Guilds of today would clear BC's SWP (non-gated) in the first reset

[Balir]

It would actually be interesting to do an old lvl 70 raid AT lvl 70 again. With all the changes to talents and skills it would be interesting.

[fangless]

Sunwell didn't have that many bosses. I would see it dying in a single reset. But was it hard? Of course.

People act like players were retarded in Burning Crusade, but the hardcore guilds/players were every bit as good then as they are now.

[chronia]

I reckon it depends on how you would put today's guilds in the instance.

Sure, if they are put in with all the knowlegde they have now, and fully BT/Hyjal Bis geared and a flexible roster. Sure i reckon they would do it first reset, maybe even in a day or so.

However with all the legendary glaives poaching back then, just to push the needed dps, lack of real ptr testing (PTR was there, but testing was no where as hardcore as it is now, same as raiding overall) i would reckon that if you ported the 5 top 25 man guilds of this moment, with their current main roster and a average number of raid ready alts the raiding guilds had at that time to a lvl 70 sunwell release patched server with all the players having the same knowlegde level of the game as players had back then combined with a random seeding of BT/Hyjal loot totalling the number of resets/boss kills Nihilum had since their first clears and Sunwell release to distribute between their roster and ofc fully stacked with BT gems, enchantd and pots/flask i wouldn't bet my life on a full clear the first reset. 4/6 seems very probable, but Muru, i'm really not sure.

[Jacob6875]

The only hard part about sunwell was getting enough resto shamans to spam chain heal on all the bosses.

[Toxigen]

Look, we all agree the roadblock would be M'uru. However, a lot of you do not realize there were actually 3 major versions of M'uru.

There is NO WAY IN HELL the top 5 guilds today would clear pre-nerf (we're talking version 1.0, SPELL PUSHBACK) in the first week. It would not have been mathematically possible to do so.

SK Gaming was the only guild in the entire world to kill it before the pushback nerf.

The only way a guild would get it in the 2nd week would be if they had 3-4 rogues with both Warglaives and 6 resto shaman geared to the absolute tits. Even then, it still might be mathematically impossible.

Now, if we want to talk post pushback, that's a different story. I saw both versions of the boss...and let me tell you, it was an entirely different encounter. Even at version 1.1, you still had to execute perfectly to get it done.

[Kazlofski]

I want to say yes, but the only thing making me want to say no is M'uru, the m'uru I'm used to is pre-nerf. The amount of damage and healing required is just insane, and something that comes to mind is "All that gated progression allowed for a ton of gear.." LFR would help, theoretically speaking if they had access to it, but I would say two without a doubt

I imagine it was hard of course but I doubt it is harder than 11/13 HC that they cleared in the first week (Proportionally of course), let's say it was extremely hard so let's compare it to Dark Animus, both are sick so I'd imagine Paragon would have done that within a lockout, yes.

[Arbs]

I don't understand it either. I mean, Brutallus was pretty much the first check for guilds that actually had the raiders through that summer. 10M HP on release, 6M enrage, and absolutely devastating damage to tanks. We're talking about tanks having 24K health max here. His fast swing timer and high damage was bad enough on it's own, but add in an armor debuff and the cone ability and shit goes to 11. DPS doing 3.6K during 'lust. In fact, I recall on our first kill, they had the second tank run as far away as possible and taunt while DPS burned just to kill him just after enrage hit.

However, he paled in comparison to M'uru. The portal voidlords, the small adds that spawned in the middle, the adds from the outside, and the 2.9M health on the boss during Phase 1. It was just a crazy fight and anyone saying those who didn't kill it pre-nerf didn't have skill has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I didn't kill it pre-nerf so this isn't about some sort of prestige. I just know that it was one of the most tightly tuned fights out there with absolutely zero room for error. Phase 2 wasn't as harsh but you still had to pump out some major damage and have the raid ready to move to avoid the black ball of 'look mum no hands!'.

Felmyst was sorta the retard check of the entire instance. You still had to push the DPS, but avoiding the clouds was the only major challenge with that fight. Basically, if you could kill Brutallus with ease, you could do Felmyst without a problem. Twins were somewhere in the middle of difficulty. They required more co-ordination than the previous bosses, but it was very subject to RNG at times. Conflag wipes were common, but it was perfectly manageable as long as you had good raid awareness.

So, SWP required a level of skill that you can't simply dismiss.

Agreed, you read my mind !!

[Uoyredrum]

I imagine it was hard of course but I doubt it is harder than 11/13 HC that they cleared in the first week (Proportionally of course), let's say it was extremely hard so let's compare it to Dark Animus, both are sick so I'd imagine Paragon would have done that within a lockout, yes.

Pre-nerf m'uru was probably one of the most ridiculously difficult encounters in the history of the game. Let's look at v2. M'uru which is what most people spent the most time attempting even if they didn't kill that version. You needed insanely geared and skilled tanks capable of building threat on 3 separate targets extremely fast (and that in and of itself was FAR more difficult than any tanking now) while balancing cooldowns to not die from the ridiculously hard hitting adds they were tanking. Losing threat for even a second on one add meant at least one death, which meant a wipe. Having anyone die in that fight prior to p2 was an insta-wipe. Your dps needed to maintain EXTREMELY high dps at all times while never pulling aggro, including rogues & warriors potting just to kill adds in time. When he summoned those skulls from the middle, your shadow priests had to MD perfectly. If they misplaced it or mistimed it all, you instantly wiped. Let's not forget that the entire raid is taking constant damage, the entire fight. Mana was extremely tight, because tanks got absolutely wrecked by the adds and because everyone took ticks of damage every second for the entire fight. It was a long fight too.

That's just a basic view of P1. Let's not forget that you had to have at least 6 shamans to even consider beating the encounter unless the majority of your raid was full BiS, because the DPS requirement for both phases was through the roof, it was much more difficult to meet the DPS requirement for this fight than Brutallus. So basically:

1. Tanks getting absolutely smashed the entire time, can't make any errors with aggro or positioning.
2. Healers have absolutely no room for error and barely any time at all to regen mana, extremely mana/healing intensive
3. Mass Dispel Errors = Instant Wipe
4. Needed constant BL's for p2 or wipe
5. DPS requirement through the roof and required consumables & major cooldown rotations to keep up with adds. More than one group of adds at once = instant wipe

Oh and then there was the transition from p1 to p2, which if mis-timed was also an instant wipe. If you got adds when p2 was starting, there was no point in even trying because you wouldn't kill him and tanks would die anyway. In p2 you had to basically perma-lust or you wouldn't have enough DPS to kill him. Also, as melee it was extremely annoying having black orbs in a dark room fighting a black boss that would do damage and fling you everywhere making everything even more difficult.

Now take all of what I just said but add spell pushback to his constant raid damage for both phases. Then tell me with a straight face they would be able to kill this in one lockout in BT/Hyjal gear so I can have some lol's.

(hint: not even remotely possible)

Edit: Oh and as for 11/13 HC ICC, it was hard, yes but the only fights that were comparable to SWP were H LK and Yogg Zero, because both were harder than SWP fights. 11/13 though? Nah.

[Xucuroz]

I can't even remember anymore, but did we have PTR of SWP bosses? Most guilds these days know exactly what to expect from boss encounters before they go even go Live. So i'd say its a given.

[herpecin]

paragon would down that shit in 1 day, the guilds back then are just pure shit compared to the time/skill of today's guilds.

that is not true, the ultra high end raiding mantra has changed since TBC. back then you had 1 toon as a main, and possibly one decent alt.

now in a guild like paragon every healer has 3-5 classes that can heal at max level with raid ready gear, all melee DPS have 3-5 melee characters, etc.

the main issue with Sunwell was the amount of class stacking(particularly shamans) that needed to happen. back then you had to recruit them, gear them, and train them before you could use them. now you would just have all your healers switch to their shamans on twins and call it a day.

[Salech]

They would not clear it at all, there were only a certain amount of specs a class could do, not like today where almost all specs are viable. + the gearing up was actually important back then, then you would not clear tiers in low end gear like you can now.

[Marxman]

The top guilds today are MUCH, MUCH more skilled and dedicated than they were years ago. During progression these days it's basically around the clock raiding, which I don't remember seeing in vanilla and BC.

The only difficult boss in Sunwell was M'uru, and it was only difficult because it was INCREDIBLY tightly tuned and unforgiving. It was a simple fight.

[Vulpei]

The difficulty in BC was different from the difficulty now. Instead of fight mechanics that are avoidable, it was mostly about perfect execution of damage, healing and tanking roles. Being able to burn something down instantly, having the dps to beat enrage timers, healers not overhealing at all, tanks getting and keeping threat. Different challenges than what we have today.

[Deleted]

This question isn't clear enough. How well are they geared? Do they use TBC classes/talents/spells or current?

If they are using today's classes/talents/spells, they'd clear it in blue gear. Class balance is out of control below level 90 and content has been nerfed.

If they are using talents/etc from TBC, T6 gear, pre-3.0 difficulty, then no. They would clear it faster than in TBC because they now have clue of what to expect on fights after farming it for legendary bow / achievement at 80+.

[laplacedemon]

Well it depends on a lot of factors. Some of them could be:
- Does the raid have any warriors/rogues with Warglaives? And if so, how many?
- Does every raider have Leatherworking?
- What kind of gear does the raid start SWP with? Full BT gear?
- What is the composition of the raid? Does it have enough shamans to have Bloodlust/Heroism up constantly?
- Are we talking characters with the talents from TBC or from MoP?
- Is it a Horde or Alliance raid?

It's not like top guilds nowadays don't do any of those stuff; in fact opposite is true. Remember how many legendary caster staves top guilds had during FL and DS, how many people switched professions before DS because of epic gems, how many just-as-geared-as-mains alts they have and can play -like feral druids on Nef hc by Paragon or arcane mages on Spine hc by pretty much all the top guilds?

Logistical difficulties don't exist for many of the top guilds because they are prepared. They don't have bad setups.

[Raidboss]

A couple of the top guilds back in the BC days were Nihilum and SK Gaming. Both of which merged together and eventually formed Method which is still a top guild now. Obviously the players have changed but I'm sure they don't forget their roots which alot of people seem to ignore. Blood legion was even raiding back in those days.

[moremana]

gear factors in...so no

[Serissa]

A couple of the top guilds back in the BC days were Nihilum and SK Gaming. Both of which merged together and eventually formed Method which is still a top guild now. Obviously the players have changed but I'm sure they don't forget their roots which alot of people seem to ignore. Blood legion was even raiding back in those days.

Method? Really?

They formed Ensidia who failed horrible at end of WOTLK and I never heard of them since then.

[Deleted]

paragon would down that shit in 1 day, the guilds back then are just pure shit compared to the time/skill of today's guilds.

People were skill capped then and are skill capped now, the only difference is time. The rotations were simple enough (not as complex as now) and they used all the buffs they could.

People have better UIs and bigger screens now too, but that's not helpful with dps requirements

[even]

Lets start with the legendaries. Dragonwrath can in no way be compared to Warglaives, due to the way the two are obtained. Your guild is guaranteed to have x amount of Dragonwrath after y amount of weeks. Warglaives are a random drop, and many guilds never saw a single one drop, much less collect a set. Other guilds, like mine, saw a complete set after our first two kills.
This greatly influences how many legendaries you have available for your raid in TBC.

Second, the professions are much more balances now in terms of usefulness than in TBC where blacksmithing was useless if you had BT gear. Sure you may have needed a blacksmith to craft some gear, but that didn't require you to be that blacksmith. In late TBC the drums from leatherworking were the kings. You basically had 25 people who had to level the same profession at the same time. The logistics of this task is ten times greater than having 25 people have four or five different professions.
Today the difference in the usefulness of professions (the crafting ones) is minuscule. It is in no way comparable to the difference in TBC.

Third, the alts that each person has in the raid. While they were also there in TBC, you're basically asking that every raider, in order to clear SWP in one reset, must have several characters with BT BiS gear. That is simply not going to happen. You're asking that 16-17 people (The amount of DPS'ers) have alts with BiS gear from BT, along with the skill that is required to play them 100 %.

If you look at the world first M'uru kill, they had 2-3 people left alive. That tolerance shows that if just one person is on his alt which he cannot play 100 %, the raid wouldn't have downed M'uru that try, or even that week.

All of the mentioned factors are the ones that aren't mentioned in the OP. Our discussion needs to focus around the parameters of the raid. Only then can we discuss the odds the question mentioned in the OP. If we have different assumptions about what is available to the raid, then we're talking past each other, in my eyes at least (:

Quoted for truth.