Are for certain bosses in certain phases high DPS still needed to break some kind of shield quickly enough?
Before WotLK it was still needed, but since I haven't raided anything in WotLK, I don't know about there.
;D
Yes it is still needed in pretty much everything raid wise. Fight that comes to mind first is the Twins fight.
Giving it about 3 seconds of thought, the Twin Valkyries in Trial need exactly that.. They have a shield that needs to have focused DPS on it in order to break it quick enough or they'll heal for a good amount.
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every single boss in toc is (at least to some degree) a dps race.
beasts: kill the current beast before the next incs/enrage
jaraxxus: kill portals volcanus before too many adds spawn
champs: kill them before they kill you xD
twins: break the shields before the heal
anub: bomb the 4 adds before the next spawn
...just another dream within a dream...
I'm gonna expand this to all "kill X before Y happens, given that Y is not just a plain ol' enrage":Originally Posted by LFW
* Sartharion +3,
* Activating XT-hardmode,
* Activating Thorim HM,
* Hodir HM,
* Freya adds in general,
* Vezax HM P2,
* Jaraxxus HM,
* Twin Val'kyr,
* many other fights if you want to continue to stretch the definition of "some kind of shield".
Most of the Ulduar HMs were tuned pretty well for the gear available at the time.