Thursday, August 18, 2011

Firelands nerfs

This week a series of nerfs were applied to various bosses in Firelands and I got to witness the extent of the nerfs yesterday. Shannox and co deal less damage, Beth'tilac does too, Lord Rhyolith encounter got nerfed so hard I couldn't believe me eyes and Baelroc cannot cast Decimation blade on the first attack.

I can understand that some people may have found some of the encounters difficult, however I do not think that nerfing bosses is the answer. Sure, the healing requirements in a lot of the fights were high and probably the hardest part of Firelands. Tanking didn't seem too difficult on most fights and DPS had their fair share of challenges (Baleroc enrage timer, Beth'tilac phase 1 & 2) where they had to pull their own weight. It felt quite well tuned; not easy but not hard. Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent were much harder in their time, if you ask me.

I am looking forward to seeing Heroic content where I will hopefully get to see some actual challenging content.

We went in to Firelands last night and got five bosses down; an exremely great result for us. The entire rest of the week is new progression and I am looking forward to it. The bosses are now a pushover and I pity the fool that cannot kill any of the first 5 bosses now.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Progress update

It's been a while since I've posted in this blog and a lot has happened to myself and to the guild. There have been a few people leaving the guild/raid group and were surprisingly promptly replaced. Pft.. like anyone actually wants to be in a guild called "Big Wipe Theory".

We managed to get 12/12 and 1/13 before the patch 4.2. We were very determined to get it and extended both Blackwing Descent and Throne of the Four Winds until we got it. We defeated Nefarian before we even tried to defeat Al'akir.

Lovemontes is now a Worgan Hunter, thanks to the fact that hit rating is so easy to come by (at best, as Dranei, I was at 8.60% hit rating).

With people coming and going we haven't been able to progress as quickly as we'd ideally like to. We've had to make do and do our best for a week or so. But now our feel like our raid group is stronger and more balanced than ever. The guild is currently 4/7 in Firelands and I think it's safe to say we have those bosses on farm.

I, like most people, feel that transitioning from normal tier 11 raiding to Firelands was quite easy and could only imagine how much easier it would have been if we were in more heroic tier 11 gear. This of course, is compared to the Heroic 5 man + crafted/reputation epic loot that was available to us before defeating encounters in the tier 11 content. In terms of item level transition this does not make sense to me.

I don't think that the tier 11 stuff was that hard! I don't see why people were complaining about it. I can see the Nefarian fight causing frustration with it's bugs (that may still exist) and maybe Ascendant Council/Cho'gall getting in people's faces and causing people to be a bit more raid aware than usual but compared to the heroic dungeons that were balanced the way they were pre-nerf they were a walk in the park.

Now those fights have been nerfed and I went into Bastion of Twilight last night to check it out. All I can say now is that it is a freaking joke. I can understand why it's being nerfed; to give the casuals a go at getting some bosses down. I think that they have been so nerfed to the ground that they are a joke. With item level 346,353,365 and even some 378 gear being available to a casual looking in to raiding I don't expect any raid to wipe on any boss in any tier 11 dungeon. If you do you just plain suck and I hope you realise that.

Here are my thoughts of the boss fights that have been defeated with what I feel are equivalent fights.

I feel that Shannox is the equivalent of Halfus. Shannox is somewhat easier because the mechanics don't change week after week (the mechanic that made me enjoy halfus the most, really). With about the same level of raid awareness and probably not as high in gear comparitive gear requirements. No damage increased debuff applied to the boss makes this fight last longer and honestly Shannox feels a bit tedious.

Beth'tilac is kind of like a mix of Maloriak and Ascendant Council, if you ask me. Splitting up and balancing raid dps is so extremely important to get right in phase 1. Phase 2 is a burn phase with high healing requirements similar to phase 2 and phase 3 during Maloriak and Council,
respectively.

Rhyolith is fight unique to his own. Control and raid awareness are key in the first phase with the final phase being another burn phase. Somewhat similar to Chimaeron but different when you expand the depth of comparison.

That's why I think Baleroc is a better comparison to Chimaeron. There's a strong gear requirement with most stress being placed on the healers. Six minutes to drop 42 million health means that you raid needs to be dealing at least 7 million damage a minute is a little under 120,000 dps over your entire raid. Depending on how you do it this can be a little challenging to achieve. A two tank strategy will mean that you raid dps will need to deal approximately 108,000 dps (assuming that your tanks are averaging 6k dps each). For 5 dps classes that means and average of 21.6dps each. This is an achievable number but there are definitely high gear requires to achieve.

Alysrazor is hopefully going down tonight! Woo! Then to drop Majordomo, then Ragnaros... then heroics... then.. hm.. stuff..

Things to note about my hunter. I am currently the third most geared hunter on Aman'thul Alliance and fourth most geared hunter on the server (www.wow-heroes.com). I am currently the 20th most geared Alliance character on the server. I am currently ranked 128th Marksmanship hunter on WorldofLogs in the Beth'tilac encounter (for tips, see my secondary spec) and was ranked 58th two weeks ago.