Nerfin Them Hardmodes

[Dezzimal]

XT was a little difficult and might have needed to get tuned down a little, but its not like people don't get to see the content because they can't kill something. It took us 2 days to learn it which is pretty sodding fast when you consider how long some sunwell bosses took, and our 2nd/3rd kills of it took us anywhere between 8-12 wipes to nail it down. We're not an S-Class guild so there are hundreds of other guilds that killed it when it was nerfed into "killable" range, and still more that were going to kill it when they put the time into learning it. Then again maybe I should be happy that we can re-kill all the easy hardmodes fairly quickly now and get to work on the ones we haven't done that still haven't been nerfed.

I don't believe that content should need this much re-adjusting. Every instance since BC has had this difficulty slider attached to a time bomb.

[Palin]

I know I'm the "hardcore bitching about nerfs" but I thought the point of Hard Modes was to allow easy access to all the bosses to the casuals while keeping challenging encounters open to more hardcore guilds, not making one instance have 2 tiers of progression that they slowly nerf down to normal levels. It feels more like they're just extending the life of an instance x2 instead of doing the original concept of Normal for casuals and Hards for more bleeding edge guilds.

[Guitarman]

People want a challenge, but a challenge that's doable. That's the big thing here I think. If it's hard, and they can't do it in a handful of tries, they give up and scream its too much.

Unfortunately you guys here are in the extreme minority as far as WoW players go. You all knew when you signed up it was a more casual game. It should'nt be that suprising things are getting toned down.

I'm in the boat of i'm glad these are being "nerfed". It's not that I couldn't handle the hard modes, but I'm completely stuck with a group that isn't up to my level. I know that sounds vain and stuck up as hell, but I sit and research everything i can, i nitpick every piece of gear that goes on me. The rest of the group i go with doesn't do that. (at least to that extent). These nerfs are the only way ill ever get even a chance to experience them.

[Noobta]

WoW wasn't very casual friendly when it came out, it's changed a lot since pre bc.

[Guitarman]

Oh really? I started a few weeks before lich king, so everything i hear about before then is second hand.

Honestly, pound out the hard modes as they are, kick your feet up and be happy in the knowledge you guys are so good. So a handful more guilds will be able to do the hard modes, big whup. You know you could've handled the original hard modes, that should be enough. Even though alot of BG members are pounding out the achievements, no one has done all of them yet, and by the time some of you WILL have done them all, icecrown will probably be in game, so there will be more to do.

[Arvin]

Most of us signed up ages ago, vanilla WoW and everything. It's changed drastically for the worse (my opinion) and they're now just not giving a shit to the hardcore guilds. You felt such a sense of pride when you downed pre-nerfed content back in the day. When we were on Azshara and downed Vashj, Kael, Illidan before anyone by a large margin we felt like the kings of the server. There is absolutely nothing like that right now in WotLK and it just makes the 'smaller' populace of hardcore raiders pissed off. I wish they would have given it more time because of our 2 raid day schedule. We really don't raid often or a lot which shows the level of skill we have.. but the time we raid isn't enough to battle the 'time bomb' as Dezz mentioned. I personally see more complaining on realm forums NOW than I used to back when content was actually difficult and required attunements and a good guild. I'm hoping they don't fuck this up with Icecrown or I will be severely disappointed. I want at least 1 raid where the casuals can't just walk up and kill someone of importance and it requires a semblance of skill. So yeah, Guitarman it sort of does bother a lot of us that anyone can go in and pound down hardmodes because they just keep getting watered down. :\ You could also say that BG needs to expand their raid days, but I think we're actually fine. It's blizzard who keeps nerfing these so quickly and yes, they are definitely nerfing them at a faster pace than they did with TBC content. Vanilla only had a few nerfs to actually impossible content but nothing to make something 'easier'.

[Blackice]

The thing is, the small populace of hardcore raiders aren't the bulk of their income. At the end of the day, it's a company making money, and how do you make the most money...?

[Correction]

I feel this 'nerf velocity' is overstated because old school raiders are still dewey-eyed from the Sunwell Radiance days, added to the fact that Naxx had been made easier than Karazhan the second it stepped into the colder climates. This tends to magnify the effect of the first ACTUAL raid dungeon getting even a little bit less RNG-ey and AOE-ey. So it's okay to nerf the amount and difficulty of Mimiron Trash but hey don't you dare touch that Barrage + Nova combo in P4 while I'm dodging doomfires AND mines because THAT is what's keeping tard guilds from Algalon?

I doubt it.

[Arvin]

Black Temple patch timetable.




World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.0 (05/22/2007)

The Black Temple

The Temple of Karabor was the center of draenei worship until its priests were slaughtered by demonically corrupted orcs. In the massacre's aftermath the warlocks of the Shadow Council seized the structure and gave it a new name: the Black Temple.

When the Alliance invaded Draenor after the Second War, the orc shaman Ner'zhul hastily opened several dimensional portals in order to escape. The resulting magical backlash ripped the world apart. Drawn by these portals, the pit lord Magtheridon arrived in what had come to be known as Outland and took the temple as his seat of power.

His dominion over Outland remained unchallenged until the arrival of Illidan the Betrayer. The pit lord proved no match for the wielder of the Twin Blades of Azzinoth. Today Illidan occupies the temple, awaiting any and all who would challenge his rule.



The big nerf which included extra loot drops, players getting buffed and dungeons getting nerfed.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.4.0 (2008-03-25)


# All 25-player raid bosses have had their cash drops increased!
# All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an additional token!
# Badges of Justice have been added to all raid bosses who did not previously have them!
# Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal.
# Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple.
# Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of "Hand of A'dal".
# You may now fight Prince Kael'thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons.




Yeah they sure as hell were pretty quick at patching! Almost... a year? Yeah, you're right. They really get on that.

I'll put Sunwell and TK/SSC timetables in a sec, doing firefighter. (p4, woot)

[Guitarman]

I'm thinking maybe blizzard heard you guys after all. From mmo-champion today:

• New epic 10- and 25-player raid dungeon with five encounters, with each encounter being unlocked one week at a time
• A more intuitive structure for harder encounters. This raid dungeon will have four different versions: 10-player, 25-player, 10-player Heroic, and 25-player Heroic, with each one using a separate lockout.
• Introduction of the Crusaders’ Tribute! Each of the Heroic mode instances has a new tribute system that will limit players on the number of attempts they get in the Coliseum each week to present a greater challenge for the most battle-hardened heroes. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated.

Maybe an answer to wanting harder content? Thoughts?

[Quicklet]

Great, now I need to clear two more instances every week, as if having to do both 10 and 25 man content wasn't enough.

[Maguspk]

Limiting attempts seems like a very artificial way to increase difficulty. It essentially just slows progress, it doesn't necessarily make it more difficult. That's lame.

[Warudo Ecksu]

theyre rly fucking up wow. get out while u can. that seems like a really terrible idea

[Xellos]

Limiting attempts seems like a very artificial way to increase difficulty. It essentially just slows progress, it doesn't necessarily make it more difficult. That's lame.

lolalgalon.

[Norellicus]

I'll take "You only get to attempt this x times a week" over "You only have an hour from the first engagement", but I agree that limiting attempts is a terrible way to introduce 'challenge'.

Crazy low enrage timers or some special buffs/debuffs that change how you have to approach the boss are a challenge; limiting attempts to a point that RNG or latency can fuck your raid over for an entire week is just an attempt to prolong 'freshness'.

[Gulkeeva]

I like the "guardians" left up making the boss harder idea.

It let you do the boss as many times as you want... and as hard as you want it. You got a choice, and they should make it like OS instance... so you do it when you got the people, without slowing down your guilds overall progression.. when you got the people, you can jump right in and go do it, as hard as you want for as many hours as you want.

That way, everyone gets to see the content... but only the hardcore will see the best loot. That way both sides are happy! (I guess?)

[Correction]

Black Temple patch timetable.




World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.0 (05/22/2007)

The Black Temple

You talk like Black Temple was untouched from release till the -hp% meganerf. They completely rewrote the Mother Shahraz mechanics and significantly nerfed Archimonde 4 months later:

World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.2.0 (09/25/2007)

# Saber Lash tanks will no longer be knocked back by Sinister Beam or hit by Fatal Attraction, even if they dodge or parry the attack.
# Mother Shahraz will now pick a new beam to cast after every 3rd beam instead of after every 5th. This means she is much less likely to cast the same beam many times in a row.
# Fatal Attraction now deals 750 damage on the first tick, 1500 on the second, 2250 on the third, and 3000 on all subsequent ticks.
# Prismatic Shield is now more fun. Specifically, Mother Shahraz now takes bonus damage from one school when she is resistant to its opposite. Her resistances now change randomly every 15 seconds and are capped at 25%

# Archimonde has received several adjustments and fixes to prevent some of the harder to counter combinations of his abilities. Archimonde's Soul Charge silence has been lowered in duration to 4 seconds, and the death of the Priest with Spirit of Redemption will no longer create two Soul Charges. The casting time of Archimonde's fear has been increased to 1.5 seconds, and he should now use his Fear ability on a much more consistent interval. Archimonde will also no longer cast Grip of the Legion on very far away targets.
# Archimonde will no longer cast Grip of the Legion on targets that have just been hit with Air Burst.

This is why I think the hardmode nerf qq'ing is an overreaction: Naxx was WAY too easy and people felt like they hadn't been sufficiently challenged since Kil'Jaeden, and as soon as the first hard thing they saw in Northrend get nerfs they start comparing it to the removal of Sunwell Radiance and the -hp% nerf to all bosses, the last significant raid nerf they remembered. If they were being honest with themselves and their expectations of Blizzard raid encounters, they'd make the fairer comparison with these changes made to Archimonde/Mother.

[Plow]

Or it could just be people realizing that you cannot compare hard mode nerfs to anything prior to LK because there were not hard modes.


It's pretty much an entirely different game.


I guess you could compare it to the heroic nerfs... but only in instances that had level 80 dungeons, but also most of what was nerfed in heroics was stupid luck shit like strike > hit > cleave in 1/2 second dropping full t4 war 100-0.

[Correction]

Well back before there was such a thing as hard modes Blizzard did seem to insert encounters that were meant to severely cockblock guilds from getting all the way to the final boss in a single week. Mother's SR requirements and RNG-happy immunities/teleports fit that bill, as well as Reliquary. Meanwhile you had bosses that were buggy EASY for months like Akama. So it is possible to make comparisons, but only if you look at the 'gatekeeper' bosses of the TBC era, which were basically Kael/Vahshj in T5, Mother/Reliquary in BT and...well...the gates in Sunwell.

[Arvin]

You talk like Black Temple was untouched from release till the -hp% meganerf. They completely rewrote the Mother Shahraz mechanics and significantly nerfed Archimonde 4 months later:



This is why I think the hardmode nerf qq'ing is an overreaction: Naxx was WAY too easy and people felt like they hadn't been sufficiently challenged since Kil'Jaeden, and as soon as the first hard thing they saw in Northrend get nerfs they start comparing it to the removal of Sunwell Radiance and the -hp% nerf to all bosses, the last significant raid nerf they remembered. If they were being honest with themselves and their expectations of Blizzard raid encounters, they'd make the fairer comparison with these changes made to Archimonde/Mother.

You do know even with THAT patch, it's still a lot longer of a timeframe than what is going on at the moment? We got Ulduar mid April.. and now it's mid June? We saw the first set of nerfs in May..

I don't think sunwell was very long between, maybe about the same amount of time between the initial BT patch and the one you posted.