Death and Taxes 5-mans Loatheb
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 4th 2007 at 4:42PM
Our Guild of the Year for 2006, Death and Taxes, hasn't wasted any time in 2007, either. At a time when most guild are trying to keep their raiding numbers up, D&T doesn't bother-- they just go in with less people. And now, reports Curse, they've downed Loatheb with just five people-- three shadow priests, a warlock
The official announcement is over on their forums. They don't say specifics on attempts or how long it took them, but apparently they've got 15 gigs of video from FRAPS on the kill. That means, of course, that a video is coming soon, but as one of the guys says, we probably don't need to see a video to know what happened: "Just imagine a shadowbolt and 3 blue lines flying in the air for 40 minutes."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sylythn Jan 4th 2007 4:54PM
Is it really still impressive when you hear how long it takes? With enough healing and aggro management, a small group can stay up indefinitely, making their DPS rather pointless. If you ask me, it takes more skill and coordination to get these bosses down with 20-40 people, than to come in with 5 buffed up uber-leets who can spend ages whittling down a boss.
Chris Gardner Jan 4th 2007 5:00PM
As I said on the official forums: no one cares.
Being generous, maybe 500 guilds have played in Naxx. Hell, let's be generous and say 1000. Hardcore guilds average around 50 players (just enough to have a steady 40 and 10 as backup) but let's be generous again and say they had 100 players each.
1000x100 = 1000000. There are 7.5 million players in Wow. Which mean less than 15% of the Wow-playing population has seen Naxx, let alone knows who Loatheb is.
Naxx was a monumental waste of time and energy for Blizzard. To put that much effort into what is arguably one of the best instances in the game, only to have so few people play it, was moronic. People say in BC, players will go back to do Naxx. Are they kidding? Have people seen the drops from the low level dungeons and quest rewards at 65? Why even bother with Naxx?
Everytime I think about Naxx, I wonder how much better the game would've been if Blizz spent their energy on finishing the expansion on time. It was just a classic case of raider developers developing for raider friends. Total waste of time.
joe joe Jan 4th 2007 5:18PM
seems pretty cool to me!
"1000x100 = 1000000" lol lrn2multiply
Kyle Jan 4th 2007 8:48PM
[url=http://imageshack.us][img=http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/4237/wowscrnshot010407020629uf9.jpg][/url]
CiM Jan 5th 2007 9:26AM
Death and Taxes were so very upset over the drop in raid caps. This just hammers home how important it is to raid with 39 other guys.
CiM Jan 4th 2007 6:23PM
Death & Taxes were so very upset by the changes to raid instance caps in TBC. I guess this shows just how important it is to raid with 39 other guys.
Jason Jan 4th 2007 6:32PM
@Chris Gardner:
While I don't doubt that you can look at the effective level of outlands gear vs gear you can get out of BWL and Naxx, and see that stuff from outlands is on par or of higher level, that's strictly stat allotment on the items. It doesn't account for set bonuses, or 'on equip' effects. Taking that into effect, along with reading more about the expansion than strictly what's available, you'll learn that people are taking Naxx gear to 70 in a lot of cases; BWL gear is getting you to 65 and for some classes, beyond that.
As to it being a 'monumental waste of time', I disagree completely. Naxxramas wasn't a waste of time. It's certainly something that could have waited, but the truth of the matter is that it had been in development for much longer than most people think. It could quite possibly have been held back and redesigned for inclusion with the expansion, possibly as a prereq for Karazhan. I don't know, to be quite honest.
However, making patentedly false blanket statements like you are does nothing for your credibility. All it accomplishes is making you look like a troll.
Anti Whinger Jan 4th 2007 6:41PM
@ #1: I like your logic mate, 5 manning is easier than 20-40? Send us your vids of all the 5 manning you have done please.
Give the guys some credit, its a pretty cool.
michel Jan 5th 2007 2:30AM
> Why even bother with Naxx?
for fun ! to explore, to see new monsters, new strategies.
Muess Jan 5th 2007 9:28AM
What! You play for fun!?? Getoutahere! I thought WoW was all about the l00tzzzerzz!!!one!!1!
CiM Jan 5th 2007 9:28AM
Sigh, so that's what happened to the first comment I posted :(
(Apologies for the cynicism btw!)
Chris Gardner Jan 5th 2007 2:02PM
@Jason:
You're missing my point entirely.
What was Naxx? It was a raid instance designed to feed the insatiable hunger that is the hardcore raider.
How much development time did it take? A lot. It was first on the drawing board when MC was coming out.
Could it have been time better spent on content benefiting more players? Yes. Could it have been saved for expansion and tuned for 70 so 40-mans would have something to do? Yes. Would it have given Blizzard more time to fix some mindblowingly bad bugs? Probably.
Releasing Naxx when they did was moronic. Raiders WEREN'T that starved for gameplay. Casual gamers WERE. There wasn't a single 5-man dungeon released since DM. What do you think is played by more players every night: Naxx or UBRS?
As for the gear, my point was "why bother?" Hardcore raiders are arguing that casual gamers will head back to Naxx at 65+ to try the instance out and gear up. Huh? There are quest rewards at 65 that have almost the same ilvl as Naxx items. Why would I go back to an instance where I need to farm tokens when I can just go kill a new, more fun encounter with 9 of my friends (instead of 9 of my friends and 20 people I don't care for)? Does anyone actually think Naxx will be a hotbed of activity in 6 months? As it stands right now, you barely see anyone in it.
So, what would have been the better decision? Waiting until expansion and launching Naxx at level 70 (so raiders wouldn't have to QQ about the loss of 40-man raids) -- or launching besides a dearth of casual content and having the instance only be used actively by 15% of the population? Not a tough call.
Kerni Jan 5th 2007 7:38PM
Chris,
It must be your server but on Frostmane, guilds are either PvPing or they're in Naxx nightly. My guild totally dropped every raid EXCEPT Naxx.
Personally, I'd have liked more time to progress through Naxx than we've been given. Sure, we can go back later on and kill Kel'Thuzad but how much of an actual accomplishment will it be compared to defeating him at the intended level of 60?