Breakfast Topic: Is raiding just too hard?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Mar 2nd 2007 at 8:00AM
There's been some talk on the forums recently about raiding simply being too much work for the reward offered. With required consumable use, marginal gear improvements, the trouble to acquire keys, and the general difficulty level, is raiding even worth it? To those of you out there who have spent significant time raiding in the Burning Crusade, what's your opinion? Is it no worse than the raiding game before the Burning Crusade came out, or has the difficulty progressed beyond the abilities of common players to cope?Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Zuuler Mar 2nd 2007 8:12AM
Because of time constraints, I was never able to raid at all. But before TBC, I always drooled over raid gear. The stats and set bonus for raid gear just made it seem like something worth doing. As TBC came out, and websites started posting the raid sets, it seems like the raid gear is more tuned to looks instead of abilities. Sure they look cool, but how much of an improvement are they over stuff you can pick up in 5-mans? And even the new dungeon sets seem a bit lacking.
Also since the sets are smaller (5 piece instead of 8 or 9) the are less set bonus'. And the set bonus' don't seem nearly as good as the ones pre-TBC.
Same goes for the new PVP and Arena gear. Its possible blizzard did this on purpose so that there woudl not be so much of a gear mismatch for BG's and Arenas, which is a good thing. But how well are the marginal improvements going to make a difference in PVE?
Camaris Mar 2nd 2007 8:13AM
Isn't this the same topic as "Tigole talks raids" a few posts down?
Lucas Mar 2nd 2007 8:35AM
Most of the instances are fun and diverse, I havn't yet been in one of the 25 person raids yet, but so far it's been fun.
My Guild and I didn't progress far into NAX before TBC, but we had the rest (as much as possible) on more or less farm)
Normal mode instances 5 man is just okay, it's not consuming on potions or anything, most is doable even with offclass, Hybrids and Tri-spec's...
heroic Mode is not extensive on the potions and such, not from what I've seen, only shattered halls (tough touch pulls), Mana-Tombs (Pando is tough without some kind of Shadow negation) and Alkatrash (which is tough final battle) beyond that they are straight forward, and this is done with mostly TBC gear (only 3-4 items are still lingering on)
KZ - 10 man. - Does take some consumeables, but not much, a healthy dose of Enchants, and some good players (with a LOT of fucus) and you're doing things without even having to pop more than one Mana potion or the likes... - of'cus the raid can be speed up a nodge if more consumeables are eaten... Past Curator in KZ it can get tough.
25 man Raids I havn't tried, will try on monday though... .
But Even with the last 7 weeks doing KZ - we are now so well geared taht we dont even wipe on trash anymore, it seems that after the first time a boss or such is downed, the "easy factor" goes up a nodge (the focus level drowns a bit though as well hehe ... ) - but we also run Heroic mode instances each day to get more and better gear.
//Tallens'out
Tigraine Mar 2nd 2007 8:15AM
It became harder, no question having only 25 people made all encounters a bit harder (everyone needs to be there both mentally and virtually).
But: The rewards are ok.
Maybe they overdid it a bit with all those Rep rewards and craftable stuff that players think there is mo real improvement from the raiding gear.
But the Raiding drops are mostly quite nice and an small but noticeable improvement.
And I really don't know why all people think that all those encounters are based around consumeables, I hadn't have any troubles till now with the need to pimp myself too mutch.
Being an Alchemist and having a Agi and Fel strength always up + poisons and food buffs is nothing out of the ordinary, I even do it while grinding.
Twinny Mar 2nd 2007 8:21AM
its a nightmare for a small guild to get organised, karazhan for example. its attunement is very difficult to organise for 20+ ppl.
Cort Mar 2nd 2007 9:38AM
I've yet to hit the raid instances... But all of this complaining about raiding being too difficult kind of boggles my mind. If it were easier and guilds were already farming the 25 mans, what would there be to progress in the game? We're not yet 2 months into the expansion... If it were easier, what would we be doing? Playing LotRO. :P
As for the loot... I see the incremental upgrade path, but am content knowing they'll be looking at the sets and working on them. I never was a fan of raid sets anyway. I never wore my Tier 1 stuff because there was better loot to be had.
Chris Gardner Mar 2nd 2007 9:42AM
Time, time, time. It's always about time.
I've found that raiding is only really amenable to the college and under crowd (or those just out of college who haven't really settled into their careers, or the unemployed).
Those of us with professional careers (sorry, blogs don't count -- lol) find it's impossible to know exactly when we'll be home from work. Plus, there's time spent doing errands, walking the dog, preparing dinner, etc. In short, my schedule is sporadic.
That's why I like the small-group stuff. Throw 5 together and head in. It's almost impossible to "throw together" a raid (even a smaller 25-man one).
Some people like this kind of gametype because they have time to play it and can schedule life around raids. Most don't.
FadedReality Mar 2nd 2007 9:43AM
I say again: Up the Tier 4 and 5 stats to make them farther from sidegrades, scale player spells/abilities more realistically. Also, add a second, Tier 6 equivalent 70 pvp set.
Serenatias Mar 2nd 2007 9:48AM
Is raiding harder? Yes and no. Yes in the fact that you can't have the slackers you could in a 40 man. The fat must be cut, because with 10 and 25 people running these things, every bit counts. There's no wiggle room for a mage to afk before a boss pull. The coordination factor is a lot higher.
No in the fact that it's not that diffirent in terms of time investment. TBC has been out only a handful of weeks. This content wasnt designed to be blown through in a matter of weeks. Yes, the extremes are there, but 99.9% of WoWer's wont get there for a while yet. If you're ahead of the pack, great, go read a book while your guild catches up, or roll an alt, or play a diffirent class. If you're DPS go play a healer, or a tank, see what it's like in their shoes, get ready for the content if you're that excited about it.
Oh, and if you don't thinnk the gear is worth it, then don't go. Simple as that.
chimera Mar 2nd 2007 10:01AM
Been to Kara twice with my firemage. On the first attempt we oneshotted Attumen. Then things started to get AWFULLY hard. Even trash hits like a truck, there is so much damage and so small room for error, it's almost frightening. I think we need to get better gear and better group composition, focus up and run in again :)
freehugz Mar 2nd 2007 2:43PM
I think this is all the same as people complaining that some 5 mans are too hard. They all got used to having awesome gear pre-BC and now they're going into these raids with some people being undergeared and then expecting to do just as well
Bramd Mar 2nd 2007 10:39AM
If the game was easy, it'd be FFXI. I remember back in the day Strat Dead and ZG were "impossible!" but honestly once your guild/group/etc gets geared out from quests/raids/heroics, it'll be a breeze. Our first attempt at Moroes and the Maiden of Virtue in Karazan wiped us time and time again for the first week. Now those two pansies are on farming status along with Dorothy and that noobcake Tito, whom I swore was at one point in the Jackson 5 but I won't go there.
So Number 1, if you don't want to raid, don't. But don't expect to enjoy any of the higher end content later or any of the fun stuff that comes with it. Nothing in life that is easy is worth it.
So less QQ and more PewPew.
Cheers,
Bramd
Ampersand Mar 2nd 2007 10:50AM
The gear is sub-par at best. I rerolled a month before BC on a new server and quest grinded to 60 so I can be up to pace with everyone starting the expansion when it came out. I hit 70 and got some descent blues and the dungeon 3 set and stepped into kara. My guild has done up to prince, with nothing else attempted yet and I have gotten a couple 'very mild' epic upgrades. They were maybe a couple stats above the blue I was wearing at the time. I have gotten a couple other purples we call 'side grades' because that's what they are, not better, not worse. Some of the epics in kara aren't even better than the dungeon 3 set, which is ridiulous to say the least. I'm staring at a pair of epic gloves in my inventory because they aren't even better than my assassination gloves...
The gear needs to get substantially better. There nerfing our blues now and supposedly making the epics better..but how is that going to help us even clear the raids to get epic gear if we have a hard enough time already with mandatory consumables, etc. Were not even through kara, I couldn't imagine grinding the key requirements for the other raids, much less killing anything.
Unless they change things really fast, the amount of guilds that actually see any raiding past gruul's lair will be a fraction of the 2% of the wow population that saw naxx. And I don't know about anyone else, but I play WoW for the raiding, which I loved pre BC. Everything got old and we raided the same stuff every week, but they almost made BC close to impossible to complete.
Ampersand Mar 2nd 2007 10:55AM
Bramd, no offense but moroes, opera, etc, are easy. You can kill half the stuff in kara with blues/greens. Kara isn't the problem, you haven't even seen the problem yet. Try kazak, try mauldar, try getting 25 people keyed for any raid after kara. It's not about 'wanting' to raid and waiting to get gear to progress. Trust me, my guild has slammed kara, we have epics, we have the best gear possible to start gruul, and it...sucks. Comsumables, gear that isn't any better than quest rewards and dungeon 3, mobs that hit for 13k...Kara is a walk in the park compared to a 25 man.
jaydlawii Mar 2nd 2007 11:32AM
@7,
I agree totally. I enjoy the game, but my time is very limited. and while there are times where i am able to play WoW for hours at a time, I cannot schedule this time nor dependend that the time will be available (wife, kid, dog). I mostly solo quest for that reason. Getting together for instances with people that either don't know how to play, qq too much, greed everything, and use foul language does not intrest me. I guess that I am doomed to be a solo-ist, not a big deal since my main is a Lock.
Jason Mar 2nd 2007 11:40AM
Why is it necessary to have each new upgrade or tier of gear be "substantially better" in TBC? Everyone is caught up on the gear having to ramp in a similar or exactly the same to the pre-TBC gear sets.
But this is no longer pre-TBC! This is new content with new encounters that have (hopefully) been tuned specifically for the TBC gear. Because of this, possibly only a small increase in one stat for each class will be exactly what is necessary to kill boss 2 in raid X. Or maybe you need to keep your blue dungeon set for boss 3 in raid X, while your epic tier 4 (because it is a "sidegrade") is necessary for boss 2.
People tend to get too caught up explicitly comparing TBC to pre-TBC. We are all experiencing a fundamentally new game when we step into Outland, so we need to stop looking back and start trying to solve the new puzzles and encounters that lay before us.
Rich Mar 2nd 2007 4:25PM
Just like a couple people here, I can't play very often. Between work, the gf, the kid and the honey-do list, I am lucky to get an hour a night in and 2-3 on sat/sun. Pre-Expansion I didn't do any raiding.
After looking at the requirments for attuning for raids, I decided it wasn't worth my time to even attempt it. In order for me to experience more of the game I have to invest more time. Its not an investment worth making really. I'll just keep leveling my various alts until I get bored with the game then move on.
As far as difficulty, who really cares? The people not being are being able to progress beyond a certain point are complaining they can't experience more content. At least they can experience the content. Like anything in life, if you fail you did something wrong and when you figure it out then you move one.
Oriion Mar 2nd 2007 5:32PM
Raid content isnt too hard, you just suck. Go find out if any of the top end guilds in your server are complaining.
Raid content has just been made accessible to more players and the ones that just arent good are complaining that it's too hard. Their excuse used to be "I can't raid because I cant get 40 people together". News flash, maybe you just weren't good enough. I hope it's a big slap in the face to everyone who said raids were easy epics. I know my guild didnt one-shot C'thun or clear Naxx in 3 weeks, so I don't expect the new end game to be any different. Hard bosses are meant to be hard, and just the more rewarding to down. If you find raiding to be too difficult then you're just not good enough at playing your class to raid.
Go farm rep or something.
Argent Mar 2nd 2007 7:23PM
"And I really don't know why all people think that all those encounters are based around consumeables, I hadn't have any troubles till now with the need to pimp myself too mutch."
beginning with c'thun, blizzard started modeling some boss encounters around the notion that the raid would be flasked (the hp one, not any others) and that has continued in naxx (you creally couldn't do the final 2 bosses without the raid being flasked) and seems to be in effect now.
karazhan (being the new AQ20, really) is somewhat deceptive. you don't need much in the way of consumables there, but they can help. you still might wanna flask your MT for nightbane but that's about it. the overworld bosses (kazzak and doomwalker) hardly even count, because they were balanced for a 25 man raid, but you can still bring a full 40 if need be.
gruul is another 25 flasks kind of fight and seemingly so is magtheridon.