Heroic Argus is too easy for an end-of-expansion boss

[ItsTiddles]

Additionally, where is this unwritten rule that the final boss needs to be the hardest? That has often not been true throughout WoW and all MMO's that came before it. Just off the top of my head, the hardest boss in BWL was Vaelastasz (2nd boss), the hardest boss in Sunwell was M'uru (5th of 6 bosses, and then Brutallus: 2nd boss), not Sargeras. Hardest Dragon Soul boss was probably Spine (2nd last) or even Warmaster (3rd last), not Madness. The hardest boss in Throne of Thunder on release for 10m was Horridon (2nd boss) and for 25m was Lei Shen (2nd last boss). The list could go on for ages.
didn't know the mechanic and so didn't do it". Mythic problems are like, "I knew what I needed to do, but physically couldn't do it while dealing with everything else going on"

I don't know why people think the difficulty always should be harder with each boss. In Mythic HFC, Gorefiend was a big block and known as a guild killer while the next 3 bosses were far easier. I had more wipes on Mannoroth than Archimonde, as well.

[Tradu]

Heroic Argus is not the highest difficulty, so he doesn't need to be the hardest boss in the expansion. I would argue there are still Mythic Nighthold and Tomb bosses that are and should be harder than Heroic Antorus bosses: because they are mechanics based.

Heroic is designed so that guilds who would clear Normal, can continue to progress through the expansion once they outgear Normal too much to find any interest in it.
If you want actual difficulty in WoW, you need to be Mythic raiding.

Additionally, where is this unwritten rule that the final boss needs to be the hardest? That has often not been true throughout WoW and all MMO's that came before it. Just off the top of my head, the hardest boss in BWL was Vaelastasz (2nd boss), the hardest boss in Sunwell was M'uru (5th of 6 bosses, and then Brutallus: 2nd boss), not Sargeras. Hardest Dragon Soul boss was probably Spine (2nd last) or even Warmaster (3rd last), not Madness. The hardest boss in Throne of Thunder on release for 10m was Horridon (2nd boss) and for 25m was Lei Shen (2nd last boss). The list could go on for ages.

If anything, I would expect Mythic Aggramar will be the hardest, and Mythic Argus will be no pushover either, requiring hundreds of attempts. Heroic bosses generally aren't 'difficult', they just require that you learn the actual mechanics. The difficulty is having the attention and passion to gain the knowledge of the fight mechanics to beat virtually any heroic boss (vs. afking or looking at facebook when your raid leader is giving a 30m explanation, or your guild leader asks you to watch the video before the raid comes out... and you don't).

There is virtually no challenge in executing heroic fights if you all know all the mechanics. Heroic problems are, "I knew the mechanic, but then I didn't do it because it would have cost me DPS to move" or "I didn't know the mechanic and so didn't do it". Mythic problems are like, "I knew what I needed to do, but physically couldn't do it while dealing with everything else going on"

Are you actually serious? There's meant to be a difficulty curve, where the bosses get progressively harder as you go through the instance. That is literally the goal Blizzard has stated in every interview they've ever done on the topic, and it's the only logical way of handling difficulty. It'd be like if the last year of <insert any education here> had easier content/topics than the penultimate one, which I hope is very clearly retarded.

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I don't know why people think the difficulty always should be harder with each boss. In Mythic HFC, Gorefiend was a big block and known as a guild killer while the next 3 bosses were far easier. I had more wipes on Mannoroth than Archimonde, as well.

Because if you kill a boss, and the boss afterwards is extremely easy, that's a shitty difficulty curve. You're meant to be fighting progressively harder bosses as you go through the instance. That's how progression works. If the first boss is a brick wall, and then every boss after that is a complete joke, that's failed design. The same goes if you move the wall further into the instance, the bosses afterwards should always be harder, otherwise you end up in a situation where guilds who are good enough to kill boss #10 but not good enough to kill #9 feel cheated out of a boss kill because the order of bosses is wrong in terms of difficulty ramping.

[Nitros14]

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Heroic Argus is not the highest difficulty, so he doesn't need to be the hardest boss in the expansion. I would argue there are still Mythic Nighthold and Tomb bosses that are and should be harder than Heroic Antorus bosses: because they are mechanics based.

Heroic is designed so that guilds who would clear Normal, can continue to progress through the expansion once they outgear Normal too much to find any interest in it.
If you want actual difficulty in WoW, you need to be Mythic raiding.

Additionally, where is this unwritten rule that the final boss needs to be the hardest? That has often not been true throughout WoW and all MMO's that came before it. Just off the top of my head, the hardest boss in BWL was Vaelastasz (2nd boss), the hardest boss in Sunwell was M'uru (5th of 6 bosses, and then Brutallus: 2nd boss), not Sargeras. Hardest Dragon Soul boss was probably Spine (2nd last) or even Warmaster (3rd last), not Madness. The hardest boss in Throne of Thunder on release for 10m was Horridon (2nd boss) and for 25m was Lei Shen (2nd last boss). The list could go on for ages.

If anything, I would expect Mythic Aggramar will be the hardest, and Mythic Argus will be no pushover either, requiring hundreds of attempts. Heroic bosses generally aren't 'difficult', they just require that you learn the actual mechanics. The difficulty is having the attention and passion to gain the knowledge of the fight mechanics to beat virtually any heroic boss (vs. afking or looking at facebook when your raid leader is giving a 30m explanation, or your guild leader asks you to watch the video before the raid comes out... and you don't).

There is virtually no challenge in executing heroic fights if you all know all the mechanics. Heroic problems are, "I knew the mechanic, but then I didn't do it because it would have cost me DPS to move" or "I didn't know the mechanic and so didn't do it". Mythic problems are like, "I knew what I needed to do, but physically couldn't do it while dealing with everything else going on"

I'm not sure in what world Brutallus was harder than Kil'jaeden in Sunwell.

But I'll point out that SK Gaming killed Brutallus in one pull and spent five days progressing Kil'jaeden for world first.

I'll also point out that Vaelastrasz was killed the day BWL came out, and Nefarian took 74 days to die.

[Stormragerr]

The Argus fight would be not necessarily a lot harder but would not be as forgiving as it is, if you did not all res in the death phase. If people that were dead before the phase kills you stay dead, the fight would be a bit of a challenge I imagine. Obviously not for mythic raiders, my guild steamrolled this yesterday in 2 pulls I think and that was with half our raid not bothering to watch videos because they were told it was so easy. For heroic raiders without the auto res mechanic this boss would be a slight challenge, yes it is still slightly undertuned and could have mechanics added or have the current ones happen faster.. But the auto res in my opinion is what will make this such a cake walk for heroic guilds.

[Tojara]

Argus is probably one of the easiest end bosses in a while. Xavius was easier, and I believe Madness of Deathwing was pretty easy as well.

Coven, Varimathras and Aggramar are all quite a bit more difficult (but still not as hard as some of the hardest bosses in ToS) than Argus is.

It doesn't really matter though, it's just heroic. Organized pugs will actually have something to chew of for awhile, and hopefully the difficulty curve with 11 bosses is such that Antorus isn't an absolute disaster. Varimathras is about as pass/fail as Maiden was and Coven can kill people if they aren't paying attention. Aggramar isn't too difficult if you overheal it.

Honestly aside from Eonar (which I think it's absolute cancer, and is a really dumb boss for some specs) the instance is fairly enjoyable. Have to wait until Mythic though.

[Phookah]

I too can make a fight look really easy when I leave out half the mechanics.

Not to say he isn't tuned too easy or whatever, but it doesn't help your argument to leave out information.

[Yvaelle]

I'm not sure in what world Brutallus was harder than Kil'jaeden in Sunwell.

But I'll point out that SK Gaming killed Brutallus in one pull and spent five days progressing Kil'jaeden for world first.

I'll also point out that Vaelastrasz was killed the day BWL came out, and Nefarian took 74 days to die.

I disagree that world first dates are an objective measure of difficulty.
World first raiders represent such a tiny portion of the wow population that despite their skills, gear, organization, and time - they aren't reflective of the population at large, and they are often experiencing something for the first time it was released - meaning they had to come up with the solution without any guides or insight into the fight.

That is a completely different experience than literally every other guild in WoW, even world Top 100 guilds, who have the advantage of knowing how the World First crowd did it. Sometimes a guild figures out a fight instantly, sometimes it takes a month of wiping until they try something weird / nonintuitive, and then that becomes the canon strat for everyone following them: including the other world first calibre guilds.

They also deal with broken mechanics or bad tuning routinely - this often means nobody can kill it until it is nerfed (ex. Ragnaros, Lich King, etc) and then as soon as it is nerfed - multiple top guilds kill it in the same day: skill isn't determining the # of days before the first kill - dev balance cycles are determining # of days in those cases.

Brutallus probably killed more guilds than any other WoW boss ever. That's obviously not represented in world first clear time, but all the rest that came after them - the number of guilds who cleared BT and Kalecgos and got to Brutallus, versus the number of guilds that ever killed Brutallus in tier, was one of the steepest drop offs ever.

BWL Nefarian was unkillable which is why he took so long. Drama was the world first kill, and they killed it through an exploit, for which they were suspended as a result, after which Blizzard nerfed it: then a bunch of guilds got it after the nerfs.

Difficulty is subjective, it's an experience. Some guilds are going to find some bosses way easier due to their composition or capabilities of their raiders (ex. good at dodging mechanics, vs. good at putting out 95%+ percentile DPS in a complex fight, vs. good at special roles). There isn't a great way to objectively measure difficulty, which does mean that it's going to be my opinion/experience against yours. As example, my guild ran two raid teams for a number of tiers. I lead team 2 (absorbed another guild) - we one shot Sindragosa and Al'akir where team 1 struggled on both of those for weeks (I actually went over to lead their Sindragosa kill eventually on my alt).

[sam86]

Wait, what? Heroic Garrosh was incredibly easy. Paragons was a harder fight than Garrosh.

not ? paragons mix was weird yes but harder ? not by a mile

He's easier than half the bosses in the same raid. .

i'm right now taking break from wow, but i bet i'll back soon to get my taste of that boss
and while i'm ok with him being easy, being easier (and seems everyone agree here on that) than the same raid earlier bosses isn't ok, specially for the last boss of the expansion
But blizz never overtuned a boss before, and i mean ever, i don't remember that happening ever in wow history, even back when they were making brutal raid bosses like in TBC (anyone remember they released Black Temple while no one on earth killed Kael yet, no one attuned to enter the raid and blizz still released it lol), bug fixes they do that (and usually nerf bosses with it), but 'buff' boss after it was released live ? I'd be happy if anyone tell me if they ever did that

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I'm not sure in what world Brutallus was harder than Kil'jaeden in Sunwell.

But I'll point out that SK Gaming killed Brutallus in one pull and spent five days progressing Kil'jaeden for world first.

I'll also point out that Vaelastrasz was killed the day BWL came out, and Nefarian took 74 days to die.

Sunwell KJ isn't ranked in 'hardest bosses' ever because of Entropis, no one passed entropis, blizz released statement during TBC that less than 0.6% (i admit not sure of number, we talk about 10+ years here) were able to kill him, to actually start see "KJ" and test if he was easy or not, it was a big reason of why wrath era raids were never as brutal as TBC, and no raid is ever as brutal as back then since that day.
So talking about Sunwell, I'm sure that Brutallus isn't the hardest, he was a BRUTAL gear check boss that needed maximum gear and flask and potion (he was reason why herbers go to swamp of sorrow to farm herbs for elixir of demonslaying because it gives like +10 ap, yes u needed even +10 ap, i remember i made fortune from that), he was still straight forward fight, unlike Entropis which was basically FUCK U and FUCK EVERYONE WHO EVER CARED ABOUT U
Seriously even watching Entropis how to kill videos were hard -.-

[Tehterokkar]

not ? paragons mix was weird yes but harder ? not by a mile

i'm right now taking break from wow, but i bet i'll back soon to get my taste of that boss
and while i'm ok with him being easy, being easier (and seems everyone agree here on that) than the same raid earlier bosses isn't ok, specially for the last boss of the expansion
But blizz never overtuned a boss before, and i mean ever, i don't remember that happening ever in wow history, even back when they were making brutal raid bosses like in TBC (anyone remember they released Black Temple while no one on earth killed Kael yet, no one attuned to enter the raid and blizz still released it lol), bug fixes they do that (and usually nerf bosses with it), but 'buff' boss after it was released live ? I'd be happy if anyone tell me if they ever did that

Il'gynoth Mythic. They buffed him so that you couldn't 1 phase it anymore and was forced to do 2 phases of add control. Our guild did it week 1 with the zerg strat, next week we had to re-progress the boss because we never saw like 60% of the intended fight.

[Tradu]

Il'gynoth Mythic. They buffed him so that you couldn't 1 phase it anymore and was forced to do 2 phases of add control. Our guild did it week 1 with the zerg strat, next week we had to re-progress the boss because we never saw like 60% of the intended fight.

Elerethe Renferal as well, almost doubled her HP so people actually got to the 3rd(mythic-only) platform. Hellfire High Council also got buffed a few times, either directly or through bug fixes.

[Siglius]

Il'gynoth Mythic. They buffed him so that you couldn't 1 phase it anymore and was forced to do 2 phases of add control. Our guild did it week 1 with the zerg strat, next week we had to re-progress the boss because we never saw like 60% of the intended fight.

I sincerly hope they do something about him. Feels pretty usatisfying rn.

[Jastall]

I don't know why people think the difficulty always should be harder with each boss. In Mythic HFC, Gorefiend was a big block and known as a guild killer while the next 3 bosses were far easier. I had more wipes on Mannoroth than Archimonde, as well.

Archimonde may have been easier than Mannoroth for some groups, but he was by no means easy or undertuned, and his Heroic version still happily wiped raid upon raid months after release. Argus is just that, easy, because he has so few relevant mechanics. Now I'll concede, something other than Mythic raiders will possibly struggle with the DPS check in ph4 and take more damage than we did from falling embers, so he's probably not going to be total faceroll for the Heroic playerbase. But it's still wrong that half the bosses in the instance seem harder mechanically, to use the HFC example it's as if Iskar or Tyrant were mechanically harder than Archimonde. Makes no sense, I think.

To me, Coven and Aggramar were the only bosses that felt like Heroic bosses. We're week 1, even Heroic bosses should be a bit of a snag. Argus is just not. He could be in the middle of the instance and his tuning would fit right in.

[sam86]

Brutallus probably killed more guilds than any other WoW boss ever. That's obviously not represented in world first clear time, but all the rest that came after them - the number of guilds who cleared BT and Kalecgos and got to Brutallu

we cleared BT and wiped on sunwell trash -.-, Sunwell was a whole different set of raid difficulty that even until today (also i admit i stopped serious raiding since WoD release) never met or heard about
Sunwell had debuff that fucked tanks badly, and even trash had insane healing output that made wound poison suddenly a great raiding poison, after the nerfs to earlier raids like Kael and Vashj, and how easy BT becomes when u get full raid gear from it, Sunwell was a sudden HUGE difficulty step that no one forsaw
on my server back then (ghostlands eu) the top guild killed Brutallus less than 1 month of the wrath patch release (before new talents etc), we talk about guilds that were farming BT/MHJ for even for gearing alts, yet Sunwell was a huge wall in difficulty curves from anything else met
also Naxx was probably even harder, it had at least some 'ok' boss that u can kill, not trash that fuck u from start (i know that naxx had that ghost trash who u had to kite and many hard 'trash' too, but they aren't from start, and no i didn't raid naxx at its lvl, i read about it)
remember back then raiding was mostly server-wide not really game wide, the server was all the community for u, u rarely know what happens on other servers, so if anyone had far easier time in raids in other servers it is unrelated

[NatePsy]

Competent guilds will clear Heroic within the first week or two and head to Mythic and hit a wall while lesser guilds will clear Normal easily and hit walls with certain bosses on Heroic.

I don't see what the problem is, go do Mythic next week?

[Deleted]

I can only imagine people writing bullshit a la "you're in a mythic guild and overgearing it hurr durr" haven't actually done the fight themselves yet, otherwise I pray for your intelligence.

The problems in P1 and P2 have NOTHING to do with "overgearing" (read: tuning), it's entirely about mechanics being too easy/few. The problem with P3 is the free rezz for everyone, again mechanics. Only in P4 tuning becomes the issue. But even there it's not about overgearing: with 10 avg ilvl less the health of the boss would still be an absolute joke.

Also how can someone actually compare sidestepping scythe/running out with bomb vs. soaking armageddons on kj and come to the conclusion it's equal in terms of difficulty? Like are you really so dumb that you can't spot the multiple levels of complexity spanning difference here (hint: raid coordination - ever heard of it)? If so please refrain from posting in "Raids & Dungeons", your input is absolutely useless.

[Siglius]

Welp looking at hotfixes it looks like Argus would very often not cast Soulbomb at all in p4. Looking at logs and killvids it looks like a very common bug. Interresting to see how much that changes the fight.

[Aeula]

Really? Thank fuck. Once I’ve killed him I can more or less unsubscribe or refocus my playtime on roleplaying or something more fun.

[Deleted]

Welp looking at hotfixes it looks like Argus would very often not cast Soulbomb at all in p4. Looking at logs and killvids it looks like a very common bug. Interresting to see how much that changes the fight.

Absolutely nothing, the hotfix was already live this evening in EU. With decent dps you get exactly 1(!) soul bomb. Damn finally need a single rezz from the tree after the initial rezz.

[Siglius]

Absolutely nothing, the hotfix was already live this evening in EU. With decent dps you get exactly 1(!) soul bomb. Damn finally need a single rezz from the tree after the initial rezz.

What kinda DPS did you have to only get one soulbomb? Did you kill the final phase in like 40 secs or some shit? Most vids I've looked at would have gotten 3 or 4 depending on DPS.

[Will]

I'm not sure I would trust the tuning insight of someone who only raids heroic.

Someone who only raids heroic actually provides MORE valuable insight in this case, because s/he represents heroic's target audience. A mythic raider has less-valuable input, because their abilities are far beyond what heroic is intended for, whereas a player who fits heroic's target criteria is the person it was specifically tuned for. A mythic raider is going to find anything less than mythic 'undertuned'.

If a predominantly heroic-focused raider thinks it's too easy as an end boss, I think that they have a perfectly valid point. An end boss shouldn't feel drastically easier than the end boss of the previous raid. It's anticlimactic to say the least.