#1 - March 21, 2011, 9:02 p.m.
Have it only effect normal modes. I am currently very satisfied with the difficulty of the heroic 10 man fights and it is rewarding to down content. I have noticed quite a decline in active wow players and pugs forming on Blackrock. Even a month ago there was much more pug raids forming.
At level 80 I could log onto multiple chars and there was always groups forming for ICC and most pugs would clear 10/12 without too much trouble because you could have a couple of weak links and still clear content. However now the pug raids now are much more difficult if you have a weak healer or weak dps it can make a normal fight quite hard for a pug. It also demoralizes the players that actually form pug raids if they end up with a bad night and only down 1-2 boss because of the quality of the players in the raid it makes them not even wana bother making a group next week because they don't feel like its worth it. Anyone who has formed a pug knows you wont get 10 perfect players.
I enjoyed logging onto an alt and getting a buddy to join a random pug with, pugs have became far less frequent however and I find myself not even bothering to log on much now unless its raid night with my guild.
I know a lot of people on this game and even a bunch of people in real life that play wow and yeah sure some of them are keyboard turners and whatnot but it was still fun for them to play. My in game friend list used to be packed with online players and there is a lot less of them online now. There is a lot of players i know who cannot really make solid raid times and whatnot because of things in their lives like having a child or having nighttime jobs, but it was still fun for them to log on randomly and join a pug.
I think that adding a 10% hp/damage/healing buff to normal raid modes would do a lot to help this game right now.
We definitely wouldn't rule out a similar raid buff in WoW's future if we feel it's necessary. The context of the ICC buff is very different though. For one thing, we wanted to make sure a lot more players were exposed to Icecrown Citadel than they were to Sunwell and Naxx 1.0. Those final tiers were quite difficult, and there wasn't a lot of time between their release and the launch of the expansions which followed them. Not only was the final Wrath tier available for much longer, the buff made it much more accessible toward the end of its lifespan.
Another thing to consider is that ICC was released with the Chill of the Throne debuff to correct for capped stats leaving chance to dodge trivial. Over time though, we wanted to make sure more players saw the final tier of Lich King raiding by increasing their health and damage, as a new expansion brings a new endgame and all-new progression.
This first tier of Cataclysm raiding is certainly difficult and not very pug-friendly at this point. But it's also just that -- the first tier of Cataclysm raiding. We expect a fair amount of players will still run this content for loot and achievements once Firelands is released. There's still a lot of endgame gear progression left in Cataclysm, so arbitrarily inflating player stats for the first tier doesn't seem so likely. This content will still be there, still be a viable means of progression, and become easier as Cataclysm's lifespan continues. It's not immediately being followed by a level increase and new expansion, as was the case with ICC.