WoW Archivist: The changing raid design of Naxxramas, page 2
by Mathew McCurley 
Sep 20th 2011 at 7:00PM
Similar to the issues with the Anub'Rekan fight, Instructor Razuvious suffered from the "bring player abilities" to the fight rather than having all of the tools necessary already available in the encounter itself. The 10- and 25-man dynamic differed greatly here, considering the 25-man version of the fight stuck to the old ways whereas the 10-man version had to change dramatically to make the fight possible for only 10 players.
In the original 40-man raid, Instructor Razuvious was accompanied by four death knight Understudy adds who could be Mind Controlled by a priest in order to turn the tables on the Instructor and tank his untankable damage with innate abilities. Student becomes the master, etc., etc. You had to off-tank two of the adds and have your priests Mind Control two for the purposes of taunt and tank rotations on Razuvious, and then keep the Understudy adds off of their respective Mind Controllers because they would gain a debuff that would prevent reapplying Mind Control for 45 seconds. Taunts could break, adds could die, and a million other things could go wrong. Did you priest have enough hit rating to even keep the Mind Control going for as long as needed until the add-tank swap? It was a daunting task for many raid groups, especially since the fight assumed that you had priests with enough +hit gear to make the encounter viable. Most did, usually.
For the 25-man version of the fight, Blizzard still assumed you had two priests ready and willing to do the job, and the fight remained fairly similar to its original version. Priests would Mind Control the adds, Razuvious would be tanked and people would run around to keep his abilities out of line of sight. For 10-man, however, there was no way Blizzard could expect raiding groups to have two priests readily available for the fight each week -- it just wasn't fair or good design to require two priests when there were only 10 spots available. Instead of using player abilities to Mind Control the adds, raid members used control orbs at the base on the ramp to control the adds and swap tanking. There were only two adds, so you did not have to worry about off-tanking anything.
Instead of the player bringing the abilities to the raid fight, Blizzard provided players with the means to get the job done, making for a more compelling fight. I am still of the opinion that the Razuvious encounter should have been done the same way for 25-man that it was for 10-man, freeing up even more diversity in raid/class makeup.
Blizzard began to realize that raid design was faltering because of the makeup issue. With the impending heroic boss modes coming, as well as the choose-your-difficulty fights like Sartharion already part of the expansion, issues with class balance in raids were already bubbling to the top of people's complaint lists. Sadly, class makeup for the harder fights, especially in 10-man, would continue to plague the raid game for a long while after even Naxxramas' redo tried to stem some of that concern months and years before its time.
The Four Horsemen encounter was, hands down, the most controversial of the original Naxxramas encounters. It was the ultimate council fight, with four unique bosses that needed an intricate tanking and taunt rotation to deal with their many range-based stacking abilities. The Four Horsemen was also the guild-killer encounter of the raiding tier, where most guilds that even got into Naxxramas and made it this far fell apart due to the harsh and demanding nature of the raid makeup.
Originally, the fight required the use of two tanks per horseman, totaling eight tanks all equipped with enough gear to survive the many devastating abilities that the Horsemen would deal out. Eight fully geared tanks. Sure, raid sizes were larger at the time, but the average raiding guild at the time of the encounter had maybe three tanks totally decked out with two more in the wings for backup purposes. Eight tanks. Some tanks didn't even get to see the other fights in Naxxramas and were only swapped in for the Four Horsemen. It was a punishing fight that made no sense when applied to the accessible raiding paradigms of the next expansions.
The Four Horsemen encounter had a flavor unlike any other encounter in Naxxramas. It was one of those encounters that could be hectic and crazy if something went wrong but utterly fun and engaging the whole time. To keep the spirit of the encounter and the frantic nature of the swaps, Blizzard retuned the entire mechanic to require only two tanks on both 10- and 25-man versions of the encounter but making two of the ranged Horsemen tankable with ranged classes. As long as someone was in range of both Sir Zeliek and Lady Blaumeux, their abilities would be used in the same fashion. The encounter was greatly simplified and the number of tanks needed was reduced to a manageable state.
A great lesson was learned with the original Four Horsemen encounter, and an even greater lesson put into action with the revamped encounter: Tanks do not necessarily have to be tanks. Tanking dynamics change constantly, from the most recent threat buffs to the number of tanks any raid needs to be successful. Four Horsemen showed that an encounter that relied on four mobs needing tanks could be done with non-tanks for the 10-man crowd. Back in The Burning Crusade, this phenomenon was already working for the High King Maulgar encounter in Gruul's Lair, where a mage or warlock was range-tanking on the ogre council encounter long before Wrath. But the Four Horsemen was the encounter that solidified intense mechanics with a tanking twist, something we have not seen much of in the present or the near past. Where did this lesson go, especially considering the lack of tanks in Dungeon Finder queues and the potential impending lack of tanks in the Raid Finder queue?
Naxxramas represented a high point in terms of raid design from the old days and a low point in terms of what would become of the philosophy that the original WoW's raid game was built on. The average MMO player was evolving into a customer who wanted and appreciated more endgame content that was usually just reserved for the elite and the top percenters. Raiding was no longer one aspect of the endgame, but the endgame itself. Punishing fight mechanics were reworked into compelling content that could be defeated by a wider spectrum of player groups. Player skills were less about the precise abilities brought to any given encounter and more focused on the player's role. Raiding evolved in an unimaginable way the moment players could not pass the Four Horsemen and the change to 25-man raids took place. The impossible raid became the difficult raid. The average MMO player got one step closer to the true endgame.
The WoW Archivist examines the WoW of old. Follow along while we discuss beta patch 0.8, beta patch 0.9, and hidden locations such as the crypts of Karazhan.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kaesth Sep 20th 2011 7:34PM
I was wondering at the abrupt tone change in this post compared to usual Archivist posts. Who let McCurley take over Ziebart's job? We want the real thing!
It's unclear how many of these encounters you did in 40, but I don't think the Archivist should be platform for doing wild comparisons between encounters and speculating about lessons or some such. It should be for telling the story of the game as it was. I think a comparison between old and new versions of fights could be a cool column, but it feels pretty shoehorned into the Archivist.
Snuzzle Sep 20th 2011 8:19PM
I liked it, personally. Naxx is unique in that it was the first dungeon to be downtuned from a larger player number to a much smaller one; I think this article gives good insight into the differences between "how it was then" and "how it is now." Be honest, you're doing those comparisons in your head when you read the Archivist anyway.
As someone who never got even close to doing original Naxx I appreciate this article. I dare say Id like to see another for the rest of the bosses not covered.
Mathew McCurley Sep 20th 2011 8:38PM
Alex told me to write this article, soooooooooooooo
goldeneye Sep 22nd 2011 5:04AM
Oooooh, BUUURN! :p
But yeah, love the article. I was there in the forums following up and assissting with the theorycrafting on how, in 40-man Naxx, the 4 Horsemen could be defeated.
I was thrilled to be one of the tanks (as a boomkin) in the 10-man version.
Amaxe Sep 20th 2011 7:39PM
Interesting to see the similarities and differences (I was nowhere near qualified to go when Naxx came out in Vanilla).
One thing I was curious of (well two things in one question) about a rumor I once heard about Heigan:
Did the original Naxx have the exploit on where you could stand in a certain spot and not die in Safety Dance?
Is that exploit still in the game?
Moeru Sep 20th 2011 7:45PM
I wouldn't really call it an exploit, because one thing goes wrong and your whole raid wipes with that strategy, though would be nice to see how blizz feels about it.
REDMJOEL Sep 20th 2011 7:48PM
That was in the game for a period at the beginning of Wrath but was fixed before the Ulduar patch. The spot was at the very edge of the platform, as far as possible from Heigan.
Silversol Sep 21st 2011 7:23AM
I wouldn't so much call it an exploit, it was more a miscalculation of the bosses ability during the main DPS phase of the fight. The tanks and melee could stack up on one corner of the platform without being hit by the slime and ranged/healers could stack on the far corner opposite of the tanks/melee without getting the debuff from the boss.
But no, it's no longer available to do that because the range of ability that would slow healers cast time had been increased.
Moeru Sep 20th 2011 7:44PM
I liked Naxx, but damn did we farm that stuff forever.
Hal Sep 20th 2011 7:48PM
I'd love to hear some discussion on the gear dropped by the Four Horsemen. One specific item, to be clear. Something only whispered about in taverns across Azeroth.
epicboyz Sep 20th 2011 8:03PM
this? http://www.wowhead.com/item=22691
Debesun Sep 20th 2011 9:05PM
The Ashbringer...
VSUReaper Sep 20th 2011 8:04PM
4 Horseman was the fight that my wife considered the litmus for who was a lock and who was a dps monkey: any lock could do great dps, but a real lock was able to drain tank a raid boss.
She was also one of the first on my server to drain tank Sarth 3D before the hotfixes ended that.
Zenith Sep 21st 2011 4:50AM
I see your drain tanking of a boss and raise you drain tanking of TWO of the horsemen - having a pet tanking the other one and switching around once the debuff got high
Wheighty Sep 20th 2011 9:08PM
The problem with Wrath's Naxx wasn't the downsizing of the raid. As pointed out in the article, they simply folded neccessary class abilities into the encounter when they knew fielding a class of that many was simply unfeasable with 10 or 25 players.
What did go wrong with Naxx was the tuning of it. Bosses were simply not lethal enough.
velutina Sep 20th 2011 11:32PM
I didn't raid Naxx40 back in the day. I simply wasn't leet enough. I tried at level 70 with a random pug at the end of BC to do A'nub. Even though I was tanking Black Temple (successfully) at that point our pug didn't do well. I have respect for the original Naxx. That said, there were other changes made to the game that changed how raids were done. Matthew talked about the consumables necessary for Loatheb. Consumables usage has been heavily nerfed since vanilla.
I also question a bit the notion that priests "stacked" hit on Razuvious. The itemization was wonky enough, the drops were spread out enough, and the your "best in slot" was pretty well defined, that to some degree, you got what you got. This was still true to a degree in BC. For the Mulgar fight the mage/lock tanks were decked out with the best greens money could buy. "of fire resist" or "of stamina" on a high level cloth drop could go for big bucks on the AH.
Lots of things have changed with regards to encounter design. I for one am glad Wrath finally killed off the need for resist sets.
Zapwidget Sep 21st 2011 3:15AM
"I also question a bit the notion that priests "stacked" hit on Razuvious. "
Nowhere in the article did he even imply that priests were intentionally going after Hit. Take a closer look at the line.
"the fight assumed that you had priests with enough +hit gear to make the encounter viable. Most did, usually"
Seems to indicate to me that the way the encounter was designed, the MC priests would need hit to pull it off, and by some quirk (likely the result of that wonky itemization) most priests actually did have a sufficient amount of a stat they otherwise had no use for.
Narayana Sep 21st 2011 10:39AM
No, I think what he was actually saying was that the people who were doing the fight successfully made sure to kit themselves out appropriately.
Naxx 40 existed in a time when raiding as shadow, balance, ret, etc simply didn't happen. If you were a class that could heal, you had better believe you raided as a healer. As such, it really took a good amount of work to get a priest enough hit to be able to effectively MC those adds.
Murdertime Sep 21st 2011 12:07AM
The thing I actually remember about Naxx40 is the amount of accusations that high end guilds were buying gold, just to keep up with the absurd consumable requirements.
aerinbear Sep 21st 2011 1:06AM
I played with one person who got to KT in Vanilla. He said the only way he could get there was buying gold, period. I was lucky enough to make it to Naxx40, even if we never got past Raz. One thing that newer players might like to know was a little more about consumables. Matthew said it was bad, and that's being generous. There was all sorts of random things that were virtually mandatory, like the flower pods of Felwood, the crystal rewards of Un'goro, little bits and pieces that added up to more farming time. I'm certain I'm forgetting some of the junk I had to stock to make even a credible attempt at Raz. Camp 8 flower spawns for a buff berry to have a chance? Glad that world is gone :)