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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBornakk confirms raid nerf
by Adam Holisky 
Oct 2nd 2008 at 6:00PM
Blue poster Bornakk has clarified what many people were noticing yesterday: all Burning Crusade raiding mobs have had their health reduced (approximately 30 percent according to data collected). He also goes on to say that the mobs will be doing less physical damage, although the spell damage will remain the same.As far my close and personal friend Illidan goes, he will no longer be casting Shear. While I understand the need for this, as a Warrior can no longer spam Shield Block come patch 3.0.2, I will miss this particular mechanic in that it truly provided a test of skill above the standard tank and spank mechanic.
The HP nerf to all of the raid bosses isn't sitting too well with me either. It makes me sigh in frustration at the weeks my guild spent getting the last 25% of Brut down to a science. Had this nerf been in place three months ago, we would have killed him on the second night of attempts.
But that is the life of these games, onward and upward towards Wrath of the Lich King!
Filed under: News items, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
onetrueping Oct 2nd 2008 6:23PM
Oh, yes, and the info came from a priest posting on the mmo-champion forums, in the news post which lists the reduction of hit points et al. It's a fair ways in, third or fourth page I think.
lightning4 Oct 2nd 2008 6:25PM
Healing may very well be through the roof, but exactly how long can that be maintained without chain-chug pots, shadowpriests, and downranking? Hence, the reasoning for this balancing.
Takamuri Oct 2nd 2008 6:23PM
Raid Damage is down in the xpac.
Tank Mitigation is down in the xpac
I
= Less Boss HP
= Less Boss Melee
Illidan no longer Shears so Druids can also function as viable MTs.
It is not a nerf.
-Takamuri of Deus Vox
stevens.ce Oct 2nd 2008 6:22PM
From a story yesterday, by Alex Ziebart (the same one linked in this article), on this same blog about this same issue...
"My gut instinct was, "Ugh, why are they nerfing everything so badly? That's ridiculous. Just because it's the end of the expansion doesn't mean they need to make it easy mode for us." Then I actually thought (gasp!) about it for a little bit. Looking at the changes coming in Patch 3.0.2, this was a change they needed to make to let us still raid until Wrath. A lot of encounters probably became impossible to beat as they were with those changes, Sunwell Plateau especially. Sunwell was designed with all of the insanely OP stuff players were doing to win in mind. Stacking Shadow Priests for mana regen, stacking Shaman to chain-cast Heroism/Bloodlust, half the raid going Leatherworking for Drums, yadda yadda.
Those are all things they nixed for Wrath of the Lich King. Lots of Shadow Priests and Heroisms were more or less mandatory to progress through Sunwell. With mana regen from Shadow Priests nerfed, your Caster DPS would never, ever last through half of the Sunwell encounters, even chaining mana potions. Their personal regen is quite simply not enough to beat those encounters as they are. Sure, some of your casters can just stack more MP5, but if they all did that, you would never make the DPS check. The boss would enrage and destroy you all. Every single time."
I agree that it's news that someone at Blizzard confirmed this, but if you're going to report about the change, why not borrow from the description put forth on this site yesterday, the one you linked to? The fights aren't going to be easier - the mechanics have changed, so the strats will change, and the nerf was in response to those changes.
Adam Holisky Oct 2nd 2008 6:27PM
I agree with Alex, linked to his source. However the fact remains, 30% less HP is 30% less HP - and Brut will still go down faster (DPS change is more or less nominal in 3.0.2). Illidan is still nerfed, and is more or less a tank and spank fight now for the MT.
Again, I agree with Alex. Just looking at things from a different perspective. =)
Calaana Oct 2nd 2008 8:12PM
True Adam, dps won't be affected much. Mana regen of your healers on the other hand... a dead dps does no damage, regardless of if they need to do 30% less this week. A boss is always a dps race vs tank death, and your tanks are going to die a little faster now. If anything, they've actually gotten harder, in my eyes anyway, with the tank mitigation changes.
Thrashnak Oct 3rd 2008 4:30AM
Adam, you are comparing apples and pears here (not oranges, because we're still comparing similar fruit, but still different nonetheless).
You are complaining that it's a nerf making it easier, and as an example saying if it had been done before you'd have completed Brut easier. Sure, if they had nerfed it under the current mechanics you could have completed Brut easier. But they are introducing NEW mechanics that completely change the dynamics of fights so your comment is simply irrelevant. 30% faster isn't automatically 30% easier. Some things may be, most are shaping up to not be the case.
Hell, you might as well say "If we'd have been able to level past 70 when doing Brut, we'd have downed him months ago!" That's true, but equally as irrelevant.
So all you are saying is the duration of the fight will be shorter. So what? That's does not automatically mean more success.
If a raid group is currently working on content and it takes 3-4 attempts per success on boss A, and after the changes it still takes them 3-4 attempts only now the attempts take 9 minutes instead of 12 minutes, their success rate is still the same.
Phoulmouth Oct 2nd 2008 7:18PM
I hate to point out stupid comments but on this one I have no choice.
"The HP nerf to all of the raid bosses isn't sitting too well with me either. It makes me sigh in frustration at the weeks my guild spent getting the last 25% of Brut down to a science. Had this nerf been in place three months ago, we would have killed him on the second night of attempts."
Without raid stacking drums and heroisms and haste/destruction pots this boss would be the biggest roadblock in the game. Nearly impossible TBH.
This raid mob HP nerf is due to the inability to basically spam heroisms, drums, and specialty potions. It is a needed nerf, and absolute must if you will. Without it progression into the current content would stop dead for any guild in sunwell and slow down immensely for any guild in BT.
Opinions are great and all but at least have a full understanding of what your making a statement on huh?
jrizutko Oct 3rd 2008 10:31AM
Phoulmouth, thats great your analysis accounts for one boss. How does that explain the massive nerf to Attuman the huntsman? How about Loot Reaver? Magtheridon? Gruul? Lurker Below?
I'm pretty sure no one was chain potting or stacking drums on Prince. The fact is that there are a small percentage of raiding groups who are on content for whom this was about rebalancing. The vast majority of wow players who are raiding the early to mid-level raids will see a massive nerf to the difficulty of their encounters.
I for one commend the change, because I see it as smart business. I it upsets some people to see the hurdles they've lept over shortened to let more folks over. Those people that are upset have fragile egos.
Phoulmouth Oct 3rd 2008 6:39PM
Do you really thing guild who just start these encounters aren't chaining heroisms? pots? drums? ROFL
Not every guild is in bt/sunwell and not every guild has fully epic'd out or good players.
I remember back when my guild first started SSC, still mostly blue geared. We used every single advantage we could get to kill those bosses as quickly as possible. You think guilds that are just getting into raids aren't using the same tactics?
Yeah people who are in BT are going to go back and slaughter SSC/TK now cause there are lower health bosses. But they would have done that anyways.
New guilds are still going to struggle and have issues with new bosses regardless of the bosses HP. Maybe they will overcome the obstacle a little easier but not as easier as some people are apparently thinking.
To anyone who doesn't like this balancing, "QQ go cry moar!"
vlad Oct 2nd 2008 7:45PM
where did you find this story?
xeren Oct 2nd 2008 7:52PM
i'll just keep quoting adam until you realize you're an idiot.
oh, and adam's right, your website is awful. i gave you one page view so that i can tell other people it's not even worth visiting.
"Adam Holisky said...
Greetings Vlad,
We do not lift our news from MMO-Champion. BB provides an excellent site that I visit regularly. When there is something he does that I feel warrant a mention on our site, I give him credit, link to his stuff, and smile as I've helped bring great content to the community.
However this news is not from anyone associated with MMO-Champion, as I'm sure BB would attest to. It comes from Blizzard "Blue" posters, who are in someway associated with the administration of the game. These posts are made usually on Blizzard's official forums (although sometimes they are made on the front page of their website as well).
As such, you can see that I've linked to the official blue post. How did I find out that this blue post was made? I scan the Blizzard forums like clockwork at the top of every hour. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to go through them. I used to use services like BlueCard, however I found that they missed some important information.
The comparison you're making is fundamentally flawed then. BB does not own this news. And I most certainly did not plagiarize it. Saying that MMO-Champ owns this news is like saying CNN owns all the news about the stock market collapse, and that MSNBC and FoxNews are just ripping CNN off. That's incorrect, and so are your arguments.
I generally don't respond to trolls, but I thought I'd shed a little light on this matter for those interested.
Nice website, btw =)
- Adam"
PeeWee Oct 2nd 2008 8:36PM
Gee, look. There's a link labelled "Source", I wonder where that leads?
jbodar Oct 3rd 2008 4:42AM
Seriously, vlad. Less paint chips in your diet... or more, I really don't care at this point, and neither does anyone else.
You and your "blog" are irrelevant.
Skya Oct 3rd 2008 9:25AM
Is there any point in you coming on here since you clearly have nothing to say, a simple look at you previous posts show that almost every comment is nothing short of 'trolling'.
Have you ever wondered where your beloved MMO Champion get the source of their articles from? I seriously believe that you're dumb enough to think that even 'blues' themselves check that website before posting anything in the official WOW forums. Maybe you should face reality and realise that MMO Champion like most websites "lift" as you like to call it their information from Blue posts.
Clint Oct 3rd 2008 9:19AM
"Saying that MMO-Champ owns this news is like saying CNN owns all the news about the stock market collapse, and that MSNBC and FoxNews are just ripping CNN off. That's incorrect, and so are your arguments." - Adam H.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, pwned.
Lish Oct 3rd 2008 10:59AM
Well Vlad, just yesterday MMO-Champion posted the newest class changes 4 hours after World of Raids had already posted the exact same info. Does that mean we get to start bashing MMO-Champion for "stealing" their news now?
Aaron Oct 2nd 2008 8:49PM
Wonder if crushings have been removed too, some can be deadly, i.e. a crushing from Essence of Anger after a soul scream
Olvia Oct 3rd 2008 5:49PM
As I understand, crushes are being retroactively removed from raid bosses.
ryane Oct 3rd 2008 2:56AM
I dont understand the problem. Once everyone hits level 80 these hardcore raids will be easymode anyway. Why not give everyone the chance to see them now while they are at our level than later when we can just faceroll them?
Blizzard didnt put so much effort into creating these gorgeous instances just for 90% of the gaming population not to see them.