Blue Posts: Not blind nerfing Dragon Soul, PTR maintenance tomorrow
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 22nd 2012 at 9:00PM
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Blue posts
Nethaera -- Blind nerfing of Dragon Soul
We're not "nerfing blindly." Keep in mind that, the debuff can be disabled. So if you and your Raid choose to do so, you can take on the encounter without it.
We also explained our thought processes in the original announcement blog about the debuff here.
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Despite arguments to the contrary, there is a choice involved here. You can choose to leave the debuff on or turn it off. If you're looking for the challenge that doing the raid gives you without the debuff and your raid group isn't interested in turning off the debuff, that is still a choice that is being made. No one is forcing that on anyone. If you personally feel forced, then it may be an option to find another group that is interested in the challenge of doing it without the debuff.
Meanwhile, the debuff affords those that want to progress a bit, who have experienced difficulty, more of a leg-up.
It's fine to disagree with us on this, but please make sure that you continue to do so in a constructive manner and refrain from starting flame wars or posting harassing/defamatory language toward posters in the thread.
We also explained our thought processes in the original announcement blog about the debuff here.
Quote:
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.
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.
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Despite arguments to the contrary, there is a choice involved here. You can choose to leave the debuff on or turn it off. If you're looking for the challenge that doing the raid gives you without the debuff and your raid group isn't interested in turning off the debuff, that is still a choice that is being made. No one is forcing that on anyone. If you personally feel forced, then it may be an option to find another group that is interested in the challenge of doing it without the debuff.
Meanwhile, the debuff affords those that want to progress a bit, who have experienced difficulty, more of a leg-up.
It's fine to disagree with us on this, but please make sure that you continue to do so in a constructive manner and refrain from starting flame wars or posting harassing/defamatory language toward posters in the thread.
PTR Scheduled Maintenance 2/23/12
In addition to the maintenance going on today (2/22/12) the PTR realms will also be down tomorrow morning (2/23/12) from 5:00am-7:00am PST.
How do you pronounce "prot"?
I've always pronounced it with the same vowel sounds as "bought" or "thought." It's how I've usually heard it too.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
FireMaster Feb 22nd 2012 9:13PM
Change that sheep text, please, change iiiiiiiiit
K.B. Feb 22nd 2012 9:14PM
I pronounce it as not, hot or cot.
Vincentmagius Feb 22nd 2012 10:01PM
I think you have to. With the shortening of the word, we lose the syllables.
Technically it should be pronounced like "vote" or "coat", but it just doesn't sound right.
Pyromelter Feb 22nd 2012 10:22PM
yeah, the way he mentioned it it would sound like "praught"... that doesn't sound right.
Al Feb 22nd 2012 10:32PM
I'm a Praughtection Paladin....
Just no.
Lissanna Feb 22nd 2012 10:52PM
I always figured that pot + R = pRot.
Shammytime Feb 22nd 2012 11:00PM
Protection - the e makes the o have the long sound like in wrote or vote. When you shorten it to Prot the e has been dropped causing the o to have a short sound like rot or pot.
Jebediah54 Feb 22nd 2012 11:36PM
I'm confused by Pyromelter's comment. Wouldn't "praught" be pronounced the same as "naught" or "caught"? In other words, isn't "praught" just another way of saying it sounds like "not"?
SamLowry Feb 23rd 2012 12:34AM
If you say it as "nawt".
And I've always said it as "proat".
karatesmashunhurt Feb 23rd 2012 12:42AM
"Protection - the e makes the o have the long sound like in wrote or vote."
Not in my accent it doesn't.
Ctmcstomperq Feb 23rd 2012 1:29AM
They don't teach phonetics in school any more I guess.
There is nothing in the word "prot" to give the 'o' the long "oh" sound. Since it's on it's own it's going to have the short "ah" sound, so it would sound like "pr-ah-t" with the emphasis on the "ah".
Killik Feb 23rd 2012 2:17AM
This is an international website and everybody's answers reflect their own, particular dialect. It depends very much on how you pronounce 'protection' in the first place. With my accent, prot rhymes with 'hot'.
Noyou Feb 23rd 2012 4:22AM
# If you are saying it out loud- why abbreviate at all? It's not like it takes half a second to say. I would probably say prot like bought, but if I thought about it- I would probably say it like oat. Kind of like Pro+ T Prot oat vote mote. But still, if it's over vent just say protection and save yourself the insanity. :)
George Feb 23rd 2012 5:51AM
I always thought it was pronounced "tank." It's much simpler that way :)
lazymangaka Feb 23rd 2012 6:37AM
Maybe it's because people from Arizona over-pronounce everything, but I've always said it sounding similar to "throat", which made sense to me because it was just a shortening of the way I pronounce "protection" in the fist place. The "Pro" sounds like "bro" and not "brah".
nieboh Feb 23rd 2012 8:28AM
Aren't most of you arguing for pronunciation of "prot" simply offering homophones? The way I pronounce "nought" (or "naught") is the exact same way I pronounce "not", and would pronounce it the same as the word "nawt" if such a word existed. I've never heard anyone pronounce "prot" with a long o sound as in "vote" or "scrote".
nieboh Feb 23rd 2012 8:32AM
Oh, I guess I missed jebediah54's post who also makes my point. And I don't really mean "arguing", I mean "discussing". =)
lazymangaka Feb 23rd 2012 9:15AM
I find it interesting how many people seem to pronounce protection as "prahtection". Its not wrong, just interesting.
Hob Feb 23rd 2012 10:27AM
@jebediah 54
There are actually two different vowel sounds for cot (like, the fold-out bed-thing), and caught (past tense of catch). If you're American (as I am), you may not be in a part of the country that distinguishes between the two sounds (I'm not either).
* Cot is exactly as you'd pronounce it. Fast, simple, no special enunciation.
* Caught (according to my linguistics professor, 2003) sounds more like "kwot", only don't emphasize the w so much. If you practice doing a New York-y, mobster-y accent, "Hey! What's with all the commotion over here!" and then throw in "I caught a guy", you should be on track.
On topic for this thread... pro-tection = prot. Like vote and boat.
Saikoujin Feb 23rd 2012 2:35PM
It's like 'prospect.'
Just swap the 's' and the 't' and you get 'prot spec.'
That's how I always think of it.