Which Boss was Gutted the Hardest?

[Nitros14]

As someone who killed Heroic Al'akir 25 pre-nerf, you did not need to leave half your raid outside to kill him.

This hotfix went live on January 26th

◦Al'Akir's Lightning Strike damage has been reduced on 25-player Heroic difficulty. In addition, its effect duration has been reduced to 16 seconds, down from 24 in both modes and difficulties.
◦Slipstreams can no longer be used during the Al'Akir encounter.


Exactly one guild killed Al'Akir before that fix went live, Paragon.

So you were in Paragon?

[Senen]

As someone who killed Heroic Al'akir 25 pre-nerf, you did not need to leave half your raid outside to kill him.

AFAIK, only Paragon killed it pre-nerf. And they left half the raid outside during p1.
So...?

[Ailylia]

Thats not the same nerf they were talking about. Or at least not the same one I thought they were talking about.

[Nitros14]

After that fix went live you couldn't leave anyone outside anymore because you couldn't use the slipstream.

[Ailylia]

Right. Thats why I was confused because I didn't consider *that* a nerf as much as an encounter fix. I'll shut up now.

[Snuzzfizzle]

Al'ar.

We had to use Snake Traps and Soulstones on everyone to survive the Meteor phases.
They then nerfed the Meteor and the fight became a joke.

I doubt many people even remember Al'ar in its original form. Not sure how many guilds killed Al'ar pre-nerf but it couldn't have been more than 15-20 or so.

[dacoolist]

Heroic Rag for sure (IMO), has been nerfed at least 5 times since release.

[Deleted]

XT-002 got butchered pretty hard in the first few weeks of Ulduar, went from a fairly challenging normal mode & Insanely difficult hard mode (I don't think anyone actually killed it pre-nerf) to a super easy normal mode and semi challenging hard mode.

[Alayea]

Technically, in my opinion, the boss that was gutted the hardest was C'thun in AQ40 because he was undefeatable. Pretty hard to top that status. But he was also very bugged, so...

C'thun being left as an outlier, I'd say patch 3.0.2. Kicked the teeth out of all TBC raid bosses.

[Orcindauh]

I don't think C'thun should be included since the bug wasn't intended by Blizzard.

Heroic Rag on the other hand, Blizzard intentionally made that fight insane.

[Varjo410]

M'uru got nerfed twice, the first one was fixing a bug that made it alittle easier the 2nd nerf in the 3.0 patch made the boss very easy.

3.0 made every tbc boss very easy, it's the patch that introduced normal mode raids. It's also why you often hear the "I wasn't a serious raider until the end of TBC" line on these forums. It isn't because they all suddenly became good, things just got piss easy.

[Ciddy]

I remember Matheridon in BC got nerfed pretty hard with the cube clicking part in 2.4. That "exhaustion" debuff you got for clicking cubes had its duration nerfed by like a full minute, and you got less infernal spawns in the fight. Made a huge difference. My guild had been working on him for a little while and managed to down him the week before that nerf took place, so we were kinda proud that we managed to kill him at least once before he got nerfed.

I don't know if he got gutted the hardest, but he was the first boss that I thought of when I read the thread title.

[Titheon]

I agree with many that Magtheridon was very difficult. He was so difficult that many guilds just skipped him.
Which wasn't a terrible idea since he dropped the Tier 4 chest token which had PvP stats.

In my opinion, the most difficult was Kael'thas Sunstrider followed by Lady Vashj. These two bosses were the guardians of Tier 6 content.
After obtaining both keys, Blizzard rewarded those guilds with some simple entry bosses in Mount Hyjal.

Notice these bosses didn't have 10-Man versions, nor Normal modes.
25-Man and originally difficulty, the way it should be.

The key in these encounters was organization.
The best guilds could kill these bosses with minimal gear improvements.
Knowing your class was key.
Better gear was only used to make-up for the skill each player lacked as lesser skilled guilds reached similar content.
Organization and knowledge were were important than gear and face-rolling.

Side note: Having "Ashes of Al'ar" meant something back then.

[Magpai]

Heroic Ragnaros..they took the hardest part of the fight and just deleted it..o.O

To be fair, that's because it never, ever, ever worked as intended.

Anyway OP, if I recall Al'akir was nerfed such that Acid rain no longer stacked, period. Am I remembering it wrong?

[Kaiten]

M'uru got nerfed twice, the first one was fixing a bug that made it alittle easier the 2nd nerf in the 3.0 patch made the boss very easy.

Actually, there were three nerfs. The first one stopping the cast pushback, the second being 2.4.3 and a 10% health reduction on the door adds, and the 3.0 patch which made the boss loljokes.

[Senen]

Al'ar.

We had to use Snake Traps and Soulstones on everyone to survive the Meteor phases.
They then nerfed the Meteor and the fight became a joke.

I doubt many people even remember Al'ar in its original form. Not sure how many guilds killed Al'ar pre-nerf but it couldn't have been more than 15-20 or so.

They also removed Al'ar's Fire Resistance at the release of MoP.
Quite a big nerf.
(I'm half kidding. His immunity to fire damage was a pain when I first soloed him as a warlock.)

Technically, in my opinion, the boss that was gutted the hardest was C'thun in AQ40 because he was undefeatable. Pretty hard to top that status. But he was also very bugged, so...

IIRC, he was mathematically defeatable. You just needed a perfect rng.
To defeat this Chtulhu-like boss, you had to wait that stars were right aligned.

- - - Updated - - -

Btw, I think two bosses have been forgotten but deserve a place here:

1) Disruptron, the melee bane. His damage have been nerfed to the ground at the release of 5.4 and during 5.3 they re-enable the levitate abuse that they had disable earlier.

2) Razorgrin, the warrior killer. His only technique was to one-shotted anyone who stood at melee range. The fight was totally unbeatable as a warrior as we have so few ranged technique, so even if every other class found ways to deal with him, he had to be nerfed.
Now, he only kills you if you're standing in front of him.
As a warrior, from "the hardest boss in the whole game" it became a Magikarp.

[Deleted]

1) Disruptron, the melee bane. His damage have been nerfed to the ground at the release of 5.4 and during 5.3 they re-enable the levitate abuse that they had disable earlier.

I'm sure I tried him post 5.4 and he hadn't been nerfed. When I discovered this (lol 150k laser) I thought it was bugged. Desperate as I was on my new server with 50 or so MS, I went full burst (and nature's vigil: damage = healing) and killed him by ignoring all mechanics within like 30 sec.

The Al'akir nerf that everyone keeps talking about (not the "fix" that went in for 25hc); when did that happen? 4.2?

On topic though... Firelands sweeping nerfs were pretty bad. One day to the other the instance was 15-30% easier (not raggy ofc). The DS nerfs past 20% didn't really change anything for progressing guilds.

[kaib]

Al'ar.

We had to use Snake Traps and Soulstones on everyone to survive the Meteor phases.
They then nerfed the Meteor and the fight became a joke.

I doubt many people even remember Al'ar in its original form. Not sure how many guilds killed Al'ar pre-nerf but it couldn't have been more than 15-20 or so.

this. there were less then 20 kills of the original version and it was available for quite a while.

another honorable mention is that gnome in ulduar, the firefighter version (don't click the red button!!). also less then 50 kills on that. afterwards everyone just walked right through it.

[Theiea]

To be fair, that's because it never, ever, ever worked as intended.

Anyway OP, if I recall Al'akir was nerfed such that Acid rain no longer stacked, period. Am I remembering it wrong?

What was the original intent for the final phase of Rag? Having the raid cycle through the frost patch to drop stacks?

[Raiju]

Side note: Having "Ashes of Al'ar" meant something back then.

Yeah it meant you should be doing the euro-millions every week since you were lucky as fuck.