The Man Who Would Solo a 40 Man Raid

[Neko_Oni]

This guy is crazy. And far too rich for his own good.

Xzin, a World of Warcraft player, is contemplating graduating from “epic” to “ledendary.” He already regularly pvp’s by controlling 5 characters at once: one priest and four mages. I’ve seen one of his videos and I’m impressed. Note that he leveled them all up by controlling all five in instanced dungeons. Note that he has no tank, just mages and a priest. Xzin his his priest and his mages are Azin, Bzin, Czin, and Dzin. His guild: Army of Zin.

Zin is now planning to scale up his efforts to take down Ragnaros, the boss of Molten Core, all by himself. He’ll need to buy 40 copies of World of Warcraft, by 40 monthly subscription fees (about $600/month), have enough computers to run 40 instances of the game, and use 40 monitors (most of them will be 8.4″ monitors). He’ll need a physical space that can accomodate all the equipment, and by his estimates, he’ll need at least the equivalent of two T1 internet connections for bandwith, which you can’t really get from residential dsl or cable. I’m guessing that the hardware and software costs will be more than $20,000.

This is also quite an interface challenge and micromanagement challenge. I think he plans to use one keyboard to controll all this and an assortment of (legal) macros. Just planning and executing a UI setup to accomodate this task is probably a full time job, in my opinion. Of course, he’s already proven himself in controlling 5 characters at once in pvp and in instances, so perhaps it’s just a matter of scaling up what he’s already been doing for a year.

His gameplan premise is to have 35 of his 40 characters be mages, lol. He hopes that with high enough dps (that’s damage per second for the jargon-impaired), he will be able to end the fight against Rag before the 120 second mark, when it gets a lot more hairy.

Xzin, to me, sounds like some kind of Batman character. I’m sure right now he’s building his super computer setup deep in the batcave, illuminated by the glow of 40 monitors. He’s wealthy enough that he can spend time and money on hobbies without being bound by the drudergy of the common man. His entrepreneurial spirit gives him the will to believe that “it can be done” and to actually stick with it until it happens. I don’t know why such a totally ridiculous and silly thing should be so inspiring, but somehow, I think it is.

Incidentally, since it’s proven extremely difficult to find anyone much of a clue who wants to pvp with me on ysera (horde), maybe I’ll try the Xzin route myself on a smaller scale, lol.

The Man Who Would Solo a 40 Man Raid

[Stormin]

Team Wizzy and his clones have been doing this in DAoC for a long time.
www.teamwizzy.com check here for vids and such.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

Hell, with enough macros and a little java anyone can take an instance. The PvP is far more of an accomplishment, as it is not just pre-planned spawns, but rather other people who adapt and force you to do the same or lose.

Then again, with the general community on WoW... I doubt they would be much more difficult to fight than an instance. They are utter idiots and with macros and a cool head (Unless you are facing an entire 40 man guild group who use teamspeak, join AV or AB at the same time, and actually listen to their leaders, that is.) it should be cake.

[Ghost Rider]

So how exactly is he going to to get there?

Using five characters is impressive, but really...WoW PVP is spamming a spell and watching an idiot fall. The focus fire of four mages and a priest? My cat could assrape PvP with that team up. What he's considering next while simple for raiding guild is not just DPS spam that he's considering.

Literally there will be parts that can't be brute forced...unless he's armed with level 200 gear giving each of his mages tens of thousands of DPS per frostbolt.

Here's an idiot with far too much money and delusions of granduer.

[Neko_Oni]

I guess I was perhaps overly impressed with the idea. But I haven't played any WoW so twas hard for me to judge (the nearest thing I've played is Guild Wars, needless to say this shit would be impossible in GW).

[Ghost Rider]

I guess I was perhaps overly impressed with the idea. But I haven't played any WoW so twas hard for me to judge (the nearest thing I've played is Guild Wars, needless to say this shit would be impossible in GW).

The idea is interesting, but here lies the problem. Brute forcing through the current UBRS(One of the first dungeons to give an inkling of what a raid is), has enemies that do not one shot everything.

Even with buying the best the AH can offer, he's getting a group of eh characters. Now let's say he outfits with the best the current game offers before MC. Much better but the problem comes with 35 Mages is not the best DPS...it's the easiest. If you want the upper extreme, might as well done 35 Hunters + Pets, but I digress.

Using of 35 Mages suffers that a lot of even the trash one on one can rip through his clothies before they can do their DPS(And this is even with all the buffs...sure they more, but he's only talking about World Buffs, unless he wants to sacrifice space, for Pallies and Druids.). Take for instance the Dog packs before Magmadar(one of the mobs before a major boss). It's basically a pack of five mobs that ALL have to be killed within a small time window, before they start ressurecting, of which...they inflict horrifying damage to your tank(fuck a Squishe). And when the mages go apeshit, so are the dogs, they go around inflicting damage, ressurecting unless he's got some way of confining them in a spot to do constant group DPS.

And those are the least of his worries. Many of the bosses, while for most guilds are pinantas of epic loot, do requires some strategies to get through their meager defenses, that he will lack(because they require priests or Warlocks, which then cuts into his easy plan for DPS, let alone the bosses that need multiple people to control the dork, Sulfurion and Domo come to mind that no amount of DPS will brute forced unless we're talking thousands per second).

Essentially for all his talk of doing it Alterac is bluster. Hell doing it in UBRS is a feat on that same level. It something I laugh at because he has a shit ton of time and money, but something I already see he really has only read and saw videos and has experienced diddly upon.

EDIT: He's trying 35 Warriors and 8 Shamans. Link

He's fucking fooling himself then even harder.

[General Zod]

I'm more interested in how someone can get enough cash and time to do something like this. Has he no life?

[Ghost Rider]

I'm more interested in how someone can get enough cash and time to do something like this. Has he no life?

He never gives a definitive answer, but just says "I'm young, life is short, and I have the money."

[White Haven]

Hehe. Garr with all mages, that oughta be fun to watch. From a safe distance. In a bomb shelter.

[Alan Bolte]

This guy is on my server. I've played with him, it's awsome. 10 man UBRS with me, 4 others, and Zin. I once suggest he try to use multiple warlocks at one time. His reaction was hilarious.

[White Haven]

Oh gawd, chained Deathcoils...

[Ghost Rider]

Oh gawd, chained Deathcoils...

Now that would be quality PvP

[Silver Paladin]

Already been done. Not 1 man controlling 40 guys, but 33 Frost mages + 7 others have downed Ragnaros in 1:06 I believe.

[White Haven]

You think it's bad now, try after 1.11, when one mage can provide Winter's Chill for the entire raid. *wince*

Back on-topic...oof. I end up being more or less XO of our raids...and so I know just how much has to go right. On the flip side, communication and people not paying attemption will be a non-issue....still, if you're not already schizophrenic before you try it, you will be afterwards.

[Silver Paladin]

Then again, with the general community on WoW... I doubt they would be much more difficult to fight than an instance. They are utter idiots and with macros and a cool head (Unless you are facing an entire 40 man guild group who use teamspeak, join AV or AB at the same time, and actually listen to their leaders, that is.) it should be cake.

We have a guy who does this on our server (4 warlocks). He basically death touches (sup 4 Shadowbolts?)anyone he targets, however, he does have a weakness. His main character is the targetter; everyone else used the /assist and /follow macro, so when facing him, the key is to kill that character, then Fear Bomb the rest and he's basically been disabled for the next 10 seconds while he tries to reorganize his guys.

I would assume Zin does the same thing; it's unreasonable to expect him to manually target 4 players. He could use the Healbot mod for healing (it selects the lowest HP guy and casts a heal that matches the amount of HP lost so it's 1 click), but for targetting, he would still need the macro.

So yeah it's dangerous, but it has it's weakspots.

[White Haven]

Smart thing would be to have a macro that runs down the name list til it finds one of the squad alive, and assist him. If everyone has the same macro, then they'll all assist the same person, even if the original main targetter is dead.