WoW Insider

I think the farthest anyone has gotten is Gruul's Lair, even though I hear there is some hot fix that doesn't allow you to chug certain pots to help do the fight.

Reply

Our guild went down to Mag's lair just to check things out. We learned a couple of important things. First, a mixed group of fresh 70s and 68-69's does not a raiding party make. Second, the mobs in the front of the dungeon are not CC-able in any way, shape, or form, and cannot be silenced or interrupted effectively if at all. Third, 2k+ a tick damage Rain of Fire HURTS.

We wiped every time within a minute. Even though they were casters, they could melee one-shot any clothy while doing a deadly AoE shadowbolt. Oh and focus-fireing got one of them got them down maybe 8%.

My conclusion is that it is just too hard to even get to the fight for most guilds right now. Once everyone gets geared up I suspect we will see more attempts, but I suspect that won't come until guilds start having people geared in full T5/T6 or better.

Reply

Saying that attempts wont come until people are geared in T5 or T6 is just stupid. Seeing as to how T6 isnt even implemented into the game and wont be for a very long time, the fact that Mag is supposed to drop T4 tokens also may be a hint that your comment is just plain silly.

To stay on topic. I know no guilds on Darkspear have yet to down any bosses not sure who has tried yet though

Reply

Our guild got High King Maulgar (the first boss in Gruul's Lair) down to about 30% last night before calling it. The new 25-man raids are gonna be a rude awakening to guilds who were at the MC/BWL stage of raiding right before TBC came out. Maulgar is on par with Naxxramas encounters in terms of technical challenge and need for consumables. I'm not sure if Blizzard intends 25-mans to be only for "hardcore" guilds, but I can't see many "casual" guilds progressing very far in them.

Reply

When Blizzard hotpatched Gruul's Lair by removing the possibility of taking invulnerability potions they made it nearly impossible without stacking your raid with roughly 15 well-geared caster dps classes (mages , warlocks). This is the first hint that Blizzard's intention might be to force stacked raids for certain types of instances.

Reply

@#4

I belong to a very very skilled PvP guild who, when we decided to attempt MC (for example) cleared all the way to Rag on our 2nd run.

I'm just curious as to the type of gear your group took into Gruul's Lair for this attempt?

Reply

I have a feeling that Blizzard is intentionally slowing players down by putting insurmountable obstacles in their way. If DnT cannot beat a boss that is intended to be on a level with content that guilds are breezing through (Karazhan), then it seems to me that there is an intentional roadblock there.

Reply

My guild is doing Karazhan becuase they're still working on getting the 25 players together. And while I've not looked at the fancy spreadsheet of key aquiring and attunements lately getting the kararzhan key is a major step for getting attuned to most places.

It makes sense though that that easiest instances/encounters to acess aren't going to be an exact cakewalk to down.

Reply

"Gear dependent"? That's what sucks about WOW. It's not about Skill, it's about gear.

Reply

Considering he supposedly drops the T4 chest token, I'd say that this being impossible without T5/T6 is completely wrong.

Reply

umm @9.

you need skill and gear. just gear is what causes wipes, why people used to wipe in naxramas. its called 1 person wipes the raid due to lack of skill, or just general screwups, or just bad luck. usually one of the first two.

I expected the 25mans to crush the old bwl/mc raiding guilds, and it seems it will, skill and gear wise. seems a bit moreso than before, even. Blizzard lowered numbers, my guess, is perhaps for more performance-friendly reasons. Not that I like 25 versus 40, since we've had 40 for so long adjusting to 25 isn't going all too smooth.

(40 people raids...get kinda laggy, even phase 3 nef (aoe on the revive), patchwork, these fights get spammy even on higher end pc's...plus they are rediculous, you really only need 25-30 that are competent up to a pretty high end of difficulty).

Reply

@Matt - you said "If DnT cannot beat a boss that is intended to be on a level with content that guilds are breezing through (Karazhan), then it seems to me that there is an intentional roadblock there."

Magtheridon is not at the same level with Karazhan. If you look at the raid progression chart it goes something like:
Karazhan --> Gruul --> Serpentshrine Cavern (Lady Vashi) --> Magtheridon --> The Eye --> Mount Hyjal

Magtheridon is the last step in attunement for The Eye raid. I wouldn't expect that he is approachable until raids are geared up from Serpentshrine Cavern.

Remember - clearing an instance once does not 'gear up' the raid. It will take a number of Karazhan, Gruul & Serperpentshrine runs to get everyone geared up.

Reply

The new Gruul's lair changes remind me of the cockblock that cthun was before they "fixed" him.

Reply