12-12-2006, 08:37 AM
Redoing the whole thing now that a Naxx clear in 2.0.1 is complete. I'll focus mostly on how 2.0.1 has changed the encounters. Easiest to hardest.
1. Grobbulus. The removal of Decursive and similar mods has actually made this fight easier. An accidental jab (or five or six) on the decurse key could chainbomb the raid and cause a wipe. Now that danger is gone, it's very hard to understand how a raid group can wipe to this guy.
2. Maexxna. Stacking HoTs has utterly trivialized the major mechanic of this fight (raid stunned, Maexxna beats on a tank with just HoTs on). You can get just one person off the wall on each web phase and still win since she doesn't even threaten your MT during enrage. So she gets #2. Even on Razuvious there's at least a minuscule chance to wipe.
3. Razuvious. I typically describe him as ZG level difficulty, because he is. That he's #3 only means that two bosses in Naxx have accomplished the dubious feat of being even more trivial than ZG.
4. Grand Widow Faerlina. I suppose lack of Decursive makes removing poisons a little tricker, but who cares? You can let them all tick and heal right through, and as long as people move when they're in a Rain of Fire, you'll win. She used to serve as a minor DPS check, but the proliferation of HWL/GM weaponry and especially the massive DPS increases from the addition of the TBC talent trees has functioned as an effective nerf on that aspect of the fight.
5. Anub'rekhan. Because you can still theoretically have a bad transition and wipe. It obviously happens almost never, but frankly, wiping to any of the four creampuffs I've listed before this guy is even more unlikely.
6. Patchwerk. In contrast to other observations, my guild's tanks were reporting less Hateful Strike damage across the board after the hotfix, with an average of about fifty-seven hundred (which is less than half the hit points of one of our tanks). The Affliction talent Shadow Embrace helps a lot (and if you don't have an Affliction 'lock, I suggest you get one). Downranking has been nerfed, but +heal talents now apply after +heal gear, so healing has overall grown in magnitude. As for his DPS side, the same thing applies here as does to Faerlina - the new talents have so massively increased DPS that I wouldn't even recommend Supreme Powers for a first kill any more. He's pretty much been nerfed all around.
7. Noth. Lack of Decursive hurts here, sort of, but as I posted in the Decursive thread, there's just plenty of time to get it all off when you're on the ball. You have 20 curses max and 10 seconds to remove them all. One person can remove six curses in ten seconds, and most raids will be carrying at least four mages and four druids, which means that each person can take up to four seconds to locate and cleanse a target - and there's no way that it's going to take that long. Put up here because everything else below him is nerfed, not because he's a real challenge.
8. Heigan. He basically hasn't changed at all, except that it's easier for an overzealous mage to pull aggro and wipe the raid. Still frustrating to learn, but overall not tough once you've learned him. Chance to wipe is very low.
9. Gluth. His HP doesn't stand up well to the new DPS increases. Our warrior zombie kite strategy is based on Demoralizing Shout and it was nerfed to split its threat over all its targets in 2.0.1. With a completely non-functional zombie strategy, we hodgepodged a pally-kite-frost-nova thing on the fly - and one-shot him shortly after the second decimate. To repeat: we basically failed at one entire aspect of the fight and still one shot him in an extremely smooth manner. Mightily nerfed.
10. Thaddius. Like other DPS check style fights, the TBC talents have functioned to lighten up the check considerably. I suppose you might still want flasks for a first kill, but they're definitely not necessary. Perform a simple task, do okay DPS with a good talent build, collect epix, next. Obviously if your people can't tell left from right, there's going to be an issue, but truly, that isn't a problem for most people.
11. Loatheb. Same as Thaddius - he's just not really a DPS check any more with the new talents. I would still stick with supreme powers for a first kill of this guy. Otherwise, not changed - unless you count Blizzard's oversight with not designating Circle of Healing a healing spell as a "change" as opposed to what I consider it, which is an exploit. It's clear from the pre-patch version how the fight is supposed to work, including that each healer is supposed to get one heal every one minute - no exceptions. CoH completely breaks the encounter by allowing you to heal as much as you want to, to anybody. When you do that, Inevitable Doom becomes not particularly doomy, allowing you as much time as you like to kill him, which completely breaks the idea of a DPS check. If you consider this exploit legit, Loatheb drops down into the 1-4 you-have-to-try-to-wipe-to-him area. Sadly, guilds are flocking to this exploit (I know of one on Stormrage already).
12. The Four Horsemen. Having repaired invisible void zones, the patch has finally removed randomness from the encounter. Know what to do and when to do it and these guys aren't too tough, though they're still harder than nearly everything else. The fight's gotten a bit harder since mages don't have as much threat reduction, which makes the fight last longer, which increases the chance that someone blunders and dies.
13. Gothik the Harvester. Effectively no change. He's still hard, and one of those bosses you can never truly call "on farm". If anything, the threat reduction hurts this fight the most, since it makes it even harder to control Unrelenting Deathknights.
14. Kel'Thuzad. Effectively no change, except that Shadow Fissure graphics are now huge and impossible to miss. The new talents have made the 40-0 burndown much easier as well, which is really where the fight starts.
15. Sapphiron. The lack of decursive on this fight, specifically designed for it, has really hit hard. You have three seconds to wipe ten curses off random people (which can be up to everyone in a single group). Your entire decursing corps needs to be on the ball with appropriate replacement mods (Grid and Clique are the usual combo). With the increased threat of Life Drain, everything that was hard about this fight just gets a lot harder, and you pretty much require world buffs. Not only that, but an interesting bug has made Sapphiron's Blizzard snare persist much longer than its intended length, which can lead to deaths on the block phase.
In summary: three fights, including Sapphiron which was already no breeze, got harder. Two or three are more or less neutral. The other nine were nerfed from their 2.0.1 state. If anything, this patch should breathe more hope into guilds hoping to finish as much of Naxx as possible before TBC, because so much of it has gotten so damn easy.
1. Grobbulus. The removal of Decursive and similar mods has actually made this fight easier. An accidental jab (or five or six) on the decurse key could chainbomb the raid and cause a wipe. Now that danger is gone, it's very hard to understand how a raid group can wipe to this guy.
2. Maexxna. Stacking HoTs has utterly trivialized the major mechanic of this fight (raid stunned, Maexxna beats on a tank with just HoTs on). You can get just one person off the wall on each web phase and still win since she doesn't even threaten your MT during enrage. So she gets #2. Even on Razuvious there's at least a minuscule chance to wipe.
3. Razuvious. I typically describe him as ZG level difficulty, because he is. That he's #3 only means that two bosses in Naxx have accomplished the dubious feat of being even more trivial than ZG.
4. Grand Widow Faerlina. I suppose lack of Decursive makes removing poisons a little tricker, but who cares? You can let them all tick and heal right through, and as long as people move when they're in a Rain of Fire, you'll win. She used to serve as a minor DPS check, but the proliferation of HWL/GM weaponry and especially the massive DPS increases from the addition of the TBC talent trees has functioned as an effective nerf on that aspect of the fight.
5. Anub'rekhan. Because you can still theoretically have a bad transition and wipe. It obviously happens almost never, but frankly, wiping to any of the four creampuffs I've listed before this guy is even more unlikely.
6. Patchwerk. In contrast to other observations, my guild's tanks were reporting less Hateful Strike damage across the board after the hotfix, with an average of about fifty-seven hundred (which is less than half the hit points of one of our tanks). The Affliction talent Shadow Embrace helps a lot (and if you don't have an Affliction 'lock, I suggest you get one). Downranking has been nerfed, but +heal talents now apply after +heal gear, so healing has overall grown in magnitude. As for his DPS side, the same thing applies here as does to Faerlina - the new talents have so massively increased DPS that I wouldn't even recommend Supreme Powers for a first kill any more. He's pretty much been nerfed all around.
7. Noth. Lack of Decursive hurts here, sort of, but as I posted in the Decursive thread, there's just plenty of time to get it all off when you're on the ball. You have 20 curses max and 10 seconds to remove them all. One person can remove six curses in ten seconds, and most raids will be carrying at least four mages and four druids, which means that each person can take up to four seconds to locate and cleanse a target - and there's no way that it's going to take that long. Put up here because everything else below him is nerfed, not because he's a real challenge.
8. Heigan. He basically hasn't changed at all, except that it's easier for an overzealous mage to pull aggro and wipe the raid. Still frustrating to learn, but overall not tough once you've learned him. Chance to wipe is very low.
9. Gluth. His HP doesn't stand up well to the new DPS increases. Our warrior zombie kite strategy is based on Demoralizing Shout and it was nerfed to split its threat over all its targets in 2.0.1. With a completely non-functional zombie strategy, we hodgepodged a pally-kite-frost-nova thing on the fly - and one-shot him shortly after the second decimate. To repeat: we basically failed at one entire aspect of the fight and still one shot him in an extremely smooth manner. Mightily nerfed.
10. Thaddius. Like other DPS check style fights, the TBC talents have functioned to lighten up the check considerably. I suppose you might still want flasks for a first kill, but they're definitely not necessary. Perform a simple task, do okay DPS with a good talent build, collect epix, next. Obviously if your people can't tell left from right, there's going to be an issue, but truly, that isn't a problem for most people.
11. Loatheb. Same as Thaddius - he's just not really a DPS check any more with the new talents. I would still stick with supreme powers for a first kill of this guy. Otherwise, not changed - unless you count Blizzard's oversight with not designating Circle of Healing a healing spell as a "change" as opposed to what I consider it, which is an exploit. It's clear from the pre-patch version how the fight is supposed to work, including that each healer is supposed to get one heal every one minute - no exceptions. CoH completely breaks the encounter by allowing you to heal as much as you want to, to anybody. When you do that, Inevitable Doom becomes not particularly doomy, allowing you as much time as you like to kill him, which completely breaks the idea of a DPS check. If you consider this exploit legit, Loatheb drops down into the 1-4 you-have-to-try-to-wipe-to-him area. Sadly, guilds are flocking to this exploit (I know of one on Stormrage already).
12. The Four Horsemen. Having repaired invisible void zones, the patch has finally removed randomness from the encounter. Know what to do and when to do it and these guys aren't too tough, though they're still harder than nearly everything else. The fight's gotten a bit harder since mages don't have as much threat reduction, which makes the fight last longer, which increases the chance that someone blunders and dies.
13. Gothik the Harvester. Effectively no change. He's still hard, and one of those bosses you can never truly call "on farm". If anything, the threat reduction hurts this fight the most, since it makes it even harder to control Unrelenting Deathknights.
14. Kel'Thuzad. Effectively no change, except that Shadow Fissure graphics are now huge and impossible to miss. The new talents have made the 40-0 burndown much easier as well, which is really where the fight starts.
15. Sapphiron. The lack of decursive on this fight, specifically designed for it, has really hit hard. You have three seconds to wipe ten curses off random people (which can be up to everyone in a single group). Your entire decursing corps needs to be on the ball with appropriate replacement mods (Grid and Clique are the usual combo). With the increased threat of Life Drain, everything that was hard about this fight just gets a lot harder, and you pretty much require world buffs. Not only that, but an interesting bug has made Sapphiron's Blizzard snare persist much longer than its intended length, which can lead to deaths on the block phase.
In summary: three fights, including Sapphiron which was already no breeze, got harder. Two or three are more or less neutral. The other nine were nerfed from their 2.0.1 state. If anything, this patch should breathe more hope into guilds hoping to finish as much of Naxx as possible before TBC, because so much of it has gotten so damn easy.