Is Garrosh Hellscream the most difficult raid boss in WoW history?

[dyzz]

Thats not true.

Most people forget he was nerfed 7 days after he was killed. They, for some reason, equate that as the 3.0 nerf.

[Arbs]

Most people forget he was nerfed 7 days after he was killed. They, for some reason, equate that as the 3.0 nerf.

Ya its was so long ago that the 7 day nerf wasn't as big as the 3.0, guilds still had huge trouble with him after that 7 day nerf & memory just remembers the big one, not the small one.

[Alltat]

The average LFR pugtard today is more skilled than the average normal mode raider was at level 60, so it's not really comparable. At vanilla skill levels and rates of progress, no one would have cleared heroic ToT yet. Of course, at vanilla content release rates we'd still be doing Heart of Fear (and at vanilla legendary droprates, we'd still be trying to collect those 20 sigils of wisdom).

[Deleted]

I also Observed Ragnaros Heroic 25 to be insanely hard at first (it was even probably mathematically impossible to be killed at first since the enrage timer was 3 minutes shorter, but that was nerfed before anyone even reached that problem yet).

But I would say Psychologically, the hardest was Algalon.

[Bigbazz]

It's hard to really compare back, the LK was never killed on Heroic before he was nerfed and was at the time considered the hardest boss ever released, much later on with the best gear available Paragon went back and beat him without the raid buff, being the only guild in the world to ever do so. Before that Yogg 0 was considered the hardest boss ever released and Sarth 3 drakes was very difficult despite the rest of T7 being very easy. Before that Muru was considered the hardest boss ever released.

And before Sunwell, Archimonde, Illidan, Council, Kael'Thas and Vashj were very difficult. Personally I think that Kael'thas and Vashj stand up with todays raids. Vashj required an incredible ammount of co-ordination to manage all the adds and deal with the cores. The difference with todays raiding is that it is much much more focussed on individual player survival.

In the old days it was about simple individual survival tactics for the most part, with important roles being taken care of by certain people and the overall fight being about a dps race along with a specific tactic. For example in our Vashj kill all I did was kill a bunch of adds until the last phase, never in any danger of dying for 90% of the fight. But if you watch the whole raid it is a co-ordinated dance with each member doing a specific role, for example the Ele shaman that kited the striders around the room, had to hold agro off the dps that had to kill it in time. A big co-ordinated effort where everything comes together to defeat a complex and difficult boss.


These days every fight is out to kill every member and it is much more down to the individual player survival. Though we had that in the old days too it wasn't nearly so emphasised as it is now where instead of there being an "avoid fire" mechanic the whole fight is based around "avoid fire" mechanics being thrown at you from every angle. On the other hand the "dance" and raid co-ordination tactics seem to be less popular.

[cyqu]

how many times they wiped on p4.

272 wipesish

[sergel02]

And before Sunwell, Archimonde, Illidan, Council, Kael'Thas and Vashj were very difficult. Personally I think that Kael'thas and Vashj stand up with todays raids. Vashj required an incredible ammount of co-ordination to manage all the adds and deal with the cores. The difference with todays raiding is that it is much much more focussed on individual player survival.

In the old days it was about simple individual survival tactics for the most part, with important roles being taken care of by certain people and the overall fight being about a dps race along with a specific tactic. For example in our Vashj kill all I did was kill a bunch of adds until the last phase, never in any danger of dying for 90% of the fight. But if you watch the whole raid it is a co-ordinated dance with each member doing a specific role, for example the Ele shaman that kited the striders around the room, had to hold agro off the dps that had to kill it in time. A big co-ordinated effort where everything comes together to defeat a complex and difficult boss.

I do admit I hope to see some fights like that next xpac. Course, i never raided back in TBC so i never got a chance. I guess as long as one person can't wipe the raid it's fine.

#6 High Astromancer Solarian - 59 days from Magtheridon's death (unlocking the Eye). 24th April 2007

This surprises me a bit. I never hear anyone talk about her.

[Blaschnack]

This surprises me a bit. I never hear anyone talk about her.

This fight was so unbelievably stupid in it's launch version. Our tactic involved 2 Tanks in random green arcane resistance gear (since there was no other AR gear) standing at the side of the battlefield, just soaking the debuffs that the rest of the group would carry over to them.

They looked hilarious though in their random green turtle shields and t1-pala lookalike helmets xD

[Nitros14]

This surprises me a bit. I never hear anyone talk about her.

High Astromancer Solarian is a funny boss, because she went through four seperate incarnations.

The first one with 5 million HP, front arc missiles and ignoring arcane resistance. That version wasn't killed.

The second one with arcane missiles that could hit the entire raid and 2 million less HP, still ignoring arcane resistance that Death Wish got their world first on and Nihilum complained they would've gotten it if they'd known about the nerf.


Then the third version with arcane resistance 'much more effective vs Solarian's spells' that led to the rise of the arcane resist tanks for wrath of the astromancer.


Then the final version you see today with Wrath of the Astromancer turned from a dangerous mechanic into a simple geddon bomb.

I believe the version the person above me is talking about is actually the third version of the boss.

Edit: I should mention Wrath of the Astromancer used to be a plague debuff, that jumped to the nearest player after 8 seconds and left a much longer debuff that increased arcane damage taken by 50% per stack. Our strat in the ancient days was to have two camps, one 'infected' and one 'non-infected' (since she preferred to cast wrath of the astromancer on targets without the debuff), to make sure no one went above one stack, so arcane missiles wouldn't one shot them.

[Blaschnack]

Ah ok, seems I went so late into TK that what i believed to be the launch version was actually already nerfed twice ^^ It stayed in that version for a rather long time, so that's also what's led me to believe so

[Syfy]

Please discuss. I'm curious as to how Garrosh ranks as it is taking some time for the top guilds to down him.

You must have joined WoW a day ago, right?

[Deleted]

But I would say Psychologically, the hardest was Algalon.

Could you elaborate?

4. Heroic Anub'arak 25man

He died within a very short time didn't he? What was that difficult about him? I didn't play at that time.

It's hard to really compare back, the LK was never killed on Heroic before he was nerfed and was at the time considered the hardest boss ever released, much later on with the best gear available Paragon went back and beat him without the raid buff, being the only guild in the world to ever do so.

AFAIK that is incorrect. Feel free to prove me wrong however.

[kopcap]

Could you elaborate?

1) Guilds only had 1 hour per week to kill him.
2) He could divide by 0.

[Nitros14]

He died within a very short time didn't he? What was that difficult about him? I didn't play at that time.

He died in 4 days to Paragon.

The fight was pretty braindead for DPS, aside from kiting the impale a little. The problem was in the last phase in order to avoid healing the boss for too much people had to be left at around 5% HP and kept up through healing tide totems (worked differently then) among other things. The boss would then put out five Penetrating Cold debuffs. All five players targeted had to be healed above 6,000 HP within 3 seconds or they were dead. And that happened every 15 seconds or so.

The tanking was annoying as well, tanks stacked block to tank the adds but if they had an add get behind them for a split second they died.

There were a few other things to the encounter but those stand out.

[sergel02]

This fight was so unbelievably stupid in it's launch version. Our tactic involved 2 Tanks in random green arcane resistance gear (since there was no other AR gear) standing at the side of the battlefield, just soaking the debuffs that the rest of the group would carry over to them.

They looked hilarious though in their random green turtle shields and t1-pala lookalike helmets xD

High Astromancer Solarian is a funny boss, because she went through four seperate incarnations.

The first one with 5 million HP, front arc missiles and ignoring arcane resistance. That version wasn't killed.

The second one with arcane missiles that could hit the entire raid and 2 million less HP, still ignoring arcane resistance that Death Wish got their world first on and Nihilum complained they would've gotten it if they'd known about the nerf.


Then the third version with arcane resistance 'much more effective vs Solarian's spells' that led to the rise of the arcane resist tanks for wrath of the astromancer.


Then the final version you see today with Wrath of the Astromancer turned from a dangerous mechanic into a simple geddon bomb.

I believe the version the person above me is talking about is actually the third version of the boss.

Edit: I should mention Wrath of the Astromancer used to be a plague debuff, that jumped to the nearest player after 8 seconds and left a much longer debuff that increased arcane damage taken by 50% per stack. Our strat in the ancient days was to have two camps, one 'infected' and one 'non-infected' (since she preferred to cast wrath of the astromancer on targets without the debuff), to make sure no one went above one stack, so arcane missiles wouldn't one shot them.

lol that sounds kind of fun. I soloed her, but still it was an interesting encounter. Love the room she's in.

[theyanger]

I haven't reached Heroic Garrosh yet (and likely won't for a couple weeks, depending on progression - we just hit the 8/14H mark), so I'll comment on what I have experience with.

Both Ragnaros and Lei Shen had their own criteria of difficulty - Ragnaros was a raid coordination, with the P3 push and the Triforce strat in P4.

Mind you, my experiences are within a 25-man perspective.

One could argue that Ragnaros was also a DPS check, as the true fight (Heroic Ragnaros was essentially p4, the other 3 phases were just wasted time) became somewhat easier the less meteors you started P4 with. I was, back then, in a guild that could barely push P4 with 2 meteors up, most of our tries we actually started P4 with 4. Naturally, our kill (US 36 25-man back then) came with a 2-meteor push. There were actually very few wipes caused by someone fucking up the triforce, most of them was bad Dreadflame control. Ragnaros seemed to rely on a couple people doing their jobs right for us.

As far as Lei Shen goes, the main difficulty of the fight was the trend Blizzard stated in with bleeding edge raiding in Pandaria, personal accountability. At least for 25-man, you needed perfect positioning for the most, and if a person screwed up, that'd lead to a wipe, most of the time very quickly. The personal accountability portion shined most during the transition phases - if you died there, most of the time, it was your fault.

After doing Garrosh on normal, I don't think the fight has that much of a potential, but normal Ragnaros seemed the same. I'd need to see the final phase (not described in the journal) to make a fair assessment.

The somewhat ironic part of this, is that you said you could argue it was a DPS check, but noted that you rarely even pushed two meteors. At the level you killed the boss his health had already need nerfed fifteen percent. The P3 dps check was absolutely the hardest aspect of the boss, the last phase was coordination but most of the early kills didn't need a ton of wipes in that phase, they mostly wiped getting to it consistently because of the dps.

[Hightotemz]

Well Methods Kill confirms it wasn't as tough as Lei Shen.

[Nitros14]

Well Methods Kill confirms it wasn't as tough as Lei Shen.

Actually it died in exactly the same time frame as Lei Shen.

[smartazjb0y]

Relative difficulty of Vanilla encounters doesn't matter. Back when I was 4 years old I found simple addition to be hard, and most 4 year olds had trouble with it. Doesn't mean that simple addition is hard now, especially when we have calculus and stuff like that.

Sure, back in Vanilla, the encounters were hard...but they're definitely simpler compared to what we have now.

[Jainzar]

Please discuss. I'm curious as to how Garrosh ranks as it is taking some time for the top guilds to down him.

What in god's name are you talking about? You don't seem to have any idea about raiding or the heroic race, like, at all. Compared to even other Bosses in this expansion, it didn't really take "some time" to down him. Thunder King was a lot harder and took a lot longer to defeat, Garrosh actually died really quickly. So coming here and opening a topic called "... hardest Boss of all time?" because it took "some time" to defeat him is complete nonsense and just shows that you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Useless and populistic topic, should be closed immediately.