WotLK: Naxxramas

seminarca · 09/05/08, 12:50 AM

Seeing as Naxx is an old instance, such that encounter/strat spoilers (ala Sunwell) shouldn't be a major concern, I hope it's kosher having a thread specifically for WotLK Naxx. To keep the discussion in one place, and the clutter out of other threads.

Level 80 premades are now available on beta, and apparently Naxx is going to be available for testing "soon". Blizzard post from today:

The trash has indeed been adjusted. Highlights include:

Longer trash sections between bosses ( to Patchwerk, to Razuvious, to Faerlina) have been toned down.
Heigan gauntlet is no longer a gauntlet, now there's a very small one AFTER Heigan.
A few new creatures have been added in a couple places.
Newer models for many of the creatures.
Some of the trash encounters have different numbers of creatures for 10 and 25 player modes.

One other thing...

Naxxramas should be available for beta testing soon in both 10 and 25 player flavors, including loot!

MMO Champion reports on premades:

All characters are level 80 with 4x22 or 4x20 slot bags depending on classes, PvP gear including full set of weapons, an epic flying and ground mount. Exalted with one or two faction depending on classes and friendly with the rest, maxed weapon skills and First Aid. Gear is also fully enchanted.

Additionally Jagiya posted some encounter specific stuff in the WotLK thread:

Originally Posted by Jagiya

So now that those fellows over at Premonition have begun privately exploring/datamining Naxx data (not sure which method, but it's available), it's good to see that Blizzard went through with the 2x Obedience Crystals for Razuvious, meaning you can MC the adds with any class/composition.

Additionally, they managed to score the HP values of each of the bosses in 10 man Naxx. Of course it's safe to assume that these values will be changed during several phases of testing and balancing, but at this point, it seems that you require 11,286 Raid DPS to defeat Patchwerk(10) before the enrage timer; assuming it stays at 7 minutes. I'm really doubting that they'll require more than 2 tanks for this fight; as to adhere to their "flexible" raid options attitude; so assuming you're bringing 2 tanks and 3 healers, you're gonna need around 2258 DPS from each raid member to kill 10-man Patchwerk. Assuming you're good enough to do it with only 2 healers, then you can get away with 1881 DPS per person.

It'll be interesting to see how much tuning takes place, and how difficult they want Naxx to be as an entry level 10 man dungeon. At a glance, you'd look at those numbers and think, "we're already capable of pulling those numbers in Sunwell" (circumstances allowing for stacking and consumables/buffs), so it doesn't really appear to be a huge "gear check." By the looks of it, it'll be somewhat trivial for the Sunwell veterans, but still challenging for the "not-so-hardcore" population.

I'm really curious to get my hands on the 25 man data and see what sort of numbers are expected... but again, it's somewhat pointless to speculate at this point, given how many changes are yet to be made.

Jagiya · 09/05/08, 1:15 AM

Another point of note (sure, it's not new information, but alot of people seem to have missed it) is that Baron Rivendare is 100% confirmed as the 4th Horseman in the "Military Quarter" of Naxxramas. (Traditionally referred to as the Death Knight Wing)

Darion Mograine is still missing.

Slightly on-topic; there also is a 10-man & 25-man Achievement for clearing each "wing" of Naxxramas, and then an overall quest for completing the entire Dungeon; as follows.

The Fall of Naxxramas
Objective: Kill every boss in Naxxramas.
- The Arachnid Quarter
- The Construct Quarter
- The Plague Quarter
- The Military Quarter
- Sapphiron's Demise
- Kel'Thuzad's Defeat

Pharmacon · 09/05/08, 10:56 AM

Has it been stated on how similar encounters will be to the original Naxx? Being a pre-BC noob (only getting my first 60 the day before BC) all the fights will be novel to me, but theoretically I may be able to do my homework before I even get WotLK.

Korben · 09/05/08, 11:19 AM

It's my understanding that the fights will be very similar, although I'm very curious about this as well.

A guildie and me have been running Naxx every Saturday for the past year. The problem is that we don't (or can't) fight the bosses the intended way all the time. Tomorrow at our Naxx I'm gonna be explaining the intended way to defeat the boss just in case the fights are the same.

I did hear that the 4 horsemen would be the same except leaving room for some to be tanked by a lock or someone of that nature. Not certain on this.

Steelfleece · 09/05/08, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by Korben

I did hear that the 4 horsemen would be the same except leaving room for some to be tanked by a lock or someone of that nature. Not certain on this.

Considering the 4 horsemen almost required 8 tanks (or at least HIGHLY encouraged it), I can't imagine they will work that way, especially the 10-man version. At least, that's if I am remembering the fight correctly.

Lgs · 09/05/08, 3:06 PM

There are certain fights that can almost mirror 1.0 Naxx (Heigan, Patchwerk, Thaddius) when they scale down to 25/10 man. These fights only have general roles and don't require class-specific abilities. They will be fun and possible with the generic group make-up.

However, a fight like Anub'Rhekan will need to have a hunter if they don't change it. Since they've just begun this huge process to get away from such things, I doubt they will bring this back. That may kill the fun of the fight though, since that was really only the difficult part. I suspect they would have to add something to make the fight similar, much like MC buttons or whatever they are doing with Razuvius. 4H is another fight that will be changed significantly.

Maexxna required tons of hots, so that may change slightly; Faerlina's adds will be reduced. Or that could even turn into a Illidari council type thing (because of the AE spam). Noth will have less adds, etc, etc.

For the most part, the look and feel of the bosses should be pretty similar to 1.0

Sydane · 09/05/08, 3:24 PM

They can still assume at least one of each class in a 25 man encounter. That said, the stated goal is for the spirit of the encounter to remain, even if it is handled in a different way. The simple adjustment to Anub would just to be reduce his speed by a more significant amount and give slightly longer to get out of range, then the kiting can take place without a hunter's assistance. Either that or provide a means for the tank to gain a brief speed boost from some other means. Since Blizzard doesn't have to design these encounters or graphical assets from scratch, they should actually have more time to put into tweaking and coming up with good concepts to maintain the feel of the encounters for the smaller groups.

Axanor · 09/05/08, 3:26 PM

He'll probably get a movement speed reduction during the Kite Phase in the 10 man version.

Fendryl · 09/05/08, 3:30 PM

However, a fight like Anub'Rhekan will need to have a hunter if they don't change it. Since they've just begun this huge process to get away from such things, I doubt they will bring this back.

If you're referring to using aspect of the pack, there's Intervene for warriors, as well as Unholy Presence & Unholy Aura though I honestly don't know if 15% will be enough. Additionally didn't Feral Swiftness get changed to working indoors now? So a bear might be able to shift & run. Stretching a bit, there's also Drums of Speed for 15%, though tinnitus at 2mins might prevent that anyways.

Cathela · 09/05/08, 3:33 PM

Also, remember that this is going to be the first raid tier for WotLK, not the final raid tier as it was for vanilla WoW. So, if the best way to make an encounter doable in 25/10-man form is to make it easier overall, they may just decide to do that in some cases.

Playered · 09/05/08, 3:36 PM

Originally Posted by Lgs

Maexxna required tons of hots, so that may change slightly

No it didn't, you were perfectly able to do this encounter before they enabled HoT stacking and the actual encounter lost the majority of it's challenge once this change was implemented.
They might even decide to assume <x> amount of HoTs on the tank now and maintain some symbol of the previous challenge as the mechanic is set before the encounter is tuned this time.

Korben · 09/05/08, 3:39 PM

Originally Posted by Steelfleece

Considering the 4 horsemen almost required 8 tanks (or at least HIGHLY encouraged it), I can't imagine they will work that way, especially the 10-man version. At least, that's if I am remembering the fight correctly.

Well the big thing about the 4hm was that you had to split them up and rotate because of marks. I would say this is the spirit of the encounter and that they would likely keep it this way. I'm just speculating, so hopefully we can know for sure very soon on the beta.

Lgs · 09/05/08, 3:44 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

No it didn't, you were perfectly able to do this encounter before they enabled HoT stacking and the actual encounter lost the majority of it's challenge once this change was implemented.
They might even decide to assume <x> amount of HoTs on the tank now and maintain some symbol of the previous challenge as the mechanic is set before the encounter is tuned this time.

Forgot about doing it pre 2.0 patch... How was it done? Just topped of the tank and prayed, I think.

Korben · 09/05/08, 3:57 PM

Originally Posted by Lgs

Forgot about doing it pre 2.0 patch... How was it done? Just topped of the tank and prayed, I think.

The way we did it was have poison cleansing totem and abolish poison on the MT, throw whatever hots at 5 secs till web wrap (and of course top of the tank), and be ready to NS after the web wrap was done. I think we saved shield wall for when web wrap was going to happen and when she was enraged.

Exewut · 09/05/08, 4:08 PM

You had your highest +healing druid to pop his trinkets and apply rejuneveration/regrowth, and the highest + healing priest did the same. That kept the tank alive, it wasn't all that hard, unless your druid/priest failed at timers and didn't have enough time to apply a hot before the web (I know I failed there at least once).

PsiVen · 09/05/08, 4:10 PM

Yep, IIRC the only possible way to survive the enraged wrap was Shield Wall. Fortunately it was pretty hard to wipe after that point.

There's a lot they could do with Maexxna without really changing the basic mechanics of the fight. Make her tauntable (don't remember if she was) and tune the wraps hard enough (in the 25-man) and you'll want multiple tanks rotating for cooldowns. Make the spider adds more dangerous outside wraps and you suddenly have a 3-tank fight with some challenging element to the rotation (keeping the spiders off the MT).

They haven't mentioned that tonight's patch will implement Naxx, so I doubt it will be the case. I'll be ready to go if it is though

Cranberry · 09/05/08, 4:29 PM

Originally Posted by PsiVen

Yep, IIRC the only possible way to survive the enraged wrap was Shield Wall. Fortunately it was pretty hard to wipe after that point.

There's a lot they could do with Maexxna without really changing the basic mechanics of the fight. Make her tauntable (don't remember if she was) and tune the wraps hard enough (in the 25-man) and you'll want multiple tanks rotating for cooldowns. Make the spider adds more dangerous outside wraps and you suddenly have a 3-tank fight with some challenging element to the rotation (keeping the spiders off the MT).

They haven't mentioned that tonight's patch will implement Naxx, so I doubt it will be the case. I'll be ready to go if it is though

Maexxna, at least currently, is not tauntable.

kysta · 09/05/08, 4:41 PM

Originally Posted by Lgs

Forgot about doing it pre 2.0 patch... How was it done? Just topped of the tank and prayed, I think.

Alliance side there was some cheese possible using DI on healers and soulstones. A paladin would DI a healer, and the healer would cancel DI and heal normally after a web wrap, and the paladin could use the soulstone to res and heal during a web wrap.

Bazazu · 09/05/08, 5:15 PM

Originally Posted by Korben

Well the big thing about the 4hm was that you had to split them up and rotate because of marks. I would say this is the spirit of the encounter and that they would likely keep it this way. I'm just speculating, so hopefully we can know for sure very soon on the beta.

They could simply add a mechanic where the tank (top agro target) of one of the horsemen gets a buff that makes them not receive the stacking mark, however the rest of the raid would still have to switch around in the normal fashion.

It would prevent the need for more than 4 "tanks" (assuming 3 tanks + 1 warlock type role)

Duilliath · 09/05/08, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Bazazu

They could simply add a mechanic where the tank (top agro target) of one of the horsemen gets a buff that makes them not receive the stacking mark, however the rest of the raid would still have to switch around in the normal fashion.

It would prevent the need for more than 4 "tanks" (assuming 3 tanks + 1 warlock type role)

I still don't see how this would work in 10s though. Looking through my guild's kara quicky tonight, we had 2 tanking-capable classes and a warlock. I don't quite see a Holy Priest, Resto Shaman or Enhancement shaman tanking.

Tyvi · 09/05/08, 5:32 PM

Originally Posted by Duilliath

I still don't see how this would work in 10s though. Looking through my guild's kara quicky tonight, we had 2 tanking-capable classes and a warlock. I don't quite see a Holy Priest, Resto Shaman or Enhancement shaman tanking.

They mentioned that they want all DKs to be able tank so that's another tank to add to your current 2 MTs. Then the Warlock tank and that's 4. Really, alot of threat mechanics are made base line and Protection (in the case of Warrior) does not add all that much more survivability in Wrath so they could just designate one weaker hitting boss to be tanked by the offspec guy. Cheesing it by having one class tank two horsemen does not work anyway due to the nature of the encounter.

Stromni · 09/05/08, 7:11 PM

I can't wait!

(edit)

Sorry about not reading the OP's as good as i should've

Anyways i think every bossfight could be pretty easily tuned, can just reduce the timer on Loatheb's debuff to something managable like Netherspite (30-40 seconds instead of 2 minutes). Would be interesting to see if they are still going to require Sapphiron to require investing heavily in Frost Resistance and if they are is it going to be badge rewards semilar to the Fire Resist set for 100 badges, since several of the frost resist peices dropping from naxx bosses the first time around was a mistake they learned from.

Gink · 09/05/08, 7:34 PM

@Stromni: It says in the OP that the Instructor Razuvious encounter will include "2x Obedience Crystals for Razuvious, meaning you can MC the adds with any class/composition."

I don't think there will be much problem with the 4HM, unless you have to rotate tanks like you do in the original version.
Some type of Maulgar encounter, where hunters/shamans/moonkins can tank one, and another can be tanked with a mage or warlock, only leave two to be tanked by your warrior/druid/paladin/deathknight MT1 and MT2.

bv728 · 09/05/08, 8:04 PM

Originally Posted by Gink

@Stromni: It says in the OP that the Instructor Razuvious encounter will include "2x Obedience Crystals for Razuvious, meaning you can MC the adds with any class/composition."

I don't think there will be much problem with the 4HM, unless you have to rotate tanks like you do in the original version.
Some type of Maulgar encounter, where hunters/shamans/moonkins can tank one, and another can be tanked with a mage or warlock, only leave two to be tanked by your warrior/druid/paladin/deathknight MT1 and MT2.

Look at the Crone in Kara; I expect to see 10 man class independent mechanics like that fight. Bring (DAMAGE TYPE) and (CLASS OF CC) and you're fine.

Auororam · 09/05/08, 9:25 PM

Originally Posted by Jagiya

Additionally, they managed to score the HP values of each of the bosses in 10 man Naxx. Of course it's safe to assume that these values will be changed during several phases of testing and balancing, but at this point, it seems that you require 11,286 Raid DPS to defeat Patchwerk(10) before the enrage timer; assuming it stays at 7 minutes. I'm really doubting that they'll require more than 2 tanks for this fight; as to adhere to their "flexible" raid options attitude; so assuming you're bringing 2 tanks and 3 healers, you're gonna need around 2258 DPS from each raid member to kill 10-man Patchwerk. Assuming you're good enough to do it with only 2 healers, then you can get away with 1881 DPS per person.

It'll be interesting to see how much tuning takes place, and how difficult they want Naxx to be as an entry level 10 man dungeon. At a glance, you'd look at those numbers and think, "we're already capable of pulling those numbers in Sunwell" (circumstances allowing for stacking and consumables/buffs), so it doesn't really appear to be a huge "gear check." By the looks of it, it'll be somewhat trivial for the Sunwell veterans, but still challenging for the "not-so-hardcore" population.

The challenge in patchwerk wasn't so much the DPS but the healing. I remember as a paladin healer it was literally the first fight in the game that required any kind of strategy that was complex. If they manage to keep the healing at the same level of complexity for those starting the fight then it will force you to find competent healers and not just button pushers. That'll be the real "check"

Edit: assuming you went patch before Maexxna that is. Well, all the challenging fights were in Naxx. That's what made healing finally fun again.