Boss Nerfs & Fun

CrazyCarl · 09/15/06, 7:40 AM

How have boss nerfs affected your level of enjoyment in encounters? I'm sure there are some (Faerlina, C'thun) that had to be done (?) to make them doable. The only two I can think of that I've personally done pre and post nerf are Chrommagus and Twin Emperors. BWL is just boring, but three fights (Razorgore, Nefarian, and Time Lapse Chrommag which we always seem to get) were the fun ones, at least for me. Nerfing Chrommagus just made it like all of the other fights, predictable and repetative.

Yeah, I know they're all that way, but at least it had some random elements. Emps kept us healers on our toes. We had little to no wiggle room in healing those MT's because you could hit an uppercut+unbalancing strike (I think that's what they're called) and BOOM, headshot. Now you've easily got time to heal him/her back to full w/o worrying about them dying. Takes most of the excitement away :( Huhu on the other hand must've been much harder for Horde after the totem nerf.

• TheRealJon · 09/15/06, 8:30 AM

Didn't "nerfing" Chromaggus make it doable without using that weird LOS exploit?

• Arawethion · 09/15/06, 9:18 AM

How often have bosses really been flat-out "nerfed" after having been killed at least once?

Usually it's an honest design correction, at worst. Even that, though, not very often.

C'Thun has only been made harder since he was killed (removing inter-phase rezzing raised the bar for Phase 1 from about 30 people alive to about 40 people alive, a large change).
Faerlina had an ability fixed than was working differently from what was obviously intended (assuming it was intended that Rain of Fire would hit people who were in the Rain of Fire).
What changed about Emps after the first week of AQ (aside from the fact that Warlock could occasionally get instagibbed by UBS for no earthly reason while waiting for a port)?

Niallest · 09/15/06, 9:35 AM

I believe the blizzard damage on the emps was nerfed in about half?

• Arawethion · 09/15/06, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by Niallest

I believe the blizzard damage on the emps was nerfed in about half?

More accurately, I think Vek'lor's Blizzard was changed in a manner similar to Faerlina's RoF--you only take damage if actually inside the radius of the spell.

◊ Praetorian · 09/15/06, 9:38 AM

No it wasn't, they just fixed a dumb bug that made it keep ticking on you for 4-5 seconds after you were far away from it. You practically took the same damage just standing in it as you did trying to run, which was silly.

(Edit: beaten)

darthgrimm · 09/15/06, 9:40 AM

Sometimes people swear that ragnaros was nerfed since they started it...( even tho no real change happned )

Is mor the cumulation of class reviews / your raid learning / better gear / skill etc that makes bosses seem trivial.

Let's take Lucifron. This boss hasent been nerfed tho there are some people who could swear that he was. Why ... simply because of class reviews or better gear from AV / AB / WSG that people come to MC with wehn they start it .

Nerfing should not be so overused when a boss becomes trivial for your guild.

◊ Praetorian · 09/15/06, 9:45 AM

Yes, people love to claim that they nerfed MC, when they did no such thing.

Lucifron: Buffed -- you used to be able to LoS his curse and doom.
Magmadar: Unchanged
Gehennas: Buffed -- you used to be able to LoS his curse
Garr: Unchanged (bug fix that made him reset properly after a wipe)
Geddon: Unchanged
Shazzrah: Buffed, completely changed because he was easier than trash
Sulfuron: Unchanged
Golemagg: Nerfed in that they made him no longer Earthquake until 10%. You used to not be able to melee him, which made for a very, very long fight at the gear levels of those times.
Majordomo: Unchanged (bug fix that made him reset properly after a wipe)
Ragnaros: "Nerfed," and then buffed, if anything. They nerfed his insane magma splashes but then fixed him so that you could no longer outrange WoR and made the splashes always work from the moment you engaged him onwards. Rag v1.5 was just about zerging him down with melee DPS who took zero damage for the first 3 minutes of the fight, and required no FR gear except for the tank. Rag v2.0 requires actual positioning, dodging WoR, and FR gear.

theemus · 09/15/06, 9:55 AM

The big "nerfs" to MC were the change of how the 5 second rule worked and the release of Dire Maul and the loot within.

Before the change the channeling of a spell would put you within the 5 second rule and no normal mana regeneration would happen. Most guilds at the time (mine included) used some sort of mana conserve mod and a lot of the healers would just mindlessly chain cast flash heal until their mana pool was empty.

Dire Maul has a lot of gear that is far better then MC gear. Padres trousers for example are pretty insane healing pants for a blue item as are mind surge robes the mp5 ring whose name escapes me.

darthgrimm · 09/15/06, 9:57 AM

I am amaized how people claim that class reviews had no impact on instances.

Every class review was a great PVE buff to all raids and a indirect "nerf" to the instance.

And people claming MC is boring. The first time i set foot in MC 1 year ago wearing blues and Barman Shnaker.. Man whole raid ran away from the first dog because we were afraied of it .

◊ Praetorian · 09/15/06, 9:58 AM

Originally Posted by theemus

The big "nerfs" to MC were the change of how the 5 second rule worked and the release of Dire Maul and the loot within.

Before the change the channeling of a spell would put you within the 5 second rule and no normal mana regeneration would happen. Most guilds at the time (mine included) used some sort of mana conserve mod and a lot of the healers would just mindlessly chain cast flash heal until their mana pool was empty.

Dire Maul has a lot of gear that is far better then MC gear. Padres trousers for example are pretty insane healing pants for a blue item as are mind surge robes the mp5 ring whose name escapes me.

That was a big deal, but also don't forget the change to caster resist rates across the board. If people think 17% base against 63s is high today, they should've seen the resist rates when people were first doing MC.

Stalkman · 09/15/06, 10:01 AM

They took the handcuffs off when they made it 17%.

Copernicus · 09/15/06, 10:02 AM

Technically, Magmadar got buffed (as did all the other AE from boss effects) when they fixed Ragnaros to be able to AE the melee. His fear used to go 35 yards from his center, so it was possible to max-range Frostbolt without Arctic Reach on him without ever getting feared.

For MC nerfs, some of it was the trash. The second pull was usually a double annhilator/fireguy group. I think that they're far enough apart now that there's no need to do tricky feign death pulls. There was also linking Lava Surgers respawning to Garr.

◊ blindworld · 09/15/06, 10:06 AM

Taunt Bugged BWL drakes gave us such a hard time... I think we managed to kill ebonroc once after about two weeks of trying (when we finally gave in and pulled him to the green room and had everyone stand behind that book thing...), and then the next reset they fixed him. The clear after the fix was so easy in comparison, and we just did it right at the bottom of the ramp with no issues at all.

theemus · 09/15/06, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by blindworld

Taunt Bugged BWL drakes gave us such a hard time... I think we managed to kill ebonroc once after about two weeks of trying (when we finally gave in and pulled him to the green room and had everyone stand behind that book thing...), and then the next reset they fixed him. The clear after the fix was so easy in comparison, and we just did it right at the bottom of the ramp with no issues at all.

Did that book actually work? I thought we just made that up. The reason we fought him in that room was to have an OOC rezer hiding behind the wall and rezing healers that were getting high on the aggro list.

• Snowy · 09/15/06, 10:09 AM

One of the bigger nerfs to all instances back then was when you could OOC res for infinity on boss fights. I loved that nerf, since finally people had to start paying attention at Geddon/Shazz. Basically guilds couldn't half-ass stuff anymore.

• Nite_Moogle · 09/15/06, 10:13 AM

Don't forget the change long ago that made Tremor Totem break you out of fear effects. I know that made Onyxia and Magmadar a ton more manageable since all your healers weren't running around like morons for the entire duration of the fear. Wasn't there also some change in how Berserker Rage worked that made it easier to break out of fear?

darchon · 09/15/06, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

C'Thun has only been made harder since he was killed (removing inter-phase rezzing raised the bar for Phase 1 from about 30 people alive to about 40 people alive, a large change).

I am fairly certain that the out of combat period between the phases was not there when he was first killed. It was introduced in a later patch, and then removed again.

CrazyCarl · 09/15/06, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by TheRealJon

Didn't "nerfing" Chromaggus make it doable without using that weird LOS exploit?

I'm not sure what you mean. What we did was keep an OT out of LOS as well as a few Priests and have him run in after the Lapse and hold aggro long enough for the MT to take him back, but sometimes he wouldn't be able to get aggro and you'd have an unexpected tank change. Also meant you couldn't let the other Warriors be in DPS gear which would make the fight that much longer. Now it's just stupid because he will always go back to the MT.

I never went through MC (I started raiding when my guild first began farming Rag, gogo BWL in blues and my girlfriend began her raiding career with our Nef learning attempts also decked out in blues and some BOE's) so I can't really comment on nerfs and stuff, but the gear upgrades and talent buffs certainly could make it seem like it was nerfed if you don't take them into consideration. We've had a lot of "PUG MC's", but we always had one of our guild's MT's/well geared Warriors tanking, a smattering of our best healers, and a few of our best geared DPSers come along as well. The PUG's basically made it go a little faster thusly making things easier on the healers.

theemus · 09/15/06, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

Originally Posted by TheRealJon

Didn't "nerfing" Chromaggus make it doable without using that weird LOS exploit?

I'm not sure what you mean. What we did was keep an OT out of LOS as well as a few Priests and have him run in after the Lapse and hold aggro long enough for the MT to take him back, but sometimes he wouldn't be able to get aggro and you'd have an unexpected tank change. Also meant you couldn't let the other Warriors be in DPS gear which would make the fight that much longer. Now it's just stupid because he will always go back to the MT.

I never went through MC (I started raiding when my guild first began farming Rag, gogo BWL in blues and my girlfriend began her raiding career with our Nef learning attempts also decked out in blues and some BOE's) so I can't really comment on nerfs and stuff, but the gear upgrades and talent buffs certainly could make it seem like it was nerfed if you don't take them into consideration. We've had a lot of "PUG MC's", but we always had one of our guild's MT's/well geared Warriors tanking, a smattering of our best healers, and a few of our best geared DPSers come along as well. The PUG's basically made it go a little faster thusly making things easier on the healers.

At one point chromaggus only used his ignite flesh debuff and it was reapplied every 20 seconds so you would eventually get the dot ticking for about 12000 dmg basically making the encounter impossible.

Some guilds found out that if you had a tank standing on the ramp with chromaggus positioned at the top of the ramp attacks could still be exchanged but the ignite debuff would not hit due to LOS.

◊ blindworld · 09/15/06, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by theemus

Did that book actually work? I thought we just made that up. The reason we fought him in that room was to have an OOC rezer hiding behind the wall and rezing healers that were getting high on the aggro list.

LOL

Oddly enough, we were the 2nd guild to kill ebonroc on our server, but had the server 1st on firemaw. The other guild killed him the day before we did, also their first attempt using the "book" strategy.

When they'd bug out, the direction they'd move didn't seem random, it seemed like they could go 0, 90, 180, or 270 degrees with 0 being the direction they're facing. When we used the book strategy, the 90 degree turn was straight into a wall, so it stopped him from bugging that direction, which coincedently was where the whole raid was standing. Instead he'd either torch the corner to our immediate left killing no one, hit the tanks, or bug out totally into the large room. Either way, it was the first time we managed to do the whole fight without a single non-tank raid member getting shadowflamed.

• TheRealJon · 09/15/06, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by theemus

At one point chromaggus only used his ignite flesh debuff and it was reapplied every 20 seconds so you would eventually get the dot ticking for about 12000 dmg basically making the encounter impossible.

Some guilds found out that if you had a tank standing on the ramp with chromaggus positioned at the top of the ramp attacks could still be exchanged but the ignite debuff would not hit due to LOS.

That's the one I was talking about.

Has Chromaggus been changed since then? Besides the one week his Timelapse dropped anyone who got hit with it to 1% I don't recall any changes to the encounter.

• frmorrison · 09/15/06, 11:35 AM

Another boss "nerf" were the 16 debuff limit and buffing the warlock curses to give 10% more damage.

As soon as those changes were in-game, it allowed a guild that was heavy with Mages/Locks to go from wiping to Rag during Sons to getting a first kill on Rag at 20% before Sons.

Plea · 09/15/06, 11:45 AM

How exactly do you call a bugfix a nerf?

In that point of view, cthun should have gotten the biggest nerf ever; now you can kill him when you try hard and execute correctly; or wait, kelthuzad was the biggest one, before the nerf you couldnt even target him cause he was not there!

I regard some nerfs like making the drakes tauntable an improvement more than a nerf; Ebonroc without taunts is ridicilously a long combat, and improbable without bringing a fuckload of hunters/rogues; which was boring and expensive. Nefarian phase 1 old style would be more fun by now tho, im outdpsed by rogues lately.

• Apate · 09/15/06, 11:49 AM

Sulfuron has changed, but 'buffed' probably isn't the right word. CMs said the changed was unintentional, but I'm not sure it's affected the fight as much as people claim. It's hard to say seeing as gear upgrades have come along steadily, so maybe he is harder.