M'uru nerfed in 2.4.3
by Jennie Lees 
Jul 15th 2008 at 4:30PM
An interesting change to Sunwell raiding cropped up in today's patch notes: in short, M'uru, Entropius and adds are all taking a health hit, and a couple of things have been smoothed out in the Kil'jaeden encounter.Let's talk about M'uru first. Countless guilds have had trouble with this fight, yet those that have beaten it have praised its unforgiving tuning.
With some guilds reporting over 500 wipes on this boss alone, no wonder Blizzard felt some need to change the encounter. Although it's not known quite how much their health will be reduced (speculation ranges from 5% to 20%), the tuning as it stands means that any significant reductions change the entire pacing of the fight.
With adds dying faster, you get more time on M'uru; with M'uru dying faster, you get to Entropius sooner, and cut out a chunk of phase 1, lessening the tension and the chance for a mistake to wipe you. Guilds having trouble reaching phase 2 will still have to overcome threat and co-ordination issues,so expect plenty of wipes still, but the tedium of repeating phase 1 hundreds of times should be lifted to some extent and a kill should come a lot faster.
How are guilds reacting to this? The general feeling is very mixed. Guilds who have killed M'uru already are looking forward to faster farm kills, and are probably feeling a little smug that they beat it pre-nerf. However, those working on the fight at the moment are experiencing a mix of relief and disappointment. Disappointment that they didn't manage to quite beat it before these changes -- but relief and confidence that they soon will.
However, some of the problems that M'uru represents aren't affected by this announcement at all. Guilds who had serious roster issues when they suddenly needed 10 or 11 reliable healers for the Eredar Twins, then only six (but four tanks) for M'uru, still have to overcome those issues. Sure, the relaxed DPS requirement means you can possibly take an extra healer to M'uru now, which makes rotations a little fairer, but it doesn't really solve the problem.
Summer and burnout, plus the difficulty of recruiting Sunwell-ready players when you're yet another 4/6 guild (not to mention the PvE-PvP server transfer issue that's been plaguing PvE guilds), are also culprits in the M'uru problem. These notes simply make me wonder how many guilds that have fallen apart at this boss might have made it after the changes.
The changes to Kil'jaeden have less of an impact on the encounter, merely smoothing out some of the difficulties that are caused by randomness. Interruptable reflections and the removal of Improved Wing Clip (a nightmare in an encounter that requires raid members to move) are the key changes, meaning that guilds should no longer groan in dismay when certain reflections are spawned.
Overall these changes should see more guilds progressing past the brick wall that is M'uru to the equally-complex fight that is Kil'jaeden, and see a smoother difficulty curve throughout the instance overall. Hardcore raiders will lament the beauty of M'uru's tuning being gone forever, but when they bring new members in to learn the fight, they'll be a little grateful too.
The notes:
- M'uru, Entropius, Shadowsword Berserkers and Shadowsword Fury Mages have all had their health decreased.
- Kil'jaeden Encounter
- Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil'jaeden's Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.
- Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil'jaeden.
- Sinister Reflections are now interruptible.
- Sinister Reflections on Hunters now use normal Wing Clip instead of Improved Wing Clip.
- Kil'jaeden will now wait slightly longer before casting Flame Darts after casting Darkness of a Thousand Souls.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Wildbinx Jul 15th 2008 4:41PM
i'll never see this fight. ever. kinda sad :(
sephirah Jul 15th 2008 6:46PM
"With some guilds reporting over 500 wipes on this boss alone"
500 WIPES on a boss?!?
Must... resist...
Cannot...
GET A LIFE!!!
Heleth Jul 15th 2008 8:55PM
.. but they are *fun* wipes.
Aigarius Jul 15th 2008 11:29PM
After closing in to 100 wipes on Illidan I can not imagine doing 500 wipes on a boss. And I sure as hell cann't imagine that being fun. Especially having to wipe tens to hundreds of times even after the first kills.
sephirah Jul 15th 2008 6:48PM
Oh noes, M'uru too hard will be the end of WoW! 10000000 players will quit!
Oh wait, maybe only 2/3% will do...
Heilig Jul 16th 2008 3:55AM
"not to mention the PvE-PvP server transfer issue that's been plaguing PvE guilds"
Wait, what? Since when can you transfer from pvE to PvP? They did that for one (1) oceanic server. That's not exactly a flood of Raiders jumping ship to PvP servers. Have I missed something here?
Bastiaan Jul 16th 2008 4:35AM
I was thinking the same thing - Jennie probably meant the other way around: guilds on PvP realms who have trouble recruiting because characters on PvE realms can't transfer.
That sounds a lot more sensible to me.
Jennie Lees Jul 16th 2008 10:54AM
No, the issue is that you can't transfer PvE-PvP, and it's caused a *lot* of trouble primarily for PvE guilds. PvP players don't transfer off PvP, and those on PvE can't transfer to PvP, thus separating the raiding core into two distinct recruitment pools. But PvP servers generally have much better progress, and those on PvE have been facing a recruitment pool that's just lacking. Although, since a lot of guilds broke up on M'uru, we're seeing a lot more mergers or part-mergers on PvE servers now too.
Neg Jul 16th 2008 4:22AM
" However, some of the problems that M'uru represents aren't affected by this announcement at all. Guilds who had serious roster issues when they suddenly needed 10 or 11 reliable healers for the Eredar Twins, then only six (but four tanks) for M'uru, still have to overcome those issues. Sure, the relaxed DPS requirement means you can possibly take an extra healer to M'uru now, which makes rotations a little fairer, but it doesn't really solve the problem. "
The main problem with Muru is shown right here, four tanks, people are just using the wrong strategy all over the place. Using 4 tanks is a very clear indication that you are making he encounter complexer then it is, which isn't to good seen that it already is quite a hard fight.
But it is still sad that Blizzard is nerfing this encounter while it is very doable if you use the right strategy, we take Muru down really fast, if it takes more then one try per week then that is a disappointment.
Bastiaan Jul 16th 2008 4:56AM
Let me first say that I don't know M'uru - never seen him, probably never will. However, the strategy guides that I've just seen all ask for four tanks (this is WoWWiki and three guides on Bosskillers). I'm going to guess you are Neg from SK Gaming, so that you know what you're talking about when you say four tanks makes the encounter harder.
I think it's highly probable that doing the encounter with four tanks is a lot easier to explain but, judging from your comment, very hard to execute. Either a four-tank strategy is too luck-based, or it puts too much strain on DPS or healing. Another strategy is probably harder to explain, but does not involve as much luck or DPS or healing, making it the better strategy once it is mastered.
The race is over; the top guilds have killed M'uru and, although downing him is still a huge accomplishment for your guild and possibly for your realm, there's no worldwide honor for guilds downing him anymore. It makes sense, therefore, that Blizzard slowly starts to nerf the encounter so that more of the playerbase can down M'uru and Kil'jaeden.
An encounter that requires either a very complicated strategy or puts a high strain on DPS is not going to be fun to learn. 500 wipes is terrible and it will break guilds, especially when there's no real honor (i.e. world or whatever firsts) to be gained. Blizzard nerfing this encounter is a good thing.
Neg Jul 16th 2008 5:11AM
Yeps, going with 4 tanks adds a lot of uncertainty and randomness to the fight, on top of that you'll need an other healer also, costing you 2 DPS spots, which is a lot for both phase 1 and 2.
And yes, all guides use 4 tanks, as they all copy each other and don't question if that really is the best strategy, which is inst. In the end all guilds use the strategy posted on such sites and do it the hard way.
I've don Muru both the hard way and the easy way, the difference is huge.
And all that QQing over the setup requirements, they're quite low, 1 shaman, one prot pally and 3 hunters is a must for our strategy, the rest is quite flexible.
But in the end I understand that it needs to be nerfed, Blizz wants people to see KJ, if Muru is (for whatever reason) blocking people from reaching KJ, then the nerf bat is obviously going to strike him
Jennie Lees Jul 16th 2008 11:11AM
Well, we use four at the moment, the guild I was with before used three and it was a painful learning process. Four seems to work a lot better, if you have that flexibility in the ranks. It depends a lot on your healers and the tanks themselves; our third tank just fell over most of the time when we used three.
The problem for us was that we had three tanks full stop and the attendance requirement (given that two of us were the only raid leaders etc) was hard on us given that it was summer. Fortunately, since making it worse for them by leaving, they've found more tanks and learned that players can respec.
Neg Jul 16th 2008 11:31AM
IJennie, if you poke me on irc (#sk.wow) then I'll explain the difference between the 4 and 3 tank strategy, it's really huge on M'uru.