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Old 03/06/08, 8:16 AM   #4 (permalink)
Jaxtrasi
Von Kaiser
 
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Orc Warrior
 
Argent Dawn (EU)
Loktar!

Some examples:

Moroes: What's actually tactically significant in the Moroes fight is that he has adds which need to be contained, either through effective crowd control or well-coordinated tanking. However, what's actually memorable about the fight is the way he gouges the tank and ganks people, or vanishes and garrottes. These mechanics can be easily replicated in five man, with the inclusion of perhaps one or two adds which need to be contained or killed.

Wizard of Oz: This encounter is demanding on group composition, requiring: a) A warlock or hunter to chain fear Roar, b) A mage, warlock or shaman to chain fire Strawman, c) a free body to kite Tinhead around, d) someone spare to stop Tito from ganking a healer and e) everyone left to dps Dorothee down ASAP. With some redesign the essential flavour of this encounter can be preserved with less demanding composition. For example, rather than having to chain fear Roar, the first Fear effect applied to him could nerf his damage output by 90%, or fear him for a consistent 1 minute. This would require the presence of a warlock, hunter, priest, warrior or leatherworker with Drums of Panic. Even Flash Bombs could be used to control him. Likewise, the dazed debuff on Strawman could be lengthened to the extent that a rogue with fast weapons with Fiery Weapon on them could effectively control him, or the players could take it in turns to Ez-Thro Dynamite.

Al'ar: Significant features of this fight are his Ragnaros-like I-nuke-you-if-no-one-is-near, summoning of adds, necessary mobility due to patches of fire, and the use of multiple tanks to avoid debuffs. In a 5-man context, it is possible to retain all of these elements without substantial redesign. For example, there is no need for the adds to require tanking as long as prompt and skilled action on the part of the dps is required. Making sure someone stays in melee range is still reasonable and could be tuned to be more demanding (requiring speed buffs, for example from potions) since there are not five tanks available. Tank swapping after a debuff is also perfectly possible, especially if the boss deals (or is made to deal) primarily magical damage from spells against which tanking classes are not as significant. "Tank" swapping via dps classes carefully managing aggro to eat debuffs can be made to be more challenging, especially in the presence of adds and dangerous areas of ground.

Kael'thas: Nothing in this fight explicitly demands the presence of a particular size or composition of party as long as his abilities (and those of the advisors) are tuned to account for it. The group would be required to bring a character capable of using each of the ability-deflecting items and potentially miss out on one or two of them. Yes, it would be easier because there will be less people, and yes, it'll take less time (probably much, much less time) to learn than the 25-man version for the same reason, but so what? It's still head and shoulders above Warlord Kalithresh.

There's a lot of potential in five-man versions of raid fights for imaginative or creative use of unusual abilities for the designers and the players. Flash bombs are a good example - is it somehow easier to assign someone to repeatedly flash bomb Roar rather than have a warlock do it? I don't think so. It also opens up an otherwise more or less useless item (obviously it would have to work on level 73 targets...) and allows classes that don't usually have the challenge of constant CC to experience it.

"I've never known people as dogmatic as those who insist that all opinion is equally subjective."
 
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