The only static enrage timers that i've ever experienced are Netherspite's and the Twin Emps. Both fights are easily doable well below the enrage timer. I think it's a good way for the designers to tell you in a round about way "you are doing something wrong, we're going to kill you and let you try again." Although I have to agree that the more subtle enrage timers such as Gruul, Huhuran, and even Moroes (too many garrotes, not enough dwarves ), are a little more interesting, but if the fight is tuned properly and you are using an effective strat, the enrage shouldn't be too much of a problem.
The only static enrage timers that i've ever experienced are Netherspite's and the Twin Emps. Both fights are easily doable well below the enrage timer.
... And both of those fights were GOOD implementations of enrage timers because of it. An enrage timer should keep you from limping into a kill with 7 people left alive the last 20% (ala-heigan). It shouldn't crush your chances of victory due to a death or two.
The twin emp timer was 15 minutes and we usually downed them in around 10-11 minutes. Now imagine how much harder they would have been if they went TBC style and put a 10 minute timer on them...
I don't mind the concept or enrage timers on certain fights, but it has been somewhat overused.
At Patchwerk, for example, the timer served a particular purpose. The concept of the fight was based around a healing challenge, and the enrage timer prevented unprepared guilds from bringing 22 healers and getting him down. At Loatheb, as much as we hated it, the enrage was central to the concept of the encounter.
In many other cases, however, there's no reason to punish a guild for a slow kill. Look at the current raid environment--good raid leaders run high-DPS raids whenever possible, not because of enrage timers, but because of the advantages that high DPS provides in every encounter in the game. This is evidence of good design overall in the raid game. There is incentive to balance DPS and healing, without resorting to berserk timers on every fight.
If somebody can bring 10 healers and do 12 consecutive transitions at Hydross, however, I see no reason not to let them. Are they really getting an "easy way out"? I don't think so. Especially at a fight with a high execution requirement to avoid problems at every transition, low DPS carries its own penalties, even without the berserk.
In short, berserk timers should be saved for fights which have absolutely no other way to make DPS a significant concern, and such encounters should be kept to a minimum.
As most people said, enrage timers are necessary but the implementation on the SSC/TK enrage timers is poor to say the least.
Hydross? After 10 mins your tank and soon after your raid goes plop.
Karathress? Never seen, but I've heard its the same as the Hydross one.
Leotheras? After 10 mins your tank and your raid go plop.
Void Reaver? Never seen, but I've heard its the same as all of the above.
I mean.. come on... there are so many easier ways to implement this that would be much more interesting.
Have Leotheras split into two separate mobs at a certain point, so either 8 mins into the fight or when he hits 15%. That way if you're short on dps he'll split at 20%, or even 25%. The fight becomes much less stable when there's two out so I'm sure it will maintain the importance of DPS.
Hydross? Limit the number of times he can be switched back and forth. Have the cleansing beams break and his last phase be nature. Having him instantaenously "enrage" and hit the tank for 8k then 37k on the next swing is pretty stupid.
Anyway, my point is that it's not overly difficult to make interesting "enrage" type mechanics that don't involve: "Oops, your time is up!"
... And both of those fights were GOOD implementations of enrage timers because of it. An enrage timer should keep you from limping into a kill with 7 people left alive the last 20% (ala-heigan). It shouldn't crush your chances of victory due to a death or two.
The purpose of enrage mechanics is to ensure that you have a whole raid alive (or close to it) rather than limping through the end of a fight. See Chromaggus, Maexxna, Patchwerk (though his was kind of pointless), Sartura, even Moroes. At all of these fights, if you were near wiping, the enrage would finish you off rather than letting you squeak by. This thread is about Berserks.
I'm well aware I was just using the poster's verbage when responding to him. To clarify, Enrage is a mechanic that triggers usually at a certain % on a mob's health or some other (non timed) event. These enrages can be easily lived through and are usually only a little harder than the non-enraged boss. Berserk is a timed "You took too long" mechanic that usually wipes your raid instantly.
The words get thrown around so often that people commonly interchange them, which is probably a bad thing
I don't really mind timed enrages on the whole; they provide a restriction on raid composition based on needing a certain level of dps. What you don't want are situations wherein there's no pressure on the dps such that raids start swapping out a couple of dps for extra healers; encounters should find the balance where they need some number of healers and some number of dps, and while it's flexible to within 1 or 2, you can't stack healers by an extra 3-5 due to the need to have some minimum amount of DPS in the group.
Timed enraged are one way to do this, and are needed in this role for some fights; for instance, Karathress would be relatively dps un-pressured were it not for the enrage. However, when an alternate means of dps-pressure is employed (for instance, mobs that summon adds, such as Tidewalker, Hydross, Curator, etc.) it seems unnecessary to have a timed enrage as well.
However, the only boss I can think of off the top of my head where there's multiple sources of dps pressure is Hydross - there may be others, but that's the only one that immediately comes to mind. So I would say that most of the existing timed enrages are theoretically sound. Whether they're set correctly in terms of difficulty with beating them, I'm not sure; but it's not fundamentally a bad mechanic.
Karathress would be relatively dps un-pressured were it not for the enrage.
I don't really agree here on Karathress, even without the berserk timer you'd be hard pressed to kill him if you didn't bring a ton of DPS to deal with spitfire totems. Every death you have in the fight makes the next one easier to happen because of attrition with the totems. Honestly, if your raid hasn't killed him by the 10 minute mark you probably wouldn't live another 3 minutes if the timer didn't exist due to how many deaths you'd have to have.
I'd pool karathress into the category of having a built in DPS check. You either kill the shaman before (m)any people die and your healers run out of mana, or you lose, end of story. The fight is really over in the first 3 minutes so why press the issue with a berserk timer, granted it is a relatively easy one to beat. My point is there are enough reasons on karathress where you have to have a certain level of DPS and execution or you will lose. At that point why do we need a berserk timer?
Well, I'm not saying its a bad or unnecessary mechanic, I just don't like the way it's being implemented. I guess you can kinda look at it from "lore" standpoint where things don't just get mad after 10 mins and crush you. Maybe its something most people don't mind, kinda bugs me though.
Timed enraged are one way to do this, and are needed in this role for some fights; for instance, Karathress would be relatively dps un-pressured were it not for the enrage. However, when an alternate means of dps-pressure is employed (for instance, mobs that summon adds, such as Tidewalker, Hydross, Curator, etc.) it seems unnecessary to have a timed enrage as well.
As a counterpoint, on a fight like Curator it makes sure you're applying your DPS well, rather than just being able to kill the adds as they come.
Before you start to drift, and your soul begins to scream.
I just wanted to tell you, that you're listening to a dream.
As a counterpoint, on a fight like Curator it makes sure you're applying your DPS well, rather than just being able to kill the adds as they come.
If you try to run some kind of 12 minute Curator kill because your DPS setup is wonky and it's all you can do to stay ahead of the adds, why shouldn't you be allowed to? All you is raise other problem with healer mana, or deaths to Hateful Bolt, or falling slightly behind on adds and slowly wiping. It's certainly not an inordinately easier fight than doing a "normal" 4min Curator kill (in fact, it's really not easier at all), so why introduce an extra mechanic solely to rule out that odd case?
I think Hydross is a better example, but the same applies.
If you try to run some kind of 12 minute Curator kill because your DPS setup is wonky and it's all you can do to stay ahead of the adds, why shouldn't you be allowed to?
Well, it's not just a matter of how much DPS you have. From first attempt to third kill, our theoretical raid DPS didn't change much at all. How we applied that DPS changed dramatically, little things that boosted DPS on Curator greatly in the end. Without the timer, we would have eventually gained DPS but not as much. It ended up being a forced learning mechanism.
Before you start to drift, and your soul begins to scream.
I just wanted to tell you, that you're listening to a dream.
Berserk is needed on Leo because otherwise the fight becomes 15%->Dead with everything before being trivial. However, if you have the DPS to do that comfortably then it becomes this anyway. Thus the Berserk is an indication of a badly designed fight.
As Quigon mentioned in his other thread, as far as the base mechanics of the Leo fight go the challenge is a DPS race from 15%; competing against the survivability of the Demon tank and healer mana. The previous 85% is merely a period of attrition you have to overcome. Because of this it rewards getting to 15% with everyone up, and with healers having mana. If it wern't for the enrage there is no need to get there quickly unless you are going to run out of mana. The incentive then becomes to stack healers to ensure you get to 15% safely with enough mana to spare. The only DPS check is on whether you can kill 15% of Leo in the time it takes the Demon to kill your OT.
The berserk is bad because it is an artoficial way of forcing a DPS requirement that isn't inheret in the fight. It is bad because without the berserk it would strongly incentivise stacking the raid another way. Stacking a DPS raid is a prefered scenario, though, so the Berserk stays.
Hydross is the same. Without a berserk timer there is little incentive to stack more dps than is required to reliably take out the adds and do some damage to the boss.
Fathom Lord is the same...
The problems are obvious. These fights don't have sufficient DPS requirements in their mechanics. But there are some much better solutions. Here are a couple of mine thought up just now:
For Hydross: Make Hydross heal while his adds are up. The more adds are up the more he heals. Thus there is incentive to kill the adds quickly; to stop the healing as well as to give time to damage hydross. Then the advantages of stacking dps begin to equal those of stacking healing and the rad makeup is not dictated by the encounter. A high DPS raid can kill him faster, and has to, while a low DPS raid will take longer but be able to take him through more transitions, with high DPS being the more rewarded makeup.
(This brings to mind Illhoof, surely the most completely pointless berserk timer in the game.)
Leo could do with something like the folowing, perhaps: When the demon form comes out the 'normal' form becomes banished. You have to do a certain amount of damage to the Demon form to 'dismiss' it, while the banish on the normal form is a set time. Thus you have a bit of option for the two extremes: The high DPS raid knocks out the banish quickly, giving a break; the lower DPS is given less of a break, but probably has more healing to deal with recieving more damage over the fight; while the healer stacked raid is forced to deal with the two forms out at the same time fairly often during the fight and will probably wipe (either due to debuff stacking or their considerably healing powers being tested by all the extra damage they're taking). A more 'natural' contest.
Fathom Lord is ok, or just needs some minor touches. As it currently stands it already incentivises DPS by rewarding you on how quickly you can down the adds, the longer they stay up the more strained healer mana is.. I don't know if the berserk is needed at all.
Last edited by Lamaros : 05/22/07 at 11:27 PM.
Reason: spelling,etc
Just to clarify, my original post should have specified Beserks, though I think discussion of Enrages is just as valid.
From my point of view, the Beserk mechanic is just lazy design. If the only way you can force a high enough dps requirement is to have the boss go completely mental and one-shot your whole raid at a fixed time then it's time to look at the whole encounter design. Obviously as mentioned elsewhere it can make sense for a select few encounters in order to force a certain mechanic on the raid (Patchwerk), or as a failsafe after say 20mins+ so that you can't just go for the "bring 20 healers" route.
Just to clarify, my original post should have specified Beserks, though I think discussion of Enrages is just as valid.
From my point of view, the Beserk mechanic is just lazy design. If the only way you can force a high enough dps requirement is to have the boss go completely mental and one-shot your whole raid at a fixed time then it's time to look at the whole encounter design. Obviously as mentioned elsewhere it can make sense for a select few encounters in order to force a certain mechanic on the raid (Patchwerk), or as a failsafe after say 20mins+ so that you can't just go for the "bring 20 healers" route.
At the very least they could make them a bit less artificial. Perhaps have Hydross do something like:
Start: "Ahh, this is a nice distraction, turn off the <elemental spawning machine> for 10 miniutes while I deal with them."
10mins: Minions spawn. "Ahh.. I failed to defeat them in time. No matter. Minions, assist me"
Of course, you'd need the eles to be a little stronger.
Or Fathom Lord could call for more help, and you have something like:
Start: "Ahh, intruders! Sound the alarm!"
*you hear shouts in the distance, help seems to be on it's way, but it'll take a while yet*
5min: *the sounds a closer now, backup will arrive soon*
2min: *the shouts of naga can be heard out in the corridor, hurry*
0min: A big pack of Naga spawn in the corridor and charge into the room, killing you all.
Kill: "oh, I'm slain!"
*cries of fear and panic can be heard as the approaching naga turn and flee at Kara's death*
Etc etc.. (excuse the bad wirting, just getting the point across)
I think these would be a bit more fun ways of dealing with the idea. Though of course I prefer refining the fights themselves as I suggested above.
An enrage timer should keep you from limping into a kill with 7 people left alive the last 20% (ala-heigan).
What's wrong with doing that though? Some of the most memorable times from earlier raiding for me involve 7-8 ppl slowly chipping away the last 20% of Onyxia and Shazzrah dying with one single person (hunter) left standing in the raid.
The implementation of Berserk mechanics is generally terrible.
Hydross- There is no reason for him to go crazy at 10 minutes. If you lose more than a few people, you wouldn't be able to continue stable transitions anyway, so whats the point. Granted now that its been nerfed its a non-issue, but still, it was a bad idea.
Leo- I can see why you might want a berserk here, but it seems like its not necessary. If you take too long, he would eventually wear you down. You could just tune his hp higher if you felt that was an issue.
Morogrim- This fight has no berserk, notice no one has ever complained about losing at a low %? Thats because any loss at this point is your own fault and not a stupid timer.
Karathress- Once we wiped at like 5% because of this. Granted we let the priest heal like 5 times so we deserved it, but I don't really see the timer as having an impact 95% of the time so its just extraneous. I don't see why you should get penalized if you take an extra 5 seconds to kill him or something and a spitfire totem owns half your raid.
Void Reaver- This guy is such a joke that he probably should have a berserk timer just so there is some pressure on you.
Looking at it, the enrage timers were largely responsible for turning the game into a chugathon pre 2.1, since without them people could have done the fights much more easily if they mastered the mechanics. So are they good, absolutely not.
Just to clarify, my original post should have specified Beserks, though I think discussion of Enrages is just as valid.
From my point of view, the Beserk mechanic is just lazy design. If the only way you can force a high enough dps requirement is to have the boss go completely mental and one-shot your whole raid at a fixed time then it's time to look at the whole encounter design. Obviously as mentioned elsewhere it can make sense for a select few encounters in order to force a certain mechanic on the raid (Patchwerk), or as a failsafe after say 20mins+ so that you can't just go for the "bring 20 healers" route.
Basically this. If they want to you have 10 minutes to defeat an encounter, then make it a reasonable challenge to last 10 minutes, and you have a nice encounter.
As far as Enrage mechanics, again they're not for every fight, but they're appropriate for when a designer is looking at an encounter and saying, "you know, it would be too easy to maintain this fight indefinitely with only a few people alive." So they put something there to make sure you have near-full raid strength to survive the last bit. To me, that's a better method than a Berserk for punishing a sloppy raid that lets many people die.
Taken in that abstract functional sense, by the way, by far the most ingeniously designed "Enrage" in any fight we've seen was Gothik.
Originally Posted by Lamaros
"oh, I'm slain!"
This is what someone says when I kill them.
EDIT: This was too obscure. Needs a comment about stabbing or an arras.
I don't really agree here on Karathress, even without the berserk timer you'd be hard pressed to kill him if you didn't bring a ton of DPS to deal with spitfire totems. Every death you have in the fight makes the next one easier to happen because of attrition with the totems. Honestly, if your raid hasn't killed him by the 10 minute mark you probably wouldn't live another 3 minutes if the timer didn't exist due to how many deaths you'd have to have.
First time we got all 3 adds down, we were getting the totems down plenty fast but it was costing us too much dps on the boss; it took almost 4 min to kill the shaman, and we had barely 3 min left when we got to Karathress - we took him to 40% before wiping to enrage. It would have taken maybe 11 or 12 to get him down on that attempt. (The next night we tuned the strat a bit and downed him in under 9).
But, realistically, if you could bring another 3 healers and spend 15 min on the fight, there's nothing stopping you from just healing through the spitfire totem. Whether it'd actually be easier or not, I have no idea. But it would certainly be possible. Without an enrage, it'd be a fight where good dps is helpful - like Anub, C'thun, or Ouro - but there wouldn't be any true dps requirement needed to complete it.
Without an enrage, it'd be a fight where good dps is helpful - like Anub, C'thun, or Ouro - but there wouldn't be any true dps requirement needed to complete it.
There couldn't be a more inaccurate description of C'Thun than this.
Why must every single encounter have "total raid DPS must be greater than X, or success is impossible?"
What, you disagree that DPS is helpful on C'thun? I mean, I suppose there is some minimum threshhold of dps requirement, but it's pretty low - I know of guilds that went to as many as 5 weakens in phase 2. But the fight is certainly a lot easier if you can kill him in two weakens, like my guild almost always did. Similarly higher DPS on Ouro means fewer submerges, which makes the fight a lot easier. More DPS on Anub means fewer transitions, which, again, makes life easier. But all of the fights can be dragged on almost indefenitely long in theory. There's no "you'll kill it in 10 min or not at all" component to it - nor is there for Karathress.
As for why all fights have dps requirements - well, they have healing requirements, and tanking requirements - why not dps requirements?
Health % based enrages force a group to perform at a certain level of play, say the 20% enrage. It forces flawless (or near flawless) performance from the entire group to ensure the boss goes down. It's sort of a catch-all for groups who try to get through bosses with a half-assed approach: Patchwerk being the most classic example.
Time based enrages seem to force encounters to end in a more timely fashion - be it wipe or loot, and I appreciate that. I don't want to spend 25 minutes on an encounter inching ever so slowly towards resolution to have things go wrong, that's just silly. It's much more rewarding to watch the raid move in an efficient manner.
The berserk is bad because it is an artoficial way of forcing a DPS requirement that isn't inheret in the fight. It is bad because without the berserk it would strongly incentivise stacking the raid another way.
Wait, let me get this straight. It's a bad thing because it prevents you from stacking the raid for healing?
There should be a DPS requirement to every fight. How steep that requirement is should vary, and many should be pretty easy to match (ala Twin Emperors). The way berserks are designed might suffer from lack of originality, but they do ultimately serve a purpose.
The least favorite fight I've had in TBC so far is easily Nightbane. It reeks of the old MC style where you could literally have 1 DPSer alive and it wouldn't matter.
The best designed fights are the ones that are fluid. There's an inherent tank/healing requirement to every fight; the same isn't true for DPS. However, better tanking means you require less healing. The best fights are those where DPS is integrated in a way such that higher amounts of one mean requirements for the other two drop. It doesn't have to be a great affect, or one that would cause stacking, but when it's there it works well.
Before you start to drift, and your soul begins to scream.
I just wanted to tell you, that you're listening to a dream.
05/22/07, 4:28 PM
), are a little more interesting, but if the fight is tuned properly and you are using an effective strat, the enrage shouldn't be too much of a problem.
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