Lich King Beta Changes Make Raids Easier

[modeps]

Eurogamer reports (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=249571) that after the latest beta patch, raids in WoW: Wrath of the Lich King have gotten quite a bit easier:

The latest patch to the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King beta - and to the related update, on the test realms for the live game - has made the current top-level raids and dungeons for the game drastically easier.

WOW Insider is reporting that the health of monsters and bosses in raids from the Burning Crusade expansion has been reduced by as much as 30 per cent.

WOW Insider's analysis of the move is that class changes coming to the game in time for the Lich King expansion - which will arrive before it, in the update known as patch 3.0.2 - have necessitated the move. Many tactics currently used by raids to get through the game's toughest encounters, such as using multiple Shadow Priests for their group mana regeneration, will no longer be viable.

You WoW players up for an easier raids, or would you like it to remain 'hardcore'?

[Lind]

Unless im reading that wrong they only changed the bosses in TBC, ie not the new bosses in outlands so basicly all the old stuff got easier and all the new stuff will probably be the same difficulty as always.

[southwick]

Should at least make it so everyone can get in that last bit of content before the expansion.

[MasterEvilAce]

Stopped playing WoW.. but i'll put in my 2c.

Raids were way too difficult for guilds that weren't experts already... The guild I was in had some fantastic players. (Skill and gear).. We had some trouble with Kara occasionally.. but we got through it. Eventually the guild moved on to the next level raids.. at that point it was much too difficult to get things organized, and get the specific classes you needed. You had to start PUGGING and at that point, it just got real bad. Long story short, the guild actually completely fell apart.

I was a shadow priest, btw. I don't know how they can say multiple shadow priests won't be "viable"... that sounds like a strong statement. First I don't see how that would never be viable. The best raid I ever did was a 25man pug on mag's lair. We had something like 3 or 4 shadow priests, and the entire raid never got close to running out of mana. At the end, we had full health and full mana. It was scary EASY.

The second part that scares me about the statement is that WoW needs to make it easier having different group configurations and multiple of the same classes. Having to have 3 tanks, 3 healers, 1 melee dps, and 3 ranged DPS to beat something is ridiculous. (Specifically meaning having to have "THIS LAYOUT" to beat something)

[Lind]

I've been reading some blue posts via mmo-champion and from what I gather the whole "we need x amounts of class y to kill this boss" is what they are trying to get rid of. In the expansion it shouldnt matter (that much anyway) what type of tank / healer / dps you got.

[Roc Ingersol]

Unless im reading that wrong they only changed the bosses in TBCThat was my thought. No-one's going to fight those bosses again anyway, so whatever the patch does to them is largely irrelevant.

Unless they roll out that patch before the expansion itself drops. And then it would only matter a little.

[digital_whore]

If they make it so the middle guilds that normally raid can get through the T5 and T6 content, that would be a win for everyone. Such a small percentage of the game's players have seen Sunwell. Plus this gives folks an incentive to come back before the xpac and start casually raiding again.

As xpac release date comes closer, the 'carrot' to obtain new gear shrinks so players start doing other things. This is another reason why they release the new talents and tradeskill early. They need to keep people as interested in WoW as possible so players don't get too involved in WAR or or some other MMO they've been meaning to try.

[digitalErich]

It's most complicated than just making them "easier." Those bosses were tuned assuming the old abilities and raid makeups. Given how talents, abilities, and builds are changing in the 3.whatever patch they had to make changes.

For example, places like Sunwell were designed assuming your guild is stacking Heroism, which you won't be able to do in the same way (at all?) after the patch. Also, SP mana regen will be nerfed in the patch, too. Another mechanic the raids were designed around.

[ZephidsEmbrace]

No one's going to raid this stuff anymore once Wrath comes out. It really doesn't matter.

[lockwoodx]

I'm not sure if this is a "thank you" to players for having enjoied the expansion over the past few years or, an "I'm sorry" only 2% of the players have ever been able to see this content over the past few years.

Either way, big meh.

[bub64882]

Several changes are coming...

Crushing blows are removed from the game.
Chain Potting (having to drink potions every cooldown) will no longer be possible.
Many many buffs no longer stack.
Mana will regen during combat

And lots more. I wouldn't complain too much that things are easier until a much larger percentage of the player population gets in there and starts playing with patch 3. And I defiantely agree with others here...No one will ever do Outland raids when Wrath drops, so making them easier is a good thing...If anything, it will give players who never got to see that content a chance to experience it, either now, or when they out level and out gear it.
On my server, you can find PUG's for Ony and MC now...It's pretty funny.

[Rommel]

Stopped playing WoW.. but i'll put in my 2c.

Raids were way too difficult for guilds that weren't experts already... The guild I was in had some fantastic players. (Skill and gear).. We had some trouble with Kara occasionally.. but we got through it. Eventually the guild moved on to the next level raids.. at that point it was much too difficult to get things organized, and get the specific classes you needed. You had to start PUGGING and at that point, it just got real bad. Long story short, the guild actually completely fell apart.

I was a shadow priest, btw. I don't know how they can say multiple shadow priests won't be "viable"... that sounds like a strong statement. First I don't see how that would never be viable. The best raid I ever did was a 25man pug on mag's lair. We had something like 3 or 4 shadow priests, and the entire raid never got close to running out of mana. At the end, we had full health and full mana. It was scary EASY.

The second part that scares me about the statement is that WoW needs to make it easier having different group configurations and multiple of the same classes. Having to have 3 tanks, 3 healers, 1 melee dps, and 3 ranged DPS to beat something is ridiculous. (Specifically meaning having to have "THIS LAYOUT" to beat something)

Well, if you had difficulty with Kara you did not have fantastically geared characters. With that said, the raid content above Kara is a bit silly. Fights have gone from boring tank and spanks of old to freaky puzzles that do not have logical reason for the method in which the enemy is defeated. It kills a lot of the immersion.

[Kem0sabe]

WoW's raids always bothered me, most of the player base never got to see that content, while still paying the monthly fee. Blizzard made the content only available to the "elite" while using the money generated by the rest of the players to develop that content, this may be a simplistic view on the issue, but thats the way i felt while playing WoW.

Blizzard realized this mistake with WotLK, by making the endgame pve content available to all, with easier versions of each encounter, they made good by their players.

[Zecon]

I really hope they do make it easier, I quit this game and haven batted an eyelash at it. I'm sorry but it really does need to be made easier to get to the end game, my guild couldn't even make it past the second boss of Kara. I really would like to play it again, but not if I have to spend insane amounts of time just to prepare to spent insane amounts of time on it. Blizzard just has to come to the realization that this is really a casual gamers MMO.

[Mephistopheles]

I thought their approach with Lich King was going to be two parallel raid progressions: 10 man for casual, 25 man for serious business. It's been a while since I've kept up with WoW though so that could have been dropped a long time ago.

[Pigeon]

My guild is on Brutallus right now, so while I welcome the changes, I really hope we down him before the nerf

[Furious Wang]

Stopped playing WoW.. but i'll put in my 2c.

Raids were way too difficult for guilds that weren't experts already... The guild I was in had some fantastic players. (Skill and gear).. We had some trouble with Kara occasionally.. but we got through it. Eventually the guild moved on to the next level raids.. at that point it was much too difficult to get things organized, and get the specific classes you needed. You had to start PUGGING and at that point, it just got real bad. Long story short, the guild actually completely fell apart.

I was a shadow priest, btw. I don't know how they can say multiple shadow priests won't be "viable"... that sounds like a strong statement. First I don't see how that would never be viable. The best raid I ever did was a 25man pug on mag's lair. We had something like 3 or 4 shadow priests, and the entire raid never got close to running out of mana. At the end, we had full health and full mana. It was scary EASY.

The second part that scares me about the statement is that WoW needs to make it easier having different group configurations and multiple of the same classes. Having to have 3 tanks, 3 healers, 1 melee dps, and 3 ranged DPS to beat something is ridiculous. (Specifically meaning having to have "THIS LAYOUT" to beat something)


Shadow Priest regeneration is being cut by half in the next patch. Many other class skills which were simply required to beat many endgame raids because the raids themselves were tuned around them are also being changed. Thus the hp change.

Unless they roll out that patch before the expansion itself drops. And then it would only matter a little.

The patch is coming out a full month before the scheduled expansion release date. Oct14 vs Nov 13

There is also 10 man and 25 man versions of each raid dungeon.

I expect people will still be interested in doing the T4/5/6 level content. The Burning Crusade actually has some very interesting and entertaining fights. Not at all like the old world raid dungeons which were either garbage to begin with or require long atunement quests which most players aren't interested in doing considering there's no real reward to be had. I always found it absurd that Blizzard removed the atunement requirements for TBC raid instances but kept the ones for the old world.

However, I'm not so sure the HP change alone will do a lot to make some bosses beatable by casual players. The main stopping point for many fights in TBC is the ridiculous complexity level of many bosses. We're talking 4-5+ phases here each with tons of shit going on. Fights like Kael'Thas in the Eye you pretty much have to spend a few hours just studying the strategy like its homework or something.