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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPatch 2.4: Hyjal and Black Temple attunements removed
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 8th 2008 at 11:00PM
Blizzard announced the following important four lines in their 2.4 Patch Notes:- Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal.
- Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple.
- Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of "Hand of A'dal".
- You may now fight Prince Kael'thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons.
While the removal of the attunement is obviously a way to get more people to see their new raid zone, the Sunwell Plateau, all is not golden. Many, many, many raiding guilds and players who have already made the brutal trek through Vashj and Kael will be quite upset. On the other hand players who are not yet able to, but perhaps ready for, the first few bosses of MH and BT, will undoubtedly rejoice.
What are your opinions of this change? How do you think it will affect the raiding landscape?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Instances, Quests, Raiding, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
schroey Feb 9th 2008 2:54AM
If Nihilum can beat Illidan in t4 or whatever, than anyone who's that organized can do it as well.
heruval Feb 8th 2008 11:31PM
If you can't kill Vashj and Kael, you aren't going to kill Archimonde and Illidan. Have fun in futility.
theRaptor Feb 9th 2008 12:45AM
So? You will probably be able to kill many of the non-end bosses. That is like saying S3 is futile because you can't get the weapons or shoulder unless you are good.
Aticus Feb 8th 2008 11:39PM
At least they're giving the players already attuned a title. People like titles. This one says, "Back in my day... etc etc". It's like the people who brag that they got to 70 before the leveling change or PVP titles before that change.
-Aticus, http://www.paladintales.blogspot.com
Argent Feb 8th 2008 11:42PM
incidentally, you guys see the note about being able to go to kael and vashj directly?
if you really wanted to, you could just clear trash for 45-60 mins and down the 2 endbosses and move on.
Jack Feb 9th 2008 12:32AM
Yes, but why would you? Most guilds currently only do them enough to get all their raiders attuned, then move on and get the higher quality loot dropping from the easier bosses in the beginning of Hyjal and BT. I predict this change will get a lot of guilds to just skip them altogether.
I think this change makes sense, though, as most Hyjal/BT guilds currently don't want to recruit anyone that's not attuned. I'm a little sad people aren't going to have to experience my pain of all those Kael and Vashj attempts, but oh well. I get a cool title!
zefka Feb 8th 2008 11:47PM
it might mean that blizzard wants as many people as they can get to see the end game content before lich king comes out. it might also mean that lich king could be out sooner then we might think.
Wolfspider Feb 8th 2008 11:54PM
I'm in a BT raiding guild, and I'm actually happy about this change. There is no "threat" from guild jumping straight into BT, because if they don't have the gear from SSC/TK, they won't be able to kill more than maybe Rage and Naj'entus. The title (while its kind of... boring) will be a very nice memento for bragging rights an expac or two from now. And the best part, imo, is not having to waste a raid night getting new people attuned. Honestly, there's no downside.
Dave Feb 8th 2008 11:57PM
this is the future of raids.
Since they're spectacularly unsuccessful for %90 of the -raiding- population ( as the earlier post this week can attest to with Vashj and Kael being guild-killilng bosses), they're going to do this for the rest of the raids I think.
Give the hardcore kids plenty of time to beat them, then slowly ratchet them down for the rest of the players until there's no attunement. (remember Gruul? SSC/TK in the first place? How many of the whiners wouldn't be ON ssc/tk if they hadn't removed the attunements in the first place eh?)
Gotta keep the kids playing somehow. If you can beat everything but the last boss, it stands to reason you could probably gear up on the first boss or two (at least) of the next two instances just as easily as beating your heads against Kael for another month. If you really want to beat him, come back with some T6 and make it slightly easier.
everyone wins, except the kids who always whine. They lose no matter what.
jaxson_bateman Feb 9th 2008 12:16AM
I'm in a guild that's just started T6 content. We've been progressing in there, despite an obvious of shortage of healers. This change really is a godsend.
We're on Dath'remar, which is what you'd consider behind in progression (both Horde and Alliance have killed Illi, but there aren't a great number of guilds in BT... I think 8 across both factions). On Horde, we have 5... and where are the healers going to come from? We either have to remove our "at least Vashj vial" restriction, or pretty much poach from the other guilds. We've had a few transfers here and there (mainly dps) which has helped, but healers are lacking!
Come 2.4, there won't be any vialling requirement, and even if a healer is only Kara geared... well, it'd be nice to have them on board full time rather than dps/off-tanks who have Kara level healing sets and can only do it part time. =)
Zuez Feb 9th 2008 12:18AM
I don't see why everyone has so much trouble on Kael, my guild downed him in 5 hours of attempts. >.< Now Vashj was another story...
jaxson_bateman Feb 9th 2008 12:31AM
Neither Kael and Vashj are hard - they both just have a lot of intricasies (sp) that, if one, two or three people screw up on, can cause a wipe.
There's two reasons why people hate attuning new members to Hyjal - firstly, they're both very long fights. Both of the fights are over 10 minutes long, and that's if you were to one shot. It can get very annoying.
The main reason though is that, not only do you have to do it for everyone, but you have to clear the entire instance first. It's not as big an issue in TK as it can easily be cleared in a night. But SSC, while being clearable in one night, involves 5 bosses. If your raid were to be off it's game, you'd be stuck in the place for 2 nights.
So, 2-3 nights in T5 content when your guild has killed the 2 bosses blocking entry to Hyjal. Yep, very annoying. While I think they should have just reinstated the scrolls Vashj and Kael used to carry, but change them to create a vial in 5 people's inventories', anything allowing people to more easy access T6 is a godsend in my book.
Jess Feb 9th 2008 1:14AM
I totally saw this coming. Now people can really skip around and pick and choose which parts of the instance they want to do.
Yinchie Feb 9th 2008 12:49AM
I can already see loads of nerf whines coming from stupid pvpers and so called casuals saying that MH and BT are too hard for them.
Mel Feb 9th 2008 12:41PM
Funny how the only whining and bitching I have heard comes from the raidtards.
Radlak Feb 10th 2008 11:11PM
I foresee epic gem prices dropping a lot.
Merus Feb 9th 2008 1:05AM
I'm always sad when they remove challenges from the game, although frankly forcing each player individually to do an attunement, especially if the process requires a team, really isn't all that smart for team portions of the game. I'd much prefer Wrath's attunements to be at the guild level.
vlad Feb 9th 2008 8:04AM
i say, so what. let undergeared guilds at least go in and screw around with some trash mobs. like everyone here is saying, if you cant attune you cant kill bosses. so there not going to be downing bosses but at least they have the fun of seeing the place. like adam said, MC BWL and NAXX still have attunements but you know how many people never saw the inside?? sorry adam. blizz is doing good by this.
Glavil Feb 9th 2008 1:20AM
QQ, QQ
MH and BT are still gear and ability checks. No guild is going to roll out of KZ and pick up easy T6 loot. If anything this will hurt more than it will help, as guilds working on SSC and TK may try to rush into MH before they are ready, and end up retarding their own progress.
Oh hai Feb 9th 2008 1:36AM
You don't even raid. What can you possibly offer here?