Week 16 (ends 10-9-17): M-KJ 168, M-Gul'dan 600

[Aphrel]

We havent downed kj yet but from what ive seen of the fight sofar and the other 8 bosses i feel like the phenomena we are witnessing isnt only due to difficulty. Sure tomb is harder than NH, but not by that large a margin. I believe burnout and summer release is just as large a reason for the reduction in guilds clearing the mythic content.

[Emerald Archer]

We havent downed kj yet but from what ive seen of the fight sofar and the other 8 bosses i feel like the phenomena we are witnessing isnt only due to difficulty. Sure tomb is harder than NH, but not by that large a margin. I believe burnout and summer release is just as large a reason for the reduction in guilds clearing the mythic content.

Avatar+KJ, even post-nerf, are significantly harder than Augur-post nerf and Gul'dan Pre-nerf.

Burnout is definitely a huge thing too, but the difficulty is definitely quite a bit higher here.

[Fleckens]

Avatar+KJ, even post-nerf, are significantly harder than Augur-post nerf and Gul'dan Pre-nerf.

Burnout is definitely a huge thing too, but the difficulty is definitely quite a bit higher here.

A big thing is definitely how much dps increases helped on Gul'dan to skip large chunks of the fight, on KJ it mainly helps in phase 3(I would not want to be there doing it when you needed another 2-3 pillar spawns) as while it does make phase 1 a lot quicker the parts you skip were very rarely points where you would wipe anyway and the same thing goes for phase 2, only skipping a few parts at the end that are pretty easy anyway as there is currently not nearly enough dps to skip dps adds.

But yeah I would agree that current KJ(avatar I haven't done in 1 and a half month so no idea how it is now, last time I did it there were still 5 spawns) is probably close to the difficulty of prenerf gul'dan, we didn't kill him before but were very close, having a 2-3% wipe before and then got him down very shortly after 7.2. Compare that to KJ and despite crucible nerfs being 2 weeks later than 7.2 compared to the release of the raid and we were still quite a while from a kill, think we had only seen second intermission a few times at that point.

[Emerald Archer]

A big thing is definitely how much dps increases helped on Gul'dan to skip large chunks of the fight, on KJ it mainly helps in phase 3(I would not want to be there doing it when you needed another 2-3 pillar spawns) as while it does make phase 1 a lot quicker the parts you skip were very rarely points where you would wipe anyway and the same thing goes for phase 2, only skipping a few parts at the end that are pretty easy anyway as there is currently not nearly enough dps to skip dps adds.

But yeah I would agree that current KJ(avatar I haven't done in 1 and a half month so no idea how it is now, last time I did it there were still 5 spawns) is probably close to the difficulty of prenerf gul'dan, we didn't kill him before but were very close, having a 2-3% wipe before and then got him down very shortly after 7.2. Compare that to KJ and despite crucible nerfs being 2 weeks later than 7.2 compared to the release of the raid and we were still quite a while from a kill, think we had only seen second intermission a few times at that point.

Yeah, the crucible didn't really let you skip anything notable, it reduced fuck up chances, but its main thing was making 2nd dps adds smoother, and dark phase smoother. Which reduces wipes by a bit.

Gul'dan got hp nerfs didn't he? Which assisted in making that skip?

Might see some KJ hp nerfs, but again, we're so far off a notable skip.

Actually, maybe not, if you use lust in p2, with like a 5% hp nerf, you could probably skip 2nd dps adds. That could drop 100 or so wipes from a groups prog.

Idk, I'd like to see some nerfs to KJ, preferably after I kill it tomorrow/early next week :P but anytime is fine. Needs to happen.

[Fynzie]

Nighthold was butchered by 7.2 traits where ToS wasn't

[Marrilaife]

And you know you can stun the ghosts right? The BDK stacks them up, then you have a stun go on them, then a bursting shot/typhoon. They're stacked until they die no matter what.

Do you mass grip them before the shadow (fog of war) lands? Like the KJ achievement for glory? Or after you find Illidan?

1 Guardian druid and 1 BDK is a better combo if you're 2 tanking it.

Pretty hilarious when I think of it most guilds 3-tank it nowadays, but mine decided to bench the bdk for double guardian no 3rd tank because supposedly "they won't make the dps check with 3 tanks".

[Fleckens]

Yeah, the crucible didn't really let you skip anything notable, it reduced fuck up chances, but its main thing was making 2nd dps adds smoother, and dark phase smoother. Which reduces wipes by a bit.

Gul'dan got hp nerfs didn't he? Which assisted in making that skip?

Might see some KJ hp nerfs, but again, we're so far off a notable skip.

Actually, maybe not, if you use lust in p2, with like a 5% hp nerf, you could probably skip 2nd dps adds. That could drop 100 or so wipes from a groups prog.

Idk, I'd like to see some nerfs to KJ, preferably after I kill it tomorrow/early next week :P but anytime is fine. Needs to happen.

Yeah I think he got some nerfs later on after 7.2

This was on may 1st apparently, so just over a month after 7.2. It also had health nerf to elisande along with a time increase on the bubbles.

Gul’dan’s health has been reduced by 5% on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties.
Fel Lord Kuraz’mal and D’zorykx the Trapper’s health has been reduced by 10% on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties.
Inquisitor Vethriz’s health has been reduced by 10% on Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Azagrim, Beltheris, and Dalvengyr’s health has been reduced by 10% on Heroic difficulty.
Chaos Seed missile travel speed decreased slightly on Mythic difficulty.
Parasitic Wound damage decreased by 10% on Mythic difficulty.

Also with the release of 7.2.5 he got another 3% nerf with a 15% damage nerf to his fel scythe

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Do you mass grip them before the shadow (fog of war) lands? Like the KJ achievement for glory? Or after you find Illidan?

Like the achievement, before you find him. Then a well timed stun totem just as you find illidan or demon hunters rushing in to stun is usually what we did.

[Deleted]

Nighthold was butchered by 7.2 traits where ToS wasn't

you forgot about NLC

[KaPe]

you forgot about NLC

No, he didn't. 7.2 traits were also combined with significant nerfs to both Elisande and Gul'dan, letting you bypass most dangerous parts of the fight. Only 3 rings, shorter Fel phase, only 1 add on Gul'dan, no Empowered Eye during Storm and so on.

Meanwhile, Avatar and KJ bombard you with raid wiping mechanics right from the start. You'll skip the worst overlaps on KJ and avoid some 1% wipes, but all the nasty shit is still there. Even Maiden is barely affected by NLC - you'll still die instantly if someone screws up the debuffs.

[garicasha]

Some good discussion here, but I'm still curious what people think Blizz will do.

Honestly the best thing I think they could do to nerf the fight without gutting it would be to give 2 extra battle rezzes. That's probably not technically reasonable, though, so I bet they knock the health down a great deal. They might even remove an armageddon soak, but even a small reduction there would be a huge decrease in difficulty.

A fairly reasonable way to nerf it would be to reduce the add's health and then make every other armageddon only have 5 pools. And maybe even every other armageddon only having 1 big pool.

[Alvito]

That's assuming the majority of the 432 guilds left are still raiding, Tomb drained a lot of mythic souls with all its soak crap and need for classes that can do it. Normal mythic guilds just don't have that kind of roster.

NH and the AP grind left several that went into ToS on their last leg. Making the same people in a group deal with mechanics over and over while others can actually play the game sucks too. Always being the turtle, bop, iceblock bitch gets old. My raid has lost all of its hunters and the people with alt hunter have zero desire to play them. Even through NH mythic we kept a stable 26 or 27 person roster with people happily taking nights off. As the numbers shrank now people can't take those same breaks and we are to the point we have skipped running mythic for a few weeks here and there because the roster options would have made it too much of a headache.

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No, he didn't. 7.2 traits were also combined with significant nerfs to both Elisande and Gul'dan, letting you bypass most dangerous parts of the fight. Only 3 rings, shorter Fel phase, only 1 add on Gul'dan, no Empowered Eye during Storm and so on.

Meanwhile, Avatar and KJ bombard you with raid wiping mechanics right from the start. You'll skip the worst overlaps on KJ and avoid some 1% wipes, but all the nasty shit is still there. Even Maiden is barely affected by NLC - you'll still die instantly if someone screws up the debuffs.

Some of that is just raid design though. The instant death mistake bosses came earlier in NH. If Star Augur was tuned to be the last boss you would deal with some of the same issues. Gul'dan is just far more forgiving to a mistake then KJ is.

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Some good discussion here, but I'm still curious what people think Blizz will do.

Honestly the best thing I think they could do to nerf the fight without gutting it would be to give 2 extra battle rezzes. That's probably not technically reasonable, though, so I bet they knock the health down a great deal. They might even remove an armageddon soak, but even a small reduction there would be a huge decrease in difficulty.

A fairly reasonable way to nerf it would be to reduce the add's health and then make every other armageddon only have 5 pools. And maybe even every other armageddon only having 1 big pool.

I am sure it will be less life on mobs and KJ and less damage from sources. I doubt they change the mechanics of the fight any outside of the first changes allowing you to skip things.

[Deleted]

Nighthold was butchered by 7.2 traits where ToS wasn't

ToS got butchered with Netherlight Crucible

[KaPe]

ToS got butchered with Netherlight Crucible

Stats seem to disagree with you, but sure. 170 kills is "butchered".

[Deleted]

Stats seem to disagree with you, but sure. 170 kills is "butchered".

It's a same kind of nerf ans 7.2 traits. ToS have just horrible boss design

[KaPe]

It's a same kind of nerf ans 7.2 traits. ToS have just horrible boss design

Which means that ToS didn't get butchered. ~10% dps buff doesn't remove the numerous instant wipe mechanics from the instance. Also, 7.2 traits offered a decent hitpoints increase, which doesn't happen with extra Concordance levels... and would barely matter anyway, considering how brutal the overkills are. (well, they could help with something like extra stack on Sisters, I guess)

[Deleted]

If stacking Class X makes a boss easier for Best guilds, wouldn't doing the same matter even more for worse guilds? Why in the world would you not want 4 rogues on Avatar? Or two Guardians for KJ? Just because it's not "needed", does not mean it's not beneficial - except guilds in that range can't really afford it due to recruitment problems.

On top of that, the Crucible doesn't really help all that much on both KJ and Avatar (and Maiden, but she's easy anyway). There's still a lot of one shot mechanics. There's still a ton of soaking. Fights are still long, complex and punishing. There's no "trivial" phases. None of which is really affected by dps buff from Crucible. One less wave of soaks? Who cares, you already did so many of them.

I mean, can you honestly look at the kill numbers and say it's fine? It's lower than it was for any tier, other than maybe Sunwell - and developers agreed that they failed with its' completion rates. It's good for waving that epeen around, but it will kill the participation rates - and later on, recruitment for top guilds. I'm halfway through Avatar and I'm really not looking forward to KJ. The loot is useless and you don't even get a damn mount for all that soaking shit.

Yes it makes it easier but it is NOT AT ALL required. So what's the problem? EVERY bosses in EVERY MMOs never had a perfect class balance where every classes is as viable as the other. It's just impossible, on a given encounter there will always be class better than other.

[Shinrayz]

Class stacking was always a problem. But that's not because of boss design. Its because of classes imbalance (if you are going for the top of the top you gotta take every advantage you have, even if it means taking 5 rogues for soaking with feint talent).

[KaPe]

Yes it makes it easier but it is NOT AT ALL required. So what's the problem? EVERY bosses in EVERY MMOs never had a perfect class balance where every classes is as viable as the other. It's just impossible, on a given encounter there will always be class better than other.

And I don't see how any of that contradicts what I said? If the bosses get nerfed, but guilds cannot afford to stack the best classes and they are obviously less skilled than best players in the world, they don't benefits from those nerfs nearly as much. It's the classic "how can you have issues with Mechanic X? It's easy, just immune it with your Rogues! ... What do you mean you only have one, just recruit some more... What do you mean there are no rogues looking for >500 rank guild on a backwater server, we have many applications here in Top 20!"

Either way, this was a pointless argument in the first place. KJ doesn't require nearly as much class stacking as he did? Well, appearently it doesn't matter all that much, since the amount of kills hasn't really exploded upwards and we're nearing the end of this tier. The NLC effect has done its' part and it doesn't look all that impressive - unless Blizzard is aiming for ~300 kills before Antorus, which would be back to Sunwell levels.

[Deleted]

Which means that ToS didn't get butchered. ~10% dps buff doesn't remove the numerous instant wipe mechanics from the instance. Also, 7.2 traits offered a decent hitpoints increase, which doesn't happen with extra Concordance levels... and would barely matter anyway, considering how brutal the overkills are. (well, they could help with something like extra stack on Sisters, I guess)

As I said, it's because ToS have shitty boss design where 1 non soaked thing will instantly wipe the raid. No matter the HP increase would save you

Tbh it will probably get further nerfs

[Morgaith]

ToS got butchered with Netherlight Crucible

As I said, it's because ToS have shitty boss design where 1 non soaked thing will instantly wipe the raid. No matter the HP increase would save you

Tbh it will probably get further nerfs

:thinking: