Horridon 10/25 N Strategy (<500 ilvl)

[Odina]

My main problem with him atm to be honest is he feels like a ele/ Gara gear check boss with only 1 boss before him to gear up with for a 16/16 normal raider like myself. I don't want to clear the place night 1 however I want to change strats positioning etc and see either positive or nagative impacts. Simply having adds and poison all over the place and comming to the conclusion we need a bit more gear (F u agi leather drops non stop) and only having 1 boss to get a boost with is demoralizing becasue its "back to the lock with you nessy" and raiding t14 some more to get upgrades to progress smoother in t15.

I get where people are comming from saying "get more gear" but do the same people saying this really want to raid t14 anymore at all? I doubt it and the normal 16/16 clear guilds dont either id rather 2-3 easyer bosses (dogs, feng, Garajal, spirit kings were all easy) in the begining with a gear / execution check boss #4 that might take a couple weeks of gearing through bosses 1-3... but at least then I will be in a NEW RAID and not farming the same shit I have been for months.... you know that argument many are using of "what you wanna clear it all night one and then what for months??" ..well we have been doing T14 for months ...don't feel like doing weeks of that shit some more just to be able to progress past boss #2 in T15!

[Sesshou]

This is the crux of the issue. For the 2nd boss to be tuned where you need BiS 496 + lots of Valor upgrades or to have farmed at least 3-6 heroic modes for more than a month unless you have stone cold perfect execution for the 2nd boss of a normal tier. Even a guild that has been clearing 16/16 normal for a while (with a few heroics) is not up to par gear-wise after the first joke of a boss.

Which part of this fight is about the gear that is troubling you? The adds you can easily kill in time if you gather them up well enough and if you control them well enough they do not do too much damage (you can stun, silence, and interrupt them). Burning the guy that drops down with lust/hero shouldn't be that much of a dps check either (also no reason not to group up for AE heals and raid cds). After that you have a slightly harder hitting version of the thing you have been tanking the whole fight except now you don't have to worry about anything else.

I also disagree with saying you would need stone cold perfect execution if you don't over gear it. You absolutely do not. Yeah, the tank needs to be fairly good with gathering adds so you can effectively damage them. Yeah, dps need to use stuff other than damage moves to control them. However, you can certainly get hit by quite a bit of avoidable stuff and be fine, and you also don't have to have some really coordinated control effort going on and just something as simple as use them on cooldown will work.

@Boby
It is NOT a gear check. There is no tight enrage like those bosses, and unlike those bosses, most of the big damage is preventable. If you have been farming 16/16 normal for a couple of months, you easily have the gear.

[trollingisokayhere]

Except it does for 25M. Only 10M seem to have trouble with it.

I guess I have np with some bosses being harder on 10 then 25. Just curious what is your solution if you think its overtuned?

[Mad_Murdock]

Which part of this fight is about the gear that is troubling you? The adds you can easily kill in time if you gather them up well enough and if you control them well enough they do not do too much damage (you can stun, silence, and interrupt them). Burning the guy that drops down with lust/hero shouldn't be that much of a dps check either (also no reason not to group up for AE heals and raid cds). After that you have a slightly harder hitting version of the thing you have been tanking the whole fight except now you don't have to worry about anything else.

I also disagree with saying you would need stone cold perfect execution if you don't over gear it. You absolutely do not. Yeah, the tank needs to be fairly good with gathering adds so you can effectively damage them. Yeah, dps need to use stuff other than damage moves to control them.

You just described what I would call "solid execution", as if a blind monkey should be able to do it. The common theme you see is groups start getting over-run or over poisioned around 2nd or 3rd door. The caveat of "control them well" is what tends to separate heroic and normal raiders, Tank makes mistakes, a dps or two make a mistake, healer or two make a mistake and Bam! you're behind.

I'm looking at a 10m guild on our server that was 4/16 heroic going in and after 34 attempts, their best attempt was 5mins and they are a good hunk better than us. I've pugged with them and control and planning tends to be solid on their part, so I would have to disagree that just some so so control and some so so DPS and the boss is easy. A gear check may not be the most accurate way to describe it, but if you can't burn the adds down fast enough, you're going to get overrun

[Saiyoran]

So did you all miss the part where blizzard said you're supposed to keep farming HT14? Linear progression guys. You're not supposed to stop doing T14 because T15 came out.

[Tax]

So did you all miss the part where blizzard said you're supposed to keep farming HT14? Linear progression guys. You're not supposed to stop doing T14 because T15 came out.

How many hours are we expected to be logged into wow to farm?

[Odina]

@Boby
It is NOT a gear check. There is no tight enrage like those bosses, and unlike those bosses, most of the big damage is preventable. If you have been farming 16/16 normal for a couple of months, you easily have the gear.

You do not farm 16/16 normal for a couple of months... you jump into heroics as you will have enough gear to do it. For myself I look at our last kills in normal and though we only got 1 heroic kill in T14 when I see us 1 shotting all of TOS in less than an hour last week but then getting stone walled by boss #2 door #2 I start to look at what was happening. We were having a hard time getting the adds dead in time. The 1st priest would die as the next 2 jumped in, but then poison would start to go all over as there are 2 priests, the low hp mimic adds , and dinomancer up. We had asignments and were interupting as much as possible and it was not a case of people just dieing due to too many debuffs but just too much up at any given point.

I can see this being way easier if you have a bit more gear and nuke 1st one down its dead before the 2 jump down so you clear up the other adds, you can blow up the 800k adds, swap to dino mancer till 50% then back to priests rince repeate. But as it is now it is a gear check as you need to either have had the best fuckign RNG for a 10 man and got everyone what they needed in your 10 normal kills, or you did some heroics and are overgearing it a bit to make this just a "mechanical fight". Naturally it's only mechanics when you have the gear to make it such and don't worry about the dps aspect! however when your raid averages about 496 gear it's easy to get overun with adds and then you start to run into issue with interupts and being able to hold all the adds etc!

I don't mind bashing my head against a wall of mechanics (deaths demise runs anyone?) but this one just seemed out of place for boss #2 of a new tier for T14 normal raiders that were able to 1 shot the previous tier bosses!


PS: I do not think he is overtuned for T15 at all and seems perfect. I just believe it is over tuned for the 2nd boss as there is no other path to take to slowly gear up while perfecting your strat on the boss your are blocked on ala 4 bosses to farm each week while gearing up and then rest of the night work on elegon and once suficient gear meets up with properly executed strat you get the kill!

[Sesshou]

You just described what I would call "solid execution", as if a blind monkey should be able to do it. The common theme you see is groups start getting over-run or over poisioned around 2nd or 3rd door. The caveat of "control them well" is what tends to separate heroic and normal raiders, Tank makes mistakes, a dps or two make a mistake, healer or two make a mistake and Bam! you're behind.

I'm looking at a 10m guild on our server that was 4/16 heroic going in and after 34 attempts, their best attempt was 5mins and they are a good hunk better than us. I've pugged with them and control and planning tends to be solid on their part, so I would have to disagree that just some so so control and some so so DPS and the boss is easy. A gear check may not be the most accurate way to describe it, but if you can't burn the adds down fast enough, you're going to get overrun

Where did I ever say a blind monkey could do it or that it wouldn't take any coordination or planning? I said it wouldn't take perfect execution or even near perfect execution. If "solid execution" to you means that people take at most 2 ticks from sand traps / frost orbs before getting out and having dps on different targets using things like stuns and interrupts, then yeah I guess it takes that. However, you are definitely allowed to get hit by avoidable stuff and you do not need some complicated set up for who is on what add.

The poison adds aren't that bad if you kick the volley. You may want to single target the priests down so they die quickly rather than AE'ing (the other adds don't do much so as long as they die before the next door, it is fine). A single interrupter is enough for a priest and you should never have more than 2 so you only need a tank and 1 melee. I don't think needing interrupts is enough to qualify for "solid execution" either if you are able to get away with a missed one.

If you are getting overrun by adds, either your tank isn't grouping them up or your dps doesn't know what they are doing. I'd bet on the former as most AE rotations are really easy (not to say the entirety of the blame for that is on the tank, if the dps are nuking them the second they appear or something, grouping them is rather hard).

@boby
Obviously you wouldn't just farm 16/16 normal... I guess I should have said at least doing the equivalent of that as you work on progression on one or two heroics. 496 is plenty high enough of an ilvl for this.

Why is there poison all over with 2 priests? Interrupt both. Leave the interrupts on them when the dinomancer spawns and have everyone else burn that as you have enough time. You will get some stacks, but you can heal through it.

Obviously it is easier with more gear... but if you can't kill the first priest before you get another one, you're doing it wrong. With 496 if you put all your dps on the priest, it should be dead before you get another priest. Now the second and third will probably be up together though.

[calanos]

Which part of this fight is about the gear that is troubling you? The adds you can easily kill in time if you gather them up well enough and if you control them well enough they do not do too much damage (you can stun, silence, and interrupt them). Burning the guy that drops down with lust/hero shouldn't be that much of a dps check either (also no reason not to group up for AE heals and raid cds). After that you have a slightly harder hitting version of the thing you have been tanking the whole fight except now you don't have to worry about anything else.

I also disagree with saying you would need stone cold perfect execution if you don't over gear it. You absolutely do not. Yeah, the tank needs to be fairly good with gathering adds so you can effectively damage them. Yeah, dps need to use stuff other than damage moves to control them. However, you can certainly get hit by quite a bit of avoidable stuff and be fine, and you also don't have to have some really coordinated control effort going on and just something as simple as use them on cooldown will work.

@Boby
It is NOT a gear check. There is no tight enrage like those bosses, and unlike those bosses, most of the big damage is preventable. If you have been farming 16/16 normal for a couple of months, you easily have the gear.

This is exactly my point. You should not have to farm normal mode for "months and months" to gear for the first couple bosses in the next tier. Its normal mode. It doesn't matter. It shouldn't be DS-easy, but really what harm would come from tuning it for 495 instead of 500+? Most guild who have cleared normal T14 but havent been doing so since December are like iLvl 492-495 on average. We have had MASSIVE success in the last 2 months (started 1-7-13 with a collection of people who had been the best players in bad guilds), and spent as many attempts in the last 2 nights on Horridon (to 3rd door) than we did on Sha of Fear, H-Dogs, H-Feng and H-Elegon combined. That is overtuned.

And yes, its absolutely a gear check. If all of your DPS are doing 125k to the add cleave and erasing them, no damage goes out and the fight is very easy. Notice a common thread: like 3 or 4 people have posted how they did it in 490-495 gear, while everyone at 505+ is saying they 3 shot it because they are straight cheesing the mechanics by out-gearing them. It isn't a hard fight. It just needs to be tuned 5 iLvls below.

PS a lot of the reason people are bitching it also that its a terrible, terrible, boring fight. Boring, awful fight plus 20-30 wipes = angry people

[Judaest]

What ever happened to a fresh start in a new tier?

If the DPS/gear check was truly intended for T15, then please explain Jin'Rohk.

If the DPS/gear check was truly intended for T15 than what Bliz has done is create a caste system that is near impossible to overcome.

Yes, we will down it in time (hopefully without losing any good raiders to frustration with game design). Yes we could farm H T14 to continue to get gear. But by the time we're 'geared enough' for T15 we'll be so far behind that there wont be any point in trying to be competitive on the server. I don't know about you, but I think that's what most serious raiders play for.

Like I said before my group got a slow start and had to deal with a lot of crap in T14, and T15 was supposed to be a fresh start to allow us to be competitive again. As it stands right now, there is almost no hope for a <500 ilvl raid group to be competitive. They've effectively sequestered us into mediocrity.

Pretty punishing for not clearing X amount of heroic bosses in T14 at the least, more directly its pretty demoralizing to realize that the game design simply inst going to allow anyone a fresh start and be competitive.

You'd be pretty PO'd too if you worked your a** off to build a great group, only to find out that because you didn't have that great group from week 1 (and by proxy didn't have the time to gear yourself to the teeth), that you lost out on the chance to be competitive for the rest of the xpac. Pretty crappy, and I dont think Im alone.

All that being said, I just want blue to roger up and either say that the design is 'working as intended' and we need to get over it, or that they did indeed over-tune Horridon, or is bugged and he will be fixed in a hot fix.

I have 9 raiders that deserve an answer, and we're waiting.

[Sesshou]

This is exactly my point. You should not have to farm normal mode for "months and months" to gear for the first couple bosses in the next tier. Its normal mode. It doesn't matter. It shouldn't be DS-easy, but really what harm would come from tuning it for 495 instead of 500+? Most guild who have cleared normal T14 but havent been doing so since December are like iLvl 492-495 on average. We have had MASSIVE success in the last 2 months (started 1-7-13 with a collection of people who had been the best players in bad guilds), and spent as many attempts in the last 2 nights on Horridon (to 3rd door) than we did on Sha of Fear, H-Dogs, H-Feng and H-Elegon combined. That is overtuned.

And yes, its absolutely a gear check. If all of your DPS are doing 125k to the add cleave and erasing them, no damage goes out and the fight is very easy. Notice a common thread: like 3 or 4 people have posted how they did it in 490-495 gear, while everyone at 505+ is saying they 3 shot it because they are straight cheesing the mechanics by out-gearing them. It isn't a hard fight. It just needs to be tuned 5 iLvls below.

PS a lot of the reason people are bitching it also that its a terrible, terrible, boring fight. Boring, awful fight plus 20-30 wipes = angry people

Well thats a difference of design opinion I guess. I don't see any point whatsoever in adding tiered progression if you can (without an extremely high level of play) essentially skip all or part of a tier. So I see no problem with these being tuned for 496 which all of the bosses I've killed so far have been. Even with a bit of bad rng in HoF/Terrace you can hit 496 through upgrades with some 489 stuff (also there are 496 vp items).

This is not tuned for 500+. My raid's average at the start of Tuesday night was 500.3 and yeah we wiped several times on this while people adjusted to mechanics, but the dps to kill stuff in time is no where near tuned to 500. 496 is plenty of gear. All of our wipes were due to mechanics so while those 4ilvls may make some difference, that isn't key. Yeah maybe we burned a priest down 5-8% faster (which is pretty generous I'd say) but we still killed the priests fast enough that them living 5-8% longer wouldn't have done a damn thing. 5-8% slower on overall dps would not have caused adds to pile up between doors or the big dude from living long enough to kill us either. If the dps/hps output checks were trivial even at 500 (not to say the fight itself is, theres a lot going on that may take a bit to learn), it clearly was tuned for lower than that.

@Juda
How was this a fresh start for you to be competitive again? Obviously it isn't. Those with raid avg ilvl of 515 have a massive advantage. You don't just overcome that with 1 weeks drops from a new raid. The only time you get a fresh start is new expansions. Guilds ahead of you the previous tier will start the next one with an advantage. That said, a new tier does allow you to shorten the gap, but you are going to have to work for it.

Jin was a freebie boss, end of story. None of the other bosses I have done have been anywhere near that easy. In fact, he isn't even as hard as several of the normal mode HoF/Terrace bosses.

There is no reason you can't clear this with a starting avg ilvl of 496 (maybe not week 1, I'm not sure if my raid which started at 500.3 will clear for week 1). If you are way below that, well this is a tiered progression, you aren't meant to just skip it. You will eventually get 502 lfr gear if you really do not want to get to 496 before doing ToT.

[Deleted]

Well thats a difference of design opinion I guess. I don't see any point whatsoever in adding tiered progression if you can (without an extremely high level of play) essentially skip all or part of a tier. So I see no problem with these being tuned for 496 which all of the bosses I've killed so far have been. Even with a bit of bad rng in HoF/Terrace you can hit 496 through upgrades with some 489 stuff (also there are 496 vp items).

This is not tuned for 500+. My raid's average at the start of Tuesday night was 500.3 and yeah we wiped several times on this while people adjusted to mechanics, but the dps to kill stuff in time is no where near tuned to 500. 496 is plenty of gear. All of our wipes were due to mechanics so while those 4ilvls may make some difference, that isn't key. Yeah maybe we burned a priest down 5-8% faster (which is pretty generous I'd say) but we still killed the priests fast enough that them living 5-8% longer wouldn't have done a damn thing. 5-8% slower on overall dps would not have caused adds to pile up between doors or the big dude from living long enough to kill us either. If the dps/hps output checks were trivial even at 500 (not to say the fight itself is, theres a lot going on that may take a bit to learn), it clearly was tuned for lower than that.

Problem - the average guild was stuck on garalon in T14.

And given how shitty a fight it is, they still will be, even nerfed.

[Lothan]

I'm kinda hearing different ways of thinking raids are designed. I've always taken it to believe that normal progression is tuned for normal progression. Meaning if you were 16/16 normal last tier, this tier on normal should be tuned for you. This should be especially true for the first couple bosses. The second boss should be challenging yet doable for low to mid 490 ilvls. If you are over 500 going in, you outgear the content and once you get mechanics it should be pretty straightforward for the first few bosses. On 10 man, Horridon is likely overtuned I would say. My group was just at or slightly over 500 ilvl going in and are finding him extremely challenging. We will still get it down since we are getting close, but I don't see how this boss would be possible on 10 man in the low 490's which is where I think it should be tuned for as the second boss of a 12 boss tier.

As a general rule of thumb, a heroic focused guild should be outgearing and killing the first bosses of a new normal tier fairly easily. Otherwise normal mode guilds will be forced into heroics for basic gearing progression which doesn't make any sense to me.

[reflection]

I don't see ANY problem in the poison adds. This poison debuff to the group can be kicked completely. You kill the first guy before the second 2 spawn. Then assign 1 melee to each add and make them kick the poison AoE. We were trying it for about 1 1/2 hours and the third door fucked us up because of two many adds. But I think we will get control of that, too (maybe using heroism + big raid CDs to survive).
Don't think it's impossible but a ramp up to the first guy...

I have to add that our raid setup changed a lot during the last weeks. We were 7/16HM but we had to switch arround people so I assume our average ilvl is arround 495 or something. So you see we are not super geared...

[Zoldor]

You should have four pieces of 522 when attempting this guy. There is a reason you get friendly out of the gate. You have to do more than rely on your heals for dispell, your dps should be using interrupts at every turn as well. DPS just relying on heals this expansion is terrible. You have at least one defensive CD as a DPS and either a self heal or a reliable interrupt to use as well. Make sure your DPS are doing this. I was under the impression boss 4 or 5 was supposed to the serious gear check. Boss 4 I think. You'll get the fight, its just a shit load of mechanics going on and for a 10 man that means everyone, EVERYONE, needs to be pulling their weight until you over gear it and your burn is faster. Bigger hammer isn't always the solution in raiding even though it is the easiest solution.

[fangless]

Going through World of Logs of recent Horridon 10 kills, it looks like most guilds doing it at 5 or 6 out of 6 heroic MSV, with maybe one or two other heroic kills.

It would seem if you aren't at least 4/6H MSV and full clear on normal for Terrace/Heart, you're gonna have a hard time.

[Lothan]

You should have four pieces of 522 when attempting this guy. There is a reason you get friendly out of the gate.

you get friendly out of the gate? i'm still neutral working on the second boss. doing trash farming for rep before you kill the first boss should definitely not be a requirement.

[Sesshou]

Problem - the average guild was stuck on garalon in T14.

And given how shitty a fight it is, they still will be, even nerfed.

I don't really see your point. In previous tiers loads of casual guilds didn't full clear normal before serious nerfs. T14 just didn't get nerfed really until T15.

I'm kinda hearing different ways of thinking raids are designed. I've always taken it to believe that normal progression is tuned for normal progression. Meaning if you were 16/16 normal last tier, this tier on normal should be tuned for you. This should be especially true for the first couple bosses. The second boss should be challenging yet doable for low to mid 490 ilvls. If you are over 500 going in, you outgear the content and once you get mechanics it should be pretty straightforward for the first few bosses. On 10 man, Horridon is likely overtuned I would say. My group was just at or slightly over 500 ilvl going in and are finding him extremely challenging. We will still get it down since we are getting close, but I don't see how this boss would be possible on 10 man in the low 490's which is where I think it should be tuned for as the second boss of a 12 boss tier.

As a general rule of thumb, a heroic focused guild should be outgearing and killing the first bosses of a new normal tier fairly easily. Otherwise normal mode guilds will be forced into heroics for basic gearing progression which doesn't make any sense to me.

The first bosses in here are not tuned to 500+, there is just no way. The only thing going on here is that like with T14, normal modes require actual work for normal mode guilds. It isn't DS with a bunch of normal mode loot pinatas. You have to learn the mechanics and then practice them enough to get decent execution. Gear may help, but that isn't the problem.

Also low 490s seems like an exaggeration for the people that should be in here. Your raid should be averaging ~1.4 ilvl 522 pieces a person just from the neck, loot off Jin, and coins. The only way I'm seeing low 490s is if you are wearing a majority of LFR and MSV gear which is skipping half a tier. You said normal needs to be tuned under heroic the tier before which is true, but normal shouldn't be easy enough that you can just easily skip half of the previous tier on normal.

[Zoldor]

you get friendly out of the gate? i'm still neutral working on the second boss. doing trash farming for rep before you kill the first boss should definitely not be a requirement.

Three trash clears just to jin'rok's gate + 3 stones quest + 1 Completion of the solo scenario + Jin should easily get your friendly. If you think gear is the issue, this is a solution. Also, you kiled the first boss. So it would be a requirement for boss 2 if you aren't geared enough. Also, killing every boss two days in is also not a game requirement.

[Anjerith]

Killing every boss two days in is also not a game requirement.

They need to make this a tooltip on the loading screen.