Good news everyone!!! I've been documenting ICC bosses health pools and enrage timers and thought some of you could find it useful. This is just 25 man and numbers have been rounded up or down for maximum inaccuracy. Correct me if they are wrong:
What I've learnt is that trying to measure difficulty just by HP pools is highly deceptive. Then only boss that is overtuned in terms of HP is Festergut NM (has almost the same HP as the HC version) and that's what makes it impossible to kill by PUGs.
Which really makes a boss deadly is it's damage output, HP of adds, passive AOE, etc. Take for example Valithria: She has the same HP as in retail, Which may lead you to believe she is similar to her original incarnation; but the damage of adds, lay waste and the speed in which adds spawn is what makes the fight more difficult. In Marrow and PP the difficulty lies in the HP of spikes/oozes and the damage of malleable goo, choking gas / cold flame, bonestorm, just a second in those can kill you. Queen AOE is brutal, despite her having a 0% increase in HP from retail, her fight remains hellish and only a group with very competent healers can survive, I'm guessing all this damage to tanks and everyone in the raid is what scares every tank and healer from the server, to the point one has to spend an hour+ finding one for RHC. Another interesting data is that some bosses have a tremendous increase in HP, which some may think makes them harder than others, but in reality they feel just right (Marrow, BPC).
So I have deemed judging bosses merely by their HP and enrage timers to be and incomplete analysis. Next I'm gonna document HP of adds and damage output of various bosses abilities. I believe the answer on how to tune them better lies in that data.
Thank you. Fester NM seems to be down to 54.5M since 2 weeks ago, a 1M nerf is a good start so more PUGs can kill it, and Vali seems to be harder for some reason (I guess mobs' HP or damage was buffed a bit), also her HP went from 35,999,999 to 36,000,005, at the same time Halion's 10 cutter got completely bugged.
You guys were not lying when you said these Buffs/Nerfs came out of nowhere and there's absolutely no info of them anywhere, RL's have to feel them and adapt every other week.
I will try to make these threads every 2 months or so, next one will have ICC10 info as well. I feel some encounters don't mirror their 25 counterparts. Marrow 10 HC is very tough, overtuned in my opinion, while Lady 10 HC is tuned well / Marrow 25 HC is tuned okayish (aside from coldflame, which feels like you are stepping onto the sun's surface), while Lady 25 HC is in nightmare mythic plus mode, the kind of boss fight that gives you PTSD xD
I'm guessing when Frostmourne released ICC this year they patched Marrowgar in every realm. Since before the patch he targeted the farthest away target, so the staff had to increase damage of coldflame, bonestorm and HP of bonespikes to make it more "challenging". After they patched him the fight became a bit more complex but damage of abilities remained, making them a bit overtuned, specially in 10 man, where any minor mistake leads to wipe while requiring very high DPS.
You guys were not lying when you said these Buffs/Nerfs came out of nowhere and there's absolutely no info of them anywhere, RL's have to feel them and adapt every other week.
While they still don't post adjustments to content difficulty, at least now they're doing monthly changelogs for everything else. We didn't even have that back then! :)
Since before the patch he targeted the farthest away target
As of now, he still does target the furthest target away, but if there is nobody outside of his melee range plus like 10 yards, then any player is a valid target for Bonestorm bounce. A good way to control the bounces is to have a Hunter pretty far away from wherever you start tanking him, and then when he bounces, one tank stays at the original position while everyone else moves very close to him, so they are fully within his melee range. Once he bounces back to the first tank, either the second tank or Hunter can move to where he just bounced from and the rest of the raid will once again move very close to him to make sure everyone else is counted as being within his melee range. Doing it like this, the only valid targets outside of his melee range should be one of the two tanks and/or the Hunters.