so now that the world first race is over...

[Keoren]

Tank dmg on that was insane in the end. I was praying for Anima balls in p2 because I was starting to get trucked. I dipped to 1% one time, was pretty crazy.

That said, it is pretty funny seeing it die in less than a day now that the tactic is out and people have more gear. Good job.

[Deleted]

That said, it is pretty funny seeing it die in less than a day now that the tactic is out and people have more gear. Good job.

That's indeed quite funny. A guild getting Lei Shen down 10 days after Twins and then 1 day later Ra-den too

[Gondlem]

Gear makes a world of difference on every boss, but Ra-den is gear + gimmick strat. For guilds getting there now, post-Lei Shen, it'd be one of the easiest fights in the zone I think.

[Keoren]

Gear makes a world of difference on every boss, but Ra-den is gear + gimmick strat. For guilds getting there now, post-Lei Shen, it'd be one of the easiest fights in the zone I think.

Yes, and this is frankly why I would score the guilds on WoWProgress based on Lei Shen rather than Ra-den. The current scoring seemed acceptable before more was known about the boss, but now it's just out of place.

[TyrianFC]

The real question is, "How much more difficult/different would the Ra-den fight be if it was done the way blizzard intended?"

Yeah we all know one set of mechanics is a trap. but how much harder would the fight be if you were forced to alternate phases? Would you need to bring more healers/tank/dps than the current strat? how do the dps/hps requirements change?

[Vereesa]

The real question is, "How much more difficult/different would the Ra-den fight be if it was done the way blizzard intended?"

Yeah we all know one set of mechanics is a trap. but how much harder would the fight be if you were forced to alternate phases? Would you need to bring more healers/tank/dps than the current strat? how do the dps/hps requirements change?

Having done a number of pulls trying out the Anima Phase, I can safely say it would have been a lot (and that's probably understating by a fair margin) harder.

We even contemplated, at one point, employing a strategy wherein our Pala tank would take a full Murderous Strike to the face and simply outheal it through means of 4-set assisted WoGs and a massive Sacred Shield during the nightmare that is the Anima phase.

[Fluorescent0]

Don't know how feasible it would have been, but would leaving a tank at about 250k HP or so to taunt just before the strike is cast be a possible strat?

[Deleted]

Paragon said shortly after Sanitas got their kill on IRC that they took so long because they did it the way it was intended and didn't realize it was a trap. And so far out of the 19 guilds Paragon took the most time from Lei Shen till Ra-den to kill the boss. I'd say it's A LOT harder.

[Whitney Houston]

I don't think Blizzard designed the Anima phase as a trap. The truth is every single guild exploited as implied by Blizzard in the Q&A. Unfortunately Paragon lost out as they were trying to do it the "intended" way. So you can imagine their catch-22 situation and their dissatisfaction at the encounter.

The main problem is Blizzard's inconsistencies with exploits and bans.

[TyrianFC]

Really wish Blizzard just hotfixed the encounter to be done closer to the intended way. Yeah they tell us they dont like to meddle/hotfix if it makes an encounter more difficult, but surely an exception could be made? It wouldve presumably brought the fight closer to their vision, made it more difficult and presumably more satisfying / enjoyable.

Even the guilds who were working on it at the time with the 'intended strat' (whod presumably be messed around by any hotfix the most) would probably have been thankful (long term) if the change was made.

Seems like Blizzard just shrugged their shoulders and gave up? Too scared to make any changes?

Seems ironic that Blizzard took one of the best, successful design ideas from Ulduar (Algalon) - implemented it into the ToT instance just fine - then essentially just gave up when this happened. They could have salvaged the situation much better, even if it means choosing the lesser of two evils to do so.

[Gondlem]

The real question is, "How much more difficult/different would the Ra-den fight be if it was done the way blizzard intended?"

Yeah we all know one set of mechanics is a trap. but how much harder would the fight be if you were forced to alternate phases? Would you need to bring more healers/tank/dps than the current strat? how do the dps/hps requirements change?

Alternating phases is definitely not the intended strat. Pretty certain (close to 100%) that the intended strat was three or four vita phases and then an anima phase, or whatever. You could do more vita phases if you have more immunities/made your melee soak etc, but eventually you would have to do an anima phase to reset your debuffs. I think the only unintended element is that if you let him eat an orb it instantly chains both phases so you get the benefit of switching phases with none of the cost. You don't even have to CD through the 600k+ hit because you get double hp from the anima phase that lasts 0.1 seconds.

Alternating phases would have been close to impossible just because of Murderous Strike alone. You'd need multiple GS-effects per minute or your tanks would just die.

Anyway, it would have made it harder for sure. Still nothing like Lei Shen, but definitely more in line with the top half of bosses in the zone difficulty wise instead of the bottom half. It also would have made it more of a raid stacking fight though, at least on 25 man, because you'd probably want a TON of immunities so you only had to "reset" once. A comp with say 12+ of your DPS being mage/moonkin/rogue etc would only have to do one anima phase in the fight, and that would have been the go-to strat. Particularly you'd stack mages, because both Alter Time and Ice Block remove the debuff, and you can even spec Cold Snap. New Spine, basically.

[ExoFanboy]

A fight that requires that much raid stacking is not good for raiding, so it's actually a blessing in disguise the fight turned out the way it did.