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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPatch 3.3: The Oculus receives a welcome nerf
by Michael Sacco 
Nov 10th 2009 at 5:00PM
Well, it looks like all of us are in luck. In the latest Patch 3.3 PTR patch notes update, the Oculus got its very own section! Check this out.
- Many bosses and creatures have had their total health reduced.
- Several bosses and creatures have had cooldowns on specific abilities increased, effect durations reduced, and damage on some of these abilities reduced.
- Ring-Lord Conjurers and Sorceresses now hang out in packs of 4 instead of packs of 5.
- Vehicle scaling on the drakes based on the rider's item level has been increased to make them more powerful.
Oh, and quick thing. "Oculus" has one C in it. Just the one. Spread the word.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Patches
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 6)
KarnnExodar Nov 10th 2009 6:59PM
I used to hate H Oculus, but its really unique compared to everything else except maybe old kingdom.
I think blizz should have nerfed this way back in the wotlk beta since every1 complained about it taking twice as long for junky epics that get replaced so quickly its not even funny.
Also blizz should either stop nerfing content due to QQ whiners by just allowing a simple solution. '
Make the loot better compared to 25 man raids and increase the difficulty and make it a extreme heroic 5-man dungeon with a timed and immortal, tribute chest, and make it where even top guilds will bang there heads in agony due to random RNG abilities that deadly boss mods and addons cant track thereby a slap in the face to hardcores.
t0xic Nov 10th 2009 7:04PM
"Make the loot better compared to 25 man raids and increase the difficulty and make it a extreme heroic 5-man dungeon with a timed and immortal, tribute chest, and make it where even top guilds will bang there heads in agony due to random RNG abilities that deadly boss mods and addons cant track thereby a slap in the face to hardcores."
Holy crap. I tried reading that to myself (not out loud) and I ran out of breath. Take out a few ands and throw in some periods. Wow.
berry Nov 10th 2009 7:12PM
Yeah Oculus is hard if you can't communicate and the Ambers don't stop in time. Just because the final boss needs players to, well, use their head and some coordination they... make the rest easier.
I don't think people will like to do Oculus more...
To be honest, Oculus was the first heroic instance I ever healed. We had someone who had done that a lot of times and we took the time to let him explain and all was good.
Every instance is annoying if you play with people who don't know what they are doing (even at level 80) - it's just that with Eregos it is much much more annoying. :)
Ensoulled Nov 10th 2009 7:41PM
Occ (I know one "C" but an abbrevation is an abbrevation), never bothered me due to the difficulty. It was getting PUGs to understand the coordination efforts. As a healer, I hated healing with the drake, so I'd stand on the platform and heal the drakes with my skills. Typically people would fight with me about that tactic and spend so much time complaining that they'd miss the timing of the time stops. If I had enough guildmates or friends on the team who knew the tactic, we'd get through it and, of course, the PUGs would realize it worked and would be shocked. As DPS I'll PUG it, but as heals I refuse to PUG it.
Additionally it aggrivates me to spend 80 levels of time and effort to learn spell roations and build gear just to be forced out of my role for specific fights. I don't mind vehicles, but let me use MY skills while riding on them. Is that too hard?
Kyle Nov 10th 2009 7:56PM
"Oh, and quick thing. "Oculus" has one C in it. Just the one. Spread the word."
SUP GUISE LFG OCC LOLOLZ
Baldagrim Nov 10th 2009 8:41PM
Die! Oculus! Die!
MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
MountainLynx Nov 10th 2009 8:56PM
The extra "C" stands for "crap," as in "oh crap, that place is the daily AGAIN?"
bep4815 Nov 10th 2009 8:59PM
i like the scaling of the drakes based on item levels of the rider because it gives an experienced player that reward
the bad thing about the scaling of the drakes with item levels is that you have to keep your gear on. i liked being able to take it off and wipe alllll day if we had to because of a bad group, not coming back to a huge repair bill
Vogie Nov 10th 2009 9:48PM
IT ISN'T HARD! Easy to heal thru, easy to win. If a dps does stupid things, let them die.
Isorien Nov 10th 2009 10:02PM
This instance requires people to talk to eachother, coordination. That used to be the whole concept of doing things in a group, raiding or 5mans. Now this is the only heroic where you actually need that anymore. If all heroics was designed this way, nobody would QQ about Oculus. Now everyone is so used to just running heroics without even using the chatbox or voice that they freak out when there is a place that needs it.
Its nothing wrong with Oculus, its something wrong with the rest of the heroics!
Hesh Nov 10th 2009 11:13PM
so far this is the BEST 3.3 change imo
NecDW4 Nov 11th 2009 12:08AM
Effing seriously?!?!?! God whiny little bastards are ruining this game. Occ was one of the BETTER instances, because it actually requires, oh, some frigin skill!
I'm in the higher end of casual, meaning i play a couple hours a day, every day, but dont raid or PVP. Just quest and do dailies. I've done a TOTAL of 3 10-man ever, 2 VoAs and a Naxx. So this isnt hardcore eliteism, but man, the people too lazy or stupid to learn to play properly, and Blizzards constant bowing down to the dissenters, is seriously starting to ruin the damn game.
I can understand wanting everyone to theoretically be able to do everything, but there has to be a limit. When will it end, i know Naxx is getting a nerf, which is, again, BS. Yeah, if you arent in a guild it can be hard to get a PUG lately. But that's BECAUSE they overnerfed their game. Every heroic now dropping several conquests has entirely eliminated the need to ever enter Naxx OS or EoE to gear up for anything. Blizzard is ENCOURAGING people to not learn how to play by allowing them to skip directly to the very hardest of the endgame.
People wonder why the game is overpopulated with soooo many DPS who dont know what theyre doing, and not nearly enough tanks and healers that DO, THIS is exactly why.
NecDW4 Nov 11th 2009 11:29PM
Oh, more denial eh?
Damn crybabies.
Gimmlette Nov 11th 2009 12:15AM
I got dragged into regular Oculus before the nerf. It was frustrating and difficult and hard and "What the h*** am I supposed to be doing?" and "I AM out of the frost! I AM NOT pulling aggro!" and "Where did those dragons come from?" and "I just died. Where are you guys?" all the things that make an instance a challenge. I didn't realize the drakes didn't scale with my armor until that was mentioned in a patch. I just knew this was one really difficult instance.
But I liked the idea of riding drakes to fight.
We spend our time standing on our feet, or, in my case, lying in the dirt. (Get the license number of the kodo that hit me, please.) We've become so used to fighting while standing that any combat that is different is ruled "too hard" and nerfed. (Magister's Terrace?) We should be challenged. We shouldn't expect to walk into a brand new instance, fire up our buffs and run roughshod over everything we meet. That was and still is, the beauty of the game.
I miss instances where you had to figure out how to kill the bosses. I'm really tired of "What do I do here?" "See the boss? Kill him." Oculus was a unique challenge, something totally new. Aerial combat. Interesting.
As others have pointed out, there are ways the instance could have been improved rather than nerfing the mobs; drakes scaling with armor, better navigation through the levels. But, remember that the nerf bat has swung on all encounters so far and it's expected to swing on Icecrown when Cataclysm comes out. Personally, I would love to see an encounter where you had to stand in the black circles or the fire to get buffs to down the boss. Can't you just see some player's heads explode? "But standing in the fire has always been bad..."
jrizutko Nov 11th 2009 11:00AM
"Personally, I would love to see an encounter where you had to stand in the black circles or the fire to get buffs to down the boss."
You mean like General Vezax?
Farproc Nov 11th 2009 2:14AM
Seriously, the *only* annoying thing about The Oculus was the final fight. As 'fun' as vehicle fights can be, this dragon fight is used *only* in the Oculus. Lacking the ability to use the Oculus dragons anywhere else, there is very little incentive to master them.
The rest of the instance? As a tank wearing only items purchasable with Emblems of Conquest (and honor farmed from WG) I have no t9 items at all. And i'll happily take a pug through The Oculus. My last pug only wiped once on the first attempt on the final boss.
Othor_NL Nov 11th 2009 3:58AM
Vehicle fights arent always a bad idea, for example I love the Flame Leviathan fight. It's the 3d movement which I hate in the drake fights.
Droma Nov 11th 2009 5:20AM
I don't get it. Oculus wasn't that hard. Sure, i have heard the moaning about the difficulty in this dungeon, but the abilities of the drakes are so simple and easy to understand that I have no clue about the crys of the people...
On the other hand, I can understand the argument of the people that say "I play this game for using my char abilities, not to get into a mount and have only two or three crappy ones. That makes this game an arcade, but im playing a MMORPG, right?"
They are right, if they don´t want a mounted battle they should have an alternative to do the fight in some other way (I´m looking also to you tournement daylies, or ToC first battle).
Anyway, this nerf have no sense to me.
PeeWee Nov 11th 2009 6:51AM
Oculus being the least played instance in Northrend (yes, Blizzard stated this as a fact when they published stats about it some months ago, I believe there was an article here on wow.com about it, before Ulduar opened) speaks enough.
Everyone I play with have already agreed that doing a day of randoms would have their intermissions whenever Oculus pops up. Doing some fishing while the Deserter debuff wears off, or do a daily. But we won't enter that bloody place.
While this is a welcome nerf it doesn't address the issue.
jrizutko Nov 11th 2009 11:04AM
Nerfing Oculus won't make people play it more. People still won't like it for the same reasons they don't like it now. :shrug: