Should Blizzard leave heroic encounter difficulty alone?
by Dan Desmond 
Feb 21st 2012 at 6:00PM
Well, it seems I was wrong, for in the very next tier of content Blizzard released, we saw progressive nerfs to these difficult fights. Personally, I prefer to keep these encounters the way they are, at least until a new tier is released. Something just feels wrong to see the hardest fights available made easier through a series of hotfixes. Even with respect to my own guild's progression, having sweeping nerfs hit Firelands just as my guild was putting in some really good attempts on Ragnaros felt like Blizzard moved the finish line, taking what would have been a very gratifying kill and turning it into an accidental one-shot that contained none of the catharsis we had felt during previous boss kills.
What do you think? With the Raid Finder now a reality and a new expansion looming on the horizon, do you think the difficulty of heroic raid encounters should be static, like those from tier 11, or should they be more flexible?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Achievements, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Nobar Feb 21st 2012 6:12PM
It does sadden me to see them do that to heroic mode. If I was Blizzard, I would design a system so players can make a difficulty level of their choice. It would obviously have a baseline upon which encounters are made more difficult (I'd say normal would be that base). For loot, I'd say just transmog gear/mounts&pets/titles. Maybe even the most loved/used UGC would be adapted into an official difficulty level.
Make it happen.
DarkWalker Feb 21st 2012 9:00PM
Challenge modes for raids with a gear level selection? :)
Snuzzle Feb 22nd 2012 8:08AM
A tiered difficulty setting, you say? Perhaps they could use three settings even: a "beginner" mode with easy mechanics where folks can just see the content, such that even a group of 25 complete strangers could do it; a baseline or "normal" mode for the average Joe; and a "heroic" or epic mode for those who like a real challenge?
....nah, it'll never happen. :)
brian Feb 21st 2012 6:15PM
The best guilds get world first within days of release, heroics shouldn't be nerfed until way after release.
khalmojo Feb 21st 2012 6:16PM
Take the economic concept of raising all boats into your thinking, Dan, and you'd see the folly.
Shammwich Feb 21st 2012 7:05PM
I'm sure it's a great argument, but after reading that a few times I still have no idea what you just said.
blackdynamiteandhiscrew Feb 21st 2012 6:17PM
The only problem with not nerfing heroics is that after the nerf ramps
up, the difficulty between heroics and regular becomes ridiculous.
And since their stated intention was to prevent people from getting
stuck behind walls, not nerfing heroics with normals is
counterproductive.
That said, I still wish they wouldn't. Limbo is only fun when you
have to bend over backwards.
Phredreeke Feb 21st 2012 6:59PM
If you need nerfs to normal modes then you shouldn't be in heroics to begin with. If you want to run heroics then prepare to work for it. This is coming from a non-raider btw.
vegemite Feb 22nd 2012 1:33AM
If i remember correctly in teir 11 they didnt nerf the heroics and only nerfed the normals and this is precisely what happened. groups could clear the normals and then ran into a brick wall because the heroics were pegged at above normal mode +20% . I would imagine that that coupled with the fact that for a introductory teir broke many guilds and resulted in a loss of subscribers from the game due to lack of playable content.
There is no point in having tonnes of content in the game if the players cant defeat it. And not everyone enjoys wiping on bosses for weeks all night every night. after about 1.5 - 2.5 months the content is no longer relevant and in the case of dragon soul you can turn the nerf off if you want so i dont get what the issue is
ireland.greg Feb 22nd 2012 9:56AM
What most people who are for the nerfs seem to forget is that content gets nerfed each and every week simply due to upgrades attained from the raid. Whether it's only 2 or 3 bosses or a full normal clear because you just can't down that first heroic boss, gear upgrades nerf content directly for your raid group by by increasing dps/healing/tank survivability.
The argument of leaving content unfinished doesn't really make sense to me either. Heroic content has already been completed on normal in order to unlock it, therefore it's not new content... it's just harder. It's designed to challenge the people who walk all over normal difficulty. I don't consider any game i didn't complete on "Nightmare" level as unfinished. I finished it on normal and had my a$$ handed to me on "nightmare"... it really is ok to not be good enough to finish the very hardest difficulty in the game.
Dawts Feb 21st 2012 6:27PM
Make heroics insanely hard just so we don't ever have to hear about wow being too easy ever again.
Scott Feb 21st 2012 6:34PM
Are we talking about the 'great accessibility debate' or the 'special snowflake debate' here?
At some point content gets nerfed either directly by Blizzard's hand while the content is current or by the evolution from one tier to another where new gear takes the players' stats to a point beyond where they were intended to be for the encounter. The value of a kill should be that which the individual player or raid group places on it, not the value arbitrarily assigned by the server or raiding community at large.
Brian! Feb 21st 2012 6:38PM
It seems that you can turn the current nerf off, so if you want to make it ultra-hard then you can go for it.
Maybe Blizzard could put in an achievement that shows that you did heroic on the hardest setting for bragging rites? Would that help?
Plainswander Feb 21st 2012 6:42PM
Heroic Raids should be as hard as OMGWTFBBQ possible. It's the playground of the best of the best.
We (the rest of us) have Normal and LFR, that should be enough. And since he gear all _looks_ the same, we have no real reason to kvetch,
ejunk Feb 21st 2012 6:42PM
Nice image accompanying this article. still the least accessed (on-level) raid of all time, no?
Revynn Feb 22nd 2012 12:09AM
There was an article here about that a few weeks ago but I believe Naxx40 still holds that claim, due primarily to the time dedication required of 40-man progression raiders at the time.
Pyromelter Feb 22nd 2012 1:20AM
Well if you consider "on-level" to be at the same level and tier, even after a nerf, then no. Naxx40 would definitely be that one. Sunwell was nerfed heavily, and the pre-wrath patch 3.0 brought significant buffs to all classes, making sunwell much, much easier. Still technically "on-level" though.
Dragma Feb 21st 2012 6:48PM
If Blizzard's reason for implementing the Raid Finder was to make it so more people can see the raid content, they have succeeded. However, it makes no sense to me to nerf heroic content, because it is supposed to be the hard version of the instance. In my opinion, if you're going to have a heroic mode, who cares if only a small percentage of people complete the instance in heroic mode? As long as everyone completes it on LFR, and people who raid on Normal are getting it done on Normal, why trivialize the hard mode? To me at least, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a heroic mode if it gets nerfed.
deadtwice Feb 21st 2012 6:46PM
Yes leave it and add another difficulty setting even more difficult so those who really want to bang their heads against a wall can do that all expac long
Zapwidget Feb 22nd 2012 1:16AM
As horrible as that idea first sounds, I think there's some merit to it. An extra difficulty level that is immune to nerfs, awards the same gear as Heroic mode, but offers other rewards, such as faster Legendary completion, higher Whatever Orb drop rates, and achievements. No extraneous stat inflation.
Let's face it though. Blizzard has timelines they follow. They know how many teams they think should be completing content compared to how many teams actually are completing content. If your team hasn't completed normal mode by now, you needed the nerf. If your team was in heroic but hasn't completed it, you needed the nerf. If your team has completed heroic, ok, you didn't need the nerfs, but really, the nerfs don't mean anything to you because you already completed the content.