General state of raids and instances

As you may know (or not), instances and raids are artificially buffed on this realm.
Instances have roughly 33-37% hp and melee dmg buff. It applies to all trash and bosses and I think it affects also dmg effects (poisons, bleeds, explosions etc.). As far as I observed, they give a rather rough challenge but not huge enough to be considered unbeatable. Mostly it just lengthens the fight by having to do 33% more damage to boss before he dies, on some rare cases you gonna have to pop some defensive cd but otherwise it looks OK.

Raids on the other hand have much higher buffs. It varies between ~50% (most 10-mans) and 100% (meaning boss has twice as much hp and melees twice as hard) on 25-mans.

I'm okay with that, we know there should be a challenge but I think the values may be overshot a bit, especially for now-a-bit-obsolete raids that do not give a precious loot for hardcore raiders such as 10-man Naxx and VoA.

Those raids should act as a entry step towards raiding to create a healthy progression. However some of the bosses are undoable with pugs which is not really fun if you are going to gear yourself. For example. 25-man Archavon has 25% more hp than Toravon did on retail, which was a boss on retail being done with groups that did twice as much dps (rough estimate on dps chart on groups with ~5400 gs).

Challenge? Well yes, but I think there should be a healthy limit. Many pug groups are being disbanded if they consist entirely on new players, because 200 blue/epic geared characters are not able e.g to beat enrage timer of 4 minutes with such a overpowered (in terms of the health pool, not exactly damage done) boss called Archavon. You may say "haha bring some better players n00b" but that's not the point of raids that not a part of current progression. If you are not able to beat a rather easy boss without having 2/3 of your raid with overpowered gear then something is not okay. Naxx and VoA were supposed to be a step higher than heroics (and this fact is reflected in loot) but here they appear to be two steps higher, which is a bit unfair given the loot that they give.

There are two options to resolve that:
1. shift loot tables tier or half a tier up to make them more appealing (you work much harder than you should to beat a boss, but at least you have a chance to receive a reward that is useful to your main spec) - that's not really what I would see as this would create confusion among new players and could create issues with loot
OR
2. consider rebalancing raids in terms of HP and dmg added. People are already clearing Ulduar 25 HMs so if you are OK with that then keep the buffs on current tier but rebalance other raids so the progression is much smoother. 100% flat HP and dmg increase for each boss (more or less, values are not equal for all of them I think) could be smoothed out between 40% (Naxx entry quarters) going through 50% (Sapp, Kel) and up to 60-70% for Sarthartion and Malygos.

As I said, overall the idea with the buff is okay but the values itself seem to cross the gap between "fun new challenge on 12-year old content" towards "being frustrating to do even on moderately-geared characters with no useful loot whatsover".

Blizzard spends a lot of time tuning the encounters and there is a reason for that. They have much more tools in their arsenal (changing the number of phases, their length, number of adds, abilities timers etc.) and we have to stick to plain HP/dmg changes, but there should be a sane limit to that. Doing 12 dances on Heigan instead of retail-like 2-3 will not make the encounter any more fun than it was and this applies to every other boss as well. Even if you master the dance, a boss still could kill you with unlucky streak of disease cast and melee hit which is something not seen on retail as Heigan's melee damage was very low. You can obviously mitigate that with a character that has 40k hitpoints, but then his loot will not be interesting anymore.

TL; DR
There is too much gap between heroics and entry-level raids and this gap is so huge that it doesn't add any fun-factor to the game. It's okay to tune encounters up to add some spiciness (with the prime example of heroic dungeons), but for many bosses instead of adding a pinch of salt an entire wagon of pepper was thrown.

The only raid example you provided was Archavon? You mentioned Heigan but no one is doing 12 dances, not even close to that.

Currently nearly every pug is able to finish a full Naxx 10/25 run with minimal or no wipes, and clear a good chunk of Ulduar 10/25 normal modes without too many issues either despite the content being only a week old. Give it a few more weeks and people being more geared and familiar with the fights, and pugs will easily full clear it.

Nothing wrong with a bit of good challenge, encounters should not be one-shottable by a group of players who don't even know the mechanics. It was actually buffed higher on Lordaeron realm when it was first launched, before they eventually did a bunch of nerfs to raid bosses health and damage, those post-nerf values are what this realm is using. Consider also we are using 3.3.5 talents, which boosts our damage and healing much higher than what the talents were in 3.0 and 3.1 when that relevant content was released.

This realm was advertised when launched as having buffed values and more challenging raids. If you want to one shot every boss and farm several heroic raids in a week, then you should instead go to Icecrown IMO.

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Originally Posted by Matick

Nothing wrong with a bit of good challenge, encounters should not be one-shottable by a group of players who don't even know the mechanics.
This realm was advertised when launched as having buffed values and more challenging raids. If you want to one shot every boss and farm several heroic raids in a week, then you should instead go to Icecrown IMO.

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As stated in the post, I'm fine with the challenge. Encounters are not one-shottable and they should not be, I do not want to have an easy way but I think that values (especially healthpoints) are tuned 'a bit' too high. I'm not asking for a buff removal altogether, but maybe a small rebalance like 10-15%.

As I said, you may execute perfect strategy for a boss and still fail because of the spikiness of incoming damage. Of course it could be mitigated by having better gear but this deprecates the point of doing a older boss.

Archavon and Heigan were just examples, this applies to almost entire Naxx and OS. No one tries to do 2-3 drakes OS on pug because the dps requirements are absurd and cannot be met by mediocre-geared party, even if they manage to avoid lava and perfectly take down drakes and adds. You can obviously set up a party that consists of seasoned Uldu 25 HM geared characters and they will succeed, but they do not care for the 213/226 loot anymore.

That's just my feeling after the release of Ulduar, I hope I can hear your opinions. Keeping the bar set so high for a content that is no longer as relevant as it was two weeks ago feels a bit artificial and not fun, but maybe you like it this way.

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Originally Posted by Karrde

Archavon and Heigan were just examples, this applies to almost entire Naxx and OS. No one tries to do 2-3 drakes OS on pug

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I don't raid here but is this supposed to be a problem exactly? Not being able to pug Naxx bosses is one thing, not being able to pug OS3D is another thing entirely.

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Originally Posted by Mahourai

I don't raid here but is this supposed to be a problem exactly? Not being able to pug Naxx bosses is one thing, not being able to pug OS3D is another thing entirely.

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OS3D is hardly puggable because it requires a lot of coordination. However even if you manage to create such a group (it doesn't have to be a pug, guilds are included), you have to meet crazy dps requirements. As mentioned in the post, challenge is fine, having to push yourself is fine but the limit is a bit too high in my opinion especially given the fact that this raid (OS) is not as relevant as it was before.

Having the bar set so high may be okay for Ulduar (as it gives the best loot right now) but keeping it for Naxx that was balanced by Blizzard itself to be a rather easy raid feels unnatural.

As said before, Naxx was easily puggable in both 10m and 25m with full clears, even before Ulduar came out, now we have Ulduar gear and craftable 226 pieces and it's even more of a joke.

The buffs they did to Naxx bosses health and damage were actually quite minimal, and I've never heard one person complain that Naxx is difficult.10 people could die in a boss encounter from not knowing what they are doing and you would still kill it thanks to very forgiving enrage timers.

I like the boosts, but theres lot of buggy bosses., specially in Ulduar, and thats the mian problem I think. Add there random buffs / nerfs of bosses from ID to ID without updating change log so noone knows whats going on. But I rather play on bad scripted server with high pop than other way around I guess.

I wish they would actually care about the state of the raids when they are making (presumably) lot of money from the shop.

What?

T7 content was buffed cause on retail its difficulty was hilariously bad. Ulduar was also quite undertuned outside of some HM. Now with 3.3.5 talents it would be even bigger joke.

Archavon requires like 3,5k-4k dps from every dpser to kill him. If people with 3.5k+ gs cant push such amount in 25 environment with plethora of many different class buffs, they simply suck and its not boss being too highly tuned but literally L2P issue (this fight also has absolutely no mechanics for dps, they can literally stand and dps freely).

Naxx is easily puggable. The only unlucky thing which could happen to u is group filled with absolutely terrible players who cant play the game at all (but its not tuning's fault).

12 dances on Heigan? Only in a group where dpsers were using their melee attacks for like 30 minutes.

Do u want to know why ppl dont do OS 2-3d on pug? Because on 0d runs many ppl still fail to do the most simple thing in the world which is avoiding flame tsunami. They can do it in a guild with more coordinated people on discord. There is no any "crazy dps requirement" there, same with "a lot of coordination". Even pseudo semi-hardcore guilds managed to clear it.


Bring some real arguments for your point. The ones u wrote there literally dont exist.

the % on top of % buffs such as FL are a bit ridiculous. along with the bugs. noone has even done 4 towers yet but cleared plenty of other hm's

the tuning should be looked at in certain areas.

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the % on top of % buffs such as FL are a bit ridiculous. along with the bugs. noone has even done 4 towers yet but cleared plenty of other hm's

the tuning should be looked at in certain areas.

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That's exactly my point.

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Bring some real arguments for your point. The ones u wrote there literally dont exist.

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They don't for you, they do to me. I just wanted to check if someone else feels the same.

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Archavon requires like 3,5k-4k dps from every dpser to kill him.

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You have to down 20M health in 4 minutes. That's 4300 (well the tank is doing some dmg too) per dps if you have 1 tank and 5 healers. That's not impossible, but doing 4300 consistent dps with 3400-3500 gs is quite difficult regardless of your skill. Some classes outperform others in a current gear setup and there should be no punishment for that. You shouldn't have to bring 19 mages or 19 warriors to down a boss. You didn't? Because you got some people that did more than 4300 and they were outgeared for this boss.
If you invite a feral dr00d with 3400 gs he'll be barely able to hit 4k dps regardless of his skill because of the low armor pene values currently achievable and that's not his fault. On a properly balanced boss he wouldn't have to, but his inability here may cause a wipe.

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T7 content was buffed cause on retail its difficulty was hilariously bad.

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And this difficulty was reflected in a loot that wasn't much better than heroics.

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I've never heard one person complain that Naxx is difficult.

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My point is that this difficulty (because of the buffs) is shifted towards the gear, not skill. It should be both, I'm fine with that but in some places it doesn't look good and makes the encounters more frustrating rather than challenging and fun.

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The buffs they did to Naxx bosses health and damage were actually quite minimal

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It's almost 100% to health for each boss and mob and some undisclosed number to damage, for some bosses I would believe 100% as well but I have no confirmation. Again, this is fine overall but not in each case.

OP has a point, back in naxx it felt like, and prolly was the truth, that 10man was harder than 25 as bosses didn't melee swing any less than in 25. Same mechanics, less healers. Same amount of healing required while having less.

Same applies to ulduar btw, but everyone is so geared compared back then it hardly makes a difference.

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Originally Posted by Gaarashatan

the % on top of % buffs such as FL are a bit ridiculous. along with the bugs. noone has even done 4 towers yet but cleared plenty of other hm's

the tuning should be looked at in certain areas.

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It can be done on 10 man, but on 25 man it's difficult.

It's not really due to the tuning, moreso because the pyrite is bugged and never spawns or respawns

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Originally Posted by Ksen6

What?

T7 content was buffed cause on retail its difficulty was hilariously bad. Ulduar was also quite undertuned outside of some HM. Now with 3.3.5 talents it would be even bigger joke.

Archavon requires like 3,5k-4k dps from every dpser to kill him. If people with 3.5k+ gs cant push such amount in 25 environment with plethora of many different class buffs, they simply suck and its not boss being too highly tuned but literally L2P issue (this fight also has absolutely no mechanics for dps, they can literally stand and dps freely).

Naxx is easily puggable. The only unlucky thing which could happen to u is group filled with absolutely terrible players who cant play the game at all (but its not tuning's fault).

12 dances on Heigan? Only in a group where dpsers were using their melee attacks for like 30 minutes.

Do u want to know why ppl dont do OS 2-3d on pug? Because on 0d runs many ppl still fail to do the most simple thing in the world which is avoiding flame tsunami. They can do it in a guild with more coordinated people on discord. There is no any "crazy dps requirement" there, same with "a lot of coordination". Even pseudo semi-hardcore guilds managed to clear it.


Bring some real arguments for your point. The ones u wrote there literally dont exist.

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+1, can't believe this guy is asking for Archavon and Naxx nerfs

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Originally Posted by Karrde

You have to down 20M health in 4 minutes. That's 4300 (well the tank is doing some dmg too) per dps if you have 1 tank and 5 healers. That's not impossible, but doing 4300 consistent dps with 3400-3500 gs is quite difficult regardless of your skill. Some classes outperform others in a current gear setup and there should be no punishment for that. You shouldn't have to bring 19 mages or 19 warriors to down a boss. You didn't? Because you got some people that did more than 4300 and they were outgeared for this boss.
If you invite a feral dr00d with 3400 gs he'll be barely able to hit 4k dps regardless of his skill because of the low armor pene values currently achievable and that's not his fault. On a properly balanced boss he wouldn't have to, but his inability here may cause a wipe.[/B]

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Archavon enrages after 5 minutes.

You can do this boss with 4 healers because this fight isnt healig intensive at all.

If u bring 19 warriors in T7 ure doing it wrong.

If one feral druid suffers from lack of gear u can easily slot more powerful specs in other spots so your raid is not going to suffer. Thats how u create and balance out your raid comp. As stated, if ppl cant push 3,5k dps in 3,5k+ gs gear its L2P issue at this point. They can even get flasks/pots to help themselves out if they struggle. The other problem is ppl completely dont care about enchanting/gemming their gear which makes them lose so much of free dps but as stated, its L2P issue at this point. Dont blame it on the content, especially T7 which is easy.