Breakfast Topic: The Icecrown raid buff and you
by Matt Low 
Mar 10th 2010 at 8:00AM
The Icecrown Citadel raid buff has been out for a week now. For the time being, it's only a 5% buff to healing, health, and damage (and let's not forget that it will affect damage absorption spells soon). It'll continue to slowly ramp up as time goes by. I know the question I've asked myself is whether or not we should have the buff active for progression bosses. There doesn't seem to be an achievement or any incentive to take down bosses without it so it becomes more of a question of "Why not?". When we were working on Blood Queen the week before the buff was up, we've had some extremely close shaves where she hit her enrage timer at 6%, then at 2% before we killed her post enrage with 6 players still standing. That 5% damage would've easily given us some extra breathing room. Cutting through trash and taking down the early wings with the buffs up means we can cut through that stuff faster and get to the hard bosses earlier. So I know for me, I'm okay with working on bosses with it up. It's only 5%. Now I just need to figure out where to draw the line.
How about you? Have you been disabling Strength of Wrynn or Hellscream's Warsong for your raids just to say that you can do the bosses without it?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Kyle Mar 10th 2010 8:03AM
I don't see why not to use it, so I will. Who is going to know anyway? It's not like there's a big sign on your armory saying "I USED THE BUFF TO KILL THE LK I'M A N00B!"
Tomatketchup Mar 10th 2010 8:04AM
It haven't affected me very much.
I've been leveling a mage.
Andrew R. Mar 10th 2010 8:06AM
I'm in a semi casual guild. We raid during the week in the mornings if we have enough people on. We want to see all the content Blizzard has to offer without bashing our heads against the keyboard. If the ICC raid buff makes everyone in the raid just a little more sane and gives them one extra ounce of patience I will gladly keep the buff up.
At the end of the day it's a game, not a job. We're having fun in ICC and enjoying the boss fights, the scenery and the random "OH $%#@" moments where someone accidentally runs into a wing of trash. Bubble hearth saves the day!
Shizukera Mar 10th 2010 8:25AM
Same here. My guild raids very casually, we're going to ICC for the first time next week, and we want to see all the content we can before Cataclysm hits. We plan on milking that buff for all it's worth. =)
Blacksheep Mar 10th 2010 11:57AM
Yep, the game not a job aspect is important. My guild is leaving it up, although we overestimated it's power last week. We were missing several key people, so some of us went on alts in those key roles (tanks/heals) we are geared for ICC and all even on the alts (not as well as the mains of course), but these aren't our mains so we aren't flawless with them. On top of that, we also took a DPS who probably shouldn't have been there, but hey, I thought, that 5% buff for everything will make up the difference and the place will be a cake walk. I recall saying that on vent, unfortunately lol.
So 12+ wipes in the first wing later, I realized the buff was not enough to buff our alts and that 3K DPS guy enough to finish a wing lol. That was just us on alts with a newbie in tow, now imagine a lower geared raid team who's never seen the place? That buff isn't gonna do much until it hits 30% or whatever.
klink-o Mar 10th 2010 8:06AM
"How about you? Have you been disabling Strength of Wrynn or Hellscream's Warsong for your raids just to say that you can do the bosses without it?"
Nope. The vast majority of my guildies, myself included, are already somewhere between bored of and sick with most if not all of the fights in there. We're at the point were we just want to finish our metas, take some shots at LK hard mode, gear up for the grind to 85, and GTFO.
Mattinus Mar 10th 2010 10:14AM
Why downrank this? Its a valid answer. Seems kind of petty to me. Jealousy that his guild is that far progressed maybe?
Xino Mar 10th 2010 8:08AM
Not using it to me is like the raid not using any flasks/elixirs.
ZJP Mar 10th 2010 8:10AM
We use the buffs in ours, simply because we do want to progress in the content. To the point of the Armory yelling about using the buff, quite simply, anyone who has their achievement for a certain wing, or a certain boss, dated last Tuesday or after, will, I suppose, be considered "Tainted". Similarly to someone getting Glory of the Hero in January of 2010, as opposed to someone getting it in March of 2009.
On my server, however, it matters very little because even today, nobody on our server has downed LK in 25-man mode, and I believe only 5 guilds have done it on 10-man.
Mau Mar 10th 2010 8:19AM
Using it until everyone in the raid has Heroic modes are on farm status, and everyone has all the loot they want (aka never stop using it)
Aaron Mar 10th 2010 8:20AM
My raid group uses the buff and still wipes on Saurfang. =/ Fail group is fail.
jijo0068 Mar 10th 2010 8:31AM
Saurfang was hard the first times, it is all about blood power:) When you learn posioning it will be a lot easier...:)
As for the buff, we are still debating it, for now we use it on farm bosses but not on new progression... we are currnetly working on the blood queen (ohh, so close we are)...
Arizor Mar 10th 2010 8:25AM
No.
Arizor Mar 10th 2010 8:26AM
You said it yourself: "There doesn't seem to be an achievement or any incentive to take down bosses without it so it becomes more of a question of "Why not?"." :).
jrizutko Mar 10th 2010 2:19PM
I would prefer not to use it because I actually like to be challenged. I like the feeling of overcoming difficult obstacles, and am less interested the easier the challenge is.
That said, my raid is using it, and my opinion is unpopular. I'll live, but to me it feels like installing an elevator on a mountain trail.
Skoddie Mar 10th 2010 8:33AM
The reactions I've seen to this have been interesting to say the least. What I personally think was in the minds of the developers echoes back to our world pre-BC. It has been repeatedly stated that when Ahn'Qiraj was originally released, C'thun was impossible to kill given current item levels of gear available. I remember some of the first kills of the end bosses in Naxx 40 required the nef buff, the ony buff, the w/e buff you could get your hands on, PLUS highly coordinated raiders performing at their finest in talent spec's purpose designed for the fight. Sure things aren't that extreme these days, but Blizzard was clearly aware that they were going to implement "the warsong" over time, and I personally wouldn't be surprised to learn that when they tuned the fights (incoming damage, dps requirement, berserk timers) they went a little more "hardcore" even on the normal mode fights. Knowing that the higher end guilds would squeeze every last ounce out of their raids, the fights were designed to be difficult for those groups for the first few weeks (ie. before they kill Arthas and can begin working on heroic modes). Adding in the gated content system, the devs can assume a certain amount of gear from the front end of the dungeon on the player, which I think makes this fine tuning even more of a plausible explanation. I'm curious myself to know if perhaps the 10% or the 15% (hell, even the 35%) mark of the buff represents the point of tuning for the raid to be a "reasonable challenge" to the more average raid without perfect class composition, buff synergy and exceptional raiders in all 25 (or 10) slots. Or more simply, the mark at which the normal modes of Ulduar and ToC were tuned. Considering this, I don't think the use of these buffs in any way represents "EZMOAD" or "Catering to casuals", but more, catering to the hardcore crowd until the hardcore crowd has every boss on faceroll farm, or more likely are just completely ignoring normal modes. With the current level of gear inflation I support this system, as the abundance of combat ratings (hit, crit, haste, mp5, avoidance/mitigation stats) on the late wrath gear requires more than just average item level to allow the fight's difficulty to properly scale over time.
My apologies for the wall of text.
Saltypoison Mar 10th 2010 8:33AM
My guild has nothing to prove to anyone. We play to have fun and see the content. Seems silly not to use the buff, especially if there is no incentive not to use it other than bragging rights.
N-train Mar 10th 2010 9:34AM
Exactly. All the guilds with something to prove had normal mode on farm long before this buff ever dropped and are working their way into hardmodes where the buff does not apply.
Much like the removal of limited attempts, the buff is purely to help non-hardcore guilds see the entire instance, and as a casual raider, I approve, especially because it ends up saving a great deal of time over the long run on trash and farm bosses, giving us more of our limited time to faceroll on new ones.
JoLOveS Mar 10th 2010 8:41AM
Sometimes I ask, does it really matter how you kill the Lich King? The feat of strength achievement is long gone and I mean sometimes we take ourselves too serious. Wow is a game and it's supposed to fun not stressful, most of the things you do in this game does not translate to real life and you sure cannot put any of it on a resume. Most of my friends outside WoW think it's a waste of time and by nerd raging about using or using a buff that Blizzard has provided with the intention of wanting us to use it just gives them more ammo when the conversation comes up
Sinthar Mar 10th 2010 11:04AM
Hi JoLOves,
To answer some of your points :-
Does it matter - in RL - no. However for some of us (with ODC or wow addiction) will strive our utmost to see the complete story. As a comparable example, if you had a superb fantasy book, and you knew how it was going to end (by the death of the main villian), do you stop reading one chapter before the end of the book when you meet some difficult words? No ofc you dont. And thats how i view wow - not important - but a hobby - and one i intend to complete as far as i am able.
Secondly i have to technically disagree with your point about the resumee. Whilst i agree 99.9% of the time it would be professional suicide to put wow playing on it, there HAS been people who lead guild who have done so - and got jobs on it. (well 1 or possibly two - so you may need to tack on a few more 9's on the end of that percentage).
Lastly i too have friends outside of wow (i hope everyone does). Simply put - i barely mention wow to them. They have no interest - the same way i have little interest in some of their hobbys. Tis no big deal either way, just discuss other issues - and leave wow discussions for /g /o etc.