Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsBlizzard announces first round of Firelands raid hotfixes
by Mathew McCurley 
Sep 20th 2011 at 2:00PM
Normal difficulty bosses Shannox, Beth'tilac, and Rhyolith took 15% decreases to health and damage, whereas all of the other bosses in Firelands took a 25% hit. Certain trash packs have had their proverbial bite removed, and Alysrazor's tornadoes will now move more slowly. All adds in these encounters have had their health pools and damage decreased in the same proportions to their corresponding bosses'.
On heroic difficulty, all bosses' health pools and damage, along with adds' corresponding health and damage, have been reduced by a blanket 15%, which is a huge nerf for heroic modes. Alysrazor also drops more feathers on both difficulty settings, and her Wings of Flame buff is now a static 30 seconds.
While many players will be upset with these nerfs, I can only imagine the many raid groups that will happily charge forward to finally defeat the encounters that they have been banging their heads against for the better part of the patch. Blizzard has said that there will be more nerfs coming, as this is just the first round, so make use of this time to get as many of the bosses as you can while the getting is hot.
First round of Firelands hotfixes
As announced in the 'Firelands Raid Changes Incoming' blog post ( http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3494581/Firelands_Raid_Changes_Incoming-9_12_2011 ), we'll be making the below hotfixes which have gone into effect during today's raid reset.
Normal difficulty
• Shannox, Beth'tilac, Rhyolith - health and damage reduced by 15%.
• Other bosses - health and damage reduced by 25%.
• All adds' health and damage have been reduced in the same proportions as bosses.
• Hellhounds and Unstable Magma deal much less damage.
• Alysrazor's Fiery Tornados move slower.
• The Wings of Flame buff duration on Alysrazor is now uniformly 30 seconds.
• Alysrazor drops 1 additional feather for 10-player mode and 2 additional feathers for 25-player mode in all cycles.
• Wrath of Ragnaros in Stage 1 now knocks targets up, but not back.
Heroic difficulty
• Boss health and damage reduced by 15% (Heroic Ragnaros' health has not been reduced.)
• All adds' health and damage have been reduced in the same proportions as bosses. However, Heroic Ragnaros adds have been reduced by 15%.
• The Wings of Flame buff duration on Alysrazor is now uniformly 30 seconds.
• Alysrazor drops 1 additional feather for 10-player mode and 2 additional feathers for 25-player mode in all cycles.
Stay tuned to the 4.2 Hotfixes blog post as these and other live updates are made to the game: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3019413
Normal difficulty
• Shannox, Beth'tilac, Rhyolith - health and damage reduced by 15%.
• Other bosses - health and damage reduced by 25%.
• All adds' health and damage have been reduced in the same proportions as bosses.
• Hellhounds and Unstable Magma deal much less damage.
• Alysrazor's Fiery Tornados move slower.
• The Wings of Flame buff duration on Alysrazor is now uniformly 30 seconds.
• Alysrazor drops 1 additional feather for 10-player mode and 2 additional feathers for 25-player mode in all cycles.
• Wrath of Ragnaros in Stage 1 now knocks targets up, but not back.
Heroic difficulty
• Boss health and damage reduced by 15% (Heroic Ragnaros' health has not been reduced.)
• All adds' health and damage have been reduced in the same proportions as bosses. However, Heroic Ragnaros adds have been reduced by 15%.
• The Wings of Flame buff duration on Alysrazor is now uniformly 30 seconds.
• Alysrazor drops 1 additional feather for 10-player mode and 2 additional feathers for 25-player mode in all cycles.
Stay tuned to the 4.2 Hotfixes blog post as these and other live updates are made to the game: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3019413
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back! 
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 8)
Martin Sep 20th 2011 3:08PM
While I recognize that many groups will benefit from these nerfs, they sadden me because just last night my group downed Staghelm and got two attempts in on Rag. I think another week would have done him in, maybe two.
It'd be nice if they just post up a guy at the entrance to the raid that let's you select in increments of 5%, the nerf you want your group to run with, if at all.
Noyou Sep 20th 2011 4:28PM
Yeah. It would be nice if every holiday a pretty mount would drop and if we had it we could exchange it for one we didn't have. And more kittens. And all vanilla ice cream should be able to be transmogrified into any flavor our little hearts desired. Anything else we want on our little "nice" list? Oh, yeah. 4.3 before X-mas.
Cad Sep 20th 2011 3:14PM
I'm glad that they are nerfing it by 25%. That just means less time wasted playing this terrible soul sucking black hole of a game.
eakin3 Sep 20th 2011 7:49PM
....Why are you still playing then?
tony.nguyen.enmax Sep 20th 2011 3:20PM
When I thought about this nerf initially, I thought that there was two was Blizzard could do this. 1) a step by step nerf every couple of weeks/month; or 2) a one time nerf like T11. Some how they're making it sound like both at the same time.
What I would have liked to see would be a light nerf put in every month at about 5-10% each time until 4.3 is released. What we got was this... A massive nerf. Larger than the T11 nerf, that trivializes the first two bosses which were already on farm mode for many guilds and pugs. Why not just put up a training dummy up that has 40m HP and have it drop loot afterwards?
I can appreciate that people want to see the content, but from my perspective (a raider that only started to raid in 4.2 on nerfed T11 content and who raids for less than 3 hours a week), this nerf is too hard and too fast. If there's even a remote possibility for future nerfs, this tier will be face roll. Skilled guilds will 7man it on alts. My guild is only 4/7 Normal raiding for 3 hours a week when we actually DO raid. So all the, "20 hours a week" comments don't apply. =\
Besides all the negativity around this, I do see the bright side.... More people in Firelands = more Obsidium Cleavers will be popping up. Hopefully I can finally afford one if I can't get some to drop!
RS Sep 20th 2011 3:12PM
Freaking comment system...
@Mork
6 hours raiding + what?
I'm assuming you have to collect consumables, farm, and such as well.
That time adds up quick.
Plus Blizz wants more people to see the content before 4.3 drops. All the diehards have completed what they wanted... Ensidia's the best. whoopeee. Now let us non-superhumans see what the fuss is about.
RS Sep 20th 2011 3:15PM
JoyStiq, for the love of all things holy...update you gosh-dang comment system already. Please. Not 1 article goes by where there isn't a problem.
The "interwebz" had good comment systems in 1998... what's the hold up? Waiting for Slashcode to become public domain?
Mork Sep 20th 2011 3:22PM
I do play quite a bit more then that, but it's not a requirement for our raid group. We sell BoE's for the guild bank and provide feasts/flasks for raiding through those funds. My current situation in RL gives me more time to do what I want in game, and I do help out the guild with various raiding mats/enchants/flasks/potions what not, but even if I don't do that we still have everything we need come raid night even if no one logged in all week prior to raiding. With Cauldrons/feasts and some general guild good will via donations there really is no time sink anymore. I mean it's not like I have to do enormous quest chains and gather reputation with various factions while farming multiple potions/flasks etc all week like it was in vanilla/BC.
(cutaia) Sep 20th 2011 3:28PM
lol
I thought your "@Mork" comment was just so meta that I couldn't grasp it. :P
omedon666 Sep 20th 2011 3:21PM
"I'm just confused at when raiding became an entitlement issue."
I'll bite, because this is something I'm internally composing a blog about, so this might help me.
Raids are story content. The market outside WoW is starting to angle MMOs to "give" story content to everyone, and the "optional hard stuff" it just that.
LOTRO: Core story is all soloable, the group stuff is extraneous. The dragon raid coming with Isengard has almost nothing to do with the core story. It's there as a thrillseek.
SWTOR: Built around the solo, story intensive game.
GW2: All about personal story, group stuff is all 5-man, with an easy "story mode", raid size stuff is all communal "walk in if you feel like it" outside world dynamic events.
RIFT: Is implementing story-intensive solo instancing, telling much of the story of their raids. Much of the raid size stuff is "walk in if you feel like it" dynamic world content.
WoW: *large segments of community taps foot at all their stories funneling into a raid, and looks at other games in the meantime*
In this economy, no one wants to feel they are buying "the right to hope people help you see the story", they want the story, especially a story as good as WoW's. The thrillseek can be there, and it should be, but no one pays to be the peasant the props up the real hero, not anymore. They pay to be the hero, or they don't pay.
That's one side of it, there are others, but this one is mine.
Mork Sep 20th 2011 3:29PM
I like that reason, it's a better then most I've heard.
However, that still doesn't necessitate nerfing current content. The story will still be there for people that didn't have the time/inclination to hit the raid from the get go. Thus the perfectly acceptable nerfing of one tier behind content. To be clear I don't even really mind the normal mode FL nerfs. I just feel a tinge of annoyance with HM's being nerfed so drastically and so quickly. Heck I still haven't downed Sinestra (haven't tried, but that's besides the point) yet they didn't nerf all the heroic T11 content, why T12 while it's current?
omedon666 Sep 20th 2011 3:39PM
I'll be frank (actually, I'll be Omedon /rimshot), the HM nerf somewhat baffles me, but I do not begrudge it. My guess is that Blizz wasn't happy with the numbers when it came to people clearing the content, in ratio to those attempting it.
I'm going to guess that most people attempting HM's are those that, based on past success, think they should be good enough, with a reasonable effort. One of the biggest backpedal points BLizz has had to rein in with Cataclysm has been how strong the "YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH" message has been. That's a message that some people do not want to hear too loudly, especially if their cohesion and comraderie have "done the trick before". Suddenly being "not good enough" is something Blizz needs to carefully moderate.
HMs are not about "culling the weak", they are about entertaining a certain demographic. My guess is Blizz saw that Demo shrinking, and that's bad from a customer service standpoint.
One of the key messages Blizzard must learn from Cataclysm is that heroes talk a big game, but calling them on it is bad for business. Hence nerfs.
omedon666 Sep 20th 2011 3:40PM
I take it back, by the end of that post... it doesn't baffle me anymore...
Skarn Sep 20th 2011 3:57PM
The nerfs overall kind of make me uneasy, but at the same time I do recognize the need to let people acutally play the game. A very difficult balancing act. I like a challenge, just not a brick wall. I've done well in Firelands, though I haven't cleared it yet. We started on Ragnaros last week and, honestly, we'll probably mow through him this week with the nerf. The interesting element of this for me is that it takes the Heroic version and makes it only a bit harder than last week's Normal. Essentially moving our guild to Heroic mode for the rest of the tier. Kinda weird.
"One of the key messages Blizzard must learn from Cataclysm is that heroes talk a big game, but calling them on it is bad for business. Hence nerfs."
This statement is interesting though. Very true, I think. Reminds me of Kingslayer Orkus from the "Welcome to the Machine" quest. Talks a big game, but can't back it up.
Leviathon Sep 20th 2011 3:26PM
I honestly wasn't expecting nerfs to ALL the hard modes in the first hotfixes but meh. I'd be lying if I didn't say I kinda like it since in all honesty wiping over and over isn't as fun to me as it was 6 years ago.
Zaydin Sep 20th 2011 3:28PM
I'm a bit divided, myself. While I look forward to downing the bosses my guild has yet to down, I would have liked them to remain unnerfed a little while longer. Oh well; at least now more peopel will have the chance to see the content. Now if only Blizzard would buff the reputation gains for the Avengers of Hyjal...
Ben Smith Sep 20th 2011 3:36PM
Ah, I remember why I like reading stuff here instead of another certain WoW news site. The community here isn't full of elitists crying their hearts out because things got nerfed. As someone from a raid team with personnel problems, constantly having to teach new members how to do fights, I welcome these nerfs, as we will finally be able to clear normal modes and even start doing heroics. Thanks, Blizzard for not catering only to the self-proclaimed elite.
Skarn Sep 20th 2011 3:47PM
Quick note:
If you were having trouble with Normal modes last week, you'll still have a hard time with Heroic modes this week. The HP/damage drop will bring the Heroic modes closer to the non-nerfed Normal, but it will still be higher. Even more important, the Heroic modes include extra mechanics, so if your group has had trouble learning the Normal mechanics, then Heroic is gonna be nasty.
Best of luck anyway! At least enjoy some Normal mode kills. :)
gatorfan Sep 20th 2011 3:51PM
I welcome the nerfs yes, but that's not because they are overly hard. If you have experience in MMO mechanics you can figure these things out fairly quickly. I am a 6+ year raider in WoW and now leading a casual guild that does 10 man 2 raids for 2.5 hrs each for a total of 5 hours a week and we made 6/7 in 5 weeks on that schedule. Come on folks, you're making this all too hard.
llcjay2003 Sep 20th 2011 3:52PM
I don't have a problem with the nerfs, but I think they should have gone the ICC rout and give an optional buff to make it easier. That way, people who want to keep the difficulty can, while those who need a boost can also get it.