Here's a debate that's been happening lately in guild, brought to the forums.
When Blizzard designs a raid boss encounter, they sometimes overlook some possible alternative strategies that can make the fight much, much easier. I'm not talking specifically about Exploits, though, which are against your Terms of Service with Blizzard.
Examples of an Exploit include:
- Using the evasion bug in order to keep the adds at bay when doing Yogg-Saron with no keepers up (hard mode) (fixed).
- Using a particular safe spot in order to avoid doing the Heigan dance (fixed).
- Somehow getting a Shirt of Martin Fury from a GM.
Exploits are typically fixed by Blizzard as they're discovered, so I feel it's no use building a strategy around them.
However, some strategies that possibly weren't intended by Blizzard include:
- Taking advantage of the terrain in Zul'aman to pull the end mob from the gauntlet in front of the Eagle Boss, thus ending the gauntlet as soon as it starts.
- Using both corners of Heigan the Unclean's platform so that healers and ranged DPS don't get silenced, and melee don't have to run with the boss through the poisonous area (in phase 1).
- Tanking Ignis the Furnace Master in the pools so as to cancel out his Charred Earth.
There is some grey area in between, though, where you can use the talents and skills given to you by Blizzard without taking advantage of any bugs, but you're still not doing the fight the way Blizzard intended:
- Deathbringer Saurfang - using knockback to push his adds off the cliff (fixed, so could be considered an exploit).
- Deathbringer Saurfang - having a player with Mark of the Blood jump off the cliff themselves, killing the player but stopping the boss from getting extra health or blood power.
- Deathbringer Saurfang - using Divine Intervention on a player with Mark of the Blood, and then ressurecting the pally with a battle-res or soulstone in order to remove the mark.
(You can see where this conversation started in-game.)
So, where should we draw the line between "alternative strategies" and exploits? Should we do every fight only the way Blizzard intended? What other boss fights do you know of have alternative strategies, and where do they fit on the scale?