is Throne of Thunder a linear raid?

[RemJay24]

Is Throne of Thunder a linear raid where you fight bosses in a set order? (like heart of swarm, MSV, etc.)

Or are there "wings" like in Ulduar?

Thanks!

[Raxxed]

It's linear.
Jinrokh -> Horridon -> Council.
Then you jump down into the caverns.
Tortos -> Meghara -> Ji-Kun
More caverns
Durumu -> Primordius -> Dark Animus
Then you leave the sewers
Iron Qon -> Twins -> Lei Shen -> (Ra-Den)

[MrExcelion]

Throne of Thunder is a linear instance. It might not share that in common with Ulduar but it's still looking to be a great instance.

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

I dunno, linear instances arent all unfathomable evil. Personally, I find the forced farm before the potential progression fight to be a bit uplifting.

[Raxxed]

Throne of Thunder is a linear instance. It might not share that in common with Ulduar but it's still looking to be a great instance.

I dunno, linear instances arent all unfathomable evil. *Personally, I find the forced farm before the potential progression fight to be a bit uplifting.

It's really quite an amazing instance. I look forward to it on Live. I've not been this excited for a raid instance ever.

[clevin]

The main issue with linear raids is that some guilds only raid a couple of nights per reset and it takes, usually, one night to get through the farm bosses. That was one issue with Ulduar for the guild I'm in. We'd get through at least some of the keepers night one, but that only left one more night to do new bosses. I suppose we'll have to extend a lock here and there or raid a 3rd night until it's all farm.

[Devwar]

The main issue with linear raids is that some guilds only raid a couple of nights per reset and it takes, usually, one night to get through the farm bosses. That was one issue with Ulduar for the guild I'm in. We'd get through at least some of the keepers night one, but that only left one more night to do new bosses. I suppose we'll have to extend a lock here and there or raid a 3rd night until it's all farm.

This is one of the reason lockout extension was invented. My guild only raids two nights a week, and we've used the lockout extension multiple times to continue progression on later bosses in HoF.

[Raxxed]

The main issue with linear raids is that some guilds only raid a couple of nights per reset and it takes, usually, one night to get through the farm bosses. That was one issue with Ulduar for the guild I'm in. We'd get through at least some of the keepers night one, but that only left one more night to do new bosses. I suppose we'll have to extend a lock here and there or raid a 3rd night until it's all farm.

It's only 12 bosses, not 16 like this tier. You shouldn't need to extend more than like, once.

[RemJay24]

awesome, thx guys!

looking forward to it

[MrExcelion]

It's only 12 bosses, not 16 like this tier. You shouldn't need to extend more than like, once.

Curious how much trash there will be in this place. Seems like there's a room for a lot. And the one time they did have trash enabled it was overtuned lol. But you can mount up in parts of it.

[clevin]

Yeah, I know about the lockout (see my post...). It's always tricky doing that since you lose the attempts on the earlier bosses for that entire week and there's thus a tension between getting gear from them which will help the raid and extending so you have another night on the progression bosses.

Trash wasn't the issue in Ulduar, it's just that it takes some time to get to a boss, pull, kill, loot etc and if your raid isn't very efficient already you can lose time to looting, etc. It doesn't sound like much, but an extra 5 minutes of slack per boss and you've spend 30 mins on 6 bosses - and for a 6 hour a week raid, that's noticeable.

At the end of the day, it will be fine. We just need to be vigilant about time and intelligent about extensions vs loot.

[Raxxed]

Curious how much trash there will be in this place. Seems like there's a room for a lot. And the one time they did have trash enabled it was overtuned lol. But you can mount up in parts of it.

You raise a fair point. There is a lot of trash, most of it isn't just lolaoe everything while fapping.
Totally forgot about the trash. It takes a long time to get from boss to boss. (Much longer than the encounters themselves).

---------- Post added 2013-02-18 at 12:46 AM ----------

Yeah, I know about the lockout (see my post...). It's always tricky doing that since you lose the attempts on the earlier bosses for that entire week and there's thus a tension between getting gear from them which will help the raid and extending so you have another night on the progression bosses.

Trash wasn't the issue in Ulduar, it's just that it takes some time to get to a boss, pull, kill, loot etc and if your raid isn't very efficient already you can lose time to looting, etc. It doesn't sound like much, but an extra 5 minutes of slack per boss and you've spend 30 mins on 6 bosses - and for a 6 hour a week raid, that's noticeable.

At the end of the day, it will be fine. We just need to be vigilant about time and intelligent about extensions vs loot.

With a 6 hour raid week I wouldn't bother extending unless your raid is all 510+
Can't afford to waste time with such a small schedule. Just farm bosses, get more efficient, when you feel that everyone is appropriately geared, move on to the next part.

[clevin]

Raxxed,

Mostly that's what I suspect we'll do as long as there's a meaningful chance of gear from the stuff we're killing. The downside of it is if there's a complex boss and we only get to it later on night 2 - doesn't leave much learning time. But unlike Ulduar we have LFR to see something of the bosses and we can play it by ear. We're not out to rank,etc, we just raid for fun so it's not a huge issue.

[Deleted]

Meh, linear raids are the worst...for a number of reasons:

1. It forces guilds to kill the same bosses on the same night every week...meaning anyone who's always out on a given night will always miss certain bosses. (and if they're out on Wednesday they will pretty much fail to gear up)
2. It makes it stupidly easy for fair-weather players to predict when farm nights are on, so they can log on for those and avoid the progress nights. (which drags attendance down and funnels loot away from the players who actually need it)
3. If there's any setup-dependent bosses (like Will HC this tier), any guild who doesn't have the setup that night will be forced to cancel the raid instead of clearing some other bosses. (or attempting to progress on a different boss)
4. Any guild that only raids 2-3 nights a week won't get to clear everything (depending on where they're up to), and instead will have to choose between gear and progression. (as has already been mentioned)

When will Blizz learn that linear raids screw guilds over? Or do they not consider issues that affect the people?

[Deleted]

Meh, linear raids are the worst...for a number of reasons:

1. It forces guilds to kill the same bosses on the same night every week...meaning anyone who's always out on a given night will always miss certain bosses. (and if they're out on Wednesday they will pretty much fail to gear up)
2. It makes it stupidly easy for fair-weather players to predict when farm nights are on, so they can log on for those and avoid the progress nights. (which drags attendance down and funnels loot away from the players who actually need it)
3. If there's any setup-dependent bosses (like Will HC this tier), any guild who doesn't have the setup that night will be forced to cancel the raid instead of clearing some other bosses. (or attempting to progress on a different boss)
4. Any guild that only raids 2-3 nights a week won't get to clear everything (depending on where they're up to), and instead will have to choose between gear and progression. (as has already been mentioned)

When will Blizz learn that linear raids screw guilds over? Or do they not consider issues that affect the people?

Sounds like it's a guild issue and not Blizzard's.

[Cirque]

Meh, linear raids are the worst...for a number of reasons:

1. It forces guilds to kill the same bosses on the same night every week...meaning anyone who's always out on a given night will always miss certain bosses. (and if they're out on Wednesday they will pretty much fail to gear up)
2. It makes it stupidly easy for fair-weather players to predict when farm nights are on, so they can log on for those and avoid the progress nights. (which drags attendance down and funnels loot away from the players who actually need it)
3. If there's any setup-dependent bosses (like Will HC this tier), any guild who doesn't have the setup that night will be forced to cancel the raid instead of clearing some other bosses. (or attempting to progress on a different boss)
4. Any guild that only raids 2-3 nights a week won't get to clear everything (depending on where they're up to), and instead will have to choose between gear and progression. (as has already been mentioned)

When will Blizz learn that linear raids screw guilds over? Or do they not consider issues that affect the people?

TBH that really sounds like a guild issue, not a linear raid issue. If your raiders only show up for farm, and loot is being wasted on those people, you only have your guild to blame. Guilds that don't clear everything in 3 nights.. Well, I don't expect such guilds would clear it all even if they had 4 or 5 nights, as that would be a player issue more than a raid issue. And as for the setup, that's pretty much the case for any boss. Any setup will work for normal - and on heroic, pretty much every boss favours some setup or another. That's why a lot of heroic guilds have alts standby. If the first points are a concern, I doubt you're a serious heroic guild. So now, IMO those are not arguments to favour non-linear raids.

Besides, non-linear raids bring issues on itself:

- The bosses that can be picked from have to have the same gear requirement; there'll be no progression within that set of bosses gearwise as is the case with linear raids. This is a limitation on itself for Blizzard and not necessarily beneficial to player experience;
- Nonetheless, bosses will still have differences in difficulties, pretty much forcing any progressing guild a set order anyway. One did not simply do ignis or mimiron first. Sure, once you have everything on farm you can actually pick-and-choose, but by then why would you care what order you do it in, since the raid will be cleared in 1-2 nights at that point anyway?

[Ninotchka]

I'm guessing that the structure of LFR makes it easier to make a linear raid than a branching raid. But with this one, in 4 groups of 3 bosses, I would have liked to have seen a branch. My ideal design for this raid would be, 1,2,3 have to be done in order, 4,5,6 have to be done in order, 7,8,9 have to be done in order and 10,11,12 have to be done in order. But once you clear 3 you have a branch where you can attack 4 or 7. You'd have to clear both 6 and 9 in order to access 10. This would allow for variety and flexibility, and give you somewhere to go gear up if your progression reaches a block in the middle doldrums.

I enjoy weighing the tradeoff arguments on a multiple instance tier. When we hit the block on Elegon it was nice to have Zor'lok and Ta'yak to go progress on. When we hit the block with Garalon it was nice to take a break and get Stone Guard and Feng heroic. It was nice to have a bunch of options to play with when we first got to Firelands and learned to loathe Rhyolith.

More options equal happier raiders, although there is a bit of second guessing the raid leader that goes on.

[bigbad]

I like linear for next tier, deciding where to go each week is giving me a headache.

[Salanis]

Being in a 9 hour a week raiding guild is going to suck on those later tier bosses, It would be nice if the first few bosses of the tier are easier heroic than the last bosses are normal, so that killing the first few doesn't feel like time wasted, as MV would have by the time we had reached ToES.

[Blueobelisk]

I like linear, it takes the stress out of choosing which boss order you should do, not to mention the time it takes deciding and testing the different bosses. It also makes it easier to track progression world first race.