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jonmeyers

Dungeon and raid difficulty in MoP?

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Hey guys! I'm so glad you put up the forums, it's been a long time since I was hoping you'd do this.

Anyway to the matter at hand, there's something I'm curious about and I'd quite like to know what you lot think of it.

What do you think the dungeon and specially the raid difficutly will be like in MoP? In cata it started really brutal (for our guild anyway) but then it got lowered a lot. Then again in wrath it was a lot lower and everyone was complaining.

Did you get any experience from the beta (Ive not played it much) or do you have some speculation?

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I haven't played the beta much, don't want to spoil too much and I have to do it all over again when it's live anyway.

From what I understand they want to set the raids at about the same difficulty as the starting raids in cataclysm, which in my opinion was quite good. Not too easy but not too hard either once you get some gear. The dungeons (especially the heroic ones) are going to be harder than the WotLK ones, lets be honest those were too easy. But they're not going to be as hard as the cataclysm ones. Doing the cataclysm heroics in greens and blues before they nerfed them could be quite hard, especially if you had a setup with almost no crowd control.

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I dont think any raid content is available on the beta right now. Pretty sure you can only get to level 89 so they are still doing questing content.

I really enjoyed the start of Cataclysm, I thought the heroics where brilliant and although it was tough to gear up it meant that for a lot of me and my guild it was almost like a mini progression just doing 5mans. Also it meant for a great deal of us we only ran as a guild as we just couldnt complete them with random guys / classes through LFD.

In terms of the raiding content I hope it is similar again. Cataclysm is the first expansion my raiding guild has started out together and it was great having tough progression (for us) in those first few raids. Compare that to Dragon Soul where we cleared 4/8 in our first night of raiding with 80% of the raid group barely preparing for the Morchock.

(DISCLAIMER - Obviously I read all of Icy Veins guides and told the other raiders too as well but you can only lead a horse to water! Posted Image )

Normally for us we took 1-2 weeks to get a new boss down with the earlier Cata raids. It feels like more of a challenge and is so much more satisfying when you get a kill. With Dragon Soul normal being so easy, and LFR an obvious joke we all got bored very quickly!

For me LFR provides an opportunity to have raids at a faceroll status, so everyone can see the content. Normal should be HARD for the average social raider / player and really, heroics should only be doable by the top raiders on each server.

Heres to hoping!

Edit: L2spell <---

Edited by Peelyon

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For me LFR provides an opportunity to have raids at a faceroll status, so everyone can see the content. Normal should be HARD for the average social raider / player and really, heroics should only be doable by the top raiders on each server.

That is very true. With the addition of LFR, gearing up will be easier. The difficulty of the first tier might be raised just a little bit, but with better gear it should be at about the same level as tier 11 (which once again was quite a good tier).

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I think one of the reasons that T11 is perceived to have been so difficult is because a lot of people rushed to it. I know that my guild went in on the first week with a lot of players still sporting greens and non-heroic blues. In fact, it tooks us weeks (maybe even a month) for some of us to get rid of sub-346 gear.

For the other tiers, they came in after farming (include Valor Points) had already been going on, and everyone was more or less "maxed out" (not to mention people who had some heroic gear and were effectively over-powering the content).

But yeah, it's quite safe to say that there was a decrease in difficult for T12 and especially T13. Whether this was a good or bad move, it's hard to say and it depends from what perspective you are looking:

1) More people got to experience raid content during T12 and especially T13. You'd think that means more happy customers, but who knows. It certainly seems to be the case, though, since the "bleeding" subscriptions stopped (even if the general community's whining about low difficulty increased).

2) Fewer things to do in game if you are in a reasonably good guild that can clear the content (normal + heroic) relatively quickly. It drains your motivation to keep logging in when there isn't some "next hard boss" to bang your head against.

3) Increased workload from Blizzard. For T11, you had a lot of decent guilds that were still progressing on the final normal mode bosses for a long time (especially Nefarian) and then you had a lot of hardcore-ish guilds that were progressing on Sinestra (technically brand new content) for a long time. With this new model, Blizzard is going to (or certainly should) feel more pressured to release content faster.

I don't know where I read this, or maybe I'm imagining it, but I'm fairly sure Blizzard's stated goal is to have Mists of Pandaria dungeons as kind of faceroll. Probably same for the raids and almost surely the same for LFR raids.

On the Beta, the only available things are 4 dungeons, and I can say that they are all very easy so far (the maximum level is 89 so I have no idea how it's going to be on heroic). They are rather quick to rush through (15-20 minutes, perhaps) and we haven't encountered anything problematic (aside from a few bugs and a boss that had a 1 shot mechanic that we weren't ready for).

So, I think that it's reasonable to accept Wrath of the Lich King difficulty in Mists of Pandaria, from both the raids and the dungeons. We'll try to keep you all updated when there's more to see in the Beta.

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I think it will be a real shame if content is easy. I thought the whole point of introducing LFR was to ensure that the casual player or the social raider wasnt "missing out" on the raiding aspect of the game.

Surely this should mean there is an opportunity to really push players on the difficulty of bosses. Lets face it, Blizzard will always struggle to roll out new content much faster. I understand its hard to try and get the difficulty of content right as you never please everyone, lets just hope they get it somewhere inbetween!

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Honestly, the content tuning has been fine for my guild in Cataclysm, tho we only started raiding when 4.2 came out so we don't really know what the first tier was like.

For us, we got a lot of good times out of raiding these tiers, going from "WTF this boss is impossible" to progressing slowly and finally getting a rewarding kill. I hope they keep the balance in Mists.

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Wow! Thanks for all the great answers. I guess we need to wait and see until all the encounters hit the Beta and we'll see where we stand.

I'm glad to hear that the dungeons are pretty easy. I prefer quick and easy heroics and the real challenge and difficulty coming from the raid bosses.

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One thing is for sure with current MoP dungeons... You can't stay in the same spot for more than 10 or 15 seconds. Every fight right now is actually pretty fun though.

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Hope it's gonna bit just a bit easier than Cataclysm was on start, that was just ridiculous, had to prepare for a heroic just as I would for a heroic raid...

I want more achievements like Herald of the Titans!

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Hope it's gonna bit just a bit easier than Cataclysm was on start, that was just ridiculous, had to prepare for a heroic just as I would for a heroic raid...

I want more achievements like Herald of the Titans!

Having done quite a few heroics on the Beta over the last few days, since they became available, I have to say that they are not as hard as the heroic were at the start of Cataclysm, not by a long shot. Most of us are in a mix of questing and dungeon greens and blues, with the odd heroic item here and there, and everything seems quite well tuned. In fact, I think they're a little bit easier even than the 4.3 heroics, so they could do with a bit of buffing up.

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Good to hear. I remember hitting 85 pretty fast, did some normals and barely could do Heroics with a good team... I talked to some players from the top PvE guild who also told me it's really a struggle (I was wondering if I'm bad or something haha)

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I'm just reopening this quickly to give my impressions as I've done a lot of dungeon testing in the last few weeks.

Basically, I found all the dungeons to be extremely easy, even though the gear was "scaled down", for beta testing purposes, in each dungeon. For example, I don't remember using any crowd control abilities.

In one attempt in the Temple of the Jade Serpent, the tank and a DPS left before the first fight and we did half the dungeon, in Heroic mode, with 3 players: a Warlock using his Voidwalker as a tank (he didn't have a Demonology spec), a healer, and me on my Mage.

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I suppose dungeons are a means to an end in terms of the gearing process. I had very little "fun" as a holy priest very early on in Cata and I got kicked a lot of the time without actually doing anything wrong (but struggling to keep up with mana regen etc).

Hopefully being a bit easier will help LFD groups in the first few weeks!

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I suppose dungeons are a means to an end in terms of the gearing process. I had very little "fun" as a holy priest very early on in Cata and I got kicked a lot of the time without actually doing anything wrong (but struggling to keep up with mana regen etc).

Hopefully being a bit easier will help LFD groups in the first few weeks!

I remember the horror which was trying to pug Cataclysm Heroics on release as a healer. It quite literally kept me up at night. I'm genuinely glad it won't be quite that punishing.

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I suppose dungeons are a means to an end in terms of the gearing process. I had very little "fun" as a holy priest very early on in Cata and I got kicked a lot of the time without actually doing anything wrong (but struggling to keep up with mana regen etc).

Hopefully being a bit easier will help LFD groups in the first few weeks!

I remember the horror which was trying to pug Cataclysm Heroics on release as a healer. It quite literally kept me up at night. I'm genuinely glad it won't be quite that punishing.

Maybe I'm a masochist, but I loved doing heroics on release on my Holy Paladin (pugs, just me and my wife and 3 randoms). We wiped so many times, and my mana was so tight. I had to use every trick in the book, and even invent a few tricks of my own, just to get through boss fights like the armorsmith guy in Blackrock Caverns.

It took us 3-4 hours to complete a heroic, but I loved it!

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Heroics weren't meant to be an immediate following after hitting maximum level. It used to require rep grinds, normal dungeon gearing, and THEN some extremely good use of skills. Now heroics give a sense of empowerment, and when that happens, players feel they are much better than they are...then wonder why the raids are 'catered to the elite' when in reality, they feel overtuned due to horribly undertuned heroic dungeons. The struggles are what made heroic dungeoners ready for raids.

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I think Blizzard have made it obvious they're targeting the mass market now with all content.

It's why they've 'dumbed' down class mechanics. In the past, good players would research their specs, set-up intuitive UI's, and practice for hours on Dummies perfecting their rotations, all for the reward of doing significantly better in Raids. Obviously it was somewhat disheartening for the raiders that weren't performing well, and Blizzard wants everyone to feel valued, so they evened out the difficulty...

It makes perfect business sense Posted Image

Part of me rages at this, but most of me doesn't really care anymore. I'm conditioned now for the pug-queue mentality of WoW and I'd like it as painless as possible, please.

Personally I like the Hour of Twilight Heroic design. They're designed to be pugged and as such need to cater to people that may not have the first idea how to play their class. And I think the average skill level now is MUCH lower than at the start of Cata. Last few LFR and LFD I've done have been atrocious, if the content was challenging at all it would be soul destroying. I certainly don't want to teach people how to play in a PuG, and 90% of communication now seems to be insults and general unpleasantness, so I'm most happy when they're run silent.

Just let me queue, get my VP, and get on with my day Posted Image

I can enjoy the multiplayer game in Guild raids and Challenge Dungeons. Everything else is single-player content imo (and yes, I miss the community that existed in BC and early (pre gearscore) Wrath). The online world has [d]evolved since then though.

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Maybe I'm a masochist, but I loved doing heroics on release on my Holy Paladin (pugs, just me and my wife and 3 randoms). We wiped so many times, and my mana was so tight. I had to use every trick in the book, and even invent a few tricks of my own, just to get through boss fights like the armorsmith guy in Blackrock Caverns.

It took us 3-4 hours to complete a heroic, but I loved it!

It wasn't the challenge that I hated. I love challenge in that form - it's why I play WoW in the first place - but the pain was in the fact that I, as healer and sole sociable person in any pug, would always be blamed for a wipe. No matter what happened. It was "Wrathbaby" syndrome at its worst, and no matter what I did or how well I played, I was insulted, abused, kicked, taken for granted, harassed.

Challenge? I loved it. I loved the fact that I had to work hard to do well. I loved the fact that the first time I finished Grim Batol Heroic I felt like I'd just got the World First Sinestra kill. Loved it.

It's the people I hated, and the same bloody people who I had no choice but to tolerate. I don't want to be forced to do that again, and I'd rather forfeit the fun of a challenging dungeon for the expedience of getting to a level where I can go do interesting raids with my friends.

Edited by Stoove
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Fighting Beauty in BRC during that first week after Cata dropped was epic fun, I miss that challenge. I definitely understand why Blizzard has simplified content, but in a way I think they are making it more isolated than it has ever been. If you don't have a guild already then there really is no reason to be friendly or go meet people now. In the "old" days, people had to at least be cordial and play the game in a multiplayer way to accomplish tasks. The last several dungeons I have ran, no one spoke even after I tried greeting them, though as far as LFR, I kinda wish no one would ever speak Posted Image

Thank goodness for a good guild!

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Fighting Beauty in BRC during that first week after Cata dropped was epic fun, I miss that challenge. I definitely understand why Blizzard has simplified content, but in a way I think they are making it more isolated than it has ever been. If you don't have a guild already then there really is no reason to be friendly or go meet people now. In the "old" days, people had to at least be cordial and play the game in a multiplayer way to accomplish tasks. The last several dungeons I have ran, no one spoke even after I tried greeting them, though as far as LFR, I kinda wish no one would ever speak Posted Image

Thank goodness for a good guild!

Hear, hear!

Beauty was one of the few fights where I felt the "utility" part of Shaman really shone. Tremor totem? Totally brilliant on that fight =]

I do have one thing though - I played in Vanilla. I remember getting together a pug for Stratholme. Just the most popular instance on the server. I remember sitting in Org for hours trying to get a group together. Hours! Hours of bugging people remorselessly. I really, REALLY don't want to return to that :)

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A lot of the arguments Blizzard has offered for easier and nerfed content has been in direct conflict with what they initially intended. Take LFR for example. They said that LFR was intended to show those who weren't in high progressive guilds and people who didn't want to play in guilds an opportunity to down all the PvE content available to those in controlled, organized groups. They dumbed down mechanics to make it so that voice coordination and leadership wasn't required, mistakes were easily overcome, and loot came generously.

Then they decided to nerf Dragon Soul...but what was their reasoning? To help those not in higher end guilds see the PvE content. Once you killed Madness on LFR, killing him on normal or heroic was no different...it just required a higher level of skill. This created a challenge for those who wanted it, but LFR players wanted higher item level gear. Gear should have been displayed on people as a separation of their skill. Now, with the 35% nerf effective, those LFR players are likely Saviors of Azeroth with no separation of players with skill other than linking an achievement with a date acquired. This leads me to another point...

Players who have killed 8/8H but wouldn't have without significant nerfs are the ones crying that Blizzard has catered to casuals and made content too easy. This is CLEARLY evident in the number of players who have killed Heroic Ragnaros versus Heroic Madness. If you want a more drastic look, look at the players who killed Heroic Nefarian...far less than Rag or Madness because that content was never nerfed. Because they were able to clear all of the bosses on heroic, many of them forget how significant the nerfs were and will go into Mists and the first raid and expect to be awesome...and they won't be. Then the complaining begins. It's a horribly vicious cycle that has repeated over and over and culminated into our new Mists of Pandaria Heroic Dungeons that the developers clearly stated they didn't want to call Heroic because they weren't difficult but couldn't find a better name for a max level dungeon.

What drives me insane is the number of players who complain about the difficulty level of this game. You'll either get those who complain others have beaten it and they haven't, thus the game is too difficult and catered to those much better than that person or you'll get those who complain others have beaten it after they have and are bad because they didn't do it as well as they did. I don't want to appear to be this person; I was only trying to look at what is laid out upon us as objectively as possible, but there is a bit of a sting in me that people are flying around in trade chat saying they are 8/8H and just as good as someone who got this pre-nerf. It's nearly impossible to sort out new potential players because there is no difference in achievement and player ability. It's also hard to play this game with the intent of just having fun and progressing at your own group's level because there is such a high pressure to accomplish so much so fast and if you don't, you're looked down upon and scoffed by people who probably don't amount to much of anything outside of WoW and have to take out their real life insecurities on those in game. It's unfortunate, but all too real.

In summary, the total change in heroic difficulty has been a culmination of players complaining in both directions. For those looking for a challenge, you need to speed up your progression rate so that you can tackle content before it's nerfed. For those not looking for a challenge, Mists Heroic Dungeons bring you exactly what you're looking for...easily acquired gear.

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Because they were able to clear all of the bosses on heroic, many of them forget how significant the nerfs were and will go into Mists and the first raid and expect to be awesome...and they won't be.

I do agree with your post, but I'm not expecting the level of challenge in Mist to be anything like previous expansions. I think the Heroic Elite mode on the end Boss is designed for the 'hard core' raiders, and they're few and far between (and won't be at a Sinestra level of difficulty I'm sure). I would expect even the most casual of Guilds to be progressing through Mist's Heroic Raids relatively quickly.

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I do agree with your post, but I'm not expecting the level of challenge in Mist to be anything like previous expansions. I think the Heroic Elite mode on the end Boss is designed for the 'hard core' raiders, and they're few and far between (and won't be at a Sinestra level of difficulty I'm sure). I would expect even the most casual of Guilds to be progressing through Mist's Heroic Raids relatively quickly.

And they wonder why they lost 2M subscribers. When the better guilds and players clear content and have to wait 3 months doing the same thing, people will quit. I lost 3 people from March until now that I used to raid with who have given up on this game due to lack of challenge. 2 of them returned for the scenario with Blizzard's 7 free days, and both of them said that based on previous experience and that scenario, they were done with WoW. I can't blame them at all...fortunately, I've met some really awesome friends and players that I enjoy playing with, no matter the difficulty. But if I were in their situation where I wasn't a guild or raid leader responsible for holding a team together, I'd have no problem walking away. I only hope that I'm not bored with WoW again come Halloween.

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One way Blizz attmpted to alleviate this was to give the raid groups in the normal and heroic versions the choice to turn off the 35% nerf for the run. The main problem with this is that it didn't give the raid groups any reasoning/resolve to do so, especially now with how easy it is for everyone to complete it on normal with more and more groups completing it on heroic thanks to the nerfs.

I do not mind that they added it on normal because back then even normal was quite a challenge until we finally got better gear to do decent progression, But why bother doing the nerf to the heroic version, considering the only reason they make heroic versions of the raids is to increase the challenge whereas the raid group needs to know every mechanic, follow raid leader directions to the letter, all of which would require decent amount of wipes to learn it all and perfect the runs.

Raid Heroics unless we out gear them should specifically be meant for the raiding guilds out there and not be as easily passible for pugs.

Edited by Sneakyferret
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      Brain Freeze comes out to be the biggest loser as haste values increase and is the outlier for shatter cap as well. However keep in mind this doesn't take into consideration the increased proc rate that comes with haste!

      Ice Lance DPET levels out as one would expect, at 50% haste. Though this does not take into consideration additional FoF procs from having a higher amount of haste!

      Water Elemental does something funny: he loves haste! His stats fluctuate with ours, and he takes a tiny advantage by being in our ideal stat ratio of 18969h>mastery

      That Living Bomb breakpoint is huge and ultimately is what decides our ideal stat ratio. However, crit's benefit does not do enough to give crit a lead over mastery in the overvall view. (ps: no idea why one of those cells is white)

      Frozen Orb stops gaining DPET past the GCD. Nothing to see here.
       

      Now remember, I'm not simply adding DPET values here, that would be a horribly inaccurate representation of data. The goal isn't a simulation, and the conclusion is startlingly clear because the ignored factors (such as procs) would give haste an even larger advantage, but it's just not needed to prove the stat scaling. This is an aggregate of the % of gain you receive in various stat builds, resulting in higher DPET across the board, influenced by Purified Bindings of Immerseus.
       
      The purpose of this analysis is a demonstration of what stats mean to your spells. It is still a true statement (and an important takeaway) to note that these results will fluctuate depending on the encounter scenario-- on spoils for example, haste at any level conquers mastery, while the reverse is true on Iron Juggernaut. Always pay mind to that fluctuation and note that it is reasonable to set up your frost mage in any way, this is simply the best explanation for how to gear, gem, and reforge from now until 6.0.
       
      I'm considering frost mage solved
       

      tldr; 18960 Haste > Mastery & minimize crit is the answer
    • By Krushinator
      Post your favourite overall addon, and your favourite rogue-specific addon!
       
      My favourite overall addon is TellMeWhen: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info10855-TellMeWhen.html
       
      It's a modernized power aura addon that takes all of the tedious aspects of older addons and makes them simpler. Many aura features are automatic or able to be switched with simple sliders and checkboxes. Sizing and positioning can be done with dragging or anchored coordinates.
       
      My favourite rogue-specific addon is Bandit's Guile Helper: http://wow.curseforge.com/addons/bandits-guile-helper/
       
      A resizable movable icon that tells you everything you need to know about your Bandit's Guile ability. It tells you what stage of the buff you are at, how many stacks you are at, and how many seconds you have left once you reach Deep Insight. It is colour coded and very intuitive, and best of all it requires no setup.
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