Heroic Vizier, HoF

The Heroic Zor'lok encounter is currently more difficult than intended. While we prefer to avoid changes to encounters in the midst of progression, we would like to fix a few quality of life issues and make some targeted balance changes that do not invalidate the efforts that guilds have put into learning the encounter so far. Later today a hotfix will make the following adjustments:

Zor'lok's Echoes will pause briefly before beginning to cast Song of the Empress.
Zor'lok's berserk timer has been increased slightly.
Zor'lok will no longer summon Echoes of Force and Verve during the final phase of the encounter.

11/07/2012 02:43 PMPosted by Epicholytime

I Hope a Blue poster will see this and let us know when the hotfix will happen so people don't keep banging their head to instant wipes at 25%.

Apologies for the delay on an answer, but went live as of yesterday afternoon shortly after the original post I made.

I thought I'd hop back in to this thread to share a few additional changes that we'll be hotfixing to this encounter today much as we did yesterday:

*Zor'lok will now only summon one Echo for the entirety of the final phase of the fight on Heroic.
*When Zor'lok uses a major ability in the final phase on Heroic, the Echo will now pause longer before using its major ability, and vice-versa.
*Converted players will no longer take damage from Attenuation or Force & Verve while mind controlled.

As with any changes, we're continuing to keep an eye on how these will play out as well as ongoing constructive feedback. While we do take into account feedback during the beta, it may not always result in having a truly complete picture of any potential issues or challenges that may come up with a particular encounter when it goes live. We try to err on the side of caution for any mid-week/progression changes, but sometimes, the need may outweigh the caution.

Thanks for all of the ongoing constructive feedback everyone. As always, it's appreciated.

As with any changes, we're continuing to keep an eye on how these will play out as well as ongoing constructive feedback. While we do take into account feedback during the beta, it may not always result in having a truly complete picture of any potential issues or challenges that may come up with a particular encounter when it goes live. We try to err on the side of caution for any mid-week/progression changes, but sometimes, the need may outweigh the caution.

Thanks for all of the ongoing constructive feedback everyone. As always, it's appreciated.

This is pretty pathetic blizzard. Just PLAIN PATHETIC. OMG a BOSS ISN'T KILLED WITHIN THE FIRST 10 MINUTES OMG NERF NERF.

Really, leave the bosses alone, let guilds bash their head against it for a period of time. Who cares if it takes weeks or months to get the boss down? Who cares if its the first or last boss.

This constant NERFING so everything can be killed within 5 minutes of its releasae is pathetic.

ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC.

Who cares if they are stuck for weeks or months?

Better yet Blizzard, just make one difficulty called FACE ROLL. Because that is apparently the only difficulty you seem to understand.

OMG OMG someone can't kill a boss in the first day wah wah, OMG OMG we better NERF NERF.

Sad VERY VERY SAD.

I acknowledge your passionate and well-constructed plea. I'll pass along feedback to the team.

What happened to not nerfing any fights during progression because it will downplay the attempts made by guilds? While the first round of quality of life fixes were indeed that - fixes, the second round are just plain nerfs to bring the fight down to an easier level considering the next two are apparently easy as well.

Why is it so bad to leave heroic bosses unkilled for a week? Do you want your content to be wiped out in a week so all these hardcore top end guilds can just whine about lack of it?

This was already explained before. We don't necessarily like doing these changes like this, but sometimes we see a need for it based on what we think an acceptable rate of progression for an encounter should be. We still have the Terrace of Endless Spring on the way and these Raids aren't the end of what we have planned for Raiding during the expansion. We'll work to get you all a better update on developer design philosophy on how they feel progression should play out at some point in the near future.

I wasn't joking when I said I acknowledged the feedback that I've seen. It's understandable that for some, the changes are welcome, for others they are a source of some frustration. There's only so much we can do to minimize this. Ultimately, the question will always come back to, "Is the encounter more fun than frustrating or more frustrating than fun?"