Naxxramas 60 vs Naxxramas 80 difficulty?

[Arkthugal]

I think naxx was hard because of the mechanics, and everyone learned those mechanics from the level 80 version of naxx.

Naxx 40 was not hard because of the mechanics. I mean granted, all of WoW's contemporaries at the time had bosses that were literally just tank and spank, but the mechanics still weren't all that difficult. Naxx 40 was hard because of the numbers tuning.

This is evidenced by how dead simple Naxx10/25 was in comparison, when the numbers weren't jacked to the tits.

[chazus]

I did early 60 Naxx, and it was absolutely brutal. We were the #2 guild and didn't clear it by the time BC hit. In Wrath, I was in a considerably weaker guild, raiding wise, and we proceeded through 80 Naxx without much difficulty. It wasn't not difficult, but the difference between the two, while aesthetically similar, were two different raids entirely.

[Surfd]

Gear was also a big factor. People had much better gear in Wrath than they did in Vanilla when going into Nax.

Umm, what? Relatively speaking, I doubt that.

People in Wrath were clearing WrathNaxx in leveling greens and blues. 90% of the people attempting Naxx40 in Vanilla were going to be fully geared with BWL loot at bare minimum, likely with 70% of your raid having complete BWL tier sets, and a good number of them having a large assortment of AQ 40 gear / set bonuses.

Sure, the average player going into WrathNaxx was going to have mechanically higher HP numbers and Spell damage numbers, but overall, the person attempting Naxx 40 had better gear when you consider what the potential caps were: Someone attempting WrathNaxx was probably pushing around 10% of their maximum potential character upgrades, while someone going for Naxx40 was likely closer to 80 or 90% of best in game gear.

- - - Updated - - -

Naxx 40 was not hard because of the mechanics. I mean granted, all of WoW's contemporaries at the time had bosses that were literally just tank and spank, but the mechanics still weren't all that difficult. Naxx 40 was hard because of the numbers tuning.

This is evidenced by how dead simple Naxx10/25 was in comparison, when the numbers weren't jacked to the tits.

Well, yeah. But numbers ARE part of the mechanics. A void zone that oneshots you is a much more serious and threatening mechanic than one that tickles you for a few seconds while you stand in it before starting to hurt. And anyone who says Naxx 40 was not mechanically difficult is pretty much guaranteed to have never actually raided Naxx 40. That shit was hard, and many fights were very mechanically unforgiving. And not simply because shit hit really hard we had small health pools. After TBC hit, I used to organize a semi regular Naxx 40 pug that would do the place with 25 or 30 level 70 characters, and the mechanics on some of the fights could still wipe the raid even with the massive HP inflation and increase in DPS output, because they were designed to be punishing if you fucked something up.

[Deleted]

Nax 25 was not undertuned. It was tuned as an entry level raid for Wrath. That is why it was so easy. Wrath was also the first expansion where they tried out the Hardmodes/Heroic raiding model and the only hardmode on release was Sarth 3D.

You can't really compare the two raids (40 and 25) due to them being for two different target audiences.

Naxx 25 was grossly undertuned wtf you on about. Pretty much every single guild cleared all the start content in Wrath on their first raid night.
Sure it was an entry raid, but multiple of the mechanics could be ignored due to the numbers, as displayed in the first post.
Dots that used to kill you in seconds was now just tickling and outhealable.

For a comparison, people didn't enter Emerald Nightmare and ignored every single mechanic and cleaned house on day 1 (sure mythic raiders had an easy time, but there were mechanics to be delt with at least)

I don't think anyone ever compared Naxx25 difficulty to Naxx40 without full well knowing that Naxx25 was a complete joke.
They basically just shat all over the instance, purely because such a tiny amount of people had tried the raid instance.

[Akka]

We later found out GC was one of those behind the increase in difficulty in Cataclysm. I think he left because he realized the game he wanted to make was not a game that would work with the audience WoW had or has.

It's pretty obvious that the game GC wanted to make was basically the exact and complete opposite of the game he actually made. You read each and every one of his tweets or discussion, and you basically see him describing what he didn't do in WoW.

The sad part being, he actually drove away the people who liked the same sort of game as him, and replaced WoW population with those who hated it. Can't really have any sympathy for him about that, it was as self-inflicted as it comes, and he ruined the game I liked in the process.

BTW, why are you around here ? Vanilla is more or less what you don't like in a game. Did you mix up the place with BfA forums ?

That's too bad. Ulduar was the best raid Blizzard ever made

Sorry, that's Karazhan right there.

[Nitros14]

It's pretty obvious that the game GC wanted to make was basically the exact and complete opposite of the game he actually made. You read each and every one of his tweets or discussion, and you basically see him describing what he didn't do in WoW.

The sad part being, he actually drove away the people who liked the same sort of game as him, and replaced WoW population with those who hated it. Can't really have any sympathy for him about that, it was as self-inflicted as it comes, and he ruined the game I liked in the process.

BTW, why are you around here ? Vanilla is more or less what you don't like in a game. Did you mix up the place with BfA forums ?

Sorry, that's Karazhan right there.

I place Karazhan third.

Greatest
Ulduar (Amazing atmosphere and music, lots of great encounters, Yogg-Saron the best encounter the game has had, preferred its non-lazy clever hard modes)
Naxxramas (Amazing atmosphere and music, lots of great encounters, felt so intimidating and big, pathbreaking: did lots of things a raid had never done before)
Karazhan (Amazing atmosphere, felt so detailed and full of functional areas besides boss rooms, like a real wizard's tower not just a means to fight bosses)

Great
Blackrock Foundry (Atmospheric, good music, full of great encounters making good use of the environment)
Black Temple (Atmospheric, great music, just felt so cool, lots of clever encounters (Reliquary of Lost Souls specifically))
Zul'Aman (Felt like a troll city not a raid, great music, clever trash and encounters, lots of bonus extras)
Zul'Gurub (Felt like a troll city not a raid, lots of bonus extras, so detailed for the time)
Blackwing Descent (Extremely clever and fun heroic modes, good atmosphere)
Mogu'shan Vaults (Great atmosphere, I loved Spirit Kings, Elegon and Will of the Emperor)

Good
The Eye (Kael'thas, Al'ar and original Solarian were great fun, trash sucked, probably the hardest trash I can remember, worse than C'thun trash)
Highmaul (Cool atmosphere, High Imperator Mar'gok mythic is fantastic, liked Ko'ragh and Tectus, some other meh encounters)
Throne of the Four Winds (Al'Akir was a great fight, short and sweet raid)
Hellfire Citadel (Decent atmosphere, Gorefiend mythic was clever, loved Xhul'horac and Archimonde mythic, Mannoroth mythic was a struggle)
The Nighthold (Some great fights, Elisande, Aluriel and Gul'dan mythic were fantastic)
Siege of Orgrimmar (Some obviously filler fights, some great ones, Paragons of the Klaxxi 25 heroic is incredible, Garrosh was just okay)
Sunwell Plateau (Pretty raid, liked Kalecgos and Kil'jaeden, Brutallus was funny)
Bastion of Twilight (I loved Twilight Ascendant Council and Cho'gall and Sinestra were fun)
Blackwing Lair (Razorgore, Vaelastrasz and Nefarian neat, the rest not so much, clever suppression room)
Throne of Thunder (Some great fights, I loved the design of Dark Animus and Lei Shen, Horridon and Iron Qon weren't fun)
Terrace of Endless Spring (Tsulong and Sha of Fear were cool, pretty raid)
Magtheridon's Lair (Cube clicking was neat)
Eye of Eternity (Pretty raid, decent fight)
Ruby Sanctum (Halion had a clever mechanic)
Temple of Ahn'qiraj (Some very pretty areas, corpse run sucked, some decent encounters some uninspired)

Okay
Icecrown Citadel (Wasted opportunity, somewhat lazy and too small interior, meh music, not a lot of great encounters)
Gruul's Lair (Meh entry raid, Maulgar was alright)
Onyxia's Lair (Textbook dragon fight)
Heart of Fear (Uninspired bosses, uninteresting trash, Amber Shaper was neat I guess)
Ruins of Ahn'qiraj (Afterthought to the 40-man, mostly uninspired)
Serpentshrine Cavern (Ugly raid, Uninspired bosses, uninteresting trash THAT RESPAWNED IN ONE HOUR, Lady Vashj almost redeems it but not quite)
Emerald Nightmare (Meh entry raid, poor final boss)
Hyjal Summit (Undertuned bosses, if any raid had too much trash it's this one)
Tomb of Sargeras (didn't like all the soaking, repetitive encounter design)
Firelands (Uninspired bosses except for Ragnaros, Staghelm didn't even work properly, Rhyolith sucked, uninteresting trash)
Obsidian Sanctum (Nothing really stands out, hard mode was nothing special only seemed hard compared to Naxxramas 80)

Bad
Molten Core (slapped together in two weeks, lazy)
Trial of the Grand Crusader (Ultimate lazy filler raid)
Dragon Soul (Almost no new art assets, very poor unfun encounter design, notably poor voicework)

[khalltusk]

Naxx 25 was grossly undertuned wtf you on about. Pretty much every single guild cleared all the start content in Wrath on their first raid night.
Sure it was an entry raid, but multiple of the mechanics could be ignored due to the numbers, as displayed in the first post.
Dots that used to kill you in seconds was now just tickling and outhealable.

For a comparison, people didn't enter Emerald Nightmare and ignored every single mechanic and cleaned house on day 1 (sure mythic raiders had an easy time, but there were mechanics to be delt with at least)

I don't think anyone ever compared Naxx25 difficulty to Naxx40 without full well knowing that Naxx25 was a complete joke.
They basically just shat all over the instance, purely because such a tiny amount of people had tried the raid instance.

You might want to read later replies I had, as you just wasted your time sadly.

It was intended for new players to get into raiding and thus made easier. Apparently GC said it was undertuned even then. I was not aware of said comment when I first posted and someone else pointed it out.

- - - Updated - - -

We later found out GC was one of those behind the increase in difficulty in Cataclysm. I think he left because he realized the game he wanted to make was not a game that would work with the audience WoW had or has.

We should all remember his famous Dungeons are hard comment. (It was him right?)

GC also said Ulduar was not successful. Players were spread all over the place.

Really? Well I guess it was a test raid in terms of how hard modes worked. Normal difficulty on 10man I felt was great, the hardmodes were a lot of fun for me. Firefighter was intense!

[iamthedevil]

Umm, what? Relatively speaking, I doubt that.

People in Wrath were clearing WrathNaxx in leveling greens and blues. 90% of the people attempting Naxx40 in Vanilla were going to be fully geared with BWL loot at bare minimum, likely with 70% of your raid having complete BWL tier sets, and a good number of them having a large assortment of AQ 40 gear / set bonuses.

Sure, the average player going into WrathNaxx was going to have mechanically higher HP numbers and Spell damage numbers, but overall, the person attempting Naxx 40 had better gear when you consider what the potential caps were: Someone attempting WrathNaxx was probably pushing around 10% of their maximum potential character upgrades, while someone going for Naxx40 was likely closer to 80 or 90% of best in game gear.

- - - Updated - - -


Well, yeah. But numbers ARE part of the mechanics. A void zone that oneshots you is a much more serious and threatening mechanic than one that tickles you for a few seconds while you stand in it before starting to hurt. And anyone who says Naxx 40 was not mechanically difficult is pretty much guaranteed to have never actually raided Naxx 40. That shit was hard, and many fights were very mechanically unforgiving. And not simply because shit hit really hard we had small health pools. After TBC hit, I used to organize a semi regular Naxx 40 pug that would do the place with 25 or 30 level 70 characters, and the mechanics on some of the fights could still wipe the raid even with the massive HP inflation and increase in DPS output, because they were designed to be punishing if you fucked something up.

The gear was much better itemized at the time of wrath. Gear did more.

[Emeraldon]

The gear was much better itemized at the time of wrath. Gear did more.

Yes, but Naxx80 was also extremely undertuned. It was a joke.

[Vaelorian]

To be fair most people considered Razuvious the second easiest boss in the instance. Not that he was easy per se but yeah.
I have some ancient forum screenshots from the time

True... After the spider we went for him but I think we killed Patchwork quicker then Razuvious in Naxx40

[Maggibesti]

I saw a video with naxx 60 and wotlk naxx comparison, the difference wasn't much, I mean the damage the bosses did at 60 and 80 was pretty much the same, even though it was 2 expansions later. Let me put it this way, when naxx first came out, you needed naxx gear to beat naxx. Because AQ40+BWL gear wasn't just enough, sure it is now because every strategy and every information on the whole raid is out there. But at the beginning, people didn't have the gear for naxx, it was a real struggle. Just to prove this abit, best guild on Anathema the elysium PS, got server first, and it took them 4 days, first day they raided 14 hours, and probably the same the next 3 days. and they did it server first. Imagine how fast Method would clear a raid they already beat, like the expansion before, if they could go back and do it on mythic, they'd finish it in a day, cause they know the fights. But with naxx, its not possible in a day, literally the best was 4 days. Imagine how long it takes for an average guild that hasnt even been into naxx40, yeah, take that number and times it by 10 or 20. Naxx40 is still a hard raid, even 11 years later.

So basically the difference between Naxx40 and Naxx lvl80 is basically nothing. It´s like they take whatever raid is relevant now, and add it back into the game 2 expansions from now, and not tune it at all for that level, ofcourse it will be easy, cause the numbers are for lvl 110, not 130.

[Surfd]

The gear was much better itemized at the time of wrath. Gear did more.

Sure. Gear did more, and Itemization was different, but we are talking the difference between max level Leveling Blues and Greens, and fully epiced out characters in almost complete gear from the previous raids. You can't even realistically compare the two.

People would be going into Naxx 40 with >50 or 60% crit on classes like Warriors, Rogues or Fire mages. You would be lucky if you entered WrathNaxx with 25% crit. The case would be similar across the board. And that's not even counting set bonuses and such.

[Nitros14]

I don't know what gear has to do with it. People did ten to twenty times the dps in wrath but the bosses only had 3-4 times the HP.

[Surfd]

I saw a video with naxx 60 and wotlk naxx comparison, the difference wasn't much, I mean the damage the bosses did at 60 and 80 was pretty much the same, even though it was 2 expansions later. Let me put it this way, when naxx first came out, you needed naxx gear to beat naxx. Because AQ40+BWL gear wasn't just enough.

Uhh, no shit. NOBODY is going to full clear Naxx40 without Naxx40 gear. That's just the way the place is tuned. If you had BWL / AQ40 gear, it was enough for the first 1, maybe 2 bosses in each wing, but you were not going to full clear a wing without the boost provided by the gear that the raid itself dropped. This was true for literally every raid right through to the end of TBC, up to when they started introducing split difficulties.

And no, sorry, but simply based on the way Naxx40 was tuned, literally nobody was going to full clear the place in BWL/AQ40 gear, no matter how good their knowledge of the fights. Most of end wing stuff, and especially Sapph and KT were tuned so that you absolutely required the extra stat boosts provided by the gear the raid itself dropped, or you would get crushed by enrage timers and the like.

[MasterHamster]

I don't think anyone with the slightest hint of a clue would claim they were remotely the same balance-wise. Naxx60 was a, at the time, ridiculously tough raid and that is following a veeeeery long logistical nightmare that was classic raiding. Just being able to enter Naxx at all and having the gear to have a chance to kill a boss was a giant feat in itself. Mostly a testament to dedication and time but regardless.


Comparing old Naxx to Wrath? Lel. WrathNaxx was a entry-level raid, and it was cleared in Sunwell gear.
Comparing the two is like asking if chars in enchanted heirlooms today are as tough to level as back in 2005.
No one but the grossly misrepresenting would claim they are even remotely the same difficulty-wise.

[Akka]

The gear was much better itemized at the time of wrath. Gear did more.

That's pretty much irrelevant. Tuning is made according to the expected power of characters, including their gear, so saying "gear was more powerful" is nonsensical.
It's about the same argument as saying "well we were lvl 80 instead of 60".

[Nutri]

Naxx 60: 40 man choreography, synchronised dancing, resistance gear dependencies and a small army fully geared of tanks required
Naxx 80: equip whatever gear you had, burst down everything and don't stand in crap

Little grain of salt of course, but Naxx60 had other layers of difficulty than Naxx80, mainly resistance fights, mutli tank bosses (up to 8), gear-block fights like Patchwerk that simply needed a certain amount of dps to get past and guiding 40 people to move around a room.

[God Save The King]

Primary difference is Naxx60 was a final raid, and Naxx80 was an introductory raid, in an expansion that looked to increase the raiding population by offering manageable difficulties and time commitments for casual raiders. You can see that reflected in the difficulty of Ulduar after you killed the bridge guy, in the hardmodes, and then in the separation of Normal and Heroic starting in T9.

Vanilla wasn't necessarily hard mechanically or dps wise, it was mainly a logistics and time. Needing 40 decently geared raiders and ideally 8 of them being geared tanks with decent dps off specs for less tank-heavy fights proved to be quite challenging. Many tanks were simply scalped by better guilds. If you were not realm first, you realistically had slim chances in passing Naxxramas.

[Nitros14]

Naxx 60: 40 man choreography, synchronised dancing, resistance gear dependencies and a small army fully geared of tanks required
Naxx 80: equip whatever gear you had, burst down everything and don't stand in crap

Little grain of salt of course, but Naxx60 had other layers of difficulty than Naxx80, mainly resistance fights, mutli tank bosses (up to 8), gear-block fights like Patchwerk that simply needed a certain amount of dps to get past and guiding 40 people to move around a room.

Since this is my favourite dead horse to beat I'm going to annoyingly pick at small details in your post.

Naxxramas only had one resistance fight, and basically everyone had the resist for it by the time they finally killed Four Horsemen. Patchwerk was more of a healer check than dps. Loatheb (and to a lesser extent Gothik and Thaddius) was the gigantic gear check dps block. Four Horsemen tanks didn't need to be overly geared unless you were planning a six tank strategy.

Have I mentioned how cool it is that this won't be absurd niceties of ancient content and will be relevant discussion of current content soon?

I never wanted to play on a private server since your character might get wiped any time but this is going to be a thing.

Also, it's not really old Naxxramas unless Heigan aggros and resets a million times spamming his aggro yell as you clear the gauntlet to him.

[Nutri]

Since this is my favourite dead horse to beat I'm going to annoyingly pick at small details in your post.

Naxxramas only had one resistance fight, and basically everyone had the resist for it by the time they finally killed Four Horsemen. Patchwerk was more of a healer check than dps. Loatheb (and to a lesser extent Gothik and Thaddius) was the gigantic gear check dps block. Four Horsemen tanks didn't need to be overly geared unless you were planning a six tank strategy.

Have I mentioned how cool it is that this won't be absurd niceties of ancient content and will be relevant discussion of current content soon?

I never wanted to play on a private server since your character might get wiped any time but this is going to be a thing.

Also, it's not really old Naxxramas unless Heigan aggros and resets a million times spamming his aggro yell as you clear the gauntlet to him.

I'll fully get behind your remarks! But your post or mine, both make a clear distinction between the two versions of Naxx, as all of the above was pretty much absent in the Naxx80 version.