Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
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 6 of 6)
Stilhelm Jan 19th 2012 10:33AM
The requirements for Ultraxion aren't really very high, only about 26k avg dps required in 10-man with 2 tanks and 3 healers. Lots of groups cheese that a bit with 2 healers, and if you have a feral you can pretty easily use a 1-tank start, with the feral going bear form before Fading Lights to make sure they don't get fading light with the tank. On our alts run I still pulled 22k dps on my feral while tanking part-time like that.
Our alts run usually has more trouble with Zon'ozz, we all hate that boss both on mains and alts.
Stilhelm Jan 19th 2012 10:35AM
Really, on a dps-check like Ultraxion, it's a good opportunity for people to use food, flask, and even pots like real raiders! Pots are pretty cheap now anyway, a full stack of agi pots is generally less than 100g on my server.
Loradio Jan 19th 2012 7:31AM
Nerfs? Well isn't that something!
Blayze Jan 19th 2012 8:08AM
Excellent. My guild and I got Kingslayer at 30%, and despite the "lol noob" insults it was still tough for us.
We got 3/8 normal last night after killing Zon'ozz just past enrage, so this should help us with Hagara. Won't stop us dying to ice, though. :)
Xithys Jan 19th 2012 8:36AM
Bit of advice to help reduce the body count on ice phase. The strategy I see most often is for everyone to stand on one of the four crystals until the ice waves are all the way out. Then we run. Works out pretty well. Good luck!
Blayze Jan 19th 2012 1:54PM
It wasn't the ice waves that killed us (Aside from that one time I forgot about them completely and started running too early, causing everyone to follow me...), it was just ice in general. :P
robsmith77 Jan 19th 2012 9:50AM
Honestly, I just don't get how so many people can be so angry at one small, totally optional, nerf. It's like there's some mind-bending drug in the water that's causing loads of people to have irrational thoughts.
Gwynedd Jan 19th 2012 12:34PM
I feel more conflicted about the DS nerfs than I have about any previous raid nerfs. In the past, it's always been a shamed relief that a nerf was coming. Now, I don't think I want one; I don't think I need one.
My guild downed normal Warmaster for the first time last Friday and were the tiniest smithereen (under 100k hp on the last tentacle iirc) from a Spine kill. We would benefit from the nerf. On the other hand, we routinely have two raids/wk at 2-3hrs/raid with perhaps 15 people signing more than once a month, so I'd think we're fairly progressive for how casual we are.
I think LFR is what's causing me to feel like a nerf is unnecessary. I love LFR for many reasons. Its level of difficulty is on par with heroic dungeons these days: easy if one knows it and sucks if one is or is with a noob. It's also a great way to learn the fights by doing without as great a wipe risk if one fucks up. I had not yet seen Warmaster in normal mode last Friday, but having to remember only one new mechanic compared to LFR made me much more prepared and more aware of everything that was happening.
I don't want to say that LFR is the nerf, but don't nerfs happen to give the chance for more players to see and down a boss? Isn't that what LFR is doing? My guild isn't progressing through the second wing with much speed, but we cleared the first wing bosses the same nights we first saw them. I know there are guilds at, behind, and ahead of us in progress; the currently difficulty level feels like it's what it should be.
Gwynedd Jan 19th 2012 12:36PM
(Yes, I'm aware the nerf is optional.)
CapnSkillet Jan 19th 2012 3:55PM
It's the same old story. Let the whining from the elitists and the cheers of the casuals begin. There's no point in repeating this argument every content patch. Just let it go guys. Turn off the buff if you want to say you did it without the nerf. Leave the buff on if you just care about clearing the content more easily.
Moonfaxx Jan 19th 2012 4:16PM
@Rajah
The idea that you can just "turn off" the buff and everything is fine is shortsighted and borderline ridiculous when you understand the full scope of the implications. Blizzard presents it as if it were a choice, and in the "dog eat dog" world of Azeroth (and the competitive world of hard mode raiding), it simply is not.
Adyon Jan 19th 2012 6:38PM
Previous points you yourself have made contradict what you say. You said that it wasn't that you cared about others...You just wanted it hard for you, but when the option to turn it off is there, you'd leave it on, because what you're actually concerned about the competition. You don't care about the challenge, except the challenge within competing.
But the truth is, the competitive guilds have really already cleared it...and the nerf doesn't change the competition, everyone just suddenly gets to progress a little more if they'd hit a wall on bosses. You say it's wrong to nerf the fights while the content is relevant, but I say it's past time for 100% boss health/dmg to be relevant. Now it's time to take into fact that it's a game and people should enjoy playing it for the fun of PLAYING it. Blizzard has stated that they start imposing the nerfs when they watch a majority of guilds reach a barrier where no one is progressing. For some it's Heroic Morchok. For some like our guild, it's 5/8. But the top guilds HAVE cleared this already, so it's time for a "new competition". You had your shot at being the top of the 100%, now take 95% tier and compete for it. If you TRULY love the hard modes and not the competition, turn the buff off.
Moonfaxx Jan 19th 2012 9:20PM
Again, an irrelevant comment. It's as if people don't read or comprehend. The complaint thread on the official forums about the nerfs went up less than 24 hours ago and is up to 154 pages. Bear in mind it is just one thread of many. It heavily discusses the reality that the "buff switch" is merely an illusion of choice for most involved in heroic content.
Adyon Jan 19th 2012 6:21PM
I think nerfs are good. It's not that I have trouble with progressing in hard modes, but take our guild for instance. We're only halfway through hardmodes, and we have a couple people that REALLY hold us down. But we're a guild of close friends, and as long as it can be so, we don't want to cut people. We just want to play and have fun together. The content isn't fresh...You're not losing anything by the nerf. It just allows the game to continue being fun as opposed to getting stale. If you were going for achievements, you should have already gotten them or should now go to be ahead of others in the nerfed content.
Lord Alexion Jan 24th 2012 12:27PM
Sorry, this nerfs are just "opium for the masses". It's made to give the FALSE ILLUSION of progression. Take the following situation:
The gym owners suddenly trade the 40 lb weights for like 38 lb weights, then 36, then 34, et cetera. So you suddenly are are able to lift them and exclaim "YAY, I'm getting stronger! I was thinking about quitting the gym but not anymore, I'm PROGRESSING!!!". No, you are not. You are as weak as you ever been. You are not getting better, you are just getting rewarded with less effort. [irony] Congratulations, champ![/irony]
And the idea that this nerf is "optional" is equally ridiculous. Good luck trying to find 9 more people that are willing to raid without the nerfs for no additional reward. I was GM in a guild back in ICC who DISBANDED because of issues regarding the Strength of Wrynn buff. I and a few others were against, most were pro.
And here's to Blizzard and its ability to dumb down the playerbase to the point where they don't care anymore about beating encounters by their own merit. cheers.
Cambro Jan 30th 2012 2:05PM
Your logic would hold for people that are already clearing to Deathwing regularly (let's assume on normal), and assuming they're not moving to heroic mode but staying on normal. If no one improves their gear week to week and no one improves their skill, then killing Deathwing faster after each nerf would be a false illusion of "getting stronger". But for those who have not progressed to Deathwing, then killing any bosses between Morchok and Deathwing is "progression" by definition, regardless of whether the bosses are nerfed. That is not a false illusion, that actually IS progression.
The last numbers I read, from the end of December, are that about 35% of the level 85 player base has completed Raid Finder, as opposed to 200,000 out of 7-10 MILLION subscribers (whatever the number is) that have cleared Dragon Soul on 10 man mode.
As this article says, and as many people in the comments have said, the nerf is OPTIONAL. You can turn it off and keep killing Deathwing at the same difficulty level as pre-nerf. You can move on to heroic mode and turn the nerf off so that your heroic mode is the same as pre-nerf. It's up to you as a group. If your group can't agree on whether to nerf it or not, that's not Blizzard's problem.
Lamuna Jan 26th 2012 1:57AM
The problem boils down to this Hardcore raiding guild want that content to themselves. That way they can hold on to the glory of being the only or first ones to do it.They say they would rather wipe 100's and thousands of times, well I say this do you allow inexperienced players into your guild so they can get the experience or do you leave them at the door step. Now I agree Blizzard has made this game way to freakin easy, in fact that is prolly how alot of those guilds are even around.
Cambro Jan 30th 2012 2:06PM
I've heard a couple of times that the Ultraxion trash was going to be nerfed from 4 minutes to 2 minutes. Is that true?
MassivelyFTW Jan 31st 2012 4:33AM
Won't nerfing normal and heroic content have the effect and bringing normal difficulty closer to LFR, which will make players think, "Hang on why don't I just do normal instead of LFR", which surely defeats the whole purpose of LFR?
Perhaps someone can double-check, but didn't end game content get nerfed in pervious expansions months before the ext expansion get released.
If 4.4.0 is the last patch before MoP then is it coming out Q2? I'm guessing May!