Massive Firelands Nerfs Starting Next Week

[Sagara]

I'll just give an exception for Rags normal. It went way easier than what I expected (I think under 30 tries, with stupids D/Cs included), but there is still something of a decent challenge to organize the different phases.

There's still an assload of room for mistakes, but it feels as hard as domo was pre-nerf - hard, but perfectly doable when you know your stuff. I can easily imagine loads of PuGs getting their asses handed to them when they meet him.

(Now, the fact that PuGs CAN meet him does say something in and of itself)

[Skye1013]

Talking about Theck's alts running FL... it does help that they know the fight (if not necessarily from that perspective, but a lot of parts to a fight are the same regardless of being a tank/mdps/rdps/heals.) That alone makes up for a lot of undergearing issues (the nerfs just make min. dps requirements lower for a group that already knows the fights.)

[oldboyz]

Regarding the whole casual/hardcore debate, I think it's more of an attitude thing.

make your choice :
A- 3 hours raid with an overstuff/overskill/over-xp raid, aka farm status boss run : all boss down by the end and guarantee loots (and fun)

B- 3hours raid of try and pain, might be a down by the end and just 1 loot to share between several folks

[Winkle]

Some interesting stats/graphs on MMO-champion today: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/249 ... ?#comments

Less than 2500 characters in the US have killed HC rag, assuming that includes some alts from Vodka and the like then its really very few people still.

135,000 US characters have cleared fireland normals, and that definitely does include alts. That's 5% of all lvl 85 US characters. No wonder they nerfed it, i really didn't realize how few people raided/cleared content. I can only imagine Blizzard are looking for even more participation from LFR, but i wonder exactly how many people they can get interested.

[Skye1013]

Does that tell you how many of the 95% lvl 85s that haven't cleared FL normal are actually making an attempt to do so?

[Winkle]

Regarding the whole casual/hardcore debate, I think it's more of an attitude thing.

make your choice :
A- 3 hours raid with an overstuff/overskill/over-xp raid, aka farm status boss run : all boss down by the end and guarantee loots (and fun)

B- 3hours raid of try and pain, might be a down by the end and just 1 loot to share between several folks

Are you trying to imply A is better or B?

I guess thats one of the big problems with addressing raid difficulty. The "harcore" raid set would look for B whilst a lot of people are simply looking to log on and have a quick successful "farm run" style raid. Unfortunately the 2 aren't very happy bedmates.

I guess Blizzard are addressing a large subset of the communities desires for quick and easy raiding with lots of loots in LFR.

[Skye1013]

On the other side... A might be the "hardcore" people because they've already cleared the place umpteen times, while B is the "casual" trying to get their first kill.

[Winkle]

Does that tell you how many of the 95% lvl 85s that haven't cleared FL normal are actually making an attempt to do so?

No, unfortunately it doesn't include that metric (data based of achievements i believe). It has the break down for heroic bosses as % killed. I.E. of the charchters that have killed a heroic boss 97% have killed Shannox HC with Rag at 2.2%.

We can also see that only 7% of the characters that reach 6/7hc have gone on to kill rag hc. If you apply that same ratio to normal modes there's 2mil characters (US) raiding fire lands, but that sounds incredibly high.

A better indicator is probably the ratio provided by wowprogress. Of the guilds that have killed ALysrazor normal 2/3 have also kill Ragnaros. That suggests approximately 200,000 US characters are raiding FL normal.

[Winkle]

On the other side... A might be the "hardcore" people because they've already cleared the place umpteen times, while B is the "casual" trying to get their first kill.

Yes i believe that was what Oldboys was suggesting. I'm just stating that in reality the "hardcore" raider is usually interested in challenge (hence B). Whilst the casual raider is more interested in the experience (see the dragon, slay the dragon).

[PsiVen]

Even post-nerf Heroic Ragnaros is among the hardest bosses ever. That nerf made sense to almost everyone, I think, though people on the brink of killing him pre-nerf were not happy about the inevitable timing of it.

I was surprised by own feelings on this issue because I found that I don't really mind Baleroc being nerfed (he was just obnoxious to wipe on) but I do find it highly irritating that guilds not working on H-Rag are rewarded with purple firehawks. The ugly-ass T11 drake is still a much harder meta achievement.

[Worldie]

I would disagree, I got almost all the T11 meta achis by accident so far (just missing Chogall, Atramedes and Conclave metas basically), while I don't see myself getting the purple hawk anytime soon due to the presence of Alystrazor achieve

[PsiVen]

I would disagree, I got almost all the T11 meta achis by accident so far (just missing Chogall, Atramedes and Conclave metas basically), while I don't see myself getting the purple hawk anytime soon due to the presence of Alystrazor achieve

I'm talking specifically about Heroic Ascendant Council. It's quite trivial to get all the other achievements in one week by force-wiping a few times until you nail it. That would be fine for Firelands, except all of the heroic bosses the meta requires are easier than AC.

I generally dislike the practice of forcing people to choose between getting the meta achievement (which once represented the pinnacle reward for that tier) and killing each boss on Heroic. Looking at the history of it:

In Naxx, everything was trivial and there were no hardmodes. The meta was obnoxious to complete because Immortal was horrible and you couldn't risk doing any of the other ones until you got it.
In Ulduar, the meta was just hardmodes (and a couple stupid ones for the bosses without hardmodes). All the extra achievements were there for fun.
In ToC, there was a wildly unpopular attempt counter / Immortal achievement instead of a meta.
In ICC, getting the meta meant you couldn't attempt HLK for a week, which worked well because it wasn't realistic for most to attempt him until the 5-10% buffs anyway. Still, it meant the top guilds weren't the first to get it. You still missed out on heroic loot from most of the bosses whose achievements demanded normal mode.
In T11, getting the meta meant you couldn't attempt Sinestra that week, but nobody cared because A) the mount was horrible and B) most people had killed Sinestra by the time they had both Al'Akir and Ascendant Council.
In T12, getting the meta means you miss out on most heroic loot that week and can't work on H-Rag, who is miles ahead of the rest of the instance in difficulty. As a result everyone who is still working for a post-nerf Rag kill is in a position to get the meta on their alts first.

[Worldie]

Yeah I find quite ironic that Tier 11 heroics are now harder than all of Tier 12 content except heroic Ragnaros.

[Passionario]

make your choice :
A- 3 hours raid with an overstuff/overskill/over-xp raid, aka farm status boss run : all boss down by the end and guarantee loots (and fun)

B- 3hours raid of try and pain, might be a down by the end and just 1 loot to share between several folks

I'd rather have A and B alternate. During progression phase, it's all sweat and blood. Then you beat the tier's final boss and enjoy your well-deserved farm runs. And then, just as said runs start getting stale, the next tier comes out and the cycle starts all over again.

Unfortunately for me and those who share this preference, there are only two ways to achieve this situation in Cataclysm: if your guild is hardcore enough to beat all Hard modes with time to spare, or if it's casual enough to stick exclusively to Normals.

Between 0/7H and 7/7H (0/13 - 13/13 for T11, respectively) lies the fun deadzone. It's a harsh place where you first wipe on normals, gradually proceed to wiping on hardmodes, but before you're done, the next tier comes out and you're back to wiping on new normals. Forever stuck in the progression phase, never reaching full farm status, 52 stress weeks per year.

[Ghastard]

I enjoy the nerfs to FL as a whole, including heroics. We are not chasing any server firsts in my guild; furthermore, it just makes for some very fun nights raiding with friends. We are able to run 3 FL groups now, which allows some undergeared friends in the guild that dont get in the main group to get some experience and kinda bond with the others. Also, if you look at it a different way, it allows our small tight-nit guild to have some of the main raiders gear their alts. This lets them change their mains in later patches or expansions if they wish, since they'll have some gear. Also, our guild leader heals one of the alt runs, and gets to feel the healing pain when people stand in the dumb.

For those chasing the server firsts, wouldn't incoming nerfs make them feel the pressure even more to get their kills in, making it even more exciting for them? My viewpoint towards WoW is that it is just another form of entertainment. So whether I am raiding the current content (my fav), or running old stuff with friends, along as we are having fun I am entertained.