Alliance scum" or "silly Alliance," I'd ask that some leniency and benefit of the doubt be granted that I don't of course mean that all players who play Alliance are scum or silly or play on "easy mode." I just mean the ones who play on Tichondrius. :lol:

[Rinnhart]

Fair enough.

[Mavfin]

Fair enough.
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<Psst!> I saw MJ playing alliance the other day. Pass it on! :P :D

[Quark]

Looks like Blizzard got the last laugh on the C'thun nerfs. They were accompanied, apparantly, by nerfs to the items he drops. A bunch of his loot is not as good as it was back when the info was datamined. (Sorry, no link right now, lost it).

Death's Sting went from 66.6 DPS 1.9 Speed dagger to a 66.4 DPS 1.8 Speed dagger.

[Quark]

Out of curiosity, what are the add-ons used on the picture in the original post?
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That I recognize ....

Bottom Right (combat log) -> Nurfed Combat Log (I use this too)
Right above that (raid ui) -> CT_RaidAssist
above that (damage) -> DamageMeters

I'm guessing some other elements are part of the base NurfedUI.

[castille]

That I recognize ....

Bottom Right (combat log) -> Nurfed Combat Log (I use this too)
Right above that (raid ui) -> CT_RaidAssist
above that (damage) -> DamageMeters

I'm guessing some other elements are part of the base NurfedUI.
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Hmm, actually, no Nurfed that I see other than the CombatLog...

The bars are from DiscordArt

Edit: retracted, I wasn't aware that the newer NurfedHUD also did unitframes. ;) That's part of NurfedHUD, yeah