Is Sepulcher the most difficult raid tier ever?

[garicasha]

Both for world-first and for the rest of us.

Halondrus mythic taking 300-450+ pulls for the four guilds that have gotten him, no one has Mythic Anduin down yet, and there's 3 more after him.

I'm also seeing guilds with Mythic Sylvanas experience not have a Heroic Anduin kill yet either, although presumably by the end of the week a lot more of those will go out.

And as someone that has pugged a great deal over the last fifteen years (and not raided in a guild at all in Shadowlands), I'm genuinely at a loss for how I'm gonna get past Anduin on Normal. I'm gonna try and stack a group probably next week when the second legendaries become available. I've heard tales of a few raiders that at least know of people that have gotten him in a pug, but literally haven't met anyone that's done it yet as of Wednesday of the third reset.

(Although the 25% nerf to the despair went live yesterday which should massively help.)

Trololol I've even heard LFR Halondrus is a real bear.

[Ezyah]

Tuned around 4p and double Lego we don't have that's all

[Gimlix]

Pretty sure there has been raids that took much longer to down bosses. but i do hope it isn't the easiest raid. A good challenge is always good to have.

[Leyre]

Halondrus took forever because melees were being retards with "muh dps" and not doing mechanics properly

[unbound]

rofl

Not even close. Mythic raiding only opened a little over a week ago. Even if it takes them another week, they won't crack the top 20 longest times to down the final boss of a raid.

[Toybox]

rofl

Not even close. Mythic raiding only opened a little over a week ago. Even if it takes them another week, they won't crack the top 20 longest times to down the final boss of a raid.

Most of those that took ages to kill are irrelevant though. TK taking as long as it did means very little other than people were poor at the game back then. Anything pre-MoP can be mostly ignored IMO.

Is SotFO the hardest tier ever? Too early to tell. Tomb of Sargeras stands out as KJ lasted into the third week if memory serves - we'll have to see how the last 3 bosses go for Liquid/Echo. There's definitely an argument for Halondrus being the hardest pre-final boss of all time.

[LordVargK]

Halondrus took forever because melees were being retards with "muh dps" and not doing mechanics properly

Sure. The best guilds in the world have retard dps whoring melees. That's how they got to be the best, because every other boss those melees don't have to handle any mechanics.

/S

[garicasha]

Sylvanas didn't make it a week IIRC and I think Kil'jaeden made it like 8-9 days? Anyone have that list of how long each boss went undefeated that periodically gets linked?

Although time the boss survived is comparing apples to oranges given the way the game is played now. Not that pull count is perfect but it's probably better than the number of days since the boss was available.

Technically if we go off completion %, original Naxx is always going to be the "hardest" raid because of how few people managed to clear it.

[Argorwal]

rofl

Not even close. Mythic raiding only opened a little over a week ago. Even if it takes them another week, they won't crack the top 20 longest times to down the final boss of a raid.

Are you one of those people that genuinely believes vanilla and TBC bosses were harder because of their long kill time?

Even after we watch them all die within hours with classic?

[garicasha]

Yah the fact Kel'Thuzad didn't make it 90 minutes after his release in classic would be evidence not that he was hard, but that the players weren't at the skill level or theorycrafting level we are now.

[Argorwal]

Both for world-first and for the rest of us.

Halondrus mythic taking 300-450+ pulls for the four guilds that have gotten him, no one has Mythic Anduin down yet, and there's 3 more after him.

I'm also seeing guilds with Mythic Sylvanas experience not have a Heroic Anduin kill yet either, although presumably by the end of the week a lot more of those will go out.

And as someone that has pugged a great deal over the last fifteen years (and not raided in a guild at all in Shadowlands), I'm genuinely at a loss for how I'm gonna get past Anduin on Normal. I'm gonna try and stack a group probably next week when the second legendaries become available. I've heard tales of a few raiders that at least know of people that have gotten him in a pug, but literally haven't met anyone that's done it yet as of Wednesday of the third reset.

(Although the 25% nerf to the despair went live yesterday which should massively help.)

Trololol I've even heard LFR Halondrus is a real bear.

It’s shaping up that way. I think the only raid in recent memory at this level of crazy tuning was Tomb of Sargerus, but Halondrus being so hard with an expected 4 more walls is unprecedented. Mistriss in ToS was a < 100 pull boss for these guilds, not 350+ for a mid raid wall.

[garicasha]

I am curious those that voted that this isn't the hardest raid tier for normal and heroic-level raiders, what raid would they consider harder?

IIRC Archimonde in HFC was a real challenge for normal and heroic-level players.

[Toybox]

Sylvanas didn't make it a week IIRC and I think Kil'jaeden made it like 8-9 days? Anyone have that list of how long each boss went undefeated that periodically gets linked?

KJ made it 8-9 days after Avatar maybe. Mythic Tomb opened on the 29th of June & KJ died on July 16th, so 3rd reset.

Even if SotFO doesn't get to the third reset, it's still in the discussion if the latter bosses are suitably challenging. Players are much better now than they were even as recently as Legion.

[Caprias]

Week one heroic endboss kills:

70~ Guilds defeated Heroic Sylvanas in Sanctum of Domination.
98 Guilds defeated Heroic Sire Denathrius in Castle Nathria.
Over 600 Guilds defeated Heroic N'zoth in Nya'lotha.
Over 400 Guilds defeated Heroic Azshara in The Eternal Palace.
Over 450 Guilds defeated Heroic Jaina in the Battle of Dazar'alor.
Over 400 Guilds defeated Heroic G'huun in Uldir.

So yeah about the Jailer heroic kills in week one...

Obviously not a perfect metric and the 2nd legendary will work wonders next week, there is still a trend I'd say.
Also even Liquid raiders say heroic is like the old mythic, so everyone who picked option 2 might want to reconsider lol.

[garicasha]

There'll always be an asterisk next to Jailer kills heroic as he wasn't available that first week.

How many Heroic Anduin kills were there week 1?

TY for the stats, so my memory is right, but Shadowlands heroic is just tuned harder than (all) previous expansions.

[Milfshaked]

Are you one of those people that genuinely believes vanilla and TBC bosses were harder because of their long kill time?

Even after we watch them all die within hours with classic?

While the people that think that are pretty out of touch, there are other expansions inbetween TBC and Shadowlands and people that ignore that is equally out of touch.

Modern expansions are tuned around the world first race in a way that older expansions werent. Blizzard wants the bosses to be killed in the first week or two. This was not always true in the past. Ragnaros 25HC and Lich King 25HC are two good examples of this. Both boss fights were mechanically extremely easy, but the tuning on output requirements were insanely over the top. Yogg0 25 man is also a good example. ICC in general is a pretty fun case study. People tend to forget that the raid was not released with a 30% buff and how significant the time gating was for allowing people to gear up before the final encounters were even available.

A lot of bosses are also very easy with hindsight. If we look at Cata, bosses like Nefarian25HC, Al'Akir 25HC or Spine of Deathwing 25HC would be extremely easy due to their "difficulty" stemming from class stacking and weird tactics that took a while to figure out. In a Tier 11 classic, people would be ready with 10 feral druid alts for Nefarian.

Because of the world first race being so important for blizzard now, modern expansion raids will always be easier than the hardest encounters of the past.

[Smash Adams]

Too soon to tell. Let’s see what the last 4 end up doing. If they fall over after Anduin, this conversation is moot.

[Th3Scourge]

Hardest of this expansion, at least so far.

Problem is that there have been loud voices crying that is it way too overtuned for casuals, despite the raid OBVIOUSLY tuned for 4-piece tier sets and double legendaries.

[Argorwal]

While the people that think that are pretty out of touch, there are other expansions inbetween TBC and Shadowlands and people that ignore that is equally out of touch.

Modern expansions are tuned around the world first race in a way that older expansions werent. Blizzard wants the bosses to be killed in the first week or two. This was not always true in the past. Ragnaros 25HC and Lich King 25HC are two good examples of this. Both boss fights were mechanically extremely easy, but the tuning on output requirements were insanely over the top. Yogg0 25 man is also a good example. ICC in general is a pretty fun case study. People tend to forget that the raid was not released with a 30% buff and how significant the time gating was for allowing people to gear up before the final encounters were even available.

A lot of bosses are also very easy with hindsight. If we look at Cata, bosses like Nefarian25HC, Al'Akir 25HC or Spine of Deathwing 25HC would be extremely easy due to their "difficulty" stemming from class stacking and weird tactics that took a while to figure out. In a Tier 11 classic, people would be ready with 10 feral druid alts for Nefarian.

Because of the world first race being so important for blizzard now, modern expansion raids will always be easier than the hardest encounters of the past.

The reason Arthas lived so long is because of limited attempts. I’m kind of surprised you left that part out.

Imagine if the last 5 bosses of SotFO each shared a pool of 10 attempts each? Like Saurfang, Professor, Blood Queen, Sindragosa, and Arthas all did.

Imagine if after 10 pulls of Halondrus the raid was over for the week?

Yogg0 begin optional is also a little wonky because so many didn’t bother. It’s not like modern raids where players optimize to these insane levels.

I’d say the first “modern” hard boss was heroic Rag. And the other 6 bosses were quite easy. Nothing like the multiple back to back walls ToS put up, and likely SotFO will out do with possibly 5 bosses each 300-400 pulls.

But, my original post was to people talking about kill dates, which all the crazy long ones were from ages ago. Even insanely hard modern bosses die quickly due to the lengths guilds are willing to go to kill them.

[Jotaux]

Its tuned for 4p and double legendaries, give the world first guilds that and the bosses we have seen up to Anduin would have flopped over.