Lich King Was Too Easy, Cataclysm Just Right, Says Blizzard

[Aggieknight]

This is certanly true, i just wish we DPS didnt have to wait 40 minutes to get to a heroic dungeon and then have a tank that doesnt know what the hell they are doing, wipe, and then have to wait 40 minute, AGAIN!!!

[sub]Ok, I feel better now.[/sub]

You have to wait 40 minutes because the DPS outnumber the tanks and healers profoundly and you see "ignorant" tanks because people are jumping from DPS to tank and healer roles to get around the queues that haven't really done it before.

Personally, I'm having a heck of a lot of fun with the difficulty of the heroics. It has really increased my enjoyment of the game over WotLK, where epics practically fell from the sky.

 

[Bretty]

Ive been playing since vanilla and am finally happy to be challanged again. My guild is running many heroics now and even though(as we are getting geared and learning as we go) the runs take about 2 hours a peice right now, everyone is loving it.

That being said though there are a few fixes that need to be made. The first boss in Shadowfang is a ***** without three interupts, more on luck than skill on that fight (hence its nerf). The Big guy that you pull into the lava in Blackrock Heroic was nerfed because he was almost impossible to kill (he was nerfed in Dec (12 stack cooldown to 17).

These are not nerfs they are fixes. We will see how it goes, but it seems Blizz is happy to stand up and say no to the Wrathies.

EDIT: Also the Shadow guy in Halls is getting a nerf too (so I dont need to tank more than 10 guys. Because lets face it... that fight is just Brain hemorage away from bad.)

 

[Monshroud]

While I see your point, they should then wait for these nerfs for when 4.1 rolls around, and the content is by and large irrelevant.

I'm a little disappointed with the amount of nerfs, but at the same time, reading the patch notes it looks like a few encounters are getting buffed.

I think what they're trying to do is make the whole dungeon fairly level in difficulty instead of having 1 super easy boss, 1 super hard boss, and a couple in between.

Overall, I'm very happy with the expansion. DPS queues suck right now, but the problem will fix itself, more or less, and there really isn't anything Blizzard can do about it.

The DPS queue is a by-product of guild raiding well raiding in general. Fact is there are at least 4x as many DPS as there are Tanks and Healers. When raiding what do you usually have? 2 Tanks, 2 - 3 healers and everyone else is DPS.

 

[Jumwa]

They gave us the dungeon finder, then they made it defunct by making heroics too hard to run with a group found in it.

People can whip out their e-wangs and talk about how awesome they are and how great it is that it's hard now, but the game just isn't fun for me anymore. Some people might like validation and agonizing accomplishments every moment of their gameplay, but I have real life for that stuff. I play games to relax and have fun and even at the best of times the new class-mechanics/dungeon system is slow and tedious as you mark each pull, wait for your healer to mana up and so on.

I've been playing since vanilla and never threatened to cancel my account or any such thing, but I've finally stopped renewing my subscription now. Two raid nights a week are my limit for frustration, my every dungeon run needn't be tedious suffering.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

While I see your point, they should then wait for these nerfs for when 4.1 rolls around, and the content is by and large irrelevant.

I'm a little disappointed with the amount of nerfs, but at the same time, reading the patch notes it looks like a few encounters are getting buffed.

I think what they're trying to do is make the whole dungeon fairly level in difficulty instead of having 1 super easy boss, 1 super hard boss, and a couple in between.

Overall, I'm very happy with the expansion. DPS queues suck right now, but the problem will fix itself, more or less, and there really isn't anything Blizzard can do about it.

The DPS queue is a by-product of guild raiding well raiding in general. Fact is there are at least 4x as many DPS as there are Tanks and Healers. When raiding what do you usually have? 2 Tanks, 2 - 3 healers and everyone else is DPS.

Not really. Yes, there are more DPS than tanks, but that's because DPS tends to be viewed as more fun. But people came into Cataclysm expecting the queues to be the same as they were at the end of Wrath, which is just stupid.

(1) People are still gearing and leveling. A lot of people run as DPS to get the gear they need to fulfill other roles.
(2) Guilds try to run together. First, for the guild XP and rep and whatnot that comes with having a guild group. Second, because heroics are hard, and its easier to work with people you know and can communicate more effectively with.

By the time the dungeon finder came out, the vast majority of the population was 80, and was well-geared because raids were puggable. Out-gearing an instance that was already ridiculously easy meant fast runs, and people getting out of the queue faster.

As Cataclysm progresses, people will become better geared, guilds will reach 25, and heroics will become relatively easier. This will put more tanks and healers in the finder, as waiting around to run with the guild will no longer provide major benefits. Players that DPS for their raids will be able to build up tanking sets, and the queue will drop.

 

[asinann]

1. Capable Tank
2. General Knowledge of Bosses
3. FUCKING Crowd Control
4. FIRE IS BAD, GTFO of the fire!

5. Capable heals
6. at least 1 capable dps. seriously, some of the morons i ran into pugging... *shudder*

Some of the tanks are just atrocious too. Ran into a druid that could hold agro with me just using single target melee attacks while assisting him.

 

[XT inc]

Just right my ass I did the trial for cata as alvl 80 and did all the quests for lvl 81-3's and it was all just cake with my shitty level and gear, it's like an unfair flip where 5 levels is the difference between 35k health with okay gear and like 90k.

 

[Choppaduel]

...balanced providing solo content while encouraging players to join groups for the dungeons and raids.

XD... ahahahaa.... oh wait you're serious... let me laugh even harder. XD.

This is certanly true, i just wish we DPS didnt have to wait 40 minutes to get to a heroic dungeon and then have a tank that doesnt know what the hell they are doing, wipe, and then have to wait 40 minute, AGAIN!!!

I remember this from Wrath. Some things never change.

 

[Livianicen]

I have gotten my full 346 heroic gear, so I have no stake in the outcome. I'd be a bit angry if I was still in 329 gear, cause then I'd want the challenge. But since I have no e-peen to defend anymore, I don't see why heroics should be kept heroic. It's entry-level gear. There's no e-peen in having it. Why'd I want to keep anyone else from getting that gear? If they are not enjoying the content and if "they" is a sizeable chunk, maybe blizz should nerf them. In the end, the enjoyment I get from waving my virtual .... around is less than the dissapointment I feel when people just aren't having fun in the game.

Overall I think the idea of "when the content becomes irrelevant we can nerf it" is a good idea with heroics. It might be a bit early to do that (not sure when the patch deploys), but 6-7 weeks into the game doesn't seem to be overly impatient of Blizz. I consider heroics easy since I've facerolled them for weeks now, so I would really like it if someone who is in the same position as me can tell me why they do not want them nerfed, if they are already geared up and have no need for them either. I'd hate to chalk it up (down?) to "you're just arrogant/elitist" like a lot of whiners do. So if you're well-geared by heroic standards (full 346), you've no use for the heroics except daily VP, and you do not want them nerfed, and it's not because you think it would spill over into raids, please share with me why.


The only thing that bothers me (and I may overestimate just how slippery the slope is) is whether or not this was always the plan, or blizz caved in to demands. If latter, what will happen in 1-2 months with the raids? I'd rather not see them nerfed at all. Although if, by next tier, the normal modes are brought down or 359 is buyable with Justice Points I would be fine with that too. But I'd want them to stay as they are now for the entire tier on both normal and heroic mode (or buffed when heroic modes are cheesed).

I think keeping "unattainable" (difficult, long-term-achievable) content is very important.

 

[mrpoy]

Really, am I the only one that finds frustration in the fact that the difficulty of Cataclysm is boring. most of it comes from the Random Dungeon Finder which seems like it wants to create the worst possible match ups for any given (seriously I got three melee DPS in Grim Batol) and all of this is for what? The Game play? God no, the "player skill" required is very reminiscent of a quick time event. I can name three encounters off the top of my head from Litch that were more involved when they were new than any of the Cata fights. Meat hook (culling of Strat)protect Brann (halls of stone) and The snake guy (Gundrak) there was a point when we all got over geared for these fights that is the reality of game that lets you go back and redo old content. what I am talking about is when these fights were new. Think about it the "skill" required to do these fights when they were new was very different.

by the way My favorite new fight is Corla in Black Rock because it isn't just a DPS there is a nice little dance that goes into it.

edit: Ok, pulling krash in and out of the lava was fun if not aggravating as a tank with a druid healer

 

[mythgraven]

I read GC's post on "WoW is Hard!" and the only thing I can really come away with from it is...


Its a damn shame that GC has to re-teach tanks, on how to tank.

On a side note, its always amused me that WoW players always refer to this nebulous concept of "them" when refering to the people who commonly make noob mistakes. It is always, and I mean, ALWAYS, someone "else" who makes mistakes, or does assholish things on purpose, or is a scrub, ect, ect, ect. It is never, ever, the person making the rant.

I guess the bottom line of it all is, we spent the last 2 expansions telling ourselves how awesomely great -we- are, and how much everyone -else- sucks. And now, because -We- were too good to train people, to honestly and earnestly assist people, and "train our replacements", -We- have nothing but a pool of "scrubs" to choose from.

WoW players, like every other MMO, get exactly the game they deserve. -We- asked for this, now, -We- have to deal with it.


Whiskey Echo!!
mythgraven

 

[Pilkingtube]

I confuse myself with this subject. On the one hand, cataclysm came out, and I loved the healing changes to all of my lvl 80 healers (LOVE healing in any game.. i'm weird :/) but then I got to like 84 on my priest and hit a brick wall in my head. I log on, stare at the screen, unwilling to do anything because it all seems like it's so much effort for so little fun, and log off.

I'm definatley not complaining, I love the mechanics and the new zones etc etc. I just don't want to play anymore, hence my confusion. :|

 

[Missing SHODAN]

1. Capable Tank
2. General Knowledge of Bosses
3. FUCKING Crowd Control
4. FIRE IS BAD, GTFO of the fire!

5. Capable heals
6. at least 1 capable dps. seriously, some of the morons i ran into pugging... *shudder*

Of course, when the DPS kind of sucks, they generally turn right around and blame the healer because obviously, it's not the DPS's fault for posting terrible values for DPS or for standing in the AoE or screwing up half the mechanics in every fight, breaking crowd control, or for getting a glazed over look in their eyes when the idea of Crowd Control is even broached.

No. Of course not. It's the healer's fault, because the healer used to be able to carry their worthless asses to victory in Wrath, and now that it's much more difficult to do so, it's because the healers all suck and not that they need to learn to actually play their damn class.

Sorry, I main a holy priest, and after a few different heroic runs where my most common lament was "why is there a cooldown on Leap of Faith, I still have two more idiots to pull out of the fire" and the most common complaint I heard from the DPS was that I clearly wasn't "leet" enough because it's difficult to heal the tank and three morons who have decided to each DPS something different while standing in fire...

Until the LFG tool can weed out people who suck at the game, hard heroics only equates to the tool being useless.

 

[Nejira]

Quote: I do know that John Funk has walked into the office more than once and said, "Man, heroics are hard."

So that´s what you do at the office all day long

 

[SaintWaldo]

You can say the dearth of healers is exaggerated when ANY of the healers in my guild start playing their healing characters again. Seriously, resto druids and holy priests are on strike, and shammies don't cut it solo in heroics.

I'm sure it's different when your world is made up of people paid to play, but in the real world, or even just MY world, everyone currently needs healers to even start both heroics and rated BGs. Guess who's not available?

 

[Racthoh]

New heroics are boring as a tank, that's why I've stopped queueing. Healing is equally as boring. There is no difficulty in holding 1-2 targets, or healing a tank being beaten on by 1-2 targets. Boss fights are just as boring. Either the DPS is standing in stuff making it impossible to heal or DPS is standing out of stuff and it's too easy to heal. There is very little middle ground and it just makes the game boring.

I'll do randoms with guildies since we can faceroll the places and it's actually fun to see my tank's health drop being six digits occasionally.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'm entirely happy with this as a casual, as partly it pushes the need for good players who pay attention over just 'look I haz purples can I come?'

Mostly tho, I fail in almost every respect in terms of skill as a WOW player, and I could wander thru most WOTLK heroics with fairly average gear as tank, healer or DPS, and pick up my loot and badges and rep at the end.

It's nice to get easy free stuff, but you end up feeling like you're just going thru the motions instead of achievement something against the odds.

I'm looking forward to fighting for a win again, feeling like we JUST made it before a boss destroyed us, that kind of thing.

Sure I know I suck, but I also know I'll try when I HAVE to.

PS: Captcha - there is a bluebird on my shoulder, perhaps a little excessive