Why was C'thun pre-nerf "Impossible"?

[pieki]

i miss overrated and there patch 4... anyone got the movie thay made of it?

[FullTenStorms]

On the subject of, "Why was C'Thun pre-nerf 'impossible'?"

After some extensive research, some long discussions with an Death and Taxes raider during AQ40 progression, and a good comparative research tool (Kronos vanilla server) I think can resolve this issue. My findings are that the original (pre-nerf) form of the C'Thun fight was not impossible! Though given the available knowledge and tools of even the best guilds at the time, it was extremely difficult. Nevertheless, even "near impossible" lacking skills and knowledge is a very different thing than "impossible", which is the phrase that gets repeated over and over in the forums about difficulty of boss fights.

From here on out I will assume everyone knows we're talking about pre-nerf mechanics, stats of boss and adds (which differed), and what was present on the raiding scene in 2005 (the rough gear level and other resources in guilds like Death and Taxes, Nihilum, and Curse as "top guilds.")

First, the Case Against pre-nerf C'Thun being possible: Followed by replies for each.

1. The raids at the time simply couldn't do enough damage. Notably, the pre-nerf large claw and eye tentacles had more hp. Comparing statistics pre and post nerf shows that other hp differences were small. If you watch DnT pre-nerf footage, you can see "top" dps rogues and mages doing 300-400 dps in mostly tier 2.

Objections: This claim is true, but it doesn't mean the fight was impossible for several reasons. It was primarily due to lack of knowledge and skill that made the damage output of the raid smaller, even for DnT and Nihilum. This isn't to say they were bad players or stupid, but they hadn't min-maxed full and tuned their play styles to maximize effective damage. Also, they hadn't used the months leading up to C'Thun (or apparently the practice attempts) to fine tune the tactics an individual dpser can do. Watching Curse's first kill shows a huge dps disparity between top dps and bottom, and watching Fura's tactics, shows the level of skill that is possible (still not perfect), but not by most players. In addition, even if those top dpsers were doing max possible dps (meaning fluid tactics, and boss/add uptime), the attempts and kills show that the enormous power of flasks, world buffs, and GNPP (greater nature protection potion) were not use by even top guilds. If your tactics are correct, this adds a huge damage bonus. Furthermore, it is clear from how top guilds chose to gear that they simply didn't know what was best (a comparison of melee dps in Kronos or Nostalrius servers now vs. old footage) bears this out.
Reply: This brings us to the idea somewhat known that even top guilds didn't have enough months farming gear and preparing in BWL content to do absolute max damage in C'Thun. Well, I think this is simply not true. In the DnT video you see a paladin with Thuderfury, you see strange itemizations, and you see everyone in Tier 2. If you had warriors learning their class damage inside out and farming Ironfoe you'd have the same thing then as you have on Kronos now, people doing sick amounts of damage because they know how to play their class really well. Finally, I should add that in a fight like C'Thun, tactics are the biggest thing. Losing no one in phase 1, having warriors and ranged insta-switch to adds, and minimizing healers (because the ones you have use a proper UI) to max # of dpsers are all things that a raid could have done back then, but didn't. (14-15 healers in DnT pre-nerf video.)
More Objections: If you want to talk pure numbers, a maxed ranged dps in BWL gear can do 500dps (600 world buffed) and a melee can do 300 (400 world buffed). If they do this, they crush C'Thun, requiring only 2 vulnerabilities and dispatching post-nerf large eye tentacles very fast (under 10 seconds.) This is one of the strongest points for my case, a buffed raid on Kronos destroys C'Thun in 6-7 minutes, which is less than half the time Curse guild takes in their first kill video (4 vulnerabilities) So, even if you add 50% hp to the large tentacles (it was more like 10-20%) a modern Kronos raid could still win.

2. The "Bugginess" of the Fight Made it impossible. Notably, the pre-nerf large claw and eye tentacles could spawn in the stomach. If the eyes did this it was a flat out wipe because they would eye-beam without response from raid. If the claws did this, they would relocate, but cause extra damage to the raid. There were also a few other claimed bugs like phase 1 beams chaining too much. But if we're honest, the only bug that couldn't be played around, or wasn't really just a high skill or tactics check, was the large eye tentacles.

Objection: This claim is also true, and it gives the most weight to the "impossible!" argument. However, even if the above claims about damage were wrong, you would still have a RNG (random number generation) issue (i.e. you could do what Stars did against Yogg +0 and throw attempts day and night until no eye tentacles spawned in the stomach. While, we must confront the reality that the guilds at the time didn't have forever or resources to grind attempts (they had exactly 87 days from the time vodka killed Twin Emps until the hotfix when Nihilum got world 1st C'Thun that same night.) (Actually, there was only 40 days or so that Stars had to grind out their 500+ attempts of Yogg +0.) That's a lot of grind time, and a fair opportunity for top vanilla guilds to get perfect tactics and comps and try world buffs and consumables at a higher level, if they had been more optimistic. Furthermore, if you do believe the damage accounts above, things get more plausible because you only have to RNG 3-4 Large Eye tentacles, not 10+ as Curse does in their 15min kill.
Reply: You might think that throwing attempts until RNG (luck) is on your side won't work well in a practical sense. You get all DM/Nef/ZG buffed and head down to C'Thun, then flask, then someone blows it in phase 1 and you're screwed for a week right? Well, I think there are some plausible work arounds to not just get the ideal present day guild (with all that built up knowledge, practice, and gear) to do it, but the guilds at the time. You simply never see guilds practice C'Thun using an analogous space somewhere else in the world and learning to move and anticipate each other in the fluid way that the fight requires (but had never been expected before AQ came out.) This is the kind of tactics that modern guilds in MoP and WoD have developed quite separately from the confines of their character abilities, its pure teamwork that was possible back in the day, but they weren't organized and focused for it. (Raid leaders always cussed raiders out rather than teach, and players didn't use the community to learn and skill-build, they were elitist at the top ranks but not even close to optimal players.)

Finally, a couple of things that guilds could've have done back in the day but didn't think to (knowledge and skill were lacking in the pre- and post-nerf videos.)
1. Positioning and cameras were generally very bad, raiders are always zoomed in and not using the center area of the room during phase 2 (when there are no more green eye-beams from C'Thun.) Note the keyboard turning warrior in DnT pre-nerf video. I assume no one agrees that pre-nerf C'Thun was possible with keyboard turning, red-eye-beam-dying peeps.
2. UIs were very bad. Cramped and often default UIs weren't used, especially by healers to be better for raiding. This is one major failing on the part of raider leaders during BWL and AQ progression. Even then, you had these new UI tools (e.g. Fura in Curse) that make doing your role so much better. Just healers with raidframes consolidated alone would be a huge boost.
3. The lack of phase timing hurt top guilds a lot. For example, timing stomach to go down as eye-tentacle is finished so that you have full dedication of dps to the vulnerable eye is the way to get a kill with 2-3 vulnerablities instead of 4+.
4. GNPP (nature potion) was used for Huhuran, but neglected for eye-beams. And few if any used before pull and on cooldown during (especially non-mana users). Vanilla raiding really is about consumables and understanding how the gear stats really work. The best players in top guilds did the science, but they didn't share it very well...

Well that's my report after watching tons of video and playing through Kronos progression from BWL to AQ40, a server that is supposed to be true to the original stats. Thanks Pineapple for your perspective (the basis of many objections above) from the original DnT!

Anyone who can poke a legit hole in this is welcome to try, but it seems that pre-nerf C'Thun was possible back in the day.

-Full Ten Storms

[Calfredd]

Anyone who can poke a legit hole in this is welcome to try, but it seems that pre-nerf C'Thun was possible back in the day.

Here's a big hole: This is a 6 year old thread you just necro'd dude.

[Kyanion]

Even funnier this thread bumper talks about Private Servers as if it is some useful data.

[Thelxi]

At least his necro is interesting. It's like an ultra-necro, creating a thread in style.

[Seranthor]

*snip*

*snortchuckle*

Using private server data like it was the gold standard is laughable, but I'll give you a chance, so, you claim it was possible... ok... who did it pre-nerf?

[FullTenStorms]

Lol I never post, didn't mean to post twice. Don't care about forum etiquette, just the argument itself. Being old in this case doesn't make it wrong. It's a little relevant since Kronos is the first to try to legitimately copy the C'Thun experience, and he was just downed this last weekend. The issue seems relevant as long as people believe this was impossible (though no one did do it, I'm saying it wasn't impossible.)

Sorry for the necro, this seemed like the best place for these ideas. Where did the "snip" thing come from?

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, Kronos as a true-to-original scripting and scaling server makes it pretty useful as an analogy. It's not like Emerald Dream or Feenix in the least...

[Seranthor]

Lol I never post, didn't mean to post twice. Don't care about forum etiquette, just the argument itself. Being old in this case doesn't make it wrong. It's a little relevant since ****** is the first to try to legitimately copy the C'Thun experience, and he was just downed this last weekend. The issue seems relevant as long as people believe this was impossible (though no one did do it, I'm saying it wasn't impossible.)

Sorry for the necro, this seemed like the best place for these ideas. Where did the "snip" thing come from?

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, ***** as a true-to-original scripting and scaling server makes it pretty useful as an analogy. It's not like ****** or ***** in the least...

*snip* exists because I wsn't going to quote your wall of text. Congrats to folks for accomplishing something that was done a decade ago. The fact remains that not a single raid group ever was successful in beating C'Thun pre-nerf. And here is a secret for you, short of someone building you a time machine and sending you back to a time pre-nerf, then no one ever will be able to claim they beat it.

[Deleted]

Wasn't yogg0 mathematically impossible aswell?
Even tho it was mathematically impossible he still got killed.

Id say that the prenerf C'thun would be doable now simply because the top players now are on a completely different level compared to top players in vanilla. It would take some time and the bugs would eat up some tries but still i think it would be doable.

Yogg zero was "impossible" because the dps requirements were insane, i think stars got around it by using 1 ( or 2) tanks less and have hunters kiting

Yogg 0 didn't have mathematicaly impossible odds or insane dps requirements. The "impossible" difficulty was because of the madness mechanic. Everyone who faced Yogg was going insane and that made time on target really short by the time the raid was overwhelmed by adds, that could not be killed.. STARS got around this by stacking affli locks, who could dps with their backs turned to Yogg, so they did not go insane.


But on topic: A lot of vanilla and TBC bosses were unkillable or impossible pre-nerf, because the encounters were very buggy and/or overtuned. Lady Vashj was unkillable too at first.

[Typhoria]

Lol I never post, didn't mean to post twice. Don't care about forum etiquette, just the argument itself. Being old in this case doesn't make it wrong. It's a little relevant since Kronos is the first to try to legitimately copy the C'Thun experience, and he was just downed this last weekend. The issue seems relevant as long as people believe this was impossible (though no one did do it, I'm saying it wasn't impossible.)

Sorry for the necro, this seemed like the best place for these ideas. Where did the "snip" thing come from?

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, Kronos as a true-to-original scripting and scaling server makes it pretty useful as an analogy. It's not like Emerald Dream or Feenix in the least...

Kronos has pretty bad scripting and its undertuned... In addition its already on the Naxx patch so talents are vastly improved.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

What made it impossible was adds spawning in the belly and they would wipe the raid.

What made it insanely hard was it was tuned around having 40 bad asses which wasn't very often the cases then. Most guilds outside of WF guilds maybe had 10 to 15 good players and the rest were pretty much there to bloat the roster. Remember you didn't have server transfers most of vanilla and even when it came along it was a new concept. Most people didn't know where to go because info was much less available. It took ages to get to 60. Ages to gear a Cthun killing toon. Right, no catch up gear. 40 man raids with bosses that drop 3 pieces of loot total.

Once the spawning issue was fixed it did become killable. Once the nerf happened it became reasonable for more than the 1% to really get the kill. But even then these kills were very few and far between.

[Deleted]

a buffed raid on Kronos destroys C'Thun in 6-7 minutes, which is less than half the time Curse guild takes in their first kill video (4 vulnerabilities)

I stopped right after this sentence and didn't read further. You're talking about c'thun progression which you're trying to justify should be killed earlier and your arguments are based on a results from private server. Seems legit.

Actually, Kronos as a true-to-original scripting and scaling server makes it pretty useful as an analogy.

No, it's not.

[Kaleredar]

Holy crap a thread older than my account here.

[Simulacrum]

Well, the necro is right.

Even the most hardcore weren't all that hardcore back in AQ40, for some reason. People weren't using consumales, flasks, global buffs, didn't min/max properly, etc. I distinctly remember progressing on c'thun on the same realm as Nihilum and seeing them all running back with flasks on every single one of their ghosts, and I was just amazed at how insane it was to me that they went to such an extreme. So I'm not surprised that players of today warped back to AQ40 times could beat a then-seemingly impossible boss with the mindset of today.

Then a while later, during Nax40, everyone had gone totally insane. You didn't pull a boss without a dozen consumables active on everyone in the raid, everyone min/maxed like crazy, and everyone carried those stupid felwood plants along with everything else you could cram into your character's face. It seriously consumed more of my time to farm consumables and gold for raids than was spent on the raiding itself.

[Aschen]

The tentacles spawned in unreachable places. Was too buggy to kill.

Kael'thas suffered from the same thing at first, although there is a common misconception that he was only hard because of the bugs. There were actually 5 versions of KT in the Eye.

1st version was ridiculously buggy with invisible void zones and the like. Nobody cleared this.
2nd version had bugged threat tables on the weapons (healing aggro still generated while they were "dead".) I don't believe anyone cleared this version.
3rd version was bug free but only 5 guilds managed to kill him before Blizzard decided it was overtuned.
4th version was what every other raiding guild cleared. Just version 3 but with less hp/damage.
5th version is his current form after all raids were hit by the massive 30% nerf at the end of Burning Crusade.

[Twistedelmo]

but be4 all that there were only spirit regen and mp5 from gear and blessing of wisdom.

r.i.p. Mp5!

[Kyanion]

Lol I never post, didn't mean to post twice. Don't care about forum etiquette, just the argument itself. Being old in this case doesn't make it wrong. It's a little relevant since Kronos is the first to try to legitimately copy the C'Thun experience, and he was just downed this last weekend. The issue seems relevant as long as people believe this was impossible (though no one did do it, I'm saying it wasn't impossible.)

Sorry for the necro, this seemed like the best place for these ideas. Where did the "snip" thing come from?

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, *blank* as a true-to-original scripting and scaling server makes it pretty useful as an analogy. It's not like *snip or *snip in the least...

LOL yeah no good fucking luck getting anyone to believe that some shit private server is 'true-to-original scripting'. Also quit naming PS you are just breaking more rules along with your pointless necro.

[Alvito]

So all this shows is the private server did not set up their server to actually copy the old vanilla server. If guilds are killing fights in half the time and doing fights that were considered impossible with such break neck speed then the fight and characters aren't a true mirror of what things were.

[Deathpath]

So all this shows is the private server did not set up their server to actually copy the old vanilla server. If guilds are killing fights in half the time and doing fights that were considered impossible with such break neck speed then the fight and characters aren't a true mirror of what things were.

You also have to consider the fact that those players are veterans with many years of raiding experience and also better PCs along with newer addons.

[Wani]

You also have to consider the fact that those players are veterans with many years of raiding experience and also better PCs along with newer addons.

C'thun was only impossible because it was bugged like hell. As soon as it was debugged, it was not that hard.