Current & future raid difficulty discussion

[Strife]

I'm going to post my opinion on the current state of end-game raiding on Nost after my 3rd week raiding now.

To me, it doesn't feel rewarding right now raiding 1 night a week, 0 wipes with easy mode bosses and loot worse than 5 man dungeons. I would argue that leveling, doing quests/killing mobs your own level is more challenging than all of the raid content. Hell there are low lvl dungeons (at their intended level) that I would consider the hardest content in the game right now, something is just off.

I like what you did with the 8 debuff limit and pre-buff gear (Melee/Hunter are basically the same however). But these changes have not been enough to make raiding feel even remotely challenging or rewarding. The bosses are a joke and the loot is mostly garbage (I don't mind this too much, some of it is good for PVP).

The tuning on Scriptcraft felt a lot closer to what I remember from retail, even feenix increased the strength of many bosses, because they simply are too easy for today's WoW verterans. We know how to DPS, farm consumables, spec optimally, down-rank healing etc.

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Molten Core
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/RaidOverview.aspx?Raid=9262

What I want to draw your attention to on this page is the Fight Duration row, look how fast all of these bosses are going down. The only fight length on here that I am happy with is Garr. The pacing of the trash feels good, it is Molten Core after all. However pretty much every raid boss right now does not have enough hp for the DPS that is possible.

Ragnaros before submerge? Onyxia before Deep Breath? We aren't even full epic yet or stacking every buff. This breaks a lot of fights when you can completely bypass phases & mechanics by brute forcing bosses down in under a minute.

Half of the raid was not fully DPS consumabled, no Flask of Supreme power on any caster, roughly half pre-raid bis gear across the board. Our gear is supposed to be bad, the 8 debuff limit was supposed to make a difference.

I also want to say that any boss that has adds such as Lucifron, Gehenass, Shazzrah and Majordomo in particular, die INSANELY fast. Like the call is made to kill this target and once the entire raid has casted 1 spell or the melee have used 2 strikes, the mob is nearly dead. These adds are dead in about 7-10 seconds, even at this gear level.

Health on basically every boss and boss add needs to be increased by at least 50% or more in my opinion. I would also argue that some of the skills which damage the raid should be increased a bit too, not enough people are dying to random raid damage.

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Onyxia's Lair
http://realmplayers.com/RaidStats/RaidOverview.aspx?Raid=9261

213 second fight duration this week with 37 people. This is actually the longest fight right now, but it's still ridiculously easy. I would love to see more health (+50%~) combined with more frequent deep breath's, to make the fight a bit more challenging and worthy of the great loot.

The main problem with Onyxia right now is she exits phase 2 WAY too quickly, because melee are able to hit Onyxia in the air. We are able to kill Onyxia without any deep breaths. After she takes flight, she moves to one corner of the room and then shoots a couple of fireballs. Then she flies to another corner of the room, fires off 2 more fireballs and then she starts landing, because she's already 40% hp.

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Even if you buff everything with 30% more damage, 50% more health the top guilds will still probably roll through most of the content, but it would at least be a lot more fun and rewarding (and not everyone and their mother at lvl 60 would kill rag+ony "pre-nerf"). Once BWL/ZG and world bosses is released, it would be nice to be able to raid at least 3 nights a week. There just isn't enough to do right now at level 60 with only these 2 raids released which are way undertuned.

In my opinion for BWL you should buff the raid so that it's actually very difficult. If a guild gets stuck on a boss for too long then you should nerf it. I've talked to some people from the other top guilds and they agree that BWL is going to be cleared on the first night, at the very best nefarian will take an extra reset for more cloaks and additional prep to counter the shadowflame when he lands.

We need to take the balance of raiding into our own hands to get the true blizzard experience, where progression raiding actually exists not only farm content. Then we can have a real progression race. Nobody should be fussed over the current progression thread because the content is a complete joke, if you haven't already you will see it for yourself when you get here.

I would love vanilla raids with TBC tuning. The tactics may never be as complicated, the bosses may never be as challenging, but we do have control over the numbers. We CAN make the fights longer, the bosses hurt more and actually require consumables to kill, which gives high-end raiders something to actually do on this server outside of only PVP. Personally I have forgotten what it feels like to wipe all night on a boss, at least the world bosses are going to be awesome, even if I can't convince the developers to make the instances more fun.

It is NOT in the server's best interest, or at all healthy for the content to be taken down this quickly. If you have to overtune the bosses beyond blizzlike to accomplish it then so be it. It would be far more blizzlike if half of the raiding guilds on the server were not able to kill the final boss of the tier before the next one released. The developers have the power to make BWL cleared in 1 day or 1 month, the choice is theirs.

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So my question is, would you rather have raids that have the same numbers as retail/default mangos which in my opinion are HEAVILY undertuned with the player knowledge of WoW veterans. Or would you rather adjustments made, such as on Scriptcraft, in an effort to make the end game raids more challenging and fun.

I would love to hear the thoughts of people from other guilds who have downed most of the raid bosses already and your satisfaction with the difficulty. If you are not level 60 and haven't done the raids on this server and feel like you have better judgement than people that have, then don't bother adding your input please. This is an open discussion on behalf of myself (not my guild), on the state of current and future raid progression pace/challenge on Nost.

[Dazz]

I am in the same boat as you in thinking that if content is retail-like it will be a boring server. Being able to knock Onyxia down before deep breath or killing pre-submerge Rag trivializes the fights too much. The pre-nerf Garr was a good fight.

Right now it's almost like I'm on a level 100 in retail and doing transmog runs. The bosses die before healers are below 80% mana. Without any consumable or buff stacking mind you.

It's up to the devs, they can make BWL cleared in 1 night or in 1 month. With the timeline the server won't even last a year if stuff is Blizzlike. With as much commitment I doubt they want it to go that quickly. Buff Vael with 3x his normal hp or something. Make Broodlord really intense. Chromaggus a nightmare.

[DrunkenEnvy]

Garr is overpowered prenerf, Lucifron is overpowered prenerf, and Onyxia (as of today) is overpowered prenerf.

http://www.twitch.tv/rottix/b/644473263 - 5:46:30

I think you're just complaining for no reason. There are more blizzlike ways to make things harder, and they're doing it.

[justclassic]

I allready Made a post on that topic. I suggested a 100% hp increase for all RAID encounters. But many people were against it.. ill try to find it and Link it

viewtopic.php?t=4615

[Strife]

How was Garr OP before? You just kill all the adds instead of chain banishing them, so he doesn't blow up your whole raid. We still do the fight like that regardless.

Lucifron OP? That's a new one, this boss is a joke if you outrange the debuffs.

Onyxia OP? In all of our kills she hasn't once cast a deep breath because she's on the ground again in 25 seconds. Melee should NOT be able to hit her.

The complaints are justified, because the bosses are way too easy for the top guilds on the server, look how fast grizzly cleared MC. Only their tanks had remotely good gear. I called this before the server began and we went ahead with default value's anyway. Now I'm calling it again that BWL will be gone on day 1 (after 3 months of anticipation "BWL will fix it guise!!!1") if something is not done.

We will get to a point where we can do ony/mc/bwl full clear in 1 night in a speed run. 1 raid per week is not enough to keep anyone interested in pve engaged long term. I like pvp personally, but if you don't are you supposed to log out for the next 6 days and play something else? People who aren't big on rank grinding are going to lose interest, fast.

[DrunkenEnvy]

How was Garr OP before? You just kill all the adds instead of chain banishing them, so he doesn't blow up your whole raid. We still do the fight like that regardless.

Lucifron OP? That's a new one, this boss is a joke if you outrange the debuffs.

Onyxia OP? In all of our kills she hasn't once cast a deep breath because she's on the ground again in 25 seconds. Melee should NOT be able to hit her.

The complaints are justified, because the bosses are way too easy for the top guilds on the server, look how fast grizzly cleared MC. Only their tanks had remotely good gear. I called this before the server began and we went ahead with default value's anyway. Now I'm calling it again that BWL will be gone on day 1 (after 3 months of anticipation "BWL will fix it guise!!!1") if something is not done.

We will get to a point where we can do ony/mc/bwl full clear in 1 night in a speed run. 1 raid per week is not enough to keep anyone interested in pve engaged long term. I like pvp personally, but if you don't are you supposed to log out for the next 6 days and play something else? People who aren't big on rank grinding are going to lose interest, fast.

Lucifron spams shadow shock.

Onyxia was made more difficult, but she's still under construction to be tuned even harder (prenerf).

If even complete prenerf Onyxia is no challenge for you, then sorry to say, but you're playing with paladins with a group that understands fights completely.

[Dessel]

Yep, I've brought this up repeatedly. There's a circle argument going where they advertise a blizzlike experience, but also blizzlike values. In PvE these two "ideals" are mutually exclusive, and never again will vanilla raiding feel "blizzlike" with retail values. You should decide on how long an encounter is supposed to be, and adjust values accordingly. This is what Blizzard did. I feel like nostalrius officials are still in some sort of denial as they still don't acknowledge this. I wish for less copypasta and more pragmatism, so the experience become more authentic.

[Strife]

Paladins? It's not like grizzly has any problem with any of the bosses either. Shaman are great healers also.

Lucifron doesn't do that much dmg, sure first couple times it hurt but once the healers got it down we've never lost the tank to that boss anymore.

[Ivina]

I completely support this idea.
If we use blizzard HP and damages for raids, then they will be farmed very easily.
I don't think we should call it being blizz-like, because the blizz-like feeling would be when HP are buffed like OP said.

The OP is not complaining BTW, he is suggesting an improvement of the current game, and damn right IMO.

[bloodfirst]

Actually BWL was clean in one night on retail too except Nefarian who die some weeks later.

Mc last long back in the days only because it was the first raid, so people has to lvl 1-60 => learn making raid => learn cooperation in guild => discover strat => learn wiping etc... That the only reason Mc last some month instead of some days like BWL or ZG. The 2 ( 3 ? ) raids really challenging were AQ 40 - 20 and ofc and much above all Naxxramas. Before those raids it was quite easy and Blizz understood it back then and made raiding way more difficult with the last 2 raids.

But now people know vanilla stuff even more than top guilds in vanilla and are way much prepare and much more skilled, and btw most of them now has good Pc with 60 fps in raid 40 with ease ( at vanilla the average was more 20-30 fps in raid 40 at mid-low settings ). And the server handle much much well compare to old Blizz server = lag/dc etc...

Making Hp higher for raid encounter ? Why not, it make the fight longer and thereby harder and not affecting too much the script.
Making Dmg higher for raid encounter ? By upping dmg you can easily overtune a fight in vanilla so it's more complicated if we go that way.
Rewrite the script to make it harder ? Then it will not be vanilla anymore so... and it will take time to do aswell.

Dunno what you guys hoped before playing here but it's Vanilla, lot of ppl say it was hard omg omg etc... but for players playing wow for 10 years it's a piece of cake, most people knew it before coming here.