The Weekly Marmot - Dragon Soul And Beyond

[Impeesa]

I wish we were that good at Madness. We got Spine (25-man) down in about 3 weeks with a night or two missed, something like 80 pulls (including at least one where I, kiting bloods, just pranced right off the edge, and a full night of failing to kill the first tendon in two pops), all at 10% debuff start to finish. We're now a couple weeks and a whole 2 proper nights of attempts into Madness, we should get it tomorrow but at this rate, who knows. It's kind of funny, in the first week in there I predicted to my guildmates that Madness, being so damn long and starting off so easy, would be one of those drawn-out, soul-crushing fights to work on in heroic. I'm finding now that I'm really not disappointed about being wrong. Spine is hard enough to make sure there's still a little prestige to a full 8/8H clear. Mostly, I'm just excited about beating WoW and having a laid-back farm period for the first time since... ToC maybe? Looking back, yeah... we were on the verge of a Rag kill when DS came out. T11 we had several bosses still to go. ICC we killed heroic Lich King with maybe 3 weeks to spare before 4.0 day.

This sort of makes me think of something you've been talking about a lot lately - how much raid content is too much? And maybe more importantly, how closely is that tied to the overall difficulty and pacing? If, instead of 6 10-wipe fights and one 400-wipe fight, Firelands had 7 65-wipe fights, would it have felt like a full-bodied raid tier instead of a mostly anemic effort with a guild-destroyer tacked on the end? At the other end of the spectrum, more relevantly, you've said how excited you are for 14 bosses in the first tier of MoP. Looking back at the last large tier, T11... that is probably the most overwhelmed and unfinished we've ever been. Maybe it's just personal bias, but being in a pretty-good-but-not-bleeding-edge guild, I feel like something that we can finish, but just barely, before the next tier comes out is about the right amount, and looking back this has largely been the case. In T11, we were about 3-4 bosses short. On one hand, T11 didn't really have a Lich King/Ragnaros class fight - it was a pretty good curve, something else you've been talking about lately. On the other hand, it was fairly high difficulty overall, and it never received any sort of nerf to heroic modes, so that could be a major reason for our slow progress there, moreso than the number of bosses. This is all sort of stream of thought, but I guess the TL;DR version is this: I don't care too much about the number of bosses, I'd be more excited to hear that they had an appropriate amount of total progression time, divided appropriately among the bosses, and sufficient space for a fully-populated loot table.

[Nagassh]

I can't help but think that "choose a raid lockout" would cause more problems than good. I like the idea of working on bosses in a strict order, like things used to be, but previously you had the option (not that it was very optional) of running normal to maintain gear progression. With the current system of shared lockouts, you'd either be locked into not advancing your gear (Except by LFR, but that feels even worse than the VP consolation gear - which never felt like you were advancing your character unless you were wearing a really bad item).

Lots of heroic fights end up becoming easier due to progressing gear, locking yourself out of gear progression I feel would result in you having to spend weeks where you need to declare "hey guys, we're clearing it on normal this week for our set bonuses / crazy weapon upgrades" etc, telling your raiders they need to downgrade to normal mode because they're not good enough for "real" raiding is never fun.

[eald]

Lore said that he wanted heroic modes be very differentiated from the normal modes in mechanics, I agree with that and throw and idea about the lockout around it. Right now Heroic bosses have a notable increase in health based on the fact that heroic progression groups have more gear (and more skill, but lets just consider the gear aspect right now).

Now what if the gear from both heroic and normal modes provide the same stats but the heroic modes have 3 different color schemes to choose, lets say that LFR is green, Normal blue and heroic has Silver, Gold and Black. When a player get its token he choose the color. Or a glow effect associated with the title that reads: He killed the last boss in Heroic mode.

And be the instance linear and gated to one normal kill per week: you are in Heroic mode until you kill one boss in normal, then Heroic is disabled. No missclicks because you can wipe it if you set it normal by mistake; controlled progression because everybody will have the same gear until they beat a new boss, hardcore guilds start in heroic.

The numbers that raiders must do in normal could be very relaxed, the numbers in heroic should be thinking: every dps and healer is going to follow the mechanics AND excel at his rotation. In addition both versions of the fight should have notable different mechanics because the raw number won't be that much difference, that would force the design to not be: lets just put bigger numbers and release as heroic, because you can't grow the numbers that much, it will be obvious in the first phases of the encounter design that the dps or hps increase won't feel satisfactory.

Now for the LFR, there are two things that raiders went back there after making the initial obligated visit. 4-piece bonus and trinkets. We could argue that 4-piece bonus could be removed from LFR gear, just the same gear models could exist there. But the trinkets I really don't see a good way to provide a half-tier-more-powerful than heroic dungeon trinket, that LFR is probably going to provide and you must understand as a player that others players will want that and Blizzard have to please them just like they have to please you.

[Lore]

There's a lot of people taking one line from the show and ignoring the rest of what I had to say going on in this thread.

Lore didn't like the first 4 bosses? LORE THINKS DRAGON SOUL SUCKED (I said the exact opposite -- it got good from Ultrax on, and I enjoyed the tier as a whole)

Lore thought Madness was easy? NO WAY IT WAS STILL HARDER THAN EVERYTHING OTHER THAN SPINE (That's exactly what I said -- it was easy, but still harder than everything else)

Lore likes Ultraxion? LORE HATES INVOLVED MECHANICS (Again, I said the total opposite. I said I like doing Ultraxion because it's nice to have a straightforward "don't manage 100 mechanics just be good at your class" fight every once in a while)

In short, 99% of the stuff you guys are "disagreeing" with me about, you're not disagreeing at all, you're just not listening :P

[Blackcurrant]

I can't really see "choose a difficulty and stick with it" work out. Ok, where i'm coming from TBC is the best raid experience i've had so far. Tiered progression path and you take out bosses one by one, and it's a design in the raid when you can pick a boss or not. It's a dead horse topic i would gladly like to beat again now when we have seen that all the other attempts has their flaws as well. In that regard i can't really see the tiered progression of TBC being the supreme evil.

But that is that dead horse.

Now when we have the ability to cherry pick bosses on heroic that is easier that is a sort of progression path in itself that actually ALLOWS the harder heroics to be just that. If guilds would get stuck earlier than on the last boss or the second last, all encounters would have to be easier with the logic that is working in the difficulty design now.
Seeing it from that perspective makes cherry picking heroic modes be the lesser evil by far in my book.

[Maziel]

Congrats Lore. Well done.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/strategical

[Theotherone]

There's a lot of people taking one line from the show and ignoring the rest of what I had to say going on in this thread.

And surprised by this you are?

[feralminded]

And surprised by this you are?

Yeah, welcome to the internet Josh =). If you're not quoting out of context, nit-picking minor insignificant points, or spewing strawmen you're not doing it right.

[Slyvar]

Personally, I like the Ulduar model of hardmodes. Something just felt cool about "activating" a hardmode by doing extra DPS, or leaving certain mobs alive (like Freya or Sarth). I really wish they'd go back to that way of doing hardmodes.

[Aggathon]

I completely agree Slyvar.

I hate that dragonsoul has almost no new mechanics in HMs, just mechanics you can virtually ignore on normal mode (and LFR).

[Theotherone]

Yes, the Ulduar model was much better; I sort of don't like the clear it and then you can do heroics model.

[Aggathon]

Yes, the Ulduar model was much better; I sort of don't like the clear it and then you can do heroics model.

Well Ulduar heroics were the same way, you could "activate" HM per boss, or just do it normal mode, that's not really different.

[reasonyousmile]

in the end, i enjoyed the instance and really enjoyed my role as a prot warrior off-tank in DS what stood out to me was the changing gearing demands in each fight, and the room for experimentation with gearing as a whole.

i've always been a gear-head (i.e. "how can i use this to its best advantage"), but in FL there were just a lot of right answers to gear, i.e. BIS to reach Block-Cap. in DS since the block-cap wasn't really a goal but a frontier to step beyond, trinket selection suddenly became a thing that could affect other gear choices. long-disdained trinkets like Scales of Life and Stay of Execution suddenly found serious consideration among the mainstay Mirror of Broken Images, and even outshone the other stamina trinkets found in the instance.

another thing: heroic DS was very interesting for an offtank. going back to heroic ICC, not only did offtanks not have to gear differently than "full BIS", offtanks often didn't even need to DO anything (Marrowgar, Blood Queen) - they just had to exist for the sake of some mechanic, but could otherwise space out.

about the most uninteresting fight for an offtank in heroic DS was zon'ozz, since the only reasons to be prot in that fight are 1) 4pc Shield Wall, and 2) tank the other tentacle. after that came yor'sahj, and even then it was mitigated by gearing choices and the fact that you DID actually have taunt swap, and play smart with your CDs and debuffs. ultraxion - another taunt swap - was especially cool for a warrior tank since you could reforge to full-DPS (minus tier gear) and do 35k. the payoff for doing well in that fight stands out a lot more.

ofc, for an offtank the serious payoff came with heroic spine. i probably have the most fun job in that fight.



the lessons i'd like blizzard to learn from 4.3 are:

- do not insult the intelligence of the players. the instance screams "reused art assets", and the cutscenes are super cheesy, schlocky, and eventually meander into cliches and meaningless payoffs. more planning ahead please, and less focus on "epic", since the more you say something is epic the less it becomes. use a simple story and build it out, don't just throw supposed-big-hit after supposed-bit-hit.

- if someone else has to kill the boss (i.e. Thrall), please make them more involved in the quest to kill said boss; we pretty much met thrall halfway and then ferried him the rest of the way while he hung in the background, doing nothing but 'being important'. as much as i hate Garrosh... i resent Thrall.

- if you make a boss that only has a front, please allow ferals to attack it as though it has a back.

[Theotherone]

Well Ulduar heroics were the same way, you could "activate" HM per boss, or just do it normal mode, that's not really different.

Right, but you had to do something with the boss to force a hard mode, kill the heart fast enough, leave up adds, push a big red button, but it wasn't clear the instance then you get to set the instance to heroic in your "Set Raid Difficulty" setting thing on your portrait. It just felt more interactive.

[Zoltar]

I'm not sure what the point of making people do only heroic or normal would be. Especially in a tier like Dragon Soul where the normal mode is less challenging that usual, it would mean that guilds that have normal on farm and don't find it challenging anymore would be stuck doing that instead of being able to work on a couple of the easier heroics. Because getting locked to heroic mode to kill 1 boss and having the resto of the instance essentially off limits would be a VERY hard sell for guilds that aren't hardcore heroic guilds.

[Mwawka]

As a raider who has been in a group that is comprised of mostly raiders who's skill level fits normal/easier heroic level raiding, I can honestly say that Dragon Soul normal mode was too easy. We were not terribly overgeared going into DS and we cleared the first week we went in and it only took 3 attempts on Madness. I think the boss that actually wiped us the most first week was Blackhorn. We then found ourselves in a holding pattern farming H-Morchok and 7 normal modes until the nerfs started coming in. Now, to be fair, we may have been able to dive into Heroics before that, but we were having attendance issues and lost 3 of our 10 man group within the first 6 weeks of DS.

[Bodasafa]

Speaking from a 10 man point of view I think heroic Zon Ozz and Warmaster were up there in difficulty. It took us over 100 attempts to get Zon Ozz (we were working it pre nerf) and 1 shot it the day the 5% came out. We were so close with sub 1% wipes before that. Spreading out your 10 man team to deal with the adds properly was very tough and needed to be very comp specific, it was hard to justify more than 2 melee on that fight.

With Warmaster our brick wall was simply the fire bug. Took us over 100 attempts as well. I mean jebus could we fix a fight while its relevant? There was no way you could chance standing in fake fire that was not really there on 10 man and risk a death. Using a BR before Ph2 was just out of the question.

I agree about the rest being kind of lacking from a heroic mode point of view. Were working Spine now and we definitely see the point about approaching it in different ways. We actually have enjoyed working that encounter more than any other so far because it allows us to work as a team and explore new options. Its refreshing.

[tawnos]

Yeah if I understood correctly I think the idea of only heroic or only normal mode is a horrible one. So when my guild (more than months behind Months Behind) got stuck on heroic Morchok we basically wouldn't have gotten any gear at all for that week? Or even if you could switch until you had killed one heroic, now that we've been killing it for the past 9 weeks but not gotten any other heroic kills, would we have been totally stuck in terms of gear getting only what drops from heroic Morchok? Given the 50+% turnover rate in that time period how would we have geared the new people that keep cycling in? This might work for the consistent guilds (which are almost exclusively the ones that make steady progress in heroics that might make this idea sensible) but those are most assuredly a tiny minority of the guilds trying to raid as a whole. I don't think guilds in this situation (the majority) want to be locked into some binary definition of 'hardmode' and 'normal' guilds where once you get to the end of normal modes you're basically done, but these guilds are in this situation precisely because every week is going to bring some turnover and that requires a constant influx of gear thats only going to come from the normal modes.

I still don't get the angst over the idea of having to clear through on normal mode once. You keep bringing it up but I just don't get it. You can't live with the concept of not being adequately challenged by what counts as 'progression' content at the time for one whole week? For the developers, I think it boils down to: minor problem (having to wait a week to get to the appropriate challenge) for an extremely small number of raiders (those who could rationally start heroics immediately) versus minor problem (potential cherry-picking) that affects a vastly larger number of raiders. This just isn't a major issue and I hope they don't spend much time thinking about it. Anyone that bothered by a slight inconsistency in the game that only lasts a week in each major release needs to just relax.

[Theotherone]

After reading a lot of these posts and some of them sound like my guild with issues keeping a core 10 man together (always, seems 2 people are unreliable or dropping out), I blame a lot of the turn over on DS not being engaging. It's just not a raid that hold's attention and keeps people wanting to come back for more. Yeah DW was a bad guy, but wft do the gullets of carnivors have to do with him; who the f is this Morchok, and why doesn't he just storm into the citidal, it's not like it has doors on it; and why does DW need this big purple dragon to do his dirty work when all he has to do is cast Cataclysm any f'ing time he wants, and DW can't bitch slap an Alliance gunship out of the sky? And if DW can cast Cataclysm, why is he retreating to Deepholm? Does he think the Earthmother's going to allow him into Deepholm?


I guess it's like Terminator, you can't think about it too much.

The whole expansion comes across as disjointed.

[feralminded]

The whole expansion comes across as disjointed.

Well this is the simple truth of it. From start to finish this entire expansion has felt like half-finished ideas. Luckily I honestly believe blizzard knows this and is working on it.