Fewest possible people for level 70 raids...

[phaqueue]

so my roommate and I were debating about it the other night... and were trying to come up with some numbers for the fewest possible people to clear level 70 raids...

We're fairly certain Magtheridon could be done with 3... just healing through blastwave...

HKM/Gruul will take I think at least 5 just for the DPS before he grows out of control

SSC/TK could probably be 2-3 manned with the right comp - aside from maybe Vashj/Kael - might need more like 5-10 - leaning towards the 5 tho...

Didn't come up with a number for Hyjal or BT...

any thoughts? anyone tried any of these yet with only a few people? how did it go?

[Treck]

2-3manning ssc/tk would prolly be optimistic, maybe 5man but still doubtful.
I experienced a bigger differance between pre 3.0 and 3.0 than i did when entering BT again at 80.
Ive only done MH/BT at 80, /2 pugs both times with 20ppl, hardly need tacts just tank and spank.
I would still hesitate before entering ssc/tk with fewer than 10ppl, prolly possible, but to much effort imo.
Like 3manning MC at 70, possible, but takes soo much time, if your setting a record go ahead waste the time ^^
Altho, theres hardly anything to do anymore...

[phaqueue]

yea... if we're going for time we'll take the people - we tend to do these things just to be able to say we did it...

things like pulling the entire room before Moroes in kara at once... not necessarily a reason... just because to see if it's possible...

we both will tend to get bored with things like heroics and such... and this is what we do instead of leveling alts... also - would be nice to try to get the achievements... and if we could do something different while doing so - wouldn't be a terrible thing IMO...

guess we'll have to mess around with it... anyone have any experience with trying any of these?

[Samilyn]

Anything with a modest enrage timer will be difficult. Any encounter with fears should be tanked by a warrior if you're running with a few priests or a shaman. Melee will be king for under-manning single target content because they can DPS indefinitely unlike mages et. al.

I'll outline what I think are the bare minimums for some encounters. Stack enough dps on top to kill before enrage and you're set.

T-4
Kara -- Trio easy, duo possible, solo very hard (curator sparks, shade of aran, netherspite).

Mag -- Has a (20m?) enrage, make sure you can beat it

High King -- Death coil + tanking 4 mobs is bad. Probably still need a mage.

Gruul -- He'll start doing a lot of DPS, and even if you can heal through it he'll despawn after a while (why rogues had trouble soloing him at 70)


T-5
Hyrdoss -- Never fought this boss.

The rest -- No big issues. Pick up adds, smart positioning.

Vashj -- Seems like P2 would be very difficult without 1 person for each cardinal direction + 2-3 for kiting/killing striders and catching tainted cores. You might be able to have all 3-4 DPS in the middle kiting and killing elementals, with 1-2 running around for tainted picking up cores.

Alar -- Flame buffet still hurts at lvl 80, 3 people who can tank is a good idea. Have a tank save 100% of the adds, frost nova + AOE so you don't get gibbed and he'll drop quickly in P2.

Voidreaver -- Easy.

Solarian -- Easy.

Kael -- One shield tank, one fire tank or extra healer, and either redundant healers or dedicated people to take off MC. At least one person who can use each relevant weapon would help.

T-6 I didn't spend a lot of time here, but:

Hyjal trash has the potential to suck, a lot.

Anatheron -- Heals for (300%?) of damage dealt, might need to stack a few DPS.

Mana-draining boss -- There's lots of new fun ways to keep mana at 100%, but as he does this ability faster I think you'd have problems.

Sacrificing boss -- Just a DPS check.

Archi -- Priests, a shaman, or a prot warrior are almost required, as well as somebody who can de-curse.


Not a lot of experience in BT, but:

Bloodboil? -- That required tank switches, will still require them with a small group (unlike a full raid that can brute force it)

Council -- Mobs need to be tanked apart, requires interrupts.

Mother -- Have fun soaking saber lash solo. IIRC a hit solo was around 40-50k at 70. Would still require SR gear, or stacking healers.

Illidan -- One tank in mixed FR on Illidan and another with FR for the second add. Somebody in SR gear, and a class mix to deal with the other gimmick's however you see fit.


Sunwell

Kalecgos -- 2 tanks, enough people so that not all your healers get force ported downstairs at the same time.

Brutallus -- Enough hunters/paladins to taunt-kite him until your DPS kills him.


Materialistically under-manning level 70 content with full naxx-25 gear means that most the fights will be longer than they were in 3.0, and you'll probably get the most bang for your buck by generally following the old strategies. Mobs that you never realized enraged all of the sudden seem really hard with a 1500DPS tank, 1500DPS healer, and 5000DPS melee as your entire group.

Even in T-8 and T-9 gear you'll need a certain number of people to deal with a some of the gimmicks that are too strong to heal through for 20 minutes.

[Krazy]

The BT trash is soloable up to Naj'entus...except the big water elemental guys...they rocked my face.

Wanted to try Naj solo but couldn't kill the two elementals in front of him...did not bring NR gear but that may help out.

Lasted about 30 seconds with all three though

He cannot spine the tank so it just might be possible...once the bubble bursts it is only 8k damage, which you could bubble through at least once.


EDIT: Now that I think about it...the main problem is the fact that you would not be able to bust the bubble without a spine...so he would probably just heal all the way to full again.

EDIT2: Doh, 8 minute enrage would make this very tough without at least a decent group.

[knaughty]

Hyjal trash has the potential to suck, a lot.

I used to pretty much solo-tank it at level 70. We did full Hyjal clears with nothing but me+bear as tanks.

I'm fairly sure a prot+holy pally pair could duo all Hyjal trash. The fact you'll end up with multiple waves is a non-issue when they do no damage. Possible trouble clearing them all before the boss arrives, but it may not matter.

[majiben]

Abom stuns could eat through you if the packs pilled up too much. Sure the chance of an individual abom getting a stun is low but put 6 of them on you and you're asking for trouble. I would actually like a ret paladin as a dps or a DK due to their aoe damage not being affected by a cap.

[Belloc]

Karazhan can be duo'd with little issue. As far as I'm aware, Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, BBW, Curator, Illhoof, and Prince have all been soloed (I've soloed the first three, personally). Netherspite would be difficult with 2, but should be manageable.

At least a few bosses in TK and SSC can be 3-manned, if I remember correctly. The only ones that can't be 5-manned are Vashj and Kael (again, if I remember correctly).

Naj'entus, Supremus and Akama have been 5-manned, I think. Fairly certain that the first 3 bosses in Hyjal were 5-manned as well, but I'm not sure about Azgalor.

There you go.

[Wolvar]

How do you get past chess with 2 people.... I had to bring in a 3rd and it was still pretty hard to do.

And I can't think of a prot pally partner spec/class that would be capable of duo'ing nether. Without using the blue beam you aren't going to beat him in one round.

I sincerely doubt that anyone has solo'd Illhoof. Him and nightbane are still pretty damn tough.

[Belloc]

How do you get past chess with 2 people.... I had to bring in a 3rd and it was still pretty hard to do.

And I can't think of a prot pally partner spec/class that would be capable of duo'ing nether. Without using the blue beam you aren't going to beat him in one round.

I sincerely doubt that anyone has solo'd Illhoof. Him and nightbane are still pretty damn tough.

Illhoof was soloed by pulling him to Curator's area, resulting in no imps (except for multiple Kil'reks, surprisingly). Netherspite is done by not using the red beam. I'm also wondering if he can be pulled to a point in the room where players can be hit by multiple beams.

[Aysun]

I went into Hyjal and gave my best at the trash. With some practice and the right gear I managed to survive until the abomination wave (6th?) and kill all the mobs in time for 4 waves.

It was quite tricky and a bit luck dependant since if the last mob in the wave dies all the NPCs reset and it's extremely troublesome to gather them all again. What I tried to do is fear one or two to keep them out of the AoE so I'd have a mob or two left when the next wave comes. This kept the NPCs in combat and DPSing all the time but it was hard to pull off consistently especially since my DBM failed to show the wave timers.

My gear was mostly from badges/heroics, probably something like 1400 block value and loads of str/spelldmg weapon to buff consecrate ticks. For trinkets I used EoG and FotC, which help a lot but the best way to get health back was to Holy Wrath -> run a bit -> Holy Light. At wave 3 or 4 I usually had to health pot but I imagine you could make it till wave 6 with best-in-slot BV/BR/STR gear and have your potion CD up to pop a free action pot for the abominations.

I can't remember the waves after that and I guess the boss would be impossible to solo due to the frostbolt and the enrage timer. Duoing the trash and Rage with a boomkin or perhaps a shadowpriest would probably be possible though.

[Pizbit]

Gurtogg just wont happen without 3 groups to rotate or people who can self remove the dot to give the effect of 3 groups, the DoT stacks and skyrocket the healing load FAST.
Kara just need 2 people as many of the bosses have already been soloed. Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, I think Nightbane and Prince too? Not sure who else.
I think most t6+sunwell will require 10-20 people as a minimum due to enrage mechanisms or boss mechanics.

[Anorian]

did entire black temple the other day with max 10 people,

- started with 5 on naj, was very easy
- supremus is "tankable in kite" and still needs an OT hatefull are 13k on ret paladins, Just spam threat and he should stick to you in kiting phase
-akama was lol zerg 1 tank + healers stand in the middle we had about 7/8 at the time killed him easily before akama would die
- teron had 2 ghosts, we had 10 by then and no heroism.
- bloodboil proved interesting, the aoe dmg is definently not healable but with our dps we managed to kill him jsut before the raid wiped, think we had 2 standing at the end. switching tanks isnt that needed but might be nice
- RoS doesnt really need kicks, we just all nuked. Most people can take a hit or 2 easily. p3 was lolzerg as well
- mother was almost a big wipe and got killed by only the MT+ot who were still standing, i healed the last 10% as ret. basicly if anyone didnt ran away asap he died.
- council was fairly easy, though we did have 3 tanks + a mage, same tacs on 70.
illidan was lol, i was MT and tanked 1 of the flames, if you just run out the fire your fine. he went to 30% before even 1 demon phase so we never got half of the raid stunned by those spawns.

all of it was healed by 2 healers.

[Belloc]

Gurtogg isn't that bad if your healers are good. Of course, that assumes you're not doing a trade chat pug.

Council is funny when you don't have a mage. We had a DPS warrior tanking the mage, somehow.

Sunwell has been 10 manned, I believe.

[Horanur]

Problem with Kael:

Only way to remove MC is with the dagger ~ which means if you only bring one person who can wield a dagger, and that's the person who gets MC'd.... you're pretty screwed. I would also like to point out that in order to remove MC, you must use an ABILITY, so casters equipping daggers and sticking people does NOT work, must be a ROG / SHM / WAR.

We did him with 10 people last night. 2 tanks (only one is needed i would say), 2 healers is also very helpful because once again, healers can be MC'd in P4. The less damage you bring, the greater risk you run of having problems with MC. Pyroblast really isn't an issue with CD's, and if everyone knows the fight then the raid damage is fairly negligible.

We wiped twice, both times due to issues with MC, other than that it isn't terribly difficult. I estimate it can be done with as little as 6-7, luck depending.


PS. I forget if you can pop out of MC with racial / trinkets / bubble, or if it wears off eventually. Either way it causes progressively more trouble with fewer people.