Question about disc healing.

[wolfwood888]

Horsemen were subsequently farmed by any guild with half a brain in Naxx as soon as strategies became widely understood. The world first was also delayed quite a bit by people typically keeping War for last. That meant learning all the other bosses before even getting to them. Also you need to remember that there are close to a hundred times as many guilds attempting ToGC as there were attempting Naxx 40. Not truly because of difficulty, but because of accessibility.

The hardest encounter of all time in WoW was C'thun. It had to be nerfed because it wasn't possible to win. It was then done in less than a day. Pre-nerf Yogg saron +0 was the next hardest, which again received stealth nerfs to make it easier. Again, I'm talking about right now. Anub'arak HM is by far the hardest encounter in game. Not including distorted kill counts of a partially bugged boss that's only been out for a week.

The 7.5 weeks were not from naxx's release but from when attempts where started, and this is partially because of having to come up with a competent way of doing it on your own and partially because it took 8 geared tanks to do it, but you could hardly call 25 anub in ToGC the hardest encounter in the game when ensidia downed it the day after release. Currently hard mode anub is the hardest encounter in current content, but when people say it is the hardest encounter the game has ever seen, they are simply wrong.

[Deleted]

What is the hardest encounter in your opinion then? I wouldn't dare to choose one. Horsemen? Think of time you had to spend to gear 8 tanks, then add time to make your own strategy for them (in vanilla you had almost no chance to get a strategy from any website). A few days more to execute. Done. (What I wrote here is based on others thoughts - I have never tried Horsemen on lvl 40. TBC hit when we killed 2 bosses there only).
In my opinion it's like saying Nefarian is the hardest encounter ever - you couldn't even TRY to kill him without 40 fucking Onyxia cloaks. Retarded amount of time. But hey, you spent months on farming - so he's the hardest. Not really...

I wouldn't say Anub was the hardest encounter. But DPS/healing requirement, retard checks (kiting, aggro issues) and RNG (like an add hitting tank from back) it makes it very hard.

Generally there are about 3 different ways to make an encounter HARD:
1. RNG - I hate it but still. I was dying inside when Felmyst did her AoE shit on the same group 2 times in a row. Or Freya's add charge right before the ground tremor^^.
2. Complex fights - this is my favourite - Vashj and Ka'elthas pre-nerf were absolutely amazing. Insanely hard to remember and execute. Millions of assigments. Phase 3 start on Kael'thas was my nightmare!! Absolutely the best way to make an encounter insanely hard and the best feeling when you kill this asshole!
3. DPS/healing requirements - many examples like Patchwerk in lvl 50 Naxx or Brutallus in Sunwell. Incredibly hard at the beginning of progress. Awfuly easy after reaching high lvl of gear.

Now mix those 3 and you will make THE HARDEST encounter in the game. I'm not saying Anub it is. I'm just saying he IS hard.

[harky]

The 7.5 weeks were not from naxx's release but from when attempts where started, and this is partially because of having to come up with a competent way of doing it on your own and partially because it took 8 geared tanks to do it, but you could hardly call 25 anub in ToGC the hardest encounter in the game when ensidia downed it the day after release. Currently hard mode anub is the hardest encounter in current content, but when people say it is the hardest encounter the game has ever seen, they are simply wrong.

Even if you want to consider it this way, which is inaccurate, it doesn't make Four Horseman the most difficult fight ever. It wasn't. The issue is that guilds simply did not have enough tanks, as you mentioned. They took a lot of time gearing up 8 tanks for the fight. Msot guilds ran with ~4. Suddenly you needed 8. Once guilds had that? They farmed it for free loot. It wasn't hard, it was just inconvenient. If you want to be more realistic you'd relize that those guilds were not attempting horsemen for 7+ weeks. They tried it for a few and realized they needed the tanks, then weren't even attempting it for quite a while. Instead they went on farming content for gear and worked on Loatheb, which hadn't been killed at that point either. Also if you'd followed the real situation surrounding Naxx you'd realize the logistical and not strategic problems are what held back most kills. Any boss that presented purely strategic issues was downed very quickly. KT was much harder than Horsemen were, but he died more quickly. Why? He didn't require an absurd raid composition to fight.

To reiterate: Horsemen wasn't hard. Once you had the proper composition they were easy. Very easy at that. It wasn't a fight that gave anyone problems after they had the setup.

As far as Anub? He wasn't killed the first day he was out by anyone. He wasn't killed the day after either. World First was September 7th. Only one guild was able to down him the first week of his release (Paragon). Took them the entire week. Yep, really easy.

When you look at bosses with horrendous composition and logistical concerns in a time when raiding was sparser and information was not as free and compare to a fight that gave people fits when there are no logistical concerns and raiding is very popular? It gets silly. Hardest ever was pre-nerf C'thun, either way. Debate it all you want, but it sits as the only fight that was never beaten. No screwed up comp, no bugs, just one over-tuned encounter no one could beat.

[Kelesti]

What is the hardest encounter in your opinion then? I wouldn't dare to choose one. Horsemen? Think of time you had to spend to gear 8 tanks, then add time to make your own strategy for them (in vanilla you had almost no chance to get a strategy from any website). A few days more to execute. Done.

Took months of farming to get each of your warriors their tier set bonus, to make Taunt not miss. And by the time you did that, a lot of them were jumping ship to server transfer to a guild offering them better stuff. It's the reason most progression guilds never actually made it past there, when all the warriors they were gearing up suddenly disappeared.

But building your own strategy was the best point this game had.

In my opinion it's like saying Nefarian is the hardest encounter ever - you couldn't even TRY to kill him without 40 fucking Onyxia cloaks. Retarded amount of time. But hey, you spent months on farming - so he's the hardest. Not really...

Nefarian was a joke alliance side. When I sat in on a friend's account, and watched Windfury wtfpwn their tank, part of me died a little when I realised how stupid a bubble is.

I wouldn't say Anub was the hardest encounter. But DPS/healing requirement, retard checks (kiting, aggro issues) and RNG (like an add hitting tank from back) it makes it very hard.

I hate all encounters (incluing Naxx-40 at level 60) that required you to build specific gear sets just for that encounter that you'll never see effective use out of again.

Generally there are about 3 different ways to make an encounter HARD:

1. RNG - I hate it but still. I was dying inside when Felmyst did her AoE shit on the same group 2 times in a row. Or Freya's add charge right before the ground tremor^^.

RNG is not hard, RNG is annoying as fuck.

2. Complex fights - this is my favourite - Vashj and Ka'elthas pre-nerf were absolutely amazing. Insanely hard to remember and execute. Millions of assigments. Phase 3 start on Kael'thas was my nightmare!! Absolutely the best way to make an encounter insanely hard and the best feeling when you kill this asshole!

I absolutely loved Kael'thas Sunstrider! Phase 2 of Vashj just irritated me. But I'm okay with that.

3. DPS/healing requirements - many examples like Patchwerk in lvl 50 Naxx or Brutallus in Sunwell. Incredibly hard at the beginning of progress. Awfuly easy after reaching high lvl of gear.

Unfortunately, yeah... alot of fights tack on this, and it really is losing its value.