Rog on MMOROG has an interesting discussion of World of Warcraft's
old raid content. Some of the original Azeroth raid content has excellent encounters and interesting story-lines, but adding another ten levels to the game hasn't made them any more accessible to more casual players. "But Elizabeth," I hear you say, "I'm level 70 now! Surely Ragnaros, in his puny level 60 dungeon, holds no real challenge!" But that, dear readers, is where you go wrong, because raid bosses do not have set levels -- all of them have a skull displayed where their level should be, which means that their level is 3 levels above the highest level player in the instance, and that no matter how many levels are added to the game, they'll always be tough fights. While this adds some sense of realism to the world (from a lore point of view, Nefarian, son of Deathwing, should never be soloable, duoable, or even 5-man-able -- though his smaller sister Onyxia is getting there), it also means that more casual players will never be able to check out some of the game's coolest content. Any above-your-level boss requires some decent +hit gear for you to be able to touch them, and if you're geared out well enough to tumble with level 73 monsters, why not just do existing raid content?
From my perspective, the old Azeroth raid content was great fun and should be as accessible to players as possible. It's not like a level 70, even wearing only quest rewards and green drops, is going to be getting any gear upgrades from Molten Core or Blackwing Lair, so why not let them have the chance to experience the content for fun?
Tags: boss, bosses, raid, raiding, skull, world-of-warcraft, wow
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Bosses
Sep 26th 2007 at 2:45PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dotixi Sep 26th 2007 2:58PM
I completely agree.
Ste Sep 26th 2007 2:58PM
I thought boss level behaves to each individual player as 3 levels above whatever they are, as opposed to 3 levels above the highest level player in the raid?
Razhlok Sep 26th 2007 2:58PM
That level only pertains to hit chance. They are still tuned, Hit Point and damage wise, for a raid of 40 level 60s.
Sedair Sep 26th 2007 3:01PM
@3 (Razhlok)
Until I read your comment based upon what was in the article I was going to say -
"If it's only geared to be 3 lvls above the highest player then if the trash is cleared couldn't a 40 man raid of lvl 30's kill a boss?"
Fernando Sep 26th 2007 3:14PM
I think that Blizzard should just lower the level and difficulty so that casual players can experience those instances. Like make them 10 man lvl 50-60 Raids maybe or even lower. This way people can have some pretty nice gear that would last a little through Outlands, and give the casual players that never got to experience that content a chance to do so.
My 2 cents!
Zumwalah Oct 4th 2007 3:54PM
@4 Sedair
yes had that been the case they would have been true, except the trash has a set level also.
Nati Sep 26th 2007 3:17PM
#3 is right, the article is wrong. A raid of level 70's completely crush most level 60 bosses. Naxxramas is pugged weekly on some servers, now.
Jhestor Sep 26th 2007 3:18PM
My guild, despite running Karazhan and the likes, thoroughly enjoys old world raids like Ahn'Qiraj. The loot may be poor by today's standards, but there is an epic quality to the old 40 man encounters that require teamwork and more than just "tanking and spanking." The experience alone makes those raids a blast, and running them is their own reward... :)
Brian Sep 26th 2007 3:22PM
I for one, just having hot 70 with my main about 2 months ago, would love to hit old world end game instances. Unfortunately, there is not 39 other people just like me.
If the mobs/monsters scale with user level, why doesn't their content? I think that would bring a HUGE amount of popularity back to old word dungeons and raids if they created drops (similiar to heroics) fro them. A set of armor that, based on your level, will be scaled/specced accordingly and only found in a particular dungeon/raid.
Jason Sep 26th 2007 3:26PM
Except the fact that raid bosses are only considered 3 levels above you for certain aspects. They have set hit point levels, and deal set levels of damage. To illustrate the point, I'll use my personal favorite boss, Ragnaros.
For the purpose of the discussion, I'm going to make up some numbers, so they won't be accurate; however the point will remain the same.
Ragnaros, as we all know, has several abilities which deal damage. We'll only be looking at melee damage, such as crushing blows and melee hits, however. So, since he's level 73, What a tank needs to become uncrittable and uncrushable are the same for Ragnaros as they are for any boss in KZ or elsewhere. What changes is the amount of damage dealt. Let's say that Rag's Crushing Blow damage is 1500 against an unarmored target. This does not change, regardless of level. Like his HP, it is a set value. So, @ 60, let's say your tank was well geared, buffed to kingdom come, and had 8k HP. That's not a huge chunk of damage, but it's nothing to sneeze at. At 70, however, your raid buffed KZ tank has double that much HP or more. So, 1500 damage went from being a sizeable chunk to something that doesn't matter, because not only will your tank NEVER get hit with a crushing blow, but even if he could, it would be less than 10% of his total health. Absolutely nothing to heal through. Crits are the same way, and regular melee damage can be healed through with one or two DoTs.
Now, to the DPS end. Rag's HP is set static @ 1.1 million. Pure DPS classes go into KZ outputting double or triple what a pure DPS class was capable of at level 60. I'll leave the math there to you.
Now, for the TLDR version: Old raid content is now trivial. You are completely wrong in your assumptions. I suggest going out and doing some research before you start writing articles like this with little/no basis in fact. Cheers!
Queuetip Sep 26th 2007 3:40PM
@9 Old raid content is far from trivial. The past few weeks, some people from my server have been getting together to do a server first naxx clear just for fun. I managed to get in a few groups. Let me tell you that it doesn't matter how high you are. If you don't have the coordination, you won't be zerging bosses like the 4 horsemen or Saph. We rolled with 35-40 SSC / TK geared players with a vent server and still got own several times before learning the fight.
RaydenUni Sep 26th 2007 3:43PM
I would like to see them turned into 10 man lvl 70 raids with token drops that can be turned in for gear.
Most of my guild would love to run the old stuff, but when we have so many "better" options in Outlands, where is the incentive?
Doc X Sep 26th 2007 3:47PM
@10: There are many encounters where, if you don't have the strategy, you won't win the encounter, no matter what your gear is. Saying "We're awesome Lvl 70s" doesn't mean you shouldn't read up on the encounter strategies.
It's been said many times, but I'll say it again: gear < skill < skill + gear. It's true for PVP and true for raids.
brett Sep 26th 2007 4:32PM
3 manned ony two days ago. Nice bit of gold for our trouble.
bob Sep 26th 2007 4:13PM
Raids are for raiders and I say this as a casual player that would like to see more soloable/casual content. How can you make a raid that takes 25+ people and multiple runs just to learn into something that a pick up group of 5 casual players could hope to finish in the hour they have free before they have to go check on the laundry?
The exsisting raids are fine. I'm a casual player and I'm not interested in raids. If they took the time nessecary to rework the old world raids and used it to create long solo/small group quest chains and class specific quests and content that ended with some decent gear they would be serving casual players much better. Casual players need content you can move in and out of and pursue when you have time. Not three hours of raiding four nights a week just so they can say they have seen something.
Also, if old world raid gear is so useless whats the point? Should Blizzard concentrate on developing content with worthwhile rewards?
Metaphyzxx Sep 26th 2007 4:18PM
I agree. Not to mention, it's good practice for people that don't raid normally, and are getting into raiding...
My guild actually is starting to do Strat as practice for working together. I'd love for us to get together as lvl 70's and learn how to work together in MC... especially never gotten into there.
Frogs Sep 26th 2007 4:35PM
As other posters have said, raid bosses DO NOT scale with the levels of those killing them, the only thing that stays the same is the hit calculations. They're three levels above you in calculating whether your attacks will land or not, but their hit points and damaging attacks are still the same as they were at 60.
Wulfhere Sep 26th 2007 4:22PM
What Jason, in his magnificent assholery, has failed to do is READ THE ARTICLE. From the article:
"Any above-your-level boss requires some decent +hit gear for you to be able to touch them, and if you're geared out well enough to tumble with level 73 monsters, why not just do existing raid content?"
In other words, you cretin, it's as hard to HIT Ragnaros as it is to HIT a boss in a 25 man BC raid. And if you're geared to HIT a boss three levels higher than you, why not just DO 25 man raids? The article comes right out and SAYS THIS.
You are insanely, wondrously, magnificently stupid. The article does not say that Rag HITS YOU as hard as, say, Archimonde or Magtheridon. It says that IT IS AS HARD TO HIT HIM AS IT IS TO HIT THEM. And it then goes on to say that if you have gear with sufficient +hit to hit a boss 3 levels above you, you're likely not interested in a MC PuG.
Learn. To. Read.
The Anonymous Sep 26th 2007 4:35PM
Anything below Naxx with obvious exceptions (Twin Emps, C'thun, two of the BWL drakes, etc) are easy now because they're tuned for Lv60s. Casters have 3 to 5x more health now, as a quick example.
The problem, now, isn't the fact that old raids aren't accessible (Naxx attunement? Puh-lease), but the fact people decided that it wasn't about seeing and taking down new bosses but about phat purples. Sorry but it's such hypocrisy. I'd happily do AQ and Naxx even if it dropped white gear, because I never got to see most of the encounters.
If Blizzard really wanted an incentive, they should just add the following:
- MC Trash/bosses: Primal earth and fire drops.
- BWL Trash/bosses: Primal fire, earth, shadow drops.
- AQ Trash/bosses: Primal earth and life drops.
Two to three bosses each instance drop a Primal Nether, with the last boss having a ~5% chance of dropping a Nether Vortex.
The Anonymous Sep 26th 2007 4:35PM
@15: Well done on completely and utterly missing his point which he states at the start:
"OLD RAIDS ARE TRIVIAL"
He points out the fact, as an example, Ragnaros hits for nothing on a KZ-geared Tank. Any DPS in KZ-gear with appropriate hit will destroy Ragnaros. I'm in a decent SSC/TK guild and we still have members that want to do old raids just for a laugh. Not everyone raids every day and being able to slack and kick Ragnaros or Nefarian in the shins is good fun and nice payback. Especially considering how stressful bosses and even trash are from SSC/TK and onwards.
(NB: And he's also right that not everything a boss does is Lv73. Many bosses have set-level AOEs that are fixed at lv63 and are therefore quite resistable. A notable exception is Saphiron's frost damage aura.)