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  1. #1

    ToT difficulty weighted to the first half?

    Anyone else get the feeling that ToT difficulty was weighted to the first half of the raid? It took from the start of 5.2 until this week to get to Durumu and get a kill. And now within a 7day period of that Durumu kill we're on Lei Shen. Even Durumu wasn't TOO terrible ... we probably did something like 35 attempts, but a good half of those wiped bc of people doing something stupid like getting hit by Force of Will, or moving the Light off the add before it died. Everything since then has been like 2-3 attempts except Qon took about 10.

    We were slightly undergeared to start 5.2 (Raid avg probably like 492), and now we're 515 avg. But still seems the mechanics are way easier in the 2nd half.

  2. #2
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    The difference in difficulty is because of your gear increase. Dark Animus should have been a bit of a problem but seeing as how guides etc. are readily available it is pretty easy on normal now.

  3. #3
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    Easy bosses- Jin, Ji-kun, Meg, Primordious, Iron Qon.

    Twin Consorts requires ppl to learn the constellations, and best time to use em.

    Otherwise, all other bosses are pretty difficult. 7/12 aint bad.
    Quote Originally Posted by Moounter View Post
    I think your problem is a lack of intellect.

  4. #4
    Megaera gave us quite a problem learning bc of enrage of course. Good old 5th Enrage...

    Twin Consorts wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Other tank died during Dusk phase, so I ended up tanking both bosses for like the last 3-4 mins of the fight. I'll admit Niujao buff probably helped not an insignificant amount with that. (Had 225k vengeance running the entire time lol)

  5. #5
    Alot of playedr underestimated the big ilvl difference from 5.1 to 5.2. I would quess there is no raid, who got 12/12 first week with an item lvl average of lower than 500.

    Council and megeara where overtuned, iron qon and twins are not real hard bosses, they dont have much to focus on except 1-2 things. Dark animus feels so easy cause the boss himself is really easy, the only hard part is in the first minute and your tactics there. It might seem a bit easier, but dark animus with low gear is a real pain, you get more jolts, have less health. A dark animus kill where you get 1-3 jolts in comparison to a dark animus kill with 6-8jolts is huge difference.

    Its really about the itemlvl its not only about the extra dmg, you also get alot of hp along with them. the hp difference from a average 502 to an average of 522 is about 30-50k on a dps char, which is huge.

  6. #6
    A big part of that is probably that you got enough gear, the first few weeks, the last half wasn't easy either (ok Iron Qon and Primodius were a joke still). To be honest though, I thought out of the first 6, tortos was the only one really challenging because of the kick mechanic, and bad dps tunneling the boss instead of adds or turtle.

  7. #7
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    Twin Consorts is a joke compared to Megaera.

  8. #8
    Iron Qon is not so easy, Blizz included their dirtiest trick in his mechanics - aoe effects coloured almost the same as the floor is.
    Anyway, the second part difficulty is miserable compared to awful superhard overtuned Horridon, Tortos and Megaera. At least in 10 man raid.

  9. #9
    Tot second half is a complete joke except lei shen

    Even lei shen isn't too hard compared to the other end bosses

  10. #10
    It seems easy because:


    Doing Council when undergeared (aka eating two sandstorms) is a nightmare.
    Jin'Rokh is very punishing if the players touch the pools in the storm phases.
    The damage during the fight with Tortos is intense, and focused, and being undergeared makes everything very difficult.
    Megaera needs very good cd co-ordination and general good use of healing to be beaten.
    Durumu is probably the most punishing fight in ToT.
    Iron Qon's 1st and last phases are extremely dmging (aka gear-demanding).
    Twins' only big issue is the waves.
    Lei Shen is very complex, but other than that, it should be fine.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by l33t View Post
    Iron Qon is not so easy, Blizz included their dirtiest trick in his mechanics - aoe effects coloured almost the same as the floor is.
    Anyway, the second part difficulty is miserable compared to awful superhard overtuned Horridon, Tortos and Megaera. At least in 10 man raid.
    I dont know what graphic settings you are running but i never heard anyone say, wow the aoe effects on this boss look just like the floor, i had some problems too but jsut raised some setting and real easy after that.

    Horridon and Tortos were never superhard overtuned, the only bosses that were overtuned were megaera and council due to their hp beeing higher than they should be compared to 25m. Horridon was a fine first weeks and after the huge nerf is a joke on 10m. Tortos did they even change anything. Tortos is jsut hard cause u need focused dmg on the different add types. first turtles to kick the aoe, kill bats before stomp and kill boss. mechanic wise he is hard but dmg wise he is a joke.

    Megaera was so overtuned, that alot of guilds used 4 heal on that fight the first weeks.

    If you compare that to primordius durumu ironqon or twins the last part is harder, not saying they are the hardest bosses ever made but are harden than the first 6.

    Durumu has alot ofstuff going on, and lifeleech could be a pain in the ass sometime, still liek the first 6. primordious we use the kite strat i dont think its what blizzard intended to do. but still it works. iron qon you need two good healers and survive the first phase than it gets easier, but still you ahve to dodge tornados, dont get the hasteslow in icephase and use Cooldowns last phase proberly.

    Twins have alot of spike dmg, but with a proper drawing guy its easily two healable, and not so hard. then come leishen, which is clearly the hardest boss of the raid.

    but you cant compare them by just saying wow they are easier now after 7-8 weeks. if you would have the same gear an all bosses the last ones would be alot harder, due to berserk and hps.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Viromand View Post
    Alot of playedr underestimated the big ilvl difference from 5.1 to 5.2. I would quess there is no raid, who got 12/12 first week with an item lvl average of lower than 500.

    Council and megeara where overtuned, iron qon and twins are not real hard bosses, they dont have much to focus on except 1-2 things. Dark animus feels so easy cause the boss himself is really easy, the only hard part is in the first minute and your tactics there. It might seem a bit easier, but dark animus with low gear is a real pain, you get more jolts, have less health. A dark animus kill where you get 1-3 jolts in comparison to a dark animus kill with 6-8jolts is huge difference.

    Its really about the itemlvl its not only about the extra dmg, you also get alot of hp along with them. the hp difference from a average 502 to an average of 522 is about 30-50k on a dps char, which is huge.
    Yeah, guilds that weren't more than like 6/16 Heroic in T14 weren't likely to have higher than 500 ilvl on most of their raiders. Guilds that were 12/16 or higher likely had most of their raid in 507+ with upgrades. Fighting the ToT normal modes in 500 vs 510 vs 520 ilvl is a huge difference, my guild was barely making the Twin Consorts enrage on the first kill two months ago, now we're down to killing it 2 minutes before the enrage, it's a joke. Now that the first 4 bosses have been nerfed into oblivion (my guild's alt raid that's around 495 ilvl can down the first 4 pretty easily), you'll quickly pick up pieces of 522 gear each week, so by the time you get to the second half you're 10 ilvls higher than when you started and it's a lot easier.

    TL;DR item level spread this expansion is weird, especially if you went from normal T14 to normal T15 without doing any heroic T14 between.

  13. #13
    Not to throw a wrench in the chain here but my guild agrees with me in saying that the first 6 bosses are easy compared to the last 6. Durumu's mechanics are just the worst overall only because one mistake is a wipe granted Lei Shen is harder. Each boss has it's own difficulties and mechanics that nobody likes. Unfortunatly, it takes the raid popping cd's at the right times, knowing mechanics and executing them flawlessly (raid awareness). The sad thing is in our eyes, the raid is incredibally easier now compared to when we started and had to endure some of those over tuned mechanics (megaera/council) only to watch them get nerfed weeks later. It is all about progression really and sticking at it and if people are not able to pull their weight then that might be something that is holding you all down.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Raugnaut View Post
    Easy bosses- Jin, Ji-kun, Meg, Primordious, Iron Qon.

    Twin Consorts requires ppl to learn the constellations, and best time to use em.

    Otherwise, all other bosses are pretty difficult. 7/12 aint bad.
    Twin consorts on normal requires people to ignore all mechanics and just be able to do the ammount of dps you should be doing in like 502 gear....

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by momirmaster View Post
    Twin consorts on normal requires people to ignore all mechanics and just be able to do the ammount of dps you should be doing in like 502 gear....
    Pretty much this lol, we 1 shotted Twin Consorts on normal progress having not much idea of anything going into the fight, and 1 dps almost constantly out of the fight trying to do constellations properly. It's ridiculously undertuned for a 2nd to last boss.
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  16. #16
    This is going to be tough to judge only with anecdotes. Guilds that were pushing through a few T14 heroics by the time ToT went live overgeared the first fights pretty significantly, and since fights generally get harder numberswise as the instance progresses finally started to reach the part they weren't overgeared for, or even undergeared, later on in the instance.

    On the other hand, guilds that never even cleared all of T14 normal went into ToT with only Jin'rokh being overgeared. They reach the point of gear being a problem long before the above guilds. Fights like Tortos are going to look worlds different between the two sets of guilds.

    You have to end up ignoring your personal experiences with fights and looking at each fight solely from the point of view of how much gear helps deal with the mechanics. Just some quick ideas for the first few bosses:

    Jin'rokh we can probably ignore, since he's tuned so lightly that almost any actual raiding guild has enough gear for him, and screwing up many of his mechanics will severely mess you up regardless of gear if you don't overgear it significantly. Essentially, handle the mechanics fine and you will win, gear mostly a nonissue (tanks with only t14 LFR gear may have difficulty, but otherwise... not so much).

    Horridon becomes SIGNIFICANTLY easier with gear. For my guild (essentially 6/6 MSV, 4/6 HoF, 1/4 ToES) we were right on the cusp for the original Horridon tuning, and I can tell you that the make or break point of that fight is having enough dps to get down the single big add (Wastewalker, Venom Priest, etc) before the pair of them spawn. It saves a ton of effort and coordination if you can manage this. Similarly, killing Effusions before they cast... guilds that can do that have very few threatening mechanics to actually deal with, and the fight becomes pretty easy.

    Council... can you kill Sul without getting any Sandstorms? Way, way, way easier. It actually sort of surprises me how hard that mechanic is compared to the entire rest of the fight. Even 1 wave of Sandstorm vs 2 makes a big difference. On the other hand, guilds that could kill the pre-original-nerf Horridon should have the dps for this anyway, so factor that in as you wish.

    Tortos is a fight where I don't think gear makes as huge a difference, given that very little changes from start to end. If you can make it 3 minutes into the fight, you can succeed, and the only significant dps milestone is being able to kill the bats before the next wave comes (or, I suppose, getting first turtle down in time). Anyone at Tortos probably has this dps, so it's sort of a nonissue... though with the relatively recent nerfs to Horridon and Council, maybe this isn't the case anymore.

    Megaera varies depending on which heads die. If you're doing the GRGRGR strat that is so popular, the difficulty on the fight is entirely numberwise, but it's probably too much damage for significantly undergeared guilds to handle. This means they have to mix in blues, which are a lot harder to handle than red or green, thereby more of a challenge.

    Anyway, the idea is pretty clear I think: Gear affects some bosses way more than others. Try to compare each in a vacuum and forget about your own guild's experiences. Go through each boss like that and see what difficulty weighting turns out.

  17. #17
    Council... can you kill Sul without getting any Sandstorms? Way, way, way easier. It actually sort of surprises me how hard that mechanic is compared to the entire rest of the fight. Even 1 wave of Sandstorm vs 2 makes a big difference. On the other hand, guilds that could kill the pre-original-nerf Horridon should have the dps for this anyway, so factor that in as you wish.
    Council isn't really a council, it's Sul and his 3 adds. What they were smoking when they made the fight that way I don't know.

    Blizzard really needs to make the difficulty curve smoother then what they have done so far in MoP. This expansion have been really into schizophrenic difficulty territory.

  18. #18
    Yeah the second half of ToT is extremely easy compared to the first half...gear obviously affects this a lot but I guess the reward for pushing through and being able to make it past Durumu is a free path to Lei Shen -_-. Primordius took like 4 wipes, dark animus 5 (all on pull), iron qon 3 wipes twins 1 shot. Now its not to say that these bosses were really that much easier than the first half (except for twins which were a joke). The first half is just as easy with the gear we have now. But I think ToT would've benefited more from a more linear difficulty curve than having pretty much every boss similar in difficulty.

  19. #19
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    Reading through the posts here I get the feeling, that the perception of difficulty is really more of a personal thing, than I thought. Durumu easy? We struggled. Twins hard? Killed them First try. Therefore I assume, that, aside from the obvious increase of Itemlevel, your guild simply had less problems with the mechanics of the second half than with the mechanics of the first half. Some people aren´t able to manage the nests at Ju-kun´s, some always get caught by the whirlwinds at Qon´s. I think the tuning of ToT was nice.

    Edit: I wonder if the people complaining about the difficulty are the same people who are never to tired to state, that BC was the best expansion.

  20. #20
    I think other people have covered it pretty well.

    It boils down to this:
    If you walked into ToT with a few T14 heroics under the belt then chances are you had enough gear to get you to megaera or so in a short space of time. This gave you 10 drops to gear from and the cycle went in your favour.
    If you walked into ToT in 489(ish) gear chances are all you would kill is the first boss. This means you had to make do with 2 measly items from boss drops and then wait for valor gear or lfr to open up to give you the gear to get a shot at progressing further.

    I also agree that for lower progressed guilds horridon and council were a pain, a more linear difficulty would have been nice.

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