Heroic attunements gone in Wrath
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 29th 2008 at 6:30PM
Another interesting thing to note from the Dungeons and Raids panel of the WWI earlier today is the topic of Heroic attunements. We've known for some time that Blizzard has wanted to move away from reputation requirements for Heroic keys, and we saw an example of that in Magisters' Terrace. This was reinforced early on in the panel when Cory Stockton stated that there will be no faction and reputation requirements whatsoever for any of the Heroics. This doesn't particularly surprise me, because Heroic keys at Honored is little more than a formality and way to waste a little gold. You hit Honored with most places just through leveling up, so by the time you're top level you can probably already go into those Heroics. Requiring Honored might as well be no requirement at all.
However, the possibility of a Magisters' Terrace style attunement was something I assumed they would do. Run the Normal at least once before the Heroic, or by completing some other type of task successfully. That, too, was shot down later in the Q&A. A question about attunements was answered with the fact that none of the Dungeons or Heroics will have any attunement at all, and neither will the first raid zone, Naxxramas. I don't mind this too much, it leaves it up to the player to judge whether they're ready for Heroics or not. I still would have liked to have seen some attunement quests for Heroics, because I think the added flavor or added challenges those quests could provide would add some depth to things. It seems we're not getting those, and I'll cope with it I'm sure, it just feels like a lost opportunity.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Instances, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Worldwide Invitational
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sherp Jun 29th 2008 6:59PM
As a tank who has royally embarrassed himself by carefully organizing a group for Heroic Shadow Labs and discovering when I tried to zone in that I had neither the key nor the rep on that particular toon, I support this change.
Joe P Jun 29th 2008 7:05PM
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, lower barriers to entry are usually a good thing, it means that it won't be quite as tough to get groups and things together, especially considering the addition of a new tanking class. However on the other hand there are people running heroics now that simply don't have the gear or skill necessary to run them and that always causes a lot of needless headaches in PUGs. Additionally I agree with you, while it's nice to not have to grind rep I would have loved to see some sort of quest a la Magister's Terrace. You got some tasty lore and information in the heroic attunement quest and it only required you to run the dungeon once, a requirement which I think is fair and pretty straightforward. I'd like to see more of that and it's a shame that it seems there won't be.
marros@terenas Jun 29th 2008 7:06PM
I really thought they'd put back the original Revered requirement for the WotLK heroics, then later down the line, change it to Honored. I didn't think that Revered was a problem at all during the months after TBC was released, the instances were busy, lots of runs goin on, and always someone in guild goin somewhere. The appeal of Honored to me was always just for the alts anyway.
Cybus Jun 29th 2008 7:13PM
I've always thought they should use attunements to make sure people are ready for stuff they might want to do with a pickup group or whatever. It made perfect sense for Onyxia, for example. Even with a full 40-man raid of 60s, Ony would have been tough if they were all in greens and quest blues. The same for a heroic instance - if someone hasn't done SL enough times on normal to be revered at least, they probably aren't ready for even Sethekk Halls on heroic. Apparently Blizzard disagrees with me though, because no one would ever do a massive, hours-long instance like SSC with 24 strangers, but attunement was required for that... but it was never required for Gruul or Mag.
Ametrine Jun 29th 2008 7:25PM
No prerequisites, you can just skip past the regular version and go straight into the Heroic format? This can't end well.
I think at the least, you ought to have to run the standard dungeon before you can enter the Heroic one, if for no other reason than to make sure they get done... otherwise, I get the feeling gathering folks for running non-Heroic instances will become as futile as trying to get groups together to run oldworld instances in TBC.
darian Jun 30th 2008 1:00PM
The whole "Skip past normal and go straight to heroic" phenomena works now because half of everyone involved significantly outgears the heroic. They're in it for the badges, the nethers, and the epic gems. That won't be the case in the first month after WotLK.
Quest greens/blues are only okay when you've got a few people in purple to back you up. While the gear reset won't be as harsh this time around, the principle will still apply. Leeching simply won't be an option for the first few months.
Idain Jun 29th 2008 7:42PM
I'm a bit worried about this tbh, nowadays already you find people going to a heroic without the nessecery skills/gear, without ANY attunement that actually will get worse, and like the poster above me said getting revered wasn't a problem in those first months cause a lot of people needed the rep, the change later was understandable cause there weren't a lot of normal runs anymore, which will change again in the new expansion. And to all who say the kara attunement was hard, too long, too complicated, it was great for me cause it tok me to alot of places you needed to go to get the gear for kara anyway, the questline brought you to a lot of dungeons you would go anyway so i didn't see the problem there aswel. (all attunements were fine tbh, I only didnt get the TK one before it was removed, and that was because i started raiding quite late), attunements like those at least made sure the players that could enter at least had some experience.
mk Jun 29th 2008 7:45PM
so what's the point of having regulars? who would ever run a regular to get inferior loot if you can fudge your way through a heroic while wearing greens?
Slayblaze Jun 29th 2008 10:06PM
At first I remember thinking what a great idea having heroic mode was, but I ended up agreeing with you entirely - why do there have to be 2 versions of instances? Oh, I can think of several actual reasons that are along the lines of what Blizzard intended (lowering entry requirements for undergeared players, giving casuals more options, etc) but if you think of it in those terms, then why not have 3 versions such as Beginner, Normal, and Heroic? Or 4 versions like Beginner, Normal, Heroic, and Advanced Heroic? Or 5 versions (Ultra Advanced Heroic) or 6 versions (Ultra Mega Advanced H....you get the idea)
The thing is, there only needs to be ONE instance when it comes right down to it. Because almost nobody wants to do NON-Heroic instances. Notice how I said "almost" because yes I do know that some people do normal mode instead of Heroic. But the majority want the chance at better loot and for badges. Why settle for anything less really? I bet most people who do normal mode only do them once or twice before switching to strictly Heroic from then on.
Since the first step of removing the attunements has been taken, they should just settle on one version of each instance and let the players sort things out just like they did for a couple years prior to BC. It worked just fine back then and it would work just fine going forward too.
nav Jun 30th 2008 5:07AM
Slayblaze: no it didn't work just fine. You'd run an instance only a small number of times (frequently once), ignoring helping guildmates and friends still levelling. You'd do Uldaman once (thank goodness), ST once and then when you hit 60 you'd be running Scholo and Strat an awful lot.
Heroics let you replay content at the endgame level. It's not so significant with Mechanar, Arcatraz and other L70 dungeons but it means you get more variety at the endgame and that's where a lot of us spend most of our time. Simple as that.
mk Jun 30th 2008 8:56AM
sure it gives more variety, but i have a feeling that most people aren't after a little variety, they're after gear. i've never said to myself "oh, let's run regular shadow labs today, just for the variety of things." if i'm running regular shadow labs, i'm helping a friend or i'm on a toon that needs gear from there. it seems like it's a waste of effort to tool two versions of the same instance when almost certainly no one will be running one of them. also here i'm specifically thinking of instances where the regular version is already for 70s. maybe having heroic underbog makes some sense, but heroic and regular steamvaults with no attunement makes little sense.
Wakoo Jun 29th 2008 8:10PM
Hmm, I think that removing any form of heroic attunement is stupidity. You said in the article that it will be left up to the player to decide if they are ready for this. Fact is, alot of the people unless outrageously undergeared will believe that the other group members are the ones who aren't up to it.
I think that the way Magister's Terrace works is fantastic. It also sets you in good spirit for the instance ahead because you know that it's very likely that the people in your group have done this place before and have an understanding. I think this sort of thing should be implemented for the instances which will be for level 80 on normal mode.
camille.e Jun 29th 2008 9:43PM
" it leaves it up to the player to judge whether they're ready for Heroics or not"
The sad fact is, even at honored rep people can't judge this well. You can usually make your way through with an undergeared dps, but an undergeared tank or healer is just painful and no one benefits when you can't even make it to the first boss.
I still don't understand the thinking - make heroics accessable for the people who like to solo? Well, why are they running heroics at all then? Revered rep keys didn't take much effort at all to get and honored often doesn't require any normal instances before hand. Will gear checks have to be the norm for 5 mans with this? The thought of an undergeared group who's never run the normal instance is kinda scary >_>
(To those who think keys are a waste of time, I invite you to run H Shattered Halls with my resto shammie alt as soon as she dings 70 - she's had the key since lvl 61.)
crsh Jun 29th 2008 10:40PM
I honestly wonder what good this will do; remember when they lowered the rep requirement from revered to honored for heroic keys? A huge success... yeah, that's it.
Encouraging players to run heroics is a no-brainer, make that accessible, but the requirement was never hard to meet; like or not, rep grinds in TBC are fairly painless.
Gimmlette Jun 30th 2008 12:00AM
Already there's a lot of stratification of talents and I can't see that this is going to help end that at all. You run the regular to get a feel for how the instance looks, acts, where the mobs are, who the boss is, where to pull, etc. We bemoan the player who doesn't know how to play their class. We will now start seeing people run heroics who have never been in the instance before now when mob hit twice as hard.
I don't like the tone that assumes people only do heroics because you can get your key at honored. Many people who answer the LFM are not equipped to handle what a heroic has you do. Personally, I don't find the bosses to be that much harder but the trash getting to the bosses is. Without having some knowledge of the instance and having done all instances on regular, I'm more prepared for what the heroic can throw at me.
Hence, I think it's not just the lore that could be added but the experience that is lost when everything is heroic and not regular.
Personally, I don't mind some nerfing of the attunement process for instances. I encourage my guild members to do Kara attunement even though a handful of us have our keys. Running those 5-mans before Kara gave you a sense of working together. I just got exalted with Argent Dawn and attuned to Naxx. I won't mind that it's nerfed when WOTLK comes out. I have a sense of achievement in getting this even though I might never see the inside of Naxx before it gets moved.
jay Jun 30th 2008 1:23AM
At the end of the day, like everything else, nobody is going to care
Kaphik Jun 30th 2008 2:24AM
Removing attunments from heroics, no matter how easily they are, is just silly. What is the point in having a regular and a heroic version of an instance, then?
Getting to revered rep when TBC came out wasn't difficult at all to achieve. You had to run the instances to get the gear to do the heroics. Once the arena pvp gear became available for regular honor, then people were able to get heroic worthy gear without running instances non-stop. It made sense for Blizzard to change the rep required to honored when they did.
I agree with the idea of quests for some heroic keys, maybe rep for some others. I do hope that it's not a laughibly easy like MrT was.
Solitare-sp Jun 30th 2008 3:20AM
Well the only point in having 'normals' would be that there are lower lvl instance ie ones at 71/72-78ish and heroics can only be run at 80. But I agree, that people will be looking for heroics as soon as they hit 70 (but then no change from normal I guess)....
Willypiggy Jun 30th 2008 3:19AM
I personally think that there should be attunments, even if they get removed towards the end of the expansions life like TBC. I don't mind not having attunments for the leveling dungeons on heroic however I do think that level 80 dungeons should have a simple attunment (same as MgT) to be able to play them on heroic as it makes sure players aren't jumping into the fray without knowing what they are doing. I think Naxx's attunment should stay as it was but require reputation with a different faction, that way its still easy to get but still has a requirement and I think all other raids should have attunment with a length equal to the TBC attunments. This means players still need to work and can't skip loads of content.
Anteia Jun 30th 2008 3:30AM
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that people whining about others entering their heroics could just circumvent it by CHECKING THE ARMORY before asking a person in. You can be as anal as you want then, really. You can look at their armor, look at their rep, decide whether they're 'good enough' for you. And if you read the other entry on instances, you can wear a tabard of another group and get rep for that group instead. So making it at revered is irrelevant in WOTLK, as they could have just ran a different instance a bunch and worn a specific tabard. I'm STILL not revered on some of the groups on my kara-geared Boomkin. But she can handle heroic DPS just fine. Grinding instances over and over again until you hate them just to get the honor so that you can grind them over and over again on Heroic isn't what everyone defines as fun, and there's no telling when a person DOES know the instance very well because their other character has run it 100 times. I have three 70s. I've run every instance in outland multiple times. You can't tell that on my latest 70. I wouldn't choose to enter a heroic until I'd done regular instances to gear her up, either. But adding an arbitrary rep requirement is silly. I can understand attunements like Mr.T. But really, saying someone's not good enough even if they're in kara gear because they're not revered with honor hold? Come on now. It doesn't take that long to check an armory on someone if you're not sure. That way you avoid a bad pug, you also avoid being rude by inviting them in and booting them when they don't meet whatever standards you think they should, and you can be as elitist as you want. But, if they have guild mates who are willing to help them, or who just really need that fifth and don't want to pug them, why should there be arbitary limits to that?