Four Horsemen Discussion--Why was it hard?

[Enchant]

I absolutely LOVE seeing old videos like this. Thanks for the link.

No problem.

[Storfan]

I absolutely LOVE seeing old videos like this. Thanks for the link.

I dont know if it interest you but here is a video of a full 2hour+ Speedrun clear of Naxxramas on the day of its release 4 days ago on the very popular private server LightBringer.

4hm is 1h38min into the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbtFtBWq3Zk

Important to note is that although this is a private server the scripting is damn near perfect and very very close to how the original was.

[garicasha]

I watched the 4 Horsemen kill...all 6 minutes and 19 seconds of it. I'm going purely off what I've read from forums, but isn't that like...10 minutes ahead of what it used to take?

Also, feel free to post what all his buffs are, I don't even recognize half of them.

[Storfan]

I watched the 4 Horsemen kill...all 6 minutes and 19 seconds of it. I'm going purely off what I've read from forums, but isn't that like...10 minutes ahead of what it used to take?

Also, feel free to post what all his buffs are, I don't even recognize half of them.

Yes it is. But we're talking about some of the best players in the world (and I'm actually not exagerating). These are incredibly skilled players with ALOT more experience than the average Naxx raider in 2006. Alot of them are the very same players that did the early Naxx kills back in 2006.

tldr: The best players in the world can make anything look easy, even though it isnt.

EDIT: For reference. Our 4hm kill last night took 9+ minutes and we've been farming Naxx for 6 months with a good portion of the raid having full T3 while this guild was pretty much AQ40 bis geared along with some HWL/GM gear.
https://legacyplayers.com/Raids/View...id=15024&exp=0

A prime example of how skill>gear in many cases.

EDIT2: I'm not sure which buffs you are refering to. The only ones that kindof sticks out are the ungoro-pillar buffs which indeed wasnt used by many back in vanilla. Heck, I didnt even know they existed back then.

[garicasha]

Ok well we're gonna have to go a bit deeper in to skill > gear, which I know is true...but if the warlock rotation is spam shadowbolt....

[Storfan]

Ok well we're gonna have to go a bit deeper in to skill > gear, which I know is true...but if the warlock rotation is spam shadowbolt....

Skill is not only about knowing your rotation, and warlocks/mages is a bad example as they do indeed have a simple rotation. Skill is also about situational awareness, being able to take in, sort and prioritize various bits of information and taking the correct action from that information. It is about teamwork. It is about using the right abilities, consumables and executing the correct manuveurs. It is about being able to handle stress better than the average person.

Skill is a wide term.

[Trickname]

Hope it's not too off-topic but what exactly was that rant about at the end of the speedrun video?

[Storfan]

Hope it's not too off-topic but what exactly was that rant about at the end of the speedrun video?

Conspiracy theories and the regular ol' shit-show of corruption that always plagues Private servers. I will not comment on what is right or wrong there as I dont play on that specific server.

It is not uncommon though for the devs to be also playing on that very same server, just as blizzard employees also played the game itself.

[Echocho]

It wasn't difficult one bit. The mechanics were easy, the classes were easy, getting 40 characters ready for the fight on the other hand was hard. Most guilds never even got 8 tanks with the set bonus before TBC came out, heck most guilds didn't even have 8 warriors combined.

[epLe]

I killed vanilla 4H in wtop10 and it was difficult because of alot of reasons, but putting all that aren't directly related to the encounter aside (like gear req etc), and only look at the encounter and what it presented :

It was the coordination, how to get everyone to move and rotate at individual timers and correctly down to the seconds, while still covering every class needed at every corner, and handling all the debuffs and individual boss mechanics for the whole fight.


Also Pirate servers are very poor comparison, it is always alot easier to do something many has done before you.
Even if they actually made a pirate server which would represent 1.11 naxx properly.

[Roxyfoxy]

Clearing naxx is all about preparation.

Guilds that clear naxx quickly on private servers, started the naxx preparation before they set foot into MC for the first time. We know that 8 tanks are needed, so there is no reason to wait until naxx is close with recruiting them.



Keeping your guildies is also a very important part, cause you dont want to gear up people that wont be there when you reach the goal you set.

My guild for instance, stared in december 2015, we went trough a 6 month shutdown, 11 months of bwl and a server hijacking. And we still had 20 original members when we killed kel'thuzad. We had a very well geared guild due to not replacing many members. And a guild like the one in the 2h naxx clear video probably had most of their members from the very beginning.

Also, split raids are a thing. Most of these hardcore guilds will split their raid in 2-4 raids, and fill it up with alts and pugs and reserve the items they want for their main characters, so every member is BiS geared or very close when a new raid releases.

In addition to the PTR being up for naxx for a long time so they could practice there before the raid released on their server.

[Storfan]

I killed vanilla 4H in wtop10 and it was difficult because of alot of reasons, but putting all that aren't directly related to the encounter aside (like gear req etc), and only look at the encounter and what it presented :

It was the coordination, how to get everyone to move and rotate at individual timers and correctly down to the seconds, while still covering every class needed at every corner, and handling all the debuffs and individual boss mechanics for the whole fight.


Also Pirate servers are very poor comparison, it is always alot easier to do something many has done before you.
Even if they actually made a pirate server which would represent 1.11 naxx properly.

Clearing naxx is all about preparation.

Guilds that clear naxx quickly on private servers, started the naxx preparation before they set foot into MC for the first time. We know that 8 tanks are needed, so there is no reason to wait until naxx is close with recruiting them.



Keeping your guildies is also a very important part, cause you dont want to gear up people that wont be there when you reach the goal you set.

My guild for instance, stared in december 2015, we went trough a 6 month shutdown, 11 months of bwl and a server hijacking. And we still had 20 original members when we killed kel'thuzad. We had a very well geared guild due to not replacing many members. And a guild like the one in the 2h naxx clear video probably had most of their members from the very beginning.

Also, split raids are a thing. Most of these hardcore guilds will split their raid in 2-4 raids, and fill it up with alts and pugs and reserve the items they want for their main characters, so every member is BiS geared or very close when a new raid releases.

In addition to the PTR being up for naxx for a long time so they could practice there before the raid released on their server.

Yes, I agree 100%. I only linked the video because it's quite entertaining.

[anon5123]

Mechanically, the fight was VERY simple. Every boss only had 2 abilities: mark, and 1 other ability. One did a void zone, one did a chain lightning, one did a meteor, and I can't remember what the last one did.

It was only "hard" because it required eight very good geared tanks, and the slightest fuck-up would domino effect into a wipe. If a taunt got resisted? Someone would get too many marks, usually a tank death. Wipe. Stuff like that. That's why you needed all those tanks to have 4 piece T3, to greatly reduce the chance of a taunt resist.

[Roxyfoxy]

Yes, I agree 100%. I only linked the video because it's quite entertaining.

yea, i just wanted to point out that clearing naxx around the 2h mark is not something the average guild can do I was shocked when saw their clear time, after i myself had cleared the same raid on pve server, where we spendt maybe 5-6 hours for a full clear on farm night.

[Orby]

I never got to Naxx in vanilla, was the only raid I never got around to doing

[Storfan]

yea, i just wanted to point out that clearing naxx around the 2h mark is not something the average guild can do I was shocked when saw their clear time, after i myself had cleared the same raid on pve server, where we spendt maybe 5-6 hours for a full clear on farm night.

We've been clearing Naxx for 4-5 months now and this Thursday was the first time ever we managed to fully clear all of Naxx in the same night. it took about 3.5-4h with full worldbuffs and one wipe on 1% at Sapphiron.

EDIT: We popped new worldbuffs after the Sapphiron wipe so we'd manage to kill him and KT easier.

[XDurionX]

It was realy a Rng fight... 1 missed taunt = everything went wrong in raid.

And if that wasnt a problem, if a single person did a debuff wrong, it was shown as a dps/healer loss and bosses went down too slow at some part. Damage was already bad with 8 tanks. We tried at that time with 4 tanks and lots of dps, but it was much worse.

Each boss had a stacking aura araund them --) get to many and you die
So you have to keep switching places.

One strategy we used was a clockwork fight (failed a lot btw), where whole group -- exept tanks and healers went from 1 boss --did as much damage as posible before to many debuffs -- moved to next on, but them you get hit by a Aoe from a north-left one.

Taunt being able to miss was REALLY shitty design and would be a wipe nowadays as well as back then.

[McFuu]

Needing 8 well geared warrior tanks. Think about it. Has any other fight required 20% of the raid to be well geared tanks that were all the same class?

Not only that, but I'm pretty sure TBC was already announced and coming when Naxx and this fight were even viable to be done. The game had entered a between expansion lull so there were just plain less players even attempting Naxx.

[garicasha]

I was really hoping that I'd get to experience a little bit of the struggle of Naxx in classic, but if it's being crushed within hours of release...that might not be the case.

Also, do these guys powerclearing it day 1 know the mechanics to the point that taunt resists aren't an issue?

[Storfan]

I was really hoping that I'd get to experience a little bit of the struggle of Naxx in classic, but if it's being crushed within hours of release...that might not be the case.

Also, do these guys powerclearing it day 1 know the mechanics to the point that taunt resists aren't an issue?

That is correct. 1 taunt resist is no biggie if you know to to handle it right with rotations adapting to it. By the looks of the previous video they are doing the tank switch on 2 marks (as do we) which means you can handle even 2 resisted taunts without the entire thing breaking down. The struggle will never be the same as it was back when Naxx first release due to all tactics and requirements being known now. You will not however "crush naxx within hours of release" unless you actually play with a guild like this one. The top of the top that is.