First and foremost I think the majority of the raid is now at a point where your average guild can currently get to 7/8 with a 20 man group. Each fight has a clear set of mechanics that need to be done, whether some of the mechanics are good or not is debatable. My point of this post is to offer up changes that keep the integrity of the fights while increasing the “Puggability” of certain fights.
I will go boss by boss, with some sections being smaller than others. This is coming from experience of a guild (25 man) who is pretty close to clearing 8/8, our most recent attempts we were down our mage healer and just did not have the healing to get through the Ashbringer kill phase but could make it there with everyone up. I have also attempted Pugging SE on multiple characters and certain fights just do not seem realistic for a non guild group.
Balnazzar - The only thing I could think of with this fight is to maybe lower his flying height so that melee have the ability to hit him, but otherwise if nothing changed it would not be a problem.
HM Idea - Possibly make it so that by not killing any of the trash before hand Balnazzar is empowered and if his RP which shoots the shadowbolts out kills like 20 things he becomes Hard mode Balnazzar and drops a bit of extra loot. I think thematically it makes sense, although would suck for guilds not capable as they would now have to kill trash instead of doing the trash skip.
Beatrix - Honestly, I think this fight has been overnerfed and I think that last round of add HP nerfs were a bit too far, although I did believe at the time some was needed.
HM Idea - Allow a group to launch a surprise attack of Beatrix without killing any of the Captains which triggers a harder version of the fight where maybe the callouts can overlap.
Solistraza - I believe this fight is perfectly PUGable, and does not need any changes.
HM Idea - Make the whelps that fly around the outside harder to be accidentally pulled, but make it so they are still pull-able. If you do not clear them all (this enables an accidental pull of a few to not lock out doing the HM) it initiates the HM and Solistraza will spawn 4-5 whelps (unsure if 5 is realistic) per spawn during the fight.
Alexei the Beast Lord - This fight also seems perfect PUGable and I do not believe needs any changes.
HM Idea - I draw a blank on how to initiate a HM on this fight, and what it would entail. I think making it so you couldn’t be on the roofs would be a start and allowing the bears Wild Aperture to to through objects so you couldn’t just fight him behind a fence would add a significant challenge for most groups.
Mason the Echo - I think not allowing the cannons to shoot people who are on the boats would be big for PuG groups so that they could potentially send people early. The biggest issues I have seen with PuGs is having to rely on 1 to 2 people to do a time sensitive job which if they don’t do fast enough buffs the boss. BUT, honestly a group should have two competent people able to accomplish this by themselves.
HM Idea - Make this fight able to initiated without killing First Mate Kip. Not killing him will provide some buffs to the crew during the fight or some added mechanic. Maybe he rolls barrels of Grog off the ship that had to be dodged or something like that. Something pirate-y.
Council - This is the boss fight that I think is currently not PUGable by 99% of groups. There are just too many mechanics going on, and the kick being missed in a PUG is very common. Yes, shadow protection potions will save you from one missed kick, but I have not been in a PUG that has made it past this part.
My change for this fight would be very simple. Whenever you interrupt Visha’s, no matter what type of interrupt you use, he is silenced for 5-10 seconds (debatable on the amount of time), BUT he locks the interrupt of the person who interrupted him for 30-60 seconds(debatable on the amount of time). This would one make overlapping kicks not as bad, and two make it so a few people don’t get what I call the "sit stick. The “s*it stick” is what I call any mechanic where a few people have to do a very unfun mechanic for an entire fight. This would thus become a fight where all that mattered was that you got the kick off. If you overlapped your kick it wouldn’t matter as much because there is a set time before he can cast again. You would not need a set kick order for a PuG group and could just focus on the other mechanics.
EZ Mode Idea - I think the current iteration of the fight would stay as the hardmode, and you would speak with an Argent Dawn member outside the Council fight who states he will debuff Vishas for you which enable the updated Visha’s kick mechanic.
HM Idea - Make it so that based on the kill order you do you get more loot. I think this adds a more significant challenge as most groups just choose to kill Doan since him dying doesn’t really do anything. I think Visha’s - Herod - Doan kill order would be the hardest and give the most loot. Groups could still try to kill all 3 at the same time, but I still think splitting your damage to do that warrants a significant challenge increase over the current way people do the fight.
Lillian Voss - Fight is easy, and trivialized by a rogue tank. No changes
HM Idea - Make it so by talking to Putress before the fight you can goad him into joining the fight. He would need to be tanked and has some mechanics that he randomly throws out that are ontop of the normal Lillian mechanics. A slow moving cloud of poison that starts in a corner and chases one player around and they have to not run it into to people. A debuff he puts on a person that makes them vomit out fire, and that person has to face away from the group (can not be targeted on the top two people with threat.), etc you should come up with some fun ones.
Caldoran - Now this is a fight that currently I won’t speak too much on as I have not been in a PuG that has made it there and my group has not cleared, but is very close. Most of the mechanics feel “fair”, but I will touch on the ones that don’t seem as fair.
Executioner Sentence - this abilities seems harder for Horde to deal with than Alliance due to Paladin’s ability to transfer some of the damage and also provide some form of absorption to the tank. My group has elected to run another tank that taunt swaps on it due to us doing the math and even with a rewind time DR on the tank, and frozen rune + Power word shield there was a non zero chance that executioner sentence could stack with another ability and overlap damage to one shot the tank. Possibly let DR affect (at a reduced rate) the execution sentence so you don’t have to tank swap, but its manageable.
Devoted Offering (Scarlet Martyrs) - This is another “s*it stick” mechanic. As far as we have figured out only Polymorph is consistent in interrupting the cast and stopping the Martyrs from immediately trying to recast. I play a rogue and Gouges/ kidney shots just reset the cast. It is extremely frustrating for our mage players on such a long fight. Just make it so any effect that incapacitates the target makes it so they won’t try recast the spell. Over our weeks of progging Caldoran this one ability has burnt out our mages so bad because they have to babysit it the entire fight. Just allow other abilites to have the same effect. In a PuG group having to rely solely on 1-2 mages to do this correct or you lose the fight is frustrating. Especially if a martyr doesn’t die in the fire and get revived.
HM Idea - this fight honestly seems hard enough, but I guess once groups have ashbringers it will get easier. I won’t throw out ideas as we are currently progging it still, but are close.