Cyn

As well as it also making an old random Azeroth potion the most effective by miles for rogues and melee

 

Tanoshii

To the above poster, I think it's fairly unfortunate that that's the case. It seems the very top guilds are going to kill the bosses in any form very, very quickly no matter what they do, but others will have enforced farming and little else, even if they have been doing T6 content a not insignificant amount of time - whether they killed Illidan more recently, had poor loot luck, or had turnover. I know most here are going to disagree, but I'm beginning to agree with those who think they set the requirements too high. I know the top guilds want a challenge - but they killed it fairly quickly anyway, and it being unkillable for many others who are bored of T6 content is going to cause more burnouts and disatisfaction with how Blizzard handled raiding content release pacing and tuning.

 

Iluminati

you can kill Brutallus without glaives. There are plenty of demon bosses as well, not like this is the first one where demonslaying is better than the AP flask. I think Brutallus is well tuned. Only complaint is the sunwell radiance thing. Very intense tanking requirements, a little to luck based for me, but not too bad, and definitely do able.

 

Cyn

My comment is that two of the biggest bonuses you can get for killing the best gear check boss in the expansion, is either low drop pairing of legendaries, or a lvl 60 potion, neither of which really seems like the best decision for balancing/tuning on a fight where things really can come down to the wire

 

Lodekim

Really looking at this fight, there's a few things I'd comment on.

For one, it's definitely tuned around having a raid that's been farming Illidan for a while at least. When we ran with 8 healers, we quite simply were not going to hit the enrage timer. We've been farming Illidan since the beginning of August, and it was still tight on us. Given the amount of new dpsers we have, the fact that we have 1 warglaive set and 0 cursed visions, that seems about right.

The concern I have is what some people said, the importance of drums, it's true, they're just new consumables. Between a night when we didn't kill and the kill, we had at least one person reroll their profession to leatherworking just for drums, and to me that's the issue I'm worried about, as if it goes forward, people are going to keep having to do that. Leatherworking drums, that's one thing, if it gets much further in terms of turning requiring professions, that's a slippery slope I would think.

Overall though, I'd call Sunwell tuned for who needed it, people who've been out of content for a long time, and I'm glad they've managed to make it so.

 

Ramalama

One important thing to consider when discussing tuning of boss encounters is that there are several different ways a boss can be challenging. I like to conceptualize this by grouping challenges as:

(1) Numerical
(2) Strategy
(3) Execution

Brutallus is a good example of a boss whose difficulty is largely numerical, although there are secondary Execution elements as well. A raid will probably develop a winning strategy to beat Brutallus within just a few attempts, but won't actually kill him so soon because of tank deaths, lack of DPS, and small execution errors.

Contrast this with The Four Horsemen, the clearest example of a primary Strategy (secondary Execution) fight. I remember seeing excel spreadsheets posted with tank/healer/dps rotations down to the second. Players literally spent weeks just theorizing how best to approach the encounter without even being in the instance. Of course, once a working strategy was developed executing it reliably was still a challenge as well. But rarely were raid worried about their DPS output or mitigation of their tanks. In fact, many guilds brought alts with weak gear just so they could meet the class requirements for their guild's strategy.

Without going into further detail, Heigan and Felmyst would be good examples of Execution based fights.

It's clear that these are two very different types of difficulty. Although strategy/execution encounters usually take longer for guilds to pass, is it fair to say they're better tuned? Brutallus is certainly well tuned for what it is - a test of healing, mitigation and DPS. Just because it is not a style of encounter that requires many days of work to pass doesn't mean it's less tuned than one that does.

 

Vhad

Meh.

Not trying to show off or anything, but only melee and a single resto shaman was leatherworkers in our raid and we had 1 mainhand glaive in the raid and killed him before enrage timer with quite a few people dead and 8 healers. DPS was never an issue for us and it'll only get easier.

It's definitely tuned around having a really good raid setup and using maximum consumables, but it's not tuned around min/maxing professions on an entire raid.

So long as the requirements are proper raid setup, proper consumable usage and proper strategy applied I think it's perfectly tuned. When you need people to reroll professions raidwide it begins to get out of hand, but we're not there with anything so far.

What!?

 

Covertghost

Sunwell, in general to me, feels quite well tuned. With the exception of the post-PTR nerfs to Kalecgos, I've really been enjoying both the coordination checks and raw DPS/healing checks sunwell has to offer.

Tuned means the guilds that have been farming the previous encounters for a decent amount of time are challenged by the new content, which is what sunwell seems to be offering.

 

◊ manly

Personally I don't believe the issue of leatherworking being 'too good' is nowhere as close as the personal issue I have with enchanting being the only profession that you can drop yet still retain all the benefits from it. If you want to min/max, you might as well drop a profession, go enchanting, get your rings enchanted, then drop enchanting, go for leatherworking. The only other profession having that advantage is jewelcrafting, but I doubt 2 more dmg is worth making a big deal.

Ring enchants should be profession-bound.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Shoppingcart

After killing the first two bosses, and starting work on a strat for the third, the instance seems well tuned overall so far. The initial "rumors" of how out of whack Brutallus was proved to be very manageable to me and the rest of my guild.

We spent a night or two working on positioning, healing, and basic strat concepts. We took in a not all out dps-tailored raid and managed to kill him today post enrage with a good amount of the raid going down in a 3% dot n run slugout. Taking a look back at our WWS for the kill there is a ton of things we could change with overall raid comp, spec comp and party synergy comp to up our raid dps and get closer to a clean kill. (Wow Web Stats), there is alot of room for improvement as can be seen.

It seems quite balanced for where it is, and the requirements seem managable for a guild a few months past their first Illidan kill with the right specs, buffs and group comp. Only time will tell how much gear progression in Sunwell will improve performance in there, but so far nothing seems too out of whack.

 

Zaroua

I know I'm waiting for my exalted Hyjal ring (I made this character after S3 started), Supremus' ring and the new BoJ ring to drop enchanting for Jewelcrafting to max out my tanking stats. I was actually smart and thought about getting Leatherworking for the drums when I made the char, but I kind of feel bad for people trying to maximize their DPS by picking up Leatherworking/Enchanting. Working on Brutallus right now is making all of my guild scrambling around to farm Demonslaying Elixirs, Haste/Destro pots and scrolls. But even with maxed out consumables, I doubt my guild will be able to kill Brutallus without Drums and maxing out with enchanting and such.

While I'm fairly certain we'll be able to kill him soon (in a reset or two, at worst), I do feel a great deal of pity for guilds having just killed Illidan. No matter what, they won't be able to kill Brutallus for months. Can't see those guilds having a blast farming BT while Brutallus taunts them every day during their bombing dailies. The brick wall will get very old, very fast for guilds who have the people and skill to down him, but not the gear to meet the check. And saying that the new badge loot will help bring those guilds up to bar is short-sighted because most of the new gear is inferior to actual drops from BT, or barely sidegrade material due to poor itemization that plagues the new gear. Same with 3 tokens per kill: the sought out pieces of loot are the non set pieces (Gorefiend cloak, I'm looking at you). With no way to get the required DPS for Brutallus until they can get the rarer drops out of BT and Hyjal, I'd have to say that the fight isn't tuned for anyone except the top guilds. If you're the best out there, then you can have access to the other bosses in the zone. Otherwise have fun losing members to the "unkillable" gear check and not being able to progress as a guild.

Dogma also claims that God has a sense of humor and at times presents Him as a joker of sorts, thus again lowering Him to human level. While I am certain God has a "sense of humor" since He gave it to us, I find it most difficult to believe He finds humor in sin since He will cast the unforgiven sinner into the lake of fire for eternity. Not very funny at all.

 

Preda

Exactly how i feel after we killed him yesterday.
We could improve our setup, we had 1 warlock that was an alt 3 days ago so still in tailoring gear, and still many players lacking many drops in bt/mh, but still we killed him. That dosnt seem overtuned to me when thinking about Sunwell have to last many months.

Best boss in TBC so far and finally the epic feeling of killing bosses where back.

 

IKT

Why is it that most people are saying Sunwell is great, but nihilum and others on their forums are saying sunwell is a joke?

 

Efreet

Because relatively speaking it's getting steamrolled? There's not much way around saying its getting steamrolled, but it probably isn't that bad of an instance and perfect tuning, according to most of these people, is well tuned for the guild 2-3 months behind your guild who gets a kill 2-3 months after they killed Illidan. It's a gear check. A boss that hits hard and has a short enrage timer. Wow, that's fantastically intuitive.

 

Jabez

Warning: My post is highly subjective

Because said guilds cant take the fact that without advantages from old instances(you kill Gruul world first, you start working on SSC first. You kill lady Vasjh world first, you start working on TK first. You kill Kael'thas world first, you start working on BT etc) they aren't necessarily the best guild on the block anymore now that everyone has an equal chance. Obviously the first 3 bosses doesn't matter that much, but I'm fairly confident that Kil'jaeden will see a new guild title themselves "worlds best guild" simply because of what I mentioned above. Obviously Nihilum and co aren't bad guilds, but they aren't necessarily the worlds best guild either, and that is what I love about this patch, everyone gets a shot at the title with equal chances of success.

 

Efreet

If KJ takes more than a day or two to kill it's not going to be a new name, except maybe Premonition because of all the PTR time on Mu'ru, but due to the gating mechanic that's not an issue either. You can't possibly suggest that a guild that dominates the entire expansion is equal to random guild X who's already killed Kalecgos. I'm not a fanboy :X

 

Jabez

I'm not saying they are a bad guild, I'm just saying that in my highly subjective opinion they have been riding past victories for a long time, and as I said now a lot of guilds have perfect gear and have time to step into Sunwell on tuesday(wednesday) and focus all their time there. That is a scenario we haven't had since Naxxramas and as I said I'm also very excited about it

 

Sapp

Wasn't that basically what happened with BT? there's that desync between US realms and EU realms, which meant that a patch went through with one day left on their reset while everyone else was starting with a fresh week, or something like that, and nihilum's ~2-3 day lead basically kept them in first place from start to finish.

 

Krazen

If I'm not mistaken, didn't they beat Illidan some 2-3 weeks before anyone else?

 

Ravashak

Why has this thread turned in a anti-Nihilum fest? If anything, apart from the C'thun accident, they always started new content one day AFTER, so I dont really see the point here.

Not letting KJ being tested on the PTR was a nice move from Blizzard and should ensure a complete fair race for the last boss (the only one that really matters after all), if they dont completely screw up the gate opening system.

And there shall be wailing,
And gnashing of teeth...
And great loss of experience!

 

Efreet

Meh delete this post, I can't read.

 

Vhad

2 weeks, but they were also basically alone in the zones apart from a few other guilds.

What!?

 

◊ Shalas

No, that was C'Thun. Nihilum's dominance of BT was simply due to that they were one of the few guilds actually prepared for T6. Pre-2.1 raiding was a complete mess which caused problems for even very good guilds.

 

Docjowles

It's all relative, really. To someone who has never raided before, I think the new Mag is well-tuned. To anyone who's progressed past Lurker and Void Reaver, he's a joke. But that's fine; if you are making headway in T5 there are another couple dozen bosses ahead of you. It's no skin off your back that Mag is now a loot pinata.

Personally, I think the new incarnation of Mag is about right. We have a bunch of casual guildies who would like to see what this 25 man raid stuff is all about, but there really aren't that many encounters you can take 10 "green" raiders to without extreme pain. Mag 2.4 absolutely fills that niche. Just last night I got roped into an impromptu raid some of these folks were putting together (and I was subsequently "volunteered" to lead it) that I would have avoided like the plague in the past. We killed him in like 3 pulls, with only about 5 people who had ever seen the fight before.

It was really nice to see these folks get ecstatic about downing a "real raid boss", even if T6 guilds are 8-manning him for shits. Unlike Lurker or Void Reaver, trash is minimal and uncomplicated. As long as you have a few people that know what's going on, you can get in, teach people the right and log a kill in an hour. And since most of these guys were rolling in Karazhan or PvP gear, the loot was actually an upgrade. Mag has gone from "most annoying boss in TBC" to "nice intro to 25 man raiding" and I am confident it was the right move.

 

Aszhalinde

Killed Brutallus last night, and honestly I think the fight is great. Call me old school, but I actually like fights that require you to go back and farm some level 60 pots. I think the culmination of the raid game (the final content available) should be just that, a culmination of your ability and experiences in the game. I realize this doesn't appeal to very many people, and it shouldn't apply to every fight, but the guild effort to scramble for preparation makes the kill itself much more interesting. These days, most encounters have just been walking in with the shirt off your back, so to speak, and killing bosses. Which is fine, because you don't want every boss to be a walking bankruptcy for your guild, and as history has shown people aren't willing to stand for that anyway, but I do think that every once in awhile there needs to be a fight like Brutallus where you really have to plumb the depths of the game to win. If we have to use obscure items, so be it... it makes the kill that much more gratifying in the end. (Though it helps to have the ability to accumulate resources and guild funds these days largely unlike pre-bc days, a la Loatheb.)

The fight really requires near perfect execution and setup. Brutallus is a simple fight in theory, but strangely enough our private Brutallus discussion thread ended up being the longest one we've had awhile. We really put some thought into group makeups, different strategies we could use with tanking and healing (yes there is more than one way to do Brutallus...) and generally put more solid effort into downing this guy than we have in awhile. It paid off, and we killed him 27 seconds before the enrage, with no warglaives... cheers erupted in vent for the first time in I don't know how long, and it generally felt really good. That to me suggests successful design, it was a rewarding experience.

On another note, I think a lot of guilds focus on the obvious issue: dps. If you're hitting enrage, people need to do better dps. However, there's just as much benefit from streamlining your healing, though it's a less obvious means and much harder to track. If you can find a way to make your healing so efficient that you can bring 7 instead of 8, then that's that much more dps. Focusing solely on the direct dps issue and numbers isn't always the answer, and I think that's part of the reason so many people have been claiming that Brutallus is too hard, or generally shaving off extremely close post-enrage kills.