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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsDragon Soul normal and heroic nerf begins Jan. 31
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 18th 2012 at 9:21PM
The buff, Power of the Aspects, will reduce health and damage of all enemies by 5%. It only applies to normal and heroic raids, not the Raid Finder version. Every couple of weeks or so, the amount reduced will increase by some number; if the past tells us anything, it'll be reduced by an additional 5%. The buff can be turned off by Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of the raid instance.
The full announcement is as follows:
Blizzard Entertainment -- Dragon Soul Difficulty ChangesDuring the scheduled server maintenance on the week of January 31, the Dragon Soul raid will become enveloped by the Power of the Aspects spell, reducing the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the raid by 5%. This spell will grow progressively stronger over time to reduce the difficulty and make the encounters more accessible. The spell will affect both normal and Heroic difficulties, but it will not affect the Looking for Raid difficulty.
The spell can also be disabled by talking to Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of Dragon Soul, if a raid wishes to attempt the encounters without the aid of the Dragon Aspects. For those of you who raided in Firelands and/or Icecrown you're no doubt aware that as time goes on we want to keep people progressing by adjusting the difficulty. For any number of reasons a group may be having difficulty on a specific encounter each week, and our intent in adjusting the content is to ensure the ability to keep progressing, enjoying the content, and gearing up. With Icecrown we progressively buffed the players, and while this slow progression (and ability to opt-out of the buff) were both beneficial, it led to an expectation of your characters power, and once you left the raid you could certainly feel less effective. For Firelands we attempted to fix that by nerfing the content instead of buffing players, but we nerfed the content difficulty all at one time, which was counterproductive for players who really didn't need as severe a change as we made. With Dragon Soul we're attempting to do the best of both by having a progressive nerf to the content, keeping player power constant while providing small increases in assistance over a long period of time, as well as allowing players to opt-out of the assistance by speaking to Lord Afrasastrasz. We hope you continue to enjoy Dragon Soul, and that these changes encourage you to attempt a higher difficulty, or just keep pushing to down that next boss.
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 6)
Kodiack Jan 18th 2012 9:49PM
Nice, the sooner MoP arrives the better, I'm bored to death with Cataclysm atm and I can't wait to play as an Enhancement Panda, beating the crap out of things with my furry paws and get yelled by my guildies for it :D
"Ur using a panda u suk hurrr durrr pandas sucks herp derp"
kabshiel Jan 18th 2012 9:51PM
The nerfs are stupid and unnecessary, but I'm glad they're at least going the ICC route rather than what they did to Firelands. This should make the content easier without completely trivializing most mechanics.
arkhan Jan 18th 2012 9:54PM
Since LFR took the "I'm mad because i'm stuck on a boss and won't get to see the rest of the content" argument of the table I guess this means Blizzard's philosophy for raids really is that you should be able to beat normal mode raids, no matter how much you suck. Which I don't get, because what's great about beating a nerfed down raid? You can just go and queue for LFR if you want that.
Azi Jan 18th 2012 9:56PM
This is optional. It is like getting mad at at a waiter for giving you the option of having a free side dish with your meal.
Rai Jan 18th 2012 10:05PM
I really don't see the problem with nerfs like this. If you don't want to do a nerfed instance, have a good ol' chat with my buddy Lord Afrasastrasz.
arkhan Jan 18th 2012 10:18PM
Yeah, like the ICC buff was optional and that led to no drama whatsoever.
Physicsguy Jan 18th 2012 10:24PM
LFR was always about seeing the content, the nerfs are about progression. My guild has been stuck at 6/8 NORMAL for quite a while, and even then that last boss seemed like everything went right at the right time, and are still struggling on him on subsequent runs.
Individually, we're good but we have no illusions of ever being hardcore or a top server guild (especially since we're on same server as Vodka).
I think this works out best overall. It continues to nerf content for guilds like mine to more easily progress, while still giving the option to just turn the nerfs off for the "true" raiders out there.
Someone above me stated something about "what's great about beating a nerfed down raid?" Back in ICC, my guild didnt really start raiding until the 15% nerf, and didn't down LK until a week or two after the last 30% nerf, and all I can say is it was the most epic feeling for us to finally beat him, nerfed or not. We weren't the best by far, but it was still a tremendous feeling for us to finally beat him after struggling and working so hard on him.
Now, would it of been even better if we could of done it pre-nerf? Absolutely. Do I feel like I was cheated out of my accomplishment because of the nerfs? Not at all.
eel5pe Jan 19th 2012 12:45AM
Out of curiosity, what are you struggling with on Spine? It's supposed to be one of the easier encounters in DS, but each guild has its own struggles (people always claimed H Shann was easiest, but it took us almost a month... and then we banged out 4 more heroics in the following 2 weeks)
Stilhelm Jan 19th 2012 10:29AM
Spine is relatively simple, probably more of a healing and burst dps check than anything else.
One thing you can try is to tank the bloods near the front, where you blow up the plate, and tank the amalgamation at the back. The blood tank can AoE down the bloods, and when the amalgamation is low and there are enough blood up front, just run it up there and kill it quick. Beats running it around to pick up the blood at the back, then dragging it back through the raid while pulsing.
Also, if you have a rest shaman, spirit link totem is awesome when 2 or 3 people have searing plasma debuff, like about the time you're doing a roll to knock extra amalgamations off.
One last trick: if you're not getting the tendons down in one shot, you'll eventually get overrun with blood, since you can't knock them off like the amalgamations. However, when you're going to knock amalgamations off, use them to soak up 5-7 puddles before rolling, and you can effectively remove those extra blood (easily 10-15 at a time since you're usually knocking off 2-3 amalgamations) from the back. We did that the first couple of weeks and it helped quite a bit. We can usually blow up a tendon in a single try now so we don't need to do this anymore.
And one last thing...if you don't kill a tendon in a single try, make absolutely sure the next amalgamation explodes on the same side you tried before, so you expose the same damaged tendon.
smartazjb0y Jan 18th 2012 10:25PM
Wait who's the intended audience for the nerf?
Skyrei Jan 18th 2012 10:28PM
The nerfs are for the same reasons they have always been for: To allow people doing normal/heroic to progress further.
Revynn Jan 18th 2012 10:30PM
I don't think I'll be logging in tonight. I don't even want to know what's going on in /trade, let alone /guild, tonight.
Emophia Jan 18th 2012 10:36PM
Wasn't the whole point of LFR so that they wouldn't have to nerf normal modes/heroic modes like this?
I like LFR but this is completely stupid, the people who want accessible have LFR, that casual raiders have normal, the hardcore have heroics, why do this?
I'm losing faith in the game here...
Michael Jan 19th 2012 12:38AM
Why?
For what possible reason? Your comment makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever. It's entirely optional. Don't want the nerf? Don't use it.
But get off of your freaking high-horse and shut up with the "They've already got LFR!" argument. LFR is NOT raiding. It's nothing approximating raiding. So the possibility of an actual raid team out there needing an extra 5% worth of help exists. Crazy, I know.
Also, no. The point of LFR absolutely was NOT so that they wouldn't have to nerf raids. It was pretty clearly indicated that LFR was designed so that the folks that didn't have time due to jobs, life, kids, etc., or didn't have the guilds, or were bench members, or just flat out didn't have interest in actual raiding could still see the content.
Nowhere in the introduction of LFR did it ever say "here you go...if you can't progress in normal modes, suck it up and just run this."
Why this of all things make you lose faith in the game is beyond me. I feel the opposite. I feel like they're clearly understanding and improving on the method to nerf raids. They've learned their lesson from ICC, T11, and FL.
robsmith77 Jan 19th 2012 9:41AM
@Michael
An excellent response. I agree entirely.
Ailuvan Jan 18th 2012 10:42PM
The intended audience for the nerf is progression guilds.
As opposed to RF, whose target audience is people who never got to raid in the first place.
This is two _completely_ different groups of people here. RF, while it has ended up being used by progression guilds to gear up faster, was never intended to target people that already had a path to raids. Blizzard's own completion numbers show that _many_ times the number of people are clearing RF than clearing Normal and Heroic modes.
Raposa Jan 18th 2012 10:48PM
I agree with everybody complaining. Because a nerf that will help other people (that you don't play with) and you can totally turn off yourself will ruin the game for you!
... wait....
Shrikesnest Jan 18th 2012 11:04PM
Once again, the comments here and elsewhere show that there's a not-insignificant section of the game's playerbase that has their self-esteem tightly intertwined with their proficiency and prowess at raiding, which the snarky ass in me wants to call one of the most phenomenally non-transferrable skills ever conceived by man.
Raid because you enjoy it, not so you can lord your mastery of a very sedentary video game over lesser peons who've foolishly developed slower reflexes or different priorities than you. They've left the option for you to completely bypass the nerf this time 'round, so you can't complain that they're not challenging you, and boasting about how other people suck at raiding is like my (professional cake decorator) fiance showing up at your house during your holiday season of choice and complaining that your grandma's pumpkin pie recipe is boring and lacks flourish. Your family's going to enjoy their pie, we'll enjoy ours and nobody has to strut around talking about how *their* Thanksgiving is the only *real* Thanksgiving.
shade780 Jan 18th 2012 11:22PM
Yes, you are right but my question is why is the buff needed at all when people are progressing through content the way they are meant to? DS is a really easy raid compared to Firelands when it first came out. There is no reason to nerf the content/buff the player when the raid is easy already and there are lots of guilds that are progressing through it steadily. It seems like Blizzard has only two demographics in mind...hardcore guilds that get everything done within two weeks of content's release and casuals that need buffs as soon as those hardcore guild had their fun. The other, middle of the pack guilds, are not given the opportunity to even finish off progressing through content before nerfs start going out (same thing happened with Firelands. they released the nerfs way too early). You might say, it's an ego thing, but as a casual raider I feel insulted. It's like Blizzard doesn't have faith in us casual raiders and wants to walk us through content holding our hand and present us with the loot on a platter. Yes, we enjoy raiding for what it is, having fun with friends and killing internet dragons (with moderate amount of challenge). But when those internet dragons get impatient and fall over (aka get nerfed) before we even get to kill them it's really not fun. It's not about clicking the buff off or not, it's about Blizzard and the kind of attitude they have towards us casual/normal raiders.
So yeah, I'm not against nerfs to raiding content per se. I'm against unnecessary nerfs (DS is easy as it is) and nerfs that come too early. At least it's an increasing buff just like ICC and won't make content trivial right away...but give it a month before my guild is gonna become bored out of their minds and quit en masse for TOR.
Michael Jan 19th 2012 12:53AM
No offense shade, but considering that Blizzard has the information about progression, who's attempting DS normal and heroic, who's stuck where, how long they've been stuck, as well as how long this tier is going to last, and what they want the pacing to be, and so on and so forth to (likely) some pretty detailed information...and also considering the fact that all you have is anecdotal proof that the "nerfs aren't needed"...
Then I'm going to trust Blizzard. Additionally, the dragons don't have to just fall over before you even get to fight them if you don't want to. You can easily turn it off.
There is really no acceptable reason to have any major issues with this nerf. If you don't like it, don't use it. If your guild needs a little help, it's coming. If you want help on your first kill of a boss this week, but want to try it at original difficulty next week...you can do THAT too! If you're raid is tired this week, and just wants it to go 5% faster, you're in luck!