Four Horsemen Discussion--Why was it hard?

[Lolsteak]

Paid realm transfers were opened during Naxx. Hence why Nihilum mass recruited tanks.

There was quite a few free realm transfers during vanilla also

[babyback]

In patch 1.12.1 (Post-naxx release) it worked like this.

Taunt: Puts you at the same threat as the current top threat player as well as forces the boss to target you for the next 4 seconds during which time you better keep the top threat position otherwise the boss will let go of you again after the 4 seconds.

Mocking blow: Only forces the target to attack you for the next 4 seconds. It does not put you on top threat, making this very dangerous to use on 4hm unless you want to take a gamble and hope to GOD that your next taunt wont resist.

Challenging shout: Same as mocking blow, only its for all targets within 10yards and it lasts a little longer iirc, like 6 seconds.

Taunt used to work like mocking blow and challenging shout before BWL I think but I didnt play in early vanilla as I started after AQ release. I believe it was changed to accomodate the neccessary tactics for the 3 drake bosses in BWL.



KT yes I agree. Thaddius and Loatheb not really. Thaddius was all about switching between 2 positions depending on Plus and Minus as well as chugging Greater Nature protection potions. Much simpler than 4hm. Loatheb was a DPS check, (wbuff check really), consumables check (Greater shadow protection potions, tubers, healthstones) as well as awareness check for healers.



EDIT: You're thinking of Twin Emperors in AQ40.

I remember when our tanks had to use chall shout on 4hm. You prayed that you weren’t in range of another horsie.

I agree about Thadd and Loa beeing easy after you beat them. But imo they were more technical than 4hm. Once you had them both figured out it was always a kill. Then again I healed during Naxx so Loa was a snore fest.

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There was quite a few free realm transfers during vanilla also

There was indeed but they were to and from specific realms. If your realm was opened to a free transfer you could only go to the one listed by Blizzard

[Storfan]

I remember when our tanks had to use chall shout on 4hm. You prayed that you weren’t in range of another horsie.

I agree about Thadd and Loa beeing easy after you beat them. But imo they were more technical than 4hm. Once you had them both figured out it was always a kill. Then again I healed during Naxx so Loa was a snore fest.

Having only done vanilla naxx on Private servers I can only speak of having done them with pre-knowledge of all fights, addons and knowing exactly what consumables to pop and at which point of the fights. I believe we wiped 1-2 nights on Loatheb before being able to kill him and maybe half a night to Thaddius (if even that). 4hm though took us a few weeks to perfect all the moving parts and actually killing them. Again, this all with theoretical pre-knowledge of the fights although I'm sure a few people had actual experience from wayback too.

I did clear Naxx in early TBC though with a 40man lvl70 raid but it was obviously alot less of a challenge.

[Tekkommo]

To those that don't know, 4 Horsemen was arguably the most difficult fight Warcraft ever had.

No, it wasn't.

[Storfan]

No, it wasn't.

Yes and no I would say. For it's time absolutely considering they werent killed for months. Across all expansions side-by-side definitely not. Cthun pre-nerf was also to my knowledge completely impossible to kill due to incorrect tuning but I guess that probably doesnt count.

[babyback]

Having only done vanilla naxx on Private servers I can only speak of having done them with pre-knowledge of all fights, addons and knowing exactly what consumables to pop and at which point of the fights. I believe we wiped 1-2 nights on Loatheb before being able to kill him and maybe half a night to Thaddius (if even that). 4hm though took us a few weeks to perfect all the moving parts and actually killing them. Again, this all with theoretical pre-knowledge of the fights although I'm sure a few people had actual experience from wayback too.

I did clear Naxx in early TBC though with a 40man lvl70 raid but it was obviously alot less of a challenge.

I actually killed Thaddius as number two in the world and I can tell you that we had a lot of problems figuring them out. Especially Thaddius because that was something entirely new mechanics wise to previous bosses. Getting people to move clock wise or counter clockwise is apparently very hard. I think we killed Loatheb two weeks after or so, mostl due to the gear requirements.

Once Naxxramas was on farm the only bosses we wiped on were KT and 4HM. Most wipes on 4HM was due to the bs mechanics that you couldn’t avoid. It could literally be a wipe if were unlucky during the pull.

[Storfan]

I actually killed Thaddius as number two in the world and I can tell you that we had a lot of problems figuring them out. Especially Thaddius because that was something entirely new mechanics wise to previous bosses. I think we killed Loatheb two weeks after or so, mostl due to the gear requirements.

Once Naxxramas was on farm the only bosses we wiped on were KT and 4HM. Most wipes on 4HM was due to the bs mechanics that you couldn’t avoid. It could literally be a wipe if were unlucky during the pull.

The pull on 4hm is rarely an issue these days now that people know you can go all the way up to the throne by standing LoS from the bosses behind the pillars, that way you can avoid many issues with botched pulls. I guess alot of guilds didnt figure this out back in vanilla. Speaking of KT we still struggle with him even after having killed him 10-15 times. Some weeks we simply cant do it and always relying on worldbuffs. Our best try without worldbuffs was like 7%.

[babyback]

The pull on 4hm is rarely an issue these days now that people know you can go all the way up to the throne by standing LoS from the bosses behind the pillars, that way you can avoid many issues with botched pulls. I guess alot of guilds didnt figure this out back in vanilla. Speaking of KT we still struggle with him even after having killed him 10-15 times. Some weeks we simply cant do it and always relying on worldbuffs. Our best try without worldbuffs was like 7%.

I can’t remeber what we did but I think we split the raid into four groups and stood in each corner at the pull. AFAIK KT was broken all the way up until wotlk were he could spawn invisible void zones, mind controls that didn’t break and some times the last bug phase just didn’t start. So yea a lot of bs wipes on him too.... But he was a hard boss especially if the raid wasn’t on their toes. We always used flasks and world buffs even when on farm if I recall correctly.

[Inukashi]

EDIT: You're thinking of Twin Emperors in AQ40.

There too, but we did it on horseman out of desperation, not because it worked pretty good. Lady Blaumeux didn't hit with her sword but casted shadowbolts and warlocks with soullink were quite tanky against casters. We used two warlocks tanking with Searing Pain. The 'taunt' was letting one warlock die and battle rezzing him. There wasn't a combat rezz restriction back than and we had a lot of druids. After the first horseman died the free tanks could switch to Lady Blaumeux.

[Makatafinger]

I never did vanilla Naxx (seems like everyone here did) but it was quite a challenge in WOTLK too. Wasn't the hardest fight but it was sure hard to do the achievement.

[Whiskra]

The biggest reason it was unkilled for so long was because nobody figured out that you could create a safe zone for a long time. The entire theorycrafting process was thus focused on how and when you would rotate the raid in a way that would not have people killed but still not being able to get rid of the marks, making the apparent soft enrage completely insurmountable. When people did figure it out, it still needed 8 tanks for the most viable strategy.

[garicasha]

Ok I didn't know about the shield wall or thethreat drops, or that the marks originally took 75 secs to fall off.

It looks like Mograine's fire damage thing was for real: 25% chance to proc 2k fire damage + 4K over 8 secs + his melee + his marks?

I still am curious about how exactly missed taunts caused things to spiral. During a missed taunt, did the old tank stay in? Or with the threat drop, did that mean a missed taunt meant they'd run after a ranged and screw everything up?

Also, back then did Zeliek also have a melee? Because it seems like as in Wrath ezmode you could ignore Zeliek mostly until Thane died.

Also, how long did it take to run in and out as melee? Everyone was taking three marks, right? So if you start after a cast that's 11 sec to get in, first mark does 0/second, 2nd does 250, and 3rd does 1000? Or wait, did they not keep ticking like in Wrath, it was just the damage from the application?

Anyway 11 sec with zero, 12 sec w/1, 12 sec w/2, 12 sec with three, most of which must be spent running away, so it's roughly 48 secs uptime minus the time to run in and out for a melee?

Also...what fight required the second highest number of tanks, and how many? Also, did druids have a real taunt in Naxx?

[Hunterwep]

...always relying on worldbuffs. Our best try without worldbuffs was like 7%.

Out of curiosity do you know if or what world buffs remained through deaths, I know the ZG one was lost after dying after being patched.

[Projectmars]

On the subject of 4HM in Vanilla, Considering how Nightfall is an important debuff to have, but extra warriors tend to go tank for this fight, would having a paladin or two swap to ret be a good idea for this fight?

Still trying to figure out what class to roll and honestly the idea of mostly healing doesn't bug me as much.

[Whiskra]

I still am curious about how exactly missed taunts caused things to spiral. During a missed taunt, did the old tank stay in? Or with the threat drop, did that mean a missed taunt meant they'd run after a ranged and screw everything up?

A missed taunt meant that the tank had to stay in until the taunt came off cooldown, because while Mocking Blow and Challenging Shout would make the boss stay on the new tank, it would immediately start running after the swapped out tank the moment those effects ran out. This resulted in more marks on the tank that needed to swap = more damage on him, plus the fact that he had less time to go to the next boss and swap out for the tank over there, which meant things would eventually spiral out of control since you couldn't keep up with the marks stacking and the extra damage that meant, not to mention you would be out of tandem with the rest of the raid and your healers.

Also...what fight required the second highest number of tanks, and how many? Also, did druids have a real taunt in Naxx?

The 2nd number of tanks was probably used in Molten Core on Majordomo Executus: one for each warrior add (4) and two for Majordomo himself. Alternatively on Garr, depending on how many Warlocks you had. Garr had 8 adds which needed to either be tanked separately (at the appropriate gear level) or be banished by a Warlock.

That said, there were numerous fights in vanilla that required more than 3 tanks, but you usually had Fury warriors, or if really desperate, druids, go into tank mode and do some offtanking.

[babyback]

Out of curiosity do you know if or what world buffs remained through deaths, I know the ZG one was lost after dying after being patched.

None as far as I remeber. So if you got ganked on your way to the instance you were screwed. And that happened frequently since the plagueland involved PvP if there were a lot from the other faction around.

[garicasha]

How many wipes did it take the guilds that got it and hiw many consumables per wipe?

And how many wipes for learning it with all the info available now?

[Storfan]

I still am curious about how exactly missed taunts caused things to spiral. During a missed taunt, did the old tank stay in? Or with the threat drop, did that mean a missed taunt meant they'd run after a ranged and screw everything up?

Also, back then did Zeliek also have a melee? Because it seems like as in Wrath ezmode you could ignore Zeliek mostly until Thane died.

Also, how long did it take to run in and out as melee? Everyone was taking three marks, right? So if you start after a cast that's 11 sec to get in, first mark does 0/second, 2nd does 250, and 3rd does 1000? Or wait, did they not keep ticking like in Wrath, it was just the damage from the application?

Anyway 11 sec with zero, 12 sec w/1, 12 sec w/2, 12 sec with three, most of which must be spent running away, so it's roughly 48 secs uptime minus the time to run in and out for a melee?

Also...what fight required the second highest number of tanks, and how many? Also, did druids have a real taunt in Naxx?

1. If you are the new tank running in and having your taunt miss you have two options:
- Wait the 8-10 seconds (depending on talent imp taunt) for taunt to be ready again during which time the healers at that spot would have to keep both current tank and you up.
- Immediately use mocking blow or aoe taunt. This will only temporarily force the boss to hit you and he will break loose after the duration of the mocking/aoe taunt by which time you'll have to pray to god that your next taunt doesnt resist because if it does you're royaly fucked.

Out of curiosity do you know if or what world buffs remained through deaths, I know the ZG one was lost after dying after being patched.

As far as I know only ZG buff that was "fixed" at or around AQ40 patch.

EDIT: Unless that was a unblizzlike bug on old Nostalrius

On the subject of 4HM in Vanilla, Considering how Nightfall is an important debuff to have, but extra warriors tend to go tank for this fight, would having a paladin or two swap to ret be a good idea for this fight?

Still trying to figure out what class to roll and honestly the idea of mostly healing doesn't bug me as much.

For progress runs on 4hm most guilds will use more healers than average meaning there wont be room for any retridins. On average we use about 12-14 healers in Naxx (depending on what Wing and who shows up). For 4hm and Sapphiron we'd use 12-16 healers. Again, there is wiggle room depending on what classes of healers you got, wbuffs and quite frankly how good the individual players are.

How many wipes did it take the guilds that got it and hiw many consumables per wipe?

And how many wipes for learning it with all the info available now?

Are you looking for a list? For tanks and melee: A metric shit-ton. On progress tries we would practise dry first to get the mechanics correct before doing an serious attempt with full vaseline.

I dont know how many wipes it took for us to kill the boss on private server but I'm going to guess somewhere around 15-20 wipes.

[YouWillAllAnswerToSithis]

Old video of the guild by my buddy, Inudemon.

[Lynarii]

I still am curious about how exactly missed taunts caused things to spiral. During a missed taunt, did the old tank stay in? Or with the threat drop, did that mean a missed taunt meant they'd run after a ranged and screw everything up?

Basically, a missed taunt generally meant that the old tank had to stay in and take another stack, but the new tank was also in there at that point taking a stack as well. The extra stack on the old tank didn't just mean another tick of damage (though that sucked) but also two other problems. First, it means the tank's debuff takes another 12 seconds to fall off, meaning that they were out of sync with everyone else and people had to juggle things a bit to get it all lined up again, and second, it meant that someone was moving at a time where you didn't want them to be. There were other abilities going out, and you didn't want things like Thane's meteor or Zeliak's beam hitting anyone except for the people who were supposed to be hit by it.

Ultimately, 4h was a control fight. It's not that you couldn't recover from a missed taunt, but the more off-script your raid got, the harder it was. This was made worse by the fact that the raid was divided into distinct groups that had limited ability to support each other in a pinch. Even if your team was note perfect, it counted for nothing if another team ballsed up and now Zeliak is on his way to say hello to Thane's meteor soak team.